THEY — Chapter 20 — Reprisal
This is chapter 20 of my book “THEY”. If you are finding it for the first time, please begin with Chapter 1 (or check the INDEX )! When you’re done, check out more of my stories on my MEDIUM profile: Caralynn Scott — Medium
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CHAPTER 20 — Reprisal
The clandestine meeting weighed heavily on Jennic. While she could take some encouragement that Navlin, and probably Praija, were doing their best to keep her safe, she was now worried that at any moment she could be taken just as Xania had been. It made her jumpy, which in turn made it harder for her to keep her cool around the staff and she did not like feeling vulnerable.
The group of friends decided that it would be safest not to regularly sit together for a while, hoping not to draw further attention to themselves, and so at lunch, Jennic was left alone at a table with Laybo. Lost in thought, however, neither of them had anything to say to the other. Jennic knew from the look in his eyes that Laybo felt the same way she did. They would continue to meet secretly, no matter what the cost might be. They would never give up, though they would have to be much more careful.
Suddenly, a voice behind her broke the silence, “Jennic?”
She almost jumped across the table. The person asking her identity was a facility staff member whom Jennic recognized but whose name she could not remember at the moment. “Please come with me.” Was all they said, then turned and walked away, not waiting for Jennic to respond but obviously fully expecting her compliance.
The familiar stranger was not Dr. Bilang, but this interruption, much like the last, was made by an actual person and not an Arti. That still had to mean something. A fear began to germinate in Jennic as she worried this might be the moment the voices had warned her about. Perhaps her time had come. What else could it be? It certainly seemed unlikely the white coat was taking her for another visit from her parents. Why would Navlin, who Jennic was certain was one of the voices on the call, risk a visit only an hour after their clandestine meeting?
The white coat walked Jennic out of the great hall toward another meeting room. They lead the way, regularly checking behind them to be sure Jennic was following, but never stopping or speaking another word.
When they arrived, her parents were not there to greet her. Instead, the room was empty with the exception of a single chair and a communications holo-platform. After she had entered, the white coat unceremoniously closed the door quickly behind her and took a guard stance just outside. The moment the door clicked shut, the holo-platform became active and an image of an official looking individual took form before her. Jennic did not recognize the person sitting at the desk shuffling through files on their information display.
The communication must have caught them off guard and started before they were ready as they shut down their display as soon as they realized they were live and in a conference. “Good morning Jennic.” They said with a grin that was obviously contrived to set her at ease. It did not work.
“My name is Thoralin. You may not have heard of me before, but I am the one who manages those who run the facilities you are taking advantage of. It is my job to monitor and maintain the programs you are undertaking, and it is my responsibility to see that everything runs smoothly. Do you understand?”
While Jennic would freely admit the Facility had more than provided her with all her needs, she did not feel she owed them anything. She had been abducted, albeit coercively willingly, and she was compelled beyond her will to remain here. She did not feel that in any way she was taking advantage of this place. But perhaps that was not the best thing to tell the person who held her future in their hands at that moment, so as was becoming a common practice for her when dealing with the white coats, she lied.
“I think so.” Jennic said, though perhaps she understood a lot more than Thoralin thought she did.
It seemed to Jennic that it would not matter what she had said. Thoralin did not appear to really be listening for a reply and immediately dove right in. “I have had reports of an… indiscretion we need to discuss. It has been reported to me that you have been seen boarding the transport cubes with another individual, and that you have been visiting their guest apartment on a regular basis; one…” Thoralin glanced over at another information pad laying on their desk hunting for a name, “Laybo… Is that correct?”
Obviously, they already knew about her and Laybo’s rendezvous in each of their rooms or they would never have brought it up in the first place. There was no point in denying it or making an excuse. This was not going to be a friendly meeting, but Jennic felt relieved that at least it seemed she was not being taken from the community, only being reprimanded. Her apprehension was growing, but she still did not want to jeopardize the plans she and her friends were making, so she decided to play it cool. She braced herself and answered in a steady voice. “Yes. That is correct.”
“Thank you for being honest with me Jennic. That is a particularly good sign you are progressing toward recovery. We understand and expect that pairings will happen occasionally among our guests, just as they do among the general population. It is only natural. However, due to the proclivities of our guests — the ones we are trying to help you with that is, and the nature of the work we do in the facility, we have to be incredibly careful that your visits do not become more than a casual rendezvous. That they do not become… Well, to put it frankly… licentious.”
“I’m not certain what you mean.” Jennic answered as innocently as she could. She had been learning a great deal from her friends, particularly Laybo, about the facts of life before the hospitals became the only source of producing children, and it was In fact crystal-clear what Thoralin was communicating, but she honestly did not know what that last word meant and was only guessing from the context, so it was easy to continue lying to the manager.
“What I’m saying is that you and Laybo are free to pursue any bonding outside of this facility, however, while you are in this place, we require that you follow the strict guidelines laid out by our staff and remain focussed on the tasks necessary to complete your correction. Any form of fraternization beyond that is not helpful toward your goal of becoming normalized. I am requesting, no, I am insisting that you no longer visit each other’s quarters. Am I making myself clear?”
Jennic felt they could not have been any clearer. “Very.” She said.
“Good. Then I expect that this should be the end of the matter and we will have no further trouble from you. When I have concluded this meeting, I will be communicating the same message to Laybo and expect that the two of you will comply completely. We do hope for the best here, that you make a full recovery, but of course that has a lot to do with you and the choices you make. If you continue on this misdirected path… well, let’s just say that things would not go as well as we have all hoped. You are a smart individual and I’m certain you understand my meaning. I would like for us not to have to revisit this matter in the future or have any need to repeat this meeting. Are we in agreement?”
Jennic knew that for her this would hardly be the end of the matter. There were plans being made that would either rescue them from this place or land all of them in much deeper trouble. In the meantime, however, they needed to make it at least appear that all of them were complying with the wishes of the facility. She had no intention of stopping meeting with Laybo whenever and however it was possible, though they would need to be much more cautious going forward. Thoralin was still sitting at the desk, staring at her, waiting for an answer. “Agreed.” She replied emphatically.
“Good.” Thoralin said, reaching for a button on their desk. The holo-projection ended abruptly.
Jennic sat alone in the room for a few minutes, unsure what to do next. She looked around the room, but it did not appear anyone was going to come, either via the holo-projector, or through the door. She stood and tried to exit the room but was surprised to find that the door was locked. In all of her time at the facility, she had never encountered a locked door. She knew that she was not allowed to leave the facility, of course, and nobody ever had a reason to enter the Arti’s utility closets so she had no idea if some of those doors were locked, but she had never encountered anywhere else that was off limits. She was not even aware that the meeting rooms were capable of being locked.
A moment of panic struck as she thought she may have been abandoned there, but when she knocked on the door, the white coat who stood guard outside, opened it and silently motioned for her to follow them back toward the common room.
A few rooms down the corridor, another white coat stood with their arms crossed and feet apart just outside a room with a closed door. Jennic wondered if Laybo might be sitting behind that door, talking with Thoralin just as she had.
As they passed the resolute white coat, a figure appeared by the next door. It was Dr. Bilang coming out of the room, apparently to intercepted them in their travel. “I’ll take them from here, Palian.” The Doctor said with a steady authority. The white coat who had been escorting Jennic did not seem surprised. They nodded in acknowledgement and accepted the hand off without any question, turning and heading in the opposite direction.
A few paces past the next door, when they were out of earshot of others in the area, Dr. Bilang turned and spoke quietly to Jennic, “Are you OK?”
Jennic studied the Doctor’s face. She did not see any hint of malice, but neither could she discern any compassion. She could not read their face at all in fact. When Dr. Bilang had taken Jennic to see her parents, she had some suspicions about this white coat, but they had never provided any confirmation of those suspicions in any form. Had they been aware of how the conversation had gone in that room? The question they had asked was simple enough to answer and it would cause no harm to be honest with an affirmative answer, so she simply said “Yes.”
The doctor seemed to soften slightly. “That is good. Thoralin’s thunder can be worse than their lightning. This storm will pass if you take shelter and hang on. You will, of course, need to be much more careful going forward. The staff and the management do not watch everywhere, but they do know what is going on, and I would suggest you don’t enter the transport cube together anymore.”
Jennic still could not decide if they were encouraging Jennic to continue meeting with Laybo or reinforcing Thoralin’s message, but she was sensing some empathy from the Doctor and decided to venture a more probing question. “Is that how the staff knows we were visiting each other’s apartments?”
Jennic hoped the question would sound innocence enough that it would not raise any further suspicion, but that it would be direct enough that it might gain her some useful knowledge. She did not want the white coats to believe she was guilty of any further impropriety, which frankly she believed she was not, and she was not admit any more knowledge than Thoralin had already provided her.
“That’s correct.” The Doctor answered without hesitation. “They do not know where the cubes go. If you enter the cubes separately, they cannot track your location until you re-enter the common spaces. The facility was converted from a much older building and the space was never completely equipped with location tracking cameras. The Cubes are rather unintelligent technology and they do not record your destination — an obvious oversight I’m sure they will find and correct eventually.”
Dr. Bilang was giving Jennic a lot more information than she felt a typical white coat would provide. They definitely seemed to be encouraging her to continue her visits, but she could still not be sure she could trust them. She looked up and sideways at them and asked, “Are you telling me…?”
Dr. Bilang stopped mid stride, deciding that it was time for a more direct approach. Looking Jennic directly in the eye, they said, “Officially I am not saying anything. Officially I could never encourage you to continue seeing each other secretly. Officially I could not tell you that it is possible to get to another person’s apartment simply by saying ‘go to’, stating the guests name and providing the password ‘Correction.’ That is knowledge only a staff member should have. Officially I could not tell you that is how the staff travel to the guests’ apartments when they need to. Officially I could not tell you that the transport cubes are not monitored… And officially we are not having this conversation. If anyone were to say that we did, officially I would emphatically deny it.”
Jennic could still not read the Doctor’s face and said nothing more to them, but nodded slowly feeling sure now that the Doctor was on her side. Were they also part of the ‘network’ the voices had mentioned? The two turned and continued their walk toward the common room without saying another word to one another.
As the Doctor prepared to leave Jennic at a table, she caught their eye, and for the first time she noticed a weariness hidden in the creases of their face. “Thank you.” she mouthed silently. The Doctor returned a very slight smile that was gone almost before it had fully formed. They gave a slight bow and walked away as if the two had never met.
