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"You're not real. Want to know how I know?"
Prisoner 430019 is in restraints, sitting in a cinder-block room with hard plastic seats bolted to the floor. The walls are a pastel blue because someone long ago wrote that this was a peaceful color. The jumpsuit is orange because it's a high-visibility color that the riflemen in the guard tower can see from a long way away.
The woman who is not Prisoner 430019 is in an army-green tank top and matching pants, with a big tough-looking belt and a leather jacket. Her hair is in cornrows and she speaks like one of the island chicks that hang with the Nation of Islam clique. "How you know dat?"
"Easy. You're not in orange and you're not in blue. And you're not my therapist. That's really the three options around here."
Prisoner 430019's nose itches. She could bust the restraints, the box around her cuffs that hook in the waist chain and the one keeping the leg-iron chains from dragging. It wouldn't be easy, but it'd be doable. She could then, dunno, scratch her nose, unplug the camera, kick down the door, then … let the two dozen guards come and kick and beat the snot out of her? Recover in segregation for six months? Not worth it. She got as close as she could with her shoulder.
"For extra credit, let's go on. You certainly don't look like anyone I hurt when I was on my rage. Well, nobody I seriously hurt. If it was back in Southie and you're a projection of my guilty conscience, you wouldn't be so all grown up now. That means you're some mystical illusion crap that's finally decided to follow me north."
Island girl is pacing, walking around the table. She takes her time behind the prisoner before coming around.
"Doc's trying to batch up as many today as she can so she doesn't have to come back 'til next month, so I'm stuck here. You've got yourself a captive audience."
The girl circles to the other side of the room, sitting in the bolted chair on that side.
"It is wasted on you."
Prisoner 430019 leans back and crosses her legs at the ankle. It's about the only movement she could make. Oh, this just might be good.
"I'm afraid you're gonna have to explain yourself a little more. If you're talking about breath, my mom coulda told you that years ago."
"I'm talking about the power! " Da POWA! Oh, boy!
"If you were saying I should be guilty because I bogarted dat dutchie you pass on da lef han side, sister, I'd … still laugh, because why not, but for wasting the gift? If I took it to the return counter first thing, it woulda saved everyone a lot of pain."
"Starting with Miss Dormer." There's a hiss on the title.
"So, we're going there? We're going there, sister?" The prisoner sits up, legs under her. Her waist chain pulls the slack against the hook in the chair. "D did what she could with the Charles River clay she was given. I dunno, maybe if she had more time to prep, things woulda been different. That's not on me, that's on you. That's on you, and the one before you, and on the one before that, and before that! Bastard grew hooves like a goat, and that shit takes time. I'm not the one that dropped the ball, I'm just the bitch that was holding it when the bell rang. You wanna throw blame, there was centuries to paint before it even gets to me."
"Still, you saw what they did to her. You were there when Dormer died."
"Shit, what if I was. What were you doing when you went down? Who were you supposed to protect? Least I tried. What did you do?"
The woman – shit, the girl , couldn't be older than seventeen – sat there with fire in her eyes, holding her tongue.
"You went down like a punk bitch and handed the problem to me. I drop outta high school and you give me the whole world to save. What is that? It's a set up. You were raised with it from birth and it's still a setup. Six billion to one. I knocked it down, I knocked it down hard. I know I did. I walked into that last bit with my eyes open, but I was set up."
The buzzer sounds and the solenoid for the door lock makes a loud thud. There's nothing in here but hard surfaces, so it echoes. Prisoner 430019 sits there and breathes. She breathes a deep, fast breath with her mouth, then blows it out through her nose. She does it again. She feels her pulse drop down from ready-to-fight levels. She tries to swing her hair out of her face.
Doc comes in, wearing a big black stab vest over her sweater. What color is that? Some sort of purple? The door closes behind her, first with a click and then with another thud. She has a green cloth bag with some cartoon face and a quote on it, packed full of case files.
"I'm sorry I kept you waiting."
"S'alright," Prisoner 430019 says. "I got nothin' but time."