Chapter Two: Decisions

"Hold her down, and this time- don't let her squirm." Even with my eyes closed, I could tell something was different. The voice was female, though I didn't recognize it. The room I was in felt odd, different from the paddy wagon I'd passed out on. How long had I been out for?

I struggled to open my eyes, but they didn't even make a slit. My vision remained still black, forcing me to rely on my hearing. People shuffled around me, and my sense of feeling told me people were grasping joints like my knees, ankles and wrists as if I'd make a blind brake for it. I was back-down on a cold surface, my head pounding as the light (so obviously placed above me) put choruses of pink behind my eyelids.

"Don't let her squirm." The same voice repeated, and a new set of hands dripped my arm, "Kaiden? I'm not going to bullshit you. This will hurt, and you will not like it."

I wanted to ask what will hurt? but no voice came out of my parched lips. I slashed my legs around at whomever was holding them steady, only to have them bounce back onto the table under their grip. Someone else spoke, "Feisty. The others didn't start to move until after they felt like they were dying."

The others.

I stilled, panic making me rationalize. What could I do? I barely had enough time to ask myself the question before a needle was jabbed into my upper arm, fluid injected into my bloodstream. I felt nothing for the first four seconds, everything was silent and everyone waited for some kind of reaction. At first, my mind said it didn't work, whatever they wanted to do didn't work, I figured the pain might not come.

But it was only the calm before the storm.

My chest started burning from the inside out, stinging excruciatingly. As the feeling spread across my limbs one by one, I slashed, kicked and enforced every movement my joints could stand, but it didn't help.

"Steady, boys. Last one coming." A new needle was jabbed into my opposing arm, and the feeling intensified. I felt my eyes squeeze shut tighter than they should need to be. My lungs gasped for the breath I'd been holding, but it never came. Maybe I'd get lucky and faint again.

"And last thing-" The deep, unfamiliar female voice continued, using a much, much bigger needle to inject something into my wrist, I barely even felt it compared to everything else. "Alright, let go, let her scream. I'm done."

Hands peeled off of my body and I resorted to my squirming in attempt to relieve the pain. My feet were flying, flailing off the table at high, newly unrestricted speeds. I was screaming, maybe even crying, I wasn't too positive as to which. I found myself stopping moments later to sop silently, newly positioned in a tight ball consisting of my folded limbs and torso. Silently sobbing inside the uncomfortable yet soothing position.

The pain subsided, and I was left scarred. My eyes, no longer blackened, allowed me to look out of my position at the people around me. The girl with the bright-pink hair stood to my left beside 5 other figures. Spaced from them were two more, one male one female, and on the completely opposite side to me was a blonde woman in a lab coat. I glared at all of them.

"My apologies for the way that went, but you restricted enforcement, which meant they had to paralyse you. Which meant in order to get unparalysed you'd need this antidote." she held up two empty syringes. "Which hurt like a bitch. Touches all your nerves, brings the feeling back to them rather abruptly."

"I noticed." I muttered. "Where am I?"

"WMPSB Headquarters, my office to be more specific." She paused. "My name is Dr. Montgomiry, I'm the District Two Enforcer Units very own caretaker, pretty much."

"That's not important right now, Claire." Someone spoke up, and I spun around to look at them. An older woman looking to be about 30 stepped towards me, examining my facial features, she shook her head. "The resemblance between you and your brother is extraordinary, Ms. Rayys."

"I don't talk about my brother." I shot back, scratching nervously at my arms. The situation was confusing me. Even as aware as I was, I felt I didn't know anything, that everything had somehow changed because I'd ran. Recalling the pain I'd felt only moments earlier, I winced.

"Funny, because that's what you'll be talking about today." She retorted, not missing a beat. "We need him in custody. He's raising area-stress levels too easily, we've put 12 people in emergency therapy for their psycho-pass', that were elevated for the sole reason of having been standing near him." She paused, "Your brother is dangerous, and we need your help to take him down."

"No." This time it was me who didn't miss a beat. "You may be the cops, but he is my brother. He is my brother, and I won't help you lock him up, I realize what he's done is wrong, he fucked up immensely, but he'll deal with it. I won't be sad if you find him, but I won't be helping."

"It's not betrayal anymore if he betrayed you first, Ms. Rayys." She paused, smiling sadly at me. "Think about it. If he can raise Area-Stress Levels by 16 percent just in a matter of hours, how much could he have raised yours having lived with you? You're lucky you got away with the late 200's in your Psycho-Pass number, because the way I see it, you could have gotten 700. And then you'd be dead."

I didn't speak, only continued to listen. The other one, a man in his early 20's smiled warmly at me, the two resembling a good cop/ bad cop sit com. "Listen, Kaiden. You're seventeen, you're still a teenager. Do you really want to spend your highlight-years in a solitary sell? Here's out deal: Help us find him, and you get off on the same rules as the enforcers. You can remain on the job as a full-time enforcer permanently afterwards, or stop once we've captured your brother. Should you choose the latter option, we can work out a deal that suits both our needs. Cut your solitary time or something of the sort."

I chuckled, "He's my brother-"

"Do you really think he thinks of you as his sister anymore?" He paused. "I'm sorry, but Kaiden, wake up. Gareth Rayys sold his soul to the devil, and you need to help him redeem himself. Help him get better, save lives of other innocents. Stop his murders."

"Why me?"

"Because," he smiled softly. "You're his blood. Who knows him better than his own sister?"

I paused, shuffling uncomfortably. "What do you mean the Enforcer Rules?"

Both of them smirked in a sense of victory. "Enforcers, as you probably know, are latent criminals. Hand selected by their abilities and background, they are placed into the Divisions of the Public Safety bureau. But, even with them not having solitary confinement or anything of the sort, they're still Latents. We can't have them running around making a mockery of the system, it'd be insane."

"Right here, Mr. D. We're right here." A boy called from my left, chuckling. I didn't look over at him, I didn't feel a need to.

"Shut up, Jason. Don't act like a four year old, it really doesn't do you any good." The older woman judged, her face showing multiple hints of amusement. She turned to me, smiling sickly. "We need your help. I hate to admit it, but it's true. Ask yourself this, Kaiden- would you rather be everyone's salvation? Or the reason 100 more people end up in confinement for the rest of your lives? We have a six year old in the solitary rooms because of your brother. A six year old who can no longer see her own mother."

I wince, shaking my head, recalling memories. I hated my brother, deeply, and yet my eyes still watered at the thought of him. The day he'd left us had been rough, it'd been incredible hard to let him go. Even harder to lie to mom for him afterward, to watch her cry and drop to her knees. I didn't know how to feel back then, about any of this.

"What are you doing?" I asked him, flipping a curled lock of blonde hair behind my shoulder. My eyes followed my brother as he raced around his room to shove clothes and electronics into his suitcase. "Where are you thinking of going?"

"Shut it, Kai." He groaned, scratching the back of his head. For once, he looked like he regretted being mean to me. "Sorry."

"It's fine. But, seriously. Where are you going?" I asked, looking down at my shoes. "Does mom know?"

"No, and you won't tell her." He paused, sitting on his bed, he motioned for me to join him. "I'm sorry, okay? But something's happened and I need to go away for a little while until things cool down. Until they stop looking for me. You can't tell mom, she'd hand me right to them on a silver fucking platter."

I gasped, a normal reaction from a 7 year old girl. "You swore."

He chuckled, pulling me in for a quick hug before he stood to continue packing his things. "Tell mom I got flagged, and that I'm going to go to dad's for while. Don't tell her where I'm really going."

"Well, I don't even know where you're really going, so how could I? Duh." I said sassily. He grinned, zipping his bag, he dragged me out of his room and into the kitchen, where I resumed sitting and watching him throw items into a new bag.

"It's a secret, okay?" His smile faded, and he began to look like more of a depressed 50 year old compared to his normal 14 year old self. "You have to keep it between us."

"Okay, deal." I smiled back at him. He tied the plastic bag shut and shoved it into his suitcase amongst his other things.

He opened the drawer our mother had always called the forbidden drawer and pulled out a wad of who knows how much cash, before turning and giving me one last hug, during which he whispered, "Remember the abandoned farm mom took us to on that camping trip a few year back? There."

"There." I repeated, smiling, still incredibly unaware of what was really going on around us. "How long will you be gone?"

"A while," He said, after a long hesitation. "I love you."

"Ewe." I crinkled my nose and stood. Watching him walk out the door one last time.

"We've already implanted a microchip into your wrist, you'll be able to see it blinking now and then, transmitting a signal. It's normal." The man I now knew as Steven Humphrey, the same man who'd been speaking to me earlier, said, speaking of the small newly-bruised spot on my inner left-wrist. "Try not to touch it for a while, it'll hurt for a few days."

I nod, offering no other sign I'd heard him.

"I'm supposed to go over the rules of being an enforcer with you, and then you get to sign the papers and-"

"I haven't agreed."

"What?" he says, having no entirely heard me.

"I haven't agreed yet, I never said I'd do it. I'm still deciding." I reminded him, and slowly he nods back.

"Right, sorry." he clears his throat. "And then you can either sign the papers for enforcement duty, or get locked up."

I wince, it was harsh the way he'd phrased it, but it was the truth. My options laid out plain and simply. "So, the rules?"

"Right. Enforcers aren't allowed to leave the building without consent from the on-duty inspector, which will be either Mrs. Aillot, the woman you met earlier, or me. Most of the time we'll only allow you to leave for tasks related to our jobs here, but sometimes one of us might just feel like a smoothie and send you off, mostly it'd just me who does that though." He laughed.

"Really?" One of my eyebrows raised instinctively.

"Well, think of it as this; when I send someone out to get me a smoothie, they get to walk around like a civilian again, even if only for a while. It's a blessing in disguise." He clears his throat, "Now, the second rule, all enforcers have to be in the containment building by midnight every night. Between the hours of 7am to midnight, I don't care what you do on the bureaus property, but after that you have to be in the containment building."

"Containment building?"

"The building at the east end of the property, it's what I like to call the enforcers hotel. It had 28 suites 9 floors, and 24 enforcers." He muttered his next part under his breath, "Maybe 25."

I rolled my eyes.

"Rule three is the biggy, don't frick this up. Should an enforcer not comply with a direct order from an inspector or anyone of higher rank than them, they are subject to punishment 4.2," he clears his throat, yet again. "Paralysis and injection."

"Paralysis and injection?" I ask, though my mind tells me I knew exactly what it was.

"That wonderful thing you went through." He pauses, "The only way to stop the paralysis that comes with the dart that lovely boy hayes put through your back last night is to be injected with that nerve-shocking thing."

I shivered. Just don't fuck up.

"Those are pretty much the only rules, I guess." He shrugs. "So, what's the verdict?"