Cassidy paused five meters into processing. She needed to collect herself for a moment. The security robots had finally left her on the other side of the door, which was now, presumably, locked behind her. It wasn’t even the afternoon yet, but it felt like it had been a long day already. The room was much larger than it needed to be, clearly designed to be intimidating. This was the one for women. They could just see the entrance for the men’s farther down the hall before they came in. It was against the exterior wall of the building and next to the long-range transport terminal. That made sense. Men were much more likely to be sent for mandatory military service. She had been sentenced to a stint in ‘The Reformation Center for Young Women’, along with her two best friends, Tegan and Amanda. This Judge Bragg had just made a big mistake. They were far stronger together than apart.
Cassidy was the informal leader of a gang of half a dozen or so girls. The other members were fluid, younger, and rotating in and out, mostly in their final year of high school. The three of them were the constants, in their early twenties. Tegan and Amanda were her lieutenants. Tegan was the best fighter of any girl she had ever known. She was big and angry, but unlike most angry people, she could usually control it. When it was time to fight, she could unleash it.
Amanda, on the other hand, was smart and loyal. She was the glue that held them together. She could also be cruel to anyone outside their group. She would sense another girl’s weakness and knew just how to twist a mental knife to exploit it. They made a potent team, and Cassidy was happy for the first time in her life. They would do anything for each other. She finally had a real family, and she was its head.
Their trial had not gone well. They were tried in two groups, the younger girls as one, and Cassidy, Tegan, and Amanda as a second. Both groups had a different judge. Their advocate (paid for by her mother) had decided to waive all attempts at defense and throw themselves on the mercy of the court. The prosecutor insisted on showing hours of evidence and calling over half a dozen witnesses nonetheless. And that evidence could not have been clearer. They were guilty. At least her mother didn’t come, unlike Tegan and Amanda, whose parents were present. Both of their moms cried for almost the entire duration of the public portions. She felt sorry for them, having to endure their sobbing behind them.
The in-camera sessions were even worse. They had already admitted their guilt, and she had to talk to her trial judge, Judge Kelly, and an analyst about why she did what she did. “Nobody means to make mistakes. Of course, I cannot explain why I did it. I didn’t want it to happen at all,” she explained over and over, in different words, but always unsatisfactorily to the judge.
She had every reason to expect that the sentencing would go even worse than the rest of the trial. The first thing her advocate had told them was what to expect if they didn’t contest the accusations (which, incidentally, was the same thing that would probably happen if they did). They would be sent for reformation, separately, surely, and that it would be very unpleasant, especially to start with. They would be made to perform menial tasks under the threat of physical discipline. He told them to try not to worry about it too much. Surprisingly, six months later almost everyone sentenced to it reported that it improved their lives. The most important thing was to avoid indefinite confinement, which was a possibility, even if a remote one.
Cassidy was not in the least bit persuaded. It was the ‘separately’ part that had disturbed her the most. And just as her advocate had predicted, the judge had even said during a hearing that they would likely benefit from no longer being in each other’s company. There was a break before the sentencing.
They stayed in surprisingly comfortable rooms within the Halls of Justice. The same ones that witnesses and victims stayed in, if they needed them, though they probably weren’t always required to be in the company of plodding, dumb security robots. The night before the sentencing, Cassidy brought them all together. They promised that they wouldn’t break. Whatever happened, they would endure and find each other afterward. “Whenever we hear the word ‘reform,’ think instead ‘reform,’ as in ‘we will reform our family.’ Swear it.” They swore it, and they meant it too. Then the luckiest break in Cassidy’s life happened. A senior supervising judge intervened in their case. She requested that they all be assigned to her. She wanted to reform them together.
Cassidy turned to look at Tegan and Amanda. She had stood there waiting too long. The large processing room was having exactly its intended effect on the two of them. They were cowed. Their punishment hadn’t even begun yet, and she could be losing them. She quickly surveyed the scene and walked forward, chin up and with an exaggerated swagger. There was a girl in front of them, waiting patiently well back from the women’s processing desk. The agent there was busy writing notes. She was overweight and wearing a bright blue dress. Behind her, another girl in a light gray uniform was getting into an elevator.
It was an obvious power play. Make us wait. Make us wait so long that we begin to hope that somehow the system has forgotten about our sentence and that, maybe, just maybe, we will be able to stand here all the way until the lights are turned off, and the office workers go home. Then we could just slip out into the night. Of course, just as we start to wonder, that’s when they will call us forward, ending the fantasy.
Cassidy walked straight past the girl waiting. Amanda and Tegan had no choice but to follow. This is what Cassidy did. She imposed her will on the world. This is who she was. This is who we are. This is what we do. Amanda and Tegan adopted the swagger, too.
The woman in blue looked up, startled. Cassidy spoke angrily, “We don’t have all day, Chubby. The sooner we get started, the sooner we get this over with. My name is Cassidy Sinclair, and this is Tegan—”
She burst out laughing, the woman in blue. “I know who you are. Your files were sent down this morning.” She looked past them, addressing now the girl behind them. “You must be Tracy. Do you mind, honey, if these three go ahead of you? They are supposed to be meeting Judge Bragg, and I can’t wait to introduce them to her.” The girl nodded. She was just as happy to start later, rather than sooner.
The woman turned back to Cassidy. “Judge Bragg is your supervising judge. She will assign you duties, and she is in charge of disciplining you. That can mean some good spankings, so behave yourselves, girls. Her chambers, along with where her wards are housed, are on the eighteenth floor, but first you will change into your designated uniforms.”
She gave each of them a large tub with their name printed on it. Inside were light gray clothes, neatly folded, and plain white sneakers. “There is a change room right over there. You can use it one at a time. After you have changed, all your clothes and belongings go in the tray. Bring it back with you.” Cassidy went first. The uniforms had no pockets and fit tightly but comfortably. Presumably, to make concealing things harder. While they were waiting for sentencing, they had been measured, much more thoroughly than seemed necessary. This must have been why. The tray even had new underwear and a hairband for her. After Cassidy, Amanda went to change into her uniform.
She came back quickly, “These are the same uniforms that girl was wearing when we came into the lobby on our first day, remember? You joked that this is where our taxes go, paying people to clean instead of robots. I guess you are going to need to clean something in your life after all, Miss Fancy Pants.”
Cassidy normally resented Amanda reminding her of her privileged childhood, but in this case, it was a clever tactic: she was getting ahead of the punishment to diminish its significance. They weren’t going to be broken easily. Tegan joined them.
“Alright, ladies, put your trays on the table and then walk through the scanner one at a time.” Amanda went first, followed by Tegan and then Cassidy. As Cassidy went through, a small alarm beeped, and a light flashed. “All your belongings go into the bin, honey.” Cassidy returned through the scanner and put a very large hairpin into her tub. It was almost the same dark brown as her hair and had been completely hidden in her long ponytail, wedged inside the tight band and pressed against her scalp as closely as possible. “As long as that is the elastic we gave you, you can keep it. The hairpin stays here, and I hope it wasn’t supposed to be a weapon.” Cassidy rolled her eyes. “A hairpin, Judy? Hardly.” Cassidy had spotted a message on the clerk’s screen as she walked back to put the hairpin in her tray:
Judy, please pay special attention to the three wards assigned to me this morning, and make note of everything. Thanks, PB.
Judy rotated her screen towards the middle of her desk, obscuring it from anyone else returning through the scanner. She had realized immediately how Cassidy had ascertained her name. “You be very careful, girl. An attitude like that will get your buns burned here, and I was only surprised because I haven’t seen such a large hairpin before, or someone need one to keep her ponytail straight, either.”
Cassidy’s denial about the weapon hadn’t been entirely convincing. She hadn’t intended it to be, now that she was caught. “The elevator will take you to the eighteenth floor. I will let Beth —Judge Bragg’s assistant— know you’re coming.” As they walked to the elevator, Judy turned back to the girl waiting.
“Don’t worry, Tracy. I haven’t forgotten about you. Just give me a few minutes to catch up on all this paperwork and get these three’s belongings organized, and then it will be your turn to meet Judge Williams. You will be sorry to learn she doesn’t like repeat vandals anymore than those girls are going to like Judge Bragg.”
Tracy turned pale as the elevator doors closed and they lost sight of her. “Leave the talking to me with this Judge Bragg,” Cassidy said confidently. “I want to try and understand her as best as possible.”
—
Amanda taunted Ruth again. “What, you cannot run with a limp, Goodman?” Ruth was hobbling away. She had been born with a condition that meant her legs weren’t quite the same length, or some similar issue. One of her arms was a bit wonky too. For some reason, her parents decided not to address it medically, even though it must be the easiest thing in the world to do. In a year she would be old enough to elect to have it addressed herself, but Ruth insisted she didn’t want to change either. She was going to live with it. The kooks had indoctrinated her or something.
That didn’t sit right with Cassidy. She didn’t know why. She didn’t know Ruth. One of their new girls had mentioned her to them. She was a girl from Amanda’s old school. That’s where most of their new members came from. Tegan gave Ruth a shove. She bounced against the wall and came stumbling back towards them. Cassidy hit her in the stomach. Ruth was crying. Fuck her. She didn’t want to be normal? If she was, she could have escaped easily.
They weren’t chasing her that hard. Suddenly the new girl hit her too. Ruth went down. Amanda let out a yip. Ruth screamed in desperation. All the other girls swarmed her. Cassidy knew right then it was a mistake, but there was nothing she could do. She was trying to pull them off, but a teacher grabbed her. They were still too close to the school. He was big. He wrenched her arm just like Paul. She panicked and punched and clawed at him.
All the girls except Tegan scattered. She threw himself at the big man. He was a PE teacher and an accomplished wrestler. Even so, it was a close, evenly matched fight. She screamed with rage and got some heavy blows in before he finally pinned her down. More teachers and even police were running towards them. Amanda and a few of the other girls escaped, but enough of them would be caught no matter what. All of their identities would be revealed. Cassidy knew better than to try and run. They were all going to face consequences. She tried to call her Mom coolly, but a cop snatched her phone before she could explain what was happening.
—
Beth was a kind, late middle-aged lady. And the reception area outside Bragg’s office was more than big enough for all of them to wait comfortably. Beth tried to soothe the girls as best as she could before their first meeting with Judge Bragg. There was a padded bench, several chairs, and a small table. Beth stood at a tall desk. There was an impressive floor-to-ceiling window directly behind her, along with a kitchenette to the side.
After several tries to calm them down enough to sit quietly, Beth realized that they weren’t going to let her. They kept up high spirits, joking with each other and even engaging in some rather aggressive horseplay. Cassidy didn’t want the other two to become cowed again. Judge Bragg emerged moments later. “Settle down immediately, you three, and come into my office. Normally, I will meet with you one on one, but for our first meeting, we may as well save some time and do it as a group.” They got up and sauntered in, Cassidy in the lead.
“That was quite the entrance, girls,” Judge Bragg said sharply. She was clearly not amused. “In a moment, I will be explaining the consequences of poor behavior, but keep that up, and I will make it a demonstration —I will tell you when you may sit, Amanda.” Amanda stepped back from the chair by the conference table she was heading towards, just a little shocked at how firmly this woman could issue commands. “We are going to be keeping this brief, because there’s more than enough time for you three to get a few good hours of chores in.”
Pamela Bragg was tall and slender. She wore a dark gray suit that marked her as a judge. Her hair was silver and tied in a bun, but the most important thing about her at that moment was that somehow she terrified Cassidy. She had intended to meet her gaze directly. She was planning to show resistance, get her back up a little, and then make conciliations later. It was a good strategy, she had thought. Put on a bit of a show for Tegan and Amanda, but then appear to make progress more privately for Bragg, who would also, hopefully, be tricked into thinking she was winning.
Instead of getting her back up, however, Cassidy backed down. She found herself involuntarily averting her eyes from Bragg’s direct stare. She looked down at her feet. It was an experience she hadn’t felt since Paul. Amanda reacted similarly.
Tegan, on the other hand, clenched her fists. She leaned forward just a centimeter. Bragg’s security robot, which had been standing silently in the corner of the room, also moved forward ever so subtly. It was just like the ones they had while they waited for their sentencing, black, carbon composite, yet surprisingly stubby.
Earlier, it seemed to be an odd design choice to Cassidy. It made them look comical. Why not find a way to make them appear ferocious, even if they only ever bobbed along on their too-short legs? This time, given Bragg’s dramatic entrance into her life, Cassidy didn’t register the security robot’s move.
Tegan most certainly did, however. The security robots were probably much heavier than they looked. But for the advantage they gained in heft, what did they lose in speed and agility, she wondered. One day, she might need to tangle with one. She would probably need to be quick and not let it get too close. She could try to knock it over and possibly break its short, cable-like arms or even its stout little legs.
Bragg continued, and she launched into what was obviously a well-practiced lecture. “My name is Judge Pamela Bragg. You will address me as ‘Judge Bragg’ or ‘Ma’am.’ As my wards, you will do everything I say. You will leave here only once I have determined that you have been reformed. Your days, to begin with, will be long and filled with tedious work. You currently have no entertainment privileges. Communication with the outside world will not be possible. Your food will be adequate but bland. To start, you will spend eleven hours a day, six days a week, doing simple cleaning tasks that robots would normally do. And you will do those tasks well. The robots keep things spotless around here, and I expect your work to leave everything you touch sparkling as well. Your first cleaning task, every day, will be your own rooms, and they don’t count towards the eleven hours. That will be the case up to and including your final day here. Your other jobs will change as you progress. Work is inspected, and poor efforts are punished.
“You ladies have shown that you are not prepared to hold up your part of the bargain of being in a society that provides so much for you, so for the next little while, it will be providing far less, or at least that is the way it will feel to you. Poor attitudes, disrespect, disobedience, violence, and any other behavior you know that I will consider bad will not be tolerated, and I will punish you. There is more than one means at my disposal to do that, but the option you should be most concerned about is being sent to sit in ‘the Chair.’
“It is designed to cause pain. It will not permanently injure you, but it can burn in the moment like nothing else that you have experienced. It can also cause temporary discomfort that lasts up to a week. It projects an energy beam up through its seat that will affect the skin of your backsides. Minor infractions will result in lighter and shorter punishments —but even those will be much more painful than you expect. Repeated or serious misconduct will result in longer, more excruciating sessions. I have sent more young women to have their bottoms burnt than I can count, and I won’t hesitate to add any of the three of you to that list.”
She paused to let it sink in. “Amanda, Cassidy, you will look at me when I am speaking to you. As you progress, your lives will improve. The work will become easier, shorter, and more fulfilling. You will be given choices of more interesting food, and your entertainment privileges will be granted. You will also be allowed small personal items, like musical instruments or games, if you like.
“My goal is that when you leave here, girls, you will be happier and healthier members of society, and you will have respect for your fellow citizens and authority. Also, importantly, I expect you will be seeking out new company. When we’re done here, I doubt you will want to see each other again for a long time.
“Beth will give you a quick orientation. She will show you the common area and your rooms, tell you how to clean them, and then finish with the dining room, at which point you may eat your lunch. Your chores will begin at one-thirty, and you will finish at six-thirty to go for your supper. Beth will explain your full schedule during your orientation. Finally, I will be meeting with each of you regularly to discuss your progress.” She looked at the three young women. Tegan was still clenching her fists, but the other two, at least, had had the reaction she was hoping for. Cassidy had to fight herself to continue even looking at her. She was the most intimidating person that she had ever met.
“Any questions?” She waited for a moment, but they were stunned, except Tegan, who wouldn’t be asking any questions. “Good, in that case, you’re dismissed.”
Cassidy surprised her. She blurted out, “Wait, what do you mean we won’t be able to see each other after? You don’t even know us, and don’t we get a say in who our friends will be once we are back in society?”
“That is a good question, and I didn’t say you won’t be able to, just that I expect you won’t want to. I, like everyone else, have misjudged people and their situations in the past. This could be one of those cases, but I doubt it. You will be given the opportunity to change my mind. But it will take a lot to convince me that preserving your friendship is a worthy priority compared to improving your characters, when that friendship seems to provide little more than an opportunity to harass and assault your fellow citizens.”
Beth was waiting and started walking briskly as soon as they came out. “This way, please, girls.”
As they walked, she talked, “Your alarm will wake you at six, except on your days off. To start with, you will only have Sunday off, but usually within a couple of weeks, you will be granted Saturday off as well. Breakfast is at seven. Your shifts will get shorter as you demonstrate good behavior, but to begin, your work will start at seven-thirty. You will get a lunch break at one. At one-thirty, back to work. You will be perfectly punctual, or you will be punished. Supper will be at six-thirty. To start with, that is when your work will end. You will be in your room by eight, and that’s quiet time. Lights out at nine.”
She took them to a large room. “This is the common room.” There were a few tables and chairs. Two other wards were sitting, looking on with interest. There were fifteen entrances to bedrooms along the back wall. The rooms were small but comfortable. There were single beds, a chair and desk with a terminal and a small sink and mirror, a toilet, a waist-high cabinet, and a window looking out onto the lake. “These are the rooms. Cassidy’s is this one here. Amanda, please take a step towards it, slowly.” She did, tentatively, as she was instructed. A sliding clear panel shut quickly in front of her, closing the room off. “Nobody goes in anyone else’s room, as you can see. OK, Amanda, step back. Cassidy, if you would go inside, please.” She did. “Press the yellow button.” She did that too.
The door came across the entrance again, but this time it was opaque. “That is your privacy screen. It will activate for no more than ten minutes at a time and no more than twice in an hour. Cassidy, you can hear me through a speaker, but we cannot hear you, so please press the yellow button again—thank you. You will find your terminals have very limited functionality right now. You will see messages, the regulations about our and your conduct, your appointments with Judge Bragg, assignments —that kind of thing. If Judge Bragg is satisfied with your progress, you will get entertainment privileges. Every ward here is at a different stage of her reformation, so keep that in mind.
“You will put your clothes from yesterday and your bed linen in your laundry hamper in the morning. New clean clothes and linen will be in your closet. They are put there by a cleaning robot that will also inspect your room. The cabinet also has cleaning supplies. You will use those every morning to thoroughly clean your room. Make your beds and wipe and polish every surface. The robot will be able to tell if you didn’t do it. The inspection is to a very high standard. So don’t dawdle when you wake up, or you won’t complete it properly.
“Any deficiency will be noted on your terminal, and a green demerit spot will be put on the surface. If it happens a second time, the spot will become yellow, and then red after a third. On Sunday, shortly after breakfast, your room will be inspected as usual. You will scrub those spots off by the end of the day, or you will be taking a trip to the Chair. The green ones wipe off fairly easily, the yellow ones need a good few minutes of scrubbing, and red spots will require significantly more effort. All the spots are nanites, and they won’t come off no matter how hard you try before the inspection on Sunday and no later than eight, so do them during that window. After that, the spots are reset for the next week. So your first one in any given place will be green again.” She paused to see if there were any questions. There weren’t.
“Good, let’s continue. Also on the right, there are three shower rooms. You will use one every morning if you have work assigned. You may also shower once on your days off, whenever it suits you. They are limited to a short time.” She gestured to the door. “There are a couple of other multi-purpose rooms across the hall. You must request access to them on a case-by-case basis. Those will allow you to spend time alone or in small groups. Some wards use them, for example, to play or listen to music together. Though keep in mind they will be monitored. Barbara usually organizes a games day on Sunday. She is Judge Michaels’ assistant who operates on different days from Judge Bragg and me. She is responsible for you on our weekend, which happens to be the actual weekend.
“Finally, these are the two dining rooms, A and B. You three currently only have access to the basic one. The other one is ‘Dining Room B.’ The food is more interesting, and you will be given options when you are allowed there. Like the entertainment, you will need to earn that. Lunch will be ready in ten minutes. You will have thirty minutes to eat. After that, your chores will begin.” Again, she paused for questions that didn’t come. “OK, I will be back then.”
She looked at them for a moment before adding a final comment: “There is not especially a correlation between early defiance and failure, as far as I can tell. This program has a very high success rate either way, but the young ladies who embrace their reformation with a good attitude and obedience tend to both earn more privileges and, more importantly, leave faster. They also are more likely to find themselves sitting comfortably throughout their entire time here.” She left them to contemplate that while they waited for their food.
Several other wards started arriving, their duties paused for lunch. They sat down as far from anyone else as they could, next to the bedrooms. Tegan was especially agitated. Cassidy could tell she was working herself up, building anger. “Don’t let it bother you, Tegan. Now’s not the moment.”
“Oh really, that’s rich coming from Miss, leave the talking to me. You’re so full of shift, Cass —‘OH, please don’t send me to the Chair for a spanking, Mrs. Judge Bragg, Ma’am. I promise I will be a good—”
“Fuck you. I am not afraid of some chair or this Bragg woman,” Cassidy cut her off. The other wards were listening, and she couldn’t let Tegan undermine her authority. She spoke as quietly as possible while maintaining a tone of fury. “I wanted to let her think she was winning. What were you going to do, fight her next to her security robot? Let’s see how that goes, genius. No, we’re going to be smarter, and as usual, we’re going to leave the thinking to me.”
Amanda leaned back, a big smile on her face. “Don’t worry, girls, we got this.” It was the perfect gesture. It soothed both of them, turning their exchange into a demonstration of each’s strengths. She always knew how best to defuse an argument between them. Tegan was only partially placated this time, however. She stomped off to wait by Dining Room A.
A quiet voice came from the bedroom beside them. “OK, Harrison, I am almost done the analysis. Would you please let Mrs. MacDonald know that I should have it ready by the time she is out of her transport meeting in a couple of hours, but I need to have lunch first. I only get half an hour… —thanks, I will ask Judge Bragg if I can get out of my cleaning shift tomorrow to do that… —yeah, you and me both, believe me. I think she probably will. She said It’s good that I am learning how to do this.”
An attractive blonde woman in her late twenties emerged moments later. She looked at Cassidy and Amanda with little expression on her face. “You’re going to have even less luck trying to manipulate Judge Bragg than your big friend over there is going to have trying to intimidate her. Do what she wants. You’re going to do it right away, or you’re going to do it after she sends you to the Chair. Those are your only two choices.”
“I have been beaten up pretty bad before, when I was a kid” Cassidy replied coolly. “Don’t worry about me.”
The blonde wasn’t convinced. “It hurts differently than being in a fight. I have been in those too. The Chair is designed to cause pain. There is nothing like it, and if she wants you to remember it, she can make it hurt for days after.”
Amanda interrupted, “What she wants is impossible. We can’t do it.”
The girl kept walking towards Dining Room B. “OK, up to you. But you are going to discover that you can, and don’t be too surprised when you are crying yourselves to sleep, with bright red asses, when you do.” There was a chime, and all the wards headed to their dining rooms.
Cassidy was hungry, but the food was awful. They had two porridge-like substances to choose from. One was named ‘high carbs’, the other ‘high protein’. They each took portions of both and spent the next thirty minutes swishing them around in their bowls. Cassidy tried mixing hers together after a few minutes, but that somehow only made them worse. The chime sounded again. Cleaning robots came to take their dishes and the remaining food.
Beth was waiting for them in the common room. She was holding three small tablets and one larger one for herself. “Okay, you three, let’s get started with your cleaning duties. Follow me, please,” she said pleasantly.
Beth took them to a different elevator than the one they came up in. They used it to go straight down to the corner of the main floor lobby. Beth pressed a few buttons on the larger tablet she was carrying as the elevator descended. She did it quickly, but Cassidy followed the instructions perfectly. She had just set three cleaning robots into ‘demonstration’ mode. “You’re each going to do five and a half hours of a regular cleaning robot’s general rotation. You will clean the bathrooms in a designated area and then one of the nearby rooms. After that, back to the bathrooms, followed by a different nearby room, so on, and so on.
“This elevator requires your tablets to use, and they are coded to your schedule so that you can take it down now, but not up until your shift is finished. In a moment, I will show you each the cleaning bot that you will be replacing. They have been modified to show you how to do your chores properly. Once you have learned how to do them, you will be on your own, but for the next couple of days, you will have their guidance, though not their help. You will finish at six thirty. At that point, you will return to the eighteenth floor in this elevator.”
The building was a giant circular tower in the center of the city. There were several vast open lobbies, but this was the biggest and the main one for the whole building. It was the one for the Halls of Justice and a Conference Center. The lobby had the footprint of a crescent moon, and its ceiling rose four stories above their heads. There were two large entrances, each where a street ended in front of the building. Between them were gates leading down to a transit tube station beneath the streets in front of the building.
Looking into the lobby from the streets, on the left were various conference and community rooms. And on the right were the courts, with the rightmost part of those being the processing center they had already gone through. Beyond that was the station for long-range transports. The back half of the building was against the lake.
The floors above held countless government and other offices. Somewhere, presumably, was her mother, though she would travel to and from the building by personal shuttle, obviously. Luckily, Cassidy wouldn’t be seeing her in this lobby.
Beth took them to the left. They stopped at a nondescript door labeled ‘Maintenance Closet 4’. Waiting beside it was a small cleaning robot. Unlike the larger security robots, the cleaning robots used wheels instead of legs. Its arms, which would normally be a flurry of activity, were tucked into its body. Beth passed Amanda a tablet. It had her name displayed on it, along with a series of items.
“This is your closet. You will find all the supplies and tools listed, place them in the cart there, and then follow the robot. It will take you through the rotation it would normally do. It will not help you. It will only show you what needs improvement. Your tablet will provide you with the schedule and simple descriptions of what to clean and how to clean it.
“All right, you two, let’s find your closets and robots. Amanda, get to work, and pay close attention to the robot’s guidance. After tomorrow, there won’t be a robot, and poor work will result in punishment.”
They left her behind. Cassidy didn’t turn back. She didn’t want to look at her face. She knew it wouldn’t help either of them. She heard Amanda’s robot make a double beep impatiently. Amanda let out a tiny sob.
A minute later, they came around a corner, and it was her turn to open a door labeled ‘Maintenance Closet.’ The tablet Beth passed her had the same list of required supplies as Amanda’s. At least she wasn’t going to give Beth the satisfaction of having her robot beep at her. She quickly started getting what she needed. The hamper of cloths was much bigger than she expected, and completely full. The robot spun neatly in place and proceeded back down the hallway they came from, its wheels silently gliding along the floor.
It headed straight for a row of five bathrooms, side by side. The closest one suddenly displayed on its door, ‘Temporarily Closed for Cleaning.’ The robot stopped at that door and beeped, just once. It wasn’t an annoyed tone, merely indicating ‘we’ve arrived.’
She opened the door to a bright, already very clean bathroom, and her tablet’s display changed. It was a simple illustration of a girl with dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail, wearing a ward’s light gray uniform (she wasn’t quite sure, but it looked like it was meant to be her). The girl was kneeling beside a toilet and wiping it with a cloth, a look of boredom on her face, somehow captured perfectly. There was a brief description under the picture, describing the steps to clean a bathroom. As she completed the top one, dismissing it with a flick, another would appear below. It was the most tedious and thorough cleaning job she could have imagined. The robot was surprisingly demanding, making her repeat each step if it wasn’t perfect. It would make its annoyed double beep and briefly shine a green indicator light on the spot that offended it. After what felt like an hour, she was finally allowed to move on to the next bathroom.
After what was actually close to an hour, they finished the last one. The robot immediately took her to a multi-purpose room to show her how to clean it thoroughly. It was another exercise in the two of them getting on each other’s nerves, but before she knew it, she was done and back in the first bathroom again, staring over. The robot insisted she polish every part just as thoroughly as the first time.
Cassidy couldn’t believe how much she ached after just a couple of hours. She was up, down, on her knees, bending over, standing on tippy-toes (her tools were just slightly too short to reach everywhere she needed to otherwise), back on her knees, reaching, wiping, scrubbing, picking up, carrying, putting down —constantly moving— and working muscles she wasn’t used to. All of them were starting to hurt.
Beth came after a couple of hours to check on her, and then again when she was done for the day (Cassidy still had an hour to work herself). “That’s a good girl, Cassidy. Keep it up. I will see you tomorrow. Good night.” Cassidy didn’t say anything. She was worried that if she tried, she might break down into tears. Beth could tell, and she didn’t push it. She let her get away with keeping the little dignity she had left. She was relieved that Beth had spared her by not insisting she reply, but that she had had to put an exclamation point on the doubt taking hold in her mind. This was going to be harder than she thought.
Finally, there was a chime from her tablet on her cart. She looked over. It had a new message: ‘Finish your shift. You will return to your home level in five minutes.’ The robot beeped and showed her where to put her used rags. Then it took her back to her maintenance closet to put away her other supplies. As soon as she closed the door, its arms re-emerged from inside it. It left quickly, almost happily, it seemed, heading straight for the bathroom she had just left half finished. It apparently had a lot of imperfect cleaning to make up for. Cassidy walked stiffly back to the elevator. Amanda had just arrived, too. She had obviously been crying. Neither said a word. Five minutes later, they stopped waiting for Tegan and went up.
They found Tegan upstairs already. Standing by the door. A big grin on her face. They went to her quickly. “I don’t recommend sitting in Bragg’s famous ‘Chair,’ guys. I am not sure you could handle it. Best leave the Chair sitting to me.”
The blonde woman who had tried to scare them earlier snorted. She was standing next to another younger ward who was obviously a little in awe of Tegan. The blonde woman said, “She’s right. Definitely leave that to her. Let’s see if she is still smiling in a week.”
Amanda cut in. “Oh no, is Bragg’s pet just a little annoyed that she won’t get to spend tomorrow working from the comfort of her room but will have to scrub toilets like the rest of us? Maybe you’re not as special as you think you are.” The woman glared, but just a little too venomously, and it gave it away. They all knew. Amanda’s knife had found its mark: Bragg had denied her permission to skip her cleaning chores. They went to eat their supper. She was hungry for real this time. They had nondescript tofu-like bars of some sort and tasteless boiled vegetables, but somehow it wasn’t as bad as the lunch. Cassidy let out a huge sigh of relief. They weren’t beaten yet. Not even close.
The next day, she had a similar rotation but different rooms in the morning. The afternoon shift was scrubbing the floor of a large conference room. It was vast, and she only had a single small hand brush. A couple of hours later, she longed for a bathroom to clean, but she kept going. Bragg was trying to break her, but it wasn’t going to work. The fact that she had moved her to this must mean she knows it. The judge was bringing out her bigger guns, and she would just have to endure it, but then she would win.
The third day was even better. The morning was again the five bathrooms rotation. But for the afternoon shift, Bragg had scheduled them to work together, cleaning the Hall of Justice’s lobby itself. Other than the single women’s bathroom, with a dozen stalls (robots continued to maintain the men’s), it was actually the easiest work they had had yet. And they also had each other’s company, which made it go faster. They had also shed their robot minders.
Cassidy started to analyze the situation. There must be rules for our program that Bragg didn’t tell us about. Why would she move us to an easier task and let us work together right when she should have pushed he advantage? Everyone has constraints. Judge Bragg must, too. What are they?
She made herself focus. She started looking at her surroundings, tracking the movements of the people. Noticing as many details as she could, but only for a few minutes at a time. She couldn’t reveal that she was starting to think strategically about her situation, not yet. That was an advantage to keep to herself. She bore down as she started to wipe a series of benches. Phew, you got this, Cassidy, six months. That is all. We may not get our entertainment privileges as quickly as some of the other girls, but I will take my family after we are done ten times over that, and a little better food.
—
They fell into a rhythm, and at first she thought it was working perfectly. They were starting to establish themselves as the dominant gang among the wards. There was always a pecking order, and they easily rose to the top of it. Maybe in a couple of weeks, they could start admitting junior members.
Amanda and Tegan were up to their old tricks. Amanda had identified her first target: the little girl who had been talking to the blonde on their first night. She had a speech impediment. It was minor, but Amanda had zeroed in on it. The girl was much more self-conscious of it than Cassidy had realized. She obviously stuttered a little. But she clearly just hated doing it. She would occasionally take long breaks mid-sentence, trying to work out how to rephrase what was supposed to come next or find a replacement for whatever word she knew she was going to struggle with. She should have just allowed herself to stutter. She was much more awkward trying to avoid it than the speech impediment itself was.
Amanda was tormenting her, and the more she did, the worse the girl’s stutter became. Amanda had also sown the seed that the girl was Bragg’s snitch, to keep her from going to the other wards for support. Meanwhile, Tegan was starting to assert her dominance too. When other wards worked with her, she would always find a way to jostle them. Sooner or later, something would happen, like one of their buckets of soapy water spilling everywhere. “Watch where you’re going. You just about covered me in that, you clumsy bitch.”
It was all going perfectly, and she was the one quietly pulling the strings. After that day’s afternoon shift, she came back to find her terminal blinking. She had an individual meeting scheduled in the late morning with Bragg. The first of her progress assessments.
Cassidy felt a knot tighten in her stomach. She was finding her feet, but Bragg had been so formidable in their first brief encounter. She needed to fare better the second time around. Tegan laughed loudly when she told her and Amanda at supper. “HA! Of course you would go first. It’s because you’re progressing so much faster than the two of us.” The veiled jibe stung. The insinuation was clear: she was the one bending, while Tegan and Amanda refused to yield to Bragg.
Two of the other wards laughed nervously. They were starting to follow them, but they didn’t actually get the joke. That made it worse. She glared, but couldn’t think of something to say. She looked to Amanda, but she just subtly smirked at her. Tegan was right. And much worse, she realized, was that she was usurping her command, which had always only been unspoken. She led only because of her strength and authority. In here, the other two were the ones with the strength, especially Tegan. A couple of the other wards had gone to the Chair since Tegan had, and neither of them had come back smiling and joking about it.
Cassidy tossed and turned all night. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like having to meet with Bragg, having been dominated by her the first time, and she didn’t like this new dynamic with Tegan, not one bit.
Towards the end of her first cleaning shift the next morning, Beth came to collect her and took her to Judge Bragg’s office. Judge Bragg was sitting at her coffee table in one of the two big chairs. There was a pot of tea and two cups ready. Cassidy hesitated after coming in.
“Good girl. You remembered Amanda’s mistake from the last time. You may sit down.”
Cassidy obeyed. She hadn’t remembered Amanda being scolded for going to sit down before she was invited. She couldn’t read Bragg in the least. She must have known that. Was she toying with her? Teasing her? Or maybe she really had thought she had remembered.
“Look at me, please, Cassidy.” She was doing it again, involuntarily averting her eyes. How could this woman do this to her? She looked at her. Bragg was looking back, much more kindly than she expected. It was a huge relief. Cassidy took a deep breath. She felt her blood pressure lower.
“There. That’s better. Let’s try conducting ourselves with a friendly demeanor, just for a moment. We can try staring cold daggers at each other after that, if you like, but it’s hardly a fair fight. I have a lot more practice at it than you do, and you can’t plausibly threaten to send me to get a good spanking.” Before Cassidy could bristle, she surprised her with a wink. She was joking the whole time, but why? She had her completely off balance. Bragg poured two cups of tea. Cassidy took another deep breath.
Judge Bragg passed her a cup. “Tell me about your childhood.” Cassidy wasn’t expecting that question from her, for some reason. Of course, she should have. She should have had something ready.
“My mom is a successful politician and businesswoman before that. She is a councilor who represents one of the western districts. She became a politician while I was growing up. My Dad was a professional tennis player. They split up when I was fourteen. They sent me to elite schools. Mostly so they didn’t need to feel guilty about how little time they spent with me.” Cassidy slowly took a sip. It was a delaying tactic. She hated talking about her parents. She needed to be careful and find a way to change the topic.
Bragg took the opportunity to follow up. “A friend of yours from school told me, and a couple of others confirmed it, that you always called your mom, ‘Mom,’ but your dad was ‘Paul.’ That seems odd to me.”
Cassidy jumped inside. Which friend? I am going to kill them. She tried to collect herself. “He just preferred it,” she lied.
“When they got divorced, he was sent for mandatory therapy. What was it for?” Bragg hit her again in their sudden mental battle that she hadn’t realized they were going to be having when she sat down.
“I didn’t know that.”
“You have started to lie to me, Cassidy. But I didn’t ask you if you knew that he was sent for mandatory therapy —I already know that you know that— I asked you what you think the reason is that he was. I have been hearing murmurs, but the kind that hint towards a history that wouldn’t normally result in only being required to report for mandatory therapy.”
Cassidy started shaking, just for a moment. She put her tea down. She was panicking. She couldn’t do this. Not now, not with this woman she hated and who was trying to break her. “I think you are lying to me too.” She spat out, suddenly angry.
It was Bragg’s turn to be surprised. “About what?”
“The rules of this place. You could have broken us on the third day, but you eased off. And then you let us work together. There are obviously limits to your powers, but you don’t want us to know what they are. And now I think you are playing mind games with me because you are only allowed to punish me so much.”
“You have misinterpreted the situation, young lady. The point of the program isn’t about breaking you as quickly as possible. And the point is also not to cause you misery for the sake of it, because I think you deserve pain or hardship to balance some cosmic scale of justice that was thrown out of alignment when you and your friends attacked Ruth Goodman.”
“OK, send me to the chair then, or make me scrub the floor for three days straight, on my hands and knees, if you can.”
“I can, but why, for what purpose?”
“To prove that you can. If you have no limits to your powers, if there aren’t some other judges that you need to persuade, or some other form of constraints that you must work within, you could send me to your ‘Chair,’ and then there would be no doubt.”
“Are you trying to change the subject so much that you are risking being sent to the Chair or being made to scrub a floor for three days straight, just to do it?”
Cassidy paused, desperately trying to formulate her next thought.
“It’s fine,” Bragg continued before Cassidy had a chance to say anything. “There is indeed a component of a pure negative consequence, for the sake of punishment, in your sentence: that is why there is a minimum duration of six months. It’s a deterrent for you, but mostly for other people, so they are less likely to make the same mistake. But you have barely been here more than a week. We will have lots of time to revisit your childhood. And if my goal was just to break you, for the sake of punishment, as you seem to think, there would be no reason for me to be inclined to do it especially quickly.
“In the meantime, making you scream, sitting on the Chair, is not actually the easiest way to prove what my limits are towards you. The terminal in your room has every letter of every statute of the law that applies to your reformation here. There’s also a plain language breakdown. It explains what my powers and constraints are, and how you may also file a grievance if you feel you were mistreated. You can do that after your punishment has been completed, or at the nine-month mark, should you reach it, when there is a mandatory review of your reformation by an entirely independent judge.”
Cassidy sat silently, staring at her teacup. She was hardly processing anything anymore. “This was a very quick meeting, but I think this is a good place to end today. I am not giving you additional privileges or changing your work schedule at this time. You’re dismissed. You may go back to the common room, and then after lunch, return to your duties.”
She waited in the common room. Last week, she would have been bored, but it was much better than her chores, and she was still in shock after meeting with Judge Bragg. She just sat and waited. Amanda, Tegan, and the rest of the wards started arriving for lunch. They went to eat together as usual. The two of them obviously wanted to know the details of her meeting, but she had nothing to tell them. She couldn’t brush it off as uneventful, but she didn’t want to reveal anything that they talked about.
“I wouldn’t have thought that it would be you who would break first,” Amanda muttered. “And certainly not so easily. She hasn’t punished you or anything,” she added more assertively.
Cassidy couldn’t summon the anger to respond properly. Thankfully, the chime signaling the resumption of their chores sounded. Being sent to wash windows for the rest of the day was far better than having to confront Amanda and Tegan about her meeting. They pressed her more after supper. She still couldn’t come up with anything to satisfy them. That night, Cassidy could barely sleep, even though she was exhausted. She was losing them. She tossed and turned. Bragg was winning after all —easily. She had barely just begun her sentence.
The next morning, they were assigned to work together again, cleaning a block of offices on the fifty-ninth floor. The staff from the section were off for the day, so all the room doors were locked, leaving them only the hallway’s walls to wash and its floors to scrub on their hands and knees. They split up, but remained fairly close. Cassidy could barely hold it together.
“That is not good enough, Cassidy. You’re not doing a proper job, and you’re also going far too slowly.” Beth had obviously come to check on them, and she hadn’t even heard her walk up. She stood behind her, hands on her hips, unimpressed. “You’re just doing the same spot, over and over, and not paying attention to what you are doing at all. Judge Bragg will never accept this work.”
Cassidy suddenly felt anger building. She also knew that both the others could hear their exchange clearly. “Why don’t you tell her she can turn the fucking cleaning bots back on then? I am sure they would do a much better job. Actually, don’t tell her, Beth. Why don’t you first go fuck yourself? And then, after you are done with that, ask her to come here, so I can tell her myself.”
“OK, I will ask her.”
—
Cassidy was reading on her tablet in the common room while she was waiting for her dinner. She was having the tortellini with sausage and broccoli in cream sauce again. It was simple, but one of her favorites. She had been let off from her work in the library early. Suddenly, she heard screaming coming down the hall. Lisa was carried in and put in her room by a security robot. She was hysterical. Beth was following. She immediately locked Lisa’s door behind her.
Lisa started banging on the glass. The room’s soundproofing was so effective that it was entirely silent. Then she grabbed the sheets and comforter off her bed and threw them at the door. After that, she went into a complete frenzy. She started smashing her terminal screen. Cassidy went to Beth, who quickly turned to her. “I thought she had one more day. What happened?”
“Lisa asked for an extra meeting a day early. She wanted to know how she could change Judge Bragg’s mind on the final day, before she confirms her decision, but she couldn’t change it. Judge Bragg told her that her opinion of her was set. Then, apparently, she hit her.”
A couple of other wards that were free were watching, too.
“Lisa hit Judge Bragg?”
“Yes, she just got spanked for it, and you can see how well that calmed her down.”
“Beth, I thought this place was supposed to help people. Why would Judge Bragg do this? How can taking Lisa’s son away be good for her?”
“I am sure it’s not, Cassidy. I don’t think she is doing it for Lisa’s benefit.”
Cassidy started crying. Beth just hugged her. Lisa stopped hitting her terminal with her chair. Its screen was completely cracked. She started battering the chair across her bed frame and then sank to the ground, absolutely sobbing.