The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 01: The Hole

They had names for it.

Slam City. Incarnate. The Hellevator. The Pit.

The moniker they scrawled across official documents read Carmack Correctional Institute.

That one was particularly galling for a reason Eric could never properly articulate. Maybe it was because it was a lie, but what wasn't nowadays? Maybe it was because they were just so damn blatant about it. They didn't even have the decency to admit that it was a prison, and had the nerve to proudly proclaim that they did anything even resembling 'correction' within its bleak, titanium, micrometeorite-scarred walls. But it was something deeper than that, and he could never give it voice.

For a time he'd stuck to calling it the Black Hole.

But eventually, and especially now, that simply shortened to The Hole.

It was where they sent you to die if you pissed off the government enough. Any government, really. He knew for a fact that it was built, run, and powered entirely by the Union Aerospace Corporation, lashed to a ball of rock some eighty miles in diameter, hurting through the vast gulf of space between Mars and Jupiter.

If nowhere was a place, it would be The Hole.

Eric imagined that in older times, perhaps even fifty years ago, the place would be a blacksite, not officially recognized by any government, corporation, or law. But the UAC didn't even have to hide their most egregious of sins anymore. They could commit them more or less in public. So long as they pulled the curtain first.

He'd heard about it for years. First as rumors whispered in shadowy corners, then as something a bit more solid as the years wore on, and finally as a not-so-gentle threat as the UAC gained more and more popularity. It was the place they sent the Marines that went really bad, the military personnel who really fucked up.

And Eric Crowe, well...he hadn't fucked up.

But the nine dead men would've said otherwise.

Were they still alive.

And now here he was. At the end of a series of shuttle rides and long, boring waits in cold cells with poor lighting and far too many hours spent in several courtrooms with MPs everywhere. When they had finally caught him, Eric had almost run. Almost. But where did he have to go? If he'd had anything even remotely resembling a life, maybe he would have. Certainly he had enough skills and talent and experience to slip away and disappear into the boiling, seething mass of cancerous life society was today.

Except he knew that wasn't true. He knew he wasn't going to run. He knew from the moment they woke him up with three gun barrels and slapped the cuffs on him in the middle of the night that he wasn't even going to deny it. It should have been an open and shut case, and, in truth, it was. They just wanted to parade him around in front of the cameras, because he was exactly the kind of criminal they so desperately sought nowadays.

A mad dog killer who wasn't crazy enough to be declared insane and who wasn't sorry for what he had done.

Of course, if he'd been able to get a word in edgewise, he would've been their worst nightmare, and that was exactly why, as soon as they were done with all the bullshit, they'd up-shipped him straight to hell.

Straight to The Hole.

The Lieutenant who had helped escort him to this very shuttle that he now was locked into had, just before boarding, given him an evil grin and told him he was never going to see real daylight again. That was about the time he'd learned that sadistic killer Eric Crowe was not as contained as they'd like him to be.