《Work in progress》


 Chapter 1

    A person stands alone at the end of a long narrow alley. The dim yellowed lights by the back doors of the businesses on either side barely shine light on the evidence of the recent carnage the lone figure perpetrated in this isolated place. The disfigured bodies of three men lie in puddles of their own blood and post-mortem expulsions among the trash lining the otherwise blank brick walls.


    The person still has the weapon responsible for the state of the deceased still clenched firmly in it''s gloved hand. A slim blade that was scarcely shorter than a ruler, still dripping with bits of viscera clinging to the wicked teeth of the blade. The weapon''s hilt was dark gray with red lines that may have also been blood stained in a strange artful pattern.


    Clearly this weapon was not used only tonight, the easy manner in which the figure studies their own handiwork would give any uninvolved observer the belief that this was not the first group of people that person murdered. The knee-length coat ruffles as the figure searches its pockets and produces a pristine white handkerchief.


    The person, who''s face is obscured in shadow cast by a ball-cap, meticulously cleans the blade, wiping all the unidentifiable chunks from the serrated edge and polishing the flats to a dull sheen. Having finished maintaining the implement, it was stashed away in a sheath sewn into the inside of the wide left sleeve of the figure''s coat.


    One-by-one, each of the victims were searched. Pockets were rifled through and jewelry was removed. Having collected the wallets and jewelry, each corpse was then pulled to the end of the alley and wrangled into the trash receptacles. The legs of the last victim refused to bend, so the shadowed person pulled out a large cleaver from within their coat.


    The heavy blade descended at a diagonal angle repeatedly, striking deeply into the protruding appendages with each swing. The person stopped most of the way through the corpse''s legs and dropped the chopping instrument to the dirty ground. bits of coagulated blood decorated the surroundings as the person gripped the legs firmly and snapped them off. The legs were then stuffed deep into the trash can with their owner.


    The figure removed the ballcap and wiped down the previously obscured brow with another handkerchief, the pale girlish face appeared sick in the dim yellow lights with its sharp features casting very unattractive shadows across the dingy brick walls. She retrieved the broad cleaver and gave it the same polish job the''d done on her knife before returning it to the pockets in her coat.


    The girl returned the black ballcap to the top of her head and tucked the short hair up under it before stalking away under the cover of perpetual darkness. The girl walked with a with a slight forward hunch that centered her weight on the balls of her feet and on her toes. It was as if she was prepared to bolt at the slightest danger, or more likely charge into it.


    The crunching of her combat boots tromping through the refuse laden streets was only marginally discernible over the chittering of rodents and insects fleeing from her presence. The empty thoroughfares and destroyed store fronts painted the scene of a desolate city as she trekked past them.


    One would think that no sane person would come to this filthy hellhole, and if they didn''t count the girl as sane, they''d be right. The girl continued to patrol her turf until she arrived in an overcrowded sector that glowed in a thousand colors of refurbished neon signs. The pavement of the pockmarked road was significantly cleaner, but the air was still stale and had the aroma of putrescence that seemed to permeate the mostly stagnant air.


    This was one of the many pockets of life in the underbelly of the prison city she had been born in. She was being noticed by some and they would eagerly step out of her path, not out of fear for the blood clinging to her oiled black leather coat, but out of respect for her position in the sector. Some of the more ignorant denizens would snicker at this reaction to the presence of such a small individual, but none would cause trouble here unless they wanted to be cast out and hunted down.


    The girl seems to ignore the throng for the most part, keeping her head low and her eyes darting around in search of drawn weapons. Seeing only the self-appointed peacekeepers as the only readily armed force nearby seemed to encourage the young woman to relax her guard a bit. She rested her palm on the handle of the cleaver which could be seen clipped to her belt rather than in a pocket, now that the lighting had improved.


    She avoided cutting through the crowds gathered around food carts handing out reheated canned goods in slightly clean bowls as she strode through the blaring road to a shop that had the words The Quartermaster written above it on a lime green neon sign. She tapped out three staccato knocks on the metal door with her studded gloves before opening it and entering.


    Knocking was generally not in practice in the dank environment she grew up in, but one of her trainers beat the compulsion to knock into her when she was young. It became a bad habit that nearly got her killed on a few occasions, but she just couldn''t seem to shake it even a year after she''d killed the man.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    A balding middle aged man with a beer gut and an eye patch was sitting behind a counter that was built with a floor to ceiling chain-link fence running through it. There were small rectangular frames built into the fence at counter level for passing packages through it. Though she was the only visitor in the establishment at the moment, she rumpled the back of her coat a bit and sat on one of the old style chairs like one would find in a twentieth century waiting room at a hospital.


    The chair was more than a little uncomfortable as it was held together with duct tape and the back was screwed into a slightly forward leaning upright direction. She might have chosen a better chair if there was one, but most were worse, and this one was nearer to the counter than most.


    She fished the grungy wallets of the men she''d killed earlier from her pockets and flipped through them until she found an identification card. Two of the cards had an image of a pawn chess piece while the third had an image of a rook like the light gray patch sewn onto the back of her coat.


    The I.D. cards had the basic name and date of issuance on them, but were otherwise blank with the exception of the chess piece image. The back of the cards had a black magnetic strip and various information that was of little consequence, things like their reason for incarceration and where they were from.


    "Princess, you''re up." The balding man called out as he shuffled some paperwork into a drawer beneath his side of the counter.


    The girl scowled at being at the way the man addressed her, "I thought I was pretty clear from the get-go that I hate that nick-name." The woman growled through her snarling lips.


    "Whatever Rook, what have you brought for me today? Offed some more pawns did we?" He calls her by rank in a more business-like tone as he reaches for the trio of cards she placed in front of the window.


    The balding man raised his eyebrows as he spotted the rook card first, "You''ve expanded your territory again?" He asked as he swiped the card through an archaic card reader and adjusted her information in the system.


    "Only a bit Quartermaster, I added one more block." The rook answered in a professional manner as the man kept typing.


    He seemed to be noting her new border as he responded with another question. "Any intentions to expand on your crew of one? I have some promising pawns that will at least be able to get the lights in your area up and running."


    The girl seemed to waver as though she were considering the proposal before answering, "Not at this moment Quartermaster, I do all my best work in the dark."


    The man quickly processes the two lower ranked cards and adds a note to the map of territories in the database suggesting avoidance of the girl''s area. "All set, your value has been altered accordingly, the earned credits from your hunt is noted on this receipt."


    The girl reads the receipt and notes her current balance of 10,000 credits. Apparently the target of her earlier hunt was a higher value than she was. Then again, anyone who had actually been outside and commited a crime greater than shoplifting would be higher value than her. Unlike other inmates, those born here were considered valueless targets until they attained the rank of rook, so all her value as a corpse came from her rank and the murders she committed in the turf wars of the city.


    Keeping all this in mind, the girl asked a question only those born in the prison city would ask. "What''s my value at now, by the way?"


    The Quartermaster raised the eyebrow over his eyepatch again as he typed in some commands to get the answer. "Your current value is... 30,000 credits." He said with a wry grimace spreading across his face.


    This was a considerable amount for a native, but a pittance to anyone else. They would only get a tenth of that if they managed to kill her. Your value was only useful for two things, recruiting crew members, and raising your rank. She could recruit thirty people at her current value, but then she would be a valueless target again, which would make hunting that much harder since no one would persue her. Raising her rank would be a much easier task as it was less based on your personal value of the target you killed.


    "I see, thank you for your time." She bid her farewell to the man and turned to leave.


    Upon exiting the building, the rook turned right onto the main strip and dodged crowds again until she reached the run-down inn that she usually frequented on her short stays in the neutral zone. It was a multifloor building that stretched the full ten storeys to the floor of the city layer above hers.


    Like all buildings that reached that high, it was a load-earing support which kept the ceiling from crashing down on her little slice of hell. She was told that there were five such layers and that only a person of king or queen rank could take the ascension trial. These trials were battles that would pit a member of their own against the newcomer in a fight to the death.


    It seemed to be a more deadly affair than the hazing gauntlet held for the bottom floor''s quarterly injection of new prisoners as there was a guaranteed fatality. It was rumored that the higher floors were much nicer, but none of the lowest residents could truly confirm or deny the conjecture. People would always say that the food was nicer, or the air would be cleaner, but nobody ever went aside from the first King. In short, The girl wanted desperately to go up, and see for herself how things could be.


    The girl rang the bell at the desk and paid the attendant for a night and a meal in a room in the top floor of the inn before taking the stairs. She ate her meal, which consisted of some sort of canned pasta that was missing its label, while thinking deeply about what might have to be done in order to advance to the next floor of the city.


    She stripped out of her armor and set her weapons on the table next to her pillow as the rumors and ambitions whirled in her mind. She used a damp rag in a bowl of boiled water to clean herself before laying down on the stiff mattress and drifting off to the sounds of the bustling city far beneath her.

 Chapter 1.5 First-person mode

    I huddled in a corner in the dark alleyway. My recent observations of this area showed that this was a regular meeting point for my intended target to appear with relatively few guards in his retinue. I wrapped my black leather coat around me and plunged my capped head deep into its collar to mimic the appearance of an old trashbag in the garbage scattered along the walls.


    The tenebrous columns of steam that stretched from the sewer grates to the ceiling that hovered above helped mask my presence in the perpetual darkness. I hoped that my target''s patterns would remain consistent as my stakeout seemed to drag on. My stillness encouraged the natural fauna of rats and insects to go about their daily operations, I had purposely arrived hours in advance to allow for this to happen. My ambush would not get tipped off by a small detail such as the lack of inner-city wildlife.


    The wait was about to pay off, a grinding sound signifying that one of the manhole covers was being moved out of my line of sight to my right. I did not try to see who would ascend from the hole, instead trusting that it would be my target and his two flunkies. My investigations over the past month on this area had shown that he would come out every fifth night and pick up a case that was left in this dead end alley before returning to the sewers.


    I heard steps advancing through the new cloud of steam that was billowing out and up from the manhole and I almost shivered in anticipation as the critters skittered away and went silent. This would be my first notable kill since attaining my Rook rank, it wouldn''t advance me to Knight, but it would at least be worth the effort. I gripped the hilt of the hidden blade in my sleeve tightly to calm myself as the two underlings walked past me. They stopped at every door and checked to make sure they were secured so no one could do what I was about to do. They neglected the trash piles in their routine search and I could see them signal back into the cloud of steam out of the corner of my left eye.


    A new set of footsteps approached and confidently swaggered past me. I sprang up behind the passerby and drew a ragged new smile across his pale throat before his guards could even call out. They stood dumbstruck at my attack as I pitched forward and charged them in a crouch. Their weapons were drawn already, each had an old wooden baseball bat with rusty studs driven into it.


    I reached the first one quickly, he was already stabbed in the gut twice before he could ready his weapon for a heavy downward swing. The second guard charged at us, he was already swinging the bat when he arrived, but I ripped my long knife free and rolled backwards as the bat whiffed through the space my head had been in. I halted my roll in a sprinter''s stance and slashed horiontally while launching myself at the thug.


    It was a shallow slice on his forearm, but it must have been a suden pain he wasn''t ready for as he dropped his weapon. The man dove for his bat and aimed a diagonal swing that was meant to break my arm. I hopped backwards in a narrow dodge to avoid being maimed or winded by the blow.


    The man kept the bat between us, aware that if he drew back for a more powerful swing I would end him on short notice. I noticed the tattoo of a rook chess piece on his inner arm and understood that the first one I''d killed hadn''t been my target. I grimaced at my own foolishness for making assumptions. I watched him intently as I debated retreating from the fight to try a different target.


    At this point I remembered that I had a tool to escape situations like this. I pivoted on my toes and ran away, scattering a hand full of caltrops as soon as I passed into the steam. The man was unprepared, but rushed to chase me down without noticing the new obstacle. I ducked to the side in the steam column and listened to his sudden outburst of profanity as he stepped into the patch of caltrops.


    I heard the bat hit the ground and I was sure he was trying to pick out the metal spikes. I had made the mistake of assuming earlier, this time it was his mistake to assume I had run. I quietly crept along the wall, rolling my feet carefully to make sure my steps wouldn''t be heard on the loose trash. The steam had begun to thin out as I reached the edge of the billowing pillar.


    I looked over in the direction he would be in, to my right, and spotted him sitting on the ground trying to pry out the caltrops as carefully as he could. I rushed at the hunched back, slashing and stabbing deeply in my advance. Lines of blood were streaming from the cuts and perforations I was making, forming dark pools on the grime encrusted pavement.


    The fellow rook was bleeding out on short notice, and was dead before he could do anything about it. I stood still and calmed my rapidly beating heart in the center of the mess I had made before going to work collecting their accessories. I verified that their identification cards were in their wallets and collected them, billfold and all, just in case they had some note that would lead me to a greater target later.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    I cleaned my blade with one of the few clean cloths one could get in the prison, they were just handkerchiefs that were brought in as extras with every supply drop the wardens from the outside would send in monthly. This was also where the best food and our few books came from. I always traded for the handkerchiefs, mostly because I liked to use them as a sort of calling card. I would leave the used ones wherever I made a kill as the only marker that I had been there.


    Cleaning up the bodies took some time as the first one had the beginnings of rigor mortis setting in already. I couldn''t get his legs to fit in the trash cans I had chosen to use as storage for the dumped bodies and was forced to use my second favorite tool, a large butcher''s cleaver to hack the body into a manageable length so it would fit in the small can. This forced me to waste a second one of my calling cards, but I would deal with the wasteful annoyance. I left the case behind as it would no doubt be a drug drop, which I don''t want.


    The abandoned streets and alleys flew by as I sprinted through my patrol route. Not having a crew made it easy to determine friends and foes on my turf. If they were there, they were targets. Not that anyone would be there, my negligible value made for fewer active hunts against me. I''ll admit that I didn''t thoroughly scout mey territory. I want to collect the money from my hunt and I have had a long day as it was.


    The bright lights of the neutral hub area came into view as I started to pant from exertion. I slowed once I got into the light and began navigating the unwashed mass of bodies between myself and the shop that would convert my spoils into personal wealth for me. I did my best to ignore the vendors doling out portions of ancient canned food mixed with rat meat as I followed the less crowded sidewalks to the garish green neon sign of the quartermaster''s shop.


    I made it a habit to keep all my weapons except my second favorite hidden because even safe zones had desperate people that might consider my twenty year old body to be worth angering the protectors for. Those that knew about my father wouldn''t dare think of me as an easy mark though. He was ranked King at one point, but since he ascended nobody had heard from him. He could have passed or failed the ascension challenge and either way we wouldn''t know.


    He raised me lovingly until the age of five, before turning me over to his three highest ranking crew mates for harsh training in survival, fighting, and numerous other classes for thirteen years. He ascended when I turned eighteen, leaving me to forge my own path to the top. I knocked as usual before entering and waited to be called as patiently as I could.


    I mulled over all the killings I''d have to do to reach my own ascension test, I have much blood to spill in my quest for the best life I could hope for. I heard the whispered rumors on the streets just like everyone else. The air was cleaner, food was better, or the one that said you could see the sky on the top floor. I really hope that last one is true, I''ve always wondered if the sky was actually blue, or if water really fell from puffy white clouds.


    I would have looked for the sky outside during the welcoming ceremony for new inmates, but I was always told that soldiers with guns would shoot if we went out. I''d never seen a gun, but the stories made them out to be the stuff of nightmares. My reverie was interrupted by the Quartermaster who had the nerve to use the nickname only my father had ever been allowed to use and live. Princess, it was a standing joke to call me that out of earshot, but those who dared say it to my face knew not to ever leave the neutral territory if they wanted to continue drawing breath. I made a mental note to keep tabs on the man in case he ever left as I threatened him so he would be aware of it being a grave mistake.


    The Quartermaster seemed to atone by taking the other extreme and refused to be informal with me at all, calling me by rank instead of name while avoiding eye contact. I often wondered how hard it could be just to call me Ashley, but I never press the issue so long as they accept that I am a deadly force all on my own. After all, who needs friends when you can only trust yourself in prison?


    I got my points and had to turn down the offer for a recruit again, The lights would be nice, but the cost is just too much. I can''t afford to become completely worthless as a target or hunting will become just that much more difficult, as it is I have to start leaving my turf or expanding it just to bag a couple more cheap heads. I may even consider abandoning my old turf altogether if I want to become a knight. If I can get the 50,000 credit value I need to rank up I''ll finally be able to let the hunters come to me so I can trap them and advance faster.


    I make my way out of the building and head to my favorite hotel, the place is run down like the others, but this one is my favorite for the canned pasta and the room right below my first ascension floor. The stairs are a bitch to climb, but they are a reminder of my goal every time I come here. I can''t wait to go up and see if my dad made it big or not.


    Dinner was over all too quickly, even though I tried my best to savor it. I put the old adult magazines on the nightstand out of sight by covering them with my coat and went to bed with my cleaver nearby even though the room was fairly secure. Tomorrow I would begin my attack on a new sector, this was my last coherent thought as I allowed my mind to drift off for the first time in almost twenty-four hours

 Chapter -3

    I was strapped to a chair in my orange jumpsuit in the middle of a packed courtroom. My aging parents were consoling each other as my former friends and the neighbors looked down on me with scornful glares. I was more than a little sad that they had shown up at all. I had what amounted to a muzzle over my mouth, preventing me from even speaking in my own defense, not that I planned to. The court appointed defender was a worthless sod that managed to be hungover or still drunk every time I saw him. If being sent to the cube hadn''t been the plan I would have been terribly upset.


    Sure, I had done a couple things which surely would land me in Cubit Penal Colony, but I was understandably being charged with many more crimes. My actual crimes, I cut the brake lines on a high ranking official''s SUV, causing his entire family to die in an accident. Secondly, I conspired with a known terrorist organization which tasked me with said sabotage.


    The reason was simple; mom, who was now sobbing uncontrollably into my fathers shoulder, was very ill and needed an expensive surgery to keep on living. I was told that a fall man would be supplied in the form of a corpse with a confession note, provided I didn''t rat them out. The organization held up its end of the deal, mom got the surgery and was recovering quickly. I completed their task and tried to go on as if nothing had happened.


    When I got the news regarding the accident the following day, I broke down and confessed to my father in tears. I didn''t feel any particular guilt associated with the man who was the intended target, but the kids... I couldn''t hold it in when I heard that my actions resulted in the deaths of three innocents, one not even able to talk yet. I confessed everything to my father, who said nothing at all to me ever since that morning.


    Three years had passed since the morning I fell into a deep dpression, turning to alcohol and when that no longer helped, forming a drug addiction to try and cope with my sorrow. I was numb to the world around me until the black and white van arrived to pick me up from the den of addicts and filth I''d run away to. I was there in that small windowless room, the holes in my arms were still raw from my last dose as a fellow sufferer snorted up a line of powder off a scratched glass table in front of the couch which was absorbing my body.


    Everything was muted and in slow motion, as if I were watching someone else''s memories over a severe time lag. The door silently splintered and swung open to allow the men in riot gear to step over the threshold. Their smooth movements made them appear as ghosts to my intoxicated mind. The other guy, whose name I still can''t recall struggled slowly and quietly with the ethereal invaders, he pulled out a straight razor and was shot several times in the chest and face. A bouquet of crimson flowers bloomed from his body and wilted as he did.


    I felt my mouth open agonizingly slowly and I was sure I was emitting a high-pitched scream of hysteria, but I heard none of it myself. The tranquilizer coursing through my veins prevented me from taking any other action as I had my hands restrained and was carted off towards the back of a car that had presumably arrived after the van''s occupants cleared out my hideaway.I struggled feebly against the officer who was trying to push me into the car, but my vain attempt to remain free ended when a dull thud resounded from the back of my head and robbed me of my consciousness.


    There were thirty other prisoners awaiting trial in the detention center when I arrived. My clothes were taken and I went through a delousing treatment as well as a quick detox program which consisted of only being injected with some substance that would sober up a god dedicated to drug use while being preached to about the evils of substance abuse. I was sprayed down with a hose afterwards and handed the orange fatigues that would become my wardrobe for the forseeable future.


    My whole body ached, The detox program did nothing for the cravings as my body cried out for any chemical compound that would make the pain go away. I shook as I dressed, I shook as I ate, the cramps were unbearable and I just wanted to die. If anything was worse than the cold turkey program, I couldn''t name it. Maybe the fact that I was beginning to remember everything I''d done served as a form of mental torture to accompany the crippling pain I was going through.


    Things eventually got better, I got better. I adapted to my sterile new environment, made a few friends with the other convicts during the mandatory group therapy sessions. Some of these guys would be returned to society, most of us wouldn''t. I kept quiet at first, kept my head down and listened to the older resident''s sob stories. The things I heard plucked at my heartstrings and sometimes I would leave the session with barely contained tears.


    We received visitors or mail every now and then, mostly from lawyers asking if we wanted a representative. I couldn''t afford it though, and the one visit I''d gotten from my mother was full of questions I wasn''t comfortable answering. I couldn''t ask her for help, not with dad silently staring me down behind her. I took my time during the visit to tell them I missed them and memorize their faces. I doubted I''d see them at the trial, at least I hoped they wouldn''t be there.


    My new friends kept me company during our shared stay in lock up. We trained our boies until they hurt, lifting weights, hitting the punching bag, trading stories of happier times before we found ourselves in hell. My friends and I knew where we were going after our trials, and being stronger and tougher would only improve our chances of survival in the cube once we arrived. One of us was a trained fighter, he made sure to drill us well in hand to hand combat, though he said it was pretty useless in a free-for-all.


    We four conspired to confess our crimes together once we were ready. Frank, the biggest of us, went first. He was born into a low income family and turned to robbery early in life, he killed a couple in a robbery attempt and turned out just like me. I was almost shocked by the similarity of our stories. Bug, the smallest of us was a hacker with a speed addiction, he confessed to robbing four banks just to test himself, no guilt at all. Kim, our third mate, was caught participating in an underground fighting ring, he was a mixed martial arts practicioner with a steroid issue. He was ratted out by an anonymous tip in connection with a string of murders resulting from the illegal gambling. The slightly short Asian man seemed upset, but admitted that he had probably killed at least two of them in one of his rage fits. I went last, I told the story and the result. I realized that it no longer hurt as it had before, but I did still regret the fact that I caused it.


    The therapist silently made notes, seemingly unfazed by the fact that our first time sharing had been something so important. Everyone else just sat there and stared at us like we were aliens, trying to dissect what we were thinking with their eyes. We looked at each other and nodded, knowing that at least we''d be out of here soon. Not anticipating the courtroom dramas that we''d each face all alone.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    A few of the other detainees confessed to their own personal crimes after hearing ours, other than that the session went as usual. We were met at our shared cell by a warden asking if we''d be willing to sign a written copy of the confession we''d each given. We quickly agreed thinking it might help streamline our way out of here and into the cube, anywhere was better than here. We''d rather be free in Hell than prisoners on Earth. The warden discretely passed me a note as he left.


    Not willing to keep a secret from my new friends, I told them about the note and we read it together.


    Edward Williams,


    We of the Organization for World Liberty are pleased to make you an offer since you have resolved yourself to be removed from society voluntarily. Should you accept, we would be willing to provide you with a few supplies for survival in Cubit Penal Colony in exchange for your confession to a few of our other clandestine activities. Think it over, you''ll have a week to do so anyway.


    We discussed the contents of the letter amongst ourselves and made it a majority vote for whether we accept the deal or not. It turns out that we were all on board for conspiring with the terrorists. I''d already worked with them before and knew that they would hold up their end of the bargain, besides, most people they recruit or hire out would turn themselves in eventually. I had seen the televised trials and seen multiple people be tried for the same crime years apart before. I just became a textbook example. Besides, who wouldn''t want some survival insurance in hell?


    I was contacte by the warden the following morning during a random cell inspection, I informed him that we would all be in if they were able to participate. The guard smiled at my response and provided forms for us to fill out and supply confessions to our respective acts of terrorism. He tol us our renumeration would be provided when we departed for the cube and left us.


    We kept up our physical training regime while we awaited our trials. Frank and Kim were escorted away on the same day, their judgements were so quickly decided that they were little more than a footnote during a news report. There was more investigation done on Bug, his crimes were harder to trace and verify, but eventually he was taken away and sentenced. I had a whole week to wait by myself since it seems the number of crimes I was being associated with were growing every time a new piece of evidence turned up.


    In the end, I had to have a full-fledged hearing to put me away because there wasn''t enough solid evidence to link me to all the crime scenes. It didn''t help that my confession only linked me to the activities I was made aware of. So after almost a month, the three ring circus called my trial came to an end as I described. Strapped to a chair, gagged in an orange jumpsuit for all my old friends and family to look upon with scorn. The gavel finally fell and I was carted off to a bus that would take me to the staging area where my new friends would hopefully be waiting.


    The trip to the staging area took another whole week, I had no clue how far it was from my small suburban hometown. We stopped for breaks every six hours to stretch, but I felt like I was wasting away after going so long without exercising. The meals also sucked more than usual, they were MRE''s that honestly held true to the old monikers The veterans jokingly called them. I was about to lose my mind out of boredom when the bus finally reached its destination.


    I was escorted from the bus to a small vault with a bag in it. The bag had normal clothes for the most part, but there were other things of interest in it as well. There was a long combat knife in a leather sheath, a dark knee length coat, combat boots with a spare set of laces, and a small package of bathroom supplies. I got changed and neatly folded the orange jumpsuit before packing it in the bag. I shouldered the bag and sat against the wall until it was time to move out. I had to adjust the knife sheath in order to sit comfortably, but otherwise it was a boring wait.


    Without warning, a grinding noise emanated from the wall opposite the one I entered from and it swung outward to reveal a wide courtyard with a uniform lawn growing just beyond the reach of the door. I stepped out into the sunlight and glanced at the occupants of the other vaults doing the same. Some were dressed as I was, with sections of pipe in their hands, or a length of chain wrapping their arms as weaponry. I saw Frank and Kim exiting from the same vault and moved to join them. Frank was still in the gaudy orange jumpsuit, but his hands were covered in leather gauntlets with studs peaking over his knuckles. Kim was gripping a pair of tonfa and wearing a very well fitting martial arts uniform.


    I greeted the two cordially and was about to compare gear with them when Bug sped up to us, he was clearly hiding what his weapon was and trying to keep a low profile. We compared gear and were shocked to see Bug''s armament, it was an air-compressed dart pistol that had a self-charging feature. Truly something to keep secret, nobody else had a ranged weapon, so we weren''t likely to give them the opportunity to find out our group had one.


    Our gear comparison was cut short by the crackling of a loudspeaker coming to life high on the wall over our former containment vaults. The doors slammed shut and the voice of a woman who seemed used to issuing commands echoed off the walls as she gave basic instruction over the intercom. "Inmates, welcome to Cubit Penal Colony, I am Chief Warden Isabelle Platt. In ten minutes the gates in the center of the facility will open, you will have one hour to get your asses through them or be shot. Any attempt to avoid going in will be treated as an escape attempt and dealt with as per our zero tolerance policy. The conditions within the cube are unknown to us who guar it, but you were given the bare minimums to survive. The Unified Earth Government will not be held accountable for your life as you chose to break our laws. Good day"


    The woman''s voice cut off as suddenly as it had arrived and the large gates on the fifty-five storey block wall slid apart on aging rails. We streamed in as though the portal was a hole in a dam. High chain link fences greeted us on the left and right, funneling us new arrivals forward into the dark unknown. People in rags stood on the short buildings that barely overlooked us and threw rotting trash and unmentionable filth down on us. Gaps in the fence were filled by the bodies of the locals, who took turns throwing punches at us while we navigated the gauntlet.


    The lead row started fighting back as we stumbled forward in the gloomy cesspool that the cube was, They were savagely beaten by the locals who had only been toying with them before. I took that to mean that so long as we didn''t attempt to fight back, we would be welcomed, I shouted this to the others around me over the din of insults and combat. Most of my fellows looked at me like I was a madman, trusting these wretches not to kill us just for being here was an asinine plan. Some followed my words and made it through fairly unscathed, dirty, but unhurt.


    The snarling locals eventually stopped pelting us with rubbish and shit and walked alongside us to a large square that was as bright as the outside had been. The neon lights and loud crowds reminding us of visits to large urban areas back when we were younger. We were each standing still and gawking at the sights of our dank new home when a well-dressed man with an armband approached our tightly packed flock. I somehow found myself in front and got a good look at the man who was greeting us. He was extremely thin and wiry, with dingy blonde hair that was buzzed very short. The armband had a picture of a chess-piece embroidered onto it, the black king.


    "Welcome to the neutral zone!" He announced in a loud clear, almost harmonious voice, so all could hear. The locals gave applause and went around greeting us and introducing themselves. The King himself shook my hand and took my small group aside to explain the self imposed rules of our new home. I felt like I would love it here if it were cleaner, but this was home now, no complaints allowed.