When We Wake (22 page)

“It makes sense. If this goes well, you’ll be a public figure. An army success story. They really need one, after all the complaints that they can’t keep the northern borders closed. Australia for Australians are calling them cowards.”

“Oh, Lord,” I whispered. “Give me strength.”

“Um, it might just be rumors, but there’s also talk about a shadow documentary shot by a live-in crew. Maybe a government-funded Tegan Tour around Australia and to troops stationed overseas.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Why don’t they just make dolls with my face on them and sell them to raise money?”

“Um. If it helps, the profits will probably go to charity.”

“You’re kidding. You’re
kidding
me.”

“It could all be random ontedy. People say a lot of stuff on the tubes.”

“But you don’t think it is.”

“Not all of it,” Bethari said. “Tegan, you’re really valuable to them. People think you’re cute. Even when you get things wrong, they think it’s kind of sweet, the past-timer messing things up.”

“Like a toy,” I said. “Like a
pet
.”

Someone knocked on the door.

“Go away, Tatia!”

“It’s me,” Marie’s voice said. “May I come in?”

“I have to go,” I told Bethari.

“Oh no. Sorry about the worst encouraging phone call ever. Joph and I are watching from her place, and we’re wishing you luck.”

“Thanks.” I signed off. “Come in, Marie.”

She slipped in the door. Even though she wasn’t going to be on camera, Tatia had insisted on dressing her in a dark red gown accented with glowing microfibers. Marie looked very beautiful, and very uncomfortable.

“He’s here,” she said. “Are you ready?”

“No. But I’d better go up anyway. Are you going to watch?”

“I’ll be standing right behind Tatia and Colonel Dawson,” she promised.

I squared my shoulders and felt the heavy fabric move across my body. “All right, then. Let’s do it.”

Personalizing me to my audience required a cozy, home location.
My
cozy home. Professional cleaners had polished Marie’s already spotless kitchen and added a bowl of citrus fruit to the bench for color and light. The table had been removed, and a couch had been brought in.

I saw at a glance that the spindly legs and elaborate brocade upholstery were meant to bolster my image as a fairy-tale princess.

Carl Hurfest stood to greet me. His eyes gleamed as he took in my makeover. “Hello again, Tegan,” he said, and then paused deliberately. “Wait, it’s Teeg, isn’t it?”

Don’t lose your temper
, I thought, and we began.

I’m sure anyone who’s still watching this has already seen the interview. Maybe most of you just want to know what I was thinking.

The problem was, of course, that I wasn’t. I was white-hot with fury, rage burning all the common sense—and definitely all of Tatia’s training—right out of my head.

I don’t see why I should have to go over it again when you can play the ’cast any time you like, but as I’ve been told more than once, people need things to be personalized.

They like the inside story.

Carl Hurfest started with the easy questions. How do you feel? Are you physically okay? Do you like school? The answers
tripped off my tongue. Tatia definitely knew her stuff, and after the first ten minutes, I began to relax into it. Hurfest was sticking, word-perfect, to the questions he’d had vetted.

So when he moved on to the harder ones, looking very grave as he gazed at me, I stayed relaxed and answered well.

No, I couldn’t remember what it was like to die. Yes, I’d been confused and disoriented when I ran from my excellent caregivers and into that first press conference. Of course, I was very grateful to the people who had helped me adjust to life in the twenty-second century.

“And what do you think of the world now, as opposed to the one you left?”

“Some things are different, of course,” I said.

“The climate?”

“Yes. It was much cooler in my time. The oceans were lower. You could grow different crops in different places.”

“Do you eat meat, Teeg?” Hurfest asked, and I felt the faint stirrings of alarm. It was the first question that hadn’t been explicitly included on the list. But Tatia had anticipated this one, and I was prepared for it.

“Not anymore. I agree that it’s wasteful and destructive.”

“You’re not worried about it from the point of view of ethical animal treatment?”

I blinked. “I would have given it up at home, if that was true.”

“You said home. Do you still think of the past as your home?”

I forced myself to relax and pulled out the bashful smile Tatia had made me practice until my cheeks went numb. “I lived
there for sixteen years,” I said. “It would be hard not to and, I think, disrespectful to the memory of my family and past-timer friends if I didn’t. Melbourne today is my home, too.” Behind him, I could see Tatia’s nod.

Hurfest smiled in apparent approval. I wasn’t fooled; I knew an enemy when I saw one.

“I understand that you have a religious affiliation,” he said.

Another of the vetted questions. “Yes,” I began. “I’m Roman Catholic, though not at present a member of any particular congre—”

“Roman Catholics believe in the resurrection of the body, don’t they?”

“Uh, sure,” I said, caught off guard by the interruption, then, “Yes, that’s what I was taught.”

“And that the body will be immortal and made perfect by God, and the souls of those already dead will be reunited with these perfect bodies?”

I fell back on an all-purpose answer. “My faith is a source of great personal comfort.”

He pounced. “Then would you agree with the Inheritors of the Earth that your soul is currently in the keeping of your God, while your current imperfect body is a mockery of his power to resurrect the dead and you should therefore commit suicide to return to his keeping?”

I felt my face freeze into place. “Obviously, I would not.”

“Would you agree that this belief doesn’t actually contradict Roman Catholic teachings?”

“You’d have to ask a priest,” I said tightly. From Tatia’s
rictuslike grin and emphatic nodding, I wasn’t smiling enough. I tried to force the corners of my mouth up.

“I more or less did. The Inheritors of the Earth derive much of their doctrine from Roman Catholic—”

“But they’re not,” I said.

“I think we can agree that—”

“You can agree if you like, Carl,” I said, almost purring the words. “But I identify as Roman Catholic, not as a member of a sect that broke away from the church sixty years ago. I believe in religious tolerance on every level. The Inheritors are entitled to their theology, but I am not spiritually obliged to live—or die—in accordance with their doctrine.”

And thank god that Tatia had included that impro tree in my training. My untutored response would probably have been something similar to, “Those bastards can shut the hell up about me killing myself for the love of God anytime they like.”

“What do you feel about the army spending so much money on Operation New Beginning when they’ve only managed to resurrect one teenage girl?”

“I’m very happy I get a second chance, and I hope our soldiers will, too.”

“But it’s been billions of dollars, Tegan. You’ve cost this country an enormous amount.”

“I’m very grateful,” I said, forcing the words out through my stiff smile.

It made sense that Hurfest was playing this note over and over—it was what had made me lose it in that first “interview.” I had been warned about this. But I hated him, and I was furious,
and having gotten me to that emotional straining point, this was when he chose to break me entirely.

“What do you think of the No Migrant policy, Tegan?”

Tatia was making a gesture that meant All-Purpose Reply #3.

All-Purpose Reply #3 was, “I think policy should be left to policymakers.”

“I think No Migrant is disgusting,” I said. Tatia began waving her hands at me so fast, I thought they might detach from her wrists.

Hurfest had perked right up. “Because your resurrection contravenes the stated aims of the policy, which are to preserve Australian resources for Australians? What do you think of the allegations of—”

“I
am
Australian, you dick,” I said. “I think it’s disgusting because Australia’s resources could provide for thousands of starving people, and we’re just letting them starve.”

Hurfest looked, for the first time, sincerely taken aback. Then he leaned forward, eyes gleaming. “The policy argument seems to be that Australians can’t be held responsible for—”

“You wanna bet?” I said. “Australia’s been exploiting the developing world for generations, supporting conditions of war and famine and disease, and now we get to feel smug about it and call them dirty thirdies? I don’t think so.”

“Quite a change of heart, Tegan! Did it come about because of your association with Abdi Taalib?”

I ignored him and twisted to look directly into the bumblecam. “Do you people even know what’s happening?” I demanded.

It’s kind of a big blur to me now. Part of me was calmly
watching as everything I’d discovered, every horrible fact and stupefying human-rights abuse, spilled right from my lips. But most of me was in a white-hot rage. The thing was that all these disasters were so obvious; no conspiracies involved. Anyone could have found them in the same search that I’d done. So what was it? Did they not know, or did they not care? Hurfest didn’t even try to interrupt, recoiling as the words kept coming.

By the end I was shouting. “I am ashamed of you!” I yelled. “You are not the future I wanted. I can’t believe the same stupid shit is still happening. I wanted you to be better! Be better!”

“Stop, Tegan, stop!” someone was saying, shaking my shoulders until my head snapped back and forth.

It was Dawson. Hurfest was being hustled out of the room, his camera with him. He seemed to be caught between yelling more questions at me and protesting his right to free speech, but Zaneisha did not appear to be inclined to listen to objections.

“Escort Mr. Hurfest home, Sergeant Washington,” Dawson snapped at her. “And make sure he stays there. Tatia, you can leave.”

“Save me from the ones with
convictions
,” Tatia said, sweeping out. “Good-bye, Teeg. I knew you’d come to a bad end.”

“You stupid,
vicious
little girl,” Dawson said, and shook me again.

Marie was tugging on his arms. “Stop it, Trevor!”

His hands sprang away from my shoulders as if I were something unclean. “Why would you do that? Why would you destroy all your credibility?”

“It was the truth,” I said.

“Truth! We didn’t put you on camera to speak the truth! We needed a pretty face!”

“Well, tough,” I snapped. “You got me instead. I guess your little clockwork doll broke down.”

“You’re going back to the base. Tonight. No more school, no more sleepovers. You will do what you are told, when you are told, and—”

“Colonel Dawson! I won’t permit it!”

“Dr. Carmen, don’t push me. This little bitch may have just scuttled the operation, do you realize? We haven’t gotten the results we promised, and she’s obviously unstable.” He whirled and leaned over me. “You’re going to spend a long, long time underground, Tegan Oglietti.” His pupils were huge, dilated with fury.

“Screw
you
,” I said, and shoved him with all my strength.

He staggered back a few steps, and I jumped to my feet, meaning to make a run for it.

But I stopped dead.

I was looking down the business end of a very shiny, very deadly looking weapon. Not a sonic pistol. The same kind of weapon that had killed the Inheritor in the foyer of a church.

“
Trevor
,” Marie breathed.

“Shut up, Marie. I won’t shoot if I don’t have to.”

“What are you doing?” I said. My hands were at my sides; I moved them carefully up to shoulder height.
Watch the eyes
, Zaneisha had told me, but I discovered it was hard to stop
looking at the barrel of a gun. With an effort, I shifted my gaze to Dawson’s face instead. It was just as hard, just as inflexible as the weapon. The anger was gone, replaced by a calm certainty, and that was even scarier.