LJ Idol, Topic 17: "Bringing a Knife to a Gun Fight"
The perfectly rectangular chamber was kept unpleasantly cold, prickling Tara's dark skin with gooseflesh. Over her head gleamed a harsh, luminescent bulb, too far up to ever be conceivably reached. It was the only source of light; in the windowless room, the passage of time meant precious little. She hadn't been there for long, but already the complete isolation was wearing thin. Her only sliver of human interaction had occurred on the second day, conversing with a squat man possessed of rheumy hazel eyes, who had come in to interrogate her. Well, if one could really call it an interrogation.
"What was the point of all that vandalism?" He wondered aloud, squinting at the stoic young woman in handcuffs. "I know some of the others involved in the Veracorp Riots were homeless layabouts, but it's not as though you were hungry. You were in university for computer science, after all. Even with your mother... absent... you weren't going to starve."
Absent. That was a good one. Here she was, cuffed to a springy cot by the same company that had arrested her mother, and the best this little man could say was that she was 'absent.' Tara parted her lips to grin at him with as much savagery as she could summon. The smile stretched her face so broadly, she thought it might crack and reveal how her inner self was rabidly shrieking with rage. "Don't you watch the news?" She snipped at him with what she hoped was acerbic wit. "My generation's morally bankrupt. Why do I do anything?"
"Oh, yes- yes, of course." He frowned with manufactured consternation, turning for the door. "I suppose there's not much to be done with your group. Just have to focus on the citizens who aren't hellbent on anarchy."
"Don't I get my one phone call?" She waited until the door had almost closed behind him to ask it, causing him to pause and look back at her in surprise. Unexpectedly, he gave a little laugh - warm, congenial, and full of genuine amusement.
"You don't think you were detained by the police, do you?" Upon seeing the horror spread slowly across Tara's face, he chuckled again, shaking his head. "Kids these days... You should've watched the news more. You were on private property. Our private property," The Veracorp employee clarified. "Our jurisdiction, as it were. So sorry to disappoint." As the heavy metal door fell shut behind him, a profoundly chilling wave of understanding washed over her body.
No phone call.
No charges.
No trial.
Just like everyone else who had vanished before her.
Tara masked her face with both shaking hands as her mind raced to think of some kind of loophole or escape strategy. The hours and days began to slip away from her tenuous grasp, their passing marked only by the twice daily meals slid through the door's slot. She slept without dreaming and stared blankly at the unmarred grey walls through the times when she could not sleep. It was all so perfectly legal, right down to the caloric allotment of food and the size of her cell. She had watched the news and listened to current events. That was why we rioted in the first place. The bitter thought floated idly through her mind, two days too late to tell the patronising man who had come to take her statement. Silently, she cursed herself for not trying to persuade him of the right and wrong of it when she had the chance.
The slippery handful of days fell into weeks. Sometime during the third, another man entered her cell - this time, someone she recognized. Tara's history professor took a seat on the cot beside her, looking quiet and grim. "They almost didn't let me in," Dr. Ingram commented, by way of greeting. "No visitation rights, you know."
She smiled faintly, embittered by the reminder, but grateful to finally see someone. "I know."
He leaned back against the wall and attempted to flatten his wiry white hair with aged, gnarled fingers. "They're going to pass some new legislation here in a month or so." When she didn't ask for a clarification, he proceeded to offer one anyways. "They're calling it the 'KIND' Act. 'Keeping Inmates, Not Dependents.'" The professor shook his head, seeming nearly on the verge of lapsing into tears.
Tara still didn't speak, mentally ticking over all the things she already knew about her predicament. What could have him so troubled? Being arrested by a company already guaranteed you a life of unpaid labor. It was only a matter of time before she was assigned to some backbreaking job they left for the lowest of the low.
"Veracorp wrote it." Dr. Ingram explained carefully, almost too softly to be heard. "They say a lot of their inmates are unfit for work and putting an unfair financial strain on the company. People like you - 'freeloaders.'"
Tara understood and immediately wished she didn't. "They're asking for permission to kill us." She voiced her suspicion, hating the nod that confirmed it.
"It's expected to pass with an overwhelming majority," He finished wearily, digging into a pocket on the inside of his mustard tweed jacket. "I just... thought you should know." He passed a small poetry book to her before rising from the cot and making his way to the door, every inch a man without hope for the future.
"Thank you..." She called after him quietly. He didn't acknowledge it, leaving Tara behind in the same desolate space. When he was gone, she fanned through the book's pages, only to have a meticulously sharpened piece of sturdy plastic fall into her lap. Written on the polycarbon fragment in permanent black marker were the words: WAIT. YOU'LL KNOW WHEN. As Tara ran her fingertips along its pleasingly sharp blade, she thought of the guards outside her door, armed with clubs and automatic weapons and no body armor. She thought of the riot squad that had separated her from her friends. A thrill of primal hope coursed through her veins as the knife nicked her index finger, blood readily welling to the surface.
Soon. Something would happen soon.
This fictional entry was written as part of the seventeenth topic of LJ Idol's 8th season, which is "Bringing a Knife to a Gun Fight."
Constructive criticism is encouraged, appreciated, and welcomed.
This was written as a followup to Sticks and Stones.