The Department of Corrections, Book One

Dr. Sinclair Burgess (Head of Social Engineering), now on Level NegSeven, was sitting in the luxurious office of Dr. Franz Johann Karp (National Director of Corrections) discussing Sasha Malyj (Impound Equality 30541). Both awaiting Dr. George Huxwell (Head EconoMD), Alexio Grohowski (Impound Officer A1), and Aldous Carney (Probation Officer A1) to drop down in from their radiation-free surface offices for a rare meeting of the minds. A wall-mounted, flat-screen monitor—over the head of a large, designer frosted-glass and stainless-steel conference table—had a live CCTV feed of Level NegFive - Psychological/Psych Ward A/IntCell A where a goggled, naked (a now emaciated, Holocaust/concentration-camp-like naked), and unconscious E30541 was still strapped vertically onto his stainless-steel chimera and being diligently monitored by white-coated PsychIntTec (psychiatric intern technician) Dnarnya and her black-clad CorImp (corrected impound) male assistant. 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 the intelligentsia 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.

“So, you want to pull this E-number from the recycling program? From the entire program? . . . Every level?” asked DirCor Karp in a slight Germanic accent. His seventy-year-old ears failing under the subterranean pressure; even after forty years of working on Level NegSeven, his ears had never adjusted to being buried so deep beneath the Earth’s crust.

“Yessir! Yessir! DirCor Karp, sir,” said Dr. Burgess, loudly, always showing patent respect for his aging mentor. White spittle had violently sprayed from his moist mouth like an OC (pepper spray) canister, had discharged into DirCor Karp’s time-plowed face.

“Have you run this by IOA1 Grohowski? He has the most to lose, at least financially, from your proposed plan.” DirCor Karp’s intelligent, coffee-brown eyes were brewing with questions, both set in a tired, deeply-wrinkled face and alertly studying his protégé.

Thinning, inky-black hair had stained his corpse-pale scalp, dyed too dark for his elderly, liver-spotted complexion.

“Not yet, sthir! Not yet, sthir! I wanted to run it by you first, before the meeting,” said Dr. Burgess, loudly. The repetitive lisping seemed to echo from his cavernous mouth.

“He would lose his entire recycling bonus for this E-number.” DirCor Karp was opening and closing his ancient jaw slowly, like a prehistoric fish trying to breathe out of water, trying to pop open his collapsed eardrums. He casually, hopefully unnoticed, wiped some of Dr. Burgess’ white spittle from his ancient face: an anemic face as sticky as white glue, wrinkled like wet newspaper, just thin layers of grayish skin stretched over striated muscle like overlapping strips of papier-mâché masking his smooth skull. Dr. Karp looked as old as Genesis, dusty, like he was the first man formed of the earth.

“I am aware of that, sth—sthir,” said Dr. Burgess, loudly, lisping, stuttering. Adjusting his spectacles effeminately. Dr. Karp reminded him of a prehistoric fossil preserved beneath the seven cementitious levels of the Department of Corrections.

“Well then, Sinclair, run it by me, some details please.” Skeletal Dr. Karp leaned back in his throne-like desk chair; his tired wrinkled eyelids drooping over coffee-brown eyes; his hairy pinky finger bent and wriggling in his hairier right ear, still trying to pop open his itchy, wax-sealed ears. “Convince me it’s worth breaking Mother’s regulations and taking a man’s hard-earned bonus away.” His fatigued voice sounded like it was an echo imprisoned inside of his aged head.

Just then, round-faced, bespectacled Dr. Huxwell entered the luxurious office awkwardly, eccentrically carrying a clipboard, protectively hugging it to his white-coated chest like its sheets held the State’s most prized economic secrets. . . . A moment later, Grohowski and Carney entered, pulling the polluted stench of the surface world behind them.

The five-member think tank, the DOC’s National A-list, were now all seated at the large, designer frosted-glass and stainless-steel conference table. The live CCTV feed of goggled, naked, and unconscious Impound E30541 and white-coated PsychIntTec Dnarnya and her black-clad CorImp (lobotomized male assistant) inside of Psych Ward A’s IntCell A, just a technological window for the power elite to monitor their subject, flickered above them as if trembling in awe. Pinned to each man’s white lab coat, green uniform, or plain clothes, a silver, pentagon-shaped camera-badge: each metal badge stamped with a large DOC acronym and their State digits: each shiny badge winking across the large, designer, 1950s-ish conference table at one another (The past’s fashion always repeating as the future’s latest trend.). So few men (five), having too much power (infinite), over so many lives (every earthbound soul). These five men formed the Department of Corrections’ Oligarchy.

“OK, Sinclair, run this E-number by us, some details please,” said ancient, white-coated Dr. Karp (the visionary spearhead of Karpian ratiocination), then he went back to making gasping, prehistoric fish faces as if fighting extinction.

Pausing to untangle interlaced thoughts, then taking a deep breath, Dr. Burgess spoke like a man thunderstruck:

“After one month with subject E30541, and having subjected him to all of our SIMs (standard interrogation methods) and EITs (enhanced interrogation techniques) and SICTs (standard impound conditioning techniques) and MSPDs (multiple standard psychopharmacological drugs) and BMEs (behavior modifying environments) and VKTs (various Karpian technologies): naked humiliation (every bodily flaw, real and imagined, exposed to the universe), spiked alcohol, various narcotics, injectable Kallosomacain (Bogonarkodenotikos-19-66.67®), constant/intensified repetitive questioning, hooded and beaten, waterboarding, stress positions, painful restraint/restraints, shackled to a cell wall for days, days of solitary confinement, induced claustrophobia, zero toilet privilege, shaming, guilt, intensified excited emotion, Karpian goggles, old-fashioned lies, propaganda, intensified/repetitive direct suggestions, implanted indirect suggestions, subliminal messages, hypnopedia, hypnosis, every known form of brainwashing, sleep deprivation, dehydration, starvation, induced illness, physical abuse, mental abuse, fear, hope, forced written confessions for crimes never committed, and various stimulation—including—but not limited to: stress, fear of the unknown, sensory deprivation (deprived of all external stimuli), sensory overload (loud music/flashing lights/fluctuating temperature), time confusion, direction distortion, isolation, negative and positive reinforcement, associational therapy, aversion therapy, extreme electroshock therapy, and StimCor—pain and pleasure scramble mode—up to maximum setting level five, etc. We have only been able to break him briefly. Every implanted trigger: words, inflections, gestures, symbols, letters, numbers, sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and textures—ineffective. He seems immune to our methods, to our techniques, to our drugs, to our environments, to our technologies, at least compared to all previous impounds. What we have subjected him to should have lobotomized him—killed him—at least driven him mad. What has instantly “corrected” every previous impound of their surface identity, neutralizing their ego, breaking their spirit, making them nonhuman, hasn’t even been able to convince this subject that his name isth Equality 30541. He always retains his FreeName: Sasha Malyj. After one grueling month, one very expensive month, the for-profit State has failed to break him of his name, let alone neutralize his ego or break his spirit.” Pausing to sip from a plastic water bottle. “He isth Grade-A +++, off-the-charts intelligent, and his mind isth still not prepped for recycling.” Sipping more purified urine water. “We need to discover why he isth so resilient—something other than the size/intellect correlation. Isth it his strain of HIV-1 virus? Isth it a tolerance from his previous vodka and heroin abuse? Isth it his off-the-charts intellect? His unique genetic or biochemical makeup? His Ukrainian heredity, Cossack culture, Slavic traditions, ethnic foods? His Ukrainian Orthodox religious beliefs? His bogatyr-like physique? His inborn temperament? Or, isth he just a stubborn anomaly? What makes him so resistant to our methods, techniques, drugs, environments, and technologies? What the hell could it be?! We need to know, discover the formula to break him of his individuality, in case there are other surface dwellers like him, other unknown variables threatening the KSSE (Karpian State Stability Equation): One totalitarian State - the individual = the State’s collective stability.” Pausing to catch his breath. “I called this meeting to propose we pull the individual E30541 from the recycling program, the entire program, every level, and allow me the access, tools, time, and funds to break this resistant SOB. We need to update our flawed interrogation methods and techniques, update our flawed impound conditioning techniques, update our ineffectual drugs, update our ineffectual environments, update our obsolete technologies, for science, for the welfare of the collective State,” concluded white-coated Dr. Burgess. His unprecedented plea delivered.

The four other men were speechless. All staring at E30541 hanging inanimate in the flickering wall-mounted monitor. Amazed. No one like this individual had ever been impounded before. Having extreme resistance to all forms of suggestion, and having zero PTSD, was unheard of. They knew this unique E-number demanded more than just high-tech Karpian goggles (brainwashing), powerful narcotics (chemical persuasion), sterilization (castration), or psychosurgery (lobotomy). Equality 30541s spirit must be broken!

“What say you? Let’s take a vote.” Slapping! the custom tabletop with a liver-spotted hand; ancient Dr. Karp took a handful of ImpKib from a metal snack bowl and ate some. “Aldous. Yea or nay?” said the bony cannibal, crunching on processed impounds.

“Yea.”

“Why?” Still crunching away.

“If I tell you,” he shifted uneasily in his ergonomic chair, “will you please quit eating that rubbish in front of me, sir?”

“No.” Still crunching away; smiling childishly, his ancient features shifting like plate tectonics.

“You’re the only human being I know, besides the corrected impounds, that can stomach ImpKib.” Feeling nauseous; he answered the initial question: “I vote yea. The security of the State trumps all.” The plainclothes probation officer’s bronze face was slowly turning a patina-green.

“Alexio. Yea or nay?” Eating more ImpKib. “Mmmm!—delicious,” said playfully, trying to disgust the youngsters.

“Nay!”

“Why?!” A cadaverous hand offered the snack bowl of ImpKib to green-uniformed Grohowski. The silver chai service, bowl of sugar cubes, bowl of pistachios—untouched.

Waving the stinky metal bowl away. “I need that recycling bonus! I already purchased a new bass boat believing the money would be deposited into my surface bank account; now it will be fuckin’ overdrawn. And after thirty-five months of trying to ‘violate’ that slippery eel, that pain in the ass, I earned it.” The green-uniformed (and heavily armed) impound officer looked around the custom conference table infuriated, his baited eyes casting curses at the four other men. “Just kill the homeless MOTHERFUCKER! He’s cost me, and the State, enough time and money already.”

“Violation! Offensive banned words uttered! Violation!” VIL-EN’s mechanical voice boomed from the gold-plated speakers decorating the custom concrete ceiling embedded with overt cameras and overt microphones as if they were precious stones. The room erupted with laughter.

“Now, now, young man, watch the colorful language.” Putting the now empty ImpKib bowl down on the custom conference table, aged Dr. Karp brushed his liver-spotted and deeply-wrinkled hands of the human crumbs, ashes, and dust. Then he asked:

“George. Yea or nay?” An abrupt burp, like thousands of devoured souls had just forcefully escaped his foul mouth; followed by a deep-purple blush swirling in his papier-mâché-skinned, ruptured-and-spidery-facial-capillary-covered jowls.

“Yea.”

“Why?”

“It is the wise thing to do.” Adjusting his spectacles, then referring to one of the many white sheets clipped to his metallic clipboard. “E30541 has already cost the State more financially than any other impound in the history of the Karpian era. We must eliminate every threat to the State, no matter how improbable, no matter the cost, (eyeing armed Grohowski cautiously) no matter the protest.” He pulled his sacred clipboard back against his white-coated chest as if it were bulletproof.

“Agreed! I also vote yea.” Pausing, waiting for any additional comments. . . . “Passed! Four-to-one.” Smiling, reddish-brown ImpKib stuck between his elderly, yellowed teeth. Always doing his part, by eating Impkib, to forge a global stasis: maintaining the surface world’s limited food supply while reducing the surface world’s overpopulation.

Dr. Karp rose from his ergonomic chair. “Congratulations, Dr. Burgess,” every one now standing, shaking hands, except for Grohowski, “a Department of Corrections first, Impound Equality 30541 is all yours. You may pull this oddity from the recycling program, from the entire program, from every level,” said DirCor Karp in a slight Germanic accent. “You have my permission to make an example of him, to neutralize his ego, to break his spirit, to cure him, to correct him—no restrictions—for the welfare of the Karpian State.”