Zoe Cannon: The Torturer's Daughter

The day Becca had moved in, Heather had distracted her from her tears by showing her around the building and doing funny imitations of all the neighbors. Before long, they had been over at each other’s apartments every day, Heather getting Becca into trouble and Becca getting Heather out of it. Now, ten years later, they were still inseparable—Heather with the spark that drew everybody in, Becca the anchor that held her to the earth. Heather was the one person in the world who knew Becca better than her mom did… and out of all Heather’s friends, Becca suspected she was the only one Heather trusted enough to really confide in.

And now Becca was supposed to believe Heather’s parents were dissidents?

“All right,” her mom said heavily. “You know Heather’s parents worked in Surveillance.”

Becca nodded. “So they can’t be dissidents. If they were, how could they have worked there for that long without anyone knowing?”

“They were very careful,” her mom answered. “For most, if not all, of that time, they’ve been working with a dissident group we thought we eliminated a couple of years ago—a group that had several people inside Internal. Heather’s parents have been altering transcripts, deleting data, and passing warnings to suspected dissidents.” The weariness in her voice increased with every word. “I know this isn’t the answer you were hoping for, but they are dissidents.”

Becca quieted the voice in the back of her mind that told her Internal almost never got it wrong. The voice that reminded her how Heather’s parents had encouraged Heather not to join the Monitors, and how they always got quiet when the news came on. “How do you know for sure it was them doing all this, and not somebody else? That’s happened before. You’ve told me.” Becca stood up. “Did you look into it? Can’t you try to figure out what happened?”

“Sit down, Becca. There’s something else I need to talk to you about.” Her mom sounded more like a capital-M Mother, and less like herself, with every word.

Becca sat down.

“It’s about Heather. Children from dissident families…” She shook her head. “There’s not much we can do with them. The options are to arrest them along with their parents, or let them go and hope their parents’ ideology didn’t get passed down to them. A futile hope, in too many cases.”

Becca’s eyes narrowed. “Heather is not a dissident.” This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Her mom was supposed to find out what had gone wrong and fix it. She wasn’t supposed to say Heather’s parents were dissidents. She wasn’t supposed to practically accuse Heather of being a dissident.

“Unfortunately, there’s no way to know for sure. The odds aren’t good. And the directors have been telling us to ease up on dissidents’ families lately—some new initiative or other—so she wasn’t even sent down for questioning. If they would just let us do our jobs…” She shook her head. “So for now, I’d prefer it if the two of you saw less of each other.”

Like Becca was going to abandon her best friend right when Heather needed her most. “You didn’t answer me. How do you even know this isn’t all a mistake?”

Becca’s mom looked away. “Because they’ve confessed. They were assigned to me; that’s why I had to work through the night. I heard their confessions firsthand.”

Silence echoed through the room.

Becca stood again. “I need to go get some sleep. I’m going to have to get up for school soon.”

“If you want to talk some more—”

About what? Heather’s supposed secret life as a dissident? Her mom in an interrogation room with Heather’s parents? “Not right now. I need to think.”

Becca’s mom opened her mouth as Becca stumbled out of the room and down the hallway. Becca closed her bedroom door behind her before her mom could say anything else.

As Becca struggled to stay awake during her morning classes, the whispers floated in the air around her. Her parents. Last night. I heard Becca Dalcourt made them let her go—you know who her mother is, don’t you?

Becca tried to block out the whispers and the stares. She looked for Heather in the halls, but didn’t see her. How was Heather handling this? Heather, who had come to Becca in tears last week after someone had started a rumor about her cheating on a geometry test.

When she walked into the cafeteria, everyone’s head swiveled toward her. The room’s constant roar of conversation dropped to a murmur. She thought she heard her name a few times, along with Heather’s. The force of all those eyes and all those whispers felt like enough to melt her into the ground, but she wasn’t that lucky.

She almost turned around right then—she could spend lunch in the library. But the thought of Heather facing this alone made her stay.

She scanned Heather’s usual table, filled with the school’s elite. Heather wasn’t there. Maybe she had skipped school… or maybe—Becca’s chest tightened—Enforcement had gone back for her. But no, there she was, by herself at a table in the corner, hunched miserably over her lunch tray.

Becca had already played a major part in a lot of the stories making their way around the school this morning. If she sat at Heather’s table she would practically be announcing herself as a dissident. And her mom had told her not to spend time with Heather…

It only took her a second to decide. She crossed the room and set her lunch bag down beside Heather’s tray.

To the people who didn’t know her, Heather probably looked as polished as ever. But Becca took in the wrinkles in her shirt, her hastily-brushed hair, the dark circles under her eyes.

Heather gave Becca a tired smile that dissolved halfway through into a near-sob. She turned her head away and poked at the congealed turkey on her tray. “Thanks for sitting with me.”

“I went to 117 for you. You think I’d abandon you now? This is nothing.” She slid into the chair next to Heather. “Besides, it’s not like I believe any of the stuff they’re saying. You’re not a dissident.” She wasn’t. No matter what Becca’s mom said. Her mom didn’t know Heather like she did. And anyway, her job was bound to make her paranoid about that kind of thing.

Heather made a strangled noise at the last word. She swiped her hand across her eyes, but not before Becca saw the tear that had started running down her cheek.

The last time Heather had cried in the cafeteria was when her boyfriend of six weeks had dumped her for some freshman. Becca had sat picking at her lunch, separated from Heather by the backs of everyone who wanted to win points with her by offering her a tissue at just the right time or coming up with the perfect insult for the boy in question. That night, Heather had slept over, and she and Becca had stayed up all night talking and ceremoniously tearing up Heather’s few pictures of him. The next day Heather had been her usual self again, eyes sparkling as she painted her nails candy pink and wondered aloud how long it would be before her ex realized what he was missing.

Becca wished she could believe it would be that easy this time.

She glanced over at their usual table. At least sitting in exile with Heather meant she didn’t have to sit at that table and endure another lunch period of subtle snubs from Heather’s friends. A rush of shame followed on the heels of that thought. Heather had lost everything, and this was what Becca thought about?

As soon as Becca looked at them, Heather’s friends—probably ex-friends now—all snapped their heads forward, trying to pretend they had been focusing on their lunches the whole time. Becca hoped they all got whiplash.