The Department of Corrections, Book One

Sector Unknown. Secondary Elevator Unknown. Level 66. Walkway Unknown.

AlterGrav Off: Atrium in SEG (standard Earth gravity) Mode.

Malyj felt like he was running in place on the cantilevered walkway, like he was running across a rusted horizontal timeline—only stuck on zero, as if being pulled by positive and negative infinity equally.

He felt trapped.

He could hear a K9/KP patrol behind him. He could hear a K9/KP patrol in front of him. Stuck somewhere in-between two unknown corridors, there was nowhere to go, except to jump to his death over the handrail’s rusted edge.

Think! His white-knuckled fist clenched the surgical-steel scalpel.

He could feel the cantilevered walkway bouncing and buckling wildly under his bare feet. He was being tossed about like a drowning man in a raging sea of oppression.

Think! He was preparing himself mentally, preparing himself for the unnatural, contrary-to-human-nature, sixty-six-level jump to his death.

“The chute things!” Malyj blurted. Galloping like St. George’s lamb-white steed to the closest CorpseChute, he lifted its blood-stained stainless-steel lid, and still clenching the sharp scalpel, dove into its horrific-smelling rectangular mouth head first. His unbroken spirit like an unbridled, untamable horse refusing to tire.

“GOD!” Malyj screamed for help. His matter’s inertia violently/repetitively altered.

Falling down the rectangular, multi-angled stainless-steel CorpseChute—falling and banging and bouncing and tumbling and somersaulting naked, down down down for a painful eternity—into Stella’s reeking kitchen, into a horrific-smelling CorpseBin full of stiff dissected impounds patiently awaiting to be processed/extruded into ImpKib.

Gross! Gross! Gross! . . . GROSS!!!

Still clenching the surgical-steel scalpel in a white-knuckled fist; he was drowning in a dead sea of Karpian casualties, of stiff dissected impounds, of leathery wispy-haired skulls without eyes, of gaping mouths with black gums and yellowed teeth, and of stiff entangled limbs frozen in impossible gestures. He felt like the last circumcised man on Earth. Pulling on stiff limbs like ladder rungs having hairy armpits, diseased genitalia, and stinky feet; he pulled himself up through dissected corpses, medical waste, toxic chemicals, fresh blood, congealed blood, HIV-1 through HIV-12, feces, urine, giant palmetto bugs, juicy-squirming maggots, and fat-buzzing flies.

The sight, smell, accidental taste, sound, feel, and thought of it made Malyj vomit like a water cannon, vomit like a bile cannon.

No longer hidden under the dead like God’s reality buried under Man’s illusion, Malyj, still nauseous, peeked over the top of the CorpseBin’s gut-encrusted plastic edge: A massive, rectangular, dynamic, noisy, industrial-grade kitchen. Its four immense concrete block walls were penetrated by innumerable, rectangular stainless-steel openings—each the anus from the mouth of a CorpseChute two levels above, each randomly dumping a harvested impound into its CorpseBin as if having a bowel movement. In the center of the industrial-grade kitchen, Head Chef Stella seasoned, then stirred (with her bloody, fifteen-inch-long chromium-plated meathook), a giant simmering vat of something truly disgusting while repeating: “Aie, aie, aie, aie, aie!” Lobotomized, black-clad kitchen helpers, in bloody white hats and bloody white aprons and bloody white latex gloves and bloody white canvas sneakers, pushed the dissected-corpse-overflowing, industrial-grade-gray-plastic, black-wheeled CorpseBins to the bloody kitchen prep area where lobotomized cooks awaited the protein with bloody hand saws and bloody meat cleavers in hand, waited to process/extrude the next batch of decomposing impounds into nutritious and “delicious” ImpKib. Pieces (cut up limbs) and parts (intact limbs) from the previous batch of decomposing impounds were now floating in boiling vats of sunflower oil teeming with dead palmetto bugs. Beyond Stella, beyond the boiling vats (human deep fryers), beyond the industrial extruders (human meat grinders), across a distant wall, massive Nazi-like ovens (human incinerators) aflame with mounds of orange-glowing pellets, with mounds of fresh-baked ImpKib.

Like a stillborn infant rejected by its mother’s womb, like a gob of afterbirth, slimy Malyj slid from the CorpseBin and plopped onto the befouled kitchen floor unseen. He was still clenching the surgical-steel scalpel in a slimy white-knuckled fist. He began to crawl across . . .

“Chef,” a lobotomized kitchen helper said emotionless, “behind you.” Pointing down; he walked away.

Stella (not lobotomized) spun around; her bloody, fifteen-inch-long chromium-plated meathook in her meaty, latex-gloved fist; seeing Malyj she screamed: “Aie, aie, aie, aie, aie!” Every lobotomized kitchen helper and lobotomized cook ignored Stella and Malyj, all conditioned to carry on with their mindless ImpKib prep like black-clad robots.

“The world is a death trap!” Stella screamed in Hungarian. Raising the fifteen-inch-long chromium-plated meathook above her babushka-wrapped/chef-hat-topped head—screaming: “Aie, aie, aie, aie, aie!”—she swung it down in a violent arc toward Malyj’s starved-meatless torso.

Malyj blocked Stella’s fat forearm with his bony forearm, stopping the meathook inches from his haggard face. Spinning away and slicing in one motion, he cut Stella’s fat wrist with the surgical-steel scalpel. Blood gushed from her old, blue-veined wrist like a red geyser; shocked, she dropped the meathook. Spinning in tight circles while goggling at and groping at the open gash across her right wrist—she screamed shrilly: “Aie, aie, aie, aie, aie!” Her kneaded face panicked, as pale as floured raw pierogi dough.

Malyj was slipping and sliding in an inch of reeking corpse slop (that smelled of septic goulash), fighting to get to his feet. On his slippery bare feet, he charged/splashed toward obese Stella. He stabbed the surgical-steel scalpel deep into her fat neck as he pushed her enormous mass backward against a boiling vat of sunflower oil. Her back pressed against the stainless-steel vat’s blistering-hot edge. His left hand gripping her time-plowed face, pushing her over the stainless-steel vat’s sharp edge. His right hand repeatedly stabbing the surgical-steel scalpel deep into her fat neck—until she fell backward into the boiling vat, splashing sizzling sunflower oil, body parts, and fried palmetto bugs high up into the artificial air. Malyj watched obese Stella deep-fry into something flat and crispy, into something resembling a giant potato pancake—her bloodied white chef’s hat and bloodied white butcher’s apron like a dollop of sour cream.

A lobotomized cook pushed past Malyj like he wasn’t even there, then started to stir the giant boiling vat with a giant metal ladle as if he were prepping Stella for processing/extruding into ImpKib. The lobotomized kitchen helpers and lobotomized cooks ignored Malyj, all conditioned to carry on with their mindless ImpKib prep like black-clad robots.

Malyj, still clutching the bloody scalpel, ran from the reeking kitchen like he had food poisoning, ran through one of its many exits and crashed into Stella’s still corpse-overloaded HoverCart 66 parked inside of the DOC’s most subterranean, most vast, most secret (its level not even displayed on the main elevator’s dented panel), most profitable level, Level -8. Level NegEight, jokingly known as “The Thirteenth Floor.” Level NegEight, like the “Eighth Day,” was something mystical, something beyond nature and time.

Malyj leapt onto the HoverCart and twisted its sticky throttle; its engine whined as it raised up inches from the concrete floor—then lurched forward. A tangle of thawing corpses (including CBC058908 and E112731) toppled over the back of the craft as naked Malyj blasted through ominous shadow. Driving the HoverCart felt like jet-skiing on air.

Passing lobotomized, black-clad work crews armed with mops and buckets: covered in nuclear reactor waste; their gray faces like mangled slabs of fist-beaten clay; their eyes dead marbles; their misshapen mouths linked by communicators exchanging garbled words. Passing two-way impound movers: just long conveyor belts like moving walkways loaded with countless, dead-eyed, lobotomized workers standing still—yet passing one another in a black-clad blur while rapidly moving toward their oppressive destinations inside of their industrial metropolis. Passing the crowded Karpian Café: full of lobotomized workers on break crunching away on ImpKib and slurping down Dr. Karp Colas in a mindless silence; full of ImpKib and Dr. Karp Cola vending machines; its walls decorated with Karpian artwork that brought to mind Russian/communist propaganda posters. Passing Karpian kiosks: each having a flashing red light on top; each emitting a warning chirp; each having video of E30541s mugshot and an audio warning detailing E30541 and his escape. Passing mammoth work cells filled with slave labor (SlavErs): innumerable, lobotomized, black-clad impounds forced to produce different for-profit products to be sold to the surface world for one hundred percent profit (the Karpian State/the Department of Corrections the largest and cheapest free-labor force in the world). Stopping for a moment at the SlavErs work lockers to steal, to put on, a black jumpsuit and a pair of off-white, slip-on canvas sneakers (what every SlavEr wore on this level). He slipped the surgical-steel scalpel into a wornntorn pocket. Malyj sped away on the less corpse-covered HoverCart, its headlights temporarily erasing subterranean shadow. The entire place was poorly lit, dank, smelled of an old urinal cake, and eerily silent—except for the humming of the two-way impound movers. Not one damned lobotomized soul had noticed him.

The mammoth, straight-lined, horizontal concrete corridor suddenly constricting and curving into rising, spiral-ramped levels (something resembling the interior of New York City’s, Frank Lloyd Wright-designed, Guggenheim museum) leading up to . . . ?

Malyj sped up the rising, spiral-ramped concrete corridor on the still somewhat corpse-covered HoverCart. Spiraling up up up until the helical concrete corridor dead-ended at a chromium-plated elevator door labeled:

MAIN ELEVATOR

LEVEL NEG-EIGHT - KITCHEN / FOR-PROFIT WORK CELLS

Quickly performing a three-point turn, Malyj parked the HoverCart facing the opposite direction: facing the sharply falling, spiral-ramped concrete corridor. He dismounted the overheated machine.

Punching the main elevator’s up button (^), it lit up. He waited. . . .

A “Ding!” followed by the high ceiling’s speakers/VIL-EN’s artificial voice saying:

“Level PosOne (Surface) - The Department of Corrections.” Malyj’s countdown (-) to freedom had begun.

Seconds seemed like hours. . . .

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegTwo - Communal Lounge.”

The elevator remained on Level NegTwo for what felt like days. . . .

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegThree - Processing.”

The sounds of barking dogs and stomping jackboots echoed; an unseen K9/KP patrol was marching up the helical concrete corridor/ramp toward cornered Malyj.

“Damn it! . . . Damn it!” Malyj exclaimed twice, this time in Ukrainian. He wondered what the fuck was taking so long on Level NegThree. . . .

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegFour (Dr. Huxwell) - Medical.”

He could now see the K9/KP patrol curving up toward him. Dogs’ eyes and mans’ bio masks filled with hate, filled with . . .

Think! He leapt onto the HoverCart and twisted its sticky throttle; its engine whined as it raised up inches from the concrete floor—then lurched forward, downward. He waited for maximum speed then leapt from the HoverCart, tumbling onto the hard concrete ramp below. Screaming “FUCK YOU!” as he watched the still corpse-covered HoverCart mow down dog and man: not one life form left in sight, not one life form left to pursue him. He raced back up the concrete ramp to the main elevator’s chromium-plated doors—chromium-plated doors now vibrating wildly and spitting dust the grayish color of incarceration.

Forgive me Father . . .

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegFive (Dr. Burgess) - Psychological.”

“Come on! . . . Come on! . . . Hurry up!”

Seconds passed like aeons. . . .

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegSix - Virology.”

The waiting painful, like doing hard time. . . .

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegSeven (Dr. Karp) - Corrections/FJK Terminal.”

“C’mon!”

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegEight - Kitchen/For-Profit Work Cells.”

The main elevator’s chromium-plated doors parted like an iron curtain, allowing Malyj to enter its abused chromium-plated cab still filled with the polluted stench of the surface world and the warm elevator’s miasma of shorted out electrical wires and industrial-grade cable grease. Wobbly Muzak played. Malyj spun around. He punched the dented panel of flickering numbers (that havocked the mind) three times, punched the Level PosOne (Surface) - The Department of Corrections lighted push button (^) three times. The abused elevator’s smudged and battered chromium-plated doors struggled to close like an iron curtain jerkily pulling his distorted reflection together until he stood alone facing himself. He looked like a black-clad skeleton. A “Ding!” followed by the abused elevator’s speakers/VIL-EN’s artificial voice saying: “Level NegEight - Kitchen/For-Profit Work Cells.” Malyj’s countdown (+) to freedom continued; the countdown was also displayed in neon-orange on a small, crazed computer monitor.

Once an impound, panicking and clucking like a grasped chicken. Now transformed into an escapee, into a lone wolf in impound’s clothing, ready to bite the head off of anyone who got in his way to freedom. An apoplectic individual no longer on VIL-EN’s collective radar.

The rattling elevator ascended up through the dusty Earth at spaceship velocity. His empty stomach fluttering with hope; the abused elevator’s speedy ascent creating the sensation of Resurrection. Muzak played softly, wobbly, adding to the humanity.

Malyj removed the surgical-steel scalpel from his faded black jumpsuit’s wornntorn pocket, and where someone had keyed a graffito into the damaged stainless-steel side wall—the word “HELL” with an arrow pointing down—he scraped a Ukrainian Orthodox Cross

over it.

Malyj’s relative space and time accelerated, rocketing up, warping toward the curvature of the surface world . . .

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegSeven (Dr. Karp) - Corrections/FJK Terminal.”

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegSix - Virology.”

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegFive (Dr. Burgess) - Psychological.”

The abused elevator slowed down. His empty stomach fluttered in despair. Vibrating dust danced on the dirty dimpled-metal floor—the same dirty dimpled-metal floor he had dropped his precious novel (Orwell’s 1984) onto (what felt like) a lifetime ago.

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegFour (Dr. Huxwell) - Medical.”

The abused elevator had stopped on Level NegFour (Dr. Huxwell) - Medical. Wobbly Muzak played. Above Malyj’s head, for a short moment, two loose electrical wires touched, creating a fleeting explosion of amber fire, white light, and black smoke whose cascading amber sparks singed his radiation-scarred scalp and radiation-scarred skin and faded black impound-wornntorn jumpsuit. The smudged and battered chromium-plated doors struggled to open—dividing his horrific reflection. A glimpse into Level NegFour - Medical: a single, lobotomized, black-clad SlavEr with a floor buffer was polishing a long corridor’s shiny tiled floor; recently lobotomized impounds in yellow hospital gowns (their pale derrières exposed) and yellow hospital socks (shuffling like jaundiced zombies) wandered the long windowless corridor; male and female ward nurses—and doctors, like white blurs, like ghosts carrying sinister hypodermic needles, haunted the long artificially-lit corridor. Before the main elevator’s smudged and battered chromium-plated doors could close, a white-coated doctor strutted into the abused cab (his typical doctor attitude, mannerisms, and body language seemed rehearsed; his sterile mind distracted, only concerned with the Impound Program’s numbers, not with human life). Malyj was now standing face to face with Dr. George Huxwell; his breath smelled of spearmint chewing gum. They recognized one another immediately. Malyj the currency, the metric. Dr. Huxwell, Head EconoMD, the dollars-and-cents mentality. A for-profit mental ward/cuckoo’s nest the backdrop.

“‘Doctor Mengele.’” Malyj said sarcastically. His sore, arthritic body suddenly tight as a cramped muscle.

“E30541?!” eccentric Dr. Huxwell whispered aghast. The State’s Head EconoMD’s round, bespectacled face looked shell-shocked; his inquisitive eyes suddenly panicked—twitching wildly within their orbits; the edges of his linear mouth sloped downward in disbelief, forming an ugly crescent. He awkwardly, protectively, hugged his clipboard to his white-coated chest like its sheets held the State’s most prized economic secrets.

“My name is . . . Sasha Malyj!” Malyj’s anger burned hot at the sight of the “doctor,” hot like a million Orthodox cathedrals aflame, hot like a supernova; still clenching the surgical-steel scalpel in a white-knuckled fist, he stabbed! it through Dr. Huxwell’s treasured clipboard, stabbed! it into Dr. Huxwell’s white-coated chest. A punch! to Dr. Huxwell’s round, bespectacled face sent his fat ass stumbling backwards out of the elevator, falling backwards onto the long corridor’s shiny tiled floor. The surgical-steel scalpel still protruding from Dr. Huxwell’s bloody clipboard/chest.

“VIL-EN! . . . HELP ME!” Dr. Huxwell screamed over and over again—screamed like a stuck pig, screamed like he was burning in the flames of damnation.

The sole, lobotomized, black-clad SlavEr with the floor buffer polished the corridor’s tiled floor in calm silence, polished around screaming Dr. Huxwell and his expanding outline of puddling blood like he wasn’t even lying there. The shuffling jaundiced zombies flashing their pale derrières, the recently lobotomized, paid no mind. The male and female ward nurses—and doctors, scattered like white blurs, scattered like ghosts.

Malyj punched the flickering up button (^) three times, punched it like it was a politician’s winking eye to be blackened. The main elevator’s smudged and battered chromium-plated doors struggled to close—eventually uniting his horrific reflection. The rattling elevator shot up through the dusty Earth at spaceship velocity.

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegThree - Processing.”

“Ding!” . . . “Level NegTwo - Communal Lounge.”

The abused elevator slowed down. Vibrating dust danced on the dirty dimpled-metal floor. Terrified of what might be waiting for him on the other side of the main elevator’s chromium-plated doors, his empty stomach twisted in despair.

“Ding!” . . . “Level PosOne (Surface) - The Department of Corrections.”

The abused elevator had stopped on Level PosOne (Surface) - The Department of Corrections. The smudged and battered chromium-plated doors struggled to open—dividing Malyj’s horrific reflection. He stepped out onto Level PosOne (Surface) - The Department of Corrections: fluorescent lights were flickering; emergency lights were flashing; a siren was wailing; VIL-EN holograms, oblivious to GPS-tracking-microchip-less Malyj, were all simultaneously screaming “Evacuate! Evacuate! Evacuate!” over and over again; no one was inside of the long minimalist hallway. The elevator’s chromium-plated doors jerked closed behind him; the abused elevator had been summoned back down to “HELL” by a bloodthirsty K9/Kp patrol.

What the hell?! What is happening?! Where is everyone?! Malyj thought perplexed.

Beside the elevator’s shiny metallic doors, each side, a colorful American flag drooped from a tall steel pole set in a heavy steel base. Above the elevator’s shiny metallic doors, a maxim carved in white marble:

CORRECTION EQUALS CONFORMITY

CONFORMITY EQUALS PROFIT

Grabbing one of the steel flagpoles, and swinging it like a baseball bat, uncorrected Malyj used its heavy steel base to batter the marble maxim—over and over again. He smashed and smashed and smashed and smashed and smashed and smashed and smashed and smashed the marble maxim into scattering jagged chunks and gathering white dust. Still pissed off, he continued to scream and smash—over and over again.

“I am Sasha Malyj!—not E30541!” He smashed the marble maxim.

“I am an Individual!” He smashed the marble maxim.

“An individual who has successfully completed his probation!” He smashed the marble maxim.

“An individual who will warn the surface world about Karpism!” He smashed the marble maxim.

“An individual who will be back to kick the Karpian State’s and the Department of Corrections’ collective ass!” He smashed the marble maxim.

“An individual who will be back to free every impound still imprisoned within the Karpian “HELL” below!” He smashed the marble maxim.

“This one is for Sylvia Black, who you murdered!” He smashed the marble maxim.

“This one is for Jesus Christ, who you blasphemed!” He smashed the marble maxim.

Still clutching the steel flagpole—his hands now blistered and bleeding, he bolted down the empty hallway (suddenly suspicious his escape seemed too easy; nevertheless doubting he would ever see freedom again), he zoomed through the omnipresent holograms of VIL-EN screaming “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!” at them as a colorful red-white-and-blue blur waved after him—waved through them. The small, barely furnished and barely decorated, windowless probation offices were all empty—including the offices of Probation Officer Carney and Impound Officer Grohowski. His shadow like a black ghost fluttering across bare walls. A few sharp lefts and a few sharp rights later he found himself lost, but now standing inside of empty DOC Waiting Room A. Seeing his “absconder” wanted poster (his heart recoiled), he tore it from the filthy wall of lies and shoved it into his brain-dead-black jumpsuit’s impound wornntorn pocket in one pissed-off motion. A sea of “absconder” wanted posters, an ocean of flat terrified faces remained, all innocently staring at him as if pleading for help: each and every one of them still imprisoned miles below, still being unjustly “corrected” by Karpism—or being recycled by the for-profit Department of Corrections.

Malyj threw the steel flagpole like a heavy javelin, right through empty DOC Waiting Room A’s locked glass door. Its glass popped and shattered like an uncorked explosion of sparkling champagne bubbles. A celebratory spray of sharp glass, searing heat, naked flame, and black smoke rushed into Waiting Room A to congratulate the uncorrected individual on his unprecedented escape. Crawling through the steel door’s glassless frame like a fugitive from injustice: he escaped the mouth of “HELL”; he escaped the Karpian State; he escaped the Department of Corrections; he escaped the unjust for-profit system that had intentionally violated him; he escaped into the horrible stench (an oily stench he could literally feel) of the overbreeding, overpopulated, over-industrialized, over-consuming, over-polluted surface world. He escaped not into “freedom,” but into a theatre of war (war: the one constant in human history). Malyj escaped into a symbol of his own hatred, escaped into hellfire, escaped into what he had vowed to God to do one day: burn down to the ground the corrupt state, the for-profit nation, and the godless world that had wronged him for being HIV positive . . . had wronged him as Impound E30541 . . . had wronged him for believing in Jesus Christ . . . had wronged him for being an individual.

“Holy . . . shhh . . . Trinity!” Malyj’s dangerous escape only a partial victory. Solid flames stood before him like hot prison bars. Weightless flames whorled around him like possessed demons. Grim flames reaped toward him like glowing scythes. A veil, a shroud of flame trembled under God’s peaceful heavens. His hazel eyes studied the hellish flames of technology, science, reason, and progress with disgust.

Progress my ass, Malyj thought.

The time, the day, and the date . . . unknown.

Not one soul in sight.

The surface world was on fire, like hell had seeped up from below. Everything seemed so resplendent and torrid. The smell of a million rubber tires burning, the smell of a million human beings burning. The black air so thick, so polluted, like choking on the ashes of democracy. God’s Creation now Man’s perversion. The natural now unnatural. Egoism had consumed altruism—love its charred remain. The Equation of Everything (G+O=D) still too complex for this simple world—full of godless “intellectuals” (the ultimate oxymoron) worshiping finite science and finite reason—to grasp: for your every proud/childish “discovery,” its nonfinite Creator remains the same infinite distance from your limited comprehension. Godless “intellectuals,” self-proclaimed experts in everything but the truth.

“Lord, have mercy!” Malyj’s subterranean eyes had fully focused, had fully adjusted to the fiery surface world: a world of instant gratification instantly consumed. The holy fool surveyed his surroundings: he was standing in a visible sea of rippling heat birthing rolling waves of horizontal flame; his rickety bicycle now rusted, still chained to a small palm tree—its dead palm branches afire; the isolated DOC parking lot—once full of potholes and bygone vehicles and tattooed convicts (future for-profit impounds) huddled together smoking, telling stories of their innocence—now empty, now a black sea of bubbling tar; DOC offices A, B, and C, the grocery store, the strip mall, the loading docks, and the dumpsters all aflame; the dense, mosquitoey palmetto forest looked like a hellish wall of fiery napalm; the congested highway (once fluid, now static) was covered with abandoned vehicles—their paint peeling from white-hot metal, their paint colorless ash blowing in the scalding wind, their smoldering tires glowing orange; the K-AirForce overhead—flying through the space-time continuum, flying against a silver-gray sky full of billowing black smoke the texture of burnt skin, flying across a godless horizon—dusting what was left of the surface world with Dr. Franz Johann Karp’s final batch of designer viruses.

America had fallen, now fettered by virtueless flame—its greedy government, its blind citizens to blame. Dancing flame of gold like undulating belly dancers creating raven ringlets of smoke like arabesque incense rising, seductively swayed back and forth and back and forth and back and forth . . . Malyj felt zero sympathy for the godless being baptized by fire and . . .

“Shwooooschhhh!” For a terrifying moment violent flame and startled smoke followed a fleeting mechanical sound. Orange ash was pulled from black smoke up into the soiled sky. Orange-black ash like charred lives, like charred dreams, floated above, faded until extinguished.

A supersonic jet—spitting deadly fire, farting engineered virus, and shitting exploding firebombs—tore along the arching firmament directly above Malyj’s ash-blackened head like a roaring mechanical dragon raising holy hell.

Hazel eyes goggling through a soot-black mask. Crying. Long clear tears falling, washing away black ash from sunken cheeks. No need to warn America, no need to warn the world, uncorrected Malyj—not E30541, the only individual to ever resurface after being absorbed into the collective machine, thought.

Like a black-clad phoenix, like one who had put on the whole armor of God, Malyj—untouched by hell (cautiously navigating the spaces between flame), pressed forward through sheets of wavering flame, through spiraling flame like mutating DNA, through contorting flame like demons having epileptic fits, through coiling flame like high-voltage barbed wire, through flame with a theme: Freedom should never be taken for granted. He pressed forward through a hurricane of stinging orange-black ash into what was now the ruins of capitalism. History to be rewritten by the victors.

Death-black smoke and orange-glowing ash swirled above the violently twisting and untwisting and folding and unfolding flame that charred a world without a defining shape, charred a world whose fiery forms shifted before forming, charred a world in great tribulation. Phantasmagorical-like, flamethrower-like, and apocalyptic-like flames screamed “Final Solution.” The evil black wind spit orange sparks in his face. The laws of physics were breaking down, were no longer . . .

Jet engines howled like tortured impounds. “Kaboom! . . . Kaboom!! . . . Kaboom!!!” A series of loud explosions shook the earth under his feet.

Only now did Malyj truly comprehend that the Surface War had already begun.

One of Sylvia Black’s prophetic rants echoed inside of his battered head:

It’s the Karpian State against the individual—for profit. You either work for the Department of Corrections, or you’re imprisoned by it.

The United States of America now a for-profit Karpian machine consuming freedom . . .

END OF BOOK ONE