Cory Doctorow/Little Brother/141
That's when I hugged her. She sagged against me, but she He wasn't the only broken one.
squeezed back, too. She smelled stale and sweaty, and I smelled
no better. I never wanted to let go. At the courthouse, they marched us into interview rooms in our
shackle group. An ACLU lawyer took our information and asked
That's when they opened Darryl's cell. us a few questions when she got to me, she smiled and greeted
me by name and then led us into the courtroom before the
He had shredded his paper hospital gown. He was curled up, judge. He wore an actual robe, and seemed to be in a good mood.
naked, in the back of the cell, shielding himself from the camera
and our stares. I ran to him. The deal seemed to be that anyone who had a family member to
post bail could go free, and everyone else got sent to prison. The
"D," I whispered in his ear. "D, it's me. It's Marcus. It's over. ACLU lawyer did a lot of talking to the judge, asking for a few
The guards have been arrested. We're going to get bail, we're more hours while the prisoners' families were rounded up and
going home." brought to the courthouse. The judge was pretty good about it,
but when I realized that some of these people had been locked up
He trembled and squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm sorry," he since the bridge blew, taken for dead by their families, without
whispered, and turned his face away. trial, subjected to interrogation, isolation, torture I wanted to
just break the chains myself and set everyone free.
They took me away then, a cop in bodyarmor and Barbara,
took me back to my cell and locked the door, and that's where I When I was brought before the judge, he looked down at me
spent the night. and took off his glasses. He looked tired. The ACLU lawyer
looked tired. The bailiffs looked tired. Behind me, I could hear a
# sudden buzz of conversation as my name was called by the bailiff.
The judge rapped his gavel once, without looking away from me.
I don't remember much about the trip to the courthouse. They He scrubbed at his eyes.
had me chained to five other prisoners, all of whom had been in
for a lot longer than me. One only spoke Arabic he was an old "Mr Yallow," he said, "the prosecution has identified you as a
man, and he trembled. The others were all young. I was the only flight risk. I think they have a point. You certainly have more,
white one. Once we had been gathered on the deck of the ferry, I shall we say, history, than the other people here. I am tempted to
saw that nearly everyone on Treasure Island had been one shade hold you over for trial, no matter how much bail your parents are
of brown or another. prepared to post."
I had only been inside for one night, but it was too long. There My lawyer started to say something, but the judge silenced her
was a light drizzle coming down, normally the sort of thing that with a look. He scrubbed at his eyes.
would make me hunch my shoulders and look down, but today I
joined everyone else in craning my head back at the infinite gray "Do you have anything to say?"
sky, reveling in the stinging wet as we raced across the bay to the
ferrydocks. "I had the chance to run," I said. "Last week. Someone offered
to take me away, get me out of town, help me build a new identity.
They took us away in buses. The shackles made climbing into Instead I stole her phone, escaped from our truck, and ran away. I
the buses awkward, and it took a long time for everyone to load. turned over her phone which had evidence about my friend,
No one cared. When we weren't struggling to solve the geometry Darryl Glover, on it to a journalist and hid out here, in town."
problem of six people, one chain, narrow busaisle, we were just
looking around at the city around us, up the hill at the buildings. "You stole a phone?"
All I could think of was finding Darryl and Ange, but neither "I decided that I couldn't run. That I had to face justice that
were in evidence. It was a big crowd and we weren't allowed to my freedom wasn't worth anything if I was a wanted man, or if
move freely through it. The state troopers who handled us were the city was still under the DHS. If my friends were still locked
gentle enough, but they were still big, armored and armed. I kept up. That freedom for me wasn't as important as a free country."
thinking I saw Darryl in the crowd, but it was always someone
else with that same beaten, hunched look that he'd had in his cell. "But you did steal a phone."
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