"Pleasures remain, so does the pain... Words are meaningless and forgettable."
—Depeche Mode, 1990
They expedited the hell out of the trial. Partially because that way the media circus couldn't have time to send people off into too many wild theories about what had really happened. Partially because the penitentiary where they were holding Margaret had to have armed guards watching her twenty-four-seven ready to gas her into unconsciousness if she started to morph, which was costing them a fortune. Maybe it was partially because, like me, everyone wanted the whole thing over with. I heard her defense lawyers tried to argue for more time to gather evidence or build a case or something, but it was Margaret herself who declared that she wanted the trial as soon as possible and she didn't care what kind of evidence they had.
Whatever the reason, it was less than a month and a half later that we all filed into the courtroom for the first day of the trial.
Margaret herself looked younger than I'd ever seen her in soft lipstick and a conservatively-cut navy blue dress. She sat through the judge's long explanation of the proceedings without blinking or moving, her hands folded in her lap and her neatly made-up face devoid of expression. A doll that had been set aside for the moment, patiently waiting for someone to come along and place a plastic teacup in her hand.
I shook my head, disgusted with myself as soon as the thought occurred to me. We were human beings, not playthings or puppets.
And so were the people that the prosecuting attorney began to talk about. She had a long, rambling opening statement that told the stories of the people Margaret had killed. Karana Nicoleño, who had been her college roommate. Lucas Cabral, who had left behind three children. Sophie Hatter, who had graduated from college the week before she was murdered. Gerald Cruncher, whose only crime had been getting in her way.
All the while Margaret listened. It was impossible to guess what she was thinking.
Next to me, Jake was starting to shift uncomfortably on the bench. He'd always been terrible at sitting still for long periods of time, and now he was leaning over to whisper to Marco every time the judge took a pause.
I kicked him, and when he glanced my way, nodded pointedly at the front of the room. He rolled his eyes like a sullen teenager.
It was going to be a long trial.
The defense lawyer began his own opening statement by breathing out slowly as if sagging a little under the weight of what he had to say. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the case before you today is both highly complex and thoroughly modern. The question of the defendant's guilt will not be easily resolved. You will hear a man testify that he was attacked by his own wife, and yet that my client was the one to blame. You will hear my colleague Ms. Logan assert that my client is somehow responsible for her actions in a way that the mass murderers she killed were not. You will hear a young man who had been caught on video torturing and attempting to murder his own brother argue that his knowledge of right and wrong is superior to that of my client, her allies, and indeed the entire United States Justice System—"
I missed the next several things he said, too busy grabbing Jake's arm to yank him back into his seat before he could do something tomorrow's tabloids would love and the rest of us would regret. But I caught the important phrase:
"... find my client not guilty by reason of insanity."
Jake was still busy muttering rude things about stupid lawyers who didn't know what they were talking about, but at those last words Marco looked up sharply, making eye contact with me.
I shrugged at him. Margaret wasn't right in the head, I wasn't going to dispute that. But she'd also planned out and executed a complex series of murders while making an effort to cover her tracks. It'd be one hell of an uphill battle for the defense lawyer to get the jury to believe she had diminished capacity.
Patty Hearst? Marco mouthed.
I had to search for that one on my phone, but when I did I looked up, shaking my head. While there were certainly some people who had gone over to the yeerks' side after being held for too long, she wasn't one of them.
"Here is something you may not know about my client," the lawyer continued. "Just over seven years ago, she attended a meeting of a local nonprofit organization known as the Sharing. She had reservations about joining, but she was, in fact, only there for a friend. Her college roommate, one Karana Nicoleño, told her that the organization was desperate to get off the ground and struggling to draw new members. Ms. White attended just a single meeting, drawn by the desire to be a good friend and to help her community, before the true leaders of this organization determined that she was asking too many questions about its operation. So they kidnapped her right then and there. Dragged her, struggling and screaming for help, to the yeerk pool.
"Now, I'm sure we're all familiar with the first-hand accounts of yeerk infestation, but I want you to take a little time right now and imagine that moment." Here the lawyer paused for a long time, allowing everyone to do just that.
"Imagine the moment Margaret realized she could not move, could not speak or even breathe of her own volition," he continued. "That the alien creature now holding hostile control of her mind not only had the power to move and use her body however it wished, but also had access to every single thought that had ever crossed her mind, no matter how private. That degree of violation is, I hope, truly unimaginable to most of us. But we have a duty to try to understand. Because in just a few short minutes, this young woman had gone from being a free, autonomous person with her whole life ahead of her to being enslaved body and mind with no hope of escape until the day she died. As I said, none of us can truly imagine how traumatic that experience must have been, but still we must try. Because imagining that hellish enslavement will be a necessary part of understanding Margaret White."
"Yeah," I muttered, "very sad and all, but you don't see me running around killing people, do you?"
Jake didn't laugh. Mom was staring fixedly ahead, looking like she was fighting tears.
"Apparently," Marco whispered, "we're going to have to wait for the cross-examination for that."
"However, for Margaret, the nightmare did not end there," the lawyer said solemnly.
"No shit, Sherlock," I whispered.
"The yeerks had control of her body for most of the next six years. And it was not long after she was taken that the yeerk in Margaret's head was signed up for Project Tabula Rasa."
Eva jolted upright in her seat, spine stiffening like she'd been electrocuted. She murmured what were probably several very bad words in Spanish, hand going to the cross at her throat.
"Mom?" Marco said softly.
"You should leave," she said. "You don't have to be here for this."
Marco set his jaw, crossing his arms in silent refusal. For a second they stared each other down with identical stubborn expressions.
I missed where their whispered argument went from there, because the defense lawyer started talking again.
"Project Tabula Rasa was proposed by a radically liberal splinter group of yeerks, as a kinder, more humane alternative to taking involuntary hosts. It was inspired because the yeerks had noticed that certain hork-bajir who were infested at a very young age and held for many years... 'went quiet,' or so they called it."
I swallowed, the air suddenly tight around me as if gravity had gotten much stronger in the last ten seconds. I knew what he was talking about.
"The ones who went quiet would stop fighting," the lawyer explained, "but it was more than that. The small mental voice, the chain of thought, would disappear entirely after never fully developing at all. These hork-bajir were essentially in a permanent vegetative state, even as their bodies were up and moving around, and the yeerks wanted to replicate the effect with humans.
"The idea was to impregnate a human-controller, take away her children the instant they were born, and infest them literally from the day of birth. The yeerks had reason to believe that children raised in such conditions would never develop free will, would indeed never develop consciousness at all. They would never know any life outside of a yeerk pool, and so they would never have the chance to learn and grow as human beings. Never learn to fight, and so be happy in slavery.
"In the name of kindness, of humane treatment of the hosts, Margaret White was sexually assaulted dozens if not hundreds of times. She was forced to lie there, unable to move, unable even to cry out, as the yeerks used dozens of equally victimized 'sperm donors' to attempt to create new hosts. She was forced to become pregnant again and again, and after each time she gave birth the yeerks began attempting to impregnate her again within days. She lost two pregnancies because of the stress she underwent, and was eventually given the power to morph specifically to heal the damage her body had undergone. The yeerks needed at least one of their birth mothers kept alive, so that they could prove to the Council of Thirteen their project was working. By that time Margaret had borne five children in the six years she was enslaved.
"Each time her children were taken from her, and yeerks were forced into the brains when they were infants. All in the name of being humane, of creating hosts who knew no misery because they knew nothing at all. The yeerks killed one of Margaret's children for failing to live up to their standards for the theoretical perfect host. Three more are alive to this day, on life support for what will probably be the rest of their lives. The last child died when the U.S. military starved out the yeerk in his head, and then failed to realize that a five-year-old would need intensive care to survive on his own until it was too late."
The lawyer took a deep breath, running his hands over this thinning hair. "As you might imagine, a project this kind, this forward-thinking and concerned for the well-being of humans, attracted dozens of voluntary hosts. Including Sophie Hatter. T.J. Avery. Paul Edgecombe. Benjamin Passmore. Karana Nicoleño. Lucas Cabral. Humans, voluntarily overseeing her abuse and assault in the name of ensuring that her children would be perfect slaves, convenient for the yeerks to use and own. I ask you: who is the real monster here? The grieving mother, or the people who subjected her and her children to a fate worse than death?
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Margaret White did not kill out of a sense of malice, nor did she do so for personal gain. She sought conventional justice against her captors, and the killers of her children, and she was denied. We were told at the time to forgive. To forget. To allow the yeerks and those who aided them to escape punishment, and to focus on moving on. We were told this by children who were simply too young to understand that some sins are unforgivable, that for many of the war's victims there would be no forgetting. Margaret was denied justice. She then felt she had no choice but to take justice into her own hands. I think we can all agree that their crimes against her go far beyond all reasonable standards of provocation. That Margaret's actions may have been insane, but her reasons were not."
He turned, facing the jury now with his hands clasped in front of him. "The U.S. Justice system has already failed Margaret White once. Let's not allow it to happen again. We have a duty to get this woman the help she needs to recover, not to lock her up. And the way that you can fulfill that duty is through finding her not guilty by reason of insanity."
He stopped talking. Silence filled the courtroom.
The silence inside my head was even louder.
The judge was calling the first witness to the stand, but her voice sounded unimportant and distant.
I stood up and walked—floated, more like—out of the room. My body was disconnected. My consciousness was an invisible balloon hovering just over six feet off the floor, not associated with the meat and bone that carried it around.
The courtroom hallway scrolled past me, no more real than a screensaver. I made it as far as the restroom. Then my legs decided to stop holding me. I unwillingly sat on the floor.
Just let me die, she'd said. Begged.
And I had refused. Had threatened to reinfest her to stop her from getting what she wanted. To keep her around. For what? To have my own chance at revenge?
I curled forward, burying my face against my knees. I was so, so sick of all of this. Of uncovering more shit, every time I thought I had seen the worst of what the yeerks could do.
It was unimaginable, what had happened to her. What had been done to her.
You know what this would mean, she said to me. And she'd been wrong. I'd had no idea. Still didn't know. Could only try.
Project Tabula Rasa.
Tabula Rasa. Blank slate. I remembered that one from history class. Blank slate. I could guess what that would mean to the yeerks. I'd never been a parent, but if that had been my family... If that had been me... There would be nothing for her children. No chance for them to live, to recover. They had been trapped in a living death, the ones that had not already died. There was no freedom for her after that. No moving on. No way to heal from a wound that grave.
The door swung open and I snapped my head up, frantically scrubbing at my face where I belatedly realized it was wet with tears. If it was a reporter...
It wasn't.
"You know you're not supposed to be in here, right?" I said hoarsely.
My mom flashed a quick smile. "I'm a rebel."
I tried to give her a smile in return. It didn't quite work.
She shut the door behind her and then sat down, leaning her back against it to face me. She didn't say anything, waiting for me. She had tears on her face as well, but her expression was set with determination.
"You ever think..." I stopped, swallowed, and then started again. "Do you think maybe there's a point a person can reach where something is so terrible that you can't feel it anymore? That you can't feel anything anymore? Where the part of you that could feel love and empathy has so much pain that it just... I don't know, shuts off. Kills itself, so that the rest of you can live."
Tourniquet. That was the word I was searching for. Kill your own arm or leg, so that the rest of your body can keep the blood that it would be lost if it stayed. Kill your own soul, because feeling the pain of it would kill you.
"Anyway, I think maybe she didn't wither away like the rest of us," I said. "I think she just died on the inside. All at once."
Mom took a deep breath, leaning her head back against the door. She looked so small sometimes, so much more fragile than I expected. It had been over five years but I still got a small jolt every time I realized that I was taller than her. That she couldn't block out the world anymore. "I don't know," she said at last. "Maybe you're right. But that doesn't make what she did okay."
I shrugged. "Nothing is going to. But, like, are we supposed to keep the cycle going? Hurt her so that someone else who loves her can hurt someone else to try and keep the balance?"
"It's out of our hands now." She spoke firmly, with a certainty I didn't have. "The important thing is that you stopped her from hurting anyone else. From killing—"
"One of the guys who helped rape her?"
Mom flinched, but she met my eyes steadily. "And if he'd had someone else in the house with him, do you think she'd have let that person live? For that matter, what did Jake ever do to her? What did that poor guy Gerald ever do?"
I didn't answer her. Jake wouldn't have been in the line of fire at all—and nor would Gerald—if I had just left well enough alone. If I had listened to Eva, when she told me to let the world put itself right even if that meant people died along the way. If I hadn't meddled in someone else's attempt to seek justice.
"She was killing anyone who got in her way," Mom said. "And you stopped her."
"So that's it, then." I made a noise that wasn't quite a laugh. "Two wrongs make a right. I had a right to kill her."
Mom crossed her arms. "I notice that you did not, in fact, kill her. That unless you lied to the police, you also prevented her from killing herself."
I shrugged. It wasn't over. What I did might kill her yet, depending on what the jury decided.
"C'mere." Mom gently tugged my arm, and I scooted over to sit next to her.
"It just seems so awful that..." I stopped, trying to find the right words for what I was thinking. "You survive the war, and it still isn't over. Like maybe it's never going to be over. Like all that pain and death was for nothing, because the world is still... Like this."
Mom thought about it for a while. At one point she started to say something, stopped, and shook her head.
Finally she spoke. "If you ever have kids, you'll learn how quickly your dreams and fears for the future can change. Whether it's your eldest coming home from school talking about basketball scholarships to Big Ten colleges or your youngest earning a perfect score on a history test..." She took a shaky breath. "Or whether it's sitting there trapped inside your own brain, saying to God again and again: please, just let me see my babies again. Let me hold them, and know that they're safe, if only for one more instant. I don't care what happens to the rest of the world. I don't care what happens to me. That's all I have left to want from this life. Just to know that they're safe. That they made it through."
I wrapped my arms around my middle, not wanting to interrupt her. Mom had tried so hard to reason with me, the day the yeerks figured out who Jake was. She'd demanded to know what was going on, where these people were taking her, what the hell I thought I was doing. Essa 412's response had been to grab a fistful of her hair and start dragging her down the stairs to the yeerk pool. Several long strands had torn out of her scalp between my fingers as she cried out in pain. The yeerk they'd put inside her—some no-rank warrior who knew as well as anyone else that she was only there to be a hostage against Jake—had cut her hair off down to the ragged ends, until there was less than an inch of it left. Even now it barely reached her chin, when it had once come to halfway down her back.
"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you," I said softly.
Mom curved her hand over my wrist, just the softest of touches. "And I'm sorry I couldn't protect you. I'm so sorry I never realized. That we didn't know what was happening to you until it was too late."
I swallowed. "That's... You couldn't have... It'd be a hell of a guess to jump from 'my kid quit the basketball team' to 'he's being controlled by aliens.'" I tried to say it lightly, ironically. I didn't really succeed.
"Doesn't mean I'm not going to regret it for the rest of my life," she said. Like she was just stating a fact, and not even a particularly interesting one.
My breath caught. "Mom..."
"But that wasn't what I meant. I just meant..." She picked up her hand, stretching it out in front of her and wiggling the fingers. "This is a miracle."
She didn't have to explain it to me more than that.
"And sometimes you have to look hard at the miracles, and let everything else go," she said. "Sometimes you have to choose to be happy, choose to focus on the good things about this particular moment and nothing else."
I sighed. It was a nice idea, but... "You can't just forget everything that came before."
"No," she said. "But you can still be grateful. You have the right to be happy, whatever that means. And you have the right to go after that happiness."
"Do you think I did the right thing?" I asked. "Stopping her, I mean."
"I think that there are times when the worst thing you can possibly do is look at a problem and say 'someone else caused it, so it's someone else's problem,'" Mom said. "And you refused to do that. You saved lives. And you stopped the bastard who shot my baby boy, so I fully support that. And I'm sorry if this is uncharitable, but I hope she rots in prison for that alone."
I was pretty sure she wouldn't, but I didn't bother sharing that suspicion with Mom.
Mom jumped when someone suddenly knocked on the other side of the door.
"Come on, man," some guy called. "I really gotta go!"
"Then use the ladies' room!" Mom yelled back.
I laughed, caught by surprise. "Mom."
"What?" she said. "It's right there, and it has toilets too."
I held up my hands. "Sorry. Didn't mean to get in the way of you continuing to be a rebel."
She smiled, leaning over to press a kiss to the top of my head. "Come on, I'll take you home."
I shook my head. "Thanks, but I want to see how it ends."