vance

There is so much guilt festering inside me that I wonder wether I still deserve to be a part of the Seven. I am ill, though. Perhaps that is why I feel so disconnected from the council.

Today's date is 032, meaning it is the thirty-second day of the year. We have lost the unnecessary months and have adapted to a more simple system- a better system that will allow itself to be programmed into a simple algorithm for every machine, no matter how small.

I will remember this date, for today is the day I will kill a person.

Jonathan has always chided me for being a humanitarian; I may just prove him wrong today.

Neither Malcolm nor Jonathan have told anyone on the council what is on the file - instead, they had it taken away, place back in someplace far more secure than the archives. Jonathan thanked me, later, for retrieving it - I know not why. My assumption is that the genetic experiments are to be kept a secret - and until we can terminate that girl and anyone who opposes us, they are not to be spoken of. They had all been, supposedly, failures. No wonder that girl was so intent on killing me, I think to myself, as I sink down into my seat.

The walls around me are  facades of glass. We sit behind the speech podium once more, encased in this fishbowl, our view the Square. Unsettled by the disorganised movement of grey clothing covering the backs of the people as they make their way into the Square, I look away, thinking about how much nicer it would be if they could all line up neatly. But now is not the time for such petty thoughts.

Now is the time for my execution, and my murder.

A part of me will stay in the Square forever after this.

▿

"Please, no. No, you don't know! You don't know!" The scrape of unwilling boots, dragged against the concrete floor. The huffed breathing of men. The desperate, soulful wails of a man who does not wish to die.

Not today. Not today, he wants to scream. I want to say it too, but I can't, my tongue glued to the dry roof of my mouth, my lips together, mouth a firm line. I can't speak. I can't say anything, I can't breathe a word, since I am ill, and ill people are not supposed to speak.

I watch as they drag him, screaming, onto the podium, and that is when I think: I have murdered a friend with ignorant hand.

"You don't know what I saw!" 

His face is on the screen, blown up for everyone to see. He is so terrified, that his humiliation of it has faded. As he speaks, I see the strain in his neck, the spit flying from his lips. "Please." The sound makes me want to cringe. Was this how Julie and Keira felt before they died? Did they know-? I shouldn't think of such things. I shouldn't. This is just my illness.

The ghosts still come after me. They are my glitch, my problem, my sickness.

It isn't my fault. There's a virus in me, and I need to have it killed before it spreads through me and turns me into a terminal case. I am terrified of it; a ruthless enemy.

The sobs and whimpers of NW-60 cease. I refuse to look at him - instead, I focus on Malcolm - on her poise, the way she holds herself, the way she regards the people beneath her, the smile she gives them, to make them feel as her equals. 

"Today," Malcolm commences, "we are united to oversee a trial and the elimination of a threat to our society - as a threat to the preservation of our humanity and the unity of Tetrahmon." She takes in a deep breath, the rush of air enlarged in sound by the magnification device at her throat. "The man you see here-" she gestures formally to NW-60, "stands accused of the unconscious murder of three of the state's guards. The killing of our protectors, of the people who keep us safe from the horrors beyond the wall."

A murmur of disapproval and shock runs over the crowd.

"He has become ill, and has failed to report to the Medical Bureau for an examination - as such, we had to take him into a ward to examine his state. Mentally deficient, his madness is what drove him to commit such an abominable act as the killing of another, innocent human being. Such stands his offence, and he has been trialled as guilty, and therefore must go through the Passing, as one is condemned to do after such treason to the state and to our safety."

In Tetrahmon, the Passing is viewed as a godly ritual - as a necessity for keeping the peace and for keeping order. I have mentioned it before,  I think, but I am afraid that now, I will be forced to go, unwillingly, into the details of it.

What ensues Malcolm's finish is a cascade of grievous sound. "I didn't do it!" He screams again, struggling as they bring him up to the podium. Such are the words of a madman, we all think. At the side, somewhere in the background, a poet reads out a glorification of the state, as is custom for such rituals. 

Murderer. 

They force him to his knees, still wailing. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. The only thing tumbling out from his mouth is a static repetition of a plead. I'm not ready for it.

Nobody is ever ready for it.

One guard holds a weapon up against NW-60's temple. There will be no blood. There will be no gore - just a form of... dust. I wish I could care more about him, but I'm glad I can't. I don't need another ghost crawling its way through me, wispy fingers reaching out to pull my mind this way and that. There are too many hands pulling at it already.

The sound of static electricity erupts in the square for a split second, and when I look back at the podium, NW-60 is gone - his whimpers have disappeared, the tears on his cheeks gone. Technology is both terrible and beautiful.

It is a terrible way for NW-60 to go, but the technology itself - so immaculate, so precise, so perfect - it is beautiful.

Long live the state.

NW-60 is gone. He is here, still, with us, but not here at the same time, reduced to subatomic particles - trillions upon trillions of neutrons, protons, electrons, all gone in the wind, dispersed around us in particles, atoms, and for me, part of my humanity has inevitably lost itself amidst the chaos of grey. There is nothing I can do about it.

Long live President Malcolm.

What is left of him on the ground resembles a splash of soot against the marble podium, a charred reminder of the body that had once lain there. Soon, the wind carries the soot away too, and the podium is left clean.

Long live perfection.

A threat has been eliminated, and it will never be remembered.

▿

The black ink upon my forearm glowers up at me, the number accusatory. C1032.

Murderer.

They've applied it to my skin like a brand.

It will stay there forever, a permanent reminder of my undoing.