Leviathan

Civic Security’s central interrogation facility was located beneath the Ministry of Public Harmony. I always found that funny. Not funny enough to justify being dragged there with a fractured rib and both hands restrained behind my back, but one had to take whatever entertainment remained available.

Two officers marched me through a white corridor that seemed to stretch on for several kilometres despite the building being nowhere near large enough to accommodate it. I suspected the architects had used repeating wall panels and deliberately uneven lighting to interfere with one’s perception of distance. Either that, or I had lost more blood than anticipated. Both were credible explanations.

“Would one of you mind loosening this?” I asked, twisting my wrists against the magnetic restraint. “My left hand has gone numb.”

The officer on my right tightened it.

“Ah. Thank you.” He did not respond.

Civic Security officers were selected for their extraordinary ability to wear black uniforms and ignore basic conversation. The Capital considered this intimidating. Personally, I had met cupboards with more threatening personalities, although cupboards were admittedly less likely to beat me unconscious.

We passed through a security gate. Then another. Then three more, because apparently the first two had only been there to build confidence.

The final gate opened onto a circular processing chamber lined with sealed doors. Medical personnel waited behind glass partitions, wearing the pale grey uniforms assigned to employees required to appear helpful while doing terrible things. One of them scanned the identification mark beneath my wrist.

“Sabine Laurent,” he read. “Citizen status revoked. Charged with sedition, unlawful association, falsification of civic records, sabotage, conspiracy to seize state property and attempted destruction of the Leviathan.”

“Attempted seizure,” I corrected. “The destruction came later.”

The medic looked at the officer. And the officer shoved me forward.

Fair enough.

They transferred me into a metal chair fixed to the floor of an interrogation room. Restraints closed around my wrists, ankles and waist with a succession of cheerful little clicks. The Capital had evidently invested considerable resources into designing a chair that could restrain nearly every part of the human body while remaining extremely uncomfortable.

A triumph of collective engineering.

A technician entered and ran a medical scanner over my torso. The device emitted several warning tones.

“Three fractured ribs,” he said.

“I know.”

“Dislocated shoulder.”

“I know.”

“Moderate internal bleeding.”

“That one is new.”

He adjusted the scanner.

“Your condition requires treatment.”

“Wonderful.”

“No treatment has been authorised.”

“Less wonderful.”

The technician left.

I leaned back as far as the restraints permitted and inspected the room. White walls. White floor. One door. No visible cameras, meaning there were probably twelve. A section of dark observation glass covered the wall opposite me.

I could see vague shapes moving behind it. At least three people. Possibly four. One of them was broad enough to be Rafael, which was impossible because Rafael was either outside the city or dead. I had been operating on that pleasant uncertainty for nearly two days.

The door opened again. I expected an interrogator. Instead, Civic Security brought in Martin. And for just a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

He walked between two officers wearing the dark blue uniform of the Leviathan engineering division. His hair had been cut shorter. There was a thin line of newly healed skin above his right ear, curving back toward the base of his skull.

Correction.

I knew that before I consciously understood it.

Still, he was walking. He was alive. That had to mean something.

The officers placed him in the chair beside mine and secured one wrist to the armrest. Only one. They did not consider him dangerous.

I looked at his face. His expression was calm. Not drugged, not exhausted, not frightened. Calm.

Martin had never truly been calm in his life. He had merely possessed an exceptional ability to stand still while experiencing several psychological emergencies at once.

“Martin?”

He turned toward me. His eyes moved over my face, my restraints and the blood dried along the collar of my shirt.

No reaction.

I felt something cold settle inside my chest.

Still, Correction was not perfect. Nothing built by the Capital was perfect, despite the considerable amount of paperwork claiming otherwise. There had to be something left.

“Martin,” I repeated. “It’s me.”

“Yes.”

My heartbeat jumped. He knew me. Of course he knew me. The procedure removed disruptive emotional associations, not factual memory. I knew this. Glass had explained it to me months earlier. At the time, the distinction had sounded medically interesting. It sounded rather less impressive now.

“Who am I?”

He looked directly at me.

“Sabine Laurent.”

I almost laughed. It came out as something closer to a cough, which hurt my ribs enough to eliminate the impulse.

“What else?”

“Former civic communications employee. Resistance organiser. Primary architect of the failed attempt to seize the Leviathan during its first test flight.”

The words were perfectly arranged, as if he had memorised them from a report. Perhaps he had.

“Former?”

“Your employment status was terminated following confirmation of your involvement.”

“Yes, Martin. I remember.”

He waited. I studied him for any sign that the dryness had been intentional. Nothing.

“You came looking for me in the library,” I said.

“Yes.”

“You found the lower passage.”

“Yes.”

“You followed it to Glass.”

“Yes.”

“You accused him of conspiring with me.”

“That occurred.”

I pulled against the wrist restraints.

“You were angry.”

“My recorded behaviour indicates heightened aggression caused by emotional dysregulation.”

That sounded exactly like something Martin would say, which was the problem. The words were his. The meaning was not.

I leaned closer.

“Do you remember Civic Hall Twelve?”

“Yes.”

“What happened there?”

“You performed unauthorised music while wearing clothing that violated state presentation standards.”

“You hated it.”

“I objected to the violation.”

“You could not stop watching.”

“My attention was affected by the unexpected stimulus.”

I stared at him. Unexpected stimulus. I had spent three hours selecting that dress. Admittedly, I had selected it for its effectiveness as an unexpected stimulus, but that was hardly the point.

“You followed me afterward,” I said.

“Yes.”

“To the library.”

“Yes.”

“You drank alcohol.”

“Yes.”

“You said it tasted like industrial solvent.”

“The chemical composition was similar.”

That was Martin. For one second, it was Martin. The same unnecessary precision. The same inability to allow a metaphor to pass without being inspected and corrected. I waited for the faint irritation that usually followed. It never came. He simply watched me.

“Do you remember sleeping with me?”

“Yes.”

There was movement behind the observation glass. Of course there was. Interrogators loved intimacy when it could be converted into evidence.

“What do you remember?”

“You initiated physical contact after refusing to answer questions regarding your relationship with the resistance.”

“You initiated some of it.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“My judgement was compromised by attachment dependency and prolonged exposure to prohibited stimuli.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. That was one way of describing it. Not a particularly romantic one, but Martin had never been a natural romantic. His first attempt at affection had involved calculating the probability that our meetings would be discovered and presenting the result as proof that he trusted me. It had been twelve-point-four percent. I had slept with him anyway. Perhaps I deserved some of this.

“Look at me,” I said.

“I am looking at you.”

“No. Properly.”

His brow moved by a fraction.

“What distinction are you making?”

There. That faint, irritated confusion. I felt hope rise before I could stop it.

Stupid thing. I had survived raids, gunfire, three interrogations and one extremely avoidable sewer collapse. Hope remained the most efficient method anyone had found for hurting me.

“What did you call me when we were alone?” I asked.

“Sabine.”

“Only Sabine?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a lie.”

“I have no reason to lie.”

“You called me insufferable.”

“That assessment remains plausible.”

I stared at him. His expression did not change. Behind the glass, someone shifted closer. I could almost imagine Martin noticing the reaction and choosing the word deliberately. Almost.

“What else did you call me?”

“I do not recall any operationally relevant terminology.”

“It was not operationally relevant.”

“Then it is unlikely to be useful.”

“To whom?”

“To the interrogation.”

So he knew why he was there. Or they had told him.

“Are you helping them?”

“I am assisting Civic Security in documenting the resistance network.”

My hope quietly packed its belongings and left.

“You gave them names.”

“Yes.”

“Locations?”

“Yes.”

“The passages beneath the library?”

“Yes.”

Every answer arrived in the same calm tone. Samuel. Glass. Rafael. The western shelters. The maintenance entrance beneath Civic Hall. The tunnel connecting the old drainage system to the barrier station. Years of work stored inside Martin’s excellent memory. I had once considered that memory one of our greatest assets. That had turned out well.

“Did you tell them where Alma went?”

“Yes.”

My restraints snapped tight as I lunged toward him. Pain tore through my shoulder. The room tilted for a moment, and I found myself breathing through my teeth while Martin watched the medical display beside my chair.

“Your pulse has increased significantly,” he observed.

“You gave them Alma?”

“I provided all information requested.”

“She has your child.”

“Yes.”

“And that means nothing to you?”

“Biological relation does not justify obstruction of civic law.”

I wanted to hit him. I could not reach him, which was probably fortunate for both of us. Mostly me, considering the restraints, fractured ribs and two armed officers outside.

“You wanted to leave with me,” I said.

“My previous statements support that.”

“You asked me whether we could escape together after taking the Leviathan.”

“Yes.”

“You wanted a life outside the Capital.”

“That desire resulted from psychological instability.”

“You saw what was outside.”

“Yes.”

“The forests. The settlements. Animals that the Capital said were extinct.”

“Yes.”

“You knew they had lied.”

“I encountered information inconsistent with the civic record.”

“That is generally what a lie is.”

“The civic record has since been amended to account for hostile settlements beyond the barrier.”

I laughed. I genuinely could not help it. They had corrected reality by editing the document.

Classic Capital.

Martin looked at me as though the laughter were another medical symptom. Perhaps it was.

“Do you remember loving me?” I asked.

The question escaped before I could decide whether it was wise. It was not.

Martin remained silent for two seconds. I counted. Two seconds was longer than any of his other responses.

“Yes,” he said.

My throat tightened.

“What did it feel like?”

“Compulsion. Anxiety. Impaired judgement. Fear of abandonment. Aggression toward perceived rivals.”

“That is the medical report.”

“It is accurate.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“You asked what the condition felt like.”

“I asked what loving me felt like.”

“There is no meaningful distinction.”

I turned away from him. The observation glass reflected a faint outline of my face. Bruised cheek. Split lip. Hair stiff with dried blood. I looked considerably worse than I felt, which was impressive because I felt absolutely terrible.

Martin continued watching me. I could sense it. Once, that attention had been almost unbearable. He watched everything with the concentration of a man attempting to reverse-engineer human behaviour. Now there was no hunger in it. Only collection.

“Why did they place you beside me?” I asked.

“To assist the interrogation.”

“How?”

“Your attachment to my former identity may increase emotional pressure and reduce resistance.”

At least they had explained the plan to him. That was considerate.

“And what do you think?”

“The strategy is rational.”

“Is it working?”

He glanced at my pulse display.

“Yes.”

I smiled despite myself.

“Still a bastard, then.”

“I do not understand.”

“No. I suppose you wouldn’t.”

I looked at him again. The incision above his ear was neat. Almost invisible beneath the shortened hair. The Capital had not killed him. That would have been simpler. They had kept the body, the voice, the memory, every useful technical skill and every fact he had ever learned. They had removed only the arrangement that made those things Martin. An efficient procedure. He would have appreciated the engineering.

“Who am I?” I asked again.

“Sabine Laurent.”

“No. To you.”

He paused. This time, hope did not rise. I had finally learned something.

“You are the resistance operative who recruited me to steal the Leviathan.”

There it was. Complete. Accurate. Useless.

I had approached him because we needed his access. I had studied his weaknesses, disrupted his routines, encouraged his disobedience and allowed him to believe each step had been his own decision. Then somewhere during the process, the operation had become indistinguishable from my life. I still did not know exactly when. Apparently, I never would.

Martin remained seated beside me, alive in every way that could be measured. Unfortunately, the important part had never been especially measurable.

A lock disengaged behind the observation glass. Martin turned toward the sound. I did not. Whoever was coming through that door had arranged this entire performance, and I saw no reason to reward them by appearing curious.

Still, I could make out the approaching footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Expensive shoes.

Director Creed.

Of course. Who else would wait behind a wall while someone else performed the unpleasant work?

The door began to open.