“Here.” She opened the door, waving me in. Then she closed it with a resounding click.
Inside, a scrawny bald man sat behind the desk, electro-notepads covering all but one corner of its surface. That spot held a name tag—LIONEL EFFINGHAM—and a fading plant of indeterminate species, not long for this world.
“Name,” he barked.
“Nina Oberon.”
Searching through the pads, he eventually selected one. After several swipes with his stylus, he finally looked at me.
“Sit.” He motioned to the chairs in front of his desk, identical to the ones in the waiting room.
I sat. His eyes stayed glued to the pad while I glanced around the room. There was nothing to see except the man, his overloaded desk, and the plant. No emo-detectors, no scan rods, and he didn’t even have the luxury of a window.
“Where is Edith Oberon?”
“She’s in the hospital. She had a heart attack.” Too much information.
The man’s eyes darted up at mine, then back to the pad. “You must be the older granddaughter.”
“Yes.”
Beads of sweat rose on his forehead. “You made an unauthorized visit here?” He dabbed his face with a dingy handkerchief. “Highly unorthodox. Highly.” His hand trembled as he picked up his PAV receiver. “Inquiry… Yes… Oberon…” That was followed by a long silence.
My palms turned moist, my shoulders quivering. Maybe those “superiors” whom the female officer had mentioned had changed their minds. Whatever composure I’d felt was rapidly dissipating, and I forced myself to concentrate on breathing, not on Mr. Effingham’s sporadic monosyllabic conversation.
At the very moment I was sure my anxiety would burst out of me in some totally inappropriate way, he said, “Oh, I see. Certainly.” He clicked off and, without missing a beat, picked up the pad he’d been so intent on previously. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Where’s the other one? Says here there’s another child, a girl. Where is she?”
“At home.”
He patted his forehead again. “I see… well, then.” He ran his stylus down the pad. “Herbert Oberon is charged with treason, attempting to incite actions against the Governing Council, possession of a contraband blocking device, and resisting arrest. Now, Miss Oberon”—he trained his watery eyes on me—“were you present when the aforementioned Herbert Oberon committed these acts?”
“No.”
“Did you have previous knowledge of the CBD?”
“The what?” I knew he meant the scrambler, but as hard as this was on me, I had no intention of being easy on him.
“Contraband blocking device.” He sighed.
“No.”
“Did Mrs. Edith Oberon and or Miss, uh…” He snatched up another pad, scanning it quickly. “Delisa Oberon have any knowledge of this CB—contraband blocking device?” He swiped his forehead again.
“No.” Only yeses or noes.
I was silently thanking Mr. Jenkins when Effingham said, “Do you want to say anything?”
“Uh, may I see my grandfather now?”
Effingham stabbed a fierce dot onto the pad. “No.” Pressing a button on his desk, he barked, “Emalia.”
I listened as the sound of heel clicks grew louder, then stopped. The door opened.
“This way,” Emalia ordered.
Out on the sidewalk, I finally exhaled. “Well, that was fun.”
XIX
I was so busy congratulating myself on not messing anything up, I ended up on the local rather than the express trans. It stopped across the bridge from our old building, and I noticed a group of homeless women shuffling through the oasis. One glanced back at the road, and I was sure that it was Joan. As soon as we crossed the bridge, I hopped off the trans. Hurrying down the walk, I closed in on the women.
I was catching up to them when they noticed me approaching, and they scattered like a flock of startled pigeons. Joan, however, resisted the pull of her friends and waited for me to catch up.
“Joan?” I remembered how fragile her mind was and I didn’t want to throw her into hysterics or trigger her trauma in any way.
“Nina. I’ve watched for you.”
“You have?”
“Uh-huh. I’ve been seeing a doctor. He’s helping me.”
“Really?” How, I wondered, was she getting help? I glanced around. The river walk was fairly deserted, its usual state in winter. I knew there was a dead zone nearby, one that Sal had showed me months ago. “Can you come over here? We can talk.” I motioned to the dead zone oasis.
“I can’t stay long.” Her eyes kept darting to where her companions stood, half hidden in the shadows.
“Have you been going to Metro?” I said. “Is that where your doctor is?”
“I can’t go to the hospital. I’d be picked up and sent away.” She pulled back her ragged coat collar, revealing the FeLS symbol tattooed on her neck. A black slash cut through the middle of it.
“What’s that?”
“When a girl cracks, they do this. That way, if she escapes, she’s easier to find.”
“Joan, were you on a space station?” My mind was racing. Lessig’s Alert and the fake space station had to be false. Joan could help prove it. “Media is reporting that they found a fake FeLS station in the desert near New Vegas City. Were you there?”
“I don’t know where I was.” Joan shivered. “They drugged me for the transport to Mars, I was still drugged when they rescued me.”
I didn’t want to probe further, to push her past her limit. I pulled off my tensalite scarf and wrapped it around her neck, not just to keep her warm but also to cover the repulsive mark. “So, a doctor is helping you?”
She nodded. “He comes here after dark with medicine, and he listens to me. He doesn’t… touch me.”
“You told him about FeLS?”
“I think he knows.” She clutched my coat sleeve. “He has to. He saw my neck. But he won’t tell. He promised.”
I heard voices coming up the way. “Here, sit closer.” I motioned her close to me. When I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, she tensed up. “I won’t hurt you, Joan. I’m your friend. You know that.”
“It’s just”—her voice dropped almost to an unintelligible whisper—“women hurt me, too.”
“That will never happen again,” I whispered.
The voices passed on beyond us.
“I’d better go,” Joan said. “Maybe you could… I…” She hung her head. “Seeing you reminds me of my family. I miss them…” She swiped her sleeve across her eyes and glanced behind her. “I’ve got to go.”
“I’ll come back.” I watched her and her friends melt into the gloom between the buildings. A blast of cold air stung my bare neck. Yanking my collar up, I hunkered down, staring at the green, racing water of the Chicago River. “No one’s going to hurt her again. Ever. Not if I can help it,” I whispered to myself.
It was way too cold to sit by the river for long. The image of Joan’s tattoo got me thinking about my need for a tattoo to surround the XVI on my wrist. I was a Creative. I could do whatever I wanted. And now I had an idea.
“Hey, you.” Wei was standing at the top of the stairs. “Come up and tell me how it went.”
“In a nano. I need to tell Dee I’m back and I have something I need to sketch first.”
“Dee’s up here with Chris. Bring your art stuff up here. I need to practice and you can draw while I make music.”
I nodded my agreement. “Let me grab it.” I hurried into the apartment, got my sketch pad and rapido, and joined Wei upstairs.
“You do know you’re spending Holiday with us,” Wei said. “Mom won’t have it any other way. And you do not want to cross my mother.”