"Aokan. Hey."

Aokan grunts and rolls over, dragging his thin, pilled bedsheet over his face.

"Aokan. Wake up, man."

"Fuck off," Aokan mumbles.

"Dude, up. Come on." This is Xulo, his cellmate. "I told you yesterday. Gotta get to the mess hall early before all the stekkai's gone. I've been saving my tokens. I need your feet."

Aokan groans and rolls out of his bunk. He blinks blearily at the cool pre-dawn light coming in through the cell window. "What time is it?"

"It's 0600."

"You're lucky it's your fuckin' nameday, Xulo."

"Yeah. Living the dream. Put your paint on and let's go."

Aokan crosses to their cell's wash basin. He uncaps his paint marker and draws a long scarlet stripe across his arms and legs, a great big X on his chest, a line along his forehead and down his nose. He zips his mint-green re-ed suit on and steps into his shoes.

At the edge of the cell, in front of the portrait of the Empress, are two glowing sets of footprints. Xulo's already standing on one, bouncing impatiently on the balls of his feet. Aokan takes the other and genuflects. The microphones are in the floor and insensitive, so you have to bow low for your voice to get picked up.

"I begin my day with my pledge." He speaks it in chorus with Xulo. "By my own effort, I will remove the stains of disobedience and dishonor from my name, that I might once again become a citizen. I thank Empress Zithra XIX for her mercy. I thank Princess Sykora of the Black Pike for her mercy. I will demonstrate my gratitude. I will not waste the second chance that I have been given."

The pneumatic door of cell 12-zule hisses open, and its occupants step out into the yard, past the tables and the weight racks. This early, the ring of cells surrounding the yard are mostly dark, their occupants enjoying a final half-hour of shut-eye. Must be nice.

Aokan nudges Xulo and passes him a chip of pink plastic. "Happy nameday, dipshit."

Xulo gives him a gap-toothed grin and pockets the token. "Thanks, Aokan."

"You get enough for a cake?"

Xulo shakes his shaggy mop. "I'm spending it on stekkai."

"Don't do that." Aokan frowns. "That's terrible return. It's like five tokens for one stek. Common knowledge, man."

"I don't care. I miss them so goddamn bad. My nameday, my pick."

Aokan leaves Xulo to his dire mistake and picks a scratchy plastic tray off the stack by the hot food line. Mallanai, the zule block steward, sees him coming and slides her thermos to one side to shovel a steaming portion of breakfast protein onto his plate.

"Morning, Malla," he says.

"Morning." She yawns and passes him a dough roll. "Today's your swap into reflection and rec, right? Need to compel you, then."

Aokan grimaces. "Can I just promise to eat fast? It's Xulo's nameday."

"No can do," Mallanai says, matter-of-factly. "Kneel, please."

The guard bounder by the yard entrance tracks him with its riot gun as he drops to a knee.

Mallanai flashes him. "Eat quickly and don't idle afterward. Right to the communicator banks."

Aokan shuffles off. Mallanai isn't that strong a compeller. He'll scarf his food once he sits, he's sure, but at least he can take his sweet time getting to the table.

Around the mess table, as the other guys from zule block gradually filter in, Xulo chatters happily away about the latest call from his mom and stuffs his face with intolerably overpriced stekkai.

"What's up, 12-zule?" Dorvin slaps Aokan's back as he arrives at the table and clacks a token in front of Xulo. "Happy nameday, kid."

Lark fakes a grab. Xulo hisses and tugs the token away.

"He's just gonna waste it on stekkai," Aokan says, mouth full.

"It's not a waste," Xulo insists.

"This one's got a bruise on it." Lark prods a rind.

"You're compelled on that food?" Dorvin asks, as Aokan takes another colossal bite.

Aokan swallows. "What do you think? I've fallen in love with rehydrated egg?"

"Thought you were doing drydock today," Lark says.

"Not until 1100." Aokan spoons another wobbly, cardboard-scented lump of protein. "I'm on Pek's schedule while he's in the infirmary. It's reflection and rec for me, boys."

Uncomfortable glances volley around the table. "Weeping Wula's been on the sevenday reflections today," Dorvin says.

Aokan sighs. "Hellfire."

Xulo holds up the token Aokan gave him. "You want this back?"

"No, keep it." Aokan takes a bite out of his roll. "I got plenty. It's your nameday."

He finishes breakfast and is proud of himself for managing to exchange a token for a bottle of zaikem juice up at the commissary before Mallanai's command sweeps his feet toward his morning routine. He sips from the bottle as he enters the main facility. The painters and cameras track him through the increasingly crowded halls. Shakami Re-Ed is waking up.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He nods to one of the anticomped guardsmen outside the communicator banks. "Aokan Lilek here for recompense."

"You're not on today," the guard says.

"Let him in, please," a woman calls from the other side of the door. "Schedule change."

The guard steps silently aside and Aokan saunters up to the bulletproof kiosk in the antechamber. "How's it going, Lina?"

Officer Kulina glances up from her video puzzle. "Morning, darlin'. Doing okay. You know how Pek's doing?"

"He'll be up again soon," Aokan says. "Guy did it to himself. He wasn't eating enough. Everyone could see."

"Why's that?"

Aokan shrugs. "Question for the psych, I guess."

"Poor thing. Okay. Give me a second." Kulina rolls her wheely chair over to a wall of open filing cabinets. "Aokan of Lilek. Where are you… here we are." Kulina slides his spiral bound workbook through the cubby. "Finish that or toss it, yeah?"

Aokan holds the bottle out. "Do you want it?"

"No, thank you. I have a thing about backwash."

He takes two final swigs and tosses the rest into a trash chute on the wall. "All right. Flash me."

Kulina taps the glass. "Step up."

Aokan moves to the edge of the divider and meets Kulina's eyes.

Her eyes flash. "Proceed to cubicle forty and make calls until you have a half-score of completed responses. Take notes. Then report to reflection."

Off he goes, with the satisfied stride of a man on a mission. Kulina's compulsion is clean that way. Some of these correctional officers, it feels like your brain is shoving you along with a nightstick.

He walks through the cubicles, full of men in mint murmuring into handsets, and sits at the stool before cubicle forty's communicator. He punches in the first number. It picks up on the second ring. "Hello?"

"May I speak to Sarna of Penn?"

"This is she."

"Miss Sarna, I'm Aokan of Lilek, calling from the Shakami Men's Reeducation Facility on Ptolek II. I'm required to disclose to you that I've been found responsible for the coercive delays and diverted shipments that negatively affected you from Hecto 7751-Deca-7 to Hecto 7752-Deca-2."

"Oh. Shit, uh—hold on."

There's a rustling on the line.

"Are you calling on recompense?"

"I am, ma'am. If you have the time, I hope to hear how your life was affected by my actions, and to understand how I might make recompense."

"Uh. So. You're at re-ed?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Why did you do all that?"

"I was acting in what I thought at the time was the best interests of my union, ma'am."

"Well." The sound of air whistling between teeth. "I guess I can understand that. Look, it was annoying. I won't lie. But I haven't thought about it in a while. I had a few crisis meetings about it, some personal stress. Uh, I got a merit or two figuring out how to close the output gap. So that was nice."

Aokan twirls his pen between his fingers. No need to note the good things. "Glad to hear it, ma'am."

"So it's not—it didn't really—I guess I forgive you, I'm saying."

"Thank you, ma'am. How would I be able to make recompense?"

An uncertain pause. "I don't know if I really need recompense."

"I'm required to inform you that if you choose, I can pay you back through labor," Aokan says. "With my wages garnished to award you penalties."

"Oh. Oh, I mean… I wouldn't say no, I guess. What would you be doing?"

"I do maintenance on exo drones, ma'am."

"Now do you like doing that?" Concern is evident in Sarna's voice. "Or I guess—how long would you be working if I said yes?"

"I like it fine, ma'am. It would be a full workday on my end, and you'd be awarded two hundred Ptolek credits."

"They don't pay you so much, huh?"

"This is after fees, ma'am. But no, not so much."

"Okay. Then I guess I'll take that. If it's not too much trouble."

"It's not. I'll note that down. Thank you for your time."

Aokan hangs up on Sarna's tepid "Oh thanks—" and checks the default workday in the box next to her name.

A few more calls, some missed connections, some modest venting, and two more default penalties.

Aokan's beginning to feel as though he might get out of the day relatively unscathed as he dials the next number. "May I speak to Rushar of Clan Fanik?"

The voice on the other end has the fuzz of an interplanetary call. "Speaking."

"Mr. Rushar, I'm Aokan of Lilek, calling from the Shakami Men's Reeducation Facility on Ptolek II. I'm required to disclose to you—"

"You're the guy who fucked my barge?"

"Yes, sir. That's me." Aokan swallows around the lump forming in his throat. That doesn't bode well. "If you have the time, I hope to hear how your life was affected by my actions, and to understand—"

"How my life—" Rushar speaks over him. "I'll tell you how my life was affected. You fucked me."

Aokan sighs and adds a line below Rushar's name to expand the notes box.

"Your little protection racket bullshit destroyed my career," Rushar says. "I got shitcanned because of you. The only job I could get after you was pushing paper on Ramex. And my great-great-grandma wasn't well enough to make the trip, so she stayed on Ptolek II, so guess who wasn't at her bedside when she passed, shitheel?"

Aokan grits his teeth as his hand mechanically notes all this down—job lost, relocation, missed death of great-great-grandmother. None of this is his fault, he wants to say. Rushar should blame whatever skinflint bastard thought he deserved to be sacked for things beyond his control. But that's not how this goes.

"And how would I be able to make recompense?" he asks instead.

"I'll tell you how." Rushar's hoarse. "You go fuck yourself."

"Sir, if my recompense officer determines your request isn't eligible, we're going to default to the basic monetary penalty of two hundred—"

"I don't want credits. Here's what I want. I want you to take two steps back, and shove whatever communicator you're using up your ass and fuck yourself with it. And you can fucking rot."

Click.

Aokan huffs an unhappy laugh as he observes the notes he left next to Rushar's name. "Dickhead," he mutters, and moves on to the next name on his list.

In this manner, Aokan harvests his half-score of calls. Then he rises from his cubicle, notebook under his arm, and returns to Kulina's kiosk. The woman sips her tea and slots the glass open. "Hey, darlin'. How were the phone banks?"

Aokan shrugs. "Couple hard cases. Most of them just want the money."

Kulina clucks her tongue as she goes down Aokan's list, clacking her stamp against each entry. She pauses on Rushar's name. "This gentleman wants you to fuck yourself."

"With the phone, he said."

Kulina snorts and crosses the recompense field out. "Let's call that one the default, then."

"Appreciate that," Aokan says.

"Bet the cubicle custodians will, too." Kulina taps her pen on the default column. "These work days here: you want your share in escrow, or tokens?"

"You know me, Lina," Aokan says. "Tokens every time." The credit take-home after the fees and the penalty payments is miserable. And Aokan isn't afraid of needing money once he's out. He was there for the union. The union will be there for him.

"Is it true that Wula's on the reflection chair today?" he asks.

A cloud of something like pity crosses Kulina's face. "Mmhmm." She pushes Aokan's workbook through the slot in her kiosk.

He sighs and takes it. "Great."

"Just get it done, darlin'. This list isn't so bad." Her eyes flash. "Go on. Time for reflection"

Easy for her to say. She'll never know what it's like, the shit he's about to mentally shovel. Aokan takes a deep breath. One of his last before he'll be inhaling the incense of the reflection chamber.

Then it's off to Weeping Wula, and the stopwatch, and the agony.

Grant watches the painted man in the mint uniform crossing the yard on the security feed. His hands are clammy where they clutch the edge of the desk.

"We could, uh we could fetch him now, Majesty," his stammering guide offers. "If you wish."

He looks down at her, and she shrinks away from whatever's showing on his face. "What's reflection?"

"Reflection is how we rehabilitate them," the warden says. "It's perfectly harmless, Majesty."

Grant leans back in his seat. Sykora is still and silent next to him, staring with that probing look she gets when she's trying to see what he's thinking. Usually he sees that look and smiles, appreciates the care she takes with him. But in this moment it's just another pair of red eyes in the room. Red eyes everywhere. Corska Ondai is standing off in the corner, and she's got a version of the same searching expression on her face. One with a smile, small and ambiguous.

"Show me," he says.

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