Chapter 3-1
2064 Words
Getting shot in the chest was not fun. Even when the bullet missed your heart and only pierced one of your lungs, even when Leyrian medical science was able to repair the damage at a faster rate than what he would have expected, getting shot still made life so very, very difficult.
Wrapped in a fuzzy, blue bathrobe, Harry rolled through the front hall of his house in a wheelchair. His jaw was set, his eyes determined. Today, he was going to get some cleaning done, and nothing could stop him.
The chair took him into the kitchen where sunlight through the window above the sink fell upon white cupboards that still glistened from the last traces of cleanser that had been applied mere moments ago.
The serving bot that his daughters had named Michael stood with its back turned, spritzing the last section of countertop and wiping it down with a cloth. “Good morning, Mr. Carlson,” he said. “Did you enjoy your breakfast?”
Harry had taken to eating breakfast on the porch; it was the only bit of fresh air he could get while he remained stuck in this chair. In all the time he had known her, he had never been envious of Anna"s bond with her symbiont; the thought of sharing his body with another living being was a little unnerving. Until now, that was. What he wouldn"t give for a Justice Keeper"s ability to heal quickly.
Off to his right, the small bed they had set up near the TV on the wall was neatly made with the pillow fluffed. No doubt Michael had done that too. Harry had to sleep on the first floor of his house now; the hospital technicians had offered to set up one of those machines that would carry him up the stairs and provide him with another wheelchair for the second level, but Harry didn"t want them to go to that much trouble.
Shutting his eyes, Harry took a deep breath. “Breakfast was fine, Michael,” he said with a nod. “And you can let me handle that, if you don"t mind. Doing a little work would be good for me.”
“This unit is happy to attend to domestic tasks.”
Harry smiled, then hung his head and stared into his own lap. “I realize that,” he said. “But let me clue you into something about recovery; feeling like you"ve regained a small measure of control is a big part of the process.”
Michael just kept wiping the counter.
The sound of soft, delicate footsteps announced Melissa as she marched into the kitchen in shorts and a gray tank-top. Her hair was up in a bun. “Morning dad,” she said. “You sleep well?”
“Well enough.”
“You"re being nice to Michael?”
Harry tossed his head back, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “It"s a robot, Melissa,” he snapped. “It doesn"t have feelings.”
His daughter sat down on the edge of the kitchen table – something he wished she wouldn"t do – and pressed her lips together as she studied him. “Michael has been a big help,” she said. “Be nice.”
Using the small control panel on the arm of his chair, Harry turned to face his daughter. “If you insist,” he mumbled. “What I really want to talk about is your birthday. Eighteen is a pretty significant number.”
Melissa"s face went red, and she bowed her head as if she were unable to look at him. “It"s really not that big a deal,” she said. “By Leyrian standards, I reached the age of majority a year ago.”
“Still…Our standards matter.”
Melissa hugged herself, rubbing her upper arms as she shivered. The girl could be so skittish when it came to anything that might require her to be the centre of attention. “I have this sinking feeling that you"re planning something.”
Craning his neck to stare up at her, Harry felt a smile bloom on his face. “What do you mean?” he asked, his eyebrows slowly rising. “It"s not like I"ve been putting together a party or anything like that.”
“Dad!”
“What can I say? I"m proud of you.”
Melissa hopped off the table to stand right in front of him, no doubt displeased at being the guest of honour. “Okay,” she said. “If you insist. But I want to keep it small, all right?”
“I was thinking your sister and maybe some of our close friends. Jack, Anna…Tanaben if he can make it.” Harry paused for a moment to mentally run through the guest list. “Is there anyone from your program you"d like to invite?”
“Maybe Aiden.”
Harry expected as much; the young man seemed to be spending a great deal of time with Melissa. They were probably dating, but Harry didn"t want to ask; his daughter liked her privacy. He was just glad she had picked an upstanding young man.
“What about you?” Melissa asked. “Are you gonna be okay today?”
“Claire"s on summer break,” he answered. “If I really need to, I can have her fetch me things.” A moment later, another thought occurred to him. “Or, I suppose Michael can do it.”
The robot turned its head to look over its shoulder, studying him with glowing blue eyes. “This unit would be pleased to assist you, Mr. Carlson.” Immediately, it went back to cleaning the counter.
“See?” Harry said. “All in hand. Go to class.”
Melissa leaned forward to kiss him on the forehead, then stood up straight again. “Okay,” she said. “But take it easy. None of that "I"m curmudgeonly, and I have to prove that I can still work hard." ”
“Scout"s honour.”
“Were you ever a scout?”
“Briefly,” he answered. “Go to school.”
The doors to the Detention Area opened to reveal a lobby with a curved desk along the back wall and lights in the ceiling that had dimmed with the onset of night. At least, it was night on Station Six. Each station was synced to the timezone over which it remained in geosynchronous orbit.
Jack walked through the door with a great big smile on his face. His smile died a moment later, and he blinked a few times. “You are not who I expected to see,” he said. “What happened to Kari Tenar?”
notThe young woman who sat behind the desk wore a sleeveless dress in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern, and her hair was dyed green with black roots showing. Thin glasses on her nose completed the look. “Agent Hunter, right?” she asked, turning to him. “My name is Onica Myers.”
“Nice to meet you, Onica.”
She looked up at him with lips puckered, dark eyebrows rising. “Kari transferred to the Medical Wing about four months ago,” she said. “I"m her replacement.”
With spatial awareness, Jack sensed Larani coming through the door behind him; his boss moved at a brisk pace with arms swinging. “There was something you wanted to show me, Agent Hunter?”
Closing his eyes, Jack nodded once. “Right,” he said. “Onica, would you do me a small favour? Pull up the visitation logs for prisoner 251. I want to know everyone who visited him in the last year.”
Onica swiveled to face her terminal – a sheet of SmartGlass at an inclined angle and a keyboard – and began typing away. Her face got that look people sometimes had when they were concentrating. “Here it is.”
“Holographic output, please.”
A transparent image rippled into existence above the desk: white text on a dark blue background. It was a list of visitors with a date and timestamp. Jack quickly read through it, searching for a very specific set of information. “Can you filter out everything except visits by Director Jena Morane?”
All but three records disappeared.
Pressing his lips together, Jack squinted at the readout. “All within the first month of Leo"s capture,” he muttered under his breath. “Which means we"ve got a much bigger problem on our hands.”
“I"m not following you, Agent Hunter,” Larani said.
Jack spun on his heel, pacing back to the door with his arms crossed. He shook his head with a sigh. “Someone was feeding Leo information,” he explained. “It went on for months. I was hoping that Isara was the culprit.”
Larani was whip-smart and quick to put the pieces together. You didn"t get to be the head of the Justice Keepers without the ability to piece together clues into a cohesive and plausible narrative. “If Isara had come here, asking to see Leo,” she said, “the staff would have logged it as a visit by Jena.”
plausible“And since there are so few of those…”
“It couldn"t have been her.”
Throughout all of this, Onica was looking very confused, glancing back and forth between the two of them as if she had started a film in the middle of a critical scene and didn"t understand the context. “You"re saying that someone was illicitly visiting Prisoner 251. But how can that be?”
“We"re not sure,” Larani answered.
Jack turned back to the desk.
He strode forward with hands raised defensively, grinning down at himself. “We"re not blaming you, Onica,” he said. “This was going on long before you took this position. We"re just trying to put the pieces together.”
“I get it.”
“So, what now?” Larani asked.
Oh, how he wished he had an answer to that question. The mystery of how Leo was getting his information was a pebble in his shoe that had been driving him crazy for over a year now. For a while there, when things got intense, Jack had put that question on the back burner, but now…
“Back to the drawing board I guess,” Jack said.
Larani marched back to the door with her hands in her pockets, breathing out a sigh. “I suppose so,” she muttered. “It was a good try, Agent Hunter, now we know that it wasn"t Isara.”
“I guess that"s something.”
“Come,” Larani said. “Join me for a late dinner.”
When the doors shut behind Larani Tal and her newest well-trained minion, Onica let out a sigh of relief. Her heart was still pounding. She rushed through a count of thirty – you never knew if someone was going to turn around and come right back through your door – and then slid her fingers across the computer monitor.
Bringing up the Home Screen, she tapped the icon for the communications app and then set her terminal to broadcast on a channel that almost no one used. Her palms were sweaty. Larani might come back.
Leaning forward in her chair, Onica glanced toward the door and then turned her attention back to the monitor. “They"re poking around again,” she said softly. With a few quick taps of her fingers, she closed the comm channel and deleted the call logs.
Leo…
Leo…The voice was intrusive. His body felt sluggish, and he just wanted to rest. Dreams filled his mind, furious images that he couldn"t make sense of. Sensations that he couldn"t process. What was wrong with him.
Wake up, Leo.
Wake up, Leo.His eyes opened to total darkness, and Leo felt the creeping threat of despair when he realized that this was his cell. Why would it ever be anything else? His existence was the same pointless drudgery, day in and day out. Read, listen to music, avail himself of the numerous entertainment options presented to him. Meet with the therapists and repeat all the platitudes they wanted to hear.
- Writer
