Name: Clarissa Rogers

Age: 27

Birth date: Unknown

Birthplace: Unknown

Crime: Three Counts of Murder in the First Degree

Sentence: Three Consecutive Life Sentences without Parole

Penitentiary: Coalition Prison Service Establishment Hesket; aka, 'The Slab'

Side notes: Prisoner suffers from severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Pending psychiatric evaluation.

Treat with utmost caution and vigilance.

They should have killed her.

That was the usual treatment for criminals of her caliber. Two bullets between the eyes and a brand new home six feet under. Of course, to do that they'd have to call in a firing squad, and those in charge wanted to keep this little 'incident' quiet. One midnight trial later, and a warning from the head honcho to her captors that they hadn't actually seen shit, and here she was. Hell hole sweet hell hole.

The menacing walls of The Slab pierced the inky black sky. Moving the prisoner was done under the cover of dark – less witnesses that way. The monstrosity of thick stone gates and search lights engulfed her, the same way the cold, silver handcuffs engulfed her wrists. Quickly and silently, with only a bit of pain on each involved party. The guards quickly ushered her indoors as the storm raged outside.

She watched lightning crack across the sky, wondering idly when she'd see it again. Probably never, if the COG got their way. The bright, flickering lights reflected across her grey eyes as a guard shoved her between her shoulder blades and through the front door of the prison.

Immediately, the outside world was shut off.

Scurrying little feet ran the course of the walls – probably rats. A leaky pipe dripped slow drops of water onto the floors, and she was idly amazed that such a place had running water. It would probably be toxic to drink, but it was the thought that counted. The same guard who had shoved her reached out and yanked her to a stop by her elbow. He cursed under his breath, looking around for someone who wasn't there.

"Damnit, where is he? 'Meet by the front gates at midnight'. How fuckin' hard is that?" he growled, tightening his grip on the prisoner. She didn't complain, didn't even flinch, although the pressure was bound to leave bruises. It wasn't as if she hadn't suffered through worse.

The guard on the other side of her sighed and shook his head. "Give him a minute, Williams. He's probably overseeing a removal of a dead body or some shit. These animals will all kill each other at the drop of the hat."

"That's true," Williams replied, grinning to himself in sick, twisted humor. Although the room was dark, she could still see his black and rotting teeth. He nudged her in the side. "I'll bet they'll just love you. I'm sure they'll get some perverted rapist as a cell mate for ya'. Wouldn't be no less than you deserve, you-"

Whatever she was, she never found out. He had made a deadly mistake as soon as he'd gotten close enough to touch. She didn't appreciate people getting that close, and she'd make damn sure he'd never do it again.

She slammed her forehead against his face, feeling the cartilage break against her thick skull. He wheeled backwards, clutching his nose. The surrounding guards yelled, propelled into action as she kicked her booted foot against another's knee, slamming the joint back against itself and breaking it. Her hands were still cuffed behind her back, but she lunged and kicked and bit at anyone dumb enough to try and hurt her.

Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as the adrenaline of the fight overtook her. If she was destined to go down, she'd make sure she'd take as many of the guards down with her. That's what she had been trying to do when she'd killed the doctors. She'd expected a quick death, not some shit about serving time in a prison cell. If only one of the guards would pull the pistols she saw holstered on their hips, it would all finally be over for her.

One of the guards grabbed her from behind, and she bucked like a spooked horse. He yelled for backup as she screeched a wordless, horrifying noise that sounded like someone had stepped on Satan's foot. Another guard grabbed her from the side, and she struggled against the both of them, kicking and biting for all she was worth. Panting heavily, she finally got her teeth around an ear of a guard and bit down hard. Blood squirted into her mouth and a chunk of flesh came away as the guard recoiled. She spat his earlobe onto the ground at his feet.

Suddenly the room flooded with light as someone flicked a switch. Like rats found when sewer man-hole was removed, they froze in place as the low buzzing of electric-fueled light illuminated their skirmish. Three new guards entered the room, guns drawn.

"What the hell is happening here?" the trio's leader demanded to know, training his sights on the woman cuffed and bleeding in the arms of no less than four equally broken and bleeding guards.

"The prisoner got a little rambunctious, sir," one of the guards said – the one with the torn-up knee. He was leaning unsteadily against a rough stone wall, looking a little worse for wear. One hand rested unsteadily on his gun.

Williams gripped her shoulder with one hand, while the other clutched at his face. "By Bose!" he whined, his voice coming out thick and muted. "She broke by bose!" His nose was bleeding profusely, and was now hanging crookedly against his cheekbones.

"Shut up, Williams!" another guard snapped. The side of his face and neck was dark with slowly congealing blood, with the lower half of his ear missing. Apparently he was the former owner of the cherry-sized drop of flesh lying on the floor in a small puddle of blood.

The female prisoner was in the middle of all the chaos, looking completely and thoroughly unabashed for her behavior. Someone had cocked her on the side of the face, where a fast-emerging bruise was flowering. Her lips were coated dark with blood – had she bittenoff the guard's ear? Her grey eyes wandered over his body, and, finding him insignificant, continued to wander to the two warders behind him. As she turned her head, Jarvi caught sight of a ruby-red studded earring occupying her earlobe. Her hair was sheared off to hang close to her scalp, and was black. He suspected it was dyed that way when he saw the barest fleck of blond roots peeking out. Where she had gotten hair dye - of all things - in the middle of the war, was beyond him.

He cleared his throat once, putting away his gun but keeping it in reach. "Understandable," he said, not looking at the one called 'Williams'. He had a feeling he might punch him if he did. "Okay, so the political jargon. As of," he looked at his watch, "twenty-five hundred hours, prisoner 027451-GX exchanged hands from custody of the COG, to custody of the Jacinto High Security prison. This exchange was overseen by Warden Nikolai Jarvi." He said his own name without inflection, jerking his head for the two warders behind him to grab the prisoner.

They approached cautiously, one slightly behind the other. The prisoner gave them a disdainful look, but didn't fight them as they grabbed both of her arms tightly. She didn't look pleased at their touch, but after eyeing the roomful of guards and warders, she deemed the odds a bit too out of her favor. The two warders herded her forward, while the rest of the guards tended to their plethora of wounds. The one with only half an ear swiped his hand down his blood-soaked neck, mumbling something that sounded like, "Psycho Bitch…"

Jarvi was strangely reassured by the woman's absolute hostility. With only a handful of warders and forty two – well, forty three, now – inmates, the prison was ran by the criminals. There would be no help coming from them after she was deposited in with the riffraff. If she couldn't hack it, well….Jarvi had seen firsthand what had happened to those deemed weak within the prison walls. There was a reason 'The Slab' had a two-year life expectancy.

Of course, a person didn't brutally murder three men without being Nails, as in Tough As.

As soon as they entered the twisting labyrinth of tunnels leading down to the inmate quarters, the barking and howling reached a fever pitch. The warders employed over a dozen guard dogs, each meaner and nastier than the last. They were kept sanctioned off by a series of electronic doors that could be opened to attack the prisoners if need be. It was as if the dogs could smell the tantalizing scent of fresh meat being brought into the prison in the form of the young woman.

Jarvi wasn't sure what he expected her to do, but it wasn't what she did. The corners of her blood-red lips curved upwards in a mockery of a smile. "Ah, shit," she said. Her voice was low and icy cold with a slight accent – the voice of a killer. Suddenly Jarvi didn't have any problems imagining her murdering any idiot crossing her path. "Looks like y'all got Fido out to greet me."

Jarvi grunted noncommittally under his breath. "They're not exactly puppy-dogs," he almost growled in warning, waiting for the door behind them to shut and lock before opening the next one. The metal grated floor clinkedbelow their footsteps as they turned to go to the supply room. It was startlingly bare, with only a small pile of sheets stacked on a shelf. They had arrived for the prisoner earlier in the day.

Jarvi picked up the small package, effectively clearing the room of everything but the warders and prisoner. He nodded for the trio to head back out before him, turning and waiting on another electronic gate to open. Reaching into his pocket and pulling a knife, he slowly and silently slipped it between the stack of sheets in his hand.

The population of The Slab was the effluent of humanity – the worst of the worst. Their crimes were hard to imagine – a schizophrenic who had sliced, cooked, and eaten his mailman, a paid assassin who'd taken out hundreds of targets before finally getting caught, even an Indie terrorist left over from the Pendulum wars. A few were in for horrific crimes done to women; heinous, sickening crimes that turned Jarvi's stomach just to think of them. The rest were sexually frustrated, immoral bastards. Just because she had the unfortunate luck to be sentenced to spend the rest of the life in here didn't mean she didn't deserve to be safe.

Jarvi pondered where to put her. Obviously not down the psych ward – another body down there would drive them more insane. Plus, although her records said she suffered from severe psychological scars, Jarvi couldn't see a difference between her and half of Sera. The ones down in the psych ward were too insane to know they were insane. She acted like the psychologist's assessment of her was a blessing – a way to explain off any horrid actions she might perform. Being labeled 'psychologically unfit' gave her an excuse to act like she didn't give a damn about the world anymore – which, in truth, she didn't.

That left the cell-block. She'd be stuck mixing with the general population of scum bags. Jarvi had no doubts that she was tough enough to withstand the worst of the inmates one-on-one, but eventually she'd be caught flat-footed, or they'd get a big enough gang to take her down. That meant she needed someone to watch her back, someone who wouldn't put up with the bullshit that happened in a predominately male prison.

Jarvi's thoughts wandered to prisoner Marcus Fenix – formerly Sergeant Marcus Fenix with the 26 Royal Tyran Infantry. Almost a full year ago he'd broke orders to go rescue his father during the battle for Ephyra. He'd left the battle with some key component to the Hammer of Dawn – a weapon of mass destruction that the top brass were depending on to turn the flow of the battle. The COG lost the battle and Ephyra, a lot of men lost their lives, and Marcus Fenix lost his freedom. As soon as he'd returned to COG territory, he'd been arrested for dereliction of duty and court-marshaled. Apparently he'd still had some friends in high places, because he only landed forty years in this shit hole. Anyone else would have garnered a firing squad.

Despite spending a year with the world's worst humans, Marcus still conducted himself the way a gear would. He didn't tolerate any antics from the other inmates. He worked hard and diligently, growing food in the gardens and processing the myco-fermenters when needed. His moral compass had never once wavered off of true north. Besides, he already had a girl waiting for him on the outside, Lieutenant Anya Stroud. He wouldn't go fooling around with the new girl. He'd keep an eye out for her, even if she didn't want him to. He had those protective instincts working overdrive for anyone who needed him. Jarvi didn't know if he got his rocks off playing the hero shit, or if that was just the way Marcus was brought up, or if that was just the way all gears acted, but it came in damn handy right now.

"Hold," one of the warders instructed the girl. She took one more step out of belligerence before dragging her feet to a stop. The warders never went into the cell-block, not unless they wanted a slow and painful death. The inmates ran the floor, and everyone knew it. Once she entered the cell-block, she'd be on her own.

The two warders stepped back as Jarvi walked forward with the keys to the handcuffs. He shifted the stack of sheets to one arm – careful not to let the knife drop out – before inserting the small silver key in the socket. They clicked softly before going slack on the girl's arms and coming off in his hands. She shifted her hands around front and rubbed at the angry, red welts on her wrist. He handed her the pile of bedding before stepping back.

"When the door in front of you opens up, walk through it and follow it down to the cell-block. Press the green button to the side of the door, and we'll unlock it once we lock this door behind you. You are assigned to cell-39." He thought about what else to say. "There are gardens and myco-fermenters on the floor. The inmates are responsible for growing their own food. You don't work, you don't eat."

Here, he could be shooting his own feet out from under him, but he felt the need to warn her about what exactly she would be getting into once she walked through those doors. So sue him – women were treated differently than men. Especially after the war began and humanity was looking extinction in the eyes. To squander the life of a fertile woman – even a woman who had killed three people in cold blood – seemed like an almost unbearable waste. "Once you walk through those doors, you play by their rules, alright?" He felt like he was a father giving his kids last minute advice before starting school for the first time. "Just….good luck."

She stared at him with those piercingly cold, grey eyes. The corner of her lips pulled upwards in not quite a smile, but not exactly a grimace. "Aye," she said, her islander accent heavy in her voice. "Maybe it is them you should be saying 'good luck' to, no?"

Jarvi didn't know how to respond, so he took a large step back behind the door and flipped the switch. The door groaned shut, the electric locks spinning and whirring away until nothing short of a pissed off beserker would be able to get through. Still, she continued to stare at him through the small viewing window, her expression frozen into that not quite emotionless gaze. He felt unsettled as he clicked the next switch, opening the next gate for her to walk through. When the door opened, finally she turned and headed through it. Her stride was slow and deliberate, but not hesitant. Maybe she really was crazy enough to make it in The Slab, but Jarvi doubted it.

He wondered just how long it would be before he dragged out her rotting, mottled corpse.