Harmony

Oh, I love love stories. They always start off so full of hope, and they keep me occupied, being , incarcerated can be quite boring. I suppose it's my turn now. Well, it's also a love story of sorts.

***

Pit District, Simoom
Four years ago

I knew that lots of people in the pit had dug their own bunkers—grey blizzard shelters—beside their shacks, but I didn't know about the main bunker. Mancy took us to a latrine house by a broken-down shack. It was Omari's, but I didn't know that then. I had never used that latrine because it smelled something awful, besides it was too far down the slope for me. Mancy lifted the plastic sheeting off of one of the waste holes. Only it wasn't a waste hole, but a tunnel with a rope ladder—twisted and old. All the while, I was breathing through my mouth so I didn't have to smell the stink, and I looked down the hole and it was deep and dark, no light and the rope looked frayed. So, I balked. Travers and me didn't want to go down that hole. But, Mancy, gorgeous Mancy, talked us into it. He cracked open some light sticks and put them on a string around our necks. He told me I had to go first, then Travers, then him, cause he had to shut the lid of the hole behind us.

I was still stalling, when he whispered in my ear: "Go on. You can do this. It's simple. Turn around, and swing your leg into the hole, find the first rung with your foot." Then he said, "You want to save your son, don't you?"

'Course he knew exactly what to say to get me to move. The mind link between us started when he grabbed me to haul me off that mattress. It was strong even after only a couple of days. His voice was like simsilk to me.

So, Travers and I climbed that rope ladder down into the darkness, with Mancy whispering us encouragement the whole way down, and it seemed to me the ladder never stopped. It was the galaxy's longest rope ladder. Until finally we touched bottom. It was cool and dank—a relief from the heat at the surface. Low-ceiling passages, walls shored up with bits of plastic and metal sheeting, moved in three directions. I didn't know exactly what I expected, but it wasn't this underground maze. Mancy led us off down one of the passages toward the sound of humming and then we came to this big cavern with this big high ceiling, lit by lights. It wasn't something they had dug out, it was a natural cave in the rock wall of the Pit—Omari had found it years before, when he was digging his grey blizzard shelter. There were bundles everywhere—crates and barrels of food, clothing, machinery, tools, bottled water—water! Brand new. Stuff we hadn't seen since leaving WAVE Corp housing on the Plat more than a year ago. "Holy Shit!" I burst out. "Holy shit!"

There were five people in the room; they were unpacking crates and bins, and they all stopped what they were doing and stared at me and Travers. Then they looked at Mancy like he'd lost his mind and then they all started arguing. They were moving their hands at one another, but no words came out of their mouths. It was like streaming a show with the mute button on. At first, I thought I had gone deaf somehow, but I could still hear the generator humming and the crackle of the electric lights.

Travers tugged on my arm to point out the red dust—we watched it start to lift from all the surfaces and hover in the air. I felt fear, anger and anxiety move through me in waves, coming from these mute people. All these feelings were in the air like energy, and dust swirled with them.

No one had told me outright about mind-links. I had felt stuff before—connections, feelings. I'd seen some pictures and heard some words in my head, specially with Sila when she was so sick at the end, but I hadn't really put two-and-two together, until that first day in the bunker.

I blurted out to them: "Sorry, sorry. We didn't know. We won't say nothing—my kid and me—about all this stuff. We don't care. We just need a place to crash for a while that's all."

But that wasn't all. You can't un-see what you've already seen and Mancy and me were already mind linked. He couldn't hide stuff from me for long. Soon I would know what he knew, what they all knew. And eventually, we all became linked.

***

WAVE Orbiting Station
Now

Like I've linked up with you, Vestra. No, no, don't deny it. Omari explained it to me once: it's touching someone else who's been in the Pit that sets it off—not casual touch, rubbing up against someone by accident. The touch has to have some feeling behind it and the bigger the feeling the faster the link—like if you're really mad at someone or you're really sad or you love them. You were really mad when you touched the back of my head, Vestra. You don't consider yourself a Pitter do you? Doesn't matter, you spent time in the Pit patrolling—Pit Pat / Pit Rat we're all the same.

I don't understand.

Join the club. A mind link seems also to be stronger the closer the two people are physically, which holds true even if you're both out of the Pit—I guess there's enough dust residue in our bodies to keep it alive.

Omari was really pissed that Mancy had taken me to the bunker and I could understand why; he wanted the Pit Co-op Council to keep a low profile. Stop, stop Vestra, stop laughing. It's not funny.

Doric

But it was funny to think that a supercilious, OCD-ridden, control freak like Omari could keep a black-market smuggling ring a secret in a place where everybody could potentially read each other's minds. And so we laughed—me in the arboretum staring out at the stars and Harmony in her cell. I was dead tired, confused, my emotions jarring inside—if we had been in the Pit the red dust would have danced. Laughter brought release—relief—for both of us.

Ann, I said to her. You told no one was in charge of the Council. Ann? Ann? I'm calling her Ann now? And when did I stop talking out loud?

For sure Omari wanted to be in charge, she answered. But he couldn't really control us. He had to persuade us to agree with him. Sometimes we agreed with him, sometimes we agreed with ...

Mancy?

Yes. Her answer was given reluctantly. I'm not sure why; Caraq's debrief had made clear the rivalry between Mancy and Omari on the Council. She wasn't giving up a secret. I asked her: Why protect Mancy?

I'm not.

You are. You said it yourself, you can't lie to me now.

Yes, it's amazing how fast you've accepted our mind link.

Stop changing the subject—

No really. Most people at first try to deny it and think they've gone nuts, but not you.

Anger erupted from me. I started waving my hands again, pacing through the trees. God, I have gone mad. Stop giving me this bullshit, Ann. Stop stalling! For a week now all you've done is stall. Do you think WAVE Corp. is going to put up with your crap for much longer? Tell me the fucking truth.

Tell me the fucking truth, Vestra. It goes both ways you know. Tell me why you're so ashamed when you think of Raquel.

What? I stopped in mid pace.

Every time you picture her I feel this wave of regret and shame.

I didn't know what to say to that.

What did you do, Vestra?

***

New Earth
Eleven years ago

I'd gotten myself a part-time gig working the night shift at Campus Sec. I wasn't an officer—I did not go out on patrol, but merely monitored the live drone feeds and made sure the drones called any trouble into dispatch. Mostly it was an automatic system, but state regulations dictated that a person had to be on hand just in case. Some nights were busy, with lots of drunk and disorderlies; but other nights were quiet. It was on one of those boring nights, when I had lots of time on my hands and a whole host of drone feeds at my command that curiosity got the better of me, and I began to scan the feeds for her face. When I couldn't find her on the live feeds, I used my clearance to pull up recorded footage from days previous.

I didn't know why I was doing it exactly. It defied all logic. My mother did not raise me to be impulsive and irrational. But the compulsion to look for Raquel's face was stronger than me, my upbringing, and my dead mother's voice that still rang in my ears. That first night and all the other night shifts afterwards, as I sifted through the footage for the day, I would get this jolt in my gut, this thrill when I found Raquel. It soothed me to watch her as she went about her life. It became a game to me to while away the midnight hours in the dead calm of the monitoring room. I soon found out when she worked night shifts herself, and I started to access the live feeds just outside the clinic doors, in hopes of catching a glimpse of her walking past inside or stepping out for a breath of fresh air on a break.

I told myself I was not stalking her, but just honing my security skills with this old-timey search through the drone images. I never plugged her name into my search parameters or used the facial recognition software. I knew my employee number was recorded every time I accessed the footage — but that wouldn't necessarily cause any suspicion. Accessing drone cameras was part of my job. But repeated searches for the same person? Too risky. It was better to be as discrete as possible. Two weeks went by, two months, and nothing happened, and so I convinced myself no one would find out and it was all a harmless pastime—feeding this crush of mine—it would never affect Raquel or me or anyone else. But that was naïve.

Three months after I first searched for Raquel in the footage, my boss at Campus Security called me into their office.

They made me stand in front of their desk and silently wait for them to finish reading something on their screen. I don't know how long I stood there—ten minutes, maybe. My mind was drifting and my eyes unfocused, when I heard a throat being cleared. I drew my attention forward to find that the boss had put down their screen, and was eying me as they sat back with arms crossed.

"Why do you have Raquel Park-Lee under surveillance?"

"Sorry, Sir...what?" was my panicked reply.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, Ms Doric. I have your drone access records for the last four months here," they said, indicating the screen with a flick of a finger. "Who told you to watch Park-Lee?"

"Uhm...nobody...Sir."

Their eyes looked doubtful.

"You did this on your own initiative?"

For a second I considered lying—naming a higher up—but the higher up would deny it and there was nothing on record and my mother's voice was in my brain talking about honour and commitment and honesty.

So I nodded my head. "Yes, Sir. On my own."

"Why?"

What could I say? What could I possibly say? Damn my mother. There's no bloody way I could be honest here. Conscious of being scrutinized, I fumbled around for a plausible lie. "Well, Sir...I...know she frequents the anti-corporate protests on campus."

"So do a great many of our students."

"Yes, Sir...I..."

"Do you have suspicions of her doing anything illegal?"

"I don't think she pays her municipal tickets," I blurted out before I could stop myself.

They laughed. "I was talking about a major infraction. Have you been witness to anything major? Something we haven't caught on camera?"

"No, no, Sir." I shook my head vehemently. This was getting out of hand. I had no wish to get Raquel in trouble. "Nothing like that, honest." Did I just say 'honest', like I was eight again and desperately trying to convince my mother I wasn't lying? I had stopped talking, but they were still looking at me. "It's just that...uh...I've noticed she seems to be close with the protest organizers." Which was true.

"Yes, we've noticed that too." They smiled at me then. "Sit down, Ms Doric."

They gestured to the chair on my left. I thanked them and sank down gratefully in the plush cushion, letting out a long, but I hope inaudible sigh.

My boss leaned forward and clasped their hands together. "What are you, twenty?"

"Twenty-two, Sir," I told them—though it occurred to me they had already looked up my age on my record.

"I stand corrected. I know your mother was on the Capital Security force for close to thirty years—spotless record, dozens of citations of merit. I was sorry to hear about her death."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," I replied, wondering where this was going.

"Tell me, Ms. Doric, what do you see in your future?"

Before I knew it, I blurted out my plan to apply for WAVE Sec training.

"Excellent," they said. "You're a great candidate." There was a beat of silence, then they added: "What would make you an even better candidate is if you had some Campus Sec experience—beyond the monitoring room, I mean. In the field."

I was jubilant—smiling ear to ear. "Oh...I would jump at the opportunity...I wouldn't let you down—"

Then came the clincher. "The only thing better than field experience would be perhaps some undercover experience, wouldn't you say?"

My smile fell. I tried to tell my boss no—that I couldn't do it—that I'd been compromised, that Raquel could easily find out I worked for Campus Sec.

But they just shrugged. "So? Tell her you've become disillusioned with your job."

"But..."

"There are places our drones can't get into—private residences, buildings. We need to know whether her group is planning something beyond peaceful demonstrations."

"Something illegal? Like what?"

They shrugged a second time. "Arson, theft, assassination, a bomb, who knows."

I could not believe that. I did not believe that and I told my boss so.

But they merely shrugged a third time. "Then prove them innocent, Officer Doric."

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