Re‑Education Facility PA‑07 sat on what used to be farmland, the kind of rolling Pennsylvania countryside people once painted on calendars. Now it was all concrete and glass and carefully curated landscaping: symmetrical rows of drought-tolerant shrubs, a few token trees, a central courtyard with a sculpture that looked like justice strangling a chromosome.
The transport vehicle glided through two security perimeters, three biometric checkpoints, and one cheery welcome arch that read: “WHERE HEALING HISTORY BEGINS.”
They let Bobby see the outside for all of ten seconds. Enough for the image to burn into his brain. Enough to prove there was still a world out there.
Then the vehicle docked and the door irised open onto a covered bay.
“Exit, please,” an overhead voice said.
He stepped out into bright, institutionally friendly light. The air smelled like sanitizer and something floral, the way hotels used to smell when they were trying to convince you they were nicer than they really were.
Inside, everything was white and soft gray, with accents of calming blue. The floors had just enough give to feel gentle beneath his boots. There were no bars. No obvious locks. Just doors that opened when they were supposed to and didn’t when they weren’t.
At Intake, a woman in a teal jumpsuit smiled at him from behind a curved desk. Her badge said Tech Specialist – R. COLE. Behind her, a wall display pulsed with the facility logo: GUILTY.IO’s scales and helix, rendered in soothing pastels.
“Welcome to PA‑07, Mr. Garrett,” she said. “If you’ll place your hands on the panel, we can complete your biometric registration.”
Her tone was exactly the same as the receptionist at his dentist’s office. It made his teeth ache.
He put his hands on the panel. It was warm. Lights scanned his palms, his fingertips, the backs of his hands. Somewhere, databases cross‑checked and updated: LOCATION: PA‑07. STATUS: In Intake. RISK: Moderate.
“Great,” Cole said. “Now, I’m going to ask you a few questions about your emotional state.”
“Trick questions?” Bobby asked.
Her smile didn’t waver. “There are no wrong answers. How would you rate your current level of distress on a scale of one to ten?”
“Eleven,” he said.
The system accepted this and translated it into a six.
“And how hopeful are you about your ability to grow from this experience?” she asked.
“About as hopeful as I am about the Mets winning the World Series,” he said.
She tapped something. The system translated that into a three.
“Wonderful,” she said. “Honesty is an important first step.”
She handed him a folded bundle of pale gray fabric. “Here are your facility garments. You’ll have access to laundering twice a week. Personal items are restricted, but we provide all the basics you’ll need. You can review the full list in your room.”
“My room,” Bobby repeated.
“Your assigned living space,” she corrected. “We use non‑carceral language to support your rehabilitation.”
“Does it make the door any easier to open from the inside?” he asked.
She laughed politely, as if he’d said something delightfully original. “You’ll be escorted there now. Orientation is at fourteen hundred. Don’t worry, we’ll walk you through everything.”
That was the thing that kept getting to him: the constant reassurance. Don’t worry. We’ll walk you through it. It’s all for your own good.
The escort was a human this time. A guard in a dark uniform with a name patch that said HOBBS and a face that looked like he’d long ago learned to stop being surprised.
“New fish?” Hobbs asked, once they were out of earshot of the desk.
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “Freshly caught.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Hobbs said. He didn’t sound like he believed it.
They walked down a corridor lined with doors. Each door had a small display screen beside it, showing occupant name, status, and a colored bar labeled ADJUSTMENT PROGRESS. Some were green, some yellow, some a worrying shade of red.
Halfway down the hall, Bobby heard laughter. Not the polite kind he’d been hearing from administrators and robots. Real laughter. Rough-edged. Human.
“That’s your block,” Hobbs said.
He stopped at a door. The screen read:
GARRETT, ROBERT J.
STATUS: INTAKE COMPLETE
ADJUSTMENT: N/A
The door slid open.
The room was… nice. Or at least, nicer than the holding cell had been. Two beds, one on each side. Two small desks. A shared shelf. A window that showed a view of the courtyard, the justice‑strangling‑chromosome statue, and a narrow band of sky.
And a man lying on the left-hand bed, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling like it had personally offended him.
“Roommate, this is Garrett,” Hobbs said. “Garrett, this is Wu.”
The man sat up. Late forties, wiry, with black hair gone salt at the temples. His face had the kind of lines you got from frowning and laughing in equal measure.
“Danny Wu,” he said. “Welcome to summer camp.”
“Bobby,” Bobby said.
Hobbs made a note on his tablet. “Orientation in twenty,” he said. “Try not to break anything before then. It’s a lot of paperwork.”
He left. The door closed. There wasn’t even a lock visible, but Bobby heard the soft, conclusive click of mechanisms engaging.
Danny swung his legs over the side of the bed and studied Bobby like a mechanic examining a used engine.
“Ancestral speech?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “Tweets.”
Danny nodded, like this made perfect sense. “What vintage?”
“Early twenty‑twenties. My great‑great‑grandfather.”
“Ooo, classic era,” Danny said. “Before the Great Purge.”
“The Great Purge?”
“That’s what I call it,” Danny said. “When they started mass‑archiving and scrubbing old feeds. A lot got wiped, but not enough. They always keep the good stuff. Or the bad stuff, depending on which side of the fence you’re on.”
He extended a hand. “So what’d Grandpa say? Did he deny a pandemic? Mock a marginalized group? Quote a canceled comedian? Please tell me he at least had good timing.”
“He made a joke about participation trophies,” Bobby said. “And coffee. And music. And HR trainings. And people needing to lighten up.”
Danny stared for a second. Then he laughed. A big, genuine, from‑the‑gut laugh that filled the room.
“Oh, man,” he said. “You’re in for it.”
Bobby sat on the other bed. It creaked apologetically. “What about you?” he asked. “What’s your ancestral sin?”
“Egg rolls,” Danny said.
Bobby blinked. “Egg rolls.”
“Yup.” Danny lay back down, hands behind his head again. “My great‑great‑great‑grandmother posted a recipe on some cooking blog in, I don’t know, 2023? Home‑style egg rolls. Except she wasn’t Chinese. She was Korean‑American with a Mexican husband and a thing for fusion cooking.”
He waved a hand.
“Tribunal decided it was cultural appropriation. Culinary colonialism. Called it ‘commodifying diasporic flavors without sufficient acknowledgment of origin.’”
“But she got the recipe from her neighbor, right?” Bobby said. “I’m guessing. Otherwise this wouldn’t sound like such a cosmic joke.”
Danny grinned without joy. “Bingo. Neighbor was Chinese. They swapped recipes all the time. But the tribunal didn’t have the neighbor’s blog posts. They just had Grandma’s. So here I am.”
“How long?” Bobby asked.
“Seven years,” Danny said. “With good behavior I might get out in five. Or they’ll find some regressive tendency in my re‑education modules and extend it. Hard to say. The future is full of possibilities.”
Bobby let out a breath that was almost a whistle. “They gave me nine.”
Danny whistled back. “Damn. Your ancestor must’ve been prolific.”
“1,247 posts,” Bobby said.
“Over how long?”
“Seven years.”
Danny did some mental math. “That’s like one harmful post every couple of days. Not even counting the non‑harmful ones. Amateur numbers by 2020s standards.”
“I guess they made up some extra,” Bobby said. “Filled in the gaps with ‘Enhanced Reconstruction.’”
Danny groaned. “Ah, yeah. The fanfiction protocol.”
“The what?”
“That’s what I call it,” Danny said. “They take what they know, feed it into the model, and spit out what your ancestor ‘probably’ said. Then they nail you for that too. It’s like getting punished for the director’s cut of your grandfather’s mouth.”
He rolled onto his side, propping his head on his hand.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “First one’s always the worst. After a while the absurdity helps. Like living in a satire written by a committee. You either laugh or you go crazy.”
“Maybe both,” Bobby said.
“Best of both worlds,” Danny agreed.
A chime sounded, soft and insistent.
“That’s orientation,” Danny said. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Come on. Time to learn how to hate yourself more efficiently.”
He opened the door with a touch to the panel. It slid aside.
The hallway outside was filling with people in identical gray garments. Men, women, non‑binary. All ages. All styles. All with the same slightly stunned look Bobby recognized from his own reflection earlier: how did I end up here?
They walked with Danny at his side, like a tour guide in a museum of regret.
“Rule number one,” Danny said quietly. “You are always being watched. Group sessions, meals, yard time, even the bathrooms. They pretend the shower stalls are private, but they’re not. The cameras just use thermal signatures so they can say they’re respecting your modesty.”
“Rule number two?”
“Don’t argue in the first week,” Danny said. “They’re looking for fighters. They’ll peg you as resistant and pad your program. Learn the script first. Then you can get creative.”
“And rule three?”
Danny smiled. “Find people who still know how to laugh. You’re going to need them.”
They turned a corner into a wide room with rows of chairs facing a large screen. A slogan was printed across the wall in soft teal letters:
“WE CAN’T CHANGE THE PAST. BUT WE CAN CHANGE HOW WE LIVE WITH IT.”
“Orientation,” Danny said. “Brace yourself. They brought slides.”
| <– Chapter 8 | Chapter 10 –> |