Incineration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 2) Page 4

  Proctor Fonner! Why in the world—?

  The Supervising Proctor of InKubator 9 enters from the waiting area, managing to look authoritative even in this room filled with authority figures. Two uniformed men enter behind him, and array themselves on either side of the door, for all the world like bodyguards. That doesn’t make sense. Proctor Fonner is wearing a white jumpsuit and he stands out amongst all the black robes. He still looks like a praying mantis with his large head and long limbs, and when he sits he folds his hands together at chest height in the position I remember so well. He tilts his head up to take a good long look at me before facing Vestor. The silvery gray eyes beneath thin black brows still have the power to make me think I’ve done something wrong and am about to be slapped with demerits. I laugh inwardly. Demerits—if only my likely punishment were so mild. The Kube seems like a long, long time ago.

  Vestor gets right to it. “Minister Fonner—”

  Minister?

  “—you’ve known Everly Jax since she was an infant. In your expert opinion, is she intelligent enough to have planned and executed the complicated plot the prosecution alleges? Could she have engineered an escape from the Kube, survived in the swamp, killed combat-hardened IPF soldiers, arranged an alliance with a band of outlaws, and finagled her way into a RESCO in order to steal a zygote?”

  Proctor Fonner lets a beat elapse before speaking, looking reflective. “Everly Jax is not unintelligent. In her sphere—biochemistry—she is, in fact, quite gifted. However, I have never found her to be much of a planner—she was quite impetuous—and I find it difficult to believe she could have orchestrated a plot like the one you’re talking about. Why, she couldn’t even sneak down to the beach for an afternoon without getting caught. In my opinion, a youth named Wyck Sharpe planned the escape from the Kube and led Everly and another apprentice citizen, Halla Westin, into the swamp. I cannot hazard a guess as to how they became affiliated with the outlaws, but I have to think they were, perhaps, captured, since none of the three of them possessed any skills or abilities that would possibly make them a useful addition to an outlaw group.”

  Huh. I’m undecided whether to be grateful or affronted at his assessment of my abilities. Grateful, I decide, given the circumstances.

  “Thank you for your time today, sir,” Judge Tysseling puts in when Vestor says he has no more questions, “and may I congratulate you on your recent appointment as Minister for Information?” His groveling is even less attractive than his tyrannizing.

  “Thank you. I am always happy to do my duty as a citizen,” Proctor—Minister—Fonner says graciously. “It is my earnest desire to see justice done in this case and, indeed, all others.” He stands, dwarfing Vestor, and departs, leaving a buzz of speculation behind him.

  Wishing I’d known about Minister Fonner’s testimony earlier, so I could have worked at looking stupid throughout the trial, I settle for letting my mouth sag open a bit and slumping my shoulders. I feel someone’s gaze and look down to see the middle juror is once again staring up at me. I meet his or her gaze without flinching, feeling challenged. I’m almost certain the eyes behind the hood are not geneborn gold. It’s a moment before I realize I’m out of character and lower my eyelids and chin. With what might be a nod of acknowledgment, the hooded head returns to watching Vestor.

  At the judge’s command, Prosecutor Babbage begins her summation. “Don’t let the innocent act fool you,” she starts out. She gestures to me. “Everly Jax is not the feckless young girl she appears. She’s a cold-blooded killer and traitor to our beloved nation.”

  It gets worse from there as she recites all the atrocities I’m alleged to have committed, dismisses the testimony of Dr Malabar and Minister Fonner as self-serving—“He doesn’t want to admit a child raised under his supervision grew into a cunning, homicidal monster”—and calls for my execution. Half-way through her diatribe, the crowd begins clapping softly and rhythmically, and by the time she finishes they’re stomping their feet in acclaim. No one calls out or says anything. The beat reverberates in the room, ringing off my polyglass cage, vibrating through me. It’s eerie and hypnotic at the same time.

  I give Vestor a frightened look and he silences the crowd with a ringing, “Balderdash!” The clapping and stomping falter and he follows up with, “Utter poppycock! From her fantastical ravings, I can only think Prosecutor Babbage inhaled a little Psyche with her cereal this morning.”

  There’s a titter of laughter, and the judge—who didn’t bother to stop the clapping and stomping, I noticed—bangs his gavel and bellows, “Silence. Silence, or I will clear all spectators from the courtroom. This is a court of law, not a comic entertainment. Counselor Vestor, you will cease speculating about Prosecutor Babbage’s personal habits.”

  Vestor is enough of a showman to wait a beat before saying with faux gravity, “Of course, your Honor. No more comments about the prosecutor’s diet or drug habits.”

  This earns him muffled laughter, quickly suppressed as Judge Tysseling glares. Vestor launches into his final statement before the judge can chastise him again. “Jurors, Everly Jax’s only crime, if crime you can call it, is impetuousness and a lack of judgment I think we can say is typical of sixteen-year-olds. She ran away from InKubator 9—yes, but only in an attempt to use her scientific gifts for the good of Amerada.”

  He gestures broadly as he talks about my research and my love for Amerada which led me to find the RESCO when I escaped from Bulrush and volunteer as a surrogate. He builds up Dr. Malabar’s and Minister Fonner’s reputations and quotes from their testimony, emphasizing that the implantation never took. He commands everyone to look at me and I feel the pressure of hundreds of pairs of eyes drilling into me as he asks if I look like a killer or a young innocent subjected to the brutality of outlaw captors.

  The crowd remains quiet. Shuffling feet and a few mutters are the only sounds. Vestor’s doing his best, but I can feel that the crowd is not interested in my acquittal. They’re primed for blood. Only a death sentence will appease them. I catch sight of Zestina Pye where she sits at the far end of the gallery. She’s leaning forward, watching Vestor, but then she meets my gaze and I think I see both anticipation and a hint of pity in her eyes.

  Vestor pauses and then comes out from behind his podium. He makes a slow 360-degree turn, black robe belling out. He locks eyes with the judge, the jurors, and the spectators in turn. The only one he doesn’t look at is me. I grip my hands together so tightly my knuckles gleam white.

  “To prove to all of you what a fervent patriot she is, when she is cleared of these ridiculous charges, Everly Jax has volunteered to return to the RESCO to be a surrogate for Amerada!”

  “No!” I slap my hands against the cool polyglass. They sting.

  My strangled cry is drowned by the babble of conversation and even a smattering of applause. Vestor seizes the opportunity afforded by the hubbub to look up at me, a message I can’t decipher in his black-rimmed eyes. Has he betrayed me, or does he think this is the only way to save my life? I don’t care—I will not enter the RESCO and be turned into a drugged surrogacy machine, popping out babies until I’m all used up. I can’t do it. I’m panting, my mouth slightly open, but no air seems to reach my lungs and I feel dizzy.

  Judge Tysseling regains order and dismisses the jurors to confer on my fate. I had hoped that Vestor and I could retire to a private room to await their return so I could have it out with him, but my transparent cage remains aloft. I want to sink down and hide my head in my hands, but pride keeps me standing. I will not give this crowd, Babbage, the judge—anyone—the satisfaction of thinking they’ve beaten me. If I have to stand here for twelve hours, that’s what I’ll do.

  It’s not twelve hours, though—it’s only fifteen minutes before the jurors file back in. How can that be? How can they decide my fate in a mere quarter of an hour? Did they even discuss the case? I get the feeling that the verdict was pre-ordained before I even entered the courtroom.

  “Juror
s, how find you on the charge of theft of a government zygote?” Judge Tysseling asks.

  They stand, face him, and say in unison so I can’t tell if the voices are male or female, “Not guilty.”

  I catch my breath.

  “And on the charge of murder?”

  Time stops. I’m not conscious of anyone or anything except the three hooded figures. I forget to breathe. My vision is graying out when the jurors chorus, “Guilty.”

  Whack. The judge’s gavel comes down like a period.

  Chapter Six

  A slow chant begins behind me. It takes me a moment to decipher the single word: “Death. Death. Death.”

  The judge speaks over the crowd. “I will now pronounce sentence on Everly Jax, righteously convicted of murdering an IPF soldier. Given her extreme youth and the repentance she expresses by volunteering to return to the RESCO to give life to future citizens of Amerada, I sentence her to death, but commute her sentence for as long as she remains at a RESCO in the service of our great nation. Amerada before family, before friends, before self. Amerada over all.”

  The crowd recites the pledge after him and it takes the edge off their reaction. They begin to disperse.

  I will not cry, I will not cry, Iwillnotcry. The words blur together and I bite the inside of my cheek to help me focus. With a lurch that makes me put a hand on the polyglass, I begin to descend. Two guards, Zestina Pye, and Vestor are waiting for me when I reach the ground. The judge and jurors have disappeared. Vestor’s robe is unbuttoned, showing flashes of an orange jumpsuit beneath.

  “This conviction is a huge blow to my reputation,” Vestor laments. He takes my arm to help me out, but I wrench it away. The guards lean in, hands on their Electrical Signal Disruptors, but he waves them back. “You’re disappointed with the verdict,” he says. “Of course you are. I am, too.” He rips off his wig and throws it to the ground in a fit of pique.

  I stare at him in disbelief. “You lied. You said I volunteered to go to the RESCO. You betrayed me.”

  “I did what seemed best. As long as you’re alive, there’s always hope.”

  “Alive?” My voice rises. “You forget I’ve been in a RESCO. Those women are not alive, not in any meaningful sense.”

  “Oh, but it makes such a powerful story,” Zestina puts in. Her rusty curls look like she’s suffered an electric shock and her thin face is alight with excitement. “Young girl sets out to save Amerada, loses her way, finds redemption in surrogacy.” She pans a hand across at eye level as she talks. “It helps that you’re beautiful. Perhaps just a little make-up to dramatize your eyes before we do the interview?”

  “I don’t need redemption and I’m not doing an interview.”

  “Tysseling has given us one hour before Everly will be transported to the RESCO.” Vestor talks over me like I haven’t spoken.

  “I’m not going back to the prison? What about my stuff?” My Little House, my feather!

  “Your property will be sent on to you, I promise,” Vestor says.

  “That gives me confidence.”

  “Now, now.” He pinches my elbow as we walk in a small herd to the room we lunched in yesterday. “Cuffs, cuffs, cuffs.” He motions to the guards who detach my handcuffs and remain outside as we enter the room and close the door.

  I rub my wrists. Was it only yesterday we ate in here? Just a day ago I had hope. Now . . . now I have anger, a deep, fierce anger that I’m nourishing so it grows like smothering kudzu over the despair I feel forcing itself up from my gut. The ironic thing is that I’m guilty: I did kill a man. I thrust my knife into his trachea. I had no choice. At least, it didn’t feel like I did at the time. Perhaps I deserve my fate. No. No one deserves a lifetime of enslavement. That’s what forced surrogacy is—a form of slavery.

  “Everly.” Vestor recalls my wandering attention. He motions to Zestina who is sitting in a straight-backed chair, imagers arrayed in a half-circle so the interview can be captured from several angles.

  I take the chair across from her and get a whiff of a melony scent when she leans forward. I expect her to ask about the trial and the verdict, but she says, “So, Everly, you were captured by Bulrush. Can you tell us about the fear and desperation you experienced in their clutches?”

  I can see Vestor nodding in my peripheral vision, but I’m through taking his advice. I’m through acting. Lifting my chin and staring straight at an imager, I say, “Bulrush saved me and my friends, Halla and Wyck. Bounty hunters were going to kill Wyck and sell me and Halla, and Bulrush saved us. They’re heroes.”

  “Stop.” Zestina makes an annoyed face and does something to a palm-sized control panel. Deleting the images, I imagine. “She’s not following the script,” she complains to Vestor.

  He shrugs. I wrinkle my brow. Script?

  “I can’t make you sympathetic if you tell the world you like outlaws,” Zestina explains, as if I’m a child unable to comprehend the simplest concepts.

  “I don’t give a damn about being sympathetic and I’m done lying. I will not say anything negative about Bulrush. They—”

  Zestina flaps an impatient hand. “Very well, then. Let’s start elsewhere. Tell me about running away from the Kube and what happened up until you ran into Bulrush.”

  I’m on easier territory here and I tell her about the wild dog pack that chased us, scrounging for food and potable water, the swamp and the quicksand, the mother-son pair who kidnapped Halla. I don’t mention the secret government research facility we stumbled into, or the insane pair we found there. I’m not sure if it’s to protect Anton and Alaura—who certainly don’t deserve my protection after trying to barbecue me and Wyck in an incinerator—or if I sense it’s dangerous to admit knowing about the facility. Zestina’s a better interviewer than I would have given her credit for—she draws large chunks of the story from me before I peter out.

  “You’re very loyal to your friends,” Zestina says, wide-eyed, when I finish. “You risked your life for them numerous times.”

  “That’s what friends do,” I say curtly.

  “Not all friends.”

  She and Vestor exchange a glance. She refers to notes on her reader, and asks archly, “So, you and your ‘friend’ Wyck . . . do I sense a romance there?”

  I remember the kisses we shared, our first one in the swamp, trembling with fear as much as with passion. “I love Wyck and Halla,” I say. “They’re my . . . family.”

  Zestina bobs her head. “Good. So touching. Speaking of family . . . is it true that your parents didn’t show up for your Reunion Day? That must have been devastating.”

  The desolation of that day lances through me before I can prepare myself. I stand so forcefully my chair topples over. “I’m done here. I don’t know what you’re planning to do with this interview, but my life, my emotions, are not for . . . for—. They’re private. The state may have the legal right to my body—they can force me to have babies—but they can’t have my thoughts. I’m ready to go.”

  As if on cue, the guards knock and then open the door. “The transport is here,” one of them tells Vestor.

  “Good.” I stride toward the door and brush past the surprised guard.

  Moving with a speed I wouldn’t have thought him capable of, Vestor catches up to me and hooks his arm through mine as we cross the marble lobby and pass through the doors. It’s pouring now, the rain pounding down in heavy sheets, and there’s no crowd waiting to watch my departure. Thank God. The guards march on either side of us, all four of us getting drenched, and the ACV’s armored door swings up as we approach. Bending to help me in, Vestor whispers in my ear, his voice almost drowned by the torrential rain, “I believe in you, Everly Jax. And I believe in your friends.”

  I jerk my head around so I’m staring into his eyes. He gives me the tiniest of smiles. Before I can ask what he means, the door begins to close and Vestor backs away. I keep my eyes trained on him until the door thunks down with the finality of a guillotine blade.

  Chapte
r Seven

  The guard on my left cuffs me and activates the maglock before strapping me into a restraint harness attached to the roof and floor of the ACV. The guard across from me keeps his weapon trained on me until I’m secured. Then, he taps on the divider separating our compartment from the driver’s cockpit and the air cushion engages. We pull away, hard rain pinging off the armored hull. I’m on my way back to the RESCO, to a life sentence as a surrogate. I’ll be impregnated with zygotes carefully engineered to be of use to the nation, they’ll be extracted at term, and the process will start over. I’ll be kept in a drugged state that makes me not mind that I’m nothing more than a flesh and blood incubator. I shiver, and not from the damp.

  “I knew him,” the soldier across from me says, lifting the visor of his helmet. He’s got broad cheekbones, a flat nose and almond-shaped eyes that stare unblinkingly into mine. “Private Dunn. Venka Dunn. The man you killed. We went through basic together.”

  Without warning, he slams his gloved fist toward my face. It smashes into my cheekbone. My head snaps to the side and the glove’s rough fabric tears away the skin. Pain explodes in my head. I let out an oof.

  “You should be going to the scaffold, not a cushy RESCO,” he says, landing another punch on my jaw. My teeth crunch together and blood blooms in my mouth.

  The taste jolts me back to the interrogation room. Strobing lights blind me so I can’t make out the interrogator’s features as he looms over me. I’m crumpled on the floor, naked. My tongue is cut and swollen and my own blood gags me.

  “What is the connection between Bulrush and the Defiance?”

  “Dere idn’t any.”

  “Liar! Who is Idris? What is his relationship to Alexander? Where do you take the women and children you abduct? What is Fiere’s last name? How large is your network? There’s a geneborn working with Bulrush—what’s his name? Where did you get your weapons? Who supplied your dome rations?”

  The questions battered me, blending together. The strobes disoriented me. The heavy boots and fists landed on my breasts, my kidneys, my stomach. Five ribs cracked like fireworks going off inside me. Jagged bursts of pain that made me see red and yellow sparkles. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” How many times did I say it? It was true, but the truth didn’t protect me.