Ultimum Carceron

Ultimum Carceron 1

The guards motivated the newest inmates to step from the open elevator onto the concrete platform of the new floor, avoiding the hazardous foot-wide gap between them. The inmates rapidly filled the space between the wall and the now shut elevator doors, with Theo doing his best to both avoid being squished by the others around him and to purposely observe what the infamous prison looked like. To the left of where they were standing was a tall and long hallway, flat and rectangular, with the floor's white tile bridging through the hallway's center; on either side of the floor's white tile were what looked like gray glass frames. As the prisoner group shifted in place and Theo was pushed to the edge of the re-positioned mass of bodies, he could see that the glass frames were actually roofs to small cells that descended below ground level.

Rectangular stripes of white light flowed from the flat ceiling above them. Luminous rays of varying lightness and thickness were cast against the wall; the rest was faint shadow.

There were both hallways to his left and his right, but he could only see down the former—the one he was closest to. For maybe half a thousand feet, the hallway continued until it inclined up and out of sight.

The place was not silent. Voices traveled and echoed from all directions, including the cells and the hallways. To Theo's surprise, there were actual prisoners roaming around unrestrained; he could see two of them wearing normal, stained coats, leaning against a wall while standing on a cell. They were watching the newcomers. Most of the prisoners he could see in the hallway were silent; the current noise must be coming from somewhere deeper in the prison.

Theo knew the conventional stereotype for a prison, and this was not it. Weren't these people supposed to be in uniforms? Be entirely confined? Monitored, even? From the description he heard back at the Europa Colony, calling this place a supermax prison should have been an understatement.

Eventually, the prisoners were ordered to move through the hallway on the left. As Theo moved along with them, he looked down at the cells. Some had people, others didn't; the ones that were in cells didn't do anything, just sat on their beds. On each side of the hallway, there must have been a few dozen cells from there to their destination. They reached the incline, which wasn't stairs but instead a slanted floor. At the top, as Theo looked back, it was like he was on top of a triangular hill. The prisoners in front of him began moving, and so did he.

They had now perpendicularly entered a new hallway, thinner than the last but roughly the same height. On each side were three railings of different distances from the ground, either protruding from the wall or contracting within it.

To their right was another declining slope that they were forced down. This one wasn't as deep as before. Double doors at the end of the slope were opened by two guards. Theo and the convicts were put through the opening into what looked like a break-room. The guards herded them into a denser group, still standing. They were told to face forward.

"The rules will be explained by our warden, Keung Song-Xu," a guard said.

A telescreen opened up almost magically on the wall in front of them. It lit up as a white screen for a few seconds before the image came through. What Theo saw was one of the strangest looking men he ever saw. The warden, Song-Xu, was sitting in what looked like a wheelchair (the camera showed him from the waist up). His skin was pale, although he looked Asian, but that was Song-Xu's most normal quality. He was terribly wrinkled and bald, like a skeleton. He was wearing round, black glasses that hid his eyes entirely. Instead of eyebrows, there were stitches with very small beads outlining imaginary eyebrows.

Two transparent cords were attached to his nostrils. Each of his ears had a visible hearing aid in them. It took a few moments for Theo to realize that Song-Xu's mouth, which was open for many seconds, was perpetually open.