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File 66

By: Cruel2BKind



*Hi, one and all.  I honestly don't know how this story happened.  I got an idea and it poisoned me until I got it out.  This story is by far the longest story I've written in so short of a time.  The time between when I got the idea and when I posted it was only three days when I worked like a maniac.

Rest assured, the end chapters to both Tenderness and The New World are nearly complete.  They should be on the site before April.

I have written this story in a new style, and I hope that you enjoy it.  This is the first time I've written a story like this, so PLEASE give me some feedback.

All Characters are 18+*




WELCOME TO THE UNITARIST CHURCH MAINFRAME

CONFIDENTIAL; DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU HAVE A LEVEL 3 CLEARANCE OR HIGHER

OPEN

PRISONER FILES; FILE 66
PRISONER 26617; TAM BERLING;
TREASON, ACCESSORY TO MURDER, GENDER TREACHERY;

FILE 66 CONSISTS OF STATEMENTS, INTERVIEWS, INVESTIGATIONS, AND THE PERSONAL HANDWRITTEN JOURNAL OF PRISONER TAM BERLING.

STATEMENT OF THE HIGH CHANCELLOR OF THE UNITARIST CHURCH.

We had no idea how this one young man would effect us all.  It's just another sign of how easily faith can be lost.  He was an ordinary young boy.  His IQ was only slightly above average, he came from an average family, he worked in an ordinary Hospice and had ordinary friends and acquaintances.  He went to church three times a week and volunteered for extra hours at the Hospice.  He was an exemplary citizen.

Many of the high councilors say that Tam Berling is nothing, a figurehead.  They say that the real danger is Taylor Bashke, the man who poisoned Tam Berling's mind and faith.  I agree, the so-called 'Undesirable #1' is very dangerous, but it was not him who cast our magnificent country into turmoil.  That was his goal, but his efforts have only been surpassed by the events surrounding the trial and execution of Tam Berling.

Ever since the trial and execution of Tam Berling, we have fallen apart.  National violence is on an unprecedented level.  There is rioting in the streets, demands for foreign poisons under the guise of medicine.  Enemy propaganda is rampant and we have had to increase Peacekeeper forces and arm them with cattle prods to end the violence.  We have had to make new divisions to stop enemy propaganda.

Tam Berling and Taylor Bashke.

I believe, that these names will be remembered in infamy.

END STATEMENT, JULY 7, 2122

STATEMENT BY THE HEAD OF THE NEW ANTI-PROPAGANDA CREWS

This is my first report, and it is also the first report of the Ralting County Anti-Propaganda Crews.  The name is too complex for what we really do.  We exist to erase rumors and scrub down graffiti.  Before the trial and execution of Tam Berling, we didn't need to exist.  Graffiti was almost non-existent, and everyone had good faith, and was a good patriot.  Tam Berling poisoned the people's minds.  Now me and ten others patrol the city with our hand-drawn carts and we scrub paint from the bricks from dusk until dawn.

Sometimes, I feel like Ralting County is crumbling.  There has even been a riot.  It can all be laid at the feet of Taylor Bashke and Tam Berling.  I hear that they will have to form Anti-Propaganda crews in other counties soon.  What is happening to us?  Have so many lost faith because of two men?  And sodomites at that?  I don't know what the Unitarist Church is coming to.

END STATEMENT, MARCH 15, 2122

THE FOLLOWING IS THE JOURNAL OF TAM BERLING.  THE JOURNAL WAS DISCOVERED THE DAY AFTER THE EXECUTION INSIDE TAM BERLING'S CELL AT THE RALTING COUNTY GAOL.  IT WAS FOUND IN A CLEAR PLASTIC BAG, AS WELL AS THE REMAINS OF A PENCIL, A STOLEN PAIR OF TWEEZERS, AND FOUR BLOOD-STAINED FEATHERS.  THE JOURNAL WAS WRITTEN IN THE MARGINS OF PAGES DEFILED FROM A GOV'T ISSUED BIBLE.  ENTRIES ARE DATED FROM NOVEMBER 18, 2121, TO JANUARY 15, 2122.

November 18, 2121.

I've been in this place for about a week now, but only now have I managed to get the materials to write anything down.  Taylor told me that one time, long ago, there were thousands of books.  That ordinary people were allowed to write them.  He told me that books had been about everything, not just records and God.  He told me that he had even read some of them.  His favorite was one called 'Where the Red Fern Grows'.  He told me what happened in it, he had memorized it from all of the times he read it.  He told me about a boy and two dogs that lived almost two hundred years ago, while we lay in bed.  I wanted to read those books someday, but now I don't think I'll get the chance.

I don't think I would have been able to write in the first few days anyway.  I was so numb when they caught me.  I cried all of the time.  I still do, but for the first few days, I did nothing but cry and sleep.  I didn't even eat my meals.  There's so little in the meals, I wish I had.  I was already hungry on the outside, but soon I'll be able to play my ribs like a washboard.

I'm not sure why I'm doing this.  Maybe it will keep me from going insane.  Maybe It'll just happen sooner.  Who knows?  Who cares?  I have a pencil stub.  There are no writing materials in here, so maybe when I smuggled it in, I knew already that I was going to write this.  When they brought me in, I knew that they wouldn't let me hide anything on my person, so I hid the pencil inside of me.  I'm glad I did, because the instant that the Peacekeepers brought me here, they took away my clothes and sprayed me against a wall with a powerful hose.  The cold water hurt, but I barely noticed it.  I was too busy crying for Taylor.

I don't know where he is.  I think he got away.  I hope he got away.  They want me to tell them where he is.  They haven't started in for real, haven't really sunk their teeth into me, but they've questioned me twice.  The first time, they spoke to me in a small private room.  I sat on a chair while they sat across the table from me.  Two men, one young one old.  The second time, a light was shining in my eyes and they talked to me for three hours at least.

I'm afraid of what they're going to do to me, but I'm not afraid of betraying Taylor.  I don't know where he is, or where he's going.  All I know is that he escaped, because now they are questioning me about him.  I'm still afraid for him though.  I hope he can make it out of Ralting county, out of the Unitarist Church and back to his Community, to the resistance.  Taylor was smart,  he never told me where the Community was, where anything was.  These fuckers can torture me to their heart's content, and they'll never get anything useful.

I have to stop writing now.  The guards are making their rounds.


November 20, 2121.

I wasn't able to write yesterday either.  Lights are only on for portions of the day.  The electricity is coltish and finicky, and there are no windows where the prisoners sleep.  During the hour or so where the electricity worked, the guards were everywhere.

I wonder what Taylor is doing now.

I met him about four months ago.   I have lived more in these last four months then I have in the rest of my life.  I didn't know how to think, how to breathe, how to open my eyes until Taylor came into my life.  He told me about our history.  He told me about the aftermath of the Great War.  Fallout poisoned the wombs of all women, and our population dropped to nearly nothing.  A new religion, a new country, the Unitarist Church, rose from the ashes in the former United states.  They forbade technology.  They said that we had brought the Great War on ourselves, by playing God and living in sin.

Taylor sometimes went into paroxysms of rage at the Unitarist Church.  He spoke of how Technology would have saved more women, increased the childbirth rate.  He said that they had gone so far in their anti-technology crusade that they began to censor everything.  First it was just a blacklist of foreign propaganda, then they censored the news and put novels on the blacklist.  Then they got rid of secondary schools, and children were just trained for their livelihoods.

'The stupider we get, the easier we are to control.  For the Unitarists, it stopped being about protecting us, and started being about control.  They use your faith to control you, like cattle that worship the slaughterer.'

I miss him so bad it hurts.  It's like a physical pain.  I have to stop writing, it's time for roll call.

---

It's almost eight, when the lights go out.  I can maybe write a little bit more.  Every day at the gaol, they go through this routine that I think exists just to break us down.  Roll call.  Every one of the prisoners are taken outside to this yard surrounded by concrete and razor wire.  First we have to run around the yard a number of times.  Sometimes, it's just once, today it was fifteen.  Several of the weaker prisoners collapsed, and the guards beat them.  Two of them had to go to the infirmary.

After we run, we are told to stand in the middle of the yard, and speak our names over and over.  Like the running, time is subjective.  One time, we were only standing for an hour or so, today the sun was high in the sky when we started and halfway below the horizon when we finally stopped.  My legs cracked like my bones were broken when I finally got to move.  My voice was hoarse.  When you say your name hundreds of times, the name starts to lose significance.  It becomes nothing but a hoarse sound, with no more value then a dog's bark, or a crow's caw.

I defy them.  Before I met Taylor, I never would have defied anyone.  I was a drone.  I wouldn't have said shit if I had a mouthful.  I did nothing but survive before I met Taylor, and once I met him I finally started to live.

When the guards pass me close, I croak out 'Tam Berling' like they want me too.  When they are out of earshot, I murmur, 'Unitarist Church'.  The Unitarist church replaced our leaders.  Taylor told me that other countries have presidents, dictators, kings, but we have a church.

Maybe if I say their name over and over, they wont mean anything anymore.

Lights out.


November 23, 2121.

I've looked at what I've written so far.  Since I'm writing in tiny cramped scribbles in the margins of the bible pages, I've covered the margins of three pages, front and back.  It's all about the Unitarist Church.  It's all about the gaol.  I have to survive the gaol, and I'm suffering because of the Church.  I don't want to think about those, so I'm going to write about the past.  I'm going to write about Taylor.

My mother was rare.  She bore three children.  It made her something of a celebrity in the county where I grew up.  The Church told me my entire life that birth rates were up, but Taylor told me the real numbers.  He told me that only one in three women are even able to bear viable children.  The rest are impotent, or only have stillborns or freakish mutants, with swollen heads or distorted eyes or limbs that trail into twisted nubs.

However, once you bear a child, you can't stop.  That is one of the Unitarist beliefs.  Taylor told me that in the first days of the Unitarist church, any doctors that had ever prescribed birth control or given an abortion had been hung in public executions.  'Crimes against Life' became the most deadly offense.  Any woman or man who tried to deter a child from entering the world could be put to death.  When my father died, she had a Government wedding to replace him.  When Taylor told me how they chose her husband, I laughed and cried at the same time.

They told her that they found her a husband who was 'harmonized' with her personality, and would love her and give her many children.  Taylor told me that men applied for a Government wedding and the one with the highest sperm count got the prize.  She's still having children, for all I know.

I know that she didn't refuse him.  Taylor told me that men and women used to choose their partners, and that if they wished, they could have relations out of wedlock, or split a marriage.  Now you can be publicly flogged if you have relations outside of wedlock.  And divorce is considered a Crime Against Life, and is punishable by death.

When I was twelve, like every child, I took the aptitude tests and I went to a trade school to become a caretaker.  When I turned sixteen, I graduated and they told me that there was a deficiency of caretakers in another county.  We had to go through one of the polluted areas to get to Ralting County.  The Van was lead-lined, and it was one of the scariest experiences of my life at that time.  When we got to Ralting, everyone in the van, even the driver, had to get naked and take a bath.  I was surrounded by two men in radiation suits, and they scrubbed me everywhere with lye water.  I got a burn on my thigh, and my skin was red and smarting.  I was crying like a baby, and I wasn't the only one.

I never saw my mother again, but that's how it worked.  If they needed drivers, or caretakers, or matrons, or Peacekeepers in one county or another, they just got moved.  Like resources, or like cattle.

As a caretaker, I worked in a hospice.  I took care of the elderly and people who needed to heal for extended periods of time.  Taylor told me that there used to be places called Hospitals where you could get medication, and surgery.  Unitarists don't believe in medication.  They said that it had been the overuse of opiates and antibiotics that had contributed to infertility.  In Hospitals, people healed.  In the Hospice, most of them just lived out the rest of their lives.  Deformed and consumed by tumors.


November 24, 2121

I had to stop there, quick.  I was writing and all of a sudden, roll call started.  Roll call, that business in the yard... it can happen at any time of day.  I was writing at eight AM when it started yesterday, and I didn't get back into my room until well after lights out.  I was in roll call until late afternoon, but then I was questioned, and that's what took so long.

They haven't hurt me yet.  I think they might soon.

Today I started my job.  I have to go to roll call still, but for three hours every day I work in the infirmary.  The guards keep a close eye on me, but it was good to do my job again.  There are eight people in the infirmary now.  I helped to feed them and clean them.  I got to talk to them even.

I'm saving my dinner for after lights out, I don't need light to eat, just to write.  I spoke to a prisoner during roll call, it's forbidden, but fairly easy to do.  He said that for each meal, prisoners get about 200 mL of either soup or porridge.  Sometimes there's more, sometimes less.  Tonight, it's some kind of clear broth with a slice of bread.

I'll talk about the past more tomorrow.  Maybe I'll make a book out of this.  Maybe I can find a way to get these pages smuggled out of the gaol and the Community will make it into a novel.  It's a nice thought.

I have to stop, I'm hungry and they'll turn off the lights soon.

November 26, 2121

They almost found my journal the other day.  They searched all of the cells.  They randomly do it when they suspect prisoner activity.  Most of us are so weak, I don't even know why they bother.  I keep my journal hidden under a loose tile.  They check for loose tiles, but this one fits very tightly and I keep one of the feet of my cot over it, so they don't check it.  I keep the pencil stub taped to my inner thigh.  The pencil stub is precious, I don't dare let it out of my sight except for when we take our bi-weekly shower.  Showers are a common time for guards to ransack the rooms, so during showers I do what I did when I came in here.  I wrap the sharpened end with a wad of cloth and hide it in my ass.

The rooms are so bare, and we have no personal belongings.  Nothing but a cot and a bucket.  We have canteens, and we have to ask the guards to refill them.  It's not uncommon for the guards to piss in the canteens.  They are bored.  They have a lot of games to play with the prisoners.

The thing that I miss the most often, changes.  It shifts and changes rapidly.  For a while, I would have killed, literally killed, to have an apple.  Just a single tart green apple.  Sometimes it's food, but most of the time it's Taylor.  But it's different things.  This morning, I longed to see him smile.  Just a few minutes later, I would have given anything to have him with me, to feel him over me, making love to me, and whispering my name in my ear.

But now, I don't even care about the sex.  I would gladly throw myself off a cliff just to touch him.  To feel his warm smooth skin against mine.  To feel his cheek, rough with stubble, against my cheek.

I think I'm done for now.  I just don't have the energy.


December 3, 2121

I have to write about the past.  So much has happened in this past week that kept me from writing, but now I think I realize that I might not be able to finish this story.

There was a terrorist attack seven days ago.  A grenade went off outside the gaol.  We've been in lockdown mode.  The guards never ceased their rounds.  Prisoners were roughly interrogated at random.  I still worked at the infirmary, and I stole a bag made of clear plastic.  If they found out that I stole that bag, I wouldn't be writing right now.  I would either be lying in a mess of bloody twitching limbs in the infirmary, or a corpse hanging from the outer wall as a warning to the others.

I am now hiding my journal in the one place that I know the guards will never look.  When I finish writing this entry, I will fold these pages and tuck them back into the clean interior of the filthy plastic bag.  I will tie the knot and place the bag in my shit-bucket.  I might shake it around a bit to make sure that the contents cover it up.  I hope it will work.  Prisoners have to empty their own buckets when they are full, march out with a guard to the septic tank.

Enough of shit and journals and grenades.  I want to write about Taylor.

I lived in Ralting county, and my life was blank.  It was nothing but survival.  I worked as a caretaker on the night shift.  Every morning at ten I would get back to the tenant house and go inside my little apartment.  It was only slightly bigger then this cell.  It had a tiny lofted bed with some storage space underneath.  I had a tiny living area with a hot plate and a sink and a sagging secondhand armchair.  I was paid in basic ration chips, though as a caretaker I got a few extras, like coffee, butter, and salt.  I traded the coffee chips with other tenants for things I craved.  I would trade any of my ration chips for sugar, and sometimes a man who was a field-hand by trade managed to bring back hazelnuts from some trees that grew in the wild.  I love those so much that I would eat them green, I would eat them rotten.

There were a few people I would talk to, but no one that I would consider a friend.

It was August when I met Taylor.  Back then, he was just another face.  He was a man who had come into the Hospice because of a broken wrist.  We couldn't give him pain medication, all we could do was bind it up for him and let him live in the Hospice for two weeks.  He couldn't do his job as a construction worker, but for two weeks he would eat Hospice rations and get to rest easy.

I think that we must have been destined to meet.  Why else would he have been so bold in those first days.  We were both cautious, paranoid even, but how could he have possibly known that I was gay?  That I wouldn't tell the Peacekeepers, or panic and never speak to him again?  Maybe he could just see.  Maybe he was desperate to touch another human being in any way.  Maybe we were both incredibly, insanely lucky.

The first night he was there, he was in too much pain to sleep.  I was making my rounds and I heard him groaning.  I came in and asked if there was anything I could do to help.  He told me to tell a story.

I felt silly, but I told him the only story I knew.  The story was little red riding hood.  My mother told it to me when I was young, and I used to have nightmares about the wolf.  I had never seen a wolf, or even a picture of a wolf.  In my mind, a wolf was a huge spiky lizard with big yellow eyes and an extra pair of hands.  After the story, I told him I didn't know what a wolf looked like, and he told me.  When Taylor told me what wolves looked like, I was embarrassed, and he laughed, but in a gentle way.  He thanked me for telling the story.  


File 66



We talked all night long.  I told him about my past, about the hazelnuts, about all that I knew.  He was mostly quiet, and he listened.  He was different, and I knew that from the beginning.  He was just, brighter.  That is the only way I can describe it.  It was like all of us were living our dull lives in a sepia photograph, and then there was Taylor, brilliant and colorful.  From his dark brown hair with the red glints in the sunlight, to his tanned arms with the hairs that glistened like strands of ruby-gold.  To his blue eyes.  I have seen eyes that were darker, and eyes that were lighter, but never, never-ever have I seen eyes so blue.

I still did my rounds, but after I had checked everyone, I was back at Taylor's room.  He fascinated me, even then, before I knew who he really was.

Lights out.


December 4, 2121.

I'm glad I thought of hiding the journal.  Today when the guards ransacked my room, they discovered the loose tile it had been hiding under.  One of the guards is like me, I'm sure of it.  When they ransacked the room, he told me to stand in the corner, but instead of letting me go, he led me there, with his hand tight around my arm.  When the other guard was yanking the mattress off of my cot, he grabbed my groin and squeezed.

It didn't hurt.  It felt good, even.  But even though it felt good, I'm scared.  He can do whatever he wants.  He has access to the gaol at all times, even when other guards are busy.  My cell closes tight, with nothing but a tiny wirehatched window that leads to the hall.

It happens in here.  It's well-known, but silenced.  Today in the infirmary, I cleaned a frail forty-something man with blood running down his legs.  He had been raped by another prisoner, because he was weak.  The cells are solitary, but it happens.  It happens in the showers, in the hallways.  The guards don't stop it.  They think it's funny.  All they do is stamp 'Gender Treachery' on the prisoner's list of offenses.  They think it's hilarious that the prisoners are so desperate for sex that they fuck other men and bring their death sentences closer.

But they're wrong.  It's not about sex, it's about power.  I saw two men arguing in the shower.  They hated each other, no one remembered why.  The next thing I knew, one was bawling like a wounded animal, bleeding and struggling on the wet tiles while the other crouched over him and fucked him, snarling.  It was pathetic, and terrifying.

I will fight back.  I have made myself a career thief; I stole the pages and the bag, and now I have stolen a pair of sharp metal tweezers.  When I go to the showers, I keep it clenched in my fist.  If anyone tries to fuck me, they will have a splinter of metal jutting from their eye before they know what's happening.

The tweezers serve another purpose.  I remember someone telling me that a pencil could write for 35 miles.  The tip of my pencil broke off, but with the tweezers I can clench that little black nub between the rough metal tips and write with it.  That nub lasted me for nearly an entire entry, so I'm glad I didn't lose it.

Have to stop, roll call.


December 7, 2121

I have to write about Taylor.  The two men who question me, their names are Smith and Manet.  They dug in for the first time two days ago.  They took me to the shower room and took my clothes off.  They tied my hands above my head to a shower socket and sprayed me with a high-pressure hose.  After an hour or so, they put a cloth bag on my head.  It felt like I was drowning.  I couldn't breathe.

I'm so cold right now.  I haven't had the energy to write for a few days now.  For a while, the gaol didn't seem so bad, but now my reserves of energy are running low.  I have very little body fat anymore.  I haven't seen my reflection, but my cheeks are hollow and my ribs are starting to jut.  When I came back from the water-torture, they took away my blanket and didn't give me my clothes for several hours.  I feel like I'll never be warm again.

Taylor was warm.  We had to be secretive, but on the nights we spent together, we would cuddle naked.  It was the closest I have ever been to a person.

For his two weeks at the hospice, we spoke every night.  I found myself spending hours with him.  He would walk with me, helping me a little with my rounds, and talking.  He started to talk about a long time ago.  About stuff from the past, before the Great War.  Stuff that I had never heard about, stuff that he had no right to know.

On the fourth night, I confronted him.  He was in his bed, and I was sitting on the edge in my caretaker whites.  I asked him how he knew about television, and pet cats, when all I had ever seen were propaganda flickers and feral cats.  I asked him how he knew all of this when he was a construction worker.

He sat up slowly.  We were alone in his little room.  I remember the moonlight coming in through the high window, shining off of his blue eyes, it looked like they were glowing.  He said.

'Because I'm not a construction worker.  I never was.'  Was what he said.  Then he said.  'Did you know that you're beautiful?'  His hand was on my shoulder, and I didn't move.  The look in his eyes was like longing.  Like wanting something so desperately that nothing else matters.  Looking into his eyes was like looking into a mirror for my own.  He moved his hand up so it was cupping the side of my face and the fingers were so warm.  I still remember every moment.

'In the moonlight, your hair looks like silver.'  He whispered, and then he leaned forward.  I did too.  It was like the tide, or the rain, or the wind.  It was natural, and I couldn't stop it no matter how scared I was.  I kissed Taylor.  He didn't kiss me, I kissed him.  When we were a few inches apart, I lunged forward with need.  We kissed in that hospice room, and he held me.  We didn't do anything sexual that night, but I didn't move from his arms for an hour at least.

I remember when I had to let go.  I whispered.  'We'll get in trouble.'  And he just smiled, and his eyes were sad and scared and full of that same longing.  'I know.  We have to be careful.'  I barely knew what we were talking about.  Later, Taylor told me all about what it means to be gay.  About how at one time, it was accepted, and how men and women could get married to each other.  But at the time, all I knew was that I was in love, and I could be killed for it.

But I was so in love that I didn't care.  These memories are all that I have now.  When I was under the hose, I closed my eyes and I thought about that night.  When I was frozen and naked and huddled in a ball on my bare mattress, I thought about Taylor's arms, and I was warm.

Roll call.


December 9, 2121

The guard that touched me, His name is Nikolaus.  For a while, I considered writing a fake name, so if they ever found this journal he wouldn't get in trouble.  But I'm writing his real name.  If they ever find this journal, they'll know, and soon he'll be in one of these cells.  He'll live on two cups of mush a day, he'll run and stand for hours in the sleet and rain and snow.  He'll shit in a bucket and shiver when he hear's the batons of the guards rap against the walls.

I was too tired to write yesterday.  I came back, and all I wanted to do was sleep.  He came inside my cell and pulled my pants down.  If I had been holding the tweezers, I would have stabbed him, but they were hidden in my shit-bucket with my journal and pencil.  I have been so weak lately.  I wasn't able to fight much.  He got on top of me and humped me, like a dog.  I'm grateful that he didn't fuck me, and at the same time I'm so humiliated that I'm grateful.  It's pathetic.

I hate him.  I hate how helpless I am against him.  Even if I get the tweezers out, if I hurt him, he can have me punished.  If he hurts me, it's justified.

Today at roll call, we ran for ten laps, and I found myself lagging at the back.  I wasn't the weakest by far, but this was the first time I felt like I wouldn't be able to finish.  I'm scared.  I'm scared all of the time.  It's been a couple of weeks now.  I hope that Taylor is far away.  He hinted that the Community is far away, someplace warm.  He wont tell me where, but whenever I can't stand it anymore, I imagine him on a beach of warm yellow sand, dressed in nothing but shorts and looking out at an ocean as blue as his eyes.  Taylor told me that most beaches are devoid of life now.  And my common sense tells me that the ocean is so full of chemicals that it is on fire in places, and bleaches your skin in others.  But still, it's a nice picture.

I'm so tired.


December 12, 2121

Nikolaus hasn't bothered me since the one time, and I'm grateful.  There is a young man, not much older then I in the infirmary.  He was arrested two months ago for making counterfeit ration chips.  I don't know if it was a guard or a prisoner that assaulted him, but he lost five teeth, his eyebrow is split, his arm broken, and he has serious anal fissures.  He's in the infirmary now.  I've done all I can, but he'll probably die.  And even if he lives, what does he have to look forward to?  A public execution on the twentieth.

My trial has been delayed once, but barring any further delays, it will be on the first of January, the new year.  I've been dreading it.  Taylor told me that once, trials went by the motto, 'innocent until proven guilty'.  It makes me want to laugh and cry all at once.  But what it means realistically, is that I have nineteen days left to write about Taylor.  I haven't been able to write continuously, so realistically, it's more like seven or eight entries.  I have to keep writing, even though my pencil is more then half gone, and I have to write with it clamped in the tweezers.

After the night where I kissed Taylor, he was completely open with me.  We both knew secrets about each other that could get us killed, and we were in love already.  Our love grew stronger over time, but it was there right away.  For me, he was the first person who I had ever gotten close to other then my family.  The only person who I could call my friend.

We had our trysts in the Hospice, I wont lie.  On the second night we lay under the covers of his bed, naked and shy.  He was just as shy as I was.  He whispered that he had messed around with a woman when he was younger, but that he was still a virgin, and had never slept with another man.  We explored each other's bodies, and there was just something innocent and wonderful about it.  I remember snuggling up close so our cocks rubbed together and thinking how good it felt.  I remember when he shyly lowered his head and kissed my shoulder, afraid to go lower, but going lower when I kissed him, and asked him to.

Manet and Smith think that Taylor is a dangerous international spy.  They're right, but they're looking for the wrong person.  Maybe they have this picture in their head of a steely-eyed middle-aged man with the symbol of the antichrist on his forehead, but Taylor is just a kid, like me.  His twenty-third birthday was in October.  We celebrated it by making a small white cake, using a ceramic cup as the pan.  We frosted it with this unbearably sweet heavy cream that I had traded a week's worth of potatoes for.  I remember eating it with him, both of us entranced by the rare sweetness.  In bed, he spread the remainder of the heavy cream on his cock.  'Here, you have more of a sweet tooth then I do' is what he said, winking at me and smiling his beautiful crooked smile.

If I think about it hard enough, I can still taste it, the sweet heavy cream mixed with his bitter-tasting come.

At first, I thought that being with a man meant that I was a sort of masculine woman.  When he told me about gay sex, about 'tops' and 'bottoms', he was talking about stuff he had read in old books, stuff that he barely understood.  But as time went on, we forgot about what he read in his books.  We just explored, and we loved.

Right now, I want to see him, taste him, hold him.  I'm afraid that I'll forget the color of his eyes.  That is a hue I don't want to lose.



December 14, 2121

Roll call today was short for a change.  The guards were getting cold with all of the snow falling down, and there was a radiation warning issued from a nearby control tower.  There are almost always radiation warnings with precipitation.  We all got to go inside after a solitary hour of chanting our own names and a single halfhearted lap.  I just ate breakfast, and for the first time in a while, I feel a bit stronger.  I wasn't able to write yesterday for normal reasons, not enough time, fritzy electricity, etc.

I used to think that etc, was just that, the letters E T and C, but Taylor told me that it was actually a phrase in Latin that means 'and other things' or 'and so forth'.  There are a lot of phrases that I didn't know were Latin, like Vice versa, or mea culpa.  I just thought they were words.  They're pretty words though, I wonder what it would be like to speak Latin?

Looking back on these pages, I realize that I write the words 'Taylor told me' multiple times.  There is a reason for that.  I'm so ignorant, but before Taylor I was even worse, like an animal.  I was barely aware of my surroundings, of the history behind them.  On those first few weeks, Taylor told me that he was a Historian in the Community.  He read all of the old books and taught classes and was already a chief advisor.  The Community have too few weapons, and too few people to pose a military threat against the Unitarist church, but Taylor is a spy.  They give their information to other countries who want to take the Unitarist Church down.

Taylor told me that before he was born, the Community had aspirations of being a resistance, but they couldn't.  They didn't have the funding or the manpower or the connections.

'They don't care if it's not the USA when other countries are done with it.  All we care about is that we advance as a society, and that we can get the Unitarists unseated.'

I miss him.  It seems repetitive to write it, but I miss him, I do.

We never fucked in the Hospice.  We cuddled, we explored.  We sucked each other's cocks.  It had been a common insult in my primary school, 'cocksucker'.  It was the filthiest thing we had been able to think of.  I called my fellow classmates 'cocksucker' too, laughing about it as I did.  It was only after I had been uprooted and moved to Ralting that I realized I had been insulting myself.

But it was beautiful.  Both to give and receive.  I loved feeling him tremble, looking up and seeing him bite his lip to muffle his cries.  I loved the soft squeaks that escaped his mouth and nose.  The way his hands gently tangled in my hair.  I loved when he burrowed under the blanket to gently mouth my cock, fondle it until it stiffened into a hard rod in his mouth.  It made me tremble when he looked up at me with his amazing bright eyes.

He also liked to get on top of me, facing each other, moving slowly as one, rubbing our cocks together.  It was the first sexual thing we had done together, and it had a special significance.  If I had to say it, I would write that Taylor was maybe a bit more dominant then I.  But I was on top almost as much as he was.  And he loved it.

I remember the first time we made love.  It was late September, and I had snuck to his house after curfew.  The electricity was out, so he lit candles.  We started to cuddle under the blankets, when I felt his hard cock poking between my buttocks.

'Do you want to try?'  He whispered.  I remember how hopeful he was.  I agreed almost immediately.  He got up and found this little container of greasy ointment.  He slicked up his fingers, and I shivered when they pressed against my pucker.  It felt so right.

It hurt like hell.  But he went very slow.  I remember huddling under him on my stomach, gasping and panting, struggling not to cry out within the paper-thin walls of his tenant.  I remember him asking if I wanted to stop, kissing my shoulders, grasping my hand.  I shook my head, and he wove his fingers between mine, clenching while my hand extended.  I remembered thinking that it looked like a starburst, and it was beautiful.

He started to move, slowly and shallowly.  He was so afraid of hurting me that when I got excited I had to move rapidly back and forth to get him moving.  I had to fuck myself on his cock and it felt so good.

I have a jerky inconvenient libido here in the gaol.  When I write, I nearly always get aroused.  Just thinking about him.  Sometimes for days on end I feel asexual, as if I'm just an emotionless husk.  And then other times, I'll be on roll call, or in the interrogation room, or in the infirmary, and I will Feel him.  Almost like he's physically here.  I'll Feel his hand on my shoulder or his breath in my hair or his cock against my cock.  I'll get aroused, and I'll think about him for hours on end, but when I'm finally alone and I get the chance to masturbate, I can almost never come.  It's easier just to wait for my erection to go away.

Writing about him feels like penance.  I shouldn't have let myself get caught.  I'll write more tomorrow, soon I have to go to the infirmary.


December 19, 2121

It's been several days.  For a while I lost track of time.  After my last entry, I was tortured in the shower room again, but this time it lasted a lot longer.  They took me from my bed while I was sleeping, and sprayed me with powerful jets of icy cold water before I was even awake.  They shone bright flashlights in my eyes, and when they were done they left me hanging like a piece of meat in a slaughterhouse.

I had the wet hood over my head, and it was hard to breathe.  They came back every few hours with their hoses and lights and questions.  They beat me with batons and heavy rubber cables.  I have horrible red and black welts all over my ribs and hips and back and legs.  When they were finally done, I was half crucified where I hung, wheezing for air.  I was taken to the infirmary and I lay on a cot next to the young man who will be executed tomorrow.  Another man that assists in the infirmary, a man with whom I have shared a few words...  I wont put his name in here.  If they find this notebook, any names might be held responsible.  But he was kind to me.  He spooned hot broth in my mouth and snuck me an extra blanket.

Nikolaus came when I was sick.  He touched me all over while rubbing his cock.  When he came, I felt a hot drop of it land on my chest, and he licked it off.  I was too sick and weak to struggle, but I felt slimy and disgusting the entire time.

I lost five days there.  I might have less time then I thought.  I want to write about Taylor.  Whenever I read and reread these pages, they give me strength.  When they tortured me, I screamed with pain and cold and fear, but inside I cried with joy.  If they're interrogating me, that means that Taylor is still out there.  They haven't caught him.

For a few months, things were golden.  We met as often as we could as discreetly as we could.  We talked for hours.  He told me about the world of ago, and of the world outside of the Unitarist Church.  I could listen to him talk for hours on end.

For the longest time I knew that he was from the Community, but it wasn't until October that he told me that he was a spy.  He was here under a fake license that said that he was Taylor Clemens, a construction worker imported from another county.  His real name was Taylor Bashke.

He told me he wouldn't tell me what he was looking for.  He told me that before telling me that he would take me out of the Unitarist Church.  He told me when we were eating dinner.  I had cooked some potatoes for us.  He told me, and my fork dropped to my plate with a clatter.  I got up and I hugged him until he gasped for air.  I kissed his mouth hard and yanked him over to the bed.  He already had the ointment in his denims.




File 66



He moaned while I fucked him.  He whispered.  'I'm gonna take you out of here.  We'll get away from here.  Ah!  Oh God!'  I buried my face between his shoulder blades and reached around to stroke his thick cock.  It was the first time we had been so rough, but he had been hard as steel, moaning and thrusting back into my cock.

After love, we snuggled in the bed.  His head rested on my chest, and I could feel his breath there.  He told me that he couldn't tell me when, but soon an agent from the Community would come up to drive him to a safehouse.  From the safehouse, we would travel to an airport in Mexico, one of the few countries that had not been hit by nuclear weapons or biotoxic weapons in the Great War.  From the airport, we would go to the Community.  I still remember him telling me.

'I can't tell you where it is.  When we're in the safehouse, I'll tell you everything.  But it's somewhere warm.  You and me, we'll climb rocks in the desert and watch the cactus flowers bloom.'

I remember embracing him tight to me, and seeing my tears trickle into his dark hair.  In my darkened flat, his hair looked black.  In the sunlight, he had highlights the color of rubies.  I always wanted to touch his hair when it looked like embers, but I never could.  In flat indoor lights, it just looked brown, and in the darkness it was dark, but I could never touch him, look at him, kiss him in the sunlight.  Now I'll never get the chance.

I have to stop.  I'm shivering, and I only have a little bit of pencil left.

FOLLOWING THIS, THE NOTES ARE TRANSCRIBED IN BLOOD

December 22, 2121

Ever since I had to pry the last half-inch of graphite from the pencil and write with the tweezers, I've been keeping my eyes peeled at roll call.  One morning, early on, the field was covered in loose feathers from two crows that had been fighting.  I've been looking for feathers for the last seven days, and I finally have a couple.  They don't naturally work as quills; I had to figure out how to mess with the tips of them to open them up.

The ink is my blood.  I don't think I'll ever have the self-control to stab myself a wound with the tweezers, as I feared I would have to do.  Thanks to Manet and Smith, I wont have to.

Two days ago, I was beaten by the both of them.  Manet is in his fifties, so he tired easier.  Smith is in his thirties so he can go longer but he can't punch as hard.  I picked open a scab that his ring cut into my stomach.  He wears a ring with the symbol of the Unitarist Church on it, a stylized dove.  Taylor always said that it reminded him of the eagle on the Nazi SS uniforms.  When I asked him what a Nazi was, he laughed but his eyes were sad.  What else don't I know that he'll never be able to tell me?

My face feels hot and bruised and swollen and cut.  As I write, I have to keep dipping the tip of this feather into the little bloody cut on my stomach.  It isn't like a quill, like I pictured.  I can only write a few letters at a time.  But I have to write, or I will go insane.  After every side of every page, I have to stop, and let it dry.  It gives me a break.

I'm almost done with



December 25, 2121

I have a scab on my arm to pick, and it works a lot better.  I almost feel like it's an ink well.  It helps.  I had to stop the last entry in a panic.  I barely got the journal into the shit-bucket in time.  I didn't think that they would torture me again so soon.  It was only two days since the last time.  It's Christmas today.  The holiday doesn't exist in the Unitarist Church, but Taylor told me such amazing stories.

He couldn't tell me when we were going to escape, but he told me that we would be in the Community in time for Christmas.  He told me that we would have a pine tree, decorated with popcorn and brightly colored ornaments.  We would exchange gifts and eat a meal.  He became obsessed with that meal.  He spent several minutes describing it's every detail.  I had to beg him to stop torturing me with food so lavish it seemed imaginary.  He talked about a giant turkey that would be stuffed with bread and onions and giblet gravy, a mountain of fluffy mashed potatoes dripping with real butter and peppercorns.  Rolls made of bread so soft and hot that it would melt in our mouths.  Just thinking about it makes my stomach curl in on itself.  I better stop.

What I was going to say in the last message.  I'm almost done with the story of Taylor and I, and I need to finish it before I go insane, or before they break my hands, or before they kill me.  It's only seven more days until my trial, and after that, who knows how much time I have left.  They'll sentence me to death.  Sometimes I wish that they would just do it, so the torture would stop and I wouldn't have to worry about Nikolaus anymore.

But if they killed me now, I wouldn't be able to remember Taylor.

It was early November.  I was at his flat.  My asshole was loose and warm and slick, and his seed was running down my thigh.  It was a good feeling.  He was curled up behind me.

The door opened and the Peacekeeper came in, just one.  He called us freaks and brandished his club at us, telling us to get up and 'cover our shame'.  He was brandishing these metal cuffs, and they were shining in the light from the streets.  They were jangling, the sound hurt my ears and the flash hurt my eyes.

Taylor stumbled and bent down for his clothes, covering his groin with one hand and begging the man not to hurt us.  When he rose it was in a smooth machine-like movement and he jammed something sharp deep into the Peacekeeper's gut.  He covered the Peacekeeper's mouth with his hand and removed the sharp object from his gut to slit his throat.  I cowered on the bed, holding a blanket around my shoulders and moaning low in my throat.  There was so much blood and I was starting to freak out.  Taylor's eyes were dead the whole time.  For the first time, I realized how deadly he was.  The Community seemed real.

He washed off his hands in the sink and spoke in a harsh undertone.  He told me to get dressed, and to gather up any food we had in the cupboards.  'We don't have any time.  We have to hide outside the city until the agent from the Community gets here.'

I remember saying something stupid, like 'He's dead' or 'you killed him'.  He was pulling his clothes on and he pulled me to my feet.  When we were both standing, he was a few inches taller then me.  I looked up into his amazing blue eyes.  He smiled, and it was strained and panicked, but still his smile.

'We have to go.  Get your clothes on.  Listen Tam, we're going to make it.  Just trust me.'

I can still hear him.  Jesus, I can still hear his voice if I close my eyes.  I put on my clothes and we ran into the street.  He told me to run through the shadowy streets until I got to my flat.  He told me to pick up anything that was too important to leave, some clothes, any food, and to meet him at the primary school by the south gate of the city.  He said that he knew a way out, that he was going to shake anyone tailing us.

The Peacekeepers got me by the primary school.  I screamed and struggled at first, but by the time they dragged me to the van I was numb.  They put a bag over my head, and by the time they took it off, I was in the gaol.  The last thing that Taylor said to me, was 'I love you, good luck'.

My thoughts have been getting more and more confused as time goes on.  Sometimes I'll lie down and I'll just remember the smell of his skin.  Like sunlight and musk and earth.  I'll be running, staggering in roll call, and I'll hear his voice in my ear.  The last time I was tortured, my head was ringing and I was crying and blood was streaming from my mouth.  I Felt his hand on my shoulder, felt it's warm weight, felt him squeeze.

I'm going insane.  But at least I get to Feel him again.  It's not even near as good as the real thing, but it's better then nothing.  I'm glad I write.  Even if I have to scribble in blood.  It brings visions of Taylor.


December 27, 2121

Later in the day when I did my entry, Smith and Manet brought me to the shower room and hosed me for hours.  I was almost glad they did.  It hurt so bad, and I was screaming and my skin felt like it would split and curl off of my body, but now I'm clean.  It feels so good to be clean.

I'm done writing my story, but I want to write anyway.  It helps.  I'm surprised by how lucid I've been recently.  Taylor told me stories about Tibetan monks, or Indian fakirs.  They meditated for days and days with little food and constant prayer and punishing physical exercise.  Maybe in this gaol, all they are doing is strengthening my mind.

When Smith and Manet were questioning me, Smith got angry.  He's the younger one.  He took the hose off of me for a moment and asked me if I was glad that I had been 'snared by a terrorist'.  He told me that Taylor obviously didn't love me, that Taylor just wanted someone to fuck.  He told me that I had been nothing but a tool, an accomplice.  It doesn't matter how many times he says that, it will never be true.

When they were pulling me down, and I was semiconscious, Manet swore, and murmured.  'This kid would have been better off if this damn terrorist had kept his dick in his pants.'

Would I have been better off?  All I know, is that if I had a choice between living for fifty years, or living for one day with Taylor, I know which one I would choose.

Today I saw my reflection.  I was cleaning out bedpans, and I turned one over and it had a smooth shiny ceramic bottom.  I could see my translucent reflection.  My hair has grown out, but it's brittle and lusterless and greasy.  My face is a gaunt skeleton, with wild dark hollows instead of eyes.  My cheekbones jut, and my cheeks are so thin that I can stick my finger into the hole under my cheekbones.  My mouth is cracked and swollen.  I'm so ugly.

I have to go, lights out


December 31, 2121

Tomorrow is my trial.  I wonder when I'll be executed.  Maybe Taylor will hear about it in the Community.  I hope he's safe.

The defendant only has one chance to talk.  They have to put it in their records.  I'm going to try and say something that will make a difference.

I love you Taylor.  I love you with every bone in my hollow body.  I love you for every brick in the gaol.  I love you for every stone in the earth, and every drop of poisoned water on this sick, dying planet.

FROM THIS POINT ON, THE PAGES ARE HEAVILY STAINED WITH BLOOD.  MANY OF THE ENTRIES DO NOT HAVE DATES, AND THEY BECOME SIGNIFICANTLY SHORTER

They pulled out my fingernails.  I can't write.


It hurts so bad.  I want to write, but I can't.


I made them angry.


I love you Taylor.


Nikolaus fucked me today.  And the day before, and the day before that.  I just want it to stop.


I wish I was dead already.


January 15, 2122.

It hurts so bad to write, but I have wrapped my fingers in tape.  I need to write or I will go insane.  I am going to be executed tomorrow.

I love you Taylor.  When I was at the trial, and I had the chance to speak, I said that I loved another man.  I said that the Unitarist church would fall.  I called them a bunch of ignorant fucks who would die with the stink of their own shit in their noses.  I was so scared, but I felt so powerful when I was up there.  I know that it meant nothing, that I was just as helpless as before, but I had a voice, and people heard me.  It was a public hearing.  There was an uproar at my words.  I feel like I made a difference, no matter how small, how worthless.

To pay me back for my insolence, Smith an Manet pulled out every one of my fingernails.  They are bloody and swollen, and it hurts to write.  It hurts so bad that I'm crying even now.

I was given my last meal earlier this evening.  The soup has some meat in it, and it came with half of a green apple.  My friend from the infirmary pulled some strings to make it possible.

To whoever finds this notebook, I just want to say.  I lived, and I loved.  I will die tomorrow, and all I can hope is that my words will make one last difference before I hang.

I love you Taylor.

Tam Berling.

END OF JOURNAL.

SEGMENT FROM THE TRIAL OF TAM BERLING

JUDGE RAIMUS:  For gender treachery, treason, and accessory to murder, I sentence Tam Berling to execution on the sixteenth of January in the year of our Lord 2122.  May the good Lord have mercy on your soul.  Does Tam Berling have anything he wants to say?

(Shuffle, the accused stands up and walks to the podium, flanked by a single guard)

TAM BERLING:  I am accused to die because I wanted to change our lives.  I fell in love with a man who wanted to bring down our Government.  There are women who die in agony because we wont help them with medicine.  The Unitarists have been lying to you.  It was the Nuclear blasts that caused infertility, not modern technology--

(an uproar, the guard attempts to pull the accused from podium, but the accused strikes him and continues to speak)

TAM BERLING:  They are lying to you!  They say that technology is evil, but somewhere they have a mainframe computer.  They have morphine and penicillin, but it's only for them.  They lead you by the nose because you are ignorant!  Rise up!  You don't want to die like dogs in the gutter, surrounded by the stink of your own shit!  You can be who you want to be, love who you want to love, live like human beings, just rise up, and don't let the Unitarists win!

(accused is grabbed by two guards, yanked away from the microphone.  A bag is put over his head and he is hurried away)

JUDGE RAIMUS:  This is just a sad example of the lies that the terrorist and pervert Taylor Bashke put into this poor young man's head.  He is brainwashed and delusional.  He accuses the Church of cardinal sins, while ignoring his own.  He is an example of what happens when we allow foreigners to try and tell us what we already know better.

END STATEMENT, JANUARY 1, 2122

FOLLOWING IS AN EXERPT FROM THE INTERVIEW OF GLORIA STEIN, CITIZEN OF RALTING, WHO WITNESSED THE EVENTS OF TAM BERLING'S EXECUTION ON JANUARY 16, 2122.

MANET:  Alright, the machine is rolling.  Testing, this is agent Frederick Manet with my partner agent Alec Smith.  Today we will be conducting the interview of Matron Gloria Stein, citizen, mother of four healthy children, age 71.

STEIN:  Is that machine safe?  The Church says that machines can give you tumors, and I have friends far younger then I who have succumbed to the wasting disease.

SMITH:  No need to worry Matron...  This is one of the oldest machines, with a tape.  The newer digital models are the dangerous to be near.  Other countries know of the risks, but their Governments hide the truth.  Here, no one lies to the citizens.

STEIN: Oh yes, I'm grateful.  May I have a drink son?  My throat is awfully dry.

SMITH:  Of course Matron.

(Sound of water being poured)

STEIN:  Thank you son, you're a good boy.  Where should I begin?

MANET:  Whenever you think is best madam.  We appreciate your cooperation greatly.

STEIN:  Well, that morning I was off to see my second child.  She's expecting.  I was so excited.  Very few people have the opportunity to be a Grand-parent anymore.  I was going to visit her and give her a few of my ration chips.  I'm old, and I don't eat as much anymore.  I wanted to make sure that my grandchild would have the best of everything.  I was going to give her some milk and fruit chips.  I can get by on potatoes and bread if need be.

MANET:  You will be a fantastic grandmother when the child comes, pray to the Lord that the child is born whole.

STEIN:  Yes, yes, Lord I worry.  But I came to the county hall and there was a massive crowd.  I thought that maybe there was an announcement going on.  I tried to get closer, the crowd was so big.  Then I saw it was an execution.  I'm sorry agent, I realize that he deserved to die, and I'm a patriot, but I hate watching the executions, especially with such a young boy.

SMITH:  Don't worry Matron...  Many people don't like to watch the executions.  All life is sacred.  It just means that you are more of a believer.  Here, have my handkerchief.

STEIN:  Thank you son, you remind me of my youngest boy.  Anyway, I shoved out of the crowd as they were reading his offenses.  I didn't hear them very well because it was windy, and the microphone was acting up.  The boy looked so young, he was crying and his hands were all bloody and awful.  I hurried into this alley that led to my daughter's flat.  But then I could hear the boy shouting, so I waited for a minute to listen.  He was saying... He was saying some simply awful things.

SMITH:  Ma'am?  Could you please tell us what he said?

STEIN:  Fine, but I don't believe anything he said.  He kept shouting things like. 'The Unitarists are lying to you' and 'It's better to die then to live in the Unitarist Church any longer'.  He told people that we were dying because we believed in the government.

MANET:  He did say some pretty horrible lies.  We're sorry you had to hear those Ma'am.

STEIN:  Well, I started to walk again, when a young man shouldered past me and nearly bumped me to the ground.  I can't see as well as I used to, but I'm pretty sure he had--(unintelligible mumbling)

SMITH: What was that ma'am?

STEIN: (very quietly)  A gun.

MANET:  Ma'am, do you remember what he looked like?

STEIN:  Well, my eyes aren't as good as they used to be, but he was young, I know that.  No more then a big boy.  He had brown hair, broad shoulders.  He was very handsome, I guess.  He had blue eyes, very bright blue eyes, like how they say the sky used to be.  He ran past me and I brushed the snow off of me and continued on my way when suddenly I heard many loud bangs behind me.  I thought that they were gunshots, but later on when they had a public announcement they said that they were strange foreign grenades.

SMITH: Yes, it's a kind of foreign trickery that they call 'flash-bangs'.  They create a huge light and a loud high-frequency bang.  It can temporarily cause people to become deaf and blind.

STEIN: Truly the devil's work then.  I heard people screaming, and I didn't know what to do.  I was just standing there, worrying, wondering if I should take shelter or if I should try to get to the Peacekeeper barracks.  When several men came running back.  The one who had bumped into me and several others.  The one who had bumped into me had the boy from the stage in his arms.

MANET:  Are you sure matron?  You said that your eyes...

STEIN:  I know what I saw officer.  I saw that skinny little boy curled up in the other boy's arms like a skeleton.  A few moments later Peacekeepers came and I pointed them to where the terrorists had run a moment before.

SMITH:  Thank you for your testimony Matron Stein, it will help us greatly.

STEIN:  Have you caught them yet?

SMITH:  Nope, they had a van that went off into one of the polluted areas.  The Peacekeepers weren't equipped to follow and by the time they were, the terrorists were go--

MANET:  Smith!  Shut up.

STEIN:  Oh, don't worry young man.  I can keep a secret.

MANET:  You're a pure fool Alec.  Turn that damn thing off.

END INTERVIEW, JANUARY 20, 2122

OFFICIAL PEACEKEEPER REPORT.

Terrorist Cell left building through an underground passage that had been dug under the south wall.  Peacekeepers were in pursuit, believing them to have access to an ordinary car.  However, the Terrorist Cell had a lead-lined van and proceeded to go down Ralting's County Rd 16 into Restricted Sector 78.

Peacekeeper units were in pursuit after proper equipment and vehicles were arranged.  Telegrams were sent to adjacent counties of Restricted Sector 78, but new evidence has shown that the Terrorist cell cut all communications lines.  Taylor Bashke (a.k.a. Undesirable #1) and his accomplice Tam Berling have not been sighted since.  Investigation still pending.




File 66



END OF REPORT, FEBRUARY 4, 2122

CHART OF RECORDED DEATHS AND BIRTHS IN RALTING COUNTY FROM DECEMBER 2121-JUNE 2122

December 2121  Live births; 46  Natural deaths; 24  Executions; 7*
January 2122  Live births; 49  Natural deaths; 19  Executions; 10
February 2122  Live births; 43  Natural deaths; 21  Executions; 36
March 2122  Live births; 51  Natural deaths; 31  Executions; 45
April 2122  Live births; 39  Natural deaths; 23  Executions; 56
May 2122  Live births; 42  Natural deaths; 13  Executions; 52
June 2122  Live births; 35  Natural deaths; 16  Executions; 102

*Executions have been expanded to include riot- and Peacekeeper violence-related deaths.

DESCRIPTION OF BLACKLISTED ENEMY PROPAGANDA #45

Now, this next item that your Peacekeeper troops should look out for is a particularly disgusting bit of propaganda from the terrorist cell known as 'The Community.'  The pictures were distributed by airdrop over several counties in the upper and eastern midwest, including Bethel, Dale, Ralting, Ramsworth, Sienna, and Worthing.

The pictures are approximately 8x4 inches, making them small and easy to conceal.  They consist of a single page with only one side.  The one side is a color photograph of the international terrorists Taylor Bashke and Tam Berling.  The picture shows them embracing and laughing in a desert landscape, dressed in nothing but shortened jeans.  Superimposed over the photograph, is the message.  'This is what they don't want you to see.  You are human beings who have the right to live, love, and be happy.'

We estimate that this picture was taken roughly six months after the Trial and Execution of Tam Berling.  It is a double threat, painting a false picture of how life is outside of the Unitarist state as well as attempting to make the Peacekeeper forces look ineffectual due to their evasion of capture.  If any of this Vile propaganda is discovered, it should be burned, and the owner of it flogged fifty strokes in public, to be made an example of.


END OF FILE 66



File Under T



Christina smiled happily as she looked at the time on the start bar of her monitor. Quarter past five in the afternoon and everything was up to date. She had done the filing, made all the necessary travel arrangements for her boss and even managed to get some letters typed up that didn't need to be sent until Friday. Third day on the job and Christina had it all under control.

Christina took a look at her desk at decided that it would be best to try and arrange it a little before heading home. It was only her second job as a personal assistant, and at her old workplace she managed to get things settled just the way she wanted them. Her new desk was completely different though. Where her old one was a beautiful mahogany monster with more draws and hidey holes than anyone could possibly use, her new desk was a sleek chrome and glass number that had a single set of metal draws tucked underneath it. The trick was getting her new desk to hold all of her stuff, yet still look nice and neat.

The first thing that had to go for the afternoon were the post-it notes on the monitor. They were Christina's own brand of super-advanced self-reminders. She usually went through at least two post-it note stacks per week. Today she was splitting her tasks between fluro yellow and baby pink; yellow for urgent and pink for tasks that could wait. It was with much pride that Christina begun to remove the sticky notes from her computer screen. Each one, to her, felt like a job well done.

"Oh shit." Suddenly Christina's day just went from a complete success to a complete failure. "Shit, shit, shit!" She snatched away at the row of pink post-its and gasped when she saw the last lonely note on her computer monitor.

It was yellow.

It was urgent.

And she should have given it to her boss well over two hours ago.

Christina's face went deep red as she snatched the note off the monitor and leapt up from her chair. She turned around and saw that her boss, Mr. Alex Bennet, was sorting through several large stacks of paper work. Christina smoothed her skirt, took a deep breath to center herself, and then tried to figure out what the hell she was going to say as she made her way across the large open-plan office space and towards the glass haven that was her boss's office.

If she were completely honest with herself Christina had to admit that the thought of telling her new boss about her oversight was only half of the problem. The other half was that she turned into jelly in his presence. When she had gone to the interview he had been called away on business. Instead, she had met a lovely middle-age woman from HR and a younger lady who worked as a personal assistant for one of the other partners. When she met Mr. Bennet on the first morning of her employment she had been rendered speechless and turned an unfortunate shade of pink. 

Alex Bennet was stunning. He had a strong chiseled face that framed deep brown eyes that were the most gorgeous Christina had ever seen. She could easily tell that he was older than her - there was just the lightest splattering of grey hair around the edges of his deep brown hairline, but instead of making him look old Christina decided that the terms experienced and knowledgeable would be more accurate. He was stunningly attractive in an insanely-hot-older-guy kind of way.

When Christina knocked on the door it took a few moments for Alex to look up from his work. When he did his eyes were glazed and his face was tense. It made Christina's stomach turn uncomfortably; the news she had would only make his afternoon more stressful. 

"Can I help you Miss Smith?" He asked, his dark brown eyebrows creased.

"Er- sorry to interrupt sir, but I just remembered something that I forgot earlier and it was kind of urgent but I didn't see my memo until half a minute ago and it was yellow. It was hidden beneath all the pinks otherwise I wouldn't have forgotten." Christina babbled far too quickly.

"Yellow? Pink? What are you talking about Miss Smith?" Alex asked, his deep brown eyes filling with confusion.

"This-" Christina held the note out to him "Ms. Petler called while you were out to lunch and said it was urgent."

Alex's deep expression went from confused to sharp in an instant. His entire demeanor changed and he clenched his teeth. Christina couldn't stop the blush from rising on her cheeks as she realized that this was turning from a bad stuff-up into a monumental oversight. 

"Ms. Petler called just after lunch and you are telling me now?" Alex snapped irritably. Christina flinched and nodded, then tried to calculate how whether her stuff would fit into the single box she had in her car or if she'd need another one to clear her new draws out.

"Yes sir. Sorry sir. Like I said, the note was yellow and it was hidden under the pink." She said with an apologetic frown.

"What time is it?" Alex asked, ignoring her pathetic attempt at an excuse and turning to look at the clock on the wall behind him. "Oh for the love of.... Quarter past five already?"He looked at the massive piles of paper on the desk in front of him and again at the clock and groaned. "This day just gets better and better. On the only night that I am supposed to be leaving the office early..."

"Sir, is there anything I can do to help?" Christina asked quietly, tucking a strand of her long black hair behind her ear.

"I'd say you've done more than enough." Alex growled, his brown eyes meeting hers. Christina had to look away.

"I really am sorry Mr. Bennett. I swear it won't happen again." Christina turned around and made to leave.

"Actually..." She stopped and bit her lip before turning around. "There is something you can do for me. I have to call Ms. Petler right now, but I also need this paperwork filed before I go home. While I'm on my call you can put all of this away." He gestured at the mountains of paperwork on his desk and didn't even bother to wait for a response before he picked up his phone and started dialing.

If her old boss had done this to her Christina would have glared at her and told her that she'd only stay back if she was going to get paid over time. However, this was not her old job, and after such a monumental mistake Christina could not afford to have an attitude. So, ignoring the fact that the paperwork would take the better part of an hour to put away, she gritted her teeth and decided to atone for her sin. Plus, even if he was angry he was still a treat to look at. 

Christina made her way over to Mr. Bennet's desk and picked up the file that was closest to her. She looked up, and then around, and then back at the file with a frown. Mr. Bennet's office was just as sparse as the rest of the offices. His large metal and glass desk was clear of everything except for his computer and his paperwork. There was a sleek black leather chair on the opposite side of his desk, a chaise lounge against the far wall and some strange modern art statue that Christina thought looked like a giant bent spoon. How on earth was she supposed to do his filing for him if there was nowhere to put it? There wasn't a single filing cabinet in sight.

"Excuse me Sir, but where do these go?" Christina asked in a hushed whisper, felling like a complete idiot. 

Mr. Bennet covered the speaker of the phone with one hand and reached under a stack of paperwork. He pulled out a black remote with several white round buttons. He pressed one and much to Christina's amazement, the left half of the back wall started to push forward and slide aside revealing tall stacks of filing cabinets. 

"Alphabetical order." He whispered back. "A to M on that side, and N to Z on the other side. Let me know when you need the other side open."

"Thanks-"

"No Pro-" Mr Bennet begun, but suddenly his attention changed and his entire body tensed. "Good afternoon Maureen, how are you? This is Alex Bennet from Bennet, Mars and Assosiciates. I was wondering if Annie was in please? I caught her just in time? Great." Mr. Bennet gave Christina an acidic glare and nodded at the mountains of paperwork before turning the back of his chair luxurious leather office chair on her and waiting for his call to be transferred.

Hmph- that's polite. Christina thought as she pushed past the back of his chair carefully and made her way to the wall of filing cabinets. Unfortunately the filing cabinets were just as designer-chic as the rest of the office. It seemed as if the designers had decided to forgo the typical labeling system and leave the front of the filing cabinets free of identifiers in favor of a ridiculously impractical but streamlined design. Perfect, Christina thought with a frown, this is gonna take forever.

Mr. Bennet's conversation soon became indistinct when Christina's drive to get her work completely took over. Check the name on the file, count the draws, put the file away, get a new file. If the file is N to Z pile it back up on the desk. It was a mantra that was so monotonous that she managed to use it to calm her jangled nerves. It wasn't long before Christina no longer needed to count half of the draws. Just as she got the hang of it she ran out of A to M files and needed to move on to the rest. 

Christina cleared her throat, not wanting to talk whilst Mr. Bennet was so intent on listening to whatever it was that Annie Petler had to say. After a few moments Christina realized that he hadn't heard her and cleared her throat again, a little more loudly this time. After another minute without a response, Christina rolled her eyes. The high back of Mr. Bennet's chair prevented her from seeing anything more of him than his black pin-striped suited arm.

"Sir?" She whispered, tentatively reaching out and placing her hand on his arm. 

Christina felt the muscles in Mr. Bennet's arm tense beneath her touch and he turned to face her, eyes wide and shocked. Christina gave him an apologetic smile and pointed at the other side of the wall. With a curt nod he reached out and pressed another button, and there was a faint mechanical buzz as the first door slid back into place and the second opened. Christina gave him a nod of thanks and got back to work. 

Within moments Mr. Bennet begun talking animatedly again. It was all extremely technical and thoroughly boring terms that Christina could understand just about as much as she could understand binary; not at all. Once she got back into the swing of things Mr. Bennet's deliciously deep voice washed over her and even though she couldn't understand the content of his conversation she still enjoyed the sound of his voice. 

At one stage Christina turned around and noticed that Mr. Bennet had turned his chair around to face her. Just as she looked up he looked away and at his blank computer screen. Christina gritted her teeth and felt the weight of her failure well up again in the pit of her stomach. The filing had helped her to calm down, but seeing that Bennet was watching her to make sure she was doing her work properly set her nerves back on edge.

A few minutes later Christina realized that the talk had stopped and she turned around again to see that Mr. Bennet was still watching her. His eyes were dark and the look he was giving her was thoroughly uncomfortable. He was off the phone now, and had his arms crossed over his chest as he gazed at her.

"Sir?" Christina asked, picking up one of the last of several files and checking the name on it. P.

"Your oversight nearly cost me a contract Christina." He said in a tone that made her shiver.

"I'm sorry Sir. It won't happen, I swear." She stammered.

"Please see that it doesn't." He said. The room was filled with a terribly thick silence.

"Would you like me to finish this filing now?" She asked, her eyes flicking up at his computer screen and widening when she realized that almost an hour had passed already.

"Yes please. I have a few things to attend to before I call it in for the day." He said, but he didn't turn back to face his computer.

Christina bit her lip as she turned around to put the file in the cabinet. She heard the wheel's of Mr. Bennet's chair slide on the stone floor as she leant over to put the file in the second bottom draw. As she flicked through the multitude of files to find the right spot she felt a strange shiver and looked back over her shoulder.

"Sir?" His eyes were still on her, a strange mix of emotions playing behind the gorgeous brown façade.

"Continue." He said with a slight shrug. Unnerved Christina turned back to her work. When she finally slipped the file into place she stood up straight and turned around. Just as she was about to pick up the next file Mr. Bennet put his hand on it.

"Wait a minute." He said, giving her a serious look. He took the file out from under her hand and looked at the label on it. 

"File this under T please." He said, holding out the file to her. Christina looked at the label and frowned.

"But sir, the name starts with R." Christina said slowly.

"Really?" Mr. Bennet took the file back, looked at it again and hmphed to himself. "So it does. Let me fix that." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a heavy looking silver pen. He twisted the top of it and then scribbled out the R in Ryall and replaced it with a T before handing it back to Christina.

Christina looked at the file carefully and then back up at her new boss. There was a glint in his eye and his facial expression spoke of a silent challenge. One that she didn't quite understand.

"Was the name spelt incorrectly?" She asked, unable to help herself.

"No."

"Then why do you want it under T?"

"Please Christina, file that under T." Bennet said slowly, looking at her calmly.

With a very pathetic attempt at a nonchalant shrug Christina turned around. M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T... Oh! The very bottom draw, in an awkward space between Bennet's chair and the desk. Christina looked back at her boss to see a smirk on his chiseled face and she rolled her eyes. Christina pulled the back of her knee-length skirt down and then squatted down. When she tried to pull the draw open she found that there wasn't enough room to get it open enough to slide the file in. She looked up at Mr. Bennet and saw that playful smirk still plastered on his face. Fine, Christina thought, don't move. Christina got back to her feet, moved to the side a little and then leant over.

The further she leant over the further her skirt rode up. She couldn't help but blush when she realized that the top of her stockings, and the suspenders they were connected to, would now be showing. Christina was relieved when she finally slipped the file into place.

Her relief, however, was extremely short lived. Just as she was about to straighten up she felt a firm hand come up to cup the curve of her arse. Instead of standing up gracefully she let out an undignified yelp and jumped up in shock.

"Sir!" She snapped, her admonishment clear in her voice. He shrugged at her and gave her an innocent smile before tapping the next file on the pile. Conveniently labeled as a W name. 

"After your mistake today, Christina, most employers would have dismissed you immediately. Need I remind you that are, and will be, on probation for three months?"

"Mr. Bennet! That is thoroughly inappropriate!" Christina said, spitting out the words as her anger rose.

"Why do you think you got this job?" Mr. Bennet asked her. Christina's mouth dropped open in shock.

"Because I did well in the interview, got excellent reference and because I am very good at my job." She said indignantly.

"No, you got the job because I like having a PA that has mediocre talent and exceptional presentation." He laughed.

"I do not have mediocre skills!" Christina snapped.

"This is only your second job as a PA Miss Bennet. Do you know how many othersapplied for this position? People who came to Bennet, Mars and Associates with a very long background in similar roles?"

"You weren't even at the interview to see my presentation." Christina said, glaring at him. If truth were told she did wonder just how she managed to get the job. She just figured that her old boss gave her an excellent reference and that there was little competition.

"Facebook Miss Bennet. Just about every twenty-something year old female has it." He said flippantly. "Your profile picture is quite interesting, if I might say so."

Christina's face turned burning hot as she realized what her profile picture was. It was taken three weeks earlier at her best friend's hens night. It was a picture of her, dressed to the nines, holding a large yard glass shaped like a cock with a drunken grin plastered on her face.

"Now are you going to finish this filing or would you rather clear out your desk?" Asked Bennet with an impatient glance at his computer clock. When he did Christina looked out of the glass terrarium of his office and realized that most of the lights in the outer offices were off, and that all of the other staff members had gone home. They were alone. Very alone.

Christina's thoughts turned immediately to her brand new Volkswagen Beetle that was parked happily in the office lot. Then she thought about her severely depleted savings account that had been abused after she had been made redundant in her last position. If she lost this job she would have to forfeit her car and maybe even move back in with her parents.

Three more files to go and she was home free. 

With an acrid glare at her boss she snatched the last three files off his desk and turned around. Luckily two of them were names that started with R. It meant that she got to step away from her boss and open a draw that was at chest height. A moment later she shut the draw and looked at the last file. She wanted to look back to see if Bennet was watching her, but decided not to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she took the file with Maclean, J's name on it and shifted over, her thigh pressing against the arm of Alex's chair. She pulled the draw open, raised herself onto her toes to check the order of the files in the draw, and then slipped the final one in place at the same time that Alex Bennet slipped his hand up her skirt.

Christina's entire body tensed as his long fingers caressed the smooth satin of her knickers. His hand was burning hot against her and she held her breath. If she lowered herself back down onto her feet properly then she would be lowering right into his waiting grasp. She turned and looked over her shoulder to see him watching her with a fervent gaze that made her stomach flip-flop and her lower regions flood with arousal. 

When she made no move to escape his sudden contact, his fingers began to trace light circles over the seat of her panties. As he leisurely made his way from her arse to the junction between her thighs her calf muscles began to burn with the effort of staying on her toes for so long. When her legs began to shake she couldn't tell whether it was from exertion or arousal. 

As her bosses fingers reached the fabric that was resting against her quickly moistening entrance, a short Oh! escaped Christina's lips and her legs gave way. She closed her eyes, expecting to feel her back slam into the hard edges of Alex's desk, but instead she felt a strong arm reach out to catch her as she fell. When she opened her eyes she saw Alex's deep brown orbs staring back at her, a roguish smirk tickling the corner of his lips. 

"Falling for the boss already Christina?" He murmured, voice rolling with waves of heat, "So soon?"

When his lips came down to meet hers Christina felt the first of her resistance slip away. His tongue pushed into her mouth and she moaned at the clean minty taste of him. As they kissed his hands ran the length of her back and cupped the back of her head, pulling her against him more firmly.

"The door is still open, Miss Smith." Alex Bennet whispered through deep, laborious breaths, "This is your last chance to leave."