Z 2134

cleared his throat and said, “How do you know Liam Harrow?”
    Part of Ana’s silence was defiance; most was fear. The little she had left was simply because she had no idea what she should say.
    Chief Keller continued. “What do you know about Liam? And most importantly, Ms. Lovecraft,” he cleared his throat, “where is he?”
    Duncan had told her to tell the truth. But Duncan could be dead for all she knew, and Keller wasn’t wearing a helmet to help him detect her lie — though his icy eyes promised that his gaze was probably enough.
    “I’ve known Liam forever,” she said. “We went to academy together years ago, before he went to the orphanage.”
    “How well do you know him?”
    “Not well,” she shook her head.
    “But you know him well enough to attend church together, is that correct?”
    Ana couldn’t swallow, or speak. She could barely breathe. “What do you mean?” she finally managed, choking on her saliva and coughing, surely giving herself away as a liar.
    “You know exactly what I mean, Ms. Lovecraft. The church where you were seen together is a known sanctuary for anarchists.” Keller said it like it was a fact, without any room for defense.
    Ana shook her head, then stared into his icy eyes. “You have me confused with someone else,” she said. “Maybe a friend of my father’s.”
    Keller held her stare, still calm. He said, “I don’t know why you’re protecting him, Anastasia. He’s an anarchist. He killed eight people in the church, including a child. In cold blood. You must know your friend is a murderer?”
    Ana tried to hide the anger that must’ve been painting her face. Keller was lying — Ana had seen The Watchers open fire. That was NOT a planted memory. Her upper lip twitched, begging her mouth to cry foul on his lie, hating him most for using the word anarchist to define The Underground, something her father had been a part of.
    Her father wasn’t an anarchist. He believed in the law.
    But perhaps not The City’s law.
    “I don’t know him well,” Ana said. “But that definitely doesn’t sound like Liam from the little I know.” Ana held his eyes.
    “Ah, well then,” Chief Keller said, his voice pleasant. “You must not know him that well at all. For he, and all the rats who scurry beneath the hard-working feet of the rest of us, are precisely what’s wrong with the world. They are the vermin who destroy The City from within. Their corrupt thoughts, their evil deeds, and their devotion to their anarchic cause, no matter what the cost.”
    Keller pursed his lips, turned, and left her cell for a moment.
    He returned holding a thin, sleek black pad, the kind that people with homes read, played games, and watched TV on. It began to display photos of dead bodies from the church — starting with The Watchers, their helmets all removed, showing the faces of young men who didn’t look nearly as sinister as their helmets suggested. Ana wondered if the Underground had removed the helmets to get rid of any video recorded by them, a smart move she’d not even considered.
    “Anarchists have no respect for rules, or doctrine, or laws. Democracy, totalitarianism, socialism, capitalism — everything is ‘evil’ to them. And order is always wrong. Anarchists abhor rules, Anastasia. But no rules means no safety, and in the year 2134, no safety means certain death.”
    As he said death, the final photo showed Iris, turned up, clothes stripped, and a huge, gaping hole in her chest. Her eyes were open in a permanent gaze.
    Ana looked away.
    Keller cleared his throat.
    “So, you do have a heart, then? You don’t agree that any action is worth the cost then, right?”
    She said nothing.
    “Anarchy will never work because humans will never earn their Utopia, and all ideals ultimately end in selfish exploitation. Nine years ago, my eight-year-old boy Joshua, my only son, was murdered by The Underground rebels — a bomb blasted shrapnel into his skull, killing him and 16 others instantly. We had been watching the parade just a moment before; he was squeezing my pinky like he always did when he couldn’t wait to see what was about to happen.”
    The horror of Keller’s memory, frozen in his icy eyes, made Ana wish she were anywhere else in the world, maybe even outside The Wall.
    “Joshua would be 17 now,” he continued, the emotion gone from his voice, fading as fast as it had appeared. “That’s how old you are, correct?”
    Ana nodded.
    He cleared his