Red Cells

ONE: FLESH AND BLOOD

“You ever do time before?” Stake asked Billings as they pushed their plastic food trays along the runners in the cafeteria line. Despite Stake’s initial reluctance to make friends here, the two had remained close for moral support since their arrival and brief indoctrination, though they didn’t share a cell. Stake was in the prison’s Red Block, while Billings had been assigned the Green Block and accordingly wore crayon green shirt and pants.

“Not here,” the mutant replied, placing a carton of juice on his tray, “but yeah – three years in Paxton MSP.” That stood for Maximum Security Penitentiary. “Receiving stolen goods. You?”

“First time anywhere.”

“Well don’t show you’re scared. They’ll sniff that out right away. If it was me I’d try to get in a fight right away, to let folks know you aren’t to be messed with. Not to kill anyone – we don’t want to be here forever – but you know what I mean. But you, with only six months to get through… I’d even avoid fighting. So just watch your back, is all.”

They filled the recesses in their trays with various food stuffs generated by the kitchen’s fabricators, most of these comestibles derived from fermented bacteria. This approach, like the prison’s recycled water and air, kept to a minimum the supply deliveries that had to be made to the Trans-Paxton Penitentiary. When they reached the end of the line, the two newcomers crossed to a nearby table that offered a mix of prisoners, as opposed to those tables plainly staked out by prison gangs or nonhuman races of sentient beings. Aside from the absence of females, the prison was every bit the melting pot Punktown was.

“Me, I can probably get close to those guys,” Billings said around a mouthful of faux mashed potatoes. He nodded subtly toward another table and Stake twisted around a little to look.

The table Billings had indicated was completely filled by mutants. More precisely, a gang of mutants. Some bore only minor signs of affliction, while others were much more wildly deformed than Billings. Some were even nonhuman mutants. But one of their number in particular caught Stake’s attention.

“Caro turbida,” he murmured to himself. But Billings heard him.

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s a type of mutation. It means ‘confused flesh.’”

The man Stake referred to, seated at the end of the long table, jolted with small tics and the occasional more violent spasm, but his head was constantly thrashing and shaking, so that Stake wondered how he could ever get food into his mouth. The front of his blue uniform was already stained with today’s attempts. His face was a blur, but not only because of its rapid movements. He was changing. His was not one face, but a seemingly endless succession of faces, morphing from one to the next so quickly that Stake couldn’t be sure if any of them were repeating. Or was their variety unending? Was he reproducing every face he had ever glimpsed in his life? Uncontrollably… involuntarily. For who would want to subject themselves to this state? Maybe some were the likenesses of fellow prisoners – Stake couldn’t tell – though he believed he witnessed flashes of female faces… old faces… those of various races. But like Stake with his less extreme form of Caro turbida, the mutant didn’t seem able to alter himself into the semblance of a nonhuman entity.

“Wow,” Billings said. “I think the other muties just feel sorry for that one.” Even from here, over the loud chatter that reverberated off the cafeteria’s ceiling, they could hear the shapeshifter’s stream of incoherent babbling punctuated with barking outbursts. It was as though he were possessed by a whole legion of ghosts.

“I don’t know what he could have done,” Stake said, “but I’ll bet he should be in a mental hospital, not a jail.”

They had been studying the mutant so blatantly they neglected to recognize that another of the men at the table had noticed them, until he called over, “Hey – virgins! You want to fuck my friend Blur? You want him to turn into a woman for you? He can’t lock it in, you know.”

“Sorry, friend,” Billings called back, twisting his lipless mouth into a nervous smile and lifting an open hand of peace.

“I’m not your friend, freak,” the man snapped, though he himself was afflicted. The mutant was hairless, his skin a metallic bluish-black, shiny and crinkly like crumpled foil. Tall and powerfully muscled, besides.

Billings lowered his head and whispered, “Dung! I may need these boys… I don’t want to alienate them!”

“Sorry,” Stake said, turning away from the mutant gang, too. “He must be the leader. Chip on his shoulder, huh?”

“Lot of us mutants do,” Billings said.

“Mm,” Stake grunted in agreement.

“Is there a problem?” a flat voice asked behind them. Both men turned in their seats again to find that one of the robot guards had approached them, having witnessed the exchange. The automaton had flexible segmented lengths for its four limbs, neck and waist, while its head, torso and pelvis were of black metal. Perhaps to give the flat face a more fearsome aspect, its eyes glowed red, matching the red identifying number on its chest.

“Everything’s okay here,” Billings told the machine.

“Be advised not to agitate the seasoned inmates, newcomer,” the guard chastised.

In their orientation upon arriving at Trans-Paxton Penitentiary, they had been told that half of the guards here were robots. The reasons for the balance between organic and inorganic guards were numerous. For one, fewer living guards meant fewer potential victims of violence from inmates. Robots could not be bribed, corrupted, or show favoritism. Their implacable nature was intimidating, but neither could they be sadistic. Robots didn’t require on-site housing, rest periods, off-weeks in which to go home to family. Prisoners feared their physical strength and relative invulnerability, and yet it was still useful for the inmates to fear the harsher minds of living men. Plus, robots might almost be considered innocent in a sense, whereas a crafty human (or other such sentient being) could be more difficult to fool. At the end of the day, just as in manufacturing facilities, labor laws prohibited prisons from utilizing automatonic guards exclusively, lest too many living beings find themselves without employment.

The robot wandered away, sweeping its glowing eyes toward other tables. When it had left, another prisoner – a Choom, the native race of Oasis, remarkably human in appearance apart from their vast Jack-o’-lantern mouths – said to Stake, “Careful, boys; things have been on edge here lately, and I bet they didn’t tell you that in orientation. I’m not so sure it’s even made the news back home.”

“What’s that?” Stake asked.

“A few prisoners have been killed in their cells. Seems like it’s three, though some say four. Could be a gang doing it, but people are pointing fingers everywhere, not just at one group. Makes for paranoia.”

“The victims aren’t all from one gang? Or enemies of a certain group?”

“If there’s a pattern, I don’t know it.”

“So how are they being killed?” Stake asked. It wasn’t hard to pique his interest. It was his nature, and his vocation.

“Dung!” the Choom chuckled, wagging his head. “I heard the dead guys were absolutely demolished.”

“Demolished? What do you mean, demolished?”

“I haven’t seen the aftermath, myself, but I mean like… exploded. Like there’s nothing left of them but blood. Blood everywhere.”