Free Colony One by E. M. Peters

swear…”
    “I told you, we have been watching you, Ms. Li. That includes quite a bit. We know that no one has approached you.”
    Jia’s mind reeled and she stared at him for a long time. Had this man personally been following her every move? She, like most, never expected perfect privacy, but there were still lines that most felt shouldn’t be crossed. He looked at her – through her – as if he knew every detail about her life.
    She sighed in frustration, “Fine, it was my idea to leak information for money, alright?” She confessed as she threw up her arms. “Nothing important, just the general specifications, materials… things people have been speculating about.”
    The man frowned, “Ms. Li, if you do not tell us what it is you found, we cannot determine what level of risk you are. If we cannot determine that, we must assume the worst. Do you really want us to assume the worst?”
    “Well let’s start with who you are, first.” Jia countered. She was not a simple girl. She knew what she had was a big deal, and if she told them, she feared that they would most certainly make her ‘go away’ despite her status as an accomplished scientist. Every moment locked in the observation room confirmed to her that they would not hesitate to mistreat her. This secret was the only leverage she had.
    “It doesn’t concern you. If I were you, Ms. Li, I would get out of the habit of asking questions.” He said and looked away, making a gesture with his chin. The mirror went dark and a tube was shoved under the door of the little room.
    Jia shrugged off her lab coat and wrapped one of the sleeves around her mouth and nose as gas began to pump into the room. In the end, it was a stopgap measure as minutes later with burning eyes; she slipped to the floor, unconscious.
     
    Jia awoke in a cell, laying on a hard bunk that was built into the wall. She took her time to get her bearings, carefully sitting up and looking around through blurred vision. Eventually she made out a sink, toilet and besides the bunk, that was it. There was no window. There was one door with a slot near the bottom and a small, rectangular hinged window at the top that was closed.
    She was not wearing her work clothes or her lab coat. She had been redressed into a blue jumpsuit. That is when panic gripped her the hardest. In an instant, her life as she knew it had been ripped from her – and so effortlessly. Her skin crawled with the inescapable confinement and the indefinite nature of it. She had not cried since she was a child, but in that moment, there was no stopping it. She sobbed for the life she had lost, for her uncertain future and for the bitter truth that she had learned, only confirmed by her imprisonment. A celebrated scientist, doctorate holding, successful middle class woman – reduced to a criminal with one, simple action.
    An important action, Jia reaffirmed as she started to pull the pieces of herself back together. Her secret deserved to be known by those in the most danger – the passengers of Colony One. She had to survive this – for those thousands of people.
    Over the next several weeks, the cell became her home, and she was questioned often. Weeks turned to months and they questioned her less, but gave no indication that she might be released, or even if she was formally arrested for anything. Some days she screamed until she was hoarse. Other days she didn’t speak at all. She often questioned the legitimacy of her internment. She never told them what she found, despite coercive tactics that included electroshock and pain simulation. When that didn’t work, psychological attacks began.
    As Jia began to hit her breaking point – a feeling metamorphosis that was becoming a shell of her former self, she was visited by Ts’ai. They had taken her to a normal looking meeting room to see him. If he was surprised by her transformation – thinner with dark circles under her eyes and slumped shoulders – he did not show it.