Page 11 of From the Noblest Motives
The chill had worked its way into Shudder's bones. He was well and truly fucked. "Not really an answer, even though it is a certain kind of answer. Why is it so cold in here?"
Studies have shown that incarcerated individuals tend toward more docile behavior and have fewer health concerns at lower temperatures. If Medical concludes that your body is unable to acclimate, you will be provided with additional clothing.
Shudder translated "fewer health concerns" as "medical treatment will be cheaper."
"What if I do have a health concern at some point?"
You may relay health concerns to the audio interface in your cell where a med scan will initiate. Your question period has ended. Please proceed along the orange floor lighting to your cell.
"I guess if I don't, attendants will be summoned and punishment, so on and so forth," he muttered as the room's door slid open.
The hallway, as he expected from the orientation vid, was gleaming white. Floors, wall, ceiling—all shining white surfaces. The orange arrows on the floor pointed to the left and kept pace with him as he walked. He passed other doors and junctions to other hallways, but he didn't encounter a single soul. The silence was beyond eerie for a prison, with no inmates calling back and forth, singing, or even screaming in frustration as he had expected.
Nothing but white silence, antiseptic and horrifying, as if he were the last person on Earth trapped in the laboratory where the monsters lived. A violent shiver wracked his body, and he hurried on, the orange lights speeding along beside him. He was nearly running when the arrows turned to the right to indicate an open door.
Holy color spectrum, something that's not white.Shudder hustled inside and touched the blanket folded on the bunk, an uninspired mud brown. The furniture legs were unpainted gray—bunk, chair, and the shelf-desk along the far wall, with bits of gray on the plumbing fixtures. The door slid shut behind him, and he eased down onto the bunk, clutching the blanket. Sixty years. In this little room of horrid white and gray and brown.How will I stay sane? How does anyone?
A soft beep came from a tiny speaker high on the wall—white on white, he hadn't noticed it—and the familiar AI voice issued from it.You will have five minutes of light to arrange your bunk and your person for sleep.
"Oh, good. You came with me." Shudder bit back a laugh that felt close to hysteria. "Nice to have a friend along."
When the AI didn't respond, he pictured them making a stern librarian face. He hadn't asked a question, though, and the program probably responded more readily to queries. A little bit lacking as a friend, but he'd get the hang of conversing with them. He had plenty of time, an ever-more depressing thought.
He made his bunk, took off his slippers and crawled under the heavy—but scratchy—blanket. When the single bulb flicked off, the only light in the room was a tiny circle of cold blue on the ceiling in the corner. Interesting that they made the camera so obvious. With his brain racing around on jet-powered skates, Shudder still managed to fall into an exhausted sleep.
The three-tone chimesthe next morning startled him awake, but the orientation vid had served its purpose and he soon recalled that was his first warning. A drawer slid out beside the sink, revealing soap, toothbrush with toothpaste, single use in one package, and a packet of depilatory. No razor, of course. Was facial hair allowed? Also, no shower, so a sink bath would have to do.
Quite a bit worse for wear, he welcomed the chance to clean up, though it didn't lessen the horrible knot in his stomach one bit. He missed his waterfalls back at the Redoubt and his young band of miscreants. He wondered if they'd heard about his disaster yet and wished he could get word to them. The older ones, Toby and Wave and so on, would keep things running smoothly. They knew what they were doing. Wouldn't keep Shudder from worrying.
He reached up to finger comb his curls and let out ahaof aggravation when he encountered shaved scalp. Certainly made things easier, neater. Maybe everyone's head was shaved regularly.
At the scheduled time—he had to assume—his door slid open, and his orange-arrow floor friends were back. Happy little orange arrows that weren't white or gray. Shudder stepped cautiously out into the corridor, looking left and right. He'd expected other prisoners to be making their way to the mess hall, but the white hell of the hallway was just as empty as it had been the previous evening. No guards, no other prisoners.
I'm not the only person here. I'm not. This isn't some strange horror story. They've staggered the mealtimes and the times the doors open so we don't walk together. The guards are watching, never fear, and they'll come the minute you do something wrong.
The arrows led him around a corner that opened up into a surprisingly large space—still white on white, but the size of an auditorium with twelve-foot ceilings. Shudder nearly stumbled in relief to see other people. Most of them sat in cubbies with high partitions between them so he could only see feet and legs, though someone would get up from time to time, make their way over to a disposal port, and leave the room through one of several exits.
As per the orientation vid, no one spoke. They didn't even look at each other. Still eerie as all heck, but at least he wasn't alone.
His arrow friends took him to a waist-high opening in the wall, where a tray of food on a conveyor trundled out to meet him. From there, he followed past several rows of cubbies, turned left into the seventh, then to the third cubby, where red lights flashed. He wondered with a little sigh if it would always be the same cubby, every meal for sixty years.I have to stop thinking like this. I really do.
The food was, not shockingly, institutional but filling. Some unidentifiable sort of sausage, an attempt at grits, half-desiccated orange slices, and a brown sludge pretending to be coffee were all easy enough to wolf down if a person didn't dwell on memories of better food.
Shudder was working on his last slice of orange, wondering if there would be a signal letting him know when he could get up again, when slippers shuffled past behind him. He fought against turning around. If he turned around, he would want to say something.This is going to be the hardest rule, isn't it?
Just as the slippers reached the back of his chair, a rasping voice whispered, "You're a dead man, McKenzie. Hear you won't last a week."
Stunned, Shudder twisted around, but the speaker had already turned the corner behind the wall of cubbies. The orange arrows flashed frantically at him, pointing him back out to the end of the row. He gathered his tray up and forced his feet to obey, shuffling along with his guiding arrows. The deserted hallways were starting to sound good just then.
3
FLICKERS IN THE RAIN
Damien struggled to find a quiet spot while they waited for their bags to come off the plane. Airportshadquiet spots for phone calls, but never at baggage claim, where one was most likely to make a phone call. One of those nonsensical irritants when dealing with civilization.
On the third ring, the call was picked up. "Damien?"
"It's me."Yes, she knows it's you. She just said so. "We're back. It didn't go well. Could we… meet?"
