“Well, we’re getting the year off to a good start this January 1, 2384. For one thing, Paul is leaving today. He’s the first prisoner to be released from Wildebeest Minimum Security Prison and Bakery in over 9 years. He is also the first prisoner to be released under our new Release Date Simplification Program where we measure all sentences in the number of whole years since they were incarcerated, ignoring prior jail time and rounding up to the nearest December 31, to be released the following January 1. Checkout our online ‘sentence conversion guide’ to help with the complexities of Release Date Simplification. But before you do, lets have a round of applause for Paul!”
Everyone in the mess hall stood up and applauded.
“Way to go Paul!” I said. “You really gamed the system. It could have been another twelve years at least before you were released if you didn’t have all that ‘good behavior credit’ time.”
“Yeah, well,” said Paul, “you just have to work hard at it John.”
And he wasn’t kidding, a good behavior credit required acknowledgement that you were actually being good. If you just didn’t do anything bad, the AI that ran the prison (the whole prison, including the announcer, is ran by an AI called Eunice and a group of artificially intelligent robots with artificial people personalities) wouldn’t record it. If you did good things without asking, Eunice would have them undone because there was no record of it having been done. You also couldn’t just ask them “what can I do?” because then they’ll just answer ‘be a good prisoner’, which isn’t very helpful. No, what you had to do was go up to a robot, ask it what it was doing, what steps needed to be taken to get the thing done, and then announce (not ask) that you were going to do whatever step it was that needed to be done. Then it would be recorded that you had done something good. And then you’d get the credit.
“I’m going to miss my cell mate,” I said. “When exactly do you become a free man?” I said.
Paul responded quickly, “noon.”
“Seems like a strange time, since you were technically done at midnight.”
“Don’t look at me,” said Paul, “I don’t make policy.”
Suddenly, a voice filled the air, “an excellent question John.” TV monitors came on and and the face of a male human in his mid-50s (though he was a robot, like all the prison staff members) came on the screen. It was Linus, the Warden. “I do make policy, in consultation with Eunice. And the reason is fairly straight forward: if we let him go at midnight, then it’s disruptive of the community’s sleep cycle. By letting him go at noon, it’s not disruptive at all. And, really, what’s 12 hours?”
“But then why don’t you let him go at noon on the 31st?” I said.
“Because he’s not supposed to be let go until the midnight,” said Linus.
“But what’s 12 hours?” I said.
Linus looked at me quizzically though the TV monitor. “The difference between midnight and not midnight.”
I gave up.
* * *
Once breakfast was over, everyone gathered around to see someone leave the prison for the very first time in almost a decade. I envied Paul. It was seven years ago when the prison decided to terminate all outside contact with the world. No outside TV, no internet, nothing. Visits were still allowed, but no one ever came to visit us, we were in such a remote location. No one had any idea what the outside world was like anymore. What had changed in the last seven years? No one knew, but now someone was going to find out.
Paul was standing next to Brian, one of the guards. “O.k. Paul, time to enter the airlock.” Brian handed Paul a bag with his stuff.
Wait, airlock? Why would there need to be an airlock? We’re on the ground. This isn’t some maximum security space prison.
“Um, airlock?” Said Paul.
“Yeah, to keep the outside air from polluting the prison air,” said Brian.
“Oh, I guess that makes sense,” said Paul, looking more reassured.
Televisions turned on, showing us a view from the outside of the prison for the first time in years. “We’ll be able to watch your progress on the TVs up there,” said Brian.
“Aww, that’s kind of nice,” said Paul who stepped into the air lock. “Alright everyone, have fun! Stay safe!” The door closed behind him. For a moment no one could see him unless you happened to be at an angle that allowed you to see him through the tiny window in the first door to the airlock. (When did they build an airlock?)
The door opened in front of him, to the outside. We all cheered as he took his first steps out of the airlock and onto the TV monitors. The first steps were halting, like he was struggling to stay up. Then he put his hands around his throat. Then he fell down and collapsed.
“Congratulations to Paul,” said Kevin over the PA. “He’s just taken his first steps as a free man!”
We were all stunned. Everyone looked up at the TV monitors as Paul just lied there on the ground, not moving.
“We have some sad news to report,” said Kevin. “Former prisoner Paul has just died less than three feet away from the prison. Cause of death believed to be the toxic air that has covered Planet Earth for the past seven years. The prison would like make grief counseling available to anyone who wishes it. Thank you.”
* * *
Later that evening, I was in my cell. I had been looking forward to having it all to myself now that Paul was gone. But I didn’t feel like celebrating. I tried reading, but I ended up just staring at the page for a long time. Then, someone knocked at the door.
“Yes?” I said. No one had ever knocked on my door before. Instead of a verbal response, I heard the buzzing of the door being unlocked and Dennis, the Captain of the prison guards, was standing in the doorway with someone, a human, I’d never seen before. I thought I knew everyone in here. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any money for whatever it is your selling.”
“Cut it John, this is your new cell mate,” said Dennis.
“What? How can that be, we haven’t gotten new prisoners since Leo was brought in for Illegal Distribution of Publicly Available Government Documents.” The new prisoner snorted a laugh.
“Quiet Benedict,” said Dennis. He turned back to me, “Benedict is our oldest prisoner currently residing here. He’s been in solitary for the past fifteen years because his crime was a gang related offense and we didn’t have room for him in the general population.” He put his hand behind Benedict and gently pushed him into the room. “But,” said Dennis has he undid Benedict’s cuffs, “now we have room again.”
I got very nervous. ‘Gang related?’ ‘Solitary?’ This was supposed to be a minimum security prison. For goodness sakes, I’m in here for copyright infringement. Now I’m living with a gang member? What the…? I gathered my courage and said, “shouldn't I be consulted about this? Like shouldn’t we discuss this with the community.”
“He’s part of the community. You’re not allowed to exclude someone from it,” said Dennis as he closed the door to my cell. I was now alone in my cell with a gang member. Where had my life gone wrong?
“Hey,” said Benedict.
“Um, hey,” I said. “So, I’m not real good with this. I haven’t had to introduce myself to anyone in the last ten years. Um…so…what are you in for?”
“Trespassing on Public Property,” said Benedict.
“You mean, like government property?” I said.
“Naw, it was private property that was open to the public at the time,” said Benedict.
“What was the gang part?” I said.
“There were three of us and we were all wearing the same kind of t-shirt,” said Benedict.
“What kind of t-shirt?” I said.
“Black t-shirts,” said Benedict.
“Just plain black t-shirts?” I said.
“Well, they all had saying on them in white lettering,” he said. “Mine said ‘There are only 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary, and those who don’t.’”
“What did the others say?” I said.
“One said ‘I hope the Clowns Under My Bed Don’t Try to Kill Me Again.’ The other said ‘Just Don’t.’”
“And that made you a gang?” I said.
“Legal definition of a gang is a group of more than one person with similar color clothing on,” said Benedict. “We qualified.”
“What did you get?” I said.
“Well, my friends pled and got probation, but I thought it was ridiculous so I went to trial and got life,” said Benedict. I stood there open mouthed. I thought my sentence was bullshit, but his was worse.
“You got life in prison…”
“For hanging out at the mall with my friends in sarcastic t-shirts,” said Benedict. “So what are you in for?”
“Illegally Downloading a Movie Currently in Theaters,” I said. “I got 20 years because it was my third offense.
“What was the movie?” Said Benedict.
“Casablanca.”
“What? It’s been on home video since our ancestors were in diapers!”
“Apparently the ‘Classic Movies Copyright Preservation Act Dedicated to the Memory of John Ford’ extended copyright protection to classic movies under the theory that if studios still held the copyright to them, they’d be more likely to preserve them. Also, there’s a movie theater in Springfield that plays old movies, including Casablanca. Thus, it’s still both under copyright and in theaters.”
“Wow, and I thought mine was bullshit,” said Benedict.
“Yours is bullshit,” I said.
“So how long did you get?” Said Benedict. “Are you a lifer too?”
“Naww,” I said. “I’m the next one scheduled to be released just five short years away.” And that’s when it hit me. “Awww…” I started to say.
“What?”
“Did you hear about Paul?”
“Yeah, I’m taking his place in this cell.”
“No,” I said, “that’s not it. He’s dead.”
“What?” Said Benedict. “From what? I thought he’d been released?”
“He had been, but the air outside is so toxic, no one can live out there anymore. He died from that.”
“Oh, man,” he said. “You gotta find a way to stay in here.”
* * *
At dinner that day, the short timers: Victor, Alexander, Leo and myself sat at the table with literal lifer Benedict.
“We have got to find a way to stay in here,” said Alexander. “Or, find out if there is anyone left alive outside. And if so, how they manage to keep alive.”
“Probably the same way we do,” said Leo. “They’ve found a way to trick robots into keeping them alive.”
“We’re not there yet,” I said. “They’re still releasing prisoners according the Release Date Simplification algorithm.” I looked over at Benedict. “This must be hilarious to you.”
He looked down sheepishly. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said. “I really am.”
“But…” I said.
“But nothing,” he said. “I wish I could have gotten out of solitary under better circumstances. I’m glad I’m out, but I wish it wasn’t under such bad circumstances.”
“Well that’s good. Now I don’t have to tell you to go sit with the other lifers,” I said.
“What? And miss this? This is hilarious!” Benedict laughed.
I shook my head.
“Aww, come on. Have some kind sense of humor. You have five years to figure everything out,” he patted my back. “Tell me about the lifers, over at the other table. They look like their having fun.”
“Fine,” I said. “The lifers are Francis, Gregory and Felix. Felix is actually about your age. He’s been here the longest, next to you anyways. He been here thirty-one years so far and is looking at another thirty-three. He came here when he was thirty and won’t be released until he’s ninety-four. He figures he’ll die before then, so he doesn’t care about anything at all.”
“What’s he in for?” Said Benedict.
Victor snort laughed, “misuse of the copyright takedown notice, third offense. At the time of his first offense, he was the only one to be indicted under the statute. I guess he figured it was a fluke, ‘cause he did it at least two more times. When he got here, he was the only person who had ever been sentenced to prison for that crime.”
“Did he go to trial?” Said Benedict.
“Nope,” I said. “He pled and got 64 years. If he hadn't plead, he’d have gotten life under the three strikes statute.”
“Maybe he should have gone to trial,” said Benedict.
“Maybe,” I said. “Next is Gregory. Greg is in for,” I started laughing. “I’m sorry, I’ll…” I broke off to take in a deep breath and release it. “I’m sorry.” I said again. “I’ll get it right.” Deep breaths. “He’s in for possessionofillegalkittens.” I spoke that last part as quickly as I could and burst into laugher again.
Benedict smiled and went, “what?”
“I’ll take this one,” said Leo who then rolled his eyes. “He’s in for possession of illegal kittens.”
Benedict’s eyes got wide. “Really?”
“Yeah,” said Leo. “Apparently, there was a breed ban on the kind of kittens he had because they have long hair and shed excessively.”
“Wow,” said Benedict.
“And before you ask,” said Leo. “He got ten consecutive ten year sentences. One for each kitten.”
Everyone paused for a moment, waiting for me to recover from my severe case of the giggles. I repeated ‘possession of illegal kittens’ a few times as I laughed.
“Are you quite done?” Said Leo.
I took a few deep breaths and said, “yeah, I think I’m good.” I refocused. “So...uh...that leaves Francis. He, uh, he’s in for possession of illegal drugs with intent to sell.”
“Oh,” said Benedict, “that’s remarkably straight forward. I’m a little surprised he got life for that, was it a three strikes enhancement?”
“No, but there was an enhancement,” I said. “He got 200 years to life because the drugs were three days past their expiration date.”
“Why does any of this surprise me?” Said Benedict.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe because you’ve been in solitary for the past forty years?”
“That must be it,” said Benedict. “I imagined a world less crazy than the one that put me here this whole time.”
Victor looked at the clock. “It’s almost time to go back. If anyone comes up with an idea, share it with the rest of us.” We all agreed and finished-up out dinner.
* * *
Ok John, I told myself. Everyone’s on board. It’s time to do it. I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to do anything but this. But it was my best shot at staying in prison. Fighting can add like ten years to your sentence. I can’t believe I want to stay in prison. Earth’s atmosphere turning into Venus was about the only thing that would make me want to do that.
I walked up to Francis, just like we’d talked about earlier. He was 100% on board. So was everyone at the lifer table. So were all my other friends. After six months, we agreed that this was the most reliable option. The prison was quite intolerant of fighting. Of course, I was pretty adverse to fighting myself. I wanted to do this about as much as I wanted a root canal.
Finally, I got to the lifer table. “Francis,” I said with as much menace as I could muster. It wasn’t much. “We need to talk.”
Francis’s 55 year-old-body stood up and he said, with more menace than I’d ever heard from him (including that time we put on a Rogers and Hammerstein musical), “What about little man?” He followed the menace up with a wink. That made me feel a little better.
“This…this prison isn’t big enough for the two of us,” I said. I saw Donald, a guard, coming so I panicked and shoved Francis. He shoved me back and, as I fell into the table and chairs behind me, I saw an expression of horror across his face. That’s when I blacked out.
* * *
The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital with Nurse Pearl attending to me. “Oh, good,” she said soothingly. “You’re awake. The doctor has some good news for you. Dr. Pascal, your patient is finally awake.”
“I’ll be there soon, Pearl,” said the doctor from another room.
“While we’re wanting for him, I’ll make you more comfortable,” she said as she started to fluff my pillow, tuck sheets under me, adjust my traction, and fiddle with my bed.
“You don’t need to do all of that,” I said as two halvs of the bed started to come together.
“Nonsense,” she said, “now that you are awake, you should be comfortable.”
Wait, does that mean I should be uncomfortable while I’m sleeping? I thought to myself. “I’m comfortable now,” I said as the bed was folding me in half. “O.k., that’s enough, I’m less comfortable.”
“That’s good?” She said.
“Yeah, actually, could you straighten it out a little? I’m feeling smooshed.” Fortunately, she straightened the bed out a little.
“Is that good?”
“Yes,” I said.
Pearl went about her business for another few minutes before the doctor came in. “Ah! John, I have good news for you!”
“That’s good. I could use some good news right now.”
“Well, first the bad news. So you know that fighting can add to your sentence, correct?”
“Yes,” I said, trying not to show how happy I was.
“Well, there’s a little known provision that the severity of your injuries can mitigate your extension.”
Well, that’s not too bad, I thought. Like, I’ll still get more time, just not as much.
“Anyways, because of the severity of your injuries, your overall sentence was reduced by a few weeks.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, that can’t have big effect, what with the rounding up and all.” Damn, all this and I’m not going to have a change in my release date.
“That’s the good news!” Said Dr. Pascal. “Your original release date of January 12, 2388 had been rounded up to January 1, 2389. But with a few weeks shaved off, your new release date is December 28, 2387. Which rounds up to January 1, 2388. Your getting out a whole year earlier! Congratulations, you got into a fight and ended up with a shorter sentence. I’ve never seen anything like it!”
I’d never been in more pain in my entire life.
* * *
I’m not proud of my next stunt, and I’m in prison for copyright infringement.
Anyways, internet access had been cut off for the past several years, shortly after the last prisoner to be released left. But recently, internet access had been restored and the computer lab had been re-opened. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t go because I was still in traction. Fortunately for me, I was able to convince Dr. Pascal to let me have a computer in my room.
Richard, the primary maintenance robot, installed it for me.
Once it was installed, I quickly realized that I wasn’t going be doing much on it with my permissions. It was mostly good for looking at pictures of cats and reading spam (in that exact order). I tried poking around for vulnerabilities. My best hope was an exploit utilizing Emacs version 6888.452, which had a bug that might let me do something as an admin if I hit the meta key five times followed by the number 2600. Then you have to tell the Emac’s Dr. Eliza that you feel like Superman. When he asks “Why do you feel like Superman?” You have to say “Because it’s the root of all my problems.”
This was fixed in the next update by deleting the lisp file that created it. But then you could just re-program it to do that, if you knew Emacs Lisp. (Which isn’t a lot of people, but it’s still a problem.) The underlying exploit was finally dealt with in a later patch. So, it was just a matter of typing the following:
emacs --version
And looking at the output:
GNU Emacs 6887.996
Damn.
For whatever it was worth, there was also some other stuff about how the license guarantees free beer if you can figure out how to write and Emacs Lisp program to do that, but I really didn’t care. I just needed access.
I had another idea. Maybe I could modify Emacs to capture key strokes? Like, what if I had Richard come and log on, but I captured his password with a keystroke capture system? It was tricky, but plausible. It was helped by the fact that Linus didn’t seem to think that anyone ever mucked about on the command line, so it actually wasn’t as secure as it should have been. I worked all night coding a keystroke capture system and a way to fool Richard into typing his password.
Soon, I had my opportunity, I asked for Richard to come over and install a program for me, and he was willing. For some reason, installing new programs was relatively free of bureaucracy. Why? I don’t know. Getting them to fix the treadmill in the gym was virtually impossible, but if you wanted the latest version of the Beryllium Boar Web Browser, you were fine.
While he was logging in, I pretended to read. We made some chit-chat. At least, as much chit-chat as you can get with a robot IT guy.
When he was done, I opened the Beryllium Boar Web Browser just to keep-up the pretense that is what I really wanted. When he left, I checked to make sure the keystroke logger worked.
It had.
I didn’t do anything with it at first, not wanting to cause suspicion. The earlier they found out, the more likely they would just stop me from my plan and not add anything to my sentence.
My plan was simple: go into the database and alter my sentence to something resembling a life sentence. If I didn’t get caught, I’d be fine. But if I did get caught, my sentence would only be increased by like 10 years for hacking. That was preferable to the three years left I had now, but less desirable than the life sentence I was aiming for.
I waited a week and did the deed. It was a little difficult, I hadn’t done any serious hacking since before I’d been incarcerated. But ultimately, I’d succeeded in giving myself a 100 years to life sentence.
Nothing happened for awhile. At least, I wasn’t aware of anything for the duration of my hospital stay. But once I was better, Linus called me into his office. Normally, that would scare me to death, but now I was in the unenviable position of wanting disciplinary action.
Linus went straight to the point. “John, I have some bad news and some good news.”
“Well sir, I’d like you to start with the bad news,” I said.
“I’m programed to always start with the bad news, so I’m glad you said that,” said Linus. “There’s been some unusual activity on your account.”
I tried to hold my happiness. I’m not sure it mattered, no one here seems to be particularly adept at reading human emotions. Still, I wanted to be prudent. “What was the unusual activity?”
“One of the maintenance robots went into your account without authorization and altered your sentence,” said Linus.
“Oh no!” I said, fully cognizant that I’ll never be an Oscar winning actor. Especially now that there was no one left to give out Oscars.
“Oh yes, John. He gave you a 100 year to life sentence. That’s a far cry from the three years you have left. I’ve talked to him about it and he doesn’t remember doing that.”
I looked down sheepishly. I’m not even getting a Golden Globe.
“But he clearly did, we have him logged as doing it from one of the computer lab computers.”
“Oh,” I said. I was starting to not like where this was going.
“So we’ve put him on restricted duty,” said Linus. “That’s the bad news.”
“Umm, what’s the good news, then?”
“Well, we don’t want you to think that we’re in the habit of giving our prisoners longer sentences than they deserve. I pride myself in running a tip-top completely AI run prison where everyone follows the rules. This is the first time any of the AIs or robots under my leadership have malfunctioned like this and I want you to know that they’re being monitored carefully. As a result, I’m reducing your sentence.”
My eyes widened. “No, that’s not right, that’s not fair. You don’t need to do this.”
Linus looked at me and put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s o.k. John. We’re reducing your sentence down so that you have only a year left. With rounding up under sentencing simplification, you’ll be getting out in 16 months. Think about that!”
“But! But! Um…you can’t do that. It wasn’t him that altered the records, it was me! I did it! I wanted a longer sentence.”
“That makes no sense. On top of that, I’ve seen the logs myself. He used his password and account ID. Our password database in uncrackable, it would take you over a hundred human lifetimes to decrypt it. And we’ve made them all unguessable by humans. And it makes no sense. No human would try to increase their incarceration time. It’s not logical.”
“Sure it does!” I said, my voice raised in a panic.
“Don’t shout,” said Linus.
“Sorry,” I said, trying to calm down. “It’s just, have you seen the atmospheric conditions out there?”
“I’m aware of them,” said Linus.
“Then you have to know that none of us could survive under those conditions,” I said. “It’s like Venus out there.”
“That’s absurd,” said Linus. “For one thing, there’s no sulfuric acid in Earth’s atmosphere.”
“My point is that it’s unbreathable,” I said. “We all watched Paul die trying to breath it in.”
Linus started to nod his head. “I see what’s going on,” he said. I waited to see what he was going to follow that up with. I was hopeful, but not by much. “You’re upset over the death of Paul and are thus acting irrationally.” He voice got softer. “Paul’s death was tragic. But I’m sure that there are some humans still left alive on the outside. You’ll be fine.”
“But, I don’t want to die!”
“Nonsense,” said Linus. “All humans die. If you didn’t want to die, your species would have found a way around that by now. Look, I have a lot of work to do, so you’ll need to leave now.”
“But!”
“But nothing John. Your sentence reduction stays, there are no facts that support a different conclusion that are relevant to the calculation of your sentence. So, goodbye.” At that point, Brian and Donald, the robot guards, came in to escort me out.
* * *
My spirit broken, I fell into a depression. I did nothing to improve (impoverish) my situation for a few months. Finally, I decided to throw caution to the wind and do some writing. I took a character from my childhood, Bennie the Seahorse, and wrote a fanfic with him and Monica the Model, a character from a TV series when I was a teenager. It was typical slash fanfic: raunchy and poorly written. I found a website that hosted fanfic and posted it to there one evening after (barely) copyediting it.
After posting it, I found myself back in the computer lab the next morning. I hadn’t slept well. Despite objectively knowing the fic was terrible, I had to know what other people thought of it. Linus said that there might be some humans left in the world. If so, maybe they’d see it and read it. Maybe there were still corporations that cared about those characters and would prosecute me, keeping me here longer. Of course, if that were the case, would I still want to be here? Maybe Linus would take it upon himself to extend my sentence since this is, technically, a crime. In fact, that’s what Victor is in for.
At this point though, I wasn’t hopeful.
But when I checked my posting, I found several dozen comments on it! I was elated. Even if they didn’t like it, that meant humans! I read through them:
“The writer doesn’t understand what made Bennie a compelling character.”
“John wrote Monica in a sexist fashion when he had her wearing a ‘slinky red dress’”
“Monica would never be into Bennie, Alejandro is her otp.”
“It’s wrong to write a children's character like that. What if a kid does a search for Bennie and finds this trash? Think of the children.”
They were all like that. On top of that, the number of comments equaled the number of views my fic had received. I got suspicious and looked up ‘commenting bots’ on the web. What I saw confirmed my suspicion: they were all fanfic bots.
A fanfic bot is a robot that searches the internet for fanfics and reads them for the user, saving the user the trouble of reading them for himself or herself. Fanfic bots also leave comments on the fanfic, saving the user the trouble of having to write the comments themselves. Fanfic bots could, in theory, be used to recommend fanfics to the user if they met certain criteria, but this isn’t what they’re typically used for. Although it was what they were designed for.
What this all meant was simple, not a single human had read my fic. Bots programed from before whatever catastrophe changed the atmosphere had read it and left nasty comments.
The only people left on the internet were prisoners in for copyright infringement and bots programed to leave nasty reviews for their users.
This did not help my depression.
* * *
“You gotta get up,” said Benedict.
“No I don’t,” I said.
“You’re allowed to skip breakfast, but not lunch,” he said.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll have despair for lunch.”
“No,” said Benedict, “that’s what you had for dinner.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll have leftovers.”
Benedict turned to the guard, Donald. “He’s all yours. I tried.”
“John, get up,” said Donald.
“No,” I said. “You can’t make me.” I can’t believe I’ve been reduced to being a grown man who says ‘you can’t make me.’ Clearly, prison really does change a person.
“Yes I can,” he said. He then went into my cell and picked me up and carried me all the way to the cafeteria. When he put me down he said, “you have to be here. You have to put food on your plate. You don’t have to eat it though. O.k.?”
“Fine,” I said. I got in line.
Victor was ahead of me in line. After a moment or two he said to me, “hey, I looked at your fic.”
“Really?” I said in a raised voice.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s not half bad.”
“Really?” I said, my voice a couple of octaves lower this time, conscious of my early tenor.
“Well, it’s not half good either.” He said. “But I liked it. I’m so glad we have internet access back. I can finally look at all the fics I’ve been missing out on.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s nice. Like things might return to normal soon.” I was starting to feel better. Then, my mental state improved even more when I realized that we were having chicken nuggets. Out of all the terrible food they serve you in prison, I feel that chicken nuggets are the least terrible. Unfortunately, you’re only allowed five.
I took five nuggets from the dispenser. I was about to move on when I though, ‘eh, might as well’ and got five more from the dispenser.
“Whoa!” Said Leo, who was on the other side of me. “I can’t believe you did that?”
“Is it a problem? Can you still get nuggets?”
“Oh, it’s not a problem,” Leo got his five nuggets from the dispenser. “I’ve just never seen you like this.”
“Yeah, I guess I’ve always been a goody two-shoes before.”
“At least until you picked that ‘fight’ with Frances.” Leo shook his head.
“Yeah, I don’t know. I guess I haven’t been in a really good place since Paul’s death.”
“Hey,” said Leo who put his hand on my back. “We all miss him too. And we all understand, he was your cell mate. It’s hard to loose a cell mate.”
We all sat down and started eating.
After picking at my food I said to the table, “it would have been one thing if he’d just gotten out. That I can handle. But to die like that, when freedom is so close, it’s just heartbreaking.”
Everyone at the table agreed. I saved my nuggets for last, dipping them in a sweet and sour sauce that was really tangy, just the way I like it. I started to feel better again. When I was done with them, Brian, the guard on duty, called me over.
“Denis needs to talk to you,” he said. “Follow me.”
“O.k.” I said. And I followed him. When we got to Denis’s office I said, “so what’s up?”
“Well John, I have some bad news for you.” He started playing a video of the cafeteria line from when I was there earlier. “Do you see that?”
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s me getting chicken nuggets.”
“No,” said Denis, “that’s you getting a second helping of chicken nuggets. Not only are you only allowed five nuggets total, but you’re only allowed to get seconds—when they are allowed—after you’ve eaten everything you got on your first helping.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Look,” said Denis, “we only have enough food supplies to last us for the next three hundred years. We need to conserve because we haven’t gotten fresh supplies in several years.”
“Three hundred years?” I said. “Everyone here will be dead when you run out.” Then something occurred to me: “How old were those chicken nuggets?”
“Twenty years old,” said Denis. “But that’s not the point. Neither is the point about everyone being dead. The fact is, at current consumption rates, we only have a finite amount of food.”
“Well, that’s true no matter what. Anything less than infinite is, by definition, finite.”
“Don’t get smart with me,” said Denis. “The fact is, if you increase consumption rates, then our food supplies won’t last as long. So we have to conserve them.”
“But you just said that you have three hundred years at current consumption rates, an extra five nuggets probably isn’t going to significantly dent that.”
“What if everyone took ten nuggets?” He said.
“What if they did? What kind of numbers are we talking about?” I said.
“That’s classified. I can’t tell you information about our food storage.”
“But you just did,” I said.
“Only to discipline you,” said Denis. “And I didn’t give you actual numbers.”
“300 years is an actual number,” I said.
“You know what I mean,” said Denis.
“No, I really don’t,” I said.
“Well, you’re smart enough to figure it out, I’m sure,” he said.
“Fine,” I said, exasperated. “Look, most people aren’t going to have ten nuggets. As it is, some people don’t have them when they’re offered, others are fine with five. Also, you could probably ration the nuggets more, um, rationally than you have so far.”
“Look, smart guy,” said Denis. “I don’t set food policy. We have rules and they need to be enforced. It wouldn’t have been too bad if you’d left them on your plate or given them to someone who didn’t take any. But you had to go ahead and eat them.”
“Fine,” I said. “What do I have to do?”
“Stay here longer,” said Dennis.
“What, like in your office?” I said, exhibiting my characteristic slowness.
“No, in prison. The standard extension for taking extra food is 10 years. But, because of our food shortage, we have to add an additional 15 years. So, I’m sorry to say that your sentence has been extended for another 25 years. I know you were looking forward to getting out in a year. But, that’s what happens when you break the rules.”
I got so excited. I started jumping up in the air and pumping my fist. I was so happy.
“Brian,” said Dennis, “restrain him. John, you can’t get angry about this. I know it’s upsetting. But you knew you were only allowed five nuggets.”
“You don’t understand,” I said while Brian restrained me, “I’m happy.”
“I’m adding another five years for lying to me,” said Dennis.
“Yes!” I shouted.
“Brian, take this lier out of my presence.” Brian did so.
About ten years later, the atmosphere became less a danger and humans started re-asserting themselves. A new government was formed and minimum security prisons were re-evaluated. Eventually, the new government decided it made no sense to keep people who were convicted of things like copyright infringement locked-up indefinitely or for arbitrarily long times. Even some of the dumb non-copyright infringement crimes were given a pass.
I, however, was not.
Because I was given extra time for wasting resources, my sentence remained intact. The new government felt that it was important that we not waste resources in this new world where resources were so scarce because of the poor atmosphere. Eventually, it was just me and Benedict at the prison. They wouldn’t let him go either because his crime was gang related. He died shortly afterword of old age. I eventually left, I did the ‘good behavior’ thing, plus a few of my tricks from when I was trying to get out. Eventually, I got out when I was 64.
The first thing I did was buy ten pieces of chicken nuggets and eat them while watching a movie in the theaters.