by Lu, Marie
Then I realize that it’s a little strange they’re sending me to a Vegas penitentiary at all. I should be interrogated and tried in my home state. “Why am I being held here?” I ask. “Shouldn’t I be on my way to Los Angeles?”
Thomas keeps his eyes forward now. “Quarantine,” he replies.
I frown. “What, it’s spread to Batalla now too?”
His answer sends a chill down my spine. “Los Angeles is under quarantine. All of it.”
* * *
HIGH DESERT PENITENTIARY.
ROOM 416 (20 × 12 SQUARE FEET).
2224 HOURS; SAME DAY AS MY CAPTURE.
I sit a few feet away from Thomas. Nothing but a flimsy table separates us—well, if I don’t count the number of soldiers standing guard beside him. They shift uncomfortably whenever I let my eyes rest on them. I sway a little in my chair, fighting back exhaustion, and clink the chains that keep my arms secured across my back. My mind is starting to wander—I keep thinking back on what Thomas said about Los Angeles and its quarantine. No time to dwell on that now, I tell myself, but the thoughts won’t go away. I try to picture Drake University marked with plague signs, Ruby sector’s streets crowded with plague patrols. How is that possible? How could the entire city be under quarantine?
We’ve been in this room for six hours, and Thomas has gotten nowhere with me. My answers to his questions lead us around in circles, and I’ve been doing it in a way so subtle that he doesn’t realize I’ve been manipulating the conversation until he’s wasted another hour. He’s tried threatening to kill Ollie. To which I threatened to carry any information I had to my grave. He’s tried threatening me. To which I reminded him of the taking-information-to-my-grave factor. He’s even tried some mind games—none of which went even remotely well. I just keep asking him why Los Angeles is under quarantine. I’ve been trained in interrogation tactics as much as he has, and it’s backfiring on him. He hasn’t gotten physical with me yet, the way he had with Day. (This is another interesting detail. It doesn’t matter how much Thomas cares for me—if his superiors order him to use physical force, he’ll do it. Since he hasn’t hurt me yet, it means Commander Jameson told him not to. Odd.) Even so, I can tell his patience with me is wearing thin.
“Tell me, Ms. Iparis,” he says after we’re silent for a moment. “What will it take for me to get something useful out of you?”
I keep my face expressionless. “Already told you that. I’ll trade you an answer for a request. I have information for the Elector.”
“You’re in no position to bargain. And you can’t keep this up indefinitely.” Thomas leans back in his chair and frowns. The fluorescent lights cast long shadows under his eyes. Against the undecorated white walls of the room (aside from two Republic flags and the Elector’s portrait), Thomas stands out ominously in his black-and-red captain’s uniform. Metias used to wear a uniform like that. “I know Day is alive, and you know how we can find him. You’ll talk after a few days without food or water.”
“Don’t assume what I will and won’t do, Thomas,” I reply. “As for Day, I should think the answer’s obvious. If he were alive, he’d head off to rescue his little brother. Any fool could guess that.”
Thomas tries to ignore my jab, but I can see the irritation on his face. “If he’s alive, he’ll never find his brother. That location is classified. I don’t need to know where Day wants to go. I need to know where he is.”
“It makes no difference. You’d never catch him anyway. He won’t fall for the same tricks twice.”
Thomas folds his arms. Was it really just a few weeks ago that the two of us sat together, eating dinner at a Los Angeles café? The thought of LA brings me right back to the quarantine news, and I picture the café empty, covered with quarantine notices.
“Ms. Iparis,” Thomas says, putting his palms flat on the table. “We can continue like this forever, and you can just keep being snide and shaking your head until you collapse from exhaustion. I don’t want to hurt you. You have a chance to redeem yourself to the Republic. In spite of everything you’ve done, I’ve received word from my higher-ups that they still consider you to be quite valuable.”
So. Commander Jameson was involved in making sure I’m not harmed during my interrogation. “How kind,” I reply, letting sarcasm seep into my words. “I’m luckier than Metias.”
Thomas sighs, bows his head, and squeezes the upper bridge of his nose in exasperation. He sits like that for a moment. Then he motions toward the other soldiers. “Everyone out,” he snaps.
When the soldiers have left us alone, he turns back to me and leans forward to put his arms on the table. “I’m sorry you have to be here,” he says quietly. “I hope you understand, Ms. Iparis, that I’m bound by my duty to do this.”
“Where’s Commander Jameson?” I reply. “She’s your puppet master, isn’t she? I would’ve thought she’d come interrogate me as well.”
Thomas doesn’t flinch at my taunt. “She’s containing Los Angeles at the moment, organizing the quarantine and reporting the situation to Congress. With all due respect, the world does not revolve around you.”
Containing Los Angeles. The words chill me. “Are the plagues really that bad right now?” I decide to ask yet again, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on Thomas’s face. “Is LA quarantined because of illness?”
He shakes his head. “Classified.”
“When will it be lifted? Are all the sectors quarantined?”
“Stop asking. I told you, the whole city is. Even if I knew when it would be lifted, I’d still have no reason to tell you.”
I know instantly by his expression that what he actually means is: Commander Jameson didn’t tell me what’s going on in the city, so I have no idea. Why would she need to keep him in the dark? “What happened in the city?” I press, hoping to get more out of him.
“That’s not relevant to your interrogation,” Thomas replies, tapping his fingers impatiently against his arm. “Los Angeles is no longer your concern, Ms. Iparis.”
“It’s my hometown,” I reply. “I grew up there. Metias died there. Of course it’s my concern.”
Thomas is quiet. His hand comes up to push dark hair away from his face, and his eyes search mine. Minutes tick by. “That’s what this is all about,” he finally mutters. I wonder if he’s saying this because he’s weary too after six hours in this room. “Ms. Iparis, what happened to your brother—”
“I know what happened,” I interrupt him. My voice trembles in rising anger. “You killed him. You sold him to the state.” The words hurt so much that I can barely squeeze them out.
His expression quivers. He lets out a cough and straightens in his chair. “The order came directly from Commander Jameson, and the last thing I’d do is disobey a direct order from her. You should know this rule as well as I do—although I have to admit you’ve never been very good at following it.”
“What, so you were just willing to hand him over like that, because he figured out how our parents died? He was your friend, Thomas. You grew up with him. Commander Jameson wouldn’t have given you the time of day—you wouldn’t be sitting across this table right now—if Metias hadn’t recommended you for her patrol. Or have you forgotten that?” My voice rises. “You couldn’t risk even a fraction of your own safety to help him?”
“It was a direct order,” Thomas repeats. “Commander Jameson is not to be questioned. What don’t you understand about that? She knew that he hacked into the deceased persons’ database, along with a host of other high security government catalogs. Your brother broke the law, multiple times. Commander Jameson couldn’t have a well-respected captain of her patrol committing crimes right under her nose.”
I narrow my eyes. “And that’s why you killed him in a dark alley, then framed Day for it? Because you’d happily follow your commander’s orders right off a cliff?”
Thomas slams his hand do
wn on the table hard enough to make me jump. “It was a signed order from the state of California,” he shouts. “Do you understand what I’m saying? I had no better choice.” Then his eyes widen—he hadn’t expected those words to come out, not that way. They stun me too. He keeps talking, now at a quicker pace, seemingly determined to erase the words. A strange light glows in his eyes, something that I can’t quite pinpoint. What is it? “I’m a soldier of the Republic. When I joined the military I took an oath to obey my superiors’ orders at all costs. Metias took the same oath, and he broke it.”
There’s something odd about the way he refers to Metias, a sort of hidden emotion that throws me off. “The state is broken.” I take a deep breath. “And you’re a coward for leaving Metias at its mercy.”
Thomas’s eyes constrict as if I’d stabbed him. I study him closer, but he notices me analyzing him and jerks his face away, turning to the side and hiding his head in his hands.
I think about my brother again, this time flipping in my mind through his many years spent in Thomas’s company. Metias had known Thomas since they were kids, long before I was born. Whenever his father, our apartment floor’s janitor, would bring Thomas along to accompany him during his work shifts, Thomas and Metias would play for hours on end. Military video games. Toy guns. After I came into the picture, I remember the many quiet conversations the two of them would share in our living room, and how often they were together. I recall Thomas’s Trial score: 1365. Great for a poor sector kid, but average for kids in Ruby sector. Metias was the first to pick up on Thomas’s intense interest in being a soldier. He’d spend entire afternoons teaching Thomas everything he knew. Thomas would never have made it into Emerald sector’s Highland University without my brother’s help.
My breaths turn shallow as something falls into place. I remember the way Metias’s gaze would linger on Thomas during their training sessions. I’d always assumed that was just my brother’s way of studying Thomas’s posture and performance for accuracy. I remember how patient and gentle Metias was when explaining things to Thomas. The way his hand would touch Thomas’s shoulder. The night when I’d eaten edame at that café with Thomas and Metias, when Metias first stopped shadowing Chian. The way Metias’s hand would sometimes rest on Thomas’s arm for a beat longer than it had to. The chat I had with my brother when he took care of me on the day of his induction. How he’d laughed. I don’t need girlfriends. I’ve got a baby sister to take care of. And it was true. He’d dated a couple of girls in college, but never for longer than a week, and always with polite disinterest.
So obvious. How could I not have seen this before?
Of course Metias never talked to me about it. Officer and subordinate relationships are strictly forbidden. Harshly punished. Metias had been the one to recommend Thomas for Commander Jameson’s patrol . . . He must have done it for Thomas’s sake, even though he knew that it meant any chance of a relationship would be impossible.
All of this flashes through my thoughts in a matter of seconds. “Metias was in love with you,” I whisper.
Thomas doesn’t reply.
“Well? Is it true? You must have known.”
Thomas still doesn’t answer. Instead, he keeps his head in his hands and repeats, “I took an oath.”
“Wait a minute. I don’t understand.” I lean back against my chair and take a deep breath. My thoughts are now a whirling, jumbled mess. Thomas’s silence tells me far more than anything he’s said aloud.
“Metias loved you,” I say slowly. My words are quivering. “And did so much for you. But you still turned him in?” I shake my head in disbelief. “How could you?”
Thomas looks up at me from his hands, a flash of confusion lighting his face. “I never reported him.”
We face each other for a long time. Finally, I say through clenched teeth, “Tell me what happened, then.”
Thomas stares off into space. “Security admins found traces he left behind when he hacked through a loophole in the system,” he replies. “Into the deceased civilians’ database. The admins reported it to me first, with the understanding that I would pass the message to Commander Jameson. I’d always warned Metias about hacking. You cross the Republic too many times, and eventually you get burned. Stay loyal, stay faithful. But he never listened. Neither one of you do.”
“So you kept his secret?”
Thomas drops his head back into his hands. “I confronted Metias about it first. He admitted it to me. I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone, but deep down, I wanted to. I have never kept anything from Commander Jameson.” He pauses here for a second. “Turns out that my silence wouldn’t have made a difference. The security admins decided to forward a message on to Commander Jameson anyway. That’s how she found out. Then she tasked me with taking care of Metias.”
I listen in shocked silence. Thomas had never wanted to kill Metias. I try to imagine a scenario that I can bear. Maybe he even tried to persuade Commander Jameson to assign the mission to someone else. But she refused, and he chose to do it anyway.
I wonder whether Metias ever acted on his attraction, and whether Thomas reciprocated. Knowing Thomas, I doubt it. Did he love Metias back? He had tried to kiss me that night after the celebration for Day’s capture. “The celebratory ball,” I muse, aloud this time. I don’t need to explain that evening for Thomas to know what I’m talking about. “When you tried to . . .”
I trail off as Thomas continues to stare at the floor, his expression oscillating between blankness and pain. Finally, he runs a hand through his hair and mumbles, “I knelt over Metias and watched him die. My hand was on that knife. He . . .”
I wait, light-headed from the words he’s saying.
“He told me not to hurt you,” Thomas continues. “His last words were about you. And I don’t know. At Day’s execution, I tried to come up with a way to stop Commander Jameson from arresting you. But you make it so hard for people to protect you, June. You break so many rules. Just like Metias. That night at the ball—when I looked at your face—” His voice cracks. “I thought I could protect you, and that the best way might be to keep you close to me, to try to win you over. I don’t know,” he repeats bitterly. “Even Metias had trouble watching out for you. What chance did I have of keeping you safe?”
The evening of Day’s execution. Had Thomas been trying to help me out when he escorted me down to see the electro-bomb storage basement? What if Commander Jameson was preparing to arrest me, and Thomas tried getting to me first? To what, help me escape? I don’t understand.
“I did care for him, you know,” he says through my silence. He pretends bravado, some false professionalism. Still, I hear a tinge of sadness. “But I am also a soldier of the Republic. I did what I had to do.”
I shove the table aside and lunge for him, even though I know I’m chained down to my chair. Thomas jumps back. I stumble against my restraints, fall to my knees, and then grab for his leg. For anything. You’re sick. You’re so twisted. I want to kill him. I’ve never wanted anything this much in my entire life.
No, that’s not true. I want Metias to be alive again.
The guards outside must’ve heard the commotion because they come pouring in, and before I know it I’m pinned down by several soldiers, cuffed with an extra set of shackles, and untied from my chair. They drag me to my feet. I kick out furiously, running through a list in my head of every attack I’ve ever learned in school, trying frantically to free myself. Thomas is so close. He’s only a few feet away.
Thomas just looks at me. His hands dangle at his sides. “It was the most merciful way for him to go,” he calls out. It makes me nauseous I know he’s right, and that Metias would’ve almost certainly been tortured to death had Thomas not taken him down in that alley. But I don’t care. I’m blind, smothered by my anger and confusion. How could he do that to someone he loved? How could he possibly attempt to justify this? What is wrong with h
im?
After Metias’s death, on nights when Thomas sat alone in his home, did he ever step out of his façade? Did he ever shed the soldier and let the civilian grieve?
I’m dragged out of the room and back down the corridor. My hands tremble—I fight to steady my breathing, to calm my racing heart, to push Metias back into a safe corner of my mind. A small part of me had hoped that I was wrong about Thomas. That he hadn’t been the one to kill my brother.
By the next morning, all traces of emotion have disappeared from Thomas’s face. He tells me the Denver court has gotten wind of my request for the Elector and has decided to transfer me to the Colorado State Penitentiary.
I’m off to the capital.
WE TOUCH DOWN IN LAMAR, COLORADO, ON A COLD, rainy morning, right on schedule. Razor leaves with his squadron. Kaede and I wait in the dark stairwell leading out from the back entrance of his office until the sounds outside have quieted and most of the ship’s crew have left. This time there are no guards performing fingerprint scans or ID checks, so we can follow the last of the soldiers straight off the exit ramp. We melt right in with the troops that are actually here to fight for the Republic.
Sheets of icy rain pound the base as we step out of the pyramid dock and into the formidable grayness of this place. The sky’s completely covered with churning storm clouds. Landing docks line the side of the cracked cement street, an ominous row of enormous black pyramids stretching off in either direction, slick and shiny with rain. The air smells stale, wet. Jeeps packed with soldiers drive back and forth, splashing mud and gravel across the pavement. The soldiers here all have a wide stripe of black painted across their eyes from one ear to the other. Must be some sort of crazy warfront style. The rest of the city looms in front of us—gray skyscrapers that probably serve as barracks for the soldiers, some new with smooth sides and tinted glass windows, others pockmarked and crumbling as if they’ve been fed a steady diet of grenades. A few are ash and ruins, some with just one wall left, pointing upward like a broken monument. No terraced buildings here, no grassy levels dotted with herds of cattle.
