I was taken to the Presidio Concentration Camp the day after the trial. It was early in the morning when some U.S. marshals entered my cell in the San Francisco Federal Jail and hauled me off before I had a chance to eat breakfast. I was put on this big old bus with the words "Bureau of Prisons" stenciled on the side. After taking my seat with some of the other prisoners, the bus driver started the bus and it moved out of the jail through the streets of San Francisco.

I watched as the bus drove through the streets, going up and down the slopes. We then passed through some parkland, which I figured was the Golden Gate Park. The bus finally came to a stop and the engine was turned off.

From the window, I can see the site of the concentration camp. The whole place was surrounded by a chain-link fence, topped with barbed wire. Guards armed with rifles stood at towers placed along the fence. I can see a big stone building, which I figured was the administration building. And there were some wooden shacks, where the prisoners would live.

A guard from the camp went obn board the bus, and summoned us out of here. I stepped off the bus and looked towards the camp where I would be staying for at least two days, according to my watch. I notived a sign attached to the fence. It read,

"INMATE ARRIVALS

PRESIDIO CONCENTRATION CAMP

BUREAU OF PRISONS

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE"

We went through the gate and then walked along a passage to the administration building. Inside, there was a room, isolated from the rest of the building, where the prisoners would be processed. I had to stamp my fingerprints on a pad, and then I had my picture taken. I was also given a gray jumpsuit. Then a guard took me into the prisoner area.

I noticed the concentration camp had both men and women, same as on the bus. Many of the prisoners were emaciated, as if they had little to eat. Most of the inmates were white, with a few Negroes among them.

It was my nose that was paying the most attention. There was this evil stench about the place.

The guard took me to some dilapidated shack.

"This is your dormitory," the guard said to me.

"If I am to be executed, I'd think I'd be put in a more secure cell," I said.

"Everyone here is under a death sentence," the guard smirked. "The penalty for treason against the Aryan race is death."

I looked inside the dormitory, though I nor one of my friends would never mistake this for the living quarters of college students. The strucuture was made of wood, some of it rotted. There are gaps between the wood panels that make up the walls. There is no electric wiring in this building. In fact, there was no furniture, not even beds to sleep in. All of the inmates had to sleep on the dirt floor. There was a general feeling of despair among the inmates.

"Uh, hi," I said. "My name is Colin. How are you doing?"

No one wanted to talk.

I was sitting in the wooden shack for a few hours when I heard a horn sound.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Chow horn," said one of the men.

We all went out. I followed some of the other inmates, hoping they would lead me to the mess hall.

The inmates from my shack as well as the other shacks all stood in an open area. Guards stood by, wielding iron truncheons.

Then I saw an armored vehicle back up into the spot where the inmates gathered. Suddenly, it spilled something onto the dirt.

soim eof the inmates picked through this. I looked. I could see bits of oatmeal, the cores of some apples, bread rolls, as well as nonedible trash.

I was angry. On the world I grew up in, prisoners in the U.S. were never subjected to such inhumane, barbaric treatment during my lifetime. What was happenign here was wrong.

"Hey!" I shouted. "What's this? This isn't a meal."

"hey boy," someone said. "you got a problem."

"Yeah. We are entitled to be served clean, hot meals. We want beds to sleep in!"

"And I bet you want cable TV too," he said, whom I recognize as a guard.

Then I felkt a sharp pain on my face and I fell to the ground. That bastard just hit me with his truncheon! He proceeded to whack me a few more times on the chest and abdomen.

"Listen, traitor," he said. "People who turn against the Aryan race are lower than life!" He kicked me int he stomasch, sending pain straight up my spine. "I think it's time for your punishment."

"You're gonna kill me?"

"Not until your appointed time."

As I was dragged away, I saw a bunch of naked people in a line. They were entering some brick building with huge smokestacks, like one of the blast furnaces for smelting iron. Smoke bellowed out from the stacks. A chill went through my body. I just realized that the stench of this place was the stench of burning flesh. That building is where they were executed.

I wondered why none of them tried to escape anf then I saw the guards with rifles stationed just yards away, and I knew that the first fist raised in defiance would be answered with a hail of bullets.

I was taken to this room in the administration building. I was stripped and then hung from the ceiling with a rough hemp rope. I was hung high enough that my legs were dangling.

I could hear screams coming from the next room, or maybe across the hall.

"Those guys must be having a fun time with that traitor bitch," said one of the guards.

"I hope I get my turn. But I'll have to warm up with this guy."

then I felt something sting my back. and again. And again. I was being whipped.

Each lash sent pain up my spine. I could hear the guards laughing as they whipped me. Every time the lash hit me, I thought it would never end.

Finally, it did end, and I was clothed again and taken back to my shack.

I lay down, my skin still in pain from all the lashes of the whips. Some of my shackmates were gathering around me.

I prayed to God, wondering if He had abandoned me to this place. I had never expereienced a horror such as the Presidio, even after a year of sliding. Quinn never told me of haviong to go through such horrors as I endured my first day here. I looked at my watch, and it still has two days left before the next slide, assuming it was working fine. But what if I was executed before then. Or what if whatever allowed me to slide without any external devices was gone, leaving me stranded behind these barbed wire fences.

"Oh Lord," I said. "Please don't leave me here."

"You think God is going to help you?" said one of the men. "God has abandoned us, abandoned this country. That is why this Aryan regime has free reign. God has turned His back on us, and America was turned into Hell."

The man's words did have a ring of truth. What if God did abandon me here? Was I condemned to spend eternity in this Hell?

Suddenly, I noticed someone was shoved into a room. The guard who shoved the person in had a wide smirk on his face, a devilish grin.

I looked at the person who just entered. I noticed she was a woman. The shirt of her prison suit was unbuttoned, and she was not wearing any trousers.

I looked at her face, a familiar face.

"Maggie," I said. "What have they done to you?"

I wondered if Maggie and the rest slid here too. Where was Quinn and Remmy? Then I figured this must be the native Maggie Beckett.

"How do you know her?" asked one of the men.

"I"m a traveler," I said. "I spend most of my time traveling around California. My name is Colin Mallory."

"Michael Hurley," replied the man. "Since I'm condemned to death, I might as well tell you that I'm in the resistance. I was captured three days ago. Two days ago I was sent here, waiting for death."

"Get away from me!" shouted Maggie. "Get away from me!"

"What's wrong?' asked Michael Hurley.

"He was the one who captured us. He interrogated me. He...He..."

"She must have broken down," said one of the women. "The guards must have been rough on her."

Maybe she did suffer a mental breakdown after being tortured and God knows what else. But then again, my sadistic counterpart might have interrogated her, and might have been liberal in his methods.

Then I began thinking. Maybe god did not guide me here just to suffer. Maybe I could help out. I mean, in some of the wolrds I had visited I had helped out those in need.

This country was under the iron grip of an evil regime. I think I am here to loosen that grip.

After night had fallen, a guard entered the shack. He looked upon one of the women.

"Come with me," he said. "We need some company."

I could see the fear in her eyes. She was younger than me, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. I stood up and walked to him.

"What if she doesn't want to?" I asked.

"I want her, so I'm gonna have her."

And then I made my move.

He had this awful grimace in his face. He felt something, a piece of wood. A piece of wood stuck to his neck. A piece of wood from the wall that I had sharpened, which would be strong enough to be used as a thrusting dagger.

I removed the wood and the guard slowly bled to death.

"What did you do?" yelled Michael Hurley as he saw what I had done. "they're gonna kill us!"

"Did you see those people who went into that brick building yesterday?" I asked. "Did they kill any of the guards?"

Hurley did not say a word.

"Listen,." I said. "We are all condemned to die. Our only chance to survive is to resist. We may be killed if we resist. But we will be exterminated if we do nothing! Even if all of us get killed resisting, if we can take out just one more guard, then it's worth it!"

"He's right," I heard someone say. I looked, and saw Maggie Beckett get up. "I'm not going to march into that death furnace."