The Last Martians

Prison Part 18

After the agent who brought her in captured Annamaria's details in the system, she took her to a small, dark room. The woman locked the door and left her inside the dark room on her own. Being alone in the dark played with the dark-haired woman's mind. She imagined all kinds of torture devices and how someone would use them on her. When the door eventually opened, she was ready to confess to almost anything. Petra walked in, switched on the light and sat opposite Annamaria. She opened a file and pretended to read for a while before she spoke.

'We know who you are. We know you are a member of the Peaceful Women. And we know you wanted to blow up the news station. This is enough for the death sentence. You will get one opportunity to save your own life. Give me the names of the leaders of your movement.'

'I am not a member. You have to believe me. I came here to infiltrate them. They took over the north and plan to take over Foster City and the south. We wanted to expose them to stop their plans in the city. In return, we were hoping Linda would help us defeat them in the north.'

Petra's expression did not change at all. She stared at her suspect for a few moments before she continued.

'You are wasting the chance I am giving you. Who do you report to?'

'I report to Evelyn, the true leader of the north.'

'According to intelligence we received, Evelyn is dead. How can you report to her? Stop wasting my time. Who do you report to?'

'We saved Evelyn before they could kill her. I report to Evelyn. We wanted to help Linda, with the hope she would help us in return.'

'If Evelyn is truly alive like you claim, where is she hiding out?'

Annamaria realised she had said too much. 'I don't know. I do not report directly to her.'

'Who do you report to in the Peaceful Women movement?'

'I am not a member.'

'Yet, we caught you with a bomb in your hands.'

'I was not going to detonate it. To infiltrate them, I had to play along.'

'What was your plan? How would they trust you if you planned not to detonate the bomb?'

'I don't know. I was still deciding whether to detonate it when I was arrested.'

'I've heard enough. I find you guilty of terrorism. You are sentenced to death. We may reduce your sentence to life imprisonment if you fully cooperate with us to capture your leaders.'

'No, you are making a mistake.' Annamaria pleaded with the commander of the Wasps. But the older woman left the interrogation room without saying another word.

After sitting in the dark for a few minutes, the woman who arrested her, came in and walked Annamaria towards the prison. On the way, they walked past three members of the Wasps, talking to each other in a break room. One of them looked up. The northern woman immediately recognised her. It was Christie, her first opponent during the Games. Annamaria wanted to shout out to her, but Christie shook her head before she looked away. The dark-haired beauty barely managed to constrain herself. She needed a friend and desperately wanted to explain her situation to a woman she knew.

Her cell was small and empty, except for two mattresses placed on concrete bases and a toilet and hand basin. The concrete cell had no windows. There were a few small holes in one of the walls through which warm or cold air blew to keep the cell temperature constant. Instead of a door, a number of laser beams, set in a grid pattern, protected the entrance of the cell. Annamaria looked at it for a while, trying to find a gap big enough for her to get through. But there was none. All the openings were about five inches by five inches.