Zero Zero Zero

by Harlan Finchley

  “I don’t, but make sure you enjoy your wealth while I’m gone.”

  Raphael leaned close to the glass. “I intend to enjoy our money, but to answer my question: a day in the Crandania Penal Colony is as bad as a month in any other prison. You won’t survive for two weeks, never mind two years.”

  “Don’t bank on my death, Raphael. I’ll live. I have talents you don’t know about.”

  Raphael grinned. “I have talents, too. Shall I tell you about my special talent?”

  “Go on.”

  Raphael reached up to his neck port and extracted a shard.

  “Guess who I’m sending this message to.”

  “It should be your maker.”

  Raphael shook his head. “I’ve investigated New Vancouver’s criminal underworld, and a gangster you used to work for called El Duce controls the largest, most ruthless gang there.”

  “You wouldn’t!” Sebastian said, grabbing the side of the table.

  “You stole a blank data shard and a thousand credits from him. When I tell him where you’ll be, he’ll want his property returned. It’s a pity you’ve spent his credits already.”

  Sebastian’s fingers ached from gripping the table. “I’ll make you regret that!”

  Raphael pressed his face close to the glass. “You’ll find few opportunities – or at least ones you’ll enjoy – to earn credits in a penal colony. Given that El Duce will know where you are and given his reputation for dealing with anyone who crosses him, I won’t say that I’ll see you later because I won’t.”

  With another smirk Raphael rose from his chair and strolled to the door. Sebastian hurled himself at the glass screen and pounded his fists against it. Then he screamed abuse until they dragged him to his cell.

  SEBASTIAN LAY ON HIS cot in the freighter Yakima, while the guard clumped from cell to cell on his first daily round. Moving inmates was a low priority for the authorities in Absolem, so he had been left in his cell for a week as he waited for the freighter to ship him to the penal colony.

  During the two-month journey the guards provided few resources for the inmates. Sebastian’s only contact with the outside world was the occasional old FunDat they allowed him.

  Sebastian had spent the first part of the journey dreaming of taking his revenge on Raphael, but he’d accepted that if he dwelled on him, thoughts of revenge would consume him. Instead, he needed to stay focused.

  With his hands behind his head Sebastian listened to the guard’s footsteps, trying to detect any change in his gait. Sebastian’s skill to command people meant he might have the opportunity to escape, but it would be hard.

  Despite the small number of cells on the Yakima, at least six guards were on duty. The push required to influence one guard to act beyond his training would knock him out and remove any possibility of a follow-up action.

  As an experiment, Sebastian had tried repeated minor pushes to one guard, instructing him to walk with a limp, to find out if the effect might be cumulative. After a week of pushing, any change ought to be obvious.

  Now he waited to find out if he’d had an effect. When the guard reached the bars, Sebastian waved and the guard strolled to the next cell without any sign of a limp. Disappointed, he rolled over on to his front.

  With little to entertain him he amused himself by trying to work out what the shard in his neck port, which had counted down to 514.7, might be. He tried a hundred different ways of asking Software what it might do, and Software answered with numerous variations of Don’t know.

  Over the next few weeks he shackled together a range of diagnostic tools from his limited software armory, but they didn’t help. The shard’s only activity seemed to be its countdown of each hour until the time when it would expire.

  The other, slower countdown was Sebastian’s remaining sentence. With good behavior the authorities would free him in eighteen months, which left him with sixteen months to survive on the penal colony.

  Surely life there couldn’t be as terrible as Raphael claimed, he hoped. Within two hours of arriving at the penal colony, he decided Raphael had been wrong. Life there was worse.

  THE PENAL COLONY, SPECIALLY designed to house all the criminals in the sector, was two hundred kilometers south of New Vancouver. As the guards shepherded Sebastian and the other inmates from their cells on the Yakima to the hovertruck, Sebastian craned his neck to try to catch sight of his old home.

  Unfortunately, only the spaceport’s concrete runway was visible, as the hovertruck blocked his view. The darkened windows also hid the outside of the penal colony from view, and when the guards threw open the hovertruck doors he was in the induction area.

  Medics gave him bright orange overalls and then examined every available nook and cranny – and a few he didn’t know were available. While he waited for the indignities to end, Sebastian wondered what they’d do with the trapped shard, but other than a check of his neck and wrist ports, they didn’t show an interest.

  “Personal electronic aids are useless here,” a guard said. “We have an efficient electronic net.”

  What do you make of that? Sebastian asked Software.

  He didn’t receive an answer, but irritatingly the net hadn’t stopped the shard countdown. The number 491.8 flashed at him on his otherwise blank optic display. Induction complete, the guard marched Sebastian and three other inmates to their section of the penal colony. The guard halted at the entrance with a clicking of heels and stepped away to let them approach the glass wall circling the section.

  “This glass is thicker than a spaceship’s windows,” the guard said, tapping the glass. “It’s on all sides, including under the ground and it’s strong enough to withstand a nuclear blast, so it’ll survive anything you lot can try.”

  “What about air?” an inmate asked.

  The guard smirked. “You only get what we allow you.”

  The oval dome was about four hundred meters wide across its longest axis with the cells arranged around the walls. The doors opened onto three wide balconies. Every surface was a uniform gray and harsh lights banished all shadows.

  “You use the center of the dome area for everything,” the guard informed them. “That’s recreation, eating and work.”

  Then the guard recited the rules, which mainly consisted of Don’ts. Sebastian ignored him and focused on the hundreds of identically clad inmates who milled around in groups below. On each balcony a few hung over the railings or propped themselves up outside the cells.

  No one came close to the entrance. From over fifty meters away, everyone seemed to be calm and relaxed. Instructions complete, the guard marched them to the entrance air lock and subjected them to a final identification check.

  As soon as the inner glass door swung open, the noise hit Sebastian. He stepped back, retreating from the wall of sound. The noise had structure and depth. Layers of conversation surrounded him, sounds came and went in an ululating wave and occasional snatches of conversation could be heard, but before he could concentrate on them they drifted away.

  From the inside most of the glass was gray with just the entrance area being clear. Then he registered what was wrong with the scene. There were no guards inside. Every inmate wore the standard issue, bright orange uniform and blue guard uniforms were noticeable only by their absence.

  As Sebastian tried to figure out what this meant, a noise rose up above the general hubbub. A hundred meters away, inmates moved aside. In the center, more inmates lunged and slashed at each other. With the new inmates ignoring the fight, he turned to the guard.

  “There’s a fight over there,” he said.

  The guard patted his shoulder. “You’re right, but this is Association time, after all. It’s good to get an observant inmate, if not one who listens, so I’ll explain again. We feed you, we water you and we protect ourselves from you. Everything else is your responsibility. If you cause trouble, we clean up the mess and punish you, but we don’t get involved.”

  ‘But you have to do something.
”

  Below, a clear area grew around an inmate who lay sprawled on the ground, unmoving. The guard tapped a square pad on his sleeve and blue uniforms fanned out toward the man.

  “We will, now it’s over. So learn the rules, inmate, before it’s too late.”

  Chapter Eleven

  SEBASTIAN LAY ON THE top cot in his cell, a room as featureless as the outside. Gray, solid and windowless, the cell provided no diversions for its inhabitants. Drab half-light bathed every surface.

  The only furniture consisted of two cots; the toilet facilities, thankfully blocked off at the end of the cell; and a cabinet, although its presence only confirmed their lack of belongings. The cell was Sebastian’s for as long as he survived and he shared it with a thin old man called Gabriel.

  Gabriel’s only noteworthy feature was a nose so thin, every time he rubbed it Sebastian feared it would break off. His presence had improved Sebastian’s mood. After witnessing the penal colony’s brutality, he’d concluded that only mindless thugs were here, but his cellmate appeared harmless.

  “Gabriel?” he asked.

  Gabriel raised his head from his cot. “Yes, Mr. Jones.”

  “When I came in the inmates attacked a man in the dome and the guards didn’t stop them. Is that what always happens?”

  Gabriel rubbed his nose. “They all ask that, and it’s called the Circle.”

  “The dome is an oval.”

  Gabriel swung his legs onto the floor and levered himself to his feet with a grunt.

  “If you’re told it’s a circle, it is, but they let us get on with our own lives.”

  “What’s to stop riots breaking out?”

  “The authorities know who does everything and where we are.” Gabriel waved his wrist tag at Sebastian. “After an incident, they act accordingly.”

  Sebastian rubbed his own wrist tag. “So the punishment for attacking another inmate is so bad, it usually deters violence.”

  With a grin Gabriel shook his head. “For most of the penal colony the policy works. It’s less effective here.”

  Sebastian sighed. Gabriel obviously enjoyed dribbling out information. He resisted the urge to push him to explain quicker.

  “Why does the policy work for the rest of the penal colony?”

  Gabriel shuffled to Sebastian’s cot and leaned against the frame.

  “The penal colony’s an orange, like our clothes. The hospital and other administrative sections are in the center with the eight sections encircling them. The inmates guilty of petty crimes are in Level Eight, those in Level Seven are worse and so on. If someone causes trouble, the guards move him down a level, so it’s in your interest to stay calm.”

  Sebastian nodded. “Why doesn’t the policy work in this level?”

  Gabriel rubbed his nose nervously, and then spread his arms and spun around in a circle.

  “This is Level One. Everybody here is the worst of the worst.”

  Sebastian drew his legs up to his chest and pushed himself against the wall.

  “What did they put you in here for?”

  “I killed my wife and her lover.” Gabriel turned to Sebastian and smiled. “I torched his house as well and wiped out his family. I got seven people in all, but I’m a saint compared to some here. How many did you do, Mr. Jones?”

  “Zero.”

  Gabriel scrunched his eyebrows together. “Do you mean they proved nothing?”

  “No, zero, zero, zero,” Sebastian said.

  “You sure had a lousy lawyer.”

  “I did.” Sebastian shrugged. “I don’t suppose you can go up a level for good behavior?”

  Gabriel shivered and wrapped his hands around his upper arms.

  “The only direction from here is down to Level Zero and you wouldn’t like it there – or I hope I’m not sharing a cell with someone who’d like that place.”

  “What’s Level Zero?”

  “Guess.”

  Sebastian flopped down on his cot, deciding he’d learned enough for one day. Later, despite the talk of lawlessness, dinner was an orderly affair. At six o’clock, the cell doors unbolted in a cannoning series of bangs that ricocheted around the Circle.

  Sebastian followed Gabriel onto the balcony to join a line of inmates who filed into the Circle. As they descended, benches and steaming pots rose from the floor. Guards stood at the corner of each bench as mealtime was a supervised activity.

  The lines of inmates snaked to the pots, collected hot and disgusting food and flopped onto benches to throw the slop into their eager mouths. Sitting on a bench, Sebastian darted his eyes back and forth, trying to monitor everyone who passed by without catching anyone’s eye.

  Despite Gabriel’s claim that these people were the worst collection of criminals in the sector, they behaved calmly. Assuming no one had weapons and everyone needed to survive on their own resources, Sebastian decided he stood a chance.

  He reckoned he was fitter than they were and he had an unusual talent. Sebastian swirled his food, and the smell was bad enough and his hunger was low enough to stop him from eating.

  Instead he tried to spot anyone who was interested in him. Halfway into the meal a jeer sounded at the back of the Circle, but as there was no obvious reason for the noise Sebastian tapped Gabriel’s sleeve. Gabriel paused in his food shoveling and pointed at a group of inmates parading past the entrance window on the third balcony.

  “They’re new Zeroers,” Gabriel said through a mouthful of lumpy white paste.

  Sebastian shrugged. “They seem harmless.”

  Gabriel gulped the last of his paste and pointed at Sebastian’s untouched bowl. Without hesitation Sebastian pushed the bowl to him with an outstretched finger. Gabriel took the bowl and shoveled a spoonful into his mouth.

  “They’re not. All the perverts, sick murderers, corrupt police and so on go to Level Zero. If you make trouble here, they send you there. You may live longer, but what the Zeroers will do to you will make you welcome death.”

  Sebastian shuddered and waited for what passed for mealtime to end. Later, when they’d shuffled into their cells, the cell doors bolted shut. Assuming that the mealtime was typical, the twice-daily ritual wouldn’t be as dangerous as the twice-weekly Association time.

  Every fourth day the guards unbolted the cell doors for six hours between breakfast and dinner. Then all inmates were allowed to go anywhere in the Circle.

  “Is the food usually so bad?” Sebastian asked.

  “It’s normally worse.”

  “Does El Duce have operatives in here?”

  Gabriel rubbed his nose furiously. “They’re everywhere.”

  “So how do you survive Association?”

  “You hide,” Gabriel said.

  “How do you that?”

  Gabriel slipped from his cot and stood in front of Sebastian with his hands on his hips.

  “Look at me. Really look at me.”

  Sebastian considered Gabriel’s nose, his dull, downcast eyes, his drooping shoulders and the baggy, orange uniform. In many ways he was the same as everyone else here, but he was also dull and uninteresting, and therefore invisible.

  No one could enjoy hurting him, but Sebastian didn’t have the option of invisibility, if El Duce wanted him. Sebastian lay on his cot and thought about how to appear harmless. With shoulders slouched and eyes narrowed to thin slits he practiced the required appearance and tried to disappear into the scenery.

  Two days after his arrival in Level One his first Association started. The instant his cell door ratcheted open, Sebastian hurried through. He’d chosen the best place to appear invisible as being the entrance area.

  As other inmates slouched from their cells, Sebastian strolled around the balcony and leaned on the rail facing the Circle. On the other side of the reinforced glass the guards patrolled, seemingly disinterested in activities beyond the glass.

  From his look-out position Sebastian tried to understand the scene in the Circle. Orange shapes moved back and fort
h and sound pulsed in waves over him, but any order, or sense, wasn’t obvious.

  Groups sometimes formed and occasionally other inmates strolled by and shouted abuse at the guards. Sebastian stayed by the rail for six hours, regarding the scene, until a ten-minute warning sounded.

  Then he sauntered to his cell. Once his cell door slammed shut, he calculated how many more Associations he’d have to survive. The answer was over a hundred.

  SEBASTIAN HUNCHED OVER and swirled his slop. Around him, the bottom layer of humanity forced processed garbage into their slack mouths. Sebastian had yet to master the shoveling technique the other inmates used.

  He needed to lean over his meal and start a rapid up and down action with his spoon. This forced the slop into his mouth with sufficient speed that he’d finish the meal before anyone knocked his bowl over or stole his seat.

  Sebastian dripped a spoonful of slop into his bowl and prayed someone would knock it over. Worse than eating was the certainty that soon he’d enjoy the paste, but those thoughts fled his mind when three broad inmates hove into view on the opposite side of the bench.

  One massive convict grinned toothlessly and clubbed a fat fist onto Gabriel’s shoulder. Sebastian winced, but Gabriel didn’t pause in his shoveling and slunk along the bench while never spilling his slop.

  The three orange creatures swung into place opposite Sebastian and he decided this moment was a good time to practice the shoveling technique. He lowered his head until it was just above the bowl and then, trying not to taste anything, he threw the first spoonful into his mouth.

  A tasteless lump splashed against the back of his throat and slid away. He carried on and the technique worked for seven shovels, but then his stomach reacted to the sour milk smell that permeated his senses.

  Sebastian raised his head and gulped before he made another assault on his meal. Before him, one of the big orange inmates faced him. The slop in the man’s bowl was untouched. The man flashed a wide, gap-toothed grin, his florid lips providing the only color in a sea of pasty flab.