Free Aftermath by Ann Aguirre Page A

her a primitive look.
    “You have a lot of implants.”
    I shrug. That’s not illegal unless I use them to avoid incarceration.
    She hands me a datapad. “Please describe the nature and purpose of each.”
    As requested, I take it and tap in the information. She skims, then asks, “Two pieces of experimental tech? How can we validate the truth of your claims?”
    “Commander March can verify.”
    Right now, she only knows about the regulatory implant and my language chip. For obvious reasons, I didn’t mention the nanites. Those don’t show up on routine checks, and I can only imagine what she’d say if she found out.
    “Pardon me,” she says.
    A privacy partition goes up around her desk, and the rest of her office goes into lockdown, just in case I take the notion to try to go back out the way I came. Because leaving would be that simple. With my nerves becoming more ragged with each moment, I wait for the verdict. When she finishes, she doesn’t tell me what he said, but she does approve my implants and move forward.
    “I’d like to hire counsel now,” I say.
    “Not my department. We’re finished.”
    Then Carlotta turns me over to a team in masks and white coveralls. I tell myself this is part of the process, meant to break me down and change my perception of myself as a free being. Knowing that doesn’t help fight their practiced strategies, though; fear prickles through me, past my resolve. I thought I’d faced every horrible thing the universe had to offer. Yet right now, I don’t feel prepared for this.
    “Strip,” orders a disembodied voice. “And put your clothing in the chute.”
    I obey. It’s cold in the white room, so my skin pimples, my scars purpling beneath the harsh overhead lights. The team in white watches me through the glastique from the other side of the wall; I presume it’s standard decon procedure in case someone finds a way to breach the chamber. Robotic brushes drop from the ceiling and scour me from head to toe. Sometimes the pressure hurts, but the shame is worse. Water sprays from everywhere, blinding me. Then they treat me with chemical sanitizer; I recognize the lemony scent. I’m sure it’s become SOP because they drag some fugitives out of truly foul and hellish hiding places. So everyone has to be clean before they come in. That, and it hammers home how completely you’ve lost control of everything. Hope leaves me then; it’s a pale, fluttering thing against the far wall. I watch it go through the stinging of my eyes.
    “Proceed.”
    The door opens at the far end, and I stumble, naked and bleary-eyed, into another area, where I find prison garb waiting—gray pants and shirt, dingy underwear. They’ve given me slippers, too, and there are no ties or fasteners that I could use to hurt myself . . . or anyone else.
    “You have two minutes to dress.”
    Frag. This place makes Perlas Station look like a bowl of choclaste cream. I scramble into my new togs, realizing they’ve effectively isolated me from my old life in a surprisingly short time. A woman dressed as a guard enters then; she’s the oldest person I’ve seen in the facility, with a face hard as hewn rock.
    “Bend forward and lift your hair.”
    A sharp pinch steals my breath. “What did you do?”
    “Imprinted your identification number. It comes with a tracking chip, so don’t even think about running. This way now.”
    Without another word, she leads me down a grim hallway. Overhead, the indestructible glastique covers the lights, nothing a prisoner could break for use as a weapon. There are no cracks or seams in the walls either; they’ve been poured in one slab out of a cement polymer that can’t be broken with less than ten thousand pounds of pressure. Glowing arrows on the floor light our path.
    The guard stops outside a plain white door. “When it opens, step inside. Failure to comply with any commands given by jurisprudence personnel will result in behavioral correction.”
    That sounds