this world will break your heart

Part 1: Garbage City - Chapter 1

I don't like to talk about what happens behind those doors. Once they close, you have no idea what to expect. It goes without saying that everything you may know about the prison system is wrong. There are no religious conversions, workshops, or illicit relationships between convicts and guards. Instead, there's just a cube. Just big enough for me—adjusted to fit my size, with little room to move around and scientifically designed to be the minimum humans need.

Before they ushered me into my cube, I was snipped. Three times to be exact. I was guided into a room where only robot arms extended from the walls. I saw the court-appointed surgeons who were assigned to me. Dazed, I picked up only parts of the conversation but I knew that I would leave that room less whole than I had entered it. Locked to the bed, I was fitted with a metal headband. It didn't feel like anything and could pass as a fashion accessory to increase brainwaves. The intent was to remove, not to augment. The doctors quickly retreated to the safety of the next room as the robot arms sprang to life, reaching for me. When the blackness faded, I was myself again but something was different. I felt the prickles of the careless razor burn in the place where the neck becomes head. There were two other incisions on my lower abdomen that I only noticed later. They had nothing to do with removing the diseased part of my brain that kept me angry and everything to do with making sure my tainted DNA wouldn't be passed down to future generations of #ERRORS.

Inside the cube is a cot, a toilet, and a suicide shelf. Every day the lights go on randomly. They go off the same way. You stick your arm through a hole in the wall and are fed nutrients intravenously. It's only you and you and more you. There is no time. There is no routine. There are just four walls and silence. So much silence that you may wander over to the suicide shelf and see what's there. So many things you can make or items you can misuse to abuse yourself. Because that's what it's really like. On the ceiling is a harness that you can slip a belt or a rope into. The interior walls of the cubes are mirrored. For some people, coming face to face with themselves is punishment enough. I would find myself over at that shelf at least ten times a day. Have a conversation with a dull blade or a debate with a man I made out of rope. I tried running into those mirrors in the hope I would knock myself out, but I always slowed down at the last minute. I was such a coward. When I was on the outside, interacting with others, I was so fucking bold. But when it was just me, 360 degrees worth on all sides, I was ordinary and tedious. Too boring to live. Too weak to die.

There could have been five other people in this prison, 500, or even 5,000. I had no idea. I couldn't hear anyone in the next cube. I banged on the side once but only felt the insides shake back at me. I screamed but only my own voice came bouncing back off those mirrors to slap me in the face.

When they grabbed my arm and put that note in my hand, it was like I was rescued. I devoured the information about the EXCON program like it was one of those leather-bound paper holders from old projections. It didn't explain much but it was just enough to turn the switch in my brain from "exist" to "live". I didn't know if anyone would ever come back, or if the note was real, or if it was a joke the people in charge used to fuck with us. I didn't care because it was a crack, just a tiny moment to break up the nothing from the nothing. I memorized every word in that note. I whispered them to myself when I was lonely and read them backward when I was bored. I taught myself to play games with the words and wondered if when I read them in a specific order a secret code would emerge. But there was no code; just instructions in steps, legal language that I barely understood, and information about liability.

When they finally came back and asked me if I was interested, I shrugged and said why not. Because even under the most extreme circumstances, being cool and distant are essential to survival. But inside, I was begging. Please! Please pick me!

I don't know how long it was before I had an answer. But I was eventually lead into a room and stood in front of a plasma wall where I was asked to answer some questions, probably over a hundred. It was described as an evaluation with random statements that I routinely answered as d) all of the above, or e) none of the above.

Based on my responses (d, e, d, e), it was determined that I was a suitable candidate for EXCON. Strangely, it wasn't called EXCON because prisoners would get X number of years deducted from their sentences if they chose to accept experiment technology into their lives. I knew those letters actually stood for something but never bother to inquire. Because again, cool and distant are more important than anything else.

At my first meeting with Dr. Wei, I am handed a list, a chart with two columns. Column A is the implant. Column B houses the amount of years that would be knocked off my stay. So, adding an extra digit to replace one amputated would cut down your time by 5 weeks and any internal metabolizer, 6 months. This is all baby stuff as far as I am concerned. I apply the principles of need it, need it, got it, got it, to the items on the list, except that in my case it's more like got it, got it, got it. Clearly, most people in here are a lot more selective with the shit they allow under their flesh surfaces.

I flip through about 10 pages of carefully categorized items. There isn't anything that catches my eye. Sure, government-grade implants would be of better quality than the stuff Sonny and I had been hawking or the knockoffs that were quickly rotting inside me. But they wouldn't be fun. They would be fun-ctional. They wouldn't have the sleek lines of a Neufchatel original or emit that turquoise glow. The ones that announced to the world that your enhancements were better—read: more expensive—than anything they could ever imagine owning.

Dr. Wei seems a little disappointed when I slam down the list in front of her.

"There's nothing to be scared of. I mean, a lot of people have found that..."

"What else have you got?" I ask, eyebrow raised.

"Well, these are standards..."

"Doctor, if you had read my file, and not just glanced over your test, you would know that I'm practically a bot. What else do you have? Something that's not on the list and can knock a whole lot of time off my stay."

She stands up, clearly wondering if I am lying, crazy, or just curious (d) all of the above. She takes a key from her desk drawer and unlocks a thermasafe behind her. There is dry ice and she uses tongs to extract whatever emerges. But there it is—lying in her gloved palm. Four chambers, each pumping liquid. Moving like a miniature symphony. So perfect but so dangerous.

"How does it work?" I ask.

"Clark's third law: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

And we both watch this little heart in silence.

"If we remove your heart and replace it with this one, you can walk out of here once the transplant is complete."

"What are the risks?"

"Lots. We've never tested it outside...on a real person. It could shut down, leak, and burst open. And there aren't a lot of people who could fix you."

"But I would be free."

"Well, you would be on a work-release—sent to a facility..."

"Would it be self-catering?"

"Yes. You would be chipped, obviously."

Obviously. There is always a catch.

I turn my attention back to the heart—my heart—beating and churning as everything else fades into the background.

"Yes," I barely say.

Dr. Wei is still and surprised. Waivers, pamphlets, and paperwork are handed over; even a little bracelet in case I am ever found unconscious. I know I will never wear this bracelet. But I won't tell them. Not today. Not Ever.

We schedule the surgery for the following Monday. And if everything goes well, I will be out in a month.

I lean over my future power source and whisper, "I'll see you later."

Back in my cube, I tear up the paperwork. Even once I am out of here, long gone, I don't want anyone else to ever discover the conditions of my extreme release. When they hose down the cube, I don't want some nosy cleaner to know what is inside me. It can make me a target, vulnerable all over again. This will be my secret. A secret shared by myself, the government, Dr. Wei, her team of specialists, and the registrar at the EXCON program. Change the implants, change your life.