Discarded Colony (2 page)

Here they had even managed to make the showering process degrading and more complicated that it needed to be. Lined up altogether - Men, women, children - it didn’t matter. Stripped naked and forced to endure high-pressure water and soap that always seemed to be more uncomfortable than necessary. From time to time, he at least managed to get a look at a nice set of "tits or ass" as he put it, to remind him of happier times, but it was mostly "wrinkled ball sacks, scaly skin and someone getting their ass kicked for messing up", none of which he looked forward to.

They were all marched in organized lines beyond the looming doors toward a preparation room which was lined with mirrors and large steel skips. Guards from the other pods lined each side, around ten in all, muscled and wearing various ugly outfits. Most were not as big as Ryder’s guard and a few even looked like fat over-the-hill wrestlers. He supposed it wasn’t always easy to hire world class security in a place like this.

"Clothes in the baskets, shitbags!"

Ryder slid off his shoes and pants and quickly tossed them into the nearest skip. This part didn’t bother him anymore, as any sense of dignity was long gone. As he tossed his clothes in the skip he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrors opposite. He looked even older, frailer and sickly than he remembered. How long had it been since he saw his reflection? One week? Two? His bald head didn’t do much to compliment him but it was more the state of his body and muscles that shocked him. He looked wrinkled and skinny, a far cry from the hulking college sports star come managerial engineer that would simultaneously intimidate men and charm the women like in his heyday. No, he looked like someone who was terminally ill.

"Take a good look, man. It won't get any better," he thought to himself.

As they started to exit the preparation room and move to the main shower chamber, he saw a naked man make a bolt in the opposite direction. Instantly there was a commotion; some of the guards started to yell out and push groups of the prisoners to the ground. Ryder’s guard roared with laughter, still standing only a few feet from him. The bastards enjoyed these types of shenanigans; it meant blood for them and a lot of pain for somebody else. At the top of the room, Ryder heard the electronic-hum of someone’s whip warming up. The prisoner, a tanned skinny male of about 25 years, was running quite fast and was now a few feet away from an exit hallway. The run was pointless, of course, as the hallway would just lead him back to one of the cells like he had come out of minutes before. Just as he reached the doorway, a massive crack of a whip rung out and within milliseconds a long black cord shot across and wrapped itself around the running man’s leg. He crashed to the ground screaming out in pain.

Soon he was back, trying to struggle against the force pulling him. Ryder could see the guard with the whip that was standing a good ten feet from his victim. He had a casual, even somewhat bored look on his face. With his free hand, the guard picked up a nearby prisoner by the neck. He was a tall, older, skinny man with old fashioned glasses wearing the standard white ensemble. He fruitlessly started flailing his legs in the air as the guard raised him high above his own head.

"Watch this one!" yelled out the guard as he squeezed on the guy’s neck making his head turn red and a massive vein in his bald skull start to bulge. He flicked the whip with a small movement in his hand and the struggling prisoner was sent crashing up into the roof. As he smashed into it, breaking a limb or two, the whip transformed into a solid state, trapping him to the ceiling. Blood dripped to the floor. With his other hand, the guard slung the second man to the ground who crashed and slid, eventually coming to as stop underneath the man that was trapped on the roof by the whip. "You ain’t running nowhere no more, scumbag," and with the flick of his wrist the whip became electrified, blue and yellow pulses starting spitting and pulsing up and down the whip, sending the man into convulsions. "Now… fuck your buddy." The whip went flexible again and the guard yanked it down, sending the man crashing into the one laying prone on the ground. Blood splattered out between them with a sickening crack. Both of the bodies lay motionless on the floor.

"SHOW’S OVER! HIT THE SHOWERS, YOU SHITSTAINS," yelled out another guard as the remaining prisoners trudged off to their next stop. Two of the guards stayed behind to carry the lifeless prisoners away. Unfortunately for them, they would be kept alive and forced to endure this hell hole a while longer.

***

As he picked some of the last of the peanut plants in Plot 5783, Ryder at least managed to crack a smile. He was thinking about the mystery novel that he was given that morning by a man due to die a few days later. He was a nice guy, apparently a scientific professor in his day. He had a charming old uncle feel to him, despite his obvious frailty. Ryder didn’t even dare to ask how he had ended up there. He seemed interested in Ryder’s large size which got them talking about his sports and martial arts background in his younger years. Ryder was grateful to have had a handful of small chats like that with other prisoners since being sent here, but the occasions were all too rare - and far too short.

Before all this happened, Ryder was working long days in hangers overseeing the construction of some of the latest interstellar platform cores - the same engines and internal systems that would pump energy through the veins of massive space structures like this prison. Ryder had worked hard to study and eventually land a big job with Frontier-X, one of Earth’s biggest military contracting firms. His parents had both worked for them and due to their heavy travelling and otherwise secretive behavior he was often left alone for weeks at a time with his Nanny.

Effectively he was a 22nd century army brat with a sharp mind and a strong sense of independence. His biggest passion, however, were contact sports and he would have surely turned pro if he never injured his shoulder in college. Most recently he’d been playing football with some of his work colleagues one night a week. For an amateur group they did take it quite serious. He was a bad loser and never really tried to hide it from anybody.

His life was privileged enough that he didn’t ever really give second thoughts to the plight of others suffering due to Earth’s often inhospitable conditions. He was ‘Tier One’ and so were all his friends and family. In those circles the lower tiered citizens were not even thought of as being the same species anymore. So many humans had suffered due to radiation poisoning it wasn’t even a story anymore. In fact, his life was mostly occupied with work and the secrecy and pressure that came along with Frontier-X. Then of course, there were relationships and petty squabbles with people that got on his bad side.

Back then, he wasn’t necessarily always a nice guy; he had made his fair share of mistakes. He had always done what he felt was needed to advance his career, bank account and snare his wife - a stunning woman that would turn heads wherever they went. For sure people had been chewed up and spat out in his wake. But at the time, this was the only life he knew. Now, having suffered himself he could see the arrogance and lack of empathy that large swathes of the developed world had demonstrated. He was embarrassed to have been part of it.

The last week had been mostly mundane just like those preceding it. Yesterday however, his time was interrupted due to an accident with someone in the plot beside him. After several minutes of commotion, probably with the inmate protesting their work and trying to attack a mosquito drone, Ryder was horrified to see a great bolt of red energy come from somewhere high above their cells, splattering his neighbor into a blood purée so immense that a wave of it came splashing into his plot and those surrounding it. At one time, the horror of being covered in a sea of stranger’s blood would have shocked Ryder, but this was just one of the many scarring events that had been exposed to since his arrival. His thoughts were numb. His emotions were non-existent. The blood everywhere meant his plot was contaminated and he had to be moved to another one which enabled him to get out of a few hours of work. He was ashamed to feel glad that another’s demise had brought him a brief reprieve.

With the day winding down, Ryder started to rip up the last of the plants, making sure he got every last one. He would be penalized if there were any that were not extracted by the end of his shift; the same old guy that gave him the book had laughingly mentioned that as his number one survival tip earlier that day. As he pulled up the remaining plants and started to put them with the others, he paused to look at some of the peanuts in the bunch. They were shaped oddly and were of a slightly different color. They seemed to be made of natural fibers but they were nonetheless bizarre. He took a closer look. Soon he realized that they were not peanuts at all. They were designed to look alike but they were man-made. In fact, they were numbered and had text scribbled on them. He started to read them...

1: 4578 Revives

2: 7320 Convulses

3: Unify, inhale and free yourself

He was puzzled. "Well, what the fuck does that all mean?" He thought to himself. "Scribblings of a madman?" The four digit codes looked like plot numbers. But the words were strange. The final statement was interesting: "
Unify, inhale and free yourself.
Inspiring words to a dying man," he thought to himself sarcastically. He was nonetheless intrigued.  After spending some time memorizing the words, he decided it was best to destroy them before anyone saw him. He couldn’t help but feel that these had been put here deliberately for someone to find. Perhaps the words were just the final cry of someone about to close their eyes for the last time, but Ryder felt that something more was behind it. "Screw it. I’m going to find out what this means even if they kill me in the process," he thought as he crushed them in his hands. At this rate, he knew that he’d be dead within a few weeks anyway. He had never liked losing at anything and at the current rate he was playing an unwinnable game - with his life. At the very least, pursuing this would give him some purpose in the final chapter in his life. He soon decided that he would find a way to plot 4578.

Just at that moment he heard a drone approaching overhead. "Damn," he thought. "They saw the messages." He quickly cowered down. Fear gripped him as he thought about what torture may be in store for him. He looked across at the benign wall and thought maybe he would just jump into it to cause a scene. No! He would just swat that mosquito out of the sky and get pureed like that poor guy the other day. At least it would be quick. He closed his eyes and wound back his arm getting ready to punch the drone. Just before it got into range, the drone stopped.

All Ryder heard was the gentle ‘zwoop’ sound. Shift over.

***

Ryder woke thinking about how he was first arrested after his positive radiation test. If he had the chance, he would have contacted some of his powerful colleagues or business contacts to intervene on his behalf. Without a doubt, if his wife had still been around she would have prevented this whole thing from happening in the first place. But he had been caught alone with no one around to save him. It was hard to not feel sorry for himself from time to time. He had so many loose ends back on earth that he would never resolve. He had wrongs to right, people to apologize to and friends to re-discover. But most importantly, he desired to expose what human technology was really being used for up here. But he knew that these secrets would go to the grave along with everyone else held captive in this prison.

After the standard morning ritual of being unceremoniously woken and force fed his nutrition pill, his pod was assembled at the normal pick up station near the central open area at the end of their corridor. Today only his pod was in the area. "I’d like plot 4578 today, sir. Kind of a lucky number for me," said Ryder to his guard for the day, a man of the same height as him, but at least 150 pounds heavier, most of which was fat. The guard was wearing a strange set of black shorts and singlet with a black skull cap.

"What’s in it for me dipshit?" he grunted.

Ryder had to think quickly. "I’ll arm wrestle you tomorrow for my nutrient pill," replied Ryder. "If I win, I get your cap."

"Hahahaha." The guard shook his head and laughed, then paused for a second, rubbing his hat. Ryder had seemed to provoke the alpha male in him. "Fuck it, why not. Don’t work too hard so I can kick your ass tomorrow."

Ryder smiled. "I’d love to ram that whip up your ass and make you spit blue bolts, you fat prick," Ryder thought to himself, not quite courageous enough to say it out loud.

The guard waved his arm and the next transport drone made its way over. He was obviously making some changes in the central drone planning system as his eyes were flickering with the rapid cerebral actions on his neural implants. The drone came closer; Ryder could make out the numbers 4578 flashing on a small display on the side of it. Another drone was coming in behind with 4583, indicating that the whole approaching squadron was now programmed for that range of plots.

Soon Ryder was picked up by a drone and had exited the main building through an opening in the roof into the faux blue sky. Ryder could usually not see the sky from his plot during the day because of the bright sunlight that hammered down. But from time to time he got a glimpse and it appeared to resemble a beautiful clear blue sky on earth. These space islands could be such beautiful and majestic places. There were some public ones that could be visited for vacations but most were private and reserved for either the ultra rich or governments. Ryder’s drone dropped down, hovering low above the plots. He couldn’t see much other than what was directly under him as his head was forced downwards by the way he was being held in place. Presumably this was so he couldn’t orient himself and try to imagine of creative ways to escape the complex.