The Department of Corrections, Book One

“Ding!” E30541 shuffled out of mangled MedElvA (medical elevator A)—at no time leaving the staticky Muzak behind—a secondary elevator he didn’t remember getting in, nor riding down. He found himself standing in a long shadowy corridor, standing in a typical hospital ward—like you would find above in the surface world, except there were no windows. Malyj’s Karpian goggles were restricting his peripheral vision like high-tech horse blinders.

Male and female ward nurses, just white blurs, haunted the funereal space; the invisible puppet strings still guiding him, as if pulled by a distant female whisper.

There was a circular nurses’ station, and beyond it, another long shadowy corridor that dead-ended at the diameter of a semicircle. Along its thrice-broken arc, three private rooms having solid-steel doors with two-way, head-high judas holes (spyholes/peepholes): Examination Rooms A, B, and C. And taped to the solid-steel doors . . . temporary name cards. Door A was labeled Equality 30541, Door B - Equality 121867, and Door C - Equality 112731.

Where E121867 and E112731 were, E30541 did not know.

“Please, have a seat on the examination table,” a male whisper now governing him. He didn’t remember entering the cloudy room that smelled of disinfectant and piss.

After an indeterminable amount of time, the male whisperer asked:

“Truthfully. How did you contract HIV?” E30541 was now reclined on the cold metallic table. A warm, bright light within a silver halo was shining inches from his face, blinding him. Someone had strapped his naked body to the uncomfortable metal table: his head, chest, elbows, wrists, midsection, knees, and ankles were fastened in place.

“Dirty heroin needle.” The answer a reflex.

“Any pain?”

“No.” He could feel something, though, like latex-gloved fingers pressing down on his abdomen.

The warm, bright light within the silver halo swung around in a fiery arc, leaving a series of round, overlapping blurs relocating like the sun racing into the future—its path burnt across E30541s retinas. The aluminum surgical lamp had just set below the chromium-plated table’s edge.

A round, bespectacled face stared down at him, a reflection hiding inquisitive eyes. Then the face disappeared quickly, yanked back up into the darkness. “How long have you been HIV positive?” said the male whisperer.

“Six years.” Answering automatically, from rote memory.

The room slowly materialized around E30541; the male whisperer hidden, hiding beyond the field of his peripheral vision. He could make out a room full of futuristic, high-tech stainless-steel instrumentation surrounding him: torturous-looking medical gadgets. And, from above, himself, staring back down at his naked form from a ceiling-mounted mirror. He was strapped into a stainless-steel chimera: the horrible progeny of a dentist’s chair and a gynecologist’s chair and a surgery table and a highly-mechanized hospital bed. Still wearing his Karpian goggles, his eyes and mouth were now forced wide open by awful, spider-legged contraptions: rusted metal clamps. There was a head of thick, white hair in a white lab coat talking to a shiny/bald-headed, green-uniformed impound officer directly above him. He recognized the upside-down officer in the ceiling mirror: it was his acting probation officer, Officer Grohowski.

“. . . it could still be viable for recycling . . .” Grohowski’s voice, a southern drawl, surfaced for a moment.

“. . . if sold to Third World countries . . . maybe . . . ” said the male whisperer. “If not recycling, definitely not auction, leaving you only ‘black-clad’ status . . . or termination.”

“Our best shot for any profit in this E-case seems to be in recycling,” Grohowski adjusted his rectangular eyeglasses thoughtfully, “let’s run it through ‘The Tube,’ see what we’ve got to work with.”

The round, bespectacled face appeared again, leaning over E30541, his nostrils’ coarse white hair imprisoned a greenish mucus, his breath smelled of spearmint chewing gum which formed a fleeting fog on E30541s Karpian goggles. He was pushing and pulling on the stainless-steel chimera like he was trying to break the damn thing, E30541s strapped down body violently bumping about. The grotesque reflection in the ceiling mirror slowly disappearing as E30541 was slid, feet first, then full body, into Examination Room A’s claustrophobic IIT (impound imaging tube).

E30541 was completely encased inside of the horizontal tube: he was still strapped down to the stainless-steel chimera and unable to move any body part; there was only an inch of air space between his Karpian goggles and the machine’s rotating curved ceiling; and his eyes and mouth were still pried wide open. He was unable to close, blink, or focus his dehydrated eyes. His mouth was dry as a bone and tasted coppery like blood. He found it difficult to swallow—like a police-issued zip tie was tightening around his throat, crushing his Adam’s apple. A sudden urge to urinate. His paranoid imagination was running wild as an escaped convict. He began to panic, wondering why . . . ?

The constricting tube clanked! and banged! and hummed loudly—then conversely loudly hummed and banged! and clanked!—hissing again and again and again. The loud mechanical sounds traveled up and down the metallic tube, coiling around his drugged body nonstop. This went on for a panic-filled hour, then silence: the machine stopped. The stainless-steel chimera stirred, then rocking and rolling violently, slid out from its discordant tube. E30541 was slowly shedding his high-tech skin, head first, like a snake molting.

Thank God! claustrophobic E30541 thought, exhausted. He was staring up at himself in the ceiling mirror: naked, goggled, fighting in vain to blink and swallow, to not urinate on himself. Grohowski had left, only the white lab coat floated around in the sterile room’s cold ceiling mirror. Then, upside down, the white, ghost-like blur turned and approached the frightful examination table. It was holding a large hypodermic needle.

The round, bespectacled face appeared again, leaning over E30541. Malyj’s right arm was given an injection; his slimy brain squirmed like escargot; his familiar, yet distorted, face in the ceiling mirror melted into . . .

Malyj’s drugged body now felt as wobbly as a rubber bullet; his stomach now on fire, like he swallowed a Molotov cocktail.

The State’s EconoMD, Dr. George Huxwell, stared at a large monitor mounted on the concrete block wall like an evil genius with crazy twitching eyes, then began dictating the IIT’s findings into a small, handheld device:

“White spotting on brain scan, possibly due to a lifetime of migraine headaches, or to subject’s HIV-1 (Human Immunodeficiency Virus One) infection, a first-generation retrovirus engineered on Level NegSix - Virology in the 1920s: aka AIDS (Activate Impound Destruction Sequence), the State’s DOC PopCon (population control) Virus, which had long ago ‘accidentally’ spread to the SurfPop (surface population). . . . Note: both the DOC and Big Pharma are still profiting from the surface population’s ‘death-control’ infection—by pushing their penny-per-pill, one-pill-per-day, for-the-rest-of-your-life ‘cure’ at a 17 K percent profit per pill—currently the State’s largest revenue. . . . No degenerative disease suspected. Increased electrical activity in brain indicates subject suffering from a high level of anxiety. Cortical structures well formed; brain viable. Eyes disease-free; eyes viable. Thirty percent blockage in left-side, and fifteen percent blockage in right-side neck arteries, percentages not high enough to necessitate surgery; irrelevant. Heart healthy; viable. Lungs clear, negative for TB; viable. Kidneys slightly swollen, failing, previous alcohol and drug abuse or HIV meds suspected—possibly untreated HIV-1 infection; kidneys viable: only if discounted. Liver swollen, inflammation could be due to alcoholism, drug addiction, or Hep C in remission, or any combination of above, liver too diseased; not viable. Appendix surgically removed; irrelevant. Small intestine and colon surgically altered, reduced, a colostomy, reversed; irrelevant. Torsion testicle surgery, corrected; irrelevant. Bones, no breaks; viable (phosphorus pentoxide). Teeth, minus one bottom-left molar; viable (phosphorus pentoxide): lead fillings (Pb) and gold crowns (Au) to be reclaimed. Flesh; edible: extrude into that ‘delicious’ ImpKib (impound kibble). Remaining tissues and skin; transplantable/graftable. . . . In conclusion: lifesaving HIV meds too expensive at a penny per pill, one pill per day, to economically justify keeping subject alive on ‘black-clad’ status. Subject would yield maximum profit through recycling: if we fail to disclose its HIV status. Recommend Impound E30541 for recycling, Third World market only, all other options not as financially beneficial to the State’s economy. Medical completed. . . . Transferring subject Equality 30541 down to Level NegFive - Psychological for ‘Brain Grade.’” The white-haired, white-coated EconoMD covered E30541s naked body with a thin, white sheet from the neck down, then floated from Examination Room A like a ghost, leaving about three million black-market dollars worth of organs behind.

E30541 was ice-cold and shivering. So thirsty. The Muzak giving his drugged mind a massive headache. He was experiencing violent waves of nausea. His bowels were acting up, wanting to release.

A neon-orange cursor flashed inside his right-side lens, his Karpian goggles patiently awaiting the next download of Karpian propaganda. Staring past the flashing neon-orange cursor, up into the ceiling mirror, a hallucinated face with skin like trench foot burned by a thousand cigarette butts and pierced by horrific rusted metal clamps stared back. He was still unable to shut his forced-open eyes and forced-open mouth. His heart beat erratically; suddenly panicking like he was having a heart attack. He was still drugged and restrained and unable to move any body part. Only his terrified mind functioned.

E30541 could hear murmuring voices inside Ward A’s semicircular section of corridor, on the other side of Examination Room A’s closed door, the disjointed conversation becoming a vivid hallucination. His narcotized mind was left to imagine the worst.

Now longing for his cramped, reinforced-concrete space under the downtown overpass (where he would sit and think, watching the mindless masses drive by) as if it were heaven: missing the diseased vermin; sweltering heat; stabbing hunger pains (except on Wednesdays, when he received a free meal and a renewed faith at Saint George’s Orthodox Church); solitude; and his small collection of dystopian novels (his only friends, his only escape from reality). At least there—alone, broke, dirty, hungry, homeless, and sick, in the toxic exhaust and noise pollution—Malyj had his freedom.