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2033

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THE ROARING INFURIATION CRESCENDO came from the citadel — it was audible from almost a mile away in the desert, creating an ambience of emotional chaos. The penitentiary that aboded major Intersexual rival street gangs as its denizens. in later years — it also housed the White orphans from the Exodus Trail Evacuation of the Walter Rosewood administration — when the last male President of the United States' alternative solution during the Medusa Virus attack on his country, was to get as many of the survivors away from the disaster zone, by migrating them to the east coast.

Those orphans had today grownup as teenagers, incarcerated in Tombscradle in the state of Texas since 2027.

A naked, young seventeen years old was in handcuffs, led onto the exercise yard. He was escorted by six female armed prison-guards. They approached the fence of jeering and outraged Latino inmates — he was led past a metal gate into the Hispanic yard. The bald youth's face had both old and new scars and bruises — and his backbore with lots of scar-tissues...

It was mostly inflicted during his childhood from another prison.

Seeing out through the barred windows of the huge prison blocks that were surrounding the exercise yard were hundreds of distressing looking faces — peering out of the windows of their cells. The White and Black races of prisoners were witnessing the upsetting spectacle below of the captive known to everyone as the Preacher, who was led by the guards into the presence of a mob, waiting on the other side of the fence...

One pair of the peering sad eyes from the locked-down cell — was the ones of a dark-haired Intersexual youth. He had a recollection of meeting Doran for the first time — five long years ago.

*

A dim, menthol light bulb above him gleamed dully when his eyes opened — and he gazed around groggily inside the prison infirmary. The shirtless twelve-year-old Intersexual boy turned to his left towards someone snoring — he saw his buddy Joe on a bunk bed beside his.

Reeves was curious about the presence of the other person on the far end bed — whose face was turned away — Reeves saw the bare-bodied, bald boy with scads of scars-tissues concavity on his back. The sight of the scars gob-smacked the rebel from Wesleyan for a moment — with some initial questions in his mind as he panicked...

'What was he punished for? Do they fucking physically abuse anyone in here?

'Where the hell am I?'

Reeves endeavoured to sit upright — and he became aware of his right wrist handcuffed to the bed-side. He started yanking hard — Doran turned his head to the sound of the scraping metal.

"Stop that, you will hurt yourself more."

Reeves noticed his scared face next — also bruised and swollen from beatings.

"Who are you?"

Reeves responded back to the lulling voice. Doran did not answer him, he wiped his tears with his un-handcuffed hand before turning and facing the dark-haired boy. He saw Reeves attempting to sit up, coughing, clutching in discomfort due to mild angina.

"Mmpff, my chest..."

"You are too young to get a heart attack," said the bald-headed boy.

Reeves slowly remembered being abutted on the old, orange-bricked wall top, and he glared lurid above at the snipers on rooftops — who were shooting tranquillizer darts on the clinging Joe — and then onto his chest. He recalled falling backwards on the broken barb-wire, and next, the voices of the girls screaming behind him — one of them who a minute ago, had flashed her knickers at him.

"The cops shot me with some kind of darts and I must have passed out after that."

Reeves said, and at the same time recalling — more thoughts of his escape attempt with Joe.

The monk-boy nodded, recalling too the same ordeal, a day ago — when uniformed women with weapons massacring everyone at sight in the Convent. He now spoke softly, still in his own reverie...

"Yes, they shot Sister Lisa too..."

"Who shot your sister?"

Doran corrected what he had earlier said. "Sister Lisa Marie was a nun. I am from a monastery orphanage — and Sister Lisa took care of us all for many years."

Reeves could not comprehend what were the meanings of the words — 'nun' and 'monastery' —- after being raised as a nescient to the outside world, being fostered in the Intersexual Intelligence Research Centre. It was an environment of scientific researches and species studies in the Wesleyan University — and he was a test subject in there...

But, he knew what an 'orphanage' was because he grew up thinking of himself as an orphan — until in the eleventh hour when he was told that the name of his mother was Laura Jensen.

"Monastery, you said?" Reeves asked out of abstruse of the word...

"Yes Brother, all the boys there at the abbey, and we were trained by the Sisters there to be Catholic priests someday. Then, yesterday they came — those soldiers — and they killed all the nuns, and now we are here." He then paused a second to think, and continued fretfully...

"I must find Michael and others!"

Reeves heard the desperation and anger in the new acquaintance's basso voice. He must have gone through a lot during his escape attempt, based by his bandaged fresh wounds, cuts and scrapes all over his body.

'Was this guy a rebel like Morgan — the once Wesleyan's exiled student?'

The door then swung open — a hefty butch in prison officer uniform came striding into the infirmary with two other female guards. The butch was in her thirties whom the boys came to know the following day that she held the appellation of the Captain of the Guards.

She shouted out to them...

"Get up all of you — on your feet now!" She hit the metal bunk's side with a baton.

Another female guard then slapped and roughened Joe — but he was still dormant. Doran and Reeves stood with their wrists still cuffed to the bedsides. Reeves felt some stinging sensations behind, with some medical dressings on his back after he got up...

'It must have been the cause of the barb-wire fall.'

The Wesleyan then overheard the guard saying to her superior while pointing at Joe...

"This one is still out, Sir."

"What are you waiting for — go get the stretcher, you moron!"

*

Reeves walked ahead holding the front of the stretcher with the weighty Joe on it — Doran lifted the rear end. They walked into the serpentine hallways before entering the interior lower ground floor of C-Block. Two of the guards followed behind them, the Captain of Guard pacing ahead.

The corridor was dimly lit and Reeves peeked up at the triple-tiered prison block above — with voices chattering — and some whiny lamentation from their shadowy cells. It was getting louder when the inmates saw some activities below...

"It is Doran, he is alive!" a voice cried out...

"Peter, is that you? Where is Michael?"

Doran called out to the dark cells above, before Capt. Olsen moved in — she smacked Doran's head and berated...

"Shut up, you dick-wart!"

It was a hard hit but Doran did not drop the stretcher ends that he held.

The butch prison officer then waved her baton up to the cells above and barked out...

"Zip it up all you cock-suckers and sleep now! If I hear any of you maggots making a sound, I will come up there and ram this stick in deep — then you will be shitting from your toothless mouth and eating your chow through your butthole — is that clear, (you fucking children of the damned)!!?"

The chattering and whining of the boys stopped instantly.

Reeves begun to foresee the adversity life that will be like in restrained control as a prisoner here — this was worse than Wesleyan where he was just only their 'test monkey-boy' over there. A sense of regret arose in him that he should have jumped the school wall alone — and escaped at night when he had the opportunities back then...

He felt that he could not stay here for long — his mind was now accentuated for ways to escape from captivity.