"Hello," Donna said to Katz and Hope, who walked into her cell. Katz was glancing back into the corridor. Hope looked outside as well. Donna stood up from her cot and leaned against the wall, half-sitting on the cold radiator. She wondered what the two women had for her - food or information.
"What are you so worried about?" Hope asked Katz irritably. "She's asleep. The other one's off video calling her husband." One of the wardens constantly snuck away to the staircase to talk to her family. When combined with the tendency of several of the others to fall asleep even relatively early in the evening, this predilection for video calls meant a total lack of supervision from time to time as the warden waited for her partner to fall asleep, and simply got up and left for the next few hours.
It was strange that they knew so much about the people who guarded them, but not their names.
"What is it?" Donna asked her fellow inmates.
In response, Hope took a flask out from under her shirt. "Orderly comes around most evenings," she explained, noticing Donna's bafflement. Hope was indeed visited by the orderly every evening, who helped her out with the physiotherapy she did for her bad hip. "I just hand it back to her." That solved the mystery of where the alcohol was coming from. None had ever been offered to Donna, as she had never asked for any. Until now, apparently.
"But why?" Donna asked, taking the flask and unscrewing it. It was full, but then again, it was quite small. She sniffed its contents cautiously, recoiling at the smell. She had never drunk more than a few sips of wine before. Hesitantly, she took a large sip, wincing at the burning bitterness. Beyond that, she thought she could detect a fruity taste.
"Well, you're always giving us cookies and whatnot, so I thought I'd thank you," Hope said. Donna took another gulp, trying not to gag at the taste. And this was the stuff all the former Peacekeepers claimed to have drunk like water?
"Tastes terrible."
Hope shrugged. "Well, I guess it's not the best sort," she conceded. "I remember when I was in Twelve, though, now that was some serious garbage they sold us under the guise of vodka. I was afraid I'd go blind."
It was hard to imagine that anything could be more disgusting than whatever it was she was drinking. The burning sensation wouldn't leave her mouth, and it was so horrifically bitter, Donna was afraid she'd throw up from the taste.
"Wasn't much better in Nine," Katz said, launching into one of her favourite stories. "I remember how back when I was on my first tour, we had a new lieutenant arrive. He tried some of the booze a local gave him, and proceeded to arrest him for attempted murder of a Peacekeeper!"
"If it tasted this bad," Donna said, "I don't blame him." She took another sip and wanted to spit it out, but managed to choke it down. It wouldn't have done to refuse a gift, and plus, Donna had to admit she was a little bit curious.
"Well, he was a bit paranoid," Katz explained.
Hope butted in. "A bit? Wasn't this the one who banned you all from hiring prostitutes because he was afraid they were going to stab you in your sleep?"
Forgetting all about Donna, the two former Peacekeepers started trying to outdo each other in who had the crazier story to tell about middle-of-nowhere life in the outer Districts. While they did the same at work all the time, the relative privacy of a cell with the door closed was much easier. Donna realized the flask was now empty. Eager to get the taste out of her mouth, she got up and opened the tap to fill it with water.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Hope asked.
"It's empty," Donna explained, holding it upside down.
Hope and Katz looked utterly horrified. "You drank the entire thing?" Hope whispered.
Too late, Donna realized that comparing herself to the former Peacekeepers was a terrible idea. "There wasn't that much in it," she said defensively as she filled the flask with tap water and sat down on her cot, drinking the water to get rid of the terrible taste in her mouth.
Katz rubbed at her face with one hand. "But you said you don't drink!"
"My husband doesn't. I just never had the chance to."
Hope was glancing around the cell as if trying to find a way out. "Well, there were only, what, three shots' worth in there?" she asked Katz defensively. "And she's not that small."
Katz sighed. "Let's hope that the guards don't try to talk to her."
The way they were talking to her like she wasn't there was so strange, Donna laughed at the absurdity. "I'm fine," she said. "At least for now," she amended, remembering the get-togethers she had attended, the sort where spouses had been most definitely not invited and alcohol had flowed like a river. The people who had insisted the loudest that they were sober had tended to be the most drunk.
"Just keep on drinking the water," Hope said. "I remember once, after a special operation in Eleven-"
Donna listened to the story, slowly sipping the water and laughing quietly at the funny moments, even though there was nothing funny about mass executions. Soon, she found herself unable to stop laughing, though she was able to keep the volume down to almost zero. Her face felt hot. "Is my face red?" she asked the two, interrupting Hope's rant about why Thread had been the most counterproductive Head she had ever served under.
"Yes," Katz said, and Hope added, "I'd have thought you were too dark to turn red like that. You look like a traffic light."
Rubbing at her face, Donna fought to stop herself from laughing out loud. Wow, she was really drunk. Hopefully the administration wouldn't find out. At least Dr. Chu had last visited only a few days ago, so it was unlikely she'd show up that evening. Donna leaned back against the wall, feeling drained all of a sudden. "Are you alright?" Katz asked.
"Just tired."
"You really don't look too good."
Donna tried to stand up and toppled over. Katz and Hope rushed forward to pull her to her feet, but she broke free of their hold and managed to crawl to the toilet in time to throw up. She felt a little bit better, but not much.
"Look, if she's throwing up, she's got alcohol poisoning," Katz said.
Pushing herself to a sitting position, Donna rushed to reassure her. "I'll tell them I have no idea who gave it to me," she said, mentally kicking herself for being so stupid. "Don't worry."
"She's talking straight, at least there's that," Hope sighed. "Can you stand?"
Donna pushed herself to her feet. For a second she managed to remain steady, but then had to lean against the wall. Hope stepped towards her to hold her upright. "Why don't you lie down," she said. Obediently, Donna flopped down on her cot. She tried to sit up to take off her shoes, but it was as if gravity had suddenly intensified. Donna tried over and over to sit up, and flopped back every time. Hope maneuvered her around so that she leaned against the wall. Donna untied her shoes and kicked them off, putting them neatly under her cot.
"Strange," she said. "I can't even sit up, but I can still untie my shoes."
"That's nice," Hope said. "Now, you need to lie down on your left side. Do you think you can do that without turning over?"
Moving herself up against the wall, Donna lay down in the correct position. "I know, it's important," she said. "So I don't choke to death on my vomit in the middle of the night."
"Exactly," said Katz. "We're going to leave now. We won't tell anyone about this." That was doubtful. "If you're really feeling bad, just press the button. Worst-case scenario, they toss you into total solitary for a week."
Donna nodded. "Sorry about that," she said. "I didn't want to make it hard for you. Really."
"Oh, it's no problem." The two left, shutting the door behind them.
She closed her eyes, but when she did, everything felt like it was floating, including her. With her eyes open, though, Donna felt fine. She tried to sit up and read, but ended up throwing up again. Donna wiped the rim of the toilet clean, rinsed out her mouth, and flopped back into bed. Reluctantly, she changed for bed, and then carefully positioned herself so that when she tried to roll over to her back, the wall stopped her.
Trying to fall asleep proved impossible for some reason. Wasn't alcohol supposed to help people sleep? Donna brainstormed what to write in her diary entry for today. She realized that chunks of the evening were already missing from her memory. Would there be more missing tomorrow? Donna hoped she wouldn't feel too bad, otherwise she could draw suspicion. The warden came around to lock the doors. Eventually, Donna fell asleep.
Donna woke up, and immediately wished that she hadn't. Not only did she feel like someone was hitting her over the head with an icepick, but she was sore all over for some reason, and the inside of her mouth was dry and tasted horrible. She felt feverish, as if she had the flu. She fell back asleep, but not for long. Her door burst open, and a warden was shouting at her to get up.
"Female Nine, wake up!" she said. "Is something wrong?"
Donna didn't bother trying. She curled up tighter, wishing the screaming would stop.
"Hey, I think she might be sick."
"Sick? With what?" Boots approached her. "Oh crap, the directors are going to murder each other. Is it me or does it smell like alcohol?"
"Huh, it does! I'll go alert the Chief." One pair of boots ran off.
"Look at me!" snapped the second guard. Reluctantly, Donna opened her eyes and reached up to rub at her head. "Where did you get the alcohol from?"
"I don't know," Donna muttered. "Look, can you leave for a minute? I need to use the toilet." Slowly, she pushed herself to a sitting position, looking up at the guard who was bending down to speak to her. Her vision was weird, and her head was spinning on top of everything else.
"I am not letting my eyes off you for a single second," the guard said in a tone that clearly showed she was as happy about that as Donna herself.
Whatever. Donna felt too terrible to feel embarrassed on top of it, and it's not like it was any worse than back during the trial. As she dragged herself back to her cot and flopped down, too exhausted to stand for another second, the guard looked like she was reconsidering every decision she had ever made in her life.
To cover up her awkwardness, the guard began to interrogate her inexpertly. "No, really, where did you get it from?"
"Nobody," Donna said, pulling the blankets up over herself. Her head felt like it was going to explode.
"What do you mean, nobody?"
"Nobody. Will you shut up? I feel bad enough without you screaming in my ear."
At that moment, several others walked in, slamming the door shut behind them. Reluctantly, Donna opened her eyes. Crammed into her cell were two guards, a warden, and the director from One, who was the Chair this week. "And how am I supposed to interpret this?" he asked nobody in particular. Nobody replied.
"Uh, Director, she says that nobody gave it to her," the guard hesitantly said.
The director sat down on her chair. "What do you mean, nobody?" he asked. "Female Nine is no conjurer, she couldn't have just gotten alcohol out of thin air! Clearly someone gave it to her. She's just not talking." His voice was light, but Donna could tell the threat that lurked underneath.
"I don't remember," she muttered, sitting up and leaning against the wall.
The director sighed audibly. "I should have expected that."
"She looks pretty bad," the warden pointed out.
"I feel pretty bad," Donna said sadly.
"I can't believe there's an entire smuggling ring going on in here," the director said.
"If you don't tell us the source, you will feel much worse," said the guard who had run to get the director.
"We're not having any of that," the director said before Donna could protest. "However, since you seem to like contraband so much, you will eat only nutrient powder and water for the next while. The duration of the punishment depends."
"Can I have some painkillers, at least?" The director nodded, and the guard was off once again, this time - to fetch the orderly.
Rising to his feet, the director stepped in the direction of the door. "Clearly we're not getting anything out of her today," he said. "Warden Mitu, search the cell, report if you find anything." With those parting words, he left. Donna groaned and climbed to her feet. She undressed slowly, making sure that the paper in her sock wasn't seen. Her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls, and when she stood up, she felt dizzy.
"I can't stand," she complained, leaning against the wall. "My head is spinning."
"Then sit down!"
The two women poked through her clothes only perfunctorily, instead focusing on potential larger hiding spots. Predictably, they found nothing. Donna got dressed and fell into bed, not caring that the blankets were all on the floor.
The two guards left, and the orderly walked in, holding her tray. As threatened, it contained an empty cup and a nutrient bar. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Terrible. I never knew hungovers were that bad."
"Well, you aren't exactly young," the orderly pointed out. "You'll be still feeling sick tomorrow."
Donna was about to protest that she was very much young before she remembered that outside, she would be considered middle-aged. "Do you have painkillers?" she asked instead. The orderly filled up the cup with water and offered it to her, along with a small pill. Donna took it gratefully, though swallowing anything made her feel ill. She lay back down, not feeling any better. Then, she fell back asleep, not bothering to pick up the blankets from the floor.
When she woke up, she felt a little bit better, though she still had the worst headache of her life. Moving still hurt, though not as much as in the morning. And the strangest thing of all was that her cell was neat, Peacekeeper-neat in fact. She was covered with blankets and her dirty clothes were carefully folded in her box. Even her papers were carefully lined up on her table instead of scattered everywhere. Had one of the women come in to clean up? Donna looked around some more, and noticed that her tray was still on the table. She reached out a hand that felt like there was a huge weight attached to it, and took one of the three bars that were on the tray. Dinner must have already happened.
Donna nibbled it slowly, lying down. How did Holder eat this voluntarily? It tasted like utterly nothing, and didn't fill her up at all. The bar melted on her tongue, not even giving her the satisfaction of eating. She ate the other two as well, not feeling any different afterwards. Then, she fell back asleep, and only woke up the next morning, feeling slightly better. While she still had a killer headache and felt sore, especially around her upper back region, it wasn't as bad as the previous day. She scribbled her notes for the past two days. Livia would die laughing. Then, she fell back into bed and fell asleep all over again, suddenly feeling too exhausted to move, and woke up to the sound of the door closing.
"Hey," she said weakly, but the door was already slamming shut. Donna sat up and looked at the tray. Water, two energy bars, and painkillers. Did that mean it was lunch? She drank some of the water, and realized she was extremely thirsty. She stood up on weak legs and went to get some more, practically falling back onto the cot. The energy bars were just as tasteless as on the previous day, and Donna kicked herself mentally as she ate. How could she have been so stupid? Now they'd probably be subject to daily searches all over again.
For the rest of the day, she lay around doing nothing, as reading made her head hurt even worse, standing up only to drink some water or use the toilet. She felt like she had a bad evening, she fell asleep before dinner, and woke up feeling more or less decent, though she still had a headache. She went about her usual morning routine with reluctance, looking forward to more painkillers, as her head still felt like it had been hit with an icepick.
In the breakfast queue, everyone looked at her strangely. "Good morning," Hope said. "Are you feeling better?"
"Yes."
"Do the nutrient bars taste alright?"
"Yes."
"That's good," Blatt cut in, "because that's all you'll be eating for the next two weeks."
Donna shrugged. "If Holder can do it, so can I."
"Well, that's one way to look at it," Hope said. Donna didn't add that just the smell of food coming from the cart made her feel slightly ill, though the prospect of no tea for two weeks was a tough one.
In her cell, Donna flipped through the newspapers as she ate the nutrient bar. She knew full well, though, that the main topic of discussion in the prison would not be debates on the death penalty or anything of that sort. Reluctantly, she cleaned her cell and dragged herself outside, wishing she was in bed sleeping instead.
"Are you feeling better?" was the first thing that Theodosius asked her. So did the other men. So did the male guards.
"Yes, I am," she replied to everyone, wishing she could sink through the ground and disappear. Koy was the last, departing after making a cryptic statement about the ghost of Ramon Mercader.
"No, really," Theodosius insisted as they set off down the path, chilly air doing a good job of waking Donna up. "How are you feeling?"
"Better. It's like I have a cold." A part of her wished that she had worn her jacket, but another part craved the coldness of the breeze.
Theodosius scuffed the ground with his foot, nearly tripping. "So...what happened?" he asked.
Donna looked around before answering. "Hope and Katz happened," she said. "I think they were trying to thank me for the food. I started laughing out of nowhere, fell down when I tried to stand, threw up twice, and needed help taking the two steps to my cot. I didn't realize I'd feel so bad the next morning. Or, indeed, the morning after that. If not for that, I'd have gotten away with it."
"I remember how back when I was a student, I could party all night and then go to an eight-thirty lecture." Theodosius sighed. "I heard the directors got involved?"
"Yes," Donna said sadly. "Nutrient bars and water for two weeks."
Theodosius winced. "No, I meant that I heard that they searched you really intensely."
"No, it was actually quite perfunctory. The director from One turned up, worried about the blow to his prestige, and asked the guards to search me. I couldn't even stay standing, I felt so ill."
"Excuse me?" Holder said from behind them. Donna and Theodosius turned around to see the man catching up to them. "Mrs. Blues, I heard you weren't feeling well yesterday. Are you better now?"
"Yes," she said.
"That's nice." Holder walked between the two of them. "I hope the nutrient bars don't taste too bad. I know normal people don't like them." Donna winced at the word choice, but said nothing. Holder had made it clear that he would refer to himself however he wanted.
"They don't fill me up at all," she said instead. "You must be hungry all the time."
"If I didn't eat them, I'd be even hungrier, because I can't eat half the food they give us!" Holder sounded oddly cheerful. "The hunger goes away pretty fast, though. There's enough calories in there, after all. And they taste good, too."
"They don't even have a taste!" Donna protested.
"Exactly," Holder said with a satisfied nod. "So, what happened to you? Hope said she went in to clean your cell yesterday after dinner, and you didn't even twitch when she covered you with the blankets."
Donna wanted to sink through the ground. "Just really hungover, I guess," she said.
"I once knew someone who never got hungover," Holder reminisced. "She was much smaller than you, Mrs. Blues, a cup of beer made her get up and dance on a table and two sent her under it, but no matter how drunk she got, the next morning, she was up bright and early."
"How old was she?" Theodosius asked.
"Mid-twenties, I think."
"Must be nice," Theodosius sighed wistfully.
Donna spotted Hope leaning against the wall, catching her breath after doing pushups. "I'll catch up to you two," she said, and hurried towards the older woman.
"Ms. Hope?" she asked hesitantly.
"Yes?"
"I just wanted to thank you for cleaning up my cell," Donna said awkwardly, not quite meeting her eyes. "And making sure I was safe."
"Oh, it's nothing. You make a very manageable drunk, Mrs. Blues. Not like my old sergeant. He punched me in the face once when I told him he was too drunk to go on patrol."
The Peacekeepers' supply of stories was truly inexhaustible. "What happened?" Donna asked. The two of them began to walk down the path, Hope putting on her sweater.
"This was in middle-of-nowhere Eleven," Hope said by way of explanation. "He told me to fuck off, punched me in the face, and went to harass the locals. He tried to grope some girl, but she just hid in a peach tree and he was too drunk to climb up after her!" Hope laughed. Donna glanced around to make sure that none of the guards, and especially ones from Eleven, were listening. "Funny thing is, the girl went to our barracks that very night. Not for the sergeant, mind you, for some ordinary Peacekeeper, but he still got wind of it. That Peacekeeper, was actually rooming with me - we got two to a room there, gotta love rural barracks - so I came back from patrol and he was screaming all over again. At least he didn't try to punch anyone again." Hope laughed again, straightening out her sweater.
"So what happened to the girl?" Donna asked. "How old was she, anyway?"
"Nineteen, twenty, something like that." Hope took off her cap, smoothed out her short wavy hair, and put it back on. "He pulled rank and got her, but my buddy got her second. I ended up spending the night on the couch in the kitchen. Then, it turned out she paid her with my money, because she had lost all of hers at cards. I was this close to punching her in the face, but she gave it back the next time payday rolled around, so no harm done." For some reason, Peacekeepers had been paid in cash, with predictable results.
Donna was sure that if she wrote a book that was just crazy stories the former Peacekeepers had told her, nobody would believe it was true.
To add insult to injury, Dr. Chu appeared almost immediately after the cell doors were locked for the day. To add confusion to the mix, she continued with the previous week's topic.
"Have you done any thinking about this in the past few days?"
Donna nodded, kneading the orange ball. "And I'm still not quite sure how to articulate it." Dr. Chu had seized on Donna's reaction to the end of One Hundred Years of Solitude, and was analyzing it from every conceivable angle. "I mean, I think the book's right. If you're condemned to a hundred - or twenty-five - years of solitude, you're not going to get another chance." She rushed to tell the psychologist a joke she had thought of recently. "You should make sure Hryb doesn't get his hands on the book. If you do some serious rounding, the title could eventually apply to him." Even eighty years would require him to live to a hundred and nine, but with how much resources went to keeping them in good health, it would probably happen.
"There is a difference between one hundred years and twenty-five years," Dr. Chu pointed out, turning Donna's own words against her as always.
Donna rolled the ball between her palms. "Just because I'll be outside and breathing doesn't mean much."
"Outside, breathing, and talking."
"You think I'd be allowed to talk?" Donna asked sceptically.
Strangely enough, Dr. Chu laughed. "I am one hundred percent sure you will not only be allowed, but encouraged to talk. Trust me on this." She adjusted her kerchief, which was thickly embroidered with bright colours and patterns.
"Huh," Donna said, rubbing the ball between her fingers. "You really think-"
"Yes."
"Huh." There was a pause. Donna hated talking about the future, but it was Dr. Chu's favourite topic. It was strange to imagine being encouraged to talk, with how strict the censorship was. But then again, didn't they constantly talk about how what the directors wanted was not what the people wanted? And who knew what could happen in the next twenty years. Who knew when she'd actually be released. "I guess I'd want to tell people about myself. Tell them about the regime. Tell them how not to do things."
"Why?" Well, at least Dr. Chu wasn't trying to persuade her to admit guilt. Donna was sick of telling her, over and over, that she had nothing to feel guilty for. The psychologist was either conflating guilt and responsibility, or messing with her on purpose.
"Because what else can I do?" Donna asked. "I was in Snow's inner circle. Barring the directors suddenly and against all logic agreeing to release everyone, I'll be the only one capable of telling the world what it was like to be in it. And maybe I could warn people."
"You'd be a cautionary tale to all the young engineers of the world?" Dr. Chu asked, looking more content than Donna had ever seen her.
"I was thinking young professionals in general. Anyone whose job is apolitical. Being apolitical didn't save me from being tangled up in the Games, nor did it save the biologists and doctors of the IGR from the atrocities committed there, or the bureaucrats who managed the Districts from - well, you know."
Dr. Chu tapped her pen. Donna braced herself for more questions about the Districts, but she simply wrote something down and asked her about how her family was doing.
"So, how was the week in general?" she asked afterwards.
Donna half-smiled. "Mostly good."
"I can imagine what part wasn't so good," Dr. Chu said with a laugh.
"I still don't feel back to optimal," Donna said. "And I didn't even do it on purpose!" She kneaded the ball, feeling the little balls roll against her fingers.
Dr. Chu nodded. "You've always been very careful about remaining in control of yourself before," she said softly. "You never let yourself relax."
"Yeah," Donna agreed. "First I was too worried about my parents, and then I was too worried about my job. Plus with the way Dem's family was, we never even had alcohol in the house. At gatherings, I'd spend the entire night drinking a single tiny glass of wine." She chuckled at the memory.
"Normally," Dr. Chu said, "people from your background overcompensate while in college, but you didn't even have that option."
"I think you're going too far here," Donna pointed out. "This isn't some sort of midlife crisis or anything."
The psychologist nodded. "Partially, you're right. It was a one-time thing, am I right?" Donna nodded, shame-faced. "I'm just trying to figure out what it must be like to be you. To oversimplify, you spend your entire life under self-imposed tight discipline, always with plenty to lose. Then, all of a sudden, you were plunged into a lifestyle more akin to that of an average teenager, with the discipline imposed on you. And, unlike with a teenager, no matter what you do, it won't have permanent and indelible consequences. If you break a rule or two, the consequences will be short-term, though still painful." Donna nodded, remembering the week of total solitary for a single potato. "You and your fellows, you carve out niches, come up with ways to evade the rules and regulations. After all, you're not in danger of having your life ruined over a single misstep."
"There's nothing left to ruin," Donna said lightly. The psychologist was definitely oversimplifying, this sort of framework only really applied to her. The others probably just didn't want to give up their lifestyles.
"You push boundaries, simply because you can, for the first time in your life."
The way the psychologist was carrying on, one would have thought that the inmates were fourteen to seventeen, not forty to seventy. Donna got the point, though. "I guess that's true. I don't really remember what happened, but I know that if I had wanted, I could have simply taken a few sips instead of chugging the entire thing. Clearly, a part of me wanted to know what would happen. In fact, had I been fourteen instead of forty, I probably could have gotten up the next morning without issue."
Dr. Chu nodded. "And how will this inform your actions going forward?"
"Never drink again."
"That's certainly true," the psychologist said, laughing. "I think that should be the easiest part."
"I think that everyone will keep the alcohol as far away from me as possible."
"By the way, do you have any idea who could have given it to you?" Dr. Chu asked.
"I don't remember," Donna explained, "and it could have been anyone."
Dr. Chu tapped her pen on her clipboard. "Now, please walk me through how you felt today interacting with the others."
"Well, it was definitely awkward to talk to Hope. She's the one who cleaned my cell yesterday after the search. I feel bad for making her do that."
"Could you be more specific?"
Donna realized the trap was laid. Frantically, she kneaded at the ball, trying to think of a good way to respond. "Well, it's embarrassing to be seen like that," she said honestly.
"Just that?"
"No," Donna said, not bothering to play along, "and I don't see why you twist every single situation to try and draw the parallel." She rolled the ball between her palms "At the end of it, I don't really regret it. Stupid, yes, I shouldn't have done that, yes, but no harm done."
"Except to yourself."
"It's just three days of headache and two weeks of nutrient bars," Donna said with a shrug. "As you yourself just pointed out, before the Supermax, the consequences could have been much more dire."
Dr. Chu tapped her pen. "You don't regret breaking the rules?"
"Well, I do, because now, we'll probably be watched much more carefully."
"So you're saying you only regret being caught?"
"I told you, this comparison is inappropriate."
"Do you or do you not?"
Donna wanted to tell Dr. Chu exactly what she regretted and did not regret, but held back. "Yes," she almost spat. "If I had gotten away with it, I wouldn't have regretted it. Or anything else." She clenched the ball in her hand. "Happy now? Go tell the directors I'm as remorseless as everyone else."
Dr. Chu raised her eyebrows slightly. "At what point did you start feeling bad about what you had done?"
"When I was confronted with the fact that my way of looking at things was not the only one." It always came down to either the forced labourers or this. If Dr. Chu had been the Chief Prosecutor from Eleven, nobody who had been mentioned even once in the case Eleven handled would have left the Justice Building alive, or at least that's what it seemed like in times like this.
"And when was that?"
They retreaded familiar ground from there. Was Dr. Chu just forcing her to say these things over and over in an attempt to catch her in a lie? Donna rubbed at her still-aching head, wondering how the psychologist managed to tie every little thing, no matter how inconsequential, to the past.
