2020-03-01 - spike - Trapped again Part three

Author: spike
Title: Trapped again. Part three.
Date: 01 March 2020

Eric looked down at himself and sighed. Similar scrubs to the ones he’d found himself wearing in the police cell, only this time, black. “So, this is what I’ll be wearing from now on, then? They’re a bit flimsy, aren’t they? And not even underwear or socks?”

“Sorry. I truly am, but… Yes, you’re in black. As for underwear, no need. The facility’s temperature regulated. You’ll be comfortable enough.”

“Why is it black? When I woke up in that police cell”

“Prison regulations state that inmates wear a shade of grey designated to indicate the seriousness of their crimes. You wore white in the police cell because until the trial was over, you were innocent and the white indicated that.”

“Oh fuck! So… Black…”

“You’re the worst of the worst, yes. Murder, rape, terrorism, treason and a life term and here, life means life. If you wear black, you know the next time you see the sky, it’ll be looking up from a coffin. That’s what’s on your record and nothing can change it without another trial. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have a very lonely time here. Every single one of them in a lighter shade than you’s likely to flee to their cells and shout for lockdown at the sight of you.”

“And anyone in black?”

“I imagine most of them’ll do the same. You’re bigger than most. The rest, they might try to cause trouble. You might find yourself in danger if you don’t flee to your cell too. They know they’re never getting out so”

“I know, so they don’t give a flying fuck about anyone. At least the place isn’t segregated like the last prison I was in. Certainly wouldn’t want to spend any time in D wing. Very nasty.”

“You’ve been in prison before? What for?”

“Long story short… A friend of mine received a high military honour which places a few letters after his name. He testified in court against some thieves, but the magistrate took exception. He was too young to have such an honour and was, therefore, lying under oath as far as that pillock was concerned. So, he sent him down for contempt of court. His time in prison attracted the wrong type of attention. Organised crime. The boss claimed my friend, so we decided to take that bastard down. I wasn’t in for anything but an imagined crime arranged by the king and a judge in another district. I was there to keep him safe. Almost failed in that too. He was injured but I provided a blood transfusion that saved his life.”

“Military? You… still have a military?”

“Army in my case. I’m a lance corporal. Don’t worry, I know how to defend myself. All part of the training. In his case, Royal Navy.”

“You mentioned a king too!”

“Henry the ninth. Successor to Philip the second. I won’t go into the whole genealogy. You can look it up by calling up the tree later. It’s all there. I know you’ve not had one in a long time, though.”

He nodded. “King Victor, Eighteen thirty to eighteen sixty-nine. After that, the people decided we didn’t need a replacement and the whole royal family was disbanded and sent to live in one of their castles in Scotland.”

“Victor?” Eric chuckled.”I’d forgotten about that. Another tiny twist in time and everything comes out differently.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ours didn’t get a sperm with a Y chromosome. We had Queen Victoria until nineteen oh one.”

“I knew it was possible, but I’m still finding it hard to accept. All these alternative timelines… Could you do it for me, now?”

“Vanish? I suppose so. Won’t that trigger all kinds of alarms, though? If a prisoner suddenly vanishes? I imagine every room in the building has surveillance in place.”

He sighed. “You’re right, of course.”

Eric grinned. “I can do this though.” He shifted, looked round, his arm shot out, grabbed and pulled. Just before the doctor he’d grabbed appeared, a klaxon sounded and the lights flicked instantly to red.

He looked around in panic, let go of his target and pulled his hand back. “What the hell?”

“Your chip, Unknown! You just removed your chip from this world! Everything here’s tracked, every movement, every action.”

“But I don’t have a chip!”

“You really think you’d spend days in police custody and they wouldn’t chip you? Of course you have a chip. If you do that again, use your right hand!” The doctor rushed to the screen and hit a button on it. The lights returned to normal, the klaxon was silenced and a voice echoed around the room. “Why did the system lose 50095223 for three seconds?”

“Sorry, sir. Scanner glitch. It sent too powerful a pulse while it was near his hand, sir.”

“Very well. Send the scanner for analysis and break out a new one.”

“Yes, sir.”

Eric looked at his hand and sighed. “So, now I’m lumbered with”

“Oh, stop complaining. It’s more of a convenience then a hindrance. Just wave your hand over”

“Yes, yes. I know that, but I still don’t like the idea of being tracked everywhere I go. I’d much prefer to pay in cash and I don’t care about waving my hands over things. You’ve seen what else it does! I can’t leave this world now! If I tried, every alarm in the place’d go off!”

“Well, you’ll just have to put up with it. Come on… I suppose we’d better get to the governor’s office. He needs to see this. He needs to see you. Oh, and refer to him as”

“As sir. I know how to address an officer. Army, remember. Do you want me to call you sir from now on, too? I know how it is in prison.”

“Actually, when we’re out there… Yes.”

“As for you… Please stop calling me Unknown. It’s getting a little jarring.”

“That’s your name. It’s not a done thing to use your first name. You are 50095223 Unknown. That’s what you’ll be for the rest of your life if you don’t get the results you want in the retrial so you might as well get used to it.”

“My name is Eric Siyisan. A name I do not intend to give up due to some administrative fuck up.”

“You are assigned with the name Eric Unknown. It’s on your chip and that, to the best of my knowledge, can’t be changed. It’s a part of you now just as that tattoo is. I… take it that’s part of your story too. Convict number?”

“Slave number. You’ll find all that on your computer too.”

The doctor swiped his hand across a panel and the door slid open. “You do it too. It’ll indicate that you’re under escort. By me.”

Eric waved his hand by the panel.

“You go first, I’ll follow.”

Eric nodded and stepped out into a corridor. Another door, another swipe and they emerged into a large open area. He looked around. He looked up. The place was multi-tiered like the prisons he was familiar with but everything looked clean, bright. He craned his neck to count the number of floors. Six levels of cells in a large triangular formation.

On the ground floor, which he presumed he was on, a lot of tables and a lot of prisoners, all in a variety of shades of grey. The lighter shades mingled freely, but the darker they got, the more they became… well… uniform… It seemed none of the lighter shades were willing to mix with the ones bordering on black. Quite a few of the tables had displays hovering above them. Some with games, some with… Eric couldn’t tell from this distance. Others, the prisoners just appeared to be chatting.

Two tables had a lot of empty ones around them. At those sat six black-clad prisoners each. Clearly everyone else was giving them a wide berth, and now, he was in the same boat.

Eric and the doctor walked around the perimeter. A few looked up and recoiled in fear at the sight of him. Some even scurried to the edge and into strange circular alcoves. He looked around… All the cells had these alcoves. Some were closed but most just showed a round back. A room about three feet in diameter.

Eric nodded. “What the hell, sir? I thought you said the cells were liveable. You can’t even lie down in that thing.”

“What do you mean?”

Eric pointed at one as he passed it. “That! That’s a cell?”

The doctor sighed. “That’s the doorway. It’s a hell of a lot more secure than a standard door. Two cylinders with one opening each. The openings align, the prisoner can pass through, either out of or into his cell. If need be, we can make it so the doorways don’t align while the prisoner’s in it, if they’re being particularly troublesome. Isolation protocol.”

“Oh fuck. So… Typical. So I won’t even be able to escape. The moment I shift, alarms’ll blare, and those doorways… Even if one is open to one side, it’ll be closed on the other. I bet none of the nearby worlds… I’ve got to get out of here. I have important business back home! Not to mention Christmas in a few weeks!”

“Christmas? Bloody shit, you still celebrate that!?”

“Even people who don’t believe in god celebrate it! Why? You have to have something similar, surely? It’s a big event, a happy time of year. Parties, food, presents… To make things worse I’m halfway through making my two-year-old niece her first present and it’s a big one. I’ve got to get back in time to finish it!”

“We’ll do what we can. When is Christmas?”

“Twenty-fifth of December. I have no idea how that translates into your calendar though. You’ll have to ask your computer to do a Gregorian to standard conversion.”

The doctor chuckled. “It would’ve never occurred to me… Computer, convert any dates I say using Gregorian designations into standard calendar. Twenty-fifth of December.”

“As this year is a leap year, that would be Tridecamber the seventeenth. On other years, the sixteenth.”

“And it’s near the end of Bidecamber.”

“What date?”

“Twenty-sixth.”

“As I said, it’s three weeks away! Why isn’t it called Bidectilus like the rest of them?”

The doctor shrugged. “Just the way it is. We’re nearly there. Hold, Unknown. I have to swipe first or you’ll get an unauthorised access and even more demerits. I’ll try to get the governor to at least cancel them. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Thanks. What does a demerit do?”

“For every demerit, it’s one week without privileges and no way to earn them. In your case, that would’ve been over a year’s worth, just from your time in the police cell. For people found not guilty of the other charges, it’d still mean a hefty fine.” He walked forward and waved his hand over a panel. The door opened.

“Fuck!”

“Quite. I think I’m beginning to see the appeal of these expletives of yours. You say them with such conviction! Now you swipe.”

Eric did the same and walked forward again.

Door after door. The place was more secure than Stafford. His heart sank even more as he realised, there wasn’t even a keyring he could steal. No door in the prison would respond unless he’d been granted access. There truly was no way out of this one. Not by unconventional means anyway.

“Sir?”

“Yeah?”

“How old is this place? It looks quite new. I really hope it is.”

He shook his head. “It’s been here for fifty years, Unknown. It’s been renewed a few times, usually when the prisoners are in lockdown. Why?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. That’s my last out, then. The last chance I had if this plea for freedom fails. If it had been new, I could’ve just kept walking until it wasn’t here anymore. Might’ve taken a few hours but it would’ve at least got me out.”

“But then what?”

“Then, I’d have to find the police station that held me. Find out where my equipment is, find a way through all their security to get to it and then… Gone. But fifty years… That’s millions of miles.”

“Really? Millions?”

Eric nodded in despair. “I’m screwed. I just hope your governor’s not a vindictive arsehole like that copper was.”

“He’s a reasonable man. Always has been to me anyway. I can’t say how he’ll react to you though. You are a prisoner. Worse. You’re a black.”

The next door they swiped through revealed something Eric expected. Carpeted floors, wallpaper, paintings and flowers in vases. He nodded. “Just like Stafford. Civvies get the luxury, we get the crap.”

“Rightfully so.”

“I know. It was actually bearable at Stafford prison. First thing we did was request hard labour. Oh god, it would’ve been hell if I’d been forced to do the job they originally assigned me to. Boring doesn’t even…” He sighed. “I take it that’s not something you do here.”

“Hard labour? But that’s… That’s barbaric! Prisoners, in public? In chains? We’ve not done that in a hundred years! We’re in more enlightened times, now.”

“I happened to enjoy it. I happen to like hard work. Besides, for those who don’t enjoy it, it at least keeps ‘em fit and it is meant to be a punishment!”

“We have a gym for that.”

“And I bet that’s one of the privileges, is it?”

“Everyone gets gym time but if you want to use it outside the designated periods, yes.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. At least tell me the food quality doesn’t fall under privileges, here.”

“It did at Stafford?”

“Gristle stew with deliberately undercooked spuds and bitter herbs. The most bland porridge imaginable… Once you got it though, it was decent quality chicken, beef or whatever stew and even a dessert.”

“Meat?” he stared. “I know you had clothing made from animal products but… You actually eat them?”

“And they’re delicious. We’re evolved omnivores doctor. We can exist on nothing but veg, but we’re built to digest meat too. Preferably cooked, obviously, but the Japanese love their raw fish. Sushimi I think it’s called. Even started catching on over here.”

The doctor’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “Right… The next room we enter, you follow me. One meter behind. You keep your hands clasped behind your back and you make no sudden moves. A black, coming to the governor’s office or seeing any member of the public is normally kept in full prison restraints until he’s back in his cell. You’re a special case, but if he insists, you do not resist. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve been fully compliant with everything. If I’d been a little less trusting at the start, I might’ve got my bloody trial.”

He nodded. “Keep that attitude, no matter how many times it shits on you. You’ll survive this.” He swished his hand over another panel and this time, the door didn’t open. Instead, a chime sounded.

“Yes?”

“Conrad, here, sir. There’s something you need to see, sir. It’s serious. Someone you need to speak to, too.”

“Very well.”

The door swished open, the doctor entered and Eric followed, four feet behind, just to be on the safe side.

The moment Eric entered, the governor recoiled in his chair. He swept his hand over his desk. “Lockdown protocol five! Guards! I want the man in my office in restraints, this instant!”

The doctor rushed forward but recoiled as a transparent barrier slammed down between him and the governor. “Sir. This is the grossest miscarriage of justice I’ve ever witnessed. It isn’t necessary!”

“Frankly, I’m shocked. Doctor Conrad, I could have you in that uniform for what you’ve done today! What in the name of Dingle were you thinking! You know the prison regulations concerning… Them!”

“He’s not one of them, sir! That’s what we need to discuss!”

“This is the man you were treating?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The man responsible, either directly or indirectly, for over one hundred deaths, ten rapes, fifteen murders by his own hands!? The man’s a maniac! He should’ve but placed in a secure psychiatric hospital from the very start in my opinion!”

“Please, sir. Just… Look at his record. Look at the dates, sir! Then look at him! How old would you say he was?”

Before he’d completed that sentence, three guards rushed into the room. Eric did exactly as advised. He didn’t struggle as a collar snapped around his neck and rigid restraints secured his wrists. One of the guards snapped a metal belt around his waist, adjusted it for tightness and with another snap, the wrist restraints secured themselves to it. He couldn’t move his arms an inch.

The governor looked Eric up and down and nodded. “Thank you, gentlemen. Dismissed.” Another wave of the hand and the barrier raised. “Now what in all that’s sterile are you wittering on about, Conrad!”

“Look at his record, sir.”

“Very well. Number?”

“50095223, sir.”

“Computer, bring up the prisoner record last spoken.”

A screen popped up and he began to study it. “Name… Eric Unknown? Date of birth: unknown? Parentage: unknown? Next of kin: unknown? Spouse: unknown? What is all this? Place of birth, employment history? Schools, medical, Biometric analysis, all unknown? Even his DNA profile shows no known ancestry? How is this even possible?”

“That’s the weird part, sir, but not the part you need to review… Charge sheet, sir.”

The governor swiped left and the page swept off the screen to be replaced by another. He studied the crimes and his face twisted into one of disgust. “Why is this monster here. Look at this!”

“Yes, sir. But look at the dates. As I said, how old would you say he is?”

The governor shrugged. “Mid-twenties would be my guess.” his gaze fell on Eric. “Date of birth?”

“Twentieth of August, sir.”

“I’m sorry. What are you… Talk sense, man!”

The doctor held up his computer. “Twentieth of August.”

“Please state year.”

“Nineteen ninety-nine.”

“The Gregorian date of the Twentieth of August translates to the third of Ennealius nineteen ninety-nine.”

“Doctor. This is getting preposterous. No-one’s used the Gregorian calendar in over fifty years!”

“Here, sir, that’s true. That’s another part of the weirdness but look at the dates of those crimes, sir. According to that court document, he committed his first five murders and his first two rapes before the age of four! The rest of that list is almost entirely fraudulent too, sir. Only two items on it are things he could even be accused of. Theft of a few thousand pounds worth of computing equipment and kidnapping, and he denies that too. I’ve seen the evidence. It wasn’t a kidnapping, sir.”

“But he confessed!”

“This is where it gets disturbing, sir. Do I have access?”

“Computer. Grant doctor Conrad voice access. Go on, what’ve you got to show me.”

“His arrest and interrogation, sir. Computer, show them.”

He watched with interest during the arrest video up until the point he vanished. He jumped when that happened. Then the policeman shocked him.

“Computer, halt.” He looked at Eric. “What the hell just happened there? How did you just… poof away like that and what was that device? Why did you allow him to do that?”

“I’ll get to the vanishing act, sir. As for the device, it was designed to cause electrical immobilisation, sir. It’s powerful too, enough to cause loss of consciousness, but I found another use for it. Reduce the power by about half and it can ground things and people. Fix them.”

“Fix them? To what exactly?”

“To the world the power source came from, sir. As for why I allowed him to do it, two reasons, sir. The power cell in the taser itself is still… tuned to my home. If I’d shocked myself, everything I was holding, including the taser, would have set themselves to this world. I was planning to use it on my return, sir. I knew the moment my computer was locked I’d need to be arrested and in all likelihood, everything I was carrying would be taken by the police. If those things had been separated, they would’ve begun, eventually, to drift back home. I would’ve lost a lot of them forever. The other reason was exactly as I said to the policeman. A sign of good faith. He chose to kick me in the bloody groin and spit in my face instead.”

“And where exactly is this… This home of yours?”

“I’ll get to that, but you need to watch what happens next, sir. And the surveillance footage concerning my interrogation, to see why I’m here and wearing black, sir.”

He nodded. “Computer, resume.”

At the sight of the officer in charge, his eyes widened. When they spoke, planning to dump their entire caseload on Eric, it elicited a response Eric wasn’t expecting.

The Governor grinned. “Captain Galloway.”

“Sir? Please, don’t say you approve of that!”

“Approve? Of course I don’t approve! Oh dear sweet Fulmur, please let this be what I think it is…”

As the next video began to play, the smile vanished. He looked up at Eric again. “Why did you confess?”

“I didn’t, sir!”

“But you knew refusal to answer was an admission of guilt!”

“Sir… Can you ask your computer a few questions?”

“What questions?”

“Question one… How many times does the average person blink? Question two, how many times did I blink during that entire interrogation and how long was it?”

“Very well. Computer, answer the questions as previously stated.”

“The average person blinks between fifteen and twenty times per minute. The subject in the video did not blink. The interrogation lasted twenty minutes.”

“You… You didn’t blink once in twenty minutes? Why?”

“Sir, that wasn’t an interrogation. I didn’t regain consciousness from the tasering until I was in the police cell. As that was the case, they didn’t tell me there was anything to activate. I didn’t even find out I had a chip until about half an hour ago, sir. They nearly killed me in that cell. Doctor, how close was I to death when you started treating me?”

“You were on the cusp of organ failure from dehydration by the time I got to you, Unknown. Another hour would’ve been enough and then, the slow painful drift to death. As it got worse it would’ve caused irreversable damage too. One hour to that..”

Eric stared at him in horror. “An hour? Oh fuckin’ ell!”

“I know. And until you woke up, they convinced us it was an attempted suicide.”

“Yeah, you said that.” Eric returned his attention to the governor. “Why were you smiling, sir?”

“The number of men who were clearly innocent who’ve passed through these gates… Almost all of them… Captain bloody Galloway or the men under his command! We’ve been trying to gather evidence against him for five years but they always covered their tracks before we could get anything.”

“That’s what I don’t understand, sir. I was in that cell for about three days and unconscious here for four. They had a week to cover their tracks! Why didn’t they?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, these days. Government authorities recognised some time ago that the police were playing fast and loose with their surveillance evidence, editing, chopping out large sections, deleting things they didn’t agree with or wanted to hide. As a result, an update to the police database meant everything had to be retained untouched for a period of one month after the date of the trial. I imagine they were trying to find a way around that, and in a few more days, they might have. We didn’t expect you to regain consciousness for another few days as it was. You were so close to death it was touch and go you’d regain consciousness at all. If that had been the case, it would never have come to light.”

Eric sighed and nodded.

“Now… I think it’s time you explained how you can fail to have a single piece of data in their databases, Unknown. How there can be no evidence of your existence. How you can just wink out of existence and why they named you Eric Unknown if nothing else is known about you.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll tell you my story, but I should warn you… It may take some time.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Doctor, when I ask you to play something…”

“Of course.”

“It all started when I was fourteen, sir… Actually, I suppose it really started when I was seven but… Fourteen when the shit hit the fan, so to speak.”

The governor smiled. “I like that. That’s a new one on me but… That’s a bloody good idiom.”

“Quite common where I’m from… Anyway…”