The Recall Trials
Chapter 39: We Listen, We Don’t Judge II

Chapter 39: We Listen, We Don’t Judge II

Then Asha stepped forward.

She looked smaller, brown skinned, curly hair.

"I’m Asha," she said.

"Zaara and I actually grew up together. Sector C too. Right near the boundary of D."

She hesitated, her fingers were fidgeting.

"I lost my parents during a riot when I was six. Since then, it’s just been me. And zaara."

She glanced at Zaara, and the connection

between them was obvious. Not just friends...family, by choice. Zaara held her arms and squeezed it.

My eyes met Nomi as she scoffed.

"We’ve survived a lot. I thought the worst was over... but then came this....this stupid game."

And once again, the room fell into that strange silence...the kind that wasn’t empty, but full. Full of stories. Of ghosts. Of secrets still waiting to be told.

And somewhere, in the quiet, everyone started to really listen.

To each other.

To the cracks in their voices.

To the truths they’d never spoken before.

And maybe... for the first time, we weren’t just trying to survive.

We were really trying to understand.

I was next. I could feel their eyes turning towards me..

I cleared my throat, sat forward on the edge of my bed. My palms were damp.

This was it.

I had to lie. Or at least... bend the truth hard enough that it didn’t snap.

My palms were really sweaty. My throat dry.

"I’m Vincent," I said. "Sector C... uh, east end."

I could feel my voice wobble. Every eye in the room was on me.

"No parents. Just... an older sister. We got separated a while ago."

It sounded rehearsed.. I hated how shaky I sounded.

Then of course someone asked the obvious.

"Really? I’m from the east end too," a girl said, tilting her head. "Where exactly?"

I started panicking. I didn’t know anywhere in sector C. I couldn’t name a single place.

I opened my mouth...but no words came out.

Shit. All eyes were on me. I’m going to get caught.

Then, Nomi’s voice came from behind me.

"Vincent’s from Chapel Row. It’s a few blocks west of the old water plant. Real dusty place. Lots of storage units, barely enough power to run the heaters in winter. He doesn’t talk about it much."

She met my eyes.

Heads turned.

She stood with a sly smile on her face...but it was the kind that said I know something you don’t want me to say.

I was relieved for a while.

She glanced at me again as I nodded my head to thank her for saving me.

"Small world, huh?" she smirked.

I didn’t say anything.

Cos honestly, I didn’t know whether she was saving me... or setting me up.

People relaxed slightly. Heads nodded. They bought it.

Zaara raised an eyebrow. She didn’t look at Nomi. She looked at me.

And I could already feel the questions forming behind her eyes.

"Vincent," she said, "is that true?"

"I—"

Before I could reply, another figure slowly stepped out from the back row.

It was Dinesh...the guy from the fight earlier. His jumpsuit was still wrinkled, one sleeve torn at the shoulder, and his glasses dangled awkwardly from one ear, cracked straight down the middle. Blood had dried in a crust along his split lip, but he didn’t try to hide it. He looked like he’d been holding his breath for too long and finally decided to speak.

"I’m Dinesh," he said. "From Sector B."

That got heads turning.

Someone near the back scoffed. "Sector B? Well, damn. Fancy guy in the building." A few chuckles followed.

Dinesh’s eyes dropped. He reached up and adjusted his broken glasses, trying to balance them on his nose. "Uh... yeah, I guess..."

Even Jojo looked up from where she leaned against the wall, tilting her head slightly.

"I used to be an analyst," Dinesh continued. "Systems. Data. Surveillance stuff. Facial recognition, behavior tracking, social algorithms... basically anything you could use to monitor someone’s life in real time."

Theo raised an eyebrow. "Wait....hold up. You were one of the creeps who watched us?"

Aaron snapped his fingers. "I knew it! There was something shady about you. Dude looks like a wildcard if I’ve ever seen one."

Laughter echoed around the room again, louder this time. Nervous energy feeding into suspicion.

Carter stepped forward. "Aaron, knock it off."

He looked around at the others. "You don’t judge someone by how they look. You judge them by what they do when no one is watching."

Dinesh flinched. "I shouldn’t have said anything," he muttered, backing toward the door. "I knew I shouldn’t have...this was a mistake."

He started to turn, already halfway out.

"Hey," I called out.

He paused. I stepped toward him and gently patted his shoulder. "Don’t leave just because someone tries to shut you down. Stand your ground. If you have anything important to say, you’ve got a voice...use it."

Dinesh looked at me, hesitant, then gave a small nod and turned back toward the group.

He looked up. "Actually, yeah.. I used to build the systems that tracked people’s lives...everything. What they buy, who they talk to, when they sleep, how they behave under pressure. The higher-ups called it precision justice, but that was just a pretty name for profiling. For targeting people they already planned to punish."

You could hear the silence now.

He looked up, meeting our eyes for the first time.

Someone finally asked, "So... how’d you end up here?"

"I tried to leak the data. Show what the elite were really doing. internal files, records showing how they manipulate outcomes. How they used the tools to keep people in their place. Poor people are labeled as dangerous or risky, while rich kids can easily be cleared or protected by someone with just one press of a button. The manipulation, the rigged forecasts, the fake charges. I rerouted part of their stolen funds to an orphanage in Sectors C and D. Figured it was the least I could do."

His lip twitched. "Didn’t take long for them to catch me. And instead of jail, they gave me this."

He gestured around at the walls.