Chương 11
“That’s honest.”
“I’m trying.”
She looked at him.
“Did you think he would choose the Navy over you?”
Daniel’s face closed.
Claire had found the wound.
“Yes.”
“Did he?”
“I never gave him the chance.”
That was worse.
“Why?”
“Because by the time I had enough to bring him, his signature was part of the problem.”
“So you went around him.”
“Yes.”
“And got taken.”
“Yes.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yes.”
She almost smiled.
Daniel leaned forward.
“There’s something else.”
Claire’s stomach tightened.
“I hate when people say that.”
“The archive from Kane’s case includes an index.”
“Names?”
“Subject numbers.”
Claire put down the coffee.
“How many?”
“Eleven.”
The bands.
“Alive?”
“We don’t know.”
“Who are they?”
“Mostly redacted.”
“Mostly?”
“Subject Two isn’t.”
Claire looked away.
Daniel continued.
“Neither is Subject One.”
“Because they were ours.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
She stood and walked to the window.
Her ankle was healing.
Her face had gone yellow around the cuts.
She looked less like a survivor now and more like somebody who had lost a fight in a parking lot.
“Do you want to watch the session video?” Daniel asked.
“No.”
He nodded.
Claire stared down at the parking lot.
Then she said, “Yes.”
The first video was six years old.
Claire watched herself enter a white room wearing gray training clothes.
The woman on the screen looked healthier.
Angrier too.
Daniel sat beside her in the hospital consultation room but remained silent.
Onscreen Claire dropped Daniel’s challenge coin on a table.
A woman’s voice asked, “What does this object mean to you?”
Old Claire said, “That my friend has terrible taste.”
Present Claire closed her eyes.
Daniel looked down.
The video continued.
“Who gave it to you?”
“Lieutenant Daniel Mercer.”
“What is your relationship?”
“Complicated.”
Daniel shifted beside her.
Claire almost told him to leave.
She didn’t.
The interviewer asked why she had volunteered.
Old Claire became quiet.
Finally she said, “Because I keep waking up thinking Pritchard is calling me.”
Present Claire’s hand tightened.
Pritchard.
The radio operator in Yemen.
She remembered his body.
She remembered cleaning blood from the inside of her glove for twenty minutes after the medevac because she could not stand the smell.
She had forgotten that he called her name in dreams.
Old Claire continued.
“If I hear a radio click in the wrong room, I’m back there. If somebody grabs my left shoulder, I put them on the floor before I know who they are. I haven’t slept more than three hours in a night in eight months.”
The interviewer said, “And what do you want from us?”
“I want my life to stop belonging to one bad afternoon.”
Claire reached over and paused the video.
The screen froze on her younger face.
Daniel said nothing.
“I volunteered.”
“Yes.”
“Really volunteered.”
“Yes.”
She stood.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“You knew.”
“I don’t now.”
“I know.”
Claire walked to the door, then back.
“How long before I withdrew?”
“Seven weeks.”
“Why?”
Daniel hesitated.
She noticed.
“What?”
“You started getting worse.”
“How?”
“Disorientation. Emotional flattening. Memory problems.”
“And?”
“You forgot a meeting with me.”
“That doesn’t sound catastrophic.”
“It was a three-hour meeting.”
“I’ve avoided you for longer than that this week.”
Daniel did not smile.
“You forgot Pritchard’s last name.”
Claire went still.
“That scared you.”
“It scared you.”
She looked at the frozen screen.
“What did I do?”
“You withdrew consent.”
“And they continued.”
“Yes.”
“Show me.”
The later videos were harder.
Not because they were violent.
They were not.
That made them worse.
Claire watched herself answer repetitive questions in calm rooms.
She watched technicians expose her to recorded sounds, photographs, objects.
She watched herself ask twice whether the session was still voluntary.
The second time, Kane’s younger voice answered from offscreen.
“You signed the extension.”
Claire paused the video.
“Did I?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Investigators found two versions. One signed. One unsigned.”
“Which is real?”
“They don’t know yet.”
The signature looked like hers.
That frightened her.
The next recording showed Claire disoriented.
“What day is it?” the interviewer asked.
“Thursday.”
It was Monday.
“Who gave you the coin?”
Claire stared at it.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel beside her stopped breathing for a moment.
Onscreen Claire picked up the coin.
After nearly thirty seconds she said, “Daniel.”
The interviewer asked, “How do you know Daniel Mercer?”
“I don’t.”
Present Claire closed her eyes.
The program had not erased Daniel.
Reality was messier.
Sometimes she knew him.
Sometimes she did not.
Her memory had fractured, shifted, recovered, failed again.
The final old video was recorded two days after her official withdrawal.
Claire was strapped lightly at the wrists.
Not struggling.
Kane stood in the room.
No gloves then.
He leaned over the table.
“Captain, this session is necessary to establish a safe baseline.”
Old Claire looked exhausted.
“I said no.”
“You’re confused.”
“I’m not confused about no.”
Present Claire stopped the video.
Daniel stared at the black screen.
Neither spoke.
Claire eventually said, “That’s enough.”
Outside, a nurse pushed a cart past the door.
A wheel squeaked every revolution.
Claire listened until the sound disappeared.
“Why didn’t I report it?”
Daniel answered slowly.
“You tried.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“You reported irregularities through your command medical channel.”
“What happened?”
“They opened an internal review.”
“And?”
“The review concluded your complaints were consistent with post-injury confusion.”
Claire laughed.
It sounded terrible.
“Of course.”
“Not everyone involved was corrupt.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“I know.”
“Somebody believed them.”
“Yes.”
“Somebody believed me.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Not enough people with enough authority at the same time.”
Claire looked at the coin on the table.
The object had been returned temporarily for examination in her presence, sealed in evidence plastic.
“Why do I remember none of this?”
Daniel’s voice was gentle.
“I don’t know.”
She hated the gentleness.
She left the room.
Jonathan found her in the hospital courtyard an hour later.
May you like
He was wearing civilian clothes.
Claire had never seen him in civilian clothes.
