S3, E8 | On Tape to the Tune of the Truth

> Thursday, 2nd December 2038 <

“Everyone’s finally healed- at least as well as they’re going to” Liv responds, staring into the camera with a disheartened visage before beginning to hang her head, wearing the obvious signs of stress that appear even more unavoidable on film. “Asking them to re-open these wounds now- after all this time- it wouldn’t be fair to them” she persists, her hands coupled together as they sit atop her lap, eyes still held toward her floorboards.

Sitting on the front half of the chesterfield with her elbows pressing into her knees and hands coupled together at her chin, Elaine watches the recording of her stepdaughter from the prior night, her eyes finding difficulty in closing for even long enough to blink as her fixation grows. “I know that I kinda already re-opened my own wounds by making this, but my reasoning wasn’t the same” Liv explains, still focusing her sights on the ground, “there’s nothing for them to gain from this.”

Though her cup of coffee sits on the corner of the table just a few feet away, the beverage sits in the ceramic mug untouched and undisturbed, growing cold the longer it goes without the touch of the woman’s lips. Instead, Elaine’s eyes hold steadily upon her troubled stepdaughter’s figure, apologetic eyes carried toward the top of the girl’s head, which is the only distinguishing feature of hers that appears readily able to be viewed.

“I don’t know what other choice I have, though” Liv confesses, finally pulling her face away from the world at her feet and swiping the hanging strands of her hair back, “I don’t even know how to convince them. He may want to seem reasonable, but if he doesn’t get them on camera digging up the past, everyone’s gonna know that I’ve been putting up a charade.”

Though her face is now within the focus of the camera’s lens, Liv’s eyes refuse to meet it with her own attention, instead pulling back with the rest of her head and coming to a soft stop at the back of the chair before staring at her bed. In a moment of helplessness, the teenager’s hands slip from her lap and fall to her either side, reacting with the weightless sensation that comes over the rest of her body in a moment of dread.

“I should’ve never went up to Coleen in that bathroom... Either time” Liv confesses, the emotions that sport themselves in the form of her frown unmistakingly palpable, drawing a sorrow out of the woman that watches the film from the living room. “I’m in a no-win situation here, aren’t I?” the troubled teenager inquires, the question one wondered aloud to no one in particular, just voiced for the sake of being voiced, “what’s the point of picking either option?”

Resting on the grooves of her knuckles, Elaine’s chin presses into her hands as the tape continues on, nothing more than the silence that accompanies her stepdaughter’s recording to meet her ears. “Dad, mom, and Coleen... Those are the only people that know about my condition” Liv remarks, pulling in a deep breath that she soon sends out in a heavy sigh, “even if Ian decided to take the honourable route and not answer my question, I know who told him.”

For another few seconds, the falsehood-supporting teenager sits with her mind shrouded in dark, grim thoughts before suddenly adjusting her posture, sitting upright in her seat as her hands slip around the side of her head, pulling back her long, brunette locks. “Maybe this is what I fucking deserve” Liv concedes, a partial squint carried in her eyes as her face takes fully back toward the camera’s lens, “if I’d just kept the ruse up, I might’ve been able to just escape all of this.”

Visibly annoyed, the aggravated girl keeps her composure intact well enough to speak with an indoor voice, not wanting to raise her reflection with her parents asleep in their room down the hall. “The worst part about it too isn’t even just what it’s probably led to, the worst part about it is that my meds didn’t stop me” Liv explains, speaking with a more coherent and intentful intonation, “when I jumped her in the bathroom, I at least could hide behind the excuse that I wasn’t on them.”

Pausing, Liv shakes her head with a loss for explanation as her eyes turn away from the camera once more, an inarguable appearance of disgust wrapping around her expression like a snake coiling around its prey. “But I was on the meds this time around. I had that extra second, and I used it to do exactly what I would’ve done if I hadn’t had it” she concedes, clearly troubled with such an honesty, “maybe I would’ve done worse than just knock her on her flat ass, but I still did what I did.”

Balling her hand into a fist, Liv gives a fairly decent punch to the top of her thigh, right above her kneecap. “I acted on my impulse. I know that it was something that was warranted and that Coleen definitely deserved, but I had a massive call to make- and I chose the wrong call” she accepts, holding herself accountable for the issues that she’s birthed from the action, “now it’s coming back to haunt me. And even worse than the consequences it brings, it drains me of hope.”

Unable to look away from the television’s screen, Elaine keeps her ear attached to her stepdaughter’s every last word whilst her eyes swing with each new turn of the girl’s head. Her dread having turned itself into a bitter anger, Liv’s frustrations boil internally and direct themselves as herself, unable to do much more than offer an angry smile toward the far corner of her room.

“If I’m at the point now where I can make this mistake while on my meds, how much longer will it be until the pills can’t help keep me from doing what I did to Coleen last time around?” Liv wonders aloud, shaking her head with uncertainty toward the camera lens, “how long would it be before even that would get worse? How much longer will it be until I’m pushed to the point that I just lose it? How much longer until the meds can’t keep me from joining my sister in jail anymore? How much longer?”

Her ear being caught by the familiar sound of her husband’s car horn going off in the pattern that accompanies the locking of his doors, Elaine reaches for the camera she’s hooked various cords to and presses one of the buttons on its side panel. After a few seconds and as expected, the home’s main floor finds itself welcoming the return of the woman’s husband, who quickly sheds the toque from his head and stomps his boots on a floor mat, leaving two snow-covered spots.

“Sorry for taking so long- traffic was brutal on the highway” Andrew remarks, pulling down the zipper to his coat as he leaves his shoes at the door, walking for the living room he watches his wife stand from the sofa in, “some car must’ve hit a patch of black ice and driven right off the road. There were three others that went with it, so that first car must’ve taken some friends with th-”

Stopping his words as his eyes finally catch a look at his wife’s face, Andrew pulls his second arm from the coat’s sleeve and lets the article of clothing sit in his opposite hand. “Is something wrong?” he wonders after a few seconds, receiving no verbal response at first before his question is met with the same hush, leaving him to make his own attempt at uncovering the cause for such a quiet tone in the home.

Without needing to do much more than look off to the side, Andrew catches a look at the video camera that sits at the centre of his coffee table, his eyes eventually following the various cords that sit attached to it toward the flat screen television at the front of the room. “Is this-?” he wonders aloud, again receiving no answer from Elaine, leading his sights toward the cardboard box the machine had been stored away in before recalling its origins, prompting him to look back to his wife.

“I think you need to see this” Elaine remarks, her hands coupled together at her lap as she remains standing, waiting patiently for her husband to process the scene that he walks into. Without uttering a word, Andrew peers away from his wife and looks back to the machine’s box, his head flooding with awful memories that he’d pushed so far into the deepest recesses of his mind that their return to the forefront of his focus sends chills down his body and stiffens his muscles like a statue.

= 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 =

“You still haven’t told me what’s wrong” Liv explains, walking alongside her father whilst reaching her arm out toward him, accepting the vanilla ice cream cone that the man offers her. “That’s because it can wait” Andrew responds, holding a cone of his own near his chin as he joins his daughter in venturing toward an unoccupied group of picnic tables that sit beneath the shade of a pavilion, sitting atop a concrete foundation that’s surrounded by snow-covered ground.

“Wait until what?” Liv questions aloud, yet to bring the tip of her tongue toward the top-most scoop of vanilla ice cream, its base resting on the top of two other circular dollops of dessert. “Until we’re somewhere that’s nicer to look at than the sand and dirt covered bullshit this place calls a parking lot, alright?” Andrew questions back, lifting both eyebrows as he takes his sights toward his offspring for the moment, also yet to have graced his mouth with the frozen delight he wields.

“No one’s hurt, are they?” Liv soon wonders aloud, having tried to remain quiet and focus on her ice cream cone for the last five minutes as best as she can, though her curiosity proves too compelling to dismiss. “Nobody’s hurt” Andrew answers simply, offering no further context as he sits along the same side of the table as his teenage daughter, elbows resting against the wooden tabletop as he stares out at the wintery field that stands across from them.

“Am I in trouble then?” Liv inquires, eyes taking back toward her father, whose preoccupation with the dessert is interrupted by her inquiry, the man’s eyes lowering toward the ground out of uncertainty. “What am I in trouble for!?” the girl soon questions aloud, taking the man’s immediate reaction as an answer to the quandary she’s raised, “is it really so bad that you needed to pull me out of school early and-!?”

“You’re not in trouble, honey” Andrew interjects, redirecting his chin toward his daughter’s direction as he thinks twice of the statement, questioning himself internally before adding emphasis a few moments later, “well, I don’t think you’re in trouble.” Squinting, Liv’s eyes take back toward the open plot of land that sits before their eyes, it’s near mile-long length stretching all the way to the base of a large, wintery mix-covered hillside.

Bowing his head whilst his child’s curiosities run rampant, Andrew concedes a lack of understanding on how to broach the topic that weighs so heavily on his mind, trying to speak in a way that makes sense and alleviates doubt. “Elaine and I couldn’t sleep last night and she went out to use the bathroom around midnight” the girl’s father explains, lowering the ice cream cone from his face whilst he speaks, “she heard you talking in your room and saw the camera.”

Her squint lessening, Liv’s eyes take toward the scenery in the distance for a brief moment before taking to the ground. “Well, I’ve-” she attempts to reply, her efforts proving futile when her father’s voice continues speaking, breaching the air as if his offspring’s explanation were undesired. “Before you explain, or lie about it, or tell the truth, or whatever- I want you to hear me out first” Andrew explains, taking his eyes directly to the girl sat beside him, “we already saw the tapes.”

Evening out the rest of the way, Liv’s squint dissipates in favour of her lids parting slightly further than they usually do, an immediate dread akin to the one that had consumed her the night prior returning to her active conscience. “I’m not mad, you’re not in danger, and I don’t want to make you feel like this is some intervention or whatever you could mistake it as” Andrew continues to clarify, freed to do so now that his daughter’s eagerness to explain vanishes entirely.

“I understand why you wouldn’t want to tell us any of that. I know that- especially after what happened with your sister- it’d be easy to think that I’d react... Well, poorly” the father confesses, speaking with clarity and reason that’s portrayed accurately in his calm and collected inflection. “But I want you to know that you need to tell me these things” Andrew explains, shaking his head as he looks the girl in the eyes, “I cannot be the father that you keep these things from.”

Slightly agape, Liv’s lips remain steady and unmoved, refusing to budge from their frozen places as the words she can potentially offer continue to evade her, leaving her father to continue speaking in their absence. “After everything happened with-” Andrew attempts to explain, falling silent in lieu of a description to the woman whose name refuses to leave his lips for just a brief moment, “- she never told me. If she had told me, maybe I could’ve stopped what happened to the others.”

With his bottom lip quivering, Andrew breaks eye contact with his child and briefly wipes the tear that wells in his eye before setting the flat-bottomed cone on the picnic table. “I want to be able to tell you more than just this, but I can’t right now. There’s just a part of me that can’t bring myself to say any of it just yet” he confesses, struggling to keep his cool, “but what I can say for certain is that- ever since it happened- I’ve kicked myself for not doing something sooner.”

Spouting a heavy breath of fog into the air as he clears his throat, the father falls silent for a few seconds as he sifts through his thoughts, trying to arrange his mind in a way that’ll keep his emotions in check. “I blamed myself for what happened until I shut it all out. I blamed myself for not making it clear to-” Andrew again pauses, struggling to bring himself to utter his disowned offspring’s likeness aloud, “- I should’ve made it clear that she could’ve come to me for anything.”

Again left with tears welling in his eyes, the failure that breeds itself in the father’s mind prompts salty droplets to form in the face of his child, his emotions proving too strong not to share. “If I’d made that clear, there’s nothing that can convince me we’d be living in a different world right now” Andrew admits, his teeth showing themselves through his lips as his self-detestment prevails, “Izzy would still be alive, George and Rebecca wouldn’t have had to see Caden like that.”

Free falling from her lids, tears descend upon Liv’s face as she looks into her father’s eyes, seeing the strife that her troubles have brought upon him, feeling the weight of heartbreak for being the cause of it. “Please don’t take this as me saying you’re going to end up doing the same thing... Please” Andrew hopes aloud, shaking his head with outright refusal, “I know you’re afraid otherwise, but just because you’re going through what you are now doesn’t mean you’ll end up the same way.”

“You don’t know that” Liv whimpers in a soft, near-unheard manner, shaking her own head as her father’s presentation pursues the opposite reaction, bobbing up and down with assurance. “It’s like I said... I can’t tell you everything that I want to right now, but I can promise you that I’m right about this” Andrew retorts, reaching out for his daughter’s hands before taking them into his own, holding them steadily as they lock eyes once more, “it doesn’t mean you’ll end up the same way.”

Squeezing her eyelids tight enough that the tears are forced through whatever space may remain between them, Liv shakes her head with as much opposition to the claim as her father holds certainty in it. “I already ended up the same way” the girl confesses, refusing to buy into the line of hope that the man whose hands hold her own provides, “I lost control with the meds and without them. I laid Coleen out both times... I’m already-”

“One or two slip-ups don’t make you the same monster, Liv” Andrew reassures, watching the girl open her eyes once more, looking him in the face that he holds steady, “it’ll never be easy, it’ll only ever seem easier. You have to be strong, but mistakes don’t make you a monster... Trust me on that.”

Sinking her top teeth into the soft, cold-touched flesh of her bottom lip, Liv stares her father in the eyes without offering a word in response, allowing the plea that he offers to simmer in silence as she considers herself a new line of thought. “What made her a monster?” the girl questions aloud, watching Andrew’s eyes squint ever-so-slightly in reply, reacting instinctively whilst he remains silent in lieu of added context.

“You can’t even say her name. You can’t even call her my sister” Liv responds, shaking her head as it leans close to her left side, “why is she a monster that you left to rot inside a prison cell while I’m just a valiant little champ that needs to just fight harder?” Bowing his head, Andrew lets the question flow through his mind like the surface of water in a cup that leans slightly in one side before tilting back and toward the other, not sure how to answer at first.

“You both have your own kind of demons, Liv” the father explains, mustering enough courage to at least refer to his disowned eldest in distant terms. “I figured that if I had just raised you in a good home, everything would work itself out. I figured that just being there and loving you two would be enough to keep you from giving into those demons” Andrew confesses, putting the blame on his own shoulders as he has since the truth came to light, “...she let hers win.”

Openly weeping as she loses the faintest will she had to not emotionally collapse, Liv falls forward into her father’s arms, which wrap around in an embrace, holding her tight whilst whispering his reassurance as she breaks down against him. “You’ve still got fight in you, Liv” Andrew whimpers, putting aside the truth he considers to be his greatest failure as a father in hope that fate will play out differently this second time around, “you can’t let them win, kid.”

|

> Friday, 3rd December 2038 <

“Come on, Liv! You’re gonna be late for school!” Andrew exclaims, snapping his analog wristwatch into place as he exits his shared bedroom, his upper body covered by nothing more than a tight, black t-shirt. “I overslept! Give me five more minutes!” the teenager calls back, hurrying around her room in only a tank top, a pair of ankle-high black socks and her underwear.

“Just try to get a move on, alright!?” the father calls back, walking toward his daughter’s end of the corridor before making a left turn at the staircase, calling out to the girl along his descent, “I’ve got to be at the shop to get the labourers in for the terrace in half an hour!”

With his palm sliding against the bannister on the side of the steps that faces the living room, Andrew makes his way to ground level and spins around for the kitchen, leaning in to press his lips against his wife’s own whilst taking a ceramic plate from her hand. “Good morning, babe” the man murmurs as he lowers the plate onto the open space of the kitchen’s island where his son sits, picking up the fork that sits beside a heap of scrambled eggs.

“Got any plans while I’m out?” Andrew wonders aloud, fitting as much of the breakfast onto the utensil as he can manage before slowly gliding it toward Galen. “Just housework” Elaine responds, approaching the stovetop with an empty plate in hand before loading it with a small stack of pancakes, a vine of grapes, a side of scrambled eggs and a plastic sauce cup she fills with maple syrup, “why, are you going to be long?”

Passing a glance over his shoulder for a brief moment before the sound of scrambling footsteps overhead ease his concerns, the father continues to feed his son whilst answering the inquiry. “Well, in light of what we saw yesterday morning... I think it might be best that we have someone keeping an eye on Liv while we’re not around to do so” Andrew replies, “I think that- while we’re on a more well-understood line of communication with Liv- now’s the time to get an idea of who she hangs with.”

“If the two of you need anything, just give me a call” the father soon replies to the pair of labourers as he makes for the terrace’s exit, their agreement to the plan affording him the opportunity to leave the shop for them to handle. Journeying back the way he’d initially departed from, Andrew passes a look through the driver’s side window, a set of various red and blue lights reflecting off his windshield as he passes a rather quiet and secluded area.

“Keep moving along!” a uniformed police officer replies, waving his arm in the direction that the street leads toward as he’s relegated to serving as little more than a traffic guard, keeping a line of cars that slowly roll past on the move. One after another, the drivers all stare in wonder at the tarp that covers an unknown object in the centre of a park, its presence seemingly important enough to earn the attention of countless officers, littering the street with dozens of emergency vehicles.

Unlike the other civilians, Andrew’s wonder is left unchallenged and unearned as he drives by, paying no mind to the scene of what he can only imagine is a crime of passion or grizzly violence. “Welcome to Missouri, I suppose?” the man murmurs to himself, aware of the peaceful nature that the surroundings usually hold host to, but still reasonable enough to shake his head at the horrifying deeds mankind constantly proves capable of committing.

With his eyes held forward, Andrew’s focus on the road eventually leads him to a more populated driveway to his daughter’s school than it was when she was dropped off, the few students that still attend classes in person finally making their way to campus. Out of the corner of his eye, Liv’s father catches the figure of someone that immediately resembles a soul he’s passingly familiar with, the spirit of whom the student reminds him of proving to be more of a gut instinct.

“I’m going to take it that you’re Derby?” Andrew wonders aloud, stepping out of his car as the girl’s eyes take toward him, confused at his presence and unable to pinpoint where she would know him from. “Did I key your car or something?” Derby wonders aloud, prompting the man to bow his head with a smirk, trying his best to conceal the genuine humour he takes from her claim.

“No, but I believe you’re friends with my daughter, Liv?” Andrew questions back, watching the student’s hesitant face begin to ease up. “Oh shit! You’re Liv’s dad!” Derby calls out, watching the man’s smile remain intact, though lowering itself just slightly as his daughter’s acquaintance’s is sparked a recollection of passing familiarity.

“I’m sorry, it’s been a while since I saw you on the news” Derby confesses, genuinely apologetic for her immediate reluctance to acknowledge him, “I don’t mean to be an asshole, but you look a little older than you did back then.” Remaining intact, Andrew’s smile persists as he steps forward, presenting his typical demeanour of approachability.

“I don’t take offence. If anything, I’d like to think I look good enough for my age to still seem youthful” the man replies, his admission being one that breaks the ice further, allowing his daughter’s pal to grow more comfortable with his unexpected interaction. “Listen, my daughter thinks very highly of you” Andrew explains, letting the metal ring of his small and simple keychain sit around the middle finger of his right hand, “I want to thank you for being there for her.”

Genuinely appreciative, Derby smiles to herself wide enough to prompt her own bow of the head, trying to conceal the grin that he leaves her with. “Even if she can’t help it like others can, it’s really nice to not have someone look at me like I’m a total failure just waiting to be carried away in handcuffs” the girl confesses, nodding as she fixes the hair that falls from her ponytail, “besides, I don’t like bullies.”

“Yeah, well I guess that makes two of us” Andrew responds, continuing to sport an affable and welcoming smile that his daughter’s friend reciprocates. “Anyway, I’m glad that you brought up Liv’s... uh... challenges” the man confesses, crossing his arms as the bell hooked up to the front of the building goes off to mark the start of class, “I don’t really want to get too into details here, so would you mind if we spoke somewhere else?”

“If you’re asking me to do anything other than go to class today like I hope you are, the answer is ‘yes’ and ‘where’?” Derby jokes, her humour again genuinely amusing the visiting father. “There’s a sub shop at the end of the street the way that I just came down” Andrew suggests, not needing to say anything more before the girl begins walking in the direction, already taking him up on the offer.

|

With the push of a button, Elaine begins the dishwasher’s rinse cycle before walking for the living room, watching her son knock over a tower of stacked play bricks with ample glee. “Come on, Galen! It’s-!” she cheerfully speaks aloud, falling silent when a massive vibration rocks the room that she’d just travelled out of, its presence noticeable enough for the toddler to screech in jubilation over.

With a confused glare, the home’s matriarch stares in the direction of the child-proofed kitchen before the brief vibration begins again, stopping just as quickly as it had the first time around. Finding this odd, Elaine hurries into the room as quickly as she can and immediately reaches for the door to the dishwasher, prepared to open its entry and interrupt its process before the trembling persists for a third time far enough away from the machine to influence her assumption.

At a loss for much else to think, Elaine’s ears take toward her right side, following the third set of buzzes toward a cabinet that she knows isn’t used for much more than the storage of a few wooden spoons. Approaching what she believes to be the source, the mother pulls open the cabinet just as any other as the fourth set of trembling begins again.

“Now honey, why would you leave your watch in the kitchen cabinet?” Elaine wonders aloud as if her husband were home, physically pressing down on the green button that the display presents before speaking. “Hello?” she wonders aloud, pressing her non-dominant hand against the edge of the countertop whilst holding the device with the other, staring through the kitchen’s window as she waits for an answer from the other line.

“This is an automated message to inform you of an incoming call request” a robotic tone of voice begins after three brief seconds, furthering Elaine’s desire to know what the call is about. “Should you agree to accept this call, you will not be charged at any rate for your participation- regardless of the conversation’s duration” the voice proceeds, allowed to continue talking as the attempted discourse’s recipient waits for further clarification.

“Participation in this call is strictly voluntary, and you are not mandated to accept being connected to the caller’s line. If you choose to disregard this phone call, no action will be taken against you” the robot continues, only prompting the woman to roll her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah- get on with it” Elaine whispers, shaking her head with feigned and uninfluential displeasure as she watches a small group of crows fly across the cloudy, midwestern sky.

“You are receiving a requested call from an inmate at Potosi Correctional Center in unincorporated Washington County, Missouri” the robot finally reveals, sparking a widening of the woman’s eyes as her face pulls away from the view of her backyard and into the device’s screen. “No” Elaine mutters beneath her breath as she makes the correlation she’s meant to draw just as it’s spelled out for her.

“The inmate in question is...” the voice follows through, falling silent in lieu of the segment of the call where the prisoner themselves is meant to state their name, allowing for a brief silence to fill the room that surrounds Elaine, who stares into the watch’s screen with a look of awe on her face.

“...Sophia Amari” a tired and seemingly pessimistic young woman’s voice replies, affording the automated machine to resume its participation in the call. “Do you accept this call?” the robot inquires, waiting for a reply that Elaine fails to offer immediately, instead being left with the hairs that rise on the back of her neck and the cold, winter chill that overcomes Missouri just beyond the comfort of her home, which feels strikingly chilly to her in that moment despite the heat blasting.

Parting her lips with no more than silence to offer at first, the woman looks into the device’s screen once more before falling quiet again. “Do you accept this call?” the automated secretary wonders aloud for a second time, refusing to take the hush that it’s met with the first time as a decisive answer. Pulling her opposite hand away from the counter, Elaine pushes the palm of her now-free hand against her forehead as she acts on instinct, allowing her parted lips to serve a purpose.

“Yes” she replies weakly.

== Generation Alpha ==