LITMIR.BIZ

       “DISCIPLINARY MEASURE”

      Next morning I was taken from my cell and returned to Youth Interrogation.

      Half-carried from my cell, handcuffed and my ankles shackled, I was very very tired, very sick, scarcely conscious.

      It was my hope that my parents would be waiting for me—that they’d been summoned to come get me, and take me home. I would accept it that I’d be forbidden to attend graduation—forbidden even to graduate from high school; I would accept it that I might be sent to a Youth Rehabilitation camp, as it had been rumored the boys at Pennsboro High had been, who’d been arrested by Youth Disciplinary. All I wanted was to see my parents—to rush at them, and throw myself into their arms …

      Some months ago my parents had celebrated my seventeenth birthday with me. It had been a happy time!—but seemed now a lost, childish time. I had not felt like seventeen and now, desperate for my parents, I scarcely felt like a teenager at all.

      Of course my parents were nowhere near. Probably they did not know what had happened to me. And I did not dare ask about them.

      Instead I was being sternly informed: several Patriot Scholars had been arrested yesterday afternoon, simultaneous with my arrest, in a Youth Disciplinary “sweep.” After a season or more of relatively few such sweeps and seizes, YDDHS was “cracking down” on “potential subversives.”

      These Patriot Scholars were graduating seniors from other high schools in the area. Their names, too, had been handed over to YDDHS by the principals of their schools. The question was put bluntly to me: Was I, Adriane Strohl, a collaborator with these students? Was I a co-conspirator?

      Their names were told to me: I’d never heard of any one of them.

      Their faces appeared on three overhead TV screens: I’d never seen any one of them before.

      A camera was turned on me, in a blaze of blinding light. I had to assume that my frightened face was being beamed into other interrogation rooms, where the arrested Patriot Scholars were being held.

      Repeatedly I was asked: Was I a collaborator with any one, or more, of these individuals? Was I a co-conspirator?

      All I could answer was No.

      Weakly, hopelessly—No.

      CHEN, MICHAEL was a very young-looking Asian-American boy with sleek black hair worn to his collar and widened, very dark and alarmed eyes. He, too, had been named valedictorian of his graduating class, at Roebuck High School. A glance at CHEN, MICHAEL and you knew that this was a smart boy, probably ST3.

      PADURA, LAUREN was a thick-bodied girl with a strong-boned if rather ashen face and damp eyes, probably ST2. She was sitting as upright as possible, though handcuffed and shackled at the ankles; she was a student at East Lawrence High. A glance at PARUDA, LAUREN, and you knew that this was a girl who thought for herself and very likely, in her classes, asked questions as I had.

      ZOLL, JOSEPH JAY was a tall lanky dark-blond boy with a blemished face, thick glasses, and a small mustache on his upper lip, ST1 like me. He had been named salutatorian of his class at Rumsfeld High and looked like a math/computer whiz—one glance at ZOLL, JOSEPH JAY and you knew that here was a boy you wanted for your friend, whose kindness, patience, and computer expertise would be invaluable.

      The four of us, on the TV monitors, were not looking great. Our eyes were bloodshot. Our mouths were trembling. Whatever we’d done, we regretted it. We didn’t look innocent. We didn’t any longer resemble high school seniors—we looked much younger. Just kids. Scared kids. Kids needing their mom and dad. Kids without a clue what was happening to them.

      A panicked thought came to me—what if one of the Patriot Scholars suddenly confessed to “collaborating” with the rest of us? Would we all be executed?

      A brisk voice informed us that we had thirty seconds to compose our confessions. At the end of these thirty seconds, if no one had confessed, one Patriot Scholar would be suitably “disciplined” with a Domestic Drone Strike (DDS)—on camera.

      We were terrified—paralyzed. No one spoke.

      Sleek-black-haired CHEN, MICHAEL opened his mouth and tried to speak, but no words came out.

      There were tears, and agitation, in PADURA, LAUREN’S face—but no words issued from her mouth.

      Then, I heard myself pleading, in a thin wavering voice, that we were not “collaborators”—we didn’t know one another, we’d never seen one another before, we didn’t know one another’s names …

      Indifferently the off-screen voice was counting: eleven, sixteen, twenty-one … Twenty-seven, twenty-eight …

      My heart was pounding so violently, I thought that it would burst. My eyes darted from one TV monitor to the others—as the Patriot Scholars trembled and cringed in their chairs, narrowing their eyes, yet unable to shut their eyes entirely.

      On one of the screens there was a blinding flash. The boy with the mustache on his upper lip—ZOLL, JOSEPH JAY—was slammed sideways as if he’d been struck with a laser ray, that entered the side of his head like liquid fire, exploded and devoured his head, and then his torso and lower body, in less than three seconds.

      What was left of ZOLL, JOSEPH JAY fell to the floor, slithering and phosphorescent, and by quick degrees this, too, vanished … I had a glimpse of the other Patriot Scholars staring in horror at their TV screens before all four screens went dark and a roaring in my ears became deafening.

      When I woke from a sick, dead faint, I was being lifted from my chair. Yet so terrified still, I didn’t dare to open my eyes.