And the Righteous Shall Punish

Chapter 2

2

Kaiya steeled herself and opened the door.

“Commissioner,” she said, injecting as much bitterness into the word as she could muster.

Benjamin smiled dreamily, arms held behind his back. “Kaiya,” he said, as well-mannered and polite as ever. “How lovely to see you.” He looked thoughtful, as though mildly surprised by her appearance. Always with that sense there was some other conversation happening in his mind. “May I enter?”

Kaiya stood still and gazed at the uniform that didn’t belong on him. “What is this?” she sneered. “A courtesy call? A friendly visit?”

He examined her, smile still light across his face. “Both, I would hope.”

Kaiya maintained her position. “What for?”

“Why don’t you let me in and we can discuss that?”

They stared at each other before Kaiya relented and stepped out of the way.

“Thank you,” Benjamin said. He walked into the corridor and looked around slowly. “Not much has changed.”

“Really? Where have you been the past six years?”

He didn’t respond, but stared into the living room at Tilda, who gave him a weak smile. They greeted each other awkwardly.

“What are you here for?” Kaiya pressed.

Benjamin peered at Tilda a little longer before moving the expression to Kaiya. She knew that look. He was hiding something. “You don’t trust me anymore,” he said.

Kaiya shifted her gaze. Benjamin’s eyes were too strong. Too searching.

“Why not?”

She folded her arms. “Because I don’t.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“I don’t need a reason!” she said, and stepped onto the depressed floor of the dining room. She stared out a window onto the empty boulevard.

Benjamin watched her from the corridor. “You just don’t want to justify yourself.” He didn’t sound angry. He sounded almost amused. So typical. What private, humorous commentary went through his head while everyone else existed in the real world? How could a man like that be Commissioner? He’d fall over the moment someone applied pressure.

Kaiya ignored him.

He stepped down into the living room and stood in front of the credenza, looking at the holos. “You haven’t moved a single one,” he said, and turned his attention back to her. He watched her, those uncomfortable eyes full of secrets boring into her with an intensity too great to bear. “You’re not wrong, Kaiya. To mistrust us.” He returned to the holos and picked one up. Kaiya struggled against the impulse to stop him from ruining everything’s natural place.

“A lot of bad things happened under Bennett,” he continued, “and we have a lot of… bad people, for want of a better expression. But we also have many good people.”

“Stop it,” she hissed.

“No, Kaiya, I will not.” He replaced the holo with great care. “You need to listen to me.”

She shook her head, gaze resolutely on the boulevard. “You are corrupt. You’re a collaborator.”

He gave a short, humourless laugh. “I don’t think you really believe that.”

Kaiya shifted her weight, jaw clenched.

“And it’s an insult to the entire force. You know nothing of the people I now command. You know nothing of the sacrifices they have made. So be reasonable, Kaiya, and see each officer for what they are beyond their rank.” He stepped closer. “I am still Benjamin, and you are still Kaiya.”

She closed her eyes and rested her head against the cool glass.

“No. You’re not. And I’m not.”

“You have decided that?”

“I haven’t decided anything,” she snapped. “It’s a fact. It has nothing to do with me deciding anything. But you don’t get that, do you? Because you haven’t had anything taken away from you. You are the one that has decided. You didn’t have to be Commissioner—”

“I have been Commissioner for five days, Kaiya.”

“That’s not the point.”

“No, I understand your point,” he said, voice still mild.

Kaiya fell silent under his gaze.

He spread his hands and shrugged. “Perhaps you’re right. Maybe I haven’t had enough taken away from me. Maybe I didn’t have anyone to lose in the first place. Except for friends. And colleagues.”

Kaiya dodged his pointed look.

“I understand your feelings regarding Bennett. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. But Bennett is gone.”

“He’s still—”

“He’s gone, Kaiya. I am the Commissioner. But you don’t like that. Now you dislike me for taking your father’s position. Or is it because I stayed in the force while Bennett was in charge?”

Kaiya looked back out onto the boulevard.

“I guessed as much. So tell me, Kaiya – what should I have done? Should I have quit? Or rebelled, like your father? Would those have been more acceptable to you? More… pure?”

“Yes! You should have stood up for something.”

“Your mother never seemed to mind that I stayed.”

“Yeah, well she’s gone now, isn’t she? Because people like you didn’t fight back.”

Benjamin bowed his head and smiled. Again with that damned internal narrative she couldn’t hear. That inability to accept the gravity of what had happened and what was still happening. She had thought it endearing, once. Now it just irritated her.

“I would like to know something, Kaiya. Who should be the Commissioner?”

“My father,” she said proudly.

“But he is not here.”

“He should be. He will be.”

“And until then? Can you tell me the name of the person you believe should be Commissioner?”

She refused to play his silly games.

“You can’t, can you? Because you haven’t thought about it. You want things to be the way they were before the Tarkinians came. Before people had to make choices.”

“Before people became collaborators,” she corrected.

He shrugged again, as if the distinction meant nothing. “Perhaps you’re right. Maybe it would have been more noble for all of us who rejected Tarkinian rule to leave the force, but then what? Who would have been left? Those most loyal to Bennett? Look me in the eye and tell me that would have been better.”

She refused to dignify the challenge. Her father had been principled. She didn’t need a lecture from a man who had worked under Bennett for six years and betrayed her family.

Benjamin watched her quietly.

“I have something for you,” he said at last, voice gentle.

Kaiya’s eyes flicked over and watched him. He didn’t move. Just waited for her to come to him, which she did after a few moments of consideration.

Benjamin reached into his deep trouser pockets. “It was your father’s,” he said, pulling out a holodisc. “I found it in one of the storage rooms. Bennett must have put it there.”

Kaiya flashed with anger to think of Bennett touching her father’s possessions, invading the spaces that had belonged to him. She had tried her best not to think of Bennett’s assaulting presence in the Commissioner’s office.

Benjamin stepped away and sat down at the table. “Come see,” he said. He turned on the holodisc as Kaiya took a seat beside him.

Her mother appeared above the disc, a candid smile across her face, and heavily pregnant. Benjamin offered Kaiya the holodisc, and she took it carefully, as if it might break. She stared at the holo of her mother, absorbing every detail, before moving on to the next one, which showed her wedged between her mother and father, staring blankly at a first birthday cake. She stayed with each holo for a great length of time, studying them in detail. She was sure she'd never seen some of them before – holos of her parents before she had been born. A flutter of shock ran through when she saw her mother and uncle Kytos standing by the Emancipator fountain in Leth's town square. They both looked so young. It had definitely been taken before her parents had met. Kaiya stared at Kytos. What would he look like now? It had been so long since she last spoke to him – a distant memory of her childhood. She couldn't clearly remember a time where there had not been some level of conflict between him and her mother.

Benjamin looked on as she continued to flick through the holos. At least half of them contained her. Birthdays and Christmases and school award ceremonies. Inauguration as Leth's Commissioner of Police. Even her and Tilda in the lavender fields nestled in the southern mountains all the way back in third grade. Kaiya steeled herself against the threat of hopelessness. One day soon life would return to the way it should have been.

"I like this one," Benjamin said as she flicked through. Kaiya smiled in spite of herself, and stared down at the holo of her and Benjamin. He must have memorised its location on the holodisc. She remembered that evening, her fourteenth birthday. Benjamin had made some joke – she wished she could remember it – and their faces had been captured in that moment, hers stuck forever between surprised shock and unguarded laughter, turned up and staring at a grinning Benjamin.

He hadn't even made Chief Inspector, yet.

"Thanks," she whispered, taking the holodisc. She turned it off and spun it idly in her hands. "Is this all you came for?"

The thread of acid she tried to keep in her voice didn't seem to have any effect on Benjamin. He was too clever for that, she should have known it.

He looked down at the table and back at her, weighing something in his mind. "It isn't," he admitted, and stood up.

Kaiya watched him pace in preparation for whatever it was he had really come to say.

"I thought you should know," he began, "given your interest in the matter. The provisional government in Akheron has instituted a court of priority. To try collaborators. It has special powers for both investigation and sentencing." Benjamin shook his head. "I can only suppose it is an attempt to curtail events such as last night. The limited news I get from Akheron indicates there have been significant protests there. Far larger than the disorganised, random attacks we have had. In any case, Bennett is to be sent to Akheron."

The news didn't sink in straight away.

"No…" Kaiya said. "What?"

She put the holodisc down on the table and walked over to the centre window. She tapped a short combination into the glass and felt a light breeze drift through. Benjamin's revelation sank through her consciousness, and started to burn.

“You're going to let them, aren't you…" she said.

"As distasteful as I find the idea of 'expedited' justice, Bennett will be sent in accordance—”

"No! You can't." She rounded on him, eyes wide, watching all her answers fly away to Akheron. "It's not right, he has to stay here. He has nothing to do with Akheron. They won't get it right."

"Kaiya—”

"It's not up to them!" she yelled, thumping the table with her fist. "Why are you so weak? He should be on the streets. He should be judged by the people who were affected. Where is he? Where is he now? Where are you hiding him?"

Benjamin took a deep breath and sighed. "You're seeing conspiracies, Kaiya. We're not hiding him. He is in prison."

"Which one?" she demanded.

"Which one do you think?"

He gave her another pointed look.

She nodded and licked her lips.

"Right. Right. I want to see him."

"Kaiya—”

"I want to see him," she spat through gritted teeth, staring at Benjamin. He returned her gaze, his own inscrutable. He was measuring her. "Stop it," she said. "How do you do that?"

"I just wanted to let you know, Kaiya." Benjamin turned and walked back out into the corridor. On the other side, in the living room, Tilda didn't hide her interest in their exchange.

"Wait," Kaiya said, following. "I need to know. Benjamin, I need to know. I need to see him."

Benjamin stopped by the front door. "Why do you think he will tell you?"

"I don't know. He just will. Please. I have to know. I just want to talk to him."

Benjamin shook his head. "No, Kaiya."

"You talk to him, then. Tell me what he says."

Benjamin avoided her gaze. He looked sad.

"You know something, don't you. What aren't you telling me?"

"Stop," Benjamin commanded, raising a hand. He looked straight into her, piercing the trickles of terror she knew had bubbled up through her eyes. "There are camps. Inside Tarkinia. The Allied Atlantica forces have been liberating them. I don't know much more than that, just that the operation is ongoing. I have nothing to do with it. No one in the force does. It was considered inappropriate, given Bennett's role in the Occupation."

Kaiya processed the information slowly. For the first time since Benjamin's arrival, Tilda stood, and walked over to the corridor.

"Camps…" Kaiya said.

"Yes." Benjamin stepped forward and placed his hands gently on her shoulders. "They're alive, Kaiya. The Atlanticans are bringing them home. That's all I know. I don't know how many. I don't know where from. I don't know if your parents are in there, or yours, Tilda, I just know that there is at least a little bit of something to be hopeful for."

Kaiya looked up into Benjamin's fine-wrinkled eyes. "I need to know," she whispered.

"I'm sorry. I can't tell you any more. I'm not Allied Atlantica."

She accepted the answer reluctantly and resisted the urge to embrace him. He was not still Benjamin, and she was not still Kaiya. A small part of each remained, she could grant that, but they were no longer the people they had been. No space could be allowed for old attachments to flourish. She needed to steel herself for the coming return, and in time he would be hardened by the role he had assumed. Such things were inevitable.

Benjamin's hands lingered on her shoulders, as if waiting.

Then he left.