Mirror, Mirror

Anja was inside the Facility, staring out the picture window in her Prime’s office and daydreaming. Her eyes skimmed past the blossoming cherry trees, their pink-tinted flowers waving delicately on the breeze, and they skimmed past the murky waters of the river. Instead, she focused on the patch of scrubby trees on the peninsula directly across from the Facility.

She had examined satellite maps of the surrounding landscape; hence, she knew that the Facility also rested on a peninsula, and both this peninsula and the other across paralleled one another in terrain. But that’s where the similarities ended. The other–the domain of the scroungers–was wild, overgrown, barbaric. This side of the river was said to be civilized, or so Primes thought so.

She was attempting to catch a glance of any scroungers mosing about. A slight wind rustled the spindly branches dotting the edge of the waters, but she could sense no other movement or flashes of color to indicate that scroungers might be there.

Evelyn was out there, somewhere. Maybe she was on that very peninsula, ambushed by scroungers, gutted, and her remains left for scavengers. The thought gave Anja a small pinprick of gratification. She winced as she jostled in her seat to get a better look. She glanced down at her hands, the source of the sharp pain; they both were tightly wound in nude-colored bandages. Ugly bruises, a deep shade of eggplant, crept from underneath the wrappings.

Anja was confused, as she had been every time she looked down at her hands over the course of the day. Where did these injuries come from? Her mind traveled backwards, but it could only arrive at waking up in her apartment this morning. She had the nagging idea that being confined in this little office was her penance for a previous indiscretion, but she couldn’t remember what.

“Anja, here, look.” Her Prime’s voice jolted her back to the present. Her Prime’s blonde hair grazed her shoulders and flounced as she whipped to see if Anja was paying attention and tapped the screen. “You enter the sales for the day here in this column.”

Yes, she was definitely being punished. The misty gap in her memory alluded to it.

“Enter it where?” Anja asked dumbly, straining her eyes past her Prime to make out the haze of numbers in the program, preferring to return to the pleasant fog of her imagination. She was sitting at a desk beside her Prime who was clicking away at the informational panel mounted on her desk. Clicking and clicking. Swiping and then clicking some more, her lips flapping along in time with the movement of her fingers.

Exasperation was evident in her Prime’s response. “Right here. Look, I just showed you.” She clicked the screen and continued to tap, and her mouth harping on the merits of logging in sales and goals and profits, before comparing those numbers to last week’s and calculating whether they met the monthly projections. Anja studied her Prime without taking much notice of what she was sermonizing on about.

Were there any similarities between the two of them? Sure, they had the same glittering brown eyes, the same wide cheekbones, the same narrow jawline. Anja imagined her Prime’s hair was probably gray by now but hidden under an expertly crafted blonde that matched her own. When her Prime looked at Anja, did she see a mirror reflection of herself?

“So, I was the one who streamlined this information to be accessible to everyone in the ETDF. Thomas is just thrilled with how much better organized everything is now. ” Her Prime rattled on more to herself than Anja.

No, Anja decided. Her Prime didn’t have the self-awareness to ever ponder these things.

She redirected all her frustration in one place–Evelyn. She probably wouldn’t be here without Evelyn acting out. Anja and Rivah both had covered for her, drawn attention to themselves, and look at them now. After all, the three of them had promised to always take care of one another. And what of Evelyn, only thinking of herself?

With the confusion already setting her sideways, mixing with the anger festering to a boil under the surface, Anja was feeling feisty and confrontational. She crossed her arms, flinching with the effort, and stared her Prime down. “So, how many years of service do I have left until I’m free?”

Her Prime startled and flapped around to gape at Anja, her numbers and statistics forgotten. “What do you mean? Is this to say that you don’t enjoy your calling?”

Anja took a deep breath. The words were already released from her mouth; the only thing she could do was plunge ahead.

“It’s fine, as far as callings go. But it’s not something I want to do forever. And” she motioned to the Foundation motto inscribed on her Prime’s coffee mug, her panel travel case, the plaque on her desk. “According to this, my service will eventually come to an end.”

Her Prime studied her for a moment and opened her mouth, before closing it again and frowning. Perhaps they were to have the reckoning that Anja had been provoking since she’d come to Gehenna.

Instead, her Prime returned to her informational panel, dismissing any thought of Anja or her freedom.

“Do you know the cost of keeping you alive? You are more in debt to the ETDF than when you were born.”