Prologue

You blink awake, already terrified. Maybe it was a distant footstep of the sound of keys clicking against each other. You crawl quickly to the corner of you cell and hide in the darkness, hide from whoever is coming down the hallway. It never works, not once in all the weeks you've been here, but you it anyways try. You hope that maybe this time they will leave you alone.

You press yourself into that corner, embracing it, begging the walls to help you, literally whispering into the cinder blocks. You love your cell because it is not the interrogation room. it is cold and hard and dark and teeming with roaches, but nothing bad has ever happened here. If only you never had to leave this cell; that is a compromise you'd be willing to make. Especially right now, with a key pushing into the lock on the door.

A woman stands in the doorway and looks down at you. All it takes is a point from her long, bony fingers and you know what to do: Stand up, scurry past her down the hallway, and step into the other room. If you resist, she'll drag you anyways. And you don't even have to look, you can already hear them, smell them, taste them-- the two empty bags looped through her belt.

The clear bag is for suffocation. They hold it over your head, and you can see through is as you begin to asphxiate. Watching them look on passively as you struggle to breathe always makes it worse.

The black bag is for water. You are totally blind as they strap your torso down and pour water over your face--buckets of it, freezing and unending. Eventually, you have no choice but to gasp and inhale the water and drown yourself.

Most days they stop just short of killing you. On other days you pass out and wake up in your cell, your torso bruised from the chest compressions they performed to bring you back to life. And somehow you are thankful as you blink awake on that filthy floor. They could have killed you, but they didn't. They tortured you to the brink of death, but no further. Back in your cell, you are safe again.

Until tomorrow

Before you know it, a day passes and it is time to do it all over again. Or maybe it isn't even a day, just an hour or maybe even a minute, for all you can tell. There is no time here, no dawns, no dusk, no clocks, no light. No parents, not friends, no school, no hope. There is just you cell and the room with the bag lady. And every time, before she chooses a bag, she smiles and reminds you of the facts of your new life.

You are a terrorist.

We can do whatever we want to you.

You will die in here.

Unless . . .

Unless you answer their questions. It could all be over if you cooperated. You could sleep in your own bed tonight, if you would just answer there few basic questions.

When is the next attack?

Where is Kai hiding?

Who is helping him?

What is the Ark?

What is the Ark?

What is the Ark?

You barely even know what they care talking about, but you can sense their panic, their fear, their determination. You explain that you don't have any answers. They don't believe you. It doesn't make sense to them.

Why would you help these people?

They are ruining America.

Don't you want to protect your country?

They insist you tell them something. But what little you do know--and single scrap that might somehow be useful to them--you or text with every fiber of your being. You store it away, hide it, forget it, deny its existence, and make it impossible to retrieve. That is the only contributions you can make now. And giving up on that would feel worse than the bags.

Today the clear bag comes first. The taut plastic is yanked over your head, and by now you know not to shake too much--that only makes things tighter. You know not to jerk your arms--that's cuts your wrists against the handcuffs. You know not to panic-- that's wastes the air too quickly. So you sit calmly as the bag gets tighter and tighter against your face, your throat starting to burn now, your head beginning to feel light, your heart racing. All you can do is stare through the clear plastic at the bag lady and her colleagues. You know they will take off the bag eventually, but each time they seem to wait longer and longer, as if to set a record. You start to gasp now, and you gasp and you gasp and you gasp, but there is no air left to breathe. Still, you know it's too soon for them to stop; you aren't close to the end.

And right here you take a second to consider the absurdity of the situation, as you sit there dying slowly and painfully while public servants from your own government look on, not lifting a finger or even breaking a law. You try to hold your gaze on these people, to judge them, to implore them, to connect in any way possible, but your vision is gone. And then you reach the end and you gasp at nothing now, realizing there is point, but your Brian makes you do it anyways. You are justna dying body, incapable of any more thoughts.or decisions. You are nothing. It's over, and they will either.let you die or remove the bag. You fade away before you can find out. This is your life now.

You are a terrorist.

We can do whatever we want to you

You will die in here.

Unless . . .

Unless nothing. There are some things worth dying for.