“Okay, so we’re going to start with a few basic diagnostic questions, just to ensure the equipment is working properly. The answer is obvious, so don’t bother lying. Again, this is just for testing purposes.”
“Understood.”
“Good. First question: Is my hair brown?”
“Technically speaking, yes. The biological pigment responsible for body coloration is only capable of creating shades of a limited number of hues in mammals, which combined create the overall color of your skin and hair. We simply lack the full range of colors necessary to create true black, for the same reason we can’t have naturally green or blue hair. So, really, your hair is just a very dark brown.”
The detective running the investigation gave the teenager hooked up to the machine in front of him a suitably scathing look, which she acknowledged with a careless shrug. She absentmindedly picked at the blood underneath her fingernails; there was only so much that could be scrubbed off in a public restroom sink. Her fingerless gloves and signature red shoes had been confiscated for evidence, but she had been left with her own black clothes for the moment. She had refused to change with a female officer in the room, and none of the authorities were particularly keen on leaving her alone for any period of time. The social worker shivered unconsciously, but was ignored by both parties.
“Fine, then. We’ll start with something less ambiguous. Have you been attending classes at Robert P. Jameson High School in recent months?”
“Yes.” The machine continued its calm workings, as it should.
“Thank you. Assuming the label on this can is accurate,” he sent her a warning glance, “does it contain store-brand orange soda?”
“No.”
“Good. Now, I want you to lie for these next couple questions. Is my watch on my right wrist?”
“No.” The machine twitched violently, scribbled madly for a quick second, and then faded back into calmness.
“Okay. Assuming I am neither ambidextrous nor using my off-hand, am I left-handed?”
“Yes.” Again, the machine indicated a deception before quickly reverting to its calm state.
“Good. That concludes the preliminary questions. Now on to the real thing.” He leaned forward, his expression stern as he made direct eye contact. “Is your name Aod Sophee Pern?”
A nod. “Yes.” The machine made no change in its course, but he narrowed his eyes anyway.
“Yet there are no records anywhere of anyone under that name ever existing. Care to tell me how that’s possible, if you haven’t managed to trick the machine?”
Another shrug. “A polygraph is not technically an accurate lie detector test. It doesn’t measure whether I am speaking the truth; it only measures whether I am exhibiting stress in relation to a given question. In some cases, stress may be an indication that the subject is lying, but it may be the result of something else entirely, such as might be felt by a person who has no memory of an incident trying to describe it. It also cannot tell whether a response is truthful in the mind of the subject alone versus your pithy standards of law and fact. As far as I am concerned, that is my name. I do not perceive myself as lying, nor do I feel stress in relation to the question, therefore the machine detects it as a truth.”
He sighed heavily, straightening up in his chair again. “Fine, then. Is your legal name, according to your birth certificate, and as by my definitions of fact, Aod Sophee Pern?”
“No.”
“What is your name, under those same definitions?”
“Under your definitions? I don’t have a name. Which is why I ignore said definitions when I say, this is my name.” No change in the reading.
He raised his eyebrows. “Interesting. Care to tell me why you wouldn’t have a legal name?”
“No.”
“Fine. Where is your family, Ms. Pern?”
The machine hissed as it immediately picked up speed and intensity. She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. The machine gradually slowed back down again. When it had finally returned to its normal course, she opened her eyes and met his gaze squarely. “I assume they are underground, somewhere. They died a long time ago.”
“You assume?”
“Yes, I assume. I have no memories of them after their deaths; if there were funerals, I was not in attendance.”
“I see. I am sorry. When did this occur?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“I wasn’t exactly counting the days, Detective Hammond. I saw my family die, I went through Tough Shit, I went through some other tough shit, and then I found myself enrolling at Jameson High School. I have no idea how long either of the particularly shitty portions of my existence lasted, so I can’t tell you exactly how long ago my life before ended.” Her grey eyes flashed, and the machine jumped, but no significant amount of stress or deception was indicated.
“I… see. I suppose I shouldn’t even bother trying to convince you to tell me what sort of ‘tough shit’ you experienced.”
“Correct.”
He sighed again. “I’m going to have to ask eventually, you know.”
“I know. And every time you do, I will refuse to give you an answer.”
The social worker finally decided to speak up. Softly, “You know, you can tell us anything. We’re here to help you.”
A snort. “You may think you are, but here’s the truth of the matter. The detective is here to figure out how I managed to take down a school shooter and why I am not as traumatized by that event as standard definitions of sanity dictate I should be. He’s here to make sure I am not a danger to myself or those around me. You’re here because I am an unregistered minor, and the law dictates that I may not be alone while I am being questioned.”
She tucked a strand of hair that had fallen from ponytail behind her ear. “When this is over, assuming I am not sent to prison or a psych ward for the dangerously insane, you are going to ship me off to a government facility for lost children or to some foster family, either of which I will promptly disappear from with what you will surely find to be a surprising amount of ease. If I get sent to a psych ward, disappearing will be only slightly more difficult. If I get sent to prison, I will wait to escape until I can find a way to do so without killing anyone who still has a conscience, but I will eventually disappear. No matter how this ends, you will not have helped me in the slightest. As for my being able to tell you anything, you are dead wrong. And no, nothing you can say to me will convince me otherwise. As Forty-seven said, this situation is fixed; I know all possible outcomes.”
Both of the adults blinked, struggling to absorb everything the girl had just said. She leaned casually against the backrest, waiting patiently. The machine continued its normal course.
It was the detective who finally broke the silence. “Ahh… Forty-seven?”
A flippant hand wave. “Hitman, a 2007 action movie based off a video game. Bit bland, with a weak plot and flat characters, but it’s a decent watch and the quote fit, anyway. Moving on.”
He cleared his throat. “Right. Let’s… get to it, then. How did you manage to take down the shooter?”
“The shooter in question was running on unchecked anger and grief. Anyone with any basic combat training will tell you that when you get angry, you make stupid mistakes. He was firing wildly; I just made myself a difficult target until I was close enough to relieve him of his weapon.”
“You cut his hand off and slit his throat! That’s– That is far beyond just disarming him!” The machine twitched but did not indicate any significant reaction.
She responded quietly, without vehemence but with conviction. “He had killed defenseless people, and was going to try to kill more. He needed to be stopped, quickly. I was capable of stopping him, and I did what was necessary. If I had focused on just disarming him, I would not have survived long enough to do so. Had I waited in the classroom with my peers until the police arrived, he would have had time to kill more, and your people would have shot him dead anyway. The only difference between that scenario and what occurred, is that he was killed by a student instead of a law enforcer, and the deed was not done at a distance using bullets. That is all.” The machine remained steady.
“You– You can’t know that! He could– He could have been talked down! He could have been saved–”
“Sure. He might have been saved. But how many more people were saved in his death?”
“You– What kind of child are you?”
“My childhood ended a long time ago, Detective. I told you, I’ve been through Tough Shit. It changed me, in ways you cannot comprehend. I enrolled at Jameson High School to try and remember what it felt like to be ‘normal’. Not to change back; that’s impossible. Just to remember. I did not harm anyone in that school in the months leading up to this incident, nor did I harm anyone during the incident aside from the shooter, whom I harmed to prevent further harm. Whether or not I took it too far is beside the point. You are questioning me to figure out if I am dangerous. Here is the truth of the matter.”
She leaned forward as he had at the beginning, making eye contact and mentally forcing him to hold it. “Yes, I am dangerous. But I am only dangerous in the presence of other dangers.” She released him from whatever spell she had cast, and settled back into her chair again.
He shuddered and clutched his pen tightly. After several false starts, he managed to choke out a question. “When… was the last time you… harmed someone?” Not if; everyone in the room knew he needn’t bother with that.
The corners of her mouth tugged downward for a moment as her chin rose. “Spring, the year before. Can’t tell you what day, or even what month. He tried to attack a woman. I castrated him. He might have died from blood loss, or he might have made it to a hospital. I didn’t stay to watch.” The words slipped forth with an unsettling ease. The machine continued its normal course.
He swallowed. Years of experience, hundreds of remembered criminals passed through his mind. He had questioned plenty of types; common thugs, vengeful lovers, vigilantes, people who were high or drunk or crazy. But none who completely wrote them off as she did. Not like this. Not someone apparently sane, who fully understood the depths of her actions, yet could easily shrug when forced to look directly at them. Never a child. He rose unsteadily from his chair and turned his back to her. In a burst of pent up energy, he kicked his chair over. He stumbled over to the mirror window and rested his forehead against the glass, gripping the frame with white knuckles. She waited.
Finally, “How many?”
“How many what?”
“How many people have you harmed?”
“Harmed? I don’t know. A lot. In almost every case, someone’s survival depended on it.”
“And… How many have you killed?”
“A lot. Not everyone I harm ends up dead, but most of them do. I don’t enjoy killing, but I am much better at it than I am at causing limited damage.”
“You said… ‘in almost every case’. What were the cases where it wasn’t for the sake of protecting someone?”
“It was one instance, though a lot of people were involved. Probably about a quarter of my total kill count is from that alone. In that instance, I ended my Tough Shit, and the Tough Shit of all the other children who were being subjected to it. When I killed those people, even then, I saved more lives than I took. But in that instance, I wasn’t actually thinking about protecting anyone; it was purely based on vengeance. And I still believe they deserved it.” The machine increased intensity, but remained at a slow, constant speed.
“What–” He hitched, but steadied himself and continued. “What did they do to deserve it?”
“Tough Shit.”
“What is Tough Shit?” He spun around to face her again.
The machine went haywire. She curled her hands into fists and started shaking. When she opened them and began tearing off the straps and cords, her fingertips were bloody again. She dropped the machine’s connections as soon as they were removed, leaving them hanging off the edge of the table, and rose to her feet. The detective and the social worker both flinched, though it was not the detective who backed nervously against a wall.
Her voice wavered for the first time since she had been brought in, a hint of sorrow showing in her eyes. “I told you, Detective. I can’t answer that question.”
She stepped over to the corner behind the door and slid down the wall to a sitting position. She closed her eyes, breathing tremulously. When she opened them, her face was blank again. She rubbed one of her wrists absentmindedly, smearing a wet red cuff into existence. The hazy words that came forth next weren’t directed at anyone in particular. “Did you know that the best way to test a child’s obedience is to light him on fire and order him not to scream?”
Procrastinating In Public 