“Okay, two pair coveralls, black—sorta, tall medium. One pair boots, size nine. Four each socks and undergarments. One thermal coat, one thermal hat, one pair thermal over boots—all black. One pair gloves and one pair over gloves, thermal. Oh, and goggles, one set. There ya go, cowboy.”
The woman at the processing room was oddly cheerful, John thought, for someone whose job was to send people on from jail further into the prison system. Maybe she had the satisfaction of cutting people loose to go back to their lives, too. He stared at the clothing.
“Is it cold, where I’m going?” He gestured at the thick pile.
“Heavens yes, young man. Don’t you know? Palmer Resource Facility is what it says here. Hmm, yes, that’s slap in the coldest place that there is, Antarctica.”
“I’ve heard the name. South end of the world, I guess. But doesn’t it get warmer as you go farther south?”
“Honey, you go that far south, you at the other end!”
“Oh. Think it’ll be okay?”
“Look, young man. It’s ugly, that’s why it’s punishment. Nobody says ‘oh, this is a nice prison you got here’, right? I know you’re having some of the worst days of your life right now, maybe. But you’ll get used to it and learn to get along. When the judge gave you your time, for you it was like getting punched so hard. For him it was just another case to decide before his next break time. It’s big to you, but it’s just another day on the job for us in the system. And now you gonna be in the system, too.”
“Alright, best of luck to you. Anybody else out there? I’m goin’ on break, Ramon.”
John was led out, arms full with his bag of clothing, and an unmarked van carried him north along with another prisoner, a man who stared silently at the floor. He slept for a few minutes and awakened when the van stopped to pass through the gates into the White Sands Federal Reserve.
Soon enough the van stopped at a warehouse where the two prisoners were unloaded. They walked into a side door that faced toward a broad airfield, dry and dusty with the mountains rising not too far to the east. The building was mostly empty, just a large concrete-floored room with dust bunnies along the wall and a random-seeming assortment of trash scattered around—broken pallets, empty bottles, scraps of cardboard. Several dozen other men in convict’s clothing were already there, lying on the floor, propped against the walls, or pacing restlessly.
“Where ya from, kid?”
“El Paso.”
“Oh, just down the road. Why you here?”
“Manslaughter, they say.”
“Well, that’s a good one. You must have pissed off the judge somehow, getting Palmer for manslaughter.”
“Don’t know, maybe. Is it bad?”
“Viking’s idea of hell. Snow, ice, freeze to death in an hour outside. We won’t really see it though. Underground we’ll go, straight to the mines. No sunlight there. Be the last stop for us, I imagine. Don’t see us getting out of there. Be breakin’ rock ‘til we’re dead.”
“Or your sentence is up, right?”
“Think they’ll let you go then? To go where and do what? They’ll just find something else to keep you for. Is easier and cheaper to keep their livestock in the system than to bring in new ones they have to chase down. One way trip, I’m guessing.”
“How would you know, first of all? And second, you sound like a quitter.”
“Oooh, a quitter. Haven’t been called that in a while. See ya down there sometime, boy. We’ll see about the ‘quitter’ thing, huh?”
Most of the men stayed to themselves, scattered along the walls. Eventually John found a spot to pillow himself on his clothing bag and fell asleep as well.
They were all awakened in the morning by a crew that came in and set up tables, then passed out weak coffee and some bread. Paperwork folders were passed through and processed, issued clothing was checked, and finally each man was given an injection.
“What’s this for?”
“So you’ll sleep on the flight, it’ll be a long one. Better go potty now so you don’t wake up with wet britches.”
At the door of the building, the men were handcuffed and a cable was run through their cuffs to connect them in a staggered line. They walked more or less clumsily, carrying their clothing bags in front of them so that the bags keep bumping into their legs as they walked. They were led out in a wobbly line formation to the rear ramp of an aircraft. The blast of heat and stink of fuel as they passed behind the engines startled John. He’d always visualized the airplanes he saw in the sky as being clean and cold and pure. Is it better that it’s a stinky machine that I could maybe understand or better if it’s some mysterious device of another world? Considering this question, he carefully stepped up onto the ramp and into the aircraft. Behind him, someone paying less attention tripped on the ramp and dragged three other convicts over when he fell down. The matter was sorted out with a lot of cursing and grumbling and awkward floundering around with everyone’s hands cuffed.
John halfway recognized that he was dwelling on nonsensical thoughts to keep his mind occupied and distracted from the fact that he would be going up into the air in a few minutes to travel to the other end of the world and probably die there someday. Something about the reality of it all settled into his mind as he stood on the metal deck of the plane, feeling the vibration of the engines.
He looked around—large welded wire end walls in the cargo bay, bare metal floor, ceiling covered with some drab quilted material that covered much of the walls as well. Other areas had mounted equipment and metal lines of mysterious purpose, with a number of stickers and decals showing printed warnings and instructions. A crewman passed among the passengers, removing their handcuffs as another crewman gave them each a belt with a long strap and a clasp on it. He didn’t speak, but mimed putting on the belt, then clipping the clasp into one of the tiedown rings that were in rows on the deck.
The rear ramp closed behind them with a heavy thump and the doors in the cage walls were locked. The transportees settled themselves in, some clipping in, others ignoring the precaution and sprawling on their clothing bundles. “This is to keep you from sliding around if something happens in the air,” an unseen man said.
“What could happen in the air?” someone asked what many were thinking.
“Turbulence—winds and disruption in the air outside the plane. We’ll be flying over mountains and oceans, no telling what the weather will be.”
“Mountains and oceans? Geez, what makes us so special? We don’t got coal mines anywhere to put us in?”
“I’ll tell you what’s so special. Look around, we’re all big, strong, mostly young. Screened for fitness. The mines in Antarctica are for rare earth minerals. Systems can’t run without the batteries; the good batteries need special materials to make them. They’re not flying the average guy all the way to Antarctica to do this mining. Good side is they’ll probably take decent care of us. Bad news is, its probably a one-way deal.”
Another voice, as the engines begin roaring louder and the aircraft starts rolling along the pavement. “Maybe it’s okay. How bad can this place be? Where is it anyway?”
“You kidding?! It’s the coldest place in the world. Ever heard of the South Pole?”
“Okay, but it’s warmer down south, everybody knows that.”
“Look you go south from here—New Mexico—where are you?”
“Duh, Old Mexico. Where it’s warmer, just like I said.”
“Sure. And what’s south of Mexico?”
“Belize, Panama..like that, I guess.”
“Good, then what?”
“What is this, school? It’s like Columbia, Peru, I don’t know—Brazil. They’re all hot places, too.”
“Right, except in the mountains, but mostly hot. What’s south of there?”
“Well, I don’t know. Is there anything south of there?”
“It’s called the Southern Cone, the end of South America. Argentina, Chile, like that. If you go another five hundred miles south, you’re finally in Antarctica. It’s cold down there like it’s cold in Alaska or Siberia. Ice and snow, windy, some bare ground and mountains. Volcanoes, even.”
“Seen video of volcanoes, that would be fantastic to see!”
The airplane stopped rolling then, but the engines spun even louder and the craft trembled, then suddenly released, rolled away faster and faster, then lifted sharply into the air and flew at a steep angle as it climbed.
“Going the straightest way,” someone said. “It’s easy when passenger comfort doesn’t matter.”
Quickly enough, the novelty of being in a flying cage wore off, the drugs took effect, and John fell asleep along with the rest of the convicts.
He awoke hours later with a rusty mouth and a full bladder, with others waking up around him and some already moving about. After a bit he realized that the aircraft was descending and that his ears hurt.
“Swallow, guys,” someone nearby said. “Or yawn. That fixes your ears.”
“Are we there,” John asked of no one in particular.
“Last stop,” a guard said from the front side of the cage. “We’re in Chile, getting fuel and more cargo. Listen up, everyone, you’ve got time here to clean up, use the bathroom. We’re going to eat, refuel the plane, load some boxes—and yes, you’re going to help. Then we’ll finish the trip and get there a few hours after dark. Clear?”
There were loud mechanical noises outside the plane, from the wings and then from underneath, a feeling of slowing and settling, a heavy bump and they were rolling along the ground. After a few minutes they were stopped, and eventually the ramp dropped and they were allowed off in a disorderly file without handcuffs or other restraint. No one even seemed to be watching them.
[continues]
