Deep Yellow (2 page)

Brell casually
observed several inmates doing their usual morning walking routine.
This not only gave them a chance to walk and talk with fellow
inmates, but it put the guards on edge. Another inmate performed
some stretching exercises whilst watching one of the giant image
screens, which displayed rolling positive messages. When Brell
first saw the messages such as, “Be good to your fellows” and “A
positive mind is a positive place” she laughed. Whoever wrote that
had not stayed in prison themselves. This place was full of lifers,
like herself, who cares a frag about this? The messages had changed
very little over the years.

The Arborian in the
next cell wandered out onto the landing and leant over the rail.
They could not have appeared more different. The Arborian had dull
red scaly skin and nose plugs to assist in breathing. Whereas Brell
was 178 centimetres tall with pale blue skin, a round face, brown
eyes, a low wide forehead and short black hair. The punch bag
routines had helped her keep trim and on top of her thirty-nine
years. They gave each other an acknowledgment as the cleaner bots
popped up and scurried through their cells. Most lines of
conversation were exhausted.

Brell slowly wandered
back into her cell, lifted the sculpture off the shelf, and opened
the small flap in the back of the wooden plinth. Hooking her finger
inside, she pulled out a small liquid ampoule and weighed it in her
hand. Deep Yellow. Two hundred days had passed since the last time
she had taken the illegal substance. Though a weaker form of Deep
Yellow than the original bottled mix, it was better than nothing.
Brell had tried offsetting the monotony of prison life with a
drug-free health and fitness regime. Aware but oblivious of the
24-hour cell surveillance and scanning, Brell slowly put the
ampoule back and then replaced her sculpture whilst looking
directly at the cams smiling.

Frag it, the guards
supplied the Deep Yellow, at a cost. Made their lives easier. She
tapped on her picture cube. The holo screen materialised with the
first image, showing Gorst, her ex-boyfriend. She ran her hands
through her hair a couple of times and made her way out of the
cell.

Brell stood in line,
collected her food from the large industrial auto chef, and took
her usual seat at the far end of the communal eating table. She was
oblivious to the food smells, sweat, unwashed inmates, and guards’
perfume permeating the sterile air. The usual murmur of
conversation carried on around the room. What did they have to talk
about? Brell had long given up taking an interest in the different
races, creeds, and skin colours. It was something to do with
differences in radiation and soil apparently.

She remembered one of
her first Police Corps Academy lessons describing the history of
the Association of Planets. If Stolaan Golic had survived the
explosion in his shed and Hypar V'tr'lich had been sober, then beam
propulsion and space folding would never have been invented. The
Association, with its two hundred member planets, provided plenty
of work for Police and Space Corps around the galaxy. Having had
years to reflect on this, it meant that Brell, without the ability
to travel, might have become a weaver's wife on her home world just
looking up at the stars. She would certainly not be in prison.

Her fellow inmates
were all serving long sentences for drugs, smuggling, fraud, and
murder whatever their background. Like Brell, they were all
unsuitable for community punishments, psyche profiling, DNA
altering, or brain implants.

Today's breakfast
consisted of a bread egg affair with a large sweet root together
with fruit gloop. Brell snatched a quick glance at the others and
busied herself with the food whilst mulling over whether to apply
for a new Holo World game console and helmet. The conversation
around her stopped and she felt the gaze of the other inmates.

"What do you
think?"

"What was that?" Brell
said clearing her throat and glancing up to see which inmate had
spoken.

It was one of the
Colony 09 inmates, sitting further up the table. They were tough,
heavily tattooed, swarthy women who could only deal with things by
way of conflict, hence the reason why many of them were in
prison.

"My friend has just
been brought in by the Corps.”

"Really?" Brell said,
narrowing her eyes.

"MK running."

"Well, MK is a heavy
drug. Probably a washout, psych change at the least," Brell said,
biting into the root vegetable.

"MK ain’t no Deep
Yellow, you know. Now Deep Yellow, that’s what the rich lot use,
isn’t it?"

"Yeah, and some of
them carry on with their job catching MK users." A second inmate
joined the conversation.

"Old captain here
knows all about that, don’t you, princess blue skin?" the first
inmate said.

"Talk about
two-faced."

"Yeah. More like blue
faced."

"Well, looks like
there’s a bit of a mixture in there. More light blue than pure
blue, wouldn’t you say?"

"Your mother or father
from the other side of the tracks, captain bluey?" She made a mock
salute.

Brell let them talk
and bit harder into the root, frowning. Some of the other women
said nothing but looked on, their eyes darting left and right. They
had all stopped eating.

"Oh, look, caught a
nerve, have we? Missed your Deep Yellow hit again?"

"Yeah, probably run
out. What you going to do?"

"Actually, I haven't
used it for two hundred days," Brell said.

"Oh, we are good,
aren’t we captain princess blue skin. Two hundred days, well, I
never."

Brell stared down at
her food. Here we go again. She never lost her Police Corps tag.
Well, the Corps had placed every one of these women here. Three
years ago, a Space Corps sergeant caught smuggling
Association-rated gland implants, appeared on the wing. Brell
developed a relationship with her, two Corpswomen in similar
circumstances, and all that, but the sergeant opted for voluntary
termination. It was a difficult time for Brell. Her thoughts often
strayed to taking the VT option. Whilst it provided an easy way
out, she could not bring herself to do it, at the moment,
anyway.

"Two hundred minutes,
more like," the first inmate said. She flipped her friend a look,
motioning with her eyes. A couple of guards walked nearby.

"Yeah. Old bluey there
had better calm down." The second inmate stared intently at
Brell.

Brell tasted a
spoonful of gloop and threw the spoon back in the cup. There was a
sharp bang on her head as a half-chewed root fell into her plate.
Laughter erupted. In one movement, Brell stood up and threw her
plate at one of the bitchy women. It missed and clattered on the
floor. Some nervous giggling started.

"Hey, old Corpy’s
getting a bit angry. Watch out girls, she may try and run you
in."

Brell ran around the
table and grabbed the inmate’s shirt collar with her left hand,
pulling back her right hand for a punch. The last thing she
remembered was the woman screwing up her eyes, trying to turn her
face away, in anticipation of the punch.

***

She awoke face down on
her bed, her implant burning at the base of her neck.

"Aagh, fret, frag,
frotting, frag yes I’m awake, for frag’s sake, okay."

"She is awake. Vital
signs are good."

"Yes, now turn it
off."

Through half closed
eyes, she saw a guard standing just inside the cell staring back at
her whilst talking to a supervisor via her comms implant. It was
one of the new guards, still a bit twitchy on the buttons.

Brell rubbed the back
of her head as if to erase the lingering burning sensation from the
stunning, which had mixed with the current one being administered
to wake her up.

"Okay, okay, I’m
awake, turn it off."

The burning stopped a
little as she sat up. The guard approached her, holding up a neck
beam collar and beam cuffs.

"Overseers office,"
the guard said, smiling.

The Overseer’s office was large, yet bland. The
guard plonked her down in a chair three metres from the Overseer’s
large metal desk. The only item of adornment was a large corner
bookcase with Rules and Regulation holo book covers neatly stacked
on the shelves. Streaming holo screens were positioned in a wide
semicircle in front of the desk. Brell turned her head and saw a
huge checkerboard of screens lining the long wall behind her. Every
few seconds the images changed, sometimes a corridor, a recreation
area, or staff showers. As if aware of her thoughts, some screens
blinked off.

The Overseer turned
off the console in front of her and looked at Brell. The round face
with its small ears and even smaller nose was devoid of expression.
Many Prison Corps staff were Bermians, a race known for following
regulations and orders. They were of medium height, but tough,
their stout bodies ideal for dealing with disorderly inmates, as
new prisoners testing the boundaries often found out. They lacked
humour, as Brell remembered from her Bermian Corps colleagues, but
they were dependable and solid, but not great fun on a night
out.

Sitting to the side of
the desk was a man. A man! There were no male guards in this female
prison. He appeared Elytian with his light yellow skin, and
appeared roughly sixty years old, unfit, with a second chin trying
to break through. His face had both charm and weariness, but his
loud, colourful patterned, short sleeved shirt was interesting,
made of some kind of basic fabric.

"Prisoner Sturlach,"
the Overseer's voice boomed out in an emotionless accent, though a
slight high trill betrayed her age. "The breakfast business this
morning has been dealt with; though it isn't the first time you
have been stunned for fighting."

Being in front of the
Overseer must mean bad news, Brell considered as she rested her
cuffed hands on her lap. The hard beam collar felt stiff and
uncomfortable, but it only took a button press from the guard
standing behind her to deliver a stun ten times worse than her
implant. She licked her lips and tried to relax her shoulders.

"This is Williams from
the Elytia Holo Beamcasting Company. It is easier if he
explains."

Yes, Elytian, the
colour of his skin gave it away. It was unusual for anyone from
there to stoop this low and visit a prison. Elytia, the Association
capital, where all major technology and media companies were
based.

"Hi, Viva! I'm
Williams." He held up the palm of one hand as if in greeting, and
then fiddled with his multi-coloured beaded necklace. The Overseer
glanced at Williams impassively.

"Interesting name,"
Brell said.

"It is a kind of
foreign name."

Brell shrugged.

Williams, paused,
leaned forward, and smiled. "I've put together a programme which is
to be beamed all over the Association. It's got clues that you have
to solve, and you are going to be one of the challengers."

"Challengers? I’ve
just sat down here, my head is hurting, and you are talking about
what, a children's clue hunt?"

"Well, it’s more than
that, actually. It's a whole show, clues, keys, but most
importantly," he waved his hand, "the winner gets their
freedom."

"Hold on, what ... out
of here, prison? I'm incarcerated for the rest of my life." Brell
darted her eyes around the room as if to emphasise her point. What
was this man going on about?

"Okay, I will slow
down a bit. Have you ever heard of or seen ‘No win No return’? It
was shown a while back."

"Wasn't that a race
thing involving some Rackskin losers who ended up killing some
locals and causing undue political damage? Remember it, great
show."

Williams wriggled in
his seat and rubbed his jaw.

"Okay, okay, what do
you want from me? Is this a joke or something?" Brell glanced at
the Overseer. Her face remained blank.

"We are going to run
an updated version called Convict Challenge. There will be seven
prisoners to start with. It’s set on a holographic version of
Planet Inhab-47, an inhabited world only a few decades from
Association first contact."

"And if I lose?"

"Well, there is only
one winner. The others don’t make it." Williams lightly rubbed his
chin.

The Overseer nearly
smiled.

"Oh, I see. A chance
of freedom or death on a live beam show for the entertainment of an
Association-wide audience. Sounds great."

"There’s no choice,
you've been signed up already by the Overseer. Also, I believe you
are due for a voluntary termination interview soon." He glanced at
the Overseer, "You could always choose that option."

Brell swallowed, her
throat dry. This had already been decided. Talk about getting
notice.

"Look, I got a life
sentence. It’s taken me years to come to terms with that, and now
you suddenly come up with this, this game show, as if I’ll go on
and suddenly, bingo, I’m free."

She went to run her
hands through her hair, forgot about the beam cuffs, and flinched
as the cuffs knocked against her chin.

"Watch this cube."
Williams held up a small metal box. "It's got your fellow
challengers and an overview of how the game will run. It's being
beamed cross-Association from today, as well."

"May I?" Williams took
a quick look at the Overseer.

He walked out from the
table, reached over, and placed the cube in Brell’s hand. She
became aware of his body heat and perfume; it was the closest she
had been to a man for several years. Nevertheless, she knew what
nerves looked like as his hand shook a little. Was he afraid of
prison or inmates, or just one of those media types who lives in a
virtual world? Surely, he had every type of enhancement and media
implant such as retina screen, thought transmitters, and gland
improvements?