S3, E3 | I Did a Bad Thing Today

> Thursday, 18th November 2038 <

“Your lawyer will be in touch and keep you up to date with your court date” a woman in uniform remarks from behind a secretary’s desk, “it’s imperative that you show up to that court date so you aren’t held in contempt.” Taking claim of a plastic bag with his cell phone, keys, and wallet within them, Andrew scowls at the woman whose hair is tied into a neat bun, his visible displeasure forcefully juxtaposed to her purposefully-ingenuine smile.

“Take care” she utters, continuing to grin from one ear to another at the man whose departure sparks their brief, yet ire-drawing conversation. “Yeah, fuck you” Andrew responds, opening the plastic bag whilst his wife gently pulls at his arm, guiding her husband away from any further remarks that may be seen in poor taste. “Lobbing insults at the officers won’t make your day any better” Elaine quips, gently wrapping her arm around the one that stands at the man’s side.

“It may not change my day, but it’ll give me a few seconds of pleasure” Andrew retorts, half of his heart not even truly buying into such a claim. “Does that make it worth it anymore than it already is?” Elaine inquires, continuing to step for the police station’s front doors alongside the man who she’d sworn to stand by through thick and thin. 

“I just got arrested for beating some punk for trying to snatch a kid from his mother, and now I’m being labelled a racist ‘cause the scumbag happens to be black” Andrew rebukes, paying no mind to slow their progression toward the building’s exit in spite of the litany of people that stand on the opposite side of it. “It’s not an enviable position, honey. However, it’s-” Elaine attempts to reply, only to find her voice overwhelmed by the flurry of voices that call out once the glass doors part.

“Mr. Carrion!” the voices of various reporters cry out, thrusting their microphones into the faces of a father who’d already been the subject of intense public scrutiny many years ago. Asking their own questions toward the father, the reporters take their time in pulling away from the swarm they’d attacked the patriarch in the form of as he advances through, not relenting in his attempted retreat from the station whilst stepping ahead of his wife to protect her.

“Everybody back up and keep your distance!” a man in a long coat exclaims with a briefcase in tow, gently resting his palm against Elaine’s lower back whilst walking alongside the father of two. “Who are you!?” one reporter calls out, taking interest in the unexpected third party that plays catch up to his clients. “I’m defence attorney Henry Webster” the lawyer responds, taking a slight step forward to lead the married couple through the sea of invasive story-finders.

“My client has nothing to say to any of you at this time” Henry proclaims, voicing aloud the results that those with the microphones and cameras are bound to receive, “we will not accept any attempt at receiving answers to questions whilst this legal process is carried out. Any attempts to interrogate my client will be seen as harassment and will result in a lawsuit directed toward you and your employers.”

Dispersing the crowd quicker than the father’s stubborn advancement had, Mr. Webster eventually returns the pair to semi-comfort, opening the backdoors to an SUV for them to climb aboard. Following them, the defence attorney shuts the door upon their entry and signals for the driver to step upon the pedal, carrying the vehicle and themselves away from the swath of investigative journalists and back toward the direction of relative sanctuary.

= Generation Alpha is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and his entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards =

“Coleen” Mrs. Danielson calls out from the relative comfort of her old and very-aged desk chair, picking out one of the only two figures to raise their hand in an effort of answering the question. “Shakespeare?” the teenager wonders aloud, taking her best shot at the question, though her answer makes it seem as though she hadn’t understood what was asked.

“No, I know who wrote it... I’m asking for what the play was called” Mrs. Danielson reiterates, watching a look of unsureness replace the expression of uncertainty that the girl’s face had originally worn. For a few seconds, Mrs. Danielson looks around the room for a potential hand to lift, hoping to call upon a face now that the only other hand beside Coleen’s had followed suit in lowering out of not knowing the answer.

“The Life and Death of King John, anyone?” Mrs. Danielson questions, conceding to the lack of a proper answer that her class fails to offer, accepting their short-coming before taking displeasure in their collective failure to even feign the slightest familiarity with the subject matter. “Oh, come on! We went over this a week and a half ago!” the teacher persists, holding out hope for something other than a blank and lost stare to meet her, “the test is in three days... you should know this!”

Paying no mind to the conversation that’s happening near the front of the room, Liv’s eyes lock onto the same sight that steals every last ounce of her attention, frozen upon the empty seat that sits beside her without an occupant. “What about the main character?” Mrs. Danielson wonders aloud, leaning back in her seat with the textbook open across her lap, eyes held toward the small number of students that share the classroom with her, “who is the main character of King John?”

Waiting for a moment, the dissatisfied teacher watches her small in-person class keep their faces toward the surfaces of their desks, hesitant to answer. In the back of the room, only one hand begins to rise from the bottom of the screen the student hides within, taking more of an active role from the comfort of their own home than the students in actual attendance. “Yes, Bryan!” Mrs. Danielson calls out, picking on the unconfident blonde teenager with a buzzcut.

“Is it King John?” Bryan replies, the tone of his voice making it clear that he’s not fully confident in the answer that he offers. Still displeased with the participation amongst her class, Mrs. Danielson frowns in the online student’s direction and sinks further into her chair. “What have I been teaching you all school year about what we do when we answer questions?” the teacher inquires, looking out to the small group of students that sit within the unnecessary number of empty desks.

“That we shouldn’t answer in the form of a question!” Coleen exclaims, refusing to even offer the lift of her hand in the name of making good upon her earlier misinterpretation of the inquiry. “Yes! Thank you! At least someone pays attention in class” Mrs. Danielson responds, extending her hands back toward the rows of screen in the back of the room, “now, Bryan... Please answer the question I asked instead of asking your own!”

Allowing the events that surround her to continue without interruption, Liv remains fixated on the empty seat that sits along her right side, staring at it with a blank expression without even trying to hide how little she’s paying attention to the lesson that she’s meant to participate in. “Yes, Bryan... It is King John!” Mrs. Danielson responds, accepting the answer her online student had offered with an obvious tone of discontent, pulling in a breath as she pauses before watching a hand rise.

“Yes, Liv?” the teacher inquires, spotting the special needs student out from the crowd that sits before her. “May I use the restroom, please?” the teen inquires, her question only further fueling the displeasure of her educator’s guise. “Yep” Mrs. Danielson concedes, burying her eyes into the text that’s scrawled upon the pages that sit in her lap as the student steps out of her seat, walking down her stretch of desks and around the front of the room whilst Coleen and her friends watch on.

Empty handed and with little reason to maintain the ruse, Liv walks throughout the empty stretches of hallway that separate her from various sections of the building. At first travelling back toward her lockers, the curious student turns away upon realising the area is empty, freeing her to journey toward other avenues. With a glance into the window that separates the front office from the front of the building, the specialty-feigning teenager finds the lack of anything worthwhile there as well.

Glancing into whatever rooms are free to be looked into ranging from classrooms to the cafeteria to the courtyard at the front of the building, Liv begins to find herself running low on options. In search of one person in particular, the consistent failure to find whom she yearns to see leaves her more depleted and disheartened with each passing step, its result leading her to making for the closest bathroom in an effort of looking to her phone for answers.

Hanging her head, Liv reaches into her pocket and retrieves her mobile device whilst thrusting her shoulder into the first door she finds, offering her what she first assumes to be privacy, but soon realises provides her with an answer. “Oh!” the teenager girl mutters as she looks up from the ground, entering the room and immediately finding the reflection of a familiar face in the centre-most mirror along the sinks.

Briefly glancing in the direction of the bathroom’s entrance, Derby notices the presence of her friend and rolls her eyes with displeasure, concealing her anger toward the young woman whom she struggles to convince herself to be mad at. “Hey, Liv” the rebellious student murmurs whilst looking back at the mirrored image of her own face, a bruised left eye, busted lip and broken nose worn like battlescars from her altercation of the prior night.

“What happened!?” Liv questions with a gasp, yet to resume feigning her autistic mannerisms in lieu of her friend’s wounded appearance, though it’s a slip-up that’s not easily noticed. Puckering her lips as she stares into the ceramic bowl that her sink’s inner-construction slopes into, Derby gives her best effort at concealing her rage for the friend’s failure to appear the night prior by answering with short and simple sentences.

“You didn’t show up last night” the assaulted student replies, gently rubbing at various colours that surround her eye, the swelling prompting her to wince at even the lightest graze. “So, since I couldn’t really just wait around and hope for the best, I just decided to try and do what I needed to without you” Derby confesses, pressing her side into the sink as she stares at the sorrowful young woman across from her, “as you can see, it obviously didn’t go very well for me.”

Though she wants to raise a question immediately, Liv recalls the act that she nearly fails to resume in time, staring blankly into the distant wall that stands behind the wounded student before bobbing her head again. “My dad got arrested last night” the special needs teenager responds, still trying to offer her best explanation for leaving the woman to the assault that had befallen her, “Elaine told me not to leave the house.”

Though she’d still made an effort to be reasonable and wary of her friend's unusual condition, the subdued aggravation that the troubled teen had held toward her acquaintance goes out the window with the clarification. “Shit, Liv. I... I’m sorry, I didn’t know” Derby explains, genuinely disappointed to hear the news, though she struggles to make that clear in light of the pain and fatigue that she’s forced to succumb to, “is... Is he alright?”

Though she nods at first to the reply, Liv looks into the distance to offer herself a moment of clarity, answering the question after a brief pause. “I don’t know what he did, but mom left to pick him up from the police station after she dropped me off” the autistic student responds, pausing yet again as Derby attempts to speak, not knowing that her pal had intended to continue speaking.

“It’s not a good excuse, though. I told you that I’d be there and I wasn’t” Liv doubles down, watching a more warm and appreciative expression come over her acquaintance’s wounded face, “I’m sorry, Derby.” Bowing her head for a brief moment, the injured student tries her best to hide a smile before looking back up and nodding.

“It’s alright, Liv” Derby answers, genuinely dismissing any of the lingering anger in light of the apology she hadn’t even realised her friend was capable of offering from a place of sincerity, pleased to at least know the young woman across from her can comprehend honouring one’s word. “What happened last night?” Liv follows up, asking the question that she’d initially wanted to raise prior to explaining her absence, “who attacked you? Why did they attack you?”

Freeing a long and extended sigh, Derby rolls her eyes and winces at the pain in her side whilst looking into the mirror she’d initially faced when her presence in the room became shared. “Coleen and those pests usually go to this warehouse downtown- an old building that’s been empty for, like, fifteen years- and drink booze they snatch from their parents’ liquor cabinets” the troubled teen admits, “I set up my phone the other night to film them.”

“Coleen and her friends did this to you!?” Liv immediately interjects, the haste in her reply surprising her injured friend, who looks back to her with a momentary shock at first. “Uh... yeah?” Derby replies, almost speaking as if that much should’ve been expected from the start, “who else would’ve beat me up like this?”

With wide eyes and a steadily-held distant expression, Liv looks into her friend’s face as she processes the claims internally, her lips moving at a quiver-like pace as she pulls her focus away from the wounded teenager. “They found my phone and knew I was coming. They got the jump on me, tossed my phone in the fire, and they left me there to get out myself” Derby doubles down, finishing her thought without interruption this second time around, “now I’m here.”

Struggling to funnel through her thoughts, Liv’s mind pushes beyond the claims that her friend makes and instead toward the visage of all three perpetrators of the attack her absence is partially responsible for. Though the feeling of anger courses through the muscles in her arms when picturing Leila and Elva, the sensation of outright rage sinks into her conscience like a vessel dips below the surface of the sea when the image of Coleen presents itself upon her mind.

“Anyway, I’ll see you in class a little later, Liv. I still need the office to process my tardy slip and then I’ll be in” Derby concludes, patting her friend on the shoulder whilst accepting the silence that she’s bound to be met with, walking past and venturing through the room’s exit. Seething where she was left standing, Liv looks at the black face of the white-painted, concrete walls that surround the room, a brief nibble taken into her bottom lip as she’s left with her thoughts.

|

“I’m not changing my story!” Andrew howls, slamming his balled hand against the countertop of his kitchen’s island, vehemently refusing the suggestion that his attorney pleads for him to consider. “Mr. Carrion, the parking lot doesn’t have security cameras and no one is coming forward to claim that the man you attacked was anything more than a passerby” Mr. Webster responds, occupying one of the stools on the distant side of the island.

“I saw the look in that little girl’s eye when that van pulled out of that fucking spot” Andrew retorts, defending his claim with absolute resilience, “that dirty fucking bastard tried to snatch the kid away from her mom. I don’t care if there wasn’t a camera to catch it... I know what happened.”

“I’m not claiming that you don’t, and I’m not calling you a liar. The point of all this is that- unless the woman comes forward to corroborate your claim- it’s a ‘he said-he said’ argument” Mr. Webster responds, wearing a look that doesn’t urge confidence, “and with how biassed the courts have become against people like you whenever the term ‘hate crime’ gets thrown around, you better bet that your odds of walking out with a ‘not guilty’ verdict are slim-to-none.”

“Mr. Webster, there are tire tracks burned into the asphalt from the van pulling out” Andrew argues back, a conclusion that the defence attorney takes little care in. “Tasking the prosecutors with arguing that those tracks could’ve been from any other vehicle would be like challenging them to take a walk in the park...” Mr. Webster responds, patting the countertop to display the level of ease he speaks to, “...unless they’re hypoallergenic, they’ll have no trouble whatsoever.”

“What if the woman came forward to argue in Andrew’s favour?” Elaine inquires, butting into the conversation with more topical optimism to offer. “Well we wouldn’t be arguing it as ‘he said-he said’ now, would we?” the defence attorney rebukes, darting his eyes back toward the direction of the subject to his visit, “but unless your husband has found a way to get in contact with this woman, I’d suggest you start hitting the press circuit and asking her to come forward if you want her to show up.”

Their conversation coming to a pause at the sound of the home’s front door closing, the three inhabitants of the kitchen look past the arch that separates the home’s foyer from them to find a familiar face. “Hey, Liv! Uh-” Elaine speaks up, wanting to offer words in lieu of her husband’s less-than-affable mood and the unfamiliarity of the defence attorney.

“I have homework” Liv quickly interrupts, not paying much mind toward entertaining her step mother’s greeting before wandering off for the second level of the home. Though she’d already been disappointed by the strife in which her only child’s father is embroiled in, the dismissive manner in which her step daughter reacts to her only further deepens the discontent that overcomes her.

“Mr. Carrion, I’m not suggesting that you take the stand, admit to being a racist and apologise for your actions. All I’m suggesting is that- in whatever you say- you act as if you’re open-minded to the idea that you may have have some prejudicial undertones to the way you handled the situation” the attorney suggests, “you can argue that the woman and her kid existed, but as long as you admit you may have misread the situation, a jury might be more willing to believe they existed.”

“How the hell would that be any different from arguing that he tried to snatch her kid!?” Andrew calls out in a rage, feeling as though the solution presented isn’t much different from the preferable option at his disposal. “Because- unless the judge lets us select the jurors- it’ll look better to an all-black panel” Mr. Webster replies, “they’ll be unlikely to go along with the lady being involved if he attacked her, but they’ll likely go for it if she’s not used to make their own look bad.”

“I don’t give a fuck about how black people are made out to look. What I care about is having kept a girl from ending up like Sophie- but in an even worse position- and being painted out as the villain!” Andrew exclaims, his voice reverberating throughout the home. “Well, if this plan isn’t one that you’re willing to go for, I’d suggest you start putting out flyers to look for this white lady and her kid” Mr. Webster concedes, throwing his hands up in defeat, “it looks like your only option.”

Slapping the island’s surface, Andrew presses his hands against his hips and turns away from his wife and the man he’d paid to attend to his legal matters, staring through the window that resides just over the sink. Sitting with his own anger, the father of two tries to clear his mind of the intrusive thoughts that fill his head, their presence undesired and unpleasant.

Whilst Elaine rounds the kitchen’s centre-most obstacle to comfort the man she’d married, an unseen spectator remains seated upon the home’s main staircase listening in, her head pressing against the drywall that acts almost like an amplifier. With a sombre expression, Liv sits with her thoughts and allows them to stew before disappointedly collecting her knapsack and following through with her venture toward the bedroom that awaits her presence.

“We’re going to figure something out, honey” Elaine whispers, resting her hands against Andrew’s shoulder and arm whilst trying to offer him comfort. Attempting to double down on her reassurance, the household’s matriarch overhears the creaking of floorboards just over her head, the pair of feet that journeys across the hallway one level above being dismissed by the girl’s father.

|

“I didn’t expect to come back to this camera so soon” Liv confesses, sitting in the chair to her desk at the centre of the room once more, this time looking into the lens that is positioned across the surface of her desk, the legs that had allowed it to stand freely having been tucked away in the corner. 

“I kinda sorta expected to go radio silent for a while and only start filming once I felt the next stage of my slip beginning, but I’m pretty sure that next stage is already here” she doubles down, continuing to eye her reflection in the slightly-rounded lens. Swallowing a wad of spit that builds up in her mouth, Liv’s eyes take to the corner of her desk, spotting a blue mug with white print dawning upon the outside of it, the text reading her name in playful, rounded letters.

“I took my meds this morning, so I can’t even claim that this is something I can write off as being no big deal” the girl explains, ridding herself of any opportunity to dismiss the events as the cause of some other motivation. “Everything was going fine until I found Derby in the bathroom. Her face was bruised, and even though I had nothing to do with attacking her- it was still partially my fault” Liv admits, conceding to that point in the name of something more.

“I felt so bad about having stood her up, but all of that changed when she mentioned what happened last night...” she continues, pausing for a moment as her face begins to hold a sorrowful and slightly-bitter expression, “...and who did it.”

Falling silent, Liv reflects upon the recollection she had from earlier in the day quietly, retaining as much memory from the altercation that had ensued as she can, knowing it to be vital for anything she does from this point onward. Pulling in a deep breath, the girl opens the eyes she’d yet to realise had closed, parting her lips to come clean with the action she’d taken and had left her conscience to bear the weight of.

“I did a bad thing today.”

Vividly remembering the frustration that had been worn on the girl’s face, Liv recalls focusing on the visage of Coleen as she’d ventured around a corner in search of the closest bathroom. With a frown and irritated eyes, the teenage bully had failed to take notice of the special needs student she’d mistreated so frequently that it had almost become second nature to that point, instead preferring to follow her aggravation to a more secluded area, wishing to simmer in private.

Though she’d partially gone unnoticed thanks to hiding over half of her body behind the door of her full-sized locker, Liv’s lack of detection allowed her eyes to follow Coleen’s figure around the nearest corner and through the door that had awaited her. With slightly-parted lips and an intense stare, the facade-supporting teenager had used the brief moment of thought that had come upon her to glance in either direction of the corridor that she occupies, taking notice of how empty it is.

Realising how devoid of attention she is, Liv’s focus sets its full attention upon the bathroom door her tormentor had dipped through, yet to move a muscle away from the open panel of her storage compartment. “Aside from that one instance I told you- the camera, I suppose- about the other night, there’d never been a better opportunity to get Coleen alone than this one” the girl utters, confessing to the motivation that urged her to take action, “something inside of me refused to let it go.”

Able to remember the slightly-cold sensation of the metal door she’d proceeded to close after a moment of thought, Liv follows through with recalling the weight of every step she’d taken from her locker to the bathroom door, each sensation that had accompanied her along the journey proving to be just as memorable as every other. Pushing her forearm into the wooden door, the supposedly-autistic student would follow her adversary into the bathroom and vanish behind the closing door.

“If anyone ever finds this tape and watches it, I want to make it clear that I don’t think there’s anything worse than feeling like you have to live a life of lies because of how convinced you’ve made some of the people in your life” Liv admits, struggling to word her thoughts correctly, but making sure to pay extra effort to them, “even if it’s just out of self-preservation, I’m not sure there’s anyone that understands the feeling of not being able to tell people the truth about yourself.”

Sucking on her bottom lip, Liv shakes her head whilst looking at her own reflection in a mirror that’s propped up along a shelf near the top of her desk. “I know there’s a purpose to it, and I know that I don’t pretend to still be autistic for whatever benefits come with it, but I still feel dirty about having to hide this part of my life” the girl confesses, unable to look away from her own sorrowful expression, “I just need you to understand why the urge to give up this secret is so strong.”

== Generation Alpha ==