Chapter 2

Not knowing what else to do, I walked slowly towards one of the cells in the middle of the room. Noticing for the first time that there was no visible door in the bars.

"Surely they aren't kept in these cells all the time, with no way of getting out?" I asked myself.

Cautiously, I reached out towards one of the bars. Extending one finger to close the final gap, slowly inching its way towards the bar. A reflex kicked in as the tip of my finger touched the solid metal bar, causing my finger and hand to flinch back, as if I'd been burnt. Although rather than being able to burn, these bars were cold, almost freezing cold. Taking the lack of an ear-piercing noise or robotic announcement as a signal that I was allowed to touch the bars, I now took a firm grip of that same bar and tried to shake it. Noticing no movement of the bar, I examined it from top to bottom, before moving on to the bar next to it. Each of the bars were the same, firmly embedded in both the floor and the ceiling, with strong metal links connecting the bars together.

After finding no visible sign that the bars could open, I turned my attention back to the woman in the middle of the cell who had remained motionless the whole time. Her white silky nightgown doing just enough to give her some modesty. Her submissive posture briefly bringing back a memory that I had tried to suppress.

"Hello," I said in a quiet voice.

After a few moments with no response and no movement from her, I wondered if she had heard me, or maybe she didn't speak English. In a somewhat louder voice, I tried again. "Good morning."

The woman briefly raised her eyes to look up at me through her eyelashes, before she quickly lowered them again. Her lowered head partially obscured the look of panic that seemed to be spreading across her face.

"Good morning, Sir," came a whisper from a quivering female voice.

"Prisoners will not speak when in the waiting position!" boomed the slightly robotic voice. "Five demerits to Prisoner D452C. Prisoner D452C is sentenced to one day of mouth restriction."

"Hey! I spoke to her, its my fault," I shouted up at the ceiling, while a look of horror appeared on the woman's face. I had no idea what mouth restriction meant but it didn't sound nice.

"Prisoner D452C prepare for mouth restriction."

"I said it was my fault. You can't punish her," I shouted again, looking up at the white ceiling.

Raising her head for the first time, she looked directly at me, her hazel eyes staring into mine. The sides of her mouth drooped, dragging her cheeks down with them. Whatever was about to happen wasn't going to be good. Her expression was one of resignation, but those eyes bearing into my soul, were screaming out for help. Letting out a small sigh, she then proceeded to open her mouth wide.

Moments later, the pounding in my head was stronger and I was trying to pull myself back onto my feet. As the red ball gag had materialized in her mouth with a black strap secured tightly around her head, I had scrambled backwards, losing my footing and ending up as a heap on the floor. There really was no other way to describe what had happened, other than that the gag had materialized out of thin air directly into her mouth. One second it wasn't there and the next second it was.

The woman had now returned her head to its lowered position; this position doing nothing to hide the red ball that was now filling her mouth. Not knowing what else to say or do, I quietly said I was sorry to the woman and made my way over to a corner of the room. Lowering myself into a sitting position on the floor, I started to try to think. I needed time to think.

For the next ten minutes, I sat there, trying to think. The pounding in my head was still there, stronger if anything. I really couldn't think straight, my thoughts just materialized into my head as a jumbled mess. There was that word again ... materialized. How did things just appear out of thin air, this wasn't some TV show. I was sure I was in shock, or maybe I was just drunk and this was some wild dream. Maybe I came across the crashed aircraft last night and after seeing the horror of it, I needed a stiff drink or two. That made sense didn't it? Looking up at the row of cells with the women remaining motionless in their kneeling positions, I knew this wasn't some dream. No, this was all real and I was in shock. I needed to get a grip of myself and work out what was happening. It didn't seem like I was in any actual danger. Although maybe I was a danger to these women, if I did any more things that got them punished.

"Hello, whoever is in charge, can you hear me?" I called up at the ceiling, thinking it was as good as any other idea.

No response was forthcoming, so I tried issuing a command, "Computer! Respond."

"Maybe I should see what is through the next door," I thought to myself, as I used the wall to push myself up onto my feet.

As I reached standing height, I saw a small flicker of light from a section of the wall that I had been pressing against. As I watched it, the light slowly expanded until it covered an area of the wall that was the size of a standard piece of paper. In places the white light gave way to those strange hieroglyphic type symbols. It was another one of those panels. "Maybe I could use it to find out where I was, or to release the women. If only I knew what those strange symbols were" I thought.

While studying the symbols, I noticed that one of them looked as if it could be a person standing behind some bars. It was tempting to take a chance and press that symbol but it just seemed too risky. Who knew what trouble I could cause, or what trouble I could get the women into. Maybe the women knew how to work this thing?

I just had to work out how I could talk to one of the women without her ending up wearing a ball gag.

"I guess I have five more attempts," I thought, as I made my way to the first cell. If it wasn't such a serious situation, it could have actually been funny. Five attempts to guess the correct phase that would allow one of the women to freely talk to me. If I failed in those five attempts then I would have to wait another day before they were free of their gags and I could try again. It reminded me of some websites where you had a limited amount of attempts to remember your password, and if you failed then you had to wait a period of time before trying again.

"Was I going insane?" I questioned myself, as I attempted to rattle one of the bars of this cell. Checking that it was as secure as the last ones.

This woman knelt motionless in exactly the same position as the other women. The palm of her hands resting on the nightgown covering her thighs, while her fingers passed its ruffled hem to rest on her bare legs. Her head tilted forwards with her long brown hair helping to restrict the view of her face. In a different situation, I could have thought that I had gone to heaven with women kneeling in front of me like this. This wasn't a normal situation though, at least not for me.

I had to try to think what might actually work. What facts did I actually know? Just talking to one of the women, clearly wouldn't get me anywhere. Trying to get the computer or person in charge to respond to me, hadn't got anywhere. It now seemed likely that I was indeed, in some jail. The question of where the hell that jail could be, what place had jails with ball gag materializers in them, was one for later. What kind of prison used ball gags on prisoners anyway? Then again if you had a ball gag materializer, I'm sure you would want to use it.

"OK, I'm getting distracted," I told myself and refocused back on the task at hand. Was I a prisoner? The room I had woke up in certainly wasn't like any of these cells. I seemed to have free movement around the whole area that I had explored so far. These seemed to suggest that I wasn't actually a prisoner. Those and the fact that I was male and this seemed to be a woman's prison. Surely they wouldn't have a mixed prison? So if I wasn't a prisoner, what was I doing here? Maybe I was a prison guard. Even as that idea ran through my mind, it sounded so stupid. They don't just snatch people from aircraft wrecks to turn into prison guards. However I couldn't come up with any idea that seemed more plausible.

"What commands would a prison guard be able to issue, that would allow the woman to be able to talk to me?" I pondered.

After thinking back at all the commands that I had heard the voice issue, I took a deep breath and with an attempt to sound stern, I issued the command, "Prisoner, adopt the standing position."

Movement from the woman followed. With my breath held, I waited for the voice.

I hammered down the happiness and courage that had attempted to build up inside me, as nothing from the voice was heard, even though the woman was now standing with her back rigid and holding her hands gently together in front of her. Her head was still lowered towards the ground. However it was not time to get too confident or happy. It was a minor victory that I seemed to be able to give some commands to the women, but it would be no help if I couldn't talk to them.

Another deep breath and my next command followed, "Prisoner, you are permitted to speak to answer my questions."

No movement or response from the woman acknowledge that command, but also nothing was heard from the voice.

"Well here it goes," I thought.

I nearly started with saying hello, but caught myself just in time. That wouldn't have been a question, so even if my command permitting her to speak was accepted, she still wouldn't have been able to respond to my greeting. Attempting to play it safe, I went with a simple, "Who are you?"

"Prisoner D457B, Sir!" she responded a split second later, in a calm, almost military sounding, voice.

"At least she can speak English," I thought, reassured slightly that I wasn't stuck in some foreign jail. Then I realized that the robotic voice had been speaking English and the other woman had said good morning to me, but all the control panels had those strange symbols on them. Yet another mystery for later. For now, the booming voice hadn't decided to interfere, so things were looking good. My anticipation was building but I still wasn't going to let myself get too excited until I had some useful answers.