DORIC

I needed a little time to think without Ann in my head, and I needed to talk to Mac alone. I tried the blocking technique Mancy told me about. I imagined Ann in a closet and closed the door, trapping her inside. But considering how she'd bull-dozed through my mental defences before, I had no idea how long it would work—or if it would work at all. Ann had asked to be taken to the toilet and magnanimously Mac had said yes. As soon as the guards escorted her from the room, I cut the sound and told WAVE-Sec to stop recording.

Turning to Mac, I crossed my arms. "Given their relative orbits at the time, it would have only taken four months for freighters to arrive on Simoom from New Earth."

He leaned back in his chair. "So?"

"So, after the sixth month of the blockade, did any of you ask Caraq where the hell the freighters were?"

Mac shrugged. "We just assumed there was some sort of delay."

"A delay?" I snorted. "Did it occur to anyone to ask whether WAVE Corp. had even sent for those freighters in the first place?"

"Listen Girlie, we were following our orders, that's all."

"That's all?" My voice rose. I tried to remain calm, but I couldn't. "That's crap. I can't believe no one called the Board of Directors on its bullshit."

Mac threw his hands up. "Why didn't you? Where the hell were you then?"

"Me? I didn't see any of that shit that went down at the barricade. I was here on the station guarding the—"

"The detainees?" Mac said, knocking aside my righteous anger.

"Hey, I was just following orders."

"You don't say."

Unfair, unfair, I wanted to yell back at him. "I wasn't deliberately starving anyone. I didn't deliberately withhold food or drink from anyone."

"Oh, and you treated them all like VIPs, right? Never roughed them up when they got out of hand? Never told them to shut up when you heard them moaning and complaining, snivelling in their cells at night?"

I shut my mouth. I had no reply because, of course, Mac was right. I had done all of those things and I had thought nothing of it. But I didn't want to admit it, because once I did I figured Ann would know. Ann would know I had been oblivious to the plight of her son in the detention cell. So instead I insisted: "I wasn't at the barricades. I didn't know how bad it was."

Mac laughed in my face. "Who's dishing the bullshit now, Vestra? Everyone saw what was happening to the Rats. It was on the newsfeed 26/7. Hell, we spent half our time at the barricades shooting down the media's drones. Not that it did any good."

Our conversation stopped as Ann was brought back into the interrogation room and re-cuffed to the table. Had she overheard our conversation—somehow gotten out of that imaginary closet? I had no idea. She didn't let on, as she continued her story.

Pit District, Simoom
Five months ago

HARMONY

One morning, as I was leaving a meeting with Caraq, one of those drones followed me. I usually stuck to the back alleys to avoid the funerals heading to the sink holes. There were more and more of them every morning—people who had died in the night. I rounded a corner in this alley between two rows of shacks. I was upset. In the meetings, Caraq seemed so nice, so empathetic. He dangled the possible release of our people, he promised to lift the blockade, but only if I told him everything about the dust effects. I wanted so badly to believe him, but the people in my head kept telling me he was lying.

In the back alley, this drone dipped low, cut in front of me and hovered at head height. I stopped. I was tempted to stick my tongue out at the camera, but didn't. Instead, I tried to pat my hair down, wipe the dust off my face. Then I heard this audio feed coming from the drone. This voice introduced herself to me. She said: "Hello, I'm..." I can't remember her name now, some reporter from one of the big media outlets, the New Earth Times I think. Then she asked me who I was, and I told her my name.

There was a long pause. Whoever was on the back end of this must have been in orbit because there was a lag in transmission. The whole conversation was disjointed.

"Were you just now meeting with Supervisor Caraq?"

I nodded my head.

"Are you the official representative of the Pit Command Council?"

That's the first time I had heard that phrase, "Pit Command Council." I hadn't thought of us like that—we were always supposed to be a food and social services co-op, but considering all the fights that were happening we had become more like an un-co-op. The reporter was asking me again, so I said, "I...I guess, yes."

Don't talk to them, Omari hissed in my ear. I knew he didn't want the drones sniffing about because they might happen upon the bunker and the tunnels.

But the others disagreed and another fight started filling up my head.

Show them Olafsen's kid puking green out of her lungs.

Tell them how many died last night. Demand the immediate release of our political prisoners in detention.

Appeal for more food, for medical supplies.

No, no!

Oh, for Gods' sake, Omari. We need help.

We can't trust anybody from the outside.

While this was going on, I was trying to answer the reporter's questions. What did I meet with Caraq about? Do I meet with him regularly? I gave half-assed answers, but also in the middle of all this I wondered why Mancy hadn't joined the argument in my head. Usually when Omari went on about the detainees as political prisoners, Mancy would jump in to sneer and say they were more like juvenile delinquents and petty criminals. But this time he didn't. He was listening, I could tell because I could feel how pissed off he was, but he didn't say a thing.

Then the reporter asked: "Are you negotiating on behalf of Pit residents the lifting of the blockade, and the peaceful relinquishment of squatters' rights on what is legally WAVE Corp. property?"

I had no idea how to answer, so instead I said: "How can a corporation own a whole planet? It shouldn't be allowed."

The reporter jumped on that: "Are you saying the Pit Command Council is disputing WAVE Corp.'s commercial rights to Simoom?"

Damn, fucking right, said Sharise.

The voices started up again and the reporter kept asking me questions, but because of the lag, it was all kind of in slo mo, and we would both stutter and talk over each other. And I was trying to figure what I should say to this woman, what our consensus was, but it was all a jumble of words and feelings—fear, anger, desperation, and, I remember, a sharp thrust of jealousy from Mancy. Fuck you, I thought. Fuck you, Mancy. I didn't ask the drone to talk to me; I didn't ask to be the Pit Council representative. Around me the dust was beginning to swirl, beginning to pick up on our bickering, and if it got bad I knew the video feed would buzz out and I would lose my opportunity to say something that might make a difference.

Then the reporter asked: "Does the Pit Command Council have a list of demands?"

And a thought came to me. I don't know from where or whom. I blurted out loud:

"A couple of years back, there were these aid workers from the Plat who came in and operated a free clinic. We need those aid workers back. We want doctors, that's our demand. We want outside observers, not people on the WAVE Corp. payroll. We want aid workers from...New Earth to come and help us. We want food and water and medical help. Those are our demands. And we want our people released from WAVE Corp. detention and then just maybe we'll sit down and negotiate seriously with WAVE Corp."

There was a collective hiss in my head. Like saying "negotiate" out loud meant admitting we had lost the fight. I had had no authority to talk to the media. I hadn't discussed any of that with Caraq or Omari or any of them. But I didn't think it mattered because there was no way WAVE was going to allow the aid workers in—we had no leverage to force them to do it. I know Detective MacAndrew thinks I asked for the aid workers that day, just so we could lure them into the Pit to hold them hostage, and gain some real leverage against WAVE. But I swear it isn't true. I said what I said because it seemed to me at the time I had to push through the stalemate—so I could see Travers again.