When her cell door slid open, Sheridan expected to see Tariq. He was the guard who usually came in.
She had first met him about a week and a half after she’d been imprisoned here. The Enforcers who brought her food always followed the same schedule. One came inside, put the day’s nourishment bars in an alcove by the door, said, “Visual check complete,” and then left.
It seemed an odd routine. The detention center could have engineered a way for the food to come in without sending a guard in. Every time a person walked into a cell, they risked an attack. Perhaps the guards wanted that. Perhaps it was some sort of test. Five more guards probably waited outside.
Sheridan had tried talking to the guards who brought her food. One was a burly man who flatly ignored her questions. The other was a woman with a pinched face, who always told her that guards weren’t given information about prisoners.
Tariq was different from the start. He was younger than the other guards, mid-twenties probably. And he was handsome. Unlike most of the people in Traventon, he hadn’t used his face as some sort of doodle pad of personal expression. Even through the smoky visor Enforcers wore, she could see his features clearly. They were smooth and strong. He had warm brown eyes, and a smile that was all the more brilliant for its contrast against his tanned skin.
Or maybe it seemed more brilliant because smiles were so rare here. None of the other Enforcers ever smiled at her.
On the first day Tariq came into Sheridan’s cell, he set her food in the alcove, said, “Visual check complete,” then took off his helmet and stood by the door, watching her. The black hair she’d only caught a glimpse of before was thick and shiny, mussed.
He hadn’t needed to run his hand through it to make it look good, but he did. “Hello,” he said, and gave her a lopsided grin. “I’m Tariq, your new guard.”
Sheridan kept her distance. She spoke slowly to enunciate the modern accent. “What do you want?”
He gave her another smile. “For starters, I want more women to ask me that question.”
She raised an eyebrow at him, not sure if he was serious. The other guards never joked with her. Humor didn’t appear to be part of their job.
Instead of making demands or leering at her, Tariq turned his helmet upside down and spun it on one finger, the way Sheridan had seen people twirl basketballs. It didn’t work quite as well. She kept a cautious eye on him.
“You’re special,” Tariq said. “Do you realize that?”
“Well, my mother always told me so, but I suspect she was biased.”
“You warrant a personal guard outside your door twenty-four hours a day. All the other criminals on the floor just get the usual precautions. Impenetrable walls, sensors that keep track of you, that sort of thing. You get nonstop personal attention.”
“Hmm,” she said, still keeping her distance. “I do feel special now.”
Tariq’s helmet toppled off his finger. He managed to catch it before it dropped to the floor. He put it back on his finger, twirling it again. “Eight hours a day, five days a week, I get to stand outside your door. It’s dead boring out there, so I have a request: if you’re going to escape, can you do it soon? I’m already tired of waiting.”
“Sorry,” she said. “Maybe if you gave me weapons and an escape plan, I’d be quicker.”
He let out a short laugh and spun his helmet faster. “I can’t help you there. I’m bored, not suicidal.”
“You think I’d kill you?”
“Not you. The warden.”
Sheridan shrugged. “Then I guess you’ll have to be bored.”
Tariq’s helmet tilted off his finger again. This time when he caught it, he tucked it under his arm. “Boredom is part of a guard’s job.” He leaned against the wall casually. “The government pretends enforcement is exciting, but the truth is the prisoners walk around inside the cells, and I walk around outside of them. Do you know what the three biggest differences in our lives are?”
“Besides artillery?”
“Your meals are free, your clothes are more comfortable, and the warden yells at you less.”
Sheridan laughed. It felt good. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed laughing until right then. “I imagine you get to go home at the end of the day.”
“That’s another difference,” Tariq said, gesturing around them. “Your room is bigger.”
“Really?” she asked.
He let out a chuckle. “All right. That’s an exaggeration. Still, with what the mayor pays us, it’s not much of an exaggeration. You’d think keeping the city safe would be worth enough credits to buy more than a small apartment, but no.” He let out a sigh. “I’m not sure who should feel the insult more—me, you, or the good citizens of Traventon.”
Sheridan didn’t want to like Tariq, didn’t want to smile. She knew full well he was the enemy. He would hurt her if Reilly told him to. But it had been so long since someone besides Reilly had talked to her that she smiled anyway.
“So what city are you from?” Tariq asked. “I’ve never heard your accent before.”
She hesitated. He would probably think she was crazy once she answered. She told him the truth anyway. “I’m from the twenty-first century. Your scientists created a time machine and brought me here.”
Tariq let out an amused cough. “Sangre. They must be getting serious about erasing crime if they’re looking for it in other centuries.”
“I’m not a criminal,” she said.
He looked her over thoroughly, let his gaze linger on her. She wondered which was harder to believe—that she’d come from the past or that she was innocent. He probably thought she was lying about both.
“Well, you can’t be much of a criminal,” he said. “The real criminals—the good ones—they always have someone to get them out of this place. It’s the ones without influential friends who’re forgotten here.”
Sheridan didn’t comment about that. She felt forgotten, friendless. She wondered, not for the first time, if Echo had managed to rescue Taylor. Taylor was the important one, not Sheridan.
Sheridan didn’t let the thought stay. Echo had kissed her, had chosen her over Taylor. If Echo had been able to, he would have saved her and Taylor both. He wouldn’t have left her here.
Of course, Echo hadn’t known how smart, how important Taylor was until she’d asked him to help her destroy the QGP. Maybe he had changed his mind about who he liked after that.
Tariq must have seen Sheridan’s expression darken. He took a step toward her; his humor was replaced by concern. “You’ve got a reprieve, you know. At least a short one. You’re not scheduled for any more interrogations for the next two weeks.”
“Really?” she asked, hopeful and then cautious. “What am I scheduled for?”
“Nothing. That man who interrogates you—the one the warden whisks in and out of here like he was the mayor himself—he won’t be back for at least two weeks. I heard him tell the warden he’s not allowed to do anything with you until then.”
“That’s good news,” Sheridan said, genuinely relieved. A part of her knew she couldn’t trust Tariq, knew it might not be the truth, but she wanted to believe it. And why not let herself feel relieved instead of worried? Worry was a prison in and of itself.
Tariq took another step toward her. “And as long as we’re just spending our time walking around the same wall, I thought we could play a game.” He reached into his pocket and took out two small paddles. “Do you know how to play tryst?”
“Trust?” she asked, not sure of his accent.
He laughed and held up the paddles for her to see. “Tryst,” he repeated. “Because in the game we knock the spheres into each other.”
He threw a paddle to her. She caught it and turned it over in her hand. It wasn’t much bigger than a playing card, and nearly as thin. The only thick part was the handle, and it felt like it was made of bumpy plastic.
Was there any way she could turn this into a weapon? She felt a flash of guilt. Tariq was being friendly, and her first impulse was to sharpen this paddle into a knife and use it against him.
Tariq pressed the end of his handle, and a ball of light appeared, hovering above his paddle. “When it’s my serve, I send my ball to a wall. If you intercept it with your ball before it comes back to me, you get a point.” He flicked his paddle, and his ball flew to the wall. It silently hit, bounced against the floor, and returned to his paddle. He gave Sheridan another smile. “It’s tryst. Trust is a game that takes much longer to play.”
It was. And he excelled at that game too.
This time when Sheridan’s cell door slid open, the burly guard who had a face like iron marched inside.
Her stomach did a twist, momentarily replacing the sensation of hunger with fear. She called this guard The Tough One because he wouldn’t ever talk to her. He hardly even acknowledged her when she spoke. At first she’d thought he couldn’t understand her, but she had practiced the accent since she got here and had it down pretty well now. He still wouldn’t speak to her. It was never good news to see him.
“How are the wife and kids?” she asked him. She kept hold of the hope, however vague and wispy, that if she got him to see her as an actual person, he might treat her better. Maybe he would even look the other way when she escaped. Not if—when.
The Tough One held a laser box loosely in one hand and motioned for her to come. “You have a visitor.”
An interrogation, more likely.
“Everything is good at home then?” Sheridan went on. “Everyone is happy and healthy?” She took a small step toward the door.
The Tough One stared at her coldly.
“I bet I remind you of your daughter, don’t I? She’s probably charming, smart . . . helpless against men with laser boxes.”
He didn’t answer, just motioned again for her to come.
She took another small step. “I bet you don’t like the guys your daughter dates. Do you do the big bad Enforcer routine to scare them off?”
He glowered at her. “I can stun you and carry you out. I get paid the same.”
“You’ll never get grandchildren that way.”
Apparently The Tough One was touchy about grandchildren. He raised his laser box and shot her.