Savannah's Chance

by D. A. Maddox

  She didn’t want to be Pandora. She didn’t want to be a shitty friend.

  ****

  687-481-2737.

  For crying out loud, Savannah, stop.

  But she couldn’t. Every time she found a small corner of her mind unoccupied, there it was, like a song she couldn’t get out of her head. And it wasn’t even Thursday yet.

  “Miss Miles,” Dr. Kubilus called from the front of the lecture hall.

  Savannah looked up, holding up a finger. One minute, please.

  All around her, the hall was thinning out. Most of her fellow students traveled light, had palm coms for note-taking. But Savannah took them in pencil as well as recording them, knowing that the act of physical writing helped engrave the information on the brain. She also had a Flip Net to keep the course’s website open for any obscure references—teachers sometimes took prior knowledge for granted. On her phone, she took stills of any visual aid that accompanied the lesson. Then there was her planner, and—

  She checked around her desk.

  Okay, that’s everything.

  She hustled over to her professor. “Sorry, Dr. Kubilus!” she said with earnestness. The email she had wanted this morning still hadn’t come, and now she had a thought that she might be in trouble. Had she formatted it wrong? Had the essay never made it to her inbox?

  Oh, no. That’s it. That’s got to be it.

  Dr. Kubilus was packing her own worn, leather bag—very well-suited to an archaeologist, Savannah had noted from Day One. She then regarded Savannah over the rim of her glasses with upturned, inscrutable gray eyes. Her voice, also well-worn from decades of lecturing (and probably sand inhalation), had the creak of a woman even older than she actually was.

  “The False Lineage of First Kings,” she said. “That was bold of you, Miss Miles.”

  “Yes, Dr. Kubilus,” she said, and waited. She was nervous, borderline scared, but not at the boldness of her essay. She’d cross-referenced her facts with twelve different reliable sources. And she let some relief creep in, because her professor had gotten the essay after all.

  “No one made that connection before. It was there for anyone to find, but only you found it.”

  Savannah hadn’t even left her dorm to do it. Other people had done the literal digging, posted their findings in various places, on various platforms—some five years ago, some fifteen years ago, one three months ago…

  “How would you feel about me forwarding it for publication, Miss Miles? We’ll settle for one of the university blogs if we have to, but I do know an editor at Nat Geo I could persuade to take a look. Quite a remarkable piece, really, coming from an undergraduate.”

  Savannah’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. Her eyes blinked in stupefaction.

  National-freaking-Geographic?

  Happy birthday to me…

  “If they take it, there’ll be a stipend, of course.”

  Nope. Still can’t talk. I’m trying to, Dr. Kubilus, I swear.

  “Savannah? Would that be all right? Are you all right? For the record, I did give you an ‘A’.”

  Savannah dropped her backpack, came around the lectern, and hugged her.

  ****

  Once she was safely outside the Tucker Building, Savannah took her hand away from her heart, stretched her arms out, drew in breath—

  And stopped herself at the last possible fraction of a second from shouting the word “Yes!”. It was just after six-thirty—there were people all over the Commons—and although she hadn’t had a problem with Scott kissing her in public, this was different. Someone, a stranger, might ask what she was celebrating, and she didn’t need that casting a shadow over what had just happened.

  She hurried back for her sorority house.

  On the way, she passed the Student Union—and had time to see Alisha go in the front doors. She thought of waving, of calling out to her. But her friend was gone before she could.

  Watching her disappear inside, Savannah could not help but notice the makeshift sign on the front lawn:

  Closed Friday, 7 PM – Saturday, 7 AM.

  RENOVATIONS.

  We apologize for any inconvenience!

  ****

  Scott expected Rusty to come banging on his door. Blocking the phone number of a friend who lived less than a mile and a half away probably wasn’t the smartest thing he had ever done. Rusty was tenacious. Rick or one of the others would let him in the building as soon as they saw him, knowing they were friends, and Rusty would knock until Scott had to admit him—out of courtesy to the other residents, if nothing else.

  It was a quarter ‘til seven, and it hadn’t happened.

  Tracing his stylus over the digital table screen, Scott added a media lab to his mockup middle school floorplan—and, by doing so, cut the actual book section of the library in half—then threw in an all-access entrance to the bus drop off for special needs students. He tried to lose himself in it, tried not to think about The Select, or Friday night, or Savannah. Useless.

  He checked his phone again, even though he would have heard it if someone had texted him or tried to call him.

  Nothing.

  ****

  “Emailed you the audio file from this morning,” Mandy Jameson greeted her as soon as she was through the front entrance of the house.

  “Thanks,” Savannah said, practically sashaying past her. “Owe you big time!”

  “Hold on,” Mandy said, grabbing her by the arm. “Not so fast.”

  Savannah stopped, eyed her quizzically.

  “Kitchenette, Savannah,” Mandy said. “Alisha made something for you. We’ve let it keep warm in the oven—but go get it, okay? There’s a dinner heating queue gaining length, if you feel me.”

  “Oh,” Savannah said. “My bad!”

  At once, she crossed the living area to the kitchenette—where, indeed, two of her sorority sisters were waiting by the oven unit that had been assigned to them, and where a third had given up and instead waited by the humming microwave.

  Alisha, she scolded her friend fondly in her mind, what did you do?

  But she knew by the time she turned the oven off, before she even had on the oven mitt to open the door. She could smell it.

  A casserole. Marinara sauce baked into bowtie pasta. Mozzarella and onions, oregano and cayenne pepper and sausage.

  She stood there, crying, one hand over her mouth, backpack still slung over her shoulder. There was a certain, special way of making it, of getting the proportions just right—a very particular order and timing of the addition of ingredients. She’d done it only once before—and shared it with Alisha, along with the secret recipe.

  Mandy came up behind her. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Savannah thought about lying but opted for the truth instead. She’d already let the waterworks loose. No point in covering up.

  “My mom used to make this for me,” she said. “Every year, on my birthday.”

  ****

  She saw her mother that night, after the phone call with dad, after dinner.

  It had been a small casserole dish, enough for her to have one portion, herself—then one more each for her and Alisha together, whenever. For three years, Alisha had stayed away on Savannah’s birthday night until nine o’clock, to give her space, to give her the time she needed with her mother’s gift.

  After the birthday face time phone call every year, Dad sent the next file for her virtual reality kit.

  He couldn’t deliver it in person. Savannah was still transitional, legally cloistered until the age of 22, until graduation. Certain holidays were exceptions, as were extenuating circumstances—but not birthdays. Students had those on campus, without family.

  She put on the headset, lowered the visor, and turned it on.

  Savannah’s mother had died six years ago. It had been a long, bitter battle with lung cancer—a disease that had been practically eradicated decades ago by the criminalization of tobacco farming. But her mother had grown
up with “users” before the ban. The cancer had slept in her a long while, but not forever.

  Sometime after her Stage 4 diagnosis, but before the disease had stolen her natural beauty, Savannah’s mother had prepared these files for her: one for her sixteenth birthday, one for her seventeenth—all the way to her twenty-first.

  This is it, Savannah thought.

  She could review them all, talk to them, any time she wanted. But the file she had just loaded would be the last “new” one.

  “Hi, Vanna,” her mother said, sitting across from her, right there at her dorm room table. “Happy birthday. Happy twenty-one.”

  Savannah had her mother’s hair, her chin, her soft voice. The searching brown eyes were all Mom’s, though.

  “Hi, Mom,” she managed. “I miss you.”

  There was a quick, hardly to be noticed skip as those words triggered a response. “I miss you, too. Every day. I love you.”

  Then it went back to its main track.

  “I want you to know I really am looking at you, from somewhere. And I listen to you every day. You remember what I said—you talk, I listen.”

  Through the visor, she could see real things as well as projections. Savannah took out her pendant and opened it to the tiny picture. In it, she and her mother were cheek-to-cheek, happy and smiling and both of them healthy as could be. Savannah had been thirteen, then.

  “You’re all grown up, Savannah. Are you doing well? Are you happy? Are you safe?”

  “Y-yes, Mama …” Savannah said. “I’m … good.” It wasn’t one hundred percent true, she supposed, but that was how an adult answered her mother, when asked.

  When she wasn’t real.

  Another skip to respond specifically. “Yes, you are. You’ve always been such a good girl. I’m very proud of you.”

  “Something … really good happened today, Mama. T-two things, actually. Can you … guess?”

  Skip.

  “Go ahead, Vanna,” she said, warm and encouraging. “Tell me. You can tell me anything.”

  “A boy … I mean, a man asked me out today. His name’s Scott—”

  Skip.

  “Really? That’s wonderful. I’m so proud of you.”

  “And … and I did really well on my last essay, and my teacher, Doctor—”

  Skip.

  “Really? That’s wonderful. I’m so proud of you.”

  Savannah let out her breath. Switched off the headset, took it off. Set it on the carpet at her feet. Put her head in her hands, leaned over her desk, and wept.

  Chapter Five:

  Triggers

  Thursday mornings, for the students of Bridgemont University, began with “Making the Transition”. Today, for the freshman sections, that meant a two-hour presentation on the Adult Assigned Housing and Labor Program, which awaited not only those unfortunates who hadn’t gotten accepted into college, but also the dropouts. For the sophomores, it was Rights and Responsibilities Post-Transition. Juniors were treated to the importance of Keeping State Secrets.

  But seniors, like Veronica Cruz, got to watch some TV today. They sat in small groups of fifteen to twenty, each section gender-separated and monitored by a faculty member. For Veronica’s section, that meant dour old Professor Krantz of the slicked back salt and pepper hair and the tweed jacket. Technically, it was a lesson in Functional Anatomy of the Opposite Sex, courtesy of the reality TV program, Consequences, Live! To Veronica Cruz, it was all review.

  As transitionals, none of them had seen the forbidden cable show before, not even Veronica—nor, as far as she knew, had any other student in The Select. But she’d heard about it. Been warned about it.

  Tomorrow’s soirée, or any of the others they had held—the Origins Fete was a twice-annual event—could easily land any of The Select’s members in the program, and that’s only if they qualified for it. Anyone who didn’t could face real jail time.

  Veronica popped a piece of gum into her mouth as the livestream flickered to life on the widescreen at the front of the small classroom, smiling at the collective gasp that erupted all around her. She read the running captions on the bottom of the screen.

  The featured subject on today’s program was an inmate in protective custody at the Huntington Adult Detention Center in Manassas, Virginia. His name was Michael Schulsky. He was nineteen years old, with a wiry-strong build and chestnut hair that hung straight to his shoulders.

  To his right stood a middle-aged prison guard with a crewcut, a slight paunch, arms that fairly rippled with muscle under the short sleeves of his uniform, and a remote control. To his left was a mounted laser letter projector, already running.

  The kid was utterly naked, his arms loose at his sides. He had a hell of a blush going on, and his eyes were bloodshot, but he remained stoic. Silent, no trembling, no heavy breathing, no actual tears. Impressive, really. The projector labeled various parts of his body in glowing red letters: “Shoulders”, “Chest”, and “Hips”, presumably, because the average width of these—and Michael seemed a fair average—would be different from the average female’s. Just over his cock hovered the words, “Penis / Circumcised / Flaccid / Erection 7%”.

  Giggles throughout the room. One aghast woman, near the front, rose up to leave in a righteous huff—but sat herself right back down when Professor Krantz stood up as though to set her straight. She averted her eyes.

  Veronica yawned.

  “Miss Gilbert,” Krantz said, his voice calm, hewn from ice, “watch.”

  Miss Gilbert, in clear distress, returned her eyes to the screen, whispered a breathy little exclamation without making words.

  It would be better if he could see us, Veronica thought. Give me thirty seconds with him, and I’d make him cry.

  The officer—identified at the bottom of the screen as Alejandro Garcia—set the remote down on a tray like a snack table and drew on a pair of latex gloves one pronounced snap at a time. He turned to the camera, smiling.

  “Hello, America,” he said. “And most especially, hello to the college seniors tuning in across the country. You have the good fortune to be catching us live, in-action, at Consequences today. When you graduate in a few months, do consider subscribing and supporting our efforts at the rehabilitation and correction of misbehaving transitionals.”

  Michael Schulsky’s hands twitched. Veronica knew the gesture well. He wanted to cover himself so much, but he knew he wasn’t allowed to.

  “Your male counterparts are viewing a paid volunteer, as we have no female prisoners in the Controlled Judicial Humiliations program at present. But you, ladies, have the privilege of contributing to this young man’s discipline. Just knowing you are out there, viewing this, is no doubt working a miracle of reflection in his mind, on the foolishness of his decisions.”

  Veronica was a media major. I should get in on this, she thought. Maybe an internship in the summer?

  “Before I proceed any further, there are two things you should know from the start. First, the hooligan presented before you owes a debt of service to our country. He is basically a good boy, I think. And yet he has broken the law. He stands before you convicted of criminal incitement, among other offenses. Not only that, but the criminal activity he encouraged resulted in a similar punishment for another young man—a punishment he himself participated in with unthinking enthusiasm and viciousness. His parents took advantage of every legal loophole they could find, every political enemy of the show they could muster, to delay his hearing and soften his sentencing—at considerable cost to the taxpayer. So, spend your sympathy elsewhere.” To Michael, giving the back of his neck a companionable squeeze, he said, “You knew better all along, did you not, Inmate 196?”

  Michael’s shoulders squeezed in reflexively, but he nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “This is quite different than modeling for art class, is it not?”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “Reassure the viewing audience that you deserve this, punk fuck. Tell them they should feel free to e
njoy your shame and misery, which you brought upon yourself.”

  Sympathy is half the point, Veronica thought. Sympathy makes me wet.

  Veronica didn’t feel any sympathy. She preferred her submissives innocent.

  “I—I deserve this,” he said, voice tremulous. “P-please enjoy my … shame and misery, which … I … I brought upon myself.”

  Several of the women leaned forward in their seats.

  “That is a good punk fuck,” Officer Garcia commended him, flicking his ear, making him wince. “I knew he was a good boy from the moment of his arrival. But this is what happens when transitionals get into ‘sexual mischief’ before their time, before being accorded the rights of full citizenship.”

  Doodling lazily on a notepad, Veronica recalled she had shopping to do later. A few groceries, a quick stop at the Golden Tech—although, thinking on it, she would like to get her hands on one of those projector things, too, for future parties.

  Only have one left after tomorrow, she thought with a pang. Then, graduation. So sad.

  “Secondly,” Garcia resumed, “you should know that the service Michael provides today is among the least of the humiliations and discomfitures he will endure during his incarceration. If he appears somewhat sheepish and shamefaced at present, it is because his punishments are only beginning. He has not been thusly displayed before. It will be good for him, going forward—instructive, just as we hope it will be for you.”

  Michael opened his mouth to speak—

  “Shush it, nudie,” Garcia cut him off. From the tray, he produced a plastic bottle, squirted an unidentifiable liquid onto his palm, and wrung his hands together as though washing them. Then, back to the camera, “Please note the sag in the genitalia.” With a finger, he eased up Michael’s shaft. The word “Testicles” automatically appeared underneath. “The bagginess of his ball sack. Statistically, in most cases, a man of his age at this stage of the program would find this humiliation most horrifically arousing. I mean, there are thousands of college-aged women watching this happen to him right now, not to mention the home audience. He should be quite erect. Probably would be if there were a live audience here in the room with me. Sadly, it is just me and Officer Grant, who is on camera duty.”