Prisoner of Glass (4 page)

“Okay.
 
Then
what
are you?”

“What we are, is who we are.”

Exasperated, Elspeth said, “Okay.
 
Fine.
 
You want to play
word games
?
 
Good for you.”
 
After a moment she added, “I’m not supposed to be here.
 
You’ve made a mistake.
 
You think I’m someone else.”

She heard the voice smile.
 
“Your name is Elspeth Lune.
 
Doctor
Elspeth Lune, actually.
 
Yes.
 
We have the correct person, alright.”

That surprised her.
 
She tried not to let dismay show on her face.

“Why am I here?”

“Doctor Lune … did you ever stop to consider your loyalties?”

The screen in front of her filled suddenly with the gushing colors of a film.
 
Music swelled.
 
The flag of the United States waved there: majestic, tranquil.

“I am a free woman,” Elspeth growled.
 

“
Are
you?” the man said.
 
“So you don’t think you’re citizen of the United States of America?
 
Do you claim to be a so-called ‘sovereign citizen’?”

“Do I …?”
 
That caught her off guard.
 
“No!
 
Of course not!
 
I never said
that
!
 
Why — is that what all this is about?
 
I’m an American!
 
I believe in the Constitution!”

“Then you’re
not
free, are you?
 
Your country now spies on its own citizens: everyone, all the time, with no warrant — just like the old Soviet bloc used to.
 
And any US citizen can now be imprisoned indefinitely without trial — all one has to do is declare someone an ‘enemy combatant’.
 
The Constitution actually means very little these days.”

“So I’m being held as an enemy combatant?
 
Is that it?”
 
When there was no answer, she said:
 
“Or maybe you’re Al Qaeda?
 
Why don’t you let me see what you look like?
 
You’re all middle-eastern-looking and you don’t want me to see?”

“The world is big place, Elspeth Lune.
 
Bigger than you think.
 
There are a lot of … competing world views.
 
Confusion.
 
Disagreement on what is to be done.”

“Yeah?
 
So?
 
What does that have to do with me?”

Laughter.
 
“We are the answer to the confusion.
 
You asked who we were.
 
What we are, is who we are
.
 
What we are is an answer to the abyss, an answer to the void.”

“Get me out of this chair.”

“You are valuable, Elspeth.
 
You are —“

“Do you have my husband?”

That shut them up for a moment.
 
The silence hung there emptily.
 

“Answer me!
 
Do you have Oscar, my husband?
 
Did you take him?
 
Is that why he vanished?
 
Is he here?
”

“No,” the voice said, somewhat quietly.
 
“No, we do not.
 
He is not here.”

That hurt her.
 
She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but that hurt her.
 
She didn’t realize how much hope it had been giving her: the possibility that Oscar was here and her imprisonment had somehow brought her closer to him.
 
But she believed the voice, as much as she did not want to.

“Okay.
 
Alright.
 
What about my pinkie?
 
You grew back my severed pinky.
 
How does that work?”

The grin was back.
 
It was self-satisfied, smug.
 
She could actually sense it in the darkness.
 
“Call it a gift,” the voice said.
 
“This place is not without its benefits.
 
But they can be removed, rescinded.
 
Consider this a friendly warning — you’re getting a ‘free one’, as they say.
 
Next time, when morning count is called, you will come out of your cell and present yourself — without incident, without protest, without a show.
 
Yes?”

Elspeth didn’t answer.
 
But this seemed to be good enough.
 

“Oh — and, I’ve given you the rest of the day off.
 
To acclimate to your new life and situation.
 
But tomorrow, your work starts.”

Then the owner of the hidden voice departed: she heard his footfall recede and then the slam of a door.
 
Elspeth’s restraints popped loose and the lights snapped off, plunging her into darkness.
 
But she was not left alone long: two guards appeared and wordlessly accompanied her back to cell block 1515.

WHEN SHE arrived, Titus peeked out from beneath his bed sheet.
 
After the guards left, he pulled back his covers, startling her.
 
“Where have you been?” she asked.

“Interrogation,” Titus said, groaning.
 
“They do that now and then.”
 
She could see bruises on his arms.

“Did they torture you?
 
Here.
 
Let me examine you.”

“No, no,” he protested, pushing her away.
 
“I’m fine.
 
Used to it.
 
Really.
 
How about you?”

“I’m okay,” she said.
 
“They beat me pretty hard … or at least I thought they did.
 
I must have been mistaken.”

“Well,” Titus said.
 
“That is a mystery.
 
But here: I have just the thing to take your mind off it.”
 
With that, he rose, limping a little, and approached the chess board Elspeth had noticed when she had first arrived.
 
“This is called Pantheon Chess.
 
It is played more or less like ordinary chess, except the pieces are representations of various gods and goddesses of various cultures.”

“Interesting,” Elspeth muttered, actually thinking it wasn’t very.

But Titus seemed somewhat intense about the subject.
 
He produced several wooden boxes from beneath the expansive wooden chess board.
 
“For example.
 
If you choose the Greek pieces, your King is Zeus; your Queen is Hera, your Rook is Hermes, and so on.
 
If you choose Norse pieces, then your King is Odin, your Queen is Freya, and so on.
 
You see?
 
One pantheon versus another!

“You could think of it as an actual war between the gods — or, at least, the cultures they represent.
 
That’s what ancient peoples thought, you know — when one land fought another, that their gods fought too.
 
What do you say?
 
Want to play?”

Elspeth took one look out of the front of her cell.
 
All of the other cells from top to bottom were completely deserted and empty: all of the other prisoners were at work.
 

She plopped down into one of the chairs and shrugged.
 
“Sure.
 
What else are we going to do?”

“Pick a pantheon,” Titus said, waving the boxes around.

“Okay … What’s that one?
 
The one with the eye thing on it?”

“You mean the Eye of Ra?”

“Yeah.
 
That
one.
 
I’ll be that.
 
What is it, anyway?”

“Egyptian,” Titus said, and then he grinned so widely that Elspeth feared he might smile his own head in half.
 
“You’ve chosen to be Egyptian.”

They played.
 
Elspeth won.

Afterward, she went back to sleep.
 
A new sort of exhaustion took her.

SHE WOKE at dinner time.
 

Titus was gone.
 
Probably eating.
 
That was fine.
 
She wanted some time alone anyway, some time to acclimate.
 
Looked like she was going to be here for a little while at least.

What intrigued her the most was something she’d only glimpsed earlier: a giant work of art on one of her walls, nearly one thousand hexagons, all neatly the same size, all interlocking and adjacent.
 

It was like looking at a giant beehive.
 
Only, these hexagons were annotated.
 
There were scribbles and drawings and notes and warnings and icons of all sorts.
 

It seemed to be a map.
 
But it was incomplete.
 
She felt as if she were looking at a representation of something only partially explored.
 
There were question marks around the edges.
 
And there were question marks inside many of the hexagons.
 

Near the very top was a hexagon drawn in bold red.
 
Inside of it was etched the hieroglyph of a honeybee.

She scanned the writing associated with certain hexagons, reading at random:

… Water trap.
 
Cannot survive without air.

… Lies grate on the ears, they are palpable.
 
Fighting is likewise impossible here.

… the Heliotrope Hexagon?

… 1882 is where
(illegible)

And finally, near one edge of the strange hexagon map, she saw a longish note.
 
It read:

The Glass Prison.
 
You are here.
 

That took her aback.
 
The Glass Prison?
 
Was that was this place was called?
 
What did that mean?
 
It certainly did not seem to be made of glass.
 
Or perhaps it referred to the Panopticon?
 
The fact that everything could be seen by those inhabiting the center?

And what did this map mean?

THREE: FIRST ITERATION

THE FIRST WEEK was the hardest.

Every day started with a shriek.
 
There was the Panopticon’s howling klaxon and a shout of burning, harsh white floodlight that body-slammed you awake.
 
Then came the groggy morning confusion —
where am I?
 
Why I am not in my own bed?
 

When Oscar had first vanished, she would wake and start talking to him … only to remember all over again that he wasn’t there.
 

Now, she would recall that she was imprisoned … and only
after
that, that Oscar was not with her.

Stab, and then stab again.
 
Deep depression soaked her soul.

The prisoners piled out for morning count, all lined up in neat little rows: human latitude lines encircling the innards of a stone moon.
 
Circles going up, circles going down.
 
The guards, in their black armor, ran out of the Panopticon, eager and shouting, quivering with
hoo-rah.
 

This time, Elspeth did as she was told.
 
She stepped out and stood quietly at attention.

The air inside of the hollowed-out moon was suddenly filled with hundreds of squawking parrots and parakeets.
 
They swirled this way and that, disturbed from their slumber by the cacophony of the morning rituals.
 

Impossible that tropical birds could stay alive in the cold of this place!

The prisoners all did their best to toe the line.
 
To count off loudly, to answer any question that a guard put to them clearly and quickly.
 
Nobody wanted to stand out.
 
But it didn’t matter: somebody got billy-clubbed every morning.

Then, it was off to breakfast.

On that first morning, no one would allow her to sit.
 
So she kept to herself while wolfing down her food, trying to make her oversized body scrunch up into a tinier fraction of itself.
 
An elephant hiding behind a teacup.

Conversation seemed to be permitted: the guards did not stop it.
 
Elspeth was starved for information; she dearly wanted to speak with one of the other prisoners.
 
How long have you been here?
 
Do you know what this place is?
 
Did we commit a crime?

But no one seemed interested in talking to her.

Then it was off to work.
 

Elspeth’s first few days were spent in laundry.
 
Heaps and piles of foul-smelling canvas or burlap clothing were brought in giant rolling bins.
 
Elspeth was led to a sink.
 
“Here,” a large, fleshy woman with a pin cushion of a face said gruffly.
 
“You wash them — one at a time!
 
Get the soap in there real good.
 
Beat them out on this board here with the grooves in it.
 
Then rinse, rinse, rinse!
 
I don’t want to see any soap left after!
 
Then, wring them out real nice and hand them off to Duffy here, who’ll take it over to drying.
 

“You quota is two bins a day.
 
Don’t stare at me, stretch!
 
Get washing!”

Elspeth went to work.
 
By lunch, she hadn’t cleared even half of one bin yet.
 
Exhausted, she returned to the canteen with the others.