CHAPTER 15 - PRISONERS OF CIRCUMSTANCE
In Civlar's prison sector prisoners are processed according to their level of reform.
While the most dangerous of the prisoners are kept together, those that show promise during their treatment are eventually given the opportunity of release into Civlar, where they become full citizens imbued with every right that any other citizen would have. Jane is due for release in two weeks. It is almost a forgone conclusion.
To add to the celebration, her friend Susan should be released today.
They had talked at length about how they will meet up when they are released and start a new life in Civlar's capital administrative zone. Intent on leaving her former lives as Realm Air Force pilots behind, they had both committed never to take the path of violence and aspired to jobs in the civil services.
Jane lives on the top floor of Complex A, which is a luxury apartment equipped to the same level as middle class facilities in Civlar. She has full access to all communications equipment: lawyers, police, and politicians. She needed none of those – her physiological reports had been excellent for a long time, and she has a friendly relationship with the prison guards and personnel.
Admittedly, being a bomber pilot meant that she started off in the middle of Civlar's criminal code – not at the bottom level which was mainly reserved for suicide bombers and secret services. Their amenities were extremely basic and they would be locked in their cells for the majority of the time. Apart from walking out of the gate, or entering a restricted area, Jane was allowed to do almost anything. She could even visit the criminally insane at the lower levels – but to do so would itself be insane.
Why? It was psychiatrists’ jobs to reform them, not hers.
After sitting in a bubble bath thinking about it for a while, she decided to head down for a stroll around the gardens. As she walks down the familiar corridor, she is greeted by Warden Smith. Today however, the customary “hello” was tainted somehow with an expression of concern. Jane was too preoccupied with her impending release and the release of her friend to inquire further and also consigned not to impede on the privacy of whatever personal matter was troubling the warden.
“Hi,” she said cordially, “Is Susan around?”
“She has left the facility,” replied Warden Smith in voice of labored neutrality.
“Already? I thought she had a few more hours left....”
“We let her out early because it was more efficient for her to catch the previous shuttle bus today....”
“Well, that’s good for her!” said Jane – she would be phoning her tonight to see how she was doing. The only unfortunate thing is that she had left without saying goodbye.
Warden Smith walks around Jane and steps forward, but retracts almost immediately to tap Jane on the shoulder. To Jane's amazement he is extending his left arm with a small firearm, on an open hand. Jane's following exclamation of “What?” was both an instinctive response and a slight sense of amusement at what would or should clearly be some kind of joke.
“Look, just hold on to this, okay...” utters the warden, the grim expression now returning to his face.
Jane stands there considering the proposition. Was this some kind of test? Surely the warden would not be trying to seduce her with a contraband item so close to her release? The issue of trust was now placed foremost in her mind – but eventually she gave in to the concept that she had a friendly relationship with the warden. Although she did not know for what reason this was being offered to her, she eventually took the weapon from Smith and placed it slowly under her belt, lifting up her holster top so that the gun was partially hidden, only perceptible by the bulge.
“I've got to go now;” he said, walking away with a slightly nervous “take care”.
Although the warden’s unusual behavior was perplexing, Jane consigned to continue her plan of walking through the gardens. She walked down the hall to the elevator and as she stepped in she noticed another guard going inside the lift. This was not a guard that Jane had associated with often, so apart from a casual nod of recognition they both proceeded downward to the lower levels.
With a jolt the elevator stopped intermittently, the lights flashing off for at least half a second. As the lights came back on, Jane realizes that the bulge in her pants was gone and looks down to see the gun tippling around on the floor. The unfamiliar guard instinctively placed one hand on her own firearm but soon retracts it.
“Aren't you going to pick it up?” asks the guard after a short silence. Although the time was merely a few seconds, Jane's mind had expanded it further, to contemplate her, now seemingly irrelevant, situation. She pulled back from the verge of crying, in fact, considering the possibility that possessing such contraband could count against her impending release. Trembling, she picked up the firearm and put in back under her belt. Now she knew that something was not normal. It was either something very bad or very good.
If this is some kind of test, she concluded, she had surely passed. She had proven that her terrorist instincts had well and truly dissolved during the Civlarian reform process and that, even in a situation whereby she was fearful of her life and liberty, she would chose the path of pacifism over the animalistic desire to defend herself.
As the elevator doors opened, the guard began to offer a treat:
“Look, you should go to the cafeteria. A major official was having a birthday last night and there's a whole lobster left. And champagne.”
“Cool!” exclaims Jane with relief, confusion and excitement.
In Civlar, a lobster would cost a quarter of the average income of a regular citizen. Only the highest classes of official could afford them. She is dazzled by the offer and she decides against the walk and headed to the cafeteria instead.
To her surprise, the usual breakfast crowd is not there. Neither the inmates nor the guards. In fact, it was deserted.
She acquires the lobster and proceeds to eat slowly. She sat eating for several minutes, her mind no longer occupied with the strange happenings of the morning and not at all concerned about the eerie silence that permeated the empty cafeteria.
However, this silence would not prevail. The sliding door opened to reveal a single man dressed in white overalls. She knew immediately that this should have been a prisoner that had been transferred up from a lower level. Perhaps he had not yet been to the retail area (which was quite deceptively named, since all the items were provided free of charge.) Happy for some company, she started to smile. The man smiled back, to which Jane extended a courteous “Hello.”
“Hi”
“Have a seat” she said, preparing to offer and invitation to consume part of the lobster that was left untouched.
“You are dressed immodestly,” said the man.
“What a smart-arse! – just been moved up and already with the black comedy,” she thought, laughing out loud.
Then, five other men emerge from the door.
Had they all been moved up?
The men started advancing and Jane knew that something was wrong.
“You're just fucking around, right?” she said.
“We're fucking you,” one of them said with a tone of detached sentiment.
“I will have you charged for that comment.” retorted Jane, still unsure whether to take it seriously.
Then, one man produced a crowbar.
“Hey, that's too far!” said Jane - now serious - “Put it down!”
They advanced.
She pulled out her weapon and the men stopped. “She can't kill us all!” one man states defiantly.
She knew now that they were quite serious...
As they lunged forward, her training as a marksman returned to her in an instant, and with two swift shots she decapitated two of the men, while simultaneously standing up from the chair and causing it to crash to the ground. This action caused the younger of the men to hesitate and then start running away, leaving three now in pursuit.
Jane runs for the secondary door
through the corridor behind her. Through the corner of her eye she could see that the remaining men were giving chase.
She turned the corner and went through the door.
Then, she sees a sight that almost makes her stop.
All the inmates are out of their cells. Not the just free ones – all of them. Men and women are laughing hysterically, crying and whimpering in fear. Now she realizes that it would be the worse option of her previous tautology: this is very bad.
Prominently displaying her firearm as a deterrent, she runs through the crowd. But most of the inmates are not paying much attention – only a few of them gasped with awe. They were all preoccupied now, as was she, with...whatever the hell this was.
Looking back, she saw that her pursuers had now abandoned her, obviously to find an easier target. She went back to her room and locked the door.
She needed to think.
About the only thing she did not see was a guard. She walked through the possibilities in her mind.
Had they all left the prison precinct and left the prisoners to their own devices?
“That's sick...” she thought. They wouldn't do that, it’s not like them.
Maybe it was a new form of government and the prisoners were now allowed to run their own facilities without intervention. “But a single fucking firearm, how can I control 300 inmates with this?!” she thought in panicked internal monologue.
That's sick!!!
She knew that she had no time to figure this out. She needs to act quickly. Once the prisoners started organizing properly, the rape gangs would begin. Seven men could be dealt with – but not thirty.
Now all she could think of were the restricted areas.
She makes her way there as quickly as possible.
As she approaches the door, she hesitates at the knowledge that she does not know the security code. However, to her astonishment, the door just opened by itself. This stroke of luck fills her again with hope, since the machine guns contained therein would be of great benefit in protecting herself and connecting with any like-minded prisoners that could restore order to the facility.
As the room was about to entered, the recurring thought that the door was unlocked suddenly put an end to her enthusiasm.
“Fucking hell, I thought Civlarians would be more organized about this?”
Her horror is confirmed when she opened the machine gun repository to find it empty.
It made sense too – it would have been just as likely that a hardened suicide bomber would make their way to this restricted area as it would her.
This is sick.
After a small moment of stunned silence, she notices the control room. As she enters, the panic and sense of dread are compounded by the flashing red screens, pronouncing one word - “EVACUATE”.
“We're being ... liberated,” she thinks, but corrects herself - not liberated, re-subjugated!
The air force of her former masters was surely going to attack the dock and infiltrate the Dome. If that was the case, she knew that the gun was now an option for her own suicide.
Her panic is now at a fever pitch. Stumbling, she engages the computer systems while formulating vague ideas about calling politicians. The lines are dead. She needs to see what was happening outside.
“View skyline!” she half-screams.
The computer responds with a panorama view of the Dome and surrounding areas.
“Are the turrets armed?” she asks the machine.
“There is only one turret, commander, it is not armed.” comes the computer's synthetic and emotionless reply.
“WHAT?!” she exclaims, “Arm turret!”
“Engaged.”
As she slumps back into the control chair she has only one thing on her mind. If there was going to be an enemy attack she would at least take a few of the bastards out before the eventual conclusion.
“Lock restricted areas!” Jane snaps, suddenly aware of the fact that a breach of the control tower was now not in her best interests. She hears the locking mechanism snap into place and the computer's confirmation.
For agonizing minutes she watches the sky.
Then a single gleaming light appears on the horizon. This must be the armada. But as the light grew nearer, she realized that it was no armada. It was a nuclear missile.
She could only watch helplessly as the nuke now advanced on the Dome.
Closing her eyes on impact, she feels the entire area shaking.
Then, she dared herself to open her eyes, and she was overcome by an overwhelming relief – she was still alive.
“It didn't get through the dome!”
“What luck, the guards will be back!”
Then she hears a noise that was seldom heard in Civlar or the Realm alike. A sickening noise that instilled fear in all human beings: the cracking of the Dome.
This was no luck, there would now be contamination. Nanos and virii were seeping through. This could only mean a slow painful death.
She held the gun to her head, prepared to take the better of her options now. Then she notices out of the corner of her eye, more glowing objects approaching. They were all nukes. Seven of them.
It was now clear that her former government was going to destroy the POW facility housing their own soldiers.
“But, isn't seven overkill?”
“And what a choice of target!”
She lowers the gun onto her lap. Even the Nanos would take more time to infiltrate than the approaching nukes.
“I'll just watch the fireworks,” she thinks.
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