I was sitting in a rotten grey jail cell. I never regretted what I did in the slightest sense, however, I have been sitting here for who knows how long. Anxiety crept up on me like vines on the jail’s walls. What are they doing? I thought to myself. I was no expert in the justice system of the Western Union, but it didn’t seem like I was getting out anytime soon. Hands cuffed, still in my janitor’s uniform, I lay down on the tiny bench stuck to the wall that barely fit me. I wondered if they were going to notice my parents, a part of me hoped they were, and another part hoped for something even less likely, them caring. I closed my eyes, a part of me felt at peace, at least I had some time away from the world, even though the location wasn’t exactly ideal. I tried to get some rest and pass the time by sleeping, but that was proved impossible by the anxiety inside my stomach. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. Best case scenario, I go to court and get sentenced to about three years in prison, highly doubt it’s that little because of my Importance score though. Worst case scenario, they would just bring me to a back alley of a bar somewhere and shoot me dead, after all, no one cares about a Zero. All I could really do is wait, ain’t much else. Eventually, an officer came. He didn’t say anything, just looked at me with disgust as he gave me a meal that probably deserved that look more than I did. I still ate it, and the taste was not any better than they look, that was certainly an experience not everyone gets in life, or anyone wanting to get in life. A short while later, another police officer, a different one, came to me. This man was bigger, stronger, his police uniform barely holding, he looked like the stereotypical Physical Spirit hardcore type. He didn’t have a disgusted look in his green eyes, but instead, it was a pitiful look. I felt like he knew something that I didn’t, something that could change my life forever.

“You will be moved to the Dam Prison at Areson City tomorrow morning. Get some rest, it might be the last time you will have a decent rest.” Said the officer as he gave me a pillow and a blanket.

He left shortly after that. What did he mean by that? Last time I get to rest? I decided to not dwell on that thought for too much as I lay back down on the bench. I tried to stray away from the stress about something I couldn’t control. I looked up to the grey slanting ceiling and started having other worries. I was worried that when I sleep, it might fall on me in the middle of the night. Most people wouldn’t even notice the slanting, but I was always too perceptive. I closed my eyes while calculating the angle in my head, trying to keep myself distracted until my body falls asleep, it was 2.72 degrees off from where it should have been, or around there, couldn’t really trust my brain being used as a calculator. Eventually, my thoughts were randomly cut off as my body slowly drifted to sleep.

“Hey, wake the hell up.”

A cop was standing right next to where I slept. It seemed like I had rolled down the floor from the tiny bench in my sleep. I looked up at the officer and he was holding a holographic tablet. He squatted down right next to me and pointed his pen at a signature space. I scanned the lengthy document in roughly five seconds, taking in all the information that I needed. It was a notice for the Dam Prison. Strangely enough, I felt refreshed, most likely because this was the most sleep I have had in a while. I couldn’t even tell the time, there were no windows in this jail, no clock either. I got up from the ground, stretched out however I could in this excessively uncomfortable uniform, and followed the guard out of the jail cell. I let out a long sigh, my life was over, I highly doubt I was going to get a free trial.

“I want a lawyer,” I said to the officer.

He elbowed me right where the lungs were, in the middle of the police station yet nobody seemed to care. I gasped for air as he just laughed out loud, some of his colleagues started laughing as well. Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see the guard that notified me about my trip to the Dam prison yesterday, the big one with the pitiful looks, he was looking the other way, trying to ignore the situation. Behind him was the hovering white bus with the words DAM PRISON BUS on it.

“There’s your lawyer, Zero! Now get up,” My escort dragged me up to my feet.

He had a Physical Spirit for sure, it seemed like he barely nudged me with his elbow yet it felt like a truck ran me over. Was that even constitutional? Certainly not, they denied my right to a lawyer, physically assaulted me in broad daylight, at least they didn’t make me walk to the prison. He shoved me on the prison bus with people that looked even more desperate and dangerous than I was. There was a man filled with tattoos on his body, a slim girl that looked like she hasn’t had food in years, and the last one who looked like he could tear someone’s throat open and feel joy about it. None of them paid any attention to me as I found an empty seat. Before the driver took off, he did a roll call.

“Alexei Riverspire, 12%,” the psychopathic-looking man raised his hand.

“Arthur Thester? 0%! Well, that’s as rare as 100% themselves,” I raised my hand, and got some looks at me. Did he really have to say my score? The looks turned away quickly, their scores weren’t that great themselves either.

“Harry Paul! 7%!” The man with the tattoos raised his hands.

I wondered if it was a coincidence that everyone had such humiliating scores. Of course they had such low scores, society didn’t exactly force average people, people with 40% and above, to commit crimes just to help themselves. I was surprised I stayed under the radar for seventeen years of my life. Because of my score, they could say any bad thing about me and people would believe it, sickening! I hated this society so much that I wanted to destroy it, I wanted to let people like me, people with low scores, the compensation that they deserved.

“And lastly, Amelia Sager. 5%” He said, and the skinny woman raised her hand.

He sat down at the wheel, pressed a button and the screen shined a hologram reading Automated mode. The screen then became transparent, showing the road full of high-speed vehicles moving around in a systemic order. The bus started moving shortly after that, reaching 120 MPH after a short while. Everybody was under a heavy silence, except the psychopath-looking person. He kept giggling like a complete maniac, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he was indeed a maniac. I scanned him from my seat, he had dyed grey hair, he didn’t look to be much older than me. He was wearing casual clothes, a t-shirt, jeans, I wondered what had he done to get himself in this situation. He caught me staring at him with his eyes, the eyes as red as the sky and as sharp as the knives in my kitchen. Is he wearing contacts or something? I jerked my head back to my seat, trying to hide the fact that I was indeed staring at him. Speaking of kitchen knives, I wondered what had happened to the crappy apartment that I lived in. Did they search it? Did they notify my parents and they did nothing but end the contract on it? Surprisingly, I didn’t even care about it. I haven’t even seen them for five years, what good would be done if I cared about them then? The bus reached 150 MPH, I admired the handiwork of the Magic Engineers that designed this. Everything was running on Magic, the lights, the cars, they are even trying to control the weather with it. How it worked was Magic Engineers would pour their Spirit’s Magic into a battery of some sort, and the mechanism of the machines workaround that battery. If I had assimilated with a Spirit, and if it was a Magical Spirit, I would have been a Magic Engineer. That was an impossible dream however, I was never able to do it without any Spirit in me.

Around thirty minutes later or so, Alexei the psycho-looking man stood up and walked toward me. I was a bit confused about the police officer on the bus not saying anything, turned out he dozed off on the driver's seat, it would have been hilarious if the bus’s automation suddenly failed. I scooped in when Alexei showed the desire that he wanted to sit next to me.

“Hello, I’m Alexei,” He put his slim hand out. I shook it reluctantly, I didn’t want to be impolite. As soon as I touched his hand, he squeeze mine aggressively, shaking it up and down violently.

“It’s rare to see a Zero, as rare as a Perfect I would say!” He said quickly. He seemed very obnoxious, quite…twitchy. Perfect was the nickname for people that got 100% on the scale, there are like… 21 people in the world that actually scored that. I would imagine the number of Zeroes wasn’t that far from that number either, so I guessed I got the shorter end of the stick.

“Name is Arthur,” I said blankly to the guy, trying to match his pace. He seemed to be quite glad that I was actually responding to him.

“Why are we going so far? Is there no prison near us?” I asked Alexei.

“The prison near us or the ones for… high-class prisoners. You know, the ones with a higher score.” He said. The fact that they even segregated the prisons on Importance Scores amazed me. Prisons were supposed to be where criminals get punished, not where social standings come into play.

“I don’t really mind though, it’s good to move away from Haven city for a while,” continued Alexei. “It was starting to get…suffocating there.”

Something told me that the reason why this guy was on this bus was suffocation. I tried not to pry into his business, after all, what good would it do for me to know why he was here. I stayed quiet as he kept rambling on and on about the cities and the world and whatnot. I looked out of the dirty, dusty window. We were on the highway, I could see the entire Haven city from here. Ignoring the social interactions and the less pleasurable memories that I had here, I could see the beauty of this city. People flying with their Flyboards filled the sky, going wherever they wanted to go. The colorful buildings punctured the sky showing videos of products on their holographic windows. I started to feel a bit sad, as I realized that I was going away for some time. The view soon became nothing as we traveled the wasteland between Haven city and Areson city, but that also meant that we were getting to our destination soon. Alexei was still ranting about random pieces of information, but it got a little bit more interesting when he started speaking about science. I listened to him for a while and even engaged in said information. It particularly got interesting when he started talking about explosives, maybe I could somehow explode this entire society and rebuild it.

The view of the prison eventually came into our sight. It was a huge prison, heavily guarded with heavily armed guards. Some of them even had scary enormous dogs on their leash. Did they think that because the people here might have a lower score on the Importance Scale, they were more violent? I shook my head as I sighed heavily, disappointed at how the world has been seeing us. A few more prison buses drove in, the guard woke up and started yelling orders to get prepared for the prison. He was talking about uninteresting things, dogs, illegal substances, this and that, the things that didn’t pique my interest. I was hoping to get a trial soon anyways, so I might not even be here for too long.

“Welcome to Dam Prison.” The driver cop said.