The Registration

Madison Lawson

THE REGISTRATION

MADISON LAWSON

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

Acknowledgments

About the Author

CamCat Publishing, LLC

Brentwood, Tennessee 37027

camcatpublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, 101 Creekside Crossing Suite 280, Brentwood, TN 37027.

Hardcover ISBN 9780744307023

Paperback ISBN 9780744307030

Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744307047

eBook ISBN 9780744307061

Audiobook ISBN 9780744307092

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022936321

Cover and book design by Maryann Appel

5 3 1 2 4

For my dad, a miracle, superman, and proof that good men and fantastic fathers exist. I’ll love you forever and I’ll miss you always. Thank you.

DAY 1

Lynell feels the sun cutting into her skin, a harsh reminder of her own mortality. She rolls forward onto her toes and holds her hand up against the sun. The motion puts an old scar on her forearm in her direct line of sight. Her stomach clenches and she steps back into the shade.

Dallas is busier today than on a usual Thursday. The first Thursday of the quarter, April 4th, brings promises of vengeance, clarity, relief, justice, and love.

It’s Registration Day.

Lynell rests against the wall of the building and leans her head back. She flattens her palms against the hot stones, listening to the city’s symphony. Hundreds of feet pound the pavement, and the streets are congested with honking cars and people on the phone.

Across the street, an old man walks out of the large glass door Lynell has been staring at for two hours. He folds a piece of paper and slides it into his back pocket. She wonders whom he just Registered. The odds suggest a wife or loved one in chronic pain, as mercy is the most common reason for using the Registration. But perhaps this man seeks justice. Lynell’s high school history teacher used his Registration on a man who assaulted his daughter and got away with it. No jail time or community service.

But with the Registration, he found justice anyway.

A gunshot brutally pulls her out of her rumination. A young girl screams, and a few older kids jump or duck. Lynell, like most of the adults walking the streets, only flinches at the sound. While public Registrations aren’t common, the first day is always the most violent.

She looks up to see a middle-aged man lying in a pool of his own blood and a woman, the same age, standing over him holding a small, smoking gun. Instantly, a pair of Elysian Regulators rush to her side. Lynell can’t hear what they’re saying, but after the woman holds up a piece of paper and the officers dig in the man’s coat, they nod. A lengthy phone call later, the Regulators leave. If the Registration had been completed anywhere else, officers probably would have arrived first. But since she’s right outside a Registration office, there are plenty of Regulators around to check the legitimacy of the completed Registration.

The woman kneels next to the man’s side, back straight as she reaches toward his pocket. Two men a few feet away pull out their phones and start snapping photos before running off. Perhaps they’re nothing more than curious bystanders, but the deep frowns on their faces tell a different story. Lynell would bet her own Registration that they’re rebel vultures collecting gruesome images of any deaths they stumble across. Whatever remains of the revolutionists will flood the internet with photos of the worst completed Registrations to sway others to their cause. What they won’t show are the grateful faces of those who will be Registered so they won’t have to spend another day on a ventilator or suffering through chemo. They won’t show the heartbroken women Registering the unnamed fetuses they carry with debilitating illnesses, or the poor teens ending a pregnancy they could never afford. They won’t show people the government failed, like Lynell’s old teacher or Lynell herself, who now must seek justice themselves.

With the Sanitary Crew yet to be dispatched, no one touches or moves the body. Pedestrians simply avoid stepping in the blood, continuing with their day.

Lynell turns away from the sight and stares at the tall glass doors again.

She takes a deep breath. Not for the first time, she considers going home and taking advantage of her day off. She has most of her life to Register. After all, she’s always been told: “Never Register before you turn thirty. Chances are, you’ll need that Registration when you’re fifty more than you think you need it when you’re twenty.”

But Lynell is twenty-four and she’s been wanting to Register the same person for nearly two decades. She doesn’t think she’ll ever have a better use for this gift. And now, with the news that he’s getting married at the end of the year to a woman with three daughters, Lynell knows time is running out. She needs to do it soon, if not for her own sanity, then for the safety of those girls.

She could still wait until next quarter’s Registration, though.

Lynell looks at the scar on her arm. One of the oldest decorations to the canvas that is her body.

She pushes off the wall and walks across the street toward the glass doors. She’s thankful Eric Elysian requested measures to make picketing and protesting outside Registration offices illegal, and grateful the government enforces them. She’s not sure she would have been able to walk past a crowd of ignorant jerks calling her a murderer.

Without the Registration, chaos, violence, and homelessness would have consumed their world. Without it, they would never know true love or have anything to test it with. It’s the only thing that saved them after the devastating civil war that seemed to have no end. The entire country owes a lifelong debt to the Elysians for saving them. Lynell knows that.

The Registration is a product of the Elysians’ private business, but they work so closely with the government that it’s virtually an inalienable right. Well, an inalienable right that must be paid for. It’s protected by both the Elysian corporation and, when necessary, the government’s law enforcement. Eric Elysian, the current owner of the Registration, is practically one of the oligarchs himself.

In the past, before Lynell’s time, the rulers of the United States were supposedly elected by the people. But really, they conned their way there. It wasn’t a true democracy. Citizens fought back, demanding that their voices be heard. They wanted real power over their lives, laws, and money. They wanted to implement change. A civil war followed: brother fighting brother, sister denouncing sister, mothers, daughters, fathers, sons at each other’s throats. In ninth grade, her school made all students watch a documentary about the war. It was bloody chaos with far too many points of contention between the two warring sides to find compromises.

Then Gideon Elysian showed up and proposed his idea to the few leaders still holding power on both sides of the war. The Registration would give individuals power over life and death while the government retained the authority to create laws and enforce them. For example, the death penalty would be abolished, which is what half the country wanted. But the other half, individuals who wished to sentence a felon to death, could use the Registration to execute their idea of rightful punishment. The war came to an end and, tired of fighting, the country settled into a precarious peace. The rest, as they say, is history. The country has since been ruled by oligarchs with the aid of the Elysians and their Registration. They keep the peace, ensure commerce, and everyone is happy because citizens have access to true justice and mercy with the Registration. No need for corrupt democracy or oppressive tyranny.

At first, when Gideon Elysian proposed and created the Registration almost seventy years ago, everyone—regardless of age, origin, color, title, or class—had the option to pay the fee to get one Registration. The Elysians worked closely with the oligarchs, ensuring laws were set in place to support it. The Registration entitles citizens to kill the person they Registered, no questions asked. But there’s a catch: you have to end that person’s life within two weeks or your immunity is forfeited, as is your chance for another Registration. If you kill your Registree at any time other than the two weeks after Registering, you will be charged with murder.

After a few years of madness, the government added another law. Parents must pay the fee for their newborn, or that child will never be allowed to legally Register anyone.

That’s why you need to know for certain. That’s why you have to be sure that this is the person you want to Register. You can’t waste such a gift.

Lynell has held onto her gift her entire life. Her mom didn’t have that gift. If she did, their life would have been different. Her childhood would have been better. And Lynell wouldn’t be using her own Registration right now.

Lynell looks at the scar again, thinks of those three young girls, takes a deep breath, and pulls open the large, glass door.

“Wait, please. Give her three more months. She may wake up!” A young girl, maybe twelve, yells at a boy only a few years older than her at the other end of the crowded room. They’re easily the youngest people here, and Lynell’s heart aches at what must have happened to them to cause the boy to use his Registration so early.

Most people in line are older, though there is a woman who looks close to Lynell’s age holding two babies in her arms. A man halfway down the line leans on a cane, his legs shaking and his glasses balancing precariously on the edge of his nose.

It’s a large room, probably twenty to twenty-five yards wide. The walls, floors and ceilings are white marble. There’s no way to look outside or in. The only windows in the room are the eleven clerk stations where lines form to Register. Above each window are two letters. The first, on the far-left side, says A-B. The next says C-D. And so on. Some, such as X-Z, have much shorter lines. Lynell knows what to do: stand in the line coordinating with the last name of the person you intend to Register. She’s walked inside the building and stood in line twice before, always chickening out at the last minute.

There are hundreds of people dispersed throughout the room. The young girl and boy stand behind a short, Black woman wearing a thin blue shawl in the U-W line.

With a deep breath, Lynell steps into the M-N line. There are probably thirty people ahead of her. Thirty people Registering. Thirty people being Registered. Thirty deaths in the next fourteen days. Thirty moments when some lives end and others mark the new beginning they so desperately crave.

Lynell looks at her watch. It’s almost 3:30 p.m., which means everyone in this time zone only has an hour and a half to Register before they must wait for July.

Lynell lowers her arm and sees a small scar peeking out from under the watch strap. Her stomach churning and heart palpating as if her own name were about to be Registered, she pulls down her sleeves. The unrelenting summer heat is no longer barreling down on her and the air-conditioned building starts cooling the sweat clinging to her skin.

She zips up her hoodie, tucks her fingers under the sleeves and pulls up the hood, as if to shield herself from the world.

She has no reason to hide. The Registration is good, pure, and just. People will not look down on her for Registering Alan.

She knows this, but she prays to remain unseen, nonetheless.

Sounds from the large building assault her ears as she rocks on her feet with her hands hiding in the pockets. Pens scratching on pages. Names spoken with a chilling finality. Crying. Whooping. Rustles of bags as people search for IDs. A cough from a small, frail, old woman clutching to her husband two lines over.

The line Lynell stands in moves forward. She looks at her watch again. 3:30.

Lynell watches the couple make it to their window. She listens as the man says he wants to Register his wife. She stands next to him, leaning on him for support, smiling up to him with so much gratefulness that Lynell wants to sob. That is what selfless love looks like, she thinks. Ending your best friend, your partner, your teammate’s life because it is too unbearable to keep living. Because you love them enough to let them go.

The line moves. 3:33.

A small part of her hopes she won’t reach the window before the clock strikes five o’clock and each window clangs shut. But when the queue is more than halfway done and her watch says 4:08, she knows she won’t have that escape.

She starts shivering. The air-conditioning is blasting and she’s standing directly under a vent. She glances up and a strand of deep brown hair breaks free from her bun. Huffing, she tucks it behind her ear and hunches her shoulders.

They move forward again. 4:11.

“I’d like to Register Michael Nancine,” a stocky man with a shaved head says at the front of their line.

“Name?”

Lynell stops listening as the man starts feeding information to the Registration clerk. She wonders what Michael Nancine did. Does he know his days are numbered, that he probably won’t live to see May? Does he feel regret for whatever propelled this man to Register him?

She knows Alan feels no regret. And that he’s too arrogant to assume someone might waste their Registration on him. He doesn’t truly know Lynell. He doesn’t understand the effect of what he’s done. And he doesn’t care.

The line surges forward after Michael Nancine has successfully been Registered. Lynell flexes her fingers and moves her arm forward. As if in slow motion, she feels the friction as she pushes the sleeve back to read the watch again. She can feel every hair on her arm, the pain in her right ankle, the shortness of breath. The world loses focus, and she never notices the time at which she hears six words that make her spine shake with fear.

“I’m here to Register Lynell Mize.”

Lynell smells unwashed feet, applesauce, and a sharply sweet peach perfume. But she hears nothing but the cough that comes from the man at the front of the line. She leans to the side so she can see his back, broad and covered in a simple gray T-shirt. It’s stained with two small patches of sweat under his armpits. She sees him place his hands on the counter as he speaks to the woman behind the window. She watches the lady’s mouth move as she asks for his name.

“Zachary Price.”

Lynell feels her breath punch at her chest, forcing her to keep on living. She watches the back of the man’s head as he accepts a form the lady slides under the window.

The Registration