DETERRENT - Apply Fic

01

Months had passed and Faris was still in holding. All the same, he never forgot a face that passed through. Time was something difficult to track without watching the rotation of faces. The same drunks pulled out of Flage would stumble in every few weekends, and Faris would lean against his hold's glass door. His breath would fog it, and if he were close enough, he could hear them talking. If it weren't for his lawyer, Faris would only have them to tell the time.

It had all seemed worth it until this morning's verdict. Guilty.

His holding door unlocks and opens. Faris stands up from his cot and heads to the door. It is lunchtime. Faris steps out of his cell and taps his band against the metal bar which wraps around the holding block. He is on the fifth floor, the highest in the panopticon. He listens carefully as every other person on his floor clicks their band against the bar. It surprises him. Certainly, there were more people in holding last night. They come and go all the time, but usually there are fifty on his floor. He can't see everyone clearly spread across this place, but he is certain there are only ten of them.

Then, when their bands light green, they begin to walk.

Faris can identify who is new from the way they walk just as easily as he can from their faces. The people who don't know the pace, who walk too slowly or too quickly. In his time, Faris recognizes the rhythm of the walk more closely than he feels the ebbs and flows of time. This is how he walks from the top floor of the panopticon down to the area below.

They pass by the floor below him, and Faris can only glance at the floor. There are two for people held awaiting trial, but the top floor has secure holds. Once they pass through and are done eating, it will be their turn. The third floor holds people in immigration detention who are facing deportation. The second floor has people who are awaiting hearings. The first floor has nothing but space for eating.

He sits down at his usual table, watching others go by. No one has been here as long as him.

As he eats, Faris looks at one of the newer people. There is a girl, smaller than anyone else. He hears her spoon scrap across her plate, how sharp the sound is, how he could pretend it is the chimes he once saw on a rooftop garden. Her brown bob seems messy, unkempt, and unbrushed. She must have got in last night.

Kae notices him staring and looks down at her plate. This is wrong, all wrong. She breathes in and sighs. Her fingers clamped over her mouth, her eyes wide and her body stiff. She looks up at the guard tower. From here, it's impossible to see who is watching her. What counts as talking? What is it to communicate? They didn't explain the rules to her properly, but she's not supposed to be here at all. The paperwork should've been processed before dawn. A conditional discharge that would only appear on her identification for the most senior of judicial officials.

At a table near her, Gale looks at the girl's tight hands clamped. He scrunches his nose, wishing he could at least tell the poor thing gasping is fine, probably. He isn't sure. Gale shuffles his feet under the table. He doesn't remember the last time he felt compelled to speak in such a way. Gale prefers the quiet.

In comic books, blind people sometimes have superhuman abilities to hear. Norbu wonders if that's what he will become in such a quiet place. He doesn't think it's likely. Most days, they pull him out of holding for two hours to visit a physician. The bruising on his ribs is just about healed. He barely remembers the conversation with his volunteer legal representative, the same brisk woman with frizzy hair barely contained in a ponytail who is dealing with half the people in here. No one is technically supposed to be held in the panopticon after they've been sentenced, but Norbu came in with bruised ribs and the pain medication he has to take would react negatively with whatever suppressant he has agreed to get pumped through him. With that only day away, he leans forward and smells his food, hoping that he'll attune his nose to smell better than it currently does.