Guilty Until Proven

By Troim Kryzl

Imminent future speculative fiction. In some respects, the fair new world will feel oh so familiar. Femke and Mobo, they could be your colleagues, in Europe or Africa. Come to think of it, you might have shared a school, or have attended the same university. A lawyer and a journalist, doesn't sound very SciFi, right? Even if you add a couple of scientists? Well, brace yourself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troim Kryzl
• Release date: Dec 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463930007

Troim Kryzl

Not providing a photograph and writing under a pen name for professional reasons. Please refer to my website and LinkedIn profile for as many details as can be made available under my current career circumstances.Mastodon: @[e-mail]

Book preview

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Guilty Until Proven

Published by Troim Kryzl at Smashwords

Copyright 2018 Troim Kryzl

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share it with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of the author.

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Container 245

„Sofia? Sofia, can you hear me? The dump, again. A stinking, horrible dump. With rats, bigger than cats. My task is to collect rubbish. Plastic bags. Only the solid kind. Not many of these around. I have to wander the dump for hours. In flip flops. They’re made from discarded car tyres. A bit more solid than ours, but still flip flops. I have to collect ten solid plastic bags. My quota. Remember the thick bags, Sofia? The ones you used to get in fancy shoe shops, before the Reversal? High street shopping, that was fun. You remember high street shopping, Sofia?"

Femke is whispering in the dark, in the direction of the next bunk bed. Her young friend, if a friend she is, should be awake. No answer. Would she have resorted to... Stop.

Never no bad thinking. Femke made a solemn vow, to think positive. At all times. Sofia is alive. She’s either still asleep. Or offended to be considered old enough to recall pre-Reversal high streets. Or loth to comment for any other, unidentifiable reason.

The shutters will go up any minute now. A dreaded moment. At night, if you manage to ignore the breathing and occasional sighing of your seven fellow inmates, you can dream yourself back. Once the shutters are up, you have to face what currently passes for your life.

You share a container with seven entities. Persons. Women. Ladies.

Feels wrong, to think of this containerload of baddies as ladies. Femke is only willing to apply such a polite term to Sofia. Even if she’d rather think of her as a girl. The kid could be her daughter. She’s forty two, Sofia twenty. Possible. Very early start. Impractical. Would have collided with her studies. But in some parallel universe... Stop.

Further down this path lies nothing but misery. There are no parallel universes. This is the one and only universe at her disposal. It’s not that bad. Mostly. Hopefully. Not all bad.

The shutters will go up at 5:45. The voice will tell them the date, and to stand up and get ready. The loudspeaker is above the only door, below the camera. They’ve got fifteen minutes. Ample. No longer any need for explanations. They know what to do. The latest arrival was Sofia, and she’s been in pretrial detention for three weeks.

Getting ready means they have to turn their sleeping bags inside out and suspend them on the bar at the foot end of their beds.

They sleep head to head. Femke and Sofia have the upper beds on the left side. Sofia’s feet point at the door side, Femke’s at the window side. In her first week, Femke asked for permission to sleep the other way round. Quest for better air. It gets stuffy, sleeping eight to a container. Permission denied. No reason provided.

Femke has been wondering ever since: Is the voice a person? It does have three ways of sounding, but that’s easily programmable. If it’s only a piece of software supervising their behavior, everything would need to be as streamlined as possible. It would make sense to deny her permission to sleep the other way round.

Sense is important. Sense equals hope. Perhaps. Come to think of it, perhaps rather not... Stop.

That squeaking, from right below, Femke has come to dread it. She’s totally aware the bloody oldie is only partly to blame. But if ever granny opts for the exit, she’s certain not going to shed any tears. That smell is disgusting. Each time the oldie moves, she sends a whiff of dried piss upwards. It’s in the mattress. She occasionally wets her bed.

No problem for the track suit and the sleeping bag. You can get fresh ones as often as necessary. But the mattress, that’s left to dry. Bacteria feed on the urine, and you get that smell. Femke would have guessed it’s the urine causing the stink. But Sofia explained there’s a process. She knows that kind of stuff. Spent a year aiming for a biology degree.

That should help her. Natural sciences count in your favor. With these, and her youth, Sofia has every chance to be on the safe side. Whereas Femke... Stop.

„Monique? Monique, I’m afraid you did it, again. Why can’t you just drink less, Monique? If you’re bladder can’t handle ten to six, there is a very simple fix. Less water, with your dinner. Can you please drink less, and request a fresh sleeping bag, Monique? And perhaps ask about having that mattress cleaned? No offense intended. But we really need to find a way..."

Femke has bent down towards the stink to whisper the admonition. Should be loud enough for all to hear, including whoever remotely monitors container 245. No problem. She’s not afraid her initiative might be considered antisocial. It’s the opposite, really. Seven people suffer because Monique won’t refrain from drinking too much. It’s social, to do something about this. Unless you consider such a rationale crooked lawyer logic... Stop.

The rustling sound comes first. Then the shutter shivers, the slats switch to horizontal, start to move upwards and voilà, it’s daytime. The voice won’t speak to them until the shutter has reached its uppermost position and fallen silent again. Makes sense.

Femke wonders how many containers there are. And if they all share this ritual. All eight of them stay flat and barely move, until the voice has spoken. That’s the signal to sit up, stretch, utter the „oh my, here we go again" kind of general non-statement and get going.

All alive. Judging by the way she stares up at her, Monique would prefer her dead. But no actual fatalities. The voice says the usual. They stand up respectively climb down, shake out their sleeping bags and hang them up. Some get it right first time, some struggle.

Femke forever marvels, at the differences. They’re all wearing grayish blue track suits, standing next to grayish blue mattresses handling grayish blue sleeping bags. They’re made to wear their hair short. No escaping the weekly haircut, army style. With that hair, she looks like her dad on his driving license picture. Terrible. Ugly uniformity rules. But they’re still unique.

Their sleeping bags have to hang there, flattened out straight, both ends same length. They have to stand in line, facing the door. If the voice is satisfied, the door will click open. They will be told to march to the sanitary installations. It’s just one more container, down the lane.

They’re still waiting for the go. Sofia pats and pulls at her sleeping bag, in case it’s her lack of accuracy causing the delay. Femke checks hers, too. Again, just in case. No problem. Monique mumbles something, about perfidious lies. Her sleeping bag doesn’t look wet, she might have a point. But there’s no denying that stench. Femke pinches her nose for sole comment.

Turns out it was indeed Sofia’s sleeping bag that had not been matching the expectations of the voice. Once it's straightened flat and she’s back in line there comes the click. And the next order: „Proceed to container 240. Don’t cross the red line. Wait for further instructions."

Always the same wording. In a flat voice, its jargon is devoid of politeness. No please, no thank you. Just orders. Do. Stop. Wait. Do. And so on.

They are free to talk among themselves, as much as they please. Even expected to engage in interactions. As in providing new arrivals with instructions, about how to comply with the expectations of the voice. It’s their job, to sort out glitches. They want the bathroom. Up to them to act in a way that will get the them there. Works.

Femke is impressed, by how well most of this works. When she was still outside, oblivious to her own upcoming arrest, she had no idea. Next, she spent a terrifying ten hour bus journey in panicky anticipation. But the place turned out to be less bad than expected. Well organized. And pretty boring. The voice orders them around. They comply.

With as little chattering as possible. You don’t know how much they know. You’ve only got a rough idea of their criteria, and how these might align with your deeds. You do know they’re bound to watch and listen. Probably by technological means. Best to shut up.

Femke mostly sticks to her own advice. On the way to the sanitary container, she curses herself, for having blabbed once again. Waking up from nightmares, she tends to forget her self imposed rules. What if they didn’t know, about her shopping queen past? Could talking about her worst fear make it happen? And she said Reversal. That’s bad language... Stop.

Walking at the end of the queue, Femke hears the sighs before identifying the cause. Not hard to guess, though. They’re late. Sofia did take her time, and all eight of them are going to pay the price. One sanitary unit for nine residentials, and they’ll be going in last. If there’s any warm water left, it will be tepid. At best. She won’t be washing her hair today.

Seven lines of eight women each, and still so little small talk. Perverse conditions make you act like perverts. Femke stands between Sofia and Monique. She certainly won’t start talking to either. The former should apologize. Whereas the latter... Stop.

At least it’s a bright day. Just past six in the morning, and already quite warm. Not one cloud in the sky. It’s going to get real hot today. The white containers gleam in the sun. With the reddish gravel underneath, the place looks neat. Some birds sing, in the trees beyond the fence, over at he back, behind container 249. A good day to go in last.

Day before yesterday, that would have been a bad one. It was raining so hard they discussed asking the voice to be allowed to wait it out. Puddles were forming. The red gravel is there to make sure the ground doesn’t turn into a swamp each time it rains. But it can only take so much water in one go. A majority was in favor of waiting. Monique made one of her scenes. Unwilling to use their pisspot, she insisted on going anyway. Turned out to be the lucky choice. No other group had the guts to risk standing in that rain. They got right in, and plenty of warm water.

One containerload is done and trecks off, towards the big tent. Femke only hears the crunching sound of eight pair of feet walking on gravel, imagines the corresponding smiles. Arriving first means getting the best breakfast. Nice start into the day.

The voice will summon the next group in any second now. Femke’s lot will get to shuffle one step forward. Here comes the order. This will take ages... Stop.

A particularly enthusiastic bird suddenly stops warbling. Cat alarm?

Femke had been considering the purchase of a cat. To have something to greet her on coming home. Her last intern, a former paralegal that no amount of university attendance will ever turn into a proper lawyer, this intern used to wax lyrical, about his cat. How it helped him survive the two ice age winters. It was there, warm, fluffy and purring, while the world went down.

Two bloody freak winters. That was all it took. Such fragility. Who’d have thought... Stop.

„Sorry. For making us get in last, I mean. Didn’t notice how crumpled it was. The sleeping bag. My mistake. Before coffee, I’m useless. Just failed to see the crumple. Sorry."

Femke is pleased with Sofia. There’s of course no coffee, not with their breakfast. But her initiative, that’s OK. That’s why she tends to think of the girl as her friend. She’s got that innate concept of responsibility. You have to own up to your misdeeds... Stop.

„No problem, Sofia, absolutely no problem. Besides, it’s not up to you alone, to check your sleeping bag. We all know how the container is supposed to look. Getting it right is a team effort. No indivual can succeed on his own..."

Femke would have gone on with her team spirit speech. There’s a whole chapter to come, about strengthes and weaknesses, opportunities and threats. But Sofia cuts in:

„Her own, Femke. Her own. None of us can succeed on our own. And we’re all ladies. Lady effort, her effort. Gentleman effort, assuming there was such a thing, his effort. By the way, Femke, I think this whole fuzz, that’s not even intended for us. That’s for the men. To educate them. Like in the army. For example, my little brother, he could do with that kind of training.

Four people at home: Mom, dad, my little brother, and me. And my boy friend, one some days. But basically, we’re a family of four. One bathroom. Four people. Four towels. Four towel rails. You don’t need to be Einstein to find out where to place your towel. Especially as that’s exactly where you found it. And how to hang it up, to allow it to dry. That’s pretty physically obvious, too. Trust my little brother not to manage. And mom says dad used to be the same, before she bath trained him. Because of guys like them, we are subjected to stupid rules.

With just ladies around, you wouldn’t need that kind of restrictions. Ladies will care for their place to look orderly and pleasant. All by themselves. If you let them."

Femke is torn. She does like Sofia’s English. The staccato talking. The cute Spanish accent. Pleasant sound. But this gender study lecture, that’s rubbish. Femke vaguely recalls how she used to think along similar lines, back in her student days. The concept didn’t stand the test of time. Women are no better than men, generally speaking.

Having managed to work up her way into a leading legal counsel role with a multinational, Femke has endured her fair share of workplace encounters. With both males and females. Of all ages. Turned her into a bit of a misanthrope. Stop...

„You’re not convinced, Femke, right? Imagine it must be less obvious for you, because Nordic men are such progressives. Is it true, that menfolk in the Netherlands take parental leave? They stay at home, with the baby? And change the diapers, and everything?

Our drummer, before he joined us, he did a couple of gigs, with a band in Amsterdam. They played at a youth club. There used to be a social worker. Suddenly, he was gone. Replaced by a parental leave backup. Our drummer, he wouldn’t believe it. I mean, he’s a punk, he’s certainly no bigot. But diaper duty?! Your Nordic men, they’re so special..."

This is so incredibly stupid. It gives Femke something to listen to, though. Helps with the waiting. She won’t contradict the kid, only arguing back in her head.

First and foremost against being called Nordic. Nordic, that’s Norvegia, Sweden and Finland. Some people might include Denmark. But the Netherlands, or Belgium, that’s certainly not Nordic. Someone from Barcelona should know.

And then there are the prejudices. Femke will never stop marveling at this concept of Dutchness. Involves bicycles instead of BMWs, youth clubs instead of corporate headquarters, quinoa munching social workers instead of chief marketroids showing off their Apple watches.

No, most people in the Netherlands don’t float through life on a cloud of hashish. They put on an extra dose of deodorant, and here comes a new productivity record.

Last not least, concerning the Dutch male, that mystical beast presumably combining pronounced manliness, more often than not of the good looking kind, with sublime sensitivity and a charming proclivity to handle the input and output side of feeding babies, enough to allow the sweeties to grow up into kids and teenagers that are even more tedious to have around...

Femke abandoned the quest years ago. She had two options: Remain in a dead end position, to stay in her native Rotterdam. Focus on the ticking of her biological clock, and her hunt for the mythical mate. Or move to stupid Eindhoven, and one level up on the career ladder. With more advancement possible. If she was willing to put in what it takes, a recruiter euphemism for a sixty hour week. By that time, getting rich through hard work already felt like the lesser fairy tale.

One more step forward. They’re making good progress. Probably for lack of hot water.

Femke once again wonders, if their masters keep track of how much hot water each containerload uses. Probably. And how bad her group is going to look.

Not for her lack of trying to improve their record.

There are only two of each, in the sanitary container. Two showers, two toilets, two sinks. When she arrived, there was already a practice in place. To take turns to use all three, every morning.

Once she became aware they were pretty slow, compared to other groups, Femke challenged the tradition. She proposed to switch to a different rhythm. To take a shower every other day only, and make do with the sink for the rest of the time. You can also share a sink, for toothbrushing.

An clear majority of five was willing to give Femke’s proposal a try. Not Monique. Madame freaked out. Some of what she said was so less than polite Femke nearly lost her self control. She had to focus real hard, on her rule for such occasions: Never ever let insults get to you. They try to provoke you. They want you to behave uncivilized. To confirm their prejudices.

„I’d rather prefer my husband to make the money. Lots of money. If there’s lots, we can hire a nanny, and we’re both spared diaper duty. Wage slaving, that’s no option for me. Not made for it, somehow. Hard work, any time, no problem. Before my arrest, I used to rehearse like mad. For at least three hours, every single day. Ever tried to play the guitar, Femke, for more than one hour? Tips of your fingers, they go numb. And the cramps, terrible. I can work real hard. The guys in my band, they’re awed, totally awed, by my perseverance. But wage slaving? No way..."

Femke has to mentally concede she’s getting old. That’s not the feminism of her student years. That’s a totally different kind of bullshit. These ramblings also explain why the kid got herself arrested. Sofia doesn’t even seem to be aware she’s doing the prosecutor’s job. Only takes her three sentences to end up in an indefensible position.

The next step forward already? Now that was fast. They wouldn’t be running out of water, or would they? That would be terrible. The conditions would deteriorate fast... Stop.

„No one is made for wage slaving, Sofia. You’re not, I’m not. No one is. We like making things, being creative, a chance to express our deeper selves. At our own rhythm, in our very own way, and time. This is why the concept of the universal basic income is so important..."

Monique sings her statement, the French way. Hard to identify as English, for native speakers. Not many of these around. The common language of the detainees is bad English, the kind you speak in cross border business. Or science. They’re all pretty good at it. Fluent in international meeting jargon. Struggling only with more prosaic vocabulary.

Femke envies Monique. Her nemesis is lucky, to be held so close to home.

The pretrial detention center is located in the middle of hilly green nowhere specific. The voice only tells them the date, no address. But Femke is confident they’re in France. The windows of the bus were blackened. Impossible to see where they were going. But there were stops. At first to pick up additional arrestees. Native French and German speakers, according to their accents. Once all seats were occupied, they kept rolling for longer stretches. Only got a few toilet breaks. All signs were in French. French only. France. Not Belgium.

„With the universal basic income, we will be free to choose what we do for a living. Everybody has to contribute, and everybody will, of course. Because everybody wants to express themselves, at times. And at other times is entitled to a break. Some people need more pauses, periods of reflection, than others. It’s so easy, if you’re willing, to once and for all righten all wrongs. We all have our specific talents and desires, it’s only a matter of..."

In Monique’s English, this sounds even more like some incantation. Femke would love to retort something witty, in a mock French accent. Except she doesn’t