“His…work?” The tingling numbness had progressed to encompass Jess’s entire body. The room before her seemed to float in two dimensions, depthless and lacking in reality. She’d expected to come here and look at the video, perhaps help this Durand man confirm some information from her father’s laptop, but…
“Müller’s analysis of our solar system. Two days ago another cluster of Jovian meteors impacted the Iberian peninsula.”
“Don’t you have a lot of other people who can do that?”
“And whereas once we might also have considered whether the individual might also be a flight risk, for obvious reasons, that’s no longer considered relevant.”
“I don’t understand.”
Durand remained silent, but an expression blossomed on his face like he’d just bit into a lemon.
“Jesus,” Jess groaned. “You’re going to let him out of jail?”
“I oppose it, but we may have no choice.”
Jess’s feeling of a disconnect with reality grew. “But the evidence against him is overwhelming. You have the videos, you have all my father’s emails on his laptop that prove he was lying.”
“I cannot comment on an ongoing inquiry, as I am sure you understand. Any assessment of the evidence is for the Examining Justice. However, your statement is of critical importance.”
“And he killed Iain Radcliffe. In cold blood. I watched the footage this morning. It’s on the intranet. I doubt there is anyone in here who hasn’t seen it.”
“There is the suggestion that the footage has been altered.”
Jess’s heart skipped a beat. “That’s ridiculous. I was there.”
“All the more reason we press on with taking from you the most detailed statement we can. You have powerful friends, Ms. Rollins, people who are on your side. Despite Dr. Müller’s high position, I can assure you this is being taken extremely seriously.”
“He can work from custody, can’t he?” Jess’s voice, thin and desperate, sounded like it was coming from someone else’s mouth. “He’s a murderer. He killed my family. He killed…I mean…you can’t just—”
“I propose we meet each day this week,” Durand continued. “For now, I would like you to undertake a video interview that will form the first basis of your evidence. Tomorrow, I will ask you more detailed questions. It is not my task to catch you out, merely to ensure your account is as accurate as it can be. Do you understand?”
She nodded numbly.
“Then let’s begin.”
Two hours after she entered, Jess left Michel Durand’s office.
Dazed relief.
Exhausted beyond words she had to describe, and she was tired of words. The emotion of going over everything that had happened, had reopened wounds inside her that weren’t even close to being healed. Gaping wounds that gushed her raw emotions.
“If they let that bastard out, I’m going to kill him…” she muttered as she wandered aimlessly through the rat’s maze of corridors, ignoring her tablet’s map app. It was warm and soft in here, but some things were better on the outside. Outside of these walls, she could finish Müller without hesitation. Judge, jury and executioner. The man needed no trial. He was a monster.
She stopped in her tracks in front of a blank wall. A dead end.
Before Jess could even check her tablet, a pleasant-and familiar voice said: “This way.”
The smiling and sharp-suited image of Stephanie appeared on the wall in front of her. The digital helper walked from one wall panel to the next, and stopped to wait.
Shaking her head, Jess followed.
A few minutes later she was back “outside,” under the simulated crisp blue sky projected on the ceiling dome a few hundred feet overhead. Stephanie had bid her farewell at the final wall panel leading out of the office complex. Jess walked aimlessly through an elegant public garden. Songbirds fluttered through pruned bushes.
“Jessica Rollins. Please, can I speak to you?”
A girl ran toward her, barely more than a teenager. Breathlessly, the girl held out a hand to shake. Jess took it.
“My name is Abbie Barnes. I’m a journalist with New Affairs magazine.”
The girl’s hand was soft, and she smelled of strong soap. A dizzying vertigo gripped Jess’s already churning stomach. This place was so unreal. “A magazine?”
The girl cast her eyes down. “It’s not a real magazine. I mean, it will be. It’s important to keep the fourth estate alive, don’t you think? I think it is. I was studying journalism when my dad, well my stepdad, and he—”
“Wait, you emailed me, right?”
“I want to get your side, let people know what really happened.” Abbie took a step back and stood up straight to look Jess in the eye.
“I’ve been busy. To be honest, I can barely accept that email exists at all, never mind all this.” Jess waved one hand at the blue sky. The girl looked earnest enough, but the last thing Jess could handle right now was rehashing everything again. “I really appreciate your email, but I can’t right now.”
Abbie Barnes nodded and beamed an energetic smile. “You’ve had quite an impact since you arrived.”
Jess strode past her. “I’d much rather be left alone.”
Abbie followed. “Even though you’ve just given a statement to Michel Durand?”
“Journalists don’t change much, do they?”
“People are afraid, and when they’re afraid they let those who govern do unconscionable things in order to feel protected and safe. They close their eyes to the truth.”
“You have no idea what’s happening outside, kid. Better it stays that way.”
“I do want to know.”
“No, you don’t. You just want to play journalist 'cause you’re bored.”
“That’s not fair.”
“There’s a lot of that going around. Get used to it.”
“I can help.”
Jess stopped and bowed her head. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what is it you want from me? I’d like to go back to my quarters.”
“I want to know what really happened. I want to know what you think Dr. Müller was really hiding. I think everyone here has a right to know.”
“You already know. You all saw the videos, right?”
“There’s always more to it, Jess. There are those who don’t believe we know everything of what Dr. Müller has been concealing from the world. He has considerable influence and support across the Sanctuary system. We don’t believe there will be an inquiry at all.”
Jess snorted and kept walking. “And how could you help?”
Abbie hesitated. “My stepdad is the senior military commander here.”
That got Jess’s attention.
“Come and have a drink with me,” Abbie said, seeing the change in Jess’s eyes. “Everything you say can be off the record, if you like. Just please, let’s talk.”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“A drink?”
“Coffee?”
Behind Abbie, two young children chased each other around one of the manicured bushed. About the same age as Hector. “Okay, a coffee,” Jess agreed.
Abbie led her to the other side of the gardens to a seating area beside a small coffee shop. A smiling waitress came out to take their order. A row of newly-planted orange trees lined the cobblestone terrace. A fountain gushed glistening spray that arced upward and hissed as it rained down into the koi-fished filled basin. Two tables down, a man in a sport jacket sipped a latte and picked at a croissant. It felt like an all-inclusive resort in Bermuda Jess had once been to with an old boyfriend. She hated all-inclusive resorts.
Abbie’s voice brought her back to the table. “When did you first—”
“Do you know what’s happening in the United States?” Jess interrupted. “Is there any word from the White House or the military? Your accent is American, right?”
Abbie’s lips pressed together before she replied: “Communication with the outsi
de is restricted. You know that. There’s a lockdown period that was agreed to before Nomad to protect the installation, and the Administrative Council takes breaches of security extremely seriously.”
“Can you try to find out?”
“If you can help me, I can try.”
“Then say what you have to say.”
“There are those who want to use Durand’s inquiry as a catalyst for a wider investigation into Dr. Müller and those who support him.”
Jess sat back. This girl was serious. Big words. And clever.
“We would like some pointed questions to be put to him,” Abbie continued, “and for him to be judicially compelled to answer them.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Your support would go a long way to achieving that aim.”
“So you want my support.”
“I want, well, you’re—”
The waitress returned with two steaming coffees and a small china cup of milk, and Abbie blushed and waited for her to leave.
“What’s wrong?” Jess asked.
“I’m just shy. It’s not every day you get to meet your hero.”
It was Jess’s turn to blush. She picked up her cup of coffee and marveled at it. “Don’t you have rationing or something? And how do you pay for stuff?”
“Everyone has a quota, and there is a payment system. We have jobs. Didn’t anyone explain…?”
“I guess there have been more important things.” Jess took a sip. The coffee was rich. Delicious. She wished it were horrible. “Now, what are you trying to do?”
Abbie took a deep breath. “This place is supposed to be an ark for humanity, and I intend to do my part. San EU is a constitutional democracy, even if that sounds silly to you.”
“It doesn’t sound silly,” Jess said softly.
“Freedom of speech can be curtailed on national security grounds.” Abbie’s smile grew as her confidence gained. “The world is different now, and yes, we are the lucky ones. But democracy requires the people to be informed and the unadulterated communication of facts has a very significant role to play in San EU, possibly more so than ever before in human history. Dr. Müller has the ability to control events in here, even from his place in custody, and there are those of us who want to make sure that doesn’t happen, or at least make him accountable…”
Her voice trailed off, her sentence unfinished, as she looked over Jess’s shoulder.
Two men clad in the coal-black uniforms of the San EU military passed by their table. Hanging from single-point harnesses were black SOPMOD M4 carbines. They chatted as they walked, seeming casual, but Jess noticed the precision in their movements, the concentration on their faces.
“This whole facility is on a knife edge,” Abbie whispered as the soldiers turned a corner. “If there comes a point where Dr. Müller controls the Administrative Council, he controls this whole complex.”
Jess finished her coffee and put the cup down carefully. “Which is why I suggest you let this Durand guy do his job. Be thankful for what you have, Abbie, that you’re alive in here. You don’t want to be outside, let me tell you. I’m tired right now, though. We can talk later.”
She stood, about to leave, but then asked: “You said your dad was head of the military. What’s his name?”
“Eugene,” Abbie replied. “General Eugene Marshall.”
Chapter 4
Sanctuary Europe
“We were in touch with them almost every day,” Jess said, then leaned in closer to the tablet resting on her square plastic dining room table. “In the Allegheny Mountains, six-six-oh-four kilohertz.”
“I don’t have any information for you,” the on-screen woman replied.
It was Stephanie, Michel Durand’s digital assistant. She was dressed in a low-cut black suit today, but her hair still done in a tight bun. Who decided on the fashion sense for digital assistants?
“Could you at least ask them?”
“I will ask,” the machine replied. “I am asking again right now.”
“Can’t I speak to a real person?”
Stephanie smiled ingratiatingly at the request, and Jess wondered if the machine was actually trying to be patronizing. “I am relaying all of your requests as you speak them,” it answered. “And you understand that Mr. Durand’s office must be the one making such requests.”
“We had another bunch of survivors in Florida—”
“Yes, we know.”
“Who’s ‘we’ exactly?”
“I am speaking using the plural noun to indicate that both myself and the Administrative Council are aware of these group designations already.”
“So then you’ve contacted them. The survivor groups?”
Stephanie remained silent.
“Can you at least tell me they’re alive?”
“I’m sorry, Jessica.”
“You mean, sorry, like they’re dead?”
“That I can’t give you any more information.”
Jess groaned aloud in frustration and stood, then almost fell over as her left leg kicked her back three feet. Three days on this new robotic prosthetic and it had almost killed her a dozen times already. It was like a spring-loaded gun. She was used to her old passive prosthetics, and she could turn this on off so it wasn’t active, but the truth was she kind of enjoyed the challenge of trying to rewire her brain. It gave her something to focus on.
At the other side of the table, Giovanni had his survivor log books and papers scattered, and beside that, the old shortwave radio—useless down here—that had been picked up with him from the ice. He’d changed the artwork on the walls to old Italian masters. These weren’t pictures hanging on the walls, as most of the walls here were displays, too. A popular wall-display theme was rolling outdoor hills and distant mountaintops, but this made Jess feel disoriented. If she was underground, she wanted to know she was underground.
“What about Al-Jawf, that’s critical, it’s—” Jess waved her hands at Giovanni, who held up a scrap of paper with numbers on it. “—seven-four-four-two kilohertz. Ain Salah is the contact, can’t you just tell him that we’re okay, even if you don’t say where or who?”
“I am very sorry—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Jess pushed the off button on the tablet.
“That was rude.” Giovanni’s eyebrows raised. He collected his papers together.
“Of her? No kidding.”
“I meant you. Cutting off the connection without saying goodbye.”
“It’s a goddamn machine, Giovanni, even if it has a pretty face.” Jess paced around the ten-foot by ten-foot cubicle they called their living room, her left leg going up and down like a pogo stick. “We’ve got to get in touch with Ain Salah. Last time I spoke to him, I said I had my father’s data, told him how critical it was. He must think we’re dead.”
“I’m sure he has found other things to worry about. A lot of people have disappeared out there. We were just one more lost voice to him.”
Hector was curled in a corner, wrapped in blankets, playing a game on another tablet. They’d each been given one, and Jess wondered if they were really for their benefit, or simply surveillance devices. Her leg slipped as she rounded the corner and almost fell into him. The boy recoiled.
“Slow down.” Giovanni held out one hand to her.
But Jess couldn’t stop circling. “So that’s what you think? That we were just another lost voice? That’s all this was?”
“I’m just saying—”
“Ufuk Erdogmus hasn’t even been able to tell me if there’s a Sanctuary America. He just babbles about Cheyenne Mountain, how the Americans prepared for this sort of thing somehow. Wasn’t he one of the designers of this place? He’s American too, even if he was born in Turkey.”
“Jessica—”
“And Massarra. Why didn’t Ufuk pick up Massarra when he rescued us? He got them to bring in the whole Jollie Roger crew, Ballie Booker and all of them.”
“This was a special case.�
��
“Ufuk has resources out there. He said he does. His own private army, I bet, but he won’t even tell us if they’re in contact with America.”
“They’re paying very close attention right now. Ufuk obviously can’t say anything. There are rules.”
“Screw the rules. I want to get back outside.”
Giovanni reached further out and grabbed her arm on this pass. “Stop. Do you hear what you are saying? We will find out about America. Be patient. One thing at a time.”
From the corner of the room, Hector had retreated into a fetal ball, his eyes wide and fixed on Jessica.
She exhaled to release the boiling emotions frothing inside of her gut. “I didn’t mean that, about going outside.” She slumped down at the table, closed her eyes and counted backward from ten to one in her head, then opened her eyes and smiled at Hector. “Maybe we should do a Christmas Calendar? What do you think?”
“A what?” Giovanni asked.
“You know. One of those December calendars with all the twenty-four days before Christmas on them. Behind each day is a chocolate. Today’s what, the second of December?”
“I think so…” Giovanni replied slowly.
“Wait, you guys celebrate Christmas, right? You’re Catholic? Aren’t all Italians Catholic?”
“We celebrate Christmas, yes, but this holiday chocolate thing?”
“We’ll make one.” Jess affected an enthusiastic grin. “Hector, you like chocolates? Yes? Chocolates.” She mimed putting something delicious into her mouth.
The boy relaxed, nodded, and returned to the game on his tablet.
“There’s something else,” Jess said to Giovanni. “There’s a journalist who’s been speaking to me. Abbie Barnes. Or Barnes-Marshall, I think is her surname. She doesn’t trust Müller—she thinks he’s hiding something. She’s the daughter of the military commander.”
“A journalist? Are you serious?”
“She’s just a kid, really. Trying to keep the fourth estate alive, that’s what she said. I don’t know, but I have to do something. Every day I keep on banging my head against a wall, trying to find out what’s happening. And every day I get nowhere, and I’m not sure I can keep waiting like this.”
Resistance (Nomad Book 3) Page 4
