Numbers Station
SHE SCRATCHED sss Camilla’s face, which was inked on her arm, with her chib. Increasingly, she wondered whether she should slowly redraw the lines of that picture by knife point. Her blade made her feel better. On her shoulders and on her thighs was ample proof of the relief that she received from cutting; besides her switch, she had used, in places where her clothes usually covered her skin, matches, glass shards, and graduated sizes of knitting needles. Such work helped her ride out her rage. If only she had hit back.
In the background, The Buzzer played. Second only to bottle caps’ teeth, that short, monotonous tone soothed her. Twenty-four hours per day, every day, for decades, with rare interruptions, MDZhB, formerly UZB-76, sent out two dozen identical tones per min
