Chapter Text
Day 1
So this was it.
Eva Stratt knew this would probably happen. She’d accepted it. As long as she did everything she needed to, to make sure the world had a fair chance of making it out of the Petrova crisis, her job would be done and she could quietly vanish, face whatever justice was in store for her.
Well, it had not been so quiet as she might have liked. The media had been watching every step of the trial. They’d broadcasted the process to the whole world. Anyone who was paying attention knew about the case, how the woman who once ran the task force to save the world was now a convicted felon, sentenced for life.
Well. Let them think what they like. Stratt had done what she needed, however controversial, however frightening, however… personally painful. She had been given all the power one could hope to have, and had done her utmost to use it for the sake of the world. Not for herself. Not for the wishes of any few people.
Not for Ryland Grace, whom she had sent to Tau Ceti against his will for the sake of the planet. Their best chance.
This is not me betraying you. This is me believing in you. She’d said to a man once so scorned that he had run away, changed his life and become a middle school teacher.
You’re murdering me. Grace had said to Stratt, herself a woman who had already released convicts, pirated the internet, and ordered the nuking of Antarctica and the paving of the Sahara to achieve her goals. One man should mean nothing, and yet the look on his face had been all too personal.
Would he be glad to know her deeds had now landed her in prison? She would never know. Grace was in a prison of his own, but there had been no fair trial, and the weight on his shoulders was a different kind from Stratt’s. She only had to hope that she had been right in believing in him. Well… Stratt wasn’t the type to hope, necessarily. She was the type to create a chance, something others could place their hope on. She was the type to get the job done to the best of her ability, or more, to create the greatest odds of success. Hope was naive, and painful when it brought you nowhere.
Sentiments like that? They didn’t do Eva Stratt any good. She would simply have to wait, from this prison, and see how things turned out. Her job was done, and Stratt was finally forced to face the consequences.
Day 5
Stratt found herself, each day, almost trying to give orders to the guards out of habit. That would be to no avail, of course. It would take some time, getting used to her new position. She had experience in that, at least.
Those who knew her said leadership had come naturally to Stratt. That was why she’d been given the position, after all. However, it was more difficult than they saw. From the first day she’d had to make tough decisions. Who should be the first to study the life forms found in the Petrova line? Well, they couldn’t risk someone who might later provide valuable insight, so she’d chosen an unassuming middle school teacher, one who was not lacking in brains, but who had little patience and tolerance for criticism. His experience was right, his expertise matching what Stratt was looking for, but he never would have gotten involved on his own, preferring his quiet life, making him perfect. Only after the initial experiments had he demanded further involvement.
The reason for that was the students he taught, but even they had not provided enough motivation for Ryland Grace to choose to board the Hail Mary on his own. The moment his own life had been at risk, he’d backed out.
You don’t have any immediate family. You don’t even have a dog.
Stratt’s life was vastly different from how it had been prior to the launch of the Hail Mary, but she still thought of herself the same way, stood the same way, thought… nearly the same way. That was changing. She was not sure what she was becoming, as she adjusted to her new role.
It was starting to sink in that she’d never be free of this place.
Day 7
Every day was the same thing, a strict schedule to adhere to. Stratt did not see the sky so much here, did not glimpse the dimming sun. Not that she was not allowed outside at all– it was cruel to keep prisoners inside and isolated all the time, so they were allowed short, supervised periods of outside time.
Stratt was kept away from the other prisoners, for the most part, due to her unique history. The warden had not wanted to take any risks, which was made apparent when Stratt arrived here. It would be some time before she was fully integrated into the prison.
Out of the confinement, the isolation, and the routine, none were the worst part about this life. The worst part was the coffee situation.
Day 13
Something new was happening today.
The change in routine threw Stratt off for a moment, but she adapted quickly. The guards took her into a small, dark room with a screen. There, they played a video.
It was a summary of the Project.
Stratt didn’t understand, at first, why they were showing her this. She knew all this. She had directed the project. What was the point in showing her the video?
She was left wondering until she started to spot more and more inaccuracies.
Ah.
This was another interrogation, wasn’t it? Another attempt to clear up the confusion surrounding the project. Inaccurate media was as prominent as ever as people tried to document Project Hail Mary. Stratt’s own insistence on keeping information on lockdown blurred the lines even more. They hadn’t been able to hide the existence of the project itself, of course, but the details could remain a secret. It was safer that way. The project had more than a few enemies.
Stratt had not taken great strides to clear things up now that the ship had launched, aside from what was necessary to say in court before she was sent here. A generic American prison, though that was far from being Stratt’s origin country. Perhaps she should be in the Netherlands, and this would be brought up at some point, but the American prison was oddly fitting.
She had murdered an American man, after all.
Stratt continued to keep quiet, revealing nothing. Why should she? How would that benefit anyone in a substantial way? There were no lives to be saved by admitting the truth.
The truth. The truth about Eva was, she could not be bothered to tell the truth. Maybe she was petty, spiteful for how she had been locked up. Maybe she was just tired.
Day 34
Eva Stratt woke up again to a blank ceiling.
American prisons were not luxurious. The policy of Americans was still to hide criminals away. Put them in jail for a while, or forever, and forget about them. They did not make the same efforts for rehabilitation that the Dutch did.
Eva was not sure what they would do with her, anyway. How to rehabilitate a woman who had once had the whole world under her finger, and had liberally made use of that power, but for such a cause? She was not a criminal who suffered from a mental illness, nor one who had been disadvantaged. She was not one whose actions were based on selfish reasons.
Stratt had a role she knew from the start. The scapegoat. The woman who was meant to do the unthinkable, to take on her shoulders all the consequences, all the public scrutiny and legal mayhem. One with the liberty to ignore the ethics of everything she did until the project was over.
Could they really reintegrate her with society, even if she no longer had that role?
Eva Stratt had murdered a man. That seemed, sometimes, many times, like her worst crime. Sending Ryland Grace away on the Hail Mary.
Her cramped cell lacked color. The whole prison did. Even the stains on the floor she could see sometimes were dull. Her reflection brought the whole aesthetic together.
Maybe the color had started to drain from the world as the sun grew steadily dimmer. Maybe Stratt had sent the color away.
Maybe a world without color would be necessary, for now. There was no room for hope in Stratt’s situation.
Day 49
Seven weeks of prison.
Many who knew her said Stratt was pretty much unflappable. She could nuke an entire continent without batting an eye. She dragged everyone she met along with her, uniting experts from all over the world.
Seven weeks were taking their toll on Eva.
Interaction with the other prisoners was still limited. Maybe it was better that way. Maybe it was getting to Eva. She knew very well how only interacting with a select few for a long period of time could affect a person’s mental state. It had been an issue to solve for the mission, which three astronauts had been sent on.
The Hail Mary would get farther and farther from Earth each day. Eva found she didn’t remember where it should be now.
If nothing had gone wrong.
Aside from the occasional interrogation, she… had no idea what was going on outside this prison.
It terrified her, in all honesty. She had done all she could, though. The only thing Eva let herself hope for was that the Hail Mary would reach Tau Ceti without issue. There were so many things that could go wrong, but she hoped anyway.
Though she would not know the result of the mission for more than twenty years. She may be dead by then, one way or another.
They may never tell her what happened, anyway. She may stay here, cut off from information forever.
Until the world forgot about Eva Stratt, once the most important person in the world. Until she forgot herself.