Dedicated to IronKite for putting up with my eight quintillion questions on first person writing.
"You're scared," Captain Becker said. "There are only a few reasons for people to be scared. One, they're a coward; two, they think they've done something wrong; three, they have done something wrong. So, which one are you?"
I tried to swallow my heart but when the captain spoke my stomach, liver and for all I know, my lungs joined it in my throat.
"Last night, you were approached by a civilian law enforcement officer, correct?" he asked.
I hesitated a split second too long.
"Don't bother lying to me, I have the video from the officer's car," Becker said.
That means he saw everything, he saw me get grabbed and Nick probably had something on his armor that identified him as resistance. Oh god. Oh my god. He knows. He knows. I'm going to a work camp, he knows.
"Sergeant, answer the Captain's question!" the commandant snapped.
"Yes, I was approached by an officer," I said, finally finding my voice.
"He had two corrupt scans on his scanner before you appeared on his camera and yet you could log into your station his morning," Becker said. "How could you do that if your tags were corrupted?"
"I don't know," I muttered.
"You cannot possibly expect me to believe that, Sergeant," Becker said. He stood from the desk positioned himself between me and the desk. "You were trained as a Hacker before your unfortunate training accident, Sergeant. We both know that. You appeared to be a fairly good one as well. Do you know what happens to people with bionics in a work camp? Do you, sergeant?"
I shook my head.
"They take them. If you have a bionic arm, they take it and you work with one arm. If you have a bionic eye, they take it and you work with one eye. If you have a bionic leg, you work sitting down and maybe you get lucky and someone will help you stand when you need to. I've read your medical report. We both know how extensive your wounds were. It's a small miracle you survived at all, isn't it? You shattered every bone in your legs, snapped all of the ligaments and tendons, broke your spine in two places, broke multiple ribs, a severe concussion, you were in a coma for two weeks. You're paraplegic without your bionics."
I nodded, tears beginning to wet my cheeks.
"They wouldn't bother sending you to a work camp, you would go to an extermination camp, right after they removed your bionics. You will lay in a gas chamber, unable to move, squashed against fifty other bodies in a room big enough to hold twenty. The gas comes from the ceiling, so you'll be the last to die. You'll hear them around you, screaming, crying, begging, coughing, trying to climb the walls to get out and then stopping one by one until it's your turn. It will be hard to breathe at first, then you'll start coughing and your lungs will burn. You'll want to escape, but you'll be unable to move. You'll start to get light headed and then you'll go to sleep. So, how is it that your tags scanned as corrupt last night but were good this morning?"
My breath caught in my throat and hitched whenever I tried to form words. I felt a sob burst through my lips and the hot tears on my cheeks.
"Sergeant, just answer my questions and you won't go to a camp," Becker said.
I looked up at him, barely able to see through the blur of tears. "I won't?" I whimpered.
"Not unless you give me a reason to send you there," he said. "Now, stop your crying and answer my question."
I wiped the tears from my cheeks. "Someone could have hacked the officer's scanner," I said. "It wouldn't be a hard hack, could preprogrammed into a wireless device. Sent over with a specific tag code in mind, the code would register as corrupt only on the scanner." Slowly, the responses Vicki gave me entered my mind.
The captain showed me the video from the rear mounted camera on the officer's car. If he hadn't been focused on me, the officer would have seen Nick coming up behind him. The video stopped as I got dragged out of sight. "Who was that man?" Becker asked.
"Resistance," I sniffled.
"Where did he take you?"
"Underground, in one of the tunnels, it was really cold," I said.
"What did he want?" Becker asked.
"Um, he, uh, they wanted me to hack into a server or something," I said.
"They? How many were there?"
"Eight, ten, I don't know, I had a blind fold on a majority of the time," I said. "They all sounded male and they slapped me around a lot. I was so scared."
"Which server?"
"The, um, political prisoner servers, they were looking for a few of their friends from one of the camps," I said. "I told them I didn't have access. Those are secure servers, only authorized Dead Heads and their hackers have access to them. I'm a mechanic; I don't have access to servers other than the blueprints on the 'bots I work on. They threatened to kill me if I didn't do what they asked. Please find them."
"If they threatened to kill you, why are you telling me so readily?" Becker asked.
"Because, sir, you scare me more than they do," I said.
For a moment, I think he smiled and then he reached out to brush the bangs hidding the cut on my head. His fingers felt rough on my skin, scraping it and making it itch. His touch sent tingles across my skin, like it wanted to get away. "Did they beat you?"
I nodded, mostly to get his hand off my head. "A few times, sir," I said. "Mostly on my ribs." I had bruises where the officer kicked me and where he slammed me against the car. The cuffs had chaffed my wrists until they were red and puffy. Police brutality that would work out in my favor, hopefully.
"How did you escape?"
"Huh?" I asked.
"There were eight or ten of them you said, they beat you a few times, how did you escape?" Becker asked. He crossed his arms over his chest.
"I got free of the cuffs once and tried to run but they caught me. Beat me, that's when I got the cut on my forehead. They hit me with a rifle, put a tamper on my legs and left me with a single guard. He was kind of an idiot. I told him I had to go to the bathroom but because of the tamper I couldn't move my lower body. So, he took it off. I kneed him pretty hard in the face and took off running. Lost them in the tunnels, took me two hours to get home."
Becker stood up once more and walked over to the window. I don't know what he was looking at but I felt my heart start to beat rapidly. "I'm done with you," he said.
"You're dismissed, sergeant," the commandant said.
I stood hastily, nearly knocking the chair over. I snapped off a salute and nodded. "Yes, sir," I said. I forced myself to walk out of the office and down the stairs with a collected composure. Every step away from the office brought a panicked breath to my lips. Bordering on hysteria, I forced my feet to continue walking. It's amazing how bionics react the same as real legs when you're petrified. The shaky steps, the urge to just collapse into a sobbing ball where you stand, the inability to move, it's all there.
I heard people whispering as I walked by but I couldn't make out what they were saying. It was like being underwater. Everything was distorted just so that I couldn't exactly make it out. I could feel them staring at me. Just moments, or hours, ago I got escorted into the commandant's office and now I walked out alone and unrestrained.
My feet carried me to my station as my mind flew a million miles an hour; questions; situations of arrest, of the execution chambers, of a raid in the slums; processing what just happened; and all the while trying to stay composed. I don't remember entering my station or walking over to the desk, but I found myself standing there, clutching the edge to keep myself from falling.
"Tawny?"
A hand touched my shoulder and I whipped around. My hand made contact with someone's forearm and my legs went out from under me. The impact rattled my teeth as tears started to streak down my face. Through the blur, I recognized Carly holding her arm.
"I'm sorry," Carly squeaked. She knelt down. "What happened?"
I shook my head and sank my teeth into my lip.
"Who was there? Was it just the commandant or were the Dead Heads really here? You're not suspected of anything are you? I mean, they let you go, you couldn't be..." Carly just continued to rattle off her questions, one after the other after the other. Allen or Felix must have shushed her at some point because she fell silent.
"Get yourself together, Jameson," the commandant snapped. "Sergeant Delacroix, Sergeant Vellera, back to work."
"Yes, sir," Allen and Carly said simultaneously. They walked away, glancing back over their shoulders with pity in their eyes.
I looked up to see the commandant and Captain Becker standing at the edge of my station. I reached up and wiped the tears from my cheeks, sniffling. Captain Becker tapped the screen of his tablet a few times and then looked up at me.
"You live in the slums?" Becker asked.
"Yes, sir," I said.
"Will you require a protection detail?" he asked.
The question caught me off guard, Dead Heads weren't nice. They were mean and cruel and killed people without remorse; they didn't offer people protection details. "Uh, no, I don't think so."
"These resistance member caught you on your way home, is it possible they were waiting at your home as well?" Becker asked.
I nodded. "It is possible," I said.
"Then I will provide a man to watch you for the time being," Becker said.
"Sir, that's really not necessary," I said.
"They said they would kill you if you spoke," Becker said. "If you think the execution chambers would be bad, the resistance will be worse. This is nonnegotiable."
"Yes, sir."
My guard arrived shortly before the klaxon to signal end of work. I had just returned to my station with the first set of armor pieces when I saw him standing at my desk, flicking through the schematics on the holoscreens. I placed the armor plates down on the floor next to the core of the 'bot and cleared my throat. "Sir?"
The man turned around with a small jump. "I'm sorry, I didn't recognize the 'bot without the armor," he said. "I can return you to the page you had up."
Wow, this was turning into an interesting day. First I get a security detail from a Dead Head Captain and now a Dead Head who seemed on the courteous. He looked to be about my age, maybe a year or two older. On his immaculate uniform, I saw a lieutenant's silver bar.
"It's alright, we get out of here soon anyway," I said. "You'll be accompanying me home, I assume."
"Uh, yes, my orders are to remain with you until we track down the resistance members that abducted you," he said. "Oh, I'm Lieutenant Alener, by the way; and you're Sergeant Jameson."
"Tawny, please," I said. I extended a soot covered hand and he just looked at it. "Oh, sorry, the forge is kind of dirty."
"Yeah, this whole place is," he said looking around.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Allen wave a blood soaked rag at us. He must have another suit of armor. Wow, he blew through yesterday's quickly. Wait, that's a leg piece on the bench...oh, that is yesterday's suit. That poor bastard. Speaking of poor bastards, if Alener thought the hanger was dirty, he would be climbing the walls at my house.
"You were told I live in the slums, correct?" I asked.
"You live where?" he asked.
Oh, this was going to be fun...