Chapter One
Darting down the back alleyway toward the abandoned hotel she called home, Leila couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so exhausted. Or so proud. As another melancholy dawn broke over New Cascadia, she paused for a rest and a quick scan of the area to make sure she hadn’t been followed. Once she’d assured herself she was alone, she tilted her head back, closed her eyes to the gray, subdued skies, and called to mind her most recent crime. It was the most epic piece she’d ever created on the biggest stage she could have imagined. With a deep, satisfying breath, she pulled aside the makeshift sheet metal door hiding the secret entrance to the dilapidated hotel and squeezed her tiny frame through the jagged hole. Now that her backpack was empty—she’d used up her cargo during the course of the evening—she had no trouble weaving and wiggling her way through the network of ladders and dumbwaiters leading back to her room.
Making her way toward her bed and being careful to avoid the hole in the flooring that could have swallowed her whole, Leila stripped off her sweaty t-shirt and rested it on the chipped, uneven windowsill. She hazarded a glance at the patch of mushrooms that had taken up residence in the dark corner adjacent to the window, wishing she could be heartless for just long enough to pluck them and toss them out the window. But, like her, they were survivors determined to fight it out, and Leila let them be for another day. She dug her hand into her deep-set pocket and pulled out a half-eaten packet of soy crackers. They’d all but turned to dust, battered and crumpled during her late-night raid, but they were all the food she had. She tipped the open package against her lips and devoured the tasteless crumbs.
Standing there in her sports bra and wide-legged cargo pants, she contemplated the dingy mattress that constituted the whole of her furnishings. Of course, in her moment of supreme triumph and elation, it might as well have been a four-poster bed in the home of the High Leader of The Council. After what she’d just accomplished, she was positively floating. If smoking hadn’t been banned over a hundred years ago, she probably would have had a cigarette. If she could have gotten her hands on some of the illegal bathtub booze that floated around her seedy corner of Seattle, she probably would have had a drink. But there was only one celebratory activity available to her and at a price she could afford: free.
Silently descending the narrow, worm-eaten staircase, she tapped on a familiar door. He was always there. Always willing for a quick romp. And never bothering with any questions. She knew him as G, and it might have stood for Greg, George, or something like that, but Leila had no idea. And no interest in finding out. When he opened the door a crack to find out who was knocking, she barreled into his space, nearly knocking him over with the excess energy from her endorphin surge.
“Whoa, there, Cat!” He didn’t know her real name either and always called her Cat because he never heard her coming or going. “What’s got you all jumpy?”
“I just pulled off something big, G, and it’s time to celebrate.” True that G was merely a fill-in for a partner she’d yet to meet. True that he wasn’t exactly hung like the mythical sexdroids of Arivegas. And true that he couldn’t give her what she really needed—what she truly craved—because she’d never been able to admit those dark secrets to anybody. But if he wasn’t Mr. Right, he was Mr. Right Now. And right now, Leila wanted to bang out her victory lap.
“Um, yeah, sure. It’s just… it’s just…” He seemed befuddled, running his hands through his long, ratty platinum hair as he shuffled toward the bed.
“It’s just what?” She paused in the middle of unbuttoning her pants, irritated by his hesitation and lack of enthusiasm. “I mean, we’ve done it before, right? You having second thoughts about our arrangement?”
“Well, maybe, I guess, yeah?” Conversation had never been G’s strong suit, and Leila refastened her pants before folding her arms across her chest in frustration. “It’s just that you’re young, strong, smart, talented… and so little, Cat.”
She couldn’t argue with him on the size issue. She’d yet to meet an adult smaller than her. Or tougher, for that matter.
“And every time we do, um, what we do, I feel like I’m turning you into something less than you are. And then I feel bad about it, you know?”
Leila wanted to be angry with him. She wanted to chew him out for trying to protect her. But she heard his message loud and clear through his unspoken words.
We both know we’re using each other, and then I feel like shit because I’m the only one who regrets it when it’s over.
She released the breath she’d been holding in and her shoulders slumped. “I hear you, G. I hear you and I’m sorry, yeah? Are we cool?”
“Yeah, we’re cool.” He gave her a half-hearted smile before wrapping himself in his moth-eaten sheet and burying himself in his lumpy mattress. “And I can’t wait to find out all about your latest stunt. If it’s as big as you say it is, I’m sure I’ll be hearing about it soon.”
With a puckish grin, Leila turned on her heel and flew back up to her room, saddened and somewhat guilty that she’d made G feel like she’d been using him. All along, she’d assumed they were both getting theirs and that was the beginning and end of it. But it sounded like G had gotten a case of ‘big brother’ syndrome and decided that she was a delicate flower instead of a foot soldier in the rebellion.
‘Foot soldier’ may be overselling it a bit, short stuff. You’re a rogue street artist. As she mentally chided herself, she slipped out of her cargo pants and flopped onto her musty mattress.
Closing her eyes, she nearly succumbed to exhaustion and her waning adrenaline supplies after her midnight coup. But when her hand slid down the front of her utilitarian underwear and sought out the tender bud that refused to be ignored, she let her fantasies dictate the course of her erotic meanderings. As she slowly stroked her smooth folds, her thumb never leaving her clit, she gave her mind free rein to take her where it would.
You need someone to take you in hand. Someone who understands what drives you and channels your abilities to their best and highest purpose. She dipped a finger into her clenching wetness.
Someone who recognizes your strength, yet who will shield you from harm. Not because you need protection, but because you’re his to protect.
A second finger pressed in alongside the first, stretching and filling her ever so slightly.
You need someone willing to keep your ass in line when you deserve it, but who also brings out the best in you.
Pumping her fingers in time with the thumb flicking and circling the nexus of her pleasure, her lips plumped and she sucked them between her teeth.
Needing to come as quickly as possible, she upped her fantasy to the next level and imagined being restrained over the lap of her fantasy lover, spanked until tears pooled in her eyes, and then comforted in his embrace. It never failed. With a burst of stars behind her clenched eyelids and a visceral pleasure coursing through her sex, Leila came apart at the seams, coating her fingers with her cream. In her exhausted state, she fell asleep with her hand still down her panties, unable to call to mind the face of the fantasy man who’d just spanked her to ecstasy.
[divider]
The unrelenting barking from the neighborhood dogs stirred her from her nap. The feeble light filtering through the filthy, curtain-less window told her that she’d maybe slept a few hours after her self-induced orgasm. And after calling to mind her previous evening’s grand triumph, she left her room to find out what the medialinks had to say about her artistic contribution to the betterment of society.
With a defiant smirk, Leila rolled toward the edge of her dank mattress and grabbed her pants. Before she could get them on, a team of four enforcer guard pods—robots programmed to keep the proletariat in check—descended upon her. She jumped to her feet and made a desperate dash toward the window, but the guards were too fast for her, their predictive analytics anticipating every move before she’d even made it. They cuffed her in metal manacles that adapted to her small wrists and dragged her, thrashing and flailing, down the rickety hotel stairs.
Leila cried out and tried to twist away as they escorted her from the miserable self-contained shantytown, and a crowd of onlookers flooded into the dim passageways to watch the drama unfolding before them. Leila’s neighbors unleashed a shrill chorus of admonishing whistles as the guard pods carried out their programmed duty.
As if encoded to deliver their message with the widest audience possible—yet another strategy to subjugate the poorest of the poor—one of the guard pods addressed Leila in a terrifyingly humanoid voice, laying out the charges against her.
“Subject 14.586, you have been charged with multiple crimes against The Republic of New Cascadia, including defacing the Capitol Building. We do not require a statement from you nor will you have need for legal representation. Biometric scanners and surveillance footage have shown you to be the guilty party. You will be held in custody until your official verdict is read and your punishment determined. This transmission is finished and have a nice day. Everyone, move along and return to your dwellings.”
Despite the slim likelihood the guard pods would turn on them and begin making more arrests, the residents shut themselves in again, all too used to seeing friends and family members taken into the care of the state. For some, it was only a matter of a few days’ incarceration. For others, it was much worse.
The guards ushered her through the gaping hole they’d cut into the wall on their way into the ramshackle dwelling and then deposited her in the back of the black, windowless panel van that would take her to the city jail compound to await her trial and sentencing.
“You have yourself a helluva day, too, buddy,” she snarked. Landing with a thud on the hard metal surface of the police vehicle, she was struck by the familiarity of her situation.
Here we go again, she mused as the van whirred to life and sent her careening against the sealed back doors. Leila was back on a path she knew all too well.
[divider]Chapter Two
After the van dropped her off and a separate panel of digital bureaucrats processed her into the system, they gave her a protein drink and a vitamin injection—standard issue for all new inmates. And now, if the mid-grade hunger in her gut was any indication, she’d spent nearly sixteen hours standing in the cramped, crowded cell, absorbing the tears, wailing, and stoic silences of her other sisters in crime. But New Cascadian justice was nothing if not swift. Her trial was set to commence. The cell door slid open and the guard pods identified, handcuffed, and dragged Leila out of the hellish prison.
Now, perched on a low stool centered within the cavernous courtroom, Leila prepared to hear what kind of punishment she’d get this time. This would be her third stripe—her third offense against The Republic—and the rules changed once you hit three. Still, she kept her chin held high and stared down Judge Ford as he took his spot on the raised dais. She’d been tried by him before and had no intention of showing that massive pile of shit the least bit of fear. But inside, terror coursed through her, freezing her veins like liquid nitrogen.
“Subject 14.586—given name Leila Jones—please rise to receive your verdict and sentence. For the crimes of Criminal Trespassing, Inciting Civil Unrest, Destruction of Private and Public Property, and Illicit Use of Color Supplies”—she smirked at this last charge—“you have been found guilty on all counts. Given that this is your third infraction and that you clearly haven’t been rehabilitated by any of your previous sentences, I have selected a more severe penalty that should serve to curb your willful temperament and cure you of your criminal nature once and for all. By the power vested in me by the Republic of New Cascadia in this Year of Our Maker 2426, you are hereby sentenced to three months in The Chair.”
No. Fucking. Way. Not The Chair. Anything but The Chair.
Her insides liquefied and roiled, yet her features remained stoically unfazed. She was the consummate professional criminal. But three months? Her friend Katy had done two weeks in The Chair once and came back a different person, as if she’d been lobotomized and shot up with liquid sunshine. She’d gone from anti-establishment troublemaker to pro-government goody-two-shoes practically overnight.
That’s not gonna happen to me. Period.
She did her best to convince herself, but the sentencing settled like a lead weight in her gut.
“You will be remanded to the custody of Dr. Charles Argyll and his team at Reprogramming Center 629 in the Leavenworth District and will follow the treatment program deemed suitable for your correction. Now, Bailiff, stripe her and prepare her for transfer.”
As the bailiff approached her with his multipurpose weapon drawn, Leila put on the best display of bravado she could muster. “Three months, Judge? That’s all you’ve got? I’ve done years on the inside and you think three months is gonna put a dent in my ‘criminal nature’? Think again, you crusty old son of a bitch.”
She folded her arms across her narrow chest and stared him down, daring him to lose his temper. As the bailiff took her arm, raised the short sleeve on her prison-issue white scrub shirt, and used the air gun feature on his weapon to tattoo a third, painful black stripe beneath the other two she already had, Judge Ford laughed. A fiendishly soul-curdling laugh that had Leila gritting her teeth in fear.
“You may have done time during your twenty-seven years on this earth, Subject 14.586, but you’ve never experienced anything like The Chair.” From his advantageous position, he peered down at her, a bemused grin pasted across his face. “And I may be an old son of a bitch, Miss Jones, but after three months of reprogramming, you, young lady, are going to be the most repentant convict New Cascadia has ever seen. All things being equal, I’d much rather be a crusty old son of a bitch.” He laughed again, driving his message home before dismissing her. “Now cuff her and get her out of my sight!”
When the bailiff brought out the wrist and ankle cuffs, Leila let her anxiety and anger get the better of her. Taking off in a dead sprint toward the podium, she leapt off the floor and threw every ounce of her hundred-pound frame toward the judge, hoping to make contact with his jaw or his nose to inflict maximum damage. But before she could get within three feet of him, a tranquilizer dart pierced her hip and she collapsed in a sedated heap on the floor in front of him.
As the guards restrained her and dragged her away to her holding cell, she heard the judge murmuring smugly to himself, “Yes, Subject 14.586, I think three months in The Chair ought to serve you well.”
[divider]
A few hours later, with a sore arm from the tattoo and a sore ass from the dart—and under the watchful eye of four guards—Leila boarded an individual transport and set off on a direct course for Reprogramming Center 629. Within the bare polished steel and glass dome of her hoversphere, she was able to view the countryside of New Cascadia as it whizzed past. Unfortunately, most of what she saw was exactly like the colorless, industrial wasteland of Seattle.
A combination of nuclear fallout from the wars of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth centuries and the scorching radiation from the sun—now that the ozone layer had been obliterated—had rendered everything in New Cascadia black, white, or some shade of gray therein. Most items fell on the color spectrum somewhere between rotten skim milk and mercury tooth fillings. For someone with an artist’s soul like Leila, New Cascadia constituted a dystopia of the highest magnitude. And she refused to accept it. Which was what brought her to commit her crimes in the first place.
As the miles flew by, and after having determined that the ten-foot-wide hoversphere was hermetically sealed to prevent her escape, Leila relaxed into her seat, resting her cuffed wrists on her lap, and relived the memory of her latest exploits.
About a week ago, under the cover of night, she’d broken into a state-controlled color supply warehouse, gaining access to a lifetime’s worth of paint. Given its scarcity, The Council strictly rationed color supplies and only the upper echelons of society were allowed to use them in their homes and on their bodies. And the warehouse was chock-full of color. Oil paints, watercolors, house paint. Silks, linens, cottons. Marbles, granites, quartzes. And in the widest rainbow of colors Leila had ever laid eyes on. The sheer number of tints and dyes hidden in the warehouse made her violet eyes ache with longing.
Grabbing as many cans of spray paint as she could fit in her backpack, she then made her way to the Capitol Building. It was an awe-inspiring, blindingly white dome that loomed over the population, reminding them that The Republic was society’s end-all-be-all and that color was forbidden for them. And it was there that Leila set to work on her masterpiece. It took her most of the night, some creative stretching of her five-foot frame, and the use of her flimsy, homemade climbing rig, but she finished her oeuvre just before dawn, inadvertently getting caught by the biometric scanners as she fled the scene.
Arching over the main entryway to the building, she had painted an enormous stylized rainbow graffito with the tagline “It’s another bright sunshiny day in New Cascadia!” If anyone were entering the building or even casually walking by, they wouldn’t be able to miss her multicolored offering. She hoped it would strike fear into the hearts of the haves while stoking the spirits of the have-nots.
But her triumph had been short-lived. It only took them a few hours to track her down before the police nabbed her at the hotel and dragged her off to prison to await her abbreviated trial and sentencing. While in the festering cell at the holding facility, she heard other prisoners murmuring about the rainbow. Words like ‘awesome,’ ‘ballsy,’ ‘inspiring,’ and ‘bad-assed’ buzzed across the lips of even the most hardened criminals. Even though The Council had ordered her work covered up less than twenty-four hours after she’d painted it, the rainbow had been there long enough to create a meaningful stir.
In Leila’s mind, no matter how her time at Repro 629 played out, it would be well worth it. And she would persevere.
Night was nearly upon her when the transport began to slow down and she could see a large, leaden cement structure growing near. Her ordeal was set to begin. And it wouldn’t be a walk in the park. In fact, it was going to fucking suck. But Leila held onto her rainbow—held onto the smiles on people’s faces and their hope when they saw her work—bracing herself to endure anything.
Even The Chair.
[divider]Chapter Three
“We have a new prisoner arriving this evening. Subject 14.586, a Leila Jones from Seattle. She’s been convicted of her third offense and Judge Ford sentenced her to three months in The Chair.” Dr. Argyll dropped this last bit of information as casually as if he were discussing the weather.
“Three months?”
“Shit.”
“What’d she do? Murder half of The Council?”
A whispered litany of dissent rose up from the dozen reprogrammers sitting around the table for the morning briefing.
“Yes. Three months in The Chair. And I’ll remind you all that it’s not our responsibility to question The Council’s rulings. It’s our duty to uphold the sentences they issue and to reprogram the prisoners accordingly. Is that understood?” Dr. Argyll cast his harsh glare around the room to make sure each reprogrammer was thoroughly chastened. “And I’ve selected Dr. Kelly to carry out her sentence.”
“Why me?” The words slipped out of Jens’s mouth before he could stop himself. Argyll had a tendency to bring out his petulant side.
“Do we have a problem, Dr. Kelly? Because unless I’m mistaken, we’re not operating a democracy here. I am in charge. I am responsible for prisoner intake and for this facility. And I’m assigning you to Subject 14.586’s reprogramming. After all, you are the face of this initiative throughout New Cascadia,” he added sardonically. “And we want to make sure that the golden boy of reprogramming keeps his edge, don’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” Jens responded with resigned frustration, accepting the sympathetic nod from Keith, another counselor and his closest friend at Repro 629. The ‘golden boy of reprogramming’ jibe hit home, eliciting a wave of shame in Jens. Yes, his happened to be the face on all the Reprogramming Center posters throughout the state, but he hadn’t precisely volunteered to be part of a pro-Council propaganda campaign. In fact, he hadn’t had a choice in the matter at all.
Returning to his new assignment, Jens acquiesced, grumbling, “Let’s have a look at her file.” At one time or another, they’d all been at the shit end of Dr. Argyll’s stick. But a three-month stint in The Chair was the harshest punishment any of them had ever seen.
Dr. Argyll forwarded her file to Jens’s tablet and moved on to the other cases, handing out less arduous assignments to the other staff psychologists. He received a text notification from Keith in the corner of his screen. It was a silent, looping image of a frustrated doctor repeatedly slamming his face against a metal table. From where Jens was sitting, that pretty much summed up his relationship with most of the Reprogramming Initiative and with Dr. Argyll. A real shit sandwich with a side of jerkoff. A second message quickly followed:
Talk soon? Need to run something by you.
Not in the mood to get caught goofing off with his friend so soon after his recent tongue-lashing, he shot a quick look at Keith, giving him a nod and a smile.
Without giving further thought to what Keith might want to talk about, he tapped on the file Argyll had sent him and began to familiarize himself with his new subject. Jens flipped through the contents, expecting to see something truly atrocious on her record. Murder, grand theft, espionage, large-scale terror plots—something along those lines. But all he saw were the rebellious acts of a free spirit. Jens understood—more than most—that in New Cascadia there was nothing ‘free’ about a free spirit. He read over her most recent charges, which included a description and a snapshot of her impromptu mural on the Capitol Building, and smiled to himself. Yet as he got into the details of her history, his smile slowly disappeared.
Twenty-seven years old. Unemployed.
High aptitude for artistic pursuits. Not suitable for employment in New Cascadia.
Parents died in Pandemic of 2414, orphaned.
Living on streets or incarcerated for past twelve years.
Undesirable element; incapable of conforming to status quo.
Ideal candidate for Reprogramming Initiative.
This woman, whoever she was, never stood a chance. Without a family to protect her and predetermined as ‘undesirable’ by The Council, how was she ever supposed to find her way in the world? It was a miracle she had survived as long as she had, let alone with a sense of humor and adventure still alive inside her.
Running his thumb over the digital mug shot filling his screen, his dominant, protective instincts rose to the surface. This girl—Leila Jones—needed guidance, support, and perhaps some discipline, but The Chair was too much and he chafed under the yoke of his assignment and at his role at the reprogramming facility. Jens swiped her file closed, blacking out his screen, and pretended to pay attention to Dr. Argyll for the remainder of the meeting.
Her overly harsh sentence was just another trigger in a long line of affronts to his counselor’s sensibilities. When he’d become part of the Reprogramming Initiative, he was determined to change the system from within, focused on positive outcomes and introducing new, prisoner-centered retraining practices.
But as long as there were judges determined to condemn troublemakers—albeit chronic ones—to severe sentences and repro directors only too willing to carry out the punishments, the changes Jens had introduced could only be of limited effect. He knew his time at Repro 629 was drawing to a close. He hadn’t always been a psychologist—his early career reflected a much more colorful approach to life—and he remained seduced by his latent instincts and creativity. He needed to reclaim himself before he lost all touch with the man he used to be. The man he could be again. As Dr. Argyll’s nasal drone bounced off the conference room walls, Jens clenched his jaw, attempting to soothe himself by calling to mind the bright, violet eyes of his newest charge.
As the meeting drew to a close and the directorial team filed out of the conference room, Jens heard Dr. Argyll’s unmistakable rasp from behind him. “Dr. Kelly, a word?” His attempt to make a quick getaway with Keith and the rest of the gang foiled, Jens did an about-face and took a seat across from his boss. “In the future, you’ll show me the respect I’m due, Dr. Kelly, and you’ll keep your insubordinate asides to yourself. Do we understand each other?”
“Yes, sir,” Jens muttered under his breath, maintaining eye contact with Dr. Argyll so as not to appear weak. An experienced psychologist with years of clinical experience, Dr. Argyll could find a crack in anyone’s armor and exploit it for all it was worth, and Jens had no intention of letting that happen. “Is that all, sir?” He made a move to leave, but was stopped.
“Not remotely. You and I are going to have a little chat about your newest patient. I gave her to you for a reason, and do you know what that reason is?” he asked in his most patronizing tone.
“Please enlighten me, sir.” Jens pulled out his best impression of the over-eager schoolboy. After all, two could play the condescension game.
Seemingly ignoring Jens’s cantankerous attitude, Dr. Argyll continued, “It’s no secret that your methods are more than unorthodox. In fact, I would go so far as to say they’re downright reckless at times. You routinely ignore proper reprogramming protocol and instead go rogue with your own brand of therapy. And I’m here to tell you that that stops now. Effective immediately. You’re going to follow the protocol of this institution and reprogram Subject 14.586 according to official state methods, or she’ll be the last patient you’ll ever treat.”
Argyll had alluded to and derided Jens’s nonconformist approach in the past, but had never before threatened his job. He had to admire the man. Although Jens made his best effort to appear nonchalant, Argyll had found his weakness. His job. Jens lived for his patients, rehabilitating them and then taking it a step further to secure them gainful employment upon conclusion of their sentences so that they could go on to lead fruitful lives.
Subject 9.124: Arrested for stealing. Jens had reprogrammed him and gotten him a coveted position with the Refuse Collection Department.
Subject 11.899: Arrested for medialink data corruption. After he’d carried out her sentence, Jens found her a job in the Youth Information Training Corps.
Subject 12.006: Arrested for inflammatory speech against The Republic. With Jens’s assistance, she’d gone on to teach Debate and Rhetoric at the local education center.
His scores of successes spoke to his unique abilities as a reprogrammer. Yes, he understood he was part of The Republic’s penal system, but he also found that if he could show prisoners even the slightest bit of compassion and understanding and provide them with a reasonable opportunity to survive in the awful reality of New Cascadia, he might be able to make a real difference in their lives.
And now Argyll was threatening all of that.
“I see you’re contemplating what I’ve said, so let me make it even more explicit for you. You’ll use The Chair and the reprogramming tools as they were intended to be used—for pleasure and punishment—and you’ll refrain from inserting yourself into her treatment program. Be a professional, keep your emotional distance from her, and execute the sentence as dictated by the judge. End of story.”
“Well, as long as we’re being unambiguous with one another,” Jens barked as he got to his feet, “I find that proper rehabilitation and reprogramming only take hold when the subject learns to identify pleasure and punishment with another human being and not with cold metal devices, probing and driving them into submission. How can we expect our patients to reenter society as empathetic, kind, productive members of The Republic, if they’re unable to identify with other humans and incapable of securing work once they’ve completed their sentences? It’s unrealistic at best. And, while we’re on the subject, we both know that a three-month program in The Chair is at least two months too long. This poor girl isn’t going to make it out whole!”
“The sentence is three months, Kelly, and you’re going to carry out every single day of it. Proceed by the book. And if I think you’re taking it easy on her, I’ll personally replace you and reprogram her myself.” Argyll was notorious for his methods and a few days with him could make the most hardened criminals beg for redemption. Jens couldn’t let that happen.
“I understand, sir.” He turned and left the room, fuming as he headed straight back to his apartment within the complex, his sanctuary and the only place he could be truly alone with his thoughts. He needed time to plan his strategy for Subject 14.586.
Leila Jones, his new little troublemaker.
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