Z 2134 (18 page)

“You’re probably wondering how long
you’ve been out,” the dwarf said, his voice smooth and eloquent, not at all
Dark Quarters brusque.

“How long?” Jonah asked.

“A few days. You must’ve really needed
your rest,” the dwarf smiled. He seemed
almost
friendly. Though Jonah
couldn’t allow himself to trust his captors just yet.

After a long stretch of silence, Jonah
asked, “What is it you want from me?”

Jonah had been on the other side of
interrogations more times than he could count. He recognized an interrogator
when he saw one.

“Only answers,” the dwarf said. “Nothing
more. You are safe here, and that’s how you’ll stay, so long as you cooperate.
If you don’t,” he shrugged, still smiling, “well, you can imagine.”

The dwarf laughed, but Jonah had no idea
whether his laughter was pleasant or cruel. “Ask away,” Jonah said. “I’ve
nothing to hide.”

There was something disarming about the
interrogator not hovering above Jonah, being at eye level, despite the fact
that the dwarf was standing and Jonah was seated. As the man paced back and
forth in front of Jonah, seemingly in thought, Jonah felt a chill run through
him.

“Very well, then,” the dwarf said. “My
name is Father Truth, but you can call me Father.”

“Father Truth?” Jonah repeated. “Your
parents give you that name?”

With no expression in his eyes, Father
said, “My parents gave me nothing, including my name.” He cleared his throat.
“So Watcher, why were you banished?”

Though every other word sounded perfectly
pleasant,
Watcher
may as well have been
Satan.

“If you know I’m a Watcher,” Jonah said,
“and that I was banished, then you obviously saw me on The Games. So what is it
you’re really asking?”

“Yes, well,” Father said, still smiling,
“I’m simply gathering background. But if you’re ready to dig into the details
now, then so be it.” He leaned closer to Jonah, inches from his face, then
whispered, “Is it true? You murdered your wife?”

“No,” Jonah shook his head, trying to
keep his emotions in check.

Father’s even tone neither rose nor fell,
but seemed to mine glee from Jonah’s discomfort. He shrugged, then, as though
genuinely curious said, “Then why would City Watch say you did? Weren’t you
found guilty?”

Jonah tried not to growl.

“Yes, I was found guilty, but that
doesn’t mean I did anything.”

Father Truth looked puzzled. “Are you
saying your own people set you up? The esteemed and honorable bastions of
justice, City Watch, would set someone up?”

Jonah wasn’t sure if he could trust
Father until he was certain that he was indeed Underground himself. For all
Jonah knew, these were operatives of The State, looking to get information from
Jonah through an elaborate ruse that included child savages and a dwarf. Jonah
couldn’t give up Duncan or any of the others he worked with; otherwise the
entire resistance could fall apart.

“Yes,” Jonah said. “I was set up.”

“And why were you set up?”

Jonah couldn’t answer Father, at least
not directly. Same with every other question passed back and forth for the next
fifteen minutes. Father Truth’s history of interrogation probably wasn’t too
different from Jonah’s. He clearly knew when he’d hit a wall. Eventually
Father’s smile fell into a frown that tugged at the corners of his mouth, and
he shook his head as if disappointed.

“Just so you know,” he said, “I never
prefer doing things this way.”

Jonah refused to satisfy the dwarf by
asking him which way that was, sure he’d find out soon enough. Sure enough,
Father reached inside his pants pocket, withdrew a slender strip of leather
folded neatly in half, then opened the small pouch and pulled out a syringe. He
pulled off the cap and stuck the needle into a small glass cylinder, withdrawing
a clear liquid into the needle.

Father squeezed the air out of the
syringe as he met Jonah’s eyes, smiling widely.

“What’s that?” Jonah asked, hating
himself for wanting to know, and even more for asking.

Father smiled wider, as though he
appreciated Jonah’s inquisitive nature. “Oh, nothing much,” he said. “Just a
little something to help loosen your lips. I find that this works so much
better than the violent ways that your brethren utilize at City Watch.”

Before he could protest, Father Truth was
an inch away. Jonah felt the tip of the needle pinch the flesh of his neck
before he’d even had time to register what Father was doing. The man was either
deceptively quick or Jonah’s senses were already dulled by whatever they’d
given him while he was passed out.

“You fucker,” Jonah said, glaring at the
man for violating him in such a way.

“Ah, there’s the Watcher charm I remember
so well,” Father said sarcastically as he grabbed a chair and sat in front of
Jonah.

“It shan’t be long now,” Father said,
twiddling his fingers and whistling.

And it wasn’t.

It was only minutes before Jonah felt
instantly better. For the first time since the unthinkable became normal, he
was almost happy.

“Wow, this stuff is good,” Jonah said,
smiling, despite his efforts not to.

Father wasted no time.

“Why were you set up?”

Jonah longed to say nothing, and tried
keeping his lips pressed together to keep his words inside. However, they fell
out anyway, slightly out of order, and slurred.

“I knew they think,” Jonah said, giggling
as he heard his words come out wrong.

“Knew what?”

Jonah shook his head, almost violently,
wanting to say nothing, though the pleasant tickle inside him swore everything
was OK, and that there was no reason to keep things inside any longer. An
intoxicating happiness glowed in him, warming him up, making him feel as if
Father were his most oldest and trusted friend.

“Wow, so this good,” Jonah said, looking
at Father and feeling tears of joy well up in his eyes.

Whatever the drug was, he wanted more.

Father leaned in again, whispering in
Jonah’s ear.

“All you have to do is tell the truth.
Tell me.”

Jonah growled, “People who are you?”

“Who do you
think
we are?” Father
asked, sitting back in his chair and folding his hands.

“Underground?” Jonah slurred. “Agents
Watcher trying to get me to speak? I dunno,” he shook his head, confused.

Jonah settled into a long silence as
Father Truth sat, rocking back and forth, arms across his chest.

The dwarf looked like a petulant child,
and the image sent Jonah into a sudden fit of hysterics. He tried to stop,
worried that Father would think he was laughing because of his physical
stature, like many City 6 citizens did when passing the broken rabble hunched
in the gnarled shadows of The Dark Quarters.

Then, as suddenly as the laughter had
started, Jonah collapsed into an even deeper fit, laughing so hard that he
started to choke before sucking a gallon of air into his lungs and slowly
returning his breath to its regular rhythm.

Jonah was desperate to apologize but
failed when he tried. “You’re funny!” was all he managed, lifting his arm and
wagging his index finger in the man’s face.

Father Truth smiled, obviously not taking
the insult personally. He cleared his throat and said, “Until later then.”

Father stood, spun on the balls of his
feet, and headed toward the door.

“Don’t leave me alone,” Jonah screamed,
suddenly insecure and afraid, surprised by the flurry of emotions ripping
through his brain. He yelled louder as Father Truth’s right hand grabbed the
doorknob. “Please, come back,” he cried. “I’m sorry!”

Father Truth turned around, lightly
nodded, then came back and stood in front of Jonah, arms folded across his
chest again, still no taller than a hunched and sitting Jonah.

“Tell me,” Father asked, “Were you a good
Watcher?”

“What do you mean?” Jonah said, confused,
happy that he able to string coherent words together, though still feeling the
effects of the drug.

“Watchmen come in all sorts, as you must
well know. So, what sort of officer were you? Good? Great? Corrupt? Depraved?
Tell me, Jonah.”

“Good,” he said.

“Do good cops kill their wives?”

Jonah scowled, then tried not to yell. “I
didn’t kill her.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Father said,
placing a small but patronizing hand on the back of Jonah’s head before patting
Jonah like a dog.

He broke down into the first of several
heaving sobs, confused by Father’s kind smile and comforting hand at his back.
Then he thought about the man’s tiny hands and couldn’t suppress the fresh
giggles following thought.

Father Truth withdrew his hand.

“What did you give me?” Jonah asked,
furious that he had been drugged and suddenly reminded of the night Keller had
picked him up with a six-Watcher unit for backup.

Father ignored his question, so Jonah
repeated it with a scream, anger replacing the euphoria he’d been feeling.

The dwarf remained calm and said, “I
already told you, Jonah, I’ve given you something to loosen your lips. It’s
harmless, and the side effects, as I’m sure you’ll agree, are quite pleasant.
Now, you answer a question: Do you remember a man named Charles Egan?”

The name was a far-off, painful memory,
but quick to rise to the surface once summoned.

Jonah said nothing.

“Allow me to jog your memory,” Father
said, uncrossing his arms and putting his hands in his pockets, then rocking
harder on the balls of his feet, swaying back and forth like a pendulum,
inching closer to Jonah. “Ten years ago, I believe this very month, a man named
Charles Egan was found guilty of conspiring against The State. Egan was tried
and found guilty, of course, then sent outside The Wall to play in The Darwin
Games, which he eventually won. Does any of this ring a bell for you?”

It did.

“Of course, I remember Egan,” Jonah said,
smiling as he remembered Keller’s disappointed face when Egan won the Final
Battle.

“Why are you smiling?” Father asked.

Jonah felt a fresh wave of guilt, barely
a flutter, until enough seconds passed to shatter the damn. A sudden surge of
memories tore through him, and Jonah remembered how the man, Charles Egan, had been
found guilty — based almost entirely on Jonah’s falsified eyewitness account
placing him at a known Underground meeting place.

It felt like a million years since Jonah
last thought of the man he helped to set up and send outside The Wall. He
wondered how he could have excised something so awful from his mind. From
nowhere, Jonah felt a second wave of guilt, closer to a tsunami, as he
remembered what happened after Egan won.

“So you DO remember, then?”

Jonah nodded.

“Why did you set Egan up?”

Though he didn’t want to confess, Jonah’s
mouth moved faster than his mind.

“I was ordered.”

“By whom?”

“Keller,” he said. “He said Egan was
guilty, but that he’d been too careful. A witness had seen him, but the witness
had protected status and couldn’t testify.”

“Who was the witness?”

“I don’t know,” Jonah shook his head.
“Keller never said. Protected status and all; he didn’t have to.”

Father stared at Jonah but said nothing
for a moment. After he finished studying his face, he asked, “Are you sure?”

“They didn’t tell me,” Jonah repeated,
his voice cracking. He wondered if he would ever be himself again. “I never
thought about it, until...”

“Until when?”

“Until after the trial, when Egan stared
at me as the Watchers were taking him away. The look in his eyes, the anger as
he begged and pleaded with me to tell the truth and say it out loud. He
screamed his throat raw, swearing that I was a liar. I could hear him screaming
even after they led him from the chambers.” Jonah’s voice broke as he started
to cry at the memories. “That’s when I first thought that maybe something was
wrong.”

“So, why did you smile when you heard
Egan’s name?”

Jonah smiled again. “Because I remembered
him winning The Games, and how pissed Keller was.”

“And how did
you feel
when he
won?”

“I thought
good on him
. He
deserved some good news after being set up.”

“What else did you feel?”

Jonah was uncertain what Father was
asking.

“I dunno,” he shook his head. “I’m not
sure.” He wanted to say more, but his mind wouldn’t make new words.

“Perhaps relief that the man you set up
wasn’t killed in The Games?”

Jonah nodded.

“And what about Egan’s family? What
happened to them?”

Jonah shook his head, not wanting to
revisit those memories.

“So you know?”

Jonah nodded.

Father held his stare. “That’s all for
now,” he said, holding Jonah’s gaze for another half-minute before turning away
and heading to the door, even as Jonah screamed behind him, begging him not to
go. Jonah wanted to follow, but he was bound, unable to go anywhere.

“Please,” he cried, wanting anything
other than to be left alone, cursing the drugs that turned him so needy.
“Please don’t leave, Father!”

Father’s footsteps faded down the hall
until the last lonely echo fell into nothing.

**

Jonah wasn’t sure how long it was before he
passed out, but euphoria had turned to despair, circling him until he did,
forcing him to revisit his every sin and all the pain of the past few months.

When he woke, he opened his eyes to a
girl standing three feet away, staring. He blinked several times to make sure
she was really there. It was the girl from the other night, one of the kids who
had saved him.

The one with hate in her eyes.

He couldn’t speak since his throat was so
dry, so he nodded at her hands, filled with bread in one and a cup of something
in the other.