Planet Redemption: Episode One - 2. Rude Awakening

It took Danni two days to come back from the dead.

He couldn’t remember when he first opened his eyes. When he did it was like gazing directly into the glare of an eclipse. His eyes stung so bad that he thought they were boiling out of his skull. He wanted to shield his eyes, but he couldn’t lift his arms. All he could do was close them and drift back into the safety of sleep.

The second time he woke up it was a little better but not by much. The sting wasn’t as bad and within a few seconds his eyes adjusted. His muscles still ached to the point where he was quite literally paralyzed, but he could move his eyes. He could see his bare feet, toes sticking out from beneath the hem of a white blanket. Slowly other details started to come back in: He could smell antiseptic and something that smelled distinctly of lemons. He was alone in a room. A white room. IVs snaked from his arm to a life monitor machine that kept track of his vitals.

After several more minutes other details began to kick in, not all of them through sensory means. He knew that the man in the next room was sick. And it wasn’t just a cold but a fever, a bad one at that. Memories began to reassert themselves, a sense of time and place. He remembered standing in the alley with the two men lying on the pavement at his feet like broken dolls. He remembered hearing the sirens and knowing that there wasn’t enough time to run. He remembered thinking, how did the cop cars get here so fast? How did they know where I was? He remembered how the two cops had bent him roughly over the hood of the cruiser and pinned his arms behind his back; the feeling of cold metal as they slapped the handcuffs around his wrists.

And he remembered the century that he had been in the CryoSleep chamber.

I know where I am. Planet Redemption. My prison, my new home.

For a moment he went back to sleep but it was just for a moment. When he opened his eyes, a dark-skinned woman was checking his IVs.

She smiled. “I am Dr. Natalia Patel. How are you feeling?”

Patel felt her heart give a painful jerk and constrict. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She’d read the file three times just to make sure she hadn’t gone completely bonkers and she still couldn’t fucking believe it!

Patel felt tempted to go check on Colony Twelve’s new resident inmate but there was no point. The boy was in bed asleep. He was recovering quickly, recovering quicker than most who came through - he had youth on his side. He was now able to make it to the bathroom on his own. Still, after a century of being in stasis his muscles were weak. Patel had seen it a million times. It would take another week for him to gain complete strength. Usually when Aethyx came and dropped off prisoners there were too many to fit in the clinic, so they would put the others in the main building.

In the time that he’d been here she’d taken the boy’s vitals and found out his name. His name was Danni and he was nineteen years old. When Patel asked what his last name was Danni had looked nervous and lapsed into a tight-lipped silence. He simply went back to his bed and went to sleep. Now Patel knew why he was reluctant to give his name. I knew there was something about this situation that I didn’t like. I could feel it. Aamodt. He’s Alexander Aamodt’s son. Jesus Christ on a cross. I didn’t even know he had a son. I have to tell Diana.

But she couldn’t leave the clinic unattended, not while there was a patient in her care. She could only think of the consequences if someone found out. If anyone was to know who the boy was, who he really was...nasty images flashed through Patel’s mind. Anything could happen. She’d been on this planet her whole life, from the very day that she was born. Patel had seen men and women being tortured in every way imaginable, raped to death.

There’s no way around it. I better tell Diana and I better tell her now.

The boy was asleep. Hopefully he wasn’t stupid enough to go anywhere on his own.

The antique computer chair Patel was sitting in groaned in relief as she heaved herself to her feet. She made a mental note to remind Diana to get some new chairs. For the millionth time. She grabbed her parka and pulled it on. She peeked on the sleeping Danni Aamodt just to make sure and stepped out reluctantly into the freezing cold. The snowmobile was parked several yards away from the clinic.

The only way to tell the buildings apart was from the black print scrolled on the front. They simply read DINER or PUB or DORMITORY #1. There were currently two hundred dormitories. The one-story dormitories had ten inmates to a building; the two stories had twenty, ten on each floor. No one was grouped together by certain crimes. Everyone was mixed in; just how it would be in general population. In Planet Redemption your past didn’t define you unless you let it. No one judged anyone else. On this planet there was no such thing as saints.

The warden’s building wasn’t any fancier than the other one-story buildings. Patel climbed out of the snowmobile and waded up the three metal steps that led into the building.

Diana’s office had a 1970’s motif going on, a style that was two centuries outdated. Wood paneled walls, vintage posters of rock bands that were by now nothing but dust particles: Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, and a disco made from paper-mache. Patel’s partner was leaned back all comfy in a computer chair slightly less rough looking than her own chair back at the clinic. Diana’s brown cowboy boots were set on top of the wooden table top. Her John Wayne cowboy hat was placed squarely on top of her head. Her face was hidden in the tattered remains of a paperback novel. She was so engrossed in her book that she hadn’t noticed Patel’s presence.

Normally Patel would have gone over and kissed Diana on the cheek, given her some sugar, but this was a serious situation, very serious. Instead she cleared her throat.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the clinic until Chester comes and relieves you?” Diana asked with a teasing smile. She looked up and met Diana’s gaze. Her smile died. They had been together for the last fifteen years; Diana knew Patel well enough to know when something was wrong.

“I wouldn’t have left the clinic if it wasn’t for the fact that we have a huge fucking problem.”

“I need a cigarette.”

That was what Diana said after Natalia filled her in on everything she knew about their new arrival. She hadn’t smoked in three months. The smell of nicotine had just started to fade away from the building. She was starting to build a bad smoker’s cough. She’d been smoking for decades and Aethyx had yet to find a cure for cancer, which was funny when you stopped to think about it. You would think they would learn how to stop cancer first and then work on finding a way to live forever. Humanity had long since proven that they had their priorities ass backwards.

Natalia didn’t scold her even though Diana wished that she would. Natalia was the only one who could talk her into doing something - or out of doing something. Natalia was her heart, her moral compass on an amoral planet. There was no one else on this planet that she could think of spending her life with. No one.

She opened the drawers of her desk with shaking fingers; she craved the taste of nicotine so badly that her mouth was burning. Pencils, pens, paper clips, and God knows what else fell onto the floor in the wake of her haste. Somewhere in the back of her mind she made a plan to organize her desk for the thousandth time. When it came to anything outside of colony politics she was a procrastinator. She found an old silver tin, snatched it up and pried off the top. Ha! Sitting there were three neatly rolled cigarettes. She found a box of matches and pulled one out. The sound of the flame popping into life as she scraped the red tip of the match across the box was music to her ears. She took a drag and inhaled the smoke.

To her surprise it was like the first time she smoked when she was just nine years old. She remembered that it was her father that had lit it for her while her mother silently admonished him while his back was turned - Diana’s mother never would have shown such courage if Diana’s father was looking. The taste of nicotine, of tar, of all the things that went into making the tobacco had burned her throat; the taste so overpowering that she was sure she would throw up. That was how it tasted now. She bent over the table, hacking and coughing, trying to recall how she had ever gotten used to the taste.

Natalia just sat across from her and watched silently waiting for Diana to get over her initial shock and do what she did best: take control of the situation, find the best solution for keeping the peace. Diana finished the first cigarette and started on the second. She did her best not to blow the smoke in Natalia’s face. While Diana was a smoker Natalia was not. Their silence would have made anyone else feel uncomfortable but for them it was the virtue of companionship and unfaltering love and devotion. Not so many people were lucky on this planet. Very few people were together because they actually loved each other. Many people, to put it in layman’s terms, were someone else’s bitch. Most of the times it was for protection and other times it was purely nonconsensual.

“I’ve been warden for almost a century now. There hasn’t been a riot...fuck, since my father was warden. He was almost done with his term when he decided to eat a bullet one day. What the reason was I don’t know, neither did my mother for that matter.” Diana spoke as if she were telling the story for the first time. She shook her head. “Personally, I just think it was because he was a drunk. After decades of drinking the hard stuff his brain was probably nonexistent. When I was voted in to take his place I promised myself two things: that I wouldn’t eat a bullet like he did and that in my term there wouldn’t an uproar by God. And so far, I’ve made sure of it. To do that I’ve had to look the other way and let a lot of things go, let certain things unfold as they may. I can’t imagine what they would do to the boy if anyone found out that we have Alexander Aamodt’s son.”

She sighed, stood up, snuffed the cigarette out in the ashtray. She felt more calm, more in control. She felt like herself. “How is he recovering from his journey?”

“Quicker than most. He’s already making trips to the bathroom. What are you thinking?”

“Usually I would wait a couple of more days so that our newcomers can rest but I’m going to talk to him now. We can’t afford to wait.”

Diana pulled on her parka and gloves and followed Natalia out to the snowmobile. On the ride back to the clinic they held hands. They’d been together for fifty years during a time where the average lifetime was ten or twelve years. Lately things between them had been different. Once upon a time the silence that had filled the space between them had been companionable. They did not need to show their love and devotion to one another through constant conversation. Lately that silence had been awkward, deafening. Though they were merely inches apart from one another they might as well have been galaxies away.

“He should be sleeping,” Natalia said as she stepped into Danni’s room. She stopped so suddenly that Diana almost walked right into her.

Danni Aamodt was not in his bed.

Danni waited until he was sure the doctor was gone before swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His body was still weak, but he was sure that it was strong enough that he could get out of here. He couldn’t stay in this room any longer, breathing in air that smelled of antibacterial disinfectant and looking at the sterile white walls. He had been a prisoner his whole life, a guinea pig. He couldn’t do it any longer. He wouldn’t do it any longer.

The floor underneath Danni's feet was cold. There was a cramp in his leg. It was as if his body was against him, trying to keep him in bed. But there was only one word on his mind: escape. I'm done living in a prison, he thought. If he was going to make his escape it would have to be now, before the doctor got back.

There were a set of cabinets underneath the sink. He went over to them and pulled them open. For a moment he cocked his head and listened, making sure that he was alone. In the cabinet he found a pile of garments. He pulled them out and held them up: a flannel shirt, pants, a parka, and a black pair of snow boots. They were all sizes too big. Maybe I can find something to help keep them up.

He rummaged through the drawers and found boxes of gloves, sterile pads, and finally zip ties. He dressed quickly and fastened two zip ties through the belt loops of his pants. Once he was fully dressed he went over to the door and peeked around the corner. Again, he listened for the sound of the doctor. There was no one. He was alone. He darted down the hallway, his boots making a loud clomping noise. The boots really were too big for him.

In his view was a large desk which a nurse might sit at. Just past that was a door. Above the door was the unmistakable glow of a red EXIT sign. He made a run for it. He had just made it to the desk when he heard the sound of two voices. Female voices. He dropped to the floor and ducked underneath the desk, his heart thundering in his chest. Two women were walking down the hallway. One of them was the doctor Patel, the other was a woman he didn't recognize. She wore a flannel shirt not all that different from the one he was wearing underneath of a brown parka, faded blue jeans, and cowboy boots. She held a brown cowboy hat in her hand that made Danni think of John Wayne.

They stopped at the door of Danni's room and hHe heard Patel cry, "He's not here!"

The other woman looked just as shocked and disappeared into the room. "Where is he?"

"I don't know."

"Call Mike and Ruiz! Tell them to search the whole colony!"

Danni felt the all too familiar sensation of panic. He had been in this situation before. There was no greater fear than that of being captured like an animal that was to be put back in a cage. It obliterated all sense of reason and caution. Now all he wanted to do was run, get as far away from this place as he could. He darted out from underneath the desk and burst through the exit door into the cold.

"Hey!" he heard one of the women scream after him followed by the sound of running feet.

The sudden shock of the chill closed around him, pressing against his skin. Already his muscles were screaming in pain. Danni was exhausted, and he wanted to stop. His lungs made raspy sounds that sounded like spinning rusty bicycle pedals. I can't stop, he thought. They'll just take me back like Father did. They won't let me leave. He ran towards a cropping of buildings, not really sure where he was going. Running through the snow in boots that were too big for him was how he imagined trying to run through a swamp would be. The very ground seemed to be sucking at his feet, trying to keep him in place.

His legs betrayed him by giving out. He fell to his knees. He fought to suck in the air. His lungs burned, his head spun. He wanted to point his head up at the sky and scream. He could see it now, the sky. On Earth there had been one sun. He remembered the first time he'd seen the sky, the sun, the first time he'd breathed in fresh air and felt the wind on his face. How alien it had been. How overwhelmingly beautiful. This planet had two suns. But from what he could see there were no trees or vegetation, no soil. It was all cold, and barren, and white. Vast and ugly. It's just a bigger cage, he thought. It's still better than that room they had me in.

"Stop!" The woman in the cowboy boots had caught up to him. Now she stood before him, panting. She stared at him, face bent over her knees. He sensed that she was not mad that he had tried to escape. Only curious. Her eyes were dark blue, her hair brown.

"I'm not going back to that room," he said, getting to his feet. "Kill me if you want, I don't care. I'd rather die than be your prisoner."

And he meant it.

"We're all prisoners on this planet." The woman spread her arms and gestured around her. "This whole planet is our cell. But within this cell we are free. I won't take you back to the clinic if you don't want to. But there are things that you must know, things that we have to discuss."

"Who are you?" Danni asked.

"Diana. I'm the warden of this colony."

"You meant what you said about not taking me back to the clinic?"

"I meant it."

"I want your word." Danni didn't know how good this woman's word was. People had given him their word before and gone back on it. Who knew why she was on this planet, what she had done to get here, if she had done anything at all. Still, it seemed like the right thing to say.

The woman studied him for a moment. She placed her hat on her head. Then without looking away, she said, "You have my word."

"A majority of the inmates on this colony as well as the other twelve colonies were born on this planet," Diana said. She was sitting at her desk across from Danni. Patel had gone back to the clinic. "We get a shipment of new prisoners every two centuries. That's why when the prisoner transport brought you, and only you, we were surprised. Since this planet was colonized this has not happened - not once."

Danni said nothing. He didn't know what to say to this woman - and furthermore he did not trust her. Nor did he trust Patel. So he remained quiet, waiting, watching intently.

"There are two thousand colonists in Colony Twelve," Diana continued. "We are the smallest colony. If I had to guess I would say that there are somewhere between ninety to some hundred-and-ten-thousand colonists on the planet. In this colony we do not care about your past conviction. You have been exiled to this planet and that is punishment enough. We try to make life as normal as we can around here. But as you can see our planet is not as, shall we say, green as what you might be accustomed to..."

Again, Danni said nothing. You have no idea what I'm used to, he thought. The planet was as white and bland as the facility that he'd grown up in.

"...it’s always cold on this planet. We do not have seasons. We have one singular season and that is winter. Because of this, for people who are shipped to this planet, the first few months to a year can be very hard. In fact, to be frank, a lot of our newcomers tend to commit suicide. That is why you will be assigned a psychologist."

"A psychologist?" Danni asked.

Diana nodded. "A counselor. Someone you can talk to in confidence."

"I'm not insane."

"I didn't say that you were. It's just someone you can tell about how you are feeling on a regular basis. And everything you tell them is confidential, meaning what you say in the office stays in the office."

Danni had heard several different modifications of that saying. What is said in Vegas stays in Vegas, This stays between you and me. It was in the same category as I promise, or I give you my word.

"You will be given a standard sized dormitory. Every single person has a standard sized dormitory unless you are a parent with children, are married or have a partner. If you so choose you can room with someone and share a larger living space or use credit from your occupation to own a bigger living space."

"What is an occupation?"

"An occupation is another word for a job. Everyone old enough to work has one. Your occupation is how you will pay for your food or any leisure activities you might want to partake in. For instance, we have two steam rooms, one is for men, the other for women. We have a pub where you can get a beverage, have a meal." Diana smiled briefly. "Every fifth day of the week we have Karaoke. There is not a person in this colony that doesn't like Karaoke.

Back to the subject of occupations: There are several different things that you can do. You can work at the processing center which is where we grow our vegetables and raise our livestock. The processing center is where a majority of our colonists work. You can work at the pub as a bartender, or a waiter, or a cook. I worked there when I was just a teenager and I loved it. But I just so happen to be a people person. Or you can work at the clinic. That is Natalia's department. It all depends on what you can do. Tell me Danni, do you have any special qualifications? Have you ever had a job before?"

Danni simply shook his head, once to the right, once to the left.

The door to the warden's office opened and two large men came in. They were dressed in parkas, their hoods pulled up, and snow boots. One of them wore a tattered baseball cap.

"This is Sheriff Mike Meize and Deputy Duke Ruiz. They help me keep the law and order around here."

"How's it going?" The one named Meize, wearing the baseball cap, winked at Danni. Though he was smiling, and he looked friendly Danni instantly didn't like him. The smile on his face made Danni think of the Big Bad Wolf from The Little Red Riding Hood. Alexander had read it to Danni all the time when Danni was a little kid. It had been Danni's favorite bedtime story growing up. It had both fascinated and terrified him. The moment he looked at Meize a cold shiver went down his spine.

Danni merely nodded at him.

The other man named Duke was looking at him with a funny expression on his face. Danni couldn't quite make out what it was. He tried to open his mind up, searching for signs of Ruiz's emotions, anything, but came across nothing. Ruiz's thoughts were somewhere else, in a place that Danni could not access. It was like trying to crawl through a dark tunnel. But Ruiz did not worry Danni like Meize did. Meize frightened him.

"Would you two mind taking him to his dormitory?"

"It would be our pleasure." Meize was still smiling at Danni. "The snowmobile is right outside."

"Duke," Diana said, "I want to talk to you in private for a second."

Danni reluctantly followed Meize outside where the snowmobile was just in sight. As they began to walk towards it Meize turned to him and said, "So, kid, what'd you do to get sent here?"

Don't tell him anything, something inside of Danni said.

So he said nothing.

Diana peeked out the blinds and waited until that she was sure Danni and Meize had climbed into the snowmobile. She turned to face Ruiz and summoned all of the business-like intent that she could muster. She crossed her arms, her expression showing that she was all business.

"I want you to keep an eye on our new inmate," Diana said. "I want you to make sure that his transition here is smooth and that no one gives him any trouble."

"Okay," Ruiz said. He was frowning, confused. She could hear the wheels in his head turning. He wanted to ask but she knew that he wouldn't. She liked that about Ruiz. He respected authority.

Diana herself was confused. She was a woman who prided herself on having a clear head, on having a solution for every problem. But this was different. They had Alexander Aamodt's son for fuck's sake. And she didn't know what to make of the kid. There was something strange about him and she couldn't put her finger on what it was.

"I especially want you to watch him around Mike. We both know about his history."

"History?" Ruiz's dark skin had grown a shade or two lighter.

"Yes, history." She thought of Benjamin, the boy that had gone missing almost a year ago. He had disappeared without a trace, never to be found. She'd had a hunch that Mike was involved. And Ruiz. But it was Mike that had run the show. Ruiz had simply been his unwilling accomplice blackmailed into doing Mike's bidding. Knowing that didn't freeze her blood any less. This whole time Diana had kept quiet about her suspicions. There were certain things you had to sweep under the rug if you wanted to keep the peace and that was her main priority above all things. And it was best not to make accusations when you didn't have proof; this was something that her father had taught her. And we never found Benjamin's body - and probably never will.

She decided to let it out, what she knew. It had been bothering her for the past few months anyway-trying not to imagine the horrible things that Mike and Ruiz had done to Benjamin. "I know about Benjamin - or at least I have a suspicion. Mike has always been a violent man. So was his father and his father before him. It runs in the Meize bloodline. I know what you did to Benjamin you didn't want to do - you did it to protect your family."

Ruiz looked down at her feet. He didn't look up, couldn't look up. She knew right then and there that he wanted to die for what he had done. She could see it on his face. Part of her pitied him and loved him. The other part of her was disgusted and infuriated. And yet you as warden did nothing to punish Mike for what he did. Why is that?

Because as animalistic and sociopathic as Meize was he was big enough and mean enough to enforce law and order - what laws he didn't break. People didn't fuck with him. People did what he said, and people followed the laws that Diana laid out. Or at least broke them and then cleaned up the mess without anyone knowing about it. And Diana for her part was good at looking the other way. If the evidence wasn't staring her in the face, then she didn't know about it. It was another trick that she had learned from her father.

"Are you going to punish me?" Ruiz asked.

"Are you confessing that you helped Mike kill Benjamin? That you and Mike raped him to death and then threw his body out in the snow like a piece of trash?" She didn't realize how furious she was until she heard her own voice. She wasn't shouting. In fact, her voice hadn't risen at all. But her eyes bore into his and she felt cold inside. Cold. It scared her.

Ruiz said nothing. His silence and the shame etched into his broad face was confession enough.

"I could have you thrown in the brig until you starve to death," she said. "I could have you killed, have you thrown out in the snow the way Benjamin was. But I won't. Because I like you Ruiz, Mike not so much. If he wasn't so useful I would have him killed in an instant. Be glad that I like you Ruiz. Watch over Danni. Guide him. Make friends with him. Show him that not all of us on this God forsaken planet are animals. And then, maybe then, you can start to atone for what you and Mike did to Benjamin by making sure that it doesn't happen again."

Danni's new living quarters were slightly bigger than the glass cage back at the facility of Earth. The living room and kitchen were all one large space and a doorway led into the bathroom which had a toilet and shower. After a long, exhausting day he thought that he would have been in bed. His muscles were sore, his body felt worn. But his mind churned ceaselessly. He was on another planet, in a new century. His surroundings were as strange and alien as he was. As he'd been transported to the Redemption 5S77 he'd thought to himself, I'll finally be free. I won't be a caged lab experiment any longer. But he'd thought wrong. This planet was just a different kind of cage.

He stood in front of the window, looking through the frost-covered glass. The dorm was dark all around him. The only light that was visible came from outside, painting his skin a ghostly shade of white. He could hear the wind moan. Though the planet was stark and barren of all but trees, on this night the planet itself seemed alive. He reached out and touched the cold glass. Beyond it an unfamiliar world beckoned to him for exploration. What was out there to explore? There were eleven other colonies scattered all over the planet. Did they all look like this one? Was there anyone else on this planet who was unable to sleep like him?

Twice now he'd tried to close his eyes and will himself to sleep...but it wasn't working. He kept thinking of Earth and he didn't know why. There was absolutely nothing on Earth that he missed. Except maybe Juan, the guard on third shift. He didn't miss the other staff and he certainly didn't miss his father. He didn't miss the strict regimen they had him on: the monthly physicals, the runs on the treadmill two hours a day, the bland food, the constant poking and prodding; being studied like some newly discovered species of insect.

Once, not so long ago, he'd loved his father. Loved him as a son should. But his father had forsaken him on this planet. Whatever love he'd felt for Alexander Aamodt was gone as if it had never been there at all. It wasn't so with Juan. His heart ached for Juan. To feel the soft touch of his lips, the smell of his cologne, to look into those chocolate brown eyes. It was Juan who had given him his first kiss; it was Juan who had taken his virginity; it was Juan who whispered, I love you. It was Juan who helped Danni escape. In fact, right before the guards had caught him, Danni had been on his way to meet Juan. They would meet and run to Puerto Rico where his father wouldn't be able to reach him. But Danni had gotten caught and Juan was in jail for his discretions and it was all Danni's fault. Danni's eyes began to sting with tears. Juan had been the only man to treat him like a human being. He'd never once made Danni feel like a freak.

But now he had no choice but to let Juan go. Juan was on planet Earth, far beyond Danni's reach. A hundred years had passed. Juan was probably out of prison by now, doing his best to forget about Danni and move on. If so, Danni didn't hold it against him. Danni turned away from the window and crawled back under the covers. He rolled over and faced the wall. He closed his eyes and imagined that Juan was lying next to him. He imagined that he could feel Juan's hand on the small of his back, feel his cock inside of him. He imagined that he could hear him whispering, "I love you, Danni. You shouldn't be trapped in this cage like a wild animal."

Finally, after several minutes, Danni drifted off to sleep.