These Dreams of Truth

Punishment

I began my work. I wanted to have a copy of the document other than the original, one that I would be able to edit and make notes on. I also wanted a second copy that I could cut out pieces from and tape together separately. 

Since I didn't have access to a copy machine, I would have to make do with what I did have access to.

Sitting on the cold tile of my bathroom floor, I grabbed the pencil (which was mechanical, I made sure to grab this one as well as plenty of lead so I wouldn't have to worry about  my pencil breaking) and traced the doctor's own handwriting to the best of my abilities. It put a little extra lead on it, darkening her letters as much as I could. 

When I had finished this, I grabbed one of my sticks of charcoal. I took the original document and turned it face down against a fresh piece of paper. With the charcoal, I rubbed the back of the document into the paper with enough force to make an exceptional copy. 

I repeated this one more time and admired my handiwork. It was good enough and would have to do. I cut up the second copy and divided the account of my reaction from the description of the test from my name and test number. I figured that if I was able to snag more of these document, I would compare them this way and it would be easier to group them this way. 

But how? Just now realizing that this was a freak incident and would probably never happen again, I realized that the doctor who had lost this paper probably would have gone back and looked for it.

"Shit," I muttered sitting down against the wall, feeling defeated. What would I do now? She'll go back and find it missing from there, I will probably be questioned about and freak out inevitably. These people raised me, no matter how barbaric, and they would certainly notice me lying. Then what? Would they notice the supplies missing from the closet? Everything here was so well managed that I was sure they would at least question it.

What's worse, Doctor Jackson would probably mention it and I'd see him in about... I looked to the clock. Five minutes?!  How had I let time slip from me like this?!

I scrambled to clean up the mess all over the white tiles in front of me. The vent grate came off with a loud clatter, but I didn't have time to care. I shoved the papers in with haste, disregarding all care aside from making sure it didn't go so far that I wouldn't be able to reach it.

I shut the door and scrambled onto my bed, grabbing a book in the process. I opened it and attempted to calm my heart beat and heavy breathing.  I didn't dare look at the clock, just waited in silence. Once I began to hear soft foot steps in the hallway I made sure to double check that everything was hidden. The measured click click of each step crescendoed until I was able to separate the sounds enough to identify a second pair, probably Silvia's.    

They stopped abruptly before two knocks were tapped on the wood of my door, followed by said door swinging open. 

"Hello, Cynder," Silvia smiled as she unlocked a filing cabinet to take out an envelope for Doctor Jackson.

Doctor Jackson slid his chair from the desk to the side of my bed and accepted the envelope from Silvia. "Afternoon," he nodded.  He opened his laptop and typed a few things while Silvia left and returned to the room wheeling in a cart silently. It had a peculiar looking machine  on top of it, one with wires going everywhere. 

It was a rectangular box about three inches tall and a foot long.  The two longest wires were attached to two strips of velcro. I recognized it all too well: a lie detector.

He smiled with false sympathy at my discomfort. "Your right hand, Cynder," he asked, holding out his own hand. I adjusted myself so that my legs were dangling from the edge of my bed and could rest my hand on the cart comfortably. He delicately wrapped the velcro strips around my index and ring fingers and set my hand next to the machine.