The Condemned: Prologue

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. I wouldn't know. I've never been into space, but I've heard the horror stories. People launched into the void of space, left to drift all alone until they eventually die as punishment for their crimes. I'm not talking the truly evil ones like kidnapping, murder, or torture. More often than not, those crimes get a free pass. The crimes that get you flung into space are what they call "crimes against decency", or in other words, nonconformity.

They call it taking out the trash. Once a month, the trash ships come,massive fluorescent orange space freighters that shake the ground and bathe everything within a five mile radius in a cloud of smoke. The Trashmen swarm the streets, attacking anything and anyone in their way with brute strength and cutting words. Those who dare resist are beaten and rounded up along with the condemned. Any obvious resistance like backtalk, fighting, or hiding a fugitive will get you captured, but it doesn’t stop there. I’ve seen parents taken for pleading for their child’s life. I’ve seen children taken for crying for their condemned parents. I’ve seen wifes taken for kissing their husbands goodbye. I’ve seen countless people taken alongside their friends and family members simply for looking sad.

What exactly happens after you’re captured depends on how long and how much you defy societal expectations. If they think there’s a chance you’ll conform, you’re sent to a re-education camp. In this case, re-education is just a euphemism for being deprived and degraded until you’re robbed of your individuality. Only when you’ve become a shell of your true self are you released. They’ll return you to your family if you have one to go back to. Otherwise, they drop you off in the middle of nowhere to make your own way.

The re-educated ones are comparatively lucky. Those who can’t or won’t conform are held aboard the trash ships until the Trashmen gather enough people to hold a Trash Day, a barbaric spectacle broadcast to every screen on the planet. Trash Day can happen on any day at any time with little warning. You know it’s coming when the screen on your computer, television, wrist communicator, or whatever electronic device you happen to be near at the time freezes. First it locks up’ then it goes dark and emits a high-pitched whine, like a demented siren call.

The world stops when the live feed from the trash ship starts. Businesses are required to close during the broadcast, and people must drop whatever they’re doing to watch. If you don’t watch with undivided attention, you’re next. They’ll know if you don’t. They have guards stationed in public places and cameras in private ones. No matter where you are, they’re always watching, always waiting to swoop in and crush any sign of perceived rebellion.

The first thing you’ll notice as the feed starts is the Trashmen’s blindingly bright orange uniforms, a stark contrast to the somber mood of the occasion. If that’s not enough of an assault to your eyes, then the camera pans across the prisoners’ faces. You can see every cut and bruise on their beaten faces, every flicker of emotion in their eyes. The condemned are herded into a single file line as onlookers jeer and heckle them. The names are called in alphabetical order, each person dragged out of line when their turn comes. Then the condemned are given a chance to say their last words.

A few cry and beg for their lives. Some leave behind heartfelt messages for their loved ones. Others remain defiant to the last and denounce the government that condemned them to die. Most know not to do any of those things. They don’t want to give the Trashmen the satisfaction of seeing their vulnerable emotions, nor do they want to incite emotions from the audience and get others killed alongside them.

Most of the condemned follow the Trashman through the airlock door in stoic silence. The accompanying Trashman opens the outer door and cuts the tether binding the condemned to the ship. As they drift into space, the feed goes back to the bridge of the ship where another Trashman cuts the oxygen to the condemned’s spacesuit, leaving them to suffocate in horrific glory for all the world to see. Their vital signs are displayed in a split screen until the heart monitor flatlines in a resounding BEEEEEEEEEP!

Then it’s onto the next prisoner, sometimes a hundred or more, until the line dwindles to nothing. We have the technology to take someone out in a nanosecond, yet they choose to execute these people in the cruelest way possible, not for what they’ve done but for who they are.

Every trash day ends with a message meant to scare us into submission, Nobody can hear you scream in the vacuum of space. What they don't tell you is that we're all screaming in a vacuum anyway. A lucky few, the wealthy, the strong, the beautiful, the normal live in the lap of luxury. The rest of us, the poor, the sick, the ugly, the weird are left to battle it out for survival, and nobody cares. Nobody even notices us. Ignoring a cry for help in the vacuum of space is understandable; ignoring a cry for help in your own homeland is unforgivable.