

### The New Earth

### Book 1 in "The Moon Penitentiary" Series

Nick Langenberg

~~~

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2015 Nick Langenberg

First published in 2015 by Jonmac Limited.

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters and places, incidents are used entirely fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Smashwords License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

#  Free Book

Sign up for this author's new release mailing list and receive a free copy of his very first novella _The Memory Caves._ This fascinating story will keep you gripped until the very last page.

Click here to have a look.

#  Other Books By The Author

The Penitentiary (Book 2 in "The Moon Penitentiary" series)

Return to the Penitentiary (Book 3 in "The Moon Penitentiary" series)

Fugitives (Book 4 in "The Moon Penitentiary" series)

Showdown (Book 5 in "The Moon Penitentiary" series)

The Memory Caves

# Table Of Contents

Free Book

Other Books By The Author

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

The Penitentiary Chapter 1

Free Book – The Memory Caves

Other Books In The Series

About The Author

Fantastic Fiction

#  Chapter 1

The high school was a standard rectangular building of sand-colored brick on a quiet street near the Government Complex. The windows were neatly lined up on the face of the building like empty eyes, all staring out at the office building across the street. The solid green banner with the single blue stripe that was the flag of The New World Order fluttered at the top of the flagpole in the front yard.

Inside the building teenagers studied language and history and science and math – everything The New World Order deemed critical to the future of New Earth. At the back of the building on the second floor, twenty third-year students sat scribbling notes as their teacher recited the lesson.

"It was early in the new millennium when the political climate of Earth grew increasingly less stable. Old conflicts between religious groups erupted in new waves of violence, new wars between countries began. By the turn of the century, it was clear that global conflict was unavoidable. Garth, how's the view out that window?"

Seventeen-year-old Garth Haston turned sullen green eyes away from the gritty city street and back towards his history teacher. "Boring," he said as his classmates tittered in amusement. He felt his cheeks heat up and turned the embarrassment to anger.

"Did you do the assigned readings?"

Garth shrugged. He locked his arms over his chest.

"Why don't you tell us what happened at the turn of the century?"

"The old governments destroyed the world."

The teacher smiled. "Yes, well, nuclear war does have that effect. But since we're all still here, living and breathing..."

"And mutating," someone said from the back corner of the room.

"Only people who regularly venture too close to the wastes show any sign of continuing radiation sickness or mutation. As I was saying, the planet was hardly destroyed. It is true that 60% of the land on our planet is now uninhabitable and over a billion people died during the war, but given its rocky start New Earth is prospering under The New World Order."

She turned to the board and began listing important dates and the names of political figures who had been instrumental in instating and shaping The New World Order, the governing body responsible for all inhabitable regions of the planet. Garth turned his attention back out the window.

History bored him. School bored him. His life bored him. There was nothing to do in the overcrowded, run-down city and unlike the rest of his family, who seemed to enjoy the tedious routine of their mundane lives, Garth was restless.

"If The New World Order is doing such a bang-up job of kick-starting civilization, why couldn't they come through with their promise of colonizing the moon and freeing up some space on New Earth?"

The teacher smiled. "Now that, Samantha, is a very good question. It turns out that the promise of building glittering cities on the moon was one that was beyond the grasp of The New World Order. The resources were simply not available to create efficient, sustainable transport, and the cost of moving building materials was much higher than anticipated. It was not a complete loss, and in a way The New World Order not only fulfilled their promise but dealt with a second problem at the same time. When they turned the eco-domes into prisons they...." A buzzer sounded throughout the building, and the students began packing their books away. "All right, that's the end of class for today. Please read the section on the moon colonization attempts and the current lunar penal colonies for tomorrow."

There were groans from around the room and someone said, "Nice going Samantha."

"And you should be able to list at least five specific conflicts that led to the global nuclear strike for the test next week."

Garth shouldered the ratty bag he'd been using to haul his books around for the last three years and made a break for the door. Someone gave him a deliberate bump, drawing chuckles from his classmates. He was almost out the door when the teacher said, "Garth, I'd like to speak with you for a moment."

With his eyes on the floor, he waited for the rest of the class to file out. "I have to go," he said. "I have to walk my sister home."

The teacher, Ms. Shemanski, was young and pretty, the type all students liked to have. Garth had been in her classes twice before, and he thought she was cool, as far as teachers went. "I won't keep you long. I just wanted to know if everything was all right."

He looked away. "I'm fine."

"You've been different this year, distracted. I know you can be a very good student if you put the effort in again."

"Yeah, sure."

She frowned. "Okay. Say hello to Rushell for me and I'll see you in class tomorrow."

He nodded and shuffled off.

His younger sister, Rushell, was waiting out front with a group of her friends. "He even told me my hair looked good today," she was saying.

"You're so lucky," her friend said, sighing.

"Don't let Dad hear you talking like that," Garth said. "He'll never let you out of the house again."

"He can try and stop me," Rushell said with a fierce grin. She waved to her friends. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah, see you later," they said, and the two groups parted ways.

As far as siblings went Garth and Rushell were very different. Rushell was the spitting image of their mother - petite, blonde, and blue-eyed, while Garth had his father's olive skin, dark hair, and green eyes, and had, in the last year, shot up until he was the same height as his father, putting him just over a foot taller than his sister. Neither had filled out yet, leaving fifteen-year-old Rushell wishing for curves and Garth feeling awkward in a frame that was still adolescent-skinny.

"You should shave," she said as they walked down the dirty street. Even their steps were different; hers were sporadic and lively while he just shuffled along with his hands deep in his pockets. "You look funny."

"It won't look so funny when it grows in," he said. There was a group of boys at the corner and Garth stopped, holding out a hand to halt his sister. "Cross the street and go straight home."

"Garth, please, not again. I don't like them."

"And they don't like you. Go home, you little brat."

When they had been children that insult would make her stick out her bottom lip, but now it just sparked something fierce in her eyes. "Mom won't like you being late."

"Mom's working a double at the hospital, and so is Dad. I'll be home before they are. Now get lost." He walked on without waiting to see if she listened.

Rushell watched the street boys welcome her brother with some silly handshake and a few claps on the shoulder, and then they disappeared around the corner taking Garth with them. She looked around at the grubby buildings and even though the street was empty she felt as though someone was lurking nearby, watching her. The government had been cracking down on crime for years, but the streets had never been safe for a fifteen-year-old alone. She adjusted her bag and hurried home.

Garth slipped quietly into the apartment and hung his jacket in the coat closet. The quiet murmur of female voices made him grimace. He huffed, opened his eyes, and said, "I'm home."

His mother, all five and a half feet of her, appeared in the entryway with a glare that had Garth automatically dropping his eyes to the floor. That glare and the no-nonsense attitude behind it was the reason Rita Haston had not only survived being a nurse for twenty years, but was promoted to a supervisory position in her ward. "You were supposed to walk your sister home from school."

"She made it home safe," he said, not looking up.

"Today, yes, but that is not the point. The government thinks that sending people to a prison on the moon will deter crime, but not a day goes by that you don't hear about someone getting killed on the streets somewhere in New Earth."

"New Earth is a big place." He knew he had lost this argument and that his last attempt at defending himself sounded feeble, but he said it anyway.

She pointed her finger at him. "You will not leave the apartment tonight. I only came home on my dinner break to check on you two, and I'm glad I did, but now I'm running late. Your father will speak with you about this later."

Rushell popped out of the kitchen. "G'night Mom."

Rita turned to her daughter. "Get your school work done. I'll see you in the morning." As she walked past Garth, she paused. "It gets easier, I promise." And then she was gone.

"You tattled on me, didn't you?"

"Tattled?" she squeaked. "I didn't have to tattle. Mom came home, and you weren't here."

"You could have told her I'd just stepped out for a minute."

"I didn't call Mom at work and tattle on you, but you can't ask me to lie for you!"

"Whatever. Did you cook?"

She flicked her hair over her shoulder, her chin tilting up smugly. "I ate already. You can make something if you're hungry."

"You could make it for me."

"I'm your sister, not your maid. I have school work to do."

"Since when do you like doing school work?"

"Since it's better than being your slave. And since when do you act like such a jerk?"

"Oh piss off, you know nothing about it. I'm not hungry anyways." He grabbed his bag off the floor, pushed past her, and slammed the door to his room shut behind him.

He was hungry, but he wasn't going back out into the apartment to face his sister again, so he dropped on the bed in the dark and draped an arm over his eyes. All the teachers ever talked about was how bad things were before The Fall and how horrible the war had been and how great The New World Order was, but how could they know? Ms. Shemanski wasn't old enough to have lived through the war. Mr. Perkins, the headmaster, was the only person on staff at his high school who had been a grown-up during the conflict.

His parents certainly didn't agree blindly with the idea that life had vastly improved in the last forty or so years. They were very quiet about their opinions, but as Garth moved closer to manhood he was discovering that more and more people, like his new friends, were unhappy with their lives and the state of the world.

He rolled over, turned on the light, and pulled out his history textbook. He flipped ahead to the required reading and glanced over the photos of the eco-domes before starting on the text.

The Moon Penitentiary

_In_ 2132, _The New World Order designated the Moon Base as the official prison for New Earth. Over the next three_ years, _all the prisons in New Earth were_ emptied, _and the inmates sent to the moon. Only 63% of the_ inmates _survived the voyage._

The decision to move New Earth's prison system to the moon was made for two reasons: first, it freed up critical space on the planet's surface for housing developments and industrial facilities; second, moving dangerous criminals to the moon would keep the population of New Earth safer. _It was unfortunate that the shuttle system that transported the convicts was not 100% reliable. The New World Order has been diligently improving this shuttle system._

_In_ 2139, _The New World Order passed a law designed to deter criminals from ever committing a crime._ Not only would the criminal be sent to the Moon Penitentiary, but their entire family – parents, and siblings, or spouse and children, depending on the age of the convicted person – would be sent along with them.

_The Moon Penitentiary is a harsh_ environment, _but inmates learn discipline and respect during their sentence. When their sentence is_ complete, _their entire family is free to return to New Earth._

Garth shook his head and slammed the book shut. _What good would a moon prison do?_ he thought. It was just as his new friends kept saying, just another way for the New World Order to maintain their oppressive rule. _Who would honestly condemn children for the actions of their parents?_

He heard Rushell's bedroom door close, so he slipped out of bed and quietly went in search of food.

#  Chapter 2

"Another night shift?" Rushell said as she and her family sat down for a late lunch on the weekend. Rita and Dirk were actually having breakfast since their sleep schedules were on the night shift routine.

Garth grabbed a mug and also poured himself a coffee.

"Did you just get out of bed too?" Dirk said, frowning.

Garth glared darkly but nodded.

"I thought you were in your room working on homework. I had a distressing letter from the school this week. Your grades are slipping."

"I've got it under control," he said.

Before her husband and son could start arguing Rita said, "Yes, we're still on nights. I'm sorry about that, but things have been crazy lately. But your father and I both have tonight off."

Rushell's whole face lit up. "That's great!"

Dirk smiled at his daughter. "And a friend of mine at the hospital got me four tickets to the game tonight. It's been a long time since we've done something as a family."

Rushell was bouncing with excitement. "Really? This is so great. Can we get popcorn? Oooh! What about a real soft drink?"

"Who cares?" Garth said. "I'm not going. I have plans tonight." He headed back to his room with his coffee in hand.

Dirk pushed back from the table, ready to follow, but Rita held up a hand and said, "No, I'll go talk to him."

Even though Dirk and Rita both had good jobs at the hospital, their apartment was tiny. In this age of shoulder-to-shoulder living houses were reserved for high-ranking politicians and corporate leaders. As such, Dirk and Rushell could hear the murmurs of Rita's voice and Garth's angry replies. They fussed with their food; Rushell embarrassed, Dirk contemplating whether he was going to go and yell some sense and respect into his teenage son.

Rita reappeared and forced a smile. "He'll come," she said.

"Good," Dirk said. "These tickets weren't easy to get a hold of."

"Dear, he's just stretching his wings. All teens go through this phase in some way. Right now fitting in and having friends is very important to him."

"Doesn't mean he can be disrespectful," Dirk said.

"I don't like his friends."

Both parents turned to look at Rushell. Rushell liked everyone, and everyone liked her; it had always been that way. To say she made friends easily was an understatement. She had been such a change after Garth, who had always been quiet and seemed to prefer being alone. Rita could recall taking both kids to the park and while Garth ran around playing solo games of imagination Rushell, though two years younger, had every other child in the park playing some game or other. She was always happy, and she had brought genuine joy into their lives. They loved Garth, of course, but with his dark moods and quiet temperament he was harder to connect with. For Rushell to admit that she didn't like someone was serious. Dirk could not recall her ever saying that before, not even about people she didn't consider friends.

After a long silence Rita finally said, "Why don't you like them?"

Rushell shrugged. "Garth doesn't act like Garth when he's around them. Most of them are older than him, and I don't think they really like him. I think they laugh at him a lot. And they like to stir up trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Dirk asked, keeping his voice even. He didn't have a loud temper, but he knew the police and the government didn't tolerate trouble, not even from harmless teenagers.

Rushell shrugged again. "Graffiti, drinking, smoking, skipping classes...." She glanced at her parents. "I don't think Garth has ever spray painted a wall, and he can't skip class without you knowing about it. Please don't yell at him. If he knows that I told you, he'll be so mad at me. He's already so upset with me all the time."

"Let's put it all aside for today. We'll spend some time as a family and try to enjoy ourselves. Okay?" She gave her husband a pointed look.

"You're right," Dirk said. "I won't say a word."

It was harder than Dirk expected. For one thing, Garth came out just as they were ready to leave dressed like a low-life thug, complete with his hood up. "Is that really what you're wearing? To a football game?"

"It's comfortable," Garth mumbled.

Dirk took a deep breath. "Fine. Okay. Come on. We don't want to be late."

The tickets were for a Vintage Football League game. VFL games were played with early twenty-first century style equipment and padding, while the Ultimate Football League's uniform looked more like body armor and was played with a variety of physical and technical enhancements that made it faster paced and more violent.

Rushell bounced and skipped all the way from the bus station to the stadium while Garth shuffled half a step behind his parents.

"This is lame," he muttered as they waited in line. "Why do they still have this pathetic game? UFL is so much better."

Rita put a hand on her son's arm. "We're lucky to get tickets at all, to go anywhere, considering the rising cost of everything."

"Why don't I quit school and work?" Garth said.

Dirk was firm. "You will finish school. No son of mine is going to end up cracking rocks in a refinery. Get an education and get a proper job, one that won't poison you or work you to death."

Garth scowled but hid his face and didn't answer. He was barely passing his classes and had only found friends who actually invited him out these last few months. His lack of spending money was a sticking point, one his friends like to pick at. For the rest of the evening, Garth sat in sullen silence, staring more at his own feet than the game happening down on the field.

Rushell was still talking about the game as they approached their building, regaling them with play-by-play descriptions even though they had seen the game too. His parents were so caught up laughing as she tried to re-enact one of the most grandiose catches that they didn't see the boys in black hanging around at the corner.

"Uh, you guys go up without me. I'm just going to... uh... stretch my legs a bit."

"It's getting late," Dirk said.

"Would you get me some milk?" Rita said. She rooted around in her purse and came up with a crumpled bill. "It would save me the trip in the morning."

He took the money and shoved it into his pocket. "Yeah, sure." He waited until his family went in before jogging across the street.

One of the boys, a nineteen-year-old with spiked blonde hair, flicked a cigarette butt at Garth. "Where the fuck were you? We've been looking for you all day."

"Got kidnapped by the parental units. What's going on?"

"Too late, man, you missed out. Come on, I saw your mom hand you some cash. Let's go spend it."

Garth nodded, sparing only a second to glance over his shoulder at his home before his friends swept him along.

"How was the game, Haston?"

Dirk looked up and smiled. "Bill, where were you the last few days?"

"Kids were home sick, so I traded a few shifts so my wife and I could take turns watching them. Hope your kids liked the game."

"It sure was exciting, and it felt good to get out of the house and do something. My daughter, she hasn't stopped talking about it, says all her friends are jealous."

"And your boy, what was his name again?"

"Garth. Well, you know, he's seventeen, and I guess VFL isn't his thing anymore. I guess I shouldn't be upset. He came out and spent some time with us. What more can a father ask for?"

"You're quite right. Glad mine are still in elementary school. Ten years from now I'll be happy just to know they aren't out breaking the law!"

The two men chuckled at that. Before Dirk could say anything more, a voice came over the PA system. "Life Flight 203, please respond. This is an emergency life flight request."

"That's me," Dirk said.

"Again? Man, it's busy tonight."

"Haven't you been paying attention? It's busy every night."

Across the hospital, Rita was busy patching up a child who had fallen in the playground earlier that day and cut herself on a broken glass bottle. The school nurse had wrapped it, but the mother had wisely chosen to bring the girl in for stitches, even though it would cost the family nearly a week's wages for the service.

"There," Rita said, smiling. "You're as good as new. Now, you need to keep it clean and dry, all right?"

The girl nodded, her eyes too wide.

Rita turned to the mom. "I'll wrap it. Leave the bandages on for a day or two. After that, a mitten will work fine. In two weeks take a clean pair of scissors or nail clippers and cut the knot on the stitches. You may have to wet them to get them to come out. Just put a bandage on it for a few days after that and she'll be fine."

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

As mother and daughter filed out of the exam room, a red light in the hall began to flash. Rita left it and turned her attention to cleaning up the exam room, but another nurse stuck her head in the door. "Multiple victims, looks like a car crash."

"Do you need me there? Or should I keep working through the ER backlog?"

"Better stay on ER. I'll page you if you're needed."

Rita nodded. She preferred working with people who had come into the emergency room with cuts and scrapes and strange symptoms. They were usually so grateful to finally see someone, and the ones who were angry she could forgive since they were angry at the system and not directly at her. Those patients made the nights long, but since most of them had been sitting in that crowded waiting room for eight hours they had every right to be upset.

Rita met Dirk at the bus station at the end of their ten-hour shift and gave him a kiss on the cheek before slipping her arm through his. "Are you as tired as I am?"

"Probably," he said. "The bus is late again. It doesn't look like we'll make it home before the kids leave."

"Maybe I should trade with Mary. She's been asking for nights again. Then one of us would be home all the time."

"Home and sleeping."

"At least we'd be there if the kids needed us. Rushell's only fifteen and I know Garth is trying to act grown up, but is it really fair of us to ask him to look out for his sister like this?"

Dirk yawned. "We'll talk about it, okay? Right now I just want to get off my feet."

They ended up standing the whole ride to their corner, and they made it to the front door of the building just as Garth and Rushell were coming out.

"Good morning," Rita said, holding her arms wide.

Rushell gave her mom a hug. "Good night mom."

Garth slipped by and started down the sidewalk. "Would you hurry up?" he snapped.

Rushell rolled her eyes and said, "He's been pushy for days now!"

Rita laughed. "He's right though. I'll see you when you get home." She stood and waved until both kids were out of sight.

"So what's your problem?" Rushell said, kicking a stone along the sidewalk ahead of her.

"Nothing."

"Yeah, right, I believe you. Not. Did you get into a fight with your friends?"

"No."

"Are you sure? You've been sticking close to home all week. If you're not fighting with them why aren't you spending every evening with them while Mom and Dad are at work like you always do?"

"Would you stop pushing? I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

"Fine." She watched him storm off towards school and said softly, "I just wish you would talk to me."

#  Chapter 3

"Left here," Tony said.

"Tony, we're flying. I don't have to follow the roads," Dirk replied, but banked the air ambulance left anyways. It was their fifth run of the night and their shift wasn't even a third over. Dirk held the air ambulance steady while Tony, with the help of the cops on the scene, loaded the gunshot victim off the curb and into the back.

"Another one for the morgue," Tony reported as he jumped back into the co-pilot's seat.

"It's turning into another rough night," Dirk said.

"And another and another and another," Tony agreed. "Can we stop for coffee?"

Tony had been Dirk's loading partner for nearly a year, and Dirk was used to the other man's dry humor. They were very similar in appearance; Dirk's mixed heritage had left him with a skin tone very similar to the big Italian. They also had the same dark hair, though at forty-eight Dirk's was beginning to thin and lighten. They pulled into the morgue and spotted four police vehicles parked over near the emergency room doors. "You don't often see them out so late, especially not here," Dirk said.

"Maybe somebody important got shot," Tony said. "Because they sure aren't here for this stiff."

They unloaded the body, signed the e-register, grabbed a fresh stretcher and the next call on the info-roster, and headed back out into the city.

Rita was looking for a fight, so she focused on the computer work in front of her. She dealt with a lot in this job; she had seen everything, even a few things that had made her laugh. Only in nursing could you watch someone die one minute and then listen to a man try to explain how "that" got "up there" the next. But it was cases like this that woke her inner mother bear and brought out her temper. The girl had a broken arm. The father said she fell down the stairs. The mother was sobbing too hard to add anything useful to the situation. The girl was strangely quiet. The x-rays revealed a twist fracture, more common in cases where the arm was grabbed than in falls, even down a set of stairs. But all Rita could do was put on the cast and write her suspicions on the medical report to be ignored by an over-worked system.

"Another one? How do you end up with all the battered kids?"

Rita glanced up. "God, Pam, what the hell is wrong with people? She's six years old."

Pam jerked her head to point down the hallway. "Maybe they're here to do something about it for a change."

Rita leaned over the counter of the nurses' station to find two police officers in their gray shirts and black bulletproof vests speaking with the hospital director. She snorted. "More likely they're here because some politician came in for a vaccine and left with a hangnail."

"Well, they're coming this way." Pam rapped her knuckles on the counter once and headed for her next patient.

Rita went back to her computer work expecting the police to walk right past her. When she looked up next, she found herself face-to-face with the hospital director. "Sir, I'm sorry to make you wait," she said, pushing the chair back and standing. "What can I do to help you?"

"Mrs. Haston, I'm very sorry about this." He'd never called her by her last name before; most of the nurses found he was too casual and 'friendly' with them for their liking. His nervous demeanor was also a change from the arrogant over-confidence he generally displayed.

"Sorry about what?"

"I need you to go with these two officers."

"Is this about the abuse cases? Really, it's just my job to report suspicions. None of those cases was ever proven or even brought to police attention."

"Please, Rita, just go."

"No. Go with them where? What is going on?"

One officer stepped forward. "Mrs. Haston, you need to come with us, now. We have a warrant for your arrest."

Rita laughed. "You must have the wrong person. I've never broken a law in my life. My family, they're good people. We've done nothing wrong."

"Escort her out."

"No." Rita pulled her arm away. "You can't do this! I've done nothing wrong. Don't touch me. Don't you fucking touch me!"

They had her cornered in the nurses' station, and each of the officers easily outweighed her. They gripped her under each arm and at each elbow and started to walk out, but Rita dug in and started to scream again. Mostly it was some form of "Let me go!" with a lot of "What did I do?" and some "This is a mistake!" thrown in. When they lifted her off the floor, she started thrashing and kicking. She screamed until her throat hurt, but the officers didn't care, just as she didn't care about the audience that had gathered to watch the scene. They passed more curious faces as they dragged her down the hallway, but a few staring nurses and patients wasn't going to embarrass Rita Hanson into silence.

The helmet's headset crackled and then a robotic voice came on. "Air Unit 107 turn around immediately, your presence is required at the hospital."

"What do you mean turn around?" Dirk said into his mouthpiece. "We just left. We're more than halfway to a critical pick-up."

"Another air ambulance has already been dispatched to the pick-up location," the robotic voice replied. "Please return to the hospital air pad immediately."

"So no coffee?" Tony muttered.

Dirk just banked the small plane sharply and flew back.

They landed smoothly and Dirk killed the engines. A full security escort was waiting by the air pad doors. _Not just security,_ Dirk noted, taking in the blue shirts of the hospital security guards and the darker, heavier gear of the police.

"Are you Dirk Hanson?" a man in police uniform asked him as he cleared the plane.

"Yes sir. What seems to be the problem?"

"Come with us sir, there's been an emergency situation."

"An emergency? What's this about? Did something happen to my wife? To my kids?" He saw security pulling Tony aside.

"Sir, it would be best if you just came with us and didn't ask too many questions here."

Dirk nodded and allowed the police to escort him to the elevator.

As the doors slid shut, the officer tapped his helmet mic and said, "Sir, we have him."

"What's going on?" Dirk said again. He glanced at the backs of the four armed men. "Where exactly are we going?"

"There's transport waiting for you and your wife." The elevator doors slid open, and that's when Dirk heard Rita's wordless screams.

"Rita?!" he shouted, trying to rush past the officers. "Rita!"

"Dirk!" She twisted in the officer's grasp, trying to see where her husband was. "Dirk, what's happening? Are they arresting you too?"

"Arresting?" And then he saw her being carried between two officers. Her ash blonde hair was disheveled and she'd lost a shoe in her struggles, but she hadn't stopped fighting yet.

"RITA!" Dirk lunged for her but was caught up by the four guards. They dragged him out the doors behind his wife, and the two were thrown unceremoniously into the back of a police van.

The Hanson household was quiet. Rushell had finished her homework and was in the kitchen looking for a bedtime snack. The sound of the fridge door opening behind her caused her to jump back from the pantry.

"Geez, Garth, don't scare me like that. I thought you weren't home."

"Well I am," the seventeen-year-old grumbled.

"Why? You're never home in the evenings. Did something happen with your friends?"

He glared at her and for just a second she saw something else in his eyes, something that may have been a worry. "Just go to bed, Rushell." He took the whole carton of orange juice and disappeared from the kitchen again.

Rushell shook her head and was about to resume her investigation of the sparsely stocked pantry when the front door banged open.

"Garth! Stop scaring me. You're such a jerk!" Rushell shouted, her hand going to her chest as her heart pounded too hard. She straightened, ready to yell at him again, but she was suddenly face-to-face with a police officer.

It was the ear-splitting scream that had Garth bolting out of his room. He skidded to a halt in the hallway. The entry was full of police officers, and two were holding tight to Rushell's arms. She was kicking and screaming, but the men were twice her size, at least, and simply carried her out.

"Are you Garth Hanson?" one of the officers asked.

Garth nodded.

"Come with us, please." It only took the one officer, with a hand lightly on Garth's elbow, to get the young man out of the apartment.

Rushell was still screaming.

"They aren't hurting her, are they?" he said. He might have hated spending time with her, but she was still his sister and listening to her hollering like an angry cat made him anxious.

"Don't worry about your sister," the officer replied.

There was a police transport truck waiting at the curb. It was bigger than any other car parked on the street and the gloss black paint with the big silver and blue logo on the side made it look intimidating and ominous. As soon as the doors opened Garth could hear more screaming from inside. The voice was familiar, but Garth had never heard it so loud, or so afraid before.

"Mom!" Rushell wailed.

They were tossed inside where their parents were waiting, cuffed to the benches.

Dirk stopped kicking the back wall of the truck's cab and turned to his children. "Are you two all right?"

"What's going on?" Rushell shouted. "Where are they taking us? What happened?"

"We don't know," Rita said. "Are you hurt?"

Rushell shook her head and started screaming. "Let me out! You can't do this! Let me out! I haven't done anything wrong! Let me go!" While she screamed, Dirk continued kicking and shouting at the drivers.

No one paid any attention to them. The truck never stopped.

"Would you two stop the ruckus!?" Rita finally bellowed. "I can't even hear myself think. Can we all just calm down for a minute and think about this? This is a mistake; it has to be. When they stop the truck, we'll get answers. We'll tell them it's a mistake. We'll get it sorted out then. Save your strength, save your voices. Please."

Dirk was breathing hard, but he nodded.

"I just want to go home!" Rushell wailed. Her hair, blonde like her mother's, fell in her face. With her hands chained to a clamp between her knees, there was nothing she could do about it either.

"I know, Sweetie. I know. This will be over soon. This has to be a mistake."

The truck finally shut off, and a guard opened the door.

"Please," Dirk said. "Can you tell us what's happening? Why were we arrested?"

"I don't have that information," the guard replied. He pressed a button and their cuffs unhooked from the benches. "Please file out of the vehicle."

Garth was closest to the door, and he jumped out in silence. The others followed him but when they saw the short-trip rocket on the launch pad across the pavement, they all started yelling again.

The guards paid their protests no heed as they led the entire family across the tarmac to the waiting ship. Four additional guards were waiting there with off-white canvas jackets in hand.

"These are for your trip. Please extend your arms," the guard said.

"What trip!?" Dirk shouted. "We're not going anywhere until we get to talk to someone! This is a mistake, and we're not going anywhere. We want to speak to someone in charge, now!"

"Extend your arms," the guard repeated.

"I will not. I am not going anywhere!"

Rushell, being the smallest, had her arms forced straight out in front of her, without warning, by two officers. She screamed, "Daddy!"

Dirk tried to turn but the men held him fast, and his daughter was just outside of his peripheral vision. "Let go of her! Don't touch her. We're not going anywhere until someone tells us what the hell is going on!"

The guards forced Rushell into the jacket and secured the arms behind her back. They marched her up the steps into the ship, now in full view of her family. All the while she was shrieking and sobbing and thrashing as best she could in the strait-jacket.

The guards holding Dirk grabbed his arms and started forcing them upwards. He twisted and struggled. "No! Bring my daughter back right now!" He slammed his foot down on one of his attacker's feet, but the heavy-duty police boots deflected the blow. "Bring back my daughter! We're not leaving!"

Two more guards arrived and between them they got Dirk into his jacket. The four guards then spun him around and dragged him, backward, still twisting and trying to free himself from the restraints to the shuttle.

"Please," Rita said. "Please, why are you doing this to us? What did we do?"

"I don't have that information. Please hold out your arms."

Rita broke down sobbing but held her arms out. The guards roughly put the jacket on her and fastened the buckles. Garth also held out his hands and followed after his mother in silence.

The room on the ship was small, and the four of them were seated along the walls and strapped in securely. They could turn their heads, a little, but everything else was tied down tight.

"Please," Rita sobbed as the guard checked her straps. "Where are you sending us?"

"You're being sent to the Federal Penitentiary, on the Moon." He turned. "They're all strapped and ready," he called down the steps. "Prepare the shuttle for launch!"

"NO!" Dirk shouted. "No, you can't do this!"

The twelve-inch-thick door slammed shut with a final thud.

Dirk, Rita, and Rushell Hanson were still screaming at full volume when the pilot took his seat. They were still screaming as the count-down clock ticked down. It was only the deep hum and steady vibrations that silenced them. They could hear the engines firing as the shuttle shook violently and took off for the moon.

#  Chapter 4

The shuttle sped away from the Earth, aimed at the small pale ball of rock. While mass colonization had proven too expensive, a sprawling prison system and a small domed-in village had been constructed. The Haston family had seen images of the Moon Penitentiary before; it had been on the news on occasion, usually in the event of a big-name criminal being sent away for life, or when a riot broke out inside it.

This was not a place to look forward to.

After a long moment of silent stillness in the dimly lit cabin, Dirk began struggling against his restraints and shouting again. Rushell could only cry, and Garth just sat limp, letting the restraints support his weight.

"Honey, you need to calm down," Rita said to her husband. "Please. We have to figure this out."

"I want to go home," Rushell sobbed. "I want to finish school and have a boyfriend and be famous. I don't want to go to the Moon! I don't want to go to prison!"

"Dirk!" Rita said sharply. "Please! Think! What could we possibly have done to get us into this position? Did you miss a life flight? Did you mess up a procedure? Did someone accuse you of malpractice or... or..."

"How is this situation my fault?" Dirk shouted. "I have no fucking idea what's going on! I've been picking up corpses for days now! You're the one dealing with living patients. What did you do to put us here? Did you give someone the wrong medication? Or were you accusing everyone of child abuse again?"

"That's not fair, you've never had a problem with my reports before. Someone has to speak up for those children! They are being abused, and no one gives a shit. Besides, no one pays any attention to those reports."

"You must have accused the wrong person. Someone set us up to shut you up! God, Rita, why couldn't you just let it slide?"

"It wasn't Mom."

They turned, as best they could, to look at Garth. Rushell sniffled, and Garth could see her nose was running freely, but, of course, she couldn't even wipe it clean.

"It's not Mom's fault we're here," Garth said again.

"Garth," Rita said. "Do you know something?"

"No... I mean, maybe. Look, something happened the other day, but I don't know all of it. I didn't think...." He heaved a sigh.

"You're going to tell me everything you know right this second," Dirk growled. "Or so help me I am going to find a way out of these restraints, and I am going to beat the answers out of you."

Garth stared at his father for a moment. This normally quiet man had never once threatened to lay a hand on either of his children, not even when Garth had failed his ninth-grade math course, not even when he'd missed curfew.

"I'm sorry. Things were bad, okay? My grades aren't great, I'm barely getting by, and there's no way I'm going on to university or even a technical college. They're too full, and my grades aren't cutting it. I tried, honest to god I tried, but I'm not smart, and you guys are never home and I just started to feel sort of useless and alone.

"I knew those guys were bad news, I knew it when I met them, but they bummed me a smoke and let me hang out with them. They didn't like school; they didn't care that I was failing; they wanted me to be around. It was nice, people wanting to spend time with me. I sort of got hooked on it and let them drag me into things.

"Yeah Rushell, I heard you telling Dad about it before, I'm not mad at you."

"So what did they drag you into? Were you vandalizing something?"

Garth shook his head. "I'd hear about that stuff after it happened, mostly. A few times they had me play look-out for them, but we never got busted for it. I never touched a can of spray paint; I swear it."

"Then why are we here? What _did_ you do?"

Garth glanced from one expectant face to the next and sighed. "I got drunk."

"They don't arrest entire families because you get drunk with your friends."

"Dirk, stop it. Let him talk," Rita said.

"I got drunk, after the game on the weekend. At first it was a lot of fun, we had some music, and we just partied a bit. A few of the guys were smoking, but I couldn't afford to bum one. There was no harm in it. We didn't even have a bonfire going this time."

"This time? Bonfire? Where the hell were you?"

"Dirk!"

"We were at the school, out on the football field this time. Nothing would have gotten damaged. And we didn't even light one, okay? We didn't get caught, either. When we were done with all the beer, Liam decided we should go for a drive. Everyone listens to Liam."

"Oh Garth, you didn't get into a car with a drunk driver, did you?" Rita said.

He shook his head.

"Oh, thank god. I see so many car accident victims at the hospital every night. These cars just go too fast, and it's too easy to turn off the computer-assisted steering."

"They talked me into driving."

"You don't even have a license!" Dirk roared. "What were you doing behind the wheel of a car at all?"

"I was drunk, so it sounded like a good idea. Besides, they'd been hounding me for weeks that I couldn't drive, that I'd been too scared to drive, that I'd fail my licensing test just like I keep failing at school. They just goaded me into the driver's seat and handed me the keys. I couldn't back down."

"You should have," Dirk said.

"How?! How could I back down? Do you realize what they would have done? I would have been left at the school to walk home alone after dark just so you could yell at me when I got home for missing curfew. Liam and the guys would never have spoken to me again except to torment me. The entire school would have known I was a coward. Most of the kids at school already hate me. I have nothing, no grades, no future, nothing except Liam and the guys. I wasn't about to throw that away because I don't have my driver's license yet."

"And this is better?"

Garth dropped his head, defeated. "No."

"If the cops had pulled you over they would have dragged you home, so what happened?"

"I was drunk. It was all a little blurry."

"What happened?"

"I don't exactly know."

"WHAT HAPPENED GARTH?"

"We hit another car."

A silence filled the room and not even the rumble of the nearby engines seemed to break it.

Garth rushed on. "It wasn't bad; the car was still driveable, and no one was..."

"YOU HIT ANOTHER CAR?" Dirk roared. "What the hell were you thinking? You got in a car drunk, you chose to drive drunk, all because you thought being ridiculed for being smart was a bad thing? You honestly thought that taking the chance of killing someone was better than walking away from the situation? What kind of fucking idiot did I raise??"

"You haven't exactly been raising me!" Garth shouted back. "All these weird shifts, all the doubles, and for what? So you could sleep the whole time you're at home? You left me to raise Rushell! Me!! I make her supper; I make sure she's in bed. So yeah, I got sick and tired of being the man of the house at seventeen and went looking for a bit of fun. Maybe things got out of hand...."

"Out of hand! You could have killed someone!"

"Did you kill anyone?" Rita asked.

"I... I don't know. We just sat there for a minute and then Liam said something about cops so I drove away."

"You just drove away. Well, isn't that just great."

"Dirk, calm down."

"Rita, I am tied in a strait-jacket, strapped into a space shuttle, and being shipped to a federal prison on the Moon because my idiot son drove illegally, while drunk, and may or may not have killed someone while doing it. I THINK I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE ANGRY!!"

"Dad, I..."

"Don't, just don't. I don't want to hear anymore! Next you're going to be telling me about the drugs, or that the car was stolen!! You can't make this any better Garth, so shut up. Just shut the fuck up."

"Don't talk to him like that!"

"How do you want me to talk to him, Rita? He got us into this mess! We were arrested in front of our co-workers, our colleagues! You've seen it on the news, what happens when they send a whole family to prison. All of our belongings will be sold, the apartment too. Everything is gone. I'm not that young, and neither are you. If this idiot child killed someone, we might never see Earth again!!"

They were suddenly all aware of Rushell weeping. "I just want to finish school," she whispered. "I don't want them to sell all my clothes and my books. I want to go home!"

Aside from Rushell's crying they spent the rest of the thirty-six-hour journey in silence. There was simply nothing else to say to each other.

#  Chapter 5

Soren Zolnai marched down the gray corridor, his footsteps echoing off the cinderblock walls. Each guard he passed saluted smartly and allowed the prison director to pass through the checkpoints without question or delay. He stopped outside one of the cells and opened the outer door. An older man was lying on the narrow cot.

"Good morning Bill," Soren said, standing smartly in relaxed military stance, his hands behind his back. "How did you sleep? I hope your arthritis isn't acting up."

Bill didn't move or reply.

"You've been here a whole five years now, did you know that? Five years to the day. Only another ten years until justice is done."

"This isn't justice," Bill said. "I did nothing wrong."

"Nothing wrong? You couldn't even raise your son properly. A good father wouldn't have allowed his son to play with a loaded gun. It must be a relief that your wife didn't have to serve this prison term with you. I brought you a photo of her." Soren held out the slip of paper.

Bill didn't want to look, he didn't want to give in, he knew better than to trust this man, but he couldn't pass on the chance to see his wife's face one more time. It had been five years since he'd seen her. He sat up and crossed to the bars, taking the paper from Soren. He turned it over, and his hand went to his mouth as his breakfast tried to come back up. He wretched, dropped the photo, and scrambled to the toilet in the corner.

Soren tsked. "It was the most recent photo I could find of her; it was in your son's file. A pity you can't see her face, but there's not much of it left after what your son did."

"Go away," Bill said softly. "Please, just leave me alone."

"All right," Soren said. "But I thought you would want to know that your son's birthday is coming up. He'll be twenty-one soon, and you know what that means. He'll be transferred to the men's prison block on his twenty-first birthday. Your boy will soon be a man. Too bad you haven't seen him in five years, too bad you didn't get to see him grow up. I did. I think you'll be very surprised when you see him."

"See him?"

Soren shrugged. "Well, you would, except that he won't be in your cell block, and he won't have rec at the same time as you, so you won't see him for another ten years. But the possibility was there."

"Bastard!" Bill screamed, lunging at the white bars that made up the inner part of his cell door. His arm shot through the gap and brushed the front of Soren's neat uniform as the overseer stepped back out of reach.

"Guards," Soren said casually. "Please take Prisoner 4359 to solitary confinement for attacking the prison director. And discipline him appropriately, please."

Two large men with grim faces and gray uniforms came down the hall. Bill backed away from the bars as far as the tiny cell would allow.

"No, please. I didn't do anything. I didn't touch him. Please. Don't take me to solitary. Please. Please!"

The door grated open. Soren smiled, waiting for the fighting and screaming to really start. A third guard raced up the corridor, stopped five feet shy of the director, and saluted. "Sir, the shuttle has arrived. There are three new families being unloaded."

"Thank you. I will be right there. Have them all brought to the sorting room and have Ms. Saliya do the induction."

"She's supervising the showers in the women's block, sir."

"I don't care what she's doing. Take her place, or find someone else to do it, but get her to the sorting room immediately."

"Yes sir," the guard stammered and took off down the hallway again.

Behind Soren, the guards emerged with Bill between them. There had been no screaming this time, to his disappointment, but the way the prisoner's head hung in utter defeat made him smile. "Enjoy your trip, Bill," Soren said. "I will see you again soon."

The shuttle shook as it landed, rousing the Haston family from a fitful sleep. "What's happening?" Rushell said.

"We must be landing," Dirk said. "Don't fight, there's nothing we can do now but accept our punishment bravely. Can you be brave, my little one?"

Rushell fought back her tears and nodded, not trusting her voice.

"How long do you think we'll be here?" Rita said.

Dirk tried to shrug, but the restraints and the jacket were too tight. "I don't know. If it's just a drinking and driving charge and a destruction of property charge I'd guess five or ten years, tops."

"Ten years?" Rushell wailed. "I'll be twenty-five! My life will be half over!"

"Not quite half," her mother said. "It won't be ten years. I'm sure we won't be here long."

The door opened, and they all squinted as the lights were suddenly turned on. A guard came in and unhooked Garth from his cubby in the wall. Garth was led stumbling to the door, handed to a waiting guard, and then the guard came back for Rushell, who was still crying.

"It's okay Rushell," Dirk said. "We'll be right behind you. You're all right."

Rushell nodded, her knees weak from being suspended for so long. Rita was next, and the urge to start fighting flared as soon as she was free from the wall, but she didn't have the strength or mobility to do anything.

Dirk came quietly as well, and as soon as he was out of the shuttle he started studying his surroundings. They were in a loading zone where forklifts shuttled crates to and from the rockets docked there. Ahead of them were three other families; one a mother, father, and two teenage boys, the other a middle-aged woman and five children from Garth's age down to elementary school age. The youngest two were bawling and huddled close to their mother. The guards were busy removing the strait-jacket from each of the prisoners, and as soon as the two children had their arms free they wrapped them around their mother's legs.

"Oh, the poor dears," Rita whispered. "This isn't fair. This isn't right."

They were led through a doorway and down a narrow corridor punctuated by gray doors, void of any label or distinguishing features, at regular intervals. One of the doors was opened, and they were ushered into a large two-story white room. There were guards along two of the walls and a large observation window near the ceiling. Dirk couldn't see anyone behind the glass, but he didn't have long to study the windows. A female guard stepped forward. Her eyes were dark and serious, her hat completely hid her hair, and her uniform didn't quite hide the hint of feminine curves.

"Welcome to the Lunar Penitentiary Facility. If you follow the rules while you are here your stay with us will be peaceful and uneventful. Cause problems, and we will discipline you accordingly. There are four wings in the prison: the Men's Block, the Women's Block, the Boy's Block, and the Girl's Block. The youth wings are for those under the age of twenty-one only, and if you age out during your sentence, you will be moved to the appropriate adult wing.

"Obey the guards. Keep your hands to yourselves at all times. Attacking a guard or a fellow inmate will result in a week in solitary confinement. Theft is punished with one week in solitary confinement. Disobedience or disrespectful behavior is punished with two days in solitary confinement.

"You will each have an individual cell where you will eat and sleep. You have scheduled rec times and scheduled shower times. You will be provided with a prisoner uniform, and you will be given a clean one after each shower. Your personal clothes will be returned to you at the end of your sentence.

"Fredrick Family, you will be serving ten years. Janick Family, you will be serving ten years. Haston Family, you will be serving twenty years. You have ten minutes to say your goodbyes, and then you will be escorted to your cells to begin your sentence." She stepped back.

Soren stood in the observation room sipping a mug of coffee as the new inmates were escorted into the room. Two men, three women, four teenage boys, one teenage girl, and three children, all girls. They had come in as families, but would leave neatly sorted and ready to pay for the crimes of their family members.

Hanri Saliya finished her induction speech and stepped back to allow the families their time to say goodbye to each other. Soren looked down at the records he'd been given. Jeffery Fredrick had been caught embezzling money and now his boys, twins, wouldn't be going to prom. Anthony 'Tony' Janick, fourteen, had stolen money from a school fund and upon investigation it had been discovered that he'd done it before. His four younger sisters would spend ten years without seeing their mother because of it. And Garth Haston, seventeen, had been involved in a drunk-driving accident.

Soren looked up to watch the tearful hugs and noted that Mr. Fredrick had been excluded from his family's group hug. He smiled. He'd seen it so many times before. It wasn't likely that the Fredricks' marriage would survive their prison sentence, and the boys would both be grown men by the time they went free, grown men who were likely to want nothing to do with their father.

Anne Janick didn't seem to care that her son had put them in this position; she was hugging all of her children tight. Soren moved on.

The Haston family, like the Fredricks, were rightly ignoring the black sheep in their family, and the young man's reaction had Soren zeroing in on their goodbyes.

Dirk drew his wife and daughter close. "Twenty years?" Rita said. "How will we survive here for twenty years?"

"Daddy, I'll be thirty-five!" Rushell said. "I'll never graduate, I'll never date, I'll never get married."

"Thirty-five isn't that old, honey," Rita said, trying to smile. "I'm older than that."

"And you have a life and a family and a job and a husband! I'll never have any of that."

"Maybe they will allow you to finish your schooling while you're here. It doesn't sound like there's much else to do here."

"No friends," she said, her voice edging back towards a wail. "No parties, no phone calls. My life is over."

Garth stood back, waiting for his invitation to join the family embrace, but his father never turned to look at him and the girls seemed to be lost in their own conversation. Their murmured words blended with the goodbyes of the other families.

Too soon the guards closed in and began separating the families. The girls, including Rushell, were rounded up. The women were led away but when the guard came for Rita, she grabbed Dirk's arm. "No, please no. Dirk, this isn't right. Please. Let me go." She took a swing at the guard, but Dirk caught her arm.

"Remember what they said. Just go quietly, please. The time will fly by, you'll see. I will see you again."

Rita nodded and allowed the guard to lead her out. The boys were next, and Garth looked back over his shoulder, but his father wouldn't meet his eye. He blinked back his tears, hung his head in defeat, and followed the other boys out.

Finally, Dirk and Jeffery were led out. Dirk looked up at the observation window one last time and saw a large man in military-style uniform staring down at him with a smug smile on his face. And then Dirk was out of the room and being led down a long gray corridor, alone.

#  Chapter 6

For the next month, Dirk made careful observations of his prison life.

There was no clock, and no calendar, so his sense of timing was approximate, but he knew they were fed three times each day. The meal tray was always the same: water, a slice of stale toast without butter, a bowl of lukewarm porridge (though he couldn't be sure whether it was finely ground oatmeal, cream of wheat, or some blend of grains), and half an apple that had seen better days. It was tasteless and almost inedible, but there was nothing else and no one cared if he ate it or not.

At meal times, the outer part of the cell door was opened, and the tray was slid through a slot in the bars at floor level. The heavy steel door was then closed, leaving Dirk completely alone. The walls of the cell were cinderblock, painted a dull gray and so thick that Dirk could not hear anyone else, not even guards passing by. He'd tried shouting a few times at the beginning, but no one answered. He'd tried talking to the guards the first few meal periods when they brought the tray or came to retrieve it, but they never answered him. The only thing they ever said was 'bring the tray to the door and step back.'

He knew there were other people being kept close to him; he'd seen them. Every second day they were removed from their cells and escorted to a fenced yard at the rear of the prison compound to stretch their legs for what felt, to Dirk, like an hour or so. He couldn't imagine it being any longer. Armed guards watched them from towers, not that escape was possible. Outside the fence there was the dome, and outside the dome was death.

The first day Dirk was allowed out of his cell he went in search of information. He walked up to a grey-haired man in the now familiar prison inmate uniform and said, "Hello, my name is Dirk Haston. I just arrived here. I have a few questions; maybe you can help me?"

The old man did not answer.

"I really don't mean to be a bother," Dirk continued. "But I was wondering if you knew anything about the routines here. Do we always get fed at the same times? Is this everyone in the prison, or are there more rec periods? Can we..."

The old man blinked twice and walked away, his expression never changing.

"Wait!" Dirk frowned and moved on to the next man, and the next, but everyone he approached just stared at him with the same empty eyes and then walked away in silence. The same thing happened the first time they were led to the showers. No one spoke to him, and finally a guard grabbed his arm and said, "If you don't want to end up in solitary confinement I suggest you stop disturbing the other inmates." After that, Dirk kept his mouth shut.

He ate, slept, and exercised alone and in silence.

The silence and isolation would have driven him crazy in the first week if not for the guard who came to his door on the third day of his incarceration. She had a stern face and a cart stacked with books. "Did you want something?" she asked, sounding bored.

"Do you have any mysteries?"

She examined the cart and handed him a beat-up paperback. He looked at it and said, "A little old-fashioned, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "Lot of old books get shipped up here, rather than destroy them." She moved on down the corridor as his door was closed again. With nothing else to do, he finished the book in a single day and reread it the next. When the woman with the cart returned, she took the book and handed him another. "Found this mystery novel, thought you'd enjoy it."

"I'd love a copy of Dune, should one ever turn up," he said. She nodded and moved on.

Two days later he had a copy of Dune. Two days later it was the sequel. The woman with the cart, a former librarian name Ms. Shadwell, assured him that just about any book he wanted could be brought to him within a week or two, usually only a few days, and he relaxed into the routine of reading, walking, eating, and showering, with only his thoughts to occupy him. It had been so long since he'd had time to read that it was hard to view this imprisonment as anything more than a vacation – a vacation at a bad resort with hard beds, a terrible menu, and poor room service, but a reprieve from the stress of his day-to-day life to be sure.

His opinion of his new life changed drastically when the first three letters arrived. He'd been in prison for ten days when he found the two plain white envelopes tucked between his cup and his bowl on his breakfast tray. He picked up the first between thumb and finger, wary that it was a trick or a trap. Rita's familiar scrawl had him tearing the envelope open.

_Dirk, they say I can write to you once each week. What a horrible place this is! I am forced to share a tiny cell with another woman who has been here for five years already. She hardly speaks, and I'm glad of it. When she does speak her breath is_ horrible, _and her language is foul. Of_ course, _I can only imagine what my breath must smell like after a week without a toothbrush._

_Listen to me! We're all trapped in this_ hell, _and I'm complaining that I don't have a toothbrush! That's certainly not the worst of it. I have no privacy. I started – it's that time of the_ month, _and I must take care of my needs here in this cell. We have a toilet and sink but no walls or curtains. Every day I must sit here on the_ toilet _, doing my business, in full view of another woman. It is humiliating._

_We go_ outside _every other day. It must be well coordinated because I only ever see the same group of women. We pass no one else in the hallways. I have asked some of the younger girls what it was like in the youth_ wing, _but they will not talk. No one here talks! I think I will go insane._

_I love you,_ Dirk, _that is all that is keeping me sane. I love_ you, _and I miss you. I wish this was all just a bad dream and that I was about to wake up. Please, take care of yourself. If you are not waiting for me at the end of this_ ordeal, _I don't know what I will do. I live only for you and the children._

Rita.

Dirk read the letter twice before folding the paper carefully and setting it on his bed. He opened the second envelope and began reading.

_Daddy, I hate it here! I just want to go home. I didn't do anything_ wrong, _and I'm stuck in this disgusting place. I don't know if it's the same for_ you, _but we sleep six to a room. There are two sets of bunks, three high, on either wall with barely enough room to stand between them. After_ breakfast, _we're taken to these tiny square rooms with a table and a chair and given school work to do._ Our lunch and supper are brought to us there, and if we need the washroom we're forced to use a toilet that's no better than a pipe sticking up from the floor in one corner of the room.

_We have a communal_ shower _and it's awful. The girls hardly_ talk, _but they're still mean. I've been tripped and bumped almost every time I_ go, _and they steal my soap and my comb. I look a_ mess, _and I stink. I don't want to be here anymore._

_Even going outside is awful. There's nothing to do. No one_ talks, _and there's nowhere to sit. You just pace around this boring yard with a bunch of_ boring _people who won't_ talk _. There's no music and nothing fun to do._

Can we please just go home, Daddy? Isn't there something we can do?

Rushell.

He almost left the third letter untouched, but curiosity and boredom got the better of him so he opened it.

Dad, I'm sorry. I know you're angry and disappointed. I was stupid. I have no one to blame but myself. If I could send you all home and serve twenty years for each of you...

Dirk crumpled the paper and dropped it into his empty bowl. The other two letters he carefully tucked beneath his pillow.

At lunch, there were three sheets of thin paper and a pen on his tray. After eating, he sat down with the tray on his lap as a table and composed two letters.

Rita, my darling, I miss you too. They are telling you more than they tell me. I knew nothing of writing letters until yours arrived. I don't know how often I will be able to write back to you. There is, however, an older woman who comes every other day with a cart of books. Does she come to you as well? I am just finishing Children of Dune and couldn't help but remember those intense conversations we used to have over the politics in these books. Certainly worth rereading.

_I am alone. My cell is tiny, hardly three steps across and ten steps long and mostly filled by a narrow cot, a sink, and a stinking toilet. Like you I am allowed out every other day with a small group of men. None of them_ talk _. The other man who was brought here at the same time as us, I have not seen him since that first day. There must be more than one group of each gender and age group._

_Have you heard from_ Rushell _? She wrote to me. She is doing as fine as any of us can be. Like_ us, _she is lonely and feels her lack of privacy_ deeply _._

_I love you too, dearest Rita, even if your hair is a mess and your breath stinks. My hair is quickly becoming unruly and rustles on the mattress making it even harder to_ sleep, _and my beard continues to_ grow in _. If they do not let me_ shave, _I will have a beard to my knees the next time you see me! Do not lose hope. Twenty years feels like forever, nearly half the life we've already lived. Here I am, ending this on such a sad note._

_Keep writing to me. Stay_ strong _for me. I love you always._

Dirk

Rushell _,_ stay strong _for me, all right? You have_ an amazing _chance before you to finish your education,_ that is _more than we hoped._ I know you crave the little things of your life, the music and the friends and the laughter, and I wish I could give them back to you, but all I can do is tell you that I love you and beg you to remain strong.

_The girls will stop bothering you, I don't know when but they will. They will turn twenty-one and move up to the women's block, or they will leave_ altogether _, just as we will one of these days. You fear your life is_ over, _but that isn't true. You'll see._

_I wish I could hug you. I wish I could_ see _you smile. Will you draw a smile in your next letter? I know you're not five anymore, but I miss you, my little light. Burn brightly for me, and stay_ strong _. We will be together again. I promise._

Your father.

The third paper he stored with the letters for later use. As he handled the letters, a stab of guilt went through him, but he pushed it aside.

"My wife is being humiliated, my daughter has been stripped of her childhood, and I have lost everything. I have no son."

#  Chapter 7

Ben Noone was fifty-seven years old, but today he was sobbing like a child. Soren held up a hand, and the guard froze, his arm raised, ready to strike. This prisoner was broken; there was no fun in beating a broken man, as all the fun was in the breaking. "Return this pathetic thing to its cell. I believe it has learned a valuable lesson today."

"Yes sir."

Soren returned to his office to complete the day's paperwork. After his lunch and a trip to the staff gym for his daily workout, he returned to the men's cell block in search of further sport.

Dirk was rereading the latest letter from his wife; those words were the closest he could get to the sound of her voice, when the solid outer door of this cell swung open. _Strange, we had our shower this_ morning, _and there's no rec time until tomorrow._

A figure filled the doorway, blocking most of the extra light from the corridor. He was dressed in a meticulously pressed military uniform with military short blond hair. "Dirk Haston, I haven't had the chance to welcome you personally to the facility."

Dirk frowned. _He doesn't look like the other guards._

"My name is Soren Zolnai, and I am the director of this prison. Everyone here answers to me. You are required to stand when I am addressing you; you will only speak when you are addressed, and you will address me as 'sir'. Do you understand all that?"

Dirk set the letter on his pillow and stood. "Yes, sir."

"Good. I see you are reading a letter from your family. Our staff librarian tells me you are a prolific reader. How many books have you read in the past several weeks?"

"Fifteen, I would guess. I haven't been keeping a close count, sir."

"You seem to be a smart man, Mr. Haston, someone who appreciates intelligence in others and strives for academic standing. It's really too bad your daughter failed her math exam last week, isn't it?"

It didn't surprise Dirk that this man knew about Rushell's schooling. _She's a prisoner here too. He has access to all of our records._ He nodded. "The arrest was very hard on her, sir. I can understand if her grades suffer for a while."

"So understanding. And so supportive too, always offering her advice and reassurances. You must have been a good father. Then again, your son did end up getting you all arrested. Maybe you're not such a good father-figure after all."

He wasn't surprised that Soren had read the letters being sent within the prison either. It irked him that he was denied even that basic privacy, but it didn't surprise him. Soren had asked no question, so Dirk stood silent and waited.

Soren smiled. "Are you an alcoholic, Mr. Haston?"

"No, sir. Because of my job I was not permitted to drink."

"Ah, of course, can't have drunk life-flight pilots being called to emergencies. Too bad your son didn't follow your example. If it wasn't your fault, perhaps it was your wife's."

"I don't blame her; she was a good person and a wonderful mother to our children. Sir."

"But she said it herself: 'I failed him, Dirk, if I had been around more maybe I could have prevented this from happening.' Would you argue with your wife?"

Hearing Rita's words in this man's taunting voice pricked at Dirk's temper, but he bit his tongue.

A guard jogged up the corridor. "Sir, the transport's cargo is loaded. We're just waiting for you to sign the release papers so we can load the prisoners."

"Yes, yes, I'm coming." Soren walked away without a dismissal or farewell. An unseen guard closed the door, and Dirk was alone again. He sat down and examined the red crescents on the heels of his hands. He sighed and picked up the letter from Rita again, trying to put the strange and distressing encounter out of his mind.

For the next four days it was the same thing, and always in the middle of the afternoon. Twice Dirk missed his rec period because Soren was speaking with him, but it was always a one-sided and cruel conversation.

"Did you read that last letter from your son? He was pleading for you to write back. You never do, though. Why not?"

"I'm so sorry Rushell couldn't write to you today; she's not allowed paper and pen for a week because she spoke out against her teacher. She's becoming unruly. That sort of behavior gets you punished here."

"Did you know your wife cried herself to sleep again last night?"

"It was brought to my attention that Garth was beaten up by a few of the boys at rec yesterday. He didn't even have the chance to fight back; it was over so fast. No wonder he used a car to hurt those people, he's too weak to do anything else."

And on and on it went, day after day after day.

The next day Soren showed up early with the familiar lunch tray in his hands. "You've been so stressed these last few days, what with everything going so poorly for your family. I'm sure once you're all settled a little more everything will improve. Here's your lunch."

Dirk knew better than to approach the bars when a guard was handing through a meal tray, but he stood and said, "Thank you, sir."

The tray came through the bars and then it was on the floor, upside down.

Soren's voice didn't match the expression on his face. "I'm so sorry," he said, the ends of his mouth turned up in a smile. "Well, it's just one meal. Maybe some of it is still edible. Enjoy your lunch."

The apple was badly bruised but edible, while the rest was garbage unless he wanted to lick it off the floor. It sat there drying to the concrete until a guard came down to retrieve his tray. He was ready for a verbal lashing over the waste of food but instead the guard said, "Well, that just figures."

He looked up at the faintly familiar voice and saw the guard who had done his orientation presentation weeks earlier. He opened his mouth to explain but closed it again. _What could I possibly say? Soren is the director, the big boss; no one is going to believe he did this._

"I don't know why he insists on doing this. Look, I've got to call backup so I can get this cleaned up. They're going to cuff you and move you to solitary for an hour and then bring you back here."

"Does it really take an hour to clean it up?" Dirk asked.

The young woman looked him in the eyes, a rarity among the guards. "No, but that's standard punishment for food being wasted, no matter who wastes it. Since I can't throw him in solitary..." She turned away suddenly. "Just cooperate, okay?"

He let the guards cuff him and went quietly down the hallway. Solitary confinement as punishment made no sense to Dirk since they were kept alone most of the time anyway, but when the guards opened the door, he finally understood. The cell was maybe a quarter of the size of the one he now called home; there was nothing to sit on, and no room to sit. They left him cuffed and slammed the door.

The guard had said one hour, but it easily felt like twice that had passed before the men returned and walked him back to his cell. The floor was clean and nothing else appeared to have been touched, so Dirk grabbed his book from under his cot and settled in for the afternoon.

At dinner time, Dirk found Soren once again standing at the bars of his cell door with a meal tray, and once again that tray wound up face down on the floor. He spent another hour in solitary and the rest of the evening trying to ignore the grumbling in his stomach.

For days Soren returned at every meal, dumping the tray on the floor while purring empty condolences and taunting him with news about his family. The visits to solitary were wearing on his nerves and his stomach was twisting in tight and painful knots.

During rec periods he paced, stretching his legs. Alone in his cell he read, stretching his mind. Sometimes in solitary he would talk to himself, out loud, about the last few chapters he had read. The sound of a human voice was comforting, even if the tight space did give it an eerie quality.

The only comfort he received was from the female guard. He'd learned her name was Hanri, though the male guards who came to take him to solitary confinement called her Henry and then chuckled as if the juvenile name-calling was still funny. She frowned every time she found his tray upside down, but she seemed to know what had happened, and though she couldn't stop them from putting him in that tiny cell she didn't yell at him or raise hell about it either.

They didn't often exchange words. She didn't open his door unless she had to, and she didn't speak to him if there were other guards around. After the fifth missed meal, she had said, "He doesn't stick with one prisoner for very long. He'll get tired soon and move on to someone else. I see it all the time."

"He's a bully," Dirk said softly.

"Of course he is, that's how he got this job."

After the tenth meal, she appeared at his door with the librarian. "Time to swap books," she said. Dirk was debating between two titles when a rich, savory aroma drifted down the corridor and made his stomach tighten painfully.

Hanri noticed the grimace on the prisoner's face and turned. Soren was walking down the hallway with a bowl in one hand and a fork in the other. There was steam rising from the bowl and it carried the scent of beef and vegetables and Asian sauce. Dirk's mouth was watering, and he clutched his stomach.

"Please," Soren said, stopping near the library cart. "Don't let me interrupt your book browsing."

Dirk took a deep breath to steady himself, which was a mistake because he got a nose full of Soren's dinner. After almost four full days without any food and weeks of tasteless gruel, the smell of real meat and real seasonings almost brought tears to his eyes. He swallowed hard before he started drooling. He tossed one book back on the cart and stepped back from the bars. "This one," he said. "I'm done."

The librarian nodded, and Hanri closed the door, shutting out the scent. She turned to the smirking Soren and said, "Sir, it's not my place, but that prisoner has been almost four days without food. I know they deserve to be punished, but a quick death isn't a punishment, it's a release."

She was lying through her teeth, but she hoped Soren would buy her little plea.

He nodded. "Of course, you're right. From now on he may have his breakfast as normal, but I will continue to bring his lunch and dinner myself. And you will be working in the boy's block for the next month. It isn't wise to get attached to the prisoners here."

"Yes sir, of course sir." The boys' block was the worst place in the prison for female guards to work. The older boys who were preparing to age up to the men's block were nasty and rude, and since they were still in with the children they had more rec periods and their study times. She'd had her ass pinched more than once, and she'd cracked a few knuckles for it. It wasn't a place she wanted to work, but at least this prisoner wouldn't starve.

Soren continued his abuse for days, dumping two of Dirk's meals each day and forcing him to spend two mind-numbing hours in solitary. He would walk by every evening with a bowl of soup or a thick sandwich or some other delicious smelling dish. And each time that tray clattered to the floor Dirk could feel his temper slipping just a little further.

#  Chapter 8

Soren made it a rule never to harass the female prisoners. He ran a clean facility; there were no rapes here, but he knew the male guards who made up the bulk of the prison staff liked making life uncomfortable for the female prisoners, and that was enough to keep them in line and submissive. The children went feral within weeks and ganged up on each other, doing Soren's job for him. It was the men Soren focused on. Broken men didn't try to escape. Broken men didn't try to fight. Broken men simply sat in corners and when you spoke to them they stared at you with empty eyes. They had no more anger, no more spirit.

Broken men were easy prisoners, and they all broke sooner or later.

Jeffery Fredrick, the other man who had come in at the same time as Dirk Haston, was already cracking when they closed the door on his cell the very first day. Soren had started visiting him almost immediately and began talking about how women could contact divorce lawyers, and if they were successful at getting a divorce from their criminal husbands their sentences were drastically reduced, as were the sentences of their children. The idea that his family would abandon him there had proved too much, and within a week the businessman was reduced to tears.

Dirk Haston, on the other hand, was a different game entirely. He was not the bad guy in his family, he was the pillar, and he took his job as father, husband, and protector very seriously. And so Soren had waited and gathered intelligence on his newest subject.

The family was key, but he would never believe his wife would divorce him, even if it could reduce her sentence which, in this case, it couldn't. So Soren waded through pages of personal correspondence, shuddering at the sugary phrases and the misplaced hope that poured from the words. In those letters, he found the ammunition he needed and thus every day he went armed to torment and break Dirk Haston.

Dirk was no longer completing a book every two days, and his letters to Rita and Rushell were drastically shorter than they had been in days prior. All he had the energy for these days was sitting on his cot and staring at the wall. His stomach ached fiercely. He was consumed with worry for his wife and daughter who, according to the sadistic Soren, were suffering indignities at the hands of the guards and their fellow inmates. Rushell had been sent to solitary again, and Soren claimed that Rita was crying herself to sleep every night.

The door creaked open, the sound echoing off the cinderblock walls of the corridor. Soren stood in the doorway with a carrot in his hands. The carrot didn't smell at all, but the sight of it was enough to make Dirk's mouth water.

And then Soren bit off a piece with a sharp crack and chewed noisily while Dirk watched him, and he watched Dirk. Each bite was a torment to watch, but Dirk couldn't look away. The prisoners sometimes got carrots with their dinner, but they were boiled almost to a mush. It had been a month now since Dirk had eaten anything fresh and crisp.

"I saw your wife this morning," Soren said.

Rita had never mentioned being visited by Soren in any of her letters, but then again he hadn't mentioned it either. Since Soren was reading the letters before they were delivered Dirk was too scared to say a bad word about the director, especially in writing where he could not deny it had been said.

Soren did not approve of sexual violence, but this Dirk Haston was strong-willed, more so than most men who came to the prison. Most men would be screaming at him for a bite of his food, or raving mad, but not Dirk. He sat calmly, watching, always watching. _The hardest nuts must be smashed against the hardest rocks if they are to be cracked open._

"You're a lucky man, she's a beautiful woman, healthy and strong. Yes, she's keeping up her strength, eats well..." He paused to take another bite of the carrot. "She has the most piercing blue eyes and such soft blonde hair. I wonder if she's lonely." Soren's eyes narrowed. "I'm addressing you, Mr. Haston."

Dirk's movements felt sluggish, but he pulled himself off the cot and stood.

"It's very lonely up here on the Moon, with home so far away. We're all lonely, the prisoners, the guards, even me. Oh yes, I get very lonely. I don't get to go to the village on the far side of the dome like the other guards do. I am here, alone, day and night. The guards, they have their unions protecting them, there are rules, so many rules. But the prisoners...." He bit off the last chunk of carrot and dropped the top on the floor. Dirk still hadn't moved. "Perhaps your wife requires an evaluation, a private meeting with the director of the prison to deal with the endless crying...."

Dirk lunged at the bars, snarling. "Don't you dare lay a hand on my wife, do you hear me? Don't touch her. I'll break your goddamn fingers if you touch her."

Soren had smoothly stepped back out of reach, and a dark smile spread across his face. He brought his radio up and said, "I require two guards in the men's block, cell 3260. I have a prisoner here in need of disciplinary action." He lowered the radio and said to Dirk. "Verbally assaulting guards or staff is not permitted here, Mr. Haston."

Dirk stepped back from the bars. _A trap and I walked right into it. Damn him. Damn this whole place. Do I fight? Or do I take it? Shit, how could I let this happen?_

The guards came in, and Dirk turned away, holding his arms out behind him in preparation to be cuffed. As they led him out he heard Soren say, "I require Hanri's presence, have her report to Room C immediately."

"She's supervising showers in the boy's block, sir," said one of the guards in the corridor.

"Then take her place. She will be helping with the discipline today."

Room C was almost empty. There were cuffs dangling from the ceiling and a cabinet in one corner and nothing else. The guards released the cuffs, and after stripping him of his shirt they secured him to the hanging ones.

_Discipline? Or torture?_ Dirk thought. Panic gripped his empty stomach, and he was glad there would be nothing in it for him to throw up.

The door behind him opened, and Hanri's now familiar voice said, "You called for me, sir?"

"Yes, Hanri. Please fetch the rod from the cabinet and we will begin."

"Yes sir."

The rod was thin and reedy and nearly three feet long. Hanri held it loose in one hand, waiting.

"You may begin," Soren prompted. "Start with ten, please, to his back."

The first blow stung more than Dirk imagined it would, and he screamed out. The second blow brought only a grunt in response.

As the blows continued, Soren said, "You worthless excuse for a human being, you couldn't keep your family in line, you couldn't keep them safe. You have no discipline, no control. You are weak and stupid and pathetic."

When Hanri stepped back, there were ten neat red nearly parallel lines down Dirk's back, and Dirk was breathing hard.

"Ten more, across the front this time," Soren said.

Dirk could see Hanri now, could see the disgust and regret on her face. For a moment their eyes met, and her face screamed a silent apology for what was about to happen. He hoped his eyes showed no malice for he felt no anger towards her. He closed his eyes, and she began.

"Your son is a failure," Soren shouted. "A failure and a criminal. You failed as a father, the one true calling of a man. You're nothing now, nothing! How will you keep them safe now? You won't, you can't, you never could!"

"Sir...."

"Ten more! You're pathetic, Haston, worthless! You failed, and now your family is safe because of me. Do you understand? I keep them safe; I keep them under control. Where you failed as a father, and a husband, and a man, I will succeed. I have succeeded a hundred thousand times! And you will sit in that cell rotting for twenty years, and when they let you out you will be nothing! Your family will no longer love you, they will no longer look up to you with loving and adoring eyes. His back now, Hanri, twenty times, and harder this time."

Dirk grimaced with each blow, but aside from the occasional grunt no other sound escaped him. He kept his eyes closed and tried as hard as possible to block out Soren's verbal abuse. His skin felt like it was on fire, and the anger was building within him. Before he could lose control and scream at Soren again, Soren stopped.

"That's enough Hanri, thank you. Put the rod away and have Mr. Haston returned to his cell. I hope you have learned your lesson, Mr. Haston, all your lessons."

"Yes sir," Dirk said. His voice must have sounded suitably defeated because he saw Soren smiling out of the corner of his eye.

Soren turned smartly on his heel and marched out.

Hanri closed the cabinet and turned to him. "I'm sorry," she said very softly. "It's my job. If I refuse, I'll be written up."

Dirk nodded. "I understand."

The other guards arrived, and Dirk was led roughly back to his cell. Laying down hurt but he was too tired to care.

He was still sleeping when the cell door opened and Soren bellowed, "Dinner! Get up and eat."

As Dirk groggily struggled upright, he saw and heard his tray hit the floor. He stood. "Thank you for the meal, sir."

"Did you learn your lesson today?"

"Yes sir. I'm sorry for my earlier behavior sir. Thank you for your guidance and protection sir."

Soren glared, but there was nothing he could do. Dirk was following all the rules, and worse, being polite and gracious. Soren stormed off, but he didn't go far. At the end of the block, he stopped and opened another door. Grinning fiercely he said, "Hello Bill, how have you been?"

The guard came to close Dirk's cell door but before it could shut completely and cut off all outside noise Dirk heard a desperate voice screaming, "No, please! Just leave me alone! Please go away!"

After that, the silence felt more oppressive than ever. Dirk sat on the floor and examined his dinner. There was a little gruel left in the bowl which had somehow landed right side up and the apple, though partly covered in gruel, seemed to have survived. The water was a complete loss, as usual, but the scraps of food helped ease the ache in his stomach.

For three more days Soren continued his abuse. Every time a meal tray hit the floor Dirk would say, "Thank you for the meal, sir."

Every time Soren taunted him about his family Dirk would say, "Thank you for keeping me informed of my family's well-being, sir."

Every time Soren insulted him Dirk would say, "Thank you for taking an interest in me, sir, I appreciate your advice," or, "Thank you for keeping my family safe, sir."

Soren ranted and raved and screamed insults until it became evident that Dirk would not take the bait.

_The fun is in the_ breaking, Soren thought as he stalked back to his office. _And I will find a way to break him._ But there are so many others. _Dirk Haston can wait._

The next day when Hanri appeared with his meal trays he ate ravenously.

#  Chapter 9

Hanri Saliya had spent the last ten years working at the Lunar Penitentiary, and she hated every day of it. She had been working at a women's rehabilitation center as a supervisor, but it was basically a guard position there too. At least there the staff made a show of trying to help the women recover from debilitating addictions. She had enjoyed her job until she caught one of the doctors trying to sexually assault one of the patients. She had reported it, and she had gotten transferred because she was 'not emotionally or professionally suited to the job required of her'.

Here the abuse was blatant and perpetrated by the boss himself, openly. _I should be grateful,_ she thought. _He may be cruel and sadistic but he keeps the guards away from the_ girls, _and that's a good thing. Does he_ really _believe he is fixing these men? Does he believe they'll be better civilians after he's broken them?_

Every single one of the men had broken from Soren's constant abuse and in the last ten years she hadn't seen anyone resist him. Until now. Dirk Haston was strong, maybe not physically since she had seen him without his shirt, and he didn't look muscled at all, but emotionally and mentally the man was tough, and she admired that.

Hanri worked a regular rotation between the four cell blocks on a seven on, two off schedule. Today was her day off, but her neighbor was sick, rare up here on the Moon but not unheard of, so Hanri had agreed to take the shift. Her neighbor didn't work on the blocks; she worked in the records department.

It was lunch and the records department was almost deserted. Hanri made her rounds, peering into offices and conference rooms to make sure guards or other staff weren't sneaking up to read or alter the records. Of course, she was also checking to make sure the coast was clear.

When she was sure it was safe she slipped into the records archive and went to the section where the current prisoner files were kept. She pulled out the Haston family folder, laid it open on top of the filing cabinet and began reading.

Here was proof of what she already believed – the system was broken. But no one was going to listen to a disgruntled guard with a disciplinary transfer on her record. _No one on_ Earth, anyway _,_ she thought. She quickly made copies of the most important pages in the file and returned the folder to its proper place. Sneaking copies was easy, but sneaking them out of the prison would be impossible.

Good thing they don't have to leave the building.

Dirk had finished his book before lights out the night before and now sat rereading letters from his wife and daughter as he waited for the librarian to arrive with the copy of a philosophy textbook he had been required to read in college. It was common belief that people should not work in the medical industry if they did not understand the value of human life and the importance of human purpose.

The text would likely be dry reading, but Dirk hoped it would last him more than a day and a half, if the librarian could even find a copy to begin with.

The door opened, and Dirk wasn't sure if it was his lunch or the librarian. He set the papers down to find the guard, Hanri, standing at the door. "You sure read a lot," she said.

"There's not much else to do," he replied, eyeing the thick hardcover in her hands.

"You're the only one on this level that requested a book today, so I'm saving the librarian the trip. It's really amazing what you can find in these old textbooks. Just be careful no one decides to confiscate it. There might be opinions or information in here that people in power might not want you reading." She set the book down on the floor and stepped back.

He grabbed the book and set the finished one on the corridor floor, as far out as he could reach. When he stepped back again, she said, "I hope you find some answers in that book." She took the paperback and closed the door again.

Dirk stared at the door for a long moment, then stared at the book in his hands. _Was she making idle conversation, or...?_

He sat down and began flipping through the pages of the book. Tucked roughly halfway through there appeared to be some loose pages. He flipped past them the first time and went back, slower. Sure enough, there were three pages tucked in the middle of a debate on the ethics of euthanasia. He set the book aside and studied the papers.

They appeared to be plain white office paper, but when he flipped them over and saw the Department of Justice letterhead his heart started pounding. _Dangerous and forbidden information indeed,_ he thought.

Trial and Arrest Record of Garth Haston and Family

Initial _report of a_ possible _crime being committed logged by Officer_ Fanty _. Mister Jeremy Medina_ reported _his vehicle had been involved in an accident while he was at work. Officer_ Fanty _and Officer_ Mundor _investigated._

Video from a traffic camera confirmed the car was on the road, undamaged, four hours before Mr. Medina returned home from his shift, and his employer confirmed that Mr. Medina did not leave his place of employment before shift change. _Video footage also showed six occupants in the vehicle._

_Upon questioning Kenneth Medina, Mr. Medina's youngest_ son, _admitted to being a passenger in the car that evening. Officers_ Fanty _and_ Mundor _spoke to administrators at Kenneth's school and identified a group of youths Kenneth_ was associated with _._

_Several of these youths, Liam Jones, John_ Rently _, Shane Kirkland, and Jesse Freemont, all admitted to being in the car with Kenneth on the evening in question. All five youths identified Garth Haston, 17 years old, as the driver. Fingerprints on the steering wheel_ were compared _to those on file for Garth Haston and were found to be a match._

_Further video evidence linked the stolen vehicle to an open investigation of a hit and_ run _incident_ which _occurred the same night._ A family of five, returning from a theater event, was struck on the passenger side by a black car that has now been identified as belonging to Mr. Medina and driven by Garth Haston.

Four of the five people in the second vehicle required immediate medical attention.

The same video evidence which identified Mr. Medina's vehicle as being involved in the accident proved that none of the youths exited the vehicle to check on the other victims of the crash and that they all left the scene of the crime in the stolen vehicle. _During_ interrogation, _John_ Rently _stated that he made an anonymous call to the emergency dispatch office. The call_ was retrieved _from the_ Dispatch archives, _and voice identification confirmed John_ Rently's _story._

From the evidence gathered Garth Haston has been tried and found guilty of the following charges:

Consumption of alcohol while underage

Driving a stolen vehicle

_Driving without a valid driver's_ license

Driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol

Exceeding the posted speed limit in a residential area

Reckless driving causing damage to public property

Reckless driving causing damage to personal property

Reckless driving causing bodily harm to an adult

_Reckless driving causing_ bodily harm _to a minor x3_

_The Haston family is therefore sentenced,_ in accordance with _the First New Earth Penitentiary Reform Act, to serve twenty years each at the Lunar Penitentiary. Their possessions will be sold_ at auction _to finance their incarceration, legal bills, and pay damages._

_A note must_ be made _that the public defender representing this case argued against the length of the sentence, stating that no persons had been killed in the accident. The judge insisted on the stiff sentence,_ stating _that he hoped this would be a warning and deterrent to other teens involved in reckless_ behaviors _._

The other two pages contained witness statements from the five other boys who had been in the car. All of them said the same thing: it had been another, older boy named James who had purchased the alcohol, and Liam's idea to go for a drive, and Kenneth's idea to take his father's car, but Garth had volunteered to drive.

Dirk slipped the papers in with the letters from his wife and daughter, then stretched out on the bed and let his thoughts run free in the hope that they would find order all on their own.

On the one hand, Garth's confession on the shuttle made a lot more sense. These boys were older than Garth and had pressured him into being involved with them, and yet they had betrayed him to the authorities, handing him over to escape their own punishments.

Garth was also right that it was Dirk's own busy schedule that had made it so easy for Garth to be manipulated by the older boys. _We could have done with less stuff, I didn't_ really _need all those overtime shifts. But Garth was always such a difficult child, we never connected, never saw eye-to-eye. Once he didn't need me to make his meals_ anymore, _it was just easier to avoid him. That alone makes me a horrible person and a bad parent, but I didn't know what else to do._

On the other hand, Garth had a mind of his own, and he knew how to use it. Dirk had always insisted that both children learn independence. They had to be self-sufficient in this world. The government of New Earth claimed to care for everyone, to watch over them all, and yet they were willing to send children to prison. _He should have known better. He should have walked away from those boys. What the hell was he thinking, getting behind the wheel of that car? He could have killed someone._

_He didn't kill anyone. The report was very_ clear; _there_ were _no vehicular manslaughter charges listed on the_ report, _so no one died in the accident._

He pulled the papers out and read them again. The boys described Garth as reckless, desperate to prove just how strong or brave or cool he was. They said he pulled pranks and did careless stunts all the time.

That doesn't sound like my son. Most likely they dared him and then taunted him until he gave in and did whatever crazy stunt they were too scared, or too smart, to try themselves.

Round and round his thoughts went. Was Garth guilty or was he a scapegoat? Was it Dirk's fault for being an absent parent or Garth's fault for not being strong enough to stand up for himself against the peer pressure?

_Did I make him vulnerable to their cruelty? If I was such a horrible parent why wasn't_ Rushell _in trouble too? He could have killed someone! I didn't raise him to be careless or stupid._

Lunch came and went and so did dinner, and still Dirk's thoughts were in turmoil. He looked at the pile of letters, rereading each one. Rushell was in real trouble here; she was the one who was alone and vulnerable.

_She wouldn't_ be stuck _here, alone, without any friends, if it hadn't been for Garth's stupidity._

And that's what it boiled down to. It didn't matter that no one had died; it didn't matter that Garth had been sacrificed and betrayed by his friends. They were here, in this hell hole, alone, scared, and at the mercy of the sadistic Soren Zolnai because Garth hadn't been smart enough or strong enough to say no to the bad influences of the other boys.

_I'm sorry Garth, but I can't forgive that. I may only be a life-flight_ pilot, _but I'm still a healer. You could have killed someone, you could have killed children, and I can't forgive that._

#  Chapter 10

There were letters on his breakfast tray again, and he read them as he ate the tasteless gruel and soft apple. He was feeling much better now that he was getting his three glasses of water and three meals every day.

_Dirk, something horrible has happened. Two of the women here got into a yelling match a few days_ back, _and the guards waded in and started throwing them both around and yelling at them and hitting them. I thought they were going to kill them! It would have been tragic except that this man in a military uniform was nearby. He called the guards off. I thought that was the end of_ it, _but then he ordered the two women removed from the rec area._

_I thought they were being taken to see a_ doctor, _but the next time we had rec I asked them about_ it _and they laughed. They_ weren't taken to a doctor, _they were disciplined because they yelled at the guards who struck them! You should have seen the welts on their arms and backs. It made me sick._

_We're all going crazy in_ here; _there's nothing to do! Everyone here is either a zombie or a psychopath ready to snap! I'm afraid someone will get mad at me for sitting in the wrong chair or looking at them the wrong way and then I could be disciplined for fighting when it wasn't even my fault._

_Can we_ really _survive twenty years in this place? What's going to happen to_ Rushell _when she moves up to the women's ward?_ She's so outspoken. _How often will they beat her? How could I ever hope to protect her?_

_Are you all right over there?_ Your last few letters were so short, and you seemed distant. _I need you, Dirk. Whatever is happening I'd rather you tell me than try to push me away to keep me safe. We will never be truly safe, not while we're here. I hope nothing awful has happened to you. I love_ you, _Dirk, now and forever. We will_ survive, _and we will be a family again. Love always,_

Rita.

_Daddy, I did something_ really stupid _last week. I yelled at one of my teachers because he was always calling me stupid and_ useless, _and I snapped. God that was stupid. They locked me in this little cell for a whole day._

_I don't want to be here, Daddy. I've already missed my best friend's birthday party. I didn't even get to say goodbye to her. I wonder what she thinks of me now. I wonder how much she knows. Did we make the news back home? Did anyone inform the school why we wouldn't be coming anymore? Did the administrators tell my_ teachers _or my friends? Maybe she thinks I've just ditched her and that I'm a horrible person._

I sound so stupid, don't I? _Here we_ are _stuck in prison because Garth got caught driving_ drunk; _we'll be here for twenty years, and I'm worried that my best friend will think I'm a bitch. Sorry. I know you don't like swearing. I hear a lot of it now. Some of the girls here are_ really awful, _but most of them are like me. They've done nothing_ wrong, _and they just want to go home. Some of the girls here are as young as twelve._ Some of them say they had younger siblings, but they were sent to foster homes instead of coming here.

_I'm going to miss a lot of things, aren't I? I'm going to miss holidays and birthdays, even my_ own _birthday. Do you think they'll give me a cupcake with my dinner on my birthday? I'll probably forget how old I am as the years pass by because I don't have a clock or a calendar. One day they'll come and move me to the women's_ block, _and I'll realize I must be twenty-one already. We've already been here long enough that I don't know what the date is anymore._

_I wish I could close my eyes and wake up back at home. I wish this_ were _just a nightmare that I was going to wake_ up from _. It's not though, is it? I don't think I could ever dream something as awful as this. Please promise me that we are all going to get out of this._

Rushell.

Dirk folded up the letters. Soren hadn't been back to bother him in days, but Dirk knew it was only a matter of time before the director of the prison returned to harass him again. And it was becoming apparent that nowhere in the prison was safe, no matter what Soren might say.

He picked up the pen he was now allowed to keep in his cell all the time along with a sheet of paper and started to write.

_Rita, I know you are a strong woman, and that is something I always loved about you, but I am asking you to put aside your desire to fight, even to protect yourself. Please, if someone yells at you, be it a guard or a fellow inmate, do not yell back. Do not respond unless you have to. Let them yell. It's hard, I know it's hard because I failed to keep my cool_ once, _and I paid a steep price for it._

_Don't worry about me, it was days ago_ already, _and I_ 'm fine _. But you do not want to be on the receiving end of that punishment._

_I'm sorry I have seemed distant lately. I am not pushing you away. I have been tested and probably will be again. That man in the military uniform is the director of the prison. He_ is responsible for _order and discipline here. It is his job to ensure that the prison is safe and secure from outside threats, and from the people being held here._

_It will be difficult but we will_ survive, _and we will come out of this as a family. I love you still and always,_

Dirk.

He read it over to make sure there was nothing incriminating in the words. It was vague, he knew, but he hoped Rita would understand that Soren was reading their letters under the premise of making sure inmates weren't discussing break-outs or anything else that would pose a problem for the guards and the prison. When he was certain that the letter was safe, he started on Rushell's.

Rushell _, you're not the only one being stupid I'm afraid._ I snapped too, but with the director of the prison and he was not happy. _It's hard sweetie, but you can't fight back. All you can do is ignore them and remember that you are smart and beautiful and strong, no matter what they say. It isn't your fault that you're here. You didn't do anything to deserve this._

_I don't know what people_ were told _about our sudden_ departure, _but I'm sure it wasn't much. I know that's probably not what you wanted to hear, but given how little we've_ been told _I doubt they would tell the general public much of anything. I_ personally _hope they didn't tell them much. Wouldn't it be nice if we could come back and tell people we were out of the country because of a work transfer? Or that we had_ been selected _for_ a special _program? That's not much of a lie, actually, but we'll make up something, like a research program, and we'll pretend that none of this ever happened._

_We are all going to miss too much of the lives we left behind. Mostly I'm going to miss spending those special days with you. So stay_ strong _for me. I expect you to survive until we get out of here._

Your father.

After lunch, he set the letters on his empty meal tray for the guard to collect and lay down on his cot, pretending to nap. As soon as the guard had come and gone he pulled up his knees and started doing sit-ups. There was a deliberate reason he hadn't said anything about seeing his girls in twenty years, and that was because he wasn't going to be here for twenty more years.

_Somehow I am going to get Rita and_ Rushell _out of here and back to Earth._

He had stopped reading, but he still requested a new book every second or third day because he didn't want to attract attention to himself. He was too busy with his exercises, like jumping jacks, sit-ups, push-ups, squats, running in place, and he had even figured out a way to use the barred door to do pull-ups.

Still, he had to be cautious. The cell blocked out all outside noise and more than once he'd almost been caught mid jumping jack at a cell check. The guards didn't make a big deal of him stretching or pacing, but he was sure vigorous exercise would make them suspicious. Sure he could just tell them that he didn't want to leave the prison as a flabby weakling, that he wanted to remain a healthy individual who could be a contributing member of society, but he also didn't want to take any chances.

He had no clock, no watch, and no window, but he had a good sense of time and a knack for math. It took many days of sitting and tapping out sixty-second intervals over and over again to figure out the cell check routines and the timing between meals. With a little algebra and some good record keeping in the margins of the letters he'd received from Rita and Rushell, he had put together what he thought was a decent outline of his daily schedule.

Soren's return for several days delayed his observations, but with his new sense of purpose and his new goal Dirk found it even easier to keep his cool.

"Did you know Rushell was in solitary confinement? Of course you did, you read the letter. You're a family of troublemakers, aren't you?"

"I'm sorry sir; I guess we're having trouble settling in. I hope the worst is behind us, sir."

"Can you imagine your little girl trapped in one of those solitary confinement cells?"

"Yes sir."

"All alone, cold and scared, the guards tell me she was crying when they finally let her out again. Too bad you couldn't be there to comfort her. Do you miss her?"

"Yes sir."

"I saw you were warning them to behave. Are you still trying to protect them?"

"No sir, that is your job now, just as you said."

"Don't you want to protect them?"

"Yes, sir. But what can I do sir?"

"Yes, what can you do? It's too late for you, Mr. Haston. All you can do is let the years crawl by until you are old and gray, and your wife is old and gray and your children are grown."

"Yes, sir."

Soren nodded and strode off again leaving Dirk to his plans.

After two weeks, he had a feel for the rotation of the guards. He often made simple requests or tried to make small talk with the guards who brought his meals and from their answers determined which ones were more like Soren and which ones were more like Hanri. If he had to take out a few people on his way to freedom, he would rather they be deserving of it.

He was sure that with the information he had collected that he could free himself and find the shuttle bay. Getting Rita out of the women's block and Rushell out of the girls' block would be harder but he would find some way to save them and bring them home with him.

The only question that still nagged at him, day and night, was whether or not he could forgive Garth and rescue him as well. As a father it was his duty to protect his family, but could Garth still be a part of their family after all of this?

As ideas solidified into plans, Dirk battled with that question, it was a question he would have to answer soon.

After two months in the Lunar Penitentiary Dirk was sure of one thing – he wasn't staying for twenty years, he wouldn't survive Soren's cruelty and neither would his family.

# The Penitentiary - Chapter 1

The Lunar Penitentiary. The New World Order needed somewhere to send its criminals and a way to control both the population number on Earth and the behavior of the populace. Sending the criminal's entire family to prison with them, and placing that prison on the moon, solved all their problems.

It was an engineering marvel, the great cinderblock building under the eight-foot-thick Plexiglas dome, standing alone on the moon only a short walk from the ancient and still abandoned lunar lander from nearly two hundred years earlier. And it was the perfect prison too. How could anyone possibly escape from the moon?

Dirk Haston was no longer a new prisoner in the Lunar Penitentiary, and he was moved from his isolated cell to a block where all the cells had barred fronts. He could see across the hall to the other cell where an old man 'lived', and he could watch the guards coming and going. He had a narrow cot, sink and toilet as before, but he now also had a low table with a drawer. His rec schedule and shower schedule remained the same, and he spent the rest of his time in his cell – mostly.

Today he was in the hallway with a mop and a pail while the guard on duty sat at the end of the hall reading a magazine. Soren had come through at lunch to torment one of the men, and a meal tray had been overturned.

Dirk had sat on his cot eating his lunch and listening to the exchange. Soren seemed to use the same tactics on everyone, calling their parental abilities and their commitment to their families into question. He was a master manipulator, picking up on and exploiting even the slightest sign of emotional weakness. He pushed and prodded until the other prisoner, a man by the name of Bill, started screaming. The meal tray clattered and then there was silence, not even the sound of a fork on a plate from anywhere on the block, and Dirk realized that he too sat frozen, waiting.

"Take Bill here down for some discipline," came the chillingly calm voice of the prison director. "He must learn the proper way to treat the guards in this facility."

The guard now relaxing at the end of the hallway whom Soren called Jackson, though Dirk didn't know whether that was a last or a first name, had been assigned to the clean-up.

"That seems like a really insulting job for a guard to do," Dirk said as Jackson went by, grumbling. Thankfully, Soren was already gone.

"Are you looking for trouble?" Jackson shouted through the bars.

"No." Dirk held his hands up and stayed a safe distance back from the bars. "But I could clean it up for you. There's a locked door at either end of the hallway, there's no way I could escape, and you'd be right there supervising me."

"Yeah, and why would you offer to help?"

"It would give me a chance to stretch. I'll do the whole hallway for you, it'll shine. Soren will be impressed."

"He'll never even notice," Jackson grumbled. "All right. I'll be back in a moment with the bucket."

Now Dirk had a clear view of the entire hallway. He only got a passing glance at the other cells and the security doors when he was led in and out of the block. There was no way to sneak past one of these cells, they were completely open, and if he tried to escape someone was bound to raise the alarm, either to win favor with Soren or in an attempt to get Dirk to take him along.

The doors were another problem. They were locked and only opened with a key card, and there was a camera mounted on either side of the doorway. Since there was no way of knowing how closely the security feed was monitored he had to assume that any unexplained movement through these doors would be noticed immediately.

It was a few days before Dirk could volunteer again, and this time it was to work on clogged drains in the shower room. He came away soaked, and no one offered him a dry uniform, but he now knew where every single camera in the shower and changing room was, that the guards checked every locker after every shower, and that there were no secondary exits, not even windows.

He swept hallways and outdoor walkways, scrubbed floors and walls and windows, and even unplugged a few toilets. And all the while he was watching and making mental notes. Sometimes he would even strike up a conversation with the guard watching him. There were a few who were almost as bad as Soren, and it was pointless to talk to them, but the others could be coaxed into a rant or complaint that might provide a nugget of information.

Better yet, the guards were becoming comfortable around him; they didn't notice if he hung around near the rec area gate and listened in on their conversations. He contemplated bluffing his way out with lies of being requested to help elsewhere in the prison but soon dismissed the idea. _No one would believe a prisoner had been sent from one section of the prison to another without a guard as an escort. Maybe Hanri would escort me?_ Again he dismissed the idea. Hanri had been his block's guard for several weeks before being rotated to another part of the prison, and Dirk respected her - she'd even brought him a watch when he requested one - but he didn't trust her. _And I wouldn't want to get her in trouble for aiding in my escape. No, I have to do this alone._

The weeks ticked by, alternately dragging and rushing, and Dirk continued watching and waiting. With the watch Hanri had provided him, with the excuse that he wanted to time his exercise sets, he was able to keep track of meal times and cell checks. The only thing the watch couldn't tell him was how long he'd been in prison for. He tried to keep track of the days, but they had slipped by uncounted early in his stay and every day looked so much like the one before and the one after, it was hard to know if he'd made a mark on his papers every day, or if he'd missed some days and double marked others. Yet even with the uncertainty he knew it had been at least two months now, and probably closer to three.

Time was running out.

Every new plan I come up with has a hole in it the size of Texas! There has to be a way out of this prison. No jail has ever been escape-proof, no matter how hard they try to make it so. Guards get lazy and careless; cameras have blind zones. I just have to find the right place and the right time.

He went over different plans and permutations while he did his exercises: push-ups, sit-ups, squats; he even found a way to do modified chin-ups using the bars along the front of his cell. His mind would sometimes wander from the plan to the reason he needed one – his family.

Rita and Rushell were writing regular letters, and he could tell they were both losing hope. They always mentioned home. Even when they didn't say it outright, he knew they both wanted and needed to get out of this place. This prison, with its gray walls and cruel guards, was draining their spirits. _What is there to say in a place like this? What is there to talk about? How many times can you write the same words? When the days become too similar, when even the horrors of this place become routine, will the letters stop?_

And sometimes, especially in the quiet dark of the evenings as he lay in bed reading or making notes on the back of one of the letters, his mind would drift to Garth. The debate remained, rescue him or leave him to his fate?

He committed a crime, more than one and deserves discipline. There must be justice for the family that was hurt. But he was betrayed, all his friends used him as a scapegoat, and no one even asked for his side of the story. But he had a choice, he didn't have to get in that car, he didn't have to get behind the wheel. He could have killed someone. He should have known better! Still, twenty years is a long time when no one died. If I don't rescue him now with Rita and Rushell, he'll never get out. There is no coming back. It's now or never, all or nothing, yes or no.

Eventually he would push the thoughts from his mind. _I don't even have a plan yet; I'll figure out what to do with Garth once I know how to get them out of this place._

Finally, weeks of watching and waiting paid off and Dirk was able to give his plan a concrete shape. He repeated the steps over and over to himself so he would not forget because writing it down was not an option.

During rec time, I will ask one of the guards to take me to the washroom.

I will find a camera blind zone, incapacitate the guard, and take his uniform and key card.

I will go to the women's block and get Rita out of her cell.

We will go to the guard's door, steal two space suits and some food, and escape the prison.

We will wait for things to quiet down and then come back for Rushell. She is in the girl's block. It will be harder to rescue her because the prison will already be on alert and because she spends so much time in lessons and not in her cell.

And the question that always nagged at him. _What about Garth?_

You can decide about Garth after you have Rita out. You can't do anything about him until then anyway, so focus on the task at hand and worry about Garth later.

He would then take a deep breath and repeat the plan again.

It was the best plan he'd come up with, and the most likely to succeed, but there were still too many holes in his plan, and the myriad questions tumbled about in his mind.

Where was he going to hide the guard's body to buy himself enough time to complete his escape without the alarm being sounded? Would he really be able to overpower one of the guards? Where in the women's block were they keeping Rita? There had to be hundreds of cells. Where in the prison was the women's block? There were dozens of hallways, and once disguised as a guard he couldn't ask for directions to a place he should already know. Was there anywhere out on the barren landscape of the moon that they could really hide? Could they get out of the dome? How would they eat while outside the dome? How would they get back in? Where was Rushell? Would they move her after the escape was discovered? Would they punish her?

And the biggest question of all: was he going to rescue Garth or not?

The full book of "The Penitentiary" can be yours right now. Click here to find out more.

# Get Your Free Book of "The Memory Caves"

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Don't forget to grab your free copy of Nick Langenberg's first novella _The Memory Caves_ while you still can. Go to <http://fantasticfiction.info/free-science-fiction-book/> to have a look.

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The Penitentiary

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# About The Author

Nick Langenberg has always been a bit odd. Born to Dutch parents—and a twin to boot—he was a quieter, more serious version of the other children in the schoolyard. He was also prone to obsession.

After taking her young son to see _Star Wars,_ Dirk's poor mother required three men to claw him away from the ticket booth, such was his compulsion to view the film as many times as possible. His next fascination was stargazing; his face glued to the telescope for hours at a time. Like most of his juvenile eccentricities, both loves persist to this day.

Now a Scotland based journalist, Dirk's latest mania combines all his passions into one. Late at night he can be found hunched over his laptop, whole galaxies coming to life on the screen before him. His five book series, "The Moon Penitentiary" has recently been released and his novella "The Memory Caves" is available for free from this website.

# Fantastic Fiction

Fantastic Fiction publishes short reads that feature stories in a series of five or more books. Specializing in genres such as Mystery, Thriller, Fantasy and Sci Fi, our novels are exciting and put our readers at the edge of their seats.

Each of our novellas range around 20,000 words each and are perfect for short afternoon reads. Most of the stories published through Fantastic Fiction are escapist fiction and allow readers to indulge in their imagination through well written, powerful and descriptive stories.

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At Fantastic Fiction, we believe that life doesn't get much better than kicking back and reading a gripping piece of fiction. We are passionate about supporting independent writers and believe that the world should have access to this incredible works of fiction. Through our store we provide a diverse range of fiction that is sure to satisfy.
