Chained - Page 18

"Hello, Maya. Please make yourself comfortable at the table, we just have a few questions for you." Her voice was clipped and business-like.

I moved to my seat and waited while they arranged themselves opposite me. I couldn't decide how old the woman was. She looked as though she wasn't adverse to a few youth prolonging injections at the least.

The man looked like he was just trying to blend into the background. He kept his head down, not looking at me, arranging papers and a tablet on the table in front of him.

"My name is Lucretia Scorin. We are sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Summers, we had to be careful about possible contaminants. Fortunately, all of our tests have come back negative, both from the testing zone and from yourself," the woman began.

"So, can I go home now?" I asked.

"I'm afraid that that's not currently an option we can offer you," she said, smiling. I was fairly sure her facial muscles were having trouble remembering what shape a smile should be.

"Why?"

"You broke the law, Miss Summers, that can't simply go unaddressed." She fixed me with a hard stare. "You put the needs of yourself above the needs of the population, and we have to account for that somehow."

The silence stretched on for long enough that I was sure they could hear the pounding of my heart. I slowly caught onto the fact that it was my turn to talk again.

"I didn't even know what was happening. My helmet malfunctioned. I couldn't breathe."

"We have been given a full account of the event by Mr Jackson. He told us it seemed likely you would die and he was acting in the interest of preserving your life. He also mentioned that your helmet did not simply malfunction, but was damaged when you engaged in dangerous activities which were not necessary for the work you were sent to do." She rapped her nails, which were painted powder blue to match her suit, against the table.

I silently cursed Taylor's trusting nature.

"It didn't specify that we weren't allowed to sit in hanging seats either," I said finally, not that I expected to get away without punishment based on a technicality.

"A smart mouth won't help your case here, Miss Summers." Lucretia gave me a thin smile, or maybe it was a grimace. "The directions did specify that you should do your utmost to take care of yourselves and your equipment at all times. And, in the case of an emergency or injury the first response should always be to radio back for direction on how to proceed." She rapped her nails on the table again. I wasn't sure if it was meant to be irritating or intimidating. It was a bit of both.

"I wasn't really in any state to be radioing people. I was blacking out from lack of oxygen at the time." I scowled at the wooden table top.

"Mr Jackson mentioned that the damage to your helmet was noticed long before you began to have trouble breathing. At which point, if you had followed protocol, a unit could have been dispatched to aid you and none of this would be happening." Again with the nails. Maybe she was using the noise in place of fullstops.

"But it wasn't causing any trouble at that point," I protested weakly.

"It says clearly here-" she held out a copy of the directions we had received before setting out into the inspection zone, "-if the integrity of your biohazard suit is compromised you must radio it in without delay." She looked at me expectantly, her nails poised above the table ready to strike.

"I just didn't think."

"And that is obviously the problem. Neither of you stopped to think. And like I have said, if that were the extent of it maybe this wouldn't be a problem but we have to consider the possible implications for the population." And the nails made it to the table once again.

"But you said I was all clear of contamination."

"Irrelevant I'm afraid. The lack of an actual risk after the fact does not negate the risk you posed when we couldn't have known that contamination wasn't a threat." And again with the nails. I found myself wishing her polish would chip.

"So what now then?"

"Do you accept that you took the wrong course of action and placed the lives of everyone within the city of Harbour at risk due to negligence on the part of yourself and that of Mr Jackson?"

"I didn't mean to." I bit my lip.

"That is why we are calling it negligence as opposed to deliberate sabotage." Lucretia fixed me with a piercing stare. She placed her palms flat on the table and leant forward as if preparing to pounce.

"I suppose so then." I couldn't help feeling that I had been backed into a corner without knowing at what point I could have changed the course of the conversation.

"Sign here to that effect then please." She snatched the tablet from the silent man, turned it around and handed it to me. He had been filling out a form with everything we had discussed written down word for word.

At the bottom of the page were the words 'I, Miss Maya Summers, agree that this is a true representation of the facts as I understand them.' And underneath that was a box for my signature. I used my finger to trace my name onto the tablet and it was instantly pulled back across the table.

Tags: Susanne Valenti Science Fiction
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