NPC Cheldon ch'Doro - Blue bad man, and the bad man blues (Part 3)

[Joseph George]

((OOC:  This is the conclusion of the trilogy, and a long one to boot, just because I didn't want to make you all wait for a forth. Of course, reader discretion is advised. Future Cheldon sims should start being tamer in comparison.))

((Theta 122, Brotherhood Camp, Baths))

Pants buttoned and zipped, the beefy Andorian began to pull his black undershirt on. Scenes of prison filling his mind. 

((Flashback 13 years))

((Therenis 4, Cardin Island, Bilsby Correctional Facility. 50 miles from Beltown.))

Therenis 4 had never applied for Federation membership, despite the aid that had pulled the colony through it's toughest times, and the fact that most of the original and subsequent settlers were from Federation worlds. There were many reasons, remoteness, heavy amounts of unrest, the total lack of a global government. 

Beltown didn't even have a city government. Each district of the sprawling slumtropolis was practically it's own entity. One thing that was the common thread throughout the city was Drako Security Inc. They were a private police farce that had monopolized the law enforcement and prison industries throughout the city, and therefore the planet. Drako contracted with whoever had the most power in a district, as long as they tried to put on the face of a legitimate government. They had even helped coup districts to install more friendly leadership.

Drako enforcement officers had arrested him and other former LeFoi associates after the gang war. The plan to avenge the burning of Melandra's and all the senseless deaths it had caused, including that of their former employer himself, had been targeted assassinations. The guilty parties, members of the New Orion Syndicate from other planets had almost caused a civil war within the organization sector-wide.  Only a negotiated settlement from higher ups had ended the blood shed. Of the two dozen LeFoi bodyguards who had been in on the scheme, he was one of three who had sat at the peace talks alive. Funnily enough, the only Orions present were from the mother organization.

That had been off planet, on a Syndicate frigate orbiting an uninhabited moon of an uninhabitable planet,  a few systems over.

Once they got home, and none of them had a real reason to return in the first place, Drako S.I. sprung their trap. Fifty armed, literal rent-a-cops, surrounded their shuttle and popped tear gas into the rear port as they were exiting. For good measure, each was hit with the stun setting from  one of Drako's antique surplus phasers.

When Cheldon came to, he was moving, yet restrained, being wheeled on an industrial dolly, by a man a foot shorter, and a hundred and fifty pounds lighter. His hands were cuffed behind him, on the back side of the dolly's middle bar. His midsection, from arm pits to hips, was wrapped in thick chains, wrapped elaborately behind the right bar, in front of the middle bar, then behind the left bar dozens of times. On his ankles were mantaciles straight out of 1400s earth binding his legs to the outer bars of the dolly.

He was wheeled up a ramp, and the dolly was lowered to the ground on the elevated platform it led to. Next to it, on the ground level, and nearly level with it was a heavy duty ambulance litter. Behind that, was a full body X-Ray. This was when they stunned Cheldon again.

Cheldon's next return to consciousness found him in a concrete room with a sonic shower, and a metal door on both the front and back walls. A loudspeaker in the top right corner of the front wall spoke up as he began to stir.

Voice: Five minute shower, no longer.  Then the back door will open, and you will step through it. Understand inmate 97561?

Cheldon:'Yeah.

There was no answer from the voice.

The back door led to another small room, much narrower. Another metal door waited on the other side. Between them was another device that looked similar to the full body X-Ray that he had been knocked out for.

The same voice, came from a different speaker, in the same general part of the current room.

Voice: Step in inmate 97561.

Cheldon did do, and the inner arm of the device orbited him.

Voice: Step out inmate 97561

Cheldon did as we was told. They had brilliantly devised ways to keep the guards from having to interact in person. 

The back door of the second room opened, and he was spoke at again.

Voice: Enter the next room, inmate 97561.

Cheldon did, and surprise, surprise, another metal door on the back. On the left, near the front was a box that looked like one of the mailboxes people had once built into walls, but much bigger. Three feet further back, and two feet to the right of that, was a simple wooden bench. 

Voice: Take your uniform from the box, and put it on. Leave your civilian clothes on the bench, inmate 97561.

Cheldon wanted to tell him where he could stick every article of clothing, but what good would that do? He snorted, but complied.

Voice: Next room inmate 97561.

The back door led to a room within a room. A simple, clear booth inside a doctor's office. There was another wooden bench to the right of the door he entered from.

Voice: Take a seat inmate 97561.

After several minutes, the doctor, flanked by two guards in full tactical gear, approached the booth. The shorter guard opened the door from his side, and the voice gave Cheldon the go ahead.

Voice: Exit the booth, inmate 97561.

After a quick sit on the biobed, and a couple dozen light scans, the doctor gave him a clean bill of health, and before Cheldon could lecture him on the Hippocratic Oath, the doctor popped him with an injector of sleep aid.

Cheldon woke to the hard bunk of his new cell, curled up in a bed meant for a smaller man.

((End Flashback)) 

Socks, check. Shoes, check. Now as he donned his Brotherhood robe, the memories of prison kept flooding in.

The first unwritten rule of prison was to find the biggest and toughest looking inmate and fight him, so no-one would mess with you. Cheldon was constantly fighting, never starting it, but consistently coming out on top. Most used weapons, the smarter new fish would sneak attack him. The really smart ones would all jump him together. But he routinely took out around three or four before they won.

 

No matter who started it, there was a no tolerance policy for violence among inmates.  And every fight led to solitary confinement. There was little reprieve. Weeks of harrowing isolation, followed by perhaps a few days of relative normality, then a short outburst of thrilling violence usually lasting less than a minute, and the cycle repeated itself. This was his life for the better part of a decade and a half. Then the riot came, and while it damned so many others, it sent him along the path of redemption.

((Flashback Five Months ago))

Cheldon was in solitary again, after seven new guys jumped him, and then spending a week in the medical block. He had knocked out three, and one of those had died in the medical block, five hours after the fight from complications related to internal bleeding. Modern medicine was beyond the budget of Drako S.I.'s corrections division.

He had no idea when, where, why, or how, it started. But sometime in the early morning one day, the automatic door to his cell abruptly slid open.

Over the loudspeaker a voice came on. It wasn't the voice that was usually on the speaker, but it seemed familiar. 

Voice: Riot, riot! The prisoners are in charge! We've had enough of these inhumane conditions. We're taking over!

Well, that was a pleasant surprise so early in the day. Shielding his eyes from the burning light, he exited his dark cell and began to wander towards general population, and his normal designated cell on F block. Turning the first corner, he came upon several inmates assaulting Officer Dernis. Cheldon grunted an amused chuckle. The half-Romulan guard was a massive dick, on a power trip 24-7. Dernis was getting what he'd been deserving for the seven years he'd been working here, and probably long before that.

Cheldon: If you hit him slightly softer you can make it last longer.

Cheldon had heard Dernis give this very advice, word for word, to a new guard who was politely put, interrogating a prisoner a few months back. And just to get the point across, the Andorian had given the advice to his fellow prisoners in his best impersonation of the guard's voice.

Walking away immediately, he called back, without turning back.

Cheldon: Wait for me in Hell, Officer Dernis. We'll swap stories, share a round of the Devil's best tequila.

He came across plenty of other Officers being assaulted. But none of them he had hated as much as Dernis. And the ones he could stand, well he didn't like any of them enough to stop the momentum of the moment. 

As he neared F Block, the new local voice talent returned.

Voice: We have liberated the Armsroom! Free riot gear, and weaponry for all our brothers and sisters. First come first serve, but don't get greedy!  

((End Flashback))

((OOC: How are you doing? For convenience sake, and because I'm having something of a brain blah, I'll be skipping the details of the breakout itself. Anyways, we're already over 1600 words in, on this part alone. Why don't you take a 5 minute break to get up and walk around, or just relax? You back? Great to see you again. Now on with the show.))

((IC))

Cheldon straightened his robe, then pulled the hood up over his antennae.  He closed his eyes and inhaled.

 ((Flashback after the escape))

The lake was at least five miles in any direction from the shores of the island, and less fit individuals might not have made it. But that wasn't all. There were about ten miles of open plains between the shores of the lake and any semblance of a hiding spot, en route to Meltown. A weaker man would have collapsed after the constant running. A cave in the first forest he came upon was enough shelter for the night.

((Time skip 1 month))

Cheldon had stolen a civilian shuttle he found parked outside of Meltown, and booked it for space.  Not sure where to flee to, he decided to check out the flight plan of the former owner.  A little world called Theta 122 where his victim was to deliver energy cells for a new solar array. Better yet, he ascertained that the people  there were unfamiliar with the man, and didn't even know his name. And hey, the cells were already loaded. Cheldon hoped it was payment on delivery, but if it hadn't been, he would have made due. Anywhere but home, he thought. Now he was approaching his destination. He never knew what caused the crash in the desert, but looking back in hindsight, it could have only been the gods guiding him to his redemption.

((OOC And done. More details of Cheldon meeting and entering the Brotherhood will come in future sims))

NT/End

Cheldon ch'Doro

Lay Warrior

Brotherhood of Thet

As simmed by:

Lieutenant Artinus Serinus

Chief Security Officer

USS Arrow,  NCC-69829

Publicity Team/Social Media Team

C239607AS0