And the Righteous Shall Punish

Chapter 3-2

Her skin prickled.

The bowels of the building arched into the heavens. She had never seen a ceiling so high, with the old kind of windows lining portions of the wall below it, allowing light to illuminate the soft, polished surfaces. Whatever building this had once been, it had been transformed into an eclectic mixture of ancient and new technology. She walked through the automated scanner, which confirmed she posed no security threat, and approached a gleaming mahogany counter.

The young woman sitting behind it could have been a doll, for all the trouble she had gone to with her grooming. Kaiya couldn't see a strand of hair out of place. The doll woman smiled at her, revealing teeth that were far too white and far too straight to ever exist on a real person.

"Hi," she said, her voice lilting and high-pitched. "How can I help you?"

Kaiya almost did a double take. She had assumed a Nymian would be doing basic duties for the Atlanticans, but no, they had brought their own. Was this woman in the military?

Kaiya hesitated. "I wanted to speak to someone about the camps in Tarkinia."

The woman’s glazed eyes revealed an absence of understanding. “Certainly. Just one moment.” She stood up and walked over to a phone on the other side of the square reception counter, out of earshot. They must have set up a private localweb. Unless the Network had been somewhat repaired and they didn’t want everyone else to know. It wouldn’t have surprised her.

A congregation of Atlantican officers and Leth police descended from dulled marble stairs at the rear of the atrium, sharing laughter. Kaiya couldn’t help the flash of fury that tore from her chest, through her neck and back down until it tingled in her fingertips and filled her legs with expectant power. The image of Bennett leading a procession of police and Tarkinian soldiers up the southern boulevard slammed into her mind. She had forced herself to stay at the window and watch until every boot and Obsidian Tank had disappeared from her sight.

What schemes did they now discuss?

“Miss?” The doll woman peered up at her with an annoying simper. “I’ve spoken with someone from the bureau responsible for this matter, and they have informed me that access is restricted to those with a B-level clearance.”

Kaiya stared.

The woman hesitated and looked at her doubtfully. “You… don’t happen to have a B-level clearance, do you?”

Kaiya flicked her eyes back and forth between the woman and the posse of police and military officers. “Can I speak with them myself, please?”

“I’m sorry, miss, but that would be against protocol.”

Kaiya groaned. She’d never seen a protocol that didn’t stand in the way of people getting things done. “There’s got to be some way I can talk to the people who know what’s going on.”

“I’m sorry, miss, but unless you have a B-level—”

“Ok. Ok.”

The woman’s doll face didn’t move a touch away from her fixed expression.

“Thank you,” Kaiya said dismissively. She retreated to a bench near the massive entranceway and sat, defeated. Would Benjamin have a B-level clearance? The officers in the atrium were discussing who knows what with the police, so there was some degree of information exchange. Though Benjamin had made it clear that their cooperation was limited. There had been something more in Benjamin’s voice. An annoyance that betrayed a flicker of resentment towards the Atlanticans. Perhaps this was the reason.

Benjamin should have let her speak to Bennett.

Kaiya looked out through the entranceway towards one of the side streets that connected with the CBD roundabout. A team of tile healers worked, chatting both amongst themselves and with a nearby soldier.

She stood suddenly, riding a wave of inspiration, and strode back to the reception. “Excuse me,” she said. The doll face woman turned and donned the same simpering mask as before. “Would you be able to help me with something else? I met someone. A soldier. I’m wondering if you’re able to help me find him.”

“Of course.”

Kaiya described the soldier as best she could, and the woman pulled out a holoscreen to narrow down the search. She showed Kaiya the two options and Kaiya selected the one she recognised, a worm of doubt burrowing its way into her stomach.

“If you take those stairs there,” the woman said, pointing to a set on the front right corner, “he will be in section fourteen on level two.”

Kaiya hesitated. “And I don’t need any kind of security clearance?”

“Not at all, miss. We hope to strengthen the bonds of friendship between our two countries. It is important to be open and accessible to the public.”

Kaiya scoffed inside but thanked the woman. If they wanted to be accessible, then maybe anywhere but the northeast quadrant would have been better. And what was all this nonsense about the bonds of friendship? The sooner she didn’t have to see a soldier, the better. Until then, she would do what she had to do.

She climbed the stairs and couldn’t help a rise in apprehension as she passed a pair of soldiers deep in their own discussion. She glanced back at them as she rounded the half landing, but they didn’t seem to show any interest in her.

The level two corridor had been outfitted with modern windows, all of them set to open. Kaiya stopped at the first one and looked out onto the roundabout and courtyard. From this angle, the Life Plus building was invisible. The murmur of the collaborator masses floated through the window, along with the occasional puff of breeze that struggled against the stillness of the day.

Kaiya held herself rigid as she walked up the corridor, alert to potential danger. The late-morning sun shone through onto the numbered doors, and she kept going until she found the one with a fourteen. This must be what the doll faced woman meant.

She knocked and waited, then her solder answered. They stared at each other.

“Good morning, miss.”

“Hi,” she said, trying not to appear too uncomfortable.

“Would you care to come in?”

Kaiya looked into the room behind the soldier, filled with messy desks and no one else. “I’d rather stay out here. If that’s ok,” she added. Best to be polite.

“Of course.” He closed the door behind him and stepped over to the window. “This is a surprise.”

“I need some… help,” she declared.

“I take it you’ve spoken to reception? Or is it completely coincidental that you knocked on the door to my office?”

Kaiya forced a short laugh. “Yes. It’s completely coincidental.”

She shouldn’t have come.

“I need information. The camps in Tarkinia…”

The soldier studied her face. “How do you know about that?”

“I… just do. The receptionist told me I needed a B-level clearance.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” he said, and shook his head. “I don’t even have a C-level!”

“Oh,” was all she said. She should have known this wouldn’t get her anywhere.

“But… maybe I can help.” The soldier looked uneasy. “I can’t promise anything.”

“No, I know, I know,” she said.

“You have people you think might be there?”

“Yes. My parents and… a good friend of mine.”

It was best she leave Kormac at that.

The soldier nodded to himself and looked out the window.

“Who else have you told about this?”

“No one.”

“Good. Even here, not everyone knows. I think it’s best that we wait until there’s some certainty.” He looked back at her and smiled softly. “I apologise. I understand you must be impatient for some news, after all this time. I am only somewhat familiar with… that night.”

Kaiya looked away and through a haze of memory. “Yes.”

Silence fell, the soldier standing patient and still. Kaiya perceived that he was waiting for some greater explanation of Leth’s recent experiences, and weighed up her indignation at the assumption that he deserved it and her desire to keep someone who might be helpful on side.

“There was a Chief Inspector in the police,” she said. “Before the Tarkinians came. Bennett.”

The soldier indicated he was familiar with the name.

“Bennett and… the Commissioner at the time, they didn’t get on so well. Bennett had been rejected twice for promotion to Assistant Commissioner. When the Tarkinians came, they overran the Nymian forces stationed here, but the police went into hiding. They fought back. It only lasted five days, but they were the best days of the whole war. The Tarkinians didn’t know Leth. They’ve never been able to take it in any of their wars with Nymosen. At least, they hadn’t been able to. We were the only border town ever not to have fallen. The Tarkinians had no idea of Leth’s internal layout, so the police were able to pick them off one by one.”

Kaiya sighed.

“And then on the sixth day, things changed. The Tarkinians suddenly knew all the police positions. Bennett had made a deal, and taken a bunch of police who had been supportive of him before the Tarkinians came. They made him Commissioner and he gave every other police officer who was hiding an ultimatum – return and serve, or be hanged. A lot of them returned, but there were some who stuck around, who didn’t want to be involved with the Tarkinians or someone as corrupt as Bennett. It took the Tarkinians six months to get rid of them all.”

“What happened to the Commissioner?”

Kaiya shrugged as nonchalantly as she could feign. “I don’t know. No one does. I’ve heard rumours that they never caught him, but I don’t think that’s true. Other people say he’s in the concealed prison, but if that were true the new Commissioner would have released him.”

“You don’t think—”

“No,” Kaiya said, shaking her head. “No, I don’t think so. You don’t understand how much Bennett hated him. If I hated someone that much, I would want to see them suffer.”

The soldier stared at her and nodded.

“Bennett didn’t just place the force under Tarkinian command,” Kaiya said. “He merged it with them. They made him a military officer as a reward for his loyalty. He could do anything he liked. For the first three years things didn’t change much. The Tarkinians could be rough from time to time, but they left us alone, and Leth was more a base they used. It was Bennett that kept people in line, and his police would never be punished. Everyone put up with it to some degree, and everyone knew it was corrupt, but there were limits. Bennett’s people never did anything too obvious or outrageous, but then one day Bennett was in the town square. A woman insulted him. He stuck an injectable straight in her face, in the middle of a crowd.

She waved her hand dismissively.

“Dead, obviously. But that was it. There were riots for three days. I was there. Everyone was there. It felt like we would win, but… of course we didn’t.”

She stared down from her dining room window as a Tarkinian frequency rifle tore a hole through a protestor’s chest. There were a hundred such memories she could select at any given moment, all burnt vivid into her mind.

“The Tarkinians came on the final night, with the police, and they took people. The Night of Retribution. At least one person from every family, at random. The convoys were still leaving at dawn.”

Kaiya bit the police officer’s arm, and received a backhand for her trouble. She fell to the floor and struggled to stand, then collapsed back down with a boot in her face as they dragged her mother out the front door.

“There were two Occupations. The second one started that night. After that, everyone learnt their lesson, and no one said anything again.”