Too Hot, Too Cold, Too Wrong

The door was unlocked. They always left the doors unlocked in the Reassignment Blocks. There was nowhere to run, and they knew it.

She moved through the hallway quickly, head down, the way you learned to move when you didn’t want to be remembered. Three bowls sat on the table, steaming faintly in the grey light.

She tasted the first. Stone cold. The kind of ration they issued to workers who had missed their quota two weeks running. She had eaten meals like this for most of her childhood and the memory of it turned her stomach.

She tasted the second. Scalding, almost painfully rich, with that faint chemical sweetness that came with Tier One allocation. The kind of food that meant you were useful to them. Dangerously useful. She pushed it away.

The third bowl was neither. Warm, plain, sufficient. The kind of meal that asked nothing of you and promised nothing in return. She finished it without thinking, standing at the table, watching the window.

The chairs told the same story. The first was punishing, angular, the kind you found in processing rooms and waiting areas designed to discourage lingering. The second was almost obscenely comfortable, the kind of chair that wanted something from you. The third was simply a chair. She sat down and felt, to her surprise, very calm.

She did not mean to sleep. But the food settled in her stomach like sediment, and the chair held her without demand, and the room was quiet in a way that rooms had not been quiet for a very long time.

She was deeply asleep when they returned. They stood in the doorway for a moment, the three of them, looking at her.

“She found the third bowl,” said the first, without surprise.

“They always finds the third bowl,” said the second.

The third said nothing for a moment. Then: “Make a note. She’s ready for integration.”

They sat down at the table to wait. The doors stayed unlocked. There was nowhere to run, and they knew it.