minusinos | PREMISE AND ARRIVAL

To the Universe, You No Longer Exist.

In a world where time has passed and thousands of years and thousands of universes have separated your world from this one, people have taken to space for life, liberty, and justice. Those who commit crimes are no longer kept on Earth, but sent to behemoths in space, drifting maximum security prisons that house the worst that the universe has to offer. And the Intergalactic Security Council decided, well, why stop at just ending crime in their own universe?

Daedalus Interdimensional Penitentiary Colony is one of the first of the maximum security prisons that had been built to house not only the worst of this universe’s criminals, but those from other dimensions that have been found guilty of terrible crimes in their world. The Warden, Malcolm Inos, has been given full authority over the facility and the prisoners kept there. Questions are not asked, answers are not given. As long as the criminals are kept away from general society, few care to wonder what has become of them.

And now you are one of them.

Oh, there was a mistake? You didn’t commit the crimes they said you did? They got the wrong you? It has been known to happen on the very rare occasion that they accidentally have taken the wrong version of a person from a universe where they didn’t do all the horrific things that they’d been accused of. You’ll just have to bring that up on appeal and prove you aren’t who the collar around your neck says you are. Too bad that process can take up to ten Earth Years, but feel free to use all of the information the prison’s library has to offer to write one up.

And while you work on that, feel free to make yourself at home. If you live long enough. Daedalus is a prison everyone chooses to forget exists for a reason. The prisoners alone are considered a threat to everyone around them.

But are they really the ones you have to worry about?

You Are Not Where You Should Be.

Maybe you wake to bright white lights, white walls, and cold steel of a table beneath you; your face pressed down into the smooth, stiff plastic of the cradle. Your arms are spread and strapped tightly with malleable metal against the posts jutting out from it. There is an ache in your body, a soreness everywhere that maybe doesn’t make much sense. Everything is fuzzy, like trying to drive through a thick grey fog that is your mind. You want to get up, to find out where you are, only to find you can’t. Moving it not an option. But maybe you try anyway. Then there is the voice.

"The prisoner is moving too much. Keep it steady. "

And then there are hands. Rough, gloved covered hands and black clad legs suddenly in the peripheral of your vision. They hold you down, your weak struggling useless when you barely have the mind to understand what is happening.

That’s when you feel the knife cutting into you. There is pain, the back of your head and neck on fire from how deeply they slice into you. To you it might feel like it goes on forever. Fight, scream, demand all the answers you want, but you will not receive any. The cutting gets deeper and it feels like fingers are sliding in behind it, pulling—digging—at your body, seeking something. Then the darkness returns and you can fight it, but you won’t win.

Welcome to Daedalus.

Maybe you wake to bright white lights, grey walls and stiffness of the study mattress beneath you. You’re disoriented and looking around the room you are in shows that it is not that large. The walls are grey steel and the only window is small, high on the wall and outside there is nothing.

No—Not nothing. Space.

Looking down at yourself you realize you are not in whatever clothes you last remember wearing. Instead you are in simple pants made of thick cloth and a plain grey, short-sleeved shirt. Stitched on a small black patch over your left breast if your name. Your hands and feet are bound by thick chains. You can walk with them, but it’s really more of a shuffle. And there is a cold strip of seamless metal around your neck. A collar. Engraved on the front of the collar are symbols, numbers.

The door opens and you’ll be face to face with two guards with thick black visors over their eyes.

"Time to move out. "

We will Break You of Your Criminal Behavior.

All inmates will wake up in a simple, single-bed cell in the Processing Block of District 4, wearing the standard Daedalus prison uniform and an engraved, metal collar around their necks. The collar is seamless, cannot be removed (any attempts to try will lead to increasingly powerful shocks to their body and then sudden, but temporary paralysis), and the engraving on the front is the inmate’s number (for example 611X25). They will have no access to any special abilities beyond what might possible be necessary to keep them alive. Any attempts to access more power than that will also lead to shocks and potential paralysis.

Three guards will arrive to escort them out of the cell, down a long corridor to an elevator that will take them to what one of them may refer to as “District 3” or “The Blocks.” All new inmates will be sent to The Yard on the 1st Floor of District 3 (a simulated outdoor recreational area, with a track, basketball hoops, and a 30 yard patch of Astroturf. This is their “Orientation.” All inmates are directed to look at one large flat screen television screens stationed high on each wall of The Yard. There is a shadowed figure on the screen. Blacked out so as to show no features save the silhouette of broad shoulders and head held high. Then there is a voice.

“Welcome, inmates. I am your Warden, Malcolm Inos. This is the Libra Class, Maximum Security Inter-dimensional Penitentiary Colony: Daedalus. It has seen the worst that the world has to offer. Mass murderers, megalomaniacs, terrorists, serial killers that have left victims across entire galaxies. We have dealt with the worst that any world has that they cannot deal with on their own. You do not even come close.

“But you are filth that we will make sure never darkens the doors of your world or any other for the duration of your sentence. If you believe that you can come here and leave as the same pathetic, selfish, inconsiderate excuse of a person that you are now, you are mistaken. We will break you of your criminal behavior and ensure that you leave as productive members of society.” It is spoken like it is such a certainty. As if he knows better than anyone else what the outcome of this will be. “The guards will explain the rules and what your routine will be for your stay here in our fair colony before leading you to your cells.

“This is not a vacation. You lost your freedom when you decided that breaking the law was more beneficial to you than following it. Forget the life that you had before because it is gone. You threw it away. Here, you will work. You will contribute. If you abide by our laws, your time here will be simple. If you break our laws, we will teach you the error of your ways. And you will learn.

“You will be expected to follow the routine as explain to you as of tomorrow. Until then…make yourselves at home.”

From there the guards will explain the basic laws of the prison, the daily routine, and escort them to their designated cell. Once they are officially in their cells the doors will be shut and their chains will be removed through the two slots in the door. Once this is done, they will find that they have regained access to their powers, but they will still be forced to remain inside their cell for at least an hour. Then the door will open to allow them access to the rest of their cell block (and the other floors of District 3 if if it is a free period).

During daylights hours, the doors to all cells are generally kept open so they will be able to move around and see inside of other cells and go to other floors of their cell-block. Trying to travel into another Block without an escort or permission from the monitoring headquarters will lead to guards being alerted if it is not a free period.

Take the time you can to find things out, inmate, you will be here for a while.