The door opened and a calm male voice said, "I hope we're not interrupting."
"Greg!" Ali yelped, pulling away from him and wriggling under the covers.
Greg yanked the duvet up over them and rolled over, trying to make out the shapes backlit against the corridor. He didn't recognise the voice and he was sure he'd locked the door.
"Who the hell are you?" he demanded.
The main light came on. Two men stood just inside the open doorway — both blond, both tall, one slightly older and broader across the shoulders. Both wore black, and Greg's mouth dried.
"Do you recognise this uniform?" the older man asked.
Greg nodded. "You're — " He cleared his throat. "You're from I&I."
"Yes. My name is Senior Para-investigator Toreth, this is Investigator Barret-Connor." He closed the door. "Get out of bed, please."
"What?"
"Your security file doesn't mention a hearing defect."
Slowly, Greg slid out of bed. He couldn't take the duvet with him without stripping Ali, so he left it. Embarrassingly, he was still half-hard, although that problem was curing itself rapidly as the situation sank in. I&I. Shit, shit, shit. Were they just here for him, or did they know about any of the others? How in God's name had they found out?
Hard as he tried, he couldn't stop the flush that rose as the para-investigator examined him.
"Looks like we
were
interrupting," he said.
Greg looked towards the door, where his dressing gown hung. The para-investigator shook his head. "Leave that for now. Stand there."
Greg moved to the indicated spot.
"Right, now you," the para-investigator said.
"Me?" Ali asked.
"Funny thing about the uniform — it seems to make everyone deaf. Now move!"
Ali cringed back, and with an exasperated sigh the para-investigator started for the bed.
Heedless of the second man, Greg lunged forwards and grabbed the para-investigator's arm. "Leave her — "
Then, somehow, he was face-first against the wall, his right arm pinned painfully behind him. He heard Ali gasp.
"Don't be an idiot," the para-investigator said. His tone hadn't changed. "Now, you can behave yourself, or I can break your arm and we can start all over again from there. Choose."
He made an abortive attempt to struggle free, which ended with his clenched fist pulled a few centimetres further up towards his shoulder blade. He stilled. "I'll behave."
"Good. Are you right-handed? Of course you are — it says so in your file. But do you wank right-handed too?" Without warning, he twisted Greg's wrist upwards again and he couldn't help a gasp of pain as his tendons stretched — it fucking
hurt
. "You, in the bed — get out before I put him in a cast and up your workload. No, leave that behind."
Greg heard movement behind him: cloth shifting, then the soft thump of bare feet hitting the floor.
The para-investigator released his hold and stepped away. "She's your type, B-C, you deal with her."
Greg turned his back to the wall, rubbing his wrist. "I'm — "
"I know exactly what you are. Stand there and shut up."
Without another glance at him, the para-investigator crossed to the dresser and started opening drawers. Greg breathed a silent thanks that he hadn't taken charge of the posters this week. There was nothing in the room that could incriminate him.
"ID, please, Ms . . . ?" the investigator said.
"Alison Rice," she whispered. "And I — I don't have it with me."
"You are aware that's a category one offense?" From the investigator's stoic expression, he might have dealt with naked, frightened women every day. Maybe he did. "Then you can give me your address and ID number."
Poor Ali was trying to cover as much as she could with her hands. Greg looked away from them, burning with second-hand humiliation as the investigator took her details.
"Well, well, well. Look what we have here."
The para-investigator was holding up the bag of dried mushrooms. Greg groaned — he'd forgotten all about them in the worry over other things.
"Interesting," the para-investigator said as he returned. "And very helpful of you."
He produced a drug screener from his pocket. "I'm sure you know how it works. Good lungful, hold for five seconds, slow even breath until you hear the beep." He held the unit up. Greg set his mouth, and the para-investigator sighed. "Or we can do a screen back at I&I. I really don't care which; you're coming back anyway and 'failure to cooperate' will do just as well for an initial charge."
Greg breathed in, held, and blew. After the beep, there was a silence in the room as they all waited. Eventually, the para-investigator tapped the screen and smiled. It didn't make him look any friendlier.
"Do you know how many legal recreational pharmaceuticals there are, B-C?" he asked.
The man standing by Ali smiled slightly. "No idea, Para."
"Should hope not — taking drugs is a disgusting habit. But there are a lot. Hundreds. Apparently not enough for our little corporate heir, though."
Suddenly, everything felt more real. Not that Greg wanted to use his family to get out of this, but the knowledge that he could had held off the urge to panic. At the back of his mind he'd known that whenever he wanted to he could drop the Ballester name and watch the arrogant bastards back off like it was a hand-grenade, probably apologising to boot. He'd seen his parents do it often enough. But if the man knew, and didn't care . . .
The para-investigator changed the mouthpiece on the analyzer. "And you, beautiful."
"I took them too," Ali whispered.
"I'm very glad to hear it — now the machine wants to hear it. Nice deep breath — I think we'll all enjoy that."
Greg watched, cursing himself silently. If he couldn't protect himself, what could he do for Ali? Part-time college bar staff probably didn't have any claim on college protection.
The para-investigator checked his watch. "Right, get dressed, both of you."
Greg took the time to find clean clothes, picking out a suit. Looking as grown up and corporate-respectable as possible couldn't hurt.
As he dressed he tried to recall what names the unwelcome visitors had given when they arrived. The para-investigator had called the younger man B-C just now — he'd been Barret or Barnet-something. The para-investigator himself he couldn't remember at all. Greg could hear his mother's voice in his mind. 'Always take the names of officials, Gregory. Then they know that they can be held responsible for their actions'.
Of course, how far that applied to I&I was a different question.
At least, Greg thought on the way from his room to the gate, they hadn't been handcuffed. Then he realised it might have been better — if someone had seen them, they might be able to warn the others. At the college lodge, a dark-skinned woman in the same black uniform as the investigator stood behind the porters' desk. The three porters on duty looked at him unhappily.
"I'm sorry, Mr Ballester," Mills said.
Greg nodded to him slightly, not wanting to draw the para-investigator's attention to the man any more than was necessary.
"Any trouble, Mistry?" the para-investigator asked.
The woman shook her head. "All quiet. You're just in time, though. Political Crimes will be here any moment. They — "
She stopped speaking as a dozen more I&I officers entered the lodge from the street.
The man leading the group stopped them, spoke quietly to the woman beside him, then came over. He had the same uniform as the para-investigator, with the same logo on his shoulder and the same unfriendly eyes. However, his hair was only a shade lighter than the uniform, combining with his olive skin to give him an all over look of dark menace. Alison edged closer to Greg.
"Christofi," the para-investigator greeted the newcomer.
"Toreth? What the — what are you doing here?"
"Picking up a suspect."
Toreth. Greg repeated the name to himself, fixing it in his mind.
Christofi looked more closely at Greg and Alison, then his eyes narrowed. He expanded a hand screen and glanced at it. "Gregory Ballester. He's — "
"Part of a General Criminal IIP. He's in my custody."
Christofi took a step closer — only the two para-investigators and the prisoners heard his next words. "I don't know what you're trying to pull, but I want him handed over, right now. He's mine."
The para-investigator lowered his voice too. "I was told to pick him up. I was told exactly what
time
to pick him up. And I'm just doing what I was told. You can call my section head if you don't like it; I'm sure Tillotson will explain."
After a moment, Christofi nodded. "I'll sort it out when I get back."
"You do that — I'll keep him safe for you. Anyone else you want, you're welcome to them." He nodded to the porters gathered in the lodge. "I'm sure the loyal citizens over there wouldn't do anything to impede an investigation, but if I were you I'd leave someone in here while you round the rest up."
Christofi's gaze settled on Ali. "Who's she?"
Greg swallowed, fear twisting its fist in his guts again. If Ali fell under 'anyone else', his last hope of protecting her would be gone.
"Alison Rice. The system says she's a casual college worker, although I bet they don't pay her for what she was doing when I found her — she was fucking my suspect."
Beside Greg, Alison was staring at the floor, her cheeks crimson. Bastards, Greg breathed. Talking about her like she wasn't even there. He found her hand with his, and she squeezed back.
"Is she on your list?" Toreth asked.
Christofi consulted the screen. "Nah. You can keep her — I'm after resisters, not whores. She doesn't look that bright, anyway." He turned to his group. "Right. Just forget we saw this, and we'll get on with the pickups. Wyman, stay here."
Once the guard on the porters had been changed, Toreth prodded Greg in the back. "Move."
The black car stood right outside the gates, in a no-waiting zone. B-C and the woman got into the front, then the para-investigator opened the rear door.
"Get in and sit down. Make yourselves comfortable." He climbed in behind them and closed the door. "It's a long drive back to New London."
All the way down the motorways into New London, Greg somehow hadn't believed it could really happen. Then, through the tinted windows, he saw the high gates closing silently behind them and they were inside the Int-Sec complex.
He recognised the fences and the vast white buildings from a citizenship class trip. They'd even been inside I&I itself: there'd been a lecture on the danger to society of irresponsible idealism, and they'd met some of the black-clad protectors of European citizenry.
That had all been long before he'd met anyone who openly talked about anti-Administration feelings. Back then, he remembered distinctly and uncomfortably, he'd rather admired the smart uniforms and the monolithic stone buildings. The place had the same air of order and immutable solidity as the corporate headquarters with which he'd been familiar all his life. Now he mostly remembered how few windows there had been, and how many guards.
And he remembered the stories he'd heard more recently about the things that went on in the place. What they didn't show to citizenship classes — what the interrogation part of the I&I name really meant. Unbelievably horrible things, and he wished now that he didn't believe them.
They drove past the towering statue of Blindfold Justice and past the double door at the front of I&I. Prisoners obviously went in by another route.
Around the side of the building, the car turned in through a second gate in an even more formidable fence, and finally pulled up.
"Here we are," the para-investigator said, and after a few seconds the car door opened.
Surrounded on three sides by the towering white stone walls, the area they stepped out into was shadowed and cool. The para-investigator led the group into the building, scanning his ID at an unmanned security station. Then they were inside and door closed behind them — no loud, ominous clang, just the disappearance of daylight and a change to fluorescent lights that made Ali look even paler than she had outside.
B-C and the woman from the porters' lodge went one way, escorting Ali with them, leaving him to go another way with the para-investigator. The slightly stale, recycled air had a faint tang that he couldn't identify.
Greg was rather hazy on the details of arrest, still less arrest by I&I, and he wished he'd thought to look them up. He had expected — hoped for — some kind of official processing, maybe even a chance to call his parents or a corporate lawyer. Instead they went down a long corridor, through another two doors, and into a small, pale grey room. The only furnishings were a table and two chairs, and a large screen on one wall.
He sat, uninvited, and the para-investigator sat opposite him, still not speaking.
Greg cleared his throat. "Have I been arrested?" There was a nervous edge to his voice that he didn't like.
"No. You're here informally. Assisting with our enquiries."
It struck Greg forcefully that if there was no official processing, then there would be no evidence that he'd ever been brought here. Surely a corporate heir couldn't simply disappear? The porters had seen them taken away — didn't that mean something?
He sat up straighter in the chair, trying to dismiss the fears. More likely, someone at I&I — maybe this 'Tillotson' whom Toreth had mentioned — knew Greg couldn't be arrested but thought a few hours at I&I would be enough to scare him into being a loyal citizen. Well, they were wrong about that.
From his pocket, Toreth produced the bag of mushrooms and dropped them on the table between them.
"Why are you messing around with this shit?" He poked the bag. "There are a thousand perfectly legal drugs, if that's what you want."
He took a deep breath. "The legal recreational pharmaceutical trade is an oppressive tool of the Administration, used in collusion with the corporates to drug the population of Europe into passively accepting the illegal secret dictatorship of the Departments."