C James - Dome Six

Elle looked away for a moment as though trying to steel herself for whatever she was about to say. “The Council found Hideki guilty.”

Tosh gazed ruefully at the ceiling, hoping gravity would help keep her tears at bay. “Of course they did.”

Elle paused and averted her eyes. “The punishment for sabotage is death.”

The words felt like a gut punch. She couldn’t breathe. Death? What? “So fucking intervene, Elle.”

“I can’t. The law is clear.” She still had trouble meeting Tosh’s eyes.

Tosh kept wiping away the tears, but they came too fast now. Fine. Let that bitch see her pain. “You can’t help Owen. You can’t help Dek. What can you do, Elle? I mean, other than fuck your security director?”

Damn if it didn’t feel good to say it. She wanted to hurt Elle as much as she was hurting her. The comment landed, but Elle still managed to look impassive.

“There will be a broadcast. I didn’t want you to hear it that way,” Elle said softly. “He goes in the Box in three days.”

Tosh guffawed. “Well hey, if you want to send a message, why not hang him in the Agora? Or chop his head off? That’d really boost your sentiment scores.”

“I know how you must—”

“No!” hissed Tosh, pointing a shaking finger at Elle. “You do not know how I feel! What happened to you? We were inseparable. You once came to me at your darkest hour. But I guess it wasn’t enough to shut me out, was it? You and your Authority mouth-breathers had to keep punishing my family. And you’re still doing it!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want any of this,” said Elle.

“Like hell! No, you got exactly what you signed up for. You earned it. In fact, didn’t you earn it right here in this very room?”

“That’s enough,” Elle warned.

“You wanted this more than anything. Keane made you feel powerless and now you have power, but what have you done with it, Elle? Nothing. You’ve done nothing for anyone.” Her face was purple with rage. “I want to see Dek. Right now.”

Elle brushed past, arms still folded tightly to her chest. “Come with me.”

The news was hardly surprising. Elle recused herself but the Council’s vote was unanimous. Even so, no one could look Dek in the eye. Cowards. But the joke was on them. He’d considered taking his own life dozens of times but never went through with it. They were only voting to give him something he’d always secretly wanted.

As long as Owen still had the device that replicated the Macros’ signal, he had a chance. He had no idea of the range, but figured it had to be at least 10 meters. If he could somehow get a hold of it and swap it for the long-dead location scrambler he’d worn since he was a teenager, he had a chance of surviving the Box.

He clung to this idea so fiercely that he fell in love with it. To watch the door close, then stand there with a smug grin when it reopened would be priceless. They’d probably kill him anyway, but at least he’d get to see their faces first.

The door swung open for Elle, who glanced briefly at him before Tosh burst through behind her. She ran to the clear plastic cell where he was slumped into the corner and knelt beside him.

“Dek! Oh, Dek, my god!” she said.

“Hey Sis,” he croaked. He was powerfully thirsty but hadn’t been given water in several hours. Elle remained by the open door.

Tosh turned back to her and said, “Can we have a moment?”

“Five minutes,” she said, then left.

Tosh’s face was a map of anguish. She was good at fixing things — prided herself on it, in fact — but there was no fixing this.

“You look like hell,” he said. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

“I guess I’ve been better,” she laughed, wiping away a fresh batch of tears.

“Listen to me,” he said in a low whisper. “You need to talk to Owen. He has something of mine…”

“You mean this?” She reached in her pocket and held up the little ring that looked like an ordinary bearing pack, virtually identical to the one still hung around his neck.

Dek was so happy to see it he almost cried, but he still had to be careful what he said. The room had to be coated with Listeners.

Tosh passed it to him through one of the air holes in his cell, narrow slits that it barely fit through. He swapped it with the one around his neck, keeping the filthy hemp rope, and handed her the scrambler. He leaned his face against the hard plastic so they could both whisper.

“There was an accident in the Towers,” she said. “Owen lost his arm.”

At first, he thought that might be a metaphor, but the grave look on her face suggested otherwise. “Shit. Is he okay?”

“He’s a tough kid,” she said. “But there’s not enough matrix to make him a new arm.”

He could tell she didn’t believe that, but he knew it to be true. He’d seen it himself. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m tired, Dek. I’m just so tired of being angry, and trapped, and helpless…” She was swept up in a fresh wave of tears.

“You’re a pain in the ass, but helpless? No.”

She shook her head. “I opened a connection to IDA’s backup data,” she said. “I know you didn’t have anything to do with the shutdown. Or the shield.”

“But you can’t prove it without incriminating yourself,” he said.

She nodded. “Like I said. Trapped.”

“Then use it to find a way out,” he whispered. “You know that’s what Mom and Dad were trying to do.”

“Dek…” she muttered. He’d maintained this belief from the very beginning.

“Tosh, I saw what happens when someone gets caught in the processor. No one ever saw that with Mom and Dad. No one.”

So little happened in the Dome that when it did, everyone found out. But all she’d ever heard about their parents were rumors. They weren’t dumb enough or careless enough to just get sucked in the processor like poor Multimeal Maria. They were looking for something. And if Tosh really had access to IDA, maybe she could finally figure out what that was.

“Go back,” he said. “Pore over the data. You have to find out what they were really doing down there. I think it’s the key to everything.”

“No, what I have to do is figure out a way to save you.”

“Don’t worry about me.” She searched his eyes for some sign of deceit but seemed to realize there was none. He gave her a reassuring smile. “I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

When she was just 16, Tosh’s father came to her at her apprentice dormitory. She wasn’t exactly embarrassed, but it was very unusual. When you left home for your apprenticeship, you were on your own.

He asked her then if it was possible to access the cached location data in his CHIT. She told him it might be possible and described how, and after that, she never saw him again.

Why wouldn’t he know where he was? The question tortured her ever since, but maybe the answer was right in front of her.

Knowing the truth — that Elle had used her assault as leverage to oust, and perhaps even kill, a loathed Administrator — was deeply troubling. She never would’ve pegged Elle as such a cold opportunist, and yet, it was hard to blame her. Accepting an eraser Macro into her brain would’ve been the easy choice, but that wasn’t Elle’s style. She could make hard choices that other people couldn’t, which probably was why she wanted to be Administrator in the first place.

Of course, her 16-year-old self couldn’t have imagined what was really going through her friend’s mind. To her, it seemed clear the Authority had used its considerable power to make yet another problem go away. It begged the question: If she’d been so wrong about what happened to Elle, could she also be wrong about her father’s state of mind on that fateful day?