The Department of Corrections, Book One

A deflated Dr. Sinclair Burgess sat in front of his aged mentor—Dr. Franz Johann Karp, awaiting his punishment for Nedgob Mikhailovich Ivanov’s wrongs committed on his watch: the escape of assets E30541 and E121867 from their DissCells—and the rape of comrade Anna Dnarnya. His being unable to break, unable to correct E30541s spirit, didn’t help matters any. All Karpian State/Department of Corrections firsts.

Dr. Karp’s tired bloodshot eyes were watery, like they had been exposed to tear gas. His old, wrinkled, arthritic hands trembling, filling out a disciplinary form to add to Dr. Burgess’ personnel file. The dossier’s front cover was red-stamped CLASSIFIED and TOP SECRET.

Around the file, atop the frosted-glass and stainless-steel desk, and all within seated Dr. Karp’s reach: a computer, a desk phone, an ancient double-barreled revolver, a tobacco pipe, a tobacco pouch, a thick glass ashtray, a shot glass, a bottle of Polish vodka, a half-eaten bowl of ImpKib, his antiquated reading glasses, and a banned surface world book that he had been studying (The Holy Bible, still open to Revelation). Certain surface world books had been banned by the subterranean Karpian censors, because certain surface world books birth unprofitable hopes, ideas, and behaviors—birth individualism—birth the spirit of rebellion.

Dr. Karp’s young, sexy, white-clad secretary had escorted Dr. Burgess to a small, ergonomic stainless-steel chair positioned in front of Dr. Karp’s massive frosted-glass and stainless-steel desk. Dr. Karp was seated in a large, throne-like chromium-plated desk chair.

The office was artificially-lit, bright, but stained by a nicotine-yellow light. Smelled of sweet pipe smoke and musty, leather-bound banned books. Stale, 72.0 °F recycled air hissed at Dr. Karp from the gold-plated grilles decorating the custom concrete ceiling embedded with overt cameras and overt microphones as if they were precious stones.

Oppressive technology: its best hiding place is in plain sight.

Dr. Burgess looked around nervously, taking in the luxurious office while he waited for Dr. Karp to finish filling out his disciplinary form: the ceiling like the weirdest of Gaudí’s architecture; the large, designer frosted-glass and stainless-steel conference table was impressive; the wall-mounted monitor above the conference table now a screen saver, PsychIntTec Dnarnya and the lobotomized black-clad CorImp and E30541 long gone, a slide show of Picasso’s (Karp’s favorite artist) drawings and paintings were appearing and disappearing—the artwork like the artwork created by someone losing their mental faculties due to the AIDS-12 virus, that was what Dr. Karp found diverting; the harsh harpsichord music of Handel (Karp’s favorite composer)—like tiny, sharp, mathematical notes boring into his brain . . . like tiny, sharp, pieces of shattered glass falling down from the gold-plated ceiling speakers, falling into his glass-grinder mind—compounded his anxiety; the rear wall behind Dr. Karp’s desk, just a frosted-glass and stainless-steel bookshelf for his personal library—a collection of banned and soon-to-be banned first edition surface world books, each perfectly arranged with TLC, the Russian literature and dystopian novels his favorite. In lieu of real windows, the remaining three walls of the subterranean office were just giant holographic monitors—all on, all muted; the left wall was now acting as a faux window to the surface world, a faux Eiffel-Tower-tall window to a beautiful nighttime view of Paris; the right wall, a live feed of Level NegSix - Virology, of the stainless-steel conveyor system and the white-coated, horrifically-masked VirEngs working in the virus-birthing atrium (Dr. Karp was always keeping an eye on his precious virus production); the front wall was divided in two by a handsome, inward-opening, solid-steel double door—on its left side a monitor tuned in to TNN (the subterranean Karpian State’s/DOC’s official news source) having the Karpian Stock Exchange ticker scrolling below, and on its right side a monitor tuned in to CNN (the surface world’s Karpian-biased news source) having the New York Stock Exchange ticker scrolling below (Dr. Karp was very very old, but au courant with current events, subterranean and surface); penetrating the cold engineered-concrete floor, centered, a real, huge, round, riveted, nautical-themed engineered-glass porthole able to be stood upon or walked across—having a real view into the polluted Atlantic Ocean churning below, having a real view of the many glowing, horrific, fissionnfusion-mutated deep-sea creatures swimming below, having a real view of the K-Navy’s fully-armed nuclear submarine fleet floating and bobbing below like weightless time bombs.

Looking up abruptly. “Sinclair!” blurted in a menacing tone, “your camera-badge please.” He slammed his old-fashioned ink pen atop the completed disciplinary form.

“Yesth, sir!” Effeminate fingers fumbled to unpin the badge from his white lab coat, only he had given his white lab coat to Dnarnya earlier, to cover her nakedness. “I don’t have it with me, at this moment, sir.”

“If this had been anyone else but you, Sinclair (his arthritic index finger stroking the ancient revolver’s long barrels), I would have already shot them between the eyes—with both barrels.” An awkward pause. “Instead! your suspended for one month without pay, effective immediately—after you neutralize escapee Impound Equality 30541. The K9/KP patrols and PO Carney are at your disposal. Once E30541 is dispatched, get your badge to me ASAP, and then turn in all of your keys and weapons.”

“Yesth, sir!” His body language written in stone.

“Now get the hell out of my office!” Dr. Karp’s young, sexy, white-clad secretary escorted Sinclair out of the tension-filled office without saying a word. She pushed the handsome double door closed behind disgraced Dr. Burgess, then turned to face Dr. Karp.

“VIL-EN!”

“Yes, Dr. Karp,” said the artificial intelligence.

“Please keep me abreast of . . .”