I squat down, unpacking my utensils and begin graphing a line in blue—first, the convict population by month for the last fifty years.
Interestingly, the line stays almost flat. For a population graph, that's unnatural. And whenever someone dies or goes missing within a three-week window, a substitute appears. No—speculation. Let's unpack deeper.
Over the last fifty years there've been two population spikes—each nearly tripling the average—before dropping back to normal within seven years.
That's a lot of people who vanish or die so fast. Why?
I check the inquiries from those years.
Ah. The last two wars on the northern demons. More corpses to burn, more refugees seeking asylum. It makes sense—almost.
Wait—refugees? They have those here too? How many?
That's alot of people to go missing and turn up dead in a short period of time, what could be the causes.
Dipping my quill in yellow ink I begin adding the new data point to the legend.
Convict population by recorded ethnicity.
70 percent.
…
Seventy percent. A staggering seventy percent of convicts are refugees. No wonder the camps reek of alcohol—this place has no asylum rights, no citizenship, just bodies to burn and labour to harvest.
I laugh.
I didn't mean to, but what else can I do? Even if I'd written this as a farce, it wouldn't be this blatant.
This all looks so fucking bad.
If I were to look at these numbers without context it would be right to conclude targeted systematic ethno-crimes are being committed against these people.
Hell - even with context this looks bad.
No, daddy sky palace is a benevolent overlord he would never disparage people by their given race. I just know it.
I replot again but this time classifying by sex, and ethnicity.
Green and red respectively.
After putting down the quill I scream.
"BAAAA!"
This is somehow even worse. 65 percent of convicts are women. This reeks. It only goes down from here if you look at the refugees at a margin of 70 percent.
Now for the real test of humanity.
I grab another piece of parchment and start a new graph, obtaining new data.
Reported convict birth rates over a 50 year period. Measured In monthly entries.
Why is this one of the metrics that doesn't separate convicts and residents, making my job purposely harder.
I dig a little deeper, identifying the mothers given name, and comparing that to the census data.
With this I plot.
Have I made a mistake? No… no. It just doesn't tell me much. I'm missing something—the interval, the average time between arrivals and births.
I reach for the abacus and with the written names and given months I add up all the duration's and divide it by the number of children born.
Carry the three subtract the four yes yes.
No - I must've made a mistake, this number is too small, I will be more thorough next time.
Times the four and divide that by the total.
Move the ball and count.
At the new result my legs give out. I tumble, scattering ink across the floor.
My mouth opens.
Closes.
No sound.
Then a squeak.
"Five…"
"Five months."
"Five months average!"
Women here on average give birth within five months of arrival.
I stare down at the report. Then up, into the rows of hollow shelves.
Why?
Just—why.
What did they do to deserve this?
Now I need to know. What felony did they commit? This is important information to have here, if a murder is admitted it would be nice to know that.
Please, just be a bunch of murders and killers; sadistic terrorists that blew up orphanages for fun, please.
Just
...
Please.
I scavenge through folders, one after another, but the report's nowhere to be found.
Alright, alright. Just ask Jan.
I head back to the front desk. A new person now sits in her spot.
"Where's Jan? And who... are you?"
"I'm Sevistine," she says, tapping a stack of papers without looking up. "Jan had to help Nelson with something. She warned me about you though."
"Ah. You're the one who interviewed the people about the bodies, right?"
She looks up. "That's me."
"Good. Give me access to the reported crimes of convicted convicts?"
Her smile is thin. "That report's sealed. Clearance level—higher administrative officers only."
"I am the vice-head of administration." I respond.
"How comical." She responds dryly.
"Just hand it over."
"I know who you are," she says, eyes flicking over me. "It's just… seeing you in person, you don't seem like much."
She finally slides a key across the counter. "Grey folder. End of the rows, behind the locked cabinets."
I take the key, turn and make faces behind my back. Think I don't understand the subtext, calling me unqualified. How shallow is your world-view? What have you done to change this utter-shit.
Returning to the archives, I finish muttering to myself and find the lock.
The metal creaks as I open it.
Inside, two grey folders await.
I lay the information open, compare the records, and start reading through:
The crimes of women are:
- Moral correction.
- Anti-orthodoxy sentiment.
- Suspected Demon.
Some of these don't even try to hide the motives.
- Suspected infidelity.
- Adultery.
- Lewd conduct.
- Indecent exposure.
- Immorality.
- Unchaste behavior.
- Deviancy.
- Prostitution.
The list only goes on,
:(
Why do you have to take advantage of the situation like this? Don't you people follow the bible of god, I guess you only treat the people you care for equally, the rest like yonk-shit.
How about the men's crimes:
- Anti-social behavior.
- Sodomy.
- Anti-orthodoxy sentiment.
- Suspected Demon.
- Public nuisance.
- Vagrancy.
- Prohibited potential.
- Loitering.
- Social Discomfort.
Loitering. I rub my face and sigh. Another list of bullshit crimes. I reach for the next file, hoping for sense.
Instead I get... disease reports?
I flick through the heading.
"Inquiry of response to mitigate and understand the disease of De'sin."
I read on.
"Observed reports of infected symptoms is as follows:
"First stage: Mild fatigue or discomfort in upper right abdomen."
"Second stage: Fever, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, weight loss, Fatigue."
"Third stage: Yellow skin, yellow eyes, inflated stomach, confusion."
"Fourth stage: Bruising, swelling of skin, soft and wet to the touch, flesh appears to slag inward. Purple silk-web patterns emerge beneath the skin."
"It takes seven years on average to reach the fourth stage for assigned convicts, with cases of unexpected death suddenly occurring too. With limited diagnosis available all that is known is that residents who stay in camp survive longer, manifesting stage four after a reported 15 year period of time.
Proposal:
Request heavenly sky palace for their research through the heavenly protection board, Allocate more funding into diagnosis equipment."
Thanks for this report Nelson, at least someone cares.
That being said...
This data is like totally unusable.
How do I know? You ask.
Yes that's right Mute, you remembered. This is a sign of alcohol abuse, not De'sin. This report shows a lacking consideration for control in these conclusions. What is the disease vs what is just hepatitis or liver cirrhosis; you see it often in struggling communities, I suppose they don't have much communication or development here to know.
I'm no scientist, unfortunately I don't know enough to help people. But I suspect that whatever it is, this isn't it.
I throw the report against the shelf papers go flying.
Why is everything I read in this room so despair-inducing?
Standing up I drag myself out of the room.
Heading towards the exit, I eventually reach the outside door, intending to leave.
The church-bell strikes in dreary resonance.
My hand grips at bronze handle.
Turning it around my path is muddled clear.
But.
A small but familiar face stares at me.
Timothy?!