**CURRENTLY A FEATURED STORY**
highest ranking: #11 in Science fiction
❝true happiness is only achieved without freedom.
There is a girl who wakes to a world that she was supposed to protect. Instead, she fights it.
There is a man who is cursed wit...
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"Don't worry. Don't worry, you're not in danger, Segway," I say, and place a hand on his shoulder, a silent beg for him to relax as the grip on the blanket that covers him tightens. I don't know why Jonathan had to send me, of all people, to go and coax him into telling me something that isn't babbled nonsense, that isn't the deranged thoughts of a man that fears death. I'm missing a meeting, and it aggravates me, because I did put effort into yesterday's note-taking. Adamik, at the very least, or Feng, even, would be far more qualified to do something like this.
I don't like to lie,
although lying is a quality required in every politician.
He suddenly stops his quivering. The tubing that connects him to various foreign instruments stops shaking, too, as he allows me to gently push him back down onto the sterile blue pillow. "Nobody's- no-one's called me that in... forever," he finally stutters out. I take a look at his arm- and there it is. NW-60. His number. I've almost forgotten it- I still remember him as an acquaintance, before Tetrahmon.
"Vance," he breathes.
Thank goodness we've been given total privacy, for if not, our numbers would already be listed for the next Passing ceremony. "Now, listen to me," I say, carefully. "I'm going to take you back to the day NW-78 died."
A bony hand grips my wrist and squeezes, and I feel awful for asking. But I can't disobey Jonathan. Not again. "No. No, no, please, no- not that, not her-" The fearful, sharp staccato of his tone elevates my own pulse. His voice resonates in the empty ward, bouncing off the walls, coming back at me like a knife with an accusatory blade.
For myself, I have to do this. "Her?" I inquire. I set the chip in my pocket to voice recording mode.
His hands shake my arm. "The girl- the girl with a bullet in her cheek, but no blood-" he gasps. "No blood, no blood, no blood." I swallow thickly and shift uncomfortably on the stool I sit on, unsettled by this talk.
"Close your eyes," I murmur, "and tell me what you saw."
"'Shoot me,'" he breathes. "'Shoot me,' she says. Pale and white as a ghost, she is, with that white hair, and those- those eyes." He shudders where he lies. "Too much confidence, so much evil. She's put the barrel between her teeth, and when he shoots, the bullet goes through her cheek, I swear it does- but there's no blood." The last part comes out as a mere squeak from Segway's mouth. It's quite painful, seeing him reduced to this whimpering mess.
He closes his eyes. "She- she-" He pauses. Beneath his lids, I can see his eyes as they move frantically behind them.
