Z 2134

to be strong.
    For Adam.

    Ana was leaving the horrible scenarios behind and turning her mind to possible solutions when the van finally slowed, then stopped. The doors opened.
    “Out!” one of two Watchers said in a crisp warble coming from the mask. Both Watchers aimed their sticks at Ana, as though a 98-pound girl was a serious threat.
    They were in the underground parking of the City Watch Tower, packed with trucks, cars, and a few motorcycles. Ana had never seen so many vehicles up close, or in one place. Most people didn’t own, or even ride them. She’d only been in a vehicle three times before, back when her father was assigned to chauffeur some visiting official from another City and was able to bring the vehicle home.
    “Go!” The order was followed by a stick’s jab at her back. Thankfully, they hadn’t delivered a shock with the blow.
    Ana wanted to turn and yell but was cuffed and alone. She did as she was told, stepping through a sliding door and then into a long hall.
    Ana crossed the hall, then was thrust into a room where she was surrounded by four Watchers, all of whom held her down and ripped the clothes from her body like the husk from an ear of corn. She screamed, fighting with her feet, sure they were trying to rape her.
    The pair of guards who had brought her in stood behind Ana while a new pair in front shoved her face down to the ground, pulled her underwear past her ankles, then cast them without ceremony to the floor. Her head was shoved down, so she couldn’t see as they spread her legs apart. Gloved fingers were suddenly invading her, inside and rooting around, searching for God knows what.
    She screamed at the violation, kicked, and cried, but nothing would stop them.
    They flipped her over, and she cried out, staring at her reflection in their helmets as they moved their hands from her middle to her mouth.
    Ana gagged, nearly puked, until the four Watchers were finally satisfied that she wasn’t hiding anything in her body.
    “Get up!” one of them barked, then roughly shoved her into a small chamber where she was hosed with scalding water, so hot it made her scream, thinking she was being set on fire.
    She was yanked from the shower, then thrust into another room and ordered to put on a pair of bright orange coveralls before being marched into a slightly nicer-looking suite where she was photographed and scanned for processing. From there, she was led to a tiny cell, where Ana spent the next 12 or so hours, cold, wide awake, angry, and terrified.
    Her cell was just long enough to hold a thin bed and wide enough to squeeze a toilet beside it. Fortunately, Ana wasn’t claustrophobic, or she would have suffered insanity within minutes. Even so, the walls felt as if they were closing in around her, like the clenched fist of her life squeezing her future to nothing.
    Her cell didn’t lock like the van door and wasn’t like the cells she’d seen on TV and old movies, with the rows of thin metal bars. Her prison was made from a large, paneled alloy wall, with a thin and rather long rectangular window resting at the top. Her cell was small, but no smaller than the many others running along either side of a stretching hallway. She wasn’t sure if she was alone but had yet to hear anyone else in the block since her arrival. All the walls were an ugly muddy gray, so dull they had likely once been white but had absorbed the millions of molecules worth of pain from the wretched souls trapped within the walls before her.
    Chimney Rock was City 7 in comparison to the prison.
    After an eternity, the alloy wall finally parted, and Ana’s cell was opened. A man in a vaguely official-looking gray uniform stepped inside, and the paneled wall closed behind him. Unlike The Watchers, the man wore no helmet. He was tall, with a long, square face, and looked close to her father’s age. His hair was cut short and severe up top, with a splash of silver on either side highlighting his jug-like ears. His jaw jutted from his face like a hardback book, and his nose was long and sharp like the blade of a knife.
    He was both the ugliest, and scariest, man Ana had ever seen.
    And as he stepped into her cell, and his icy dark eyes met hers, she felt a chill run through her entire body.
    “My name is City Watch Chief Keller,” he said. “Perhaps you’ve heard of me? I was once your father’s boss.”
    “No,” Ana said, shaking her head.
    The chief was apparently in a hurry for answers. He