The Administration Series (200 page)

Still, for the first time, he wondered if Carnac had been telling the truth to Warrick about his reasons for supporting the revolt. He didn't doubt that Warrick had accurately reported Carnac's words — he was an extremely reliable witness — but Carnac could have been lying.

If so, then he had also been faking his anger a few moments ago, and Toreth didn't believe that either. Which left him with . . . what? Even less of an idea what Carnac intended for I&I and, for some reason, an even stronger conviction that it was nothing good.

Sara had never really liked Parsons. Toreth didn't recruit people to his team based on personality, but on how well they did their jobs. Few of the interrogators were what Sara called likeable; if they had more people skills, they'd be paras. Parson's had done his job efficiently and unemotionally — coldly — and that was all. He'd rarely joined the rest of the team in the coffee room and never on evenings out. She'd barely known him. She'd never wanted to.

There was a difference between not liking the man, and reading his autopsy.

Not that there was much there: a photograph of the body, a sketchy description of the injuries, and the cause of death, which she didn't need to read at all. Certainly not a dozen times, until she could virtually recite it from memory.

At least Parsons was a corpse now, not one of the gradually dwindling list of missing. He was always known to have been in the building — she'd known, to start with. She'd seen the resisters take him away, and he hadn't shown up in Medical, so he'd been put on the 'missing, presumed dead' list. Now the body had been identified, she could fill in the notification to registered contacts form, write a personal note of condolence from Toreth for him to sign, and it would be finished.

It shouldn't bother her so much. Over the last few days, she'd read dozens of similar documents. She'd seen countless more over the years, although they were only prisoners. Only a couple of days ago she'd dealt with the details of Toreth's second junior. Starr hadn't been bad, for a para. At least he'd understood that being polite to the senior's admin was a good tactic. She'd processed his death report and cried, but it had felt healthy.

This was different. Every time she saw Parson's unsmiling picture on the screen she wanted to throw up.

She finished the note — much like all the others because what was there to say? — and stared at the photograph. Parsons looked older then she remembered.

Who'd told them? She'd often wondered about that. Their captors hadn't scanned IDs, so someone must have given up the names. Someone had looked at the room full of frightened staff and picked out the paras, investigators and interrogators taking refuge there. One of the people who'd been working for the resisters from the start perhaps, or someone desperate and terrified enough for the betrayal. She might have done it herself, if it had come to that.

Parsons had been one of the few who'd made it up to level five from Interrogation after the initial attack, and he'd told her about it. In fact, he'd told anyone who was prepared to listen, as if repetition would turn the memory into something comprehensible. She couldn't remember, now, much of what he'd said. Only, 'They opened the cells. They opened
all
the cells'.

He was normally so cold, so reserved, that it had been strange to see him agitated. Shaken, like everyone else, by the enormity of what was happening. Not distressed, not crying, like so many of them were — angry, if anything, and simply unable to sit still.

But he'd screamed. When they'd come for the interrogation staff, he'd screamed. He'd known what was going to happen. It wasn't hard for anyone to guess, but he was the only one who'd seen it.

She stared at the report on the screen, not seeing it through the tears blurring her vision, but not needing to.

That had been Saturday morning. The report gave time of death as 1800 (provisional) on the same day. Not even half a day, really, and he would've been unconscious for some of that. Quicker than many of the other reports she'd processed. Quicker than poor Joel Starr.

She wished that she'd done something. She had no idea what — rationally, she knew there was nothing that she
could
have done to save any of them, but that didn't change the feeling. She should have done something for Parsons.

Liked him better, perhaps.

She wished even more that he'd shut up and gone with them quietly, like the others. She couldn't even remember who they were, because she'd been watching Parsons. If he hadn't screamed, she wouldn't have to remember him either.

"Sara?"

She looked up, expecting Toreth or B-C, and found Lieutenant Payne. She sniffed hastily, wiping her eyes with her hand.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing. I'm fine. If you want Toreth, he's with Carnac." The bastard. "And B-C's off somewhere chasing medical supplies."

"Hm. Would you like a coffee?"

"Coffee?"

He smiled, disarmingly, looking improbably young for an officer, even a lieutenant. "Brown stuff with caffeine. It seems to be the standard response to anything going wrong around here, so I thought I'd try it out."

"I'd love one, thanks."

She assumed he meant to fetch it, but instead he said, "Come on, then."

As they turned down the corridor, she realised he was heading for the room where she'd been held. She almost stopped, but she forced herself to keep going. It was impossible to avoid the place forever. Tillotson's office would run out of coffee or become out of bounds again before long.

However, at the doorway, she found she couldn't follow him in. It wasn't that her resolve was any less, but her feet simply wouldn't move.

" — or take them back with us?" Payne's voice, disappearing with him into the coffee room. He'd been talking all the way from her desk and she hadn't heard a word until now. After a few seconds, he reappeared.

"Sara?"

"Sorry. I don't think I want a coffee after all." She meant to go back then, but her legs were shaking so much that it was all she could do to stay upright.

"What's the matter?" He took her arm, gently. "You're white as a sheet. Come and sit down."

"No!"

She pulled her arm away, and he let go quickly, only to catch hold of her again as her legs finally gave way. She let him lower her against the wall and waited for the tears to start, but her eyes remained dry. She was too terrified to cry, sick with the intensity of the fear, and she clasped her hands together tightly to still their trembling.

"Shall I get someone? Toreth?" Payne looked a little panicky himself, and she made an effort to pull herself together.

"No. I'm . . . that's where we were, that's all. In there. They put all the admins from our section in there. I've not been in since."

"I'm sorry — I had no idea. Look, let me help you back."

"No." She held out her hand and he helped her to her feet. "I can't hide from a bloody coffee room. Just . . . get ready to catch me if I do anything stupid, like faint."

He smiled. "Will do."

Three steps and she was at the threshold. The room had been cleaned, and it looked nothing like it had the last time she'd been there. However, once more she couldn't force herself to take the next step.

When the guards had called her name, no one had reacted. No one had done anything, just as she'd done nothing when they'd taken Parsons and the others. Faces had turned away from her, pitying and frightened and so, so grateful that it was her and not them. When they'd locked the handcuffs around her wrists and led her out, she'd thought . . . she'd been sure . . .

She struggled to keep her breathing even. Hyperventilating herself into unconsciousness wouldn't help at all.

It was only the coffee room. Birthday cakes. She'd eaten dozens — probably hundreds — of birthday cakes in there. She'd sat and dunked vanilla creams while listening to Toreth's improbable fuck stories. She'd fished for rumours and planted rumours. She'd bought tickets for sweepstakes on big name prisoner interrogations. She'd held hands and listened to broken hearts being spilled out. One New Year she'd spent a drunken and ill-advised ten minutes on that exact chair over there with one of the accounts admins, until Toreth had pried her away from him. And she'd made enough coffees to float the building.

"Are you feeling like keeling over yet?" Payne asked.

"No. I'm
fine
."

Compared to all those memories, four days was nothing, and she wasn't going to lose her coffee room for that.

In the end, it was surprisingly easy. Being one step inside was just like being one step outside — horrible, but possible. Then it was only one step after another away from the safety of the door, until she reached the coffee machines.

Payne shadowed her, and she must still have looked awful because he all but had his hands out ready to catch her.

"Here, let me get it for you," he said "Mugs . . . oh, thanks. Milk? Sugar? Actually, there doesn't seem to be any of either, so that keeps thing simple. There you go." He handed the coffee over. "Do you want to go back now?"

Yes, she did, but determination made her shake her head. "Not yet."

She sat down, keeping a tight grip on the mug, holding it up near her face. The aroma of coffee masked the sting of disinfectant, and the faint smells beneath it that she had been trying to ignore. Looking at the door was the worst thing, because it was only a tiny step away from thinking about Parsons again.

"Talk to me," she said. "Tell me something not about this bloody place. Are you married?"

"Oh. Um, yes, I am." He looked fleetingly uncomfortable, and she wondered why she'd never bothered to ask him before. "Would you like to see her?"

"Sure."

He opened his hand screen and brought up a picture. "There you go. Marianne."

"She's very pretty," Sara said, although in truth the woman was an insipid blonde she knew she'd forget the moment he put the picture away. "How did you meet?"

"We didn't meet, as such — we've known each other forever. Our families were friends, in fact, before we were born. Everyone always said we were meant for each other."

She'd always thought that kind of arrangement sounded creepy. "That's so sweet. Is she Service too?"

"Oh, no. She's a teacher. Little kids." He grinned. "We're going to have one of our own. The conception license is being processed right now. It's just a formality really — I've got my commanding officer's approval and the pre-application genetics were clear." The smile switched abruptly to a frown. "God, I hope all this trouble doesn't mess it up."

"I'm sure it won't. The Department of Population wasn't hit anything like as badly as here."

"But if they've lost the records . . . " He shook his head. "Mary would be heartbroken."

"Why? How old is she?"

"Oh, it's not that. It's just that her sister had an application approved not long ago, and Mary wanted to have hers — ours — born around the same time. So they'd be able to play together. Do you have any kids?"

"No. I don't even have anyone to have them with." She thought, briefly, of McLean. He'd been so sweet, so unlike her usual run of rich, good prospects. Silly idea.

"Oh, that's — " He stopped, teetering on the edge of pity.

"I don't mind. I mean, I've always promised my quota to Fee anyway. Transfer to a sibling's routine enough and she's far more maternal than I am."

"I could never do that. I've always wanted kids." He ducked his head slightly. "I know it's not the kind of thing men usually say, but — "

"No, no." He was sweet too — sweeter than she imagined a Service officer should be, anyway. "I think it's lovely that you do. And I'm sure everything will work out fine. You never know, maybe they'll abolish the system anyway."

He stared at her. "Abolish reproduction control?"

She shrugged. "Why not? For a while at least. For popularity. It's something that resisters press for a lot, isn't it?"

"I, er . . . I wouldn't know." Now he sounded distinctly uncomfortable. She'd forgotten, briefly, that he was still an outsider.

"Well, it is," she said. "I listen to a lot of interrogation transcripts."

"Ah, I see."

She grinned at the relief in his voice. "I don't know what you're worried about — I mean, you work for resisters now, don't you? Carnac and his friends."

He stiffened slightly. "I'm an officer of the Service."

"But —"

"No. I swore an oath to the Service and to the Administration. We all did. I haven't broken that oath. Service Command did what was best for the Administration."

He really believed in it, she realised. The novelty was vaguely charming. She felt tempted to tell him that loyalty to the Administration, like saluting and sirring, wasn't a big feature of I&I, but she didn't think he'd like to hear it.

"Yes, of course," she said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to suggest . . . um, shall we go back? I've got things to do."

"Yes, good idea." He still sounded brittle.

After they had rinsed the mugs and started to walk back, he suddenly said, "Is Toreth married?" It had the sound of a question he'd been trying to think of a subtle entry for, and given up.

"
Toreth
?" Actually, her first instinct was to say, 'practically', but Payne still worked for Carnac, whatever he said and however nice he seemed. She'd learned her lesson there — no mentions of Warrick, or anything personal at all. "No, he isn't."

"Oh." He sounded pleased, and her heart sank as the other possible motive for the query occurred. She shouldn't interfere in Toreth's plans, assuming he had any, but she felt she owed Payne for the coffee and sympathy. Instinct and caution warred briefly.

"He's —" He's a professional bastard who specialises in fucking married men, the more happily married the better. "He's anything but married. He's really not the type for fidelity."

Maybe that would be a warning of sorts. At least she'd tried to do something.

When Toreth had finished with Carnac, he went back to his office, intending to ask Sara to start organising the releases. She wasn't at her desk and, to his surprise, he found Major Bell waiting inside his office. She was sitting at his desk, looking perfectly at home.