WRAITH CASE STUDY AUGUSTA PINE
IDENTITY SECURITY DIVISION
INTERVIEW WITH SUBJECT
I should tell you a bit about my handler.
The first time I met Prefect, I was recuperating from surgery, dragging myself upward through the depths of pain and drugs. Sitting at my bedside was a man studying a holographic chessboard. “You aren’t going to know my name,” he told me. “But you may call me Prefect.”
Wraith handlers always have titles in place of actual names.
Supposedly it’s so wraiths can’t track them down after they are freed.
Personally, I think it’s because they enjoy that extra degree of power that comes with anonymity.
In my time at ISD, I have met a Decurio, an Alderman, a Warden, a Monsignor, and a Centurion.
And then there is Prefect.
Prefect has dark hair and a face that remains stubbornly boyish. When he doesn’t have time to shave, I’ve glimpsed flecks of silver in his stubble, but that probably has more to do with stress than age. A scar runs along one temple to his hairline.
“How’d you get that?” I asked once.
He gave me a flat stare and said, “Someone shot me in the head,” so flippantly I still don’t know if he was serious.
He wears expensive but unremarkable suits, and he always has coffee within reach.
The only interesting thing about him is the elaborate tattoo running up his left arm.
It’s biometric, but it isn’t electron-ink.
Small clocks are etched in gold from his wrist to his elbow.
It’s a beautiful, almost art deco style.
It took me a year to realize there are twenty-four of them: one for each time zone.
He is never content to remain in one moment—he lives in the past, present, and future all at once.
But here’s what you really need to know about Prefect: His world is a chessboard, and I am his knight.
Because I am the only underage wraith.
Wraiths are made. It consists of a medical procedure: ISD must stop the heart for about one minute—which is how long it takes a tattoo to deactivate. It’s risky; sometimes a life cannot be coaxed back.
The unspoken truth is that wraiths want to be wraiths. They make the decision to surrender their former lives, their old crimes, hoping for a second chance.
Only an adult can consent to the operation.
But the feds didn’t kill me. No, I managed that well enough on my own. That put me in a legal gray area—which was Prefect’s specialty. He finagled things so that they could recruit me as a federal asset. His asset.
I know him as well as anyone can. I know how he takes his coffee. I know his rotating assortment of ties and the way he carefully enunciates every word when his temper frays.
And the thing is, Prefect isn’t a terrible boss. He has dedicated the last three years of his life to working with me. And unlike some other wraith handlers, he treats me like a person. I enjoy working with him. His dry wit and attention to detail are a counterweight to my energy and impulsivity.
Not to mention, he saved my life.
Prefect studied the broken creature brought in by ambulance and saw her potential. He signed off on countless expensive surgeries and climbed a mountain of paperwork to save her.
But here is the stark truth. Prefect didn’t save that girl.
That girl who lived before? Her heart stopped in an ambulance, her clothes soaked with river water.
But from her bones, Prefect built Augusta Pine.
And I’m not sure if I can ever forgive him for it.