Scene
Days south of the warehouse, the forest road has grown quieter, the trees lower and more scattered, giving way to stretches of open ground. In the late afternoon light, a small and well-managed campfire inside natural hollow just off the road is visible. Two figures sit close to it. One has her legs stretched toward the heat, her dark curly hair pulled back loose, a collar shirt worn through at one shoulder. The other sits with her knees drawn up, crown braids catching the firelight, watching the treeline. She sees them first.
Flavia
stands, one hand moving to her side, looks across the fire silently for a full second, reading the way they move, then lowers her hand You are heading south.
Wilma
turns toward them from her seat, eyes moving between the two of them There's room by the fire. We are easy to get along with if you are.
Flavia
steps to the side to open the space, her voice settling into a quiet tone Sit down. looks at Catalina, then Dima You have both been walking since morning, I can see that.
Dima
Hey, thanks... Dima sits by the fire slowly and invites Catalina to do the same
Wilma
shifts to give them more room, reaches into her pack and pulls out two wrapped pieces of flatbread and sets them by the fire edge to warm Eat something if you want, we have enough.
Catalina
sits close to the fire, sets her rifle across her knees, and looks at the bread for a moment before looking up at Wilma Thank you.
Flavia
settles back down, her eyes moving between them with quiet curiosity Where are you coming from?
Dima
We are coming from Seattle. I am from the Collective, and pointing to Catalina she is from the WLF directly, we've become close friends ever since we met inside a spore-infested subway.
Catalina
glances at him briefly, then back at the fire Yeah, former WLF.
Wilma
looks at Catalina with something that takes a moment to name, then lets out a slow breath I was WLF too. Left for the Collective about four years ago. a pause I met her at grain processing. gestures toward Flavia
Flavia
a small sound, almost amused She argued with me for three weeks about the best way to run the sifting line before we said anything personal. looks at Wilma Then we lived together for a year and left together.
Flavia
looks at him across the fire Flavia.
Wilma
Wilma. glances at Catalina
Catalina
Catalina. looks at Wilma What made you leave?
Wilma
looks at the fire for a moment I watched three people I trusted get executed for talking to a Seraphite. a short pause After that, staying started to feel like a choice I was making every morning. quietly One day I just stopped making it.
Flavia
her voice even I left the Seraphites before that. a pause It took me longer to admit I had left in my head than in my feet. The Collective was the first place where nobody asked me to be a version of myself I did not recognize.
Wilma
glances at her Then they asked us to leave because of the fuel disputes.
Flavia
They did not ask us to leave.
Wilma
The atmosphere asked us to leave.
Flavia
a quiet sound, something close to a laugh Yes. That is more accurate.
Dima
to Flavia You don't have that cut on your mouth.
Flavia
a brief pause, her hand moving slightly toward her face, then settling I left before the ceremony. quietly You had to be sixteen. I was fourteen when I walked out. looks at the fire My family did not know until I was already gone.
Wilma
glances at her, says nothing
Catalina
looks at Flavia directly for a moment, then back at the fire How far did you get before they noticed?
Flavia
Far enough. a short silence The forest is large and I had been learning it since I was small. The Prophet taught us the land was ours to move through. the faint edge of something dry in her voice That part, at least, was useful.
Wilma
looks at the shape of Dima's pack, then Catalina's, then back to Dima What are you carrying?
Dima
A computer, a laptop, batteries, she has a communicator, I have a communicator, it's electronics everywhere.
Wilma
looks at him for a moment Working ones?
Flavia
glances at Wilma, then at Dima with genuine curiosity Where did you find a laptop?
Dima
It was at a Meridian electronics store in a small village, and there was a huge advertisement, like Intel Centrino, Mobile Technology, Play Video... I don't know... the exciting world of multimedia, but then we played pinball and it was not a five-hour battery.
Flavia
quietly We had nothing like that in the Collective. Grain ledgers, handwritten. a pause I have never seen a working one.
Wilma
The WLF had a radio setup at the stadium. That is the closest thing I ever touched. looks at the pack Pinball.
Catalina
dry It said five hours on the box.
Wilma
How long did you get?
Dima
More like thirty minutes of Full Tilt. It was cool nonetheless, and then we had been at a recycling center a few days ago, and we lost each other, and we had to use our communicators to call each other and get back. And then, there was a phonograph...
Wilma
straightens slightly They actually worked? The communicators, at range?
Flavia
looking at the fire, something thoughtful in her expression A phonograph. quietly We had one in the settlement when I was small. Someone's grandmother had kept it. a pause What did it play?
Dima
Something about e-waste. I recorded it on the laptop, you can listen to it if you want.
Flavia
looks up from the fire Yes.
Wilma
glances at Flavia, then back at Dima You are going to pull a laptop out by a campfire.
Catalina
already reaching for her pack He will. a short pause It takes a moment to start up.
Dima
to Catalina Yeah, pull out the batteries to charge this thing, it does not have much battery. Dima pulls out the laptop from his pack, starts it up and plays a recording he made of the phonograph
"...I have been here eleven years on this floor and I will tell you exactly what I see.
When Meridian was coming up, everybody talked about them like they were going to be the next HP. And for a while, maybe they were right. They were close. Second place, they said, right behind HP, ahead of Dell, moving fast. The MC5786 line, those machines, you could drop one and it would still boot. You could replace every component by hand with a screwdriver and a parts list. We almost never saw them here, almost never.
Then comes the MC5896. New chassis, new proprietary board architecture, new firmware signed so tight you cannot touch it. The manual tells you nothing about where it fails because Meridian does not want you to know where it fails. You know the Stallman printer story? Same thing. You see an error, the machine will not tell you what the error is. It just stops, so it comes here.
Designed life, they call it. Five years, maybe seven if you are careful. Seven years and it is obsolete by the firmware, even if the hardware is fine. The hardware is sometimes fine. I have seen perfectly good boards come through on pallets because one capacitor that you cannot source separately failed and the whole unit gets condemned.
The Meridian Remote, that little device, the one they licensed the QNX software from Blackberry for, that one is worse. Two years standard use before the software starts rejecting its own components. Four years if the user is careful. Six to ten years in a survival situation, maybe, if nobody pushes updates, if the firmware just sits still and the hardware holds. But under normal use, two years and it starts dying in ways you cannot see and cannot fix.
The ground outside this building, twenty metres out from the loading dock, you do not walk on that ground for long. The rare earths, like Indium, beryllium, cadmium leach from the older batteries. The soil test we did three years ago came back and nobody above me wanted to talk about it.
I am not an academic. I just move the boxes. I know what comes in and I know what does not leave clean. That is all."
[recording ends - ambient noise continues two seconds, then silence]
Flavia
has not moved since the voice started. After a long moment He knew all of that and he was still just moving the boxes.
Dima
Yeah, and the soil was... desolate. And the waters were gray... and then the manual for MC5786 tells you explicitly that Meridian's firmware is not free software, they have not been designed for free software although it can run free software. And then you look at the piles of perfectly functional devices that explode just after you started them... and there is another part of the recording in a different phonograph...
"...what you have to understand about Meridian is that the decision was made early. Before the MC5896, before the Remote. The decision was: proprietary firmware, signed binaries, no user access to the repair layer. That decision did not come from engineering. It came from the business side, and the business side had been reading the same documents Microsoft wrote in 1998.
The Halloween documents. You know them? Internal memos, leaked to Eric Raymond. Microsoft sat down and wrote, honestly, what open-source software meant for their business model. They were afraid of it. Not because it was bad software but because it was good software that nobody owned. You cannot compete with free, a community that fixes its own bugs for nothing. So the strategy was to make software that only worked inside a closed system, where every repair, every update, every replacement part runs back through the manufacturer.
Meridian read those documents and built a hardware company on the same logic. The MC5786 could last forever because it was designed by engineers who wanted it to work. The MC5896 was designed by a company that had learned longevity was a liability.
If the firmware on the MC5896 were open, someone on this floor could write a patch for the fault that condemns those boards. The fault is known, the technicians here know exactly what it is but there is no patch because Meridian's license agreement makes writing one a legal violation. A working machine sits in a pile outside because the law says the person who could fix it is not allowed to.
Free software people, Stallman, the GPL, the whole movement, they said this would happen and they said it clearly. A printer that will not tell you it is out of paper because the manufacturer wants to sell you a service contract. A computer that will not tell you where it is broken because the manufacturer wants to sell you a new one. They said: if you cannot read the source, you do not own the machine. You are renting it from someone who stopped caring about you the day you paid.
The soil outside is full of rare earths that did not have to be there. Every one of those machines out on the pallets could be running right now. The Meridian Remote, six to ten years in survival use, they said. That was the hardware team talking, but the software team gave it two.
I have the MC5896 postcard here. It says on page four: this device is not designed for free software, although it can run free software. They put it in writing and were proud of it."
[recording ends]
Wilma
quietly, after a moment So the machines that worked got thrown away because of paperwork.
Flavia
looking at the laptop And the ones you are carrying are the ones that survived past what they were designed for.
Catalina
a short pause The MC5896 has our route notes on it. looks at Dima It is seven years old at minimum.
Dima
It is now more than fifty years old, maybe sixty. It runs Windows 2000, made by the same company that this recording claims about having made the Halloween documents, whatever they are. This laptop you are seeing right now runs Windows XP.
Wilma
looks at the laptop screen Windows.
Flavia
quietly What is Windows?
Catalina
An operating system, software that runs the machine. a pause Microsoft made it.
Wilma
So you are carrying two computers made by a company that was afraid of free software, running software made by the company that wrote documents about how to destroy free software, and you found them at a store that was selling devices designed to fail. a beat And they still work.
Flavia
still looking at the laptop, the glow catching her face Fifty years. quietly, more to herself The Prophet said technology was the corruption. a long pause I think she meant something different from this. looks at Dima What are the Halloween documents?
Dima
to Catalina Pull out the MC5896 and show them the documents, we must have downloaded them somewhere.
Scene
Catalina pulls the MC5896 from her pack, connects the power bank, and sets it on the ground by the fire. The boot sequence runs. She opens a text file saved under a directory labeled RECYCLE-CTR-DOCS. Flavia and Wilma lean in slightly.
HALLOWEEN_WORKER_NOTES.TXT - Notepad–□×
NOTES FROM THE FLOOR - HALLOWEEN DOCUMENTS
Transcribed by workers, Meridian Recycling Center Bldg 3
Not official, not authorized, written from memory.
---
Someone brought in a printout. A Microsoft internal memo
from 1998, leaked to a man named Eric Raymond. We read
it over lunch in three shifts. Here is what we understood.
Microsoft had engineers who were afraid of Linux.
Not afraid it was bad, afraid it was good. Their own memo
said the open source process could collect and harness the
collective intelligence of thousands of people across the
internet. They wrote that themselves, internally, and
knew what it was and they were scared of it.
The strategy they wrote down was this:
de-commoditize the protocols. Make extensions to open
standards that only work inside Microsoft products.
Embrace the standard, extend it with proprietary pieces,
and then the open version becomes incompatible. This is
what people later called Embrace Extend Extinguish.
They also wrote: the effect of patents and copyright in
combating Linux remains to be investigated.
Remains to be investigated. That means: we have not used
legal threats yet but we are thinking about it.
---
What does this have to do with us?
Meridian learned from Microsoft. The MC5786 ran whatever
you put on it. The MC5896 firmware is signed and closed.
You cannot see inside it. You cannot patch it. When it
faults in a way that a free firmware could fix in one
afternoon, it comes here instead.
The recycling center is where the business model ends up.
Microsoft figured out how to make software that kept
people paying. Meridian figured out how to make hardware
that kept people buying. Same memo, different factory.
The man who leaked the documents, Raymond, published them
with his own notes. He changed Microsoft's slogan.
Their slogan was: Where do you want to go today?
His headline was: Where will Microsoft try to drag you today?
We thought about that for a long time on the floor.
The machines piling up outside thought about it too,
probably. If machines can think. The MC5896 manual says
they cannot. The manual is proprietary so we cannot check.
---
End of notes. Do not print as paper is scarce.
Flavia
has been reading slowly, her lips moving slightly on the harder words. When she reaches the end she sits back They wrote the plan down, in a memo, and then someone found it.
Wilma
quietly And then everyone kept buying the machines anyway.
Dima
And check this... Dima clicks on a video copied from a USB stick
▶ Now Playing: BALLMER_ILOVETHISCOMPANY.AVI
No artist · No album · 0:47
Scene
The video is low resolution and slightly compressed but clear enough. A large man in a white shirt and dark trousers runs onto a stage in front of thousands of people. He is sweating heavily before he has taken ten steps. He shouts into the microphone, dragging each word out: "I... Love... This... Company... Yeah!"
Wilma
stares at the screen for a full three seconds What is happening to him?
Flavia
very quietly Is he unwell?
Catalina
watching the screen He ran the company that wrote the Halloween Documents...
Dima
This is what corporate culture looked like, or at least what we found. And then there is also a comment attached to the video. he opens Properties
BALLMER_ILOVETHISCOMPANY.AVI Properties–□×
GeneralSummary
Title:Ballmer presentation clip
Subject:
Author:R.M.
Category:
Keywords:microsoft ballmer presentation
Flavia
reads it through once, then again He is not performing.
Dima
And then there is Meridian... opens a second file from the same recovered folder
▶ Now Playing: MERIDIAN_PRESENTATION_FULL.AVI
No artist · No album · 18:42
Scene
In a large auditorium, a man walks onto the stage alone with no notes and no podium. He is lean, measured, dressed plainly. He waits for the applause to settle and speaks quietly enough that the room has to go still to hear him.
"...Everyone asks us why we license so much from other people. They think it means we are not serious. They think it means we cannot do it ourselves.
Here is what it actually means.
When we licensed QNX from Blackberry for the Remote series, we did it because QNX is a real-time operating system that has run in medical devices, in aircraft, in nuclear plant control systems, for thirty years without a known kernel failure. We did not build that. Nobody builds that in five years. You license it, you learn from it, and then you decide what you will own.
We license from Intel for the XT line. The Centrino architecture gives us thermal performance in a form factor we could not reach with our own silicon on that timeline. The XT portable is the thinnest machine we have ever shipped and it runs cooler than anything in the building. That is an Intel engineering achievement and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What we do is integrate it in a way Intel cannot, because Intel does not make computers. They make processors.
We make computers.
The MC series is different. Every machine in the MC line runs on a processor we designed. The MC designation comes from the chip, not the chassis. The MC5786 processor, the MC5896 processor, those are Meridian silicon. Bigger machines, heavier machines, portable but not light, machines that sit on a desk or get carried in a case. The kind of machine a researcher takes into the field, the kind a lab uses for twelve years. The processor determines what the machine can do and we want to control that completely for the machines that matter most.
Now, open source.
We are not against open source. That is not the position. The position is more specific than that. We cannot build a business on a foundation where any decision about the foundation can be made by a committee we are not on. If the QNX kernel changes in a direction we do not agree with, we have a contract. If Linux changes in a direction we do not agree with, we have a mailing list.
We know what we are. We are not trying to be everything to everyone. We are trying to build machines that last, that perform, that earn their place. The licenses are not a weakness in that plan. The licenses are how you move fast in the areas where someone else has already done the hard work, so that your own engineers can spend their time on the areas where nobody has.
We will make every category of computer there is. The machine you carry in one hand, the machine that fills a room. Every category, every use case, every environment. That is the plan.
We are not finished."
[applause - he walks off without waiting for it]
Flavia
after a long moment, quietly He sounds nothing like the man in the other video.
Wilma
looking at the laptop And the machines from both of them ended up in the same recycling center.
Dima
Well, Microsoft didn't make computers, Meridian did.
Wilma
shifts, stretching her legs toward the fire How long have you two been on the road?
Dima
I don't know, for several weeks, a month... we lost track of time.
Wilma
nods slowly We left the Collective in early spring. Two months, maybe a little more. glances at Flavia We stopped counting after the first month.
Flavia
quietly The days start to look the same. looks at Dima Where are you headed?
Dima
Well, we are going to Barbara, the communities near.
Flavia
looks up from the fire So are we.
Wilma
a short pause, something settling in her expression We heard there were communities forming around there. People who left the Collective, some former WLF. glances at Catalina People like us, more or less.
Catalina
quietly More or less.
Flavia
We have been moving slowly. looks between Dima and Catalina If you are not in a hurry, we could walk together from here.
Dima
We are not in a hurry, we have nowhere to go, and besides, I fell in love with Catalina all this time and I cared more about her than getting anywhere.
Catalina
looks at the fire, says nothing for a moment, then very quietly He is not wrong.
Wilma
glances between them, a small sound, not unkind A subway, you said.
Flavia
her eyes moving to Catalina, then back to the fire, something warm and careful in her expression The Collective had a word for that. When the place where something starts is the last place you would have chosen. a short pause They used it for grain, mostly. The best crop coming from the worst soil. quietly I always thought it applied to other things too.
Dima
I know, I am from the Collective. I wanted to make labor-saving machines, so we don't have to work, and then I have seen computers only after I left. And then... Dima pulls Catalina a bit closer, his hand on her shoulder
Catalina
shifts slightly closer, her shoulder against his, says nothing
Wilma
looking at the fire Labor-saving machines without knowing what a computer looked like. a pause What were you building?
Flavia
looks at Dima with genuine curiosity Did you find what you were looking for? In the computers.
Dima
I found what I was looking for, but they are degrading. Dima turns off both computers, puts the laptop in his pack and the MC5896 in Catalina's pack I think I was looking more for companionship, for love...
Catalina
lets him fit the MC5896 into her pack without moving away, her hand finding his briefly once he is done
Flavia
watching them, quiet for a moment The Collective had plenty of people and very little of that. a pause You could be in a room of forty and still feel like you were the only person in it.
Wilma
looks at Flavia The grain processing hall. dry, but fond Six hours a day, three metres apart, and you argued with me for three weeks before you asked my name.
Flavia
a quiet sound You argued back.
Wilma
That is how we got there.
Dima
You both must be very close.
Wilma
glances at Flavia We lived together for almost a year before we left.
Flavia
looks at the fire She fixed the sifting line twice without being asked. a short pause The third time I helped her and we talked until the night shift came in. quietly After that it was different.
Wilma
She taught me the whistling language. Took me four months to get it right.
Flavia
Three. looks at Wilma You were faster than you thought you were.
Flavia
a small sound, almost a smile The Seraphites use it to communicate at distance. Patterns, not words exactly. pause Short and long, rising and falling. Like a code but older than that. quietly My mother taught me when I was small, before I could read.
Wilma
It is harder than it sounds. The patterns have to be precise or they mean something else entirely. glances at Flavia Tell them what I said the first time I tried the warning signal.
Flavia
a quiet sound, genuinely amused this time She told the treeline that she had found mushrooms.
Dima
Okay, I mean, how do you modulate the sound? Dima tries to hold his tongue behind his teeth and whistle It's hard...
Flavia
watches him, then gently The throat, not the lips. demonstrates softly, two short notes and one long, barely above a whisper The rise at the end means a question. Flat means a statement. A drop means stop moving. pauses The hard part is the middle tones. Too much air and it flattens, too little and it disappears.
Wilma
to Catalina, dry It took me a week just to make a sound at all.
Catalina
watching Dima try again, the corner of her mouth moving slightly
Dima
It doesn't make a sound at all...
Flavia
shifts slightly closer, watching his mouth Stop trying to whistle first. Just hold the tongue back and breathe out slowly, no shaping yet. demonstrates the breath alone, a soft steady rush of air Like that. Just air.
Flavia
Good. Now close the throat just a little, from the back. touches her own throat lightly to show where Not much. Like you are about to say a K but you do not say it.
Flavia
There, you made a tone just now. You probably did not hear it but it was there. pauses Do it again, same position, and this time let a little more air through.
Wilma
to Catalina, low She taught me the same way. Exactly the same order. The breath first, then the throat, then the pitch.
Catalina
watching Flavia with Dima, quietly She is patient.
Wilma
Always has been. looks at the fire Even when I broke the sifting line a third time.
Dima
There was a VHS saying that the sifting line was thin, very thin.
Catalina
quietly, her eyes on the fire It was a research tape, behavioral science division. It said the first confirmed infection was in 2001, in Java and Sulawesi, in grain storage. The hyphae are invisible to the naked eye and they survive standard processing. By 2007 it said it was everywhere and the world did not notice until 2013 because nothing fruited until it reached a warm-blooded host. a pause The tape said the sifting mesh has to be sub-millimeter, visual inspection is not enough.
Flavia
her voice even The Collective said the filtration was their first priority. quietly It was their fourth.
Catalina
The tape said that too. a short silence Someone submitted the recommendation and it went nowhere.
Flavia
looks at Catalina for a moment, her eyes moving to her hair, the way it falls loose from the tie I used to wonder what I would look like without the braids. a short pause We had them from when we were small and could not change them.
Catalina
glances at her You could still change it.
Flavia
quietly I know. touches the edge of her crown briefly I have just kept them. They are mine now, not theirs.
Dima
Your crowns are really nice by the way...
Flavia
a small, genuine sound Thank you. her hands moving briefly to the braids without quite touching them My mother did them the first time. I have done them myself every morning since I was fifteen.
Wilma
I have watched her do it in the dark for ten minutes with no mirror.
Dima
I have been told that the Seraphite society was a matriarchy, so while girls wore the crown, boys either wore only the hair they were born into if they were not assigned as soldiers or had their hair shaved off if they were assigned as soldiers.
Flavia
nods slowly The Prophet was a woman and the leadership beneath her was mostly women. The elders, the teachers. a pause The boys who became soldiers had their heads shaved at the ceremony, the same one where they received the cuts. quietly The ones who were not assigned as soldiers kept their hair but had very little standing. The society moved around the women.
Wilma
looking at Flavia You never told me that part.
Flavia
a short silence There was a lot I did not talk about for a long time. looks at the fire It was home, and it is hard to describe home clearly when you have just left it.
Dima
And I have also heard that the Seraphites often don't care about their own life because CSD's diplomats noticed they were talking more about their prophet when defeated than about being spared.
Flavia
still, her eyes on the fire for a long moment The Prophet taught that death was a return. That the body was temporary and the spirit continued along the path she had set. quietly When you believe that completely, being spared is almost an inconvenience. You are being kept from something rather than given something. a pause I believed it too, for a long time. Not the dying part, but the path. The idea that there was a direction and you were either on it or you were not.
Wilma
low What changed it?
Flavia
looks at her You, partly. a short silence The Collective had no path, and somehow that was the first place I felt like I was allowed to just exist without moving toward anything. quietly It was very disorienting at first.
Dima
Also, the Seraphites always wore the same leather clothes all the time and you wear those clothes right now.
Flavia
looks down at her clothes briefly, the worn leather, the earth-toned layers Yes. a short pause I have other things now, from the Collective mostly, but I keep coming back to these. They are well made, they last, they breathe correctly in the cold, and I know how to repair them. quietly I tried a Collective work shirt for a while. It felt wrong in a way I could not explain to anyone there.
Wilma
She wore it for four days and then folded it and put it away.
Flavia
a quiet sound Six days.
Dima
As someone born in the Collective in a family of independent survivors, I had nothing to do with either side. And Catalina now has nothing to do with either side, but she is traumatized and vented to me everything, I held her every time and she held me every time.
Catalina
looks at him for a moment, then back at the fire, her voice low That is an accurate summary.
Flavia
after a short silence, to Catalina The Seraphites had no language for what you are describing. You either carried it alone or you prayed and those were the two options.
Wilma
The WLF had one option. a pause You kept moving.
Catalina
a short silence Yes.
Wilma
looks at Dima You held her every time. glances at Flavia We are still learning it.
Dima
You are very quiet, Flavia.
Flavia
looks at him, a small pause I was taught that speaking less meant thinking more. quietly It stayed with me. looks at the fire I am listening to you.
Dima
If the prophet was not so strict, I would have liked Seraphite culture very much, because the Collective was also a project about cohesion and because nature is beautiful, and in free time, I actually read geology.
Flavia
looks at him for a moment, something shifting in her expression The Prophet taught us to read the land. Not the way you mean, not with names for the layers or the ages. But we knew which ground held water, which slopes broke first in the wet season, where the soil changed smell. a short pause The elders could look at a hillside and tell you where it would open up in spring and I think that is the same instinct as yours, just without the books.
Wilma
glances at Flavia You also never told me you missed that part.
Flavia
a short silence I miss it the way you miss something that was real inside something that was also wrong. looks at the fire The land was not the problem.
Dima
What made you leave the Seraphites? I have heard that their society is so deeply entrenched that you can't even think about leaving it.
Flavia
a long pause, her hands quiet in her lap I was twelve when I started noticing the gaps between what the elders said and what I could see with my own eyes. The Prophet taught that the infection was punishment for human sin, that technology had brought it and nature was reclaiming what was hers. a short silence But I had watched infected move through the forest the same way they moved through the city. The trees did not protect anyone, the land did not choose. looks at the fire I kept that thought to myself for two years. You learn very early that certain thoughts are not safe to have out loud. a pause When I was fourteen I realized I had been alone inside my own head for two years and that it was only going to get longer. quietly So I left before the ceremony, before they put anything on my face that I could not take back.
Wilma
after a moment, low You were fourteen and you worked that out alone.
Flavia
a short silence The forest helped. I had always been good in it. looks at Dima You asked what made me leave. That is the honest answer.
Dima
You must be very intelligent, like it's very hard to realize the gap, and additionally, you were not even allowed to touch the old world, the computers we touched right now are the old world.
Flavia
quietly We were taught the old world was the reason for everything that happened. Every machine, every wire, every building that was not made by hand. a short pause Touching the bark of a tree was sacred. Touching metal was contact with the sin that brought the fungus. looks at the laptop in Dima's pack I have been walking past old world things for years now and I still feel it sometimes. A small pull, like a warning from somewhere very old in me. a pause But I also know what it is now. It is just a thing I was taught. looks at him You are right that it was hard to see the gap. The society is built so the gap is invisible. Everything points the same direction and anyone pointing a different way disappears quietly.
Wilma
to Dima She touched a radio at the Collective for the first time and stood there with her hand on it for about a minute without saying anything.
Flavia
a short sound It was warm. I had not expected it to be warm.
Dima
And then I heard that once the Seraphites reach the Collective, they fall in love or become friends with anyone they can find from anywhere...
Flavia
a short silence, then quietly When you have spent your whole life being told that everyone outside is corrupt or lost or beyond saving, and then you meet them and they are just people, tired and trying, the same as you... a pause Yes, the walls come down fast, faster than you expect. glances at Wilma I think I was more open with Wilma in the first month than I had been with anyone in my entire life before that.
Wilma
dry You cried at the grain processing hall on the fourth day and told me it was dust.
Flavia
a quiet sound It was partly dust.
Flavia
to Dima and Catalina, without embarrassment It was not dust.
Dima
And then Catalina is also a very emotional girl, she cried often even when she was saying things in a flat tone.
Catalina
looks at the fire, says nothing for a moment I did not know I was doing it half the time.
Flavia
looks at her, something recognizing in her expression The flat tone is a thing you build. quietly It takes years to make it that solid. a short pause The crying underneath it is just everything the tone was holding back.
Catalina
a short silence Something like that.
Wilma
glances at Catalina, then at the fire The WLF called it weakness and the Collective called it processing. dry I am still not sure which one I believe but I know which one did less damage.
Dima
to Wilma Have you known Catalina in the WLF before meeting her right now?
Wilma
looks at Catalina for a moment, studying her face What unit were you in?
Catalina
Perimeter east. Martinez's group before that.
Wilma
a short pause I was supply and logistics, south side. looks at her We would not have crossed, different part of the city, different chain. a pause Martinez's group had a reputation though.
Catalina
looks at the fire Yes. It did.
Dima
Now we are in this together, and Flavia...
Flavia
looks at him, waiting
Dima
I don't know, but you seem like a really interesting person, being quiet adds to the niceness and could be useful, but no... I just wanna be friends.
Flavia
a short silence, something warm settling in her expression I would like that. You are the first person from the Collective I have spoken to who was not trying to assign me to a work rotation within the first ten minutes.
Wilma
dry That is a low bar.
Flavia
quietly It is still a bar.
Dima
It is sometimes boring to be with Catalina all the time, and cuddling all the time, and all that, I would also like to be with other people.
Catalina
looks at him I am right here.
Wilma
a short sound, almost a laugh
Flavia
looks between them, the corner of her mouth moving slightly You said that out loud, to her, by the fire.
Dima
I know, but really, this is the truth, we are still young after all and we want to talk to all kinds of people.
Catalina
a short pause, then quietly He is not wrong. looks at the fire I spent six years speaking only to soldiers and before that only to other soldiers. I would also like to know other people.
Wilma
glances between them Then it is a good thing you found a campfire.
Flavia
looks at the fire, a quiet sound We have been just the two of us for a while. glances at Wilma It has been good, but two people is a small world.
Dima
And in this world, it's rare to have people whom you can say they are really beautiful in their way and not because of something else.
Flavia
quietly, after a moment The Seraphites said beauty was vanity. a short pause It took me a long time to separate the word from what they had made of it. looks at him I think you mean something different from what they meant.
Wilma
looking at the fire The WLF did not talk about it at all. You were useful or you were not and it is strange to hear it said plainly, without anything attached to it.
Catalina
very quietly, almost to herself Yes.
Dima
You are both really beautiful, I don't know what to say...
Wilma
looks at him for a moment, then back at the fire, says nothing, but something in her expression shifts
Flavia
a short silence Thank you.
Catalina
her shoulder is against his, saying nothing, but her hand finds his briefly
Dima
You know Catalina likes to touch me all the time...
Catalina
dry You are warm.
Flavia
looks at Catalina, then at Dima, something gently amused in her eyes That is a very honest reason.
Catalina
a pause It is the honest reason.
Dima
When I hug Catalina for long enough, it always feels like escaping into another world for some reason. Last night I dreamed about reaching to Barbara, living and having fun with her, all the time. It is a kind of honeymoon that happened for weeks...
Flavia
looks at the fire for a long moment I used to dream about a house. quietly A small one, with a room just for me. A shelf with things I had found, stones, pieces of wood, a bird's feather. a short pause In the Seraphites everything belonged to the community and to the Prophet's path. A room for yourself, things kept only because you liked them, that was close to sin. her voice staying even I dreamed it anyway, every few months, the same small room and I still do sometimes.
Wilma
low, to Flavia You never told me that either.
Flavia
a short silence Some dreams feel too small to say out loud. looks at Dima Yours does not sound small at all.
Dima
Everything was about the Prophet, but the thing is, you mattered...
Flavia
very quiet, her eyes on the fire for a long moment I know that now. a long pause It took leaving, and then two years in the Collective being told I was a unit of labor, and then Wilma, and then the road, to actually believe it. a short silence Knowing something and believing it are very far apart sometimes.
Wilma
without looking up from the fire You matter.
Flavia
does not answer, but her hand moves slightly toward Wilma's and rests close to it
Dima
We are being told being everything except for people.
Flavia
a short silence, then slowly reaches up and begins loosening the braids, unwinding them carefully, her fingers moving from memory The Prophet said we were vessels. quietly The Collective said we were productive units. the last braid comes loose and her hair falls around her shoulders Neither of them had a word for just a person sitting by a fire. a pause I can redo them in the morning.
Wilma
watching her, saying nothing for a moment It suits you, both types.
Catalina
looks at Flavia, then quietly Yes.
Dima
You are no longer the heiress.
Flavia
a quiet sound, looking at the fire with her hair loose around her shoulders The Prophet's heir. a short pause Every girl with the crown was, in a way. You carried it for her, for the path, for something larger than yourself. her hands settle in her lap I carried it for so long I forgot it was a weight.
Dima
And now you are beyond salvation... of course I am joking, you are accepted as always.
Flavia
a quiet sound, genuinely amused Beyond salvation... the elders would agree with you. looks at the fire A girl who left before the ceremony, lived among the corrupt, touched metal, and now sits with her hair loose by a fire talking to strangers.
Wilma
dry You forgot the radio.
Flavia
a quiet laugh, small and real And the radio.
Dima
Without the crown, you look like just any other girl.
Flavia
a short silence, her hand moving briefly through her loose hair Yes, that is the point, I think.
Wilma
glances at her You have been any other girl the whole time. The crown was just the part people saw first.
Flavia
looks at Wilma for a moment, then back at the fire, saying nothing
Dima
And Catalina was also the other girl the whole time.
Catalina
looks at him, quiet for a moment I was a soldier the whole time. The other girl was still there, just very far down. a short silence It took a long time to find her again.
Flavia
looking at Catalina, saying nothing, but with recognition in her expression
Dima
And she is a very intelligent and caring one for that matter.
Catalina
looks at the fire, says nothing for a moment, then very quietly You have said that before.
Wilma
glances at Catalina He says it like he is still surprised by it.
Catalina
the corner of her mouth moves slightly He is.
Dima
I have said that like an endless amount of time and never stop.
Catalina
I know and I am still not used to it.
Flavia
looking at the fire That is the part that takes the longest. a short silence Someone saying it is one thing, letting it land is another.
Dima
Some Seraphites are very muscular and large, they are often called brutes, but you don't seem to be like one.
Flavia
a quiet sound I was fourteen and small when I left. The brutes were boys assigned early, trained from when they were very young, fed differently, worked differently. looks at her own hands briefly I was always small. The elders said it was because I was meant for teaching, not fighting and I think it was just how I grew.
Wilma
dry She is also faster than anyone I have ever walked with.
Dima
But some brutes are also girls by the way.
Flavia
nods slowly There were some, the ones chosen young enough, before they were assigned elsewhere. There was a girl in our settlement called Marta. She was eighteen when I left and already larger than most of the men. She was kind actually, she used to leave extra food near the younger children without saying anything about it. quietly I always wondered what happened to her.
Dima
You also seem really kind.
Flavia
a short silence, looking at the fire I try. quietly The Seraphites had a version of kindness that was always in service of something. You were kind because the Prophet asked it, because it strengthened the community, because it reflected the path. a pause I am still learning what it means to just be kind because you want to be.
Dima
I mean, you always give everyone a chance to talk and we could all four travel together, you know?
Wilma
a short pause, then We are heading the same direction. looks at Dima, then Catalina Four is safer than two on a long road.
Flavia
quietly Yes, I would also like that.
Dima
It's already done. You could be very good at keeping our mouths shut, because me and Catalina always like talking about something and never shut up.
Catalina
dry That is accurate.
Wilma
looks at Flavia So could we, when we want to.
Flavia
a quiet sound Wilma talked for three hours about water filtration systems the second week we were on the road.
Wilma
It is an important topic.
Dima
Yeah, you cannot drink water from the river unfiltered, and apparently, we don't have a filter, only the fire, and I wish we could heat up mongol's fermented milk in here.
Wilma
looks at the fire Boiling works for most things. Not everything, but most. The filter we had broke two weeks ago, we have been boiling since.
Flavia
quietly, at the fermented milk comment Where would you find fermented mare's milk out here?
Wilma
glances at Dima Is that something the Collective made?
Dima
No, we would have to go all the way to Europe, go to New York, board a boat, learn Czech and Polish to pass through Central Europe and go all the way to Mongolia. Not feasible.
Wilma
a short pause The Collective had Czech and Polish people in Sidliste. looks at Dima I met a few before we left. They had brought things with them, foods, words, ways of doing things and I do not think fermented mare's milk was among them.
Flavia
quietly Sidliste... I always thought it sounded like a place someone built in a hurry and named later.
Wilma
dry That is exactly what it was.
Catalina
to Dima You lived there before you left.
Dima
Of course, we all lived there before we left, and sidliste, which is actually pronounced SEE-dlee-shtyeh means housing estate in Czech, because it is.
Flavia
quietly They named a city after what it was, a housing estate.
Wilma
a short sound The Collective did everything like that. Functional names, functional buildings, functional everything. The grain processing hall was called the grain processing hall.
Catalina
dry The WLF stadium was called the stadium.
Wilma
glances at her At least we were consistent.
Dima
My entire life has been in those grey complexes the Collective has been building to house a large number of people.
Flavia
looks at him, quietly What was it like growing up there?
Dima
Well, you live in an apartment where all your needs are met depending on what is available, you share an apartment with your family and sometimes your extended family, but in my case it was my father and my mother, then you go to school, you get taught a lot of things and sufficient information to make sense of the world and maybe some basic diplomatic skills, once you grow up you could choose to live in another apartment depending on how many homes there are, I chose to live alone in a tiny apartment, I have gone to work, it wasn't a very good life, I haven't had any close friends until now, but it was okay, at least I hoped I would find love at the secondary school if not work, but I never got to attend secondary school, so...
Flavia
listening carefully, then slowly You never got to secondary school. What stopped you?
Dima
To get to secondary school, you actually need to wait to get there, because the secondary school was introduced only very recently. And I am still on the lists except that I left.
Wilma
a short pause The Collective introduced it and you left before you could attend. Seems like a particular kind of bad timing.
Flavia
looks at the fire We had no schools at all. Everything was the elders, the teachings, the path, and yet here we are, four people who can think, who can reason, who found their way to a campfire and talked about a lot of things. School is one way, not the only way.
Catalina
quietly The WLF school closed when I was nine.
Dima
We should have been functionally illiterate, and it happens that I gathered some old PISA tests along the way because the Collective kept them. If you can pass them, you are declared functionally literate.
Scene
Dima reaches into his pack and pulls out a folded sheaf of papers, worn at the creases, printed in small dense type. He unfolds them carefully and sets them flat on the ground where the firelight catches the text.
PROGRAMME FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ASSESSMENT
READING LITERACY UNIT - SAMPLE ASSESSMENT 2000
Collective for Social Development - Archive Copy 4 of 9
READ THE FOLLOWING TEXT AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS BELOW.
GRAFFITI: ART OR VANDALISM?
Letter 1 - Sofia, age 15
Our city walls have become an open-air gallery, whether
we like it or not. Some people find it ugly. I find it
alive. The writers risk something every time they go out
with their cans. That risk is part of the meaning. A
painting in a gallery is protected and insured. Graffiti
is gone by morning sometimes and you cannot own it.
That is what makes it honest.
Letter 2 - Hiroshi, age 14
I understand Sofia's point but I disagree. The walls
she calls a gallery belong to someone. The shop owner
who has to paint over it every month did not choose
to display that art. Honesty that costs someone else
is not really honesty, just shifting the price.
Q1. What is Sofia's main reason for calling graffiti
honest? Use her own argument in your answer.
Q2. Hiroshi disagrees with Sofia. Identify the specific
part of her argument he is challenging.
Q3. Whose argument do you find more convincing and why?
Use evidence from the text.
Wilma
leans forward, reading it in the firelight, her lips moving slightly on the smaller words, then sits back Q1. Sofia says it is honest because nobody can own it and it can be destroyed by morning. The thing you cannot keep is the thing nobody can corrupt.
Flavia
reading quietly, then Q2. Hiroshi is not arguing against the art, he is arguing against who pays for it. Sofia said the risk belongs to the writer. Hiroshi says the cost goes to the shop owner.
Wilma
looks at Flavia That was fast.
Flavia
a short silence The elders argued like Hiroshi constantly, that your freedom is someone else's burden. quietly I heard that structure every day.
Catalina
reading Q3 Hiroshi. a short pause Sofia's argument is beautiful but it assumes the wall is neutral. Hiroshi notices it is not. looks at Dima Is that the right kind of answer?
Dima
Yes, excellent, you are functionally literate.
Wilma
a short sound We passed a test about graffiti by a fire in the dark.
Flavia
quietly, looking at the paper Nobody ever told me whether I could read well enough. a pause They just told me what to read. a short silence It is a strange thing to be declared, at this age, by a campfire.
Catalina
dry Better late than never.
Dima
Well, Flavia, how old are you? Because you seem twenty-three and Catalina is twenty-four.
Flavia
a short pause Twenty-two. looks at him You were close.
Wilma
dry I am twenty-seven and nobody asked.
Wilma
a short sound I have been on the road with someone four years younger than me for a while and somehow she is the one who moves faster and sleeps less.
Flavia
quietly You also eat less and carry more.
Wilma
looks at her That is because you pack like someone who has never owned anything.
Flavia
a short silence I packed everything I have ever owned. a pause It is not very heavy.
Dima
It is very funny when you, Wilma and Flavia, are contradicting each other.
Wilma
glances at Flavia We are not contradicting each other.
Flavia
a short silence We are a little.
Catalina
quietly, to Dima They do this a lot, I think.
Wilma
without looking at Catalina We have been doing this for a while.
Flavia
to Dima, evenly It is how we talk. We have never once actually argued.
Wilma
dry The sifting line.
Flavia
a quiet sound That was before we talked.
Scene
A figure steps into the firelight from the edge of the hollow. She is tall and broad-shouldered, wearing worn travelling clothes, no weapons drawn, a pack over one shoulder. She stops at the treeline, looking at the four of them.
Marta
her eyes move across the group and then stop on Flavia, and she stays completely still for a moment Flavia.
Flavia
looks up from the fire, and the colour changes in her face ...Marta.
Dima
Hey, so you are the one Flavia talked about.
Marta
looks at Dima, something cautious in her expression She talked about me.
Flavia
Just tonight. Come to the fire.
Marta
looks at the group again, reading each of them slowly, then steps forward and sets her pack down, her movement careful You left. to Flavia, sitting down I always thought you would.
Dima
And you also left the Seraphites.
Marta
a short pause, her large hands resting on her knees Three years ago. looks at the fire After the Prophet died there was nothing holding the structure together the way it had been. a short silence I waited longer than I should have.
Flavia
quietly You were always careful.
Marta
looks at her You were always fast, not the same thing.
Dima
I didn't know you left three years ago. I thought you were still there, fighting, because you look huge and you have the mark on your mouth.
Marta
a short silence, her hand moving briefly to the scar at the corners of her mouth The mark stays. quietly It does not leave when you do. a pause And yes, I was fighting for two years after the ceremony. looks at the fire It took me longer to run out of reasons than it took Flavia. a short silence She was smarter about it.
Flavia
low You were eighteen and I was fourteen.
Marta
a short sound You were still smarter about it.
Dima
I am Dima, pointing to Catalina she is Catalina...
Marta
looks at Catalina, then back at Dima Marta. a pause, her eyes moving to Wilma
Wilma
Wilma, former WLF, before you ask.
Marta
a quiet sound I was not going to ask. looks at the fire We had WLF deserters come through the settlement sometimes and they always looked the same way she does. glances at Catalina Like they had put something down that was very heavy and their hands did not know what to do yet.
Catalina
looks at Marta for a moment and says nothing
Dima
Have you gone to the Collective?
Marta
shakes her head I heard about it. a short silence I was not ready to be inside walls again so soon after leaving the settlement. looks at her hands Three years mostly alone, some short time with passing groups. a pause I learned to manage.
Wilma
quietly Alone for three years.
Marta
evenly It was not always bad.
Dima
I wonder what made you so strong right now, like it's unusual to have a body that big.
Marta
a short silence The Seraphites started the physical training early for the ones they selected. quietly I was chosen at nine. By twelve I was carrying loads that grown men carried. You do not think about it at the time, you just do what is asked. looks at her own hands briefly The body remembers even when you stop as you carry everything yourself, you build everything yourself and move fast when you need to.
Flavia
quietly I remember when they chose you. You were not even ten yet.
Marta
looks at her You were seven, you watched from the fence.
Flavia
a short silence Yes.
Dima
How did you plan to come here by the campfire? It's pretty far from Seattle.
Marta
a short pause I have been moving south for six weeks. looks at the fire I heard from a passing group that there were communities forming near Barbara. a short silence That was enough of a reason, so I have been following the road at distance, staying off it mostly. I saw your fire from the treeline and watched for a while before coming in. glances at Flavia Then I heard her voice.
Dima
So you heard us talking...
Marta
a short pause Some of it, not everything. quietly Enough to know it was safe.
Wilma
glances at her How long were you in the treeline?
Marta
a short silence A while.
Wilma
dry So you heard the graffiti test.
Marta
I heard the graffiti test.
Dima
Dima extends his hand toward Marta I think we can try and compare how strong we are.
Marta
looks at his hand for a moment, then takes it, her grip careful and measured, the difference in their hands obvious in the firelight I will be gentle.
Wilma
watching That is already generous of her.
Catalina
quietly, to Dima You do not have to do this.
Dima
pushes a bit to the left You have a bigger hand than me.
Marta
holds steady without effort, a short sound close to amusement Yes. a pause Most people do not comment on it directly and I appreciate that you did.
Flavia
watching them, quietly She broke a wagon axle once by accident when she was sixteen.
Marta
still holding his hand, glances at Flavia That was the wood, not me.
Flavia
a short sound It was you.
Dima
You are really strong...
Marta
releases his hand, then after a short pause, gestures to the ground beside her, her voice quieter Sit closer if you want, all of you. a short silence It is getting late and the fire is better shared from one side. looks at the fire It is nicer to just be next to people.
Flavia
moves without hesitation, settling close to Marta's side
Wilma
shifts around the fire, pulling her pack with her
Dima
Dima moves close to Marta's other side It's so nice being next to someone's really large body.
Marta
a short silence, something in her expression settling People usually keep distance. quietly Like the size means something sharp is coming and it is good when it does not.
Catalina
moves close to Dima, her shoulder against his, looking at the fire
Flavia
quietly, from Marta's other side You were always like this, even when we were small. a short silence The younger children would come and sit against you during the cold nights.
Marta
says nothing, just looks at the fire
Dima
Now we are the children...
Marta
a short sound, warm and low Yes, that is fine.
Scene
The fire settles, the wood shifting and sending a small column of sparks up into the dark.