✅ A Dose of Humiliation

82. Making Concessions

This bonus chapter is dedicated to Ddude. Thank you for all your support!

A couple of days passed, and then my new phone chirped. I'd given the number to Clint, obviously. He was the only person I wanted to see now. But this time, the message was from Walt. I hesitated before even reading it. I was walking along by the river, about the only way I could relax now that I wasn't quite comfortable hanging out with my friends. I wanted to be alone, so there was less risk I would say something stupid, or hurt somebody I knew I should care about.

But I couldn't just keep watching the clouds building out towards the sea and think about the storm that must surely be coming. I needed to know that my life was moving forwards, and there were only days left now before the debate that had seemed so important. Sure, it was hard to make myself care. But I knew that this was really important to me, to any chance I had of getting a job I enjoyed. I knew with every bone in my body that this apathy came only from the drugs in my brain, and I pushed myself to fight past it.

I could read the message, at least.

They wanted to help. Dad had sworn not to say anything negative, and might even apologise. Walt thought I was more likely to see a surly silence from him, but Mum had drilled it into him that his previous behaviour towards me was over the line criminal, and that I could send him to jail anytime I wanted to report it. He might actually understand that I was trying to follow such a difficult, twisting path so that I could get the antidote without having him face the consequences of his actions. Maybe, just maybe, he could keep from saying something stupid.

And they wanted me back. Returning to the family home after school tonight, ready to go to the pharmacy in the morning. A second dose of the Punishment Pill, in the vague hope that it would stabilise me for a day or two until the new punishment kicked in. I'd have to get another round of blood tests first, which was why it had to be tomorrow. Then I could go back to get the actual shot on Thursday morning, just in time to attend the Debating Club later that day. My last chance to get into university; it seemed so strange that the deadline was here now. And I hadn't even started thinking about my arguments for the debate.

I took a deep breath, and just responded with the "OK" emoji. I couldn't bring myself to type more. And then I was off to school for another day of trying to avoid social contact no matter how much I wanted it, just because I was afraid of what I would say or do. I could see how this would have been an effective punishment; if I'd actually done something bad to deserve this life, then I would surely have decided to never do it again.

I didn't talk to anyone at lunch. I managed to find a quiet spot where I could hide with a sandwich and a small bottle of supermarket brand vodka, while I tried to make some notes for the debate. I just needed to get my thoughts in gear, and I knew that I could do it.

I was arguing against schools having a bullying policy. My first thought was that they expected me to argue a case that bullying could make people stronger, so they would know how to deal with pressure. But as many times as I wrote out those points, I couldn't see the reason behind any of them. They were just excuses, things the bullies would say to defend themselves. It was like trying to argue in favour of racism. But then I thought about that; and about all the people who had been falsely accused of discrimination. Small businesses sued over hiring decisions because the best candidate happened to have the same skin colour as the manager, and whatever else certain parts of the media liked to highlight.

I liked to think I was a rational person, and whenever one of those cases came up on the news I would first look at which channel was presenting it. In almost every case, I could be sure it was blown out of all proportion. But now I was thinking along those lines, I knew that selfish and manipulative people would use whatever tools were available. If you didn't get a job, could you make it look like some kind of discrimination? If it was possible, then some people would have done it. There was no law ever that hadn't been abused by someone at some point, and that gave me the start of my argument.

A policy on bullying made it seem like there would be a procedure. Maybe some complex list of what particular acts or words were prohibited. And like any other law, the people who understood it well would be able to weaponize those rules against the people they were supposed to protect. They could be as provocative as they wanted, always staying on the right side of the line, and then get a recording of some unwitting victim using a prohibited word in the heat of the moment. The bully who knew how to abuse the law would turn it into just another weapon against people weaker than him. Like Todd Becker, I realized. It was always the bad guys, the armchair lawyers, who paid attention to the rules. They knew what to record and what not to, where the innocent would just trust the system to work correctly.

I started out then writing a little speech. Not arguing against schools having a response to bullying, but to having a formal policy that could be abused. It should be known that bullying is bad; I could agree with that. But enforcing that would have to depend less on any policy and more on the teachers' empathy, or it would end with the bully just having one more instrument to torture someone with. Good people tended to think of the law in terms of good and bad, right and wrong, so they wouldn't win in any contest that involved finding loopholes and twisting interpretations.

'Good kids don't learn rules like that' I wrote, and then hesitated. Because I did. I'd beaten Becker in what was essentially a mock court, and that was how I'd ended up in this crazy life. Did that mean I'd been a bad person all along, and it had taken some nano-whatever serum in my brain to make me realise it? Did I really deserve this, for the way I had perverted the system to humiliate the man?

I couldn't write anymore. A few minutes later I was sobbing quietly; and before I knew it I was staring at an empty bottle, wondering where the afternoon had gone. I hadn't made any more progress, and I couldn't make notes once the battery on my tablet was exhausted, but I didn't care anymore. I would probably have escaped the notice of the maintenance guys locking up the school for the night, if Marcie hadn't somehow managed to find my hiding place.

"Oh, crap," I mumbled, as she led me out into the main hallways. "I was... supposed to... uhh?"

"Go with your parents," she said, completing the thought that had almost managed to catch the attention of a still-functional neuron. "You've got an appointment in the morning, and you need your parents there."

"I can't," I shook my head. I didn't dare let Dad see me drunk at school; I didn't want him to know that I'd missed a whole afternoon of my studies again. These classes now were just busywork; they weren't on any exams. But they still mattered for my attendance record, and my parents seemed to think that was the most important part of schooling.

"You shouldn't have drunk so much," Marcie said. It was still weird to hear her speaking clearly again, even when she'd been free of the Punishment Pill for weeks now. I guessed that if I still had friends in a couple of weeks, they would find it weird to see me not accompanied by the faint scent of wet diapers. "But, you know, we understand. And your parents will as well. Serena's confronting your dad now, making sure he knows what he's supposed to be doing. A second dose, the reset dose so it's like both effects are starting from scratch. And no more of the add-on things. She's got access to corporate records now, so she'll know if he breaks the rules, and he knows without any room for doubt that if he does anything to hurt you, he's going down."

"Yeah, but I..." I couldn't remember how that sentence was supposed to end, so I let it hang there. I always hated being so drunk; and that made me wonder how I kept letting it happen. It wasn't so much that I was worried about how Dad would react; I was just ashamed of myself right now. And I didn't want to confess that the drinking this time had been kicked off by the common sense realisation that everything in the world is corrupt, and that the only hope for living safely would be if the richest and most powerful people were on our side.

"It's hard. I know. But you can get through this, can't you? You're not going to let Becker beat you, are you?"

That at least I was sure about. So I walked over to meet my parents again, head hanging low and a friend on either side of me to make sure that I didn't get scared or run away. This was going to be tough, but whatever happened I could at least be glad that it would all be over soon.