Watcher leaned against a wall, the courtyard scene in front of her. The day was muggy, foreshadowing rain, and the coastal wind was bringing in a chill. The courtyard was mostly barren of people. She assumed her fellow test subjects were trying to stay out of the rain. She didn't blame them. A cold could be deadly here, either from lack of medication or a body already weakened by the latest drug that couldn't defend another affront. She was more at risk than most, however. Her feeble frame shivered against the cold. She usually had bad reactions to the drugs they pumped through her, most left her weak, some would leave her nearly comatose for a period. She, more than anyone else, was risking catching her death in the weather, yet she stood in the cold to bear witness. A new shipment of Testies had arrived. Few knew. It was never something advertised and the shipments were always sporadic, but there were tell-tale signs she knew to look for. Always about a week or so before a shipment security would get a little tighter. Never any more guards than usual, so most never noticed, but the guards would become more vigilant, paranoid almost. Instances of abuse towards the Testies always heightened in these periods, consequences for unruly behavior slightly more intense. Meal portions would also thin out just a tad in preparation for the new mouths. Little things that one might notice individually but would hardly ever think they had anything to do with each other.
She scanned the yard. One lab-rat huddled against the wall on the other side of the courtyard, knees wrapped around her legs. Her head was hidden in her lap but her shoulders gently shook. Crying. Only a few yards from the girl, two boys spoke quietly between each other. They were too far away for her to hear, but their skittish glances darting back and forth and the quickness with which they exchanged words told her they were being secretive. She looked beyond them to the building the girl was huddling against. It was a tall building with many clear glass windows. Anyone with half a brain could tell that those boys were up to something they shouldn't, and any number of those windows could have a supervisor looking down on them, taking their numbers painted to the backs of their uniforms down in one of their little notebooks. If their numbers were written down in a notebook within the week they would be escorted to a drug test and never be seen again. She didn't know what happened to them after that and she wasn't about to ask. Observance was her distinguished skill but it would be dangerous to reveal just how observant she was. Observance gave her knowledge, and here, knowledge was a powerful and dangerous thing to have.
She imagined that if more people knew the children were coming in today that they would want to be here to see it, but perhaps they didn't want to know. Within the first couple days almost half of the batch would be dead. Perhaps that made other Testies sad, knowing so many would die so quickly. She felt empathy for the children, who so young would be tortured and inebriated, their childhood stricken from them in exchange for a life of cruelty, but she didn't feel sadness. She felt a deep hatred toward the foundation that watched over them, that killed them, that used innocents like dirty tissues. The foundation that had wiped her memory and stolen her name. But she did nothing, she risked nothing.
Around the corner the procession of children shuffled forward, directed by a loud-mouthed General-type yelling obscene comments meant to motivate the small ones to move faster, yet she knew immediately by looking that this was physically impossible. The children's heads rolled around as if it was a weight too heavy for their shoulders and their feet dragged against the ground. Watcher's brows furrowed. This is worrisome. A memory swipe isn't enough anymore, they're drugging them out before they even reach the foundation, but what for? What does this mean for the rest of us? She didn't appreciate being clueless.