(Fic) Witness Statement
Fic backstory for @thefalloficarus and his RP character Cassius. Which doesn’t actually have Cassius himself in it at all, and is instead Morrigan and Vachan having a dinner date and being sarcastic about State eugenics programmes. Because of course. (Also thank you @aj-hateley and @maxilius for borrowing some bits from their Ministry stuff!)
Title: Witness Statement
Setting: Fairco backstory.
Warnings: Discussion of executions (hanging, burning); discussion of eugenics.
Summary: Vachan and Morrigan discuss failures and scapegoats.
Characters: Dr Vachan; Morrigan Stewart (’The Auditor’)
Words: 1824
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Curls of sickly black smoke rise into the midday sky, thinning and spreading until lost against the trailing clouds overhead, leaving nothing but a half-imagined fevered pallor to the air. I watch them spiral up from behind the grey-and-glass angles of the City, from the square where the Trees stand, and I shiver.
Today’s burnings are brought to you by the Ministry of Blood.
Perhaps I have been listening to the wireless too much in recent weeks, because the replicated saccharine-cheer of Approved Advertising is a little too quick to frame my thoughts. I cover my discomfort with a glance away from the window.
“Something amiss, Doctor?”
Morrigan hasn’t even looked up, but I know very well that there is no point in lying to my dining companion.
We are seated in a half-enclosed booth, one of a dozen identical here, each roofed and lined with black. Carefully-positioned overhead lights cast abyssal shadows into the depths of the chairs. The angles of the furniture have been subtly crafted, fixtures and even the fabric a work more of engineering than of mere upholstery. It all serves to dampen sound, wrapping the occupants of the booths in their own silent cloak, even to those passing within mere feet.
No one knows the value of privacy quite like an Auditor, and the Harpocrates Club – which occupies this part of the Office’s upper floor – is testament to that. The first time I came here, I admit I was a little confused by the point of this place. Being able to speak in concealed confidence, of course, but I have little doubt that other Auditors’ personal offices are as secured as Morrigan’s is, so this seems…strange. An oddly public kind of solitude. If you want to avoid being overheard, why leave the worksday world at all?
But now, I think I understand. Here, it is both possible for Auditors not to be overheard, and not to overhear. Privacy that works in all directions.
It has been some time since my Auditor and I have had to keep our acquaintance purely private. The ghosts of my fingerprints are inside her throat, where I have cut away tumour and wedded new metal beneath her skin, and the shadow of her has lain heavy across my shoulders for years. In many ways, it is simply easier to conceal our exact nature within a cloak of careful visibility.
So today we sit in the black embrace of her favoured table, and watch the smoke rising above the City’s line.
“The short answer, or the long one?” I reply, as I place my fork down onto the streaked emptiness of my plate. Morrigan gives a faint snort of amusement.
“That depends, does it not?” She looks up, towards the view rather than directly to me, and tilts her head slightly. “On the verbosity of your concerns. With precedent, I’d think the latter.”
I drum my fingertips on the table surface, metal nails raising a sharp click, and wonder how to frame the spiralling trails of my thoughts.
“This is an unusual time for the Trees to burn,” I begin, and Morrigan shrugs.
“The paperwork is in order.”
“I’m sure it it. I just…” hesitate, again, trying to phrase this. “I saw the Information feeds. ‘Gross misconduct’ and ‘Appropriation of State resource’.”
“Correct.” My Auditor takes a sip from her glass – water, free of the often-acrid burn of heavy City chlorination – but does not otherwise react.
It is time to be more direct.
“More an offence for the noose…?” I hazard.
“Would that be your judgement, Doctor?” She looks at me now, and the edges of her mouth twitch slightly. “The gallows?”
“That depends, does it not –?” I echo, matching the tilted head. “– on the nature of it. That business with the K-Line. The rumours of Aberrancy testing. The Ministry has been… highlighted, of late. Hard to ignore.”
My gaze flicks back to the window, and I swallow a knot in my throat.
“But it’s even harder to ignore the Trees in bloom.”
Morrigan’s lips thin, ever so slightly, as she follows my attention towards the smoke trail. She is silent for long enough that I wonder if I have miss-stepped, but just as I consider changing the subject, she continues.
“It is – was – a… private endeavour.” There is no tone to her synthetic voice, but I am versed enough in the pattern of pauses to hear the distaste that lies behind her words. “A twenty year squandering of resource and effort, to pander to the delusional self-comfort of those who least require it. Brought to a close.”
She stops; taking another drink. I contemplate my plate, as my mind whirls rapidly behind my calm projection. It is unusual, to say the least, to find Morrigan in a gossiping mood, and I cannot deny a moment of strange thrill at the realisation.
“Twenty years?” I ask, carefully. “If you were aware of this –?”
“Outside my remit, Doctor.” Morrigan’s reply is short, but there is no sharpness to her eyes. “Officially, and practically. The Auditor of Blood is territorial, even by the standards you are used to, and she has some very… fixed ideas. You are aware of that Ministry’s overall functionality.”
I nod, although it was not a question. The Ministry of Blood – so-called because, let’s be honest, ‘the Ministry of Population Control and Distinctly Dubious Eugenics’ does not exactly roll off the tongue – has oversight of many things, but is primarily involved with the pedigree of Wards. With family bonds as many might understand them all but absent amongst the underscored, the need to keep track of who bore whom, or how closely related two Beds from one Block might be, has become increasingly vital. Inbreeding is clearly to be avoided, medical records and tissue typing are always important; yet for certain mindsets it is not a significant leap between that, and the weeding out of less desirable characteristics, or the encouragement of others. The application of domestication theories, to human beings…
Distasteful does not go far enough.
“I know about the Lineage projects,” I reply, after a moment of thought. Controlling all Ward pairings would be beyond even a Ministry effort, either by accident or design, so for the most part Blood has concerned its focused efforts on a few Lines. C-Line for docility, and the pallid blonde beauty preferred by certain sectors; and those recent shadows of the K-Line rumours. There are likely others but I have paid them little attention.
Outside my remit, indeed.
Morrigan places her glass back down, and nods slowly.
“Yes. Breeding Wards like dogs.” Her nostrils twitch, muscles tightening either side of her face. “I cannot say I have ever had much faith in the work. Brilliance, Doctor, in my experience, is not easily produced to order. Perfection is a poisonous ideal.”
“You said this was private, though…?” I push, gently, and am met by a new knife of a smile.
“Indeed.” She flicks one gloved hand back towards the window, encompassing the smoke trails again. “Once the idea is there, once it seems possible, there will always be those who think they can do better. And have the capital to sink into such absurd pursuits.”
A few seconds of silence roll back and forth between us, before she continues.
“Pandora’s Witnesses.” She meets my gaze, accompanied by a raised eyebrow of her own. “Citizen-sponsored, if by some chance you could not guess from the name. I understand there were a raft of characteristics required in the specification; a good number little more than pandering to the sexual desires of the project’s presumed customer base.” At that, I note that slight, slight tick in her expression that I recognise. The one we have never discussed, because how in the Chain’s links would you start that sort of conversation? A distance there, bordering a moment on confusion, for a section of life of utter personal distinterest, and yet…
But I am not here to wonder on my Auditor’s preferences, or lack of them. If she notices that I notice, and I find it difficult to imagine that she does not, then she makes no sign of it as she continues.
“They are, bluntly, Secret Keepers. Bred-for-purpose dolls, made to listen and soothe smarting conscience in a… great variety of ways. Primarily their apparent, intrinsic inability to recount anything told in confidence.”
I frown, examining the description. No matter what angle I approach it from… in merely twenty years…
“That… can’t work,” I say at last, and Morrigan gives a snort of amusement.
“Correct. The pivotal element is a specific form of conditioning. Inelegant, from all reports I have seen, but so wrapped up in pseudo-genetic hearsay it seems otherwise.” She picks up her knife, twisting the blade in the air idly. “Regardless. The project was a failure, Doctor. A handful of resultant scions, traded on like expensive cattle, leaving a trail of broken failures and squandered investment that far exceeds their price. I believe Blood’s intention in allowing this farce to continue was in wait for a situation such as today. Keeping secrets from your squeamish relatives is one thing. But from the Office – and thus, from Mother?”
A cold smile bleeds across my Auditor’s face, and her grey eyes are like windows into hades’ storms.
“That is quite another.”
Hairs prickle across the back of my neck.
“A scapegoat, then,” I say, flatly, and Morrigan laughs. That same repeated ripple of recorded sound, captured long ago, like fossilised amusement.
“In a view. Quite possibly Blood could no longer pacify Education with placeholders and assurances. If nothing else, regardless of stock, an individual outside of the PRIFAC system cannot technically be considered to be a Ward. Education is very… particular, about that.”
I look back towards the smoke.
“A distraction, then.”
“More than likely.”
“From what?” As soon as I ask, as soon as the short words leave my lips, I know them a mistake. Morrigan’s eyes narrow, slightly, and I recognise the warning in her expression as she leans forward.
“Now that – is outside your remit, Doctor,” she says, her voice dropping to its lower setting. “Officially, and practically. Keep your concerns where they lie now. These fires will not last long.”
She sits back and, despite the controlled climate of our surroundings, I feel another shiver run the length of my neck. It might be best to put these thoughts aside – to sit alongside other times my sentimentality has clashed with practical concerns – but I will not be able to dismiss it as easily as I might wish.
A handful of resultant scions.
I will wonder what happened to them, for some time.
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