HARMONY

It's weird, but I'm going to miss this interrogation room when this is all over. There are eighty-four ceiling panels, fifteen wall panels and ten and a half floor tiles. I counted them every morning waiting for Vestra and Mac to get here. What caused that big brown splotch on the wall? Did one of the Pats smash a prisoner's head into the wall? Is it a blood stain? And what's with all the scratches on the metal table? It looks like someone tried to write something. Maybe it was a message from a long-ago prisoner. When Mac droned on and on, I'd try to figure out the message and when I couldn't I began to make messages up: "Be stoic and brave," "Keep your back straight," "It will all be over soon." Stupid things, clichés really.

Vestra is upset with me this morning—so upset she can hardly breathe. They're in the control booth now; how many mochas has Mac had already? He seems jittery to me. I know who Mac is, Vestra. I finally placed him. I know he was in those meetings with me and Caraq—standing by the door in full visor and helmet, as if I would contaminate him. What has he said about me?

Nothing? You won't answer? You're trying to block me out now, deny our connection. It's far too late, Love, for that. Ask me your questions, I'll tell you everything now.

I know New Earth Sec is coming—we're running out of time.

Go on, ask me. Ask me.

"Commander Harmony," started Mac through the microphone. "Did you give the order to kidnap and kill the aid wo—?"

"Go on Vestra," I shouted, speaking over Mac, looking directly into the camera, looking directly at Vestra sitting so sad beside Mac in the control room. "Ask me what you want to ask me. Did I notice that Moses Caraq liked how I looked? Yes. Did I notice he had a soft spot for sob stories about lost and sick children? Yes, but it's not as if I had to make up those stories I told him, or even exaggerate them like Mancy did. They were all true. And I told him as many stories as I could, not just about my kids, but of all the other Pitter kids." Vestra's jealousy reached me. She was just beginning to understand she'd have to share me. "Ask me Vestra!" I screamed at her.

Vestra reached across, I knew this, I could feel this, in the control room, she reached across and spoke into the microphone, before Mac had a chance to react. Her voice through the sound system cracked: "Did you try to seduce Caraq?"

I smiled at her. "Absolutely. I would have done anything to help Travers."

"Did you sleep with him?" Again, I could hear her struggle to speak.

I shook my head. "As Detective MacAndrew knows, we were never alone during our talks. Caraq kept his distance physically."

"So," I heard Vestra start. Here came the question she really wanted to ask me. "You and Caraq were never..."

"Together? No, Vestra, no." I felt a great relief flood over Vestra, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint her again. I'm not that noble. "I told you, there was no opportunity. But even if there had been, I wouldn't have purposefully linked with him. If I had, he would have instantly known how we were running the blockade, who was helping us on the Plat, about the tunnels. I didn't want to snitch on the council and we needed those supplies. We were trying to survive."

Mac nudged Vestra away and we both fell back on our chairs. He came back on the sound system: "That's old news. We found the tunnels. We've dealt with your Plat contacts. I want to know about the aid workers. Whose idea was it to ask for them? Caraq's? Omari's?"

I looked straight in the camera. "No, it was mine."

DORIC

I sat slouching in the chair beside Mac and let him continue the interview. I felt foolish for wanting to know, for wanting to trust Harmony, for being jealous.

"As a representative of the Pit Council, how often did you meet with Commander Caraq?" Mac's voice was as steady as ever.

"You were there, Detective, you know this."

"Just answer the question for the record."

Harmony sighed, but complied. "Once every two days. In the mornings. At first, I was the one who would ask to see him. I'd just go up to the barricade and ask for him. Then as the weeks went by, he would call down from the barricade and ask for me. And someone would fetch me. He didn't want to talk to anyone else but me."

"Why was that?"

She shrugged. "You'd have to ask him that. I think he liked me that's all. And I liked him. I thought he gave me straight answers."

"But you were not always so straight with him, were you?"

"I was as straight as I could be, without telling him about the tunnels." That admission seemed to cost Harmony. She knew everything she said weighed on my mind; she knew I was judging her, deciding who to believe, what to believe, what to do. Then, teasing me more, still keeping secrets, she added: "But I wasn't the only one who withheld the truth."

"What does that mean?"

Pit District
One year ago

HARMONY

We'd meet, Caraq and me, in a crappy little tin can shelter they erected just on the lip of the Pit by the main road barricade. They always had the HVAC system on full blast, in a useless attempt to keep the dust out. Before I could enter, one of the Pats would actually take a mini vac to my clothes and hair. Then he'd search me. We'd sit at a table like this one, me on one end and Caraq on the other. He took his helmet and visor off, so I could at least see his face. He had nice eyes—dark. A couple of Pats—usually Mac and another one—in full gear, always stood at my back.

The first meeting was all about the detainees. The mind links with them were still faint. We still didn't know what had happened to our people. Caraq confirmed the 217 names on our list. Then he offered me a list of who had been hurt and who had been killed. My head and heart stopped—was Travers on that list? But surely Caraq would have told me upfront if that was the case? He wouldn't be so cruel as to let me read about my son's death on some bureaucratic tally, would he? As I reached for the screen tablet with shaking hands, the PCC knew how I felt, but still they started arguing again.

Don't accept the tablet; you can't bring it back to the Pit, said Omari in my head.

Why the hell not? Mancy answered back.

They'll use it to spy on us. I won't have their electronic gear in the tunnels.

You're fucking paranoid, Omari.

Paranoid? They're killers. They killed our people, piped in Ng.

You don't know that.

They just gave Ann a list of our dead.

Accidents, probably just accidents. It was a riot. Our idiot people were rioting. The Plats have a right to defend themselves.

Why are you always fucking apologizing for them? screamed Sharise.

Why are you always fucking screaming? Mancy shot back.

"Enough," I said aloud.

"I beg your pardon?" said Caraq, pulling me out of my head. "Enough what?"

"Sorry, sorry," I said¸ as the telepathic arguments calmed. "It's been a stressful time for me." I tried to smile at him then. I pushed the tablet away. "Screens don't work well in the dust. Can I get a printed list?"

"That can be arranged," he said, and nodded to the Pat that wasn't Mac, who then left the room. "But don't you want to know about your son now?"

I shook my head at first—I was terrified of knowing. But then I changed my mind and nodded my head. "Tell me." I nudged the screen across the table to him. "I don't want to read it. Will you read it? His name is Travers Harmony, aged..."

"Fourteen, I know. I don't have to read the list. I looked him up before. He was uninjured. He's fine."

Relief took over my body. I slouched forward, hugging myself, my hair shielding my face, my forehead almost touching the cool metal of the table top. I didn't want to cry in front of Caraq. I didn't want to collapse.

Caraq kept talking. "In fact, he looks great considering he's spent years in the Pit. So, do you, by the way. R&D wants to know why there's this phosphorescence on your skin."

I raised my head. "What?"

"They want to know why you all glow."

"You're experimenting on him?" My voice was sharpened by a collective quick uptake of anger and fear from my fellow council members back in the bunker.

"No," said Caraq, and this time he tried to smile. "I wouldn't call it experimenting. It's just a few medical tests. They have some questions about long-term exposure to the dust on the human body—what causes the glow and are there other effects."

"You mean other than black lung?"

"Yes, other than that. Would you like some water, Commander Harmony? Something to eat?" Without waiting for my answer, he nodded to Mac behind me, who went to a side table where the food and water jug were.

Mac put a glass of water and a pastry down in front of me. I remember my stomach rumbling. Don't touch that, hissed Sharise in my inner ear. It could be drugged. It could be a trick.

Oh, for fuck's sake, it's a peace offering, said Mancy in the other.

But my mouth was dry, so I took a sip of water. "I told you I'm not a commander," I said.

Caraq chuckled. "Fine, then may I call you Ann?"

"Sure, that would be fine...Moses."

He nodded his head in agreement and we sat in silence for a while. He sat at ease in his chair—the heavy field uniform did not seem to bother him. I tried to match his calmness, but I was fidgety—and the people inside me were fidgeting too, wondering who were on that list. Finally, I said to him: "What happens now?"

He opened his arms and spread his hands friendly like. "We wait for your print out, of course."

"No, I mean, what's going to happen to the detainees? When are you going to lift the barricades?"

"I know nothing more than you do, Ann. You heard the announcement from the Board—nothing in, nothing out."

"For how long?"

He shrugged.

"And the detainees?"

"They're not my department."

"But...Moses, Travers is just a child."

"Maybe...maybe I can get a message to him for you."

"You'd do that?"

"Sure, Ann," he said, leaning forward on the table, with his empathetic eyes. "If you tell me about the dust and its effects."