"Lay on the table, head under the Arctiviose," the monotone voice commands. Arctiviose. I mutter the foreign word under my breath, it must be that strange machine connected to the table. "Lay on the table, head under the Arctiviose," the robot repeats. The order is requested every few seconds, probably programmed to never tire of my stubbornness.
"Don't tell me what to do!" I call mockingly into the nothingness. The recording grows louder until it's a few decibels short of making me deaf. I roll my eyes when it becomes evident that it won't stop until I follow it's orders. Besides, I'm not exactly in the position to be refusing demands.
I make my way to the table to get a better look at what was on it. Six iron straps, three on each side, hang loosely off the sides, each strap on the left side longer than their right, buckle bound, counterparts. I sit on the metal table, immediately feeling the cold on my exposed skin, and slowly laid down as instructed to ease myself into the sudden change of temperature.
The steel platform is barely long enough for me to fit my entire, relatively average, body length, leaving the very top of my head underneath the entrance of the Arctiviose. My loose hair falls over the edge, and my feet are pressed to the opposite corner. The iron straps suddenly wrap around my body, trapping my arm and confining my malnourished figure with ease. I don't bother resisting, knowing that it's a waste of energy that would most likely end in vain.
The table slowly rises and makes its way into the opening of the mysterious device until it's gone far enough that the opened end can close with a loud slam, making me jump a bit. It's fairly spacious, I can lift my head up a bit before it hits the metal above me, but still no bigger than a coffin. There's a screen above me about the same size as the cable set in my room. It lights up engulfing the pitch black interior of the Arctiviose with a calming light blue hue. The light isn't too bright but it's bright enough for me to see my surroundings.
Other than three rows of four buttons behind my head, there was nothing else notable about the machine. The screen has a ring in the middle slightly darker than it's background.
A voice starts up, "State your name." The ring expands and shrinks corresponding to the level of volume the voice produces before going back to its resting size during the silence. It's the same female robotic sound as the recording from before.
"I think you already know it," my smart-alecky self responds when remembering my initial greeting.
"Invalid response. State your name," the machine returns.
I chuckle to myself before properly answering, "Castelle Addison Berkeley."
"State your class divided province: Lutum, Tetra, Stella, Rex."
"Tetra." I reluctantly say. The castes were put in so those in power can remind people of their place in the world. Lutum, Latin for dirt. They're scum in the eyes of anyone important. Tetras are barely any better, I'm slowly climbing the ranks though, or rather, I was. Stella's are those who can afford roofs; everyone in Trinity Central is at least a Stella. Rexs are rulers. CEOs, government officials, any member of the presidential family. Rexs are the absolute worst. They have so much power and yet they do nothing besides make their lives better at the expense of the lower classes. A gut wrenching reminder that not too long ago, I could be called one too.
The blue wheel turns before collapsing into the center and changing its color to a dark forest ombre. My surroundings are now blanketed with a shade of light green representing my province when the recording starts again.
"State your age."
"Seventeen."
"State your gender."
"Female."
"State any existing familial relations."
"Brother, Devon William Berkeley."
The circle disappears with a light ding sound. The screen shuts off when the female voice sounds outside of the machine. "Scanning commence." A red line stretching from one side of the vessel to the other starts at my feet and slowly makes its way up my body. I grit my teeth and clench my fists when I feel a strange burning sensation wherever the red passes. It seems like it only took no more than a minute but the searing was nearly unbearable, taking all that I could not to scream at the feeling. The ray left behind red marks on my fair skin wherever the light was shone, and the shade of color appears darker on an apparent gash on my arm, but not as deep as my palms.
"Scan successful," the monotonous tone announces, "Castelle Addison Berkeley, province: Tetra, age: seventeen, gender: female, race: Asian. Minor epidermal abrasions on the left forearm, high interior temperature located on both hands. No bones broken, fractured, or disturbed. Procedure Gamma successful. Procedure Theta scheduled to commence in 10 minutes. Resting period begins in 30, 29, 28, 27..." As the computer continued to count, I try my best to comprehend all of the information just thrown my way. Procedure Theta? I heard Castro mention that once during a conference, but I never bothered to listen to what the stiff, hot-headed suits and ties were talking about.
The metal platform is lowered and shifted out of the Arctiviose. The room is still pitch black with the exception of the single spotlight hanging above the table. I sit up expecting to see red streaks running down the length of my half-naked body, but they seem to have vanished in the fluorescent light. I swing my legs over the side of the platform and shift my weight onto my right arm, admiring the dark indent on my right wrist. It took the form of a thin line about five inches in length. At first glance, it looks like nothing more than a simple cut, but instead of a blood red scab healing a wound, a dark black scar runs along the inside of my forearm.
I switch my position so that I'm propped against my right arm now. I can't help but admire the tattoo on my left wrist. Normally, Karma's have a dagger tattoo just below their collarbone, but the leader of their respective province sectors has the mark on their wrist as to set them apart from the rest. I was the youngest sector leader at the time, and I suppose, I still am. Two marks similar in location. One labels me a freak, the other a trained murderer.
* * *
At age fourteen, I managed my first kill. It was the moment that changed me, that made me unfeeling. The moment that filled me with enough hatred to fill a dozen more. The moment that turned my heart cold.
His name was something generic, so much so that I can't remember it. Steven, or Sam or something similar. He was sixteen, had auburn hair that fell over his eyes, a lean figure, tall stature, and was actually fairly attractive, or at least that's why all the superficial girls in the Stella province batted their eyelashes whenever he walked by. I never paid much attention to him, but I learned shortly after meeting him that, he was the youngest Karma sector leader at the time, being appointed at age fifteen.
I was in a bit of trouble one day, fending myself from another group of young ruffians. He must've watched me overpower those poor souls, three men twice my size, because he contracted me as a Karma right afterward.
Karmas were fairly new at that point, managing only a few rapidly growing members. I didn't know he was one. I knew they existed, seeing a few lurking in the shadows whenever I passed the central market, but I figured it was just the wayside thieves who wanted to be part of something bigger. I guess I didn't know because I never saw his tattoo since he always wore a leather jacket over it.
He told me I had promise. I was young, I was told I'd get a fair share of any impromptu "taxes" that were collected, I was half dead so I agreed. Looking back at it now, I could've really become someone like him, psychopathic tendencies and all.
He killed for sport. I wish it was animals that he killed. He drove the Tetra province further and further into Lutum territory, stealing from anyone he came across. He demanded extreme payment for absolutely nothing, and when they had nothing to offer, he kidnapped and tortured them until they went mentally insane. One of my few memories of him is the only one that seems to be able to haunt me.
It was when I went to ask for my pay cut around my fourth month, I heard the screams of his latest victim. Screeching and crying, pleading for his forgiveness and pity. The sound of knives flying through the air, his demonic cackling filling the otherwise empty storage room. She sobbed, claiming she had a family, two children to feed, a husband who left them to fend for themselves. How she owned nothing, how she'd pay him in a weeks time. He didn't accept any of it.
"Pay for your sins!" his insane voice repeated, the words resonating against the walls. My hand hugged the concrete wall just before the opening into his torture chamber.
Up until then, I worked with patrol groups collecting a small sum of cantos from the Stella's once a week. I've never dealt with any of the prisoner issues before, but from the sounds of it, this woman did not deserve whatever was happening to her. I felt a tear stream down my face, her pleading tearing my heart apart. My fist clenched and I found myself paralyzed. I was scared. I've felt fear before, but never like this. My mind spun in thousands of different directions.
This man was the epitome of insanity, this woman a poor victim caught in his web. He did this once a week every week, but I never thought twice about it. It dawned on me at that moment that this perfect pretty boy didn't exist. He was nowhere near who I thought he was. He was everything I wished I wasn't. I've never felt so helpless. It was an eternity of her screams filling my head, his laugh cutting through them. My feet slowly walked towards the door he left slightly ajar.
I heard my pulse quicken, the blood pounding through my ears. My breaths were cut short, shallow and more frequent. I was petrified. I looked through the door revealing a twenty or some odd-year-old woman, her arms tied to a wooden chair, her body encased in blood. Slits down all visible skin. I blocked most of the image out of my memory.
He saw me. He saw my fragile body shaking. Is this how I die? I remember thinking. But he smiled. He waved me over. Not knowing any better I followed. I followed. He placed a knife in my hands, told me that I could do the honors. I stood a foot away from the lady, tears washed away some of the blood streaked on her cheeks.
She stopped screaming, she stopped resisting, she accepted her fate. The blade in my hand was shaking, and I stared at it, willing myself to stop looking like such a coward. I didn't.
If I disobeyed, he'd take my life instead, but if I killed her, I could never live with myself. Back when I had morals still restraining my decisions, it seems like a lifetime ago since I've regretted anything.
So I turned, rage filling my veins, and stabbed him. I murdered the person who made me a murderer. I let the woman go, and having taken the sector leader's life, I took his spot as the new youngest Tetra leader. No more taxing the Stellas, or waiting for my weekly compensation. I was feared. I was revered. And I liked it.
I wore the same leather jacket every day to hide my dagger mark, like he did. It tears me apart that I can barely remember who he is, like he made no impact on my life at all. I hated that feeling of fear, but I loved when I invoked it.
I'm nothing like him because I'm aware of what I made my life into, or that's what I tell myself at least. I forced my way out of the Karmas about three months later, but this permanent mark on my wrist is just another reminder that I'm everything I wished I wasn't.