There were hushed voices all around her, but they all eluded her. They spoke in every language under the sun, babbling endlessly about their own problems: their own stories.
It had been six months since her arrival. At first she had cursed those who brought her there. But eventually she began to realize, she began to walk in their shoes and a revelation struck her like a lightening bolt. She understood. She understood the error of what she had done. She was so consumed by rage she couldn’t think straight. It was one of the things her mother had always warned her about. She had a temper and she knew it, she had just never expected it to go so far.
They wouldn’t believe how much I’ve changed… She thought laughingly. Her vows of revenge had faded as the days passed by. Now she simply wanted to be free and go her own way, do her own thing. She’d accepted it all, everything that had ever happened, she accepted it. There wasn’t much she could do now anyway.
She was doing well for a ‘newbie’, as they called her. And in a place as merciless as PC: 1-975, the respect she had earned among the inmates was inconceivable. She forced herself to toughen up a bit, making sure that with one look, people would know not to bother her.
Her hair was cut, they all got their hair cut when they came; afterwards it was left to grow wild. She usually kept it back in randomly dyed blue, purple, and naturally colored box braids that stuck out from underneath a bandana, which covered her hair. She invested in a few more piercings, which included another in her left cartilage, her bellybutton one in her tongue and one in her right eyebrow. Although they had uniforms, no one wore them. Inmates were easily recognizable anyway. She adopted a skater look with long skater shorts and tight, ripped-off T’s or tank tops. Still she wore the fingerless gloves, which hid her badly damaged hands.
She looked down at her hands and cocked her eyebrow at them, they still reminded her of them. They used to be her friends, now she wasn’t sure. They weren’t her enemies now, but she knew she could never go back to them.
“Norris!” A deep yet feminine voice broke her out of her reverie.
Brittney looked up and saw Nikki, a huge, muscular woman in her thirties, calling her.
“What do you want?” Brittney asked tiredly.
“You hear what the guards been saying?” Nikki inquired.
“No, Nikki, I don’t normally pay attention to them.” She said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Huh,” Nikki snorted, “They been talking ‘bout a disturbance down on the men’s side.”
“Disturbance?” Brittney got up and walked to the door of her cell, resting her arms on the bars. She eyed the guards standing near the exit, talking hurriedly. She strained her ears so she could hear them.
“We’ve lost complete contact with the men’s side of the colony.” The tallest of the three was saying, “We’ve sent out several groups to try and figure out what’s going on but they’ve all disappeared. We can’t even get over there!”
“This could be bad, you think there’s a problem with the communications?” Another said.
The tallest one shook her head, “No, at least our two-ways should work, but all we get is static. It’s like there’s some sort of jamming signal blocking the airways.”
“Hm,” The third one just stroked her chin thoughtfully.
“What do we do?” The tall one asked her.
The third woman just looked up at her and said, “There’s nothing we can do. Continue on as usual, wait until we…” She was cut off by a voice on her two-way.
“Ma’am…assist back…inva…hurry!” The voice cackled.
“Soldier! What is going on over there?” The woman demanded. But static overwhelmed the lone voice and she cursed.
“Well…” The other two urged, “What now?” The woman took a deep breath. “We go into lockdown.”
“JASON! This is the last time I’m going to tell you! Stop hiding my damn underwear!”
The odd remark echoed through the hallways of the Maxwell household. Such things were normal there.
Carol looked up from where she was sitting on the floor in front of the TV and eyed Jason as he doubled over in mirth.
Helen came storming down the stairs, and Jason bolted for the scrap heap outside.
“Which way did he go?” Helen demanded. Carol just pointed out the door and went back to watching her show. Once she was sure Helen was far enough away, Carol jumped up and followed. She couldn’t miss something like this.
“Jason! I mean it! I’m tired of your stupid pranks! I might as well send you back home!”
“Aw Helen, you wouldn’t do that to me.” Jason countered, still remaining hidden inside a scrapped car.
“Oh yes I would! Come out here now!” She heard something fall over to her right and grinned. She saw a flash of Jason’s spiky hair inside an old car.
She approached it slowly and stood outside for a minute, pondering whether to surprise him or to wait until he discovered she had found him.
Suddenly, the door swung open and Jason grabbed her around the waist and pulled her in on top of him.
Helen giggled and gladly locked her lips with his.
“DAD! Jason and Helen are making out in the back again!” Came the instant accusation from Carol.
“JASON!” Duo screamed.
Helen groaned, “You little brat!” She growled, and then proceeded to chase Carol around the yard. Jason just watched the episode with mild amusement.
Duo stepped outside and studied the situation very carefully.
“Daddy! Help! She’s gonna kill me!” Carol cried. She ran right into Duo’s arms, shielding herself from Helen’s wrath.
“Oh sure, run and hide behind daddy!” Helen snorted.
“Grump,” Carol mumbled,
“Coward!”
Duo rolled his eyes; the two girls’ fights were a daily occurrence around the house. Duo wasn’t sure if they fought because they enjoyed it, or because they really did irritate each other. Whatever the reason, their little arguments never really served to separate them.
“Calm down girls,” Duo sighed, “Dinner’s almost done so come inside.”
They both agreed and stepped inside, Jason getting up to follow them.
“Hey, I didn’t say you could eat, Yuy.” Duo said, sounding perfectly serious.
“Ha ha,” Jason said dryly, steeping around Duo and into the house. “So what are we eating?” He wondered.
Duo grinned, “Take-out Chinese, or take-out pizza? Pick your poison.”
They all groaned, “Again?”
After dinner the young family, plus Jason went their separate ways once again.
Duo was about to go out to the back to get some work done when he stopped and looked at Helen and Jason curled up on the couch.
“Jason, you’re sleeping on the couch. And Helen, you’re sleeping in your room.” Duo warned them, “If I catch either of you sleeping anywhere else I’ll…hang you upside down by your toes!”
Helen rolled her eyes, “Yes, dad.”
The instant he left, the phone began to ring.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Carol asked Helen.
“No, it’s your turn.”
“Is not!” Carol cried.
“Is too!”
The phone stopped ringing, they had missed the call.
“Now look what you did!” Carol snapped, “You missed it.” There was a teasing note in her voice.
“Oh well, if it’s important they’ll call back.”
The phone started to ring again. This time, rather then wait for the two Maxwell’s to decide who would get it, Jason got up and picked it up.
“Hello?” He paused, “Oh, hi Noin!”
Both girls froze. Why was Noin calling?
“How’s the baby? Good? That’s great.” He was referring to Noin’s son, Mark. He was born just after the Matatara war had ended.
“You sound really tired,” Jason continued, “Doesn’t Zechs help you?” He stopped again, laughed, and then listened. Suddenly a deep frown slithered across his face. “Really? 1-975? WHAT?! Yeah, I’ll tell Duo.” Another pause, “Well hey! Don’t look at us! We didn’t sign up for that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah I know, I just hate staying in those tiny rooms…Sure I’ll call them. Good luck, Noin.” He hung up and turned to face the two girls, who by now we falling over the back of the couch, trying to get close enough to hear.
Jason looked at them for a long time and then finally smiled. Still, he offered them no information.
“Well…” Carol urged.
“Well what?”
“What did she say?”
“Well,” Jason tapped his chin as he recalled the conversation, “She said that Mark is fine, and that Zechs is a rotten helper when it comes to…”
“After that!” Helen cut him off.
“Oh, after that? After that she said that there was a disturbance at 1-975 and they went into lockdown, but it was probably nothing more to worry about than a communication problem. It’s just a routine thing to alert the Preventors of any problems.”
Helen eyed him suspiciously, “I don’t like this…” she said. “Neither do I,” Jason dropped his carefree façade. “Hopefully we’ll get more information soon so we’ll know exactly what’s going on…I’m gonna go find Duo.”
“Oh Captain! It looks like the colony has gone into lockdown.” A girl sing-songed from her spot at the controls for PC: 1-975.
Her ‘captain’ looked over her shoulder and smiled as rooms on an outline map of the colony systematically turned red, notifying them that they were shut off.
“Wonderful! Aidan…AIDAN!” He looked around for the one called Aidan, who was nowhere in sight. “Dammit! Where did he go? AIDAN! Get over here and start the countdown!”
“Never mind, Kegs, I’ll do it.” The girl sighed. “You know how he is.”
Kegs just grumbled but allowed her to take over Aidan’s assigned job. “Commencing countdown,” She said in a very businesslike voice. “All personnel…” She paused and grinned, “You know what to do! We start at 100 seconds! 99…98…97…96…”
At eighty-four seconds Aidan reappeared.
“Why’d you start without me?” He frowned.
“You left,” The girl shrugged, before resuming the countdown.
“Lizard!” He complained, “That was my job!”
Lizard ignored him and kept counting.
When she was finished, all the lights and power went off for a split second, bathing the entire colony of convicts in complete darkness.
She brought back the vital systems that were needed, keeping the electronic locks and lights off until the very end.
Once it was rebooted, she glanced at the information on the monitor next to her and gave Kegs the thumbs up.
He nodded, “Give them the message then.” He said.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking. Welcome to the good ship Misery, my friends...”
Brittney looked around the darkened prison, trying to figure out what was going on. But before she could form one coherent thought, total chaos erupted.
“Hey! The doors are unlocked!” Someone screamed. After that, thought became impossible.
All Brittney could see all around her were desperate inmates trying to find their way out of the infamous colony. She saw Nikki, behind her, shoving her way out of the cell. Brittney was swept along with the crowd. All of them were swarming in the same direction.
She was pushed out of the halls, out of the building, past the exercise yards and into the guards’ housing area. Still, the entire colony was a prison; she didn’t know why they were all so eager to get out. The likeliness that they would even find a shuttle on this place was slim to none. No shuttles were ever kept on the colony, and if a guard wanted to leave or if an inmate was to be transported, a shuttle was to be ordered. They were still all trapped.
Above her, the artificial sun of the colony had gone out, and it was as dark as night. There were no lights on in the guards’ homes, which gave her the impression that the power throughout the entire colony was out. But the air was still flowing, and a stiff, machine-made wind clawed at her loose clothing.
She heard a low hum, and soon the lights began to switch on. From all around her, a female voice echoed sweetly throughout the penal colony.
“This colony is now under the control of the Eden organization. We’re going to take you on a sweet little trip down the yellow-brick road, so sit back, enjoy the ride and I’ll wake you up when we get there.”
