Overview
Jocy Elden is a central character in “From the Branch.” She is a former student of MindTree who meets Martin Hartford in Toronto years after their first childhood encounter.
Biography
Jocy first meets Martin in 2003, when both are toddlers being moved through MindTree’s carbogen gas exposure program. Jocy is being carried into the gas room while Martin is being carried out, and their hands briefly touch.
As an adult, Jocy is twenty-five and lives alone in a studio apartment in East End Toronto. She works remotely in SEO, has money, and follows a strict body and food routine. Around New Year’s 2024, she posts a workout selfie, eats after fasting, and takes the 501 streetcar toward Queen Street West.
Jocy stops at The Comrade, a bar where she receives an embarrassing text from Kyle, a casual romantic contact. Martin comments from a nearby seat, and the two begin talking. Their conversation moves from flirtation and argument into shared references to discipline, irony, and self-improvement.
When Martin uses a phrase associated with MindTree, Jocy realizes he also attended the institution. She tells him she was at MindTree from preschool to junior year and escaped after being emancipated by a court. Outside the bar, she says she feels too damaged to be good for someone who would be good for her.
Jocy tells Martin that Dr. Khurana is still running MindTree and that a new pre-k cohort has entered. She confirms that Khurana abused her. After Martin proposes killing Khurana, Jocy expands the idea into bombing the twentieth floor where Khurana and the MindTree team gather.
The story presents branches in which Jocy is either arrested with Martin before the attack or succeeds with him and flees to Europe. In the branch she and Martin choose, they go home together instead of attacking MindTree. Jocy builds a life with Martin while MindTree continues until a documentary crew exposes it many years later.