Chapter 5

"Do your job, janitor," Lucas commanded roughly. "Clean it up and get out. This is Umbrage business, take one more step, and you gonna lose a foot. Your choice though, left or right. And then after that, I'm a start taking fingers."

The dark-skinned janitor snapped back to reality and backtracked slowly. I glanced at him one last time and made out the name tag sewn into his shirt. Hayson, Douglie, name doesn't sound familiar at all. Maybe I busted him years ago on the job. Maybe we fought in the war together.

It was too early to tell. If we do know each other, we must've met in District 4. That's the residential area, full of hardworking families, farms near the outskirts of town, and the lowest crime rate in Lustrous Utopia I. My brownstone house, perfectly mowed lawn, pristine backyard, the place I felt the most normal, all resided there. If I ever get a chance to reach his ear in private, I should ask him what the old neighborhood looks like now. The clicker went off again, pressed hard in Grey's hand.

An overhead image of Titan appeared, this one looked newer, with 3-D models imposed into it.

A long stretching gate surrounding the three mountains. Littered with three command towers on each side. In the middle of the image, on the flatland between the three mountains, was a huge red 'X' with a circle around it.

"Though the gate appears here, when you are inside it will be invisible to you. Should you walk into it, and I pray you do, it will melt your skin clean off your bones. And like I said before...what was it again, Lucas?" Grey gladly questioned.

"We will NOT clean your corpse. You are to stay there as an example."

Leif leaned towards me. I felt a wave of relief unless it was a death threat, I believed I made an accomplice in him.

"It's visible in the rain. My first time in, lightning struck it, and it went down for an hour. A riot broke out," he whispered.

"How often it rain?" I replied.

"Damn near every night."

I felt Lucas' glare on the back of my neck, and I winked to indicate to Leif that we should shut up. Grey cleared his throat and carried on with orientation.

"That big red 'X' is the drop zone. Three times a day, we will drop off a package that contains enough Meskle to feed you all. Granted you can catch it, and eat it. The best way I can describe it is that it looks like a green, beakless, chicken. It doesn't taste like chicken, but it is a speedy devil. Along with gallons of water. Should you arrive late to the drop zone, or get beat up and lose out, I assure you we don't care," Grey yelled.

"Meskle got something in it, turn you crazy, violent, docile, all types. Citadel pumps drugs in it. Essentially we're lab rats eating lab rats," Leif whispered.

Grey pressed the clicker once more, and a big white screen with the word 'Fin' was centered in cursive writing. The two janitors finally came back into the room with a silver bucket, two mops, and a gallon of bleach. Douglie walked over to the mess and placed a 'Caution Wet Floor' sign over it. I watched him gag, trying to hold his breath, pinching his nose. The other two began mopping right away, no hesitation at all.

I deduced that he was new to Titan, perhaps a transferred manager of some type. This display of gore should be second nature to the workers here, yet Douglie was visibly uncomfortable. The gears began to turn in my head, wherever he came from, they know of my crime. It could be the Lowlands. I have to find out. My anonymity is what's keeping me alive, once I lose that, I'll need to become a one-man army. Douglie went to dry heave, and Lucas shoved him to the floor.

"Janitors clean, that's what they do. What are you doing right now?"

"Sorry, the smell...I think..."

Lucas bent down and picked him up by his collar. He dragged Douglie to the mess. The other two janitors backed away, and accidentally dropped the open gallon of bleach. It washed over the disgusting puddle, but Lucas, still gripping Douglie's collar, pressed his face in it. It reeked of poison, the vomit smell disappeared, and the two janitors looked away, disregarding any loyalty to their superior.

"Smell worse now, don't it?"

The bleach bubbled as Douglie attempted to breathe, Grey walked over, and Lucas released his grip. Douglie's head sprang backward, gasping for air like he was being baptized in a lake.

"Know your place, Umbrage. You know the amount of paperwork I'd have to file should you kill this man? He may have ingested bleach for God's sake. Punish the ones who deserve it, not the ones who don't," Grey exclaimed, specks of spit landed on Lucas' face during the scolding.

Every inmate watched the altercation with happy eyes, although we were afraid to laugh, for obvious reasons. I watched Douglie cough, and struggle, but at least he was alive. The other two janitors went right back to cleaning, almost robotic like as if nothing happened at all. It was the first time I looked at Douglie, and he didn't notice. I saw the fear in his eyes, he didn't belong here either, and I confirmed my theory. No one knows me here beside him.

"Now, do as you're told, Lucas, and round em up. It's loading time," Grey whispered in Lucas' ear, followed by a pat on the chest.

"Orientation is over! On your feet, there's nothing else to see, nothing else to learn. From here on, your entire world will be Titan," yelled Zed, drowning out the sounds of Douglie's retching in the background.

They marched us down a long metallic corridor. We started walking together in sync, terrified and manacled. All the chains clanking in rhythm. At the end of the corridor was a large hexagon shaped door, caution colors on the sides and bottom, yellow and black intermixed. Ten big metal locks spaced out around the hexagon. The number '09' was spray painted on the top right, and above that was two long rectangular lights. One light was green. The other was red. Three slender pipes on each side, coming from the floor beneath, encased the sides of the hexagon door. Two circular holes opened in the ceiling and dropped orbs of yellow light that began flashing, followed by the raucous sound of an alarm.

"Once you are in Titan, you will never see anything else," Grey said, as the locks and mechanisms began to open in an intricate sequence.

Steam, and air pressure released from the pipes on the side. The rectangular light above the door went bright green. Between the small gaps, as the door slowly opened, I saw atomic tangerine, and obsidian colors painting the surface of Titan, the surface of Saturn.

"Here it comes," Leif murmured.