Daughter 4254

Chapter 8

“Get up.”

The voice was deep and strange. It startled me. I hadn’t heard a human voice in, I glanced at the wall, forty-one days. Plus the kind young guard brought me in a blanket two days before. It made sleeping much easier. In fact, I’d been sleeping so deeply that I didn’t hear the footsteps that carried the new voice to my cell. I rolled over and pushed myself up to a sitting position and rubbed my eyes.

“You’re being moved.” It was a new guard with a different uniform. I’d never been around a guard who spoke before. He was not cruel, but the tone of complete apathy in his voice didn’t help with the sinking feeling in my stomach. Was this the day?

“Where am I going?” It felt strange to talk to another person.

“Get your things.  You are  being moved to the M wing.” The name meant nothing to me. I didn’t know anything about the correctional facility where I was being held except that it was in the same community as the Secondary School and some of the students worked here on different projects involving insubordinate citizens or the lives of guards.

I looked around my cell. There was a change of clothes, the reader concealed in the folds, and the blanket. I picked them up and prepared to follow the guard - half curious, half cautious. This could be the end, but at least I would see something new.

Once out of my cell I took in row upon row of countless other cells. I was unconscious when they first brought me here and had no idea of what lay beyond my door. Now that I’d crossed the threshold in the daylight I could see countless other knobs and doors extending in either direction down a very long corridor. I wondered exactly how many were occupied. In the entire month I’d been here I’d never heard or seen anyone but the guards.

“Follow me.” It was ridiculous that he even said it. Where else was I going to go? Run in the other direction? I’d tried that several times in other places. You can’t run from the Rulers and Guards. They are too powerful. They see all, they hear all. I turned to follow him obediently and thought to myself, “Huh, they’ve finally broken me. Just in time to break me all over again”

About ten doors down from my own I was surprised to see another corridor branched off. I wondered how many other invisible corridors branched off of each passage. This place must be massive. We followed twists and turns like this for at least ten minutes. Some doors looked different than others, some corridors were dark. Some corners held what looked like office stations for the guards. We passed a couple of other guards. All of it was silent but our padding feet.

Finally we came to a wing where there was noise - clanking, shuffling and voices. There was also smell. The rest of the complex was sterile and smelled like some sort of cleaning liquid. I could smell this wing before we rounded the corner. It was the smell of the field workers - sweat and dirt. There was also a smell of waste. I had been given a pail of water occasionally to clean myself and I did not smell as a good citizen should, but this was overwhelmingly worse.

The cells here did not have the thick doors and small glass windows of my previous wing. These doors looked older. Small bar covered openings at the bottom and top gave the occupants access to the hallway, and there were obviously several cells occupied. As we passed by a few faces peered out with large questioning eyes. Others looked defiant and angry. Women were on the left, men on the right. I was instantly afraid. I hadn’t been afraid since day ten of being locked up. I remembered smearing grease for that day and marking it with an extra dot. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it was useless to fear what you could not change. On that day, 22, I marked an extra dot as well. These people scared me for another reason. Something in me wondered if I looked like them: desperate, dirty and lost.

Finally the guard stopped at a cell that seemed to be a little off from the other occupied ones. He pulled out a set of keys. This seemed an ancient custom to me. These cells must be quite old. All the others opened with electronic cards or finger print scans. As he fumbled for the right one I leaned back against the wall beside me. I felt tired. I hadn’t walked any real distance in a very long time.