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"Now, will you walk or must we carry you?" the squad leader asked, a note of
satisfaction in her voice. Clearly she enjoyed exercising power over those
born to a higher and more privileged position than she.
"I will walk," she responded sullenly.
They moved fast; she almost had to shuffle to keep up, her stride limited by
the leg restraints. They took her into a room and sat her in a barber's chair,
and a
woman there quickly trimmed her shoulder-length silky black hair to a short
masculine cut. Her long, pointed nails were not cut down, but they were
trimmed to a roundness that looked grotesque. She was then given a crude but
thorough shower, with the guards doing the scrubbing. The experience was
humiliating, and she wanted to scream, but she wasn't going to give them the
satisfaction. She decided quickly that what would disappoint them the most
would be to keep an aristocratic air and remain fatalistic.
Again she was marched down an endless series of corridors until they reached a
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line of doors. When the squad leader activated one with a thumbprint, the door
slid back and Song Ching was ushered into a cell. Her arm and leg bindings
were then undone and removed.
The cell was completely empty. The walls, floor, and even the ceiling were
featureless and thickly padded. Lighting tubes at the wall-ceiling joints
provided good, if soft, light, but those fixtures were a good four meters up
and protected by some sort of opaque material. The whole cell was not more
than four by three meters.
"Now, listen well," the squad leader told her. "You will remain here until
called for. Your father who committed you ordered this so that you might not
do harm to yourself. You will be fed twice a day here, in the cell, under the
eyes of a guard. Anything you do not eat will be removed when the guard
leaves, and you will get no more until the next scheduled meal, so eat. The
cell is soundproof, but that small piece in the door is one-way glass. We will
look in on you from time to time to be sure you are all right, but we will not
disturb you. If you need to eliminate, go to this corner and sit. A toilet
will adjust to you. Do not, however, put your hand or anything else in there.
The toilet is a dry one, and anything that should not go there will be trapped
and held there until we come and remove you. If you look over here next to the
toilet area, you will see a small flexible tube in the wall. If you thirst,
suck on it and water will be dispensed in small, measured amounts. The
reservoir takes one hour to refill.
Also, any attempt to do yourself harm and you will get far shorter handcuffs
and leg chains. Any questions?"
"Yes. How long will I be here?"
"As long as is necessary. Don't worry. When you leave here, you won't remember
any of this, even in your nightmares." With that, the squad left, and the door
closed with an awesome finality.
For a while she paced and fumed in frustration. They had it all worked out,
their methods honed over centuries of experience. Worse, they really could do
almost anything they wanted to her because, as the guard said, she would
remember none of it and so could not complain or report it. She even guessed
the reason for the guards' odd clothing. Probably workers left their own
clothes outside and picked up those uniforms once inside the security
barriers. Thus, even if someone managed somehow to get out or make a break
while going to and from the medical area and somehow beat the security
checkpoints, that person
would either be nude or wearing very conspicuous clothing.
What was so frustrating was that her own computer lab was probably no more
than a hundred meters up and then a kilometer away. In those rooms she could
take control and show them all if only she could get to them. If, if, if, she
thought sourly. If only she'd kept her big mouth shut about this and worked
out a way to come back here to finish up a few things. If only she hadn't been
so wild that even her mother could no longer see her as anything but a threat.
She had been so smart with all things electronic, but she realized she'd been
pretty stupid when it came to people. She had always been in command, in
control. She'd never had to worry about other people.
The cell was an effective prison. She examined it closely, every joint and
junction, until she saw a small dark spot hidden behind the light guard in one
corner. The others were harder to make out, but there seemed to be one in each
corner. Somewhere, perhaps not far off, someone was sitting in a chair and
looking at her in the full three dimensions, probably recording her and
analyzing her every movement with computer psych analyzers. She had never felt
so exposed or humiliated in her entire life, and she hated them for it and
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