Hard Reboot Episode 01

Chapter 8

Officer Johnson escorted Brita and David into the Peace Mission. He locked them in separate interrogation rooms before removing their restraints and confiscating Brita's Halo.

A single table with two chairs sat bolted down in the center of the room. The light gray walls and large mirror completed the spartan decor. Brita paced the bright room for what felt like hours before Officer Johnson came back in carrying a tablet.

"Have a seat," he said, indicating the chair opposite the mirror. He took a wheezing breath and cleared his throat.

Brita sat in the chair, folding her hands in her lap.

"Brita Holt," he said, leaning back in the chair examining his tablet. "Mother - Chandra, father - Kendall Rivers, sister - Barbara, school performance - eightieth percentile, perfect church attendance." He continued rattling off facts about her life. Finally, he looked up from his tablet.

"Tell me, Ms. Holt." He leaned forward, searching her eyes. "Why does an upstanding future citizen like this," he nodded at the tablet, "fraternize with a slack like David Quinn?"

"Who?" Brita asked, confused.

Officer Johnson set the tablet down and rubbed his eyes. "Are you sure that's how you want to play this?" He coughed once into his fist.

Brita sat back. "Oh, you mean the boy you brought in with me?"

"Of course, I mean the boy I brought you in with." He nodded. "I suppose you didn't know his name. I suppose you didn't pick the lock on his restraints. And I further suppose you didn't try to help him escape Peace custody."

"And I suppose you had nothing to do with the cuts and bruises he got that put him in the hospital? He was assaulted in Peace custody, your custody," she spat the words at him. "For nothing!"

Officer Johnson grinned. "I wouldn't say for nothing." His grin turned to a smirk. "He disrespected and defied his father," he ticked the charges off on his fingers. "He defied the order of the Chief-Consul and the Church. He has repeatedly flouted the faith of his fathers and the established faith of his country. He is a heretic and is held to the same standard as all heretics." He hacked when he finished.

"And this justifies the heavy-handed tactics you used on him today? You brutalized him."

"We are here to talk about you," He coughed. "Your role," he said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, "in the events today." He folded the handkerchief, hawked into it. "Why you," he began hacking and coughing harder. "Why," he stood bending over with the force of his cough. His face purpled, then blanched when he stopped and looked into his hand.

His lips were blood smeared.

"Officer?" Brita rose, her pulse sped. "Are you alright?"

He gave her a questioning look, opened his mouth to answer, and collapsed.

She ran to his side. "Officer Johnson," she shook him, felt for a pulse, pressed her fingers into his wrist.

She dropped his hand and ran to the door.

"Hello?" she yelled, banging on the door. "I need some help in here."

She couldn't hear anything on the other side of the door and continued to call for help.

He locked the door when he brought me in. She'd heard it lock, but couldn't remember if it locked when he came in the last time. She reached for the handle, Please, and turned it.

The door swung open. She stepped out of the interrogation room and stopped.

The silence flooded her hearing as she gazed at the five officers draped across their desks, and two lying sprawled in the middle of the floor. One of these still clutched a tablet with a fractured screen beside her.

A sudden pounding to her left broke the silence. She looked down the hall as it continued.

She followed the sounds and stopped at a solid metal door. The sound came from the other side. She opened the door.

"I've been..." David started when he saw Brita. She jumped into his arms hugging his neck.

"What's going on?" David asked, patting her back, then returning the hug.

"It's just so awful." Brita fought the tide of tears. "The officer just collapsed. Then..." She released him. She stepped back to show him the state of the Mission office.

"What the..." David ran to the nearest officer. He pressed two fingers into his neck below the jaw line. He shook his head. "Are they all like this?"

Brita nodded.

"It must be whatever is making everyone sick."

Brita straightened. "Mom?"

David grabbed her hand pulling her towards the exit. He still limped, but it didn't look as pronounced as before.

They headed to the hospital when they couldn't stop an auto-car.

#

The Exigency Department was still crowded, but with new faces. Each one coughed into a face mask. All very much alive. Brita dashed to the admittance desk to find it unoccupied.

"There was some kind of emergency," a man said between coughing fits. "Hasn't been anyone in twenty minutes."

Brita ran down the hall, leaving David and the other patients in her search for her mother. She shoved the door to exam room 3, and sped to the table. A boy of about ten lay loosely on his side. His wide, unblinking blue eyes stared at the door behind her.

Brita gasped, then dashed back behind the admittance desk.

"What are you doing?" David asked.

"She's gone," Brita said, tapping on the admittance system screen. "I've got to find her. She has to be OK. She has to."

The patient directory appeared and a moment later, she located her mother on the screen. She climbed over the desk, pulling David with her.

"She's just down the hall from Bobbi."

"Who's Bobby?"

Brita stabbed the elevator button.

"My sister. I told you about her."

David nodded as the elevator doors opened.

They exited the elevator a few minutes later, Brita pulling the limping David behind her. She stopped outside Bobbi's door. The prostrate body of Doctor Bandon lay against the wall. His gaunt, pale face stared into the unknown. A thin stream of blood etched a line from his mouth to chin.

Brita opened the door to Bobbi's room. Her sister lay still in the bed. Her chest rising and falling with a steady breath. The Chief-Consul was nowhere to be found.

She closed the door gently so as not to wake her sister. She located the room her mother moved to, grabbed the door handle, and stopped. She couldn't express the feelings coursing through her at that moment. Fear, worry, anxious: all seemed inadequate.

"What's wrong?" David asked.

"I - I don't know." She searched his eyes for something. He gave a wry, but reassuring smile. He nodded once. She returned it.

She turned the handle and stepped into the room. All the lights were on making the room a bit too bright. The normal antiseptic smell of the hospital fought with a new, musty smell. It reminded her of a steak her mom had left uncooked in the refrigerator a little past the expiration date.

Brita took a couple of hesitant steps into the room and stopped when she saw her mother lying still in the hospital bed. Unlike Bobbi, Chandra's chest wasn't rising, or falling. One arm lay dangling just over the side of the bed. Nothing to show she'd ever been here but the Halo lying on the table beside the bed. Brita retrieved it, remembering the number of times she'd spoken to her on this very little device. She turned it off, and put it in her pocket.

Brita's breath caught in her throat as she looked at her mother. She reached a hand out to touch her one last time. David stopped her. He turned her around and hugged her.

"It's too late." He sighed. "This isn't the way you should remember her."

Brita gasped as the tears started streaming down her face. She sobbed, burying her face into David's shoulder.