Sophie Littlefield - Rebirth

“You know that he is an enemy to our work, our vision. That he murdered some of our people who were on a peaceful mission.”

“I…had heard, later.”

She forced herself to stay completely still, giving away nothing, as Mary watched her, frowning. At last, the deep-etched lines on her forehead relaxed, and she sighed.

“I suppose you couldn’t have known that when you met him. I have to say, it’s a real shame that the people at that school engaged my team and made bloodshed unavoidable. Of course we would have liked to accommodate all of them. But more to the point, the school was a more than serviceable shelter, and they had laid in enough stores to last through the winter.”

Cass’s uneasiness intensified; she had little doubt that those stores had been taken and brought to Colima along with Sammi and the few other survivors of the battle. And she was equally sure that the bloodshed there could have been avoided if the Rebuilders hadn’t unilaterally attacked the shelter and brutalized the people living there. But she forced herself to remain quiet.

“Anyway, perhaps I should just show you what I brought you here to see, instead of talking on and on and on. Ha!”

And with that odd punctuation, they had reached the bottom of the stairs.

Mary took a key from her pocket and unlocked the scarred metal door before them. She pushed it open and stepped out of Cass’s way, giving her an unobstructed view of a large, open, murky corridor lined with half a dozen hospital cots and a couple of straight-backed chairs. Men in Rebuilder uniforms rose from the chairs. People lay in several of the cots, motionless and covered with blankets, their forms but lumpy masses in the dark. Doors leading off the corridor opened into a mechanical room, where the building’s HVAC equipment sat silent and still.

“We reserve this little area for our special cases-our patients who are headed for detention, assuming they survive.”

Cass took a closer look at the beds. A large man lay on his side at an awkward angle; it took Cass a moment to realize he was handcuffed to the bed frame. His eyes were closed and his lips were dry and rimed with crusted spittle, and a soiled white bandage wound around the top of his skull. His chest rose and fell with quick, shallow breaths, but otherwise he didn’t stir. It seemed likely that he needed more care than he was getting.

Neither of the uniformed men made any move to join Mary and Cass. One stood with his feet planted a few feet apart, hands clasped behind his back; the other slouched against the wall, eyes roving back and forth over the beds as though he expected their occupants to make a run for it at any moment.

“Are these guys doctors?” Cass asked, already knowing the answer.

Mary barked a short laugh. “Hardly, but they’re Detail One, the highest security rank. Alvin, come here a moment, if you’d be so kind.”

The slouching guard ambled over with the clumsy gait of the extremely muscular. His neck was so thick he couldn’t button his khaki shirt all the way, and his sleeves were tight over his biceps.

“This is Cassandra Dollar. She’s an outlier.”

Alvin nodded. “Ma’am.”

“I believe she will have a particular interest in the patient in bed number two. He’s still out, I take it?”

“Yes, Doc dosed him again ’bout an hour ago. They’re keeping them all quiet for us.”

“Can’t question the wisdom of that decision,” Mary said dryly, but the irony seemed lost on the guard. “If you’ll be so kind, I think we’d like to see the patient for ourselves.”

She led the way to the end of the row, Cass staring at the cots as they passed. One of them held a woman with greasy black hair that fell past what was left of an eye, now little more than a sunken socket. Both her arms were casted, so there seemed no need for shackles, but as they passed Cass saw that her ankles were circled by metal cuffs. A thin trail of red-tinged drool leaked from the corner of her mouth and a fly buzzed around her motionless head.

Cass wondered if she was dead.

When they reached the last cot, Alvin carefully folded down the blanket and sheet covering the man lying there. A weak moan escaped his lips and a tremor racked his body.

One arm was bent at an unnatural angle across his chest, the hand splayed against a torn and filthy shirt. The fabric was ripped in several places, and a long gash of his exposed arm was crusted with grit and seamed with yellow pus, the wound extending under the fabric of what remained of the shirt. As Cass’s gaze traveled down the wounded arm, she saw that the hand had been badly mangled, the little finger and part of the next one missing, the stumps ragged and oozing, black with dried blood.

Cass drew in her breath. “Why…?”

“This is a special case,” Mary said, and there was something odd and breathy about her voice, a sense of anticipation, of excitement. “One of the ones who was injured in the skirmish yesterday up north, brought in on the truck. I’m a little surprised he’s still with us, to be frank. In our charter it’s written that we do not provide aid or succor to perpetrators of war crimes on either side of an engagement, and you can witness that we haven’t. He has received no pain medication, no antibiotics, no dressing for his wounds. He was tried in absentia at the time of his crimes, and he would already be in detention except that the nature of his crime calls for solitary confinement and we didn’t quite have that ready for him-he’ll be our first such prisoner and there’s a bit of urgency to get this one right.”

A feeling of terrible inevitability was uncoiling inside Cass, a horror that was building and drowning out the sound of Mary’s voice. Tried in absentia…crime calls for solitary…first such prisoner…

“Who…?” she whispered, licking her dry lips, suddenly unable to speak.

“Of course, they patched him up a little, because no one wanted him to die on the trip down here,” Mary continued, and Cass could feel her unblinking gaze on her. “He and these other two, they were lashed to the back of a flatbed we use for supply transport. Didn’t want them soiling any of our passenger vehicles. Tell me, Cass, are you familiar with Clausewitz’s ‘Principles of War’?”

Cass forced herself to meet Mary’s relentless gaze. Answer her, she commanded herself desperately, because to do otherwise would bring suspicion down on her, suspicion she could not afford.

“No, I’m…afraid I’m not.”

“Well, that will make for a fascinating discussion one day soon. If you’ll indulge me. Clausewitz was a nineteenthcentury Prussian soldier and a brilliant strategist. He said everything in war is simple, but the simple is difficult.”

“Oh…I see.” But she didn’t see, didn’t have any idea what Mary was trying to say.

“So many of my staff, they’ve lost any appreciation for history they might once have had. But I like to think I’m a true student of history, one who searches for meaning in the shape of what has come before and-well.” She chuckled modestly. “Cass, may I speak frankly with you? I feel like we have a special affinity, me with my-well, what some people call my crackpot theories about society, and you with your genetic anomaly…”

Mary droned on as Cass willed Alvin to get out of the way so she could see the broken man’s face. Finally, having adjusted the linens to his satisfaction, he stepped deferentially out of the way.

And Cass got a look.

But what was left of his face was smashed, mangled, crushed. The skin was swollen and blackened. The lips were split and bloodied. The eyes were purple and swelled shut, and a gash across his cheek revealed the muscle below, a glint of white tooth. His hair was matted with red-black blood, and it was impossible to tell what color it had been, but Cass didn’t need that clue, because around his neck the man wore a simple leather cord from which, unbelievably, a small token still dangled.