Sarge enters first, carrying two folding metal chairs. He places one directly in front of me, and sits on the other in the front left corner of the room, to the side of the mirror. His bald head gleams in the strong light, and his dark eyes glitter with some emotion I can’t read. Is it eagerness? Determination? As he makes eye contact with me, a sudden manic grin cleaves his face. I should be used to that habit by now, but here in this room, it’s shockingly out of place.
“Look at you, Blue,” he says. The blue streaks in my hair have mostly faded, but my nickname from boot camp has stuck.
I don’t respond, and beneath his mustache, Sarge’s smile vanishes as quickly as it appeared.
A tall, thin man with wispy hair so colorless it’s almost transparent enters the room. He’s wheeling a stainless steel trolley loaded with the instruments I saw put to nauseating use in that interrogation footage. He positions himself behind me — all the better to unnerve me — and gives a phlegmy clearing of his throat. I shudder.
Last to enter is ASTA chief Roberta Roth. She is smartly dressed, as always, from her crocodile-skin high-heeled shoes to her black business suit, but she removes her jacket, hanging it neatly over the chair back, before she sits down directly in front of me. She unbuttons the cuffs of her white blouse and rolls up the sleeves in neat folds, as if she plans to get busy with some gardening. No doubt she intends digging inside of me. Her stark, asymmetrical bob of sleek, black hair dips as she leans forward to smooth her skirt over her knees, and I get a flash of its iridescent, pokeweed-berry-purple underside.
“Mr. Smith.” She nods a greeting to the man behind me and then turns her attention to me. “Well, well, well,” she says. Her small mouth, stained with crimson lipstick, pulls into a tight, disapproving line.
“Where am I? What’s happening here?”
“You are here, Miss Jinx E. James, to be debriefed on today’s events in the presence of these witnesses.” She extends her manicured hands in the direction of Sarge and the man who may or may not be called Mr. Smith. Her nails are painted the same poisonous color as the underside of her hair.
“By you? Why not by the authorities?”
“We are the official authority. We have been mandated by the Civil Security Command of the Government of the Southern Sector, under President Alex Hawke, to question persons who are suspected of being involved in subversive activities. Especially when such persons are our own assets in our training division.”
Did that mean that ASTA had other divisions? What else might they be up to apart from using virtual reality games as a way to recruit talented teens, and then training them to become specialists in spying, intelligence analysis, marksmanship, operations management and who knew what other paramilitary skills?
“Can I have a lawyer?” I ask.
I know what the answer will be, but I want to appear ignorant and birdbrained. I want them to underestimate me.
Sarge gives a sharp bark of laughter, there is a wet sniff from Mr. Smith, and Roth shakes her head.
“In terms of Emergency Ordinance 53.2.1 of the Civil Safety and Protection Act, we are permitted to detain you for a period of twenty-one days, without trial or legal representation, in order to interview you.”
Question. Debrief. Interview. They make it sound like a civilized process, but I know better.
“And so, cadet JJ20027, let us commence your interview.” She extracts a folded sheet of paper from her jacket pocket, opens it and scans it. “First question: how precisely did you wind up here?”
“I was driven here, Ms. Roth. In a van, from the sound of it.”
She snaps out a hand and slaps me, hard, across my already bloodied cheek. It happens so fast, I’m stunned — until the sharp stinging confirms that she actually did strike me. My eyes well. Jeez, if I’m reduced to tears by a simple slap, then Mr. Smith won’t need to resort to his instruments.
“Don’t give me any sass, young lady. I want straight answers.”
I wonder if I am now seeing the real Ms. Roth. There is no hint of the compassion or friendliness she’s shown me in the last few months. In her dark eyes, I now see only cold, shrewd suspicion.
This tight-lipped woman has misled me about many things — including the way my father actually died — in order to manipulate me into functioning as the best little shooter in the Southern Sector. But she’s unaware that I know that truth, that her deceit has made me determined to outwit her.
I rub a shoulder against my burning cheek and ask, “What do you want to know? I don’t know why I’m here, I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“We both know that’s not true.” Roth examines the palm of her hand. Is it stinging, like my face? “Why don’t we begin with you telling me all about your relationship with young Mr. Quinn O’Riley?”
“Him!” I channel all the wounded outrage I am feeling from her humiliating slap into my voice.
“Yes, him.”
“I’ll tell you all about him. He’s a jerk! Here I sit on a chair being slapped in the face and where’s he? Tell me that? I hate him!” The emotion comes easily — it’s a relief to let out some of the pressure.
“When did you first meet him?”
“He was on the same transport as me on the day we all came to the ASTA compound.”
“You didn’t know him before that?” Roth narrows her eyes at me as if trying to peer into my brain.
“Huh? What? No.” I wasn’t expecting that question, but it works to my advantage. My surprise is so genuine that Roth leans back into her chair, relaxing fractionally.
I catch a whiff of her fragrance. It’s cloying and sweet, and catches in my throat. If deception had a scent, this is how it would smell.
“Go on,” Roth says.
“I thought he was cute, I liked him. I thought he felt the same way about me. So we … hooked up.”
“With a member of the intel unit, even though you were advised to stick to socializing with members of your own unit?”
From his position at the front of the room, Sarge says, “I did warn you, Blue.” He shakes his head at what he once called my pigheadedness.
“You were right, Sarge.” I’m tempted to hang my head, as if in shame at my own foolishness, but maybe that would be overdoing it. I settle for pulling my mouth into a sour twist.
“Why couldn’t you have hooked up with, say, Bruce?” he asks.
Bruce, gung-ho cadet sniper and unthinking patriot, had me in the center of his romantic crosshairs from the first time we met. But I had eyes only for Quinn, which made Bruce instantly hate him. Even if I had never met Quinn, however, I could never have dated Bruce. I don’t know how to respond to Sarge’s question, so I just shrug.
“Back to Quinn,” says Roth, consulting her list of questions again. “What did he tell you?”
“He told me he loved me! He told me he’d never felt this way about a girl before, that I was beautiful and special and —”
“What did he tell you about the rebels?”
Roth, I notice, gets irritated every time I lay on the emo teen angst. I store that byte of information in my brain.
“Nothing,” I lie.
“Nothing,” Roth repeats, and her voice is thin and soft. It raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
She wipes one edge of her mouth with a long, purple nail. Behind me, Smith rattles his trolley. Roth holds up a hand, as if to stay an attack dog, then looks back at me.
“He said nothing about his views on the government and the opposition?”
“Oh, he said lots about that. He said that our civil rights were being eroded by the government’s new repressive measures, that we no longer had real freedom of speech or movement or reproduction, and that we should protest against our email and phone calls and web activity being monitored — stuff like that. But nothing about any rebels.”
“Did he say how we should all be protesting against the new measures?”
“No. I just figured he meant to sign web petitions, or maybe go on m
arches.”
“Petitions and marches?” She lets the words, heavy with incredulity, hang in the air. I nod several times, like a pet Robodog responding to a voice command. “And what did he tell you about Connor O’Riley?”
“He said Connor was his older brother.”
She moves suddenly, and I flinch, expecting another slap. But she merely shoves her face so close to mine that I see how her lipstick is bleeding into the lines that rise vertically from her upper lip. “Miss James, do not waste my time or insult my intelligence. You are already in an enormous amount of trouble, and I suggest you do not make matters worse for yourself by playing me for a fool, or by being obstinate to the point of idiocy.” She says the words in a rush. Her nostrils flare as she takes a deep breath before continuing more slowly. “Now, what did he say about his brother?” She speaks each word distinctly, as threateningly as if she were planning to rip me apart limb by limb.
Perhaps she is.
Chapter 3
The fight
When I answer Roberta Roth, I try to make my voice sound small and cowed. I try not to let the calculation behind the careful choice of every word show on my face.
“Quinn said his brother was with the civil libs, that he disapproved of how the government was taking away individual liberties. And that we should open the borders again, and fight for our rights of free speech and stuff.”
I am sticking faithfully to my prepared lines. These are things I can tell them about Connor and his kind, because they must already know at least this much about him.
But there are other things I must not reveal that either the rebels or I know, suspicions I must not voice — such as their belief that rat fever, while lethal, is not nearly as infectious as the government would have us believe, that it’s transmitted only by direct contact with bodily fluids, or bites from infected critters. Or people. If they find out I know this, they will probably keep me detained forever to prevent me spreading the stories.
“‘Fight’? How?” asks Roth.
“Vote for the Civil Libs, I guess, I don’t know.”
“What else do you know about Connor O’Riley?”
“Nothing. I never spoke to the guy. I never even met him until today” — this much is completely true — “when I shot him with a tranq-dart under duress and at the direct instruction of my Unit Commander.” I shoot an accusing glare at Sarge.
“I want to know exactly what happened today, starting with you submitting your resignation to Sarge this morning.”
Was that only this morning? It seems like a lifetime has passed in just the few hours since.
“Well, I told Sarge I wanted out.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Yes, why did you want to leave the sniping unit when you were, by all accounts, its most skilled member?”
“Um …” I stall for time, hoping it looks like I am trying to hide something. I am trying to hide something — many things — but this, again, is something I am sure they already know. I will give it to them, but not too easily. “I was never … comfortable … with shooting live creatures.”
“Sarge says you overcame your reluctance.” Roth glances over her shoulder for verification. Sarge shrugs and nods.
“I wouldn’t say that. I mean, I forced myself to shoot them, but I never liked it, I was still reluctant.”
Roth stares at me, holding the silence. I lift my bound hands to wipe sweat off my forehead.
“But then when we had to start shooting people” — another glance between Roth and Sarge — “suspects and M&Ms — that just freaked me out.”
“You weren’t shooting them. You were darting them with tranquilizers. That’s a big difference.”
I nod grudgingly, conceding the point.
“You darted the suspects so that they could be brought in for questioning.”
I allow my shoulders to tense up fractionally in response to her last word.
“And,” she continues, “you darted the infected persons so that they could be brought in for palliative treatment, allowing them to have a peaceful and pain-free passing, and giving their families a chance to say goodbye.”
“I know, I know,” I say, sagging in my chair. “But it still freaked me out. I had flashbacks and nightmares, and I felt sick all of the time.”
“But you were still coping. Then, all of a sudden this morning, it suddenly becomes too much for you and you just have to quit?”
I drop my head and stare at my lap, ease a finger under the plastic ties around my wrists and try to push them off the steel ID band, but they’re too tight to budge.
“Look at me,” Roth commands.
When I don’t lift my head, she slaps me again. Same side, worse pain. I look up at her, blinking.
“Tell me what, or who, made you change your mind.”
“Please,” I beg, my eyes brimming. “I can’t … I don’t want to …”
“Tell me!” she shouts the words.
There’s a phlegmy cough from behind me.
“I don’t want to betray him.”
“Whom?”
“Quinn.” My voice is a whisper.
“It’s not betrayal when you’re being a patriot. What you know is vital for this country and its citizens. You can’t remain silent in order to protect insurgents.” Her eyes glitter, and she speaks the words fiercely.
When I don’t respond, Sarge sighs and says, “Blue, the problem with you is you’ve always been too soft. People like you live in a dream world where everything is fair and people play nice. You have no idea what’s actually going on, the harsh realities of what these terrorists are doing, and planning to do, to our nation. And the rebels are making it easier for them to do that. We have to do what it takes to take care of them.”
I can’t stop myself from asking, “Take care of who?”
“Whoever stands in the way of us defeating the terrorists. This is a war, not a game. And the ends justify the means, Blue, you got to see that.”
I say nothing.
Roth tsks and says, “Such loyalty. I wonder — has Quinn been as loyal to you?”
Ouch. Got me with that one.
Quinn believes the worst of me. He thinks I deceived him about the true nature of my job, that I lulled him into a false sense of security by pretending to love him, and that I then betrayed him and his rebel brother to the authorities.
I pause, then murmur, “Okay. So he showed me some stuff.”
“Yes? What?”
“He showed me, on his phone, some video footage. Of a suspect, a guy I’d darted, being interrogated. Being … tortured.” I say this like it’s the biggest secret I know, but the distress in my voice is not feigned. The video of the man being beaten and shocked and water-boarded was horrific. Those very things might lie ahead for me.
Roth is still leaning forward, still listening intently.
“After I saw that, after I knew what happened to the people I helped bring in, I just couldn’t do it anymore.” I glance at Sarge, who rolls his eyes at me.
“You always were a bleeding-heart softie, princess,” he says with a sigh.
“So I quit.”
Roth slumps back into her chair. I can almost hear what she’s thinking: That’s it? That’s all you’ve got for me?
She must be disappointed, because for sure Leya would already have told her that I’d seen that footage. I wipe my eyes on the backs of my hands and stare at the floor, sniffling.
“What happened today, on the takedown?” Roth asks.
“Sarge said I had to go on a mission this afternoon. But when I got there, I saw Quinn. He was walking with his brother, and his brother was the target.”
“And?”
“I didn’t want to take down Quinn’s brother. I felt guilty. I mean” — I let my voice become outraged-teen again — “just last night he told me he loved me! The liar! He actually said he loved me when really he —”
“Spare me the dramatics,” Roth
snaps. “What happened out on the mission?”
“Bruce threatened to shoot Quinn. He hates Quinn, he’s been trying to get into my pants ever since I arrived here! You should be questioning him — that can hardly be proper procedure, to threaten murder.”
“We will, of course, be speaking to Bruce. Checking to see whether your accounts tally.”
Great. Something else to worry about. What spin will Bruce put on proceedings?
“Anyway, so Bruce said he’d kill Quinn — kill them both — unless I dropped Connor. So then I did. See? I did what I was told, I followed orders.”
I’d followed my instincts. Given a choice to tranq-dart Connor so that he could be captured by the authorities, or risk having Bruce shoot Quinn with live ammo and possibly even kill him, I’d taken Connor down. So if this is the official detention and interrogation center, then there’s a good chance Connor is in this building, possibly even being tortured with “enhanced interrogation techniques” at this very moment.
And that’s my fault.
But although neither of them knows it, the fact that both Connor and Quinn are alive, and that Quinn is — I hope — free, is due to me too.
“I just followed orders, and now I sit here being given the third degree.”
“This, Miss James,” says Roth, with a significant glance to the man behind me, “is very far from the third degree. As you will soon find out.”
Chapter 4
Coffee break
I swallow hard. I have no idea how I will find the courage to endure what’s coming.
“Please continue,” says Roth, pushing her wings of hair behind her ears. All the better to hear me with.
“Well, Connor collapsed on the sidewalk and was hauled off to who-knows-where.” I pause, but neither Roth nor Sarge gives any helpful confirmation that he might be in this very building. “And then Quinn tried to run, but Bruce hauled him into the van, and then we were taken back to ASTA. With Quinn shouting at me all the way, and telling me to go to hell, and kicking me!” I stick out my bruised shin to show her, but Roth doesn’t spare it a glance. “So I shot him with the dart gun, too, to subdue him.” To keep him safe. “See? I shot him, too! Then we got to ASTA and Sarge got Bruce and Leya to drag Quinn off to his quarters, to detain him there.”
The Recoil Trilogy 3 Book Boxed Set: Including Recoil, Refuse and Rebel Page 23
