“Blood sugar’s a little better,” he announces, “and I’m guessing you’re calmer.”
“Yes. Thank you,” I remember my manners because it’s not to my advantage to offend or challenge him. “Whatever you’ve done, I hope you haven’t ruined me,” I don’t say it rudely.
“Actually, far from it. You’re sounding good, very good indeed,” he nods, splaying his hands, tapping his fingertips together like the mad professor. “This is excellent progress. Hugely improved from a few days ago, and now we can get down to business.”
6
“I DON’T EXPECT you to remember much. The less, the better, and we’ll fill in the blanks with your origin story,” he begins, lamplight shining on his platinum hair like a nimbus as he sits in his big chair.
While I’m on my back in bed with my arms above my head, my joints screaming bloody murder, and adding insult to injury, I’m in surgical scrubs. There’s nothing under them except a diaper that possibly could use changing, and I worry what indecent states Dick has seen me in.
“It all starts with going over certain points you never stray from,” he explains matter-of-factly. “Think of it as name, rank and serial number. You say the same thing again and again.”
“Except it’s your story. Not mine,” I retort, feeling as indignant and trussed up as Gulliver, only at least he was dressed properly. “I wasn’t conferred with and would seem to have no say.”
“We’re conferring now in complete privacy.”
“If you don’t count cameras and no telling what else you’ve got in here,” I make sure he knows I wasn’t born yesterday.
“Only those with a need to know are aware of what’s actually happened. From the beginning. And now.”
“Yes, from day one,” I reply. “Back to when you started knowing and doing things you didn’t share with Carme and me. Things you and Mom probably had in mind way before the Langley twins were born and none the wiser.”
“Part of protecting people is not exposing them to more than they can handle,” he says presumptuously as if it’s for him to determine. “Because yes, things have been done that wouldn’t fly with an ethical review board. And I don’t need to spell it out.”
“Then I will. Starting with what’s most recent. The commander of Space Force physically altering a NASA investigator, a scientist, a future astronaut while she’s tied up and drugged. Not exactly something to brag about on CNN.”
“I can understand why you’re angry, Calli,” he says. “But you’ve always known this day would come. I regret the execution wasn’t ideal.”
“I didn’t know this day would come, not like this. It would have been nice to have more of a warning.”
“We’re out of time for warnings.”
“Because of some unexpected complication?”
“Unfortunately, more than one.”
“It would be helpful to know what you’re talking about.”
“You know more than you think.”
“So much for free will,” and I’ve never felt so overpowered and controlled. “I’ve got no say about my own design, my own programming. Not even my own origin story or anything else I’m expected to recite and represent the rest of my life.”
“You have more input than you know.”
“What about Carme? What are you fabricating about her? And what does she have to say about it?”
“Her origin story is even simpler than yours,” he says. “She’s deployed overseas in her usual special ops missions with the military.”
“Is she wanted by the police?”
“All you know is that she’s overseas.”
“But is she in trouble? Did she do something . . . ?”
“She’s overseas with the military,” he’s just going to keep saying it.
“But she was here 4 mornings ago. Up on the hangar roof . . .”
“People don’t know that. They know what you tell them, and Carme has a story she’ll stick with,” he replies relentlessly. “It doesn’t bother her that it’s not true. Or that as a result she can’t be out in the open the way you are, has to live off the radar, on the run, enduring difficulties and hardships you’ll likely get to avoid.”
“I’ll have different ones.”
“Carme doesn’t question the mission the way you do.”
“You probably didn’t dope and hog-tie her either,” and I’m betting she didn’t have on a freakin’ diaper, it crosses my mind resentfully.
“She was taken care of at Dover Air Force Base. It was very different.”
“Where does my so-called origin story begin?” I ask. “May as well lay it on me so I know what to tell people.”
“It begins when you were leaving Mission Control, about to drive home from Langley in the snowstorm,” he says. “But you didn’t. Instead, we brought you over here to Dodd Hall, where you’ve been ever since.”
Without saying it outright, he’s letting me know that in the yarn he’s spinning, the Point Comfort Inn never happened. There was no tracking device placed on my police truck the night I was working Vera Young’s crime scene. I never set out for home in a blizzard. My GPS wasn’t hijacked. There was no hitman or room 1. Most of all, there was no Carme and no killing anyone.
“It would be nice if you would let me loose,” is my response, sounding as easygoing as possible. “It’s hard to have a conversation like this.”
“Here’s the master plot,” Dick summarizes as if he didn’t hear me. “After NASA was sabotaged earlier in the week, it was deemed best to keep you in safe custody. You and others have been here with me working around the clock to deal with a massive cyberattack that the public knows very little about, an ongoing threat that has us on high alert.”