Hannah Bronto - Lovers in paradise

Jocelyn handed it to her.

Miss Chan opened the door. "Ail right," she said, still behind the metal door, as if she were using it like a shield. "I guess it's safe…"

The apartment was small, but clean and orderly. We were led into the living room where I observed that rarest of rarities, a real wooden floor. Through the years of continual scrubbing, the wood was almost bleached white. Against the far wall was a small-sized wall screen, obviously new because the wall around it was freshly poured plasteel where it flowed into the older, plaster wall. We sat on an organic pillow which molded itself to our bodies' shape. Miss Chan sat in an imitation wood straight-back chair across from us.

"I hope you don't think me suspicious," she said. "It's just that since the… the incident I'm quite nervous. It upset me more than I like to admit."

"Not at all…" I said.

"That's quite understandable," Jocelyn said.

"Can I offer you something?" She glanced over at the food-dispenser in the dining room. The dispenser was very small, barely functional. "Something to eat, perhaps? A cup of caffnil?"

"Nothing, thank you. If you don't mind, I'd like to get right to the questions."

"Oh… yes, of course," she said nervously. "The questions. Always the questions. I swear I must have gone over this a hundred times with the other policemen. You know, the ones in the uniforms…"

"Well, just one more time, then," Jocelyn said. "I don't think you'll have to be bothered with this again after today."

"I see… yes." Miss Chan shrugged in tired resignation. "Oh, well, then… where shall I begin?"

She was a small slender woman, in her early twenties, with short straight black hair, worn in that upsweep that has become so fashionable of late. She was wearing a student's green smock through which her small but firm breasts protruded. Except for a slight elongation of her eyes and her somewhat high cheekbones, her oriental heritage was hardly discernible.

"If you don't mind I'd like to set up our recording equipment first." I unsnapped the top of the portable quadcorder, then placed it on the floor between us. I activated the start button. "Now we can begin."

Miss Chan looked at the machine apprehensively. "What is that?"

"It's a quadcorder," Jocelyn explained, setting the young woman at east. "It records not only your words and image, but it picks up the beating of your heart and your respiration as well. It's standard practice to use this in all interviews."

What Jocelyn failed to mention was that the quadcorder, through its monitoring of heartbeat and respiration also acted as a completely reliable truth verifier. In short, a lie detector.

"Now then," I began. "I'm going to begin with some general questions, and then well get to the details of the… attack."

Miss Chan, nodded nervously, but didn't speak.

"Would you state your full name and address, date of birth and occupation…"

She did, indicating that she was indeed a student. "What are you majoring in?"

"Alien psychology…"

Jocelyn cut in. "Oh, really? How fascinating. I minored in that. Where are you studying?"

Miss Chan warmed to Jocelyn. "Did you really? Not too many people are interested in that subject. That's really nice… Oh, yes: where am I studying? Bight here at Harvard. At the Symposium."

Two points for Jocelyn, I thought, observing her technique. Maybe she does have some police qualities. "You're not originally from Bos-Wash, are you?" she went on, gently pumping the young woman.

"No, I'm not." Miss Chan smiled and visibly seemed to relax in her chair. "I'm from Hawaii originally. I'm only in the city because of school."

"Do you come from a large family?"

"Do I?" Miss Chan laughed. "I have thirteen – no, make that fourteen – brothers and sisters. Mom's had another since I began school. I'm the number three daughter: third oldest."

Skillfully, Jocelyn went on like that, eliciting bits and pieces of information, building up Miss Chan's background, until it was time for me to take over. I began asking her questions about the rape.

"Now, Miss Chan, in your own words, could you please tell us what happened…"

"Well, I went down to the lobby – I got a call, and when I got back…"

"Just a second. You said you got a call. From whom?"

"I don't know. A man called over the downstairs speaker saying that he had a package for me. He said he didn't want to bring it all the way up, so he was going to leave it in the lobby. I said all right, and then I went down to get it. Only it wasn't there. I looked all over but there was no package. So I went back upstairs to my apartment. He was in the apartment when I got here. He was hiding in the bedroom…"

"Wait a second. Can we go back a bit. When you left the apartment to go downstairs, did you lock your apartment door?"

"Yes I did. I always do. Besides, it has an automatic lock. Even if I would have left it wide open, the roboserv mechanism would have swung it shut."

"I see. Does anyone else have a voice card? Is the lock programmed for any other voices?"

Her head shook solemnly. "No, I am all alone. I have brought up an occasional man, but that has only been for sex. No one but I has ever lived here. That's what frightens me: how could he have gotten in?"

I laughed cynically. "That's easy enough: a forged voice card. He must have made an unsuspecting recording of your voice, pressed himself a transposed voice print, and impressed it on the card. Unfortunately, it's done every day."

"Is there anything I can do?" The girl looked sincerely frightened.

I was going to shrug helplessly when Jocelyn cut in. "There is something new on the market. Of course it's still experimental, but it seems to work quite effectively. It's a mechanism that's attached to the inside of your apartment door. A piece of metal which only you have is inserted into the mechanism, and that throws some tumblers, and a metal bar clicks into a housing in the doorjamb. The door is locked. A heavy metal bar holds the door shut. No one can get in unless he has an identical metal insert like the one you have. It's almost foolproof. I'm thinking of getting one myself."

I waited while Miss Chan took down the information, then I went on with my questions.

"Tell me again what happened from the time you decided to return to your apartment?"

"Well, I came up when I couldn't find a package…"

"Did you see any one going in or out of the antigrav shaft? Either the up or down side?"

"No one."

Jocelyn said: "He probably took the elevator."

I nodded. "Then what happened?"

"I walked down the hall to my apartment, I opened the door, and I walked in. I remember that I was veil angry. At first I thought that someone had stolen the package, but then I realized it must have been a hoax. I was angry because I had been studying. I had an examination the following day in Conversational Turiops Truncatus." She paused. "Well, anyhow, he was waiting for me when I went into the bedroom…"

"Can you describe him?" Jocelyn quickly cut in. She leaned forward intently.

"No… I never saw him. He told me not to turn around. But I heard his voice. I would remember that I ever heard it again." Miss Chan shuddered. "I don't think I'll ever forget that voice."

"What did he say to you?"

"I don't remember his exact words: He said something about not turning around. He said he would harm me if I did. His being there terrified me, so I did as he asked. I didn't think to question him."

"What did he ask you to do?" Jocelyn wanted to know.

"First he told me he was going to rape me. I asked him what he meant. I had heard the word before, but wasn't sure exactly what it meant. He told me it was an old-American word, pretty much obsolete now because it had fallen out of use. He told me it meant fucking – but forced fucking." Miss Chan shuddered again, then shut and opened her eyes. "I said that I didn't under stand that: how could fucking be forced? It was some thing that two consenting people did together: how could that be forced? He said that the man would insist on fucking, even if the woman didn't want to, and that he would make her do it even if, he had to hurt her. That's silly, I said. No man would insist that a woman fuck him. If she said no, he would go away. No one would be that rude…" She shuddered again. "I guess I just didn't understand…"