After the Red Rain

by Lyga, Barry

  “Look, Deedra,” Markard said, returning to her line of sight, “we know that you were friends with Rose. And we’re not saying that you were involved in any of his crimes, but maybe you saw something. Or heard something. Or maybe he said something that you didn’t really pay attention to at the time, but now…” He shrugged. “Maybe now it makes sense, hmm?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” It was only half a lie, really. Markard’s question was so broad that it could have meant anything or nothing.

  Markard grimaced, the expression of a man chewing something rancid. “We have reason to believe that Rose may have had access to certain… technology. During his prison break, he exhibited certain… Well, the vids aren’t entirely clear. Too many bodies, too much motion. Smoke. Confusion. But Rose was doing things that no human being can do.”

  No human being. And no plant, either. But when you put them together…

  “We’re not sure exactly what the nature of his, well, I guess augmentation would be the best word. We’re not sure of the nature of his augmentation.” Markard leaned in, urgent. “Deedra, a preliminary examination of his body found no recognizable tech. But there was some strange biological matter. And that makes us think he’s been genetically modified.”

  Like a turkey steak, Deidre thought, and suppressed a sudden, frightful giggle.

  “And that sort of modification… it goes far, far beyond anything we’ve ever seen. If other Territories have mastered this kind of technology, well…” He fanned out his hands, helpless. “You want to keep the Territory safe, don’t you? You have friends here. Help us, Deedra.”

  “I don’t know anything,” she insisted. Rose’s body. They had Rose’s body. They would learn everything anyway.

  “This is a hard world,” Markard said to her with some measure of sympathy. “Don’t make it harder for yourself.”

  From beyond Markard, Max Ludo cleared his throat and spoke very slowly and clearly, much more calmly than he had so far.

  That calm made it all the more terrifying.

  “If you don’t start talking,” he said, “I’m going to begin cutting things off you.”

  Deedra nodded as though reminding herself of an errand. “Well, then, you should get your knives,” she told him.

  Markard stepped outside the interrogation room with the Magistrate, under the pretext of giving the threat some time to sink in. In reality, he needed a recess himself—his adrenaline had spiked during the prison break and kept him afloat in the hours after, but he was crashing now. And Max Ludo’s ridiculous threats weren’t helping at all. The man had no idea how to build a rapport with a suspect, how to insinuate himself into her psyche, how to turn her thoughts inside out. In short, how to interrogate. Markard felt as if he were working not with one hand tied behind his back but, rather, with an extra, third hand. One that did whatever the hell it wanted.

  “You’re not getting anything out of her!” Ludo complained. “That bitch helped murder my boy and is setting us up for an invasion and you’re treating her like a kid!”

  “Magistrate, my pardon, but I’ve cleared a lot of cases.” Markard chose his words carefully. “I know my methods may seem slow to you, but—”

  “Slow is exactly the problem.” Ludo stomped his foot. “We don’t have time, Markard. They shot up that Rose kid with some kind of drug cocktail that made him something more than human. Can you imagine an entire army of those creatures coming across the border into our Territory? Because that’s what we’re up against, I’m sure of it now. Dalcord’s been preparing for this all along, and we need to be ready.”

  Markard had witnessed Rose’s physical prowess. The idea of an army of such beings terrified him, but he was professional enough not to show it.

  “I understand, Magistrate.”

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong—we’re not totally defenseless. I’ve been stockpiling for years. All sorts of things. Like fossil fuels.”

  This time Markard couldn’t suppress his reaction, but fortunately the Magistrate was gazing upward, lost in his own thoughts. There were rumors of government hoards of oil and gasoline, but he’d always imagined them to be urban legends.

  “I had to do it,” Ludo went on. “For just such an occasion. Just in case of war.” He shrugged. “Ever seen a car, Superior Inspector? A running one?”

  “No, Magistrate.”

  Ludo’s expression softened for a moment. “It really is an amazing thing, Markard. They’re noisy, for one thing. Big buzzing, rattling sounds. And the exhaust! Oh, my, the exhaust…” He shook his head and stared off for a moment before snapping out of it.

  “Anyway,” the Magistrate said, “my point is this: I will do whatever it takes to protect this Territory. From enemies without and within. Do you understand, Markard?”

  “I do, Magistrate.”

  “That girl”—he jabbed a finger at the door to the interrogation room—“knows something. I don’t believe in the sorts of coincidence that would land her in our laps innocently. Do you?”

  Markard had to admit he didn’t. “But, Magistrate, with a little time I’m sure I can connect to her and get her to—”

  “We don’t have time!” Ludo exploded. “There could be a legion of freaks massing on our borders as we speak!” He flexed his fingers, seeking something to crush. “You want to coddle her and coax answers out of her? We need to beat them out of her. Now.”

  Markard chose his words carefully. Assuming the Ward girl had answers—which he did—the best way to get them out of her was not through random violence. Especially the sort Max Ludo excelled at and preferred. If he let the Magistrate loose in there, the girl would be dead or unconscious within a half hour. She probably had a concussion already, just from the repeated blows to her head he’d witnessed.

  “I understand the urgency, Magistrate, but in my experience, physical violence can often lead to misinformation or even to—”

  Ludo turned away from him. “Screw this. I’m not wasting time or energy on her. That was the mistake we made with the pretty boy—tried to get him to talk the old way. We’ll do with her what we should have done with him all along: Pump her full of SpeakTruth and get her to talk.”

  SpeakTruth. Markard had heard of it, of course, but had never used it. It was a powerful combination of hallucinogen and antidepressant. The subject more than felt compelled to tell the truth; he or she wanted to tell the truth. The drug altered moods and brain chemistry in radical, poorly understood ways, which was probably why Ludo hadn’t used it on Rose right from the start: In some cases, it resulted in permanent brain damage. In others, death. Either way, Rose would have provided no more information.

  Alarmed, Markard spoke up: “Magistrate! That’s highly dangerous!”

  “These are dangerous times.”

  “We need an authorized court order to compel self-incriminating testimony.”

  Ludo grunted in disgust, as though Markard were a small child refusing potty training. He snapped his fingers and held out a hand. An aide slapped a comm into his palm. A moment later, Ludo was speaking to someone on the other end. “Bil? Max. I need to interrogate an insurgent. Want to use SpeakTruth. Is that okay? Great. Thanks.” He handed the comm back and beamed at Markard. “Top Justice of the Territory Court. We have our court order. Do it.”

  CHAPTER 44

  When they’d left her alone, they’d turned off the only light in the room, steeping her in darkness. Deedra had become accustomed to the darkness. When she closed her eyes, when she opened them… it was the same, no matter what.

  Just like the rest of the world. It didn’t matter, she realized, what you saw or what you didn’t see. The world was the same no matter what. You could imagine something better; you could read a story about something better. But in the end, the world was still the same stinking, hot, clouded-over, dirty, trashy place it had always been.

  With a green-red stain where the boy you loved had died.

  She struggled briefly and perfunctorily again
st her bonds. No use. She was theirs as long as they would have her.

  The door opened and the lights snapped on, burning red against her closed eyelids. She decided to keep her eyes closed. To hell with them.

  Expecting taunts and japes, she was surprised instead to hear only Max Ludo’s rumble: “Do it now.”

  And then hands pushed down on her shoulders and another hand grabbed her wrist. She opened her eyes and saw a man in medical garb at her side, wielding a needle.

  “What are you—”

  He jabbed the needle into her arm, just below the crook of her elbow. She barely felt it—she’d been dealt more and worse pain today than a little needle prick.

  SI Markard stood at the other end of the room, arms folded over his chest, that weird paralyzed grin on his face. Max Ludo stood closer, rubbing his hands together eagerly.

  “How long?” Max asked.

  “Soon,” said the man who’d stuck her.

  Deedra blinked rapidly. Her eyes were watering over. The room was swimming in sheer wet. She gulped the air like water, amazed that she could breathe it.

  From the ceiling, red jewels dripped and sparkled. She caught her breath. They were beautiful.

  “She’s ready,” a voice said, musically.

  SI Markard approached and sat across from her, leaning forward, elbows on knees. His smile was spectacular. How could she ever have thought it was odd or off-putting? His green eye flashed and his blue eye spun like a whirlpool. She giggled.

  “Deedra, can you hear me?”

  Of course she could! “Yes!” she exclaimed happily.

  “Good. Good. We’re going to talk a little bit. I’m going to ask you some questions. To start: Your name is Deedra Ward, right?”

  Duh. Why was he asking her something so easy? “Yes. That’s my name. Deedra Ward. That’s my name.”

  “You’re an orphan and a ward of the Territory, correct?”

  Thinking about that usually made her sad, but it didn’t seem to bother her right now. Waves of light shimmered, and the jewels from the ceiling hung, coruscating, in the air all around her. “Yep! Orphan! No parents. That kind of sucks. No idea where I’m from. Oh well.”

  “Okay, thanks, Deedra. Now, let’s move on. You know the boy named Rose, right?”

  “Nope!” she said cheerfully. What a silly question to ask! “He’s dead, so I don’t know him anymore.”

  Markard glanced around—when his head moved, she saw multiple versions of it, as if he were caught in slo-mo. “Yes, of course. You knew the boy named Rose, right?”

  “I sure did! He was my friend! And then you guys killed him.” She should have been angry at that, but she couldn’t manage to summon the anger. She shrugged instead. “You shouldn’t have done that. That was wrong.”

  “Don’t let her babble,” someone snapped. “Keep her focused.”

  “Deedra,” Markard said slowly, “I want to talk about Rose. Do you know where he comes from?”

  Did she? It depended on exactly what he meant by “where he comes from.” Because all she knew was that Rose had woken up in a graveyard and then walked to the Territory.

  She wanted to help Markard. She really did. She wanted to tell him so much. But she didn’t know how to answer that question.

  “I’m not sure,” she said, because it was the truth. “He was in a graveyard.”

  The room fell silent. Deedra allowed herself to be distracted by the drifting jewels, which floated here and there on invisible crosscurrents. Occasionally, they would bump into one another and split off into multiple, smaller jewels.

  “A graveyard?” Markard asked.

  “A graveyard,” she confirmed. Up near the ceiling, one of the jewels was spinning now, gaining speed and light. It was like watching a tiny sun being born. “He got up and walked out of the graveyard and came here.”

  “There are no graveyards anywhere near here,” someone said. Markard waved for silence.

  “Deedra. Deedra, listen to me. Where was Rose before he came here?”

  Ah! Ah! She knew that one! “Across the river!” she explained eagerly. “I saw him out by the old bridge, and he swam across the river.”

  “So… Sendar Territory?” Markard asked.

  “Yes. Sendar.”

  “Impossible!” Max Ludo snorted from beyond. “We have a solid treaty with Sendar; Glorio is scared pissless of me. He’s from Dalcord.”

  “He came across the river,” Deedra said again. “From Sendar Territory. I watched him.”

  “She’s lying.”

  “She can’t lie,” Markard said calmly.

  “Then he must have gone around and come through Sendar from Dalcord.”

  “He came from Sendar,” Deedra said for the third time. It was the truth, and she would keep saying it as long as she needed to. It was very important to her that they understand the truth, and this was the truth. It was true and it was the truth and it was a true truth, so she would say it. “He came from Sendar, and I fell in love with him, and then you killed him.”

  “This is useless. You’re not getting anything done.” Max Ludo shoved Markard out of the way—the SI blurred as he moved—and hunkered down to fill Deedra’s field of vision. “I’ll get answers out of her.” He took Deedra’s jaw in one hand and forced her to look at him. “You know who I am, girl?”

  “You’re Max Ludo, the Magistrate,” she said. And then, because it was equally true: “I hate you. You’re a horrible person.”

  “I’ll lose sleep over that, I assure you,” he snickered.

  “I hated your son, too. He attacked me and I almost stabbed him, but Rose showed up so I didn’t have to.”

  Ludo glared at her, and his grip on her jaw tightened.

  “That hurts,” Deedra said. Truth.

  “What did you say about my son?”

  “I said he attacked me. He tried to—”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Nope. I’m not.” She sighed. Why on earth would she lie? About anything? The truth was so important. She just wanted to tell the truth, is all. “We were looking out at the Broken Bubble from the rooftop, and Jaron tried to rape me, and I was going to stab him, but then Rose showed up, and Jaron changed his mind and left.”

  “Rose killed my son,” Ludo said, trembling. The shake traveled up his arm and vibrated her skull, but the truth was still easy to discern.

  “No, he stopped me from killing him. Aren’t you listening to me?”

  “Not then!” Ludo let her go and leaned in closer, shouting. “Not on the rooftop! Later! He killed him later!”

  Deedra didn’t know if that was true or not, so she didn’t say anything.

  “He did it, didn’t he? He killed my son!”

  Deedra shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Were you involved in killing my son?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who did it?”

  “No.”

  “It was Rose, wasn’t it? Only he could do it. We found biomass in Jaron’s apartment that matches the crap they’re hosing out of my courtyard right now.”

  “He shed that stuff all around the Territory,” Deedra supplied helpfully. “Anyone could have found it. Like Lissa.”

  “Who’s—”

  “Magistrate…” Markard interrupted. “You need to keep her focused, or she’ll ramble on about anything and everything.”

  Max Ludo gritted his teeth. Deedra watched sparks fly out of his mouth. Amazing. Her head felt like a balloon, tethered to her neck by a thin filament.

  “Yes, yes…” Max grumbled. “What did the Rose boy tell you about Dalcord and the invasion plans?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So you knew about the plans, but he wouldn’t give you any information?”

  “No.”

  “So you’re saying Dalcord isn’t planning to invade?”

  “No.” She was getting confused. She had to tell the truth—that was so very, very, very, very times a million important—but she didn’t kno
w anything about Dalcord. Had she just lied? Was there an invasion plan? She didn’t know. A buzzing started in her head, and she began clucking her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

  “What are they planning, then?” Ludo demanded. “Tell me the truth!”

  She shook her head, hard. There was nothing in there. Nothing about Dalcord. She didn’t know what they were planning, but that wasn’t an answer. Not a true answer. He hadn’t asked Do you know what Dalcord is planning? He had asked for the plan itself. If there was no plan, she could say nothing and be telling the truth. But if there was a plan, then she had to say something, but she didn’t know if the plan was real, so how could she know what to say, but she had to say something and the something had to be true and—

  “Whoa! Whoa!” A voice from behind her. Hands on her shoulders again, steadying her. The room spun, the jewels whipping like planets in orbits, the air wet and suddenly rancid. Deedra’s eyes rolled and jittered. “She’s close to neurotic burn. You have to ask questions she can actually answer, Magistrate. Otherwise, the paradox will burn out her synapses.”

  “I don’t give a dry rat fart about her synapses!” Ludo bellowed. “Tell me about Rose! What is he?”

  “He’s a plant,” she said, and then giggled. It was so strange. Rose was a plant and a rose was a plant and she was in love with a plant, but the plant was dead, so was she really in love with anyone anymore? Did love die along with the loved? She had no idea. No matter how much they asked, she would never know.

  Ludo gave a triumphant cry. “A plant! I knew it! He was sent here. He’s a spy.” He leaned even closer, which she hadn’t thought possible; his face overwhelmed her entire field of vision.

  “Now tell me who sent him. Who. Sent. Rose?”

  She froze again. She didn’t know how to answer the question. It presupposed that someone had sent Rose, and she didn’t know if that was true or not. And she had to tell the truth. She just had to. It was the most important thing in the world to her, telling the truth. More important than her love for Rose, and bigger than Max Ludo’s enormous visage hanging before her.

  “Who sent him?” Max yelled. “Who? Tell me. Who?”