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“Y-you!” she said. “You have to take me back to the Core! That’s an order!”
“You’re a bit slow, aren’t you?” he chuckled. “The Core exiled you, young lady. You don’t have a SIN.”
The girl opened her eyes wider in utter panic. The bloody hole on her neck was a disgusting and painful sight to see. Her fingers reached out for it, and she began crying louder as if reality had hit her just now.
“I-I can’t...” she mumbled. “I’m a citizen of the Core; I’m not a criminal! I’m not a criminal!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, shut up,” hissed Eden, pissed.
She suddenly stood up, and Dante stepped aside with a smile.
“You should be glad you’re even alive, you selfish bitch,” Eden continued.
“Don’t talk to me!” retorted the young woman, suddenly angry. “I know who you are. All of you! You’re just criminals, all jealous of us in the Core! They tell us about you, what kind of criminals you are. I’m different from you; I’m pure! You should be glad you’re even allowed outside. People like you only deserve scraps! If it wasn’t for the Core, you’d all be dead! I’m not like you!”
“Oh? So you were exiled from the Core because you were a good girl, then?” sneered Eden.
She slowly crouched down, staring at the girl with an annoyed expression.
“You think you know everything, don’t you?”
“I don’t think, I know,” retorted the woman, acting haughty. “The people in the Suburbs are just criminals. You would have been allowed into the Core if you weren’t criminals. You contribute nothing to society. You’re just like vermin wasting air. You pollute, sell weapons and drugs. You’re all junkies, thieves, prostitutes, and murderers!”
“You think that’s it?” chuckled Eden.
Her laugh took the woman by surprise.
“Th-The Core only allows people with no criminal... records...” stuttered the woman.
Her confidence was failing because Eden seemed so sure of herself and wasn’t flinching at all. Moreover, Eden didn’t look like a criminal. She was white, like most privileged people living in the Core, and at that very moment, she was more beautiful, proud, and confident than that newly-exiled woman. She had no visible weapon, wore beautiful clothes, and her blonde hair was shining like a gold mane around her face. Compared to her, the Exiled was the one who looked like a bum...
“That’s right,” said Eden. “After the Great North American War, when it all ended, and the Cores were created, they wanted to design the perfect society. The Architect had designed the Cores to be beautiful, perfect places of harmony where humans could live under a smart computer’s supervision while the Earth healed itself. However, the Cores were too small, and the society was just at the perfect stage to be shaped. So, the leaders of these Cores decided to only keep people with no criminal records inside because the Cores couldn’t host the entire population.”
Next to Eden, Dante smiled, crossing his arms and letting her continue to do the talking.
“However, do you know what happened when they checked the numbers?” she continued. “The Cores were still too small. So first, they decided to execute all the people who had committed capital crimes. Murderers. Child rapists. War criminals. Arms dealers. All of them were killed in a blink of an eye.”
“N-no, they said they... exiled them...” muttered the woman. “They exiled them here, to the Suburbs.”
“No,” retorted Eden. “In 2089, the Chicago population was a little over 2 million people. How many people live in the Core right now?”
“F-five hundred thousand...”
“Do you think three-quarters of the population were criminals?”
The woman remained silent, lowering her head. Eden could see her mumbling, but soon enough, she raised her head.
“You’re lying,” she said. “The people in the Suburbs–”
“Are criminals? Oh, yes, they are. Once the prisons were empty and there were no more criminals to rule out of the Cores, your leaders began doing another kind of sorting. The small crimes were still crimes, after all. Building the perfect society came with ruling out every single convicted person. They let the SINs do all the work for them. They just encoded a few rules in the system, and the sorting was done in a mere fifty days. Any kind of criminal had to leave. People who committed a level 1 crime were killed on the spot. People who had committed more than one offense? Killed. Not enough? Let’s get down to level 2. Did you steal a car? You’re executed. Did you drive without a license? Executed. Offend a law representative? Executed.”
Eden was doing all the talking, but around her, everyone had cold expressions. No one had forgotten that dark part of the Suburbs’ history, and the young woman was telling that story in such a raw and blunt way, it felt both violent and beautiful to them. The Exiled woman had her mouth open as if reality was hitting her.
However, Eden wasn’t done.
“When they couldn’t kill any more people, because that would have been too much, they thought it would be enough to exile them. Branding them as criminals, they drove more people out. The smallest offense was enough. The Core just couldn’t fit everyone, so only the perfect, stainless citizens could stay. Even if you had stolen a single piece of candy, you were sent here, regardless of your age, gender, and race. You think we are criminals? Fuck yes, the ones your leaders decided on.”
Eden scoffed.
