BELIEVER BLAINE

MPL: Hey, Nick. I just have a few minutes. American Agent Tuello is out in the waiting room, I guess he's next. We should chat about that. I should be here for him, anything you say can be used in the court.

NB: I get that. I'm good.

MPL: Ok, please sign all these, on the yellow marks. -pause- That's good. Ok. -pause- Truly, Nick. I should be here for Tuello. Don't go confessing to things before you and I have a chat.

NB: Like I told you, I'm good.

MBL: He's going to want to know how much of a believer you were/are, Nick. Gilead is fast getting dumped onto the trash-heap of history as we speak. There's going to be 'Truth and Reconciliation' stuff to come for years.

NB: Ok.

MBL: You're not listening, Nick. Tuello's not your friend. To him, you're an enemy combatant, a prisoner of war. All the true bad ones are gone - you're all that's left. He's going to go all Nuremberg on you.

NB: Look, I'm good. I'm an open book.

MBL: Then how about this….. next week you have escorted temporary leaves. Maybe. Ankle bracelets and a young sheriff. The court is allowing the sheriffs here to treat your case as a court-room security issue, thus the sheriff tailing you. Bringing you back here, that sort of thing.

NB: Look, I get it. Believe you me, I know Tuello. We've 'corresponded'. I'm good.

MBL: Ok, don't say I didn't warn you. But, hey, can I ask you a question? When, at what point did you turn against Gilead?

NB: Who said I turned against it?

MARK TUELLO FOR THE PROSECUTION

NB: Hello, Mr Tuello. Who do I see more than you?

MT: Just doing my job, High Commander.

NB: Please. Mr Tuello. That's not my name. Not my rank.

MT: No, it isn't. From what I hear New Gilead has fallen, at least the State House at Beacon Hill. Your old stomping grounds. What can you tell me about the Marthas that are in control?

NB: You mean, are they friendly to you Americans?

MT: No big deal, I was just hoping you would help me out.

NB: Let's just say….. my first day as High Commander. Who should waltz in, in full Martha-garb, but her highness herself - the alpha-Martha with her trusted lieutenant. A woman, right past New Gilead's finest, like it was a summer's day.

MT: What did she want?

NB: Nothing. From this vantage point, I think she was scoping out my High Commander's office, for the decor she was going to use. Eventually. Apparently, as we speak.

MT: So, if you don't mind, Nick. Is this alpha-Martha, was she your Mayday contact?

NB: My lawyer just warned me about you.

MT: As she should.

NB: Will anything I say endanger the ankle-bracelet I have for next week?

MT: I'm not here to make promises, Nick. I'm here to learn about Gilead. Today, I'd like to know the role Mayday played. Apparently, the US government in Alaska will be facing a Mayday-led provisional government soon, in the lower-48. We'd like to know who, exactly, 'Mayday' is.

NB: My bet is that Rita Blue becomes Ambassador to Canada. -laughs- But seriously, they're ghosts, Mr. Tuello, ghosts. They exist only in my dearest June's fantasies.

MT: You'll forgive me if I stop you right there, Nick. Back at the office, I have a whole filing cabinet on you. Nick Blaine, hero of Chicago, Eye of God, High Commander Pryce's eye into both the Guthrie as well as the Waterford homes. According to your pugilist-buddy, Luke Bankole, it was you who'd blown up the Waterford trade mission 15 years ago, you'd been the one who'd spirited the postcards into Canada, when you'd been the Waterford body-man.

NB: You're confusing things, Mr. Tuello. The mind abhours a vacuum. Random dots on a page - I suggest to you what they look like, and suddenly you now cannot see it any other way.

MT: I beg your pardon?

NB: Mayday. A Rorschach. Smoke and mirrors, Mr. Tuello, smoke and mirrors. Every once in a while someone got pissed off with Gilead, like my old sergeant said. Then they picked up a gun and shot at people like him. Then you, with your files in Toronto, you file that away as 'Mayday'.

MT: Your sergeant?

NB: Oh geez, never mind. I'll not give him up. He just had theories. I mean, he'd had a career in Gilead's military. All those Mayday folks you think existed? They were the ones shooting at him. Live ammo. And even he thought that Mayday were ghosts.

MT: Come on, Nick, you were Mayday. Ms. Blue said as much, that first time you tried to get Osborne out. You and Rita, you'd got a truck. Probably from Jezebels' contacts. The femaleroad. Ok, it didn't work that time, but then there was the escape from the clinic. You can't deny you were the one who'd got June to the clinic's loading dock, where she went on the run for months. -pause- No Mayday? Look around you at this prison, Nick. Read the internet. Boston is falling.

NB: Believe what you want, Mr. Tuello. I've read the internet. There's no one left to protect in Boston. They are now in control.

MT: June Osborne got eighty-six kids out. She'd used a Gilead registered jet, from your main airport. That jet may as well have had Mayday livery on it. Now? For the last decade or so, Ms. Osborne has been in and out of Colorado Springs, while hiding out here at a hemp farm in Barrie, Ontario. That's Mayday, Nick.

NB: No, those are pissed off people. I mean, Aunt Lydia. She did more to cause Gilead to crumble than anyone. Her bloody Bloodline Genealogical Archives. No one has accused her of being Mayday. She was just pissed off. I mean, she'd managed to secrete my own daughter in and out of Gilead. She killed a Commander. Was she Mayday?

BELIEVER BLAINE - PART DEUX

MT: So, let me put it to you, High Commander Blaine. You're not Mayday, that means you're a believer. In the project of Gilead. Aren't you.

NB: No, I'm unemployed. I've asked you to respect that.

MT: Still, the question stands.

NB: Let me ask you the same. You're a believer, in The United States. What did the United States ever do for me? My dad was a Vietnam veteran. He was a disgrace as a father, as was that war. Left the family to fend for ourselves. Killed my mother. Me, I'd gone to Boston for work. The American promise of a picket fence and 2.4 kids, where was that? Black guys were getting shot by police, at traffic stops. Billionaires got tax cuts. So let me ask you the same, are you a believer in America, Mark? Are you?

MT: Just a reminder, Nick. You're the one in here, not me. I may be a hypocrit, but you're the war criminal. -pause- As for America, I'll admit we've had our hair mussed recently. But check your news-feed, Nick. Gilead is gone. Soon to be anyway. Marthas are drinking your Scotch in your office. So I repeat: you're still a believer? In Gilead, I mean.

NB: Ok, I fought for it. I became a hero, a hero well before I knew the extent of it. Sure it had been severe. It was brutal for women. Ask Rita. Ask June. They've got my vote.

MT: And you fought for it a second time. You could have ended both Serena as well as Fred, multiple times. They were Gilead's architects. You drove them to dinners. You enabled Fred to be well serviced at Jezebels.

NB: Fuck you, Tuello. Fuck you.

MT: You could have taken the shot, Nick. You could have, but you didn't. You, you were selfish. Took the good things Gilead offered and ignored the rest. -pause- I wonder if June Osborne knows the half of it.

NB: -silently under his breath- The place didn't even restore the birthrate.

MT: What's that?

NB: Never mind. Let's just say that once one becomes a High Commander, one's main task is to stay alive. -pause- You know why High Commanders stay alive, Mark?

MT: Why?

NB: Because no other Commander is stupid enough to want the job. Every High Commander who preceded me, thought they were 'cleaning up Gilead'. Pryce's goal? The graft. The skimmers, as he called them. Oh, we salvaged a few Commanders - mostly the ones with no personal Guardian unit loyal to them. We got Cushing, because Putnam had more Guardians.

MT: I've heard it before. Gilead as a kleptocracy.

NB: Ya, so much for the Bible. -pause- Want to hear something funny, Mark? I still believe in the Bible. -pause- You know what Pryce used to say? The reason why women should not be allowed to read? Because they'd eventually get to Galatians 3:28. Then he'd laugh and laugh.

MT: You haven't told me much about Mayday, Nick.

NB: Well then, Mark, I can't help you. I've been talking nothing but Mayday.

ESCORTED TEMPORARY ABSENCE

The techie finished, tugged a few times on the ankle-bracelet, went to her phone and fiddled with the 'app', as the Canadians called it. An 'app'? What's that? She then smiled and said to the sheriff, "He's good to go." Then she turned to me and smiled, "Enjoy Toronto!"

God. Canadians were terminally perky. I was about to face a city filled with them.

The sheriff took me to the main desk, the place I'd only seen once - at night, upon my entry to this place. Right now, it was daylight - there we were, walking toward the front door at the other end of the huge, glass-domed atrium.

The air - it was fresh. Cold Toronto air, but fresh and welcome in the nostrils. Like Michigan. You could smell the lake. The legendary CN Tower - the one that New Gilead had tried to topple, as an agenda item constantly referred to the next meeting. Still standing in all its glory. Thrill seekers at the top, leaning over the edge tethered to the tower behind them. I wonder if the sheriff would let me try that!

Then back to the street I saw the reason why I would not dare try. There he was, standing outside of and leaning against a rather beat-up car. Luke Bankole. Arms folded, staring icily at me.

At that three women got out. One, my blessed Nichole, now a young woman - 16 years old, and free. The other, a darker woman - Hannah. Tall, dignified. I was perhaps the only person in Toronto who could tell she'd been raised in a Commander's home. Had had Ardua Hall training, not that that mattered any more.

And then - June. Stood to take her place between her two girls. Approaching them, Luke was the first to speak, pointing to the sheriff. Luke asked, "Who's this schlub?"

June piped up. "He's the one who makes sure you behave yourself, Luke."

Luke said, "I was talking about Blaine." Then he added, "Ok, here's the deal. We only have five seat-belts. Which one of you geniuses is going to stay here?"

My first taste of freedom in Toronto. Gilead was now all-but gone. And we, here on this curb, we were in need of someone to take charge.