“All right, here you go; one blanket, one towel, six sets of underwear, twelve pairs of socks, one hygiene kit, and one prison rulebook. Now, just sit tight and read that rulebook while I process the rest.” She smiled. “I trust you’ll still be here when I get back?”
Coleen looked around. She was in a locked room with a few benches and the window where the bored guy waited for his next customer at “Clothing Issue.” To get out, she’d have to run back the way she’d come or somehow blast open the locked exit door.
“Yeah, I’ll be here,” she replied.
One by one, fourteen additional unfortunates joined her on the benches. They were a mixed bag of women—mutants, sovereign citizens, and more mutants. At a glance, she could tell that justice was not blind on Isis. More to the point, it bestowed an overly abundant degree of attention on people with jaguar spotted skin and no hair.
When one of these newcomers joined her on the bench, she asked, “What are you in for?” simply because it seemed the thing to say.
“Why the fuck do you want to know?” replied the thick mutant gal.
Coleen gulped and decided she didn’t. So they sat in uncomfortable silence until the correctional protector returned to announce, “All right ladies. The transport shuttle is ready. In the off-chance you haven't noticed the parallel red lines painted on the floor, I direct your attention to ‘em now. Stay between those lines at all times as you walk to the ship or those ankle shackles will give you a sudden and painful demonstration of how well they work. Understand?”
Everyone nodded.
“Good, because if I have to use this here controller on any of you, I’ll need to do paperwork, and I fucking hate paperwork.”
A three-hour air trip in a crowded and smelly shuttle took her to Camp Promise; a military-style compound in the thick of the jungle. From the air, she could see that no fence surrounded the perimeter. If a prisoner left the area, the ankle bracelet would simply deliver a stunning shock to the escapee. The ankle bracelet simultaneously sent an alarm to the prison guardhouse, and a fix on the prisoner’s location would appear on a scanner. This was explained in the rulebook on page five.
She was housed in a dormitory, much like she had known back in Station Service basic training. The difference being, her roommates at Camp Promise, weren’t volunteers; they were criminals. Some were in the joint for petty crimes and others—murder. There were lots of mutants with their hairless, spotted skin among the fallen, but some inmates were sovereign citizens and had once worn the distinctive white clothing back in Central City. The oldest inmate was in her sixties; a mutant gal everybody called Grandma. The youngest, another mutant, was only seven years old.
A portrait of the ubiquitous White coated Dr. Apple glared over the dormitory next to the clock. Work started at 04:00 the next morning.
* * *
The bearded correctional protector, the inmates, referred to as “Bit” addressed her and the rest while they stood shivering in the cold morning air outside the dormitory. “Okay convicts, get in line. I want to see your hands, palms up.” Bit inspected all of the inmate’s hands for blisters or cuts. Two were sent to the infirmary for a day’s treatment, with a day to be added to each of their sentences accordingly. The rest were issued safety cutters, long poles with sonic shears on the end and made to march along a dirt path.
It was a long walk to the work site, and by the time they got there, Coleen hated her cheap, plastic shoes almost as much as she hated Buckman. But at least she wasn’t alone in that misery, the new gal in front of her moaned, “If I keep slipping in these fucked up clogs, I’m going to lose a foot, and this god-damed shackle’s going to fly right off.”
Her shackle was already rubbing a callous on Coleen’s ankle. “Well, that’d be a relief at least. I’m Coleen, by the way.”
“Heather. I’d say I’m pleased to meet you, but not under these circumstances.”
Coleen actually managed a chuckle. “Likewise.”
Just then, Protector Bit interrupted, “Halt! All right, convicts, this is the spot. We got ten and a half acres to clear by sunset, so let’s get to work. And by ‘let’s’ I mean you ladies.”
Coleen and Heather turned on their sonic cutters and fumbled with the unfamiliar tools as they attacked the foliage with awkward strokes. “Why do they need all this brush cleared anyway?” Coleen asked Heather.
“Because the towns and cities of Isis would be overwhelmed by jungle if the foliage wasn’t constantly cut back,” Heather answered as she tripped and dropped her cutter. “And inmate labor’s a cheap and effective way of doing just that. Sovereign citizens don’t believe in paying more in taxes than we can get away with.”
“Sovereign citizens like you?”
“Yep,” Heather said as she recovered her cutter. “Like me.”
From dawn to dusk, Coleen cut the vines and bushes with the awkward safety cutter that couldn’t be used as a weapon even if she tried. Unrelatedly hot and humid, the jungle had the stink of rotten fruit from all the fresh cuttings. And on the negative side, the Isis worms seemed to take special delight in biting her ankles. Of course, human blood is toxic to the little buggers, but they never seemed to figure that out in time, and at the end of the day, she’d have to scrape a dozen of their gooey corpses off her legs.
The work itself was merciless, backbreaking toil, but on the plus side, the protectors gave the work gangs breaks every five hours and fed them a high-calorie diet—because dead inmates trim no jungle. Of course, death sometimes happened anyway. She noticed the old lady everyone called Grandma seemed pale. And when the old gal finally collapsed in front of Coleen, the former Station Service trooper jumped in with all the first aid training she could remember. Unfortunately boot camp was by now years gone by and medicine had never been her specialty anyway. But she’d be dammed if she wouldn’t try.
“One, and two, and three, and four.” Ten minutes crawled by since Coleen heard the ribs crack and still she continued her CPR.
“Let off, convict,” Bit said in solemn tones. “There ain’t nothing to be done now.”
Heather looked on as sweat dripped off Coleen’s brow onto Grandma’s face. “Coleen.”
“…and nine, and ten breathe.” Coleen put her mouth over Grandma’s lips and gave two quick breaths and then looked, listened, and felt for a pulse.
Heather repeated, “Coleen.”
“Convict, she’s dead.” Bit knelt beside the exhausted first aider. “I’ve already called medical, their sending a box for her in a grav-sled. There’s nothing more to be done.”
Coleen saw no chest rise, heard no breathing, and felt no pulse. Slowly, rose to step away from the old woman whose life sentence had finally come to an end. She looked at Protector Bit but saw no pity in his face, only indifference. His shift would soon be over, and he seemed inclined to chalk this up as just another day at work. Turning to Heather, she saw something worse; amusement.
“You really tried to save that mutie, didn’t you?”
She blinked and answered, “Yes, just like I’d do for anybody else. I was in the military, but regardless, isn’t that how people are supposed to behave?”
“Whatever.” Heather turned to walk away, and Coleen honestly had no idea of what to make of the gal’s weird reaction to the loss of a life.
The medical personnel arrived. Without ceremony, Grandma was dumped into a cardboard coffin and hauled away on a grav-sled. The other inmates just shrugged and got back to work, except for the seven-year-old whose eyes lingered on Coleen for a while. Unsure of what to say or do, Coleen waved at the little girl before she got back to work herself. They had another acre to clear, and it would be dark soon.
***
Coleen tried not to focus on the days, and instead each single day at a time. One day’s journey from her bunk to her bunk often seemed like a thousand-kilometer walk. But when the day was done, she’d find herself one sunset closer to her release date. Considering her outgoing nature, keeping her he
ad down proved challenging, but she managed because—survival. She quickly learned that although the guards were harsh and indifferent, at least they were predictable. Her fellow inmates, however, were less so and often brutal, like, for instance, Sadie.
Sadie was a big gal who swaggered around the prison, and with good reason. She was the leader of the Sixers, a gang of women who still had enough energy at the end of the day to be obnoxious. Naturally, they used that energy to take what they wanted from weaker inmates.
Everyone tried to keep clear of the Sixers. Most merely submitted, while a few fought back and lost. John O’Hara’s smartest daughter just tried to stay out of their path. Coleen simploy wanted to do her time and get the hell out of the joint. That was until Sadie took an interest in the seven-year-old kid.
“Why the hell is a child like that in prison?” Coleen asked Heather over her lunch tray.
“What?” Heather said with a mouth full of noodles.
“The kid, what’s she in for?”
“Oh,” Heather replied. “You mean Deirdre? She’s a mutie.”
Coleen shook her head. “No kidding, the spotted skin is a bit of a clue. But what kind of judge sentences a seven-year-old kid to prison?”
Heather shrugged. “I heard it was vagrancy?”
“Vagrancy?”
Heather put down her bowl and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “Yep, vagrancy. She was found wandering Central City, panhandling. When nobody came to claim her at the Protector’s station, she got sentenced. It’s the same old story. Muties don’t care what happens to their children so why should anybody else give a damn. Prison’s probably the best place for her, you know.”
“And who,” Coleen challenged, “Would everybody else be?”
Heather looked at her as if she was stupid. “You know, normal people. People like us.”
And that was the last conversation Coleen would ever have with Heather. Bigotry never impressed her, and Heather now seemed beyond her ability to educate or reform. Coleen had discovered weeks before that Heather was in for running a failed confidence scam. The scam had worked well, she once admitted, until Heather tried it on a sovereign citizen and got busted, a fact that when discovered didn’t surprise Coleen in the least.
The reason Sadie resided in prison, however, was a bit more obvious when you got to know the thug. The woman was a sex predator, and the word in the joint said she was in for life. But a life sentence didn’t deem to deter her criminality. Coleen watched in disgust as Sadie stood a little closer to Deirdre every day in the clearing line.
Coleen tried to pretend she didn’t see it right, hoped that she was mistaken in her assumptions, and minded her own business as best she could. But then, one day the dam inside her broke wide open. That was the day Sadie took one long step over the line, not ten meters from where Coleen stood.
“Aw, look at the sweet little thing with the big cutter. That too heavy for you, dear? Let Aunt Sadie help you out.” Sadie reached around the girl’s middle, supposedly to help her with the safety cutter but actually to cop a feel. Coleen saw it, and the thinking part of her brain suddenly switched off and pure adrenaline took over.
Dropping her cutter she charged at Sadie screaming, “That’s it, bitch!”
Her scream was heard all over the work area. Sadie looked up, apparently shocked that the little off-worlder was making any noise at all. However, as Coleen closed the distance, she recovered just enough to say, “Just who the hell do…”
Coleen wasn’t starting a conversation. Before Sadie could finish, Coleen drove her fist into Sadie’s face so hard it almost came out the other side. Sadie reeled and hit the ground with a satisfying thud, but the fight was far from over.
Giving the child molester two swift kicks in the ribs, Coleen pressed her attack. When she tried to rise, Coleen stomped on her back down. Then Sadie seemed to give up on getting up and grabbed Coleen by the ankle instead to pull her down into the mud.
Coleen fell hard, and Sadie jumped on top of her in one swift motion. Coleen gave her a few blows, but they didn’t seem to do much damage, while Sadie began to pummel Coleen’s face, again and again until she blacked out.
***
She woke up in the infirmary hours later, and from her bed, a portrait of Dr. Apple glared down disapprovingly down at her. She soon learned that the protectors had broken up the fight by triggering the ankle bracelets of the two combatants. Coleen’s face was a mess of bruises, and without prompt treatment, Isis fungus would soon infect them.
The Incarcerations Force couldn’t allow that. After all, it would mean the loss of dozens of work hours. Happily, the inmate doctor told her that Sadie’s face looked similar, which at least put a smile on Coleen’s battered countenance. What made her smile even more though was a visit by Deirdre the next day.
The little munchkin ran in and tapped her on the arm. “Here is your handy, dandy present,” she said as she put something on Coleen’s bed, then turned and ran out. It was a flower; an Isis rose.
Coleen spent two days in the infirmary before getting sent back to the work gang. She got an extra two months on her sentence for the fight, but Sadie got worse. Apparently, it was Sadie’s tenth such incident in the past six months. So Sadie was transferred to Camp Healthy, the Incarceration Force’s Behavioral Modification Facility. No one at Camp Promise ever saw Sadie again, although there were rumors of brain modification.
When Coleen returned to her work detail, Deirdre came up and gave her a big hug, the child’s little arms barely reaching around the woman’s middle. Coleen hadn’t felt such warmth since her father gave her that big bear hug back on Luna. It felt good. And Deirdre smiled for the longest time since Coleen had known her. The dimples on the child’s wide spotted face were disarmingly cute.
The Sixers were still in business, but none of them wanted to join Sadie at Camp Healthy. At least, not for the sake of a mutie brat and an off-world rat. So they mostly left Coleen and her young friend alone. Still, the time passed hard. The jungle work never got easier, although there was one upside to her sentence. Coleen grew stronger and developed more arm muscle definition than she even had in the military.
But, in the shadow of Coleen’s excellent health, Deirdre, unfortunately, caught a fever during the sixth month. Coleen would work all day in the jungle, and then visit the infirmary every night. And by the infirmary bed, she told the child stories of Earth and her father, anything to keep the kid’s spirits up.
“So, your dad took you to his space platform thing?”
“No,” Coleen replied, “I wasn’t allowed to go because I wasn’t in the military yet.”
“I can join the military. I can. I can go to see stuff in space, can’t I?”
Coleen’s heart fought between the desire to break and to melt at the kid’s words. “Yes, you can, Deirdre. You can do anything you want. But first, you need to get better. Did you take all the pills the pharmacist gave you today?”
“Yes.”
“Even the yucky ones?”
“Yes, this time I took them all. I didn’t even make a face.”
“Good. Now you just try to get some sleep.” Coleen propped up the pillow on her chair. “I’ll be right here.”
“You’re not going to bed again?”
“Nope, I like sleeping in this chair. It’s comfy.” Coleen lost a lot of sleep that week, but Deirdre did eventually recover, her spotted face glowing when she came back to the dorm.
Deirdre had no idea whatever happened to her parents. She didn’t even remember them. The child lived in Dump Town before strangers threw her into prison and didn’t really understand why she got arrested. She just knew that spotless people often don’t like muties.
* * *
In January of 2363, Inmate Coleen O’Hara was discharged her debt to the Isis regime and set at liberty. At the Protector Station in Central City, the goons returned clothes, hand comp, and all of the incidentals they confiscated from in her pockets at the time of the arrest. The
thing she got her hands on first, however, was the UVA membership card that her dad once gave her.
She sought out nearest UVA Post, which happened to be listed in the public database as Number 103 located in Central City. Upon presentation of her card, the all right folks provided the obligatory meal and a cot. Contrary to their adopted name of the Devil Dog, the place had a warm and friendly feel to it. Located in the basement of a high rise, its walls were adorned with holo images of soldiers and smiling spacers looked down from bamboo frames. It also happened to be the only place on the planet where she didn’t see a picture of Dr. Apple hanging on a wall, but she was sure that was just a coincidence.
The post commander was a legislated citizen named Marius, who’d opened the place after serving in the Confed’ Marines. He listened to her story and advised her to get off Isis as soon as possible. “I mean it, lady, this planet don’t play. You’re marked, and if you step out of line one more time they’ll lock you away forever and a few days more.
But Coleen refused to budge. “I’m not leaving this rock until Deirdre is released. She gets out in six weeks, and she needs me. Now, I won’t do anything stupid, Marius. I just need a place to stay and lay low for a while. I’ll do the dishes around here, whatever you need. But I have to wait for Deirdre.”
Marius shrugged. “I have a bot for dishes and clean up, Type L, a very good one. Wife tends bar, and I handle the food. Are you any good with records keeping?”
For the next six weeks, Coleen worked hard to put The Devil Dog’s books in absolutely perfect order. It felt good to be back in her element, and she figured that this was the kind of work she was meant to do. Marius and his wife certainly appreciated her help and when the customers came around Coleen enjoyed swapping service stories with all the vets.
* * *
When Deirdre got out, Coleen was there to meet her at the drab Protector Station in downtown Central City. The child wore only her yellow prison outfit. “They said my old clothes were too dirty.”
Star Runners Page 13
