Prisoner 52 by S.T. Burkholder Read Free Book Online Page A

said and when he did not slammed the rifle's stock home between his shoulder blades and he fell forward into his cell under the exo-strength of the blow.
    "Under the summary punishment for Prisoner 1771, I hereby condemn this cell to two days unpriviledged isolation by order of the Enforcer-Captain Elias Mullins."
    "Shut the door, Girda." Anders said from his customary place.
    "Initiate isolation procedures for Cell 614." He said into the transmitter of his helmet, silent to those without, and there was a loud groan of metal as the blast doors began to seal closed between them and create for two days two worlds.
    "Stand up, Sejanus." Anders said and he did so.
    Sejanus looked between them all and listened to the sounds of their breathing in what had become their self-contained prison. He watched the spastic clenching of Hulk's big burly hands that even in their digits seemed not bereft of his muscle and then found the slow calculating stare of Dibsey as glinting points within the shadows of the corner, settled in turn upon them all. Anders stood and came close enough to again embrace him and Sejanus thought that if he did so, he might kill him. But the Blackblood produced from his belt instead a short, jagged blade - and the Enforcers who were yet outside the cell heard a scream, the first of many.

Day 3: Arrival
                 
    He knew most of them from the wars. It did not matter that he did not know them personally. They all had that look, himself stuck in among them. Cocytus was just another waypoint. Another stop. They had all been to several and found them wanting and so moved on to the next. Hardly hoping for something better, hardly wanting for something more. Birds following the wind patterns that tell them which hemisphere to make for at which certain season. Thus the solar trade lanes and backwater navigations of a thousand freelance pilots had delivered them there to that prison world, to Cocytus - to Hell.
                  "You're all here, then?" The voice of a man said through a subvocal microphone, he that stood far off beyond the field of heads shaggy or shorn but nowhere in between and upon the walkway there. "Good morning, gentlemen."
                  Their silence was their greeting.
                  "My name is Elias Mullins," He went on. "I hold the rank of Enforcer-Captain in the Collegia Vigilant, and I am your commander. It doesn't matter much to me why you're here. I know why you're here. I know why they're here, the prisoners." He then began to pace, his boots echoing against the grated catwalk. "All that matters to me is that this operation remains tidy, clean and efficient. How you keep it that way is subject to a certain set of rules. Most of which you're familiar with. They're in the Enforcer's Codex; they were in your training. You're all enrolled in the Guild. But out here we've had to improvise, and there's a few things you might not be aware of."
                  He turned about to the immense wall behind him and waved a gloved hand at it and the black bulge there that was the holoeye broadcast its display, huge as the dimensions of the auditorium. The great plain of blue bathed them all in its glow as the overhead lights dimmed. Images from inmate processing were the first to appear, materializing large and then sliding away small and into long lines of tiny faces. Muted recordings of intrapopulation violence came next. The Enforcer-Captain turned back round to face them as it began to display attacks on the guards themselves.
                  "We house here the inmates that no other prison world will take or those who the Concilium is too ashamed to kill, the ones who still might have a use. And under no circumstances do we interact with the prisoner after he is escorted to his cell until he is to be released or transferred or summoned." He said and turned to the side and waved his hand at the holodisplay. "These are the