Justification

"We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence . . . on pain of liquidation" -- George Bernard Shaw

Our chapter of the Center for Justification was neither inspiring nor dramatic: an office stuck between many in a large government building. I expected more. I think I wanted a dark corridor, with infrequent, flickering lights pointed at the ceiling. There should have been a great wooden door at the end with a brass knocker requiring two hands to lift it enough to get any sound out of the metal. Instead, I get a small reception room, the latest copy of Time and two hundred others that were not as recent on the table beside me; no corridor, no great wooden door, no ceremony to speak of, which is also what I expected. The perfunctory grin of the receptionist, who watched me from her little chair, behind her little desk, lacked the fanfare or overdone serious that I felt the event called for. She was about my age with eyes lacking compassion or pity, simply courtesy and indifference resided there. So when she chirped that the committee was ready to see me, I refused to acknowledge her.

"Mr. Foster, did you hear me? The committee will see you now." she repeated.

I twisted the magazine slightly, looking away from her, behind and to the right, like something very important had just manifested itself there. I stared at a metal cabinet, hoping it might turn into something else, something that might eat the secretary and give me an excuse to run away. It did not.

"I ... I don't think I'm ready. If I could have another couple of days I know..."

The receptionist interrupted me, which I did not mind, as I was not sure what I would know in a couple of days, anyway.

"Now Mr. Foster, everyone is nervous before their interview. Do I have to grab you by the ear and drag you in?" She smiled. Then laughed. A plain smile followed by an equally plain laugh. She was obviously amused, but I failed to see the humour. Perhaps she used the line with all the other people who sat in that chair and were unwilling to get out of it. I brought my eyes back to hers. She was only doing her job. I hated her for it.

But I wanted to be a good citizen, a Justified citizen, so I stood, placing the magazine facedown and open on the table, like I was going to read about the latest UN peace-keeping mission in Southern Italy when I came out. If I came out. I straightened my pants and my tie, felt the metal teeth of my fly with my forefinger -- I always make sure my zipper is up and secure -- grimaced as I could think of nothing better to do, then proceeded to the wood and frosted glass door the young lady pointed to. Crossing the room, I reached for the index cards in my coat pocket. I found them, which meant I might actually have something to say for myself.

"Good luck," she beamed, certainly happy to be rid of me.

"Thanks," I uttered, opening the door.

***

A single chair waited for me in the middle of the room. Three spotlights focused on the chair and provided the only light; the rest was dark, anonymous. This was more like it. If the chair hadn't looked so comfortable, or the table beside it, with its glass of clear water, so hospitable I might have considered the scene dramatic enough. A chalkboard and a metal receptacle sat to the left of the chair. The chalkboard, I guessed, must have been for those people who made their Justification with diagrams - please, no skill testing questions - but I had no idea what the pail was for. I wondered if we were allowed to bring slides. A hand pushed me into the room. "Go on, Mr. Foster." The secretary closed the door.

I could not see the committee beyond the lights, but I could hear the shuffling of paper, faint echoes of a feedback whine as hands covered microphones and the hushed whispers of a number of people. I did my best not squirm while they finished preparing. It was hard. I must have crossed and uncrossed my legs half a dozen times before deciding to review my own notes. As I contorted my coat to better access my index cards, a voice, deep, menacing and obviously electronically altered, cut in over hidden speakers.

"Name?"

My stomach lurched at the sound. My Justification had begun, the next several hours would be spent in defense of my existence. Poorly done, my next home would be somewhere in the wilds of Canada, virtually brain dead, operating a combine or seeding thousands of acres with genetically-enhanced okra. I discovered the use for the metal bucket. I threw up. The nausea shortly dissipated enough for me to answer.

"Foster. Gary Foster." They must have known that much. It was immediately too hot, my mouth too dry. I took a drink from the glass beside me.

"Full name, please. For the record."

"Gary Owen Foster." I gripped the water in both hands, drank again.

"Mr. Foster, this is only the preliminary interview. We will meet one week from today for your final interview. It will be your thirtieth birthday, will it not?"

"Yes sir." The way he said final sent another cascade of fear through my bowels. I had to go to the bathroom.

"Good." I noticed a familiar cadence in the voice, a tone I had heard before but I attributed this to the fact that all ominous, electronic voices sound fairly similar. Not like it mattered. Not like the familiarity kept me from being scared out of my mind.

"Address?"

"Twenty-two forty-one, Highglen Crescent, South."

"Marital Status?"

"Single." Don't these people have all this on record?

"Hmmm. . ."

"Is that bad?" The glass in my hand started to shake visibly, so I took one more sip, wiped a bead of sweat from my brow, and returned the glass to the table.

"Occupation?"

"I landscape, sir. That is to say, I have my own landscaping company. I have a business card here if you're interested." I pulled out my wallet, opened it -- "No, thank you, Mr. Foster. This is not a networking party," one of them said -- and closed it just as quickly.

And so the interview went. The questions were tedious: about my parents, my education, and so on. All of the answers they could have gotten from a file or two. They did ask me one question that stood out.

"Do you trust the government?" It seemed innocuous, thrown in as filler, a bridge to get from my seemingly valueless university degree to my failed attempts to hold down jobs until I started my own company. The question was the only one that inquired after my opinion. I wasn't sure of the answer. That's not entirely true. I was sure of the answer I would give. Yes. Unqualified and obedient. Did I believe it, however? My father had preached the virtues of being a citizen of the United Americas since I was a kid. "We may not understand everything they do, but it's for the greater good," he would always tell me when some country had to be invaded, or when our rations had to be reduced for three weeks. At six years of age, my stomach didn't believe the "greater good" should bring on such pains, hunger or otherwise. Still, as a matter of course, you never tell a government official you don't trust the government who puts the food on his or her table.

"Yes." I squeaked out, trying to sound authoritative, but it was hardly audible. I felt strangely weak -- exhausted. I began struggling to keep my eyes open, nodding spasmodically when I kept them closed too long. The room twisted, spun. I think I answered one or two more questions, although I can't remember what they were. I was too tired.

Then they thanked me for coming and reconfirmed my appointment in a week. Huh? "That's it?" I asked.

"Yes." The knowledge that my ordeal was at an end, infused me with new energy. It was misused immediately by my body. I felt cheated somehow. This was the kind of Justification I was worth? My heart sank. I was Hive-bound. I knew it.

"Would you like to hear more about landscaping?" I asked, desperate to impart some sense of my own value to them.

"Thank you, but no. We are acquainted with your work." The voice was loud, but not angry.

"Good-bye, Mr. Foster."

***

I stumbled out of the interrogation room, confused, struggling to jam my stupid, useless index cards into my pocket. They didn't seem to fit anymore.

The secretary, one Francine Corbiel as her nameplate described, held a small square of white cake before her, a fleck of icing caught on her upper lip. What are you doing? I wondered indignantly as the woman continued to chew the sweet without modesty, I have a weeks worth of state-rations left in the house, facing what may be my last days of freedom, and she eats cake right in front of me. I'm doomed. It's probably even homemade. "Oh, Mr. Foster. I didn't expect you back so soon." She muttered around a mouthful of food.

"Really? Why's that?" I asked innocently enough. What do you mean so soon?

She swallowed quickly and wiped her face before replying, as if she just then realized where she was and what her job happened to be. "Most interviews last much longer, much longer." She said apologetically, the last to herself, almost in disbelief, like we shouldn't be having this conversation yet, like she was suppose to have time to finish her cake without her lauding her status over me, however unintentional. But still I heard it. Her cake became very important at that moment, and she refused to look at me. No, they have a week to decide. Don't you condemn me already.

I wanted to shout at her, make her comprehend my confusion and the dread that flashed news highlights through my mind of giant concrete hives, hallucination-inducing neuro-collars, and bar codes on the top of bald scalps.

Instead, I chuckled as confidently as I could, "Perhaps I was just that good." I ignored her eating as if I was used to seeing such things and fully expecting to join her.

She laughed a little, but honestly. "That must be it." Her eyes were hinting at wetness when she brought them back to me. "We should schedule your next appointment then."

"Sure." I was going to lose it. I wanted to be Justified.

"So a week from today . . . What time?" Her voice broke slightly. I could see my fate in the way she tilted her head to the right, eyes big and sorry. She even held out the small bite of white icing that still remained of her snack. A snack of all things.

"Morning, early if you've got space. Might as well get it over with quickly." What were a few extra hours to me? Francine as much as told me where I would be living one week from this moment.

"We open at eight-thirty. How's that?"

"Eight-thirty it is. Oh, and Mrs. Corbiel,"

"Francine."

"Francine, then, What happens now?" I had no right to ask, and she owed me no response save indignation, but I did it anyway.

"Mr. Foster you know I can't tell you. I have a husband to think about. I'm not ready to be a criminal of the State, or dead. Questions like that are best left to the Causeless."

"I know. Thanks for being a good citizen. And thanks for your honesty."

"I didn't really say anything." She answered.

"No, you didn't," I replied and left. I had to let her know that I got it, that I knew. Even though I didn't know what I should do for the next week, I understood her meaning. I hated knowing. I hated the thought of an anonymous pack of bureaucrats shaving my head and tattooing my identity there for all to see. I hated the thought of no longer having my own thoughts once the neuro-collar was fastened snugly around my neck. But I thanked her.

Back on the mezzanine of government offices and shopping kiosks, I became immediately disoriented. Or rather, I had too much on my mind to care exactly where I was, so I wandered off toward some staircase, which would eventually lead to some street, which would eventually lead to home -- home for the next week at least.

Residual nausea kept me company for quite a long time, although I managed to keep the rest of breakfast down. I couldn't get my final semester of high school out of my head. It rolled around with my future, a federally-approved crop zombie. Everyone gets the standard Justification seminars in high school: a week of propaganda and promises about the brilliant life of a Justified citizen. Not to mention fearful, soap-box rantings about becoming Reclaimed -- once that neuro- collar goes on, all your thoughts are filtered for your new role as a drone, a worker bee. "You are the greater good," the announcer assured us. Back then I was all for it. Not having to think about anything, about getting out of bed, about writing exams, about that particular flavor of high school despair so big you can barely swallow around the lump it leaves in your throat. Reclamation truly was the path of least resistance. But that was back in high school. Looming before me now, I found it less than appealing

Then there were the Causeless. They didn't bother getting Justified. They just disappeared as best they could. In the beginning, when the Centers first opened, all they cared about was survival, finding something to eat from a sympathetic friend. They were shot if found. They still are. But then someone organized them, funded them, put guns in their hands and ideas in their heads. It turned into an underground movement of anarchy and terrorism -- so the seminar said. I wasn't sure. Urban myth surrounded the group, obscuring them in a shroud of conspiracies and underdog heroism. Which was right -- the government drivel or the playground gossip?

When I was twenty, helping my Dad wash the car because I had nothing better to do that Saturday, I asked him about his Justification. His answer was simple.

"Do you love me, son?"

"Yah, Of course."

"Then why do you want to see them put a bullet in my brain." Dad returned to wiping the hood with a chamois, calm, as if I had only asked about the weather. I could hardly breathe, however, and I had chills for the next three hours, but I didn't press him about his answer and I never brought it up with anyone again. That made the question of who was right, the government or the anarchists moot. Bullets and brains were very real and highly incompatible. Justification prevented them from ever meeting.

We talked about Justification a lot, though, me and my dad. I needed to understand and he needed to prepare me for my time as best he could without actually telling me what it was all about. So he did his best to make me a good citizen.

When I was five, he put me on his knee and asked me if I liked to eat. I told him yes, then he asked me what sort of things I liked to eat. I must have rambled off two dozen different dishes and sweets.

Imagine what it would be like if you could never eat those things again.

I wouldn't like that, Daddy.

Would it make you mad?

Oh, yes. I think so.

Well, when your Grandfather was a little younger than me, that's exactly what happened. Except most people didn't have anything to eat. It made them very mad.

Why didn't they have anything to eat?

The weather changed, hardly any rain fell for three years, and a lot of the plants and animals we eat died. People who had lots of money could still eat. They spent a lot of money on a steak or a sandwich, but they ate. This angered those people without money very much. They began to break things, the rich people's things, to show how mad they were. The newspapers called it the "Ration Riots".

Part of my innocence died the day he shared that first glimpse of our history with me. I often wonder if he might have told me the truth about the Justification, had he lived.

I asked what happened then? And he told me what happened. My father told me that twenty million people, most of them poor, died in the United States alone, another 40 million worldwide. I didn't understand the numbers, but I knew it was wrong. I knew about death even then. After the riots, the United States took Canada and South America. Nobody stopped them. Dad said nobody could or really cared. People still starved to death -- that's how I knew -- I had seen pictures of trucks loading up bodies, loading up families from their homes where they had prayed for help and died waiting. "A good citizen helps." the caption of one had said; one of the truck drivers was waving into the camera.

President John Kennedy Jr. said that Canada and South America had too many resources going to waste behind their borders. "It was time we became a global village in both word and deed." When the government of the newly formed United Americas realized they had the land, but not the labor force to work it, they introduced Justification. People were still starving, so you had to justify why you should be permitted to eat while others go hungry. Hundreds of thousands of people failed the first few years and they were sent to the Hives to work the collective farms they sat on. Eventually, almost no one starved to death.

"Excuse me. You dropped this back there." A hand on my elbow and heavy perfume. The first impressions of her were physical. The scent was so strong; I nearly vomited as I turned toward the voice.

"What?"

"You dropped this back there." She was pretty, in an ordinary sort of way, and smiled good-naturedly at me, but her eyes were deep set and darkly ringed. She could have used some sleep. I don't usually notice such things, I thought, but noticed them anyway.

"Uh, thanks." I took a piece of cardstock from her, assuming it was one of my index cards escaped from my jacket pocket.

"No problem." She held her head up, even beamed a bit in her smile, but it seemed with titanic effort. The slump of her shoulders spoke of fatigue behind her good intentions.

"I don't usually do this, but can I buy you a coffee. You look like you could use it."

"No thanks."

"One good turn . . ." No, really, I never do this. For some reason I felt compelled to ask.

"I'm actually late for an appointment, but thanks."

"Oh," Some days I can be quite charming and articulate. My Justification day was not one of them. I would be zombified for no other reason than nerves.

As she was leaving, the pretty, if not regular, face turned back to me, still smiling, "I found your arguments very convincing. You should read them again."

She'd read what I could fit of my life on a three by five piece of card stock. It should have taken her all of a minute. I examined my index card again, wondering what puffed up bit of prose she was referring to. Probably the "necessity of landscaping in our digital world" argument I had spent two weeks writing, but never properly getting beyond "because".

Instead, a blue hand-written note effaced the card, which I realized was too white to be one of mine. Actually, it was but a single word, "Sparky".

Sparky. In his less serious moments, my father would call me that. But he was dead, five years dead, killed in the Canadian Rebellion. We both served: I fought front lines, he played guard to a supplies convoy. But only I came back. My mother moved in with her sister in Deleware and I had to get through his loss on my own.

I scanned the street for the messenger, but she blended too quickly with the crowd. I stood there, watching for a while, ready to puke at a moment's notice, more confused than ever. Nobody stepped forward. Perhaps the note had come from a friend to serve as inspiration or as an emotional anchor for the next week, in case I lost focus. It was plausible enough, so I went home. Still, what an awful day.

I stepped through the door of my condo just as the dinner klaxon sounded. The sounds in the street soon faded as most everyone in my sector of the city rushed inside to their rehydrators. I took my time pulling off my shoes and finding some empty floorspace for my coat; I had a thirty minutes before the standard issue black box attached, as it was in every condo on the block, to the underside of the kitchen cupboards stopped working until breakfast. I grabbed a nondescript state-ration out of the refrigerator, popped it in the unit, then punched the start button harder than I should have and listened to it whir.

I remember thinking how greasy my hair felt as I ran my fingers through it, waiting the five minutes for supper. The rehydrator beeped its readiness and I could smell the tang of state-made applesauce upon opening the door and pulling out my meal. Pork chops again, I sighed.

Then the world tilted forcefully.

Hand over my mouth, flashlight in my eyes: in this manner, I was reintroduced to my father. He had grabbed me by the wrist and pinned me to the floor. My ear felt like it was on fire, something from my hot ration having splashed there. I could still smell applesauce.

"Do you remember me?" He put the flashlight down by my head so I could see him better. What I could see was how old he had become, how his hands, thinner than I remember, had wrinkled, like paper, crumpled and discarded. Then he let go of my mouth when I nodded my recognition.

"You're dead." What else was I suppose to say?

"So I keep hearing." He smiled, creasing his face even more. Canada, or wherever he lived, had not been kind to him. He reached past my face and picked a pork chop up from the ground, tearing the meat from the bone with his teeth.

"We buried you." My brain seemed oddly rational about the presence of the dead in my kitchen. At the time, I was more concerned with the fact that he was eating my ration.

"I don't know who you buried, but it wasn't me," He tore off another hunk of meat, got off me, offered me his hand after dropping the bone. I took his hand and with his help, stood up. "I defected." he finished.

"What? Communism died with Castro and Lao Ping." I shot back at him with the petulance of a child, "Where could you defect to?"

"I became one of the Causeless." His calmness unnerved me. Like all I could ever ask amounted to little more than current weather patterns. His words made no sense to me. My stomach growled.

"I'm surprised your mother never told you," he went on. We both sat down as his words wormed into my brain. Impossible.

"She knew?" I had never really been close to my mother. She gave birth to me and figured that was all I required of her. She had her fitness clubs and career functions. I had dad. He couldn't really be sitting in front of me.

"Sure. So did the Citizen's Army. I sent them a letter. I told them to erase my files and that I wouldn't be coming home. I saw the way most of those poor Canadians live. Being Reclaimed is probably the best thing that could happen to them. I had to do something for them. And I couldn't do it Justified. You were old enough to get by without me, you didn't need me to hold your hand anymore."

That didn't explain enough, but what else could I ask him. I thought of one thing.

"Why did you come back?" Answer that. I considered the potatoes and gravy still sitting in their dish. I retreived them and a fork while my father constructed his answer.

"My sources inform me you may not be Justified. I came to offer an alternative."

"Causeless? I don't think so. You always told me being a Justified citizen was the best -- regular meals instead of state-rations, and even a choice of what to eat. Not to mention the freedom of your own thoughts."

"You don't know freedom, Sparky. Justified makes you someone else's puppet. You just get to choose the words they shove up your ass. Freedom is not knowing where your next meal comes from, and finding it. Speaking of which -- got any more rations, boy?"

I ignored his question -- not because of the legal implications of giving food to a Causeless, but because this was my dead father, who had already eaten my pork chop, and now got excited about eating more foodstuffs that did not belong to him. I remembered him practically beaming every time we had a roast or fresh salmon on the table, provided by our Justified status.

"What was your Justification like?" He could tell me that now. Maybe, somewhere in his answer I could find some reason for what was happening.

"I can't tell you that. So are you gonna whip us up another ration before the supper period ends?"

"I haven't reached your conclusions, Dad. I need to know for myself. You always told me to be a good Citizen. Well, I'm listening now. Was it so awful, so traumatic, that you could only come to terms with it twenty-five years later? You're Causeless now. What possible loyalties could you have to the United Americas? Tell me."

"I can't," he shouted back, "I can't!"

A loud, speaker-enhanced voice broke up our conversation.

"Jon Foster, we know you're in there. This is Corporal MacKenzie of the Citizen's Army. Come out, hands in the air."

Without so much as an uh-oh, dad latched onto my wrist, pulled me to the back door, and gave it a kick. The man trying to pick the lock, I suspect from the Citizen's Army, got the doorknob right in the face, we probably broke his nose by the amount of blood covering his cheeks.

We ran. And kept running until we reached a small industrial park near my neighborhood. We ducked down an alley, because that's what you do down alleys. Footsteps and random gunfire followed us. The alley narrowed and was riddled with piles of garbage, mostly boxes and other detritus that tends to blow into drifts; most of the bullets ended up in egg cartons and plastic wrappers. Without warning, the alley ended abruptly in a brick wall inset with a door. A locked one.

We scrambled to find a makeshift battering ram.

Automatic rifles, of a caliber that could easily go through the wall behind us, approached cautiously. We stopped looking for a way out.

"Step aside, sir." My father held onto my hand. He would not let it go. I would not let him go, either.

"Don't let go, Gary."

"I won't. I won't."

Please, Gary, don't"

"I won't"

How could I let go? How could I step away? But as a voice screamed these questions at me, cried against my obedience, I did let go, I did step away. All I wanted to be was a good citizen. He had taught me that. Even as I promised to hold on forever, my body betrayed me and I stood aside as two soldiers marched past and pushed my dad to his knees. One carried a heavy rifle, the other, clearly the leader of the division, clutched a luminescent scanner plate. The corporal put my father's hand to the plate. It buzzed loudly, blinked red.

The man began to recite the same rote he had likely conferred a hundred times before.

"Causeless 1011-682, you are hereby charged with, and found guilty of, breaking the United Americas' third amendment of Citizenship . . ."

I saw the corporal's weapon then, his sidearm, as the other soldier placed his gun on the back of dad's neck. I had held on there when I was a kid and we played "horsy" or "monkey on my back". I saw both guns. One condemnation, one salvation. I waited corpse-still. If I breathed even, I didn't know it.

The corporal concluded, ". . . are sentenced to death. Do you have any last words?" I remember jumping towards his gun. I swear I remember it, or at the very least imagined it so vividly I believed I had the memory.

No, I leapt for the gun. I was sure I touched the hilt, but it fell away, then shattered like glass. And then it ended and I knew only darkness for a long time.

***

Heat woke me, a soft, blanketing warmth rested against my skin. I felt pinpricks of sweat popping on my forehead, and my shirt clung to my lower back and underarms. I was sweat-soaked and reclining in a chair. I must have been shot and someone, probably the corporal, had brought me to the hospital.

What had they done with my dad? I asked myself, so full of self-delusion, I believed I would get an answer, would find him yet alive. I let myself remember his words and his face, his aging fingers, knuckles beginning to knot and thicken, desperately grasping mine at the end. I had not heard the shots, nor did I see the blood explode incurably from the front of his throat, but I knew he was gone. Again.

I also let my heart shatter and fall into the soles of my feet. I wondered disjunctively why I was sitting in a chair and not lying on a bed.

My eyes refused to focus properly, a blur of lights pointed down at me in what I thought must be an operating theater. I could make out figures moving into the shadows. To my left sat a cart full of green and blue lights, knobs, and square corners. On a small hook hung what appeared to be a neuro-collar. My mind couldn't be sure. My eyes were even less certain.

Francine stepped into the light, three lights I could tell then, and sat next to me on stool. Her shoes crunched on broken glass. I had the sudden sensation of delivery. And of loss and betrayal. She had no preamble for why I was still at the Center, just honesty, the same, unfortunate kind I had thanked her for earlier -- if it was indeed her and not some simulated Francine.

"We had to know, Gary. Nothing else would have tempted you to sacrifice your status or your life. But we had to know you would ultimately do the right thing. And you did. Congratulations, Gary Owen Foster. You have successfully Justified yourself. I would like to welcome to the United Americas as a full citizen.

"It was a simulation!" My raised tone brought a man in loose-fitting army fatigues out of the shadows. He stood at least seven feet tall, his arms as thick as my head. He made a point of unfastening the strap that held his gun in its holster.

"Before you judge me, remember I had to sit in that chair too. I had to wake up to face a week's worth of memories that weren't real. Be thankful, I was married by the time my Justification came around. I went through something very similar to you, except it was my husband that was simulated instead of my father. You had already lost him once, so at least you have some defense against what we put in your mind, some small disbelief that protected you. They made me believe my husband was Causeless. In the end, we ran down the same alley as you, he begged just like your father, and they sentenced him to death right in front of me."

"I went for the corporal's gun." I had a sudden need to admit my failing. There. Now send me to one of the Hives. I don't want to play your games anymore.

"So did I."

"Then why did we pass."

"Because we hesitated. Because we let go. Because we stood aside as a good citizen should. The fact that we go for the gun just means we're human. The reality of the situation did not strike us until the rifle rested on their skin. Had it been real, we'd both be dead. Even if we killed the two men, how many others were in that alley? The point of this whole process is to find those individuals so impassioned by their emotions that they must lead others towards the light they have discovered. The riots may have started without leaders, but they stayed organized because of them. The Causeless attack trains full of grain and supplies because they have leaders. Had you gone with your father to one of the Causeless camps, or fought the soldiers before they performed their initial screening, the simulation would have ended there. You'd be on a bus to Hive Epsilon in Manitoba right now."

"But it was so real."

"It's suppose to be."

"What now?"

"Now you can ask that, citizen." I smiled weakly at her attempt at humour. "You have two choices; you can walk out of here, shaking your head, wondering what exactly just happened -- and return in a week to keep up appearances; or we'll send you to a Center-sponsored hotel for recuperative purposes. Either way, we have people available if you need to talk about any of this."

"I see. I don't suppose you have my father hiding in one of your hotels somewhere, playing at the upstanding citizen gone bad for someone else?"

***

I don't know what it's like to be Reclaimed, or the freedom of the Causeless. I do know that I met your mother after Justification, and as a full citizen I have the right to put food on my family's table. I just wanted you to know what you're in for. So when you finish reading this, son, burn it. If they know you know, you could be Reclaimed and I'd be executed for certain. I know you love me, and wouldn't want to see that bullet in my brain. I, however, would prefer the bullet to losing you.

With all my love,

Dad

***

I opened the door to our chapter of the Center for Justification. Recent remodeling gave the place a bronze-black glow, new furniture and tables all cast in ebony and faux gold, and it looked like some of the magazines had been updated since my dad last visited, but still the place did not inspire any sense of awe. There was a secretary sitting behind a little desk just as he had described it. She appeared to be about my age. I walked over to her, placing the letter he had written on her desk.

"Uhh, hi. My name is Elias Foster. I recently received that letter from my father. I think it details the circumstances of his Justification. I wasn't sure who I should notify, so I figured someone in this office would know. I only read until I realized what it was. I hope that's not going to get me into any trouble, or affect my final meeting tomorrow." Dad would want it this way.

"You're making the good choice, citizen." She answered, nodding and smiling, putting the letter in a drawer without even looking at it.

E-mail Duane_Wheatcroft@vsl.com

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