“First section?” Miltona asked.

“Please. Sorry.”

The Overseer hung back, watching as Miltona opened the yellow book and used a paperweight to fix it in a permanently open position.

C.M. Miltona managed things on the individual level, looked after health and performance, assessed and kept track of each person in her cell.

“Why are you stressed? This isn’t like you,” Miltona said.

“I’m managing.”

“I know you are. But why are you stressed?”

“I’m—”

Miltona spun Denton’s chair around, sitting in it, then wheeled closer, so her armrest touched Laurie’s, her back was to the screens. Laurie continued her constant typing, eyes not leaving the screen except to glance at the propped-open yellow book.

“I don’t want to be a pig,” Laurie whispered.

“A pig? What are you even talking about?” Miltona asked.

“I know we’re not supposed to use terms or labels for them, but… the boy in cubicle three and the girl in cubicle six. When we’re in the dormitories we talk and there’s obviously a set of procedures and protocols where a worker gets… demoted.”

“We’re not going to demote you or do anything to you, Laurie. You’re our best in the cell.”

“They say if you’re a worker who has to be actively given orders and constantly managed, then you’re a dog, and that’s as low as you get before you get… stuck in the mud. And you don’t get out of the mud.”

The Overseer crossed over from Laurie’s cubicle to cubicle three.

The nametag read Donna Sledge, but the Overseer hadn’t heard any mention of the name since Donna had arrived. The woman worked without comment or flinching, her eyes on reams of code. Phones, internet, and the streams of data from other means of communication, each with their own symbology. One display was split into fifteen individual sub-sections, and Donna’s hand was on a mouse, holding the right button while sweeping over the windows. A column to the right of the screen had Donna’s notes. Where Laurie had marked one line of text in red in the last hour, the sweeping motion of the mouse was designating every bit of communication as flawed, mistaken, or undecipherable, yellow filling each of the fifteen sub-windows.

But not entirely. The code had moons, stars, hearts, and strings of numbers that the notes in the adjacent column noted as ‘coordinates’. The brackets around the coordinates were green, and the notes included a shorthand note that Donna could, if asked, pull out those coordinates. Donna’s head flicked left, her eyes falling on a line of text. She double-clicked it, typed something, and it highlighted green, text superimposed over it. ‘Handshake’.