Banned Books, Banned Girl

Part Three

Maria knew they would take her to The Facility even before she saw the grim grey stone walls. The place had been a Catholic monastery once. The Ds just smashed the statues, dug up the garden, and added chain link fence with a touch of razor wire to the perimeter. This place was where Maria had been sent, once Maria's parents had been forced to send her to government schools to be tested for defects. 

She'd finished her growing up behind these walls. All the children who got sent here had tested as defective. Most had a brief stay, and were sent on to experience D-party mercy. But some were like her--- having a defect, but also having supernormal intelligence. She'd been told her intelligence level was not uncommon with Asperger Syndrome.

The D-party wanted to cultivate those like Maria--- for a purpose. The children at The Facility were give access to books--- some, Maria now knew, books on the banned list like Miss Osborne the Mop or The Mouse and the Motorcycle. They had kind teachers to help direct their learning, and computer programs to drill them in things like multiplication tables and spelling patterns. What they were not taught was the practical things--- how to take a bus, how to cook brown rice or how to manage money. They would have the chance to learn things normally reserved for advanced college students---- but they were doomed to spend their lives in D-party facilities, doing an educated man's work in exchange for mere survival. 

She'd read about things like that. How in that Austrian fellow's regime people were worked in camps until they dropped or became unable to work, in which case they got mercied.

Maria wanted a better life than the Ds were willing to give her. She knew never to mention that, but she kept her ears open. She heard little scraps of rumors of what life was really like on the outside. And as soon as Maria grew big enough to pass herself off as a grownup, Maria escaped, and ran to the nearest city to start life as a ghost worker.

And now she was right back where she started, and in one of the punishment cells, to boot. She'd never been sent to the punishment cells while she'd been in residence. They were actual monk cells, with the wood panelling crudely torn off the walls to make the cells a bit colder, and with the monk's bed replaced by a tatami mat. They'd let her keep her clothes, even her red linen-look jacket with the fake D-4 pin and the two Zane Greys in the roomy pockets. 

The room was kept bright enough to read in at all times, probably because those in charge thought of bright light at night as a punishment. But when she wanted to sleep, she just wrapped her thin blanket across her eyes to create her own darkness.

At a time when Maria thought one night had passed, and it was a new day, she heard a rustle at the door. it proved to be two men in body armor--- the men who swore up and down that they weren't guards at all but staff members, but who got called guards because they turned up to do any guard-like function.

"Kehoe Maria," said one of them. "You are summoned to Comrade Nakamura's office at once." When Maria didn't stand and move out instantly, the two not-guards grabbed her  by her elbows and marched her out. 

They marched through corridors and into what Maria recognized as the Admin section, where senior staff members had their offices. They stopped in front of a door marked with Japanese letters. There was a sound from within, that the not-guards interpreted as permission to come in. They did, hauling Maria between them like an awkward package.

Inside the room was a grand desk with a nameplate with the Japanese lettering from outside across the top, and plain 'Comrade Nakamura' across the bottom. Which reminded Maria to look from the desk to the Asian-looking man with a bland smile who sat behind the desk.

"You have returned," said Nakamura. "Our lost lamb returns and we rejoice more over her than over our ninety and nine who never bugged out in the first place--- you ever hear that hater story? Your parents were haters, weren't they?"