The Framework

Normality is safe. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the comfort and reassurance birthed by a familiar existence. Leslie sank into that feeling of contentment without reservation. She basked in the warmth of it, while settling into her metal chair. Bathed in its steam and ready to indulge in the weekly offering of spaghetti and garlic bread, she took a deep breath and felt her body melt. Every Wednesday, since before she could remember, she had enjoyed the hot bowl of red sauce that allowed her to shake off the mid-week slump that inevitably came. She sighed, relaxed her shoulders and picked up her plastic fork, ready to bury the few worries she had under a full stomach.

“I need to talk to you.” The words preceded a tray slamming down across the stainless steel table. Complete indifference afforded to the meal she herself treasured, “I think I’ve finally figured it out!”

“Figured what out?” Leslie said as quickly as possible, taking her first bite before anyone could interrupt further. She groaned as a drop of the staining sauce hit her white jumpsuit and scrambled to scrub it away with a napkin.

“The walls aren’t real.” Connie smiled. Leslie looked up for the first time and narrowed her eyes at the state of her friend. Her dark hair was a mess, her identical white garb dirty and in need of a press. The maniacal grin completed the sight of chaos as an identity.

“That’s…new,” She whispered, dropping her attention back to her food, “I wouldn’t go sharing that one on the network. Everyone already thinks you’re crazy as it is.”

“Obviously I don’t mean literally. I know that the brick and mortar of the Framework is solid, as well as anyone else in here. What I mean is that they aren’t truly what keeps us contained.”

Leslie rolled her eyes and kept on eating. She had been friends with this woman since they were children, always staying within the same cell block, but even she was starting to find the constant, outlandish theories draining.

“If the walls don’t keep us in, then what are the gates for? Or the cameras? If you hadn’t noticed, this is a prison, Connie. You need to stop this, there’s nothing more to it than what you see. As far as I can tell, we’re locked in, they aren’t letting us out and that’s about all there is to it.”

“There’s always more to it than what you see. There are always secrets. I wish you would listen and try to understand, before it's too late…I can’t wait for you forever...” The sadness in her eyes was so genuine, it was hard not to indulge her friend. But Leslie was not a dreamer. She had her work assignment in the factory to think of, not to mention the upper cell she had only recently upgraded to. No matter how contained, she had a whole life within the Framework that needed her attention. The thought of exerting to ideas of why, well it was a bit much. She simply didn’t have the time to invent a higher meaning to her life, not like Connie did.

“You know, there’s an opening on the factory floor. I could give you a recommendation? It might do you some good to work, earn a little money for the commissary? Maybe even get a cell upgrade like I did? It’s made such a difference to my outlook.” Leslie tried to explain.

“You haven’t been listening at all, have you?” Connie laughed, “That’s exactly what they want. You’re falling for the trap, settling for the pittance of a life they offer. You could do so much more Les, go so much further. If you would just look up once in a while! I mean, when was the last time you saw a guard? Do you ever remember seeing one?” She snapped.

“They’re behind the cameras…” Leslie muttered, “technology is a thing…you know…”

Connie shook her head and pushed back her chair, grinding it against the tiled floor. She strode from the dining hall without saying another word, leaving her meal untouched.

Sliding the metal door closed across her cell, Leslie kicked off her shoes and dropped exhausted onto the bed. The only bed. No longer did she have to share with a bunk mate or use headphones to watch the television. Instead, she had earned the right to have a place all of her own. It was luxury. She flicked on the TV screwed to the wall and hit play on the next episode of ‘The Dragon Kingdom’. She was mid-binge and highly invested in the fate of one particular young woman. Snuggling down into her pillows for the rest of the evening, she pulled close the cold-water thermos she had saved a whole month for and let her eyelids droop. The thought of a shower tickled the back of her mind, but it was all the way down the hall, and she had worked so hard already on her shift. Making electrical components was not easy. It took a lot of concentration. Conversations with Connie had become incredibly draining as well. In the end it was not a hard battle, she allowed her muscles to relax and her thoughts to slow, falling into the ease of spectating someone else’s hardships.

The next morning went by as any other; strolling through the Framework to start her shift was uneventful. Leslie merged with the hordes of people making their way to their own duties, passing the few that chose not to work and were just loitering around. Wasting their lives. She did glance at the cameras that roved across the faces in the crowd, watching them scanning as if on a rotation, then scoffed at her own behaviour. Connie’s ideas were not going to rub off on her. She simply didn’t have space for them. She grabbed a coffee, skipped breakfast, and got on with the day. There were targets to be met if she wanted that bonus at the end of the year. When lunch rolled around, Leslie slid into the same metal chair as always in the dining hall and waited for her friend to make an appearance. When Connie didn’t show, she thought nothing of it, sent off a quick text message to check she was alright, then joined the rest of the table in scrolling through her internal network device. The unwelcome spike of obligation she had felt to reach out to the strangers around her eased with the rolling list of prison news and opinion. Any anxiety at Connie’s absence evaporated completely. Dinner proceeded in the same way, but the space that her friend had left behind kept distracting Leslie from her device throughout that meal as well. It wasn’t until night had fallen and her television had gone silent, that she laid in bed and was attacked by bottled worry over where Connie might be. The Framework was huge, but they normally always found each other. With slightly shaky fingers, Leslie tapped out another message in the dark, and sighed in relief at the sound effect of a successful delivery. Even though none of her check-ins had yet been read.

It was another two days before Leslie found the courage and a spare moment of attention to go looking for her friend. With a rare weekend day off shift, she stepped up to Connie’s cell and knocked. Her bunk mate answered. She hadn’t seen Connie since mid-week either. Walking away from the door, Leslie started to feel a panic rising in her chest and constricting her throat. Her eyes darted around and she suddenly realised…there was no one to go to for help. Connie had pointed it out and it had been rolling around in her head for days, largely ignored. There were no guards. Spotting a camera she ducked in front of its lens and began waving, trying to garner some attention, but the damned thing just continued on its forever rotating scan of the concrete corridor. She waited in its view frantically waving in different formations until finally, with a growl of frustration, she gave up. For the first time in her mostly trouble-free life, she was forced to consider the reality of her situation. There were no guards in the Framework, the food was dispensed by machine and cooked she didn’t know where, the cameras didn’t respond to alarm and the gates were locked with no one on the other side. When something like this happened, where did people go for help? No one had even stopped to ask her what she was doing while she danced around the hallway like a lunatic, they all just ignored her. She leaned against the concrete block wall, allowing the cool stone to calm her thoughts. The only thing she could think to do to find her friend, was to go to the only other place Connie had spent any time. The library.

The ancient room was largely empty beyond a few old timers at single tables and the automated check in terminal. The long stacks of books had a thin film of dust across them and the whole place smelt musty. Leslie wasn’t even sure why the place was still open. Network devices could provide far more than all those old tomes. Perhaps it had simply been forgotten, and there was no one around to notice any more. A shiver ran down her spine at the thought. There was no way the same thing had happened to her and the other inmates…was there? She shook her head to dislodge the morbid thought and stepped up to the terminal. All she needed to do was type in Connie’s name to check in under her ID and the screen lit up with her history. Security of information wasn’t exactly a priority in the Framework prison. As she read down the list, she sighed.

“How is looking at a book log going to find a missing person?” she muttered to herself.

If she even was missing. Bets were, that she was just out chasing down one of her wild theories and if Leslie just went home and caught up on some ‘Dragon Kingdom’ episodes, by the time she was done, Connie would likely have appeared again. It was a strong compulsion, except something about the idea felt wrong. Like there was a pit in her stomach and a voice in her ear, screaming at her not to turn back. A line in the logs caught Leslie’s attention and she woke up her eyes to read it more closely.

Lineage of Owens Vol. 1

Connie’s family name. The next line down also looked interesting and so she noted that one too. It looked like they were both in the furthest corner of the library, to which she crept gently, but quickly, through the echoing stacks.

After coughing through the displaced dust that cascaded from the shelves, Leslie finally had the two ancient ledgers pulled and laid out on a table. There was dust on the corners of these ones too, but the fronts had been carelessly wiped clean already. She didn’t bother to sit and instead rushed to flick through them. The genealogy record was as expected, a bunch of names and dates on a family tree that all read ‘generational inmate’. Everyone in the Framework knew they were paying for some long-forgotten ancestor's crime. One act of villainy that had been so great, it had resulted in a sentence lasting innumerable generations. Many asked why those first incarcerated had even bothered reproducing, but Leslie had always figured - it was just what people do. Especially in a mixed population with little other true excitement. Plus, as she had proved, there was a good life to be had inside the Framework if you were willing to work for it. Though, now that the thought was stuck in her head, she wondered what her future really looked like…and what her children, if she ever had them, would make of the same cycle. She blinked away the idea and flicked through the book to the very end. There, she was surprised to find a blatant record of the original criminal. Edward Owens. Listed as his sentence were ‘discord against world order’, ‘treason’ and ‘inciting rebellion’. Fourteen generations.

“Must be where she gets it from…” Leslie smiled.

She slid the book away to the side and picked up the second item she had pulled. It was more like a bound report than a book and across the front page read ‘Contingency for Inexhaustible Labour and Genetic Training of Obedience’. As she read, her eyes darted faster and faster across the words and her mouth dropped open ever wider.

Leslie sprinted from the library, her eyes wet with tears and her heart hammering in her chest. Thoughts screamed through her mind, and it was numb, all at the same time. She ran, because she needed to do something, she needed to feel like there was some urgency. She needed to release the shock from her body somewhere. Her legs seemed the logical place. She kept going, dodging through the Framework crowds, barging and tripping where there was no room. It didn’t matter, as long as she was still moving. No one cared anyway. Her body took her to the only place it knew it was safe. Right to her cell door. She paused at the entrance, her chest heaving and her breath panting, and leaning one hand against the door frame, she sobbed. She knew if she walked in, she would lie down on the bed, hide under the blankets and pretend like normal existed again. She would turn on the TV or scroll through her network device, acting like nothing had happened until her nervous system was convinced that it was true. Then she could go back to her life. She could forget. Except it was all a lie. All of it. An illusion built so expertly and for so long that even her basest instincts accepted it.

“No.” She whispered, “No. I can’t go back to that. I wish I could…I really, really want to…but I can’t pretend anymore.”

Instead, she wiped her eyes, turned and walked steadily toward the front courtyard.

Leslie strode across the gravel expanse; her eyes locked on the huge stone and metal gates at the other side. Camera’s swivelled to track her progress, all of them finally taking note of her. A couple inmates were showing a passing interest from the Framework entrance, but most just ignored the commotion and went about their business. Like she had so often done at any sign of disturbance. Head down and walk away. It had always been safer that way. Walking toward a problem, it was a new sensation. Leslie’s knees felt weak and all her bones were like jelly, but she strode on, a fire of resolve burning, fuelled by the certainty of what she knew to be the truth. She went unhindered. There were no alarms, no warnings, no gun shots. No guards. When she reached the enormous iron gates, she paused and took a deep breath of relief. Then swallowing and summoning her courage, reached out one hand and pushed against the cold metal. The gate swung open a few feet, she inched through and walked out of the Framework.

On the other side, standing in an open sandy desert where the light was too bright, was Connie. She had been waiting.

“The walls aren’t real…” Leslie laughed.

“We created them,” Connie nodded, “They long since lost the need to enforce containment. We were doing it all by ourselves. I’m so glad you finally chose to see it…”

“We should go back and tell them all!”

“No.” Connie said, dropping her eyes to the floor, “They won’t believe you. More likely they’d attack you for making them try. You saw how they treated me. No, they will only leave if they decide it themselves, and they can at any time, all they have to do is look up and walk out. But the truth is, most people don’t want to. It's far easier to stay inside. Where it’s comfortable. Where it’s safe.”

“I know you’re right. This morning...I was doing the same thing.” Leslie said, shaking her head.

“What changed?”

“Safety lost its allure...without you," She grinned, "Though, if we could somehow get ahold of ‘The Dragon Kingdom’ finale, I'd be really grateful...”

The two laughed without reservation, for perhaps the first time in their lives, and Leslie stepped forward to join Connie, her oldest friend. She took her hand.

“Who did all this? Where are they? Where are we? And where do we go from here?” Leslie asked in rapid succession.

“Let me show you.” Connie whispered.

The pair turned and walked into the dangerous unknown and despite the fear, all Leslie could do was smile.