The overup’s doors open and several uniformed soldiers enter the room with weapons drawn. I don’t move as they swarm in around us. A couple of soldiers haul me off the edge of the desk and restrain me. As they do, I murmur, “Think about what I said. You need me to bring the future back to you.”
CHAPTER 3
BEYOND THESE WALLS
The Brigadet next to me in the overup has a brand new matte black harbinger in his hand. Judging by the way he’s holding the pistol-like weapon on me, he’d feel tough if he got to use it. It’s a bit of overkill, though; they’ve already shackled my hands with spray foam and locked a collar restraint on my neck. It’d take only one press of the remote button to make the collar tighten around my throat and have me on my knees fighting for air.
The overup continues to descend as if it were taking us to the Underworld. The five soldiers surrounding me obscure its soft bench seats. I hate the look in their eyes, so I keep mine on the sparkling crystal in the chandelier as it sways with the motion of the rectangular car.
I scan my mind for what I could’ve done differently with Minister Telek. I can’t find a solution that would’ve gotten me out of the torture I was sure to face with him in charge. I should’ve killed him. He’ll murder us for sure now—with or without a confession. My only consolation is that what I just did to him will buy us some time; he would’ve extorted a false confession out of me right away. Now, he has a corroded bowel to contend with before he can address my supposed crimes. He’ll wait until he can watch my interrogation. I’ve kicked him in the crotch, metaphorically speaking; he’ll want to be around when it’s time to return the favor. I have only a small window to figure out my next move.
They should have some sort of elevator music, I think, as the awkward silence in the compartment grows. I clear my throat. “I hope someone remembers to feed Manus while Minister Telek is away. It’d be a shame to find him floating on top of the tank.”
The soldiers scowl at me.
“What?” I return with a weary sigh. “That happened to a goldfish I once had. I had to flush him.”
“Quiet!” the one with the itchy trigger finger barks at me. His voice is loud in the confined space.
I begin to shiver. I’m the kind of cold where it seems I’ll never know warmth again. My chest feels tight and I find it hard to breathe. I look around the compartment—there isn’t a way out until the doors open. Why don’t they open? With growing panic, I pull at my restrained hands; they’re immobile, locked in amber like some Stone Age mosquito that drowned in sap. I feel claustrophobic; the walls are closing in. They’re going to kill me, my mind whispers, and even when I want to deny it, I can’t. I swallow hard, trying to contain my freak-out. I hope for a drop in air pressure, for the lift to crash, anything so that this silence ends.
From behind me, I hear a masculine voice ask, “Did you really stab a member of the Brotherhood with a dinner knife?” There’s something familiar about the voice, but I can’t discern why that is. I begin to turn around, but the voice barks, “Face forward and answer the question.”
The hair on my arms prickles. My head hurts, and I feel as if I couldn’t turn it if I wanted to. “Yes. He was murdering everyone,” I answer.
“He wasn’t killing you,” he points out.
“No,” I agree. “He wasn’t killing me.”
“Why didn’t he kill you?”
“He thinks I’m his.”
“Are you?”
“Not if I can help it.”
There’s silence for a moment. I try to see him in the smoky mirrors, but I can get only an impression of him. He’s not Rafian—his hair isn’t black. “What are your talents?” he asks.
I moisten my lips. “I can rub my stomach and pat my head at the same time, but you’ll have to free my hands if you wanna see.”
The soldier holding the harbinger on me looks suspiciously over my shoulder at one of the soldiers behind me. “Who are you? What unit are you with?”
“I’m a Comantre conscript from Westway,” he lies. His speech is very lovely, refined in a way that would suggest some sort of upper class. He’s not Comantre and I doubt he’s ever even been to Westway.
“Then shut your mouth! You’re not here to interrogate our prisoner.”
The man behind me replies, “Don’t interrupt me.” He moves closer to my ear, as he asks, “When will they attack next?”
“I don’t know,” I reply.
The Brigadet in front of me scowls at the poseur Comantre conscript behind me. “What did you say to me?” The Brigadet shifts the barrel of his harbinger. All the other soldiers on the overup do the same, pointing their weapons away from me and in the direction of the soldier behind me.
A heavy sigh comes from the Comantre impostor. “I told you not to interrupt,” he replies. The air in the chamber becomes supercharged. The harbinger is torn from the Brigadet soldiers’ hand. His eyes widen in surprise as the gunlike weapon floats in the air before him, its barrel pointed at him. All the other soldier’s harbingers follow suit, each doing a one-eighty in the air to levitate in front of its soldier. Even as the shock wears off, no one moves at all.
The soldier claiming to be from Westway says to the Brigadets, “If you speak again without my permission, your harbingers will shoot you. Now, stop the overup.”
“Halt overup, authorization five-nine-alpha-wastern-urtza,” the Brigadet soldier responds with a tight voice.
“Thank you,” the one behind me says politely. “Now, Kricket—”
He knows my name
“—tell me when and where the Alameeda will attack again.”
“You move things with your mind,” I say, slack-jawed.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me. Where will the Alameeda strike next?” the man asks with a low snarl.
“Who are you?” I’m breathless.
He lifts my arms behind me in such a way that I think for a second that he intends to break them. I’m forced to bend away from him so that they don’t snap. Driven to my knees, I bend forward more with my face going to the floor. I pant in pain, but bite my lips so that I don’t cry out.
“I’ll ask you again. When’s the next attack? Where? How will they come?”
With my cheek to the floor, I punctuate my answer: “I. Don’t. Know!”
“Then you’re going to have to find out, aren’t you? Open your chakras, meditate—get in touch with your spirit animal,” he says condescendingly, “whatever it is you need to do to find out—do it!” He lifts my arms again and I grind my teeth.