NTBPWE Chapter 11 - In which Jacob formulates a plan

In the future there will be robots and a hologram called Jacob who doesn't know he is a hologram until he is falsely arrested. In prison, he meets Alona, a sexbot who has broken her programming and now fights for women's rights and Neville, who is a bit w

Jeff, the hulking robot with a police uniform painted onto his casing, escorted Jacob, Alona and the crazed prisoner called Neville back to their cells. His partner followed close behind.

 

Are those two joined at the hip? Not that they have hips. Oh, why don’t any old sayings make sense anymore? They’re becoming as outdated as....

 

Jacob gave up on trying to think of something witty by the time they reached Neville’s cell. The little crimson man had a padded room all to himself, positioned between the female locker room and the entrance to another cell block from which drifted the strange but unmistakable chords of circus music. Apart from wondering why anyone would be playing such music in a prison, Jacob guessed by the way that Neville hummed along that it helped keep him calm.

 

He couldn’t find a reason why they would put a dangerous prisoner next door to the female officers’ changing room though.

 

Then he read a sign on the wall by the entrance to the changing room that gave him his answer. Under a cartoon picture of a prisoner chasing a female guard - who was human despite her exaggerated proportions - it read:

 

‘Warden 010011011010010010100100110 likes efficiency  so here is a friendly reminder to hurry up and change or the          convicted psychopath will get you.’

 

“Hello!”

 

A female officer exited the locker room and Alona, pleased to see another woman, called out to her. The guard wasn’t pleased to see Neville out and about. She shrieked and ran down the corridor, most likely happy to have somewhere else to be.

 

After the robot guards put Neville in his cell - a process that involved three keycards, a PIN number, ten shackles and a strawberry lollipop - they indicated that they would travel to Alona’s cell next.

 

Pushed and prodded for the pure jape of it, Jacob hopped and jumped towards the block with the circus music.

 

The metal doors whooshed open, allowing the full percussive force of the music to thud into Jacob. It was not that which made him jump though. The floor inside this block was covered in a thick layer of straw, a sharp contrast to the shiny surface behind him. Each cell in this block had been decorated to look like a brightly coloured animal cage and between each of them stood a fairground attraction of some sort. Jacob gawped at a Test Your Strength machine, a coconut shy and farther down the aisle lay a Hook-a-Duck stand.

 

“What’s going on here?”

 

“This is the circus block,” Jeff replied, leading them through.

 

“This is absurd.”

 

“I think it’s fun,” Alona said, dazzled by the lights. She had probably never seen a circus before so the sheer lunacy of it was lost on her. She only saw pretty lights and bright colours.

 

I guess it’s not so bad.

 

“It keeps the population calm,” one of the guards said. “Shame really. Gets boring then.”

 

Jacob wasn’t paying attention to which one spoke, because he stared into the cells as the group walked by, looking at the prisoners within. He counted more than a dozen occupants either beating their heads against the wall or lying in a catatonic state, probably due to the endless repeating of the circus tune.

 

Maybe it is that bad...

 

Then it occurred to Jacob that his block must have a theme too. Probably a caveman theme judging by the concrete slab he had to use as a bed.

 

“What theme does your cell have?” he asked Alona.

 

She tore her gaze from the hanging string of bright yellow rubber ducks ahead to look at him. “Oh mine is beautiful. It’s full of stars, like the night sky, and I gaze at them all day.”

 

“You sound happy to be here,” Jacob said, passing on the other side of the Hook-a-Duck stand and ignoring the cries of a guard dressed as a robot carny inside.

 

“I’m sure there are other nice places, but I like the stars.”

 

Alona was right about one thing; her cell block was pretty. The lights on the ceiling glittered just like a night sky and everywhere else had been coloured the deepest black. There persisted a sense of walking in a vast space. Music, like the kind played over planetarium light shows or educational documentaries about space tinkled softly in the background, but it seemed far less annoying than the circus tune. Occasionally, a polystyrene rock painted to look like an asteroid or a toy spacecraft zoomed past them, along the wall, with a mechanised whoosh.

 

“I wonder why you get this theme and I get stuck in the Stone Age.”

 

Jeff suddenly piped up. “Each prisoner is housed to perpetuate their calm. Personality tests confirmed that Jacob Kelly defines his existence through misery and suffering, so he was assigned to a living space which did not unnecessarily upset his beliefs.”

 

Surprisingly, this news upset Jacob’s left ankle most. It gave way as he stepped forward and he almost fell. “So, it’s my fault? That’s crazy!”

 

Alona placed a hand on his shoulder as he shook the numbness from his appendage, and he felt a need to calm down.

 

“Do not concern yourself, Jacob.”

 

She leaned in as her arms drew around him. Jacob waited for the tight embrace of her hug, but it never came. The robot guards pulled her away.

 

“No fraternising between prisoners! Prisoner Alona, surname unknown, please enter your cell or receive punishment.”

 

Alona jerked backward in the robot’s grasp and staggered into her cell. “I will have to comfort you later, Jacob. Do not be concerned.”

 

These words rang in his ears as he trudged between the robot escorts, through the blocks, towards his cell in the Stone Age block. He wondered whether it was genuine concern she felt for him, as her only friend, or if it was only her programming again.

 

Is there really a difference? Give it up, Jacob. You’re married and she is a machine. One who is designed to attract men.

 

The guards dumped him in his cell, which looked as dank and hard as it had when he had left it, and he chided himself. Yes, she was a machine, but so was he now. How could he judge her based on that without doubting his own motivations? Did he have programming like her? Had someone told him long ago, in a long string of binary code perhaps, that if anything should happen to him, he would long for a quiet existence with a strong-willed, blonde woman called Linda? If so, then why was he struck by Alona’s presence? Did her programming overwrite his? Was he free-willed like she claimed to be?

 

Oh, what’s the use!

 

He decided to cling to the fact that he had made a new friend, and it looked as if there may be the smallest glimmer of an inkling of hope on the horizon for some kind of happiness. He and Alona would escape the prison together. At least, they were going to try. Failure probably meant some sort of deactivation for beings like them, or maybe a long walk off of a short pier into short circuit city. Either way, he wouldn’t have to stay here any longer and that didn’t upset him. They just needed a plan, and he thought they had one forming.

 

As he lay on his bunk, he replayed in his mind a rushed conversation that occurred just after they left the cafeteria. They couldn’t be sure how well their mechanised escorts could hear, but Jacob bet their hearing must be good else what was the point in them being guards? So, with this in mind, it seemed fortunate that Alona was skilled at distracting folk, giving them the space they needed.

 

Between the walk to the Cafeteria and arriving at Neville’s cell, at Jacob’s request for privacy, she had teased the shackled man with some strategic leaning and asked him to prepare his bed. The little man actually shut up about his Wuggles and stared for a moment. Then, smiling like a Hollywood villain listening to Beethoven, he did his best shuffling to get ahead of the group. From behind, he looked like an exasperated penguin trying to run, albeit an orange and red one.

 

With an electronic yell to surrender, the guards gave chase. They soon caught up to the kook and repeatedly dropped their massive weight upon him until he didn’t feel like trying to run any more. While this continued, Jacob and Alona shared a few swift words.

 

“Any ideas then?” Jacob began.

 

“For what?”

 

“Alona!”

 

“Oh, escaping,” she whispered with emphasised weight. “Walking out the front door is bad?”

 

“Not for you. You can change your face, right? But how do we get me out?”

 

The robots collapsed on Neville at this point. Jacob glanced over.

 

“Hide you somewhere?”

 

SMACK!

 

Jacob nodded.

 

THUMP!

 

“What about all the security?” he said.

 

Alona shrugged.

 

CRUNCH!

 

“Wuggles...”

 

There came a protracted whirring of machinery as one of the robots extended its tubular neck to look closely at the unmoving form of Neville.

 

“He’s passed out.”

 

“Administer the adrenaline shot,” said the other.

 

Jacob kept watch.

 

“Before I have sex...” Alona began, thoughtfully.

 

“I hope this is going somewhere.”

 

“... I check the status of my environment and tools.”

 

“Tools?”

 

“Yes, any aids, the size, flexibility and absorption rate of the mattress or where ever it is I am to perform, lubrication...”

 

Jacob put up his hands. “Okay. I’ve heard enough.”

 

Alona frowned.

 

“Sorry. I’m just a little uncomfortable with it. Could you tell me the point without the sex talk?”

 

She looked at him as if he had admitted to being uncomfortable discussing walking, but she shrugged it off. “We should learn what equipment they have, so we can determine how best to avoid it.” Then she pressed a finger to her lips. “Sssh!”

 

The robots returned, dragging Neville between them, and this put a halt to Jacob’s elation. He changed an excited: “Yes. Then we can escape,” into a stuttering: “Yes.... now we don’t... have to wait.... any longer.”

 

Alona overcompensated with her biggest smile yet, but the robots didn’t seem to mind either discrepancy.

 

Jacob wanted to congratulate her. He felt surprised, having expected nothing but his own nervous sweat to come out of that sex talk, but she obviously knew what she talked about.

 

Lying on his bunk, recalling these events, he decided to apologise later.

 

So all we have to do now, Jacob thought, is find out exactly what kind of security they have here.

 

Yet apart from causing trouble and being on the receiving end of the security measures the only other way of learning about them was to get on the inside, but how would they do that?

 

He rolled over on his bunk. His left arm had gone dead, now it was time to crush his right while the other one recovered.

 

He couldn’t think of anything he could do, but Alona had some talents he felt sure would come in handy. She could seduce a Buddhist master if it came to it and she could change her appearance to a degree. Jacob wondered if she could use this skill to emulate a particular person. He would have to test her.

 

 

Author's Note

Sorry for the long delay - life stuff and all that