“Private mental images,” Tom repeated, understanding it. “Like, uh, daydreams.”
“Yes.”
“And other things like that.”
“Yes,” Blackburn said impatiently.
“You’re going to see them,” Tom repeated.
“Yes, Raines, and if you can’t get over that, I’ll end up seeing a lot of them. For both our sakes, embrace immodesty.”
Tom’s head throbbed. “So why incontinence supplies?”
“Prolonged resistance leads to a prolonged culling,” Blackburn explained. “The device is designed to search for memories you actively conceal. If you resist, it begins digging out other, unrelated memories in an attempt to neutralize your ability to resist. It strips away your psychological defense mechanisms in a systematic fashion. Theoretically, it could break your mind. But that won’t be an issue. If you didn’t commit treason, you have nothing worth hiding from me, and this will be over very quickly.”
Something nagged at Tom’s brain, though. And he didn’t figure out what it was until they were out of the infirmary, heading down the hallway toward the elevator. Blackburn waved away the armed soldiers again, grumbling something about overkill, so the soldiers lowered their guns again and fell behind them at a distance.
Halfway to the elevator, Tom stopped dead in his tracks.
He was remembering something: jogging through these hallways with Yuri.
With Yuri.
Yuri, who had a new firewall.
Tom’s vague worry morphed into real horror. He knew Yuri’s secret, Wyatt’s secret. He hadn’t committed treason, but they had. If he knew it, Blackburn would soon know it. The neural culling would find that in his brain.
“Wait. I don’t want to do this.”
Blackburn turned. “Refusal’s not an option here, Raines.” He studied him a moment. “I realize you’re afraid—”
“I’m not scared,” Tom protested.
“Good. You shouldn’t be. Let’s go and get this over with.”
“I don’t want to get a neural culling, sir!”
“This is not a choice.” Blackburn spoke slowly, like he was explaining something to a young child. “You don’t have right of refusal when national security is concerned.”
Tom could hear his heart pounding, it was beating so hard. He hadn’t worn his forearm keyboard, so he scanned the nearest wall for a computer. Maybe he could net-send Wyatt a warning. Then she could rescramble Yuri and cover up evidence or whatever.
“Can I contact someone first?”
Blackburn’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”
Tom couldn’t answer that.
“You’re beginning to seem very suspicious right now, Mr. Raines, do you realize that?”
Tom was breathing hard. He looked at the soldiers, then at Blackburn, a sense of doom crashing over him.
“Okay, I’ll go,” Tom said. He started to follow, waiting until Blackburn bought it and turned away from him. Then Tom whipped around and sprinted off down the hallway.
Cries rang out behind him, “After him!”
TOM WASN’T STUPID enough to think he’d be able to escape the Pentagon all on his own. There was one person who could step in right now and avert disaster, a person even General Marsh couldn’t touch. He just hoped she was there. He threw himself against Olivia Ossare’s glass door, and pounded his hand against it. He heard boots thumping toward him.
Moron, moron, moron, Tom’s thoughts beat. It’s not even 0700, of course she’s not here yet....
And then she rose up from the other side of the desk, where she’d been leaning down, going through her drawers. Relief gushed through him. As soon as she slid aside the glass door, he bolted inside, fighting the wild urge to grab her and whirl her in a circle or something.
“You’re here in case we have a problem with our military custodians, right?” Tom said, all in a rush. “Well, I’ve got a huge problem with my military custodians.”
Her brow furrowed. “What’s going on?”
“You have to help me. You have to.” Tom heard pounding on the door, and jumped a foot in the air, stumbling into her desk away from the sound.
Outside the door, Blackburn’s soldiers were staring in at them. Tom felt sickened by the enormity of what was happening here.
“What is it?” Olivia stepped toward the door.
“Don’t!” Tom grabbed her arm. “Don’t open it.”
But she took his wrist and gently eased his grip from her. “Tom, sit down. I am going to tell them to wait.”
“What if they won’t listen to you?”
She squeezed his hand, then released it. “They’ll listen.” There was steel in her voice. “Now sit down.”
Tom couldn’t seem to catch his breath. But there was a calmness, a self-assurance in her voice, that made him somehow believe her.
When she turned toward the soldiers, he grabbed her computer, called up net-send, and started to type in a message to Wyatt, then he realized it. No, he couldn’t do this, either. Blackburn could track it. He deleted it quickly. His brain went blank. He couldn’t think of anything to do. He didn’t have any way to save himself.
His eyes riveted to the soldiers beyond the glass, arguing with Olivia. Her soft voice persisted, and then amazingly, miraculously, they backed off. Tom never would’ve thought some guys with guns would listen to her. She closed the door and settled behind her desk.
“Want to fill me in, Tom?” she asked him.
Tom closed his eyes, trying to sort it all out. He knew he’d made a mistake, running from Blackburn. He didn’t know what else he could’ve done.
“Blackburn thinks I’m the leak and he’s going to use the census device on me.” His words began spilling out faster and faster. “I’m not the leak. I swear it, I’m not. And it’s not like a regular memory viewing. They’re going to rip memories out of my head. Blackburn said it could break your brain if you use it long enough. Dr. Gonzales said it could make you incontinent. I don’t want to be incontinent, okay? I don’t!”
Olivia’s brow knit like she was pondering it. “They have no right to force this on you, Tom. I’ll speak to Lieutenant Blackburn.”
“He won’t listen to you. Look, do you have any civilian resources that can help? Any at all? Because I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll talk to General Marsh.”
“He’s in India right now meeting with some military guys about the Capitol Summit.”
And then Blackburn himself was at the door, speaking to the soldiers. Tom clenched his fists on the desk in front of him, watching with a knot of dread in his throat the way Blackburn lifted his forearm keyboard, and typed something.
Click. The lock snapped open.
Blackburn strode through the door.
Olivia leaped to her feet. “What do you think you’re doing?” she shouted at him, rushing around her desk and planting herself between Blackburn and Tom. “This is my office. You don’t have the right to break in here!”
“And that’s one of our plebes.”
“You can’t do this.” When Blackburn moved toward Tom, Olivia stepped in his way. “I’m this boy’s advocate, and I am not letting you seize him and subject him to that device. He’s a civilian, and you don’t have this authority. You are breaking the law, Lieutenant!”