by Rohan Wilson
‘Captain,’ I said.
‘Braden, if you keep interrupting, I’m liable to put you on the toilets.’
‘Captain, you told us the prisoner has a weapon.’
I felt the men look at me. The captain pushed back his hat. There followed a long silence that I thought at first was confusion, as if no one else had worked out we were breaching the cell of a dangerously armed psychopath without AC-331 body protection. Then I realised that no one was confused—they understood perfectly. Reyes and Reed and Hameed worked their gum around and gave sceptical stares. They understood. They knew how goddamn stupid it was to enter that cell without armour. Trouble was, they had to do it anyway.
‘I’m sure we’d appreciate it if you could pass that on to your mother,’ the captain said.
Yeah, I was learning a lot about CYC.
We formed up in front of the cell and took a look inside. The client had smeared faeces across the viewing port but you could see him in his orange jumpsuit crammed on the bunk. Reyes unlocked the feeding slot. A pillow was stuffed there which he dislodged with his baton. I tightened the arm straps on my shield. It was nearly as tall as me and it still didn’t feel like enough to keep me safe. Reyes leaned down and called through the slot.
‘Are you going to give it up?’
The client’s face appeared in the view port.
‘We know you have a weapon. Are you going to give it up?’
‘Fuck y’all, motherfuckers.’
The men laughed. I didn’t laugh.
‘Gas him,’ the captain said.
Reyes sprayed some pepper into the cell and stepped back. He was the first one to start coughing. Soon the coughing became general.
‘Open it,’ the captain said and coughed into the crook of his arm.
Reyes and Reed pressed against the cell door with shields while I scanned my wristband on the locking mechanism. When the door swung out I fired five rounds over their heads that burst along the rear wall of the cell. The gun hissed as it reloaded. It was just a paintball gun loaded with pepper capsules. It felt like a toy. The spray dispersed in a mustard-coloured mist. The client had pressed a bedsheet over his mouth and he kept his eyes shut tight. He seemed to hardly notice the chemicals.
‘Lie down on your bunk,’ the captain said.
My visor gave me a read of the client. Trevino, Michael J. Aggravated kidnapping. Aggravated sexual assault. Aggravated robbery. Thirty-year non-parole period.
‘Lie down. Hands behind your back.’
‘Fuck no, I ain’t doing that.’
‘Lie down, Michael, or you’re going to get hurt.’
‘That yellow cunt’s out there. I see her out there.’
‘Last chance.’
‘Said I see you out there, cunt. Hiding behind the white man.’
The captain took off his cap and looked at me. ‘Young lady, you don’t have to go in.’
I slung my gun and drew my baton.
The captain replaced his hat. ‘Well then.’
Reyes went in first and Reed followed. It was weird, the way it happened. Reyes went in behind his shield and his feet slipped. We ought to have known. Covering the floor with shampoo was a tactic prisoners regularly used against us and we ought to have checked at least. Reyes fell hard as his feet went out. Reed being next behind also got hooked up and fell. I was third. I looked at the men struggling on the ground and I looked at the client.
He rose off his bunk like a Halloween ghoul. He was covered in a bedsheet, which he now tossed over Reed and Reyes and, with a sort of scuttling movement, he leapt across them for me. We’re talking split seconds here. I didn’t even have time to raise my baton. The client caught my shield and tore it away. He tore it right off my arm.
‘Fucking kill you,’ he screamed.
His sheer hysterical strength left me terrified. I backed out of the cell hard as he started swinging at me. His first punch missed but the next one struck me in the neck. When he swung again I caught him by the wrist. The thing about Aikido, and what kept me studying it for years, and still does, even after I reached first dan, is that your size doesn’t matter. I weighed half of what he did. So I caught his wrist and held one point and stayed centralised while directing the power of his hand away from me. The supporting architecture of his legs and hips collapsed as I turned his own strength against him.
Now Reed found his feet. He shield-slammed the client into the door jamb. The guy was crying out because of the way I had his arm turned and he copped the full force of it. Reed pressed him hard. The shields had outfacing electrodes for stunning but I had a grip on the client and Reed could see that. He yelled at me to let go, so he could shock the guy, but I didn’t.
Through the clear polycarbonate I could still see the client’s expression. He was in pain. Blood ran from his eye where his head had licked the jamb. For a second I wanted to tell Reed to leave him alone. We’re hurting him, I remember thinking. Why are we doing this? That’s when he said it.
‘I’m a kill you,’ the prisoner said. ‘Fucking bamboo nigger.’
My nerves lit one end to the other. A pure ferocity overtook me. I still had this guy in a kotegaeshi wristlock so I turned his arm and slammed my free hand into his elbow with my whole body behind it.
Two things happened. I grievously broke his elbow, to the point where it seemed I’d reversed the bend of his arm. Then Reed let him have a heavy dose of voltage. The bastard just screamed.
‘Braden—Jesus Christ. Come here. Sit down.’
The captain pulled me away.
I was in a high state, battle ready. The captain pushed me against the wall and made me sit there. I didn’t want to sit. I wanted to hit someone.
‘It’s not deep,’ he said. ‘It’s not bad.’
‘He asked for it.’
‘Don’t move. Keep your head still.’
The captain pulled off my visor. That’s when I felt the twinge in my neck.
‘Alpha one nine, you copy?’
He was speaking into his headset.
‘I have an officer down.’
I thought he was talking about Reyes. Reyes, who’d slipped.
‘She’s been stabbed. I need an ambulance.’
Even then, I still didn’t get it. I didn’t get it until I saw my own blood.
Later in the hospital ward, after the surgery, after I’d debriefed with the captain, a doctor came in holding the shank he’d removed from my neck. Half a razor blade melted into a toothbrush handle. It went in clean and came out clean. Problem was, Michael J. Trevino had tested positive for HIV. That meant a course of vaccines and latency reversing agents for me, as well as antibiotics and blood tests and more blood tests. Alessandra just about lost her mind. She swore she’d tear Michael J. Trevino’s throat out. Then I told her about his elbow and she felt better. He threatened lawsuits for a while and Reyes and Reed paid him a few visits, late, long after lockdown, with the cameras malfunctioning for some reason. His threats soon stopped.
In order to leave the hospital that night, I had to put my uniform back on. It was stiff with dry blood. I realised I couldn’t remember how to do up buttons. I stood there for a moment. The mirror on the wall showed a woman with long black hair bundled up in pins. I looked over my shoulder, thinking there was another CO in the ward, and when I looked back I understood the woman was me. Understood in a mechanical sense at least. It was like seeing an old photo of myself. She was someone different.
Dr Lashonda Owen, the doctor I saw a couple of times later, said that acute stress often causes a sort of disassociation. I wouldn’t call what I felt disassociation. More a numbness. Like when you stick your head underwater. Numbness. Silence. Whatever it was, the feeling lingered a long time.
In the cab on the way back to the hotel I watched myself in the window glass. Pale, small, with a wad of bandage on my neck. For the first time in years, I thought about my mother. Not Alessandra. My true mother. The dead one. That slur—bamboo nigger. It jarred something lo
ose in me. I pictured my mother lying in a sunbeam. Her sheaf of white hair. I try to wake her and she won’t wake. I hadn’t thought about that moment in years and when it came back it felt weird that I’d forgotten about it. How could I forget my own mother? What else had I forgotten? I longed to know the plain, honest truth of who she was. I wanted to hear the start of my story.
The cab travelled down Crawford street past the Astros’ baseball stadium and I saw an Asian hair salon out the side window and the second I saw it, the whole thing made cosmic sense. The creep in the cell, my lost mother, Yamaan—every part of my life. It made sense in a way that caused me to wake up. That was how it felt. Like I’d been jolted awake. I hit the cancel button on the screen and the cab pulled up to the kerb.
Looking back, I know that I was in trouble. This would be the start of bad times. Within a year I’d be living in Yokohama, acting as lead negotiator on the Yokosuka project. A year after that, the tsunami would hit the Maldives. I’d lose Yamaan. There’d be long nights spent obliterating myself and long days spent pretending to be a functional person. I was never without some feeling of loss. I’d wake in the night sweating about Michael Trevino and the smell of his faeces. But when I walked out of that salon with my hair cut into rough waves and dyed the silver-white of a thundercloud, I felt a kind of impunity. I was tapping into horsepower I didn’t know I had. The first act this new Rin took was to call Dieter Brown, head of security for CYC, and ask a favour. I needed the name of the agent who’d handled my adoption.
You might think I’m asleep. It might look that way—hunched at the conference table, resting my head on my forearms. I’m not asleep. I’m seething. My mind crawls with maggoty thoughts. A second ago I tried unlocking the door for about the tenth time. Nothing. Rahmatullah has changed my privileges, obviously. At least he got that right. Nevertheless, he’s slipped up by letting me keep my glasses. It’s in the procedural manuals. Remove personal effects from a client before incarcerating them. Am I a client now? Rahmatullah probably wondered the same thing. You can bet he didn’t know what to do with me. So here I am. Waiting for the cops.
Waiting for the end.
Unpinned hair hangs in my eyes from where I’ve been pulling it in frustration. I glance through my message history, deleting any thread that links me to Yamaan. If I’m charged, the first thing the Australian Federal Police and the FBI will do is seize my data. Yeah, and there’s something therapeutic about destroying things right now. I watch each message disappear in an animated puff of smoke.
It’s Yamaan I’m worried about. I need to wipe our history so it’s harder for them to punish Yamaan. Maybe they won’t send him to solitary. Maybe he’ll still get an Australian visa. I tag. I delete. The puff of smoke. Whatever happens to him will be my fault. I’ve dropped him in boiling water.
Me, though, I’m fucking done. If Dieter connected me to the leak, that means I left some evidence behind. A log entry? Some metadata? It doesn’t make much difference what it was. If they have evidence, I’m done. I sit upright and take a sharp breath. Which means that today was my last day of freedom. I look around at the smiling refugees in the posters pinned to the walls. I didn’t know it, but the plane, the airport, the cab, that was it.
That was the end of my life.
I stand and pace the length of the conference room and turn and pace it back. I can hardly think, I can hardly breathe. My shoulders brush the posters on the wall. Professionalism. Positive attitude. Production. The heavy dark rectangle of the CYC logo. Ten steps to the wall then turn. Ten back. I’m running my hands through my hair, pulling it hard. The pins fall. I want to pull my hair out by the roots. After a lot of pacing, a lot of thinking, I crouch in the corner of the room and put my face in my hands. I sit there a long while staring at the stains in the carpet. The end of my life.
There are messages coming through. Clover in Yokohama. Jake from Mitsubishi Heavy. I no longer need to talk to any of these people. I’m removing the glasses when I see that the last message is from Yamaan. Without even reading it, I dictate a response:
we have a problem. wipe the glasses. destroy them.
He replies: what is wrong? where are you?
admin building. detained. police coming to arrest me.
I start pacing again. Ten steps to the wall then turn. My wild hair hangs in my eyes. Again, I try unlocking the door and nothing happens. Rahmatullah has changed the codes, but has he remembered to revoke my system access? I open a window to the Cabey-Yasuda private server. There’s a chance I can give myself privileges for this room if I still have access.
The glasses are bent from where I fell on them and sit crookedly on my nose. I landed pretty hard, apparently. I don’t remember. The plaser charge left a bruise the size of a softball on my belly. They’re meant to cause loss of motor control but if you wind up the voltage you can also cause blackouts. Once the window opens, two things stand out to me. First, the stock price is down fifteen per cent. This makes me feel a little better. Alessandra owns ten million shares left to her by her father and a fifteen per cent drop will scare the ever-loving shit out of her. Let her suffer. The second thing is that Yamaan has linked me to a live stream. I bring it up.
The feed fills my vision. It feels like being teleported. A second ago I was in that ratty conference room, now I’m standing in the recreation yard among hundreds of men, the Maldivians, many with their faces covered by cloths and roaming through drifts of tear gas. It’s almost too much and I close my eyes. When I open them again the camera has zoomed and focused on a smaller group of people. They’re standing around a fire. Some are leaning down to take a look at it. A dense black smoke blows sidewards over the yard and I don’t understand why Yamaan wants me to see this. On the stream stats, the broadcast is toggled to ‘public’. It has nearly five thousand viewers. Jesus Christ. Public?
I’m hit with a full hot flush. Public. Yeah, I should have seen this coming. As much as Yamaan wants to make out he’s different from his father, he still shares Moosa’s sense of injustice. Point is, CYC will know he has a pair of glasses in the facility. Glasses full of evidence of my crimes. I’m just about to call him and scream when one of the men near the fire shifts away and I’m given a view of the flames. What’s burning is a man. He’s in body armour and helmet and boots. He’s one of the CERTs, one of the team I sent in.
I pull off the glasses.
A long moment passes where I’m not in my body. Things seem to happen without me. I crouch, not feeling anything. I’m reduced to the beating pulse in my temple. Before long, the knowledge sinks in that the last bit of hope I had, maybe that Alessandra would save me, maybe that I could talk my way out of the problem, disappears. Not even Alessandra can save me now. That’s the truth. I’ve killed someone and I’m going to be punished and there’s no way out. I’m swallowing and breathing and trying to control the panic but I can’t. Soon I start crying, pitying the stupid girl I’ve become, crying like a child with my eyes shut and my mouth open.
There can be nothing more pathetic.
I don’t know how long I crouch here. The glasses are pinging and pinging. For a long time I sit holding my knees and ignoring the vibrations but the pinging doesn’t stop and after a while I lay down, curl up and cover my face. I want to crawl inside a cupboard. I want darkness and silence. The pings keep coming.
‘You have a call,’ the assistant says. ‘It’s Alessandra.’
I breathe in and out. I tap the arm.
‘Rin. Are you okay?’
‘Are you fucking crazy? Am I okay?’
‘Where are you?’
‘Don’t even talk to me.’
‘Rin—’
I end the call. She tries again, of course, and I cancel it. She tries again, and I just let it ping. She’ll give up after a while. Except she doesn’t. It keeps vibrating. I tap the arm.
‘Rin, listen to me. Where are you?’
‘You know where,’ I say. ‘You put me here.’
‘You’re sti
ll in the building?’
‘You lied to me.’
‘My darling. Please. Get out right now.’
All I can hear is the battering of my heart. ‘Misaki Sakurai,’ I say. ‘Remember that name?’
‘What?’
I’m about to say something else when I smell the smoke.
‘What did you just say?’
I sit up and sniff the air.
‘Is that what this is about?’ Alessandra says. ‘You did this to attack me?’
I walk to the door. ‘Why can I smell smoke?’
‘That woman was an incubator. I’m your mother.’
Outside the door, there’s shouting. There’s the crash of glass.
‘Rin. Are you listening to me? I’m the one who raised you. Not her.’
I grow suddenly sober. It’s like that moment in the club when the MDMA wears off. You look around and realise where you are and feel sick for it. I try unlocking the door and still the light flashes red, so I start banging and calling out.
‘What’s that noise? Are you okay?’
‘For godsake. You had them lock me in here.’
‘You didn’t give me a choice.’
‘There’s smoke in here,’ I say. ‘Why the fuck is there smoke in here?’
‘Smoke?’
‘It’s coming under the door.’
‘All right. I’m sending someone. We’ll get you out.’
‘I can hear people outside.’
‘All right. Stay calm.’
I back away against the wall. The room smells of burning metal. It has the feel of a tomb. I put my jacket sleeve to my mouth to help me breathe.
‘Rin? Can you hear me?’
‘What the hell is going on?’
‘They broke through the sallyport. There are clients inside the building.’
‘What?’
‘Hold on, okay. Someone’s coming for you.’
‘Oh my God.’
I’m not worried. I mean, I’m terrified, but I’m still thinking it’s going to be fine. They’ll send Rahmatullah. I’ll be evacuated. I’m not worried until I hear a splintering crash from beyond the door. A crash, as if furniture is being thrown. I move to the far end of the room and squat down beneath the level of the table. The air quality warning flashes in the corner on my vision.
