Open Season in Verra

There’s a rare vintage of agony reserved for the woman who finds herself made not just a fool, but a weapon, and worse, a trophy. You may think me an idiot as well. You’re wondering it now—what does a woman like that think?

Only that I didn’t want to hurt him. I choke on my drink when I remember that. I was worried about him!

I didn’t find the beacon for months. To think I carried his device around inside a navel ring. It was state of the art technology and I’d never been briefed for this kind of subterfuge. I’d hardly ever been anywhere off-world.

I vowed to never go back to Verra.

The intercom speaker clicked and a low voice echoed against the walls of the narrow cell that was a prisoner’s berth. “Passengers, please prepare for landing.”

My arrest came as a shock, but normalization of diplomatic relations between Westavia and Verra had made me subject to extradition. Westavia did one better, and shipped me off aboard the W. Argentina at taxpayer expense. Captain Hathaway turned a blind eye as his crewman escorted me down the skywalk and into the waiting arms of a Verran security team.

The City Trisect had changed in the six years since I had traveled here. It had always been a bustling city, teeming with millions of residents. It was bigger and glossier now, with chrome shrines to its technological advancement rising up sky high all along the track.

I couldn’t spare much thought for the city's transformation. An officer sat on a bench and made notes as another ticked off my physical description. “Long brown hair. Westavian nose. Slight build." He checked my vitals. My heart rate. Confiscated my passport. Then the examination really got thorough—and I pushed back against the the officer’s hands. “No!” I glanced at the female officer at the front of the train. “Tell him to stop!”

The woman at the front of the train suppressed a smile and nodded to the thug officers on either side of me. “Give her some space.”

The train followed the track into an underground vault, and the officers pushed me down a narrow cement corridor between grim-covered walls. An officer opened a heavy metal door and pushed me inside with the baton to my back. The cell hadn’t any light, but for a tiny wired glass window at the top of the ceiling. The window channeled a pale beam into the center of the room. Shadows dominated the corners of the cell—shadows and a presence I perceived with my mind before seeing with my eyes.

My pulse raced upon realizing it was a man. He had risen from a crouch against the corner wall to a towering stature. He was no interrogator but a prisoner. He wore a prison issue tank and black sweatpants. Strangely, his hair had been cut and his face shaved, but his skin was pale from too little sun exposure. His black eyes locked on mine over years and space. Recognition lit in his expression, as I’m sure it did in mine.

I knew him. Solen stood opposite—man replacing boy. The angles of his face and jaw had become prominent and every lean muscle asserted itself under his completely uninsulated skin. He was still imposing, and even beautiful, but hardness had replaced every boyish trait. All of the innocence in his face was gone.

It had been more than three years. I had been scarcely twenty years old, practically a child, and had looked it, but I was only grown up. He had grown old.

My hands trembled against my navel, unburdened of the beacon ring he had given me.

Finally, I asked in broken Verran, “How long have you been here?”

Slow and deliberate, he closed the distance between us, heals clapping against the cement floor. He was taller than I remembered, and I retreated back, but his right hand flew up and gripped the back of my neck. Fingers threading through my hair, he lifted my face toward his. He bent close, till his lips brushed my ear—until his face was too close, too tortured for me to bear—and I shut my eyes. I struggled against his grip, but his fingers were like thick, iron bolts screwed tight against my skull.

Then he whispered something almost too low for me to hear, “Talk to them,” he nodded at the observation mirror behind me, “but do not speak a word to me.” He released me without warning and I staggered backwards, then fell to the floor, but his stoney gaze remained locked upon mine.

My sweat bathed palms found the floor and I walked backwards, retreating from his evil gaze, but it followed me without deviating, even after as I crouched in the far corner of the room.

I had not considered the possibility that Solen would be in prison, not for a moment, though by his own admission, he had violated military rules left and right. Had someone he trusted betrayed him? Were the consequences of our brief acquaintance so severe as that? And why? Why had Verran authorities locked me up with him now?

I took a minute, but an explanation finally came to me. The service was hoping Solen would talk. Him to me—or I to him, and finish his incrimination. What had they done to him?

As if answering my unspoken question, Solen stepped from the shadows into the pale light shining from the tiny window at the top of the cell. He lifted his prison issue tank over his head and threw it to the floor. My jaw slackened as he turned around slowly in the frail morning light, displaying his back, neck and chest, mottled with bruises and chemical burns. He turned as if to say: This is what they did to me.

My stomach churned and suddenly the acid climbed my throat and I wretched upon the floor. I wanted to scream at him—wanted to give him the yelling of his life. I didn’t ask for this! You did this! You planted that beacon! How dare you! What was wrong with him?

The latch on the door rattled and the sound of heavy footfall clattering across the pavement ricocheted against all four cement walls. I stared up at three wiry officers, hair slicked back, batons upon their belts. Solen almost leaped to his feet from a crouch against the floor, as though he’d been awaiting them. He stalked away between them, sparing no glance for me.

I was alone, but for the inevitable surveillance camera staring at me through the metal observation plate.

What were they doing to Solen? Why didn’t he just confess? Was it about the ring beacon he’d given me? How long would they keep him? How long would they keep me?

*

It was simply an interrogation room, not a cell, so they had to let me out to use the facilities. It came as exquisite relief to release my bladder into the porcelain bowl. I washed my hands in the slow stream of cold water, and stared at my reflection in the metal plaque on the wall. My hair was tangled and tears streaked my face. Had I cried? I must have been crying.

I needed to eat, but my stomach still churned and I knew it wasn’t safe. A moment later, the officer banged on the door.

*

Within the interrogation room, a tray of food now rested on a bare table. I lifted the lid on the tray by the bed, more from curiosity than from hunger. My eyes widened to see it looked something like an airline meal, business class. The tray contained a little ceramic bowl of heated nuts, a fish entree with vegetables, a delicate pastry shaped like a flower, and plastic wrapped moist toilettes. A glass bottle of mineral water stood separate. It all seemed to say: We know you deserve better, and we care a very little bit.

I returned the metal lid with a clank and laid down on springless mattress. My neck cried out in pain and I groaned inwardly, and then outwardly. Why had I ever come to this place?

The door rattled. Someone entered. I opened my eyes. There stood Solen with fresh bruises across his chest and arms. His lungs heaved and he stooped over, propping his arms upon his quadriceps.

I stared at him for several seconds, considering what I should do. Then I cursed, and grabbed the bottle of mineral water and walked it over to him. I opened the seal, took the first swallow, then handed it to him. “Take it.”

He glanced away, his sweat bathed face mute.

“Take it.” I insisted. “I don’t know what they’ve done to you, but it isn’t right. Take the water. Take the meal. I don’t want it.”

He reached his hand out and gripped the bottle, walked past me to the bunk, and set it gently back on the tray. Then he returned to the opposite corner of the room, leaned his back against the wall and sank to the floor. For a long moment we stared at each other. I saw his breathing did not regulate. His chest rose and fell and rose and fell as though staring at an ongoing threat that would not abate.

And then it was morning. I didn’t know when I had slept, but I blinked and glanced around frantically.

I saw not Solen, but a Verran dressed in full military uniform, sitting on a chair in the center of the morning light. He spoke in Lanfurian to me directly, without a translator. “Why did you come to the Tri-Sect?”

I rose to sitting and blinked my eyes. “Why are you detaining me? What have I done wrong?”

He shifted impatiently. “Do you recognize the prisoner who was placed in here with you?”

I hesitated. “Yes.”

“What is his name?”

“He told me it was Solen. I don’t remember his last name, but I bet it was a lie.”

“What is the nature of your acquaintance?”

“We met over three years ago—when I was studying abroad in Tri-Sect City. I only met him a few times.”

“Did you conspire to assist him in abandoning his military unit?”

“No.”

“Did he ask you to help him?”

“He asked me to write to him.”

“And did you?”

“No.”

“Did he offer you money, gifts?”

“No.”

“Did he give you anything unasked for?”

I sighed. “He gave me a Verran book of short stories.”

“Anything more?”

“Snacks for a long train ride.”

The officer snorted. “You must cooperate with our investigation. We have charges against him which occurred during the time when you two were acquainted in Tri-Sect City. Tell me everything you know of him.”

“I don’t have any idea what this is about.”

I thought about the digital beacon, resting in a small jewel box in my safe deposit box, but I did not mention it.

“Remember, Ms. Shaw, we have sensitive equipment by which we can read your heart rate. Your heart rate escalated on response to this question. Let me repeat myself. Did he give you anything more?”

I didn’t want to play games with the Lanfurian justice system. I wasn’t going to withstand torture to protect a felon wanted for a crime against the State, obviously of some magnitude. “Yes.”

“What was it?”

“It was a small ring—for a piercing.”

The officer’s eyes lit up. “Where is it?”

“It’s not here. I left it in a safe deposit box in my bank.”

“Fine. You will wire your bank and have the device returned.”

“I didn’t steal it.”

“Nevertheless. It is stolen property. And we want it back. You will remain in Verra until our embassy in Westavia takes possession of the ring.”

*

Post interrogation they put us together once more in the locked room, hoping to shake more informatin loose. I stared at Solen. The notion of my not talking seemed well behind us. I had given up the beacon, and I couldn’t make myself regret it. I stood up as tall as I could, steadied my voice and said, “I gave it to them. I gave them the beacon you put on me, disguised as a navel ring.”

Silence.

“Solen,” I said his name and his eyes twitched, but he seemed to be gazing right through me. “You said you loved me.” I rolled my eyes. “Then you violated my body by inserting a listening device in my navel. You used me! Why?”

Silence.

I sighed. “I don’t know whether you deserve to be here. I don't know what that device was all about, but whatever it is or was, as far as I’m concerned, you are no innocent!”

Silence, but he opened his jaw as if to speak.

I sniffed. “You may as well say what you have to say, because I don’t think you will ever get another chance. They are letting me go, and I’m determined to leave Verra and never come back.”

“You lied, too.”

I raised my brow.

“You promised you would write.”

My jaw went slack. “You manipulated that promise out of me. You wouldn’t let me not promise. Look at me. Three years, and I’m still trying to extricate myself from your grasping fingers!”

He closed his eyes, as if to acknowledge the fault. “I am sorry.”

*

I celebrated my release with a hot bath at the Ritz Carlton Tri-Sect, and ordered Earthan cuisine. Lying upon the bed wrapped up in the Ritz’ plush white robe, I feasted on mediocre pasta and flipped between the only two channels with alien programing.

I had dozed upon the pillow when the sound of brutish knuckles rapping hard against my door shook me awake. The door flung wide and cool air rushed into my over heated room. Three officers stood over me. My heart hammered my chest. “No! No. No. No!”

They dragged me away in no more than my robe and nightgown, down the hall to a private elevator shaft that emptied in a dark corner of the parking garage below. Cold, violating fingers thrust me into an official van, then bound my hands in a cuff. The officers chattered between themselves, talking about investment strategies and Earth-made cinema. Acid bubbled up from my stomach and stung my esophagus and I held my groin hard trying to keep from pissing all over thin carpet.

Back at the prison, I staggered barefoot across the cold pavement between six officers who threw me into a cell, complete in its blackness.

But even in the dark, I knew I wasn’t alone. He was there. I could hear the sound of his even breathing. I could feel his presence as if I were seeing him.

This time, he didn’t keep his distance. His hands groped in the darkness and found my neck and shoulders. I gasped under his touch, but he shushed me like a child, his hands softened, and he whispered, “I won’t hurt you. Listen to me. They received the thing you gave them and they’re angry.”

“What? How is it possible?”

“What did you give them?”

“The ring.”

He paused. “That’s all?”

“It’s all I had. What do they really want?”

He paused. “The book. Did you never open it up and read it through?”

“The book?” My face warmed. “No. The language was so old and I didn’t think—No. I wasn’t able to get through it.”

A low groan and a pause. “I planted something in the book.”

“What?”

“A tiny drive.”

“What was on it?”

He sighed. “Names and locations...offenses.”

I shook my head. “Wait—why are you confessing this to me now?”

He exhaled heavily. “At first, I thought I could protect you by not speaking to you, and having you not speak to me. To do otherwise would imply we had acted together, but now I see that they only want me…and they want the device.”

“Why do they want it so badly?”

He paused, but finally spoke. “When I was newly enlisted in the military, I became the driver for senior ranking officers—generals and sometimes council members, but as a driver, it was inevitable that I would do double duty for the senior officer’s children. One such princeling was was trouble. I didn’t realize it then, because he pretended to befriend me, treated me like an equal, which blew my mind. There was such a chasm between us. We were from different worlds, but he invited me to party with him. Then one day when we were out in the city, I saw this young girl—obviously Westavian born. I had never seen anyone like you before.”

Heat spread from my face to my toes.

“I should never have been able to meet you. It was strictly forbidden, but this young man encouraged me to find out who you were. One thing led to the next, and we at last met. Do you remember?”

“So it was your friend...?”

“He wasn’t my friend.” Solen’s mouth hardened. “He knew military rules and he meant to entrap me—meant to lead me into violations as deep as he could get me to go. Blackmail me. He bragged to me about how he’d done it over and over—hundreds of times. He held a record of their names and crimes, and he used it to coerce victims for his sick purposes. When they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give him what he wanted, he had them put in prison.”

I exhaled a breath as the weight of his confession hit me.

“I stole and copied the data, hid the drive in the book and gave it to you, hoping you would find it, correspond with me and together we could get it to a whistle-blower, someone with power enough to negotiate.”

A sick sensation hit my stomach. “But I never wrote to you.”

“No.”

My throat tightened. “I didn’t want to get you into trouble.”

“You had your reasons,” he said, dismissing my excuse. “They were good reasons. If I had been more like you, neither of us would be here now. We would never have met.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“And implicate you? No. I needed you to never know. What I did was bad enough."

The realization of what I had done connected like a fist to my gut. He had needed my help and I had ignored him. "You must have been furious with me," I said.

"At first, I was angry with you for never even trying to reach me. I had no way of contacting you. But I was wrong. Tell the officers where the book is. They’ll let you go.”

“If I surrender the book, they’ll never let you out.”

“You'll do neither one of us any good by staying locked up in here."

My throat tightened. “You knew they wouldn’t be able to extradite me, not until they signed the treaty.”

"I never dreamed it would happen, but what I did was wrong. I wasn’t responsible for the other victims’ trouble, but I am responsible for mine... and now for yours.”

My head thrummed. “Maybe my father can help,” I said, and hated myself. My father would never stick his neck out for a Verran military chauffeur.

Solen shook his head. “The data we’re talking about is so volatile. Nothing any alien says, no matter how powerful, is going to matter.”

“Please. Please don’t give up. If I’d only read the book...If only I had known!”

His eyes softened. “Don't worry about that now.”

“Please don’t,” I said, tears pricked the lenses of my eyes. “Don’t comfort me. I need to feel this. I need to regret it.”

Tears streamed freely down my face. My nose ran, but I wouldn’t block the sensations. I hadn’t even bothered to realize I held the fates of hundreds of people in my hands. I had wanted to get rid of him, because he was inconvenient, because I didn’t want a complicated relationship.

But I had felt something, and it had tugged at my subconscious mind, never quite letting me forget this Verran man who had desperately needed my help…not even for his own sake, but for many hundreds of others who were also wronged.

Hands trembling, I leaned forward and touched his face. I kissed his temple, the hollows under his eyes and under his cheekbones.

But he stiffened at my touch and his gaze burned. “Don’t.”

My hands shook and I trembled, realizing I could not take this release to my feelings. He had not been in love with me. He’d merely needed help from someone off-world. Anyone would have done.

I stood and I paced up and down in the tiny cell. My shoulders tightened and the tendons in my neck screamed for relief. Could I really give Solen up to be jailed until he died? With fresh agony, I realized what it was that bothered me about him. I was in love with him. Everything about him. His wild swing for freedom. His desperate act to save himself and others.

Time expanded and collapsed through the night as I revisited in my mind every word, every touch that had ever passed between us. And then I was aboard a ship.

*

I renewed application for a travel visa to Verra every three months for ten years. They were all denied. I met a Verran political prisoner who had been released from the same prison still holding Solen. Political prisoners did get out occasionally with enough bribes or when officials whom they offended became victims to more powerful political opponents. His story was his own to tell, but he had also smuggled out many pages, which Solen had written, in his boots. When Solen’s book came out, a friend gifted me a copy and I filed it next to three additional copies upon my bookshelf.

Solen had graciously veiled details about me and our relationship, but I stayed awake late at night reading, and my flesh ignited like a candle’s wick at the details he did disclose. He had included in his memoir a love letter to me.

*

When I first saw you it wasn't like seeing with my eyes. It was more like a collision, so forceful it threw me out of orbit and reoriented my entire being to a new sun. I knew it was foolish, and though I had sense enough to see the consequences of pursuit were a kind of hacksaw to my future, all my best judgment wasn't enough to keep me from throwing myself at the blade.

After years in prison and having suffered—I will not censor myself from using the word torture. I cannot look at my prison life squarely in the eyes, and yet even suffering cannot fully blunt the tension around your edges that I dared not touch, the hope of your gaze upon me, the sweet awareness of your nearness, and the forceful will to know you all the way through.

I will never be able to love you as anything more than as a phantom, and yet, I cannot retract.

*

I tried, how I tried to contact him. I wrote editorials to every banned Verran publisher in existence. I petitioned every news broadcaster that professed independence and some that didn't. The entire Inter World Alliance knew I loved Solen, knew our story, but I would never know whether he knew it.