by Aral Bereux
‘Not long now, darlin’, and it’ll all be over.’
Great, she thought. Just fucking yippee-ki-yay motherfucking great!
Chapter 3
2345 HOURS.
CENTRAL COMMAND HQ, SECTOR #1.
The building loomed four levels high with a freshly painted white facade and impressed all that came to visit, prisoners and politicians alike. It was different from the run-down, dilapidated halfway houses she was familiar with. Riding her bike on the rare day off, she would go street after street in the outer city Sectors in search of the paradise she remembered from childhood. The green grass, tall trees, and colorful gardens were a thing of the past, when her father would take her hand in his and wander the day away beneath the sun and blue sky. These days, she struggled to find a working swing free of rust in the parks overrun with thick weed, and her heart would grow heavy with the memories she locked away.
This was one of the days where she opened that escape door to the park – to listen to her father’s stories and smell his aftershave as she nestled into his chest. It was these days when she hid from the cruel world of watchers and walkers and vive le ordre. She didn’t escape too often, but tonight – in Central Command, under the steely hands clutching her arms and marching her to the processing station – she needed an escape to a safer place.
In the park, no one could read her, steal her thoughts, or manipulate her. The park was neutral. Sometimes, if lucky enough, her father would wait on the park bench to offer advice or a shoulder to cry on. Her mother never showed, it didn’t matter Her father always appeared when she called.
Prisoner 64721 was processed again.
Her right hand pressed onto the flat screen as a single band of light scanned and transferred her prints into a database. Her left hand and then her individual fingers, each pressed down firmly under Taris’s grip to ensure an accurate reading for future reference. The retina scan and general information followed, all typed into a terminal from the clerk sitting behind a tidy white station with low glass dividing walls.
Julianna stared down the long line of clerks doing the same repetitive task, a collective she likened to an airport check in. Scan here, stamp there, now fill in the form and please proceed to the next counter. Others were being processed, too; some made eye contact, but most were terrified of repercussion. The area was busy, with a lot of processing to finish. Taris nudged her.
‘Answer the damned question.’
‘Huh?’ She looked at the clerk.
‘Residence?’
‘Sector Five. Sometimes Sector Three. Sometimes in-country. I bounce a lot.’ She looked at Taris and his frustration showed. ‘Are we done yet?’
‘She’s ready for processing, Commander,’ the clerk said, and passed a cylindrical container over the counter. Taris discreetly pushed it into his pocket and gave the girl a wink.
‘I believe there’s a vacancy at his camp for Human Services Technician,’ Julianna said. The girl behind the counter blushed and Taris ushered Julianna into the bright arena, where personnel dressed in black uniforms madly walked in all directions. They contrasted sharply with their clean environment. Rich evergreens in sunken garden beds with seats underneath offered respite from the office that towered over them as they walked past. She would have admired the architecture, but a sinister intention lurked behind the pretty façade, and she knew better than to take comfort in its beauty.
Rich, ornate centerpieces hung high for admiration. They reflected the glimmer from the ceiling lights strategically placed to advantage the exquisiteness and splendor of the interior. No expense spared. The Senate’s generosity for design and cleverly laid floor plans impressed her. Julianna’s gaze followed the personnel moving along the staircases, or taking the glass elevators to the higher levels of the complex. Every panel, wall, and stair was translucent. They passed under a walkway and she looked up at the boots standing above them. Security cameras caught every polished boot to black cap; every detail of every person recorded, yet they remained unfazed. Soldier ants busying around their nest.
Everyone rushed to meet deadlines; they wanted to return to their families if they had them. Otherwise, another lonely night reading the Quarterly or Bulletin (depending on which way they swung politically), was the only solace they had.
He pulled her arm through the crowds to an area with less foot traffic. Militia security stood to attention beside a glass wall, waiting for his dismissal. He gave it and stepped up to a platform with arms outstretched and legs apart to submit to a search. Security tightly flanked her sides while the subordinates nervously ran their hands along the Commander’s clothing.
He turned around for them to search his front and met her round eyes. His issued weapons were checked where they were holstered – Not brave enough to ask the Commander to remove them, she contemplated – and he smiled, hearing her every thought. They scrutinized his pockets with their hands scrunching the material; his belt was turned at the buckle; his shoes were checked. They left nothing to chance. His hand curled around the cylinder as he took it out his pocket so they could search him with more efficiency.
She studied the object that had triggered the metal detector. A nervous trickle of sweat ran down her back. She’d heard about the processing procedures, but had never witnessed the offending identification marker so close in her sights. The needle tip at the end gave it away, and she knew that inside it, laid a chip he intended to inject under her skin with all the details the clerk had embedded into it. One scan from a hover drone and the permanent marker could track anywhere across the continent.
Maybe even farther. The notion made her dizzy. Christ knows with the Militia.
Taris signed the digital tablet offered and stepped down. The efficiency of it all. The dread rolled a trickle of sweat between her bare skin and the handle of the knife she still managed to conceal against her waist.
‘Any weapons?’ the officer asked. He was solid and his cold eyes dared her to move. She shook her head. Taris looked on. He playfully revealed the container holding the identification marker. He was toying with her for a reaction. For her to bite so he could justify his want for force.
‘Only if you find any,’ she said and stepped up to the podium to outstretch her arms and legs. Her eyes locked in Taris’s stare; he stopped twirling his fingers and his smile sent a chill into her heart that made it skip its beat.
‘Allow me,’ he said and promptly slid the tube she had eyeballed into his pocket again.
Julianna stumbled under the harsh turn against the wall; his grab stung, and when he kicked his boot between her feet to spread her legs wide apart, the officers laughed at her expense. She moved from his icy touch, but his grip curled around her arms, and she froze when he moved in to her ear.
His fingers left their grip to skim down her sides, around her curves, moving along the underneath of her breasts and ribs to linger along her sides again. She shifted weight on her feet and closed her eyes. As his hands continued to grope, he stroked the crook of her lower back. He crouched to rub down one leg from top to bottom and bottom to top, slowing to search, and lifting the cuffs of her pants to check. Her breath left her and her eyes opened. He leaned in and his belt buckle pushed roughly into the middle of her back. His fingers parted, sliding between her thighs slowly, feeling her fully before relinquishing his grip.
She flinched, but he hadn’t searched where her blade sat, neatly tucked away. She clung onto the very hope until his hands rose along her sides again.
The security snorted with excited approval when Taris lifted her top to linger over her bare, flat stomach. His hands felt the knife and he extended his fingers below her belt before bringing it out. She turned quickly only to have the blade’s tip press against her bottom lip.
His audience nodded and he took it away.
‘That’s expensive,’ she said.
He curled his fingers around the handle. ‘Figure you owe me a new one,’ he teased and slipped it away into his own pocke
t. ‘You know, for last year’s parting gift.’
She stumbled down the platform under his grip. The knife was one thing. His intentions were another. Julianna followed his lead through the security perimeter to a set of double doors that unlatched when he pressed his clearance against the swipe plate.
Taris led her to the long, solid oak table centered in the room. Leather seats lined both sides and a line of portraits hung neatly above the head chair where the General would conduct his meetings. New World Order Leader, General Rosewalt and his Commanders smiled down upon the room’s visitors, strategically placed so everyone could admire their presence from their gold frames.
Heavy hands forced Julianna to sit.
The photos impressed her. A portrait of Taris hung beside the first General in charge. It was a stunning image of the blonde sadist, whose eyes glinted above curling lips on an otherwise expressionless face. She was careful in her glance, as he sat across, to compare the real person with the image. Her arrest would see a promotion his way. Her knowledge and connections to the Rebellion would put him in favor. The family arguments were a sideline for retribution, an excuse, and something they could use as an advantage.
She shuddered to think any further in case Taris was tuning in to her frequency. He smiled. His curling lips and his twinkling eyes in the portrait were watching from the real person, and his amusement was obvious. Stop it, she told herself. He can hear everything you’re freakin’ thinking.
The double doors opened with the arrival of the High Security Division holding their assault rifles ready. The HSD consisted of three men and one woman this evening, arriving in single file, breaking from formation as each took a wall in the room. Their steely gazes focused on her, suggesting quiet obedience was best. The HSD were notorious within the sectors for their heavy handedness. It was the HSD who had bestowed the nightmares upon her of her last interrogation and she hoped this wouldn’t lead to a similar path.
Julianna shook her head in defeat. The doors opened again, and when the next person arrived, she wanted to scream. It wasn’t expected. Taris was playing a cruel joke. Julianna returned her eyes to Taris. His perfect smile stretched while he leaned comfortably into his chair, waiting for her uncle to join them.
She rested her cuffed hands on the table. Doug sat down, unbuttoning his jacket as he did, to display the firearm holstered on his side. Taris lined the confiscated comms plates in a tidy row. Doug nodded. His lips pressed thin under his very dark and deep-set eyes. His brow crinkled, and though a walker held their age well, grey salted his once-dark hair. She believed him to look tired under his boyish grin. He cocked his head to one side and he fingered the closest comms.
‘We expected more from you, Julianna.’
She looked across. He was not all that he appeared; his charm on top disguised the evil underneath, and she knew well what lurked there. She was a product of childhood; she was damaged goods and he was the one she held responsible. The memories flooded back, the reasons she had run. He was the monster she feared on the dark nights alone in her room after her parents had abandoned her.
She straightened her back and lifted her chin. The couple of years since they last saw each other had dulled the pain and terror.
‘You expect my embrace and a kiss after labeling me a traitor to the cause?’ She paused. ‘I’m not a Rebel. You’re both mistaken.’
Taris shuffled the comms along the table like a pack of playing cards. ‘These were in your possession,’ Taris said. ‘If you’re not with the Rebellion, why the comms? And why work in a known Rebel location?’
‘Need to make rent somehow. Things are a little tight since the NWO takeover.’
‘We can dance this dance if you like, but having your cooperation will make things easier for you,’ Doug said.
Julianna leaned back, and her hands dropped into her lap. ‘I don’t know a damn thing,’ she said. ‘Maybe someone put them in my clothes when I was performing. Have you seen the show yet, Uncle? It’s very good…I believe to your liking, even.’ She cocked her head and smiled.
‘And you wouldn’t happen to know the access codes for them either?’ Taris asked. He stacked the glass sheets on top of each other again. The fine glass chink-chink-chinked against each other.
They don’t have the codes. That’s why I’m here. It’s why I’m alive.
Taris stopped the chinking.
She shook her head. ‘No. I would not.’
‘We’re halfway to decrypting them anyway,’ Taris said and he stood a comms up on its side, activating it intentionally. ‘The power grids are shutting down across the Sectors as we speak I might add...communication through the comms won’t be happening for the Rebellion anymore.’
Julianna shrugged. ‘A little unfair to the general population, don’t you think?’
‘Seen Madison lately?’ Doug asked.
She nodded at Taris. ‘Looking right at him.’
Taris stared unhappily at Doug and he let the comms fall flat against the other. He sighed heavily, shook his head and curled his lip into a sneer. He grabbed another comms.
Chink, clunk.
‘We know Caden’s contacted you,’ Doug said, careful to differentiate between the cousins’ names.
She shook her head again.
‘Useless. She’s not giving us a thing.’ Taris tapped his nails against the table and pushed out from his chair. He cut the air with his arm, gesturing angrily, and stood abruptly behind the table. ‘She won’t talk.’
Julianna watched. Taris and Doug were returning her stare. Already at a stalemate. Behind them, the pretty blonde in the HSD uniform shook her head and mouthed the word No.
‘I’ve no idea where Caden is.’ She looked at the girl. ‘The last I saw him was at camp 4.5.2.’
Taris turned in the blonde’s direction. ‘Seen his brother, Bastiaan, then?’ Taris asked. He returned his gaze to Julianna.
‘Didn’t know he had a brother,’ she said, and it was the truth. All eyes were on her, including the girl again. ‘Never heard of the man, never met the man.’
‘I’m done.’ Taris walked the length of the long table with his hand dragging along the polished wood. His other hand rested in his pocket, and Julianna saw as he ambled in her direction that he clutched the identification marker. He propped himself on the edge of the table beside her. His height towered over her; she’d forgotten until tonight how tall the man was. Taris folded his arms, and his hand held the dreaded cylinder with everything of her past and present recorded on it.
‘You think for a second, an asshole like Caden cares about you?’ Taris took the cylinder and pressed it between his two hands to study it nonchalantly. ‘He cares about himself. Everyone else he plays. So if you’re protecting him...’
‘Haven’t seen the man in a year.’
‘You keep saying. We lifted his prints from one of your comms. I can smell his scent on you.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You saw him tonight. Tell me, you did didn’t you?’ he smiled playfully
‘So fucking interrogate me then,’ she collapsed her head into her cuffed hands. The constant tug, tug, tugging at the walls of her mind was crumbling under his pressure. She shook her cupped head.
‘What about Isis?’ Taris glared at her.
‘Who’s Isis?’ she muttered, hoping her voice wouldn’t give her away. She glanced up. ‘Are you charging me formally?’
‘The list is long, with murder and treason topping your record.’
‘How decent, of you, Taz,’ she sat up, feigning interest. ‘And if I talk?
‘We’ll drop the murder charge, retrain you. Let you live.’
‘Don’t much like the way this place is being run.’ She dropped her hands again. ‘Do your worst.’
‘What about your mother?’ Taris asked.
Julianna felt herself frowning. If I’d been a man, he’d have me by the proverbial balls right now. His eyes danced, his posture slouched to meet her more directly, his neck tilted. The serpent within was coming o
ut. Her uncle’s attention solely studied her reaction. The pretty blonde in the corner mouthed the word No again when everyone looked away.
Julianna ignored her. ‘You know where she is?’
Doug smiled. ‘She’s in this building, waiting for your visit. Tell us what you know and we’ll let you see her.’
Doubt filled her mind.
She glanced at Doug, to Taris, they glanced back. She opened her mouth again. ‘No. I dance on the nightshift, sleep during the day—’
‘Nothing else to add?’ Taris asked.
‘That’s my life, over and over again,’ she said.
Taris released the identification marker from its tube, but it was the black briefcase that Doug accepted from one of the guards that caught her attention. Doug flicked the lock open and lifted a vial to the center of the table.
Julianna darted her eyes around the room, aware of the click-click of the marker’s outer wheel raising the needlepoint. The guards against the wall stepped in, waiting for their orders while Doug filled a syringe, and Taris stood beside her. Her eyes searched nervously, knowing the shit was deep and up to the eyeballs.
Taris stabbed the identification marker into her waist and she buckled as the microchip pushed under her skin, embedding itself. She fell heavily onto her back with her legs in the air and Taris on top, still holding the marker against her skin.
‘Got her?’ Doug asked.
She pushed at the hand against her waist. Taris threw the expired marker to his side and fought her anger, pinning her wrists against the carpet as she lashed out. His power was more than she remembered. His strength was heavy. Julianna felt a stirring in his loose pants against her waist, and she stopped fighting. His eyes sparkled and his lips parted. Her panic unlocked her mind. He was tuning in, listening, searching...
Shut off, shut off, shut off! She sucked in a deep breath and lay motionless beneath him. Think of a song, think of a freaking song!
‘In more ways than one.’ Taris loosened his grip.
Doug crouched beside them, cocking his head with his boyish charm again.
