WAVE Orbiting Station
Four months later

Doric

Through the video feed, Ann Harmony looked tiny, tinier than she did in the media clips. As per protocol, she had been placed alone in the interrogation room and cuffed to the table.

"Can you believe she's over thirty, Girlie?" Mac said behind me. "All the Pit Rats look younger than they are. It's the dust reacting to the skin cells, apparently."

I was familiar with the effect from my days on the surface as a Pit Patrol officer, but I nodded anyway. Mac was my senior by only a couple of years, but he loved to pass on his wisdom to me. I decided long ago to let him think I appreciated it. Besides I needed him right now. "Well? What did Ahluwalia say?"

Mac gulped his third Mocha of the day, and stroked his goatee, like he was some sort of revered sage. "He's not sure about you. He thinks you're a little too keen."

"What the hell does that mean?" 

Mac shrugged and sauntered out of the bull pen, heading down the corridor. I followed him; he knew that I would. "You know our Sec Chief—always covering his ass.  He wants to know why you pushed so hard to get transferred from guard duty to Interrogations." He spoke without looking at me, instead glancing out the wide windows that ringed Sec Central. From low orbit, Simoom's dust storms look like an acid-trip. Swirls and eddies of psychedelic colours, endlessly shifting between grey, green, orange, brown, and red—sometimes even violet or a blue that reminds me of the sea back home on New Earth. Except there are no seas on Simoom—just underground aquafers and not a helluva lot of those.

We tapped our Sec tags and stepped into the control room. The light levels increased and the equipment turned on. And there was Harmony on the monitor again. Even through the crappy cameras, even under the room's harsh lights, and against the dingy white walls, she glowed. Sounds ridiculous, but it's the only way I can describe it. Her greying blonde hair looked silver; her pale skin radiant. Even the faint scarring on her forehead drew me in.

"Ahuwalia thinks you have some sort of personal vendetta against Harmony. Do you, Girlie?"

I blinked to stop myself from staring at the monitor—and to remind myself that Harmony was one of the rats responsible for Raquel's disappearance. I looked up and smiled at Mac. "Hell, no. I already talked to him about this," I said. "It's a big profile case. It could make my career."

Mac chuckled. "That's what I told him too. You're in Girlie." But before I could get too excited, he added: "There are ground rules. The worlds are watching, so everything's got to be done right—no bullying, no coercion, and nobody under any circumstances goes into that room with her."

"But Mac—"

"I mean it, Girlie. We conduct the whole thing in here through the feed. She doesn't see us and she doesn't know who we are."

"But we need to get her trust if she's going to tell us what happened."

"That's not our job. That's up to New Earth Sec. I don't like it any more than you do," he said, when he saw my face. "But our job is to get her to reveal where the other ringleaders are—that's all."

"How long do we have?"

"The Sec agents arrive from New Earth in two weeks. We hand everything over after that. So, are you going to play by the rules?"

"Yeah," I said right away. "But I have a condition of my own."

Mac cocked an eyebrow. "And that is?"

"Stop calling me Girlie."

He chuckled again, settling himself down in a chair by the console. "WAVE-Sec," he said to the computer. "Start image and sound recording." The button on the screen turned red. "Interrogation Session 1; 10:02 hours, 2/32/563 NEC; WAVE-Security officer Detective Anwar MacAndrew lead, WAVE-Security officer Detective Sylvestra Doric, second." Mac stopped, and waved me over to the other chair at the console. "Well," he said to me with great largesse. "Let's see what you can do."

I asked WAVE-Sec to turn on the sound in the interrogation room. "Please be advised that we are recording these interviews," I told Harmony in my most officious voice. "State your name for the record."

She did not acknowledge me, instead she asked into the camera. "Please let me see Travers. He's not well." Her voice, through the speakers, was raspy as if she hadn't spoken in a very long time.

"Your son is perfectly healthy ... for now." I paused, letting the threat sink in. "Please state your name."

"Who're you? What's your name?" The look in her eyes was curious, not fearful.

I glanced at Mac. He shook his head at me.

"Please state your name for the record."

She sighed. "You know who I am."

"State your name please."

She shrugged and I knew she had decided to concede the point. "Ann Harmony."

"Thank you. Now, we have a few questions, Commander Harmony—"

"I'm not a commander." She did not bother to look at the camera this time, but stared down at the table in front of her; silver hair draped her face.

I ignored the interruption. "Were you a member of the Pit Command Council—"

"It was the Pit Co-op Council—CO-OP—at least get the name right."

"Were you a member of the PCC?"

"Yes. Everybody knows that."

"Do you know the current whereabouts of your fellow PCC members?"

"Why?" Her voice became bitter and sarcastic. "Have you lost them too?"

That pissed me off. "Do you think joking about the disappearance of twenty innocent people is going to help you?"

She slouched and shook her head. "I want a lawyer."

"Under the Simoom Charter—clause B35—WAVE-Sec can detain and question subjects without legal representation for a period of—"

"That's convenient. I want to see my son. Let me see Travers. Moses promised —"

"Supervisor Caraq has been re-assigned. Any deals you may have had with him are null and void." Moses Caraq, the Pit Patrol supervisor at the time of the disappearances, was on restricted duty indefinitely. "Tell me Commander, since you've left the Pit, can you still hear the other members of the PCC?"

I could tell this question surprised Harmony by the way she lifted her head and glanced at me through the camera. I saw a dozen expressions move through her face in an instant, until she settled on a quizzical look and a faint upturning of her lips. "It's more like a feeling now—like an annoying buzz in my ears, kind of like the drones. It comes and goes. Do you feel them, Detective?"

Mac snorted.

Ignoring him, I countered: "You're the ones who are supposed to be telepathic."

"You don't believe it?"

"I'm willing to entertain the possibility. So are you 'feeling' them around you now?"

She didn't answer. Instead she murmured almost to herself, "I should tell you about my daughter."

"Please answer. Do you know where your fellow PCC members are?"

"I want to tell you a story first. I want to explain."

"Explain what?"

"I had gone to see Human Resources a week after Denny's—my husband's—funeral. That was, like, more than five years ago now. It goes so fast."

Plateau District, Simoom
Five and a half years ago

Harmony

I remember sweating through my best suit. There were no chairs, except for the one behind his desk, so we stood, crammed inside his cubicle. Sila was clutching my leg and Travers was behind me. I had thought that maybe bringing the kids would melt that bloody bureaucrat's heart. "Please, I just need a couple more weeks—just a little more time—I've got a lead on a job in facilities maintenance ..."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Hominy—"

"Harmony."

"Ms. Harmony, but corporate rules are quite firm on this. Company schools and daycare are for the children of employees and company housing is for employees—"

"My husband worked for WAVE—his name was Denny—Denny Diego. Look him up if you don't believe me." I tried to keep my voice calm.

His voice was flat. "I know who he was; his employment was terminated."

"That's because he died! He was killed in a WAVE mine!" I yelled at him and Sila started crying.

He looked at the kids, and I saw his eyes soften, but only for a second. "You have my sincere condolences for that tragic accident. But there's nothing more I can do for you, Ms. Harmony. The eviction order stands. You and your children and all of your possessions must be out of the unit by the end of the day."

I wanted to mess up his blank face. "Just where the hell are we supposed to go?"

He dismissed us with a shrug. "Go home to New Earth. Start again."

But how? We had spent all our savings getting us to Simoom in the first place—for Denny's big job in the mine. He only had it for six months before he was killed. His back pay covered his funeral, and that was it. There was nothing left. And no rich relatives on New Earth to borrow the credits from.

I tried every which way to get a job at WAVE; I couch-hopped from friend to friend—hard to do with two kids in tow. I had no luck.

Then my so-called friends started kicking us out. The last one, Claire, sat me down in her kitchen and said to me one night: "You've stayed longer than visitors are supposed to and that's only because WAVE-Sec has been jammed on this floor for a month and a half. But they're coming to fix the cameras tomorrow afternoon, and if they find out you're here, I'll get fired. I can't afford to get fired, Ann. You guys have to leave in the morning."

I stared at her across her white plastic table. "I understand." What else could I say? Do I scream at her? Do I scream at her and say You're supposed to fucking help me! I'm a fucking person, aren't I?

But instead I kept my voice low so I wouldn't wake the kids sleeping in the next room and besides I couldn't—I just couldn't lose it.

"I know it's crappy, but ... I've got my own kids to worry about," she goes, trying to avoid my eyes.

"I know ... thanks for everything," I go.

"What happened with that job interview?"

"Didn't get it."

"Do you have any credits at all?"

I shook my head. I don't actually want to admit this, but I do.

"Is there anyone else you can stay with?" she asks hopefully. She doesn't want to feel as guilty as she does.

But again, I shook my head. I had already run through my entire contact list on Simoom.

Claire slid a prepaid digicard across the table—the kind you give to kids for weekly allowances cause they don't have digi-accounts yet. "Take it. There's not much left on it—maybe seventy-five  credits or so. It's not enough for a hotel, but if you go to one of those boarding houses maybe—"

"In the Pit?"

"I hear the ones on the upper slopes aren't too bad ... barely any dust there at all ..." Claire's voice petered out. She knew what she was saying was bullshit.

I stared at the digicard. I was so embarrassed. I couldn't look at her as I reached across and took the card. "Thanks."