Page 2 of Mutant Mine

I head over to the screen to see it with my own eyes. Sure enough, it says:RORY FINCH, MAXIMUM SECURITY DECK.

“No way,” breathes Tommy. “That’s so cool!”

“Is it?” I ask.

That doesn’t sound cool to me. It sounds scary.We’ve been aboard ship for almost three months, and so far I’ve mostly been doling out food on the standard security decks (where the prisoners pretty much ignore you), or on a cleaning loop, trailing along behind the robot vacuums.

“Hell yeah,” agrees Ellis. “Haven’t you heard who they’ve got in max this trip?”

“No, who?”

“Roth. That’s what they call him. He’s the Watergap freak. The one they caught.”

“Jesus…”

Watergap was all over the news a few years back. Some dead-end town out in Oregon with a big government office. It got attacked by terrorists — but the biggest shock was the way they looked. Head and shoulders taller than the average man, blue stripes all over their skin, goddamnhornssprouting out of their foreheads. Crazy stuff.

Apparently some terrorist cell had been experimenting with genetic modification, trying to turn themselves into superhumans and take over the world, or something like that. I didn’t even believe it was real when I first heard the story.

Most of them managed to escape, but they caught one — this guy, I guess. Roth.

“He’s a psycho, I heard,” Ellis continues cheerfully. “Even the other max security whack jobs don’t bother him. Too scared he’ll bust out and rip their heads off, or laser them with his eyes.”

“Sounds really cool alright!” I say, aiming for breezy butlanding on shrill. “Um… Does he really have laser eyes?!”

Ellis snorts, so I guess the answer is no.

“He’s contained, Rory,” says Carl, our older bunkmate, kindly. “You don’t need to worry about him. Just focus on doing your job, same as ever.”

Right. I can do that. Right?

2

Rory

SO FAR, handing out breakfast on the maximum security deck hasn’t been that different to working on the standard decks. This long corridor of cells looks almost the same as any other — although there are subtle hints that these prisoners are considered more of a threat. The government has splashed out on more powerful force fields for the fronts of the cells: not just creating an impassable barrier, but actually shocking you if you touch it. Each man has a cell to himself, containing just a bed affixed to the wall, and a toilet and sink behind a metal partition.

“We won’t be taking them for any showers,” my new supervisor, Gregory, informed me during my brief induction. He’s a harried man in his fifties, who (it’s already clear) wants both me and the prisoners to keep our heads down and shut up.

“They’ve each got safety razors, soap, a toothbrush, and a towel. They can wash up at the sink if they want — not that many of them do. All you need to do is feed them twice a day: once in the morning and once at night. They can drink water from the faucet. Bed sheets, towels, and uniforms are gathered for laundering once a week. That’s it.”

No showers, and the same clothes worn for days on end. Yeuch. No wonder it smells so musky down here. Intenselymale.

I’m pushing a heated cart down the corridor, depositing a pot of warmed food into each cell as I go. It’s a soft, rehydrated gruel that offers all the essential nutrients a body needs, but not much flavor. I know that because it’s not much different from what we get to eat in the crew canteen.

Each cell has thick walls bordering the force field. One side of the wall has a drawer in it. This can be pulled from the cell out into the corridor — where it locks into place and a metal barrier blocks the other side. This allows us to safely pass things back and forth with the prisoners. I open each drawer, put the food inside, and slide it back through to them. I’ve been at this for a while now, and am getting close to the dark dead end of this corridor.

“Hey, new kid. What’s your name?”

A mean-looking guy is leering out of this cell at me. I ignore him, like we’ve been trained to. They tell us it’s for our own safety. I suspect it’s also to dehumanize the prisoners and stop us from forming any attachments.

It’s hard though, ignoring people who are talking directly to you. It feels so rude.

“Come on. What’s your name? We gotta call you something, don’t we?”

I say nothing, getting another portion of gruel out of the cart.

“Tell me your name, or I’m just going to call you ‘the Lunchlady’.”

---