PR150N

Chapter 1

They promised this new set of prisons ensured we were ready for normal life in a shorter timeframe. Everyone ate it up; the government, the world, the already overpopulated prisons.
They didn't tell you how they did that, or how much it was against our human rights.
What human rights? You broke the law. Criminals don't have rights.
That's what they told me when I questioned them.
The prison was high tech, something out of the future controlled by robots and microchips. Each prisoner was subjected to them inserting a chip into their head when they arrived. One that could track their location. One that would send painful shocks into their body any time they misbehaved. Imagine how surprised and scared we all were when we arrived as the newest cohort of prisoners and were forced into a pristine white doctor's room where we were told we were being put to sleep with no idea of the reason why. You wake up later, in another disinfected, shiny white room to be told you'd had a chip inserted..

I clearly remember that first day; the long journey to the prison was painful. We were squashed into a rickety old truck and the seats were not padded. My butt did not appreciate the journey, and I began to get anxious of every bump we went over because the landing was so painful. We didn't have seatbelts either, so when we took a particularly sharp turn I collided with the terrifying looking guy next to me. That may have been one of the best things to happen on that journey, looking back, but at the time his thick, dark eyebrows furrowed and his lips tightened together as he glared over at me. Had I not been scared for my life in those few seconds, I may have taken the time to take in his features a little more. Instead I panicked.

"I-I'm sorry..." I whispered. I thought better of snapping at him and causing a fight on the truck which would in turn make me enemies for life, especially now that the prisons were not gender specific. Any gender was sent to this prison, that was another 'winning point' about these new high-tech fancy prisons. Of course, they kept the reason why out of the public's knowledge but with the chip imprinted in our brain, any wrong move would end in us being shocked. No person would try any sort of assault and if they did, they were shocked. If the shock didn't work, they'd increase the power until you were shocked into unconsciousness. They claimed it was safer for all prisoners and guards this way.

During this lethal truck ride, I saw this guy beside me looking over to another four men in the vehicle and I'd noticed that they had interacted with him in a positive way, which meant he was friends with them. The last thing I needed to do was get beaten up by five guys in a gang and then have to be looking over my shoulder for my whole spell in prison. He offered me a smirk as his eyes raked over my body agonisingly slowly. I gulped nervously, scared of what his mind was racing with. Was he thinking about how to kill me? How satisfying it would be to shatter my cheekbone? I twitched my leg - a telltale sign that I was nervous - and kept my gaze soft as I awaited his response. In the end, he mumbled 'Don't worry about it' and looked back towards his friends with a smile.
I went to look out the window, my natural soother for any time I felt anxious but unfortunately for us all, the vehicle's windows were blacked out so we could not see anything outside. I assumed this was so we couldn't track the journey to help us if we ever managed to escape. Ha. Escape. Funny how I thought that may have been an option. Now I'm here, I know this place is inescapable.

Every room was only entered once they'd scanned your hand on a touchpad beside the door and done a full facial recognition scan. Nothing was manned by people so there was no chance of any hostage situations with the guards, and no means to escape by stealing the guard's weapons or keys. Everything was timed; our food breaks, our social breaks, our toilet breaks. If you were in the shower for longer than ten minutes, the water and lights were turned off by the system and you were left to fend for yourself to get yourself back to your room. With the social breaks, once the hour was up they would broadcast a message for you to go back to your room and you had one minute to get there. If you weren't back in your room by that time, you were shocked. For every ten seconds you were still out of your cell, the shock increased in strength. It was this kind of military precision that made the prison function with just us prisoners and computers. Another thing that they did specifically to the women of the prison, they made us start taking tablets that stopped our periods indefinitely. This way, they could limit our time in the bathrooms and when the cameras scanned the areas to make sure there were no mishaps, there was no blood for the camera to alert to the guard teams. I know, imagine someone taking that away from you without asking either. Not that I liked the things, but at least I knew my body was working. Some females in the prison used this as their birth control and slept around, knowing they wouldn't get pregnant. For me, it just annoyed me to know it was another thing this prison had control over.

There were real guards in the building but they spent all their time sitting behind computer screens, watching what the camera feeds were showing them. They didn't need to do anything in terms of walking about, patrolling or checking in on prisoners. Everything was done by computer and camera. If they didn't like something they saw, they would tap that person on the screen to deliver the electric shock.
Each room was fitted with a camera that did a full room scan every ten minutes. It would try to pick up any furniture movement, bodily fluid that shouldn't be there, anything out of the ordinary or new. This was fed straight into the computer and to those guards to check. If they didn't like the look of something, they could go and check on it but, let's be honest, they were happy that their jobs were finally more sedentary and a lot less prisoner facing.
Life inside the prison now was like groundhogs day. I had tried to keep count of how long I'd been here but after a certain period of time, I just lost track. It had been months, I knew that for sure, but how long exactly I couldn't recall. We didn't see day light, everything was controlled by the computers. There were no windows, only lights that dimmed during the evening and brightened in the morning. There were no birds singing, neighbours talking, news broadcasts to keep you up to date. Everything you lived and breathed was inside this prison.

The seven am alarm went off across the whole prison, sounding through speakers within the ceiling. The lights automatically brightened as they forced you to get out of bed. Any longer than five minutes and you'd be shocked, so there was no such thing as snoozing your alarm. I stood up quickly, my head spinning as my body tried to come to terms with the swift movement as I held my head to steady myself. The moment my feet touched the floor and it could feel that my full weight was on the tile, the alarm above my bed quietened. This happened in every cell. Some would ring for a lot longer and after those few more seconds, the screeches and shouts of those being shocked would take over.

"Breakfast time for section A." The speaker announced forcefully in their robotic female tone. I trudged over to my cell door and put my hand on the scanner. As it scanned from the tips of my fingers to my wrist, I looked up so that the camera could do facial recognition to double check it was me. The scanner pinged from a blue light to green and my door automatically opened. I filed into the queue of people heading to the cafeteria and we marched, almost like a silent army in perfect sync, to the room. Another scan of my hand and face allowed me to enter the room. I sat down at my table and looked down at the menu projected onto the tabletop. I selected some toast and jam and some coffee. The menu vanished from the table and the table began to whir. In mere seconds, the table top parted and allowed my plate to rise up from the shadows, steaming hot toast and jam and a nice hot coffee we're waiting for me.

"Fifteen minutes to eat." The table ordered me and the projection of my time remaining at the table appeared. Once that timer was up, the table top would reopen and take the food back whether you had finished or not. Many times I'd had to go hungry because of it, but now I'd learnt that I had to be in the moment and pay attention. I glanced quickly around the room to see who else was having breakfast, like a meerkat on hind legs I stretched up to look over the dividers that separated every table. I caught the eye of one guy, Solomon, my friend from the truck, and offered him a smile. He flicked his eyes over to the right, at the clock, and mouthed social. This was his cue to tell me to meet him in his room during social hours. I subtly nodded before I shrunk back into my seat and carried on eating. Too much disruption would end in shock, and I didn't think I could handle many more of those...