"Orientation"
The flanking UV guards grabbed Green’s arms and half-dragged, half-shoved him from the reception chamber. With the center guard, who seemed to outrank his cohorts, bringing up the rear, they made a pathetic procession of four down various drab, stony corridors. Green committed the entire layout to memory – his entire past until four months ago may be gone, but in his time awaiting trial he’d found he possessed an uncanny knack for retention and recall. If he ever did regain his past, it would probably come not in a trickle but in a flood.
They turned a corner and stopped at a metal door. The ranking guard stepped up and the door slid into the wall. The guards removed John Doe’s restraints and shoved him through the doorway. As the door closed again, Green looked around at the new room.
It was as gray as the rest of the place, twenty feet by twenty and two stories high. Windows lined the top half of the room, but they weren’t the most salient feature. No, most striking were the six other prisoners, all of whom looked at him. On a bench in one corner, two Indigos sat hunched together. A Red leaned against the wall near them, with an Orange opposite him. A Violet of rather high frequency that bordered on UV stood in the middle of the room, almost challenging John Doe with the crossing of his arms.
“Just what we need,” the Violet said, his booming voice echoing in the small room, “another initial.” Green was confused as to exactly what he meant. The last prisoner, a Green, came over to him, though he stayed more or less to one wall to avoid the Violet. He was the lightest shade of their color John Doe had ever seen.
“Celadon,” the other Green said, sticking out his hand. John Doe shook it.
“John,” he answered. He left off the Doe, seeing no need to broadcast personal information, not that he wasn’t already infamous. “What did he mean calling me an initial?”
“Oh, never mind that,” Celadon said, making a dismissive gesture. “It’s just intimidation.”
“I didn’t ask his intention,” John said, settling into the abbreviated name. “I asked what he meant.”
Celadon was nonplussed, but the Violet had no problem reading him and took a few steps forward.
“Have you been living underground, or are you just not too bright? Because you’re the only light I ever met who didn’t know his rainbow array. You’re the G in Roy G. Biv. Three wimpy low-freak colors, three on the high side, and Greens in the middle without the guts to pick a side.”
The allegation of gutlessness pierced John like an icicle. He stepped forward so he was toe-to-toe with the Violet. “Never let me hear you call another Green gutless, you UV wannabe, because you will be proven wrong. Trust me on that.”
“Yeah, we’re more like moderates,” Celadon added from off to the side. “The truth is rarely just black and white, you know.” John and the Violet both shot the pale Green dirty glances. Celadon backed away, his hands raised palms-outward.
John was about to turn back to the Violet when the door opened again. This time it wasn’t a single prisoner but three that were ushered in. They were a Blue and two Yellows, giving the group at least one of each rainbow color. He wondered if that were not a coincidence, if perhaps part of imprisonment entailed fusing them back into white light. John shuddered at the thought.
“Welcome,” came a voice from surround speakers. The ten prisoners looked around and then up. Ultraviolet guards ringed the room behind the windows. One, so much darker than the rest that he might have been born inside a black hole, stood before a microphone. “This is the Borealis Detention Center, and I am Warden Welles.”
There were murmurs and sotto voce comments, but no one dared say anything loud enough to be attributable to them. The warden removed the microphone and started to walk around the perimeter; the guards matched him in unison so that the entire group seemed like a ring being turned.
“Every convict who enters this facility has no doubt endured hardships,” the warden continued. “It is not the intention of me or my staff to add to these, and we certainly do not wish to make our own lives more difficult, but know that we will if necessary. We have a zero-tolerance policy for trouble. There are no small rules, and whenever even a single one is broken there will be consequences.”
Welles stopped in the center of the wall opposite his original position.
“I have overseen eleven prisons in thirty-two years, so I know inmates can suffer lapses of judgment when it comes to following rules. To show you we here at Borealis mean what we say, the consequences will not be limited to one prisoner but to two. Each of you will be fused with another; where one goes, the other follows. This process cannot be reversed except via prism, which can only take White light, so you are joined until we say otherwise. You may go ahead and choose your cellmates.”
John looked around. He hated the thought of tying his movements to someone else, so it wasn’t a matter of finding the most desirable candidate but rather the least undesirable. As he might have expected, the Indigos and the Yellows immediately paired with their own color. The Red and Orange stood by each other, and the Blue partnered with the Violet. Celadon came over to John.
“Oh,” Warden Welles said almost as an afterthought, “there will be no same-color pairs and no repetition of color combination.”
John did some quick mental computations and turned to Celadon. “Hook up with an Indigo.”
“I was going to ask a Yellow,” the pale Green replied.
“Do what I ask, please,” John said. Celadon seemed to reflect on the nature of his new friendship, nodded, and went off to the high-frequency pair. John watched one of the Yellows approach the Violet, who took him as his cellmate. The other Yellow went toward the Blue, but John stepped in first. The second Yellow had to settle for the Indigo Celadon hadn’t paired with.
“Excellent,” said the warden. “I can see we’re all going to get along quite nicely.” John didn’t see that. In fact, he would have bet serious money things would not go smoothly at all. As if to prove him right, he was crudely nudged from behind. John turned to see the Violet sneering back at him.
"Sentenced"
John Doe Green coiled himself in anticipation of the verdict. He did so only on the inside, since outward manifestation of his frustration might be construed as threatening. Besides, his edges were shackled and he was as taut as a fence post, so Green physically couldn’t coil even if he’d wanted to.
The door to the judge’s chamber opened and in came the “honorable” I-256. Judges were so designated because names supposedly brought them down to the level of the courts they were by the nature of their job to remain above. At the beginning of the trial, John Doe had thought the number a bit cold for the gentle elegance and professional demeanor associated with Infrareds, but the vehemence with which the judge had overruled every objection Green’s lawyer raised made the moniker seem to fit.
“All rise,” said the bailiff, a dark Blue. Every beam and aura in the room save for Green came to attention, only to relax when the supreme jurist took his seat. It was the highest court in the world, which meant it was an honor to be allowed to attend. It also meant Green could not appeal the decision.
I-256 settled himself and faced the court. “Those of us in the justice community are tasked with arriving at the truth and handing down decisions based on the facts as we find them. We consider every case with care, but in circumstances like these we pay extra special attention to every detail.
“John Doe Green has been accused of numerous high crimes, including the blinding of a head of state that to led to said official’s murder. Mr. Green would have us believe that he recollects none of this, a fact that in itself provides no proof of innocence. Further, all physical characteristics that would lead to the identification of the accused have been removed. This can only be deliberate, as, this court believes, is the case with Mr. Green’s purported amnesia.”
Green’s lawyer sighed heavily but with no note of surprise. He’d known the entire time that Green was being railroaded, but he’d apparently held out some ray of hope. Maybe he should have pushed harder for a jury, though Green knew that somehow it had never really been an option. It was true he had no memory of who he was, but some things were matters of logic and transcended specific knowledge.
“It is the finding of this court that John Doe Green is guilty of all charges.” Murmurs ran through the courtroom at the judge’s proclamation. “Further,” I-256 said in a louder voice that quieted the crowd, “said accused is to be held for the remainder of his natural life in a maximum-security facility in an undisclosed location. Let him be sent there presently.”
The judge stood and exited the room. Two armed guards led Green past the bailiff, who looked the new convict in the eyes before glancing away. At least he’d given him that much. It wasn’t a lot to begin two decades in confinement, but it was something.
Green was taken down numerous corridors to a room with a giant spotlight that was embedded in the wall and aimed at an up-angled mirror that stood in the center of the floor. One guard turned the light on, sending a beam of generated light that bounced off the mirror and hit the ceiling. The heat that came from the lamp infused Green with energy like he’d only felt on the warmest of summer days or at high noon in the desert. Being reflective in nature, he needed generated light not only to be seen but also for fuel. Either they were being extra nice before shipping him off to prison, or the facility was far enough away that Green needed the extra power to get there. He figured it wasn’t the former.
The guards shoved him into the light path, and he felt a push toward the mirror; only his restraints kept him in place. One of them pressed a button on the wall, and a hole the width of the room opened in the ceiling. The other guard clicked a button on a remote he held, releasing the restraints, and just like that John Doe bounced off the mirror and was rushing skyward at the speed of light.
A mile above the court building, a floating mirror redirected him. His new trajectory was nearly horizontal, and he was now on his way north. Green wasn’t sure how he knew the direction, but of it he was certain.
A hundred miles beyond the sky mirror, another one angled him slightly downward. Green sensed he was not headed for the ground, and he realized his trajectory needed adjustment due to the curvature of the Earth; no downward adjustment and he’d fly into the atmosphere only to come down who knew where. In addition to the new mirror, a powerful light provided him a boost of power. Just how far was he going, anyway?
Green went through mirror after mirror, and before he had time to further reflect on his situation he was over the Arctic. The massive amount of pure White light that glinted off the snow struck him with awe, which in turn confused him. He possessed only four months of memories – beginning shortly after the crimes for which he’d been convicted – but he had a distinct feeling he’d always been a loner, or at least someone who valued his autonomy.
So why did the White light fill him with wonder? White was the fusion of seven different colors, each sacrificing its individual identity for a unified existence. Green did not want other colors taking him over, and he couldn’t imagine a Red or Indigo wanting to be tinged. Yet White light not only existed but permeated nearly every landscape he’d seen, none more so than the ground Green currently flew over. How could so many beings want to join? A thought struck Green. Perhaps White was a natural state that needed to be escaped from. Maybe every non-White color he’d ever seen had figured out how to break free from the bondage. Green smiled inside; that included him.
Pretty soon the lights disappeared and the mirrors began to redirect him down at greater angles. He slowed naturally, and Green figured he was approaching the prison, a supposition confirmed when he went straight down and entered the snowy ground through a hole roughly the size of the one he’d left the courthouse through. Instead of landing in a room, however, he went further and further into the Earth down a mirrored tube. He finally did emerge into a space, but it was shrouded in darkness. New restraints clamped down on him and held him even tighter than the first ones had.
He heard snickers, and then a spotlight illuminated the room. Three guards stood before him. They were massive, they were Ultraviolet, and they didn’t look nice.
“Welcome to hell,” said the one in the middle. John Doe Green had no doubt that hell was exactly where he had landed.
