addition to whatever original wound they had. Gang members had a zero health care priority, so the police didn't even bother bringing in the wounded. However, they did try to arrest the occasional live prisoner to dispel the image, largely accurate, that they just went out and shot anyone they felt like.
They dragged me outside and into a waiting transport and shoved me through the rear hatch. The inside was a large open area with no seating. There was a long metal pole running along each side, and my wrist shackles were fastened to the one on the right. My two companions were chained to the pole on the other side.
The transport drove to another location where four more prisoners were loaded and then down to the main detention area. The detainee processing center was a large building with about 100 floors, located in the Government District on 34th Street. There were no windows in the transport, so I couldn't see the building, but I'd walked past it once before when I came down to the Government District with my father to renew one of his licenses.
We were dragged roughly from the transport and down a corridor to the pre-trial waiting area. The hallway was gleaming white plasti-steel, and ended at a large processing room. There were ten corridors from the processing area, all leading to blocks of cells.
The holding cells were packed with so many detainees that there wasn't room to even sit on the floor, and the place was so reeking I could barely keep myself from retching. The cell was filled with all sorts of people. Some looked like me, gang members or other serious criminals. But most of them looked like normal citizens who were probably arrested for some petty offense or another. The hardcore types looked angry and defiant, but the others were in a state of shock. Some of them were crying; others were almost catatonic.
The regular citizens, the minor offenders, were victimized by the real criminals, of course, and though I'd done my share of horrific things, it really turned me off. I'd abused my share of the Cogs during my gang days, but in that cell I didn't like watching it, and I certainly didn't want to participate. There was one woman in particular, who was really being harassed by two of the hardcores. They'd given her a pretty harsh beating and stripped her down, making her sit in the cell naked while they tormented her. Finally they both raped her against the wall, and when they were done they offered her to a bunch of the others. She screamed piteously for the guards, but they ignored it for a while, and finally when one did walk past the cell he just laughed and told her to stop making so much noise.
She looked like a normal MPZ resident to me, probably some type of office worker. Certainly no one who was likely to have committed any serious crime. Why the hell did they put people like that in here with animals like us?
That was a passing thought at the time, driven by my anger, and probably some unrecognized shame for not helping her. I figured it out much later, though. Being in that cell was her punishment for whatever she had done, and it was something she would remember with more pain and fear than any administrative penalty the Court might give her.
The jailers, the Court, everyone in that building - it wasn't about justice; it was about obedience, about maintaining order. Fear accomplished that with far greater effectiveness than due process and measured punishments. My memories of daily life in Manhattan were those of a child, but when I thought about it I could recall how tense my parents were whenever they dealt with any government official. I remembered how people would hurry to get out of the way of police officers and, of course, I remembered the terror in my mother's eyes when the inquisitor visited the apartment.
I was in that cell for four days with nothing more than a trough along the one wall for voiding bodily wastes and a
They dragged me outside and into a waiting transport and shoved me through the rear hatch. The inside was a large open area with no seating. There was a long metal pole running along each side, and my wrist shackles were fastened to the one on the right. My two companions were chained to the pole on the other side.
The transport drove to another location where four more prisoners were loaded and then down to the main detention area. The detainee processing center was a large building with about 100 floors, located in the Government District on 34th Street. There were no windows in the transport, so I couldn't see the building, but I'd walked past it once before when I came down to the Government District with my father to renew one of his licenses.
We were dragged roughly from the transport and down a corridor to the pre-trial waiting area. The hallway was gleaming white plasti-steel, and ended at a large processing room. There were ten corridors from the processing area, all leading to blocks of cells.
The holding cells were packed with so many detainees that there wasn't room to even sit on the floor, and the place was so reeking I could barely keep myself from retching. The cell was filled with all sorts of people. Some looked like me, gang members or other serious criminals. But most of them looked like normal citizens who were probably arrested for some petty offense or another. The hardcore types looked angry and defiant, but the others were in a state of shock. Some of them were crying; others were almost catatonic.
The regular citizens, the minor offenders, were victimized by the real criminals, of course, and though I'd done my share of horrific things, it really turned me off. I'd abused my share of the Cogs during my gang days, but in that cell I didn't like watching it, and I certainly didn't want to participate. There was one woman in particular, who was really being harassed by two of the hardcores. They'd given her a pretty harsh beating and stripped her down, making her sit in the cell naked while they tormented her. Finally they both raped her against the wall, and when they were done they offered her to a bunch of the others. She screamed piteously for the guards, but they ignored it for a while, and finally when one did walk past the cell he just laughed and told her to stop making so much noise.
She looked like a normal MPZ resident to me, probably some type of office worker. Certainly no one who was likely to have committed any serious crime. Why the hell did they put people like that in here with animals like us?
That was a passing thought at the time, driven by my anger, and probably some unrecognized shame for not helping her. I figured it out much later, though. Being in that cell was her punishment for whatever she had done, and it was something she would remember with more pain and fear than any administrative penalty the Court might give her.
The jailers, the Court, everyone in that building - it wasn't about justice; it was about obedience, about maintaining order. Fear accomplished that with far greater effectiveness than due process and measured punishments. My memories of daily life in Manhattan were those of a child, but when I thought about it I could recall how tense my parents were whenever they dealt with any government official. I remembered how people would hurry to get out of the way of police officers and, of course, I remembered the terror in my mother's eyes when the inquisitor visited the apartment.
I was in that cell for four days with nothing more than a trough along the one wall for voiding bodily wastes and a
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