The day Deborah's brother, Cain Temperance, turned thirteen was the day many things changed.

He had to be registered, for one. Registration was compulsory in the thirteenth year. He would receive a registration number and an identity card, which he would carry around with him everywhere he went. That card would hold all his important information: his name, address, parent's contact information, and disciplinary record. That last one was the most important.

He would also be initiated into the local Fellowship of Kings and Queens, of which Deborah was a member. All the young children looked forward to the day they would join, or at least they were expected to. The group consisted of all the nation's adolescents, and according to its mission statement, was charged by God and Papa to "diligently guide each of its members to a bright future under our Lord's royal priesthood, through the careful study of the Word and the tenets of Sinai." In theory and practice, they were a parish of sorts unto themselves, dedicated to routine praise, worship, prayer, and word study meetings, as well as leisurely programs like concerts and picnics that, even to Deborah, weren't dull overall.

Then he would begin vocational training at school. Compulsory training that would determine what he would contribute to the society as he grew older. Cain would choose Computer Technology, as he had told her many times before. There was no doubt he would enjoy it; he had taught himself how to use Deborah's computer up until she caught him (she had allowed him to continue, as he wasn't allowed his own computer yet). Their father would agree; Computer Technology majors were near the top of the employment hierarchy. People to monitor the networks for illicit word searches and to maintain the national database were in high demand by the Senate, and those who were accepted into the Beth De'ot - the Ministry of Technology – were paid well and lived even better.

It was quite rare for a child at Sinai to choose his own vocation. It was left to the parent to guide him down a path he wouldn't depart from. Mr. Temperance took due diligence in picking a path for his children and made sure to observe them in the Spirit to catch the talents awarded unto them, or so he said. Upon seeing his daughter's penchant for drawing, he immediately had her take training in Architecture, which was much duller than what she would have chosen. But Beth Chakam, the ministry of planning, also compensated its workers well for their diligence in their craft – Papa himself had been an architect before the Lord had given him his greater calling – so Deborah supposed he knew best. She was barely scraping through the training with acceptable marks, but she also had her spotless record, so her father rarely ever complained.

But with Cain, Mr. Temperance had chosen a vocation with which his son was already showing proficiency with. It was like a sign from God – the star in the horizon pointing the way to Cain's inevitable greatness. Deborah was confident her brother would enjoy his teenage years in a way she never did. He was a good child, amazing marks, always following rules. Their father always harassed him for being soft-spoken, but that would be the extent of his troubles.

There would be a host of other changes, all of which would depend on him.

He would have a lovely adolescence so long as he never got a strike.

*****

It was a quarter to eight. The University always had chapel services at eight on Mondays. It was important to dedicate the start of the academic week to the Lord. The chaplain would always say so, since Papa always said so.

The chapel was packed with students, and a handful of school lecturers that had been assigned to chaperone. All the doors were shut, the occupants trapped in with the chatter and the heat. Some of the windows were open, though, and students who had been locked out of the chapel for lateness managed to sneak in through the cracks, to avoid the inevitable strikes they would receive when the attendance was taken.

The rules, one by one, were displayed on the giant telescreens above the stage. It would be a boring week. In her annoyance, Deborah hissed. Or at least she tried to; she could never quite manage the sound. She could never get the hang of whistling either. She tried to hiss again.

She was supposed to be in a conversation with her friends, Judith and Eve, who were sitting to her left but she had been unable to follow it with all the noise, and she had given up trying altogether. She had told them about the incident in the Cafeteria, though Judith had already heard about it. Judith agreed that the crowd had overreacted and that the bearded man didn't deserve what came to him. Eve didn't.

"He had no business talking about Papa like that!" Eve had said, much louder than she had probably intended. Eve had no control over the intensity of her voice, especially when she was emotionally charged – and nothing emotionally charged her more than someone talking ill of Papa. "It was disrespectful, even if it's true."

The back and forth had switched to a conversation about Silent Night somehow, and then to a new lecturer in Eve's school – Eve was taking training in Doctrine Education, a vocation which fit her much too perfectly, even if she had originally preferred one in Music. That was when Deborah had drifted away from the conversation, and into her own thoughts.

The count of three. That was how long it took to get from one rule to the next.

One. Two. Three.

RULE TWO: DO NOT MAKE NOR WORSHIP ANY GRAVEN IMAGE IN PLACE OF THE LORD.

One. Two. Three.

RULE THREE: DO NOT USE GOD'S NAME IN CURSES OR SILLY BANTER.

One. Two. Three.

I wonder if Cain will enjoy his gift.

He would. She knew the things Cain loved. He would love it very much, she was sure.

"Everybody rise to your feet! It's time for the opening prayer."

The opening prayer was said. Then praise and worship. Then three different prayers after that, all pre-written and displayed on the telescreen. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to feel after it was all done. The Sprit, probably. She would steal peaks during the prayers, and everyone else seemed to know what to do and have all the correct feelings and reactions, so to say. But she was never sure if she felt nothing, or if nothing was the correct feeling. You never think the Lord's Spirit inside of you would feel like nothing, but she had done everything she had been told to do, for twenty years every day and night. It was all routine to her – to all of them – she had never even had to think about it.

"...they took her away last night. That's what they're saying."

"What?" Deborah asked. Prayers had ended and they were settling down for the reading of testimonies during the last week.

Judith shook her head. One of the chaperones had turned their way and was staring at them quite severely. The two young women turned their attention to the stage, where a line of testifiers was forming to tell the chapel what the Lord had done for them all through the past week. There was a woman on the stage, who Deborah vaguely recognized from one of her classes in Architecture, but who she had never spoken to. She was ushering the testifiers to the stage, but Deborah didn't hear much of what she said. Her eye was on the chaperone, whose focus had shifted to their general area.

Deborah had a notebook she regularly drew in for no more productive reason than to give her hands something to do. She reached into her bag and pulled it out then and there, her eyes still on the chaperone. The squat old crone refused to turn away. It was no cause for alarm – as they were expected to bring notebooks into the chapel to write down and study the word for the week – but she found herself cursing the woman anyway. It could have been, of course, that it had been the same woman that had once tried to ruin her perfect record by asserting that her skirt was shorter than regulation. The accusation had fallen apart under scrutiny. Deborah hadn't been punished, though she had been issued a letter of warning for "indecent behavior", whatever that was supposed to mean. The woman – she didn't know her name, neither did she care to learn it – wasn't queried for her false witness (a clear violation of Rule Nine) as far as Deborah knew. If she were to guess, the woman had probably been lauded by the Chaplain for her diligence in her work and her zeal in the enforcement of discipline and order in the hearts of God's holy children.

Deborah hated the woman. She didn't love too many people. She loved God. She liked her family and her few friends. She disliked her teachers, and the State Enforcers. She strongly disliked the New Generation spies, who lurked about in the shadows looking for who they would destroy to bring themselves higher in Papa's favor – she understood why one would go through great lengths for such reward, but the tales of subterfuge that she heard they were capable of disgusted her inexplicably. And if she were asked, she would say she hated the Devil, but she didn't know the Devil, so what she had really was a strong aversion to the idea of him and what he stood for. True, she didn't know this woman at all either, but she knew if she had never hated someone before, she had found her starting point.

Her false accusation - her attempt to land her a strike – Deborah considered a deliberate, and baseless, attempt on her life. And that wasn't something she was willing to forgive.

"Favour."

"Ehn?" Deborah whispered.

"Favour." Judith repeated, in a harsher whisper.

"What happened to Favour?"

"That's what I was saying. A white bus came and took her away last night. Didn't you hear?"

"They took Favour?" It wasn't that it was impossible. She just wouldn't believe it. "When?"

"Last night. You didn't hear?"

Deborah shook her head.

"They took her away. Last night. Eve's parent's saw it outside."

Eve lived on the same street as Favour, and her father would spend a lot of time sitting outside and staring at the empty road. Nobody was sure why, not even him.

Deborah sat up in her seat. The Chaplain was on the podium, preaching, but she couldn't pay attention. How, now?! She thought. Favour? I saw her on Saturday, now!

"What happened?" she asked Judith. Judith shrugged.

Could they have found out? She thought, and she asked Judith aloud.

Judith shrugged again. "I don't know."

"Obviously they found out!" Deborah said. "That's the only reason they would have carried her!"

"Probably."

"But how'd they find out?!"

"I don't know!"

They were interrupted by a loud shushing. Judith and Deborah turned to Eve, who pointed somewhere beyond them. The old chaperone was glaring at the both of them. Now she glared at Eve, as if her warning was some great act of insolence on her part. She hissed and walked off.

The three said nothing for the rest of the service, leaving the wheels in Deborah's head to turn without much distraction.

The service ended soon after. The Chaplain called for all the students to rise for the benediction, and everyone did so obediently. They all closed their eyes and said the words of their solemn pledge, in disorganized synchronization:

As children of Sinai,

we give entreaties and prayers,

petitions and thanksgivings,

unto God, Papa

and all who are in authority,

so that we may lead a tranquil

and quiet life in all

godliness and dignity.

We pledge to obey our leaders

and submit to them,

with joy and not with grief,

for this is profitable for us,

God, and Sinai which is

Our Land.

In the middle of this, around "godliness and dignity", Judith tapped Deborah on the shoulder and whispered into her ear. "I don't think we should go this week again. Next week Friday will be better."

Deborah shook her head. She didn't want to go at all anymore. She didn't want to risk it.

"No? You still want to go this Friday?"

Deborah paused. Then she nodded.

Judith shrugged. Deborah knew she'd made another mistake today.

Cain's probably seen his gift now. I hope he likes it.

He'll love it.

After the benediction ends, the students usually sit down and await an address from the Head of the Academy. It wasn't too hard to know when something unpleasant was about to come of the morning address. All the Head – a squat, graying man in his late fifties – had to do was storm up the stage and bark furiously into the microphone, demanding everyone to get to their seats, and everybody would go quiet.

Just behind the head was the old chaperone, sporting a faint air of smugness around her. A young man – Deborah faintly recognized him – in a tight blazer, emerged from one of the side doors and rushed up the stairs, settling right next to the old woman. In his hands was a long cane.

There was an uproar when he came in.

"Keep quiet! Shut up! Shut up!!" The Head screamed. "You're all so uncultured in this school! Shut up!"

His demand shook the walls of the chapel. Slowly, the noise died down.

The Head wasn't blessed to be like Mr. Temperance, and emerge completely unshaken from an outburst. His glasses were at an angle and his hair looked even grayer and much rougher. Nevertheless, he cleared his throat and continued.

"It has come to our attention that despite the collective efforts of God, Papa, the teachers and your parents to instill the values of Sinai into your thick skulls, so many of you still make yourselves willing vessels of the Devil's agents. Do you think it's funny?"

As if in response, quite a few of the students, Deborah and her friends included, started to laugh.

"Oh, you think it's funny?! You think it's funny, ehn?! Well.... Well, it's not funny! It's not funny at all!" The laughter died down shortly. "I pity all of you! Don't you know that everything we do is for your good?! Do you think we're stupid?! Do you think we're here to play?! Well... well... I'll show you how serious we are in this school! You think we're joking here! You're all not serious... All of you!"

The Head hissed and stepped back to straighten his jacket. At that moment, from the same side door the cane bearer emerged, two younger men came through carrying a small desk. They heaved it up the stairs and eventually dumped it at the stage, just next to the cane bearer and the old woman. The woman side-eyed to boys as the left and rolled her eyes.

"Blessed!" The Head called. The strain of the voice carried through the speakers. "Naomi Blessed! From Doctrine Education! Make! Yourself! Shown! Now!"

It took a while, and some more yelling into the microphone, before a mousy girl not much older than fourteen stepped from out the crowd. She quickened her pace up the steps when the Head barked at her to "Hurry up, jare!" and finally placed herself to his left side. She hung her head and shook herself sore with fearful anticipation. Deborah though she could hear her quiet sobs. The Head shot the girl a look of reserved disgust before speaking again.

"Do you all see this girl? This foolish girl! Do you want to know what this foolish girl did?!"

Everyone did, but nobody said anything. The Dean gestured to the old chaperone.

"This lovely, God-fearing lady over here was overseeing her Sunday School class last Sunday..." He narrated, placing special emphasis on each of his words. "... and she noticed that this fool was disrupting the lecture. She and some other ones like her. Those ones have since been dealt with, don't worry. But this one!" He raised his voice, pointing straight at the girl. "When she was asked to take her punishment... she refused."

He paused. His slight frown betrayed a dissatisfaction with the lack of uproar.

"She refused. Yes. She refused to submit to punishment like her cohorts did. And then, when her teacher demanded that she comply, she had the effrontery, the impetus, to ask... why?

"Why?! Why?!" He screamed, as if the word itself had offended him personally. "Disregarding the fact that she was clearly disrupting the peace of her classroom, does it matter why your elder will want to punish you? I'm seriously asking. Does it matter? If your parent, teacher, or elder one, cared enough about your wellbeing to see you err and correct you, why do you have to know the reason? What business is it of yours?

"Do you know what causes this sort of thing: Rebellion! Do you know what breeds Rebellion? Pride! And do you know what else Pride breeds? Foolishness! This kind of foolishness, that greatly extends past what is already in the heart of children. The kind of foolishness of a child that thinks he is greater than the person that put him where he is. Do you know who has that kind of Foolishness, borne from the Pride that breeds Rebellion? The Devil! As foolish as her friends were – I'm sure they're even in this place right now – as foolish as they were, they were wise enough to know to submit to divine punishment, because they know it is for their good. But not her! No! She was too big! She wants the knowledge that was not meant for her. Just like Eve!"

Deborah noticed her friend sitting up at this part.

"And this is why rebellion is as witchcraft, my children. Because it is through rebellion to God's word that you ally yourself with the Devil. And who has been mandated to guide you through God's word? Me! Her!" he pointed to the old woman. "Your Chaplain! Your Parents! Your Teachers! Papa! Any and every one that is even a year older than you has the Divine mandate to guide you closer to the path of righteousness, and it is your Divine mandate to honor them with your obedience!"

The Head nodded to the cane bearer. He nodded back, handed the cane to the old woman and skulked away. The old woman tapped the rod on her own palm. The girl gave another sob.

"It is through the rod that we guide you to the path of righteousness, like the Shepherd guides his sheep. And it is only the rod that removes foolishness." He turned to the girl. "Blessed, I spoke to your Mother. She thinks that all of this is very appropriate and approved it enthusiastically. You are going to bend over that desk, and Mrs. Fellowship will punish you according to her discretion." He turned to the old woman. "That'll be how many, Mrs. Fellowship?"

Mrs. Fellowship made a show of thinking it over, as she tapped the cane on her hands. The tapping intensified as the seconds counted. Tears streamed down the girl's cheeks. She was practically in a tremor. She looked like she had already been beaten enough.

"I think twelve will be okay." Mrs. Fellowship said finally.

Everybody gasped and murmured in the crowd. Even Judith's eyes widened. Nobody had been flogged in the Chapel in a long time, and not so much.

Yet, for some reason, Deborah wasn't very surprised.

The Head turned to Naomi again. "Bend over." He ordered. The girl gulped and eyed the desk, timidly making her way towards it, as if she was afraid it would bite her. Mrs. Fellowship, impatient, dragged her by her hand and pushed her down on the table, so her rear-end was facing the audience.

Then, in a most unexpected act, Mrs. Fellowship pulled up the girl's skirt. Naomi gasped.

A great cry was let out in the Chapel.

"QUIET DOWN!! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" the Head screamed into the microphone. "DON'T LET THE DEVIL USE YOU!"

The noise died down, but this time there was a lot of murmuring. Deborah just stared on.

"This is what I'm talking about!" The Head said. "All of you are acting like vagabonds. Rejecting the law upon which this land has been built! We have a culture in this hallowed ground, and we will not allow it to be destroyed because you all want the Devil to possess you! Today will be the example. From now on we will not allow such nonsense to go unpunished! From any class!"

He turned to Mrs. Fellowship. "Please, carry on."

Mrs. Fellowship smiled as she laid the first stroke. And the second. And the fifth. Naomi screamed, cried and begged to no avail.

*****

The morning's event at the chapel didn't leave Deborah's mind until later in the afternoon, on her way to the press office, though the disgust still lingered.

Deborah walked quickly, clutching her purse with a vengeance. Classes were still ongoing, so she didn't pass too many people on the corridors, except a single lecturer who she had almost run into. The irate woman had scolded her and called her a slew of nasty names before storming off, ignoring all of Deborah's apologies. She was reminded of the time the previous year when some builders had done some renovation on the guest room at her home (after about a year of petitioning from her father), specifically to enlarge the windows. The night before the men started their work; she, Cain and their father moved most of the rooms effects out into the storeroom for the time being. Other things, like the as bed, a shoe rack and a table which wouldn't fit through the door, where moved to one end of the room and covered with old bed sheets so they wouldn't collect dust.

After all the work had been done, she had been asked to sweep and mop up the white dust that had collected on the floors, so that everything would be clean when they moved the bed and other things back in place. She had done the work as she had been told, as dutifully as she could manage. The floor was far from perfectly spotless, but it hadn't been so prior to this renovation either, so it didn't bother her much. She had done her work, poured away the water in the mop bucket and spilled the contents of the dustpan into the bin, then put away the broom and mop, and bucket and dustpan, and gone to concentrate on her homework, thinking nothing of it for the rest of the day.

Then the afternoon came, and she and Cain and her father returned to the room to move everything back to its proper place. With a heave from Cain and Mr. Temperance, the bed was returned to its resting place by the now enlarged window, though Cain faltered a bit on his own side. After that Mr. Temperance looked around the room and pause.

"Cain." He said, "Bring the broom and packer."

Deborah had seen the dust on the floor as well. She hadn't been able to get at it before, with all the things stacked in that corner. When Cain returned, Mr. Temperance snatched the broom from him and swept up the dust himself. That was when she knew something was wrong.

"You didn't sweep this floor, Deborah."

She didn't argue, though the comment stung greatly.

When he was done, they continued to move things about, this time with the silence filled with Mr. Temperance berating his daughter for never taking her housework seriously, and never doing anything properly even after she was told. And that she was a rebellious child with a bad attitude masquerading behind silence and gentleness. She didn't remind him that she was the one that did most of the work about the house, besides her mother and the occasional aid from Cain. She also neglected to mention that she had in fact done exactly what he had asked her to do. He wouldn't believe her if she said so, and even if he did believe her she wasn't sure he would admit it to her or even himself.

Why did her father seem to always see the worst in her? He always talked about how proud he was of her when her perfect record or contributions to the news site was mentioned, but she had grown to not believe in his nice words. He viewed her as wayward, that much he had told her, and the only reason he never said anything to anyone else was because all the outside evidence proved otherwise. Maybe he believed she was some she-devil, deceiving the world with fake kindness and submission so as to lure the unsuspecting into her devious trap, whatever that could be; and he fancied himself the only one to see through this façade, and as such the only one capable of protecting others from her trickery.

That would be much easier to accept than the possibility that he was wrong.

He was never wrong. No parent was ever wrong. No father was ever wrong. If he thought Deborah was secretly evil, then she had to be secretly evil for his sake.

The Press office is located deep within the Department of Information, where the Journalists and other such vocations had their classes. Many people said the office was hard to find, and Deborah had been one of them until about two years prior when she submitted her application for the weekly comics. There were four others who worked on other different strips, but Deborah had only met one – a surly faced fellow about a year younger than her, called either Toby or Tommy. Tommy, more likely. If she had met the others, she wouldn't know, as the Press unit was made up of students of various ages and classes who worked together. It was impossible to know everybody that was in your department, and those you did know you did only cursorily.

The reception was usually empty during the lecture periods. It was mostly empty now, except for one young man her age typing away at a computer on his lap. Deborah didn't recognize him, which was nothing unusual. People walked into the Press office all the time to make enquiries and complaints. Deborah went to the door that was tagged "Editor, Press Office" and tried it but it didn't budge. She checked the time on the wall. It was a quarter to the break period, two pm. She settled down on the third seat to the young man her age.

What Judith's suggesting is mistake. You know this. You know this, now.

Her own pleas were falling on deaf ears. She hissed. She found herself tapping on the chair. She picked at the place the scar was under her sleeve, something she was prone to when she was bored. It felt good to pick at it sometimes. She couldn't articulate why. It just was. Why are things like that? She wondered. Why do we just like certain things? Why things that hurt us? Sinful nature, she decided at the end of the day, though she knew there was more.

The girl – the young girl at chapel from year two – she wiggled a lot when they beat her. Deborah wasn't sure anyone noticed. Mrs. Fellowship looked like she wanted to draw blood – she was certainly surprised she didn't. It had been years since Deborah had been beaten like that. No one in Sinai was beaten like that very often, but they were at least on one occasion. But never in the Chapel.

A faint memory of her seven-year-old self – naked, wet, crying, lying on the floor and praying she died before the belt hit her again – started to surface. She found herself looking at her ID Card to distract herself – she did that very often. There was her picture, one of her when she was very young, and wide-eyed. There was the name "Temperance, Deborah", over the word "Architecture". The registration number Deborah had been assigned about seven-years-ago – 41AR0146. Under that, was a blank space. A perfect record.

"Tabula rasa."

"Hmmn?"

"Tabula rasa." The young man next to her repeated. "Sorry, that' the term I was looking for. I'm working on an essay."

"Oh."

The typing resumed, and Deborah tried to return to her musings, when she felt a light tap on her arm.

"Hmmn?"

"Do you know what's funny?" The young man asked. She shrugged in response. "This morning, the Head said something about the rod, before they assaulted Naomi. He said, they will use the rod of correction to guide like shepherds do to sheep."

"Okay."

"But, that's the thing: shepherds don't hit their sheep with the rods. Do you know what they do?" She shook her head. "They guide them. They lead their sheep knowing the sheep follow their command, then they use the rod when a sheep is going somewhere else, and nudge him in the right direction. They don't hit or shout. They don't need to. The sheep know them. Why would they need to hit them?

"Do you know the animals that need to be hit all the time?"

Deborah shook her head again.

"Goats."

Deborah nodded. I suppose that makes sense. "That's nice. Is that in your essay?"

"Oh no. No." The man replied. "This is for something else. I want to see... um... someone, sha. I need this edited for an event."

"Good for you, then." Deborah said. She looked down at his ID Card, and noticed two red squares under his information. "What's your name?"

"Jabez." He said. "I know you already. You're... Temperance. Deborah, now? Perfect record."

Deborah frowned. "I do other things."

"I know. I know..." Jabez replied. He continued his typing. "Just nothing as impressive."

"I have a comic run on the news site."

"I've seen it. It's okay."

"Just okay?" Deborah asked.

"Yes. It's okay. Nothing special. Your art is good, but besides that, it's not particularly interesting."

"It's not supposed to interesting." Deborah retorted. "It's supposed to be informative."

"Then it serves."

The stayed in silence for a few moments, besides the sound of rapid typing.

"What vocation?" He asked, after a while.

"Architecture."

"Your art is actually very good. I mean, I suppose it's too late to change, but is that something you want to... continue."

Deborah shrugged. "I don't think my parents want that for me."

"But what do you want?"

There was a pause. Deborah looked around the room, as if the answer was on the walls or the computers or desks or ceilings. Someone walked in, saw them, and left immediately. "I don't know."

"No one ever knows..."

"I don't know. To leave, sha. I want to leave my parents' house. We all do."

"And do what?"

Deborah looked to the bulletin boards, at the far end of the room, but she couldn't find the answers there either. "I... I... I don't know. I'll figure it out."

"Would you go to the Old Country if you could?"

Deborah tried to hiss. She almost got the sound right this time. "No."

"I would like to. I mean, leave Sinai at least. But the Old Country is around us, so you have to go through it to go anywhere else..."

"Sinai isn't that bad..."

"You're joking." Jabez scoffed. "You did see what happened this morning? It will only get worse from there."

"What happened this morning... was a lapse in judgement..."

"Do they know that?"

Deborah looked at the Editor's door. There was no answer there either.

"I don't know." She said, finally. "What about you? What vocation?"

*****

Deborah hated walking into the Editor's office. Every time. It had nothing to do with how imposing everything was; from the utilitarian bareness of the pale walls to the papers and important documents scattered across the desk of an obviously swamped man. Even the Editor himself – Mr. Gabriel, a tall, wiry beast of a person whose perpetual scowl belied an intermittently nonexistent joviality, wasn't enough to make her dread her weekly visits to drop off her work. His sternness was only normal given that he was the elder and wiser.

The Editor's office was cold. Near frigid. The air conditioning was left on from the moment Mr. Gabriel resumed at 7:30am, till he clocked out at the pm of the same time, even at moments he wasn't in. Deborah imagined that he enjoyed the cold, but she certainly didn't. She could feel her fingers numb as she handed the flash drive and the sticky note to Mr. Gabriel. It also didn't help her nerves – it's bad enough shivering with anxiety when it's room temperature.

She sat across from the Editor, playing with the hem of her skirt as he read the poorly scribbled message on the yellow note. Just like her father, it was hard to tell Mr. Gabriel's emotions in certain circumstances. News that would see him rejoicing one week would send him into a flying rage the next. Deborah had learnt long ago that it was best to prepare for the worst, and so far, the philosophy was working well for her.

She was following his eyes closely, as he perused the note again and again. She sat up when he made eye contact with her, a moment before he did so himself.

"You're asking for a new system?" He asked. She nodded.

"Speak when I'm speaking to you, jo!" he barked.

"Yes, sir."

He read the note again. "What's wrong with the old one?"

Deborah paused. "Nothing, sir." She said, abandoning the rehearsed lie.

"Nothing, abi?" He raised an eyebrow. She could tell he was unhappy with this, as she had expected. "You don't need a new laptop if nothing is wrong with the old one. I hope you know?"

That's how his questions and sentences were. Short. Straight to the point. Mr. Gabriel taught English language to the Department of the same name. He knew the value of his words – there is power in the tongue, after all – and was not generous with them at all.

"I know, sir."

"But you don't ask for things you don't need. You're a good child, Deborah."

"I know, sir."

"And you don't waste either, do you?"

"Of course not, sir." She shook her head.

Mr. Gabriel looked at the sticky note one more time. His brow creased as he lingered on it. Deborah thought he might tear it up and punish her for wasting his time. Instead, he pushed aside the papers on his desk and placed the note on the open space. With one hand on the note, he scrambled through his desk drawers and pulled out a compact device, that looked like the cross between a perforating machine and a ring case. Deborah held her breath.

"I'll do you this favor, Deborah." He told her. He looked sterner than usual. She hadn't expected it to bother him this badly. "Only because of the kind of person you are. You're a model student, a model child, and you do amazing work..."

"Thank you, sir."

"Let me finish! I haven't said anything yet." He picked up a remote and pressed a button twice. Deborah was hugging herself before the room got any colder. "I'll approve this, Deborah. But I want to know what happened to the old laptop."

Deborah didn't answer immediately. She felt like she was freezing. "I gave it to Cain."

"Cain?"

"My brother."

"Oh, yeah... Him? He's thirteen now, abi?"

Deborah nodded.

"He's registered?"

"This morning, I think. He'll start school tomorrow."

"Which department?"

"Comp. Tech."

Mr. Gabriel softened at this. He placed the yellow note into the jaws of the device, and they clamped together instantly. The sound of it startled Deborah, who had seen many lecturers use stamps like those, and should have been used to the startling sound at this point.

"That your other brother, what's his name?" Mr. Gabriel asked, as he handed the note back to her. "Shadrach, abi?"

"Seth. He's doing okay. He's fine."

"I trust. He's a good boy." He chuckled and leaned back on his office chair. It turned a bit to the right. He must have remembered that he hadn't seen the kid since his naming ceremony, because soon after, he said. "I'm sure he's a good boy. Temperance children. You. Cain. Especially, Cain. Did I tell you that I taught his class one time? The eight-years-old class?"

Oftentimes. Deborah thought. She needed to leave.

"All of them were just making noise in that place." He turned his nose up, like the noise had produced a foul stench that he could smell again as he recounted the experience. "So rowdy. Screaming. Shouting. It was embarrassing for me. If not for patience, I would have taken off my belt and flogged every single one of them. I probably should have. It would have done them good. It was as if there was no one there coordinating them. I think... I made sure they queried Auntie Charity for that. It was disgraceful.

"Then there was your brother just sitting in the corner. Quiet. Peaceful. Like what a good child is supposed to be. I said 'Yes! A child that was brought up properly!' I called Auntie Charity and I was like 'Who is that child, sitting by himself?' He was even reading a book – I've forgotten which book it was. I remember I asked him. Anyway, she told me it was Cain Temperance. I was like 'I should have known. It can only be Temperance's child! Was it not Temperance that I schooled with in the old country? No nonsense there, no nonsense here."

He stared into the distance, heaving a sigh of nostalgia. The cold bit into Deborah's skin, but she sat there in silence all the same. Her classes had started minutes ago. She wondered if he remembered that she was still there.

"How's... how's your father?"

Deborah paused. "He's fine." She finally said, even though she really didn't know.

Mr. Gabriel sat up. He looked like he was going to continue down that line, but then he shook his head. "You know where to take the slip, now? Make sure you follow up on it. Same time next week Monday, o!"

When Deborah stepped out of the cold into the main Press Office, Jabez had gone. He'd apparently seen who he'd needed to see. In his place was the girl from yesterday. Her hair was shorter now. Deborah had to look twice to be sure it was her – she wasn't very good with faces. As she was running late for a class, she wasn't sure what inclined her to approach the young girl. Maybe a perverse curiosity with this odd girl who had approached her with no conceivable motive, or a form of reconnaissance, to confirm that girl was not in fact a spy who could try to report her for some wrongdoing, if she hadn't already.

"Hello."

The girl did a double take when she looked up. It was then Deborah noticed the tablet on her lap, and the white pen in her hand. She was one of the illustrators for the Press website, along with her and Toby or Tommy. Deborah calmed down a bit.

"Oh, hi." The girl said, sporting a cute smile. She seemed pleasantly surprised. "Hello."

"I saw you yesterday in the Café, abi? I didn't get your name."

"Oh, it's... it's Bright." She said, tugging at her ID card. Sure enough, on it was the name "Peter, Bright.", over the word "English", a registration number Deborah skimmed over, and a space void of red squares.

Deborah looked past her card to the drawing on her tablet – a dog. There weren't many of those that she'd seen recently. "That's nice." She commented. "The dog. You constructed it well. And your style is... rather lovely."

"Oh?" Bright looked startled now. She clearly wasn't expecting for a critique of her work, especially not a positive one. "Thank you. Thank you... Yours are better, of course."

Deborah shook her head. "No. Not really. They aren't. I'll see you around, sha."

She didn't wait for young Bright to respond before walking out the door. Her mind was on the new laptop, and the old one again. She needed to get all that done before the day ended; there would be no time any day after.