No employee of the Transitional Council, or any of its related bodies, may contribute to policy-making with knowledge that there is an opportunity to further that person’s private interests.
—Ethical Guidelines, Transitional Council of Toronto, May 2369
Hanif sends for me a few days later. “It wasn’t difficult to convince the Transitional Council to give your father access to the code-tracking system,” he says. “They want to unravel this mystery too. But he won’t be allowed to work inside the prison. It’s too much of a security risk to take the equipment in there.”
“But that makes it impossible for him to do anything, doesn’t it?” I ask.
“Not if we bring him here. He can use secure equipment while I monitor his activities.”
“They’ll let you do that?”
“He committed no violent crimes, and he’s always cooperated fully. We think it highly unlikely that he’d try to escape, and our building is secure.”
“That means yes, doesn’t it?”
“That means yes. Do you want to see him while he’s here? That would require a higher security clearance, but I can get it for you.”
I hesitate. My father seems more interested in his tracking systems than me. Still, I want to know what happened. “I’d like that,” I finally say.
“Do you want to watch him work on your code?” Hanif asks.
“Could I? Thank you.” I’m so grateful to Hanif for doing all this for me.
I look for Kayko in her office to tell her what’s happening.
“So you might actually figure out who took your code out of the system?” Kayko says. “Do you think you’ll ever know why?”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “It doesn’t seem likely, does it? My father knows a lot, but I’ll be surprised if even he can unravel that.”
“Blake, how do you feel now that you’ve met your father? I’ve been waiting for a chance to ask you.”
“He’s not what I’d hoped for before I knew he was a collaborator. But he’s not as bad as I was expecting him to be after I found out. Erica said he was just a person who got caught up in things beyond his control, and she’s right.” I tell Kayko how he tried to sabotage the tracking system he was forced to design.
“Most people would understand it wasn’t his fault,” Kayko says when I finish.
“But who will ever hear his story? It may be years before he comes to trial. Anyway, even if he resisted, he’s not the father I was hoping for. He’s more interested in remote sensing than people.”
I find life easier this week. I’m not so angry and I’m not working alone. We’ve come back together to produce a report from our summaries. In the halls, I sometimes pass Cadence and Mimi, who smile but pass without stopping. The Living Lost have stopped demonstrating outside the building. I wonder what they’re up to now.
Over the next few days, Kayko’s ability to take our disparate bits and fit them together into a coherent whole amazes me. I’m not alone. “You’re a born editor,” Griffin says to her one afternoon, and it’s true.
The work is so satisfying, I’ve almost put my father out of my mind by the time Hanif sends for me. I follow his messenger through the maze of tunnels and security checks, deep into the sub-basement of the Security building, until a door opens, and I find Hanif with my father in a small room jammed with equipment. Hanif gestures to a chair. My father is hunched over a console, lost to everything. He barely acknowledges me.
“You can start now,” Hanif says. I’m grateful they waited for me.
My father enters the code-tracking system. ‘Here’s Blake’s file,” he says after a moment. Then he hits a few keys and the display changes completely. “This is the programming code,” he says. “Anyone making changes would work at this level.” He hits a few more keys and the display changes again.
Hanif looks startled. “What’s that?”
“This is the sub-code. It’s my system for tracking changes,” my father replies. “When I started to cooperate, they finally gave me a security clearance and some freedom. I wasn’t really expecting this layer to be useful, I just did it because I could.”
“We didn’t know it existed,” Hanif says. He sounds stern.
“I’m sorry. There was so much to communicate, it escaped me. I’ll give you the access codes before I leave and explain how it works,” my father says as he continues to search the screen.
“You didn’t check her file when you were told Blake was dead?” Hanif asks.
“No, I just accepted the news at face value. So many people died in those days; I’d been expecting it so long. It never occurred to me it might not be true.
“I’m switching back to code now, so we can see where changes were made in Blake’s file,” he says. “This is where the micro-chip was brought online, just after Blake was born. That predates my sub-code system, but I know who made that entry. I did. I wasn’t working directly for the government then, but I designed the system, so I knew everyone in Code Tracking. They let me come in and make this entry. That was such a great day.”
For the first time, I hear warmth in my father’s voice, real human emotion. I lean forward involuntarily, to catch what he’s going to say next, but he’s focussed on the screen again. He frowns. “This file has been vandalized. Here’s the change that took Blake out of the system. Let me switch to sub-code.” The screen changes again and he sits back, staring in disbelief. “I should have known.”
“Known what?” I ask.
“Who took Blake out of the system?” Hanif says.
“Falcon Edwards. This is his security code. The date is December 21, 2355. That’s odd,” he adds. “I’m sure he wasn’t working by then.” He turns to Hanif. “Can you check his death date?”
“I have it right here,” I say, pulling my scribe out of my pocket. I do a quick search. “January 12, 2356.”
“Just a few weeks later,” my father says. “This was probably one of the last things he did.”
“But why?” I ask.
“To punish me,” my father replies. “That’s the only logical reason. I was never sure Edwards believed I couldn’t make that tracking system work. Sometimes, I was almost certain he was just pretending, as if he was playing a game with me.”
Nobody speaks for a long moment, then finally, my father says, “What about Emily?”
He must be losing his grip on reality. “I told you about my mother,” I remind him.
“Not your mother. Your cousin Emily. Tony’s daughter.”
“I have a cousin named Emily?”
“She was born about a year before you. When I designed your chip, we had one made for her, too.”
“What happened to her?” I hardly dare to ask.
“I don’t know. I lost contact with everyone during the technocaust. I didn’t dare try to track anyone. That would have given them away. After . . . well, nobody from my old life came looking for me. I couldn’t expect them to.”
“But, could you still find her?” I’m trying to absorb this. It seems unreal.
“If the chip is working, yes. We should be able to track her. If there’s time, I can do that now.”
“Not today,” Hanif says. “Time’s almost up, and I need you to show me everything about that sub-code before you leave. This is a major discovery.” Hanif turns to me. “I’m sorry, Blake. We’ll follow up on this, I promise, but not today. Someone will be waiting outside the door to show you back.”
So I find myself in the hallway again, stunned and confused. I can’t quite feel angry with Hanif. He was generous to allow me to watch at all, and what my father can show him about the tracking system must be important. But where is Emily? What if she’s living with some Tribe, like Sparrow and Spyker were? She might need to be rescued.
I need to talk to Erica, but when I go to our offices, the new receptionist refuses to contact her. “The Justice Council is in meetings with the Transitional Council. We’ve been instructed not to interrupt them for any reason,” she says. Her tone makes me realize it would do no good to insist. But what could be so important?
“That was so fast,” Kayko says when she sees me. “Didn’t you learn anything?” Everyone else crowds around so they can hear.
“We learned a lot,” I say, and I tell them about Falcon Edwards removing my code to exact revenge on my father. I don’t mention Emily yet. I’ll tell Kayko when we’re alone.
Kayko’s frown deepens as the story unfolds. “That’s horrible,” she says when I finish.
Astral says nothing, but his face darkens with fury.
“I think we should add this to our report,” Griffin says. “It tells us as much about Edwards’s character as anything we’ve seen in the holograms,” Kayko agrees.
“I tried to talk to Erica, but I was told the Justice Council and the Transitional Council are in meetings. It sounds serious. What’s going on?”
“It must be serious. I can’t get a peep out of Uncle Kenji,” Kayko replies. “We should wrap up this report by the end of the day.” She grins. “Then I’ll see if I can find out what’s happening.”
We’re just putting the finishing touches on our report a few hours later when a message comes through, asking us to join the Justice Council upstairs.
“It’s too late in the day to start a meeting,” Astral says.
“Something’s happened.”
We find the Justice Council waiting for us with Dr. Siegel.
“Tomorrow morning, we will be making a major policy announcement,” Dr. Siegel says. “We want you to hear this first, because it has implications for the work you’ll be doing in the future.” He nods to Daniel Massey.
“We came into this process uncertain how to proceed,” Daniel says. “Some of us, specifically Paulo and myself, wanted traditional forms of justice to prevail. Our difficulties in reaching a consensus have slowed our work and made it more difficult.
“I’m not sure Paulo and I had a good sense of this place or the complexity of what had happened. We wanted to set high standards of innocence. We didn’t want our work to be clouded by ambiguity. Then, the story of a certain girl became public.” He nods in my direction, and I feel myself redden as everyone looks at me. “Blake’s statement helped us to realize that even an innocent victim could be associated with those who were guilty. Perhaps more importantly, the publicity surrounding Blake’s story brought the Living Lost to our attention.” He smiles. “Cadence Nkomo is difficult to resist. She helped us understand that our ideas about justice might not provide the best solutions for this situation.
“So, we are completely revising the work of the Justice Council. This will be made public in a press conference tomorrow. Monique, I think you’ve offered to outline the changes?”
Monique smiles. “I have to tell you, before I begin, how happy this announcement makes me. I won’t be able to talk like this in public, of course. But I feel this new process we’re adopting will bring us much closer to the reconciliation this society so badly needs.
“Cadence urged us to consider how South Africa dealt with justice at a similar juncture in that country’s history, near the end of the twentieth century. Violence and oppression had dominated that political system for decades under something called apartheid. Like the technocaust, apartheid left few people without some kind of stain on their hands. The Living Lost helped us realize that many people who seem guilty are victims too. So everyone who wants to make a victim statement will be allowed to do so. Blake, that includes you.”
The room erupts into cheers. Even Astral looks pleased. Monique holds up her hand. “Before you celebrate, there’s something else you need to know. We’re not making this public yet. Cadence has caused us to seriously revisit all our ideas about justice. The people of South Africa appointed a commission for truth and reconciliation. Anyone: who made a complete statement of wrongdoing was granted amnesty. We want to explore the idea of implementing that sort of process here. We’re not sure it can work, but it’s worth considering, especially for some of the more complex cases where threats against family members and other forms of coercion were used to force people to collaborate.”
This announcement is greeted more soberly. I glance at Astral to see how he’s taking this. He shakes his head, but he looks skeptical rather than angry. I realize what this might mean for my father.
We’re reminded to keep this information confidential, then told we can go. I rise with the others, but then Erica speaks. “Blake, we’d like you to remain behind for a few minutes, please.”
I sit back down, wondering what they could possibly have to say that’s too serious for the other aides to hear. Kayko gives me a worried glance as she leaves. Then, the Justice Council focusses on me.
“This isn’t a punishment,” Erica begins. “We want you to understand that. We’ve had to make a very difficult decision, but we’re only doing this to protect the reputation of the Justice Council. You’ve caused a huge shift in our direction, Blake. We’re all very happy this happened, but it’s inappropriate for someone in an aide’s position to have exerted this kind of influence.”
“I didn’t exert,” I say, “it just happened.”
“When it comes to conflict of interest,” Dr. Siegel says, “appearance is as important as actual occurrence.”
“This a conflict of interest?” I ask.
“I’m afraid so,” Erica says. “It’s so unfortunate. If you were an ordinary citizen, like Cadence, you’d be fine. But an aide cannot appear to wield this kind of power.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Erica is too upset to speak. Monique continues. “We have to ask you to resign your position, dear.”
“But you’re not really asking me at all, are you?” I say.
“Please don’t make this difficult for us,” Dr. Siegel says.
“We’d like your resignation now, before you make your victim statement. I can promise you’ll be at the very top of the list when we decide who’s going to appear.” He’s treating me like a child. I don’t want to reinforce that view of myself by making a scene.
I push my chair away from the table. “Very well,” I say. “I’m offering my resignation.”