“The board can choke on its sanctions,” he spat. “My men are coming with me.”
With an easiness usually reserved for tasks like tying up a boot or straightening a jacket, Matheson unholstered his shock baton. To someone other than the Warden it might have appeared casual, unthreatening.
“There’s no need for that,” Master Warden said in a low timbre.
“You’ll come alone?”
The Warden considered how much time they were wasting. He needed more security personnel in the Pit ASAP. No point bickering with this idiot at the expense of his team.
With a small wave of his hand, he signaled for his guards to stay aboard the shuttle.
“This way,” Matheson said, indicating the Warden should walk between the four convoy guardsmen.
“One thing, before we see the ever-so-gracious board,” Master Warden said, inching closer to Matheson. “Those animals in the Pit are growing more vicious every day. The only thing standing between them and all these people is me. We’re both men of security. I think you know the little games the board insists on playing are dangerous.”
Matheson said nothing, but his eyes held doubt. He might not have fully appreciated everything the Warden was saying, but he knew the board occupied a sheltered position. The politicians dabbled in power while shying away from the ugly bits.
“The security of this fleet is my only passion,” said the Warden. “Lead the way, son.”
Many sets of eyes tracked the party out of the bay. The Warden stiffened under the intensity of the collective stare. The gaze was part confusion, admiration, and dread. Some feared his influence, others wished he had more—would follow him alone at the drop of a hat.
If the board insisted on driving a wedge between itself and the Master Warden, it had to realize it was also drawing a line on the floor for its citizens. It was going to make the people pick a side. And as a wise man once said, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
The board heard the Warden’s planned speech, then dismissed him.
“We can’t honor the request,” Vega said.
“Well, we certainly can’t deny it,” Margarita countered. Vega’s knee jerked under the marble long table, and Margarita could tell her wife was resisting the urge to kick her. “There’s been an attack,” she said categorically.
“So? You can’t tell me a prisoner has never raised a hand to a guard before,” Vega said. She made a face at Margarita: How can you possibly be on the Warden’s side?
“Yes, all right, there have been stabbings and beatings and bitings. But that woman is on Hippocrates fighting for her life.”
“We need to give the Warden less power, not more. Send him more people, more weapons, and he’ll—”
“He’ll what?” Margarita asked haltingly. She’d interrupted Vega on purpose because she knew what the next words out of her mouth were going to be. He’ll be better equipped to come after our son.
Rodriguez ran a hand over his mouth, then steepled his fingers on the table. “We can give him the influx of security in the Pit and keep limiting him here. Our details, not his. Our schedules, not his. Our priorities, not his.”
“Who are we going to send? For how long?” Vega asked.
“It should be temporary. We can grow him more people if he really needs a permanent increase.”
“Waiting for a generation to mature is hardly what I’d call temporary,” said Vega. “And you didn’t answer me about who.”
“Volunteers?” asked the Education head.
“No, not volunteers,” said Margarita. “That’s exactly who we don’t want down there. Volunteers might be in favor of the Warden’s tactics.”
“It’s only one,” Vega said again. “One bad attack. Does it warrant a response from us? What if it’s just a ploy for more control?”
“A ploy? It’s not like he beat his own subwarden,” said Rodriguez.
The table fell silent.
No, Margarita thought. That’s a terrible—he couldn’t.
“She hasn’t regained consciousness yet,” Sailuk said quietly. “All we have to go on is the Master Warden’s report.”
“He did murder twelve people,” said Vega. “And if he didn’t beat his own subwarden, you can bet he’ll murder as many more in retribution. Do we want to give him more people to do it with, the roundups? He’ll spread the blood to our security personnel, make them part of his ‘justice’ machine. Will we want them back after that?”
A hush fell again. After some time, Rodriguez asked, “I’ve made up my mind. Shall we put it to a vote?” He was spurred on by nods around the table. “All right. All in favor of granting the Master Warden a division of convoy security personnel?”
The ayes did not have it.
“Madam secretary, prepare a report for the Warden,” said Rodriguez. “But don’t send it today. Send it at the end of the week. Give him a few days to cool.”
Ma’am awoke a few days later. She gave five numbers, and a description of a sixth assailant. The information went out, and though the board tried to contain it, to analyze it, it reached the Pit within minutes.
The Warden had friends in the convoy.
Nothing happened for a good long while. Hours passed. The shifts in the Pit rolled on. The attackers toiled at their usual jobs, convinced that Ma’am’s wounds were beyond repair. They were sure they’d killed her in the same casual way she’d killed a handful of their cellblock mates.
But then their workday ended. They settled down for bed.
And the Master Warden made his move.
Shouts. Lights. Whistles and thuds.
Rail sprang from his bunk, then froze. Half a second ago he’d been asleep. Now he wasn’t really awake, though. Just conscious, on autopilot, heart hammering in his chest and blood rushing in his ears. Someone in a black jumpsuit stiff-armed him aside.
The guard dragged Sweetcheeks off the top bunk and tossed him to the ground. With a yelp, Sweetcheeks tried to scramble to his feet, but the guard forced him to his knees.
Four other guards entered the room, batons sizzling with life. They yelled unintelligibly, but everyone got the message: Don’t move. Move and you’re dead.
After the initial burst of activity, everything calmed. The prisoners all stayed in bed, save Rail and Sweetcheeks. And only Sweetcheeks dared make a sound—a sad, strangled whimper.
With the room secure, in strode the Master Warden.
“You know,” he said conversationally, “I thought we all had an agreement. Do you remember that, Prisoner Zero-zero-eight-four-four? It wasn’t that long ago—nice day, lots of sunshine. We agreed that for every convoy member injured I’d take a life randomly. Well, someone has been hurt. Quite badly. But I don’t want to kill a random prisoner for that crime. You know why?”
Sweetcheeks covered his face, fingers shuddering against his parted lips. “Please,” he sobbed.
Rail had never seen Sweetcheeks like this—a pool of himself, seeping into the floor, trying to disappear. And he’d never see him like this again, he knew. After a moment, he’d never see him again at all.
Why did you go after her? Rail screamed inside his mind. You had to know they would kill you. Any idiot in the Pit knows that if you look at one of them sideways you’re done for. The only way to live is to take it, take the crap. Why didn’t you just lie down and take it?
“I asked you a question,” the Master Warden said. “Do you know why I won’t kill a random prisoner?”
“Please, please, please.” He said it over and over, blubbering, spittle flying from his lips.
“Because six guilty men are worth just as much,” the Warden said eventually. Wagging his fingers at the nearest guard, he indicated for the man to hand over the live baton. Why the Warden left his own baton dead in its holster, Rail wasn’t sure.
After making sure the weapon was on its highest setting, he approached Sweetcheeks. “Look at me,” he instructed.
As soon as he turned his face upward, the bat
on was upon him. But it did not strike cruelly. The Warden did not laugh as Rail had imagined he would. There was no delight in his eyes, or malice. This was a thing that needed done, and he was the one doing it.
Master Warden touched the tip of the blazing baton firmly to Sweetcheek’s forehead, and it was over in an instant. The prisoner seized and fell, a perfect disk burnt into his face like an oversized bindu.
Stillness settled over the room, a moment of silence passed.
“That’s the last one,” the Master Warden said as the guard lifted Sweetcheeks’ body from the floor. “Don’t forget to tell your simpering fellow inmates what happened tonight,” he instructed, then turned to Rail, whose inside’s shriveled on the spot. “You, back in your bu—”
The Warden lashed up and out, catching Rail’s chin with his free hand. He brought Rail’s face down to his, eyes narrowing.
Of the two, Rail was by far the taller man, but under the Warden’s gaze he felt like the smallest person on the planetoid.
Any moment the baton would come and Rail would die. He knew it. This was the end. He’d dared to stand in the wrong place at the wrong time and he would burn for it.
Cold sweat broke out across his forehead and his upper lip. Each extra second was a lifetime of agony.
Just get it over with.
“Sir, you wanted me to tell you when the official response from the board came in?” one guard asked, pressing his hand to his earpiece.
“Yes. What’s the verdict?”
“They’ve denied your request.”
The Warden moved, Rail flinched. The baton snapped off, and the Warden tossed it back to its owner.
“Damned idiots,” he swore, letting Rail go. “Back to sleep, everyone!” he ordered. “Sweet dreams.”
“What does the man want now?” Margarita asked Vega. “Every other week he’s calling for a special board meeting. Does he think we have nothing better to do than entertain him and his delusions of grandeur? I swear, if he calls himself Justice one more time . . .”
They rounded the corner and found a gaggle of people outside the situation room door. One man in glasses, whom Margarita didn’t recognize, thrust a ‘flex-sheet at them. “We have a petition, signed by five thousand crew members, demanding John Mahler be given whatever provisions he requests in order to assure—”
“Yeah, all right, thank you,” Margarita said, plucking the sheet from his fist. The two women pushed through the small throng.
“He’s doing more than you ever will to keep those criminals in their place!” said another man.
Several rallying cries followed.
“We need someone like him keeping an eye on us.”
“Do you know what kinds of sacrifices he’s had to make?”
“Give the man what he needs!”
“Thank you,” Vega said loudly. “We have your signatures, we’ll look it over.”
“You’re going to give us the brush-off, aren’t you? Like every other politician in the history of—”
“Look,” Margarita said. “You don’t like the way we do things? Elect someone else.”
The man with the glasses crossed his arms defiantly. “You’re a division head. We can’t replace you, can we?”
“So draw up another petition,” she spat, finally getting through to the door.
Both she and Vega let out heavy sighs of relief once in the situation room. The rest of the board were already inside. Apparently they’d refused to even glance at the petition, let alone take it.
Margarita shoved it into a folder for later.
A faint smattering of applause and a high-pitched woot from outside indicated the Master Warden had arrived. He entered with a smug sneer plastered on his face, but made no mention of the crowd.
As he settled himself, the board made their usual greetings and started the minutes and read off the agenda.
“Lights low, if you please,” the Master Warden said when he was ready. The slight smile had left his face, replaced by a grim line. From a ‘flex-sheet he transferred a few files onto the main wall monitor. Four adult faces, three men and one woman, stared out vacantly from the screen. The mug shots were cold and impersonal, blank people against a blank wall.
Margarita bit her lips, recognizing one of them instantly. Her heart raced. Vega clutched at her wife’s knee, digging her nails into the jumpsuit fabric.
“These are prisoners Zero-zero-six-five-nine, Zero-zero-eight-nine-three, Zero-zero-one-eight-one, and Zero-zero-five-seven-two. None of them are patently remarkable compared to the rest of the discontinued population. Their personal histories of violence are varied but not noteworthy. They’ve never had any problems meeting their mining quotas. And none of them have ever shared a dorm or a team.”
He paused, letting them digest the faces.
Margarita was in no mood to digest anything. She felt like she might vomit. Zero-zero-eight-nine-three looked so much like Diego, she half expected someone else on the board to point it out. Though she and Vega had tried to keep their son away from the board, a few of the members had met him once or twice.
“For the past few weeks I have scoured convoy records because something strange happened to me a while back. I saw one of these faces, but not in the Pit. I saw it in an elevator. On Mira.”
Sailuk spoke up. “One of the prisoners escaped?”
“Nothing so simple,” he said, cycling to a new set of pictures. “These are archived security stills, taken at different times over the last few months. This one is of myself and the face in question.”
It was an odd angle. The Master Warden and Diego stood side-by-side in a lift, the Warden’s guards behind them. Diego’s face was partially upturned—like he was talking to I.C.C.
“I didn’t know why I recognized the young man at the time. But then I encountered this prisoner during a disciplinary routine.” He brought the picture of eight-nine-three back. “And made the connection.”
Many of the board members sat back, at a loss. Stunned. Others leaned in, scrutinizing the images, unsure.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you have Discontinueds living aboard your ships. I was able to match these three prisoners to three more teenagers. Someone has placed sleeper agents amongst you. This is why I need more personnel. This is the worst security breach we’ve ever had.
“I need your permission to conduct a convoy-wide screening—order DNA tests to reveal all of the imposters. I will arrest these four for interrogation, but I also need extra computing power; a Discontinued’s testimony can’t be trusted, and I can’t go through all the records on my own. But I.C.C.—if patched through to me in the Pit—could help sort out who is responsible for the unsanctioned clones. Someone must be guiding them, gathering them, and we have to find out why. And how many there are. I don’t believe for a moment that it’s just these four.”
“I’m not sure,” said a rep from Aesop. “It’s hard to tell if these are the same people.”
“They are the same lines,” the Warden said, chewing the inside of his lip. “I have no doubt.”
“You say they’re children? And you want us to hand them over for interrogation? In the Pit?” Sailuk asked. “Absolutely not. If they’re in the convoy, then we’ll handle it.”
“Right, this is a convoy matter, not a Pit matter,” said Captain Rodriguez. “Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”
Mahler leaned forward, like he’d misheard them. “I said these infiltrators were Discontinued, that makes them my problem, not yours.”
“How do you know they’re infiltrators?” Margarita asked, trying to keep her voice calm. “Why couldn’t this be a replication mistake? Sounds more like a quality control problem than a criminal problem.”
The Master Warden pinched the bridge of his nose, right where his sunglasses sat. “Unbelievable. You people are so blind—”
“This is not a police state,” Sailuk cut him off. “We do not rip children from their beds and subject them to torture—because that’s wh
at you mean by interrogation, isn’t it?—on pure suspicion. Your evidence is a few grainy photographs fed into your rudimentary files by basic archive updates.”
“Look, I’m just here as a courtesy,” he said, “because by the laws that we have created, these are my people under my jurisdiction. I could have called on I.C.C. to have them rounded up and sent to me already, but since they’re on your ships—”
“You will not have these children ‘rounded up,’” Rodriguez said. “You are overstepping your bounds, sir. I suggest you return to the Pit and let us handle what is clearly a convoy matter.”
The Master Warden remained collected, though it was clear from the way he set his jaw that he would have liked nothing more than to grab his baton and beat the nearest chair to death. “You aren’t going to do anything, are you?”
“We will need to substantiate your claims. Prove that these children really are Discontinued.”
“And then?”
“That will be discussed when and if you are correct.”
Something in the Warden broke. Margarita saw it happen, clear as could be. Whatever smidgen of respect he’d still held for the board was now gone.
“I have lost track of Jamal,” I.C.C. told Diego.
“What? How?” He shrugged on the top half of his yellow jumpsuit and zipped up. The clock read 0900—half an hour until his shift started.
“I had been keeping track of Prisoner Zero-zero-eight-nine-three, which DNA records say is Jamal, via genetic tracers,” the AI explained. “Subscriptions for iodine and nano pills—to combat radiation poisoning and scrub the miner’s lungs—are frequently shipped from Hippocrates to the Pit. I sent a special capsule regiment to Jamal and was able to receive an occasional ping back through the Pit’s rudimentary computer system.”
Noumenon Page 25
