“Well… I could just leave. But I wanted to try to let the legal system work like it should. I’d much rather be free because the system freed me, instead of free, but a fugitive.”
“Just leave? What the hell do you mean?”
“Escape. I can think of several ways to do it. I’ll bet you could too, if you were in here with me and gave it some thought.”
“Are you saying you do want me to come up there?”
“No, no, I just meant, if you were in my situation you’d be able to see ways to get out of here yourself.”
“If you did escape, where would you go? I mean, I sure hope it’s somewhere I can join you!”
“Well, not much point in escaping to the USA. Too many digital records. It would be almost impossible to establish a new identity here without government help. I’d need to go to a country where they still depend on paper records, establish an identity there, then immigrate back here if that seemed like the best option.”
“A third world country? Most of them don’t speak English.”
“English is pretty common in Africa. But I speak Spanish.”
“You do not! I heard you taking lessons.”
“Exactly.”
“You didn’t sound like you were all that far along.”
“That was quite a while ago Señor.”
“You’re claiming you’ve already learned Spanish?”
“Si. Aprendo muy rápido (I learn quickly).”
Shan rolled his eyes, what couldn’t the woman do…? Ah, yes, cook. “So, are you planning to escape now that you’re pregnant?”
“Not right away, so I’d like you to get me some prenatal vitamins. The diet here isn’t the greatest. Drop one through the port to me every morning. I’ll read up on being pregnant, see if I need anything else.”
***
Bridget was making a lasagna dinner for Ryan. The doorbell rang and she checked the time on her HUD, he’s early! Bridget wiped her hands and walked to the front door of farmhouse where she lived with Ell. Inside she wondered if she should be having her boyfriend over to Ell’s house while Ell herself was in prison. She’d had a little heart to heart with herself over it earlier and decided that the joy she derived from her relationship with Ryan didn’t take anything away from Ell. If there was something she could be doing for Ell, she’d be doing it. Since she could do nothing, she’d just as well enjoy her own life. She pulled open the door with a big smile on her face, “Hey...” she trailed off.
Two men in suits stood there.
Bridget frowned, assuming they were LDS or Jehovah’s Witnesses. “What do you want?” She needed to get these people out of here quickly.
“Bridget Spaulding?” the one closest to the door said.
“Yes…” Bridget said uncertainly.
“FBI,” he said proffering an ID. “You live here with Ell Donsaii, correct?”
Bridget nodded feeling cold inside.
The other man held out a paper, “We have a warrant to search these premises.”
She frowned, “On paper?”
He shrugged, “Warrants and a lot of other legal documents still get printed out. Your AI can search the courthouse records for the electronic version if you want.”
Bridget had had her AI contact the local FBI office to confirm that these men were, in fact, from the FBI. Then she’d indeed had her AI search the court records in Hillsborough for the warrant. It was real as well.
Finally, to their great annoyance, she began carefully reading through the warrant. Before she finished it her AI spoke into her ear, “Ell Donsaii requests that you try not to act like you’re getting a call. She would like to speak to you and suggests that you cough once if you are willing to take the call.”
Bridget coughed.
Ell’s voice came in her ear. “Bridget, try not to let on that you are hearing from me because I’m supposed to be being held incommunicado here in some kind of holding cell in DC. I’m using my implants to contact you. If you understand, please cough once.”
Bridget coughed again.
“Thanks. Allan tells me that the FBI is there at our house with a search warrant. It sounds like you’ve been delaying them, but inevitably they will get in and conduct their search so I’d recommend you just let them go ahead. They won’t find anything there that will cause me any problems. I am hoping they won’t find the tunnels though, so please don’t do anything to point them out. I don’t think that legally you have to help them find anything. Please leave this connection open so I can keep speaking to you without needing to get permission to do so.”
“OK,” Bridget said, speaking to both Ell and the FBI. She looked up at the two men, “It looks like this is a real warrant. Come on in.”
One of them turned and waved. Bridget belatedly realized there was a van in the driveway. It disgorged seven more men, most of them carrying equipment of some type or another. Four of them turned toward the outbuildings. Bridget said, “Wait a minute. Your warrant is to search Donsaii’s home. It doesn’t say anything about the barn or shed or other buildings.”
The agent stared out at the other buildings, jaw working a moment, then looked down at his warrant. Looking back up, he called to the other men, “Hey, we aren’t searching the out buildings. Come help us with the house.”
Ryan drove up then and parked beside the van. He came up to the porch, questions written all over his face.
Bridget said, “The FBI is here searching the house for ‘materials related to the exploration of other solar systems.’ Let me pack up what I’ve been cooking and we can go out to dinner while they do their thing.”
One of the FBI men turned and said, “I’m sorry Ms. Spaulding. We need you to stay on the premises in case we have questions for you.”
Bridget raised an eyebrow, “Can my boyfriend and I eat the dinner I’ve been cooking then?”
“Uh,” the man looked across the room at the older agent who nodded at him. “Sure, Ma’am. Go ahead.”
While Bridget and Ryan ate their lasagna the agents tromped through the house. It was hard to enjoy their meal with both of them listening to try to get some idea what the FBI men might be doing. Bridget pointed a fork up the stairs, “I hope they aren’t messing up all my stuff.”
In her ear Ell said, “They didn’t spend very long in your room, but my AI doesn’t have any cameras in your room so I don’t know what they actually did in there.” Ell laughed, “I should have hidden all my secrets in your room. In my room, they’re taking everything out, even all my clothes, looking through each thing one by one and then putting it back. At least they’re being fairly neat about it. Thank God they aren’t ‘tossing’ the rooms like you see in the movies.”
Bridget looked up as one of the men came down the stairs carrying a large racked AI and started out the door. She got up, “Hey!” she said, starting his way, “Where are you going with that?”
“This is Ms. Donsaii’s AI. We’re confiscating it as evidence.”
In Bridget’s ear Ell said, “Keep protesting, but don’t worry, it’s only a copy of my AI. A ‘decoy’ so to speak.”
Bridget said, “I protest! You’re stealing her property!” She frowned, “and how would her AI help you anyway?”
“We’re tasked with discovering how she sends missions to other stars. Records, plans and other documentation of how she did it will be on this AI. Even if there aren’t any plans, we’ll be able to go through her AV history and find the images and audio of her building and sending the missions. Therefore, it is evidence. Computers have been evidence in criminal cases ever since computers existed.”
As the man walked across the driveway to the van, smoke began pouring out of the AI’s rack. He dropped it and stepped back, staring at it in consternation. The driver got out of the van and brought a fire extinguisher which he used to hose down the AI.
In Bridget’s ear Ell whispered, “Don’t worry. It’s just a little thermite disk on the memory core. It shouldn’t get hot enough to set anything on fire o
utside the case of the AI.”
The FBI man was cursing loudly and soon several others came out of the house to watch the AI smolder. The senior one stepped out on the porch and narrowed his eyes. He looked at Bridget. “Did you know that thing was booby trapped?” he asked angrily.
“No sir. I didn’t even know her AI was upstairs,” Bridget said innocently.
“Where did you think she kept it?”
Bridget shrugged, “Never thought about it. D5R bought it for her, I guess I would have assumed it stayed at work.”
“Goddammit!” the man swore tonelessly under his breath. Then raising his voice, “OK, OK, let’s get back in here and search the rest of this place. Anything else we decide to confiscate, we open it up and check for booby traps before we move it!”
Finishing dinner, Bridget and Ryan sat and talked for a while, then watched a movie. Meanwhile the agents methodically went through the house, climbing into the attic, checking each room, upstairs, ground floor and finally into the basement. Bridget had a hard time concentrating on the movie with an ear cocked for signs that the men had found their way into the tunnels.
When the men left Bridget was partly relieved and partly upset to hear one say to another, “Hopefully they had better luck with the search out where she works.”
As soon as they were gone, Bridget turned into Ryan’s arms and buried her head in his shoulder. “Bastards!” she sniffed. “Contact Ell… Ell, I’m hoping you can still hear me without that AI that went up in smoke?”
“Yup, reading you loud and clear. That AI really was just a decoy so it had nothing to do with my connection to you.”
“So it was what? Just a case? Not a real computer?”
“Oh no, it was a fully functioning AI. I’ve even used it for a few things. But mostly it was there for them to find and me to destroy so they would think they’d gotten my AI and stop looking.”
“You used a high end AI like that as a decoy?” Bridget said doubtfully.
“Well, yeah. It was important they stop looking for the real one.”
“Hey, when the FBI guys left they said something about another team searching D5R.”
Ell said, “Yeah, our legal team met them and insisted that they only search the exact locations specified in the warrant. The only specific location on their warrant was my office, so they were only allowed to go through that one site. Kind of like you did to them with the outbuildings at the farm, thanks for that by the way. They didn’t find anything in my office ‘cause I’ve never had anything much in there.”
Bridget sighed, “Wow, you’ve really been thinking ahead on this haven’t you?”
“Well, I’ve been afraid something like this was going to happen for months now. Thanks for standing your ground at the house for me. By the way, they didn’t find their way out of the basement and into the tunnels. I was thinking they would have some kind of sonar or something to look for hidden compartments that would show them the tunnel entrance, but I guess this team wasn’t that sophisticated.”
Bridget sighed, “They were still pretty intimidating. I’m sure glad you called when you did.”
Ell said, “Oops, gotta go,” and broke the connection.
***
Ell had broken the connection when she heard the bolts in the door to her cell clank open. She put the port that had been projecting images from Allan in her mouth and swallowed as she pulled the blankets off her head and looked up at the door. She blinked several times as if she’d been asleep. A guard stood there, with another one several feet behind him. “Up an’ at ‘em Donsaii,” he said, “The big Kahunas want to talk to you.”
Tom had been instructed to put Ell in handcuffs and take her to the interrogation room. Normally contemptuous of his charges, his attitude gradually changed beginning from the moment he first confronted Donsaii in person.
Somehow, even after spending days in in the Spartan isolation cell with no amenities other than a sliver of soap, a tiny tube of toothpaste, a short floppy toothbrush, one towel, two sheets and one blanket, the young woman still looked gorgeous. No makeup, no shampoo, no conditioner, terrible food, a shapeless jumpsuit, and floppy sandals—she nonetheless looked amazing as she stood gracefully and said, “Thank you, officer Gaddy.”
When Tom lifted the cuffs she presented her wrists without complaint. Once he’d applied the cuffs he found himself saying, “This way, Ma’am,” as he motioned out the door to the left. Ma’am? I’ve never called a prisoner Ma’am before! Walking behind her to interrogation he couldn’t help but admire the supple way she walked. He blinked. He’d admired this woman for years now, why had he expected to lose all respect for her just because she and the President were having a tiff?
He opened the interrogation room and motioned her in. It was populated with a table and three chairs. Two of the chairs were occupied, one by an overweight man in a cheap, too tight suit, the other by an uptight looking woman in a severely tailored and expensive looking gray suit with a cream blouse.
“Sit her there,” the woman said, pointing to the remaining chair. Tom found himself mildly offended by the woman’s treatment of Donsaii as a thing to be placed in a location, rather than as a human being who deserved to be treated respectfully. Even thinking it, he realized with some shame that he often treated prisoners disrespectfully himself.
As Tom and his partner took positions against the walls, Donsaii seated herself in the chair and looked expectantly from the woman to the man. Somehow, without saying a word, and despite her prisoner’s garb, Donsaii’s had taken possession of the room through an imposing charisma. The other two now seemed to be the interlopers.
Apparently feeling at a psychological disadvantage, the woman stood and leaned over toward Donsaii. Curling her lip she said, “So, has spending time in this hole convinced you that you might want to reconsider your response to your President?”
Smiling pleasantly Donsaii said, “Excuse me, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced?”
“I know who you are Donsaii. You can call me Ms. Noonan. I’m from the AG’s office.”
“Would that be the Attorney General?”
“Yes. Now, are you ready to talk?”
“Sure.”
Looking a little surprised, Noonan said, “Go ahead.”
A little mischievously Donsaii said, “I don’t like it here in your jail.”
“Well, I should hope not. That’s the point after all. But, if you’re wanting out, all you have to do is agree to disclose the methods and turn over the equipment you’re using for your interstellar explorations.”
Donsaii, raised her eyebrows, “Ah, but I’m afraid I can’t do that, it would be an immoral act.”
“I heard you fed that line of crap to the President too. Go ahead, tell me what’s so immoral about it?”
Donsaii tilted her head, “The technology required to explore the stars requires a one ended port. Sitting here with a one ended port I could open a passage into your body and inject a toxin. If it were slow acting, you might die weeks later without ever figuring who’d killed you. I don’t think that kind of technology should be turned loose on our world. We have enough trouble with people killing each other without making it easy.”
“You mean, if I had a port inside of me, say some kind of medical device, you could connect to it?”
Donsaii shook her head, “No that would be a ‘two ended port’ like people are already using. A one ended port doesn’t require a port on the other end. That’s how it can deliver a rocket to another star.”
Tom Gaddy felt his eyebrows crawling up his forehead in horror at the thought of people running around with such a device.
Noonan appeared to be a little shell-shocked as well as she considered the implications.
Donsaii continued, “You could drop Molotov cocktails on your neighbor’s house or bombs on other countries with no one being able to tell where they came from or being capable of stopping you from doing so.”
Noonan swallowed and shoo
k herself, “All the more reason to turn this over to your government for safekeeping then.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Noonan, turning something over to a government doesn’t keep it a secret. I’m not at all confident my own government wouldn’t use these devices in a malignant fashion. I prefer the current situation much better.”
“Current situation?”
“At present, I’ve destroyed all the existing one ended ports and I’m the only person who knows how to make them.”
Noonan stared at her several long moments as if considering, then she said, “Well then, I must inform you that President Stockton has, by executive order, declared you a national menace. As a danger to society, our country and the world, she’s ordered you held without trial or recourse, at Guantanamo.”
“Guantanamo? I thought it had been closed?”
“Nope, we’re still holding some terrorists there. We consider you to be a terrorist as well, holding your country hostage to the dangers represented by your one ended ports.” Noonan stood, “You’ll be moved to that location shortly. I’d recommend that you reconsider,” she curled a lip, “it turns out you aren’t above the law after all.”
Donsaii said, “I thought the President had placed me on active duty and was holding me on ‘failure to obey an order.’”
Noonan shook her head, “The President reconsidered. You are not on active duty. You are a civilian who is failing to comply with the law. However, if that was all it was, you could be out on bail. As a menace being rendered safe by executive order, we are not constrained to follow those niceties.”
Donsaii looked sad and she shook her head. “Sorry. I’m afraid this represents a terrible solution that we’ll all regret.”
Tom Gaddy’s mind whirled as he took Donsaii back to her cell. Everything about this whole situation seemed… wrong, but try as he might, he couldn’t think of a solution. He decided to talk to his supervisor about it in the morning.
Ell had finished reading about executive orders and Guantanamo. She’d been studying maps of Cuba and the Caribbean. She’d designated several locations on the Cuban map to Allan when she heard the bolts on her cell door shoot again. She noted that the time displayed by her projector was 1:30 AM. She whispered to Allan to turn off the projection and put the video projection port in her mouth. Pulling the covers back off her head, she saw the door rolling open. Four armed men waited outside the door this time.
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