The truck jerked to a stop. Hope grabbed a shovel. Charity grabbed a pick. The double doors flew open and the two of them hopped out the back, scanning the scarred blacktop. The scent of brimstone filled the noontime air and the sun opened the tap of sweat on both their foreheads.
“Here we go again.” Hope said.
“For the best, actually.” Charity replied.
“Never give up!”
“The best is yet to come!”
Veronica sat alone, even though two people occupied the room. Greta, her sister, the smart one, the compassionate one, the one whose existence the world was better for, the Nobel Prize winner, the darling of the downtrodden, the champion of a pummeled planet, lay in bed, wrapped in the tentacled embrace of machines that existed solely to prolong her inevitable death, waiting for Veronica to make a decision.
The doctor reentered the room. “We can’t wait much longer,” she said.
“Does it seem fair to you?” Veronica asked.
“Fair?”
“Yes, fair. Do you know who got the heart transplant?”
“Veronica, I think you need to—“
“She was a con artist. The one who got the heart. Spent years in prison. Did her time, made restitution, somehow the state found her rehabilitated. She got the heart. Not my sister. Not her, this one. The one you read about in the newsfeeds while you were still getting felt up by high school boys in the coat closet of the high school science lab.”
“How did you find out that inform—“
Veronica pushed her jacket aside, revealing the badge attached to her belt.
“Another one filled!”
“Another one tomorrow!”
“Why wait for tomorrow for what we can do today?”
“Excellent point! You truly are brilliant, Hope!”
“I bet you say that to all the boys, Charity!”
“So you think it’s fair that she got the heart while my sister didn’t? That’s what you’re saying?” The doctor started to reply, but stopped herself. “You believe in all that, do you? ‘Urgent priority?’ ‘Acceptable mismatch?’”
“I believe that there has to be a system. We need rules, otherwise it’s just capricious, isn’t it?”
“For once,” Veronica replied, “we agree.”
“So what do you want to—“
“I just don’t agree with your system.”
“It makes sense after all,” said Hope.
“Of course it does! Don’t question yourself!”
“We all question ourselves, Charity. It’s as natural as death.”
“And as pretty as a mud fence.”
“That’s why we’re here! Our purpose!”
“To pave the road!”
“The next person won’t have such a bumpy ride.”
“Too true too true!”
“It’s why they pay us the medium bucks!”
“Speak for yourself, Hope!”
Alone again, with Greta, Veronica White said her goodbyes.
“You were worth more than her,” she whispered. Leaning over, she kissed Greta on the forehead, fought back a sob, and continued, “I’ll fix this. I don’t care what they say. Some people are simply better than others, and those people deserve better.
“I’ll fix it, Greta. I promise.”
“Well, that’s it I guess. Back in the truck?”
“Back in the truck.”
“Great work today, Hope!”
“Thank you, Charity.”
“We serve a purpose, yes?”
“Yes.”
They pulled themselves back into the truck and closed the doors, taking a moment to wipe the sweat from their brows.
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“I wonder.”
“What!”
“Do we even know where this road goes?
THE DIRECTIVES: CLASSIFIED ARCHIVE
In the world of The Optimised Future, the State demands perfection. The population is neatly divided into ten Categories. At the top, the elite are rewarded with the suffocating, biological permanence of the Sacrament. At the bottom, the working classes are quietly recycled, their memories wiped to keep the machinery of Central running.
You are entering the shadows of that machinery.
These Directives are weekly dispatches from the unseen corners of the State. They are not the grand political struggles of the Bureau. They are intercepted transmissions from the periphery; micro-tragedies, analog rebellions, and the quiet, devastating cost of surviving in a world that has weaponized human biology.
New dispatches are unsealed every Saturday. Read them carefully. Central is always watching.
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