“When is my trial?” I ask. This is new. He never put me on trial in the future. Have I managed to change things just by writing a note to Kyon on the mirror? The problem is that I don’t know if I’ve changed anything for the better, although, it probably can’t be much worse than before. Maybe.
“Your trial is this rotation.”
“Will my trial be public?” I ask.
He shakes his head vehemently. “No. Never. No one is allowed into the chamber with the Brothers. It’s secret. They have their rituals in there.”
“But that’s not fair! They can do anything they want and no one will know about it.”
“I think that’s the point. If it’s any consolation, your execution will be public.”
I know he’s right. I’ve already been to one of my executions in the future. I don’t think I want to be at this one, too.
“Aren’t you curious to see what goes on in there?” I ask. “There has to be a way that I can record it for you.”
“Why would I want to get involved in that? It’s none of my business!”
“If there’s one thing I know about men like Excelsior, it’s that they like to talk. He’s going to say a lot more interesting things to me than I’m going to say to him at my trial—things that will make people mad, Dobrey. If you could somehow leak my trial, I doubt you’ll have to show up for work on Fitzmartin or kill anyone else you don’t want to ever again.”
He looks around, making sure that we’re not being overheard. “There could be a way. A small, oral camera could work,” he murmurs timidly. “We use them to study the digestive tracks of the priestesses. They swallow them. But I could maybe put one on you somewhere. Make it look like a button or something. They may not check you once they prepare you here.”
I know I can’t push him. He’s skittish. If I push too hard, he’ll fold. “It’s your call,” I whisper. “I just don’t want to see things get worse for you when it’d be so easy to change them. And I’m dead anyway, so I have nothing to lose.”
Another attendant enters the room and makes Dobrey jump. “You haven’t given her the RU7 yet?” he scolds; his blue eyes are so light as to be almost milky. “Gimme the gun and go check on the other one.”
“I have this one, Mieko,” Dobrey whines.
“Do it now!” Mieko retorts. “I’m tired of your insubordination! You’re going on my report. I’ll personally see you demoted to full-time extermination! Do you hear me? Now go!”
Dobrey hurries out of the room, and Mieko wastes no time pushing RU7 into my arm.
“Who’s in the other room?” I ask while the drug burns a raw path through my vein.
But Mieko is all business. He sets the gun aside and leaves me tied to the bed.
A galaxy of stars floods my vision as I look around me. Colors and shapes shift and drift in and out of focus. My head lolls on my chest as someone takes off my restraints, lifts me up, and strips off my clothing. I have a hazy notion that I’m being bathed and attired in something tight and torture inducing, like the dresses I’ve seen Nezra and some of the other priestesses wear. My hair is roughly done up in intricate braids. Finally the metal collar is tested again and matching metal arm restraints are added to my ensemble at my wrists.
Dobrey leans over me and says something. It sounds the same as if he were speaking to me underwater. He presses something into the stiff fabric of my dress. It pokes my skin, a pinprick. Then, he’s gone. I stare at the lights on the ceiling again.
Bland-faced men lift me from my bed and place me into a black coffin-shaped transport pod hovering nearby. The lid closes. My blurry eyes look up through the pod’s window at the white lights on the ceiling. The pod moves slowly down a hall.
Dizzy, I strain to focus. Every person who passes stares down at me through the glass, and I come to think of myself as being a part of some black parade. The hoverpod pauses. A soldier opens the lid of the pod. He runs his hands over me as he gazes at my breasts, which push up from the cinched-too-tight corset. I want to push him away when he touches them, but nothing about me works right. I try to concentrate on his face, but I don’t recognize it so I quickly lose interest in him. He closes the lid to the pod and waves his hand and I move on.
The hoverpod enters a round-shaped room. Above me, there are tiers of seated Brothers, all shrouded in darkness as they gaze down upon me in my black bullet-shaped coffin. The hoverpod stops. The lid opens. I shift from the interior of the pod as the liner lifts me out by an extension arm and deposits me on a black tufted chaise lounge in the center of their horseless carousel.
Above my head hovers the turning hologram of the brilliant blue star, the symbol of the Alameeda Brotherhood. Beside me on a black table rest the two crowns that I had Kyon design for me. They’re his and hers. I smile at them. They’re so lovely. He did well.
“Kricket,” a voice resonates in the room. It sounds like Kyon’s. I’m disappointed when I lift my chin to see it’s not him. It’s Excelsior. He has an easy stride as he walks toward me; he owns the room, and he knows it. When he nears me, he goes down on a half-bended knee, so he can look me in the eyes. His are a colder blue than his son’s—a soulless blue.
He’s dressed in a dark military uniform with a holographic Star of Destiny on each of his pointed lapels. “Do you know where you are?” he asks me.
I look around. “I’m in a snake pit.” A titter of male laughter rises from the theater-in-the-round.
“You’re in the Universe Chamber in the House of Alameeda.” He snaps his fingers. A hovering pod comes within reach of his fingertips. Lifting a cauterizing implement from it, it’s clear by his easy glance that he’s well acquainted with all of the hideous tools on it.
“It still looks like a snake pit.”
Excelsior lifts a small device and presses a button on it. The metal cuffs on my wrists lift from my sides and slap against the metal T-shaped poles on either side of the chaise lounge by my ears. I try to yank them down, but it’s too powerful.
He shows the long-handled, silver device to me before he presses the glowing trident to the pale skin of my right forearm. The smell of my skin burning is almost as painful as the claws of fire that run down my flesh. The pain is accompanied by a canyon-sized rush of terror that fills my chest. When he lifts it from me, I have a glowing, red wolf scratch.
“That should wake you up a bit,” he whispers near my ear. I bite my lip because it’s beginning to tremble and it’s really important that I not show him the depth of my fear. “You’re going to have to tell me when you’ve had enough. I have a tendency to go too far sometimes.”
I don’t shy from him; instead I force myself to laugh as I pant. “Does that usually scare all the little girls you torture?” Inside though, I know I’m not going to be able to keep this act up for very long. He has a dead heart. It barely beats. I recognize the look in his eyes; he can spin heartache into any color he chooses.
Above us, no one makes a sound. He replaces the silver cauterizer on the tray and picks up a razor blade. Its surgical sharpness gleams in the small spotlight we’re under. He plays with it as he attaches it to a short-handled grip. Taking his time is meant to increase my panic.