Dominion

TWENTY-TWO

After the interview, Turin carried the holorecorder into another room to burn copies onto discs and cartridges, to begin the distribution process. A mass of copies would be made for the safest the method of distribution, hand-to-hand, and eventually the interview would be uploaded to websites and newsnets throughout the world.

Archer led Ruppert and Lucia upstairs to the main house, where they emerged from behind the false wall of a closet in a dusty first-floor bedroom. They sat at a plastic-coated redwood table while Archer busied himself frying eggs and toasting bread. Ruppert was exhausted.

“I can’t believe any of that,” Ruppert said to Lucia. “Do you think it's true?”

“We know it is,” Lucia said. “We spent the last two years searching for him.”

“How were you able to find him when Terror couldn’t?”

“Terror is best at watching the obedient,” Lucia said. “We’re better at finding people running for their lives, since we usually try to help them out.”

"This non-organization is sounding more and more organized," Ruppert said.

"People make their own order." A wheelchair-bound woman with long, graying hair rolled into the room. The first thing Ruppert noticed was the stunning beauty of her face, and the second thing he noticed was that she looked strangely familiar.

“Order must be made and abandoned as we go," she continued. "Don’t burn my stove down, Archer.”

“I don’t believe you can burn a stove, Mrs. Kendrick,” Archer replied. Ruppert tried to remember: Kendrick, Kendrick…

“If anybody could…” She shook her head, then focused on Ruppert. “This is our reporter?”

“Yeah,” Lucia said. “Daniel, this is Maya Kendrick. This is her vineyard.”

“Not much of a vineyard any more,” Maya said.

“Maya Kendrick!” Ruppert said, then felt himself blush. He’d actually fantasized about this woman when he was a teenager. “You’re the movie star, aren’t you?”

“I was an actor, when the world was different,” she said.

“I thought they took you in the purges,” Ruppert said.

“They did,” she said. “I took a bullet in the back from the Freedom Brigades. And the bastards killed my husband.”

“Jorge Mendez, right?” Ruppert asked. “The director?”

“He saw the hammer coming down,” Maya said. “I used to laugh and say he was paranoid. Then they started posting Terror agents at all the studios, and then the purges…By the time they finished, there was nothing left but cowards and fools.” She raised an eyebrow. “Present company excepted, naturally.”

“No, I’ve been a coward and a fool,” Ruppert said. “I’m trying to change that.”

“Once this interview circulates, they’ll come after you,” Maya said.

“They’ve been after me already,” Ruppert said.

“Not like this. You’re showing the world the rabbit hidden in their hat.”

“What do you think people will do when they find out?” Ruppert asked.

Maya smiled. “Rise up, revolt, destroy the system. Start anew, with better ideas this time. That’s what you’re hoping I’ll say, isn’t it?”

“How else could they respond?”

“Denial,” Maya said.

“What is there to deny?” Lucia asked. “It’s the truth.”

“Never doubt the human capacity for self-delusion,” Maya said. “Terror doesn’t. That’s how they rule.”

“Then what’s the point?” Ruppert asked.

“Not everyone will refuse to believe,” Maya said. “The truth will be available for those who risk looking for it. It will take time. It may not even happen in our lifetime. But now there’s a record of what Columbus really was, and who was behind it. And in the end, I don’t think an armed revolt will be possible. Or necessary.”

“But there’s no other way to stop them,” Lucia said.

“Eggs, overeasy,” Archer set plates in front of Ruppert and Lucia. “Toast, gently blackened.”

Lucia wolfed her food. Ruppert poked his fork at the greasy, pepper-sprinkled whites of the eggs, not convinced he had an appetite.

“Did you ever learn about the Soviet Union? How it collapsed?” Maya asked.

Ruppert nodded. "It was because of a weapons race."

"Not precisely," Maya said. "Some people say it collapsed because it lost a war, or because of poverty, but I think they’re wrong. I think it really fell apart once the Russian people stopped believing what they read in the newspapers.”

“And you think people will react that way when they see the interview?” Ruppert asked. “They’ll stop believing?”

“In the long run, truth is powerful because it doesn’t change. Lies fade, and political lies are the weakest kind, because they so rarely make any sense in the first place. Westerly’s confession takes Columbus away from them. It removes the keystone from their false reality. It will change minds.”

“But not enough minds,” Ruppert said.

“Possibly not,” Maya agreed.

“Clear out!” Turin burst into the room wearing only a shirt and his briefs. He was fumbling his way into a dark suit. “Cops! Front door!”

The room erupted around Ruppert, chairs overturning as Lucia and Turin scrambled to their feet. Maya rolled backwards into the main hall of her house, looking towards her front door.

“How many?” she asked.

“Three cars,” Turin said. He hurried to buckle his pants. Lucia and Archer grabbed plates, glasses, silverware from the kitchen table, slopping the contents into the sink before hurling the tableware into the dishwasher.

“Hurry!” Archer snapped at Lucia.

“Is it Terror?” Maya asked from the hallway.

“Just Hartwells,” Turin said.

“Thank God for that much,” Maya wheeled back into the room. “You two have to get downstairs-”

Booms echoed from the front door. It sounded like the police were knocking with a wrecking ball.

“-right away,” she finished. Turin rushed by her, on his way to answer the door.

Ruppert felt a compression against his skin, as if all the air in the room had suddenly turned heavy, and then a loud crack echoed through the house. The police forced the front door with a pressure gun, blasting it from its hinges.

“You! Down! Hands on head!” a rough voice shouted from the front doorway. Ruppert heard the two thuds as Turin’s knees slammed into the floor.

“I just work here, sir,” Turin said.

Maya pointed towards the short hall leading to the bathroom and the front parlor. Ruppert took Lucia’s hand and pulled her in that direction. Following Maya’s hand gestures, he opened a folding door to reveal a recessed alcove with a washer, dryer, and a towel shelf.

He looked back towards Maya, but she only shrugged and turned her chair towards the table, where one plate of half-eaten food remained, as if she'd been eating alone.

Ruppert and Lucia climbed up on top of the laundry machines. They drew their knees to their chests, and sat with their backs pressed together in the compact space. Ruppert eased the folding door along in its track, closing it, willing himself to move slowly to avoid making noise.

“Hands up! On your knees!” a man’s voice bellowed, much closer.

“Sir, I’m unable to leave my chair,” Maya said. “If you want me on the floor, you’ll have to put me there.”

“Throw her down.” More boots approached. Ruppert heard Maya gasp, then a thud as police dumped her on the floor. “Search the wheelchair for weapons.”

The confined space in the laundry room grew hot and suffocating. Ruppert could feel the sharp points of Lucia’s shoulder blades digging into his back, between his own shoulder blades. She squirmed against him, her skin blazing hot. She was probably angry, resisting the urge to leap out and protect the paraplegic woman. But that would only get everyone killed.

“Took you a long time to answer that door," the cop said. "What were you hiding from us?"

"I didn't hear you knock, sir." Maya spoke in a low, submissive voice.

"And the black guy in the hall?”

“He helps me around the house. And with my groceries."

"Answers the door for you?" asked the same cop, apparently the leader of the group.

"Yes, things like-"

"He's doing a real shit job of it."

"Yes, sir," Maya said.

"What do you know about the bomb last night?” the policeman asked.

“Nothing, sir.”

“Really? You didn’t hear an explosion late last night? Nothing?”

“No, sir. It must have been after my night meds.”

Ruppert tilted his head as far to one side as he could, and he was just able to peer out between two of the wooden slats composing the folding door. He immediately wished he hadn’t. One of the black uniforms approached the laundry door-a young man, his head shaved down to stubble. Ruppert could see the golden Hartwell badge on his chest, the “H” with the hollow heart in the crossbar looming closer with each step.

“How many people currently in the house?" the cop asked Maya. "Including visitors and employees?”

“Just me,” Maya said. "And Eldred, the young man in the front hall."

"He works for you?"

"Yes, sir."

The young, shaven-headed policeman passed by and into the bathroom, only three feet from Ruppert, where he urinated noisily without bothering to close the door.

"Then I'll need to see your employer permit and his worker permit, won't I?" the cop asked Maya.

"I'm certain they're in the state database," Maya said.

"I don't want to check the database. I want to see your permits in my hand."

Ruppert held his breath, and he felt the muscles in Lucia’s back tighten. She fell completely still. Though she couldn’t see anything but towels and detergents from where she sat, she was responding to Ruppert’s own reaction, sensitive to his nervous energy.

“Have you seen anyone unusual in the area?” the policeman asked Maya. “Any foreigners? Anyone from out of town? Anyone handing out political literature or media?”

“Sir, I’ve hardly left the house in ten years,” Maya said.

The laundry room door rattled. The young policeman was coming back, trailing his fingers down the wooden slats. Ruppert craned his neck and was able to see the man looking carefully at the door, then leaning forward, hands cupped around his eyes, to look between the slats.

Ruppert and Lucia froze.

“Why don’t you have a screen in this house?" the cop asked. "What do you watch?”

“I have an old box in the living room. Movies on disc. I just don’t like people to see me when I phone them.”

The lead cop ordered a full search of the house-fortunately, he called away the bald pisser to search the upstairs. He continued asking Maya about her personal, political and religious affiliations, though the police would have all that information on file.

Ruppert and Lucia remained folded up against each other in a hot, tense silence, neither willing to risk even a whisper. The sounds of the police slamming doors and overturning furniture spread through the house.

After the sounds of their searching had died down, Ruppert relaxed a little, breathing deeper, and then the folding door suddenly rattled open.

“They’re searching the outbuildings now,” Maya said. She’d managed to climb back into her wheelchair. “Hope the rust gives them all tetanus. You better get underground.”

Lucia slipped away and dropped to her feet. Ruppert hurried after her to the back bedroom with the false closet wall, and down to join the others underneath the house. They huddled together in the dark, eight people who did not want to be found, and they waited.