The Hourglass (5 page)

The Anoscosa

Sarah reached
the top of the ladder and joined the others. Half of the ship’s top deck was
open to the elements, the other contained the enclosed bridge and what looked
like private cabins, encircled by a promenade. The ship looked only slightly
newer than the bus they had arrived on. They were marshalled into a line by two
guards, one solid and short, the other lean and of average height. The
prisoners stood shoulder to shoulder, nervously facing a grey-haired woman with
a stern mouth. Sarah didn’t need to know anything else about the woman to know
that she was in charge. It was in the way she stood, and in the way she coolly
assessed each prisoner in turn. When the warden finally turned to look at
Sarah, she felt as if the warden could see every single misdeed of her past.
Without so much as an eyebrow twitch, the warden somehow managed to convey that
she ranked Sarah somewhere near “pathetic”. Sarah felt like throwing something
at her. The warden turned away from her and addressed the group as a whole.

“Welcome to the
prison ship
Anoscosa
. I am Warden Krogan. These gentlemen are Mr
Painter,” she inclined her head to the lean guard, “and Mr Wall,” she inclined
her head towards the solid guard. “They lead the guards and you will show them
the upmost respect during your stay. You will serve out your time on this ship
quietly and efficiently. This ship is tasked with making supplies for the war
effort and you are thus contributing back to the society you scorned when you
committed your crimes. I trust that you will all be most diligent in your work.
Myself and my officers do not take kindly to laziness or disruptive
personalities. You will find that your time here will be best employed by the
task in front of you. I advise you to not get involved in the business of
others.” She gazed impassively at them. Nobody spoke. She nodded her head at
one of the guards and departed through a door behind her. The tension on board
eased visibly upon her exit.  Mr Wall, who looked like he could crack open a
watermelon with his bare hands, turned to face them. His expression was
surprisingly kind.

“This way then
chaps,” he said. They all filed after him. He led them down a metal staircase
into a plain metal corridor that ran down the ship lengthways. The boys and
girls were then divided, boys went left, following Mr Painter, who so far
hadn’t spoken a word, and the girls went right with Mr Wall. As they walked
away Sarah glanced back over her shoulder. She could make out Finn quite easily
by his white hair. He was walking erect with his shoulders thrust back. She
wondered if he was making a conscious effort to do it or if that was just his
usual posture. Her own shoulders were hunched in a subconscious effort to go
unnoticed. On an impulse she straightened them. It took a lot more effort than
she thought it would. Colt turned around and saw her looking. He winked at her.
Sarah blushed and hurriedly turned back to face the others. They branched off
the main corridor and passed through a number of heavy steel doors. Each door
had an electronic lock system that required Mr Wall to display an encoded
bracelet that he wore around his wrist to a well hidden scanner to gain them
access. After passing through the fifth door, Mr Wall raised a hand, bringing
them to a halt. He rapped his knuckles on the door infront of him. They waited
in silence for a full thirty seconds before the door opened to reveal a female
guard sitting in a chair. She had not bothered to get up, instead she had leaned
as far back as she could while still seated to unlock the door and turn the
handle. She was surrounded by monitor screens. Two empty mugs, and one
half-full one, all mismatched, bespoke of someone who didn’t clean as a matter
of habit.

“I’ll take over
now, Ms Hutchen,” said Mr Wall with busy officialdom. “You see to the ladies.”

Ms Hutchen
managed to give him a look that somehow both conveyed her utter disdain of his
position and her displeasure at doing the job he tasked her. The look seemed to
have no effect on Mr Wall, who kept on smiling at her pleasantly until she
rolled her eyes and heaved herself out of the chair. Ms Hutchen was an
extremely tall, slim lady. She might have been pretty had her expression not
conveyed a hateful disdain of those around her, and had she not been chewing on
something vigorously. She stomped out of the room into the corridor, and Mr
Wall slipped in behind her before she could slam the door. Ms Hutchen walked
off. The girls, Sarah, Marland, Heather, and April exchanged silent glances
before following. In sullen silence Ms Hutchen led them into a long, plain
room. There were shower cubicles along one side and sinks lined the other.

“Chose a
cubicle,” droned Ms Hutchen, leaning against one of the sinks. “Get inside,
strip, chuck your clothes out here, then shower. I will bring you your new
clothes.” She was examining her nails now. “You cannot keep anything, that
includes jewellery of any kind, including hair ornaments,” she added,
pre-empting a question that, through long repetition of the process, she knew
she would be asked. Sarah couldn’t have cared less. Heather, on the other hand,
was not happy.

“This ring is an
heirloom,” shouted Heather, sticking her hand out pugnaciously. She pronounced
‘heirloom’ as ‘hair-loom’. The ring was an ugly piece of silver with a large,
dull rock in the centre. “It is going nowhere.”

Ms Hutchen
didn’t even bother to look up from clearing the dirt that she had just found
under the nail of her pinkie finger. “All your possessions will be kept and
returned upon your departure,” she intoned. She might as well have been reading
from the manual.

“You don’t
understand,” said Heather, taking a step forward. Her head was cocked back, her
chin jutting forward, and she was staring at Ms Hutchen without blinking. “It
ain’t, going, nowhere.” She paused between each word, as if trying to get
maximum impact out of the statement.

Ms Hutchen
finally looked up from her nails. She reached into her pocket and casually
pulled out a silver cylinder as she stared at Heather with boredom.

“Take if off and
put it with your clothes, or not only will I electrocute the living crap out of
you, but I will also put you forward for disciplinary action and strongly urge
an extension on your sentence.”

There was a
moment where Heather froze. Sarah could almost hear the cogs turning over in
her head.

“This ain’t
fair. I have rights.”

“The moment you
stepped on this ship you lost any rights you may have had. Your ass belongs to
us now.” There was no venom in that statement. It was simply, as Ms Hutchen saw
it, fact. Heather was so unprepared for the plain response that all she did was
blink, surprised.

“What are you
all waiting for?” demanded Ms Hutchen, exasperated. “Go have a shower.”

The rest of the
girls, who had been watching the drama without moving, now jolted into action
and slid into their cubicles. Sarah closed the door behind her. The door closed
firmly but there was no lock. She quickly took off her clothes and turned the
shower on. To her pleasant surprise there was hot water.

“Slide your
possessions under the door,” called out Ms Hutchen. Sarah kicked them out with
her foot. She stepped into the stream of water and practically sighed with
pleasure. The water felt amazing on her skin. She hadn’t had a hot shower in
what felt like years, and she felt particularly grimy and salty from her
travels on the bus and the transport boat. At the three minute mark they were
told to turn the water off. She did and waited.

“I will be
opening your doors one at a time. I just need to confirm your identity, make
sure you aren’t hiding any contraband, and then you can have your clothes.
Don’t give me any trouble.”

Sarah hugged
herself involuntarily. She knew this would have to happen at some point. April,
who was in the first stall, was the first to be inspected. It was quicker than
Sarah expected, which was relieving. Then the knock came on her door and it was
opened up. Sarah stood still and pretended she wasn’t there. She felt her face
go red.

“Arm,” demanded
Ms Hutchen.

Sarah stuck out
her arm with the burned barcode on it. Ms Hutchen scanned it. She then pulled
out another device and tapped Sarah lightly on each shoulder and hip. It lit up
green.

“Turn around.”

Sarah turned
around.

“What’s this?”
demanded Ms Hutchen.

For a moment
Sarah panicked. What did she mean? She didn’t somehow have something stuck to
her, did she? Then she relaxed as she realised that Ms Hutchen was asking about
the scar. It was a small, white scar that sat on her right shoulder blade. She
understood why Ms Hutchen pointed it out. The scar was too well formed to have
been an accident. It was the perfect image of an hourglass in a thin circle.

“How did you get
that?”

“I don’t know,”
replied Sarah. She was being honest. She just knew that about five years ago
she had woken up one morning and there it was, hot and painful but neatly
bandaged. She had asked her mum about it, but she had claimed not to know
either.

“Bullshit you
don’t know. That would have hurt like hell. And why that symbol?” She added,
more demanding suddenly. “Why the hourglass?”

“I, I really
don’t know,” stammered Sarah, not appreciating the sudden intense attention,
especially while she still stood there naked.

Ms Hutchen
looked at her disbelievingly. She opened her mouth to demand more answers but
was stalled by an alarm going off on a small device that she wore on her belt. She
silenced it irritably and glanced at her watch. She muttered something under
her breath about her shift having finished and exited the stall. Ms Hutchen
kicked a pile of neatly folded clothes into Sarah’s stall before walking over
to the next stall and repeating the routine. It seemed that finishing her shift
on time was more important to her than discovering the secret behind Sarah’s
scar. Sarah grabbed the clothes with a feeling of relief and put them on. She
was provided with underwear, a sports bra, which fit surprisingly well, and a
top and pants combination that mimicked medical scrubs. A hairband was also
provided and she tied her hair back into a ponytail. By the time she had
finished dressing and had exited her stall, Ms Hutchen had made it to the last
stall in the row, Heather’s. A beep emanated from the stall. Sarah guessed that
it was the device that Ms Hutchen had used to touch her shoulders and hips.
Something about Heather had made it go off.

“Hand it over.”
Ms Hutchen’s voice was flat and humourless.

“I don’t bloody
think so,” sneered back Heather’s voice.

There was a
screech of pain and a ripping sound before Ms Hutchen emerged from the stall
holding a ring which still had a chunk of hair tied to it. Evidently Heather
had gotten bored while waiting and had decided to hide the valued heirloom in
her nest of hair. Ms Hutchen kicked a pile of clean clothes into Heather’s
stall without even looking, walked over to one of the boxes which now sat on
the floor, chose the one furthest away and dropped the ring, hair still
attached, inside.

“We’re going to
your cells now.”

Heather emerged
from her stall, hastily dressed and clutching her head where a patch of hair
was missing. Some blood was congealing on the area. She was looking at the
ground, but every now and then Sarah saw her glance up at Ms Hutchen with a
look of utter loathing. She stifled a small, self-satisfied grin. It would do
Heather good to realise that she wasn’t always in charge.

They exited
through a different door to the one they had entered and passed through what
seemed to be a multitude of corridors and down two flights of stairs before finally
entering the cell block. The room had a central corridor that was lined on
either side by cells. The corridor size was similar to the rest of the ship,
however the walls on either side were made of a thick, clear plastic that
allowed you to see directly into each of the cells. Each cell had a bunk bed in
it for two people. It was separated from its neighbour by a thin wall of metal.
The plastic walls had small circular holes cut into it at intervals at about
eye height. It reminded Sarah of a zoo she had been to once when she was
little. The air holes resembled those that were punched into the sides of the
reptile tanks.  

“Where is
everyone?” It was April who spoke. Apparently she didn’t mean to ask out loud,
because she threw a quick, concerned glance at Ms Hutchen. Ms Hutchen, who was
reading the numbers above each door and comparing it with what she had on her device,
couldn’t have cared less that she spoke without permission now that her shift
was technically over.

“They’re all at
dinner. They won’t get back for another half an hour. There are some protein
bars on your bunk.”

Ms Hutchen
started ascribing them cells. Sarah and Marland were next to each other. April
was across the corridor from them, and Heather, much to Sarah’s relief, was separated
from them by a good seven cells. Ms Hutchen watched impatiently as they all
entered their correct cells before leaving. The door closed behind her with a
thud.

Sarah sat down
on the bottom bunk. It was unmade, but there were sheets, a blanket and a cheap
toothbrush and hairbrush in a neat pile down the end. The top bunk was made by
an inexpert hand. There was less than a metre between the side of her bed and
the metal wall opposite. At the far end of the cell was a small toilet and hand
basin tucked behind a thin partition. There was a door, but much like the
showers it couldn’t be locked. She stared around dismally and caught site of a
protein bar on the floor, obviously having slid off the bed. She picked it up,
peeled off the wrapper and starting eating, more for something to do than
because of actual hunger. There was nothing at all stimulating about the room.
Apparently Heather had felt the same, because she was back from visiting her
room and was standing in the corridor near their cells. Sarah finished her
protein bar, got up and walked out to the corridor. The others had done the
same. Even talking to Heather was preferable to sitting in there any longer.