Dear daughter, the letter began. We're doing fine. We planted some new flowers at the cottage, and the trees are laden with fruit! I hope yours are, too. We're repainting the roof, but it's the kids who are doing all the work. Sooyen's helping out, too. It's hard to believe how fast she's growing. By the way, Inky got a clean bill of health a few days ago, so that's a relief. -Mom and Dad
Donna didn't need any reminders of that. Her granddaughter's first real visit would be in a mere year.
Everything is going well. I went up to the cottage last weekend by myself, to get some fresh air. Painted the roof for a while. It's lovely there right now, and I'm sure you'll love it too. I've read the novel you recommended to me. I agree with you, the way the protagonist was treated was horrifically unfair. But I suppose that's what bigotry means - one can be perfection and still be punished by society. What would be laudable in another person is condemned in them. Can't wait to see you next week! -Dem :))))))
The visit would in reality be in nine days, but to Dem, that didn't matter.
Work's going fine. Nothing interesting. -Alex
Donna hadn't expected anything else from her brother.
We're enjoying our vacation. Laelia is a gracious host, even if her apartment is tiny. We went to see the ocean yesterday, and we're going swimming today. Three is truly gorgeous. -Donna and Daeho :)))
Three is cool. I went to a bunch of museums, they're really interesting. I also bought a bunch of books, so now we'll have to get extra bags to carry them all home. The next sentence was blacked out. -Sooyen
It was good that they were enjoying the vacation. Donna thought back to the vacations they had taken together before. They had been restricted to resorts then, forbidden from entering the District proper. Now, though, they could be like the real tourists Donna was only familiar with from books.
Just as we thought Joel was settling down somewhat, he had a meltdown and tried to stab Lars with a kitchen knife. I never thought I'd actually need to use those martial arts I learned! Poor Joel was totally devastated afterwards, kept on saying how sorry he was. We locked up everything sharp, and we're playing it by ear for now. If he acts out again, we'll consider an inpatient program. -Lars and Primus
Two weeks ago, Lars and Primus had been given nine-year-old Joel to look after, and so far, it seemed to be crisis piled on top of crisis. Donna wondered how her son could be so calm about nearly being stabbed by a child with a severe mental disturbance.
Hey Donna. Lars and Primus are gonna adopt me, so I guess I should write to you because you're my grandma now. One of my bio grandmoms is dead and the other's locked up just like you, and so's my bio dad, but they're both getting out before you. The next sentence was covered with black marker. I really like Demetrius. He cooks really well. I'm really sorry about trying to stab Lars. I had an episode. I'm working on it so I never hurt anyone again when I have one. -Joel
That was unexpected to say the least. Joel hadn't written before, but if Lars and Primus were going to make him their son, making him her grandson-
She sighed, staring at the paper. While she was all for Lars having kids, she wondered if he understood what he was getting into. She had read some of the same books as him, and worried that if nothing they did could help Joel, they'd be shattered when he went down the same path as his biological father, who had broken into a house to steal something so that he could buy drugs.
Donna turned to stare at the wall, wondering when the wedding photo of Lars and Primus would be replaced with one where they were with Joel. He had been handed into their care to look after until it was decided if his mother was a fit guardian, which she obviously wasn't, according to Lars' clandestine letter explaining the situation in detail. The original plan had been for them to hand him over to a Community Home afterwards, but since they were licensed, they would be allowed to permanently adopt him, though due to their inexperience, they would have the CPA over constantly.
Not wanting to continue fretting about her soon-to-be-grandson and his list of mental health issues that was almost as long as the list of everything Verdant had physically wrong with him, Donna read on.
This case is dragging on and on. Frankly, this level of corporate greed disgusts me. They were spitting on the law and hoping the workers weren't educated enough to call them out on it - how is that anything but an open-and-shut case? The apartment hunting is going terribly, but I see light on the horizon. Helia's got a shortlist. Nothing so far with the Redhill case. -Aulus
Helia had been her middle son's girlfriend for the past year, but he had only mentioned her very recently. If they were looking for apartments together, that was a good sign. She had asked Livia to get her friends to fund one; she'd have to tell them to start coughing up the money.
Having Donna, Daeho, and Sooyen over is nice. We're having loads of fun. Will send updated photo soon. I'm going back to school in the fall. I've decided I want to become a compsci teacher. I love teaching at the community centre, and want to do it full-time. I've got a full ride, but I'll have to keep on working to pay the bills. -Laelia
That was unexpected. Donna was disappointed her daughter was throwing away a promising career as a computer engineer to teach fifteen-year-olds to write a program that printed 'hello world', but a degree was a degree. Teaching didn't pay as much, but if Laelia was happy, Donna could not bring herself to disapprove.
My studies are going very well. In one of my classes, we're discussing an excellent ethnography that was written by someone about their own village. We had a very interesting discussion on bias, whether it's better to have someone who will miss out on many nuances due to their lack of understanding, or someone who might be locked into one way of viewing things because of how used they are to all of this. -Octavius
And that was that. A bunch of short paragraphs that didn't actually tell Donna anything about what her loved ones were like. The limitation on length meant that they were only able to write a few sentences each, and they also tried to not write about the same things. Donna wondered which of the kids was helping out with the roof.
"Anything interesting?" Grass asked. She was holding her own letter in her hands as she stood in the door frame. The older woman only had a wife and two kids, as well as at least three grandkids who never wrote themselves.
Donna nodded. "The cat is healthy."
"The most important thing," Grass deadpanned. "Everything else is irrelevant. The only information of value is that of the health status of your parents' geriatric cat."
"They live alone with my youngest, of course they're going to decide that the cat is the most important being in the world," Donna said defensively. "How did your wife's surgery go?"
Grass sighed. "As well as a hip replacement can go. No complications, she says she's recovering right as she should. How's your husband?"
"Went to the cottage last weekend. I assume there's nothing new at work." Donna motioned at Grass to sit down, but she shook her head.
"Work?" she said disdainfully. "I just don't understand why he doesn't get a better job."
Tossing aside her letter, Donna stood up to face her. "Because twenty years of being a line cook qualifies you only for being a line cook."
"I'm sure that's not true."
"True or not, that's how it is for him."
"Then why can't he get re-qualified?"
They had had that discussion many times over. "Because by the time he could afford to not work round the clock, he felt it was too late! Look, I don't know about you, but we couldn't live off my former colleagues. Think of how it would have looked!"
Grass raised her eyebrows. "And yet they bought all of you apartments."
That was completely different. "I fail to see how this is relevant. That was a onetime purchase. Nobody batted an eye when they spoke of savings. A single large purchase is easier to explain away than constantly living a better life than you should be able to afford."
Donna was completely spitballing there, and indeed, Grass called her out. "I fail to see the logic there."
"Whatever. By the way, you can congratulate me. I'm going to have a second grandchild."
"One of the two oldest, I presume," Grass said in a lighter tone. She sat down on the chair, and Donna took the cot, picking up her letter.
Donna nodded. "My second. Remember how he was given a child to foster? He wants to make it permanent. Even though the boy nearly stabbed him."
"What?" Donna quickly explained the situation as best as she could. "Interesting," Grass said, tapping her chin. "Well, congratulations to your son. Adoption is always an interesting process, even if the kids are fully healthy. I assume that means the biological mother was found to be unfit?"
"Yes."
"And the child's eight?" Donna nodded. "I'd tell your son to stock up on patience, but if he had to disarm a child trying to stab him and still wants to keep him, he has more patience than any mere mortal." Grass crossed her ankles, giving herself an elegant air. "Did the child actually try to kill him?"
Donna had no idea, and didn't want to think about it. "I don't think so. Usually, he starts throwing things when he has a breakdown. I suppose he just really snapped this time." It was terrifying to contemplate.
"Still, though, a knife?"
"I don't even know what to say myself."
Grass tapped her chin. "Tell your son I wish him luck."
"Of course."
After a brief silence, Grass stood up from the chair. "I'll see you tomorrow, then," she said, and walked out.
Donna reread the letter and waited for the doors to be locked. Besides the official letter, she had also received a message from Livia that morning, and she needed to reply to it. In the meanwhile, she sat down at her table to draft an official letter. After two sentences saying that she was doing well, she went down the list and replied to everyone, asking them the same old questions. She was careful with how she phrased them. While her family's letters were subject only to the censor's marker, she would be forced to re-write hers if she broke a rule, or could even be punished. Blatt had just been banned from sending and receiving letters for three months for stubbornly trying to ask about how some old colleagues of hers were doing, and that wasn't her first or tenth ban.
Most of the letter was as difficult as always, but she had no idea what to write to Lars, Primus, and their new acquisition. She stared at the sheet of paper and tapped her pen against the table until the guard went around locking the doors. With a sigh, she moved over to her cot and picked up a book from the table.
It was only one she had finished reading and moved on to her sudokus that she took out the paper from her bra and re-read Livia's note instead of working on a sudoku where no numbers at all were given. There were other restrictions on the puzzle, of course, but at first glance, it still looked surreal.
I do not understand why you act like you have something to be ashamed of. When I called you out for your hypocrisy, I certainly did not expect you to double down on it! Are you seriously going to do that entire sackcloth-and-ashes routine while simultaneously pestering me to get our old friends to buy Lars a car? And I'm not even talking about Aulus' apartment.
Donna hadn't rushed to tell her old friend about her admission of guilt. She had let it slip out casually, not thinking about how Livia thought there was nothing to feel guilty about.
I don't know what you've told the kids to make them feel like they have to compensate for you, but they seem to be content with what they're doing, at least. And I'll get Lars that car. He deserves it, with what he's putting himself through for that future felon. Not sure about the apartment, though. Our friends have lost most of their hope.
Please explain to me why the Redhill incident made you admit responsibility for things you had nothing to do with. I do not understand you, Donna. You aren't the cheery student I met in university, and neither are you the dedicated professional who knew to steer clear of politics.
Even the bit about her new grandson felt insulting, but Donna wasn't quite sure how. She flipped the page over and began to scribble a reply.
Silence only got us these murders in the first place. When such things are happening, I don't want to can't hedge. It's a shame about the apartment. I always thought lawyers are rich, but I suppose that defending penniless clients isn't the path to a four-bedroom apartment and three cars. Donna reread her words and contemplated scratching them out. Since when was a four-bedroom apartment a sign of richness?
...isn't the path to fame and fortune. That was better. And I'm glad Lars is going to get that car. It'll cost more than transit passes, but with how Joel reacts to people, it's best if he doesn't have to deal with crowds for a while. He had always been a problem child, constantly falling through cracks because his actions hadn't been noticeable to others. In the past few months, though, he had become highly aggressive to the point where he was getting into fights almost every day.
Of course I'm not the same person I was when I was eighteen. Nobody is. And don't you remember those endless ideology classes, the parroting of the same stale phrases until we were all sick of them? I'm ashamed to remember how little thought I gave it all back then. I often daydream about those happy days, but then I think about what was really going on back then, and I can't even feel nostalgic like a normal person.
Donna leaned over and put the note in one of the socks lying on the chair. It was too muggy in the cell to wear clothing, but if a search happened, she didn't want to be sent into the corridor completely bare-chested. The thin fabric of her underwear felt stifling, though, and she pulled her undershirt away from her chest as she began working on the sudoku.
On first glance, the puzzle seemed to be a bad joke. There wasn't a single number on the grid. The restrictions, however, made it much easier. Some of the squares could only be odd or even numbers, and there were additional shapes inside which the numbers had to add up to a certain amount On top of that, the middle big square had to be a magic square. Donna was unsurprised that the restrictions on odd and even numbers were just enough to let her fill it in.
These sorts of puzzles couldn't be brute-forced. There were techniques that had to be used, the process of solving a step-by-step path she couldn't stray off of. Donna finished the puzzle relatively quickly and moved on to the next one, which at least had some numbers already filled in, but no additional restrictions. It proved to be much more difficult, and when it was time to hand back her glasses, she wasn't even halfway done.
The next morning, they had a new director from Seven. The unfamiliar man walked into the corridor as they were cleaning their cells. As Donna swept, she listened to him talking to a guard.
"Just the nine?" he asked, sounding almost disappointed.
"The rest have been released by now," the guard pointed out.
"I suppose."
Donna didn't want to be reminded of the releases. She swept with a ferocity, focusing on the sounds of the broom on the ground. Once she was done, she braced herself and walked into the corridor.
The new director was middle-aged and of average height. Instead of a uniform shirt, he wore a plain white t-shirt that looked to be much cooler than Donna's shirt. Donna took off her cap and stood at attention next to Hope, who had also ventured out to hand back her cleaning things. "Good morning, Female Eight, Female Nine."
"Good morning, Director," they chorused in reply, Hope sounding like she was on a parade-ground.
"At ease." Donna mimicked Hope's stance, hoping it didn't look too sloppy. "How are the conditions?" he asked.
"Air conditioning needs to be installed," Hope said immediately. "This heat is bad for my heart."
"Male Sixteen had no complaints."
"His heart is better than mine."
The director looked incredulous, but Hope wasn't lying there. Despite being in his late nineties, Best was in better shape than many people decades younger than him, which was how he had made it into his late nineties in the first place. "And you?" he asked Donna.
Fearing that Donna would ruin their chances of not getting heatstroke, the others poured out of their cells to insist that air conditioning was impossible to live without. Donna joined the chorus.
The director looked at the guard. "Are they allowed to congregate like this?" he asked in a way that made him seem to have control over the situation.
"Why not?" she replied with a shrug. "Their cells are unlocked after dinner in any case."
"Very well, then. Any other complaints?"
The same complaints as always got rehashed, chief of them the small amount of family visits. Donna tried to emphasize just how big her family was, and the director turned out to be a sympathetic sort as he also had five children, but Seven took a hard line on the Supermax, and he would vote in meetings as instructed.
Outside, it was already hopelessly muggy, though the breeze that blew still retained some coolness. Donna did her jog and joined Theodosius and Vartha, who were picking blackberries. There was a long scratch on Vartha's arm.
"Good morning," she said. "Are you alright?"
Vartha glanced at his arm. "Good morning to you, too. It's just a shallow scratch. See? It's not even bleeding anymore." It was, indeed, already scabbed over.
"Congratulations," she said to Theodosius, who smiled.
"First grandchild, huh? You still have more than me, though."
Vartha tossed a berry into his mouth. "If I were you, I wouldn't look forward to catching up. You will go broke buying New Year's presents. Your calendar will be full of various birthdays. Trust me on this."
"We've got bigger problems than that," Theodosius said. "Poor kid's got issues. He was kicked out of alternative school last spring, and didn't finish out the year."
"He got kicked out of alternative school?" Vartha asked incredulously. "What even happens after that?"
Donna shrugged. "He was institutionalized somewhere, but then they released him." She plucked a berry from the vine and placed it into the bucket. Thinking about her new grandchild's background made her mind spin. It was as if she was from a completely different universe, with how unlike their childhoods had been. "My son says they'll evaluate him at the end of summer and see if the alternative school agrees to have him back."
Vartha shook his head. "I don't envy you. Expelled at just eight - that's going to mess up his life forever. Do alternative schools even teach?"
Moving over the bucket, Theodosius reached into the bush and raised a branch for easy access. "They do now, apparently. There are kids who graduate it and go on to university. And the teachers are better, because they all actively want to be there." With quick, precise movements, he stripped the branch of its berries.
"On the topic of teaching," Donna said, "my youngest daughter is going to get re-qualified as a teacher."
"What's with your family and being do-gooders?" Vartha asked with a sigh. "Did they make some sort of pact to distance themselves as much as possible from you?"
Stung by the remark, Donna snatched her hand away from a particularly juicy-looking berry and turned to face him. "What's wrong with being a teacher?" she demanded.
"You really think being a teacher is better than working in industry?"
That was too close to the truth for comfort. "I don't see anything wrong with it," Donna said lamely. "She did like her volunteering."
"It is true that they seem to be trying to compensate for something," Theodosius said gently. "Aside from my eldest, mine try to be as conventional as possible, in one way or another."
"She just likes working with children!" Donna exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. "Are you saying that she can't even decide to go into a different career without me being dragged into it? She's twenty-five years old! And what's so unconventional about adopting a child?"
Theodosius sighed and juggled three berries, tossing them into his mouth one by one. "You're right. Plenty of pensioners volunteer. And I'm sure that there's no shortage of couples adopting troubled kids. It's just that, when our families get involved, everyone's going to want to dig deeper."
He was right. There would be plenty of people who would think that Laelia's job change was not due to liking working with children, but out of a desire to do something good for the world and make up for the actions of her mother. Realization suddenly struck Donna as she understood what they'd see. She had killed children, but her own kids were helping them. It would be the supreme irony.
"You have to understand," Vartha pleaded. "When it comes to our families, it is never so simple."
"But they are their own people!" Theodosius insisted. "My youngest don't even remember me!" The same was true for Donna.
Vartha picked a berry and put it into the bucket. "When they put us in here, it's like they locked up our families, too. They're always in our shadows, whether they know it or not." He looked at the bucket, which was full. "I'll go hand this in," he said, and stood up.
Donna watched him walk away. "That's true. The visits hurt them more than they hurt me."
"I just had a thought about our grandson," Theodosius said. "Isn't he only a year or two younger than your granddaughter?"
"Two years. They only met once, though. They both think the other is crazy." She stood up and moved the other bucket closer to herself. The bush was too tall for her to reach the top, but that was what the likes of Theodosius were for. She stuck to the berries at chest-height as Theodosius picked berries she'd have needed a ladder to reach.
Vartha got stuck before even handing over the berries. He started arguing with Xu about something, and the argument escalated and escalated until Donna could see them waving around their hands. To the side, the new director was walking around with a guard from Seven, stopping to talk to everyone. Donna tried to focus on the berries, wondering what he'd ask her. They spoke quietly, so she couldn't make out the words.
The director reached the blackberry bush before Vartha. "I love these," he said, plucking a berry from a branch and popping it into his mouth. "Excellent."
"That's Female Nine and Male Fifteen," the guard said. She was one of the less sympathetic ones, a young woman from Seven who must have grown up on stories about the past.
"Ah." The director looked at them in a new light. Had he not known who they were that morning? "Well, then, how goes work?"
"Good," they said in unison.
The guard snorted. "You won't get complaints from these two. They're far and away the most hardworking of the bunch. Obedient, too."
"None of them except the young man are disobedient," the director pointed out. He looked to be, if anything, younger than Hryb by a few years.
"No, these ones are on a different level." Theodosius turned red.
The director looked uncomfortable. "What do you think of your work?" he asked awkwardly as the guard feasted on blackberries.
"Everything is good," Donna said. She worried that yet another proposal to force them into total solitary was being argued over at the weekly meetings.
"We like it a lot," Theodosius added, laying it on a bit thick.
"The others don't seem to."
"The others are in their mid-sixties at least, they can't work in this heat," Donna pointed out.
The director furrowed his eyebrows. "You're not that much younger."
Theodosius shook his head. "There's one who's not quite fifty yet. Then there's us, at fifty-eight. Then there's a sixty-four-year-old. Then, the next youngest are seventy-two and seventy-five." Donna stared at him wonderingly. She could never remember what decade anyone (including herself) was in, and neither could any of them, ordinarily. She'd need to get to the bottom of this.
"That explains why everyone's medical files are the size of a textbook," the director grumbled. "None of you look your age, though."
Donna shrugged. "Lucked out with good genes, as well as good food, exercise, and top-notch healthcare," she said in a deadpan voice. The guard glared at her, but the director missed the sarcasm and simply nodded.
"That's what I noticed, too. Male Sixteen lives better than most ninety-eight-year-olds who aren't criminals against humanity."
Donna wondered how long Hryb would live for. That just made her hope that the 'Freedom to to the Supermaxers' organization that had appeared recently would succeed.
"And we're all very grateful for it," Theodosius said.
The director nodded. "Be as you were," he said, and left, guard trailing behind him. Her hands were stained with blackberry juice.
Vartha marched up to them, empty bucket swinging. "How was that?" he asked.
"Nothing interesting," Donna said, rolling up her trouser legs. The heat was becoming unbearable.
"How are your kids?" Theodosius asked after a pause.
"Fine," Vartha said. "They're doing fine. Same as yours. Though none of my grandkids try to attack people with knives." He picked several berries with one hand. "How are your parents?" he asked Donna.
"Same as always. Worried about the cat." She carefully moved aside a thorny branch to get access to a cluster of juicy-looking berries. They were so ripe, they fell off at the lightest touch.
"How old even is the cat?" Vartha asked. "Seems to me that they've had him since forever."
Theodosius laughed. "No, he's something like seventeen? Eighteen?"
"Basically, in cat years, he's as old as my parents," Donna explained. "Which is why they fret so much." Donna, too, dreaded the prospect of him dying before she got out. There was nothing extraordinary about a cat in its early twenties, but it still seemed to be pushing it. For some reason, the fact that the cat was in his late teens was much more worrisome than her parents being in their mid-eighties, even though it amounted to the same thing.
Thinking about age reminded her of something. "How did you know how old everyone is?" she asked Theodosius.
Theodosius looked around before answering. "I got an article where it gives a list of how old we all are. They're pushing for the immediate release of everyone over eighty on humanitarian grounds. That's thirteen of us." Just over half.
Donna wasn't sure if she liked the idea of someone being released before her just because they happened to be older, but it would still be something. "That doesn't help us at all," she pointed out.
"Is that the only thing you think about?" Vartha demanded angrily.
"As if you don't," Theodosius shot back.
Vartha turned around to face them head-on, looking ready to erupt like a supervolcano.
A/N: A little reprieve for the Supermaxers before the Redhill trial.
In case you've lost track of who is who - at this point, Hryb is 49, Donna and Theodosius are 58, and Li is 64. Best is 98 but looks a solid twenty years younger. Donna's right - if you lucked out into not inheriting a predisposition towards any diseases, then good food, staying physically active, and access to good healthcare will keep you living well for a very long time. Though she forgets one thing - the mental side of things. The Supermaxers keep their brains sharp because there's nothing else to do in their cells, but if not for their hope of release, the loneliness and separation from family and friends would have destroyed them long ago.