Chapter 28
Chapter 28
No one announced the split. At the upper terrace, aides led the adults below for a secure briefing on Houston’s reconstruction and defenses. Another aide guided Serana and Jacques back toward the motorcade. An officer in a black uniform approached from the memorial side. His insignia marked him as Collective military police. He stopped in front of Louis, Angelique, and Gladice, then saluted Gladice first.
“Sergeant Simington. Miss Bourbon. Mr. Collins. If you’ll come with me. The Civic Vigilance Program is ready.”
The officer led them to a narrow access route beside the memorial hall. The walls came closer. The lights turned white. The air cooled by several degrees.
At the first checkpoint, the officer led them through a half-height security gate. It opened, let them pass, and sealed behind them. The second checkpoint had biometric scanning stations. One of the officers glanced at the shape of Louis’s pistol under his jacket and waved him through. The guard nodded Angelique and Gladice through without comment.
“Special children,” Gladice murmured.
At the third checkpoint, the officer stopped before another sealed door.
“Welcome, visitors. You are now entering the Extermination Training Facility. For your safety, please follow me and remain on the marked path at all times. No recordings, photos, or transmission are permitted without authorization. If at any point you feel unwell, signal the officer nearest to you.”
His tone did not change when he said the name. Angelique’s face did not change. Louis’s pulse kicked once.
Gladice looked ahead. “Most people just call it the killing ground.”
The final blast door unlocked in stages. When the doors parted, the space beyond was so large that Louis needed a second to understand its logic. It was a huge underground chamber. The bottom had been arranged like a ruined street, with broken walls, burned-out vehicles, and trenches for people to run through or hide behind. Around the perimeter, firing positions looked down on it from behind thick concrete walls.
The officer stopped and let them look.
“Over five thousand executions have been carried out in this facility,” he said. “The program coordinates with the military court and certain designated Collective security authorities.”
He gestured to the left, where a line of small holding cells had been set behind a black security gate. “Convicted detainees are processed through the east wing before being released into the exercise yard for terminal action. Today’s program is observational unless participation is requested and authorized. Any questions?”
Louis stared down into the killing ground and thought of the locket. He did not have a question. He had a realization. In the Dominion, the prison system could be anything but transparent. It was designed to disappear people into behavioral labs and data farms where they could be used indefinitely. In the Collective, the punishment of death was turned into an institution that trained other people how to commit it efficiently.
Angelique’s gaze moved across the floor. “What kind of detainees are processed here?”
“High-value threats to the Collective,” the officer said. “Mostly terror-linked individuals or collaborators with the Army of the Covenant. A small percentage are violent repeat criminals whose conduct is judged incorrigible.”
She nodded once. “How many are scheduled today?”
“Three, Miss Bourbon. The first detachment is already in holding. Execution begins in twenty minutes.” He glanced at his watch, then back at the three of them. “You are welcome to observe from any of the viewing stations.” He pointed at the reinforced glass booths set into the eastern wall above the yard. “Or, if you prefer, you may wait in the command lounge.”
Louis kept looking at the holding wing. From this distance, he could only see narrow cells behind reinforced mesh. Now that he knew what they were, he could not stop imagining people inside them. Beside him, Angelique said nothing. She kept looking at the field below, her face still. Gladice stretched and rolled one shoulder, looking more bored than disturbed.
Louis looked again toward the cells. Above ground, the memorial had tried to force grief through scale. Down here, the state had solved the opposite problem by reducing death to management. He thought of the names wall and the locket. Then he looked at the holding cells again. He wanted to know who they were before they were pushed out under the lights and shot while they ran.
“Do they speak to anyone before this?” he asked.
The officer turned his head toward him. “Sir?”
“Before the execution.” Louis kept his eyes on the holding wing. “Do they speak to anyone? A chaplain. A lawyer. An officer.”
The man’s expression did not change. “Final procedural review is conducted in holding. Any spiritual request is handled beforehand if authorized. Once they enter the ground, there is no further exchange unless required for control.”
Louis nodded once, but did not look away. For a moment he thought that was all he was going to say. Then he looked again toward the holding cells. He could not see the detainees. Still, the thought stayed with him: the refusal to let a person become only an object after the system had finished naming them.
Louis turned at last.
“Can I talk to the prisoners?”
The officer did not answer immediately. Gladice crossed her arms and tilted her head. Angelique lifted her eyes from the yard to Louis.
“To all of them, sir?” the officer asked.
The words sounded strange once they were out. He corrected himself.
“No. One of them.” He paused. “Before you begin.”
The officer did not react. He looked once toward Gladice, then toward the control station.
“May I ask your intention, sir?”
Louis looked past him toward the cells.
“Curiosity.” He met the man’s eyes. “I think they deserve one honest conversation before the end. If that’s allowed.”
The officer stood still for a moment longer. Then he said, “I will need to clear it with the duty officer. Please wait here.”
He went to a station at the far end of the platform and spoke into a console. Louis waited. The officer returned a minute later.
“Permission has been granted on the condition that you are escorted and that the conversation does not exceed ten minutes. You may speak to the detainee of your choice. Only one.” He looked at Louis for a moment longer. “Do you understand the parameters, sir?”
Louis nodded.
“Very well. Follow me.”
They stopped at the first cell door. The officer gestured once. “You may choose.”
Louis looked inside. The prisoner was a young man, no older than he was, with short dark hair and hollow cheeks. He sat on the bench with his hands between his knees. He stared back at Louis without interest, then away again.
Louis moved to the next door. A woman sat with her back against the wall, her knees up, her head bowed. He could not see her face clearly. In the third cell, an older gray-bearded man sat cross-legged on the floor, hands open on his knees. His eyes were closed.
Louis hesitated for a moment, then stepped back to the first cell.
“This one,” he said.
The officer nodded.
“Prisoner 5293. Stand and face front.”
The young man stood slowly. His face stayed still. His eyes moved to Louis. The officer opened the small security hatch in the door. The young man looked through the narrow opening at Louis, then Angelique, then Gladice, and back again. His eyes settled on Louis.
“What do you want?” he said. His voice was hoarse.
Louis leaned closer to the hatch. He kept his voice low. “What’s your name?”
The man snorted. “You don’t need my name.”
“I’d like to have it.”
“Call me 5293. That’s what they do.”
Louis looked at him for a moment. “I’m not them.”
“Sure you are. You’re here, aren’t you?”
Louis ignored the bait. “How long have you been in this cell?”
“Yesterday.” The man shrugged. “Maybe two days. Time’s hard to count in here.”
“Where are you from?” Louis asked.
“Does it matter?”
“Maybe.”
“Little Rock.”
Louis nodded. “You have family there?”
A pause. “My parents and brother.”
“Do they know you’re here?”
“They know I serve the Lord’s work.”
Louis studied his face. “The Army of the Covenant.”
“Always.”
Louis was quiet for a moment. Then, “What’s your favorite color?”
The man blinked. “What?”
“Your favorite color. What is it?”
The man looked at him for a moment, then gave a short breath through his nose.
“Blue,” he said.
“Like the sky?”
“Like the ocean. I never saw the ocean, but that’s what I mean.”
Louis nodded again. “Do you like music?”
The man stared at him. “What are you doing?”
“Talking to you,” Louis said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re about to die. And I think you deserve to have a conversation before you do.”
The man let out a short, bitter laugh. “You think this is a kindness? I don’t need your pity.”
“It’s not pity,” Louis said. “It’s curiosity.”
“About what?”
“About you. Who you were before this. What you liked. What you wanted.”
The man leaned forward slightly, his eyes hardening. “I wanted the world to be washed clean. I wanted the Lord to judge the unrighteous and burn the filth out of His creation. That’s what I wanted. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”
Louis held his gaze. “No, I’d rather know about the person. The one who liked the color blue.”
The man’s expression shifted. “Why?”
“Because when the gun goes off,” Louis said, “I don’t want to remember only this. I want to remember that you were someone who had a favorite color and never saw the ocean.”
The silence between them stretched. Then the man’s face softened slightly.
“I liked fishing,” he said. “I used to go out with my dad on the lake. We’d sit there all day and catch nothing. He always said it wasn’t about the fish.” He paused. “I liked it anyway.”
Louis nodded. “What else?”
“I liked the way my mother made cornbread. No one makes it like her.” The man looked down at his hands. “And I liked a girl once. Her name was Emily.”
“What happened to her?”
“Burned in the square at Little Rock three years ago. They said she fornicated with a man.” He said in a flat voice. “She was sixteen.”
Louis swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She deserved it. We all do.”
Louis stood in silence for a moment. Then he said, “My name is Louis.”
The man looked up. “Why are you telling me that?”
“Because I want you to know who you’re talking to.”
The man stared at him, then nodded once. “Alright, Louis.”
Louis looked at him for another long second, trying to memorize the face behind the number. Then he said, quietly, “Thank you for speaking with me.”
The man gave a short nod. The officer closed the hatch.
Louis turned away. Angelique was looking at him. She nodded. Gladice watched him too. The smile was gone. He turned to the officer.
“Can we go back to the viewing station?”
The officer gestured ahead. “Yes, sir.”
The officer led them to a viewing station above the central floor. Below them, several firing bays already held young Collective soldiers in black ear protection and light training armor. Some looked barely older than Louis. They stood behind the concrete slits with rifles at low ready.
Another officer entered the booth from the rear access door.
“Visitors,” he said. “The extermination process will begin in four minutes. Please remain behind the glass and do not touch the panels.”
Louis kept his eyes on the eastern gate below. Three narrow release doors were set into the far retaining wall at ground level. Each had a short concrete pen in front of it. The doors were still shut.
The command officer glanced toward Gladice. “Sergeant Simington. Participation authority is available if requested.”
Louis turned his head. Gladice did not answer at once. She was watching the release doors. Then she said, “Which bay is open?”
The officer checked a tablet. “Bay Four. Sergeant.”
She gave one small nod. “I’ll take Four.”
Louis stared at her. She did not look at him. She extended her hand. An enlisted range aide stepped forward with ear protection and a rifle. Gladice took both. She checked the rifle, worked the action once, and put it over her shoulder.
Angelique glanced at her once. “You’ve done this before.”
Gladice put on the ear protection and answered without turning her head. “Of course I have. It’s part of new-recruit training here. You’ve never fired at a man?”
“No,” Angelique said.
Gladice smiled. “Then today you get to see how it works.”
She headed for the lower-level access stairs without looking back. Below, the soldiers adjusted their footing and raised their rifles into the embrasures. Bay Four stayed dark a second longer than the others. Then Louis saw her.
Gladice appeared behind the concrete opening, half her face visible, one eye already on the sight, the rifle tight against her shoulder. The joking girl at lunch, the insolent daughter at dinner, the amused tormentor in the powder room—all of that had vanished completely. She had entered the system and become one of its working parts.
The command officer spoke into the booth’s wall mic.
“Ready ground.”
A low tone sounded through the chamber.
“Ready bays.”
The soldiers raised their rifles. The red lights above the three release doors shifted to white. All three doors unlocked at once and slammed back.
The prisoners came out. Each came into a separate sector of the yard under the same white industrial lights. The older man from the third cell was the first Louis saw clearly. He stepped into the open ground and looked up once at the chamber above him. He did not run at once.
The woman from the second cell came out low and fast, head down, already angling for the nearest culvert. Then 5293 came through the center gate. Louis had known he would run. He hit the ground at a sprint, shoulders tight, head low, running hard.
The first volley cracked from the bays. The woman veered sideways before she reached the culvert. A round struck the slab beside her shoulder and threw grit across her face. She threw herself behind a burned-out service barrier and vanished.
The older man took three more steps without hurrying. Then a burst from Bay Two struck the ground directly ahead of him and forced him to move. He broke left, quicker than Louis expected, and made for a line of staggered wall sections.
5293 reached the first canted slab before the second volley landed. He hit it hard, dropped flat, then moved again immediately. The soldiers in the lower bays had his range now. Rounds punched white marks into the concrete inches from his hand. He kept running.
Louis tightened his grip on the steel rail. 5293 cleared the slab and ran for the burned shell of an overturned transit vehicle near the center of the yard.
“Center lane, watch the right break,” said the command officer into the booth mic.
The soldier in Bay Three fired too quickly. The rounds went high and hammered sparks from the vehicle frame. Louis glanced toward Bay Four before he could stop himself. Gladice was still behind the concrete slit, rifle shouldered. She had not moved.
Below, the woman tried to run again and failed. She came up from behind the barrier and cut toward the trench line. Two rounds hit almost together, one in the side and one lower. She folded against the concrete edge. One arm dragged once against the floor, then stopped.
The older man reached the first wall segment and pressed one palm to it. Then he stepped back into the open lane instead of staying hidden. For one second, Louis thought he had chosen the line of fire on purpose. Then a round clipped his leg and he fell. He did not make a sound. He tried to rise. A round hit him in the back, then another. He went down and did not get up.
5293 was still moving. He had reached the transit shell and knew how to use it. He stayed low, cut across the rear wheel housing, disappeared, and reappeared at the opposite end. Then he broke toward the narrow culvert line. If he reached it clean, it might buy him another ten seconds.
A round clipped metal beside his head. Another punched through the rusted frame behind him. He ran harder. Louis heard himself breathe. Then 5293 committed to the open strip between the vehicle shell and the culvert entrance.
Bay Four fired. 5293’s upper body jerked back. The rounds hit high in his chest, just left of center. His stride broke. Momentum carried him forward three more short steps. Then he went down on one knee. One hand hit the gravel. The other lifted once and dropped.
Louis did not move from the rail. Then the side door to the booth opened. Gladice came back in with the rifle muzzle-down. An aide took it from her at once. She lifted the ear protection from her neck and set it on the bench by the wall. A faint smear of concrete dust marked one sleeve from the firing slit. Her breathing was steady. Her face looked the same.
Angelique looked at her first, then at Louis. No one spoke for several seconds. Below, one of the retrieval teams rolled 5293 carefully onto the stretcher. From this height he was already smaller than Louis remembered him being at the hatch. The body that had held blue, ocean, fishing, cornbread, Emily, Lord’s work, terror, all of it, had become manageable in under a minute.