passion and zeal. If asked later what he looked like, I wouldn’t be able to give a ready description other than the vivid coloring of his irises and their ability to focus with such intensity that I’d felt entranced.
I’d heard about that birth defect before. When old vaccinations were given to pregnant women—yet another anti-zombie serum that didn’t work—they had terrible side effects like children being born blind. Some were born with perfect sight, though with eye color as unnatural as that stuff they keep passing out and calling sugar.
His are a radioactive purple, almost glowing. Maybe that’s because he’s insane.
On the large screen, a pre-recorded video plays, and when he starts to speak, you can hear a pin drop in the courtroom. For such a young guy, he has presence, I’ll give him that; each word is chosen carefully, and he doesn’t plead with us for mercy. Instead, he’s taken his moment to testify about freedom of the people.
Basically piling on more treason.
Mercy can’t save him now, anyway. Fat man next to me practically wants to push the plunger. This boy will be dead soon. No reasonable doubt, and the whole group of jurors know that. They’ve all but hovered over the guilty button near our readers to get him injected quickly, freeing us from this sauna. Some will press theirs immediately when we’re told, like it’s a race.
His crime? He wrote a pamphlet against the Authority. Signed his name to it and everything. Jeremy Writer. Obviously a pen name. We all chuckled a bit at that, yet something about this boy … I can’t put a finger on it. When he spoke, so much had been right, I had to keep myself from standing at the end to applaud.
In this environment though … insanity.
Everyone else heard only the parts about stopping forced vaccinations, ending rations, hindering control. They reasoned that we’d starve, get sick, and die without the Authority, and this boy was a disease as much as cancer to the people here in Anthem. Thoughts like that spread. Infect everyone.
The Authority needs us living off of fear. Control is like a warm blanket protecting us from the outside world. Protecting us from sick people….
People like me.
A dictatorship is what it is, and Jeremy Writer has that part right, though I’d never dare say it out loud. But he had. And now he’ll die for it.
The judge yawns and stares at us, wig askew. “Ladies and gentleman of the jury, as you know, with cases where the death penalty is granted, we will need full agreement to consider the verdict guilty. If one of you says ‘not guilty,’ this young man will be free to go. But if all of you find him guilty, the sentence is immediate.”
We nod and murmur our agreement.
The buttons click and click eleven times.
My hand freezes, though, fingers spreading and clenching over the little “guilty” button.
Oh, no.
“Don’t you dare,” I mutter to myself like an imbecile.
I take deep breaths before trying again. My job is to blend in. He’s guilty. Of course he is. Under this law, he’s as guilty as sin. He knew what he was doing. Besides, I’m a proxy for someone who’d press the button between powdering her nose and putting on new, greyer lipstick.
But I hesitated…. I shouldn’t have thought about it so much.
Now, the whole courtroom’s waiting, while bright purple eyes find me … search my soul.
I press the button.
Twenty-five
“When you’re in the suck, boys, when you feel the enemy surrounding you and chances are you won’t make it out, that’s when you’ll know what it’s like to really live!”
Sergeant Nolan has a way with words. He can make dying for your country sound as good as apple pie to us soldiers. In a gravelly voice from too many cigars and not enough restful years, he grits out words like an ancient meat grinder. “Fight for honor, fight for control. Hell, fight for that square foot you’re standing in. But for God’s sake, don’t give up!”
You don’t
I’d heard about that birth defect before. When old vaccinations were given to pregnant women—yet another anti-zombie serum that didn’t work—they had terrible side effects like children being born blind. Some were born with perfect sight, though with eye color as unnatural as that stuff they keep passing out and calling sugar.
His are a radioactive purple, almost glowing. Maybe that’s because he’s insane.
On the large screen, a pre-recorded video plays, and when he starts to speak, you can hear a pin drop in the courtroom. For such a young guy, he has presence, I’ll give him that; each word is chosen carefully, and he doesn’t plead with us for mercy. Instead, he’s taken his moment to testify about freedom of the people.
Basically piling on more treason.
Mercy can’t save him now, anyway. Fat man next to me practically wants to push the plunger. This boy will be dead soon. No reasonable doubt, and the whole group of jurors know that. They’ve all but hovered over the guilty button near our readers to get him injected quickly, freeing us from this sauna. Some will press theirs immediately when we’re told, like it’s a race.
His crime? He wrote a pamphlet against the Authority. Signed his name to it and everything. Jeremy Writer. Obviously a pen name. We all chuckled a bit at that, yet something about this boy … I can’t put a finger on it. When he spoke, so much had been right, I had to keep myself from standing at the end to applaud.
In this environment though … insanity.
Everyone else heard only the parts about stopping forced vaccinations, ending rations, hindering control. They reasoned that we’d starve, get sick, and die without the Authority, and this boy was a disease as much as cancer to the people here in Anthem. Thoughts like that spread. Infect everyone.
The Authority needs us living off of fear. Control is like a warm blanket protecting us from the outside world. Protecting us from sick people….
People like me.
A dictatorship is what it is, and Jeremy Writer has that part right, though I’d never dare say it out loud. But he had. And now he’ll die for it.
The judge yawns and stares at us, wig askew. “Ladies and gentleman of the jury, as you know, with cases where the death penalty is granted, we will need full agreement to consider the verdict guilty. If one of you says ‘not guilty,’ this young man will be free to go. But if all of you find him guilty, the sentence is immediate.”
We nod and murmur our agreement.
The buttons click and click eleven times.
My hand freezes, though, fingers spreading and clenching over the little “guilty” button.
Oh, no.
“Don’t you dare,” I mutter to myself like an imbecile.
I take deep breaths before trying again. My job is to blend in. He’s guilty. Of course he is. Under this law, he’s as guilty as sin. He knew what he was doing. Besides, I’m a proxy for someone who’d press the button between powdering her nose and putting on new, greyer lipstick.
But I hesitated…. I shouldn’t have thought about it so much.
Now, the whole courtroom’s waiting, while bright purple eyes find me … search my soul.
I press the button.
Twenty-five
“When you’re in the suck, boys, when you feel the enemy surrounding you and chances are you won’t make it out, that’s when you’ll know what it’s like to really live!”
Sergeant Nolan has a way with words. He can make dying for your country sound as good as apple pie to us soldiers. In a gravelly voice from too many cigars and not enough restful years, he grits out words like an ancient meat grinder. “Fight for honor, fight for control. Hell, fight for that square foot you’re standing in. But for God’s sake, don’t give up!”
You don’t
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