InsaneJournal

An afternoon away (Matt)
It was a nice day. The days since she'd arrived had all been nice, which Clarice had only noticed in a vague sort of way. She had been busy reading old files, familiarizing herself with the problems of the City, learning the ins and outs of the new technology, and then putting together a file on Hannibal Lecter in her spare time. He--they?--had been very quiet in her time here, but she would not be caught off guard.

The fourth time the booking officer found her asleep on a couch in the break room, he had ordered her out. "Nothing's going on, Starling," he said. "The City won't fall apart if you take an afternoon off."

Clarice, unsure of that, had protested but found herself shooed outside. There she'd noticed the weather and decided to walk in the City that she'd been studying. She found herself sitting on a bench in the park, people-watching, leaning back with her arms crossed. The vast majority of those that she saw were the people she now recognized as City-born natives, the ones with a certain something missing. They were almost uniformly pleasant but somehow emotionally flattened. Like pigeons, she thought, watching them walk by. Someone of a certain mindset could easily see them as less than human, animal-like, a subhuman flock to be hunted.

The thought chilled her.