"You do?" Jarrod laughed dryly. "Really? Or is this part of the act. This whole 'make them comfortable thing' you've got going on."

​

Ms. Kesner relaxed in her chair, casting a speculative gaze over him. "I do. Off the clock answer - yes, I really do." Her quizzical eyes studied him for a few moments, her foot tapping lightly against the soft carpet. "How do you feel about what we do?"

​

"I - I.." Jarrod struggled to formulate his thoughts. He hadn't taken their opulent meal, or their whiskey, or their wine. Part of him was determined to retain his sense of stoicism. He wouldn't give them anything - not his wants or desires or feelings. Yet part of him also knew these were his closing moments. If now wasn't the time to express his thoughts, when was?

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"I hate it. I think it is everything that is wrong with the world summarized and wrapped in a neat bow." Jarrod gave in to his weakness. He would have these few moments. The last gift of men resigned to the gallows.

​

The young woman nodded, her face impassive and urging him to continue.

​

"It's a neat solution, I give you that," Jarrod continued, "you cull the population and reap countless millions in energy savings. The lights of the groomed downtown streets stay lit, and the people who couldn't conceive of making this choice will sip their drinks in the warm glow of light provided by the dead. Beyond that, you manage to quell the rising population crisis. A real two birds with one stone type of deal. Hell, I can see the jagged beauty in the thing."

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Jarrod's fist began to clench inadvertently. His heart, which had remained calm all the way through this process, began to beat faster. An engine roaring to life. It drove not fear now, though, but a quiet and hot rage.

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"Of course, you even manage to convince the population at large it's a service. That by freeing us of this world you cease our pain. That by neatly cutting our souls free you forgo the sins of the thing - we will not be resigned to heaven or hell. Our payment is the smooth and impartial darkness of eternity." He cast out a condemning finger towards her. "But you, and the people like you, know all of this. You knew only the hopeless would come here. Only the destitute who have on known destitution. You profit off of our euthanasia."

​

As Jarrod finished he felt his veins pumping hot blood to his face. He was turning red - he was blushing in rage and sadness and at the sheer injustice of it all. He was blushing and he hated it. His hands reached out for the crystalline glass of water. Trying to slow his breathing, he took a long drag of the ice cold drink.

​

Die with dignity. You've had your say. You won't walk into the chamber flushed. You can't give them the satisfaction.

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*"*All of that is true, to a degree." Ms. Kesner replied. Her mesmerizing features had shifted into something that sat just between the boughs of regret and sadness. Looking closer though, there was something else. Something in the way her eyes softened.

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"Well.." Jarrod spoke in a voice which he fought hard to level, "I've had my say. You're welcome to yours."

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"Do you imagine it to only be people like yourself, Jarrod?" she asked. "People like yourself that come to us, I mean."

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Jarrod shrugged.

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"Would it shock you to know the majority of the staff that work on the operations level have had at least one close personal contact come to a generation center?" She blinked a few times, shaking her head slightly. "You are right in some sense. That only the misfortunate find their way to our doors. Yet, that is more often than you think not nessacrily symptomatic of socio-economic class or birthplace. Rather we take all kinds of destitution. Those destitute of heart, of body, and of mind as well."

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She paused, leaning back in her chair. Her voice was low and soft, tinges of exhaustion creeping around the edges. "When my mother come, it was shortly after a diagnosis of rapid onset Alzheimers. With what lucidity she had left, she elected this fate. It was, in some small sense, fighting back. Declaring with finality that her death would not be recessed and alone. She chose her death to be, if even in a small way, an act of compassion. That her soul might bring warmth heaters on a cold night, or luminescence to the bulbs in a room dark and forgotten. So, I suppose when you - "

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She was cut off as her watch emitted a series of low tones. The alarm. She deftly flicked her finger over the face of device, silencing it. Her eyes shot towards Jarrod, who met her gaze unflinchingly.

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"Well. That's the bell. You can leave, of course. It's an option until the very end." She extended her hand towards him, palm open.

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Jarrod wordlessly put his his hand into hers and allowed himself to helped out of his seat. He did not speak a word as they departed the room.

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The dark oaken door slowly shut as they exited, as silent as when it had opened.