Posted by Jamie on February 07, 2000 at 03:59:09:
THE LESSON
Chapter 2
‘Girl, Girls,’ the Magistrate called, holding both hands in the air in the universal symbol of one demanding attention amidst excited chatter, ‘Girls I mentioned to you in my address the legislation which establishes the Office of the Eligibility Assessment Panel, the body charged with the duty of determining which girls from their feeder district are beautiful enough to be drafted for possible selection by paying clients to undergo culling.
‘It is my pleasure to introduce to you, the Chairman of the Western District Panel Mr George` Rockossevski who will speak to you on those matters with which he is charged by the State.’
No dear listener, I will not bore you stupid with the text of the long, boring technical description of how he explained the art of assessing beauty in girls, something I would have thought ordinary chemistry took care of.
What seemed to catch the attention of his audience though was his explanation of the need for assessment panels to ensure that sufficient girls were drafted for each of the various processing divisions depending upon the fluctuations of demand. Some times there was a surge in demand for girls in the decapitation division, for example, or for the shooting gallery and I was pleased that he noted that the panel was constantly taxed with the need to supply girls with the physical attributes sought in those to be processed by manual strangulation.
He described what features, apart from natural beauty or prettiness, girls desirable to cullers of varying fancies should have, a long slender neck for my own area, manual strangulation, good athletic body and strong nicely shaped legs for hanging, soft smooth face with full lips and nice soft nose for hand smothering and so on.
He invited the girls to look about them and find a pretty girl and decide how she should be culled if she were to be chosen or if they were pretty themselves, where their most desirable features would lead them if the were asked to serve the State by giving their lives to the common good.
He let this examination and self assessment go on for several minutes then again did his “I want your attention again girls” thing and when he again had quiet, he got to the real purpose of his presence.
‘Girls, girls thank you for your attention again. Now we can proceed to a practical demonstration of what we have learned.
‘My panel of two men and two women have image analysed you all as you have been sitting attentively listening to your lecturers this morning and I have the privilege and pleasure to announce the location of the all round most perfectly beautiful girl in the auditorium. She has not been chosen as representing any one classification of girl, but as I said, in our view, the girl so utterly lovely she is nearly perfect for processing by any approved method of culling.
‘Would the girl sitting in Bay “N” row “r’ seat 139 please come down to the stage so we can show her off to you all. Then we are going to do a little experiment to see how our winner’s friends would chose to process her if they were the purchasers of rights to her. Remember, girls, that the Bureau provides for equal opportunity culling and has many female clients.
‘Apart from you learning about how the program works, we will gain knowledge as to how over one hundred and twenty thousand girls would see a sister as a draftee for potential processing.
The girl in the seat nominated did not move for many seconds and indeed only did so when she was urged to go down to the stage by her eager friends who said she should allow herself to be recognised for her loveliness, not to be shy and so on.
And then, as she got closer to the stage, I began to realise why she had been selected for she was amongst the most beautiful girls I had seen in a long time. The only reason she had not been already selected, I thought looking at the image grow ever more breathtaking as it got larger, was her age for I was sure if she were of a draftable age she would not be alive that day.
She was tall and slim, one point eight meters of sensuality, that gentle gait when she walked possessed only by those who knew they were beautiful and did not know how not to display it.
And her legs shown beneath her short designer dress, not just exquisitely long but of that firmness and shape which comes with a real will and effort to make them athletic and smooth in form and couple this with a long nicely curvaceous body and an angelic face and long slender white neck framed by long straight light brown hair and she was near perfect as a candidate for drafting into any culling division.
‘Now come on you girls who were just now up there sitting looking at our lovely guest, you come down too, please,’ said the Magistrate never wanting to be left out of things even though this part of the proceedings was the function of the selection panel representative.
‘Thank you, your Worship,’ injected Chairman George` not impolitely, then took over again when the “guest” and five other rather lovely girls all stood on stage. Have you ever noticed how pretty girls “the beautiful people” tend to befriend each other as if a group of beautiful girls together reduce the chance of any of them being individually harassed for being the very thing they flaunt?
Well, my estimate is that of those five, three were destined to be drafted and one certainly, perhaps a second, a pretty little blonde girl, would be chosen and killed.
‘Now, honey, said the Chairman to his guest and his choice amongst all one hundred and twenty thousand girls as the one most representative of the spirit of the culling program, ‘what is your name/’
‘Krissie,’ came the half nervous half shy response, the first hint of shyness which would have come from this lovely girl since she realised what she was. I wondered if her reaction, the bit of fear showing was not because she suspected this interview might not contain something very bad for her.
‘We would like your full name please Krissie.’
They already knew her full name of course, a long range scan of her eyes taken while she was still seated gave them that, a scan which the Ultra Computer™ would have matched with that taken at her birth. But when documentation authorising the culling of a girl is being prepared for signature, separate confirming identification is needed, a requirement brought about after the wrong relatives were notified of their daughter’s drafting and several cases of the wrong dead body being handed over to parents for disposal.
The girl’s bodies were no longer retuned to their homes these days but, for humanitarian reasons were, after they were given a full post mortem examination to confirm that they had only been killed in an approved manner, cremated at a Selection School.
‘Kristen Helen Burke,’ she said again in a voice which indicated a nervousness beyond that which would be normal for a girl being paraded in front of such a huge and by now murmuring audience for the word was spreading that perhaps this girl was going to be killed today, right in front of them.
‘Thank you Krissie, now would you please look into the eye scanner the Magistrate is holding so that we get a reliable image - yes thank you, dear.’
‘Wh, why are you taking that, and my name. What am I here for,’ the girl asked, clearly disturbed now.
‘Don’t you worry about it dear, we will explain all soon. Now I want you to please take the two tablets the Magistrate has to give you. They will help you as you are clearly nervous.’
The tablets had little to do with a girl’s nervousness although they did help her to control her panic when fear was replaced by the shear terror which would wash over her soon enough. What the tablets were mainly for was to retain waste within her body as she died a result always desirable, but essential when a girl was to be killed by asphyxiation while her dying body was in full view to an audience of thousands of other girls.
‘Now, dear, would you mind undressing so your friends here and all the girls in the auditorium can analyse you against those features we have been learning about?’
‘Undress! But I….’ stammered the now very concerned teenager.
‘Its ok, dear we have all seen thousands of naked girls and in any event we only need you to take off your dress, not the other little things.
Shortly a very lovely girl stood before us all wearing only the prettiest of very expensive underwear. I have observed in these stories before how it always intrigued me how beauty and intelligence so often went together as do the same blessing and wealth.
I would say that at least eighty percent of all girls killed under the program came from well off families.
Anyway, our attention must now return to the lesson continued by The Chairman of the Selection panel for Krissie’s district.
‘Ok girls,’ he said addressing the five still clothed and who would live to go home this night, ‘I want you each from left to right to tell us how, given what you consider to be Krissie’s best features, how you would process her if you were a client who had purchased the rights to her.’
The first girl was, fortunately for the progress of this exercise which I thought rather silly, very outgoing and indeed I think she was enjoying it. Of the five she was the least likely to ever have to face death under the program, so therein lied the reason, I supposed.
‘Oh’, she said, ‘Krissie ought to be hanged, no doubt at all. Her body would look so beautiful like that, under a rope, I mean. Be a pity to spoil her neck though, but it is the best way for her to be processed by far.’
Krissie looked at her friend in horror as the colour drained from her already very fair skin.
‘One for hanging,’ said the Chairman. ‘And how do you think it should be done to a girl who looks like Krissie, young lady,’ this to the next girl in line.
‘It would be awful,’ was the only reply given at a near whisper.
‘Sorry?’ this from the man.
‘Awful for her to hang. You are all from the asphyxiation directorate. She would have to strangle to death. You would not break her neck first for her.’
‘So how should she be processed then?’
I noticed that the Chairman of selectors had subtly altered the implication contained in his choice of words, that he did not now say “how would you, if you were a client, process her” but “how should she be processed,” the implication being that she should be processed, a small step from announcing that she was going to be.
The lovely recipient of these words bit her beautiful pink full bottom lip. She detected the shift in expression and it frightened her. She was as intelligent as she was rich as she was utterly beautiful.
‘I think she should be - she should be killed like that other girl was, strangled. At least it did not seem to be too bad for her.’
‘Ah! a girl who likes plain Federation English not the jargon eh?’ And how about you dear, how do you think Director Richard ought to kill Krissie for us?’
So now we were using plain language such as kill for “process” and I was the person who they were being inveigled into accepting would do the killing. And that, coupled with the possessive, “us” by implication meant it would happen in front of everyone and soon.
And that was the last vote for strangulation for the other three all wanted Krissie to be hung, two of them giving a very good analysis of why, pointing to her long lovely legs and body, with one of them quite enthusiastically opining that she would look far better if her hair was cut short so “we can see her lovely neck better.”
‘Ok everyone,’ said the Chairman clapping his hands once, ‘we are all agreed that Krissie should be hung. So tonight then, to complete our lessons with a real demonstration of just what it is a girl can expect if she is called upon to serve the interests of the State by surrendering her life, we will do as you suggest.’
‘No No!’ this from poor Krissie as it hit home that she was going to die, that these people were going to kill her and shame upon me but she was utterly beautiful in her terror, her dark blue eyes wide and flashing.
I stepped in then for as the one who was to kill her, it was up to me to see it was done as well as the circumstances permitted.
‘Krissie, listen to me,’ I began the near impossible task of trying to make her death one of dignity, you must now accept what is going to happen to you and try to take it as calmly as you can. If you fight against what we do it will only make it worse.
‘The Magistrate has now left us and he will at this moment be signing the authorisation papers for your culling by hanging and once that is done the law says you must accept your death. No one can stop it. If you refuse to willingly cooperate and let us process you here, you will have to be hanged elsewhere after rather nasty punishment.’
‘But my parents, they won’t know,’ she cried.
‘The Magistrate will send a courier to tell them before we have completed your preparation, so you need not worry about dying before they are informed. And remember your own public support for the program just a few minutes ago.’
‘Now Krissie, girls,’ I continued, ‘since Krissie here is going to be processed as a demonstration of the way the system works and so you have a better understanding of selected girl’s duties to society and not for the pleasure of a paying client, I will use a method which will limit her suffering while at the same time ensuring that the actual cause of her death is asphyxia by strangulation.’
Krissie sobbed quietly as she listened to the details of how she was going to be killed.
‘Let me explain to you the gallows we will be using and which, by the way, has been right before your eyes for the last hour - while we have an attendant tend to Krissie to freshen her up, remove all her makeup so we can better see her facial reactions as she progresses through the various stages of strangulation and so on.’
‘If you look to my left you will be just able to make out the very faint outline of the hanging apparatus now we have focused the imaging lights on it. The structure and all its component parts are made of ultra low density polymer plastic making it almost invisible to the naked eye.
‘The rope and noose are of the same basic material although made to be very soft and flexible. The end effect will be that you will be able to see Krissie as she hangs as if she is not attached to anything thus giving you an unfettered view of what she is undergoing and what is happening to her as she dies.’
I was sorry for Krissie in that she had to listen to all this, but if she was to allow herself to be positioned for processing under a gallows she could not see, she would need to know what was happening and why in some detail.
‘The gallows, Krissie and girls, incorporates a high speed processor which one can program to hang a girl in an almost unlimited number of variations from slow simple strangulation to total full drop spinal separation.
‘Krissie, now that her authorisation papers have been signed, is required by law to undergo strangulation as the method by which she must die, but what we can do for her is to have the gallows computer assess her neck structure and match that to her body weight and come up with a calculation determining the drop necessary to just separate one of her neck vertebrae.
‘Now while this will cause her,’ I said this looking to the girl who was now having an icy cold cloth gently applied to her face to freshen her skin in readiness, ‘a lot of very intense pain as the neck fractures, that pain will not last more than, we hope, twenty to thirty seconds at which time Krissie will lapse into unconsciousness in which state her death from strangulation can painlessly be completed over the next two to five minutes.
‘It will take that long for Krissie to die as I will set the noose to allow her some air, but well short of what she will need to live. This lighter pressure around her neck will allow her to die of strangulation without the disfigurement which would occur if the blood supply to her brain was cut off causing high pressure build up above the restriction about her neck.
‘So, let us now get Krissie is ready so we can get this demonstration under way,’ I said as I noticed the girl was still in her frilly white underwear.