In the Idea Prison

Toby was never quite sure why he was locked up, a lot of the time he wasn't even aware that he was locked up they kept the water so drugged with who knows what kind of pollutants and mind laxitives, but every once in a while they would have a brush with the outside world that would remind him him of his predicament. The life was something that could be destructive at pest and repetitive at worst, so many times they same thing happening over and over again. This was a new world prison, not the lock & guard prisons of before, now things were a little bit more self-sufficient now, it was easier to leave the prisoners to themselves when you had them locked underground on a nearly uncolonized area of the moon. It was rather hellish to be sent to a land so far away and kept hidden with no real outside contact.

There was some sources of entertainment though, they had the info-web, a one way access point to the vast library of information available to all of humanity, but they could only receive info, they were blocked from transmitting anything back the other way through a vast series of firewalls and the fact that most of the information was cached anyways and heavily censored. It wasn't like they pumped a whole lot of information back and forth from the moon to the earth, not now a days. So the prisoners had access to more information than they could usually digest, in the little reading room, long gone was the day of books and physical library and replaced instead were stonelike embedded LCD screen and a mouse. If one of the terminals broke it would be a long time before they could get it replaced if at all, so they had to make sure that some moron didn't go fucking up their one source of entertainment in such highly confined quarters.

So as far as fun goes there was also the grotto, a kind of communal bath house concrete beach, it was some kind of distilled water that was cleaned, you didn't really have to worry too much about mold or anything growing underground on the moon, if such life form was brought over it could mean the end of the prisoners anyways, they tried to keep things sterile. But the grotto was a sort of pristine lake, with stone cliffs, the concrete walls always looked like a combination of sterile concrete and stone, actually a hybrid molecular mixture that was a lot less subject to cracking with age, and the vast underground tunnels that they had built would of been impossible without it.

Sometimes Toby wondered why he was here, it never really made much sense because most of the memories had blurred and there seemed to exist this foggy grey haze that prevented remembering farther back then a week ago at times and years before, all that he knew was that he could no longer recall a time of not being here, and well they never really let you know what time it was. Whoever they were, he was not even sure. There were no time-keeping devices and without a sense of orbit or revolution it could get extremely mentally exhausting, the continual sense of always being in the same place at the same time. When would I be released, somehow Toby was convinced that this was a prison and that he was serving a sentence, but he couldn't really be sure of this either because it was never really made exceptionally clear, or maybe it was and he just forgot.

Toby shared his barracks with a few other prisoners, he didn't really know too much about them, none of them knew too much about each other. You would think sharing the same tight quarters with other men for years? one would get to know each other rather well, but with no pasts and formative memories they really didn't have a whole lot to discuss or talk about. Sure some of them were smarter than others, some of them were the kind of people who obviously used to be quite the fast talker, some were tough. But they all wore the same grey jumpsuits and they all listened to the same weird hum that signified time to sleep each "night".

It was rumoured that there were janitors and guards behind hidden doors reinforced with concrete. Occasionally someone knew would get thrown in and the prisoners would pick at him for information regarding the outside of these walls, but inevitabley they were so out of it upon arrival they would usually just mull around in a stupor, muttering nonsense if anything. It was a frustrating experience but they would all hope that someday someone would come in with knew knowledge.

They knew that there was more to this whole system than there immediate surroundings because occasionly one of them would get called out, their name would echo through the little triangled speakers in the top left hand corner of the rooms. They let them keep names at least that much was left to the people, although with no background history to give that name meaning and signifigance something of it was lost.

Toby had been here for an indeterminate amount of time, in this same block, or so he thought, if there were other blocks and they were the same then he might just of forgot when he was moved he thought. He was defientnly getting older he thought, maybe that is why his memory is fading more each day, well regardless he tried to keep something of a spirit up, whatever that concept meant. He would read about earth on the info-web, all of the information stuck at a certain date, did they update it every year or so, he wasn't really sure, the year read 2040, and everything had to do with this.

Now there was more to this place than sleeping quarters, a reading library, the bathing swimming grotto, there was also "art room" for lack of better words that would periodically be open and closed, sometimes the metal door would be locked and no amount of banging or pleading would allow it to open, once inside there were immeaserable amounts of art supplies, crayons, paints, type-writers, cardboard, there were multiple doors coming from all sides, but only one opened when you were in there. The rules of the art room were that you could never take anything out of it, anything you create had to be left, no materials were allowed out. There was some kind of sensor that detected any foreign objects when a prsioner tried to leave and this was one of the few times there was an interaction with the mysterious "jailers". To signify that the art room was to be open there would sometimes be an announcement over the voicebox. Sometimes will wondering the halls it would just be "open", but it was always the same door that let you in and out and nothing you created was ever there when you came back. This would annoy the prisoners if they had any sense of justice at all, how could they protest when they felt next to no emotions and at the same time knew not who or what kept them in this jail. Though occasionally it would happen, someone would want to bring back a piece of their art, the beauty that they had worked so hard on, poured colors and love into, and all they wanted to do was bring it back to decorate and liven up their quarters but this was strictly forbidden and the door to leave would remain shut as they pleaded and cried, a solemn computerized voice would just repeat "no objects are allowed to leave this area" over and over again until they dropped it. To prevent someone from running or throwing an object down the otherway the art room was divided from the rest of the area by a short hall way that would have a door come down and shut them in from the other side. Keeping people in until they were completely free of objects. Sometimes if the prisoners were being forced to leave by the voice, one person would distract or keep them their by trying to walk out with a water color painting of rainbow hills while the others could just stare at their art trying to retain at least a memory of the beauty which they would soon lose.

There was also an exercise room like in almost all prisons that operated somewhat similarly to the art room, but it was all rather complex machines, not like the exercise equipment of the 20th century, no these machines were crafted so that any weights were no invisible locked behind some kind of hard plastic casings, bolted into the concrete and generally non-dangerous. It was a place where prisoners went to the break the routine. Even if it became a routine, most prisoners partook of this and remained relatively well in shape.

The bathrooms were simple and metallic, showers that would shoot down soapy water and then rinse you off later, all mechanical, not unlike a 20th century car wash with a drying air mechanism that happened later.
Then you would get a new jumpsuit from the closet and put it on. The rate of suicide here was rather low for all of the madness this prison caused, they didn't really give you a whole lot of ways to kill yourself. The grotto must of been monitored because if there was any sign that someone was drowning or attempting this it would drain within 23 seconds. It seems they didn't like the idea of their prisoners dying, at least at their own accord. The walls although they appeared to be as strong as concrete and stone were somewhat soft when you ran into them like foam, it was a material that was completely fabricated from textures and substances that were developed from moon alloys and oil.

Once a prisoner left you would never run into them again, at least not that anyone could recall. Also nobody ever had the same name as somebody else in the cell and so when your name was called you knew it was your time to go. There was a set procedure for people to follow you go to this middle common room and wait all alone and then once they confirmed you were alone then what happened next everyone was unsure of. But eventually someone new would filter in, usually in the same drug induced stupor.