Simoom Rising

Chapter Six

WAVE Orbiting Station
Now

Doric

She rambled on and on telling her stories and saying nothing relevant. "You're talking nonsense!" I snapped at her—frustration and hunger churning in my belly. It was way past dinnertime.

Beside me Mac stretched and yawned. "Close it down," he told me. "We'll start fresh in the morning."

But I didn't want to close it down. "What do you think you're going to gain by not talking?" I asked her. "All you have to do to get out of this—to see your son again—is tell us who was in charge of the PCC and where we can find them. Who gave the order to kill those volunteers?"

Mac shook his head in warning. Harmony shook her head in denial, saying, "I wish it was that simple. I really do."

"It is that simple. Tell us where to find them. Or we'll assume you were in charge Commander Harmony"

"I've already told you I'm not a commander. We were a citizen's co-operative council not military. We helped get food and supplies."

"Then why did they call you commander if you had no military role?"

She licked her chapped lips. "Can I have some water?"

I licked my lips, and took a sip of lukewarm chai. "Answer the question. Why were you called commander?"

She was having trouble keeping her back straight. She slouched over in the chair. She whispered: "It was Moses...Supervisor Caraq...who called me commander, then the media started calling me that too. No one in the Pit did. There were no commanders in the Pit."

Anger filled my throat. What crap. "So, you're telling me there was no command structure? That no one was in charge?"

"Not in the way you mean. Not in the regular sense." Again, that tone, as if she were explaining something to a toddler.

"I suppose you are going to tell me decisions were made by...what, consensus?"

Mac snorted at my joke.

She shrugged. "Yes, more or less—after we worked through all the arguments. I told you about those."

"But there must have been someone who had the final say. Look you're not doing yourself any favours!" Though I tried to stop it, annoyance crept into my voice. "Who gave the order?"

Beside me, Mac stirred. "Girlie, stop. Shut it down."

I ignored him: "If it wasn't you, Commander—if you were just following orders—all you have to do is tell me and you can be back with your son."

"You can't fucking promise that, Doric," Mac said.

Again, I pushed on. "All you have to do is tell me which one of you gave the order."

"Then you'll let me go?" Her face flushed and for a moment I was hopeful, but then she clenched that stubborn little jaw. "No, you won't—even if I was just following orders."

Was that an admission? I jumped on this tidbit. "So, it was someone else's order? Whose?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Who gave the order, Commander?"

She threw back her head and yelled: "Who cares? Aren't those who carry out orders just as guilty as the one who gives them? Or people who just stand by and do nothing?"

Mac told WAVE-Sec to stop recording and to switch off the microphones. "We'll reconvene tomorrow morning."

"But, you heard her," I protested. "She was just about to tell us who gave the order."

"No, she fucking wasn't," he replied. "And besides our job is to round up the PCC members—that's all."

"What the Hell, Mac! Since when do you colour between the lines?"

He sighed. "Hey, maybe I've bent the rules a bit in the past."

It was my turn to snort.

"Okay, maybe a little more than a bit, but not this time, Girlie. Ahluwalia is on my ass, so I mean it. We follow our orders and that's it. Let it go, all right?"

He looked at me for a long moment. Raquel face flashed into my mind. I knew I wasn't going to let it go, but I wouldn't get anywhere arguing with Mac now, so I nodded my head. I turned the sound on and told Harmony we were finished for the day and that a guard would come to escort her back to her cell. I watched her nod and slouch back down in her chair. She looked exhausted and suddenly I was bone-tired as well.

***

I begged off going to the Officers Club that night with Mac, and instead dragged myself to bed. I woke up with a clear memory of Raquel sitting cross-legged on rumpled sheets; her black hair and t-shirt just as rumpled. That was over a decade ago on New Earth. I had disappointed her yet again and she was letting me know in the way she slumped over her screen, old-fashioned plugs in her ears, and the quick sharp flick of her finger as she scrolled through her messages. "Quel, don't be like that."

"Like what?" She kept her face down and her voice even.

But she didn't fool me. I leaned across the bed, and tugged on her shoulder, forcing her to look at me. "Like this. Like I'm about to go off and commit murder."

"Aren't you?"

"For God's sake! We've been over this, Quel. I've explained. This is an amazing opportunity for me. I was lucky to even get an interview. Do you know how many people get accepted into WAVE-Sec training?"

She shrugged my hand off her shoulder and turned back to her screen. "Too many."

"Very few actually. One in 1,000 actually." I sighed, sat down at the edge of the bed and tugged on my boots. "I would have thought, just maybe, you could be proud of me. You know, be supportive."

Throwing her screen down, she bounced off the bed with a fury that seemed to ricochet against the walls and rattle the perfume bottles on her bureau top. "Supportive? You want me to be supportive of you going off to be brainwashed?"

Oh, my God, was she stubborn. "No one is brainwashing me!" I yelled back. "Security helps keep the peace. Helps protect the vulnerable."

"That's not you talking, Vestra. That's your mother."

"Yeah, well I agree with her."

She opened her mouth but then reconsidered whatever she was going to say. She tried again: "Maybe your mom was right thirty years ago when she trained, but it's not the same today." She moved closer to me, her arms reaching for me. "Please, Vestra. Don't do this."

I wanted to accept her hug; I wanted to let her pull me back down on the bed. But what I did was lean over and give her a quick kiss. "I'm late," I murmured, picking up my bag off the chair. "I'll see you tonight. We can talk more then."

And I left Raquel standing in her oversized Tee with her tumbled-down hair, looking like I had slapped her in the face. And I knew, though I would come back that evening, there would be very little talking.

Instead, we would cling to each other's bodies, as if trying to remind ourselves of what we could have been.