Lord of War: Chapter 2

[Bored]

Chapter 2

I think it’s safe to say that the last place anyone wants to be is behind bars; especially when those bars are owned by the glorious Terran republic. I’d heard rumors about the torture, the beatings and the awful conditions prisoners had to deal with. I always brushed it off as lies. You know, the kind of lies teachers would tell their students to get them to shut up in class. Sadly, they weren’t wrong. I learned this on the first day.

Prison Facility #2320 was a different kind of hell. On paper it was a prison reserved for political dissidents, so I had no idea why the hell I was there. This was the kind of place they’d bring New Conglomerate and Vanu POWs, or drunk guys who’d slandered the Terran regime in a bar a little too loudly. I don’t know who was in charge of this hellhole, but it wasn’t just political dissidents here. You had the scum of Auraxis loitering around this place. Rapists, murderers, child molesters, gang-bangers, Terran “war criminals” (the kind of guys who would pillage and rape every settlement they came across, and not just NC or VS ones either) and some of the more… colourful members of the New Conglomerate and Vanu Sovereignty.

The noise when I entered Cell Block D was a cacophony of shouting, screaming and clanging metal. It seemed to come at me in layers. They made a point of dragging me through an area which I later learned was dubbed The Slaughterhouse, an area of Cell Block D which was used for “interrogation”, although it sounded less like an interrogation area and more like… well… a slaughterhouse, only the screaming belonged to people. The Cell Block itself was almost as loud and just as terrifying. The sheer size of the place is what got to me first. There were around 80 cells on both sides of the room, length wise. On top of that, there were 5 tiers with the same number of cells on each side.

That’s 960 cells, shared by 2 guys.

That’s 1920 of some of the most dangerous men on Auraxis who weren’t outside killing each other in one Cell Block. I guess you can bring that number down to 1919, because at the time I sure as hell wasn’t one of them.

The guard taking me to my cell was typical of the Terran prison system: stocky, pumped full of muscle building implants, bald and sociopathic. He had my arm twisted behind my back in a vicelike grip and dragged me to my cell.

“Hey Peters, brought you a little present.”

Another thing about this shithole of a prison was the lighting. It was always on the fritz, so you could spend hours in semi darkness, depending on which area of the prison decided it wasn’t up for working that day. This happened to be one of those days, so I couldn’t really see who this Peters person was.

"Stand up, hands behind your back, palms facing me. Walk to the other end of the cell. And Peters, if you even think about moving, I’ll shove this nightstick so far up your ass I’ll be able to pull it out of your mouth.”

The prisoner complied; the asshole guard opened the cell and threw me in.

“Have fun you two”

And with that, he locked the cell door and walked away.

Peters turned around and slowly walked towards me, so I could see him. He was about 6’2 and covered head to toe in tattoos, some of which looked like Terran military insignia. He had the look of a Terran grunt, but so did half the people in here; shaved head, soulless eyes, maybe a little psychotic.

“Let’s keep this simple. You touch my stuff, I’ll kill you. You jerk off too loudly, I’ll kill you. If you snitch on me for what I’m about to do to the guy in the cell next to ours, I’ll kill you. Follow those rules and we’ll get along just fine. You already know my name, so you might as well tell me yours”

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I’m not sure why I didn’t tell you my name earlier, seeing as we’ve been talking this long. My name is Taylor. William Taylor. But I guess you already knew that.
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Before I had a chance to tell him my name, a loud siren rang out across the cell block and all the doors opened abruptly. A gruff voice over a loudspeaker began talking.

“Alright assholes, inspection”

I followed Peters out of the cell and did everything he did. This inspection thing really made me realize how many guys were in this place. It was insane. There were 3 guards slowly patrolling each side of the every tier, inspecting each prisoner, we were right in the middle of the 3rd tier, so it would have taken a while before they got to us.

“Remember what I just told you”

Before I had a chance to say anything, Peters pulled out a nasty looking, sharp object from his right pocket and started swinging towards the prisoner to his left with a level of speed and brutal accuracy I’d never seen before. The low din of the cell block suddenly became an all-out uproar as Peters landed blow after blow at this poor bastards head, neck and chest. The fight, if you could call it that, lasted about 10 seconds before Peters turned around and handed me his weapon.

“Take the fucking shank”

Not knowing what to do, I put the weapon in my pocket and faced forward as if nothing happened. There was more blood than I’d ever seen, not just on the floor or on Peters, but on me. Two guards came out of nowhere and tackled both of us to the floor.

The gruff voice rang out over the loudspeaker once more.

“Alright, shows over. Get back in your cells before I get my buddies from the Slaughterhouse to put you all in line”

From what I could see all the prisoners except me, Peters and the dead guy to the left of us had entered their cells. I guess this Slaughterhouse was the last place any of these guys wanted to be.

“Ah Peters… do you have to be a pain in the ass every day of your life?”

Peters didn’t answer, but in his position neither would I. A knee firmly planted on your neck and a baton waving around in your face doesn’t exactly make talking easy.

The guard holding me down answered for him.

“No, but I’m guessing Morales over there must have been a pain in the ass for you to cut him up like that. Was he fucking you a little too hard or something?”

Both the guards laughed maniacally.

The guard took his weight off his knee long enough for Peters to come up with a rebuttal.

“No” Peters said. “I found out I wasn’t the only one fucking your mother”

The guard wasn’t humoured.

“Very. Fucking. Funny” the guard shouted in an implant induced rage, landing a punch for every word.

A third guard, a little taller and wearing a more official uniform approached the bleeding corpse to our left. He took a knee and started inspecting the body, idly humming to himself.

“You stabbed him around 30 times Peters; impressive.” He said looking at the two guards holding us down “Make sure this doesn’t happen again. 2 hits for every stab wound”

The guard holding down Peters got up and was about to raise his baton before I felt the shank in my pocket suddenly leave its temporary place of residence. The guard holding me down lifted it up proudly.

“An accomplice!” said the tall, official looking guard, looking at Peters again. “Looks like you’ll be sharing the punishment”

The tall guard walked away, idly humming to himself once more as the two guard started wailing on us with unadulterated fury. Despite our beating, and the loud crunching sound of nightsticks slamming down on our increasingly battered bodies, Peters had time to shout something between hits.

“YOU NEVER… TOLD ME… YOUR NAME, KID”

“ITS… TAYLOR… WILLIAM…TAYLOR”

[OCNSethy]

Great story! Next chapter please

[Sonny]

Hi Bored,
Sorry to see this so late, had two weeks away so no chance to see it .

Again, I love the writer's voice in this piece, I like the main character (and Peters too now!) a lot, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes. Looks like it could turn into a novel-length epic . Keep it up!

Sonny