“What now, Cain?” she spoke aloud, then realized how foolish that was. Its audio function hadn’t been used in years.

One of the several compartments in Cain’s handle slid out, displaying a tiny remote control: the manual override key for Marta’s car. How had that gotten in there? Lindsay stooped, leaning on the hood for balance, and fished it out. A firm press with her thumb and the car unlocked. Marta should be more careful with such things. Most people would keep such seldom-used items in their home wall safe. This house safe’s pass code would take a long time for anyone to crack, even a software whiz like herself.

She got in on the driver’s side, although she supposed it didn’t really matter which side since there was, jarringly, no steering wheel.

“Trigger audio,” said Cain’s glowing letters. She obediently opened the stiff flap below Cain’s handle and pressed the command override sequence on the entry pad. She hadn’t done that in a very long time but that was one alphanumeric she always could recall—derived from the date of her own mother’s death.

“Car, go to Mercy General Hospital via Country Road Seven right now,” Cain said, in a perfect imitation of Marta’s voice.

“I don’t need the hospital. I’m fine. Cancel that!” Silly Cain. Maybe its programming had finally corrupted. That wasn’t even the shortest route.

The car ignored her command and rolled out into traffic. Her voice wasn’t part of its command structure, that was obvious. Oh well. Maybe she could get a nice hot cup of coffee at the hospital cafeteria, although they likely didn’t have real cream.

The suburbs gave way to a small fringe of trees, then farmland. A nice day for a drive. Hardly any other vehicles. Lindsay wondered where she was headed and where Marta had gotten to. Warm and comfortable, she snuggled down in her seat.

When the car pulled into a tiny side road, she was thrown forward a bit against her seatbelt. Maybe the car had a flat tire? Or it was out of gas? No, no, those things didn’t happen anymore, what with hybrid engines and back-up solar panels on the roof.

Cain was blinking again.

“It’s time. Take these pills, please.” Cain said in the warm contralto she’d programmed so many years ago. A lower compartment opened in the stem. Five white pills with tiny numbers on them were arranged in a circle. Who would have put those there? They would taste so dry going down. Lindsay looked around the car. Oh, good, there was a cup of water in the holder. Lindsay got all five pills down, a sip of water with each, like a child taking medicine.

Cain winked at her and displayed some code. Lindsay squinted, reading rapidly. Cain was shutting down the newly-installed minder program, and setting an hour’s delay before Mercy General would receive an automated alert. And Cain was loading an audio speech—the first words were her full legal name then a bunch of legalese—and setting it to play in exactly one hour. Funny coincidence, but they were parked about an hour away from the hospital. She hoped Cain knew what it was doing. The screen faded out and the comforting green light returned.

The car pulled back onto the county road and sped along smoothly. It did have a pleasant ride. Modern shock absorbers were very well made. More fields and farmland. She was so warm and sleepy. She began to slide into black and her grip on the cup loosened.

She never heard it fall.

Holly Schofield travels through time at the rate of one second per second, oscillating between the alternate realities of city and country life. Her fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, AE, Unlikely Story, and many other publications throughout the world. For more of her work, see hollyschofield.wordpress.com.

Senseless

Gary Gibson

Art: Dave Alexander

Bill tasted the sweet, sharp scent of violence in the back of his throat just a moment before the fight broke out—although calling it a fight was stretching it, given O’Hare was a notorious sociopathic from Hut Thirteen and Ade, the object of his ire, was a skinny little guy on crutches who could hardly stand straight, let alone defend himself.

Bill heard O’Hare’s guttural roar as he grabbed hold of Ade and sent him tumbling to the canteen floor, his crutches clattering down beside him. Bill reacted without thinking. He threw his tin tray to one side and shoved O’Hare in the back as hard as he could with both hands. O’Hare lost his balance, his cheap prison-issue boots performing a complicated shuffle as he tried to stay upright. He collided with a kitchen trolley, sending dishes scattering across the tiles with a noise like cymbals thrown down a stairwell.

A whistle shrieked, cutting through the yells of the other prisoners. Guards seized hold of Bill, twisting his arms behind his back and dragging him out into the freezing autumn air. They came to a halt and he listened as they unlocked a door before shoving him inside.

He sprawled on icy concrete, listening as the guards locked the door again before retreating back across the compound.

He waited there, shivering and hungry, for three days before another guard brought him a bowl of hot broth that sank down his throat like a tiny burning star. He’d barely had time to taste it before his wrists were cuffed behind his back and he was led back across the prison compound and inside the main building, recognisable by its distinctive echoes. There he waited, the guard’s hand never leaving his shoulder, until a buzzer sounded and he was led through a door.

“You’re new,” he said, standing at the threshold of the interrogation room.

“How do you know?” The woman’s voice had a slight Scottish lilt to it. “It says in your records that you’re blind, Mister Sharpe.”

“I…” Bill realised he’d slipped badly. Hunger and cold would do that to you. “I just guessed.”

The truth was that Bill knew everyone in the camp by their scent, and hers was unfamiliar, burdened as it was by the unusually rich perfume of the soap she had used that morning.

The guard led pushed Bill into a chair. He sat clumsily. He could sense, but not see, the desk before him, and the woman sitting behind it. He pictured her as having very white skin, with narrow lips and red hair pulled back in a tight bun above a National Unity uniform.

“My name is Hannegan,” she said. “I’m with the Office of Investigations. And you’re correct—I am new. So why don’t we start with you telling me why you attacked Mister O’Hare the other day?”

“He attacked Ade—I share a hut with him. Ade has to use crutches. It’s a struggle for him to stay upright or even hold onto a tray. I usually help him, but O’Hare pushed between us in line when we got there that morning. I guess he got tired of waiting for Ade to collect his morning ration.”

“Who is this Ade?”

“Adebayo,” said Bill.

“Ah.” Bill heard the sound of a pencil pressed against paper. “Adebayo Afolayan. An African. Another Senseless.”

“He’s from Leeds, not Africa.”

The guard, still standing behind him, cuffed Bill across the back of the head. “Don’t try and be smart.”

“And that was reason enough for you to attack Mister O’Hare?” Hannegan pressed.

“Ade is on crutches,” said Bill. “How the hell was he going to defend himself? He’s disabled!”

“Yes, but no one is disabled unless they choose to be,” the woman pointed out.

“It’s not his choice to” Bill managed to stop himself before the rest of the words slipped out.

Fingers tapped on a desktop. “But it is his choice,” Hannegan continued, with more than a hint of satisfaction. “The same as it’s your choice to be blind. Give us even just one name, and I’ll have you taken to the clinic right now and have your eyesight restored.” He heard her chair creak beneath her. “According to these records, you’ve held out on us for two years. I’d almost think, Mister Sharpe, that you like being blind. You can go now.”

The guard pulled Bill up and out of his seat before leading him back across the room.

“Oh, and if you don’t mind me asking,” said Hannegan, just before the guard pulled the door open again, “how did you know Mister O’Hare attacked your friend, and not someone else?”

Bill didn’t turn around. “I didn’t. Someone told me after the fact.”

“Who, Mister Sharpe? You were immediately placed in solitary for several days. There’s no one who could have told you.”

Bill shrugged, working to make the gesture look casual. “I guess someone shouted his name.”

On the way back out, Bill caught Ade’s scent, and guessed he was next to be interviewed. The guard led him back out past the canteen building, then further uphill to the shale-roofed wooden hut that had been his home on the island for the last hundred weeks. As soon as he was inside and the guard was gone, he felt Owen’s fingers pressing against his bare forearm, tracing out letters.

Big problem, wrote Owen. Someone new coming.

“I know,” Bill said, turning to where he knew Owen was. They’d made Owen deaf as well as mute, but he’d learned to be an efficient lipreader. “I just met her. Hannegan. She must be the new interrogator.”