Called, page 16
“No, thank you…Mister Godwin.”
“As you wish.” He rose from the desk and poured himself a glass of something with a pale green color before taking a deep drink. “I find Conglomerate air regulation dehydrating enough; I cannot imagine your thirst.”
I narrowed my eyes. I could almost smell his sense of superiority emanating from him in waves as he drifted back to the desk and resumed his seat.
“Given how much time you’ve spent in Conglomerate buildings, I would think you’d understand what I’m talking about. Beyond the solarii at Academy, where I must note you performed admirably despite there being no records of you having any formal schooling for technology. Those kinds of gifts are rare, especially for someone from an Exurb community. Since graduating, you’ve been a faithful Conglomerate servant. Making Senior Processor after a single solaris? Virtually unheard of for anyone, let alone…” He noticed the snarl on my face and straightened in his seat. “Miss…Mason, you must understand, your profile is quite suspicious under normal circumstances. I suspect your prescience with technology is not just a passing coincidence. I am looking for someone with exceptional skills and, on paper, you possess them.”
I swallowed hard.
He sighed, scanning the information on his terminal to determine what to say next. “When you were apprehended, Guardian units found you possessing another identity: Heather Farmer. She appears to be another fraud, somewhat clumsily cobbled together from identities belonging to several recently deceased girls.” He grimaced at me, “Rather ghastly thing, honestly.”
The identity chip stuff would be hard to dodge.
Maybe that’s all he knows?
“I’ll take that refreshment now. Just some plain water, please.”
“My pleasure.”
Once he was on his feet again, he seemed less frightening.
It’s the chair.
From beneath the bar, he presented a bottle and made a show of cracking the seal open. “Between the two of us, the work on that identity chip itself was top-notch.” He ducked below the counter for a millichron, returning with a bucket of ice.
This was some fancy interrogation. I only ever saw ice in drinks in entertainment. He added two large globes to the glass and poured the bottle’s contents over them.
“Someone uniquely manipulated that identity chip. My technician, Doctor Orson, was rather impressed. It seems a Conglomerate-issue chip was modified to read and mirror other signals rather than broadcasting its own.”
Someone.
“Am I to understand you believe I am responsible for those modifications?”
“The identity was found in your possession,” he said archly, pausing for effect. “But we found no tools on your person to indicate you are capable of such a feat.”
Promising.
“I do, however, believe you are intellectually capable of making such modifications,” he said into my ear as he set the glass of water next to me and drifted back to his seat.
The Guardians must have searched around the building. The tools I had from Pauly were a dead giveaway. Surely they have my pack, and this is a ruse.
He wants me to deny it so he can trap me in a lie?
Why would he pretend?
If they don’t have it, I hope someone in Jericho makes good use of it.
Emotions are strange, and they strike at the oddest moments. In the middle of this interrogation, I’m struck with sadness at losing a pack of gear?
You have to get out of here to need gear, Clem.
I realized he’d been staring at me while I was lost in thought.
“Welcome back. As I was saying, identity theft is a serious transgression, punishable by indenture.”
He was intent on my reaction to the word.
“I take it from your expression that you’ve never heard the term before?”
I shook my head.
“Indenture is a simple program whereby citizens who find themselves with greater debts than they can pay are made to serve and barred from premium benefits or banking discretionary or leave time until their balance has been settled.”
I curled my lip.
“If a citizen’s life is expected to expire before their indenture is repaid, cryo may be used to extend their service to ensure debts are appropriately settled. The indentured never return to their normal lives. Families shun them and most disappear from society,” he said coolly. His eyes met mine again, and his expression softened. “Conglomerate policy, I’m sure you understand. Not a personal preference.”
He paused, shaking his head and blinking.
I took advantage of his distraction.
“Is identity manipulation the reason for this interview? You believe me capable but lacking the tools; am I under suspicion?”
“Pending my findings.”
“What do you need for me to leave this room?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Your directness does you credit. Indenture is an avoidable outcome. You will find I can be lenient in exchange for your cooperation.”
“Lenient, how?”
“Identity theft is petty in comparison to unlicensed cryogenic equipment unearthed at the site of the explosion.”
Of course, they found where my dad recorded the video…where Jeb and Marya and I were all in cryo.
But what else could he know?
Dad said people would be looking for his signal.
Could they suspect I know about it?
Do they know it was a URL bar?
Does he know about Pauly?
“I have seen no evidence of cryogenic units on the…what did you call it? Land apportionment? I always called it ho—” I shut my mouth.
Don’t get smug.
He simply smiled at me, intent to wait out my silence. Instead, I shrugged and stared across his obsidian desk, directly into his steely eyes.
“I had nothing to do with planting any explosives and am unaware of how to detonate them. By your own admission, you do not believe I could have had the opportunity to manipulate an identity chip, and I have explained that I have no knowledge of cryogenic technology being used anywhere, let alone in souvern Jericho.”
“I do not suspect you were involved with the cryo units, not in an active capacity, anyway. The evidence suggests you were held in cryostasis beneath the barn—before you deny it, we found a match for your genetic signature…regardless of your identity.”
He clicked a button, and the screens embedded in the surface of his desk went dark, leeching the sickening glow from his face.
“There is no birth record for River Mason in the history of the Conglomerate. Records from before the Souvern Republic have been digitized, though they would have preceded the development of the most cryogenic technology, leaving them beyond the scope of this inquiry. So, we must return to the most important question: who are you? You are not River Mason, nor are you Heather Farmer.”
They don’t have Pauly’s bag, but they would have…my satchel with…
Marya’s letter!
I disposed of her logbooks…or Pauly had. Even if they somehow found him, he should have already destroyed everything.
“Help me understand your true identity, and there is a path forward, Clementine.”
Clementine?
Sweat broke out across my forehead.
Marya addressed the letter to me!
He must know I am not River Mason and expects me to say that I am Clementine Jones?
“Yours was only one of the genetic signatures collected from the cryo units on the farm. Two were matches for the registered occupants, both recently deceased. It appears you knew Jebediah and Marya Jones in some capacity.”
I reached for the water, hoping to swallow my rising tears. I raised it to my lips and drank deeply while staring directly into his eyes.
When he made no response, I set the glass onto the small, sculpted steel table at the arm of my chair and shrugged, “Very well, Mister Godwin. Jeb and Marya were my grandparents, and I am their undocumented granddaughter, Clementine. Clementine Jones.”
“So close to the truth…” he said softly. “There is no familial connection between their signatures and yours. You are not genetically related to them.”
“That is the family history I was told.” I blinked.
He thought he was telling these things for the first time. He thinks he can wound me?
No way.
I stared at him again.
He was silhouetted by a glow.
His face was pulsating with it.
Something is wrong.
His eyes stretched out from his skull towards my face…
I reached for the water again, scrambling to think of a way to avoid telling him that I know who my father is.
He pushed a button on his desk, and the humming in my ears stopped.
We’re alone.
“Clementine, would you care to speak off the record for a moment?”
I blinked.
His glowing aura was larger now, and my mind was floating higher.
“How did you disable the…”
He waved the question away. “My lab also found evidence of a fourth genetic signature in the cryo units. It was a familial match for you. Your father, Jonas Carlton, also used the cryo unit.”
My head lolled to one side, and I started to recoil, suddenly afraid of him.
“Try to remain calm. I’m so sorry about this. You will be okay, you are simply having a reaction to the veridose I put into your drink. I wasn’t sure if we would get as far as we needed to without some inducement.”
I nodded sluggishly and looked at the glass.
We know this feeling.
“Colorless, tasteless, and freezes like a dream thanks to chemical engineering. The herb used to make it has a very distinct yellow color.”
I’ve let my guard down.
Twice.
“I’m sorry, it does look like it is hitting you hard. It shouldn’t last too long, though. If you’d finished the glass, you’d tell me secrets you didn’t even know you knew.”
As the panic of not knowing what was happening to me passed, I was floating on a little cloud as I stared at the pale amber aura surrounding him.
“Do you think we can stop pretending and just be honest with one another?”
“I don’t know as much as you think I do, Mister Godwin.”
“Simeon, please.”
“Fine, Simeon, then. What is it you want from me?”
“Have you known all along that you are Clementine Carlton, or did you learn it here in this room?”
“Define all along,” I said, baring my teeth.
He eyed me for a long while, then nodded. He’d decided something but wasn’t going to tell me what. He gave me a reassuring look as he reached for the switch on his desk.
The humming returned.
They’re listening again.
“I suppose that will be all then. I will have Mrs. Sankt-Pierre take you back to the cryo ward.”
“No, wait!”
“Really, Miss Mason, this is more than enough for now.”
He flipped the switch once again, and the humming vanished.
What is going on?
“I was serious when I said that I could help you get out of here. We can walk out of this building and forget this whole thing. I am willing to take that chance for what I believe you know.”
“And what is that, exactly?”
“I believe that you intercepted a video message. One left for you by your father. When you watched it, the end of the signal caused the explosion. I’m sure the intention was to destroy the cryo units, sparing you from this mess. Regrettably, the half-life of the explosive he used is less stable than he would have known in his time.”
“And how do you know all of this?”
“Because Clementine, I am a long-time admirer of your father and his work. I have spent most of my life trying to follow the Trail he left behind. I believe his discoveries are too valuable to remain hidden: they have the power to reinvent the world.”
“I don’t trust you. I can’t trust your pinched little face or what you say to me.”
Stop. Talking.
“Side effect of the veridose is that you can’t resist speaking your feelings, no matter how bluntly.” He smiled for the first time since I’d been in the room. His mask of superiority broke, revealing a more curious and caring expression.
I looked around the suite. What looked cold and imposing at first now looked practical and logical. The room wasn’t simply a collection of small spaces masquerading as one, it was every aspect of his nature neatly divided into a configuration to support it.
Woof, this veridose is no joke.
“What, then, do you propose Mr. uh…Simeon?”
His smile broadened.
“I have long believed your father left behind discoveries so revolutionary, they needed to be secured against falling into the wrong hands.”
“And you have the right hands?”
“I have spent solarii developing technology to analyze his work and digital presence. That’s where I discovered data records that were present but not accessible. One of your father’s early inventions was a now-outmoded technology called a URL bar.”
“I might be familiar with them.”
“Only a passing interest, I’m sure,” he winked. “URL bars leave a telltale signature in data storage. Because of how it is encoded, the data can exist on the server but is obscured from that system because the bar can provide remote authentication. When activated, the data vanishes as though it never existed.”
From the look on his face, it was clear that he was really into this.
“I have come to call them anti-records and have kept watch over the ones I identified among your father’s digital presence. In the moments before the explosion, an anti-record was consumed, and I believe you had the URL bar bearing the message. I want to know what he said and where the Trail leads from here.”
There has to be a catch.
“And if that were true? Then what?”
“We trade your freedom for that information.”
“I tell you about a video message I saw once, and you will just let me walk out of here? I just return to Jericho and be River Mason again, and nothing happens? No need to keep watching over my shoulder for Guardians for the rest of my life?”
He blanched.
“I was thinking we might go together,” he said softly.
He’s serious.
“Together?”
“Why not?”
“And if I refuse?”
“I can resume the surveillance in this room and begin the process of committing you back to cryo. I can visit periodically to see if you won’t change your mind.”
I’m the one on veridose; why is he being so honest?
“Interesting technique, threatening me after telling me I can trust you. You are trying to tell me you have power over me, but you don’t. Even if I had some clue, some destination, how do we get out of here without being noticed? There’s surveillance everywhere.”
“You’ve never traveled with an executive? I can turn off the surveillance in more places than just my office. I have a private lift, and my transport can be cloaked.”
“What about me? Won’t they notice I’m gone?”
“I’ll record you as having been recommitted to cryo, and no one will look further into the matter.”
“You think I can just lead you somewhere? What happens if I can’t?”
“I think that depends on how honest you are with me and where we end up. If there’s something you don’t know, maybe I can help figure it out.”
I didn’t like letting him in on whatever awaited me at Bethelton, but he was my best chance to get there now.
I don’t have many other options.
“All right, Simeon. We have a deal.”
He beamed and looked at me expectantly. I met his gaze and toyed with him for a moment or two. There was something in his eyes that felt true.
“Bethelton.”
“Of course!”
He swirled out of his chair and laid out a work mat on the surface of his desk, quickly unpacking tools with giddy smile on his face. The aura was fading, but he looked different to me.
“How long until the veridose wears off?”
“Shouldn’t be long now. Drink some fresh water to help dilute it. Sorry, again, I didn’t think you’d have such a strong reaction.”
“I’m glad hallucinations aren’t common.”
This time, I drank directly from the sealed bottle. The first few sips began to chase away the lingering fuzziness. I looked back at the desk. Simeon was hunched over, working intently on something with ridiculously small components. He finished what he’d been doing and swept the mat aside, putting a pair of dark glasses on his face.
I strolled to the windows, eyeing the direction of Bethelton.
“I thought you wanted to get going.”
“Antsy?”
“Look, this isn’t the most comfortable position to be in.”
“I get it. Go over to that cupboard.” He pointed to one of the sleek, ceiling-height doors that were set into the wall of the suite. I pulled it open, revealing a gurney.
“You have a gurney in your office?”
“Standard issue.”
“Because people routinely leave your office incapacitated?”
“First time I’ve used it.” Simeon rose and went to the little meditation area, pulling the pillows. “Look, we’ll put these pillows onto the gurney, and then I will call for Mrs. Sankt-Pierre. She will send the gurney to the lab.”
“Where they will soon notice it is pillows and not an unconscious me?”
“No,” he smiled. “Where my colleague will be waiting.”
“What does Mrs. Sankt-whoever think that you do? Is she okay with you torturing or, like, killing me during an interview?”
The closer I got to the underbelly, the gladder I was my parents resisted the way they did. The Conglomerate has entirely too much power over the citizens and not nearly enough accountability for it.
Simeon finished arranging the pillows on the gurney and drew a sheet over it. “If you would be so kind as to…” Simeon gestured to the cupboard where he stored the gurney.
