"Coldhearted"

17 months later

-1-

 

“What the hell ?,” a new voice says

Haley opens his eyes slowly, his left one still too swollen to open all the way from his last encounter with Forge DeCartes.

“Why are they chained up like that ?,” the same voice asks.

That voice.

Haley sits up in his bunk. It’s too fast and his sore body protests, his movement impeded by the heavy shackles on his wrist and ankles.

The voice had come from outside the cell.

The smart glass on the cell was still in the one way mode; when he looked out his cell all  he saw was a darkened panel, but the guards on the other side could see right through.

The guards had forgotten to turn the soundproofing on. Haley pretends to go back to sleep and falls back into his bunk, closing his eyes but keeping his ears open.

 The voice is so familiar. The identity of it danced on the tip of his tongue. It wasn’t a prison guard. It wasn’t the new warden. It was…someone.

“We had to put the shackles on a few months ago...the two of them kept getting into fights,” The Eastern State warden’s voice says plainly.

Haley sits up again and cuts his eyes to the glass, not caring that they would know he could hear them now.

Fights.

He hadn’t been fighting with Forge.

He’d been trying to kill him.

Months ago, he’d woken up  and decided he was putting an end to Forge DeCartes. He’d decided to slit his cellmate's throat in his sleep; it hadn’t succeeded.

“Can he hear us ?,” the voice asks.

The tint on the smart glass begins to lighten and Haley looks down on instinct before stealing a glance at the glass to see who was with the warden this morning.  The warden hardly visited the cells, he didn’t even know her name, he only knew her voice from hearing her bark orders to her guards.

Haley instantly recognizes the face of the warden’s guest and instead of taking a quick glimpse he stares at the man.

Theodore St. John. The senior corporal  who’d taken over Maxwell’s job at Camp Harmony all those years ago.

The cell opens and the warden, St. John and the prison medic file into the stuffy cell. Forge starts to stir from his bunk across from Haley’s. Forge's face is a mess of jaggesd scars from unsuccessful night when Haley had attacked him, the man spits lazily at the warden when he sees her, but she doesn’t react. Normally, she’d threaten Forge but she seemed distracted today.

The warden and St. John stand on either side of Haley and pull him from his bunk and to his bare feet.

Haley groans under the pain of his body and swallows the nausea in his throat. His gag was still in--the Eastern State had never made it a priority to figure out how remove it without the key.

The cloudy catheters connected to his body tangle and snag in the single sheet of his bunk; one connected an intravenous line of saline solution into his wrist,  the other a feeding tube that connected to the incision in his abdomen and the newest one had been shoved between his legs because the guards had grown tired of unshackling him nearly every hour so he could relieve himself from the constant drip of saline.

The warden undoes the shackles at his chaffing wrists and a medic injects the thick, orange. solution into his feeding tube before tucking the bags at the end of the lines into the waistband of his pants, out of sight.

“Let’s go,” St. John says and at first Haley isn’t sure who he is talking too.

But then St. John presses a hand into Haley’s back.

“You can walk right ?,” St. John says louder. “Let’s go.”

Haley’s mind goes blank as he finally realizes what is happening. He was going to the execution room. They’re going to kill him. 

Before they kill Froge DeCartes.

 He was going to die for a pair of ugly sneakers Harlow had stolen while Forge DeCartes, a murderer, lived another day.

He'd been preparing for this day but despite it all he resists, arguing through the gag as St. John tries to take back control. Haley shakes his head and uses all his strength to pull away from St. John’s grip.

“Enough,” the warden snaps. “You’re not going to the execution room.”

Haley pauses and stares at her, deciding if he heard her correctly. Or if he even believed her.

“Get up and start walking,” the warden snaps.

“Hey, what the fuck ?,” Forge shouts from where he was still shackled to his bunk. “What about me? You’re letting him out ? Did he finally fuck around with the right guard  ? He should get the chair, the little fucker tried to kill me more than once--”

“Enough Mr. DeCartes, it’s not as if you didn’t deserve  it,” the warden says.

Again Haley is surprised. The warden was always a robotic professional, like all the other Eastern staff inside the penitentiary. She never spoke to prisoners plainly.

Haley hadn’t been outside of his cell since he'd been put inside more than a year ago and as they march him awkwardly through the penitentiary, it looks almost exactly as he remebered.

Except the non-violent offenders wing that was once abandoned was was now full.

Every cell was in one-way mode and he could see that nearly every cell had two occupants, some even had four. He almost thinks he sees Cassia Winthrop in a cell, but they are moving too quickly for  him to get a second look. He sees St. John do a double take at the same time and that was almost as good as a confirmation.

They don’t pass the death row cells but Haley wonders which prisoners were still alive and which had been executed. He’d always found himself thinking about N1212, the weary Santoro Family assassin he’d talked to during the breakout.  

The sun.

It felt like a waking dream to be outside. He knew he’d get himself out of Northland one day, but he hadn’t imagined it to be so soon or so easy.

Ft. Pride hadn’t changed much under Eastern rule. It was still mostly vast, harsh desert, but sleek dome buildings dotted the landscape. High tech, robot like equipment moved and surveyed the area. A line of identical military vehicles were lined up in front of the penitentiary; they all displayed an  emblem Haley had never seen before, a  circle of stars with lettering and the outline of an eagle.

Haley had stupidly broken Forge’s screen during their first week in the cell together. He’d hoped to use a piece of broken glass as weapon but all he succeeded in doing was destroying their only link to news in the post-RLA world. He knew nothing of what had happened since the war.

Haley is quickly guided into one of the military vehicles by St. John, who ducks into the backseat after him. The warden doesn’t get in the car  with them, she just closes the car door with a soft nod to Haley.

The interior of the car was pristine leather and smelled new. Haley looks over at St. John. The balding man was in crisp burgundy pants and a pristine white collared shirt decorated with shiny gold lapel pins—one of which was the circle of stars symbol that was on the cars.

“You must be a bit confused,” St. John says his voice still sounding formal and militaristic. “Don’t worry. You’re safe now.”

Haley pulls into himself, trying to make himself smaller in the seat. 

Safe. 

He didn’t know what that word even meant anymore.

 

***

 

You’re safe now.

St. John hates himself for using such a generic platitude but the kid looked terrified.

He then quickly remind himself Haley wasn’t a kid anymore. He tries not to stare at the tattoos and all the tubes, but the outlines are still visible through the threadbare prison uniform--which was stained with god knows what-- and it looked like the feeding tube was leaking on to the leather seats.

St. John turns his attention to his task at hand. He taps his Syndicate, a pear-shaped iridescent version that was new to the market.

“He’s out,” St. John reports to the Justice Commissioner’s team.  “You can start the gas.”

St. John quickly tints the window, not wanting to see what happened next. Not that there would be anything to see;  the feds would just  pump the gas into Northland and the prisoners would fall asleep and never get back up again. Murderers and traitors alike.

Haley makes a sound under his gag and St. John jumps.

St. John hadn’t wanted this. He hadn’t wanted to babysit Haley, he’d just been trying to do what was right.

When the newly formed Justice Commission decided to shut down Northland the list of prisoners inside had been well circulated to all the lieutenants in the Corrections department. Haley’s name had stood out to St. John, but he was hesitant to make waves. He was a former RLA officer and that still made people nervous. He tried to keep his head down and do his job.

Then he’d made the mistake of mentioning Haley’s name to Audrina over dinner. She’d told him he had to get Haley out—that the boy didn’t deserve to die in Northland. So he’d gotten him out. It was as simple as a petition and a record check—Haley’s biggest crime was running away from an RLA camp and seeing as that law was no longer in place he was free to go. 

It was an easy win.

But watching Haley now, scarily thin,  and like he’d drop dead any moment, St. John wondered if it was even worth it.

Haley lifts his left hand,  his middle finger pointing awkwardly down, like it’d been snapped in half. He touches the gag and then the deep hollows of his cheeks. He makes a soft moaning sound like words.

“I-I um, I’m sorry, I don’t have the key,” St. John explains. “The patent for the keys was lost…but we’ll get it off as soon as we get back to the city.”

Haley’s face pulls like he’s trying to smile.

St. John opens his mouth, but then closes it---not having the heart to tell Haley just how awful the procedure tended to be.

 

 

 

---

 -2-

 

 

When Alex Haley opens his eyes again he’s in a familiar place.

Through the haze he can spot the mass of an orange shape where his wrist would be.

City of Hope Hospital still kept bright orange security wristbands on their patients. Just as they had when he’d visited the RLA ward with Gram during the start of the Conflict. Secured higher on his arm were several thick, tight, gel like bands that probably held whatever miracle medicine made his body not hurt anymore.

The ward was different than it had been when he’d come here with Gram, instead of being packed with RLA soldiers on cots there were only a dozen beds in the ward--each one separated into cubicles by clear  smart glass. It would have been a nice place to be if the glass didn’t remind Haley so much of his cell in Northland.

A blurry  figure is seated on a chair near his feet  and as his vision clears it still takes him a long second to recognize the woman. Her body was still as a statue  and she looked terrified.

“Isla ?,” he says, trying to speak for the first time in a little over a year. The gauze stuffed in his mouth makes her name sound like nonsense but his older sister seems to understand.

He recalls being taken to the doctor office, resisting as he was strapped to a chair, his mouth numbed as the doctor used a robotic vice to  force the gag out of his mouth. It felt like his teeth were being ripped out, but the gag finally relented  it’s hold and  came out followed by a fountain of blood.

He’d passed out.

Isla Haley moves her head slightly in a nod, her eyes trained on where a hospital blanket covered his feet. He wonders how badly he must look to her. The hospital staff had atleast known to cover the RLA tattoos on his body, they had put him in a long sleeved hospital gown and the blankets covered the rest.

“Hi,” Isla says, pasting on a smile.

She flattens her hand like she is going to pat his leg, but then she folds it back into herself.

His sister looked different, which he’d expected after not seeing her for 7 years. Her long wavy hair that he used to love to play with was now dark and straight, it hung barely to her chin.

“That looks all bloody and gross. The nurse said to change the gauze in your gums,” she tells him motioning to his mouth.

Haley lifts his left hand, his better hand, only to find his middle finger in a splint.

“They had to re-break it to fix it,” Isla says quickly.

He still can’t quite feel his right hand, so he uses the hand with a broken finger to pull out small pieces of gauze so caked in blood they are almost black.

Not moving from her seat Isla tosses him a silvery biohazard bag and a clean strip of gauze. Haley knew the bloody gauze bothered her more than it did him and he wish she’d help him, but he knew not to expect so much from his sister. For a moment he is angry with her, but he pushes it away.

“Isla, why didn’t you come for me ?,” he asks once he’s pulled most of the gauze out.

She brushes some of her hair behind her ear and she looks angry with him for asking.

“I didn’t know you were...,” she says. “I mean...I tried for a while, I did. But a few years ago the...RLA called me and  told me some of the prisoners staged a coup  and to assume you were dead or missing. Then I got a call a few days ago  that you weren’t  and they were letting you go….it was kind of like a miracle.”

He nods.

It was a miracle he was still alive, there were nights in the cell he was certain he’d die of sickness before he saw morning.

“Am I really safe ?,” he asks.

She frowns and nods.

“Yes ?,” Isla says unsure. “I mean…as your next of kin I got some money from the Feds to pay for your hospital stuff.”

“Feds ?”

“Yeah…I…you had news in there, right ?”

Haley shakes his head, thinking of Forge’s screen that he broke.

“Well, in that case you have a lot to catch up on,” she laughs and he realize he hadn’t heard a laugh that wasn't at his expense in years.

“Is the house still there ?,” Haley asks.

“No,” Isla says. “I mean, Gram was renting that house from Tempus and they gave it to someone else when Gram was put in the care center…I live in an apartment in the Sprawl now.”

He hadn’t thought about his Gram in years. He knew his mother had died from Clarity overdose while he was away. Gram’s life had been about saving her family and he’d assumed with her only child and grandchildren gone she’d be dead by now.

“Can I live with you for a while?,” Haley asks, unsure what Isla’s life was like now. If she had a family of her own or not.

Isla folds her hands into her lap and looks down.

“Well, see… I have two roommates,” she says. “So...I’ve set you up at St. Grace's...the same care center Gram is staying in--”

“Isla. No. Why?”

She purses her lips.

“Look, Alex, you’re sick,” she says. “The doctor told me you need someone to take care of you and I don’t have time for that. I have a job and a life, you know ?”

For a moment Haley is almost as mad with his sister as he was with Forge. He wants to hit her until she lets him stay with her. Isla had never been the nurturing type—it had always been a joke between the family, but now she was being coldhearted.

But she’d also existed in a world without him for 7 years. He had to remind himself that she had a life he knew nothing about.

He knew she’d put Gram at St. Grace’s, a New Revolution Care Center. It was run by an order of charitable monastic New Revolution priests whose beliefs were founded on the concepts of  purity of mind and body above all else.  There was a time when he’d considered himself searching for purity, striving for it but he was far from it now.  

“The priests won’t want me,” Haley says.

“Sure they will,” Isla says. “They have a lot of younger RLA victims and I already paid for it and everything. ”

Haley shakes his head.

He moves his head slightly, brushing the strands of his hair back to reveal the length of his neck where Forge DeCartes had tattooed the series of numbers down his neck at Maxwell’s command.

The New Revolution considered tattoos a desecration to the body and while they looked the other way most of the time, Haley’s tattoos could be seen as nothing but vulgarities.

Isla smiles weakly, doing a double take on the numbers on his neck and then digs into her purse, she pulls out a small gold disc, and flips it open to reveal makeup.

His sister hadn’t worn makeup before. She certainly hadn’t carried it around.

“We can cover that up,” Isla says, producing a makeup brush

He has to bite back laughter.

Haley rolls on to his stomach  slowly pulling up the hospital gown before pulling down the blankets to reveal the small of his back.

“What are y-,” Isla starts, but then she stops as she sees the large tattoo  on his lower back and the edges of another tattoos on his stomach and chest.

Forge DeCartes had spent the better part of the last year running his tattoo needle dry at Haley’s expense and he’d decided to show Isla the crudest tattoo that was in a place appropriate to show his sister.

Like most the others it was in large ornate dark lettering. Beautiful, artistic letters positioned above a MK mongram to make an obscene message:

Property of the Republic Liberation Army

 

 

***

 

Haley goes quietly to St. Grace’s.

The priests kept him quarantined in his bed as his body healed and recovered from several infections, the worst of which was a persistent strain of gonorrhea.

He is placed in a room with his Gram, who spends the first few days chastising him for letting Harlow die in Camp Harmony and every day after telling him a devil had found it’s way inside him because he didn’t like her touch anymore.

But it wasn’t just her touch. Anyone touching him set his skin on fire and caused his stomach to turn. He dreaded every time the priests came into help change his bandages or clothing. Gram always wanted to help and while she was repulsed by the tattoos she was insistent on knowing where the dark bruises on his hip and inner thigh had come from and if the St. Grace's staff had caused them.

 Haley ignored her, he didn’t want to explain. He was almost sure his Gram didn’t know anything about sex. She’d been a religious zealot her entire life and she’d never married; she’d had Haley’s mother in a fertility lab.

He does nothing but sleep during the first month. He savors the feeling of a soft pillow and a real mattress and not worrying someone will attack him in the middle of the night.

When he’s finally strong enough to get out of bed he wanders out of his assigned room to occasionally peer into the recreation room, his tattoos covered by long white scrubs. He  discovers Isla had been correct, there were quite a few others in the care center only a few years older than himself. Most of them were men, former RLA soldiers who had been severely injured during the war.

Haley quickly learns what happened after the war had ended from the eavesdropping on other patients and staff. The Republic had become an official territory of the Eastern State and was now officially called The New Federal State of The Western Republic and the new governing body was referred to as the Federation.The RLA  had been  replaced with a new military called the United Auxiliary Forces. Their symbol was the circle of stars.

Everyone seemed to like the Federation, they’d given ex-RLA soldiers aide money to restart their lives, offered medical funds for those injured under the RLA rule and d hired most of the ex-RLA officers who swore allegiance to the New Federation—like St. John. They were trying to make The Western Republic better. Safer.

Haley gets most of his information from Dorothy, a chatty, kind faced physical therapist who came in once a week to help him with his left hand. The doctors had informed him that his right hand was a lost cause; while he could still move it a little, it had been rotting from the inside without antibiotics and without the money for cybernetics he'd eventually need to  have it removed.

Today he and Dorothy were sitting at a wooden table in the common room instead of in the room he shared with Gram. Haley rolled a cool silver ball around the table, his eyes watching a group of ex-RLA residents, who never spoke to him, walking outside together.

“Can we go outside ?,” Haley asks Dorothy, who looks up at him with alarm.

He’d only been outside twice since he’s release,  one with St. John and again when he’d been brought to the care center from the hospital. Both times he’d  been too weak to walk and hadn’t appreciated what he was seeing.

“I’m afraid not,” Dorothy smiles, she always smiled.

“Why ?”

“It’s not my rule, the priests said--”

“But they aren’t here,” he says, standing. “Please, I need fresh air.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ll see if I can get permission next time.”

But the idea of being outdoors had planted itself in his head and he couldn’t get it out. Haley stands, walking towards the door, telling himself he won’t cross the barrier. He just wanted to see the world beyond for a moment.

 But before he can even reach the door a warm hand circles his waist, forcing him back. It flips a switch in his mind and terror pulses through his veins—fear of being forced to submit, of the pain  from Forge’s needle..

He hurls the silver ball still in in his hand and turns to see Dorothy’s hands clap over her nose, the place the ball made contact. Blood dripped through her fingers.

Before Haley can apologize more hands wrap around him, these ones are rough and try to push him to the ground. Part of him knows it’s just the other priests trying to protect Dorothy  but another part of him wants to fight.

“You need to calm down,” a priest says quietly, trying to restrain his arms with a cuff.

The sudden loss of control sends fear spiking through Haley’s body. Without thinking about it he opens his mouth and sinks his teeth into a hand holding him down. A pair of hands release, followed by a pained scream. He can only breath for a moment before a heavy knee lodges into his back, pinning him to the floor.

His vision goes black for a moment as he is forcefully turned over and slammed back to the floor on his back, his head bouncing off the hardwood. A plastic half-mask is forced over the bottom of his face and even though he knows it’s not the same as the gag it feels close enough.

His body arches, desperate to get away from the stares and prying hands.

“Stop fighting ! ” someone barks at him, and he can feel strange, masculine hands caressing his face

“ Leave me alone ! Stop touching me !,” he screams, his hoarse words muffled by the  mask.

This time they listen to him.

All of the arms release at once and Haley curls back into himself on the floor, folding his knees into his rapidly rising and falling chest.

“Alex,” a new voice says softly.

 He looks up, suddenly humiliated by his actions to see the head priest, Father Sterling staring down at him. Father Sterling was the charismatic middle aged  man who was in charge of St. Grace's Care Center. Even before the war, Haley’s Gram had clung to Father Sterling’s every word on a weekly show he hosted.

“You need to stand up. Now,” Father Sterling says in a soft voice, kneeling over him.

Haley closes his eyes and stands, there is blood on his shirt that is not his own and when he wipes his face it comes away red too. Worst of all the others patients were staring at him; some with sympathy but most with fear.

Without touching or speaking him, Father Sterling guides Haley back into his room, which was empty since Gram was listening to scripture lessons in the chapel. He removes the bite mask, helps him undress and wipe himself off before lowering him into the cracked porcelain bathtub of warm water.

Haley assumed there was something in the water meant to calm him down because the moment his body is submerged his heart rate returns to normal.

Father Sterling sits on the stool in the corner in his priest grab, looking out of place in the dingy, institutional bathroom.

“I-I’m so sorry, sir.” Haley says pulling at the ends of his hair that brushed the surface of the bath water. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt Dorothy. I--”

“Do you like it here ?,” Father Sterling asks calmly.

Haley doesn’t know how to answer that question. This wasn’t a place to like, but they’d been the only ones to take him in.

“Yes, sir—I, yes, Father.”

“You attended Belgrade ?”

“Yes, Father,” he nods even though his school days felt a lifetime ago.

Belgrade had been a New Revolution Day School. It’s emphasis was less on traditional academics and more on instilling students with a strict work ethic though rigorous study of the Scriptures. They didn’t have religion in the East and Haley wandered if the Eastern State even allowed the school to still run.

“In the years your grandmother has been in our company she always spoke so highly of you,” Father Sterling tells him. “We want to help victims of the RLA's terror but your behavior is becoming unacceptabl--”

“I’ll apologize,” Haley says quickly.  “I’ll apologize to everyone I hurt--”

“It’s not just that. Your grandmother says you’ve been having impure thoughts”

Haley can feel the flush racing up his face.  The painkiller they’d given him had been giving him vivid nightmares. Some nights he’d wake up, aroused and convinced he smelled burning Clarity and leather.

“As I know your sister told you, we do allow therapists for our RLA victims,” Father Sterling tells him. “I can schedule an--"

“No.” he says quickly. “I’m fine.”

“You’re clearly not. I understand something traumatic must have happened to you to get those tattoos,” Father Sterling says.

The priest had seen all his tattoos when he was first emitted and made the order that he keep them covered at all times except to certain staff.  Father Sterling didn’t hide that he was staring at the dark ink on his back, which was less crude then the lettering submerged by the bath water.

“I was at an RLA prison camp,” Haley says, absently running his hand over the KM monogram on his neck.

This was his standard answer when anyone asked what happened to him.

“You damaged your hand that badly in a prison camp ?”

“A cannibal tried to eat it,” he says.

“Alex, please.” the priest scolds him. None of them believed this.

“And when did you meet Forge DeCartes ?,” Father Sterling continues.

Haley’s eyes flicker down. He was curious how the priest knew about DeCartes but he had decided that once he was set free that he would never talk about his 17 months locked in a cell with the sadistic tattoo artist.

“I know things too. I used to evangelize in the worst parts of the Sprawl,” Father Sterling continues. “I never met the man but I heard the rumors and saw evidence of his techniques…why did you let him do that to you ? Or—did you like it--”

“STOP!,” Haley screams, the water in the tub making small waves as his body starts shaking. “I don’t want to talk about happened to me.”

 “I think you need to. This isn’t the first time you’ve drawn blood. I need you to know that if you send another staff member to the hospital Federation policy says I have to report you to the Justice Commission as violent…I can’t control what they do to you in their system.”

Haley only nods, wondering if the priest is bluffing, telling him the thing he fears the most so he will tell him all his secrets, every sickening detail.

“How about you and I  have private sessions with a therapist, I’m bound by a covenant to keep certain confessions confidential--”

“I don’t want anyone to know what happened to me,” Haley repeats. “Ever.”

“Well, there is a second option,” Father Sterling says. “And I think you’d  be an ideal candidate.”

 

***

 

“You  really look great,” Isla tells her brother. She was desperate for something to say and she forces a smile even though he couldn’t see her face at the moment.  

She was sitting behind him in his bed, running her brush through his hair that she’d just trimmed. Her hands through his hair was the only touch that he tolerated from her, but she didn’t mind.

“Do you want to eat now ?,” she asks, gathering the strands into a ponytail in the back of his head.

He shakes his head slightly.

She always brought lunch when she found the time to visit him, which was rare, but after more than a year on a feeding tube he no longer liked eating. The last time she’d visited everything he ate had violently come back up right before she left.

“This is like before,” Haley says quietly, changing the subject

Isla smiled.

It was.  When he was in school she’d get up a dawn and help him pull his hair back.But now, as she wrapped a black band around the neat ponytaul she could see the top of inked letters at the  base of her little brother’s  neck.

She was tempted to pull his shirt down to see what the tattoo said, but she’d heard how violent he’d become if anyone touched him without his permission.

“Don’t you miss how it used to be?,” Haley asks her.

“A little.” 

But the truth was she didn’t at all. Her life had been so small.

 In the years he’d been in RLA custody she’d traveled the world and went to school in Paris to study design and now she sold virtual reality consoles to rich assholes. It wasn’t the perfect job but it paid the bills and she’d made the best friends.

Friends who thought she was an only child.

Bringing up her imprisoned brothers  had felt perilous at the time and she wasn’t sure how to explain herself now that her little brother was back. When Haley had called spontaneously that afternoon asking her to come visit she’d told her roommates it was a work emergency.  

“Isla, I’m getting an extraction,” Haley says.

She has to remind herself not to touch him, not to start shaking his shoulders. An extraction. The New Revolution was obsessed with removing embedded technology, with manipulating people’s bodies for the greater good, but it usually ended in lobotomy and memory loss. Or sometimes death.

“Who talked you into it ?,” she asks.

“No one,” he says. “There is something wrong with me. I hit my physical therapist...I even hit Gram once. I hit her hard.”

“So ? Alex-”

“So ? Isla, she tried to rub my back in the middle of the night and I—I don’t even remember but she was crying. Isla I need to forget what happened to me at Ft. Pride. They said they can extract all of the bad--”

“It doesn’t work like that. They could fuck it up,” she tells him. “It could just makes things worse.”

“It won’t be as bad as this. Father Sterling says I won’t remember what happened--”

“Of course he did, the New Revolution just wants a guinea pig. What about your tattoos ? They’ll still be there. How do you expect me to  explain those tattoos to you ?”

“You won’t. You’ll just say you don’t know how I got them, which you don’t--”

“What if you forget me ?”

“I won’t, Isla. How could I ?”

It’s easier than you think she thinks. She’d forgotten about him for years.

“Don’t be stupid. You’ll regret it the moment it’s done.”

“I won’t.”

“Fine, ruin your life. Atleast tell me what happened to you at Ft. Pride…that way if you change your mind I can tell you.”

“No.”

“God, you’re being so dumb, Alex.  It’s all bullshit. It won’t make you closer to god.”

“It will make me hate him less.”

 

+++

 -3-

The halls of the center are quiet at night, digital monitors lined the walls to keep the patients inside, but Haley had been looking for a way out the moment he came in; It was something he did compulsively now, looking for the exit  out of every room.

He wasn’t escaping tonight though. He searching for a quiet,  private place--which was next to impossible at St. Grace's.

He finally decides on the basement. The basement was cold because it was where they kept all the freezers, but it was in bounds of where he was allowed. Taking a spare blanket left in the common room and clutching a recorder in his good hand he heads down the stairs.

He’d stolen the recorder from Father Sterling’s office—the priests used them to record books or sermons for patients who couldn’t see or leave their beds.

Tomorrow Haley would get his extraction. He was anxious to be free of Ft. Pride and make room for better things.

But Isla had gotten to him.

He wanted a second option. Just in case.

He sits on top of one of wall length metal freezers lining the basement and holds the flat round recording device to his lips.

“If you’re listening to this you’ve had the extraction and you’ve survived,” he says to his future self. “You probably don’t remember why you did this…You’re probably wondering about the tattoos…If you want to be happy and sane turn this off now and destroy it. Listening to it will only hurt you...I want you to destroy this.”

He clicks the recorder off to yawn into his arm. The sun would be rising in a few hours and they would be coming to prepare him for the extraction. 

He pauses before turning the recorder back on.

“You were at a place called Ft. Pride where an RLA sergeant tortured you for years. People thought you belonged to him and you said you didn't but the truth was you did. You let him strap you down and mark your body. You slept in his bed. You never fought back. You thought he might have cared about you but the moment the war ended he abandoned you in a cell. Ft. Pride--,”

Haley stops when he hears voices and see small beams of light coming down the basement stairs. He stands as a group of male patients, a few years older then himself , walk towards him.

They were the ex-RLA soldiers who also lived at St. Grace's. He’d watched them congregating together from afar. The nuclear weaponery had disfigured two of them horribly and left them all with severe radiation sickness.

They stop when they spot Haley and  they stare.

A few of them step back like they are afraid of him.  He realizes they probably were. They’d likely witnessed more than one of his violent tantrums. It was probably why they’d never invited him to into their group in the first place.

“Sorry, I was just leaving--,” Haley says.

“Want to watch the movie ?,” a man who had the skeletons of three cybernetic limbs protruding from his pajamas asked him.

Haley frowns at the man confused. There weren’t many movies in the center. Watching movies was considered idleness and idleness was sinful.

“The cute receptionist sneaks me a Syndicate with movie recordings,” another younger man says. “Sometimes it’s too quiet around here, you know ?”

Haley nods and sits away from the group as they fiddle with the Syndicate to project the film.

At first he’s afraid it’s going to be a pornographic film but instead they start up an animated film. It was meant for children but there was something calming in the bright colors and neat morality that made him feel more relaxed than he had in months.

When the film ends, the screen momentarily switches to the national news stream and Haley sits up.

“Who was that ?,” Haley asks as the younger man turns the projection off. “Turn it back on.”

“Hey, c’mon kid, don’t go all psycho on us-,”

“Turn it back on !,” Haley shouts and he does.

He’d tried his best not to think of the name, even thought it was inked all over his body.

Sergeant. 

Warden. 

Kenneth Maxwell.

Haley stares at the still of the sergeant on the screen, carefully taking in every detail of the man.

He was wearing a fitted black suit, with a dark purple tie and shiny tie clip. His hair was thicker and darker than it had been at Ft. Pride and he was smiling, head dipped low, walking down a city block with a  man in what Haley now knew was the deep burgundy United Auxillary Forces uniform.  Maxwell is whispering something in the uniformed man's ear.

The chyron below the image read “Venue Picked For Real life Romeo and Juliet Wedding !”

“Don’t tell me you’re following this crap too ?,” one of the men in the basement with Haley laughed.

“No,” Haley says still making sense of Kenneth Maxwell smiling, looking so carefree. “Why is he on the news ?” 

“Senator Maxwell, a former RLA guy  is marrying Major Prescott, some officer from the East. The media streams have been following them since the engage--”

“No. Maxwell was an RLA officer, he was a traitor!” Haley says. “How did he get to be a senator.”

The man just shrugs.

"....I just remember he was in charge of all the transition taskforce shit last year.”

“I’d heard  when he was in the RLA but he was stationed on some remote base so the United Forces didn’t charge him--,” another voice adds.

“No!” Haley shouts. “He was a traitor, he’s a murderer, he—turn it back on ! I want to see the rest of the news story.”

The other men exchange looks over his head.

“It’s a recording,” one of them says slowly. “I think it just caught the last few seconds--”

“Turn it to the  news.”

“There’s no connection here….look, It’s late, um, let’s head back up.”

Haley can sense the nervousness in the men so he follows them back up. He goes into his room and thinks about falling asleep but he can’t.  A fear and unease climb over him.

He rolls out of bed and kneels next to his grandmother’s bed. She took sleeping pills every night, more nuclear bombs could go off and she’d never wake.

“I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I let Harlow…I’m sorry about Harlow. I'm going to get the extraction,” he whispers to her. “I’ll be the grandson you think I am one day. But not today.”

He kisses his grandmother's hair and then uses the scissors Isla had trimmed his hair with to dig the St. Grace's tracking chip out of his wrist before walking out.