Joyce Oates - Hazards of Time Travel

Barely I could answer, through parched lips— No. No, no!

Again and again these questions were repeated. No matter what answers I gave, the questions were repeated.

Yet more insidious were variants of these questions.

Your father Eric Strohl has just confessed to us, to “influencing” you—so you may as well confess, too. In what ways did he influence you?

This had to be a trick, I thought. I stammered— In no ways. Not ever. Daddy did not.

More harshly the voice continued.

Your mother Madeleine Strohl has confessed to us, both she and your father “influenced” you. In what ways did they influence you?

I was sobbing, protesting— They didn’t! They did not influence me …

(Of course, this wasn’t true. How could any parents fail to “influence” their children? My parents had influenced me through my entire life—not so much in their speech as in their personalities. They were good, loving parents. They had taught Roddy and me: There is a soul within. There is “free will” within. If—without—the State is lacking a soul, and there is no “free will” that you can see. Trust the inner, not the outer. Trust the soul, not the State. But I would not betray my parents by repeating these defiant words.)

At some point in the interrogation I must have passed out—for I was awakened by deafening noises, in a state of panic. Was this a form of torture? Noise-torture? Powerful enough to burst eardrums? To drive the subject insane? We’d all heard rumors of such torture-interrogations—though no one would speak openly about them. Shaken and excited Roddy would come home from his work at Media Dissemination to tell us about certain “experimental techniques” Homeland Security was developing, using laboratory primates—until Mom clamped her hands over her ears and asked him to please stop .

The deafening noises stopped abruptly. The interrogation resumed.

But it was soon decided then that I was too upset—my brain waves were too “agitated”—to accurately register truth or falsity, so I was removed from the cylindrical imaging machine, and an IV needle was jabbed into a vein in my arm, to inject me with a powerful “truth-serum” drug. And again the same several questions were asked, and I gave the same answers. Even in my exhausted and demoralized state I would not tell the interrogators what they wanted to hear: that my father, or maybe both my parents, had “influenced” me in my treasonous ways.

Or any of my teachers. Or even Mr. Mackay, my enemy.

I’d been taken out of the hateful BIM, and strapped to a chair. It was a thick squat “wired” chair—a kind of electric chair—that sent currents of shock through my body, painful as knife-stabs. Now I was crying, and lost control of my bladder.

The interrogation continued. Essentially it was the same question, always the same question, with a variant now and then to throw me off stride.

Who wrote your speech for you? Who “influenced” you? Who is your collaborator in Treason?

It was your brother Roderick who reported you. As a Treason-Monger and a Questioner of Authority, you have been denounced by your brother.

I began to cry harder. I had lost all hope. Of all the things the interrogators had told me, or wanted me to believe, it was only this—that Roddy had reported me—that seemed to me possible, and not so very surprising.

I could remember how, squeezing my hand when he’d congratulated me about my good news, Roddy had smiled—his special smirking-smile just for me.

Congratulations, Addie!

Next morning I was taken from my cell and returned to Youth Interrogation.

Half-carried from my cell, handcuffed and my ankles shackled, I was very very tired, very sick, scarcely conscious.

It was my hope that my parents would be waiting for me—that they’d been summoned to come get me, and take me home. I would accept it that I’d be forbidden to attend graduation—forbidden even to graduate from high school; I would accept it that I might be sent to a Youth Rehabilitation camp, as it had been rumored the boys at Pennsboro High had been, who’d been arrested by Youth Disciplinary. All I wanted was to see my parents—to rush at them, and throw myself into their arms …

Some months ago my parents had celebrated my seventeenth birthday with me. It had been a happy time!—but seemed now a lost, childish time. I had not felt like seventeen and now, desperate for my parents, I scarcely felt like a teenager at all.

Of course my parents were nowhere near. Probably they did not know what had happened to me. And I did not dare ask about them.

Instead I was being sternly informed: several Patriot Scholars had been arrested yesterday afternoon, simultaneous with my arrest, in a Youth Disciplinary “sweep.” After a season or more of relatively few such sweeps and seizes, YDDHS was “cracking down” on “potential subversives.”

These Patriot Scholars were graduating seniors from other high schools in the area. Their names, too, had been handed over to YDDHS by the principals of their schools. The question was put bluntly to me: Was I, Adriane Strohl, a collaborator with these students? Was I a co-conspirator?

Their names were told to me: I’d never heard of any one of them.

Their faces appeared on three overhead TV screens: I’d never seen any one of them before.

A camera was turned on me, in a blaze of blinding light. I had to assume that my frightened face was being beamed into other interrogation rooms, where the arrested Patriot Scholars were being held.

Repeatedly I was asked: Was I a collaborator with any one, or more, of these individuals? Was I a co-conspirator ?

All I could answer was No.

Weakly, hopelessly— No.

CHEN, MICHAEL was a very young-looking Asian-American boy with sleek black hair worn to his collar and widened, very dark and alarmed eyes. He, too, had been named valedictorian of his graduating class, at Roebuck High School. A glance at CHEN, MICHAEL and you knew that this was a smart boy, probably ST3.

PADURA, LAUREN was a thick-bodied girl with a strong-boned if rather ashen face and damp eyes, probably ST2. She was sitting as upright as possible, though handcuffed and shackled at the ankles; she was a student at East Lawrence High. A glance at PARUDA, LAUREN, and you knew that this was a girl who thought for herself and very likely, in her classes, asked questions as I had.

ZOLL, JOSEPH JAY was a tall lanky dark-blond boy with a blemished face, thick glasses, and a small mustache on his upper lip, ST1 like me. He had been named salutatorian of his class at Rumsfeld High and looked like a math/computer whiz—one glance at ZOLL, JOSEPH JAY and you knew that here was a boy you wanted for your friend, whose kindness, patience, and computer expertise would be invaluable.

The four of us, on the TV monitors, were not looking great. Our eyes were bloodshot. Our mouths were trembling. Whatever we’d done, we regretted it. We didn’t look innocent. We didn’t any longer resemble high school seniors—we looked much younger. Just kids. Scared kids. Kids needing their mom and dad. Kids without a clue what was happening to them.

A panicked thought came to me—what if one of the Patriot Scholars suddenly confessed to “collaborating” with the rest of us? Would we all be executed?

A brisk voice informed us that we had thirty seconds to compose our confessions. At the end of these thirty seconds, if no one had confessed, one Patriot Scholar would be suitably “disciplined” with a Domestic Drone Strike (DDS)—on camera.

We were terrified—paralyzed. No one spoke.