How possible is that? Bill snorted. “I probably wouldn’t ask her to marry me.” How would I tell her about Anne?
“What about Anne? Tell me about your daughter.”
The request was another stab at Bill’s heart, but his reaction was protection, not bitterness. “Anne was the best kid a dad could have. Never any trouble.” He dug into a pocket, pulled out his holo-pic of Anne, and switched it on for Micah.
“A beautiful girl. You should be proud of her.”
“I am.” Here I am, abandoning her, like her mother. I don’t deserve her loyalty. He cleared his throat to change the subject. “Look, I need a job.”
“I see.” Micah draped her right arm on the top of the bench. Bill saw the tight tendons of her forearm. “What sort of job?”
“I’ve renewed my AB papers every few years, just in case I needed them.”
“You had more skills than that, I think.”
Bill considered how much to say. He had to trust someone or risk starving. “Nothing special. I’m familiar with AI cargo-handling. Programmed some nav AI, though I don’t have a ticket for that. I was thinking maybe one of the container ships. Or a bulk carrier. I’ve done the wheat runs from Australia to Vancouver. Do you know of anything?”
“What was your last ship?” Micah searched Bill’s face.
She’s sizing me up for something. “The Edward T. Parson, out of Everett.”
“You’ve been on the beach awhile. She went aground off the Queen Charlotte’s eight years ago. Five lost. The skipper too. I watched her slip under.”
“Sorry to hear it.” How much else have I missed? Twenty years worth.
Micah cocked her head. “What’s going on, Bill? I know something’s wrong.”
“I suppose you could say that.” Bill sighed as he dipped a fry in soy sauce.
Micah touched his arm. “You need to get away from here, fast, is that it?”
“I need work. I’m out of money and I’ve got a room for one night. After that, I’m on the street.”
Micah slid over to the wall, and rested her foot on the bench.
“You’re wearing shoes.” Bill marked her feet with his eyes. “Last I remember, you hated wearing anything on your feet, unless it was fifty below.”
“I lost half my toes in the Arctic a couple of years ago.” She pulled off one of the shoes and showed Bill three robotic grafts. “They cost me half-a-year’s pay. Don’t want to lose them.”
Bill’s appetite waned as he recalled his own brushes with Arctic gales. The reality of his decision to run from Kilel hit him. He might have to take jobs or sail on routes a man his age who’d stayed in the maritime business could avoid and still make a good living. Perhaps it was a fantasy, going back to sea, living in an uncomfortable fo’c’sle, going aloft in rain and snow, even if he was still physically capable after two decades of working a ranch. Micah had changed, and he imagined other things had changed as well in ways he didn’t understand. He could lose a limb or worse, and he might not see Anne or talk to her or even text her for months or years. Maybe never again. He was fugitive of the BES, and Janine Kilel was as relentless as they come. I can only do this if it’s for Anne.
Micah rubbed her chin with a wiry hand. “I know a ship that’s looking for crew. The captain doesn’t ask a lot of questions. Interested?”
“I don’t have a lot of choices.” The longer he stayed, the greater the chance Kilel would catch up to him.
“Meet me here tonight.” Micah’s eyes twinkled. “I’ll take you to it.”
CHAPTER 10
♦ ♦ ♦
“WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME? What have I done?”
Anne pleaded with the driver and the agent seated next to her for information. Anne tested the door, but it was locked and the locks were controlled by the driver. The car slowed for roadblocks set up by the local sheriff and fire departments.
“Are you still looking for my father?”
The agent’s stone-faced response knocked Anne’s emotions from pillar to post. Dad is dead! No, think it through. Ninety percent of escapees were caught within a day of running, she’d heard. The rest were found within days. If her father had died, not even BES would’ve taken her off the street. After a storm of worry, the silence of the agents made her believe that her father was alive, but missing.
“If you think I’ll help you, you’re wrong.”
Even through the filtered air of the car’s A/C, Anne smelled the dankness of wood smoke mixed with vapor from the water and retardant drops. Another forest fire. The sheriff’s deputies waved the car she was in through, and Anne passed other people who would have to wait for hours at the side of the road. Red Cross workers under a stand of Douglass-fir trees handed out coffee to people whom Anne guessed had lost their homes to the fire.
All through the drive, she received pings and texts from her friends, Mike included, but her attempts to send messages generated errors. The agent beside her wore sunglasses and scanned the road, as if looking for threats. “I can’t talk to my tribe,” Anne said. “I mean, my net link is blocked.” The bessie remained tight-lipped. The agents’ reserve enraged Anne more than frightened her.
“I know this road. It goes to Eugene. Are you taking me to the BES office there?”
They entered a broad valley and Anne recognized the Eugene skyline. A sign announced the BES entrance a mile ahead, but the driver turned onto a narrow blacktopped road marked “Government Vehicles Only.” Anne made mental notes of the facility. I might need to run. Razor wire topped fences that disappeared into the trees on each side of a gate. The car stopped at a modern three-story office building with darkened windows and no landscaping. It was so nondescript, that it was perfect for hiding people. Like Dad?
At a side entrance, the driver opened Anne’s door and a female green-shirt cracked a smile. The woman took her by the elbow. The mild pain dampened thoughts of escape. An automatic door clicked and opened into an atrium big enough for her and her guard.
“Place your hand on the pad, please.” The guard rested her eyes on a dull gray slab.
“What is...”
“Your hand on the pad, please.”
Anne obeyed and she felt a slight suction. The device’s screen lit.
The green-shirt spoke. “You are Anne Eileen Penn, born October 1, 2040, in Coos Bay, Oregon, Pacific West?”
“Yes.” It’s a DNA sequence identifier. It’s how they tag suspects. Anne was puzzled as much as afraid. She turned to the guard. “Please tell me why I’m here. If you’re looking for my dad, I don’t know where he is.”
As impassive as the agents in the car, the green-shirt led her down a short hallway to another door, which opened into a small apartment. The guard closed the door behind Anne, and the lock clicked. In mild shock, Anne stood in the semi-darkness, unsure what to do next. She took a half-step forward, leaning ahead as if expecting someone or something to jump at her. The place was silent, except for the hum of a refrigerator compressor and a breathy hiss from the HVAC system. Natural light filtered through curtains covering a window. Gaining confidence, Anne explored the suite, which had a queen-size bed, a dresser, a small table with two chairs, a large bathroom, and a kitchenette. There were cold drinks in the refrigerator and food in the cupboards. Anne relaxed a little. Too nice for a jail, but not exactly homey.
Anne pushed back the curtains from the ground floor window and searched for a latch to open it. It was solid. She switched on the TV and cycled through the channels. They were all there, even the hottest new programs from China. Anne’s Mandarin was decent. Her father insisted she do well in her language classes. They’d watch the Chinese cop shows and he would turn off the subtitles and tell her to translate so that she would practice. The thought of cop shows made Anne wary. She thought of cameras, but they were practically invisible these days, as small as mites and spiders. No cobwebs in the corners. Perhaps the bessies were watching her right now.
The apartment was missing the most important
thing, besides her father: connectivity. For an hour, Anne tried to loop herself in her c-tribe and other tribes, but her minds-eye always returned a “networks unavailable” message. The one available network was labeled “BESSecureHolding.” She logged in and found a menu limited to outgoing pings and texts to other users. It confirmed what she’d already figured, despite the comfort. She was now an inmate, and it was more than a jail of the body. A wall had virtualized between herself and her social circle.
She was cut off. De-networked. Un-networked. It was as if an arm or a leg had been torn off. The shock of sudden isolation from a community she had known for years left her missing a part of her existence, like someone close had died. She felt half-alive. She lowered herself to the floor at the foot of the bed. A pounding in her head increased. Too much is happening.
Anne was alone until someone knocked on the door and it opened. It was Janine Kilel, and she was carrying a tray of food. “Hello, Miss Penn.” Her pleasantness aggravated Anne’s immediate dislike. The inspector had arrested and jailed her father, stasered him, and tried to kidnap him. Nothing would soften those facts. Kilel lay the tray on the table, as well as a tablet, the newest (Wealth Spirit, Cáifù Jīngshén) model. “ I’m sorry about all the trouble of the past few hours. We’ve compounded the loss of your home and family by bringing you to a strange place with no one to talk to. I brought you some kiwis, star fruit, some Montana pineapple, a French baguette and real cheese, fully licensed.”
A peace offering? Anne did her best to avoid looking at the colorful food, but she couldn’t avoid the smell of the bread.
“Eat whenever you’re ready, Miss Penn, but the food here is very good.”
Anne’s hunger pangs intensified. She got up from the floor and climbed into a chair at the table opposite Kilel. Anne couldn’t help reaching for a slice of honeydew melon, but she distrusted Kilel’s kindness.
The inspector took a chair at the table. “You’re here for an important reason, Miss Penn. A serious environmental crime has occurred and we sometimes have to detain witnesses. It’s completely routine.”
“How long?” Anne tore off a bit of the baguette with her thumb and forefinger and ate it. It was still warm.
“A short time. I have questions for you.”
“Don’t I need a lawyer or something?”
“I don’t think so.” Kilel grimaced as if she had tasted something bitter. “That would slow things down and we want to get you back home as soon as we can.”
“Sorry if I don’t believe you.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Are you serious? You’re a bessie. No one trusts you people.”
Kilel folded her hands on the table. “Nonetheless, I’m not interested in keeping you here longer than I have to.”
Anne avoided Kilel’s gaze, and picked off a bit of cheese, which was delicious. “How come I can’t connect to any of the networks?”
“Too distracting. We like our guests to focus on answering questions. You’ll be home sooner if you do.”
“Guests?” Anne mocked Kilel with the word. “You’ve put me in jail, just like you put my dad in jail, for no reason.”
The inspector pushed the plate closer to Anne. “Why don’t you eat some more? You must be starving.”
“I had a big lunch.” Anne thought of Mike. Somehow, the image of him in her memory was more vivid than one in the cache of her minds-eye, as if she summoned him, like a magician. He stood next to Anne, defending her as Kilel bribed her with food. Anne brought her feet up to her seat, her knees against her chest, and placed the crumb of cheese in her fingers back on the plate.
“Perhaps you prefer butter to margarine. Let me get some.” The officer rose and spoke to the refrigerator, which delivered a small wrapped dollop of butter. The fridge doled out just enough so that nothing was wasted, and no unnecessary packaging. Kilel brought it back to the table. Anne ogled the luxury spread.
Kilel sighed. “Let’s get down to business, Miss Penn. Tell me about the fire.”
Anne decided to say nothing.
“Listen to me, Anne...”
“Don’t call me ‘Anne.’” Anne put her hands to her temples. “I want to go home.”
The tablet’s screen blinked off as it went to sleep. Kilel’s silence forced the seconds to pass for Anne as if they were minutes, and the muscles of Anne’s neck tightened. Kilel’s eyes narrowed before relaxing, as if she was running through a list of questions to ask Anne, rejecting some or accepting others. It was different than the minds-eye stare; Kilel was playing back a memory, or a dream, interpreting it in light of new facts. Kilel rested her left hand over her right and drew a breath.
“Anne, you love your father, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. Why would you ask such a thing?”
“What would you sacrifice him for?”
The question shocked Anne. “Sacrifice? I don’t understand.”
“As in giving him up for something greater, something larger than yourself.”
“Are you saying I should just rat him out? To you?”
Kilel pressed on Anne. “The sooner you cooperate, the sooner you can leave. It’s a simple as that. You’re not under investigation for a crime, but failure to answer lawful questions from a police officer are grounds for holding you longer than we both want.” Kilel lifted her right hand, and studied it, as if it were a weapon used in a murder. “Anne, I admire your closeness to your father. Maybe I envy it, but there are larger things at stake, more important things than your love for your father.”
The question reminded Anne of one of the few conversations she and Bill had about Bill’s family. Anne was 13. She was doing homework on the outdoors picnic table while Bill hammered nails into loose siding on the house. Bill had spent his early years at his parents’ farm outside Eagle Point, but they had lost the farm when he was six. He said little else, and when Anne asked him more about her grandparents, he only said her father had died when he was eight and his mother died when he was 18.
“It was a dairy farm, right, Dad?”
Bill pressed his lips together. “Mmm, hmm.”
“They told us in school that all the dairy farms in the valley were closed down because the cows were passing too much methane into the air.”
Bill said nothing, but his hammering was insistent.
“Teacher told us that the BES helped all the families find new jobs that were more sustainable. It was hard, but everyone was happy.”
Bill pounded a nail so hard that it made a round dent in the wood.
“Daddy, what’s wrong?”
Anne’s father fought to control himself. “Anne, I’m only going to say this once. The bessies break families. They destroy families. They make sons turn against fathers, against mothers, against brothers. Don’t ever forget that. Ever.”
In the detention center, an older Anne chewed her lip at the memory of her father’s fury. “What could be more important than my family, inspector?”
Kilel paused, and Anne’s sense of Kilel playing back her own recollections returned. “The air we breathe, the water we drink, the land we live on. If our family is hurting these things, we owe them nothing.”
What is she telling me? Anne picked up a finger-sized wedge of melon and put it in her mouth. She weighed her options, even as a knot of anxiety in her stomach wound tighter. I’ll give the bitch the bare facts, nothing more.
Anne swallowed her bite and recounted the story of the house and refuge fire in short sentences and Yes or No answers to the inspector’s questions. Kilel highlighted points in a rolling transcript of the conversation on her tablet.
After an hour or so, Kilel ended the conversation. She rubbed her eyes.
“Can I go home now?” Anne said.
“Soon.” Kilel placed the tablet in a sleeve.
Dad was right. They always lie. “I’ve told you everything. I don’t know where my father is, or where he’s going.”
“I appreciate your cooperation,
Anne, even if you are...terse. You’re telling the truth, according to the stress analysis. I believe you.” She brushed invisible dust motes from her uniform. “It’s getting late. You’ll be staying the night here.”
Kilel left the apartment.
Anne restrained her panic. All her bodily needs were cared for: the green-shirts even brought her stylish, if simple, clothes and sandals. They weren’t enough. She needed to connect with her friends, but all her attempts to loop-in failed. Her heart fluttered. Kilel’s questions had the side effect of raising Anne’s curiosity. The BES believed he was alive, but it had no idea where he was. Anne was sure of this, or they would have told her he was dead. There was no reason to keep that a secret. It was logical that he would go west, probably in the direction of Port Simpson. Back to sea?
After darkness blanketed the compound, sleep refused to come. If she were traveling, she would’ve packed her own pillow, a habit since childhood. The smell and texture fooled her mind into thinking she was at home in her own bed. It was burned in the fire. After many hours in the apartment lying awake in the dark, she finally slept.
The next morning, a green-shirt came in with a plate of fresh fruit and bread. The isolation from her c-tribe drove Anne mad, and she begged for a few minutes out-of-doors to check in. Nothing persuaded the green-shirt. It was torture.
At least Kilel was right about the food. Anne’s anxiety didn’t interfere with her appetite, and she explored the cupboards and refrigerator. Cereal, milk, eggs, juice, and toast for breakfast. Whole-grain quinoa bread with avocados, sprouts, vine-ripened tomatoes, and fresh spinach. The veggie lasagna and pizza were heavenly. The food brought to mind meals with her dad with the old woodcut tacked to the wall behind his usual seat. A mental picture surfaced: Mike and her dad sharing breakfast with her. The fantasy warmed her.
As Anne puzzled over a laughable old sci-fi show on a vintage TV channel, Kilel walked in. She didn’t knock this time. Anne got up from her slouch, embarrassed that she was in a terry robe and hadn’t brushed her hair. They never give you any warning. An older man followed Kilel. He wore a similar uniform, a cross between a business suit and military dress. He had two pips on his collar, as well as the BES tulip.
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