Stories by Jacklyn Carroll

“How are you feeling today, Mr. President?”

Subject 34 ignores my question, continuing to focus on the playing cards in front of him. It’s been four weeks since his file dropped into my inbox. Conversations with 34 are rare, but he has slowly warmed to my presence. Every week I look at body language, eye movement. I study. I observe.

Despite his unwillingness to answer most of my questions, 34 is my favorite patient so far. He’s better than Subject 27, who lumbered around the room yelling, or 7, who took one look at my dark skin and refused to speak to me. Prejudice, it seems, lasts beyond the grave.

I look down at my tablet. It has my name, Dr. Roman Bell, printed at the top along with 34’s initials—D.D.E.—scribbled in the corner. Once the subjects are approved by a psychiatrist, they are moved out of the clinic area and are prepared to go out into the world. They are eventually given new identities, so we call them by their numbers instead of their original names.

I can hear the news blaring from the television in the hallway, reporting the third assassination this week. The government is falling, and this project—Project 1776—is the proposed solution.