Freedom of Choice

Participants:

alia_icon.gif mayes_icon.gif

Also featuring:

maddox_icon.gif

Scene Title Freedom of Choice
Synopsis One final time, the Department of Evolved Affairs takes Alia's away.
Date February 5, 2011

Manhattan: A Clinic


The morning's been filled with news reports on the TV screen. Context is hard. Latest news from the Dome. Whatever the Dome might be. Television personality, Bradley Russo, acting as a spokesperson for the Department, for some reason. The freakish weather that America is being bombarded with, although this time, apparently it's normal. Terrorist attacks, Humanis First activity, protests in Washington. Alia could find out more about any of these things, but standard procedure dictates she remain negated now that she's back in her body and in the care of the clinic. Physiotherapy dragged her away for the morning, and then more sleep.

More sleep. Sleep being something she hasn't properly done in a long time. Dream.

She comes to, to the sound of traffic outside, the light coming in from the hallway, from the half-shut blinds against the twilight, and the mute TV showing the evening news version of the day. Of a boat on fire through the glass of the forcefield, fanning illumination on the river. "They have a touch of the dramatic," Georgia Mayes is saying, from where she rests next to the hospital bed. She's dressed in a woolen coat she hasn't bothered to take off, the rest of her clothing business-like, professional. In contrast to Alia's hospital gown.

And to the handcuffs sealed around her slim wrists, attached to the bed rails on either side of her like they do for dangerous criminals admitted to the emergency room. "Terrorists, on either side of the divide. I suppose it would be hard to be one with subtlety.

"For some," Mayes murmurs, toying with TV remote, eyes on the screen.

The young lady twitches, and makes no comment. Waking up is still rather unpleasant, even if it is in a good way. Alia, it would seem, is paying dearly for some of the time spent out of her shell. The TV hasn't been above a bare whisper since she was admited, mostly as she's been fighting off near constant migrane. She is, admittedly thankful, that Mayes is chosing to use a low tone a voice. She gives a rather half-hearted, even for her, tug on the cuff. Then she finally speaks, keeping her own tone soft. "Colin alright?"

"Colin," Mayes repeats, seemingly unsurprised that Alia's woken up, seemingly, before steering a look towards her. In the flesh, rather than through cameras, the woman's age shows itself in the lines in her face, the true white of her hair that's silvery and dense in its health. Loose skin on her neck, hands mottled, but her makeup is spotless and her presence likely as sharp as it was when she was younger. Maybe sharper. Honed. "That's so sweet of you to ask. I'll be sure to extend to him your concerns."

She flaps a hand, dismissive. "He's fine, naturally. He generally is. Did you two enjoy your time together?"

Alia closes her eyes, and doesn't offer any insight into THAT particular ghost of a memory, to the nightmares of a car wreck she does and doesn't remember. The poker face Alia has is well practiced. There is a few moments as Alia puts together something resembling words in her head, before she finally speaks.

"You, want something." She says it in a tone that is too matter of fact to be a question. She obviously has no illuson that Mayes has even a remote concern for her wellbeing past how it benefits either Mayes… or whatever purpose Mayes has pushing her. Yet, she's calm, seemingly at ease, relatively speaking. She purposefully settles herself so her wrists aren't tugging, so the chains are as loose as they can be.

"I do. You will be debriefed completely on what your task will be when you reach Delaware in— I believe a week they'll be equipped to receive you, and all the hardware will be properly placed." Perhaps Mayes has been waiting for some time for Alia to rouse, because she's standing from her seat now, smoothing out her coat. "A project in partnership with the Department of Defense, in preparation for the new penitentiary this March."

She picks up her clutch purse. "And we thought to ourselves, we could spend up to six million dollars on the security requirements to get this thing approved, or we could simply utilise you. Maintaining a comatose body is relatively inexpensive, and the harder you work, the more often you'll be allowed back into it. Jogging, drawing, and the like." Cigarettes are extracted, but, perhaps remembering how this is a medical facility, Mayes drops it back into her purse.

A vial is taken out instead, along with a syringe and needle encased in plastic.

Alia looks up at Mayes, then closes her eyes. "saying. Inmate, aslyum?" She winces. "no… offense. don't ever. EVER. want that again." She doesn't ask what's in the vial. She really doesn't want to know. "ever hurt? Hurt everywhere? because you -were-?" The girl however, sighs, and cuts off any snap Mayes might have. "Not like I have 'choice', really."

She then looks up at Mayes, but apparently can't find the words to say what she really has on her mind… the sharp look of someone who feels betrayed in some way, however, is not hard to read in her eyes, or her facial expression, before she closes her eyes, and leans back into the bed. Perhaps, sometimes, there's nothing worth saying.

The older woman pauses at the disjointed words, her mouth flat instead of coy smirks or even scowls. It's not guilt, in response to Alia's accusatory glare — impassive detachment. There's a pause, then the sound of a seal breaking as a cap twists. "Choice," she repeats, coarsely. "Well some of us did not choose to be mundane. New York City didn't choose to be blown to pieces. I didn't choose— " She cuts herself off there, a small, breathy sound, as if surprised at what she was close to saying. She punctures needle in through the seal, and squeezes a dose of whatever is within the glass container.

"You people take away choices in a world where those are already quite rare. So no, you have no choice, Miss Chavez. None of you people do. Not until the world is at a sufficient enough status quo, and as long as you people keep fucking breeding, that may as well be never."

Her hand grips clammy onto Alia's arm, and the needle sinks into her arm like a stinging bite. The chemical pumps in with an efficient depression of the plunger, and then gently removed again, leaving only a spot of blood in its wake.

Alia gives a soft whistle. She somehow fights the urge to wince, despite that 'sting' of a needle being incredibly painful right now to the woman who is still getting used to reality again. "Everyone choses, their reactions." She smiles a thin smile. "SLC not a monster makes." She shrugs, and leans back. NOt giving the satisfaction of panic over an unknown injection. Either she isn't worried, or she's chosing not to let her emotions control her.

"Doesn't it?"

It's not a question Mayes expects to have answered, on account of already knowing. The needle is capped, replaced back into plastic, vial closed, and all items stolen away back into a clutch purse that has sequins threaded through stiff fabric. The drug comes like a warm blanket, and Alia has enough wits about her to maybe be aware initially that it's some sort of psychoactive, the kind that will make sparks fly off the edges of objects upon every blink, that will promise her no sleep until it goes away, that twists the fabric of reality around until she's dizzy.

Mayes shuts off the TV on her way out, tossing the remote onto the end of her bed. "I'll see you in Delaware, I imagine," she says, as she wanders for out with a hand out to bat shut the door in a creaking close.

Alia gives an attempt to reach a call button, as she knows in a matter of moments she's going to be incoherent at best… the cuffs however are an effective restraint enough to limit her mobility as reality twists and turns around her. This… this is new for her, and her already hyper-sensitive senses are quick to overload her to the point that she isn't in a state to move other than reflexively.

The winter storm continues to savage the east coat like so much whitenoise on a screen, and the next time Alia is lucid enough to be passed from the hands of the medical staff and back into the Department's domain. The last memories she has of the waking world are the affable face of a young man — he could almost be Colin, but isn't — placing a hand down upon her shoulder, the morning light slanting in after a restless evening of hallucinations, higher thinking.

She's shoved, brutally, back into the digital abyss, power triggered out of her own grasp, and the familiar lockdown closes her up inside.


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