“She’d rather die than to have me make this deal.”
I watch Martha intently. She doesn’t look up but her right thumb moves behind her four fingers. Anyone else would see a random twitch but she knew I’d pick it up.
I look at the woman sitting in the chair.
Who is she really? Is she the thoughtful and gentle student from my class? Or is she just another actor, playing her part to use me in her agenda? My mind can’t sort out the puzzle pieces but I know what my heart wants to believe.
I turn to Henry.
“I don’t even know who this woman is. I haven’t seen her since she ran out of my house when I figured out she’s from Four. As far as I’m concerned the time we spent together was all an act.”
I gauge both Henry’s response and Martha’s.
Martha finally raises her head and her eyes flicker to the camera for just a moment. Even through the camera I can see that dazzling sparkle.
They haven’t broken her, she’s gaming them. But what’s the game?
“Nice try Cephas, but she told us all about how you two believe you’re in love. We know you figured out she was from Four months before that day and how you blurting it out was all part of your plan. Given how much persuasion it took to get the information out of her, I’m quite sure it’s true. I must complement you Cephas, pretending to hunt for her using the corps computers was very convincing.”
“Together. We’re meant to be together Cephas,” Martha says and begins to sob.
I hope I’m correct about the message she just sent.
“If you can still understand what I’m saying Martha, please forgive me.”
I turn back to Henry.
“You have a deal. I’ll read your speech in exchange for her life.”
Martha sobs all the louder.
“Here are my terms. You get Martha onto this car so I can be sure she’s alive. We do the speech in a large public forum and when it’s over she walks into the crowd and disappears.”
“How do I know you won’t recant later?”
“This deal is for her life, not mine. You’ll have me in prison to trot out anytime you need the lie repeated or you just kill me and the truth dies with me. How do I know you’ll leave her in peace for the rest of her life?”
“With you out of the way, what little is left of her will no longer be a threat.”
“So we have a deal?” I ask.
“Yes. And as it turns out you’ll be seeing her in just a few minutes. We’re holding her right here in Michigan at the NASA base where you trained.”
So I was right about which car I’m on.
Martha raises her head and gives the camera a vacant look but the sparkle in her eyes tells me things are going exactly as she wants.
***
When they bring Martha into the car I can see the torture was much more severe than could be seen on the video feed. Her face and neck are bruised and it looks like she’s been burned on her arms. Her knuckles are bruised too but they look like she was the one doing the hitting at the time. She stares at the floor as she shuffles along in her shackles, pushed and prodded by armed security. I’ve never seen someone who looked so thoroughly broken and defeated.
She’s even better at manipulating her appearance than I am.
There’s a screen showing the names of all the passengers in the car and when she enters the name “unknown female #1” comes onto the security screen in blue. Henry notices it too.
“Calling her ‘unknown female’ is too much dignity. Change it to read ‘Leper #1’.”
“Are the shackles really necessary?” I ask. “She looks like she can barely stand.”
The eyes of the guard standing behind Martha go wide as Henry instructs him to remove the cuffs. He takes two steps back and draws a stun gun before using his com to unlock the cuffs electronically. Martha barely moves, she just continues to stare at the floor and rubs the red marks on her wrists where the cuffs had been.
“We’ll be in D.C. in two hours. Enjoy your time together,” Henry says and has us locked into a room that has a camera in every corner. Martha continues to stare at the floor. I’m afraid a hug will be too painful for her so I hold her loosely but she doesn’t raise her arms to hug me back.
“You’d really die for me?” she asks
Her voice sounds tired and distant.
“I said that I choose you.”
“It’s still a bad choice.”
I move in closer and whisper in her ear with my lips buried in her hair so the lip-reading cameras get nothing.
“Looking and sounding broken won’t work on me Martha. I can still see the fire in those eyes. Please tell me you got yourself captured as part of an escape plan because I can’t read Henry’s speech. I’ll die before I deny Christ.”
Her arms come up and hold me tightly despite a whimper of pain.
“I knew it. I knew they couldn’t ruin you. The Four leadership said it was just another Cult Hunter trick to flush us out but I knew. I just knew.”
“So what’s the escape plan?”
She goes slightly limp in my arms.
“I’m still working on that. I’m afraid this might be a one way trip for both of us.”
I embrace her and hide my lips in her hair again.
“Trust the Lord.”
I start to feel up her back.
“I’m pretty sure the Lord didn’t tell you to run your hand up my shirt. Besides, there’s a spot between my shoulder blades where they must have burned me or something. It really hurts.”
“They didn’t burn you, they put a tracking chip in you. The only thing that makes sense is that all enhancements must emit a radio frequency that’s tagged to the person. Pretty much the entire population is tagged because of enhancements. That’s why they could never figure out who was part of ‘Four’, none of you have enhancements and it’s why you’d never remove your com in class. If you had your desk would have deactivated.”
“Very good. But what makes you think there’s a chip in me?”
“The security screens in this car put your name in blue when they’re just detecting a chip but your name is in red when you wear a com because the signal is stronger.”
“Have I mentioned that I love your powers of observation?”
She winces in pain when I reach the correct spot on her back.
“Here it is, right between the shoulder blades where you can’t reach it yourself and would never notice it once it heals. It’s about the size of grain of rice.”
“Will they know if you remove it?”
“I doubt it. I bet it stays active as a way to find and identify dead bodies.”
“Then get it out of me.”
“I’ll need to squeeze it out through the incision. It’s going to hurt like crazy and you’ll bleed when it breaks through the skin. They’ll see me doing it.”
She thinks for a moment.
“We need to do something for the camera that’s just a normal part of life for them. They won’t see what you’re doing if they think we’re just having sex.”
I pull away and look her in the eyes.
“Excuse me.”
She pulls me back to her.
“I said ‘think we’re having sex’, not actually do it. But we’ll need to put on a convincing show.”
She grabs my face and kisses me.
I should be bursting with joy over being kissed by Martha again, but I’m not. I can feel that it’s just a show for the cameras. I’m ashamed to admit to myself that it feels like I’m kissing Jocie.
To my surprise she starts to undress me and I do the same. Her job is easy, togas pretty much fall off anyway. When we’re down to just underwear we get under the covers. I may not know how Martha truly feels about me but I’ll be damned if they’re going to get either of our naked bodies on a video they can show to the world. Martha removes her underwear and throws it on the floor for the camera. I want to follow suit but instead I just preten
d so there’ll still be some clothing between us.
We’re lying on our sides facing each other and just having her warmth against me is heavenly. Like the Atheist I was raised to be, her body makes me lose all focus on removing the chip.
Guard your thoughts Cephas Paulson!
The voice in my head doesn’t even sound like my own and it snaps me back to the task.
I can’t bring myself to kiss her on the lips again so I start planting kisses on her neck and work my hand to where the chip is implanted. It’s in deep and when I squeeze the skin her body tenses from the pain and I release the pressure.
“Just do it. I can handle it.”
“This is a bad angle. You’re going to have to get on top.”
The incision is only a few hours old but even so I can feel I’m working the chip through partially healed skin. The pain must be incredible.
“Some noise might make you feel better and add to the show.”
She lets out a deep moan.
“Since you’re on top I think you should be moving up and down in a rhythm by this point. The movement will disguise what I’m really doing with my hands.”
“You think I should move up and down? Don’t you know? Everyone says--”
“Another time. Just keep moving.”
It takes what seems like forever but when I have it almost free I whisper, “Get ready to scream.”
I give it a massive squeeze and it breaks through the top layer of skin with a slight pop. Right on cue Martha lets out a yell and I follow suit a moment later.
“Now collapse on top of me.”
“You think you were that good?”
“According to Cult Hunter legend I’m that good and more, but I also have to keep pressure on the spot to minimize the bleeding.”
We’re still lying there when the door flies open.
“Now you’re done don’t bother putting the toga back on,” a corps guy snaps. “Put this suit on instead.”
“Who says we’re done?”
He shuts the door and we both laugh awkwardly.
I pretend to put my underwear on under the covers then retrieve Martha’s clothes. We’ll just have to hope the wound doesn’t bleed enough to ooze through her shirt. When she’s standing I kiss her on the cheek and slip the chip into her hand. I see her place it into her pocket.
Even after lying next to her naked I still don’t know if she loves me or if it’s all just a show.
***
I ask the guard to take me to Henry. I leave Martha in the cabin and as I enter the main room I can see Martha is still on the board in blue as “Leper #1”.
“You should thank me,” Henry says as I enter.
“For what?”
“Apparently when we destroyed her mind we left her sex drive intact. Given that it took two full kill teams to subdue her she must be quite remarkable in bed. If I had that sort of spirit and raw power in just half of the corps I’d have wiped out the fish heads years ago.”
I say nothing.
“A week ago I wouldn’t have survived trying to bed her. Now I’ve seen what she can do maybe I’ll take a turn.”
I start to move towards him with my fists ready but one of the security guards raises his gun in warning.
“Give it a chance Cephas. You may like her better this way.”
I continue to move towards him but just then the car lurches a little and throws me off balance. The low hum of the moving air changes to a whistle as the car rapidly decelerates followed by a loud clunk as the car comes to a complete stop.
“What the hell’s going on?” Henry yells in the direction of the control room.
A moment later a tech guy comes into the room.
“The system says a cargo car in front of us has depressurized. The whole line is shut down, sir.”
“Depressurized? That hasn’t happened in decades. It isn’t possible.”
Henry looks at me as he remembers what I was doing on the computer.
“This is no coincidence, you did this somehow.”
“If you ask me, this looks like an act of God,” I reply.
“Where’s the Leper? Get her in here so I can keep an eye on her.”
I watch as the guard resets his pistol to maximum stun.
“Where are we?” Henry asks.
“We’d just passed Winchester, Virginia,” the tech guy says.
“So we’re almost in D.C. Get this car moving again.”
“I can’t, sir. The automated shutdown protocol has been activated. All cars in the tube are stopped until the broken car is pulled to the closest station. They’ll pull us back first and reroute us while they clear the tube and check for any debris.”
“Override the shutdown protocol,” Henry says. “We’ll push the dead car in front of us to D.C. if need be.”
“But there could be survivors.”
“If there are survivors then they’re a bunch of fish heads. We’ll just arrange for them meet Jesus sooner than they expected.”
Martha shuffles into the room with her head down but her hands in the air followed by a guard with a drawn stunner.
“I’m being good now,” Martha says in her damaged goods voice.
Henry had some sort of stun weapon hidden on his lap and now points it nervously at Martha.
It took two kill teams to subdue her? She must be one heck of a fighter.
There are four armed security guards on the car, five if you include Henry plus the tech guy. I wonder if Martha can take out all six of them. The guards must be thinking the same thing because all weapons are drawn and pointed at Martha. I start to pace to temporarily block their view of her but she continues to stare at the floor rather than making a move.
“I’m ready to override the controls,” the tech guy says a moment later. “We can operate the system manually, but I wouldn’t recommend pushing the car in front of us at high speed. If it starts losing pieces the debris will shred us. We can also go backwards to the last junction but we’ll end up pushing back the maintenance drone that’s coming to tow us.”
Henry continues to stare at Martha, waiting for her to attack.
“You have to make a decision, sir. Forward manually through the debris or back to the station?”
Henry finally looks at the tech guy.
“Lost, lost, lost. When you hesitate you’re lost,” Martha says and Henry returns his focus to her.
She’s trying to buy time. Why?
She shifts her gaze towards the front of the car then puts a mindless smile onto her face. She appears to be waiting for something to happen. Henry notices.
“They’re coming from in front of us,” he says as we feel a bump from the maintenance drone hooking onto us and we begin to move backwards.
“Let the drone pull us so they’ll think the car is dead and get as many agents as you can into the Winchester station. If there are more like her in front of us, let’s go around.”
Martha’s chin hits her chest but I can see her smile.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The ride back to Winchester is slow and bumpy by tube standards but still only takes twenty minutes. Henry sends guards to the front and back.
Only three guns left in the room.
“There’s a bypass junction on this side of the station so we shouldn’t even need to stop once the maintenance drone releases us,” the tech guy says.
“Good, we need to get moving again,” Henry replies. “As soon as we’re clear send two full teams down the tube on the drone. Tell them to kill anything that moves.”
We feel the maintenance car release us but we don’t start moving. The tech guy comes back into the room.
“We’re not in position like I requested. They pulled us all the way back to the public station.”
There’s a knock on the rear airlock and we hear someone say “We need to inspect the front of the car for debris damage, please release the inside manual lock.”
“Nobody in or out.”
The guard relays Henry’s message.
“I can’t inspect the front from here, I must come through and do it via the forward lock. I can’t release this car for travel until it’s been inspected.”
“Damned bureaucrats and their procedures.”
Henry doesn’t see the irony in his statement but accents to the request when the security system confirms the identity of the man outside.
Martha and I are both standing when a young man comes through the cabin with a com in each ear and registers on the board as being the Winchester station manager. He’s wearing an official jacket and pants that appear two sizes too big for him as well as a hat and some sort of computerized glasses that make it hard to see his face. I tap Martha’s elbow and drop my eyes to the man’s shoes. Stuck to the bottom, like it had inadvertently stuck there when he stepped on it, is a single white rose petal. I see the corner of Martha’s mouth curl ever so slightly in satisfaction.
“Thirsty. Drink?” Martha asks like a little kid.
Henry nods his head and Martha works her way to the coffee service area under the watchful eyes and guns of two security men.
“Tea Cephas?”
She starts humming what only I recognize as the ancient tune “Amazing Grace”.
“I’d love a cup. Mint if they have it.”
I watch her start taking down saucers. She has at least six but nobody else seems to notice she has many more than she needs.
When the station manager reaches the front of the car we hear the airlock open with a clunk followed by a voice saying “Hey” and a much louder thud.
“If she moves, shoot her,” Henry orders one of the security guys then sends the other to see what just happened. Martha doesn’t even turn around, she just keeps humming and fussing with the coffee service.
“Tea Cephas.”
She turns to hand it to me. When she does she shifts her eyes towards Henry then turns back to her work. When I sit, instead of sitting directly across from Henry I sit such that his view of Martha is now blocked.
What happens next is a blur. The security guard that Henry sent to investigate the noise says “What the?” followed by the sound of a stun gun. As he staggers backwards into the room Martha spins and throws saucers like throwing stars at the remaining guard.
We drink from the cup God chooses for us, but I guess we can do as we please with the saucers.