They didn't take me to a police station or a courthouse. Instead, the vehicle drove for what I could only guess was an hour, out of the city center and into the industrial outskirts where warehouses and detention facilities lay across kilometers of arid land. We stopped at a massive compound surrounded by tripled layered security fences, guard towers, and automated turrets. What I'd have to say hell would look like if I had seen it before.
The sign at the gate read: Federal Detention and Processing Center - Sector 7.
I've heard of this place, everyone has. Whenever someone committed a crime against the state–espionage, treason, terrorism-they went here. Not people who worked in data analytics, not people like me.
The processing of me was completely automated, not a single human face to even glance to. They forced me to place all my clothes, my comm devices, my ID chip, and anything else left in my pockets. They scanned my biometrics, took my photograph from every angle, and assigned me a number: 8A5-4912. The machine dispensed a gray jumpsuit that smelled of bleach and led me to the first door.
The door slid open with a hydraulic hiss.
Inside was a cell–no, this couldn't even be called that. A storage unit. That's what it felt like. A metal box barely three meters by two meters, with a springy cot bolted to one wall and a toilet in the corner. No window. No natural light. Just a single overhead light casting everything in lifeless hue.
The door slid shut behind me. And before I could even sit down, the whole compartment shifted. Moving with what I could only tell as mechanical arms, grabbing the cell and moving it into the stack with every other prison cell.
With the cell position now set, my legs gave up. Sinking into the cot, I felt the weight of everything that had happened to me in just one day pressing down on my chest.
This couldn't be real. This couldn't be happening. Yesterday I'd been sitting in my apartment, bored and vaguely dissatisfied with my life. Today I was a prisoner accused of treason.
The walls weren't by any means thin, but through the vents for all the cells. I could hear sounds from the adjacent units. To my left, someone was murmuring to themselves–a constant, low tone of words I couldn't quite make out. To my right, someone was banging their head against the wall. Over and over, moaning in pain.
I lay back on the cot and stared toward my new sky. It was smooth, featureless metal. No cracks., no patterns, nothing to focus on besides the reflection of myself.
Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. Time felt one dimensional here, almost as if it didn't move at all.
Eventually, a screen on the wall flickered to life, and an uncanny digital face appeared–too smooth, too symmetrical, generated by some algorithm to look human but in their attempt to make it perfectly human missed all the small imperfections that made a face real.
The automated voice began to speak:
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"You have committed the crime of stealing national documents. Your sentence, if you plead guilty, will be twenty-two years. If you plead innocent and a jury convicts you, you will serve sixty years. You may now purchase legal representation."
"Option one: Premium attorney from our approved law firms for thirty thousand credits."
"Option two: state-provided attorney at no cost."
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Thirty thousand credits. I made barely enough to cover rent and food each month. There was no way I could afford that. They knew it from the start, the goddamn system was designed to prey on people like me–people with no resources, no connections, no power.
Spitefully, I pressed the button for a free attorney.
The screen flickered again, and a different face appeared–this one was undeniably real, the wrinkles on his face and the slight dark circles formed around his eyes would never have been replicated by the automated system.
"Mr. Mercer," he said without introduction. "I've reviewed your file. I'll be straight with you: there isn't much I can do. Stealing government documents is one of the most serious offenses short of murder. The evidence against you is substantial. My only recommendation I can give you is to plead guilty to minimize your sentence."
"But I didn't even do it," hating the depths I have to go through just to plead my case which never existed. "I've been at Meridian Analytics for four years. You can ask anyone else in that building. I've never accessed classified files, I don't even have the guts to try something like that. Someone framed me—"
"That's what everyone says, Mr. Mercer."
"I'm not lying! LISTEN!"
"Mr. Mercer, if you don't calm down, I will terminate this call."
"No, please, just listen to me, I flagged a shipment earlier that day–military equipment that was disguised as research supplies. What if it's connected? What if someone higher up wanted me silenced?"
The attorney sighed. Just from the look he was giving me, I knew he would never believe me, like he never believed every other desperate person who had conspiracy theories.
"Mr. Mercer, just from the details I've been permitted to access, your credentials have accessed restricted databases multiple times over a three-month period. They have data transfers to external servers, servers traced directly to your personal device. They have–"
"Because someone cloned my credentials! What's to say that the logs haven't been forged. If you would just look at the metadata, you'd see I–"
"Mr. Mercer, I have hundreds of other cases this week. I don't have the time nor care to conduct a full digital forensics investigation on your behalf. The best I can do is to negotiate a plea deal. Twenty-two years with good behavior means you could be out in fifteen. That's better than sixty."
"Fifteen years for a crime I didn't commit. Do you understand how absurd that sounds?"
"Or sixty years for a crime you claim you didn't commit. Your choice."
I opened my mouth to argue further, but the screen blipped off. A robotic voice crackled through the speaker: "This is the time limit for a free consultation. If you wish to speak to your attorney for longer, please enter your payment information to deposit one thousand credits."
I slam my fist into the screen, warping the display for a second before it returns to normal.
One thousand credits for another ten minutes of conversation with a man who didn't believe me and wouldn't care to try.
I fell back onto the cot, staring at the ceiling once more. They'd gotten the wrong guy. I couldn't even commit a crime like that if I tried. Though more likely, they'd gotten exactly who they wanted–someone disposable, someone who wouldn't be missed, someone who couldn't fight back.
The murmuring from the next cell continued. The head-banging continued. The noise is getting louder and louder in my head. Resounding through my skull like an echo. The overhead light continued to kill off any color in this room, with this sterile, merciless glow.
I wanted to stay strong. I wanted to endure, wanted to believe I could, that I could prove my innocence, that the system would protect me.
But stuck in this nightmare, alone and helpless, I couldn't see how anyone could come out sane.