Isibel woke to find herself in an unfamiliar place. Steel walls surrounded her. It was sterile and cold and the air had a chemical odor, something about it was recognizable as a disinfectant. She was in prison. She knew there would be a tribunal. Infidelity was treason. Fear shot through her.

It was a prison cell. Or a holding room. It was clearly a government building

"It's prison," Isibel whispered, trying to make herself believe it. She looked down at her hand. It was throbbing, wrapped in a bandage with an electronic monitor. She knew these devices controlled pain and monitored infection. But they hadn't programed the analgesics in her bandage so she felt the throbbing, excruciating pain of her crushed hand.

She knew there would be a tribunal. Infidelity was treason

Once she was fully awake she noticed that the ceiling and floor were also steel, the floor had a grate in the center. It must have been for disinfecting after a prisoner left.

Left.

There was a single door with a rectangular window to a hall or another room. She noticed a utilitarian metal chair against one wall, adjacent to a window. A gray robe was draped over the back of the chair. She recognized the robe immediately; it was the garb women were dressed in during the sacrificial ceremony. Its presence in the room was a conviction. She knew that any trial or tribunal that followed was just a formality. The gray dress laying in wait made it clear her fate had already been decided. She had a disturbing curiosity about the robe. She'd witnessed many in such garments, led to the top of the Taloc temple. She had never been able to watch all the way through but she didn't have to. She saw the terror and anguish on their faces — blanched from imminent torture and death. She saw them collapse and lean into their executioners as they led them to the center of the plaza where they would be stoned to death. She'd never gone to the ceremony but the government videos depicted a frenzied scene with hellish laughter and dance.

She knew all of that and yet she had an affair with Caius.

She walked to the chair and stood before the dress. It was lighter than she expected. She'd always thought they were made from heavy wool but the fabric was more like linen. It weighed barely anything. She remembered on time as the first stone was thrown at a woman such as herself, she remembered the red bleeding through the fabric. She realized now that way the scarlet liquid spread over the cloth, it would have had to have been in light fabric. She touched it and it startled her. The reality of it, there before her. She looked around, towards the door expecting a guard or an official. There was no one.

She walked over to the rectangular window in the metal door. She peered through thick glass, all she could see was more sterile walls. In her limited line of sight allowed she could see a few more doors, just the same. Even though she couldn't see down the hall she had the impression it was all cells. Instinctively she reached for the door handle. She almost expected it to be open, but of course it didn't turn at all. It was locked.

She remembered on time as the first stone was thrown at a woman such as herself, she remembered the red bleeding through the fabric.

She let out a breath and moved back into the room and over to the window. When she looked out, she immediately recognized the Tlaloc community in the valley below. She was in the prison just underneath the ceremonial plaza. She recognized the view over the city from years of newscasts of executions on ceremonial place at the highest point in the city, the leveled summit of Mt. Tlaloc.

Likely out of some need for order, to anchor herself to something familiar, Isibel scanned the scene below her looking for where her own house would be on the dotted landscape, embedded down there somewhere in the tracks of planned neighborhoods, each on growing spirals looking like a paisley print across the dull, landscape. Mountains in the distance were most often obscured by low gray clouds but that day the Mountains formed a charcoal backdrop and they looked like a grand fortress surrounding Tlaloc. She knew that beyond the hills war was raging. She imagined Caius there protected in his military armor. She thought of how vulnerable her husband must be. She'd never considered the comparison before. That the Altman men were faster, more intelligent. They had an advantage that made them better warriors. To human men that must be threatening. What about Altman women? Their superior intelligence and skills made them better warriors too. It was said their femininity had been bred out of them. That seemed too like propaganda, more objectification. While some Altman women fought alongside the males, a select group were raised to be breeders. Or that was what she'd been told. But Isibel didn't know. She didn't think she'd ever met a Altman woman.

That afternoon Isibel was interviewed by two Elders on the government's Moral Militia. One man, Elder Erike and one woman, Elder Ruth. They would question her maybe offer evidence against her. There would be an effort to solicit a confession. It was a comfort to some women that if she confessed the charges against her family would be dropped. The woman would be killed but the family members would be absolved and allowed to return to their homes and compensated. Women who refused to incriminate themselves secured a fate of servitude for their loved ones now and for generations to come. But, what difference did it make? Her son was dead. Her husband was fighting for the government.

Elder Erike was in his sixties. His hair was still dark and it was short but retained curl that would have been abundant if it were long. He had rosy cheeks and dark blue eyes. He wore black framed glasses, and looked up over the rims when she was led into the room by the female attendant. He nodded to the attendant and she released Isibel. He waved his hand and motioned for her to come in and sit down. He had authority, but Isisbel thought she also noticed an inner compassion. The way he had smiled at her when she entered, gestured for her to sit down on the leather chair in front of his desk. He wore a dark shirt.

Erike's eyes looked her over. Isibel realized once she was sitting there across from her, that she'd misjudged him — she'd been looking for some hope that there was a way out. He smiled at her. It almost seemed he was attracted to her, excited by the prospect of being alone with such a heretic. The fear had infected her by then and started a torrent of desperation. The stakes were so high and she was not above doing whatever it took to find a fissure in the system. Not sex but flattery or coy manipulation.

Isibel let a breath and looked around the room. Where the holding cells had been sterile steel walls and the prisoner quarters permeated with the scent of disinfection, Erike's office was more like the office of a professor than a warden. The long, rectangular room was paneled in polished wood and mahogany shelves covered two of the four walls. A leather couch sat in front of a tall window that looked out towards the mountains beyond the communities within Tlaloc. The haze had grown heavier and darkened the skies. The thick clouds looked ready for precipitation. While the atmosphere cast darkness and hopelessness, the incandescent lighting gave the room a yellow glow. It was the kind of place Isibel could have lost herself for an afternoon. Reading, sinking into the possibilities of literature, politics.

Erike's office was more like the office of a professor than a warden.

He let her take her time and when her gaze met his again, he was smiling. Amused she thought. He had picked up a glass square paperweight from his desk and was holding it mindlessly. It struck her as an awkward gesture despite his smile and casual posture. She held that information in her thoughts. He turned the crystal cube in his hand; it seemed cumbersome but he did it anyway. It left her with a sense of unease, a precarious contradiction.

"So what is it that you believe? Do you believe infidelity is a human right. Mixing species is not threat to humankind? Do you find our laws austere, repugnant?"

She kept her eyes on him not knowing which card to play. She decided to appeal to him as an intellectual. No one doubts a woman's equality in all conceptions: intellectual, even physical. It was long since proven that agility compensated for strength in battle. It had long since been accepted that psychology played a greater role in equalizing the sexes than anything else

He smiled at her. She didn't find him repugnant "No." She maintained a measured strong affect. Equals. "You must know my son was killed. Not by enemies but by our own soldiers — "

"During the invasion. I do know that." He put the glass cube back on the table and then looked up at her. "That's tragic."

"There's evidence that wasn't the case. More than evidence. It wasn't during the invasion. I was suspected of deviant relations. Interspecies — "

He leaned in from behind his desk and whispered. She wondered why the whispering. Why had Caius whispered, why Erike now? Was the truth confined to whispers.

"But Isibel you're lying about your son. A woman such as yourself, one of such low moral character would lie about anything."

That caused the embers to catch even with the knowledge that he wanted her to get angry; he wanted her to incriminate herself. For her to become angry and dissident she couldn't help herself, "You and the people like you are criminals."

Erike sat back and smiled again. Instead of flirtatious affection, his eyes revealed his contempt of her. Maybe fear of her. But what could she do? What power did she have over him or anyone else. She still had the DNA records but her behavior with Caius, her affair guaranteed her indefensibility. No one would care about her son any longer or about the government lies. What did one child matter.

"Why is my son's case so threatening to you people?"

"I have already told you it's unfortunate. Your son should have been under your supervision. Who would let their child out to play when evacuation was underway? When the border was under siege?"

She shook her head "Why can't you tell the truth? Why is the truth so threatening?" But then she realized why she held so much power. The masses would believe the government's propaganda. All of it except about the children, their children. Too many had been taken away. The problem of mixed children would be the spark to ignite the revolution. So many children had been removed from their homes to never be seen again. It was the government's vulnerability. Parents can never forget losing their child. One's love for their child –mixed species or not — would fuel a revolution. So the government must be very careful to control information such as hers. Even parents who had been falsely accused did not have the DNA evidence to prove their child's lineage. In her case it was absolute serendipity. They'd needed Kell's DNA record the year before to rule out a family illness. And that evidence remained hidden in a small metal sleeve in their crawl space. Only she and her husband knew it's whereabouts. Despite searching the house –ransacking it — they had never been able to locate it.

He shook his head. "Is our government, our values so distasteful to you? Do you presume to know better than our scientists, our geneticists? Why do you suppose these laws are in place? It isn't morality my dear. But to you –to women like you — our way of life is something of a joke. You'd risk the lives of the rest for your own sexual pleasure."

She shook her head.

"I think it's some sort of mutation. That's what I think." He almost spit the words out of his mouth. Whatever chance she'd had to appeal to him was gone. She realized his interview was merely a formality. He didn't like her nor did he find her intellectually stimulating. He hated her.

"I still have the evidence."

"But you'll be dead. What difference does it make?"

"My husband knows where it is."

"My dear your husband is dead too."

An electric shock ran through her and it paralyzed her. It was her husband, a man she'd loved for almost ten years. Her partner and lover Her child's father. Yes, she'd had the affair but she realized in that moment who he was and what he represented. He'd buried the feelings surrounding their son's death. He had been shocked then grew stuck there in his grief. He couldn't act but when he did it was to fight for the government. She had though she'd hated him for that. It made no sense. But the truth was, he had been a soldier before and exempted because of their young child. And then it dawned on her that the timing of his call to duty was not a coincidence. They'd planned to kill him first and then her. His would be another casualty of war and hers would be a public example. Her death would send two messages. The first was the same fear inducing warning against breaking the moral codes. The second would be a far more nefarious one. Don't challenge the government. After they killed her, their story would die.