Then he sat back down and waited. He had already been there more than an hour, every minute one more that Joyce was still in their custody.

The door burst open, as fast as a door secured with five different locks can open. In came two uniformed guards and one suit.

“What the fuck’s going on in here?” said the older of the guards, a beefy white Texan with a name tag that said Stevens.

“Just waiting for you idiots to obey the law and produce my client,” said Donny.

Stevens grabbed Donny by the lapels and shoved him up against the wall.

“The only idiot in here is you,” said Stevens, up in his face with teeth bared like he was going to bite him for real. “Disrespecting our President.”

“He’s not the president, Jethro. He lost the election. Maybe that was above your pay grade. And this fight isn’t over yet.”

“That’s what you think,” said Stevens, slamming Donny against the wall.

“Up yours, fat boy,” said Donny, winded. “Every time you hit me is another year of time you’re going to do when we wake up from this bad dream. And then I am going to bankrupt you and your family.”

In those weeks after the coup, before everyone adjusted to the new normal, Donny actually believed that. In a way, he never stopped believing it. Even though it ended up taking another six years to get there, after they figured out elections and lawsuits weren’t going to suffice.

“I want to speak with a supervisor,” said Donny. “The customer service in this place sucks.”

The guy in the suit actually chuckled at that.

“Lay off him for a minute, Stevens,” said the suit.

Stevens dropped Donny back onto the bench.

“What’s the deal, here, Mr.—” The suit grabbed the clipboard the other officer was holding and looked at the top sheet. “Mr. Kimoe?”

“The deal is I have an order from a federal judge for the release of a prisoner, and you guys are giving me the runaround.”

The suit flipped the pages on the clipboard. “That would be Prisoner 11–07043–091?”

“Her name is Joyce.” Donny repeated it, with her full name.

“Uh-huh,” said the suit. “Do you understand why she was detained?”

“Yes. For her politics, which is why the judge ordered she be released.”

“The judge got it wrong.”

“Why don’t you tell the judge that.”

“That’s not my job,” said the suit. “And the orders we have say the orders of judges don’t apply during the emergency. At least not here in the borderzone.”

“Do you really want to defy the order of a federal judge?” said Donny. “Just to keep one college professor with a valid passport from exercising her right to leave the country and never come back?”

The suit looked like he was thinking that one over.