The Department of Corrections, Book One
Chapter 4: Level NegTwo - Communal Lounge.

Uniformed Impound Officer Grohowski and plain-clothed Probation Officer Carney sat across from one another at a small, square stainless-steel table discussing Sasha Malyj—now E30541 (Equality 30541), enjoying their 3:30 pm smoke break.

The smoky, subterranean lounge resembled a large, well-lit, buffet-style cafeteria having shiny, 1950s-ish stainless-steel furniture: counters, booths, stand-alone tables, chairs, and stools; every seat having thick padding under silver-studded, retro-red leather. It also had glass-and-steel drink and snack and cigarette vending machines lining the chipped concrete block walls. The chromium-plated buffet equipment, furniture, and accessories made the place look, and feel, more like an old-fashioned malt shop (minus the small tabletop jukeboxes) than a secret regime’s subterranean lounge/cafeteria. It had one, multi-occupant, his and hers unisex restroom with dented and dimpled chromium-paneled walls and a urine-sticky, black-and-yellow-checkered tile floor. The lounge’s distressed, unfinished concrete block walls and jackboot-scuffed, black-and-turquoise-checkered tile floor completed the eclectic theme. Everything sparkled like ice underneath the damp concrete ceiling’s long glass tubes emitting their brilliant rays of frozen-white fluorescent light. Staticky Muzak (filled with invasive, totalitarianism-like subliminal messages/unconscious motivation) played constantly from the ceiling speakers—twenty-four seven, only interrupted at the top of every hour when VIL-EN would read a quick quote from The Corrections Manifesto: the soothing Karpian propaganda/brainwashing heard on every damp, underground level. Muted, wall-mounted, flat-screen television sets were simultaneously broadcasting the State’s hologram (“anchorwoman”) hosted channel TNN—The Totalitarian News Network; synchronized text (Karpian news) scrolled across the bottom of every screen:

“. . . Profits from impounds up twenty percent since last fiscal year . . . New underground DOC facilities being built across the country . . . Feds approve of VIL-EN’s correctional productivity . . . Bogonarkodenotikos-19-66.67® production tripled . . .”

A large, red-white-and-blue, steel-framed poster—fastened to the rusted steel door of the unisex restroom (entrance side)—read:

IMPOUNDS

HELPING TO:

CREATE JOBS

STIMULATE THE ECONOMY

REDUCE CRIME WITH ZERO RECIDIVISM

REDUCE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

REDUCE OVERPOPULATION

MAINTAIN THE LIMITED FOOD SUPPLY

PURIFY NEW AMERICA’S GENE POOL

The kitchen-heated lounge smelled of greasy fried chicken and Lysol. Currently, eighty-four other Karpian authorities (white-coated scientists and doctors, differently-uniformed and plain-clothed officers, ghost-like holograms, and the three remaining, tarnished, outdated robots), all from different levels and departments, shared the warm, greasy-smelling, smoky artificial space with Grohowski and Carney. Eighty-six vague shapes joggling and blurring too vividly—like a mental patient’s abstract painting come to life. Forty-three whispering voices turned to static—forty-three juxtaposed voices forming schizophrenic haikus. Everything was designed and stationed per State code. Everyone was pressed together like the collective components in a motherboard; each individual component concurrently monitored by VIL-EN.

“Did E30541 suspect he was targeted?” Carney, a dark-complected man, asked over the insane din while chewing on a roast beef sandwich: a stale, bland, chemically-treated “thing” from one of the snack vending machines.

“They never do, not at first, not until it’s too late.” Grohowski sipped on a cold coffee; an ashing cigarette dangling between a pair of boney, pasty-white, nicotine-yellow-tipped fingers. Taking a long, head-tilted drag . . . he exhaled . . . a pale stream of smoke from razor-thin, blood-red lips in total satisfaction, then snuffed . . . the orange-glowing butt’s life out in a thick, clear-glass ashtray. “He’s probably still down in Processing wondering what the FUCK! just happened,” said smirking. Smoke spiraled up from the heavy, concave ashtray like the extinguished cigarette butt’s weightless spirit ascending toward heaven.

“So, he never questioned the untruth about me being in court?”

“Nope. They never do.” Grohowski sipped from a small, white, styrofoam coffee cup.

“Met your monthly impound quota?” Carney was still chewing on his stale sandwich.

“Yep—more than.” Sipping cold coffee. “I’m getting a sizable bonus this month.”

“What’s the bounty per impound again?” Drinking from an aluminum can of diet Dr. Karp cola.

“Fifteen-hundred.” Grohowski, abstractedly, used his yellowed, nicotine-stained hands to bend and twist and pull, and his coffee-stained teeth to tug, his thin coffee stirrer into a tangled line of tight red knots.

“84 K bonus in one month?!” Carney choked on his bland sandwich.

“Yep. Could be more if any of my fifty-six impounds end up recycled or auctioned off. Corrections has become a booming, multi-billion dollar industry—profitable. Impounds are a hot commodity—billions in revenue from impounds—the cheapest, largest labor force in the world; Big Government and Big Business get free slave labor and one-hundred-percent profit; the DOC (Department of Corrections)/KCI (Karpian Correctional Industries) leading the world in for-profit correctional control—is up three points, listed on the KSE (Karpian Stock Exchange).” Grohowski gnawed greedily on his plastic coffee stirrer as he talked about his bonus. His money-green eyes wide like dollar signs ($$) were propping them open.

“That’s more than my yearly salary,” Carney said shocked, shaking his African-American head in disbelief. “Plans for all that bonus?”

“Thought I’d buy one of those professional bass boats; take up fishing again.”

“Nice . . .” Thinking: You know damn well your wife is going to kill you if you spend one dime of that bonus.

“Found this inside the main elevator.” Grohowski held up a mangled copy of Orwell’s novel 1984. “It was his, Malyj’s, E30541s. He had it on him when I ‘violated’ him. Look (grinning; a boney, pasty-white, nicotine-yellow-tipped finger pointed to a string of Cyrillic letters, pointed to the word малий), the ‘Commie’ even wrote his FreeName (surface name) on the back of the paperback’s front cover.”

“Good book,” Carney said, dabbing his mouth with a crumpled, recycled napkin, “if you’re into dated, futuristic dystopian nightmares.”

“Wait until E30541 gets down to Corrections. That dated Orwellian nightmare will seem like Paradise compared to Level NegSeven.” Grohowski (his oral-fixation momentarily pacified) tossed his red, knotted, gnawed on, and dribble-covered plastic coffee stirrer—now bent in awkward, unnatural angles—onto his littered food tray.

They both laughed, stood up, discarded their trash and the mangled paperback into a receptacle, then returned their stainless-steel food trays.

“Come again, officers.” A life-size hologram flickered, smiled at them: a hollow representation of a beautiful, female Communal Lounge employee stood beside the chromium-plated trash-and-tray return unit. Their virtual wallets debited digital Karpian currency as they past her.

They ignored the technological mirage as if it were a biblical tax collector: technological/human interaction not the same as human/human interaction—no reciprocal action warranted; technological intelligence/literalism not the same as human intelligence/wisdom.

Marching past a portrait of Dr. Franz Karp - Director of Corrections (the color portrait a square of twelve feet; Dr. Karp’s monstrous, coffee-brown eyes an illusion following their every move like a predator), they “jackboot-stomped” their way toward the Communal Lounge’s lobby/elevators. Both familiar officers comfortably silent, standing at Nazi-like attention beside one another, waiting for the main elevator to arrive; the fractured Muzak above was dropping deconstructed rhythms filled with deconstructed subliminal messages on top of their subconsciously-manipulated heads.

The rattling elevator hastily jounced them back up the dusty shaft, through the weighty subterranean pressure—wobbly Muzak trailing behind like an invisible anchor, to the unsuspecting surface world: Level PosOne (Surface) - The Department of Corrections. And beyond this DOC branch (just one of thousands)—all across the unsuspecting nation—for-profit surface world correction camps were secretly under construction.

“Later.” Carney half-waved/half-saluted like a lazy fascist.

“Yep.” Grohowski nodded his pockmarked bald head—which looked like he had extinguished a million afire cigarette butts upon—then like time, marched on.

Each officer returned to their separate, small, windowless, profit-making “probation office.” The tag team searching for, ready to acquire, their next “Sasha Malyj.”

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