The Department of Corrections, Book One

Level NegSix - Virology. Sector A. Secondary Elevator A. Level 66. Walkway A. Dissection Cell A.

Malyj—the arch-traitor, the uncured, the uncorrectable—awoke inside of a dim, waterlogged concrete tomb, awoke inside of DissCell A. Not E30541. Not radicalized. Not Karpianized. Still Sasha Malyj. Still an Individual. Still an Orthodox Christian.

To be a Christian today, is to be the ultimate individual against the godless collective.

He was lying naked, flat on his back, staring up at the algae-green concrete ceiling from a cold stainless-steel autopsy table. Bruised raven-black and Byzantine-purple, and bloodied Templar-cross-red, by effeminate Dr. Burgess’ angry fistsnjackboots. He looked lifeless, like death by viral hemorrhagic fever; he looked like a martyr, like he had been an unjust crucifixion pulled down from some terrible, high-tech, electromagnetic stainless-steel cross: pulled down from his terrible stainless-steel chimera.

Alone. His fistnjackboot-battered skull ached. Cold. He was suffering from out-of-control, head-to-toe, shivering gooseflesh. Humiliated. He had urinated and defecated on himself: the tactility—unbearable; the stench—suffocating. Trippin’ out. The dark shadows were birthing humanoid forms like hallucinations gesticulating frenetically.

He wasn’t strapped down, but stuck in place by hypodermic-needle-injected narcotics. His bones drugged, their marrow as heavy as lodestone; he was unable to move, like a magnet stuck to steel. He was fighting the narcotics, slowly trying to resurrect himself—physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Another stainless-steel autopsy table paralleled Malyj’s cold metallic slab. The horrific, white-metal (Cr-24-plated, aka Chromium-plated) Karpian tools of dissection were arranged neatly across its long, dull-silver, lacerated, sterile surgical surface. One of the lockable, indestructible glass display cases now wide open, empty of all of its exaggerated tools of dissection. The empty Equality specimen jars still shelved, patiently awaiting E30541s recycled organs.

So thirsty. His lips and tongue and throat were dry, cracked, and bleeding. Altered. His numb mind chemically castrated, a puzzle, a machine, missing integral pieces and parts. Pain. Everything torn down its middle; his cerebral hemispheres divided like the Veil of the Temple. Confused. His thoughts all over the place—like they were doing military calisthenics, or engaged in hand-to-hand combat—inside of his hyperbaric-chamber-like head. Everything a mystery. The time, the day, and the date long ago lost in all of the chaos. Starving. Craving an Italian hoagie, or a Philly cheesesteak, or a gyro, or a slice of pizza, or a soft pretzel. One tiny, very stale crouton. Anyfuckin’thing! So thin. His rib cage too visible, each rib like a curving iron bar imprisoning his stomach’s growling emptiness. Yearning. Visions of Sylvia Black’s plump lips dripping with thick kisses as sweet as apricot nectar . . .

A light, a blinding-bright spotlight, suddenly shone down into his stinging, swollen, fist-blackened eyes—vaporizing the frenetically gesticulating humanoid shadows that had surrounded him, had mocked him—its painful, quicksilvery haloes reechoing into his battered mind’s infinity. Chromium and glass reflections undulated wildly: the salty, sweating, waterlogged concrete block DissCell an illusion’s vessel, filled with light like turbulent waves of silvery, mercurial, narcotized water. The blood-splattered stainless-steel wheelchair now empty—parts twinkling like the starry heavens—now parked in the rear-left corner of the DissCell, to the left of the rear wall’s watchful trick mirror.

His fistnjackboot-battered and injection-drugged and StimCor-zapped brain havocked, shrugging and fidgeting and squirming like some TPlant01-electrified toad unable to relax, unable to let its guard down. His altered mind slipping in-between conscious, semiconscious, and unconscious mental states—like his rusted mechanical head was full of stripped gears. His reality, actions, speech, thoughts, memories, dreams, and drugged imaginings (hallucinations)—all separate, all one, mercilessly flogging him.

A baby lizard, resembling a miniature alligator, crawled across DissCell A’s damp concrete block wall, left to right, crawled across a horizontal row of white vertical scratches in grayish lead paint. Each vertical scratch a day, the days scratched into years, the years scratched into decades, until the full-grown lizard the size of an adult alligator fell to the cold concrete floor, dead—abruptly! it was horrifically dissected—then it morphed into E30541, into Malyj, into himself, into everyone he loved, into the surface world, into dust . . .

Fleshy thoughts bloomed inside of Malyj’s battered and drugged and zapped head like a lizard’s colorful throat fan repeatedly expanding into a thought bubble: Time another enemy! I must find Sylvia Black! I must escape to the surface world!—to freedom! I must warn the surface world!—before it’s too late!

The metallic cell door clanked! then rolled open like a rectangular, graffiti-covered tombstone—causing a swollen mass of palmetto bugs to dissipate, then swirl down the floor drain like a fading shadow. PsychIntTec Dnarnya entered pushing a MedCart, followed closely by Corrections Officer Ivanov who was pushing the Slavonic-languages-uploaded/upgraded TPlant01.

“Stop it, Nedgob!” Dnarnya screamed, infuriated at his sexual advances, the veins in her neck like four-ply, knotted, wool prayer ropes; he was always pinching the hottie’s irresistible rump, sexually harassing her, whenever Dr. Burgess was absent.

“You know you like it, Anna,” said giant Ivanov, pressing up against her tiny, repulsed body.

“Back off!” Dnarnya screeched, then furiously positioned the stainless-steel MedCart alongside E30541s stainless-steel autopsy table; she angrily setup an assortment of large, long-needled hypodermic syringes and small, rubber-plugged, clear-glass vials containing clear liquid narcotics. Ivanov parked TPlant01; still gawking at her plump behind; still spewing innuendoes. He pressed up against her tiny, repulsed body—again.

“Stop it!” Dnarnya stabbed a long needle through the black rubber plug of a clear vial.

Please, O Most Holy Trinity!—let this be a bad dream, Malyj prayed, calling upon his secret strength of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Terrified. He was unable to move any body part. Memories. Thoughts of his family, of his former life, before he lost everything to his weaknesses—alcohol and drug addiction, and HIV-1 infection—guilt-trippin’ his shrunken head. Disoriented. He couldn’t tell if his thoughts were echoing within his bony cranium, or, if he was speaking aloud and his rhymeless words were echoing within the cold, waterlogged concrete tomb. Drugged. He was in-and-out of consciousness; his tormentors’ shadowy silhouettes were dancing like evil spirits behind the blurry veil of reality.

“For the last time, stop it!” Dnarnya screamed again—panicking!—dropping the hypodermic syringe stabbed glass vial. Her trembling hands groping her Karpian utility belt, searching for the pepper spray canister. But, before she could spray Ivanov’s disfigured face, to get him away from her, he dropped his long steel rod onto the hard concrete floor (a vibrating metallic din of overlapping sound waves now resonating within the acoustical DissCell) and violently attacked her like a rabid dog devouring a fallen table scrap.

Dnarnya’s blood-curdling scream for “Help!” now filled the DissCell. Giant Ivanov was tearing the uniform from her flaming-hot body like it was burning tissue paper in an act of sexual aggression. Unbeknownst to obtuse Ivanov, the woman he so desired, the woman he was violating, was a hard-core lesbian.

Malyj could hear Ivanov raping Dnarnya somewhere below him, hear her outraged screams turning into hysterical sobs. He could smell her menstruating vagina. She was on her back, on the hard, sandpaper-like concrete floor, pinned under a three-hundred-plus-pound giant. Ivanov’s fingerprint-smudged monocle hanging by its gold-plated chain, dangling inches above her tear-stained face, suddenly swaying back and forth. Dnarnya almost vomited: she could see his dusty gray skin; she could smell his musty breath, something like hot, reeking, three-weeks-old, rotten sauerkraut; she could smell his sweaty black leather; she could feel the violent giant penetrating her, hurting her, tearing her, hammering her bloody tampon deep inside of her.

Abruptly, blood-curdling screams from Dnarnya, like a terrified warhorse neighing in battle: “VIL-EN! . . . Help!” She twisted and arched and kicked and bit and . . .

Fuck this place, Malyj’s thoughts transforming; his body struggling to move through burning pins and needles that felt like billions of random injections. His every muscle numb, drugged asleep. His mind and body seemed disconnected. His fingers were the first to respond, moving slightly, tingling, burning like painful frostbite. His vertiginous head slowly rolled left, then slowly rolled right, across a stiff neck: his dire surroundings whorled out of control, chromium and glass streaks blurred like quicksilver afire. His fleshy toothpicks of bone, his arms and legs, moving almost imperceptibly, then bending excruciatingly slow—like time had become too thick for him to pass through.

Now propped up on his left elbow, the pain, the stress, too much to bear. Thinking he would lose consciousness. He was sweating profusely. Unknowingly holding his breath. Almost going into shock. His cold, fluttering heart hurt—a constant, dull-hollow, stabbing pain. Malyj’s old chest muscle struggling to beat under the indescribable physical strain of his every slow movement.

Ivanov was distracted raping Dnarnya as Malyj let his numb legs fall over the edge of the raised autopsy table, twisting awkwardly, he tumbled over after them, crashing onto the hard concrete floor below. Naked, face down, unmoving as road kill, repressed memories bled from his mind like a drugged and hypno-programmed Manchurian Candidate’s CIA-LSD flashbacks:

Dr. Burgess loomed over Malyj, fading in-and-out of focus; pale, jagged fists like raw knucklebones, as hard as brass knuckles, barraged E30541s bruised, indigo-colored face; the Doctor’s long black shadow flailing behind him, violently trying to keep up with the actual beating.

“. . . unlike Orwell’s novel 1984, the novel you were reading when ‘We’ impounded you, there will be zero signs to remind, to warn, the mindlessth (lisping) surface massesth (lisping) that Big Brother Karp is watching, waiting—zero signs reminding, warning, the mindlessth surface massesth to not break some unjust, fineable law—to inform the mindlessth surface massesth would not be profitable for the Karpian State. But, to catch the mindlessth surface massesth breaking some unjust, fineable law—completely unwarned, completely unawares—that would be profitable for the Karpian State. Hidden Karpian technologies and obscure Karpian laws have reduced mankind to a mindlessth herd of profitable animals, to a . . .”

“Down with Big Brother Karp!” Malyj interrupted. Beaten down and techno tortured and doped up—slumped over in the stainless-steel wheelchair—he fell to the hard concrete floor, sick and weak from the physical torture and technological torture and deliberate, repetitive, various drug overdose, drug addiction, and drug withdrawal.

“Unregulated ideas are more dangerous, more destructive, than exploding bombs,” said the irate Doctor. “The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, and his manifesto—Industrial Society and Its Future, come to mind.”

A steel-toed jackboot kicked E30541 in the side of his head, in his right temple; for a painful moment total black, then silvery stars like satellites ablaze were orbiting his blind nucleus. Again, effeminate Dr. Burgess was looming over Malyj—again, he was fading in-and-out of focus—only this time he was adjusting his silver, wire-rimmed, antique spectacles. Nothingness in his eyes. The godless “intellectual” now circling above Malyj like a turkey vulture, death masquerading as a man with a soul, too blind to comprehend he was less than some ugly, vacuous animal.

Another injection . . . his epileptic thoughts twisting into hallucinogenic poetry.

“. . . exploiting technology to destroy the family unit, to destroy the structure of society, to create cultural and spiritual warfare among the mindlessth surface massesth, to cause the collapse of civilization, to remove all opposition, to make room for the subterranean Karpian State above. Also, Jesus Christ must be denounced, Christianity must be banned, radical Islam tolerated, and homosexuality must be legalized, protected, promoted, encouraged, and made the norm. The marriage of politicians (greed) and homosexuals (lust), two sides of one coin (the gay dollar), one heads (top) and one tails (bottom)—both forcing the Christian into extinction . . .”

“You’re a sick f—oof!”

A steel-toed jackboot kicked E30541 in his meatless ribs, kicked the air from his bruised lungs; Malyj was unable to breathe, now gasping and writhing on the cold concrete floor like a fish out of water trying to catch its evasive breath.

Another injection . . . reality warping, distorting, slowly pulled out of shape.

“. . . the surface media devaluing human life . . . reverse conversion media therapy, heterosexual to homosexual . . . the Internet the CIA’s latest psychological warfare tool . . . manufactured fear replacing science and reason, replacing common sense . . . to keep the mindlessth surface massesth emotional, not rational . . . suppression of information . . . keep everyone ignorant, because knowledge is power . . . zero freedom of thought . . . always tack on an additional and vague ‘Resisting/Obstructing Without Violence’ charge . . . for your protection . . . internet slang reducing, replacing the English language . . . keep the mindlessth surface massesth politically illiterate . . . Americanism . . . just typical American idiots for the world to emulate . . . Karpian culture a secret weapon . . . Karpian globalization . . . everyone must be converted . . . one’s Utopian fantasy equals another’s anti-utopian/dystopian reality . . . individuals threatened, silenced, punished, and liquidated for defying the collective State . . . diseased minds need to be cured . . . everyone must be ‘corrected’ . . . policing for profit . . . ‘correction’ equals conformity . . . conformity equals profit . . . profit equals Karpism . . .”

Another violent beating . . . unable to remember the pain . . . the Doctor’s spectacled eyes black, compound, alien—the cold, dead eyes of an insect studying its terrified prey.

“. . . if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear . . .”

Another injection . . . exiled from reality . . . his naked body a bruise floating in an infinite turquoise sky . . . perspective all out of proportion.

Time passing in black clouds of drugged consciousness filled with brainwashing lecture raining down upon him; time measured by punches (seconds), kicks (minutes), injections (hours), interminable omnifarious speeches (days/months/years/lifetimes?).

“. . . the old America hijacked by the new America, and no one noticed . . . behavioral economics . . . behavioral finance . . . brainwashed to buy buy buy, the bullshit and the shoddy product . . . nothing designed or built to last today, that would not be profitable . . . comfortable wage slaves to the for-profit system . . . keep everyone happy living paycheck to paycheck, performing the mindlessth labor of an animal . . . profitable citizens equal a profitable Corporate State . . . we will tax the very air you breathe . . . everything is connected by Karpian economics . . . living in poverty now a crime against the economy, a crime against for-profit corporations, a crime against the State . . . zero economic freedom . . . microchipped pets secretly monitoring their humans . . . technology turning everything into eyes and ears, into State spies . . . Big Data data mining and data brokering every citizen for the greedy State, corporations, insurance companies, hospitals, and private sector—very profitable . . . all Christian sermons held in any American church, before delivered, will be censored—if the church hasn’t already been banned, by the fabulously-uniformed LGBT officers within the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Homosexual Discrimination DANCE (Degrade And Negate Christianity Everywhere) Unit . . . Christians added to the APA’s latest DSM, homosexuals removed from it . . . too bad the mindlessth surface massesth remain unaware of the power they could wield over their oppressive government . . . citizens brainwashed like susceptible elephants tied to psychological ropes . . . too fearful to act up, too conditioned to break free from their imaginary ropes, too ignorant to restore control . . .”

“‘Give me liberty . . . or give me death,’” Malyj interrupted, struggling to think.

Another injection . . . maybe more . . . time accelerated . . . Dr. Burgess’ insane monologue spinning out of control . . . breaking up into disjointed words.

“. . . malcontents . . . demagogues . . . dispossessed . . . plutocrats . . . discontents . . . technocracy . . . disaffected . . . penological . . . insurrectionists . . . demonstrations . . . massacres . . . conscientious . . . nefarious . . . disillusioned . . . vulgarian . . . peace . . . salvation . . . theocracy . . . crusader . . . romantic . . . paragon . . . proselytizing . . . stratagem . . . diabolic . . . snatching . . . extracting . . . inciting . . . paranoiac . . . cyanide . . . guillotine . . . catacombs . . . skulls . . . pyres . . . befogged . . . condemn . . . clusterfuck . . . disturbing . . . complicity . . . tuberculosis . . . sanatoriums . . . insane . . . asylums . . . social . . . system . . . social . . . injustice . . . now . . . the . . . norm . . . (words rejoining; suddenly louder) basic human rights violations . . . zero due process . . . zero reformed laws . . . zero government accountability . . . every citizen a victim of applied profit . . . probation wrongly violated . . . unjustly impounded . . . cured or . . . recycled into Impkib . . . protein is protein . . . only Karpian ‘correction’ equals true freedom . . .”

A blackjack cracked! across Malyj’s jaw—leftward. Silvery stars and sparks . . .

. . . Malyj was golfing in Central Florida’s scorching afternoon sun, entertaining a potential client, trying to land the design for a Mediterranean mansion. He drank too much Russian vodka afterward, no memory of saying goodbye to his potential client, no memory of leaving the clubhouse. Abruptly, it’s past 11:00 pm and he’s swerving all over some unfamiliar road. The last thing he could remember, before the accident, before crashing into the wooden telephone pole, was the BMW’s speedometer rapidly climbing above 90 mph. Then, crawling out of his shattered rear window, falling palms first onto the black asphalt into a million pieces of glass that looked like bloodied diamonds, he fell into total darkness. . . . Somehow time and space advanced unseen. He was now wandering around a creepy orange grove, lost in a dark, humid labyrinth that smelled of midnight’s moonlit orange blossoms. Cold blood trickling like a tiny wet tickle from a hole in his forehead—the drops of blood synchronized with seconds of time; his personality splintered, forever altered. A piece of twisted German metal lodged in his small intestine; his stomach ripped open, bleeding profusely. His left elbow now locked in place, pieces of shattered glass packed into its bony joint, arresting its movement. Another DUI. Asking the paramedic the same question (“What happened?”) over and over again, something wrong with his memory. Awakening in the emergency room, emerging from a medically induced coma due to his brain’s swelling; his hands a mind of their own, exploring the angular planes of his scarred face, exploring his bruised body, feeling all of the electrodes, wires, and tubes. Now in a regular hospital room; his accident made the news, repeating over and over again inside of the hospital television set. Stabilized. Taken for major stomach surgery. Discharged. Arrested for DUI . . . again. Jail time . . . again. Time served . . . again. Doctor visits and prescriptions for pain pills. Addicted to pain pills. Prescriptions for pain pills end—zero refills. Still in pain. Still addicted to pain pills—and vodka. Desperate. Heroin a cheap, accessible substitute. Sharing dirty needles. Extramarital affairs. Testing positive for HIV/AIDS. Arrested for “Failure to Disclose HIV Status.” On the news . . . again. On probation . . . first time. Lost his wife and children and cat, lost his family, lost his friends, lost his clients, lost his profitable Architecture firm, lost his self-designed home. A protective order to stay away from his home and all of his family members (all who have legally changed their patronymic surname Malyjovich). Alone, homeless, auto-less, jobless, penniless, insurance-less, “living” under an overpass. Probation wrongly violated. Impounded. Sentenced to Karpian correction . . .

A blackjack cracked! across Malyj’s jaw—rightward. Older, deeper memories, like a black-and-white home movie with English subtitles, crackling, sparkling, shining, played inside of his battered head.

. . . “Don’t you want to succeed in life?!” 1972, six years old, seated at the dining room table, his monomaniac mother to his left, a menacing schoolteacher, standing over him, like some raging, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Red monster screaming at his young bawling face in Russian, “Don’t you want to succeed in life?!” His hands balled up into tiny fists—broken bones the color of bleached coral jutting from the pinkish flesh of his bloody fingers—on top of his English lesson, on top of the dining room table, pounded until tenderized with a metal meat mallet every time he refused to answer in English, didn’t answer quick enough, or answered incorrectly. “Your grandfather a famous, world-class chess master and math professor, your grandmother an author, a translator, and a Slavic-languages teacher, your father a headmaster and math teacher, and me!—what will people think of me?—your poor heartbroken mother, a professional artist and art teacher, what an embarrassment you are to us, to our ancestral homelands (his father Ukrainian—from Lviv; his despotic mother Russian—from, at the time, Petrograd), and to our eminent colleagues, family, and friends. You Prince Myshkin! You idiot! Don’t you want to succeed ($$$) in life?!” She raised the bloody metal meat mallet above her blonde head and . . .

One traumatic childhood memory of his Russki mother, from a lifetime of worse, unthinkable traumatic memories of his lunatic mother, was enough to trigger his usual physical response of pain, was enough to trigger his usual emotional response of rage.

If he survived a lifetime of his totalitarian mother’s physical and mental abuse, her oppressive power and monetary control, her mortal pedagogy, her poisonous cooking, her twisted form of love, he could survive anything, even—mild in comparison to his insane Commie mother—the totalitarian Karpian State.

Memories of his unbalanced mother equal pain; pain equals rage; rage equals strength; his strength awakened him . . . TRANSFORMED.

Malyj was still inside of the dim, waterlogged concrete tomb, still naked, face down, unmoving as road kill. Entombed for a second?—or a lifetime? Nevertheless, thanks to the painful memories of, and lessons learned from, his abusive, surrogate mother long ago, he (her “special,” “crazy,” “imaginative” son???) knew it was time to fight back against his new “omniscient” torturer—now!—or he would be killed . . . or even worse . . . tamed.

Crawling slowly—sore, stiff, newborn-like—pale hands and knees balancing on their tiny black shadows, over to Ivanov’s heavy steel rod, then, using it as a crutch, Malyj eventually reached a shaky standing position. Wincing while glancing over his shoulder, expecting Ivanov’s attack, but the giant was still distracted, still having his way with Dnarnya’s now silent and limp, rocking back and forth body.

Shuffling awkwardly, slowly, to the open cell door. His nerves shot; fear following him like a funeral procession; shaking like a withdrawing dope fiend; panicking the giant Ivanov would kill him before he reached the outer walkway—a feeling like waiting to be shot in the back. Naked and still using the long steel rod as a crutch, seconds felt like hours as he lumbered toward the elusive cell door. His too-thin shadow black, tilted, exaggerated, stalking him from behind like a giant praying mantis. He could hear Ivanov’s heavy breathing and piston-like sexual thrusts echoing dully behind him. The raped silent and limp as if dead, her body flopping back and forth; she was staring up at the wet, rusted, twisted, mangled rebar jutting like blood-red coral from a section of saltwater-eroded ceiling where a chunk of concrete had fallen away long ago.

Malyj finally made it out. The pale human-toothpick quickly rolling DissCell A’s heavy, graffiti-covered steel cell door shut behind him; quietly securing the rust-encrusted steel outer latch; entombing two of his distracted tormentors inside of the waterlogged concrete block cell. Taped to the ancient steel cell door, a temporary name card labeled “Equality 30541” in handwritten black permanent marker. He ripped the blue paper card from the DissCell’s rusted steel cell door and tore it to pieces; the pieces now clutched within a sweaty, trembling fist. Innumerable blue cards (males) and innumerable pink cards (females) were taped to, fluttering from, innumerable rusted steel cell doors.

Malyj now stood upon an ancient, cantilevered, see-through walkway (something like a rusted, diamond-shaped, industrial-strength chain-link), under a dusty light bulb imprisoned within a rusted iron-mesh cage, overlooking the main virology laboratory. The play of light and shadow created the illusion his naked, emaciated body had been chiseled from a pale, veiny granite. His exaggerated shadow shrunken into itself, foreshortened. His sweaty, trembling fist unclenched; watching the pieces of his temporary name card fall and fall and fall, spiraling down down down the massive, honeycombed-walled, rectangular atrium until the blue pieces of paper marked with (his) black, fragmented, alphanumeric characters disappeared into the unholy darkness. The atrium’s 132 horizontal levels were divided vertically by hundreds of clear-glass elevator shafts; hundreds of clear-glass elevators streaked up and down nonstop, like electrostatic machines discharging flashes of silvery lightning. The massive atrium was a dim, cold, damp void and smelled of carbolic acid; you could feel its static electricity, feel its thick life force. Stenciled onto the gray concrete block wall behind Malyj, in a reflective-yellow paint:

LEVEL NEGSIX - VIROLOGY

SECTOR A

SECONDARY ELEVATOR A

LEVEL 66

WALKWAY A

DISSECTION CELL A-4891

CAUTION - DANGEROUS CONTAGIUMS - CAUTION

Sixty-six floors below him, barely visible, barely audible, the chromium-glinting, humming conveyor system and the white-coated, horrifically-masked VirEngs conceived infective agents within an ill-lit, bloody, yolk-yellow oval of light: aka Mother’s Womb.

Suddenly, innumerable wall-mounted lights began to flash caution-yellow, their non-synchronous luminescence filling the atrium’s dark core like giant fireflies glowing amok. Two searchlights like a hollow pair of giant chopsticks now searching the atrium, illuminating—in wide bands, something resembling an alien, complex, subterranean megalopolis of rusted steel and vitrified stone. A continuous Code-R-101 siren wailed. VIL-EN’s angry automata voice booming from a million angry speakers, her warning message repeating over and over and over again. Siren and voice like a redundant EAS (Emergency Alert System):

“. . . Code R-101! PsychIntTec Dnarnya down! . . . Level NegSix - Virology! Sector A! Secondary Elevator A! Level 66! Walkway A! Dissection Cell A-4891! . . . Code R-101! PsychIntTec Dnarnya down! . . .”

Karpian State Code R-101—rape of a Party member—was punishable by death.