(Office/Classroom setting)
(Characters: Correctional Officer - around mature adulthood in age, clipped voice, formal register, articulate, Student - young middle childhood, voice should indicate young age, male)
- open scene -
Correctional Officer: Next!
(sound effect of automatic door sliding open, then closed)
Correctional Officer: Registration number.
Student: Six. Nine. Two. Four. Sir.
Correctional Officer: Computer, enter registration code six-nine-two-four. (computerised beep) District designation.
Student: District Angustus, sir.
Correctional Officer: Computer, enter district sector Angustus. (beep) Display file. (beep)
(pause) It says here you are registered as Rene Hemlein in the database. Is this how I am to refer to you?
Student: No, sir.
Correctional Officer: How am I to refer to you?
Student: I am my registration number. Sir.
Correctional Officer: That is correct. In your district educational facility, how do your peers and superiors refer to you?
Student: By my rank, sir.
Correctional Officer: As they should. And what is your rank?
(silence)
Correctional Officer: Six-nine-two-four, you will answer me.
Student: (slight indignation) Surfeit, sir.
Correctional Officer: I see. What selfish parents you have.
Student: I resent them. Sir.
Correctional Officer: As you should. As a Surfeit, you are on borrowed time. A pitiful life if you ask me. Tell me, in the event of hyper-rationing, or mass famine, what does mandate state Surfeit’s do?
Student: Report to the Caedes Corpus, sir.
Correctional Officer: And what is it you will do there, Surfeit?
Student: Lay down my life for the cause, sir.
Correctional Officer: In whose grace?
Student: The Emperor.
Correctional Officer: Who do you belong to, Surfeit?
Student: The Emperor.
Correctional Officer: Who is our saviour?
Student: The Emperor.
Correctional Officer: Hail.
Student: Unto the pure, all things are pure. Long live the Emperor.
Correctional Officer: Dismissed.
(automatic door opening, closing)
Correctional Officer: Computer, open progression notes on file six-nine-two-four. Open text. Subject displaying indications of defection, case in point; hesitation at response, unprompted admittance of feelings, perception of resentment towards rank. Close text. Issue file as red flagged.
(computerised beep)
Correctional Officer: Next!
- end scene -
