Point Zero: Of Gods Old And New: 4 (Patreon)

Point Zero: Of Gods Old And New: 4

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Commissioned by Ichypa

Wordcount: 2500

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The containment center for Verdict’s prisoners that met the requirements to be interred for a long time was a new facility that implemented the latest in the UN’s cryogenic technology, meaning that we were technically containing prisoners using the technology used by the latest WMDs mounted on satellites. While both the Hunter Killers and the Infected and even the other polities on Earth had good enough defenses to weather kinetic bombardment or nukes, the Cryo-Bombardment satellites used top-secret technology to put whole regions into near-zero Kelvin in temperature.

Hunter Killers freeze and break apart trying to move.

Infected freeze completely, and troops can come in to break them up.

Other polities were building bunkers and spending fortunes on insulating their armies, or even making massive land-carriers with generators large enough to shield their forces with thermal umbrellas. It looked like a nice, bright blue beam for the cameras, the snap-freeze is instant, and with people all being infected our cells are hardy enough that a defrost is easily achieved. Honestly, with our tech and our infection, it’d be easy to transport people around the galaxy at ludicrously low prices… if we can prove that the infection won’t spread wherever we go.

So, rather than be daft and let the tech wallow in obscurity, we used it to keep prisons nice and orderly.

Everything about the prisons are lower in cost with the new technology put into play. While there’s new maintenance requirements and the technology itself is expensive, the costs were halved. Fewer guards are needed, less accommodation for prisoners are needed, no medicine is required, and food is unnecessary. In an age where everyone is immortal, people stored in prisoners pay in terms of time… or rather we were storing them until we could get the excess resources needed to rehabilitate them.

At Point Zero, it’s hard to remember, but the UN’s got a lot of cost-saving measures going and no one’s going to complain about prisoners being stored to be dealt with for later. In fact, people go as far as to as to say they shouldn’t be stored and they should be put to work or put to fight. There were even talks about storing excess population away and storing them on Mars or on the moon just in case, but the resources needed for that were better used to fight now.

A lot of private ventures are trying to get their hands on the tech, though, so that they can offer people a ‘quick’ way out. Store yourself and cross your fingers with the hope that when you wake up everything’s nice and over. I’d bet that tons of people would go that route if given the chance. Hell, I’m sure that if you can get frozen for a decade for a misdemeanor, people will go out their way to do it.

Yeah, the UN was sensible enough to keep that card close to their chest.

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Codenamed 9th Circle, after the old epic by Dantes, the frozen pit was a cylindrical tube suspended between mountains by massive tethers. Entrance came in the form of a dock at the top. Usually supply ships just dropped an umbilical down and supplied the few guards and technicians living at the top level with their needs and requirements.

If something catastrophic happened, the prison was sighted by an orbiting battle station that could freeze the whole area with ease. The top part of the structure had thrusters and was untethered so that the crew could escape before the blast hit. Unfreezing is easy enough, just put guys in a pod with water of the same temperature as them and bring them up to temp slowly. Same tech as an electric kettle with a better computer and a lower top end.

Anyway, most of the middle housed the criminals sentenced to fifty years of storage. Just boxed up and kept frozen for their crimes of homicide, sabotage, peddling narcotics, and anything else along those lines. By the time they get out, they’ll find their organizations gone, everyone who knew them gone, and the world moved on, as they struggle with rehabilitation. Some people say that they’ll find no reason to connect with the new world they find themselves in. On the other hand, that’s what ordinary prisons did already for a greater cost and those people aging in the meantime, too.

We were headed to the bottom of the pillar, though, so we made use of the underside dock that was completely automated.

At the base of the pillar, were people with hundreds of years of storage and death sentences for them rather than possible escape. If something happened to the prison, they were smashed apart rather than frozen and stored again. The reason why was simple: they were usually people who were close to being completed infected or were captured agents from other nations that tried to interfere with the UN’s mandate.

People taken off the board, permanently, and for the future to handle.

And, now, they were going to be housed with a Demon.

Who we were going to interrogate before interring in its new home for the foreseeable future.

“Set up the life sustaining pillar, please.” Gwen asked me as we got into the main chamber on the bottom of the pillar. The room was sparse, save for the central podium where all sorts of life support devices were hidden. Gwen observed the bottom of the detached head in the container she kept it in. “We’ll be using all the ports. It can’t determine the creature’s exact needs, so it has supported everything it has found.”

The head case was a nifty piece of tech, which primarily worked with another product of Infected creatures. The interstitial fluids within infected individuals doubled as a life support fluid and has gotten synthesized. Back in the early days, soldiers applied the ‘blood’ of the Infected to heal their wounds quickly for negligible increases in their own corruption. The synthesized version was only about ninety percent as effective, but didn’t raise infection as much.

The demon having a host that was Infected has allowed us to submerge it in the synthesized life support fluid, fill everything below the neck with various tubes that’ll cycle it full of oxygen and the like, and provide it with pain killers. The head case was developed to rescue soldiers after it was figured out Infected can persist for far longer amounts of time without the rest of their bodies and that they could effectively be regrafted back to their bodies with some of the Infected fluids and some strong staplers and stabilizers. Decapitations within the right conditions, basically, were just a fancy way of putting people out of commission nowadays. There are even specialized collar rings that can get slipped between the body and the head that just keeps everything together.

Or, instead of a body, you can put them in a life support pillar with artificial lungs, brain wave scanners, and more to interrogate them.

“Life support pillar is ready and waiting.” I told Gwen after finishing the start up sequence. Gwen nodded and slotted in the whole head case into the pillar, after removing a bottom lid. The various inputs and outputs between the machines linked together, while the Demon writhed within the capsule filled with life sustainer. “Intern now, please.”

There was a hissing noise and the sound of liquid being drained. The life-sustaining fluids gave way and the glass capsule was removed. The pillar functioned as a body for the creature to use, and it would’ve been difficult to speak to someone through viscous liquid.

Anyway, as usual, the captive started screaming at us the moment it could talk.

“Damnable mortals, I will feast on your entrails forever! Death will be a relief you shall never feel.”

“Awfully creative this one, huh?” I muttered while looking over the terminal. A lot of the brain of the creature came off as unknown, like it was a very infected human being. “It’ll take a while before we map out its brain.”

“Keep the scans going. I’ll interrogate it and stimulate responses.” Gwen stated, and I nodded. This part of the job has been always a bit much. Thankfully, I could keep my eyes on the screen and just map the creature’s brain. Knowing that it was a Demon of some sort that just threatened to eat my guts helped, too. “I am a Verdict Commander. My role in your arrest is included in my duty to uphold the peace in Point Zero.”

“These bindings will not hold me forever. I feel strength returning to me. This method of sealing is insufficient for my might!” The creature boasted, and I raised an eyebrow. I looked at the inputs and looked through them. Nothing seemed like it could provide the creature with extra energy to raise its mass. Atmospheric conditions, then? I activated some additional shielding in the cell, and it slide around and sealed us in. A spot in the corrupted brain came alight and it tried to turn my way. “Damnable mortals, know that I will break free and your suffering shall be eternal!”

“Looks like it was pulling some ambient energy. I’ve sealed it off, and I’ll keep monitoring its weight passively, boss.” Yeah. My concerns about this situation were fading fast. This creature was really some sort of metaphysical entity that could pull energy from somewhere as long as it wasn’t sealed in layers and layers of insulating material. Usually, the insulation was for keeping ambient radiation sealed in for everyone else’s safety, but now it was needed to seal us? “I’ll also get a design ready for its containment. It’ll need a new head case, if it can gather power and regeneration of the ambient environment.”

“Here’s a requisition form. I’ve signed off on it, but I will double check according to regulations.” Gwen sent the file over my way and I input the raw materials I’d need as feedstock and looked for a simple ‘armor’ design of the head case. There were plenty of them available for battlefield retrieval. I just needed to replace the materials for shielding with insulating materials and fashion another tube or two to surround it. Nothing fancy. Just some cylinders with hinges and places for locks. “Now, back to the interrogation. Creature, you are not recognized as a citizen of the UN and you inhabit the body of a known UN citizen. You are now responsible for the citizen’s death and will serve time accordingly. Additionally, you have multiple counts of destruction of property, causes of injury, resisting arrest, and finally threatening an officer of the law. This is in lieu of charges of trespassing, passing the border illegally, and not properly registering as an inhabitant of Point Zero”

Gwen ran the sentences through her Communicator, which tabulated the results and handed it off to be evaluated by our systems. The primary charges were undeniable and captured through our cameras and those in the area. The rest was going to be evaluated and take a day or two. Honestly, though, the first set of crimes was enough.

“Your sentence will be over two centuries of internment, followed by twenty years of attempted imprisoned rehabilitation. If you are not rehabilitated, then you will be interred for another two centuries before another attempt is made. This will repeat continuously with new methods implemented for each rehabilitation period.” Gwen got the words out, and as usual, the criminal in question went quiet. Shock and apprehension of losing so many years, then confronted with the twenty years of actual rehabilitation, before things repeat if the rehabilitation fails. It was enough to get a lot of people to start begging to get the twenty years of rehab first… which was usually granted by Gwen. It was a lot of paperwork, but if the prisoner passes her mind screening, she’d help the person out. “You can reduce your sentencing by providing us information on your methods of reaching Point Zero, and your accomplices. I suggest that you provide us with as much information as possible. You may even receive a fully-grown, cloned body in exchange for good behavior to serve your rehabilitation time in.”

Most people take that.

I mean, in 200 years, their boss and accomplices would be dead and they’d get a new body while they’re rehabilitated.

Rehabilitation might be easier with actual limbs and a body.

Not just a head.

“…” The so-called demon was surprisingly quiet and contemplative of its current position. The scans of its brain were anything but calm, though. Its thoughts were racing just short of panic. Fast, but controlled. Like it was under some sort of planning trance. Whatever this thing was, it reminded me of an ex-soldier that’s used to making logical decisions quickly. “Mortals, I can offer you much power and might in exchange for my release.”

“Release is impossible. You will serve your time. All you can do is make that time shorter and more pleasant. Take a look at this.” Here was the sell. I’ll never get used to it. Gwen just sounded like a saleswoman whenever she started talking about UN prisons. Yep. She was bringing up her presentation off her communicator and projecting it on the wall. She’s real proud of it. “As you can see, in our rehabilitation center, you will have your own room with a shower and a communal living room. Three meals according to your diet will be provided and with good behavior you can earn sweets from outside. You will be trained in work, which includes hunting Infected and even possibly scouted for UN black-ops teams.”

Yep, that’s my girlfriend espousing the merits of joining penal hunting squads and penal deniable assets.

And, as usual, it seemed to be working.

“I will be provided board and food and will work for two decades as a hunter and killer for your nation, then I will be released?” I really don’t know how she did. Maybe, we were just finding loads of people who were amenable to the idea? The Demon seemed interested in the option, especially since it wouldn’t involve it being sealed for two centuries on ice. “You swear that I will be permitted such lenient terms, if I supply you with information regarding the mortals who brought me to this realm?”

Gwen nodded eagerly, and the lights on the brain came up with a familiar light.

I almost palmed my face.

It worked.

Again.

“Then, mortal, we have an accord. I shall supply you with the truth of the matter, then I shall receive two decades of service before being freed.”

Gwen gave me a thumbs up, and I went ahead and got the recording software ready.