Gregory Grey and the Fugitive in Helika

CHAPTER 13.1

  Lesley's Diary - Whipped - August 6, 1909

  I learned an important lesson in planning today:

  • Prepare for every possible avenue of failure,

  • Always have back up plans

  •If failure is inevitable, have mitigation measures in place.

  I’m unlikely to ever forget these again, especially the third one, so I suppose that’s a silver lining.

  When a cane is laid to your back fifty times, counting these sort of silver linings becomes important to your sanity.

  I got busted. Obvious in retrospect, really, that you can’t tell every single one of the Incoming to stay away and deliver letters for you – you only need one of them to flake out or trip- up… or in this case, you only need their kid to ask within a Spook’s earshot, “Daddy, why wouldn’t the lady at the gate let us in?” You especially shouldn’t do it around Spooks who take their jobs seriously enough that they’ll report the incident to your letchy supervisor, who’ll then call you into his room and present you with several draconian options regarding your immediate life expectancy.

  Thank you, anonymous kid. May your ice-creams forever be maggoted.

  I tried to explain that I was just being dutiful by helping the incoming make informed choices about the conditions and illnesses in the camp. He didn’t buy it, but sat shaking his wispy-haired pate at me, in pretend sorrow. As far as his interpretation of the situation went, I had just, either deliberately or innocently, encouraged unlawfulness and/or deprived the needy of their right to the Emperor’s Protection within the camp during National Emergency.

  A simpler, more general and broader interpretation was that I’d committed Treason.

  The camp doesn’t exactly have a judicial process. Groups of Reflective workers have Observant supervisors. These supervisors arbitrate over disputes and apply their own judgment about the severity of various crimes, as well as their consummate punishments. Supervisors have limited punitive powers, but what they do have is enough.

  Treason is consummate with death.

  The kindly old fellow was nice enough to suggest that I had been entirely well intentioned, and that it wouldn’t do to have to kick up a tragic investigation and fuss over my naïve mistake.

  So when he personally offered to carry out a simple and quick correction – fifty lashes of a cane – it truly made no sense to refuse his kindness. The fact that if I’d refused, an investigation would almost certainly reveal my charmed pamphlets, (and therefore blow our lines of communication) had nothing to do with it.

  The West Gate has its own holding cell, iron bars and all. Borix is so clever at improvising – he bound my hands to a pair of crossed grills high up on the bars; I had to stand on my toes, but I managed.

  And gentleman that he is, he had Angie bare my back, rather than do it himself.

  The cane may have been about as thick as his thumb.

  The first ten blows are more shocking than they are painful. I think my mind was so filled with the need to flee or fight, that it couldn’t quite focus on the pain. I think it was around the twentieth blow that the rush left me, and I had nothing to focus on but the pain, which at that time, begins to feel like fire. My skin must have been softened up into some kind of batter, because I remember the cane going ‘thwap’ instead of ‘thud’ by that point. And after that, I lost count. I did nothing. I was afraid I’d faint, but I didn’t, and I’m glad, because that would have meant I’d lost. He has no imagination, and I think it was over in two minutes. By the end, I couldn’t even make out where I was getting hit.

  I didn’t make a sound, and I think that bugged him a little.

  I don’t remember much of what happened after that. Angie bought me back to Winnie’s tent. Winnie put her salve to good use. I won’t be able to move for a day… but the salve will do its trick.

  One day, I really must repay Borix for his kindness.