“Tell the truth, raider!” the tall one growled. His fake teeth almost seemed to rattle a little.
“I am! I’m not a raider!” Tera felt like she could cry, if she had the tear glands to do so. She wondered if this is how all the criminals felt when they were brought in for interrogation. Like they were digging for a specific answer, and anything else the suspect said was a lie.
“Seems like she’s sticking to her story,” the bored one in the corner said. “Even though it’s clearly bullshit.”
The tall one sighed, then stepped back from the table. He was able to stand to his full height without scraping the ceiling, to Tera’s surprise.
“Well, we don’t have anything solid to connect you to the Raiders — even though we’ll find it eventually — but we can book you on theft of government property.”
“What are you talking about?” Tera asked. She felt delirious with everything that happened over the last three days. From the mass suicide of the I.I. worshipers to the ambush in the ruins, to being accused of treason by the only family she had ever known.
“The bodyshell, genius,” the shorter one said. “Or did you think we’d let you keep it?”
“Not like she’ll need it where she’s going,” the taller one commented. “They don’t allow bodyshells in prison.”
“Prison?” Tera asked. If she had a heart, she had no doubt it would be pounding out of her chest at that moment. “Don’t I get a trial?”
The two cops looked at each other, then gave a hearty laugh.
“You’ve already had it,” the shorter one answered.
“What?” she asked.
“A judge, jury, and your defense have already convened. In fact, they were having your trial while we were having our little chat.”
“Why wasn’t I in attendance?”
“It wasn’t necessary,” the taller one replied. “Your case is a pretty open and shut one.”
“What about my rights?” she asked.
That was met with even more laughter. The taller one, still chuckling, helped Tera onto her feet. He started binding her hands behind her back, like they had been when they brought her in.
“The judge has sentenced you to a month in storage,” he told her.
“You’re lucky we can’t pin the conspiracy and cop murder charges on you,” the shorter one said. “They’d be putting you in a place where you’d never see the sun. It would be hell, and you’d deserve it. Makes me sick to see cop killers walk, but at least we got your friends. And hey, who knows. Maybe they’ll flip on you and you’ll get to take that trip after all.”
The Furnace
There were a couple of people waiting for Gauge and Ethan on the other side of the enormous door. They only slid it open about six feet wide, then closed it behind them when they had entered. Gauge greeted them, and they returned the gesture, but the I.I. didn’t wait around long enough to say much else.
The vault-like door led them into the largest underground chamber Ethan had ever seen, even compared to the deepest dungeons of the simulation. Everything was built with function in mind and aesthetics cast to the side. A number of heat vents and ducts ran along the chamber, either along the length or up and down it. Various openings dotted the walls and ceiling, looking like the caves of some cliff-dwelling critter. Some of the largest ducts and metal pipes made columns that held the gargantuan chamber together.
People moved all about the Furnace, as Gauge called it. Some were flesh-and-blood humans like Ethan and some were bodyshell I.I.s like Gauge. It looked like most were busy moving things around, but Ethan couldn’t discern what the cargo was. As his liberator led him farther into the secret headquarters, Ethan noticed a few of the faces turn to him with interest.
“We’ve been down here for over a year now, building up our defenses and planning,” Gauge said.
“Planning for what?” Ethan asked.
“The day we take the Pavilion and free the city,” Gauge answered. “That’s the ultimate goal. We want to fight for the little guy, so to speak. We want to end the policies that created the ghettos and the body farms like you were in. We want to make those things they told you about humanity in your simulation true — for all people, no matter what their brain is made of.”
They were about a hundred feet into the chamber when an older woman took notice of them. With a warm smile, she approached Ethan and Gauge.
“It’s good to see you, Gauge,” she greeted the I.I. Then she turned to Ethan. “And you as well. I’m glad we were able to get you out of that dreadful place.”
She was dressed smart, like she had just finished giving a presentation to a board of directors somewhere. Fine jewelry hung from her ears and her neck, which even Ethan knew was expensive. In the side of her head, interrupting her fine gray perm, was a bizarre concave plate. It looked like a subwoofer someone had installed right into her skull.
“Ah, you must be Ethan!” a male’s voice emanated from the subwoofer. “We’ve been looking forward to meeting you for some time.”
Ethan looked over at Gauge with a confused look in his eyes. The woman with the speaker in her head seemed to pick up on its meaning.
“My apologies, dear,” she said in her normal voice, from her lips. “My name is Betsy Clevinger.”
“And I’m Martin, her husband,” the male voice said through the speaker in her skull.
“Hello,” Ethan said, but the confusion never left his face. He felt like he was hallucinating.
Maybe Gauge slipped me something on the flight, he thought. Or perhaps the simulation is glitching out.
“I see that you’re confused,” the male voice said. “My wife and I are what you call a mindshare couple. She’s still alive in the organic sense, but I am not. As an I.I., however, I can be installed
