by Joe Ducie
Tristan had been right about the seasickness. Drake’s cellmate was up and retching over the toilet every five minutes, holding his stomach and groaning. At this point he was just throwing up water and little else. Drake felt woozy, as well, so he concentrated on the task at hand. He’d nicked a pen lid from the classroom that morning and was working the pointed end into the keyhole on his tracker.
After a month on the Rig, Drake had come to the realisation that the tracker problem would have to be solved before he had any hope of escape. Or meeting that Irene girl … The massive amounts of fines he had gained exploring the boundaries of the device had convinced him of that. So far he’d tried the lock against a paperclip found in the common room, a prong on the plastic sporks they used for meals, and now the ballpoint pen lid.
Nada.
Drake was no expert on lock picking – in fact, he had no idea what he was doing. But it was better than nothing, and made him feel like some progress was being made. He was confident that if he could get the device off, a plan of escape would present itself. The tracker had already been activated before it was snapped around his wrist in Processing a month ago, which led Drake to the shaky conclusion that, perhaps, he could remove it without setting off any alarms. It couldn’t sense whether or not it was attached to his wrist. If he could get the device off, he could move unimpeded – even make it seem to whoever was monitoring the devices that he was somewhere else entirely. In the month he’d been here, that seemed like the greatest flaw in the Rig’s security. The cruel and heavy-handed staff relied too much on the leashes strapped to the inmates. Drake had never once seen a guard actually poke their head into the cell at night.
Drake worked the pen lid back and forth in the narrow, rectangular lock, listening close for clicks and feeling for resistance. The point of the lid was about three centimetres long, and it slipped into the hole all the way to the cap. The more Drake fiddled with it, the more warped and stretched the plastic lid became. After half an hour of fruitless ‘lock picking’, Drake tossed the lid aside, afraid of breaking the point off in the tracker and ruining any future attempts.
He rolled over to face the wall and tried to sleep – but sleep was long in coming. Images of the Rig’s delicate spine snapping and plunging into the freezing water plagued him until a grey and lifeless dawn broke through the rain.
The weather cleared up after the storm into a brisk but sunny week.
As Mario had promised, Tubes was a nightmare. The Rig had soaked up – God knows how – mounds of seaweed and sand. The working day was extended for the crews through free time and beyond lights out to get the pipes cleared and keep the mighty prison running. For the first time since he arrived, Drake saw the technicians from the control tower out and about making repairs and checking the dials and readouts on dozens of machines. He stumbled into his cell, escorted by a guard, around midnight for three nights in a row.
On the fourth day since the storm, he was afforded a brief reprieve from the work, as his latest session with Doctor Lambros had rolled around. Drake had been looking forward to a change of pace, and she provided just that. At the very least, it was an opportunity to stop looking over his shoulder for Alan Grey or worrying about all the guards with rifles and batons.
‘Good afternoon, Will,’ the psychologist said. She removed her wireframe glasses and smiled. ‘How are you this week? Bit of a scare with that storm, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah, I only just managed to keep my dinner down. Is the Rig supposed to sway like that?’
Doctor Lambros nodded. ‘Oh yes. I’ve been here nearly eighteen months and we’ve had a few wild nights, I can tell you.’
‘What happens if we have to evacuate?’ Tristan hadn’t been so sure, and Drake was honestly curious. If he could force an evacuation somehow … Easier to escape when he wasn’t a hundred or more miles out at sea.
‘There are lifeboats under this and the northern platform. In that very unlikely event, you’d proceed through the outer shell and one of the winches would lower you down – along with ten or so others – into one of the rafts. You weren’t told all this when you arrived?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, well, now you know. I’m sure someone just overlooked that in your induction.’
Drake weighed the idea, then nodded slowly. His induction had been a bowl of cold soup and five minutes of butting heads with Warden Storm. He was certain something more was going on at the Rig. Something secret. He thought of Irene, the urgency in her eyes, and of Grey’s ‘advanced lessons’.
‘So what should we talk about today?’ Doctor Lambros asked. ‘You’ve been here nearly five weeks now. One month down!’ She made that sound almost like a good thing.
‘Only fifty-nine to go …’ Drake muttered, and made a little puffing sound between his pursed lips. During lunch, Brand had delivered the news that his work schedule would continue – Tubes for another month, on Warden Storm’s order. ‘You know, you may be the only friendly person in this place.’
‘Have you been making friends?’ the doctor asked. She made a few quick notes on the pad before her. Her desk was always cluttered, but even more so today. Drake liked that. He liked her, now that he thought about it, and the wall of qualifications behind her desk.
‘Friends …’ Drake mused. ‘No, no friends.’
‘My report says you got into a bit of trouble a few weeks back – another fight with Alan Grey. What have I told you about fighting? Michael Tristan stole a guard’s weapon in the assault. I hear rumours it was to protect you.’
‘I didn’t ask him to watch my back. Little bastard took a beating for it, too. If Grey catches up with him …’
Doctor Lambros tsked. ‘Please don’t curse in my office, Will. And what he did sounds like a friend to me, if you were being attacked. A touch brazen perhaps, but loyalty like that – in this place – can be dangerous, you know.’
‘I don’t have any friends,’ Drake insisted, and thumped his fist against the arm of the leather chair. ‘Last friend I had …’
‘Yes? Go on?’ She smiled warmly.
‘Last friend I had … I got him killed,’ Drake said flatly. He took a deep breath. May as well get it all out. ‘He was my cellmate at Cedarwood. His name was Aaron. You said something about it the first time we met, with the fire in the laundry.’
‘It’s all in your file, yes. They also say you tried to pull him out, that it was an accident.’
Drake shook his head. ‘Does it say the only reason he was there is because we were stealing tools to escape? I sent him. My fault.’
‘No, it doesn’t say that. But the fire was caused by faulty wiring, yes?’
Drake nodded. ‘That’s what they said.’
‘You can’t blame yourself for wanting out of these places, Will,’ Doctor Lambros said and put her pen down. ‘Get back to the real world – to video games, the internet, sports, junk food, girls – but you do understand your behaviour isn’t conducive to those things, to functioning within society. That’s why you’re here, because, right now, here is the best place for you.’
‘You think I’m escaping for … for what? Cheeseburgers and internet porn?’ Drake gave her a wintry, humourless smile. ‘That’s pathetic.’
‘Why do you want to escape?’
He waved the question away and rubbed at his eyes. To say he was tired was an understatement. ‘You’ve got your reports and your files – figure it out, Doctor Lambros.’
Christmas Day came and went with very little fanfare on the Rig, despite the extra-special food Tristan had promised the night of Drake’s arrival. Roast potatoes and a sticky-date pudding for lunch. A few of the boys, somehow, received care packages from their homes dotted about the globe. Outgoing mail was restricted on the Rig, an Alliance rule, but apparently exceptions could be made.
There was no work break, either. Drake’s tracker beeped, as he’d known it would, for his shift on the Tubes crew. Tommy, Mario, and the lads had been back on the eastern platform f
or just under a week. Drake had long since tired of the drudgery, but having no say in the matter – and not wanting to make any more enemies than he already had – he kept doing the work.
A cold, near-freezing breeze whistled through the eastern platform that afternoon. Drake’s hand nearly froze to the hose as he swept the tubes clean on the fifth level. Having been at it a month, he’d suggested to Tommy a week back that they request an extra hose and split the teams into three. Drake and Mario, Greg and Neil, and get the work done twice as fast. Tommy had told him to piss off, but the hose was there the next day. Greg and Neil hadn’t been too pleased, as the amount of pipes Drake had to clean had been cut in half – work they now had to do, but, as always, Mario seemed to enjoy it.
They were all done by five and Drake emerged from his tube with his stomach grumbling. Thoughts of food on Christmas Day made him think of his mother and the feasts she used to spend days preparing for in advance. He spent a few minutes wondering, among other things, whether or not she was enjoying Christmas dinner with Nanna Vera next door on Tilbury Road, back home in East London.
Stuffed turkey from Arnie’s butchers down the road, and then blackberry pie and ice cream for dessert.
‘Drake, with me,’ Tommy said, pulling him from what were fast becoming sad, hungry thoughts. ‘You got one last job for the day.’
Drake followed Tommy down a level, along the exposed outer rim of the eastern platform, past the rusted door with the new chain that so intrigued apprentice-nurse Irene, and back around to a massive collection of what looked like boilers and tanks, all connected via a network of vents and small gas pipes.
‘What’s this then?’ Drake asked. The slick grime from the day’s work was drying in his short hair. Seeing as how he had no means of shaving his head, he wanted to wash the muck out before it became permanent.
‘Rig’s heating system,’ Tommy said. ‘Hot water, air conditioning, water treatment and de-sal.’ He pointed to the boilers and tanks, all of them rumbling and tumbling. Subtle vibrations echoed through the steel walkway. ‘We need to clean the filters in the heating duct there.’
‘We?’
‘You, Drake.’ Tommy pointed him up a ladder alongside one of the wide silver vents. ‘Up you go, remove that panel there, hop inside and replace the dirty filter with this clean one.’ The Tubes crew leader reached into a cardboard box at the base of the ladder and removed a rectangular piece of plastic, crisscrossed with metal mesh.
‘The heating on? I don’t want to get fried.’
Tommy slapped his forehead. ‘What was I thinking? Damn, son, you’d think it was my first day on the job.’ He stepped over to a panel of dials, levers and buttons. He made a few adjustments to the dials and the sound of air rushing through the vents overhead became a low hum. ‘Two and a half years I’ve been doing this, Drake. Now get up there. You’ve got five minutes before the heating automatically cycles back up. Warden don’t like to be cold.’
Drake tucked the new filter under his arm and began to climb the ladder. The vent was only about three metres above his head, but carrying the filter made the climb difficult.
‘So the eastern platform heats the whole Rig, huh?’ he asked Tommy as he fiddled with the sliding panel on the vent.
‘That’s right. If we don’t keep this running then we’ll freeze in January when the cold really sets in.’
The whole Rig … Drake thought, as he slid the panel loose and crawled up into the vent. A burst of balmy air hit him in the face and warmed him through. That means it’s all connected. Those silver vents running under the clear corridors between platforms … they were air ducts, all leading back to the eastern platform. Learn something new every day.
With all the muck and grime still clinging to him from the pipework, changing the filter proved to be a lesson in patience. The vent was caked in dust and fluff, but he managed to swap the old filter for the new. Drake cursed as unlatching the screen caused a plume of dust to explode outwards into his face. The dust stuck to him like he’d been tarred and feathered.
Tommy smirked as he came down the ladder. ‘Merry Christmas.’
Drake tossed the old filter at his head.
New Year’s passed with as much fanfare as Christmas, and Drake was awake to see it as his tracker crossed over from 2359 to 0000 on December 31st.
‘Happy New Year,’ Tristan muttered in the darkness from his bottom bunk. ‘2026. I think I’ll go travelling. Take a gap year away from this place. Yup, sounds good.’
The first few weeks of January were bitterly cold. Cool arctic winds covered the pipes and outer layers of the Rig in frost. Tubes became an almost fulltime job, and two extra crews were assembled from the inmates to de-ice and thaw the critical systems. Once again, the trained engineers and technicians journeyed down from the warmth of the control tower to supervise.
During free time on January 15th, Drake sat idle in one of the chairs in the common room overlooking, as all the outer rooms did, the vast and empty ocean. Today was his two-month anniversary. He had spent exactly eight weeks on the Rig, and had come no closer to figuring out how not to spend the next two hundred and fifty-two weeks here. He had long since given up on trying to pick the lock on his tracker. However the device was held together, it wasn’t with a tumbler or any normal lock. Perhaps if I break my thumb I could slip it off … No, I’d never get it over the wrist.
Overhead, the flat-screen TVs drilled into the walls churned through Alliance-approved programming. ‘Join Crystal Force – Enhance, Explore, Excel – and make a difference today!’ Or the always popular: ‘Alliance Systems – safeguarding the future of corrections across the world. Providing humane rehabilitative facilities, the Alliance is committed to global safety.’
‘Drake, fancy a game of pool?’ Mario asked.
Drake gave him a brief grin. ‘Think I’m off to bed, actually, mate. Storm’s rolling in – Tubes’ll be a mess by tomorrow.’
‘Suit yourself. Want me to come read you a bedtime story?’
Drake considered, then shook his head. ‘Sod you and your story.’
Mario flipped him off and darted away. ‘Greg! Game of pool?’
The walk down four tiers from the common room was as dull as ever. The scent of the Rig, old crude oil and salt, could never be completely masked by the air-conditioning system or the cleaning crews. No, that was a smell that had seeped into the Rig’s bones, as surely as weary resignation was seeping into Drake’s. If he didn’t get off this platform soon, he was sure he’d go mad. As mad as Tristan’s last cellmate. Drake hadn’t seen Tristan since breakfast. He’d been called away by Hall to the control tower – Warden Storm wanted to see him. Nothing good could come of that, Drake had thought at the time.
Five years is too long …
Drake entered 36C and washed his face in the sink. Places like this, in Drake’s experience, hurt the people they claimed to help. They were more harm than good. Kids who made mistakes, who were forced into crime by trial or circumstance, were served justice from the courts, sentenced away, and all but forgotten about. The Rig, and places like it, screwed people up. Sure, the violent and disturbed people needed help, to be restrained from harming themselves and others, but at what point did justice become vengeance? As far as Drake was concerned, the Alliance – and the -governments across the world that supported the Alliance – had long since crossed that line.
Lost in his thoughts, Drake didn’t hear Tristan shuffle into their cell until he sank down onto his bed and muttered, ‘Another year.’
Drake spat out a mouthful of toothpaste. ‘Eh?’
‘They put another year on my sentence, for swiping Brand’s baton.’ He heaved a massive sigh, and whispered, ‘I’m back at the start …’
Drake finished brushing his teeth in silence, not quite knowing what to say. Tristan had only done what he’d done to protect Drake – to save his life. Grey would’ve stuck him for sure with his strange glowing knife if Tristan hadn’t acted. What had Brand said
? There was no knife, Mr Drake.
He felt guilty for what had happened to Tristan, but it wasn’t his problem, and what could he do about it, in the end? Take him with you when you escape, whispered a small voice in the back of his mind. Drake shook his head. He didn’t have an escape plan, not even the fuzzy outline of one, and he’d learnt well at Cedarwood not to make friends.
‘Sorry,’ he said, climbing up onto the top bunk. ‘That’s rough.’
‘S’not your fault,’ Tristan muttered, half his face squished into his pillow.
As Drake slipped into bed he thought he’d never heard so much defeat in one voice. He bit his lip, lying in silence for a long moment, and then sighed. ‘I never said thanks, did I? For what you did.’
‘I’d ask you to buy me a Twix or something from the vending machines, but … what’s your score now?’
Drake glanced at his tracker. $-995. ‘Closing in on the full thousand. I’ll have it by the morning.’ He tapped the tracker against the wall. ‘You know, these things really are pretty damn secure.’
‘Not as secure as you think …’ Tristan muttered.
‘Say what?’
Tristan was quiet for a long moment and then Drake heard him take a deep breath. ‘You asked what I did to get here? Why I’m a “special case”, like you?’
Drake sat up. ‘Yes?’
‘I … I did something, and a lot of people got hurt. Some died.’
‘What did you –?’
‘You’ve seen me in lessons, right. How I use the pen and paper and don’t actually touch the computer.’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s because I’m not allowed to touch a computer again.’ Tristan sniffed. ‘Well, not for the next five years, according to the judge who threw me to the Alliance down in Perth. Don’t think they care about the lessons anyway.’