New Reality 2: Justice (2 page)

"You managed to avoid all of that."

"I'm the exception. You can't base a plan on an outlier. Besides, my childhood was hardly good. I can't go back to that. I can't go back to drowning in poverty like I did before. I can't put our unborn child through it."

All of the strength had left Marie's body. If she tried now, she doubted she'd be able to stand. "What if our landlord kicks us out when he finds out anyway?"

"At least we'll have some more money. The longer you work, the more likely it is that we can afford our medical bills. I don't want to try and deliver the baby on the sofa."

Although she took deep breaths, it did nothing for Marie's tightening chest and galloping heart. "So I have no choice?"

"We've had this conversation so many times in the last eight weeks. I can't force you to go to work, Marie. It kills me to see you struggling like this. But what can I do? The last time I worked in the corporate world, my anxiety got so bad I was scared to leave the house. I'm sorry, Marie, but I just
can't
do it. I need to stay employable on some level, and going back into corporate Nirvana will ruin me."

It wasn't fair; he got to do a job he loved while she went to hell every day. It was hard to force the words out. "I'm not asking you to do that. I just want to find another way."

The laugh wasn't condescending; it was devoid of hope. "There aren't any other ways with this government. If we're not married, we're scum. A traditional family and board meetings are the two things they value most. They set the rules, and if you don't fit into them, you end up on the estate." A distant stare washed over his face. "Those places are like quicksand. As soon as we step into them, we'll be up to our necks before we know it."

If only she had more answers. There must be some solution they haven't come across yet.

Frankie put his arms around her and they touched foreheads. They were so close, she could smell garlic on his breath—she could smell everything with her pregnant nose.

"I love you and our unborn child," Frankie said. "I don't know what the answer is at the moment, but if you leave it with me, I'll find a way. I'll be more positive about it. There's always a way, right?"
 

Marie let her weight rest against him. There was always a way. Whatever happened, they'd damn well find it.

Chapter Two

With shaking hands, Marie opened her locker. It was a large one and had far more storage space than she needed. Laying her bag down, she started shifting it around the empty space, purposely slow to avoid going to the control room.

Marie focused on her slow breaths. Anxiety was a familiar feeling before work, but having killed Jake yesterday, the panic that usually only sat in her abdomen had lifted up into her throat and felt like it was choking the life out of her.
How long would it be before she had to terminate someone again? How did the others cope with it?

When Marie closed her locker door, she jumped when she saw one of her colleagues standing next to her. A tall man at over six feet, he had a shaved head and dark features. The dry smell of his aftershave complimented his broad shoulders and thick arms. It was like he sweated testosterone. Conforming to Rixon's strict policy, he stared straight ahead as if Marie wasn't there.

Other than Doug, she didn't know the names of any of her co-workers in the control room. All she was allowed to call this man was 'brother'—and that was only in an emergency.

The silence was one of the hardest things for Marie. Every day, she would sit in the control room with five other people and she wasn't allowed to say a word. By the time she got home to Frankie, she had so much backed up that she talked until they went to bed each night.

Cameras were mounted in each corner of the small locker room. After a quick glance at them, Marie looked at the floor and her colleague's shiny shoes.
Did he enjoy his job? He was certainly turned out like he took it seriously. Had he had to terminate anyone yet? Of course, he had; that was life in the control room. How did he deal with it?

Then she saw him tap the foot closest to her—his left one—three times before pausing and then tapping it again. A flutter ran through her chest. It was a sign. Marie copied the pattern with her right foot in response.

After a few seconds, he did it again. Surely, he wanted to talk to her. It was his way of saying she wasn't alone. That he knew how she felt.

She entered the pass code that would secure her belongings, drew a deep breath, and looked across at his locker. As she stood there, she could almost feel the penetrative glare of the cameras’ lenses. It was like they knew she was about to commit a sin against the company, but she had to talk to someone.
 

One, two, three,
she glanced across at him.
 

When he stared back, a frown crushing his brow, Marie's face dropped and she looked away.
Shit! How could she be so stupid? He wasn't sending her a message; he was just tapping his foot.

Tension snapped through Marie's body when he slammed his locker door. This guy really wasn't interested in a conversation.
 

After he'd left the room, Marie looked at the cameras. The cold lenses stared back at her.
 

She faced her locker again as her vision blurred. The coldness of this place was too much. She needed to talk to someone about Jake. There must be someone in the control room prepared to break Rixon's rules.

Marie stared at her locker for a few minutes; surely, her colleague would be at his desk and set up already.
 

After wiping her eyes, she walked over to the locker room door. She pressed her face into the retina scanner; the smell of the man’s aftershave was still hanging around it. What had previously smelled like hope now bore the heavy kick of rejection.

Click.
The light turned green and the door slid open, revealing the long sterile walkway leading to the control room.

No matter how many times she walked these corridors, the whiteness of the space dazzled her. The sharp bite of the air conditioning ran gooseflesh up her naked arms. The smell of bleach assaulted her sinuses and she screwed her face up. At least it banished the reek of him. With her body held tight by the corset, she continued walking.

The image of Jake lying on the floor of the bus ran through Marie's mind. It was clearly his lowest point during the time she'd been watching him.
How long would it be before she had to do it all over again? Could she hide the next person for longer? Could she have given Jake more of a chance?

The booming laugh of her boss—Doug Rixon—cannoned down the corridor, disrupting her thoughts. Marie's hand shot to her beating heart and she paused for a moment to try and settle it.
That man! If she never saw him again…
she shook her head.
What did it matter? He was just another part of this shitty existence.

With her shoulders clamped to her neck, she winced as she stepped around the next corner.

The smile on Doug's face was as wide as his fat head. He rubbed his hands together and then nudged the man he was with. "Ah, there she is, the woman of the moment."

The vulgar man stood with one of the company's directors. There were so many, and they showed their faces so infrequently, Marie couldn't remember who he was. All she could do was force a smile and remain mute.

"I was just telling Monty here about your eventful day yesterday." Doug grinned like a maniac as he threw her a heavy wink. It made Marie's skin crawl.

Monty nodded. "Well done…"

"Marie."

"Thank you. Well done, Marie." He looked at her cleavage and continued in a whisper, "I'm told the first is always the hardest, but it gets much easier after that."

Like he's ever had to kill anyone that didn't deserve it; what the fuck would he know?

"Don't worry about being overheard down here, Monty." Doug slapped him on the back and laughed again. "As you know, we don't allow any unauthorised personnel in this area. Any ears that hear our conversation are tied tightly into our secrecy contract and they can be trusted. Hell, even if they can't be trusted, they still won't talk because our lawyers will destroy their lives in an instant."

That little routine was for Marie, not Monty. A sharp reminder that they needed to shut the fuck up, or else.

"Of course, Dougie."

With a gentle shake running through her, Marie's throat tightened as she looked from one of the men to the other until Doug waved his hand at her in a shooing motion. "You can go now."

Marie dropped her eyes to the floor and pulled her shirt away from her stomach as if her bump was visible. When the men didn't move out of her way, she slipped sideways through the tight gap created by the pair and headed for the control room.

Every step away from Doug and Monty helped her breathe more easily. By the time she reached the control room door, her heart rate had settled and she was breathing freely again.

Chapter Three

It was hard not to blink when the green bar of light ran across her eyes. No matter how many times she entered the control room, she'd still not mastered the retina scanner, and it often took her several attempts to get in. The light above the door remained red. "Fuck it!"

When she felt a hand on her back, Marie jumped and spun around. It was one of her colleagues. She was just coming off her lunch break too.

After beaming a warm smile at her, the petite, blonde woman pushed her face into the scanner, pressed the fingerprint pad, and let them both in.

It would have been so much easier to thank her, but Marie smiled instead. There were three cameras in the hallway watching them; even a smile was risky.
 

The air-conditioned room threw a frigid shawl around Marie. It was even colder in here than in the corridor. She shivered as she watched the door slide shut.

Of the six seats in the room, her sister's and her own were the only ones unoccupied.

Marie glanced at the man she'd reached out to that morning, and although he didn't look back, her cheeks flushed.
Why had she even tried to talk to him? She had to be more careful in the future.

The chair creaked as she sat down on it, and she stared into space momentarily. After that, the only sound in the room was an occasional sneeze and fingers dancing over keyboards.
 

When she looked down at her desk, Marie lingered on her corset-enhanced cleavage. Before the pregnancy, she was a B cup; now she was already at a C. Whenever she put the corset on, it felt like it was lifting her tits to her neck, but Frankie assured her that wasn't the case. Whatever; all that mattered was that it hid her bump and prevented Doug from noticing her weight gain in other places.

There was a small fridge by Marie's workstation, which she removed a can of soda from. It had been weeks since she'd had any. The baby didn't seem to like it, but the cravings for the sweet and cold liquid were too great to resist. She placed the can on her desk, her mouth watering as she watched the condensation run down its sides.

With one hand, Marie opened the can, the sharp
hiss
piercing the silence. When she raised it to her lips and took a sip, the saccharine liquid seeped into her mouth, the sugar hit stretching all the way to her toes.

After several gulps, she'd drained the can. The bloating in her stomach was almost instant, pushing it against her corset. The drink was a bad idea.

She stared at the screens in front of her. One hundred and fifty tiny monitors. It was the same for her brothers and sisters. Six pairs of stinging eyes watched nine hundred tiny screens—nine hundred felons.

Despite the shifting chaos on the wall in front of her, she watched the black screen. Her heart sank.
Jake… the poor man had been so lost by the end. What other choice did she have? She'd had to tell Doug.
 

Marie covered her mouth when she burped, but the release of air did nothing to ease her gassy stomach. She straightened her back and breathed deeply, the soda churning in her guts.

Once the nausea had passed, Marie rubbed her face and stared at her monitors. For her, it was a systematic process where she started in the top left and worked her way down to the bottom right. Ten screens on each of the fifteen rows. She checked them over and over, looking for something that might need her attention.

Once she'd checked the first row, Marie glanced across at the blonde woman on her left.
What process did she use? How did she decide if something was a negative projection? Did she ever ignore any? Should Marie have ignored Jake?

She looked back at her screens. If she stared at her for too long, the cameras would see it.
 

The first screen on the second row made her pause.
What the hell?
She put her headphones on and tapped the larger monitor in front of her. Marie jumped when the projection brought a heavy metal soundtrack with it. The screaming guitar shredded her eardrums. Marie fumbled for the volume control with shaking hands.
 

Once she'd lowered it, she checked to either side. No one else had heard it. Then the blonde woman turned slightly. Maybe she had.

Marie faced her monitor again, but she could feel the woman looking at her as though she was reaching out to Marie.
Why else would she be looking over? Maybe she needed to talk about her experiences too.

The urge to look back at the woman pulled on Marie's neck, but she stayed strong and watched the chaotic images flashing in front of her.

Blood—lots of blood and a wink of shining metal followed by screams as the blade came down.
Slash! Slash! Slash!

The caffeine from her drink kicked in, her hands shaking to the point where it was hard to type. After several attempts and plenty of use of the backspace button, Marie brought up the profile photo of the prisoner whose projection it was. The blood covering his face made it hard, but after a few seconds of staring at him, Marie was sure it was a match. It wasn't a negative projection; this was his fantasy. He must be a lifer.