It was noon and I was bringing lunch to the inmates. I had the trays of food on a gray cart. I hobbled with a bum left knee, which still pained me even though it was more than a year since the injury. I pushed the gray cart through the security door into a sterile white room, where three faces stared back at me, from bunks behind steel bars.

I always dreaded coming from my office because I had to deal with those faces, the white walls of the hallway running parallel to their cell, and the bars that separated the three of them from me. It was all meant for my own protection in case they tried to escape, but I wanted nothing more than to be on the other side of the bars with them.

I opened it wide, almost as if I was begging them to try something. They just sat on their bunks and waited for me to hand them their food. I handed Prisoner A57675 his food and silverware first, and he accepted it, without question or comment.

Prisoner Q94312 used to say, "What's on the menu today?" and Prisoner D82164 used to wait until I was just about to leave and ask, "How does it feel to be a traitor, David?"

"I'm not David anymore. I'm your warden," I would say.

They used to scoff at me when I told them they could no longer call me by my real name. I would have to explain that they no longer had names but alphanumeric identities, and I no longer was a name but merely a title.

I couldn't enforce it on my own. I relied on the possibility of hidden cameras to keep them in line. We all knew how the Great Society operated. We had to follow the rules. There were far worse fates then this. We could end up in one of the work camps.

Now, they silently go along with everything, but their eyes burn with accusations of betrayal. And their eyes couldn't be anymore right about it. I used to know their names. They used to be friends. The wasteland landscape had a way of helping to forget.

I handed the food to Q94312. He wouldn't take it.

"You must eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"You haven't eaten in the last three days."

"I said I'm not hungry, Warden."

"Goddamn it, just eat the food."

"I'll eat when I'm hungry."

"You're not going to eat, we all know that."

"We?" he asked. "You talk as if you're still one of us. You turned your back on us a long time ago, so fuck you."

"If I could take it back..."

"You can't take it back. You can't stab us in the back and just expect it to be all okay again."

I didn't respond.

I just set his tray of food down at his feet. I took the last tray and gave it to D82164. Then, I left the cell, locking it up again. I entered the code in for the security door, and as the light indicating it was open went green, I began pushing my gray cart out the door. I heard a bang on the cell wall, and saw that Q94312 had thrown his tray of food against the wall.

“Q94312, you'll have to clean that up."

I returned to my office.

After lunch time though I was suppose to take them outside for fresh air.

This required me to hobble back into the holding block of the prison facility. There was only one exit for the building and that was at the other end of the building. For a prison it was relatively small and self-sufficient, only being made up of four blocks. It was long and rectangular, the cell being on one end, and at the other end was the storage block. It was designed specifically for us.

I led them out through the security door and into my office, with the trust of a year establishing that they would not do anything or I would have to take action. They used to hurt me. They had long since given up on attempting anything. After taunting and torturing for awhile, they realized that silence was far more effective.

I led them then through my personal quarters, which were made up of a bed and a relatively empty room, with clothing and other necessities scattered on the floor. Then, I led them down the long halls of the storage block. To the left and right of the walkway there were rows and rows of shelves where upon rested the rations and medical and other supplies. It was all suppose to last for a very long time.

Opening the door for them, I watched them file out one by one, D82164 carrying a basketball out to the basketball court. I never played with them. I always stood at the edge of the half court, watching.

D82164 went over and began shooting and A57675 joined in, but Q94312 merely sat down on the blacktop, looking across the wasteland expanses of asteroid prison colony Z128576.

There were endless stretches of flatlands, and the surface was cracked in upheaval and dissent. Looking up at the artificial sun overhead I could not help but resent the creator of this prison colony. Whoever designed the artificial landscape must have had some form of hell in mind. There was the prison facility and a basketball court. Then, just miles and miles of barren waste in all directions. Also, as opposed to the regulated conditions of the space colonies that humans now called home, the only regulation here was blistering heat from the sun machine. The light was so bright and glaring that any attempt to try and see the translucent sky dome only resulted in sunspots all over the eyes. If I walked long enough I could probably come to the end of the line, but the atmosphere and the glaring sunlight gave the prison colony the feeling of eternity.

The dome that kept the void of space out and this hell in arched up like an upside down fish bowl over the entire prison colony. It did not merely bubble us into our portion of it but stretched heavenward over the entire barren wasteland.

Maybe this wasn't Hell. Maybe this was Purgatory or Limbo, That was it. We were lingering in Limbo with the unbaptized babies, waiting for some unsatisfied God to have mercy and accept our penance. We repent, we repent, we are sorry, I promise.

Demons in the guises of judges, juries, and prison guards that flew prison ships had brought us here to suffer for our transgressions. Wouldn't it be appropriate then if an angel came to take us up to salvation? Take us to heaven in a spacecraft. I have tried prayers. I never really believed there was any proof for God, but I never really denied the existence of such an entity. Seeing Q94312 slowly shriveling up on the blacktop, I wanted so very much to believe in a God. I wanted to believe in a merciful creature of salvation. I prayed and prayed for someone to come and tell me I was done suffering, I could go home now.

I hoped it was not Hell. If it was Hell that meant eternity. If this was Limbo or Purgatory then maybe I had a chance of escape. I was just waiting for the day when whoever was supposed to decide such things said this man has suffered enough.

I shot a defiant gaze at the sun machine.

Truth: Is there a god and does he give a goddamn? Dare: show me some kind of miracle. I tried to play the game for awhile, but the sun machine could not seem to really make up its mind. After an hour of exercise I led them back inside into their cells.

In the evening, when the sun machine was fading and I laid my head down, my brain was still pulsing full of thoughts. Truth or dare.

After three days of travel by spaceship, we had gone the distance from our home colony of Venice 8, which was one of numerous space colonies that revolved around Jupiter, to asteroid prison colony Z128576, which resided in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. While we were in our cell, none of us talked. They didn't know I was the traitor. To them it could have been anyone.

Many of the colonies in the asteroid belt were used for mining of their natural resources. Others were huge prisons, where untold numbers of prisoners were kept. Transgressions were punished severely, but as a progressive society, the Great Society did not allow for the death penalty anymore. Wrongdoers, from minor criminals to murders and rapists, were punished with lengthy jail sentences.

Some could reduce their sentences by working on asteroid prison colonies that served as work camps. Many of the mining facilities were almost completely operated by convicts. Convicts ended up doing the less desirable jobs and made up such a large portion of the population that they had become a whole new class of disenfranchised citizens. If the prison system stopped working, the Great Society as a whole would probably stop, and so the prisons were always full and new inmates were always coming in. Human life as capital, I mused with a shutter.

We were escorted out of the ship, for the first time learning of the oppression that was the sun machine. The bright light of it threatened to expose me. Feeling the sun machine's artificial heat, and seeing the bleak white walls of the exterior of the prison complex, I knew that none of this could be a reward for honesty in an interrogation room. After all the senseless beatings underneath the one swinging light bulb that barely illuminated the room, I thought I had uttered the soliloquy of my salvation.

As the four guards escorting us led us into the storage room, each one made sure to give each of us a jab in the back, to inform us of the fact that they had no qualms about killing us on the spot.

It was when we reached the holding cell that I realized my "reward." While the four guards stood there with guns pointing at us, one of them tossed us each garb to wear. While the other three were given prisoner garb, the guard tossed me something else saying, "We've gotten something different in mind for you."

It was then the other three looked at me, and knew I was the traitor.

We all put our new clothes on. They took the last of what we possessed from us, and next they took our identities as well, saying that I was no longer David but Warden. The others were given their alphanumerical identifications. Soon, the bright hot sun machine would take our memories as well, till we nothing was left. This was the ultimate method of prison reform. Change the criminals by making them something wholly different and lifeless.

"You're not to associate with the prisoners anymore. You bring them their meals, new clothes, or medical supplies when they need them. You take them out every day after lunch for an hour of recreation. If there is anything else they need you are responsible for that."

"But I helped you."

"You are a criminal just like them. You giving us info doesn't completely free you from your crime; you must suffer as well, because the Great Society doesn't reward criminals."

I made sure to have a gun with me the first time I took them outside. After the designated recreation time, I ordered them inside.

"We want to stay outside some more, Warden," Q94312 said.

"The hour is over."

"We know. We were there for that part. We heard all about your orders and how you are a traitor."

"Just come inside already. I don't like this situation anymore than you do. If we just do what we are supposed to maybe we can get off this hellhole quickly."

"That's bullshit and you know it. You know how the Great Society operates. That's why we started to attend the underground meetings. That is why we tried to make a difference. We were all ready to give our lives for the cause, to die without them getting a word out of us. But you had to spill everything. And now we have nothing. You fucked up. You broke, David. You proved yourself ill-equipped to do what had to be done," he said.

They began closing in on me.

"Don't fucking touch me," I said. I had the gun pointed right at his chest.

"You'd do that, David? To your own partners? To the people you used to call your friends?"

"Fuck you. Get inside now," I shouted now pointing the gun at Q94312's head.

"You're better off putting that to your own head. Do yourself a favor."

I put my finger on the trigger. I was going to pull it. But I waited too long. He was right. I should have turned it on myself.

He was too quick for me. He already knew what he was going to do. I was too nervous. He hit the gun out of my hand and then they were on me faster than I could have belleved they were capable of. This was not spontaneous. They had been planning this ever since the guards had left, and I had gone to make them their lunch. This was the beginning of the punishment that they saw fit for me.

They knocked me to the ground, all three of them taking turns kicking me. They kicked me so much in my left knee that I haven't walked the same since. I'm forced to hobble. I can't say how long it went on. It seemed like forever. When I threw up my lunch, they let up a little bit.

I was on my side in agony, tears burning my eyes, blood dripping from the side of my mouth. My nose was running, thick with snot. Between the tears and the sun machine above I might as well have been blind. I felt one of them roll me on my back, and I laid there overwhelmed by the artificial sunlight. I felt the weight of a body pressed down on me. I felt cold metal pressed against my forehead.

I winced and pressed my eyes closed tightly and then opened them again trying to shake some of the tears from my eyes. There was no longer the sun shining directly into my face. Q94312 was looking down at me, his eyes screaming accusations, as he straddled my chest and held the gun.

I begged him to kill me.

"We can't do that, David. You need to pay for what you have done, and we're going to make sure that you do. We will always be here to remind you that it was you that betrayed us and the Faction. Even if we failed in our mission we can at least be sure to punish a traitor."

"We have to do something with that gun," I heard D82164 say.

"Maybe there is something in the storage room," said A57675. "I'll go check."

Q94312 finally got off me, heading also into storage. They left me there, and I could barely get up. When I finally did, my left knee screamed with pain, and it took me forever to make it to the storage room door.

When I finally threw the door open and entered the prison complex again, the first thing I saw was the gun lying there. They had left it there for me to see. I picked it up and knew it would not work again. They had taken a hammer to it. The gun was useless.

It was as I was scouring around in the storage room that I heard a knocking on the door. I waited for another knock. It came almost immediately after the first. It sounded desperate, but I refused to believe it. After several knocks I submitted to my curiosity.

A man came falling in, his head crashing down on the storage room floor. I tried to catch him but I was unsuccessful, I kneeled down by his side, cradling his head under my left arm.

"Hey. Hey," I said trying to get his attention. "Where are you coming from?"

"Did I make it to the Waystation?"

"What? What is the Waystation?"

"What is this place if it isn't a Waystation?"

"This is a prison. Where are you coming from?" I asked.

"The main complex," he said and he seemed to slowly become more aware of the room around him. He seemed to be trying to process everything but it was coming to him slowly. He seemed on the edge of an epiphany. "Wait, If this Is not the Waystation then this must be one of the satellite complexes." He looked frustrated and still confused but the fog of confusion from the heat and brightness of the sun machine was starting to clear up. "Damn it. I could have sworn I saw the ships departing, ships arriving. I could see the landing pad. I could see all the pilots rushing around. I could see the glass of the dome it was so close, almost touching the Waystation itself, but it arched up above it, ships passing in and out of it. And here I am."

"There are more people," I said amazed, now in my own haze of simultaneous joy and terror. I looked down and he was studying me now. He looked very frightened.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"You. You're a warden. You're not going to put me back in that work camp. I'm not going to let you. I refuse to go back there."

"I'm not going to take you back there. I'm a prisoner just like yourself."

"Shut up. Shut up," he shouted. "You're trying to trick me. I'm not going to let you. I made sure to protect myself from something like this," he said.

He broke free of me, standing up, and reaching around in his pocket. He pulled out a pistol. "Wait no, hold on a second." I didn't want to die. Now that I knew that there was a way off this hellhole I wanted to survive to get away. To live another day. I stumbled and stood, trying to back away from him, taking backward steps towards my personal quarters. The storage room was a straight away though. He would have a clear shot at me. "You don't want to do that. I'm not really a prison guard. You're making a big..."

But my words were cut off but the vicious pulse of the pistol. For a second he just stood there, after the blood had sprayed the walls, and then he collapsed.

I ran over to him as If I could still somehow reverse the last ten seconds. I picked his limp body up to support it as I had done only minutes before, hoping that he was still alive. I wanted to tell him I was like him. He saw me for what I really was.

Setting the unknown prisoner's head down, I peered down at my blood soaked hands. I had to wash my hands, so I ran to my personal quarters. Something told me that no matter how much I washed, and no matter how clean my hands looked, that I would never get rid of all the stains.

I made sure to go back for the gun before I headed to the holding cell. Passing through the security door just one more time, I knew that they had heard the gunshot, and probably didn't expect me coming back.

D82164 was the first to say anything. "We heard a shot. Did you try killing yourself?"

"We're not the only ones here," I said.

"What are you talking about?" A57675 asked.

"Some prisoner came knocking on the storage door when I was gathering up stuff for breakfast. What I got out of him was that he had escaped the main complex which is one of those work camps, and it is probably at the very center of this whole colony. He was trying to make it to the Waystation on the edge of this prison colony, but he just made it here. In his confusion he thought it was the Waystation, but he realized that it was just a satellite prison complex."

"So we aren't alone," Q94312 said.

"Nope. Not only are there more of these little traps, there is a larger facility. And there is a Waystation and a way out."

"What happened to him?" D82164 asked.

"He killed himself."

It was quiet for a moment. Q94312 spoke.

"Why are we waiting around here then?"

I unlocked the cell door.

Water and rations were pooled together. Enough to last a very long time. The weight might slow them down but it would make the difference. If they were ever going to make it to the Waystation it would be because of supplies.

A57675 tried to hand me a backpack full of food and drink for myself.

"I'm not going," I said.

"What are you talking about?" D82164 asked.

"I don't want to come along. I want to die," I said pulling out the dead man's gun, and putting it to my head. I was envisioning his face, his accusations. "I'm going to do what I should have done a long time ago. Just like you said."

"How selfish," Q94312 said. "You want redemption? Give me the gun, David."

After a long moment I opened my hand, and before I could have a second thought he snatched it up, and put it into his pocket.

He went over to where the box of spare bullets was kept, and tossed it in his backpack. Then, the four of us made our way to the door at the end of the storage room. I put on my backpack and followed last in line. Q94312 led.

He made his way outside, and we each followed one right after the other. Coming out-side, now under the gaze of the burning hot sun machine I knew that this was Limbo. I wasn't trapped in Hell. This was impermanent. I would walk out of here holding the soft hands of the unbaptized babies. I wasn't going to wait around to be saved anymore. I was going to save myself.