Shards

Props to You, Rhineharts

Octavia does her best not to dwell on the interview. She's unsuccessful. More and more confuses and frustrates her.

Why did Marcy Hunnieset allow Ajax to act like that? Why did Mindy underreact to Ajax? Did no one in the comments defend Mindy? How does Mindy remember the promise but not the circumstances surrounding it? And with the story she gave, how could one person stop all the handlers without other hostages retaliating? How could that person be Ajax? Why would the Chromies try a group execution, like Mindy made it sound, then give up halfway through? Why would they be returning hostages if they planned murder? Could Octavia make it out of this alive?

Octavia has been trying to shake the thoughts out of her head for days. Shard's manipulation is hard to fight off. She longs for the TV to be on to distract her from the silence spinning the thoughts in her head or to be given a book like Mindy to stop up the flowing thoughts.

The night she finally finds some sleep, Shard wakes her with pokes to the face.

"Sweet-tart Sweet-hart," Shard calls her. "It's almost time for the movie to start."

Moaning, Octavia pushes his hand away. She turns over to face the opposite way. Shard pokes the back of her head. When this is unsuccessful, he takes to rocking her shoulder.

"C'mon. Ya gotta get up to watch the movie," Shard whines.

Octavia snaps around. "How old are you?" She shoves his hands off.

The sun had not come up yet. Shadows still blanket everything. But she can still see the grin in his eyes.

"Twenty-six." He taps his chin. His eyes dart to the side. "Maybe."

He climbs onto the bunk above.

The TV turns on. Acidic light fills the room. The volume remains unchanged from the last time it was on, but the sound rings her ears. A beep and a half finish.

Instead of Marcy Hunnieset's smooth, calm, and collected voice, Guy Cooney's deep voice always sounding edgy and pushy fills the room. Octavia doesn't care to look at his mutant face occupying the screen, so rolls back facing the wall and closes her eyes. She never understood how people found his glossy, piano-themed teeth, black eyes, and ghostly skin attractive. Maybe it was his swooshy black and white hair.

"Word has recently come in that more hostages, unknown how many or who, are due to arrive in the Outskirts within the next few hours once the latest terms have been met by the Government and Public Affairs Committee," Guy says. "It is unreleased what exactly the deal is but GPAC tells the citizens that the deal is nonthreatening to you, the hostages, Squad, and the Commi-"

His words are cut off.

A sigh escapes Octavia. She never watches the news when Guy is the head anchor. She only put up with him to get news on Mindy.

The room gets darker, and the voice changes to one she's unfamiliar with. It's distorted, going between abnormally high and a bit low. The pitch is consistent enough to sound like a female's, but it's impossible to tell.

Octavia peeks at the screen. There's no image - only black. The voice sends tingles down her neck. Turning away from it doesn't mute it.

"Truth is hard to hide forever," the voice says. "It hurts. I know. I really do. But ignorance is bliss for only so long. Why don't you ask more questions? Think for yourselves? Wonder about things? If I had, maybe I could've seen what was coming, and what's been happening. Many actually do. More than some think. Which they know is dangerous because what's done with that knowledge can change the world. We know, which is why we constantly do our best to change the world."

Light appears from the TV behind Octavia's head. Her eyes start to adjust.

"I believed as others did," the voice says. "But then, I learned the truth. And I want to change the world."

When her eyes adjust, she looks at the screen to see Guy Cooney. She grunts and rolls back over to try sleeping. But that voice pricks her ears. The words didn't make much sense, but whatever their meaning is haunts Octavia's head.

Guy goes on to discuss what just happened, explaining this was propaganda from the Chromies.

"I pity the young man briefly shown on screen," he says. "Whatever brainwashing they have done to him or torture they must've forced upon him to get him to say strange things. Hopefully, he can find his way out of there before things get worse for him."

Accompanying anchors wonder who the boy is and what they did to him to get him to say what he said.

Shard moans. Octavia hears him smack his forehead. "How? How and why?" he mutters.

~~~~~~~~

A knife sticks in the wall where Guy Cooney's head is projected.

Gen. Rhinehart's heavy breaths morph into screaming growls. She throws the table she was sitting at across the room, also sending the breakfast she and PM Rhinehart were getting ready to eat everywhere. Glass and porcelain shatter and scatter. Food stains the floor and wall.

Her jaw twitches. She tries speaking, but all that comes out are growls and screams.

PM Rhinehart dodges a knife she throws.

"What?" she screams through her teeth. "How?" Words mix around in her head and chest. Pressure builds in and tightens her muscles. Fire rages in her chest. Balled fists turn as white as Guy's face. "Who allowed-? How the hell did you allow that?" she manages to finally scream out.

A knife cuts through PM Rhinehart's sleeve.

He swallows, pulls his sleeve free, and loosens his collar. "I-" Breaths cut him off. "I...didn't...didn't know that was in there."

"Did you not preview it first?" Gen. Rhinehart shouts.

"The Chromies. Th-they wouldn't let us," PM Rhinehart says as he sinks to the ground. "And the Committee. They out-voted us who wanted to." He holds his shaking head in his hands.

"Dumb asses! A Committee of dumb asses!" Gen. Rhinehart smashes the table against the ground. Splinters spray wherever a piece of the table hits.

PM Rhinehart shakily gets on his feet. He makes his way over to his wife. He squeezes his wife's arm and slips a throwing knife from under her sleeve. Randomly chucking it with his own scream, he doesn't move as the knife bounces off the wall and zips past his head.

His grip tightens on his wife's arm. "We can't fail again," he says in a whisper.

Gen. Rhinehart crosses her arms across her body, hugging her hips. "We won't."

They stare at the knife where Guy's head replaced the brief clip before it. The clip buzzes in their heads: the person with short hair, back to the camera, anger and pain searing through the glimpse of her face's profile shown at the last second.

~~~~~

Author's note: ** Government and Public Affairs Committee = Political Committee

I will fix this name consistency in edits