Strange to find us together in this place. Standing here with my wife, I can almost pretend that it is just the two of us. I can almost pretend that we are not surrounded by concrete, barbed wire, and an endless desert.
We begin walking toward the elevators. I hear voices, but I can’t tell where they’re coming from. Then a door opens as we pass and a man steps out. Tall, wearing a dark suit and red tie. And though I am startled to be face-to-face with him, in some way it makes perfect sense.
“Hello, Friends.”
I nod. “Finnegan.”
He looks first at Alice, then at me. His gaze is intense, but I do not look away. “There is something Orla would like for you to see.”
With that, Finnegan pulls the door wide open to reveal a narrow, windowless room. Alice leads me in, and I feel Finnegan’s hand on my back urging me forward. Along one wall is a dark curtain. Finnegan draws back the curtain to reveal a long window, looking onto a chapel of some sort, lit by a grand chandelier.
The place is packed. There is a buzz of chatter, an expectant electricity permeating the room. People hold full champagne flutes, but no one is drinking. It is as if they are waiting for something. Strangely, when the curtain parts, no one glances in our direction.
“They can’t see us,” Alice observes.
There are faces I recognize but many more I don’t. I look for Neil, JoAnne, Gordon, everyone from the black-and-white photos lining the wall of the marble courtroom. I remember staring at each of the portraits, waiting for the judge to hand down my sentence. For a moment, I wonder where they are. But then I think I understand.
Finnegan stands by silently as we watch the crowd. After a minute, he touches a button and yet another door swings open, revealing only darkness. Alice takes a trembling breath and leads me into the unknown, her fingers entwined through mine.
I feel a hand on each shoulder and turn to see that it is Finnegan’s wife, Fiona. She wears the same green dress she wore on the day of our wedding. She and Finnegan silently fall in behind us.
Candles line the walls of the narrow corridor, flickering in the darkness. Behind us there is only the sound of feet moving across the floor. A moan echoes down the corridor from up ahead. We are not alone. My heart starts beating faster, I feel sweat running down my arms, my back. Beside me, though, Alice seems at peace; eager, even.
As we walk, the sounds intensify—a chain rattling, something struggling in an enclosed space. The breathing becomes louder, the echo of more chains, something pulling or perhaps stuck. A motion sensor clicks, dimly lighting the way in front of us. I glance to my right and see a tall, familiar structure. I freeze, only to realize that it’s just inches from me. And then a figure comes into view—standing between sheets of plexiglass, arms and legs outstretched and shackled. A Focus Collar forces him to stare straight ahead. As we move past, another motion sensor clicks and a spotlight blazes down upon the structure for a second, maybe two. Through the fog of condensation on the glass, the face becomes clear. For a moment, I lock eyes with the judge, the man who approved my interrogation. His eyes betray no emotion. And then he is plunged into darkness once again.
I turn to Alice, only to realize that she is looking to the other side, more plexiglass, another installation. A woman. I remember meeting her at one of the parties, remember seeing her in the corridors of Fernley: an esteemed member of the board. Her hair is matted, her face shiny with perspiration.
Alice pauses before her, mesmerized.
One by one, we pass the towering, living installations. One by one, motion sensors click on, briefly illuminating the prisoners’ faces. Their expressions are impossible to read. Is it fear? Is it shame? Or something else—an understanding that justice has been achieved? That no one is above the laws of The Pact? Its mission must be served. Balance must be restored, no matter what.
As Finnegan and Fiona follow us a few paces behind—each stopping to look, then moving on—the hallway is filled with flashing lights. Members of the board, alone in their glass frames, shackled, each a witness to his or her own fall from grace. Specimens for study, as I once was. Subjects under a microscope. Only the terror in their eyes and the persistent clatter one prisoner makes, struggling against the firm restraints, remind us that this is life, not art.
I remember the moment when Orla asked me what penalties should be meted out to those who abused their power, those who subverted the goals of The Pact for their own desires. I do not regret my answer.
Good and evil are complicated. Who we are, and who we think we are, are rarely one and the same.
Perhaps Orla and I, The Pact and I, are not as different as I once thought.
Up ahead, there are two final installations, set apart from the others and surrounded by candles. As Alice and I move between them, I focus my gaze in front of me. I do not need to look; I know who is there. On my left, I sense Alice’s hand reaching toward the thin plexiglass frame that separates her from JoAnne. As the motion sensor clicks and the light shines down, I hear the brush of Alice’s fingers sliding along the glass.
100
At the end of the corridor, we take a sharp turn right, then right again. In the darkness, I try to get my bearings. I have the feeling that we are returning to where we started, every step leading us deeper into the prison. And then a light flickers and Orla comes into view. She is standing beside a tall candelabra, clad in white, watching us, waiting.
When I pause, Alice tugs me forward gently. She moves without hesitation, her hand so warm, so right. It all seems incongruous—this inertia, this momentum, propelling us forward.
We stand before Orla. The candle flame carves shadows across her pale face. To her left is a closed door, painted gold. To her right, another closed door, this one painted white.
“Hello, Friends.” She leans forward to kiss Alice on the cheek, then me. She is even more frail than when I saw her just days ago. Her voice is weak, her skin sallow. “Perhaps now I have earned your trust,” she says.
I nod.
“And you have earned mine.” She gestures toward the gold door on her left. “Step closer. Listen.”
I put my ear to the door. Alice does the same. On the other side, there are voices. Dozens of voices, all talking at once. Glasses, faint music—the sounds of a party. I realize we have somehow been led back behind the chapel.
Alice looks down at her red dress, as if for the first time she understands its purpose.
“On the other side of that door are forty of our most esteemed, most trusted members,” Orla says. “They have no idea why they have been summoned here.”