Chapter 3: Fresh Fish

It was daytime when Zuo Dao was brought to Hell Island, but night had fallen by the time he actually entered the detention area. For the intervening few hours, he and the prisoners who had arrived with him were held in separate cells enclosed on all four sides by solid iron walls. With pure-alloy cuffs on their wrists and shackles on their ankles, they simply sat there, ignored.

He could tell they were essentially waiting for Hades's Divine Mist to take full effect. By the time he and the other prisoners were hauled out of their individual compartments, they were little different from ordinary people. The fully armed guards in their powered armor could then escort them to be “disinfected.”

Disinfection was a quick, simple process, rather like jumping into a flushing toilet. The prisoners were dumped into a pipe full of liquid and flushed from one end to the other. Besides actually “disinfecting” them, the solution helped the equipment detect anything hidden inside their bodies. Wire concealed beneath the skin to pass for blood vessels, containers of corrosive liquid swallowed into the stomach, even miniature robots hidden inside the body—whatever it was, organic or inorganic, it would be found during disinfection.

After disinfection, the prisoners were “clean.” If anyone wasn't clean, the staff would help by digging out whatever remained. Apart from cyborgs, practically no one could still be hiding anything by this stage. As for the cyborgs unfortunate enough to be sent here, they had it rougher. Once you entered Tidal Prison, they generally removed your augmented parts and left you disabled. Heavily augmented cyborgs whose mechanical parts couldn't be removed were sent to the special detention area.

The special detention area had none of the free activity periods available in ordinary detention. Someone delivered two meals a day to your cell door, and the food was better than the guards'. There were no scheduled bathing times, either, since every cell had its own bathroom. You didn't even have to wash your clothes. Someone regularly brought clean prison uniforms to replace the dirty ones you were wearing.

Sound comfortable? It was, which meant there was a catch to all these perks.

There were only two kinds of people in the special detention area, and ninety percent belonged to the first kind—gladiators.

Every month, these prisoners had to fight a one-on-one death match. The warden decided the pairings, though in most cases they were simply random.

The winner of each match earned another month of life. The loser, naturally, died.

The entire fight was broadcast live. This ultimate competitive spectacle was reserved exclusively for the palace aristocrats of Tiandu. Naturally, enormous sums were wagered behind the scenes, though in this particular sport there was no possibility of a contestant throwing a match.

Those were the first kind, the ninety percent of the special detention area's inmates. Every month, half of them disappeared, but the next month still more would be sent in for all sorts of reasons. Besides cyborgs, there were prisoners whose skills or talents made them a significant threat to other inmates even under the effects of the mist. These people were prime candidates for special detention.

The second kind of inmate in the special detention area was much rarer. They could enjoy the special treatment without having to fight. These people were too valuable, yet could not be put to use by the Empire. Their capabilities, or the ideas in their heads, could never be allowed into the outside world. The Empire would certainly never let them go, but it needed to keep them alive for some purpose, so it simply kept them there.

After all that, let's get back to Zuo Dao. Following disinfection, a bracelet engraved with his name was fastened around his wrist. These shock rings were Tidal Prison's principal means of controlling its inmates. You could find a hundred ways to trigger one: touching a guard, leaving an assigned area, trying to take it off, and so on. The hard part was finding a way to get up to no good without triggering it…

Once Zuo Dao and the other new prisoners had their shock rings on, the guards breathed easier. These dangerous individuals now had roughly the fighting capabilities of ordinary people, and they were wearing shock rings as well. The guards therefore removed their pure-alloy cuffs and shackles, replaced them with ordinary restraints, chained them together in a line, and took them to the detention area.

After that, Zuo Dao heard Jefferson's terrifying speech. He really was frightened, but now that he'd signed on with the Inverted Cross, he still had to do what needed doing.

By the time he entered the detention area, lights-out had passed, and the prisoners were all in their cells. The cells were pitch-black, with no lights inside. Only the walkways outside the cell doors remained lit.

This detention area stood a full seven stories high, with an open central well. Zuo Dao's leg irons were unchained from the other prisoners', and he was the first to leave the line, taken up to the top floor. After exchanging a few words over the radio with a colleague in the surveillance room, the guard opened a cell door, removed Zuo Dao's cuffs and shackles, and bundled him inside with a mixture of shoves and kicks.

“A word of advice. After lights-out, keep your mouth shut.” With that, the guard left.

The barred iron door shut tight. By the light from outside, Zuo Dao felt his way through the dark cell and found the bed. To be honest, it wasn't much of a bed. The thing was as hard as stone, a meter off the floor, twice as wide as a person, and two and a half meters long. There were no sheets or pillows. The only difference between sleeping on it and sleeping on the floor was the elevation.

Oh well. Better than nothing, Zuo Dao thought. He lay down on his side, resting his head on his arm. The shock ring on his wrist dug into him uncomfortably. He supposed he would just have to get used to it.

About half an hour passed, and he still wasn't particularly sleepy. In his own words, he always “slept ready for battle.” As far as Zuo Dao was concerned, people who could close their eyes and fall straight asleep in unfamiliar surroundings were the sort who wouldn't even know what killed them.

When he came in, he had felt at least several dozen pairs of eyes watching him from those pitch-black cells. He didn't know how he'd reached that conclusion. He'd simply had the feeling of being watched.

Now, listening closely, he found that the detention area really was frighteningly quiet. On every floor, a night guard stood at the end of the walkway. Apart from the occasional sounds the guards made, the people lying in all those dark cells might as well have been dead.

All these grown men on all these floors, and not a single snore. Could it be… everyone was like him, lying awake and listening? Everyone here slept ready for battle? Were they crazy?

The guard's advice nagged at Zuo Dao. Why did you have to keep your mouth shut after lights-out? To avoid disturbing the other prisoners' rest?

Following that line of thought, Zuo Dao decided it did make some sense. In a place like this, in such stillness in the middle of the night, if you lay in your cell singing a song or something, the building's layout would make it carry almost like a full-blown concert. Once everyone was let out for exercise the next day, your fellow inmates surely wouldn't be satisfied until they'd fucked you to death up the ass.

As his mind wandered through these thoughts, Zuo Dao's eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and without even realizing it, he fell asleep.

He woke with a start. Looking out through the cell door, he found everything unchanged. He had no way of telling how long he'd slept. It might have been five minutes or five hours. In this undersea prison, day and night depended entirely on the changing lights outside. Time and space had become a complete blur.

Just as he was deciding whether to close his eyes and go back to sleep or keep watching, the lights outside happened to change. White lights came on in the ceiling directly above the central well. This was Tidal Prison's signal for eight in the morning.

Zuo Dao didn't know that, but he guessed it meant dawn had come in the outside world. He sat up, with no idea what would happen on the first official day of his prison life. This was his first time behind bars. He really hadn't expected to spend his maiden stint in Tidal Prison on Hell Island. He'd gone straight into the big leagues…

As Zuo Dao had imagined it beforehand, beyond this single cell lay a lawless zone full of gay sex, violence, gangs, racism, and all manner of other problems. He would have to act tough to survive. He also had his first assignment since signing on with the Inverted Cross. He had to make contact with Blood Owl within a month at the latest, or there was no telling what would happen.

Time ticked by, and his taut nerves gradually relaxed again, because nothing happened. It wasn't until ten in the morning that the cell door opened by itself. The moment the iron bars moved, Zuo Dao jumped so badly he nearly fell off the bed.

Soon, other prisoners began passing his cell. As they went by, they couldn't help glancing at Zuo Dao, thinking, “Another new guy. There'll be a good show in the cafeteria at noon.”

Zuo Dao waited until everyone had gone before furtively poking his head out of the cell and looking both ways. Then he stepped outside and looked down from the walkway. The prisoners from all seven floors had left their cells and gathered at the bottom of the central well.

“Hey! You!” A guard came over. “What were you hiding in your cell for?”

Zuo Dao raised both hands in surrender. “I wasn't! I wasn't! I was just… um… still half asleep, so I stayed in bed a little longer.”

The guard glanced at him, saw that he was new, and thought nothing of it. “Get downstairs for roll call. Hurry up.”

“Yes, yes, sir!” Zuo Dao nodded and bowed as he answered, then scurried down the stairs.

The prisoners gathered in the central well weren't as orderly as Zuo Dao had imagined, either. They weren't lined up waiting for roll call, just standing wherever they pleased. Only a handful had gathered in twos and threes to talk.

Once downstairs, Zuo Dao chose a corner to stand in. No one around him paid him any attention. Most of the others had also found somewhere to stand alone and were keeping silent. Before long, Zuo Dao saw a senior guard, whose powered armor was a slightly different color from the ordinary guards', step onto the second-floor walkway and call down to the prisoners, “If your name is called, go straight to the door over there. You're changing detention areas today.”

The senior guard then read out about twenty names. Zuo Dao's wasn't among them.

“Anyone who wants to work in the laundry, go through the door on the other side. Everyone else, dismissed.” With that, he walked away.

Zuo Dao noticed a dozen or so people heading for the door the senior guard had indicated. After a little thought, he followed them. He hadn't spotted Blood Owl in the crowd anyway, and staying here would just waste time. He might as well try his luck in the laundry. Even if he didn't find him, it seemed as though doing some work might earn him a few perks. A pillow, perhaps? A few extra shreds of meat in his food? Who knew? At least he wouldn't be working for nothing.

“Hey… look, the new guy's gone to the laundry…”

“Heh… now we'll get a good show. Thinks he's so smart. Plenty of fresh fish go belly-up like this the morning after they swim in.”

Two prisoners were whispering in the distance. As they saw it, this new kid Zuo Dao had willingly walked straight into disaster.

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