Simoom Rising

Chapter Two

WAVE Orbiting Station
Four months later

Doric

Through the video feed, Ann Harmony looked tiny, tinier than she did in the media clips. As per protocol, she had been placed alone in the interrogation room and cuffed to the table.

"Can you believe she's over thirty, Girlie?" Mac said behind me. "All the Pit Rats look younger than they are. It's the dust reacting to the skin cells, apparently."

I was familiar with the effect from my days on the surface as a Pit Patrol officer, but I nodded anyway. Mac was my senior by only a couple of years, but he loved to pass on his wisdom to me. I decided long ago to let him think I appreciated it. Besides I needed him right now. "Well? What did Ahluwalia say?"

Mac gulped his third Mocha of the day, and stroked his goatee, like he was some sort of revered sage. "He's not sure about you. He thinks you're a little too keen."

"What the hell does that mean?" 

Mac shrugged and sauntered out of the bull pen, heading down the corridor. I followed him; he knew that I would. "You know our Sec Chief—always covering his ass.  He wants to know why you pushed so hard to get transferred from guard duty to Interrogations." He spoke without looking at me, instead glancing out the wide windows that ringed Sec Central. From low orbit, Simoom's dust storms look like an acid-trip. Swirls and eddies of psychedelic colours, endlessly shifting between grey, green, orange, brown, and red—sometimes even violet or a blue that reminds me of the sea back home on New Earth. Except there are no seas on Simoom—just underground aquafers and not a helluva lot of those.

We tapped our Sec tags and stepped into the control room. The light levels increased and the equipment turned on. And there was Harmony on the monitor again. Even through the crappy cameras, even under the room's harsh lights, and against the dingy white walls, she glowed. Sounds ridiculous, but it's the only way I can describe it. Her greying blonde hair looked silver; her pale skin radiant. Even the faint scarring on her forehead drew me in.

"Ahuwalia thinks you have some sort of personal vendetta against Harmony. Do you, Girlie?"

I blinked to stop myself from staring at the monitor—and to remind myself that Harmony was one of the rats responsible for Raquel's disappearance. I looked up and smiled at Mac. "Hell, no. I already talked to him about this," I said. "It's a big profile case. It could make my career."

Mac chuckled. "That's what I told him too. You're in Girlie." But before I could get too excited, he added: "There are ground rules. The worlds are watching, so everything's got to be done right—no bullying, no coercion, and nobody under any circumstances goes into that room with her."

"But Mac—"

"I mean it, Girlie. We conduct the whole thing in here through the feed. She doesn't see us and she doesn't know who we are."

"But we need to get her trust if she's going to tell us what happened."

"That's not our job. That's up to New Earth Sec. I don't like it any more than you do," he said, when he saw my face. "But our job is to get her to reveal where the other ringleaders are—that's all."

"How long do we have?"

"The Sec agents arrive from New Earth in two weeks. We hand everything over after that. So, are you going to play by the rules?"

"Yeah," I said right away. "But I have a condition of my own."

Mac cocked an eyebrow. "And that is?"

"Stop calling me Girlie."