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He hadn't been wrong when he said things could only get worse, Sitting there in the back of the, technically unlicensed police vehicle Krill watched from between the bars as the city passed below them. Neon lights roared past in streaks of light as they were ushered through Noctopolis's complicated system of airways, marked by hundreds of glowing orange traffic buies. Commander Vir lay awkwardly on one shoulder muzzled and silent.

Krill was left alone to assume the worst without any words of encouragement from his usually upbeat human friend. Noctopolis was a lawless backwater, they both knew that, so what was to come was sure to be the worst of what mild anarchy had to offer. They knew from reports that humanity, while always on the verge of anarchy, refused the idea on principal, so someone somewhere had set up a policing system, now, who that was, and how they were being paid off remained a mystery.

The vehicle was pulled right and angled downwards giving Krill a view through the plexiglass separator and out the front windshield. What he saw, he didn't like. The structure was a behemoth of steel, concrete, and iron surrounded on all sides by miles and miles of electrified chain linked topped in cruelly twisting barbed wire. A network of floating cameras spanned the sky over the building intermittently bathing the ground in a horrifically bright spotlight. When mechanical methods weren't enough, men in dark uniforms paced the perimeter with vicious black dogs cradling human lethality in mat black contraptions fueled by gunpowder thousands of years of death engineering.

He glanced over at the Commander, but the look on the man's face.... Well it was.... Not encouraging. His eyes had gone wide, and not the good kind of wide, the very very bad kind. The human was scared.

As they sat there, he began frantically kicking at the seat in front of him.

The officer in the driver's seat turned his head sideways, "KNOCK IT OFF!"

The commander didn't let up kicking harder. The second officer turned around, "You don't want to know what happens if you keep resisting. We can tell he prisoners inside whatever we want about you."

The commander paused eyes unsure before jerking his head. The guard finally sighed, pressing a button on a small device allowing the volume on the commander's speech, "Where the hell are you taking us...."

The man turned back to the front and snorted, "Don't you know . I thought the Turma Supermax Corrections Facility was famous."

"First of all isn't Turma just the word for prison in Russian, and second of all, famous for being a deathtrap, like the gulag, Alcatraz, San Quenton, Hell? You haven't proven that I've done anything wrong, we should be going to jail, not prison, maybe to court, but this, this is insane."

The guards didn't even look at them, "Surprisingly educated little bugger aren't you.This isn't earth kid, this is Noctopolis, and the UN doesn't decide what goes on here, at least not yet. And since we don't have a jail, guess you'll have to spend some time in the hole."

Krill watched the man go pale, not just a little, but grey pale, corpse pale, and if the human was scared.... He was scared.

Krill leaned closer to the human as the vehicle dropped low onto the entrance road stopping before the scanning equipment. "What is going on?"

The commander leaned over whispering, "Remember that time we ended up in a rundi prison."

"Yeah?"

"Well think like that but.... Like a thousand times worse."

Krill wondered how hard it would be to fling himself out the window. The human leaned closer, "This facility is famous because of it's practically medieval incarceration practices, we haven't used systems like this in over a thousand years. Men kept in sells out can almost spread your arms to touch both sides in, no privacy, no protection. To survive the aliens and the humans have formed gangs on the inside. When you get in you HAVE to join a gang, or you die. Since the prison was started there have been ten major riots hundreds of deaths. You'll get shanked, beaten to death, or worse if you don't comply to gang rule. You have to pay them do jobs and you WILL be inducted weather you like it or not." Krill felt his body going cold, "Horrible food terrible conditions rampant drug use that the guards don't care about... This facility is.... It's human sociality gone wrong, the Stanford prison experiment in practice.... It's every monster under the bed and every deep dark secret we try to hide from ourselves. This is... humanity uncensored."
"Way to sugar coat it." Krill squeaked

"I did."

The two of them went silent as the vehicle stopped by the guard towers scanned and the gates opened. A prisoner transport bus drove in beside the, and form the window, krill could seem massive hulking shadows hunched behind those windows. He shivered at the thought of what they could be.

"So, this isn't normal."

"Not even close, on earth your may go to jail, like a mini prison much nicer probably smells like shit but no big deal, to actually get here you have to be sentenced by a judge. They have to PROVE you really did what they are accusing you of, and then they have to decide your sentence. You get bail, a lawyer, correspondence, and if you cooperate, generally not flogged over the head."

They were waved through and up to the doors. The commander grimace, "Get ready, this is going to be... horrific."

The door to their side opened,and the two of them were dragged from the car. Krill was practically ignored, but the commander was bodily manhandled towards the doors as the bus came to a stop next to them. Krill watched in horror as the doors opened, and the biggest, meanest, scariest looking humans he had ever seen stepped from the doors, They were massive some of them at least four inches taller than the commander with a least fifty pounds of muscle on him their arms and chests swollen like balloons, of course they came in all shapes and sizes some smaller some with hair some without, some heavily covered in tattoos while others were clean of them. Dark ink in the shape of teardrops touched some of their faces, he saw plenty of spiderwebs, many words. And it wasn't just humans, it was hulking drev and seedy looking tesraki all clustered together in an amalgamation of shifty eyes and glares.

They were shoved through the open doors into a massive intake room and up towards the desk. A pair of guards stood at each station with even more over to the side.

Krill was pulled up to one counter.

"Name, Species, and charges."

One of the officers answered for him, "Says its name is Krill, Vrul, charged with aiding and intent to sell."

He was pulled to the side, and a strange contraption was held up to his neck. There was a sharp hiss, a thud, and he squealed in pain as the fluorescent dye was injected into his skin. He was shoved to the side into another holding room, and Commander Vir was pushed up to the counter.

"Name, date of birth, charges."

"COMMANDER Adam Vir of the UNSC." One of the guards snorted.

The lady raised an eyebrow looking him over, "Hmmm and I'm the president of Mars. Please place your hand on the scanner." The human did as told, but in changed red and blinked negative, the woman clicked her tongue and ran a quick wand over his arm, "Sorry Mr. John Doe, military ID is required for all UNSC officers and soldiers, and you don't appear to have one, plus your prints aren't in the system, now date of birth?"

The human sighed, "July 13, 3998, and im innocent."

Behind him the guard snorted, "Possession of illegal substance, intent to sell, failure to identify, unlawful possession of a firearm, and resisting arrest."

"I did identify myself, and the drugs you found on me weren't mine. I was-"

"Ah that age old shtick, these aren't my pants officer, I swear." She motioned him forward, and before he could react the device came up. He cursed as the dye was injected into his skin leaving the fluorescent purple number visible on its surface. He was pushed forward into the holding cell with krill, and from there they were funneled into two lines, humans and nonhumans.

Stepping up to the counter, they were ordered to surrender ALL personal Items.

Commander Vir was momentarily uncuffed under the eyes of at least five guards pulling off his belt, watch, and shoes placing the in the container. The man behind the desk waited, "ALL personal items."

"Everything."

The man grunted, "Can't exactly cavity search you if we can't get to all the cavities, now get to it."

Krill felt very sorry for the humans just then, he may not have understood it, but he did understand the invasion of personal privacy. The commander eventually dropped his last item of clothing into the box looking very, very uncomfortable. The shiny metal of his cheap prosthetic glittered in the fluorescent lights, "Ask me to give up the leg, and we are going to have a RIOT." He snarled.

"No, but we will need he eyepatch."

The human tried to protest, but that wasn't an option, and eventually he pulled it off and tossed it angrily onto the pile. From there they were cuffed and brought into another long-white room where they were all sat side by side in two long rows. The commander scooted closer to Krill as he eyed the man next to him, almost as tall as Sunny.

Krill glanced over at the human and, "I thought you just had the one tatoo."

The human glowered at him, "Dude, no... we are not talking about that here. Not like this." That was when they were all unceremoniously blasted with a deluge of water. Coughing sputtering and dripping they were lead out a set of doors and over a series of grates blowing freezing cold air. The human;'s skin had turned purple and he was shivering.

"Fuck this." he moaned then paused, "Never-mind, don't think to deeply into that."

Krill was mercilessly led off to another containment unit while the humans were led into another area.

A single guard was snapping pictures of the incoming tattoos and cataloging them along with the ID number. The commander turned around to show the largest tattoo he had about fist sized on his right shoulder-blade. It was the earth encircled by a pair of wings and the banner for his flight unit.

"Which gang is this one for." The man asked

He sighed, "'No gang, it's an air-force thing." The man grunted, "Any others." With a sigh the Commander turned to the side exposing the second tattoo on the side of his leg just under his hip.

"The hell is that supposed to be."

He looked almost offended, "Marvin the Martian." He received only a blank stare, "you know weird voice little alien character from the looney tunes.... Look I was drunk when I got it but that's still no reason you shouldn't know who he is and before you ask NO it is not gang affiliated."

When Krill was finally united with the commander, the man looked... very flustered, though he had been given a steel grey long-sleeve jumpsuit to wear. "I ... hate.... Everything." Krill glanced nervously towards the opposite doors.

"You need to talk to the GA ad the UNSC about this... this is barbaric."

The human grumbled, "Tell me about it, we invented imaging machines for a reason."

Krill had a feeling they were talking about two different things, but kept silent. The two of them were grabbed by a pair of guards and then led towards the doors, "Alright you two a couple of rules before you go in, play nice with the other kids, the first three digits of your ID number match that of your cell. When the bell rings you will return to your cell, if you don't you will be administered an electric shock until you comply." The doors ahead of them opened, and they were shoved out into general population.

The room was absolutely massive rising at least seven stories up with steel catwalks and safety glass at all seven levels. The center of the room was crowded with tables and chairs, a TV hung from one corner of the room, and the sound was absolutely deafening, the echoing cascade of a hundred voices. They noticed pretty quickly the species based segregation going on inside. The drev had claimed the TV while the humans congregated at the center of the room. The Tesraki were cowering under the stairs, and a couple other odds and ends hung on to that group.

There were no visible Vrul.

Together they cautiously stepped onto the floor. Commander Vir's teeth were gritted, and he kept absently adjusting the grey gauze strip that now made for an eyepatch.

"We are going to die." Krill whispered.

The captain didn't respond.

Together they found themselves a table away from all three groups and tried to vanish into the shadows. Commander Vir was desperately muttering to himself trying to figure out a way to contact someone on the outside, or at least get out a message. Krill was hiding himself under the table rocking back and forth wishing for the sweet release of death.

"Krill, Krill maybe we can talk to one of the guards, maybe we can convince them to help us." He stood from his seat nodding to himself not waiting for Krill to give his opinion turned and ran face first into the chest of an absolutely behemoth prisoner. He WAS as tall as sunny for sure with a chest measurement almost twice that of Vir. His huge arms where the circumference of the commander's head.

Slowly the Commander lifted his eyes upwards mouth hanging slightly open eyes wide coming to a rather large, round face with a well trimmed goatee, no hair and angrily slanted eyebrows. It was then he noticed the four other humans standing behind him. One was tall and surprisingly handsome with thick curly hair going down to his shoulders while the other two were short wiry, balding and appeared to be twins. To their right was a man just a little shorter than the first dark hair dark skin and an unusually friendly expression considering the circumstances.

The man just in front of Vir stepped forward placing them chest to chest with Vir craning his neck upwards, "Why don't you take a seat, friend." He took another step forward and Vir staggered back catching his knees on the bench and forcibly sitting down. As soon as he did the dark friendly-face man, and one of the twins came to sit next to him sandwiching him in between them in what might have been a friendly gesture, accept for it wasn't.

The first man loomed over him arms crossed over his chest, "Do you know what the first rule of the yard is?"

Commander Vir stammered and pressed himself back into the table, "Uh... don't be a dick?"

The men around the table chuckled, without any humor, "Ah, I see we have a funny guy here, and when I say funny guy I mean a guy who is funny because he's clearly never been in the hoe before and learned everything he knows from movies.... Am I wrong?"

Vir shook his head, though if Krill were in his position he wouldn't have disagreed either.

"First rule of the yard is that gang rules. It's the humans against the beetles and the bats, you get a chance to screw them over, you take it. But before that, Allen over there-" The handsome human raised his hand, "Is going to check your record, and if we see anything we don't like.... Well you can imagine fom there."

"S-something you don't like? Like what."

The small man to his side piped up, "Like if you're some kind of Cho-mo."

Vir frowned, "A what/"

THe skinny guy beside him spat on the floor, " You know, A cho-mo, a kiddy fiddler,."

Vir's eyes widened, "Woah, whoah, hold on, I'm not that's... disgusting. I like kids.... Hold on that came out wrong. I mean I would never never ever touch or hurt a kid." He took a deep breath, calming himself, "I am not a child molester and the kind of people that do that kind of thing deserve to die." He locked eyes with the man above him and held it.

The frown split into a grin, "Good, just what we like to hear because if you turn out to be lying to us we're gonna beat you to within an inch of your life," He smiled openly "now just gotta make sure you aren't a snitch."

He was slapped heavily on the back by the darker human beside him lurching forward teeth gritted eyes wide. Before he could do anything the handsome man stepped forward, grabbed him by the hair, and ran some sort of scanning device over his number. He yelped in pain,but was pushed back before he could do anything. The man looked down at the device eyes scanning quickly over the words. The entire group went very still for a moment leaning in closer towards the commander with narrowed eyes.

" John Doe, 25, 210, 6'2 Caucasian, Green Eye, prosthetic leg, tattoos of unknown origin, right shoulder right hip." he looked up from his device, and sneered before looking down at his notes. "Possession of illegal substance, intent to sell, failure to identify, unlawful possession of a firearm, and resisting arrest."
There was a mutter around the group Krill thought he saw a few of the humans nodding.

"That's what they SAY I did, but I didn't"

"Sure we're all innocent here. Anyway John, what's your real name?"

Adam shifted uncomfortably from where he was pinned between two strangers, "Adam, my name is Adam, and I told them that."

"Uh huh, sure."

Krill heard something from behind him as suddenly he was dragged into the air by a vice-like hand on his shoulder. He squealed and thrashed in desperation and fear as the other twin dragged him from under the table and held him up to the light, "And who is your friend here, a bug, don't see many of those around here."

Before any of the men could move, the commander was out of his seat and face to face with the small man. His single green eye once wide and afraid had narrowed, he stood tall back straight chest out teeth locked into a snarl, "Put him down or your fist goes down your throat." His voice was like ice on steel.

Surprisingly the small man stepped back in shock. The entire group murmured, the small man looked towards his leader who finally waved a hand. Krill was dropped to the floor and skittered over to hide behind Adam who stood defensively against a group of five men, two of them taller than he was, "If you want to hurt him, then this ENTIRE prison is going to have to go through me."

The big man cocked his head staring down at Adam like a great dane looks at a cockroach, "And what is the bug to you."

"Someone I'm not willing to let get hurt, and if any of you disrespect him again I will go THROUGH you." He was toe to toe with the big man now unmoving. Kril covered his eyes.

The big man leaned back a bit in contemplation, "You're not one of those ... Disgusting Extrrials are you, getting freaky with the bug there."

He didn't break his stance, "We're friends, and I owe him my life a million times over."

The big man tapped his fingers against his arm for a contemplative moment, "Alright, I can respect that, just keep him in line, and he's your responsibility." Adam was clapped heavily on the shoulder and his eyes joggled around in his head with the force of it. The tense circle that had been around them before broke into into relaxation smiling and laughing, "Welcome to the hole."

Krill kept at his heels as the two of them were dragged across the room to join the humans at their tables.

Only Krill saw the light tremor in the captain's hand as they moved off.