forty-four
Ender
The interrogation was a mess.
Haven went in there, questioned the rebel quite aggressively, and then the boy killed himself. It wasn’t the failsafe that concerns me; that is a common tactic among the rebels if they are caught or tortured. It is the time when it happened.
Haven is no match for Ansel, who has been torturing rebels since before I was born. The boy should not have spent five minutes with her, and decided that enough was enough. All she did was punch him a few times, which was odd because Haven doesn’t swing unnecessarily. Not unless someone is truly deserving of her fists.
Clover is waiting in the surveillance room, sitting in her usual chair. It is her duty to assess the footage of sessions and report back to me on anything she finds that we might have missed when we watched from the viewing room. Knox is already there when I enter.
The footage is paused on the screen. Idris Malek’s face is frozen. His mouth gapes open, eyes dull and faint, while Haven stands before him, horrified.
“We found something,” Clover says.
Knox looks uneasy as he glances my way. He must have already seen the footage.
“You should take a seat,” Knox says.
“Show me,” I say, ignoring his advice.
“Run it for him,” Knox says.
The footage plays. Haven’s fist collides with his cheek, and when the video resumes, she’s speaking with him again.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Clover points to the timestamp.
“She punches him. Left foot forward, right back.”
Clover reruns the video so I can see.
“But then look here.” Clover points to the screen with a red-painted fingernail. “Right foot forward, left back.”
“The time is still 2:31,” Knox says. “But look at his expression. It shifts.”
The rebel was flinching after the first punch in the first clip. But in the second clip, he appears normal, as if he had time to recover.
I tap my finger on Clover’s chair. Something is off.
“What are his powers?” Knox asks.
“He is a Class One,” I say. “His power is Command; he can make people do as he pleases. He got the Bind after he was captured, and his powers were destabilized.”
“Play it again.”
Clover rewinds the video and freezes the frame.
“Again,” I say.
We rewind. Frame by frame. Each time Haven is in a different position, the rebel is wearing an inconsistent impression. It’s like the video is missing a clip.
Clover leans forward slightly.
“What the hell happened in there?” Knox asks. “How did they do that?”
Clover tilts her head.
