Chapter 19 Capture
Chapter NineteenCapture
The guards removed Mozelle’s cloned ring from Zada’s hand none too gently. Then they brought her to a small, nondescript room and left, door disappearing behind them. The walls were white and plain except for a single empty shelf, and the floor was gray tile. There was nothing else.
Part of her wanted to fight back, to throw her body against the wall and proclaim her innocence, the way people did in movies when they were falsely accused of some terrible crime.
But there was no point. Even if anyone was listening on the other side, they would never believe her.
And even if they believed her, she had no way to prove any of it.
She’d been caught in a circle of proprietary data drawn from the Core with a cloned ring on her finger.
They left her waiting for a very long time.
Long enough for Zada to replay her every interaction with Daphne over the past six weeks.
Zada had been so willing to see what she’d wanted to see, so willing to believe there was some part of Daphne that would still do anything for her, just as she would have done anything for Daphne.
She’d been so sure, but the winds of reality had snuffed out the spark of hope in one single blast—Daphne’s true aim had always been to clear her mother’s name.
Daphne had always been working for Daphne.
Zada’s own plight had merely been a handy opportunity.
That was not even the worst part. She remembered the long nights back at school, how Daphne had whispered to her about the truth of her mother, could still hear the heartbreak in Daphne’s voice.
If Daphne had come out and told Zada what she wanted out of the Heartsong program, Zada would have understood.
What hurt most was that Daphne hadn’t trusted Zada with the truth.
She hadn’t seen Zada as anything but a means to an end.
Zada paced the room until she could no longer remember where the door had been. She checked each wall and found nothing but that lone empty shelf, walked another two circuits, and then she let herself slide to the floor. There was no point in maintaining her dignity.
It wasn’t even the loss of Daphne. Or, it wasn’t only that.
Slowly, gently, so gradually that she hadn’t even noticed, Zada had started to hope for and imagine a future where she was unafraid to say how she felt, where the only force shaping her actions was her own desire.
Maybe that had been immature or foolish or both, but to suddenly lose it—for the first time in many years, she cradled her face in her hands and sobbed like a child.
She was still crying when the door appeared to her left and a woman with steel-gray hair wearing a sleek, fashionable blue dress walked in, carrying a bundle of fabric under one arm. When she drew closer, Zada realized it was Administrator Erskine, Marianne’s mother.
The door melted out of existence again behind her.
Zada watched it disappear and felt nothing.
There was nowhere she could go where things would be different.
If she were to leave New Ionia, she would starve, and starve again from the absence of a way to play her triple cello.
The walls around her pressed in from all sides, but the room itself hadn’t changed.
Zada had. Like Alice in Wonderland, Zada had grown too ungainly, too large to fit in her space.
She braced herself for the newcomer’s sharp disdain.
“Hello there,” said Administrator Erskine, her voice melodic and calm. “I’m Lucretia. I believe you went to school with my daughter, Marianne? I brought you some clothes.” She held out the bundle, smiling slightly. “I can’t imagine you’ll want to do this dressed as you are.”
Zada peered up at her. Daphne had found the jacket and the boots, had laid the hat on her head once.
The thought of shedding the costume made Zada feel very tired.
She didn’t want to sit there literally wrapped up in memories of the last forty-eight hours.
She didn’t want to put back on a dress and a corset as if she was the same Zada as before.
She had the strange sense none of it would fit.
Administrator Erskine nodded as if she understood Zada’s hesitance.
“I’ll leave while you change. There is no surveillance in this room.
You can trust me, Zada. I know you must be very angry, to be willing to act out the way you did, and I know that those feelings must have been fermenting and blackening inside you for a long time.
But the fact remains that New Ionia wouldn’t exist if we didn’t care about each one of our charges.
You will get a second chance as long as you choose wisely.
” She bent down to extend the clothes to Zada again.
Zada took them.
“Knock on the wall when you’re done,” said Administrator Erskine.
“Any wall will do.” She walked to the door, which had reemerged on a different wall, then turned to look back at Zada.
“I know you could only do something like what you did tonight if, deep down, you hated yourself. You felt that you couldn’t live up to the lofty standards placed upon our young ladies, and that made you feel as if you were truly alone.
When a young person experiences that kind of isolation and anger, that is when the brain can seize upon an inappropriate attachment to another young person suffering from similar distortions.
Confusion and rage can bubble up in ways that feel to the very inexperienced like passion.
But a little bit of distance can work wonders. ”
Administrator Erskine slipped out.
Zada stared down at the neatly folded pile of her own clothes: a dress, a corset, undergarments, and a long-sleeved jacket to protect her arms from the sun.
For the first time it occurred to her that she no doubt looked absolutely ridiculous, sitting on the ground in a rumpled pirate costume, her reddened face stained by tears and eye makeup.
She wiped her eyes with her fingertips, and the mascara came off in dark, wet smears.
She might as well have dipped her hands in ink.
What would Daphne do? Lie to her, obviously.
But what about the Daphne that Zada had known back at school, the lightning-sharp and brilliant girl who never missed an opportunity to stand up for anyone who needed her help?
It was easy to cast Daphne’s little escapades as silly, impulsive pranks.
But so many of them had been to bring a smile to a downtrodden classmate’s face, or to right an injustice.
It was a moot point. Zada could never be Daphne.
She could never lead the charge with fire and bravery, could never orchestrate some brilliant escape plan, even if there had been anywhere to go.
Nobody had ever withstood Counseling, and that meant Zada would likely not either.
There was only one thing she could do. She shrugged off her magnificent frock coat. It slid to the floor like a dead thing.
A few minutes later, Zada knocked on the wall. The last of the makeup was scrubbed from her face. She hoped she looked presentable. It had been a bit of a project to lace up her own corset, but her household had never been able to afford an autolacer, and she had learned long ago how to make do.
When the door rematerialized, it came in behind her. Zada turned.
“There,” said Administrator Erskine, “isn’t that better.” In her hands now was a pitcher, along with two cups. “You must want something to drink,” she added. “I hear crying takes an awful lot out of a person.”
The inside of Zada’s mouth felt thick and dry but it seemed like such an obvious ploy. She’d seen enough old movies to recognize the scene where the authorities made the suspect ingest something designed to weaken her resolve. She said nothing.
Administrator Erskine emptied the pitcher into the two cups and set it aside on the shelf.
Zada watched this through narrowed eyes, waiting for her to carefully offer only one of them to Zada.
Whatever covert substance the administrator hoped to slip her had to be in the cup itself.
She’d seen enough old movies to know that much.
“Which do you want?” asked Administrator Erskine, almost casually.
Still, Zada said nothing.
“You must realize it’s only water,” Administrator Erskine said. “I couldn’t possibly risk poisoning myself on a fifty-fifty chance, nor do I want to poison you. We still have a great deal of hope for you, Zada Chambers.” She held out both cups.
Zada felt as if the back of her throat might crack and crumble into dust. “Is this how it starts?” she croaked out.
“Is this how what starts?”
“Counseling,” said Zada. “Is that why they sent you?”
“This is me offering you a drink of water,” said Administrator Erskine slowly, “because you’re clearly all cried out, and there’s no way you aren’t thirsty.
We’re not the villains here, Zada. We live and work and raise our families in this community because we love New Ionia and we want New Ionia to be the absolute best it can be.
No part of that plan involves allowing an eighteen-year-old girl to die of thirst.”
Zada pointed to the cup on her left. Administrator Erskine held the other cup to her own lips and drained it in several neat swallows.
Zada took the remaining cup when offered and sipped cautiously. It tasted like water, nothing else.
“There,” said Administrator Erskine. “Now, you and I are going to have a little chat. Nothing scary, just a few questions.”
There was nothing to tell. Her plans had failed, and so had Daphne’s, the reality of Heartsong dealing them a one-two blow. Nobody was going to get what they wanted.
Still.
“I don’t think anything I say can help you,” Zada made herself say. “What’s in me can’t be Counseled away.” It came out steadier than she felt, and she realized then that she was not entirely empty. Somewhere deep inside of herself, a spark continued to flicker.
It wasn’t hope, or even a straightforward, principled resistance.
What Zada felt was anger. Zada Chambers was angry.
She was angry that Daphne had lied to her for so long.
She was angry at herself for believing it.
She was angry that, after all of that work and hope and trying, her match was still Buford, and she was angry that Administrator Erskine could talk so blithely about what was good for New Ionia when she herself had helped to compromise the Core.
Daphne was not the only person who had willfully deceived Zada over and over again, and at least Daphne had lied out of a kind of heartsick desperation, the wild yearning of a daughter who had lost her mother. The administration had no such excuses.
Zada wished she’d said something else as the guards had dragged them apart, although she couldn’t imagine what.
“Now, Daphne has already confessed to everything,” Administrator Erskine was saying.
“She explained how she led you astray. The only trouble is, there were a few inconsistencies in her story, a few details that needed attending. So what I want to discuss with you is how to get you out of this mess.”
Administrator Erskine was right about that much, Zada thought.
It was a mess. It was painful and humiliating and it had literally brought her to her knees.
Zada still wanted to keep this feeling, she realized.
She wanted to hold on to it, no matter how badly it hurt her.
Zada’s soul had at last been pierced, and nobody was going to take that from her.
Administrator Erskine stood with her hands behind her back, waiting patiently.
“I do not consent to Counseling,” said Zada. “This is my formal rejection.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Administrator Erskine said gently. There was not a trace of surprise on her face. “But tell me, Zada, what would make you happy?”
Zada stared up at her, uncomprehending. “What?”
“It’s a simple question. What would make you happy?”
“Um.” Zada’s head was starting to spin unpleasantly.
As if watching herself from a great distance, it occurred to her that Administrator Erskine could have taken some sort of antidote before drinking the water.
“Do you mean right now, or in general?” The words flowed out of her like honey, slow and inevitable. She had not decided to speak.
“Let’s start with in general,” said Administrator Erskine. She reached for a bracelet and activated the SmartGem embedded in it, bringing up a screen and a holographic keyboard that bobbed in front of her.
She tilted her head slightly to the side, as if waiting, which was odd because Zada was sure she had already explained that she would not be saying anything.
Zada was almost positive that she had said this out loud.
She had to keep her head clear. She had to remember what she had decided.
She had to remember why that was important.
There had been something, something she’d been trying to hold on to.
There had been something. Something had mattered—