Elizabeth Moon - The Speed of Dark

When I come outside, the bright sun glints off pebbles in the parking lot pavement. It is a day for bright, brisk music. Possibilities surge through my mind; I settle on Bizet. I touch my car gingerly, noticing that even though Don is in jail my body is remembering that it might be dangerous. Nothing happens. The four new tires still smell new. The car starts. On the way to work, the music plays in my head, bright as the sunlight. I think of going out to the country to look at stars tonight; I should be able to see the space stations, too. Then I remember that it is Wednesday and I will go to fencing. I have not forgotten that in a long time. Did I mark the calendar this morning? I am not sure.

At work, I pull into my usual parking space. Mr. Aldrin is there standing just inside the door as if he were waiting for me.

“Lou, I saw it on the news — are you all right?”

“Yes,” I say. I think it should be obvious just from looking at me.

“If you don’t feel well, you can take the day off,” he says.

“I am fine,” I say. “I can work.”

“Well… if you’re sure.” He pauses, as if he expects me to say something, but I cannot think of anything to say. “The newscast said you disarmed the attacker, Lou — I didn’t know you knew how to do that.”

“I just did what I do in fencing,” I say. “Even though I didn’t have a blade.”

“Fencing!” His eyes widen; his brows lift up. “You do fencing? Like… with swords and things?”

“Yes. I go to fencing class once a week,” I say. I do not know how much to tell him.

“I never knew that,” he says. “I don’t know anything about fencing, except they wear those white suits and have those wires trailing behind them.”

We do not wear the white suits or use electric scoring, but I do not feel like explaining it to Mr. Aldrin. I want to get back to my project, and this afternoon we have another meeting with the medical team. Then I remember what Mr. Stacy said.

“I may have to go to the police station and sign a statement,” I say.

“That’s fine,” Mr. Aldrin says. “Whatever you need. I’m sure this must have been a terrible shock.”

My phone rings. I think it is going to be Mr. Crenshaw, so I do not hurry to answer it, but I do answer it.

“Mr. Arrendale?… This is Detective Stacy. Look, can you come down to the station this morning?”

I do not think this is a real question. I think it is like when my father said, “You pick up that end, okay?” when he meant “Pick up that end.” It may be more polite to give commands by asking questions, but it is also more confusing, because sometimes they are questions. “I will have to ask my boss,” I say.

“Police business,” Mr. Stacy says. “We need you to sign your statement, some other paperwork. Just tell them that.”

“I will call Mr. Aldrin,” I say. “I should call you back?”

“No — just come on down when you can. I’ll be here all morning.” In other words, he expects me to come down no matter what Mr. Aldrin says. It was not a real question.

I call Mr. Aldrin’s office.

“Yes, Lou,” he says. “How are you?” It is silly; he has already asked me that this morning.

“The police want me to go to the station and sign my statement and some other paperwork,” I say. “They said come now.”

“But are you all right? Do you need someone to go with you?”

“I am fine,” I say. “But I need to go to the police station.”

“Of course. Take the whole day.”

Outside, I wonder what the guard thinks as I drive out past the checkpoint after driving in just a short time ago. I cannot tell anything from his face.

It is noisy in the police station. At a long, high counter, rows of people stand in line. I stand in line, but then Mr. Stacy comes out and sees me. “Come on,” he says. He leads me to another noisy room with five desks all covered with stuff. His desk — I think it is his desk — has a docking station for his handcomp and a large display.

“Home sweet home,” he says, waving me to a chair beside the desk.

The chair is gray metal with a thin green plastic cushion on the seat. I can feel the frame through the cushion. I smell stale coffee, cheap candy bars, chips, paper, the fried-ink smell of printers and copiers.

“Here’s the hard copy of your statement last night,” he says. “Read through it, see if there are any errors, and, if not, sign it.”

The stacked ifs slow me down, but I work through them. I read the statement quickly, though it takes me a while to grasp that “complainant” is me and “assailant” is Don. Also, I do not know why Don and I are referred to as “males” and not “men” and Marjory as a “female” and not a “woman.” I think it is rude to, say, call her “a female known to both males in a social context.” There are no actual errors, so I sign it.

Then Mr. Stacy tells me I must sign a complaint against Don. I do not know why. It is against the law to do the things Don did, and there is evidence he did them. It should not matter whether I sign or not. If that is what the law requires, though, then I will do it.

“What will happen to Don if he is found guilty?” I ask.

“Serial escalating vandalism ending in a violent assault? He’s not getting out without custodial rehab,” Mr. Stacy says. “A PPD — a programmable personality determinant brain chip. That’s when they put in a control chip—”

“I know,” I say. It makes me feel squirmy inside; at least I do not have to contemplate having a chip inserted in my brain.

“It’s not like it is on the shows,” Mr. Stacy says. “No sparks, no lightning flashes — he just won’t be able to do certain things.”

What I heard — what we heard at the Center — is that the PPD overrides the original personality and prevents the rehabilitant, the term they like, from doing anything but what he is told.

“Couldn’t he just pay for my tires and windshield?” I ask.

“Recidivism,” Mr. Stacy says, pawing through a pile of hard copies. “They do it again. It’s been proved. Just like you can’t stop being you, the person who is autistic, he can’t stop being him, the person who is jealous and violent. If it’d been found when he was an infant, well, then… here we are.” He pulls out one particular sheet. “This is the form. Read it carefully, sign on the bottom where the X is, and date it.”

I read the form, which has the city’s seal at the top. It says that I, Lou Arrendale, make a complaint of a lot of things I never even thought of. I thought it would be simple: Don tried to scare me and then tried to hurt me. Instead the form says I am complaining of malicious destruction of property, theft of property valued at more than $250, manufacturing an explosive device, placing an explosive device, assault with intent to murder with an explosive device — “That could have killed me?” I ask. “It says here ‘assault with a deadly weapon.’ ”

“Explosives are a deadly weapon. It’s true that the way he had it wired up, it didn’t go off when it was supposed to, and the amount is marginal: you might have lost only part of your hands and your face. But it counts under the law.”

“I did not know that one act, like taking out the battery and putting in the jack-in-the-box, could break more than one law,” I say.

“Neither do a lot of criminals,” Mr. Stacy says. “But it’s quite common. Say a perp breaks into a house while the owners are gone and steals stuff. There’s a law about unlawful entry and another law about theft.”

I did not really complain about Don manufacturing an explosive device because I did not know he was doing it. I look at Mr. Stacy; it is clear he has an answer for everything and it will not do any good to argue. It does not seem fair that so many complaints could come out of one act, but I have heard people talk about other things like this, too.