Freedom - 7 (Young Justice in Genosha)

by D Benway

I don't really wake up. I'm not sure that I ever went to sleep. I do know that I lay on the floor all night with my prints of Col and Cassandra. The ones that I didn't tear up, that is.

I answer the celphone. It's Bruce. He's downstairs waiting for me.

He's in the Rolls. Major Pennyworth is driving. Bruce's face is set as it always is, as if carved in stone. He's wearing a black shirt and black pants, and he does not appear to have slept either.

"Get in," says Bruce.

Major Pennyworth closes the door behind me.

"Abstinence," says Bruce.

"I have abstained," I say.

"Only in body, not in soul," he says.

I don't know what to say to that.

"Sign this," he says, handing me an official document.

The paper has the letterhead of the State Security Executive. It is a confession, of my incompetence. It states that Col and Cassandra are responsible for the banner incident, and that I am willing to a be a witness when Col is charged with high treason under the Alien and Sedition Acts in an SSE court. Bruce has told me about those hearings. They are entirely secret, and the accused has no counsel.

"But this isn't true," I say.

"I know it isn't," says Bruce.

"Cecily did it," I say.

"I can't imagine how you would expect me to believe that," says Bruce. "She can't even fly."

"Col didn't mean to do it," I say. "Cecily and Cassandra convinced him to."

"I know that he didn't place the banner on the tower," says Bruce. "We determined early this morning that Bartholomew did."

Bartholomew? I read it through again.

"I won't sign this," I say.

"It matters not," says Bruce.

"I tried to reach you," I say.

"You might have told me of your suspicions," says Bruce.

"I wasn't sure," I say.

"Please stop lying to me, Robin," says Bruce. "You did no serious investigating, and you had no idea of who actually committed the crime."

"But the e-mail-" I say.

"We caught it," says Bruce. "And only just in time. I was very disappointed that you put those back doors into my private system."

"I only wanted to be more efficient," I say.

"The records show that half the files you opened were related to boys that you had passions for," says Bruce. "You could not have been more obvious if you had tried, but never mind. We're here."

I'm not sure where here is. I can see cranes at the bottom of the road, so I'm pretty sure we're in Wayne-Bessemer Iron Works somewhere. Major Pennyworth drives us through a gate manned by Magistrates. There's a great deal of razor wire about. There are row after row of rusting German army trucks that the Magistrates used to ride around in. We stop at a large factory building. The sign outside the door suggests that it is a commissary.

"Inside," says Bruce.

Inside, it is clear that no food is being prepared here today. It's crawling with Magistrates, the very hard ones that Bruce uses in his special operations. I've never been able to look one in the eye.

"In here," says Bruce, ushering me into a large, brightly lit room.

Everything is tile and stainless steel, but something smells a little off. Bruce closes and locks the door behind him. He flicks a switch. There's a track across the ceiling. A motor starts up. Things start to come along the track. They're beef carcasses, butchered and hanging from hooks.

I turn back to Bruce. His face betrays no emotion.

"Are you trying to frighten me?" I say.

"Turn around," says Bruce, switching off the motor.

I turn around.

Col is there. He is staring at the ceiling.

Cassandra is there. She is staring at something inside her head.

Bartholomew and Cecily are there, too.

Cecily is the one not wearing an inhibitor collar.

Their feet are not touching the floor.

Cecily is not two metres from me. She's all purple, as if she were flushing in the wrong colour.

Bruce is holding something out in front of me. It is a blank sheet of paper with the SSE letterhead. I sign it.

Then I see it. Cecily's leg. It moves. Not much, just a fraction.

"Cut her down," I say. "Help her. She's still alive."

"Not alive," croaks a voice from behind me.

There's someone beside Bruce. She's a girl, younger than me, and smaller. She looks as if she also has Indian ancestry.

"As the muscles dry out, the limbs may twitch as if still living," says Bruce. "I'm afraid her blood coagulated hours ago."

"Still was squirming an hour ago," croaks the girl. "Hung them slow, one at a time while they watched, like you told me to."

He face splits in a grin, so wide it looks like her face will come apart. Her teeth have been filed to points.

"As you can see," says Bruce. "You are not my only ward."

My body, small as it is, is too big for me. I can't hold it up anymore.

"This is what giving in to your baser instincts will almost certainly lead to," says Bruce.

"Is love a baser instinct?" I say.

"You have no notion of what love is," says Bruce, stroking the girl behind her ears as if she were a cat.

"You can't get away with this," I say.

"And why is that?" says Bruce.

"The President," I say. "He won't stand for it."

"Our president could care less about the likes of us," says Bruce. "He leaves those matters to his wife, who has delegated them to me. He cares nothing but for his dream of a mutant paradise, and spends his days trying to put back together all the refugee mutants who wash up upon our shores."

"Cassandra," I say. "Her mother is an American. They'll raise a stink."

"Cassandra's mother will die in a most unfortunate traffic accident later this morning," says Bruce. "I believe that our American friends will be very glad to see the end of her. She caused a great deal of trouble for them."

"They will be martyrs," I say.

"Perhaps," says Bruce. "It was so unfortunate that they decided to sail out of the mouth of Hammer Bay just as a storm was coming in. We have one scheduled for this afternoon, and by this evening, when it clears, the wreckage of your boat will be found. With the currents as they are, no one will attempt to search for their bodies. If they do, they will find nothing, for the bodies will have been thoroughly rendered and fed to the farm animals on Godden Island."

"But that won't work," I say. "Everyone knows that I wouldn't let any one else sail that boat-"

Oh.

I look to the faces of my friends, but I cannot see them, for my eyes have melted, or may as well have.

"I love you, Bruce," I say.

"Your end will be quick," says Bruce. "You will feel nothing."

I feel something cold and round press into the back of my head.

Bruce is wrong.

Now, I feel everything.

FIN