Page 114 of Coldwire
“IDs?”
I lean forward first, letting her point the scanner at my forehead. She barely gives me a second glance. She points it at Kieren next, then hums, going off to the printer. Moments later, she returns with a clipboard and shoves it our way.
“Fill this out, please.”
I try to let go of Kieren’s hand to take it, but he’s distracted, and I have to shake several times before he realizes he needs to release. Smoothly, I pick up the clipboard and poise the pen over the text, ready to sign.
My head spins instantly at the Medan characters. I make an attempt to read the form naturally. Three lines later, I quietly turn on my translate function and resist huffing out loud. It’s all just legal jargon. An acknowledgment that our children were in the wrong and we’re not going to come back and make a fuss. The personal information sections are already autofilled from the ID scan. I sign quickly, making up something that vaguely resembles “Lia Murray” before passing it to Kieren.
He scribbles a few circles and passes it back. The officer presses a button to activate a speaker. “All right. Bring them out.”
I wring my hands. The bottom of my shirt grows increasingly rumpled. I try to count forward from Rayna’s call, calculating whether their altered IDs have worn off. If they walk out exposed, Kieren and I are dragged inwith them. If we’re all hauled away, that will mean trouble I can’t even begin to comprehend.
The side door buzzes. With a heavy clunk, another officer leads out a nervous-looking Rayna and a smiling Hailey.
“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad,” Hailey greets.
“Oh, don’t you start,” Kieren says.
The officer removes Hailey’s handcuffs first. When it’s Rayna’s turn, she’s trembling so much that they struggle to get the key in, requiring several tries. Once she’s free, she makes her way to me immediately, her eyes pleading.
I smack her on the head.
“What were you thinking?” I demand.
Rayna sticks out her lower lip, as penitent as a confessor. “Sorry, Mama. Can we go now?”
We barely get one block away from the precinct before I launch myself onto Rayna, attempting to throttle her.
“Nooooo!” she cries. “I learned my lesson!”
“A military base?” I hiss, keeping my voice down. “You didn’t scope it first? You didn’t wait until nightfall? How are you about tograduate?”
“In our defense,” Hailey tries, “we got what we needed!”
“Yes, that makes it so much better,” I deadpan.
Rayna takes the distraction that Hailey has afforded her to scuttle away, smoothing her hair down. There are plenty of other pedestrians strolling the sidewalk, so we stay to the right, going at a slower pace.
“Maybe we deserve point deductions from this incident,” Rayna muses. “If we’re lacking skills upon graduation, we should definitely take safer positions that aren’t critical.”
I am flabbergasted. Utterly flabbergasted.
“Rayna, is this some cry for help?” I say. “Because impostor syndromecan be combated. You’re allowed to want something good for your career.”
“Thank you, dear mother.”
“You—”
“Lia.”
I swivel with a scowl, thinking Kieren must be cutting in to have me lay off. His appearance adjustment has worn off: he put the filter application on a timer just like our IDs. He looks like himself again, a regular seventeen-year-old. And he’s not even paying attention to the spiel I’m giving Rayna.
“Yeah?”
Kieren only points. I follow the direction of his finger, searching past the holograms swimming in the night. It’s hard to see anything because of the various electric-green fireflies, but I have to assume he’s looking over at the mall.
“Wow,” Hailey says. “How did you drive that over so quickly? I thought you must have found a different method.”
