Turk Manning- Pluto PRT
I felt tired, I had to show the new guy the ropes.
"Welcome to Hell, welcome to Pluto."
He blinked.
"You give that speech alot?"
"Boy, I live that goddamned speech."
I waved him over to a map.
"This is Pluto, we're in the south, that little splash of light on the map? That's the birdcage, the Birdcage is a prison the size of New York, Boston, and all the suburbes in between, its' height is about the same as the Empire State building on average, with towers spikes that go twice as high. It also goes to about a half mile underground.
It has it's own parks, artificial farms, the world itself repairs it... slowly, it is a fortress and a prison in one."
"It must have a lot of-"
"Not a single one..."
The Newby blinked.
"The Birdcage is a dumping ground, every country on Earth uses it, no one cares what happens to the people in there. They want to have the perfect society, go right ahead, they want to live out their crazed fantasies, well no one gives two shits about it. As for the rest of the northern continent that's for regular criminals and villains smart enough to have fought in the war."
"Regular people?"
"Putting people into prison's expensive kid, it uses a lot of resources, and with the war going on we don't have a lot of resources. So what happens is we go to the people with life sentences, or long ones and we give them a choice. You can spend the rest of your life in a cell or you can be free on Pluto. Do whatever you want there, here are some supplies and you can't ever go home."
"And people take that deal?"
"All of the fucking time, well thats how America handles it, other countries handle it differently. It's not our job to judge, our job, our only job is to take out the trash."
"And?"
"Whatever they do on Pluto doesn't matter to us anymore, They die or they make it? Whatever happens happens. We get a fee to transport people to Pluto proper from every country and state. It's a dirty little secret but we're probably one of the most profitable trees in the line."
"The fee?"
"32,000 dollars per prisoner, the average annual cost of housing one, that's the price for a non Parahuman prisoner, for Parahuman ones the cost goes up based on their power. Sometimes it hits the millions, we charge 100 thousand minimum to get people into the Birdcage."
"How many do we, um..."
"Send out? A lot, wer'e a multibillion dollar industry, no one likes to talk about it but hey out of sight out of mind and they're criminals right ,so no one cares."
He looked to the side.
"Look your job isn't to care, just get them to the chopper, give them their duffle bag and get the fuck out of there. What happens afterwards, well it doesn't matter. Do your job, get your paycheck and get home alive."
Words to live by, I looked at the message.
"Well fuck."
"Sir?"
"Civilians aren't allowed on Pluto, it's not fucking safe here, I'm going to try to find out what the fuck's going on."
I looked through the file, and sighed, stupid fucking, goddamn it.
"Stop your ship."
"The freedom of the seas is-"
I decided to stop his ranting.
"Please I am asking you with tears in my eyes, please don't make me fucking kill you."
There was silence...
"Que?"
"This isn't Earth, this is Pluto, this place is fucking dangerous if you go out there I can't guarantee your safety."
"I can't go home empty handed."
God... this idiot.
"This is the prison planet, the one for supervillians. If you go north they will capture you, rape you, and murder you and eat you and not necessarly in that order."
"I'm not afraid."
"Um...boss?"
Fuck it, Darwin's chainsaw of natural selection is going to have to get to work.
"Fine, we're going to put explosives on your ship, if you go north they will go off and kill everyone on board."
"THIS IS A-"
The lights went on and he noticed all of the armed guards, the man was now silent.
"Oh."
"Yeah, so you can go back to Earth with nothing or you can do things our way, what is it going to be old man?"
He frowned and then slumped.
"I will not give up my dynamite."
"As long as you don't go north I honestly don't give two shits what you do."
The man sighed and we placed explosives on his boat, we then opened the gates and let him go out into the sea of nightmares.
"So explosives?"
"No but they look like them don't they?"
The young man blinked.
"Those things? They're aid packs, supplies things like that, he's going to be out there for a very long time."
"But sir."
"It is what it is, anything that leaves the World tree that isn't one of us? It's never allowed back."
I nodded my head as the madman vanished.
"I hope he enjoy's his stay because he won't ever be able to leave."