PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 154 Blindsight
her, the door she must have entered through. "In there," she says,
"are the ones who killed your friends. They've been disarmed.
When you go through that door the room will go offline and
remain unmonitored for a period of sixty seconds. Nobody besides
yourself will ever hold you accountable for whatever happens in
there during that time."
It's a trick. It has to be.
"What do you have to lose?" Bates wonders. "We can already do
anything we want to you. It's not like we need you to give us an
excuse."
Hesitantly, you take the gun. Bates doesn't stop you.
She's right, you realize. You have absolutely nothing to lose.
You stand and, suddenly fearless, point the weapon at her face.
"Why go in there? I can kill you right here."
She shrugs. "You could try. Waste of an opportunity, if you ask
me."
"So I go in there, and I come out in sixty seconds, and then
what?"
"Then we talk."
"We just—"
"Think of it as a gesture of good faith," she says. "Restitution,
even."
The door opens at your approach, closes in your wake. And
there they are, all four of them, spread up across the wall like a
chorus line of Christs on crosses. There's no gleam in those eyes
now. There's only a bright animal terror and the reflection of
turned tables. Two of the Christs stain their pants when you look
them in the eye.
What's left? Maybe fifty seconds?
It's not a lot. You could have done so much more with just a
little extra time. But it's enough, and you don't want to impose on
the good graces of this Bates woman.
Because she may at last be someone you can deal with.
*
Under other circumstances, Lieutenant Amanda Bates would