Kialla and her grandma live in London in the year 4020. The Supremacies rule how everyone lives and everyday is the same. Kialla is forced to take a drastic turn in life when she is sent somewhere owned by The Supremacies. She is determined to make life fair for everyone that is under The Supremacies' rules so they don't have to go through what she did.
Saturday, August 1, 5:00 AM
A piercing sound shoots through my ears, causing me to thwack my head against the metal bars of the bed frame above me. It's now that I realize that it is a bunk bed. I think I was just too tired to notice the details of the room yesterday. I rub my eyes then open the door to see that the whole corridor is full of children my age and younger standing outside their dorms. There are operators patrolling up and down the corridor whilst the fierce alarm still rings around.
The shrill finally stops and the operators say “Follow in single file. Do not make a sound, or punishment will be executed” In their monotone voices.
Down the elevators, along the crummy corridors, and finally we get to the main factory. Wide metal steps spiral around the interior. I peer down to the machines and the people working below me. And when I look closer, I notice that some of the workers are adults. I dread to think that they've been working here for their whole life. The line gets longer as we're joined by other channels of children from different parts of TSMC.
The operators stop us by a large iron door with the words 'Sort through room' in bold. The door is pushed open and I see multiple lengthy conveyor belts all in rows. There are about twenty people working at each one, all of which are polished white with The Supremacies logo on.
“Behold! This is the Sort Through Room, where you will be working. Observe the sign that shows you which rejects to dismantle, and where to put the parts”. We file into the room, where we are directed to our stations at a conveyor belt. I am given a place at the end of the conveyor belt so there isn't as much to sort through as there would be for everyone else, but there is still a great load. The deafening crushing noises that the room next door is making leads me to think that that is where they recycle the rejects. I sure hope that grandma isn't a reject; she wouldn't want to be crushed. I put on the pair of gloves that are beside my station at the conveyor belt and start sorting through the body parts coming along it. Heads, legs, hands, feet, everything. I have a long day ahead of me.
On the station beside me, there is a girl presumably a bit older than me. I can't say what she's wearing since we are all made to put on a uniform with a number on that shows which room we're working in. She is much faster at sorting than I am, and each time the operators walk past they scribble something on their clipboard, and they only do that if we're pleasing them. I wait until the operator goes past then I lean over to the girl and shout over the noise, “Could you tell me how you work so fast?” She stares at me for a short second then replies, “Well there's no technique I'm afraid. I've been here for two years but I've gotten pretty fast, haven't I?” In an accent, I haven't heard before. Two years isn't much, but having to work here for just that long must be agonizingly boring. I quickly shift back to my post when another operator comes by. Everywhere I look there is an operator eyeing me if I just happen to peep up from what I am doing. I don't understand why there needs to be so much security. I decided I shouldn't risk getting any kind of punishment so I carry on with my duty.
7:00 PM
After fourteen tedious hours, the signals call their deafening shrill and the operators lead us back through the infinite hallways and to our dorms. It is a different route from the one we took this morning; this part of TSMC has clean white walls, with bright lights that let no shadow linger in the corners. I happen to notice a small black cube situated on the ceiling of the narrow corridor that we are trailing through. I only get a short glance at it since we can't stop the line otherwise a lot of irritations will occur. But my guess is that it's a security camera. Now that I've seen one I am spotting more of them dotted along the hallways and inside each elevator that we go up.
As the elevators are small, and the group of children I'm in is enormous, we split off in different directions when we reach an elevator. I think this is quite handy, considering that when we enter the corridor that our dorms are in, our group is much smaller than it was when we all left the Sort Through Room. Also, it is organized so that when we split off at the last elevator, we are in the group that left our dorms on the same corridor as this morning. I realized this only just now since I recognize the children in the group I am presently in from earlier today. This means that we are finally at our dorms.
The operators stand at the entrance to the corridor and wait until we've all gone inside our quarters before they march back down the metal staircase. Just as the beep of my keycard locks the bulky door I hear a shuffling sound behind me. I swiftly turn to see a short girl climbing down from the top bunk of the bed. She has brown hair that reaches to her shoulders and freckles that cover her nose and cheeks.
“Um, who are you?” I ask as she lands on the hardwood floor.
“I think I'm your roommate” She holds out her hand, and I shake it. “I saw that you'd already claimed the bottom bunk so I took the top. Is that alright?” She points to the creased blanket which I had slept on last night.
“Yes, that's fine. But how come you have the same dorm as me? It has my ID number on the door outside.”
“The woman that took me here earlier said that you're the senior roommate and I'm the junior one”. She shows me her keycard which has the words 'Ari Dalton' (Juvenile ID Number: 574296), Junior' printed in bold.
“Oh, so you're new here too! Doesn't that mean that you have a room for your ID number?”
“I'm a junior which means that I stay with a senior until I am the right age then I get a room for me and a junior stays in that room too. Just like I'm staying in here with you”. She starts unpacking her small leather suitcase. “Well, that's what the lady said anyway”.
I pull a small paperback book out of my suitcase and open it up. Grandma gave it to me a year ago and she said to keep it with me wherever I go. Its pages are blank to the back. I decided that I will make it my journal, where I will write about what happens everyday from now. I open the drawers of the desk for a pen, but there is nothing, not even any dust lines the drab piece of furniture. I clamber up to Ari and ask “Do you have a pen I can borrow?” She looks up from a piece of paper that she has been drawing on and says “I have a whole set here, but they're all pencils. My parents got this for me years ago and I still have it!” She hands me a short stubby pencil, “Here, is this any good?”
The end of it is chewed a bit, but I ignore that. “Thanks, this is fine”. I flick back to the first page, and start my first entry;
1.8.4020
Today was my first day of work at TSMC. This place is quite grim really, prior to my arrival, I thought it was going to be clean and bright. Well, I can say now that it is not. Actually, that's a lie; on the first route I was taken on to get to where I was to work, every surface was dirty, even the ceiling. And on the way back, we took a different route, I noticed that this one had immaculate walls and much more intense lighting. So, part of TSMC is clean, but why only part of it? That's what bugs me. I suppose I've still a lot to learn about life here at TSMC. I mean, I only arrived here yesterday. But still, I made a friend, I think. Or at least I have a roommate. She's called Ari, she's a few years younger than I am, but I like her; easy-going, carefree. I hope she does well at this place, the faculty are quite creepy.
7:30
I end it there since I'm getting quite tired. I don't know why that is, because it's only 7:30 and I went to bed much later than this before I was taken here. When I lived with grandma when everything was great, and I knew she was always going to be near...
“Did your parents get you that?” Suddenly Ari is climbing onto my bed.
“Oh, this?” I say, whilst writing my name and ID number on the front of the book. “No, they didn't”. Ari notices the uneasy expression on my face.
“Oh. What's wrong? I'm sorry if I-”
“Nothing. My grandma did. Not my... Not my parents”. I quickly place the book, which I'm now wishing I didn't bring, in one of the empty drawers.
Ari, who is looking a little upset now, silently goes back up to her bunk. I reach my arm out to find my energy cable, but there is nothing. Then I feel the circle on my chest, where my energy cable used to plug in. I don't know why I don't have to plug in at night now, but I suppose it is a hassle to do that every night so I leave the thought to settle at the back of my mind. Maybe there's just some sort of air conditioning. My eyes are forcing themselves to close so I pull the thin blanket over myself and hope that Ari will forgive me for being so uptight when we wake up in the morning.
