Ten a.m., therapy room 1.
“I know we’ve all been through a lot during the last few weeks,” Kaminski said, “but in the end, I believe these experiences will bring us together as we work toward our mutual goal of making sure that all of you get out of here when your periods of examination have expired. Wouldn’t you agree, Ms. Diaz?”
“Absolutely,” she said, hoping that her smile was broad enough to hide what she’d learned through the text exchange that she hadn’t known before.
The Emergency Detention Act of 1950 was passed by Congress at the height of the Red Scare. President Harry Truman was so horrified by what it represented and the ways it could be abused that he vetoed the whole thing. Congress overrode his veto, and it became the law of the land.
“I know there have been some misunderstandings along the way, but I want to assure you that I’m on your side.”
The Detention Act gave Congress, the president, and the attorney general the authority to imprison dissidents without bail or evidence or adherence to the laws of Habeas Corpus. Those arrested didn’t even have to be told what they were being charged with. There were to be no jurors, judges or attorneys; a hand-picked tribunal would decide their fate based almost entirely on what the government thought they might do in the future. Since you can’t prove you’re not planning to do something, they could keep people imprisoned for days, weeks, months, or years. This isn’t a crazy conspiracy theory, this was an actual federal law.
“Being here is your responsibility but not necessarily your fault. That fault rests with the people who took advantage of your naiveté and hopes for the future to get you to do what they wanted you to do. The sooner you accept this and give us the information needed to find them and all the others who have fallen prey to such manipulation, the better it will be for them and for you.”
The plan was to turn abandoned Japanese internment camps into makeshift prisons and start arresting people immediately. Truman was able to stop them, but the law stayed on the books for decades. When Nixon tried to use it against antiwar protesters, Congress passed a new act—filed under PL 92-98 85/Stat347 18/4001(b)—that said for now it was okay to ignore the other act, but they didn’t repeal it. They left the Act alive and on the books in case it was ever needed in the future.
The email references to PL 92-98 85/Stat347 18/4001(c) indicate that there’s been a revision of the original act. So it should be on file in the Congressional Record. But it’s not, which means it’s being held under a national security restriction.
“I want to help you, but there’s only so much I can do on my own. It has to be a two-way street. Help me to help you. Work with me, and the other doctors. That’s why the ARC program is here—so you can return to the world as constructive citizens. We don’t want to keep you here forever. I sure don’t.”
We all know how this works. Rendition was illegal, but the government wanted to start using it after 9/11, so the Justice Department wrote a memo saying, “Oh, wait a minute, we looked under a desk and found a rationale that makes it legal, so let’s start sending people to a hole in Pakistan!” But they didn’t want to actually tell people what they’d done, so to cover their asses they classified the program. Enhanced interrogation? Torture? Guantanamo? Kids in cages? Same strategy: authorize it quietly, so nobody knows it’s happening until after it’s been going on for a while, then when they’re caught, say, “Sorry, that thing we couldn’t do before is our policy now, it’s become an entrenched part of the system, so we can’t just stop it, and besides, it’s for the good of the country.”
So with this new revision, it’s possible that the president, Homeland Security, and his majority leaders in Congress put together an executive order reauthorizing the Emergency Detention Act so they can start putting away protesters without due process, and the ARC program is the first step in that process, the “proof of concept” you mentioned. Maybe that’s why they’re working so hard to get you and the rest to name names. Having those connections verified means they can prove conspiracy, which as we saw with the Cop City Atlanta arrests in ’23, gives them all the ammo they need. Bonus round: having protesters confess to being psychologically disturbed gives the government legal grounds to start taking people off the streets “for their own protection.”
“That doesn’t seem like a lot to ask, does it?”
If I’m right about this, we have to pull the fire alarm before the “proof-of-concept” proves the concept, and the program goes into full effect, or it’ll be too late. So we need hard evidence: names, documents, files, and emails—all the stuff that lives in Kaminski’s/McGann’s computers.
You’re the only one with a chance to get that information. I know it’s dangerous, but we need this, R. We need this desperately.
“Riley?” Kaminski said. “Is that too much to ask? To work together on a common goal?”
Riley smiled another manufactured smile. “No, not too much at all.”
“Then let’s begin again, as if none of these recent events had happened,” Kaminski said. “So, who has something they’d like to share with the group?”
* * *
Riley had committed the hospital’s layout to memory to help her find a way out. Now she would have to use that information to figure out how to get deeper inside. She began by logging the schedule of every nurse and orderly on the floor to memorize their routines, noting who had key card access to the elevator, and where the cards were kept.
But even if she managed to get one of the access cards, and if the key code she’d memorized still worked, once she reached the first floor she’d have to get past dozens of staffers who would know who she was and that she wasn’t supposed to be there unescorted. If by some miracle she somehow managed to pull off every inch of that, she’d still have to get into Kaminski’s or McGann’s office, access his computer without knowing the password, and back up all the needed information on a flash drive she didn’t have.
She couldn’t even risk bringing any of the other patients into this, because she didn’t want to get them in trouble if this went badly, and besides, there was nothing they could do that she couldn’t.
This is nuts, you’re not Jason Bourne. Can’t be done.
I agree. It can’t be done. So let’s figure out how to do it, starting with getting a keycard and a flash drive. Once we have that, all the other stuff will be easy.
No it won’t.
No, it won’t, but saying that keeps me from passing out.
Fair deal.
* * *
It would be impossible for Riley to walk unnoticed from the elevator to the first floor offices (don’t think about how we get there, just focus on what needs to be done once we’re downstairs ) during the day, when everyone was at their desk. The only remaining option was to go at night, after the administrative staff left for the day, working in the dark because switching on any of the lights would give her away. That meant familiarizing herself in greater detail with the layout of the offices, the assistants’ desks, the tables, all the twists and turns she’d have to navigate from the elevator to her objective. But she couldn’t just go downstairs on her own to scope things out. She’d have to come up with a reason McGann and Kaminski would both want to see her in their offices, in person, rightdamnitnow.
She knew how to get the job done, but hated the idea of doing it.
Suck it up, buttercup. This isn’t about us anymore, it’s about everybody else. Sooner or later we all have to take one for the team.
The next morning, she asked Nurse Biedermann if she could be taken to see McGann and Kaminski.
“Why?”
“I’ve decided you’re right. If apologizing for my behavior will get them off my back, then it’s worth doing it, even if I don’t mean it.”
Biedermann looked almost disappointed. “It’s the smart move,” she said. “I’m glad you’ve decided to be sensible about this.”
Kill me, kill me now.
Five minutes later Riley was standing in McGann’s office. Thirty-five paces from the elevator, then a right turn to the office. No blind spots to hide in between the door and the desk.
“I realize that I’ve been a disruptive force, and I wanted to apologize and promise to do better going forward.”
Tower computer, dead quiet, so probably air-cooled solid-state drives. Six speed screws on the outside of the tower to make it easier for the IT guys to access, mouse and keyboard hardwired to the console.
“And what brought you to this realization?”
“Seeing what happened to Lauren made me understand how short life is, and I don’t want to spend that time fighting with people who are only trying to help me.”
Bars on the windows, no personal bathroom to hide in, big-ass deadbolt on the door above the knob—he likes his privacy.
McGann frowned as if unsure of her truthfulness, then decided to at least acknowledge her words. “I’m glad you seem to be on the upward swing. But we’ll still need to see action to go with the words.”
One down.
Two minutes—and another twenty-seven paces straight, then right—brought her to Kaminski’s office. In keeping with precedent, Biedermann stayed in the room with her, though Riley wasn’t entirely sure if that was for her safety or Kaminski’s.
“So you admit that attacking me was wrong,” he said after she finished repeating what she’d told McGann.
Same office layout, same computer setup, speed screws, air-cooled, same barred window, but just a lockable doorknob, no deadbolt, and the mouse is wireless, so Bluetooth is switched on.
“Yes,” she said, “it was wrong,” inwardly finishing the sentence with, because I should have punched you in the dick a third time before you went to the floor crying like a baby.
“And you acknowledge that I have always behaved appropriately in your presence?”
“Yes, you have always behaved in an appropriate fashion.” Appropriate for a misogynistic piece of dogshit who, if I can pull this off, will maybe lose his license, you miserable little freak.
“And you apologize.”
HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou HateYou—
“Riley?”
“Yes, I apologize.”
“That’s a good start,” he said, then turned to Biedermann. “You can escort her back to the ward now.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Biedermann said once they were out in the hallway. It was a statement, not a question.
Don’t tell her anything. The fact that she flipped your way means she could just as easily flip right back again.
“Nope. Just doing what you said: taking control of my life.”
“Mmm,” Biedermann said. Her tone made it clear she wasn’t entirely sure if she believed any of this, but she didn’t pursue it further.
Maybe she doesn’t want to know what’s in my head any more than I want to tell her.
And maybe she’s going to start keeping a closer eye on me until she can figure out what I’m not telling her.
Ten minutes later Riley was back in her room. The first floor layout was as complex as she’d remembered, but seeing it with fresh eyes made it feel less daunting. Just got to keep running it over and over until I can navigate it with my eyes closed. Because that’s pretty much what I’ll be doing once I’m out of the elevator.
Yeah, but we still don’t have what we need to make this work even if we do have a chance to get inside one of the computers. No key card, password, or flash drive—
I know, I know . . . lemme work on it, okay? These things take time.
Well, the way you’re going, you’ll have plenty of that in here.
* * *
Riley had seen several flash drives on the first-floor desks, but there was no guarantee they’d still be sitting there at night, or that she’d be able to use them when the opportunity came. That meant getting hold of one ahead of time to confirm that it wasn’t password locked. So for the next two days she watched the staff as they used their tablets to see if any of them had attached thumb drives she could liberate, but came up empty each time.
There has to be something we can use, she thought, increasingly frustrated. Then during lunch—cold sandwiches and a salad bar (the Beast was down again)—Riley was struck so hard by the solution that she had to stop herself from yelling out yes!
I do have a flash drive! I’ve had it the whole time! I’m an idiot!
Ten points for self-awareness and pattern recognition.
Will. You. shuddup!
She scarfed down her food as fast as she could and ditched the plastic tray, driven by excitement and a need to get out before the other patients started crowding the halls. Moving quickly, she made her way to the hidey-hole. Being shorter than Frankenstein and not as crazy strong, she had a harder time lifting the door high enough to pop the lock, but with some effort it finally came free. She hurried inside, pushed her way into the tiny gap behind the rack, and turned the phone back on.
A minute later:
Just as she switched off the phone and the room went dark, she heard the door open then close again. She held her breath, afraid to do anything that might give her away. Suddenly the rack shuddered as it was moved aside, and in the dim light from under the door she recognized Frankenstein’s unmistakable silhouette.
“Hey,” she whispered, relieved.
He slid the rack back into place and lowered himself to the floor. She’d been afraid that he might be annoyed to find her in his private space, but when he switched on the flashlight, his smile said that he was happy to see her there.
Secrets are always best when shared with someone you trust, she thought. And I don’t think there have been a lot of people in his life he could trust.
With several minutes to kill, she turned back to the photos taped to the wall, each of them a happy thought in a desperately unhappy life. Catching her look, he tapped a picture showing a family coming out the end of a water slide, their hands raised in triumph.
What’s this? his eyes asked her.
She raised her hands in the air, then dove down, going, “Shhhhhhhh,” to simulate the sound of water, then up again, down and around and side to side, then with one last arc, she raised her hands high, just as they were in the picture. “Shhhhooooom!”
He clapped his hands, eyes glittering with joy at the revelation, and parroted her actions back to her. “Shhhhooooom!”
“Shhhhooooom!” she echoed, laughing, and he applauded again.
She tapped the photo. “When you do the last big dive, they take a picture you can buy afterward, so you can remember where you were and what you looked like when you came out the other side.”
He nodded but she wasn’t sure he understood, so she edged over until they were side by side, then raised her arms to match the photo of the waterslide. “You too,” she said, nudging him as she entered the passcode to unlock the phone.
He raised his arms, hollow eyes piercing the darkness, fingers crooked inward. For anyone else in the hospital, seeing this would be the worst kind of nightmare fuel, but she found it terribly cute.
“Say Shhhhooooom!” she said, flipping the camera on.
“Shhhhooooom!”
Click!
When she showed him the photo of the two of them faking a waterslide landing, his eyes grew wide then gentle and for a moment she thought that tears might follow, but then a text popped up on the screen, startling him.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s a friend.”
He nodded, spooked by the intrusion into their private moment, but if she said it was fine, that was good enough for him.
* * *
While the app downloaded in the background, Riley switched to low-power mode and began turning off location services and deleting apps, anything that took up energy or space. The last items to go were hundreds of photos of Steve with his friends, camping or hanging out. He looks so happy. I just hope he backed up these pictures to the cloud, because otherwise he’s going to be way pissed off at me.
She tagged all the photos for deletion, paused at the one she’d taken of herself and Frankenstein, and sent it to an email address she hadn’t used in a long time, where nobody would be looking for it, waiting for the download to complete as—
The storeroom door opened again, but this time the lights went on as someone entered and began going through the stacks in search of something.
Riley glanced back at the app.
Ninety-eight percent downloaded.
Ninety-nine percent downloaded.
Then the download hit 100 percent and blooped audibly.
Whoever was in the storeroom suddenly stopped in his search. Had he heard?
She turned off the phone.
The room remained silent. Then the lights went out.
He’s looking for the light of anything electronic that might have been left on.
A minute passed. Then another.
It’s nothing, let it go, you imagined it.
Finally the lights flicked back on as whoever it was turned back to the task at hand. He must have found whatever he’d come for, because the rustling stopped the door opened and closed, and his footsteps disappeared down the hall.
That was way too close, she thought as she set the phone down on the floor. “I should get back before someone realizes I’m not anyplace they can find me.”
He stood and slid the rack aside, then raised a hand for her to wait as he pressed his ear to the door. When he was satisfied no one was around, he pulled upward on the knob until it popped free, waved for her to hurry out, then followed into the hall before slotting the door back into place.
As Riley walked back to her room, she felt a rush of excitement at the possibility that she might actually be able to pull this off. All she needed now was a key card for the elevator and a little luck.
* * *
Over the next two days, Riley intensified her scrutiny of the orderlies to make sure their schedules hadn’t changed, and confirm where they kept their key cards in search of any who carried them in their jacket pockets instead of their pants. When she found her target, she waited until three o’clock when he usually mopped down the art room, then slipped in quietly while his back was turned. A quick check of his jacket, hanging over the back of a chair, revealed the key card in an inside pocket. She grabbed it, put the jacket back as she’d found it, and hurried quietly away.
Screw Jason Bourne, she thought excitedly, I’m Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill! Somebody get me a katana and a yellow jumpsuit!
You don’t have a future, Kaminski!
She knew the orderly would eventually discover that his card was missing, but she also knew that it’s a pain in the ass to recode an entire system, so the odds were good that they’d hold off taking that step unless it was absolutely necessary, which meant waiting until morning in case it turned up.
And that was fine. Tonight—this night—was all she needed.
* * *
Shortly before lights-out, she turned on the water in the bathroom sink and closed the door, so if anyone poked their head in before lockdown, they’d assume she was inside getting ready for bed. Then she worked her way back into the storeroom and closed the door behind her.
Okay, she thought. Here we go.
Riley slipped into the gap behind the rack and pulled it shut behind her. She would wait until after midnight to make her move, when most of the night staff went home and the cleaning crew came in. Most cleaners opened all the doors so they could come and go as needed and give any disinfectants or cleaning solutions a chance to air out. With luck, the door to McGann’s or Kaminski’s office would be open and she could do what needed to be done, then get the hell out before being discovered.
As she waited in the tight space, sitting for hours without moving, the room grew colder. Guess they don’t bother heating the storerooms after lights-out, she decided, and wrapped herself in a sweater from one of the racks.
Until now there hadn’t been time to think about what she was doing; she’d been too busy doing it. But now time was all she had, and her brain started crawling over all the ways this could go supremely bad. To distract herself she started flipping through memories of birthdays, road trips, Disneyland, and the impromptu living room film festivals they held every time her dad signed up for a new streaming service.
And of course that memory came swimming up at her as it always did when she let her brain pop into neutral for more than five minutes.
Why the hell is it that when we’re standing at a stoplight or waiting for an order to come up at a coffee shop, it’s always the painful memories that show up in full Imax? Never the happy memories, only and ever the ones where we’ve done something stupid or embarrassing, and by the time we finish shoving it back into the box, we’ve missed the walk sign or the pickup order and everyone’s looking at us like, Who let that idiot in here?
She’d just turned seven and was halfway through watching a movie when her dad said it was late and she had to go to bed. She couldn’t remember what movie it was, only her annoyance at being talked to like a child when she was in third grade and knew everything there was to know about maps and homophones and prefixes and why rivers were important, and she didn’t care what time it was; she didn’t want to go to her room, she wanted to watch the rest of the goddamned movie.
And that’s exactly what she said. Out loud. Including the goddamned.
Unfazed, her father walked calmly past her, picked up the remote, and switched off the TV. “We’ll talk about your vocabulary tomorrow. For now: Upstairs. Bedroom. Sleep.”
Her fury was completely out of proportion to what she was being asked to do, but once uncoiled it stretched from her toes to the top of her head, and when she stood as requested, she turned to her father and spat on him before racing upstairs. Once she reached the other side of the slammed door, she instantly regretted what she’d done. She was sure that he would come up at any moment to yell at her about it, and lay beneath the sheets for hours, knees to chin, unable to sleep, awaiting the inevitable.
The inevitable never came.
When she went down to breakfast the next morning, he was smiling and happy and making waffles as if nothing had happened. Relieved not to be murdered, she cleaned her plate as he went upstairs to change for the quick drive to school while her mother cleared the table.
Once he was out of earshot, her mother put down the plates and sat beside Riley. “I’ve known your father for ten years,” she said in that Irish lilt, her voice soft and low. “I’ve seen him get into accidents and fights; I even saw him fall off the roof of the garage when he was trying to find a leak, and he got right back up like nothing happened. I’ve never seen him truly, deeply hurt until last night. He doesn’t blame you, you’re a young child, and young children do what young children do because they don’t know any better, so you can’t hold that against them. He blames himself, thinking he was a little too brusque, that maybe he should have at least waited for the commercial. Even asked me not to mention it. But you know how I am, tell me to say yes, and I say no every time.
“So all I’ll say is this: your father loves you more than anything else in this good Earth, and I suspect that includes me. He would die for you, without even a second’s hesitation. Frankly, I think he’d be honored, because he’d be doing it for you. I’m not telling you this to hurt you. I’m telling you because I want you to understand that if you ever spit on him again, I will burn your toys, disown you, change the locks, cover your clothes in the kind of sausage wolves like best, and put you out in the middle of the road at midnight. Do I make myself absolutely clear?”
Fighting tears, not of fear but of shame, Riley nodded.
“Then wipe your face so he won’t know I broke my promise,” her mother said, gathering up the plates as he came back downstairs, “and we’ll never speak of it again.”
And they never did.
But the shame of that moment, of acting like a child, never left. Many times over the years that followed she wanted to bring it up, to apologize, but at first she was too embarrassed, and then it became increasingly difficult to wedge it into the conversation. You remember that thing I did five years ago? I’m sorry. So the words were never spoken.
And now they never would be. But the memory of that moment would remain forever in her heart for the rest of her life, waiting to ambush her at unexpected moments.
Wrapped in the sweater, as she’d been wrapped in blankets that night, she wondered as she did then, what time it was and if anyone was going to come to the door. But as before, the door remained closed, the night quiet and undisturbed.
She stretched and unkinked her neck. It has to be midnight by now, she decided. So yeah, here I am, just like Mom said: covered in the kind of sausage wolves like best, out in the middle of the road at midnight.
Time to do this.
She shucked the sweater, picked up the cell phone, pressed the power button—
—and realized immediately that something was wrong.
The last time she’d been here, she’d switched the phone off as soon as the app finished downloading to save power, so it should have taken a moment to reboot. But the phone switched on immediately, meaning it was in sleep mode, which should have put her at the app screen, but instead she found herself looking at the photo she’d taken of herself and Frankenstein.
And the power indicator read 2 percent.
I’m gonna be sick, she thought, fighting the taste of bile at the back of her throat.
What the fuck happened?
Then in her mind’s eye she saw Frankenstein coming back to the store room over the last two days, turning on the phone—the access code was right there on the Post-it, and he’d seen her use it at least once—and looking at the picture, hour after hour, just as he did with the photos on the wall, as the power slowly trickled away.
It’s not his fault, she told herself, fighting tears, he didn’t know what I needed it for, didn’t understand he was draining the battery, he was just happy to have that photo. He’s a child inside, and he was just being that child. It might have made a difference if I’d explained it to him, but I didn’t and he didn’t know any better and godfuckingdamnit!
She opened the texting app.
A moment later:
As the battery indicator hit 1 percent, she set a new passcode then switched it off. As an extra precaution, she slid the phone into a sock under a rack at the front of the room, where it would be nearly impossible to find, then balled up into a corner for warmth to wait out the night. So much for Beatrix Kiddo, she thought.
Hey, Bea?
Yes, Elle?
How does it feel to completely screw up the most important thing you’ve ever been asked to do?
Go to hell.
You first, sweetie. You first.