Okay. This will be a fairly long fic. At least, for me. Can’t remember where I got the idea, but if I work it correctly, this might turn out pretty good.

Breaking Containment

Chapter 1: The Containment Room

Friday, October 1st, 2125

1:35 a.m.

Nuhattan Humane Prison

Containment Room

“Excellent.”

“Shh! Be quiet, or you’ll wake them up!”

Two figures were creeping along a dimly lit aisle, surrounded by ceiling-high plasmet shelves full of thousands of large Drawers. The taller one was confidently taking in the scenery, while the shorter kept glancing around uneasily.

“Well, get on with it!” Mana Karinn hissed to her companion. “The guard checks in at two a.m., and I don’t want to be standing around all night! Pick one and open it and let’s go!” Her dark brown eyes darted from her wrist-unit to the way out tensely.

Sixteen-year-old San Merkal scanned the labels of the Drawers around him, smoothing his brown hair in an attempt to appear calm and in control. “They can’t get out,” he whispered imperturbably. “They’re sedated.”

Mana glared up at the younger boy, putting her hands on her hips. “Yes, but they will start moaning and shaking the shelves, and my nerves can’t bloody handle that. Hurry up!”

San stopped at a Drawer on the second row, marked ‘2509’. “Hey, my birthday. February 5th. I’ll try this one.” And he bent forward, placing a hand on the handle.

----------

After abortion was outlawed in most countries and population controls were enacted on the general public, more and more orphanages were filled to the brim. Eventually, in 2100, the privately owned Orphanage Centers came into being, taking in hundreds of orphans, abandoned children, and kids off the streets. These Centers trained sixty percent of the children for public life, for work in security, delivery, construction, maintenance, and transportation. What happened to the other forty percent, no one knew or cared, and the government was paid enough to ignore the discrepancy.

About the same time, an influx of major crimes occurred, and both privately owned and government funded prisons sprang up like daisies. One such establishment was the Humane Prisons company, owned by the same people who ran the Orphanage Centers. This company’s strategy was to place convicts in plasmet containers full of their patented ‘oxyfluid’, which kept them sedated twenty-four hours a day. It also served the purpose of an IV drip, so the prisoners never needed feeding, and their systems effectively shut down, as if they were in hibernation.

Eventually, in about 2120, the crime rate and number of homeless children lowered, and the Orphanage Centers went out of business. The Humane Prisons company, due to a severely cut budget, lowered the security to a one-man check of the soundproofed Containment Rooms every six hours, with a guard on hand to react to disturbances; loud noises triggered the inmates’ waking, and they would shake the shelves and moan for up to ten minutes before the sedative pulled them back under.

So, of course, ‘initiations’ for secret clubs, cults, and circles at local boarding schools entailed going alone into the Containment Room at night. For some odd reason, students doing this were never caught.

Hodson Academy, a school teaching ages twelve to twenty in Nuhattan, was right next door to the Nuhattan branch of the Humane Prisons. In fact, it was in an old Orphanage Center building, and the students had discovered a door leading directly to the Containment Room.

To get into the exclusive Yin-Yang club, one normally had to spend five hours in the Con Room, as the students called it. Then, in 2125, for one San Merkal, the requirement was changed to opening a Drawer, the reason being that he had already spent the time in the room on a dare. He was assigned a supervisor, nineteen-year-old Mana, chosen for her skill in ‘damage control’.

So here we have the normally calm and collected Mana watching her freckled charge open a random Drawer, in which slept an equally random criminal, and questioning her sanity. All of her attention was on him now, and she kept tucking the same bit of black hair behind her ear in a nervous tic.

San’s amber-brown eyes were narrowed in concentration, and he found that he was sweating. He hesitated at first, then with one slow, smooth motion, he slid open Drawer 2509.

At first nothing happened, just the motion of the disturbed oxyfluid.

(movement, eyes forced open)

Then something banged against the side of the Drawer, making the pinkish fluid slosh about, but it was too dark to see what it was.

(get out get out get out)

More thumps hit the other sides, and San and Mana exchanged horrified glances. San frantically tried to shove the Drawer back in and failed, and started hyperventilating. Mana dug around in her pockets for the illegal tranquilizer she always carried.

(get out get out get—)

Suddenly the oxyfluid erupted as a figure inside discovered the open top. The two erstwhile students scrambled back as a wet, slimy shape flopped onto the floor and started coughing.