Cracks

“Wait – This isn’t fair, you can’t do this!”

Somebody screams from the section next to us. I’m sure that he heard it too, but the specialist in the room doesn’t react, even with how bloodcurdling it sounded. Is this normal? An inmate having an emotional outburst, was it?

“What was that?”

“I have the results here from your MME,” the man says, lifting up the tablet and blatantly ignoring my question. “We will review this together.”

He turns on the screen, and a still-image is shown of me in the Boundary, standing in the midst of corpses. But he avoids looking at the gruesome sight directly, that’d be illegal.

“Do you often have depraved thoughts like this, Hartwell?”

“I— No? It’s a dream, not my—"

“A dream derived from your mind, Hartwell. I ask again, how often do you think about such things?”

“Never, I—”

“Never? That can’t be true, otherwise it wouldn’t be on your test.”

“Sir, if you’d just let me talk, I can explain.” After a few seconds of still silence, he reluctantly nods, permitting me to continue. Finally, geez. “I saw… Something very- disturbing, and—”

“You are aware that looking at ‘disturbing’ elements is illegal?”

Oh my gosh, I can’t get a word in with these people. What’s wrong with them?

“Yes, yes, I do, but it wasn’t intentional. It was the attack on the Capital, I’m a survivor.”

That half-truth should be suffice, it’d explain the Liberation’s presence in my dream as well. They surely can’t fault me for that. Anyone would have some trauma from seeing the aftermath of a Mangler attack, right?

“Can you explain to me why such… Visuals, are prohibited from being seen?”

Of course. That’s elementary.

“Because it puts you at risk of corruption.”

“Correct. And if such revolting ideas are in your head, Hartwell, doesn’t that make you corrupted?”

“No… It’s just the memories that keep coming to me. I don’t think ‘morbidly.’”

“’Keep coming to you?’ So, you admit these thoughts are repetitive?”

I never knew the Corvid tolerated such idiocy. Does this guy really not understand what I’m saying? I shuffle slightly in my seat, his consistent nonsense arousing irritation. But I keep my tone level, avoiding attitude.

“The memories are repetitive, sir.”

“Which means you are repeatedly exposed to corruptive imagery, therefore significantly increasing your chances of corruption,” he reprimands me in a rough and accusatory way, yet his face stays the same – devoid of all emotion. “Tell me, Hartwell, have you experienced any violent urges?”

I almost spring up from my stool. “No, absolutely not!”

“It is a known fact that the more you witness violence, the more prone you are to become violent. Are you trying to deny the science, Hartwell? To insult my intelligence?”

“I’m not trying to insinuate any of that, I’m simply telling you that I personally have not had such feelings—”

I stop abruptly. He may be right. I’ve felt the need to hit Ezri twice, and one of those I actually went along with. Dang it, why did that have to happen? The first time – right, I was protecting Jasper, that’s not too bad. But the second… There was no valid reason. She was upsetting me, so I wanted to strike her.

Dang it, dang it, why couldn’t I control myself?

Does fighting the golems count too? Well, it is a violation of the weapon law, but that’s another topic – no, I should be fine, I was just trying to save myself. No ill will involved.

“Are you perhaps realizing there is no use in lying to me, Hartwell? Remember, we at the Corvid do not take kindly to lies.”

He's right, he’s so right. It can’t be denied – I did have violent urges. If I don’t confess, he’ll keep probing me, and the truth will come out anyway. Maybe if I just be honest, he may be at least somewhat lenient.

“Actually, sir… I just remembered that I— I did feel that way, at some point.”

“Were they acted on?”

He just had to ask that.

“Yes,” I admit.

“In what way?” His voice lowers dangerously, and for once, his countenance changes. I prefer the way it was before. You’d think I was the most deplorable person to ever walk the earth. Someone who doesn’t even deserve life. I glance down at the raven on his shirt. “A corvid tells of your death.” He slams a fist on the table when I take too long to respond. “I asked you, in what way, Hartwell?” He repeats while it wobbles.

I’ve never felt so small, so inferior.

“I-I punched someone in the face—”

“Which is a felony.”

“Believe me, I know that, but—”

“But you did it anyway.”

A felony. I’m guilty of a felony. This can’t be real. I’m living in a nightmare. This isn’t how things were supposed to go in my life, not at all. Can Dad get me out of this? No, darn it, he’s in a facility somewhere too. Lux? No, he’s a stickler, just like me.

“Not to mention,” he looks at something on the tablet, “I see here you’ve also admitted to injuring yourself. Yet another sign you’re unstable,” his eyes dart back to me, shaking me to the core. “You vile girl. If you’ve lost the natural instinct to preserve your own body, how can you be trusted around others?”

No, I’m not dangerous. How could I be dangerous? Doesn’t even sound right. Doesn’t make any sense.

But wait, I hurt my knee on purpose when I was a kid – that was only to get Dad’s attention though, and I was so young. Unless- that’s just an excuse I’m making for myself. What if I’ve been corrupted for years without knowing it?

No, that isn’t true.

I’m a good person.

The ideal model citizen.

“Trembling all over… A sure admission of guilt,” he says with a tch. Slowly rising to his feet, he shuts off the screen and creaks open the door. Another worker is already out there waiting for me. “Go. You will be taken to your cell while your case is put under review.”

No. No, no, no. Those words are something nobody ever wants to hear. A week is all they take. The facility will examine your records alongside the crime you committed – not to check for any mishaps, no, once a verdict is made it’s made.

They check to see how long you’ll be sentenced to sleep.

I don’t move. My shoes are glued to the floor, while I stare forward in terror at the walls lined with prisoners – because that’s what this is, a prison. It’s death, death of everything you thought you knew.

Is this how things have been run all along? I act out a few times, when I spent my life in full submission to the IPU, and I’m getting put to sleep?

There must be something I’m not understanding, right? Doesn’t the IPU always know best?

“Get going,” the specialist demands.

When I still don’t, the other worker takes my arm and drags me off, forcing my senses to return to me.

“Wait, hold on a minute, you can’t do this!” I yell. “It isn’t fair! I can explain!”

My cries aren’t heeded. The prisoners give me empathetic glances through the acrylic, one even smiles weakly. For just a fraction of a second, so small it’s close to undetectable, I feel they shouldn’t look at me like that – people like me put them in here. But just as quickly as it came, the thought fades.

I’m tossed into a cell. There’s nothing in here, it’s just a white square. Things continue out in the hall as if nothing happened. Another group of inmates are brought in, all having the same aloofness I initially had. How fast that confidence of mine was taken and destroyed. They turn to me, and I hate it.

Don’t see me like this, held in here wearing the clothes of a criminal, awaiting sleep. Don’t do it. Where’s my shame? Where’s Dad, where are my friends?

But they’re nowhere, there’s no one. As the days pass, my only company is a worker that gives me my meal. I’m not permitted to leave the cell. All the inmates get watched like a hawk by the specialists, who closely study our behavior. I hate it, being observed like some zoo animal. Every time I say something, or even move in a certain way, they note it down on their tablets.

There’s no pleasing these people. Facility release rates aren’t low because the inmates are oh-so-horrible, it’s because these psychos are in charge. Ha, I’m surprised the rate isn’t zero!

Gosh, would they just stop looking at me?

On the fourth day of my review, a droid joins the workers outside my cell. But not to watch me. Instead, it’s something worse.

“We have cut the review for Calla Hartwell short. The sentence of Calla Hartwell will begin now.”