This chapter is dedicated to Pages Books in Toronto, Canada. Long a fix-ture on the bleedingly trendy Queen Street West strip, Pages is locatedover the road from CityTV and just a few doors down from the oldBakka store where I worked. We at Bakka loved having Pages down thestreet from us: what we were to science fiction, they were to everythingelse: hand-picked material representing the stuff you'd never find else-where, the stuff you didn't know you were looking for until you saw itthere. Pages also has one of the best news-stands I've ever seen, row onrow of incredible magazines and zines from all over the world.
Pages Books: 256 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V 1Z8 Canada +1 416598 1447They left me and Barbara alone in the room then, and I used the work-ing shower head to rinse off — I was suddenly embarrassed to becovered in piss and barf. When I finished, Barbara was in tears.
"Your parents —" she began.
I felt like I might throw up again. God, my poor folks. What they musthave gone through.
"Are they here?""No," she said. "It's complicated," she said.
"What?""You're still under arrest, Marcus. Everyone here is. They can't justsweep in and throw open the doors. Everyone here is going to have to beprocessed through the criminal justice system. It could take, well, itcould take months.""I'm going to have to stay here for months?"She grabbed my hands. "No, I think we're going to be able to get youarraigned and released on bail pretty fast. But pretty fast is a relativeterm. I wouldn't expect anything to happen today. And it's not going to287be like those people had it. It will be humane. There will be real food. Nointerrogations. Visits from your family.
"Just because the DHS is out, it doesn't mean that you get to just walkout of here. What's happened here is that we're getting rid of the bizarro-world version of the justice system they'd instituted and replacing it withthe old system. The system with judges, open trials and lawyers.
"So we can try to get you transferred to a juvie facility on the main-land, but Marcus, those places can be really rough. Really, really rough.
This might be the best place for you until we get you bailed out."Bailed out. Of course. I was a criminal — I hadn't been charged yet,but there were bound to be plenty of charges they could think of. It waspractically illegal just to think impure thoughts about the government.
She gave my hands another squeeze. "It sucks, but this is how it has tobe. The point is, it's over. The Governor has thrown the DHS out of theState, dismantled every checkpoint. The Attorney General has issuedwarrants for any law-enforcement officers involved in 'stress interroga-tions' and secret imprisonments. They'll go to jail, Marcus, and it's be-cause of what you did."I was numb. I heard the words, but they hardly made sense. Some-how, it was over, but it wasn't over.
"Look," she said. "We probably have an hour or two before this allsettles down, before they come back and put you away again. What doyou want to do? Walk on the beach? Get a meal? These people had an in-credible staff room — we raided it on the way in. Gourmet all the way."At last a question I could answer. "I want to find Ange. I want to findDarryl."I tried to use a computer I found to look up their cell-numbers, but itwanted a password, so we were reduced to walking the corridors, callingout their names. Behind the cell-doors, prisoners screamed back at us, orcried, or begged us to let them go. They didn't understand what had justhappened, couldn't see their former guards being herded onto the docksin plastic handcuffs, taken away by California state SWAT teams.
"Ange!" I called over the din, "Ange Carvelli! Darryl Glover! It'sMarcus!"We'd walked the whole length of the cell-block and they hadn'tanswered. I felt like crying. They'd been shipped overseas — they werein Syria or worse. I'd never see them again.
288I sat down and leaned against the corridor wall and put my face in myhands. I saw Severe Haircut Woman's face, saw her smirk as she askedme for my login. She had done this. She would go to jail for it, but thatwasn't enough. I thought that when I saw her again, I might kill her. Shedeserved it.
"Come on," Barbara said, "Come on, Marcus. Don't give up. There'smore around here, come on."She was right. All the doors we'd passed in the cellblock were old,rusting things that dated back to when the base was first built. But at thevery end of the corridor, sagging open, was a new high-security door asthick as a dictionary. We pulled it open and ventured into the dark cor-ridor within.
There were four more cell-doors here, doors without bar codes. Eachhad a small electronic keypad mounted on it.
"Darryl?" I said. "Ange?""Marcus?"It was Ange, calling out from behind the furthest door. Ange, myAnge, my angel.
"Ange!" I cried. "It's me, it's me!""Oh God, Marcus," she choked out, and then it was all sobs.
I pounded on the other doors. "Darryl! Darryl, are you here?""I'm here." The voice was very small, and very hoarse. "I'm here. I'mvery, very sorry. Please. I'm very sorry."He sounded… broken. Shattered.
"It's me, D," I said, leaning on his door. "It's Marcus. It's over — theyarrested the guards. They kicked the Department of Homeland Securityout. We're getting trials, open trials. And we get to testify against them.""I'm sorry," he said. "Please, I'm so sorry."The California patrolmen came to the door then. They still had theircamera rolling. "Ms Stratford?" one said. He had his faceplate up and helooked like any other cop, not like my savior. Like someone come to lockme up.
"Captain Sanchez," she said. "We've located two of the prisoners of in-terest here. I'd like to see them released and inspect them for myself.""Ma'am, we don't have access codes for those doors yet," he said.
289She held up her hand. "That wasn't the arrangement. I was to havecomplete access to this facility. That came direct from the Governor, sir.
We aren't budging until you open these cells." Her face was perfectlysmooth, without a single hint of give or flex. She meant it.
The Captain looked like he needed sleep. He grimaced. "I'll see what Ican do," he said.
They did manage to open the cells, finally, about half an hour later. Ittook three tries, but they eventually got the right codes entered, match-ing them to the arphids on the ID badges they'd taken off the guardsthey'd arrested.
They got into Ange's cell first. She was dressed in a hospital gown,open at the back, and her cell was even more bare than mine had been —just padding all over, no sink or bed, no light. She emerged blinking intothe corridor and the police camera was on her, its bright lights in herface. Barbara stepped protectively between us and it. Ange stepped tent-atively out of her cell, shuffling a little. There was something wrong withher eyes, with her face. She was crying, but that wasn't it.
"They drugged me," she said. "When I wouldn't stop screaming for alawyer."That's when I hugged her. She sagged against me, but she squeezedback, too. She smelled stale and sweaty, and I smelled no better. I neverwanted to let go.
That's when they opened Darryl's cell.
He had shredded his paper hospital gown. He was curled up, naked,in the back of the cell, shielding himself from the camera and our stares. Iran to him.
"D," I whispered in his ear. "D, it's me. It's Marcus. It's over. Theguards have been arrested. We're going to get bail, we're going home."He trembled and squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm sorry," he whispered,and turned his face away.
They took me away then, a cop in body-armor and Barbara, took meback to my cell and locked the door, and that's where I spent the night.
I don't remember much about the trip to the courthouse. They had mechained to five other prisoners, all of whom had been in for a lot longerthan me. One only spoke Arabic — he was an old man, and he trembled.
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