by Piers Platt
“I’m not sure,” Elize said. “I think they just happened to be driving by.”
“That’s awfully convenient,” Vina said.
“It’s a small town,” Elize said, shrugging. “There’s not much that goes on here that Sheriff Buckniel doesn’t know about.”
“Buckniel was the sheriff back then, too?” Vina asked.
“Of course,” Elize said. “He’s been the sheriff since we moved here, years ago.”
The front door slammed, startling them. A moment later, Vina’s grandfather appeared, slipping a scarf from his neck. He was a tall man, lanky, with a shock of white hair and a lined forehead that made him appear to be perpetually frowning.
“Hi, Grandpa,” Vina said, smiling and standing up to walk over to him.
“Welcome home,” he said, gruffly, hugging her. “I trust you learned a good lesson out there in the colonies?”
“Mom’s already been lecturing me,” Vina said. “Don’t you start, too.”
He softened then, and brushed a lock of hair back from her face, smiling faintly. “It’s good to see you back. I’ll sleep better knowing my girls are both safely under one roof. I assume you’ve told your mother the whole story?”
“Actually, we were talking about Dad,” Vina said, crossing back over to her chair.
Her grandfather frowned. “Your father? Why?”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about him, lately,” Vina said.
“Probably because of all those criminals you ran into,” her grandfather replied.
“I just want to try to understand why he did it, that’s all,” Vina said. “Can I talk to you about it sometime, Grandpa?”
He shrugged. “If you want. But … it’s best to leave the past where it belongs.” He turned to Elize. “I’m headed to my place, but I thought you might have some dinner …?”
“There’s a plate in the fridge,” Elize replied. “And cornbread on the counter.”
He nodded and disappeared down the hallway.
Vina smiled conspiratorially at her mother. “Grumpy Gramps,” she whispered.
“Shh,” Elize said, frowning. “He means well. And he has been worrying about you. We both have. I haven’t slept well since you left.”
Vina stood up and moved over to the couch, taking a seat next to her mother and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“I missed you too, Mom.”
“After everything that happened, all those years ago, I always worry when you’re not here,” Elize said softly. “You know that.”
“I know,” Vina said, squeezing her. “Why do you think I still live at home?”
Elize studied her daughter for a moment. “You don’t have to, you know. I’ll be okay, if you want to get your own place. I’d be fine.”
Vina smiled. “I know. I’m here because I want to be here.”
Chapter 7
On the fifth day after arriving on the UNCS Sydney, Falken woke to find a message on his cabin’s computer terminal from Captain Peshai:
>>>Corrections Committee meeting this morning, 10 a.m. Meet me at the entrance to the admin offices.
Falken showered and dressed, and ate a light breakfast in the ship’s mess hall. Rather than assigning a guard to watch over him, the prison staff had fitted him with a tracker bracelet, exactly like the one he had worn during his recovery, after his release from Oz. The bracelet allowed him to access only certain portions of the ship – the gym, the recreation center, a suite of visitor cabins, and the mess hall. The rest of the ship was closed to him, but Falken didn’t mind – he had no need to access the prisoner areas.
Not yet, at least.
At five minutes to ten, he walked up several staircases to the office level, expecting to have to wait outside the locked hatch, but the warden was waiting for him.
“Good morning,” Peshai said. “Again, I’m sorry that you’ve had to wait here for the last few days. I was hoping to be able to get time with the Committee sooner, but unscheduled meetings can be tricky. They’re fairly busy folks.”
“No problem,” Falken told him. “It’s given me a chance to catch up on sleep.”
“I imagine,” Peshai said, leading him down the corridor toward a conferencing suite. “Some day you’ll have to tell me more about what went down on Olympus.”
The conference room featured a single desk facing a bank of vidscreens arrayed in a semicircle. As with the other offices, the room held only basic furnishings – a thin carpet, several abstract paintings on one wall, and a whiteboard on the opposite wall. Peshai pulled a spare chair over to the desk, and set it next to his own seat, then gestured for Falken to sit. Each of the four vidscreens showed a live feed of a different person – two women and two men, all well-dressed, sitting in different offices. In the center-right screen sat a stern-looking woman with gray hair bunched in springy curls. A line of text below her image read: Locandez (Chairwoman).
She glanced up, appearing to tally the heads on her own vidscreens. “We’re all here, Captain,” Locandez said. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“Thank you, madam chairwoman. And thank you all for joining,” Captain Peshai said. “I have an unusual request that I’d like to put before the committee. This is Sirio Falken, a former inmate of Oz. I’ve sent his records to you, should you be interested in reviewing them in more detail.”
“What’s the short version?” a man whose name read Ojibwe asked. His dark face was freckled and sported a well-trimmed, salt-and-pepper goatee.
“Mr. Falken was convicted of murder nine years ago, and earned his parole through the Oz program less than a year after that. He has served with distinction as an ecological officer on four different planetary survey missions as part of a UN exploratory crew, and as a researcher and tour guide in the colonies since then.”
“Falken … that name rings a bell,” Locandez said, frowning. “Didn’t I read about a Falken who was involved in that mess on Olympus a week or so ago?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Falken said, clearing his throat. “That was me.”
“Mr. Falken’s involvement was accidental,” Peshai said, hurriedly.
Locandez arched an eyebrow. “You were on the right side of the law, this time, Mr. Falken?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Falken said.
“… and from what I gather, his actions during the incident not only prevented the criminals from succeeding, but also saved multiple lives,” Peshai said.
“I would expect nothing less out of a graduate of Oz,” Locandez said. “What brings you back to the Corrections Department, Mr. Falken? What is this ‘unusual request’ of yours?”
Falken glanced around the screens nervously. “I’d like to go back into Oz.”
“Back in?” another man asked, frowning. He was the youngest of the group, with wavy brown hair and bushy eyebrows. His name was listed as Huginot.
“Yes, your honor. To try to help a friend. He’s still in the system, and I think I can help him find his way out.”
“One of our inmates is a man named Sef Weaver,” Peshai explained. “He has spent the last nine years in the program, without success. Mr. Falken was close friends with Mr. Weaver during his time in Oz, and he believes he can help Mr. Weaver.”
“How, Mr. Falken?” Locandez asked.
“I know him,” Falken said. “I spent almost a year with Weaver, day in, day out. We went through a lot together. The only thing holding Weaver back is that he needs to confess his crime. He needs to face what he did. I can get him to do that, I know it.”
“And what do you think, Captain?” the other female committee member asked. Her hair was pure white, and pulled back into a conservative bun. She wore a lace collar around her judge’s robes, and the name on the screen identified her as Arkanian.
Peshai turned to face her. “It’s unprecedented, ma’am, but I think it’s an intriguing idea, and if it works, it could prove to be a useful tool in our rehabilitation toolkit. I wouldn’t have brought it before you if I didn’t think i
t was worth trying.”
“There are significant risks,” Ojibwe pointed out. “Chief of which is the knowledge that Mr. Falken would bring with him, and the damage he could do with that knowledge.”
“We’d have to set strict controls in place,” Peshai agreed.
“I’d follow them, to the letter,” Falken promised. “I wouldn’t tell anyone what Oz really is, I promise you.”
“Mr. Falken, would you mind waiting outside?” Locandez asked. “I’d like to discuss this matter with just the committee.”
“Of course,” Falken said, standing up.
Peshai stood, too, and led Falken to his office.
“Have a seat,” the warden said. “I’ll come get you when they’re ready.”
Falken sat, but after a few minutes, he stood and walked over behind the warden’s desk, and stood watching the distant Earth through the viewport. The shadow of night was spreading across the planet’s closest hemisphere: he could see the lights of hundreds of cities across the African continent, glowing like a golden spider web. He watched ships come and go from the transit hub, their engines flaring as they prepared to skip to light speed. Then the hatch opened again.
“They’re ready,” Peshai said.
Falken thought he detected a note of disappointment in the warden’s tone, but the older man turned and led the way back to the conference room before Falken could ask him anything more.
“Mr. Falken,” Locandez said, nodding to him as he sat down. “I will come straight to the point. We’ve discussed your request, but I’m afraid we will not be approving it.”
“You’re not going to even let me try?” Falken asked, crestfallen.
“No,” Locandez said, shaking her head. “Your loyalty to your friend is commendable. But Oz is bigger than one man. Its importance and value cannot be overstated. And this committee has a responsibility to protect that resource, on behalf of all future convicts.”
“I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the system,” Falken protested.
Locandez held up a hand. “Perhaps not, or at least not intentionally,” she said. “But those are risks we’re not willing to take.”
“What if I’m the only one that can get through to him?” Falken asked.
“So be it,” the chairwoman told him. “I’ve spent my career ensuring that men like you are prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced for their crimes, Mr. Falken. So I’m personally not particularly eager to expend any additional efforts in setting murderers and felons free, and sending them back out into society. The system has worked for a long, long time, just the way it is. Mr. Weaver will need to earn his own way out, without your help.”
“And if he can’t?” Falken asked.
“If he can’t do so on his own, then he doesn’t deserve to be a free man again,” Locandez said, shrugging. “Once he reaches his tenth year of incarceration, he’ll no longer have the ability to earn his parole. He’ll be removed from Oz, and transferred to our permanent facility.”
“Ten years? That’s less than a year from now,” Falken said.
“So it is,” Locandez agreed. “I wish him luck. Now, if we have no other business to attend to, Warden?”
“No, ma’am,” Peshai said.
“Then this meeting is adjourned. Good day, Mr. Falken.”
The screens shut off, one by one, and Falken hung his head.
“You got your hopes up,” the warden said.
“I know,” Falken said. “You told me not to, but … I really thought I could help him.”
He felt Peshai’s hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.” Peshai stood up. “There’s a prisoner transport arriving in ten minutes, with a new group of inmates for in-processing. Gather your things, and I’ll arrange for the transport to drop you off at the transit hub on their way back to Earth.”
Chapter 8
I better call Vina, Falken thought, dragging his duffel bag out of the storage locker under his bed. And I suppose I’ll have to come clean, and tell her I can’t come down to visit her on Earth, either.
He packed his clothes, then stripped the sheets off his bed, tucking them into a laundry chute. Finally, he took the tracker bracelet off his wrist, placing it on top of the desk. Captain Peshai appeared at his door a minute later.
“Ready to go?” Peshai asked.
“Yeah,” Falken said. “Listen, thanks again for hearing me out, and trying to make this happen. I know you stuck your neck out for me, and I appreciate it … regardless of the outcome.”
“Don’t mention it,” Peshai said. He pointed down the hall. “This way to the transport.”
Falken followed him out the door, and through the ship’s maze-like corridors. They passed through several locked hatches, each of which scanned Peshai’s face and then opened as he approached. Finally, they stopped in a small vestibule with a hatch on either side, and a strangely padded floor.
“Gravity transition room,” Peshai told Falken. “Brace for it.”
The warden touched a button on the wall, and suddenly Falken felt himself floating upwards toward the ceiling.
“I’d forgotten that the prisoner areas are all in zero-g,” he said.
“Mm,” Peshai agreed. “There’s a technical reason for it, they explained it to me once. I believe it ensures that the illusion of being on Oz isn’t disrupted by a competing sense of gravity from here on the ship.”
The far hatch opened, and Peshai propelled himself through it, tugging on rungs mounted along the wall to maneuver himself. Falken followed suit. They passed a docking tube – looking down it, Falken saw an armed guard seated in what looked to be a transport ship. But Peshai kept going, taking a right down another corridor, and opening a hatch marked Authorized Personnel Only – Clearance Required. On the far side of the hatch, Falken found himself in a small room with a locker and a large, cylindrical device that looked vaguely familiar. Peshai leaned into the locker and pulled out a white prison uniform.
“Put this on,” he told Falken.
Falken frowned. “What? Why?”
“We don’t have much time,” the warden urged him, taking Falken’s duffel bag and stowing it in the locker. “They’re already loading prisoners into the bay, and then I need to go make my ‘welcome’ speech. Put it on, quickly.”
“You’re sending me in?” Falken asked, hurriedly pulling off his shirt.
Peshai nodded. “Listen carefully. Oz – the program – has rules. Strict ones. Maintaining the illusion is its number one priority, so once you’re in, you have to play along. The minute you tell an inmate it’s not real, the Corrections Committee will be notified – the program will contact them directly, per protocol, I can’t stop it.”
“What would happen?”
“Oz will end the simulation for you and Weaver, or whoever you told. You’d both wake up back here on the ship … in a lot of trouble. Weaver would probably get a special hearing in front of the committee, since his simulation was ended prematurely, through no fault of his own. They might take pity on him, if he took responsibility for his crimes. If he didn’t, they’d send him to the permanent facility for life. And I visited the permanent facility once, when I first took this job. It makes Oz look like a luxury resort.”
“What would they do with me?” Falken asked, tugging on the uniform pants.
“Given they just forbade you from going into the system, I imagine they would revoke your parole and reinstate your sentence, as well.”
“The permanent facility?” Falken asked.
Peshai nodded. “For the rest of your life. And I would probably join you, for my role in this.”
“Okay, don’t tell anyone about Oz – got it,” Falken said.
Peshai took Falken’s civilian clothes and tucked them into the locker with his duffel bag. “Remember, you’ll be in Weaver’s version of the simulator,” the warden said, steadying himself against the room’s ceiling. “It may be somewhat different from yours – Oz shapes the simulation as needed to suit the individual inmat
e. Everyone takes a different path on their journey. The simulator has a vote, but real inmates affect things, too, just like Weaver affected you. Some of the people you interact with will be real, some will be simulations.”
“How do I know the difference?”
“Archos, Saltari, Ngobe, Mayor Luo – they’re core characters, artificial,” Peshai replied. “Beyond that, there’s no way to tell, frankly. In general, characters generated by the program will be helping Weaver, even if subtly, even if it seems like they are challenging him. Real people will have their own agenda and may or may not be helping. Regardless, your best bet is to treat everyone else as if they are real. Certainly everything Weaver says and does is real. And everything you do will be real to him.”
“Will he remember me?”
Peshai checked the time on his wristpad. “Yes. But at some point, your version of the simulator diverged from his … he stopped experiencing the simulator you saw. So his memories of you will be the same up to that point, and then different.”
“When did things diverge?” Falken asked.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to figure that out,” Peshai told him.
“Jesus,” Falken said, shaking his head. “It’s more complicated than I realized.”
“There’s more,” Peshai said, frowning. “If you die in the simulation, you’re out – Oz will wake you up.”
“I can’t just start over again?” Falken asked.
“No,” Peshai said. “Resurrecting you would shatter the illusion for Weaver.”
“What if I’m attacked? Can I at least defend myself?” Falken asked.
“Of course,” Peshai said. “It’s a simulation – any crimes you commit inside aren’t real, so you can’t be prosecuted for them. If you kill a person in Weaver’s version of the simulator, Oz will simply remove them from his version from that point forward – they’ll be gone, as if they really died.”
“What if it’s a real person?”
“They’ll be gone from Weaver’s simulation version, but in their version of events, they’ll survive. Oz will simply have them black out and wake up recovering from their injury somewhere. You can’t really kill them, they just cease to exist to you and Weaver, if that makes sense.”