One of the last things that you'd want to hear in a private prison owned by a fanatical group that disregards your most basic constitutional rights are either the words 'elimination' or 'welcome'. It's not a good sign when you happen to hear both in the same sentence; especially when the room you're confined to looks like it could double up as a gas chamber. I should've been terrified. I should've been concerned for my future mental and physical health; but all I could manage with what felt like the seven seas sloshing around my gut was intense irritation.

Still, there was no way out the two rooms other than up the elevator again. I wouldn't get to leave until SHIELD decided it was good and ready to let me out; which was never at this rate because after greeting me the intercom had said nothing at all. I felt a bit stupid just standing in the doorway though, so I took a step forward and stood stupidly inside of the room instead. I must've registered on some hidden motion camera, because it was only after I moved that the box started talking again.

"Please have a seat - inmate twelve," It quickly spoke up after I'd shifted uncomfortably.
My brain did a mental double take at the end of the intercoms sentence. The box's voice had paused just before it said my number - and had been replaced with a second, less metallic voice. It was mindboggling; a bajillion dollar SHIELD-funded program was incapable of making - or buying - a decent AI capable of pronouncing names or numbers. They'd done a bang up job with the voice responsible for names and numbers as well – it was clearly feminine and human, while the majority of the boxes voice was masculine and tinny. This penitentiary is a joke. Half the time Fury's running a hardcore operation, and the other half he's pulling bullshit like this.

Unfortunately, my internal monologue and contemplation of box-voices had drowned out whatever the intercom man-lady was telling me.
"…ope you will perform to the utmost of your capabilities. Good luck, and thank you for your time."
My time? Is that supposed to be funny? Fuck you Fury. The top of the large metallic table that I'd been staring at earlier was suddenly illuminated when the box stopped talking, further adding to the already blinding whiteness that was the room's atmosphere. Funnily enough, it looked like a giant iPhone.
Cool – a touchscreen table. But can they make a decent AI? NooOOOooooo. I leaned further into the room to look at the tabletop, but didn't step any closer. It looked like it had a blown up picture of a word document sprawled across it.

The motion-cameras didn't notice my slight lean, which prompted the intercom to speak up again. "Please make your way to the center of the room and sign on the dotted line."
Hold on, what am I signing? I never agreed to this. "No…" I muttered out loud, wondering if the AI was capable of responding to voice commands.
"Please make your way to the center of-"
"What am I signing?" I shouted a bit louder. Knowing SHIELD, their document was probably filled with double-negatives and unnecessary SHIELD-jargon used to confuse whoever was signing the thing. I doubted that the box would give me a straight answer either.
The room was quiet for a minute, and if this whole situation wasn't so ridiculous and the AI wasn't so dumb, I'd say it was mulling over my question. Finally, it responded a minute later, "Please make your way to the center of the room and sign your - waiver of release." The second feminine voice made a reappearance at the end again.

I took an involuntary step back through the door in shock. "My waiver of what?!" I shouted. Is that what it'd been rambling about?
"Please make your-"
"I'm not waiving my release!" I shouted in horror. "What the actual fuck?!"
"Please make your way-"
"That's bullshit! You have to release me! I've… done nothing wrong!"
"Please-"
"LET ME OUT!"
"-way to the cent-"
"I WANT OUT!"
"-oom and sign y-"
"THAT'S FUCKING ILLEGAL!"
"-of release."
"I'M NOT SIGNING THAT!"

The hell was SHIELD trying to pull, making me give up my right to ever leave this prison? What if I was innocent? Why would anyone sign that? "You can take your waiver and shove it up your-"
"If you are not capable of signing the document," the box droned on despite my empty threats, "or if you are mentally incapable of understanding the terms of agreement, please say 'help me'."
Fine. "Help me!" I shouted at the dumb thing. Maybe they'll come in here and explain their stupidity.
There was a beat of silence, and I watched in helpless horror as the screen zoomed into the line at the bottom of the page and my signature – real name and exact penmanship – was quickly scribbled across the line by an invisible hand.
Oh my go- "NO!"
"We here at SHIELD-"
"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"
"- your continued cooperation-"
"LET ME OUT!"
"-you soon."
"NO FUCK YOU!"

The elevator doors opened at that moment, and the guard that stepped through looked fully prepared to shoot me through the head if I did anything stupid.
"I didn't sign that! Fuck you!" I shouted at him, and in extent SHIELD, "You fucking shit motherfuckering bastard assho-," he dragged me backwards into the elevator, and struggled to reign me in when I tried to dart back into the other room. "I swear to – no, fuck you!" His grip was bordering on bone-crushing, and he was shouting something incomprehensible either to me or the people in his radio.
"Shut up!" He yelled – probably at me this time – and prodded at my back with the muzzle of his gun. "Shut your goddamn mouth right now."
My mind hushed when I realized he was jabbing his gun into my lower back, and I stood calmly while he tried to simultaneously threaten me with his gun, hold me in place, and scan his card and press a floor button.
"Fucking…" he swore and shook me warningly before releasing my arm and pointing the gun at my head instead. "Hold still," he ordered.
Of course I held still.
Now that he had one arm free, he quickly picked a floor before he went back to grinding my humerus into a pulp.

Why are there fifty floors? This place can't possibly have fifty floors. The numbers clearly read one through fifty though. There're only three floors above ground – SHIELD wouldn't seriously build forty seven basements… would they?
Probably.
"When the doors open," the guard murmured, interrupting my awe of SHIELDs ability to be so… SHIELDy, "You're gonna go to your cell and check in with yer barcode. After that yer free to do whatever you want. The cafeteria will be serving meals at all hours too, since you dipshits don't all finish your elim runs at the same time."
"I need to take a leak." I muttered unnecessarily.
He sighed tiredly and gave my arm one last bruising squeeze before the door opened. "Do as yer told, twelve."

"Duh uhs yuhr tuhld, telve," I muttered under my breath as the elevator closed on the guard.
"HEY!" He suddenly shoved his arm between the two sliding doors and wrenched them back open.
I'm going to die. I only managed to spin around and take a quick step away from him before I felt the heavy weight of his hand clamp down on my shoulder. "I-" my apology was cut off when I felt him unlock my cuffs and push me forward.
"Get a move on." He muttered, and disappeared back into the elevator again.
This time waited until he was completely out of view to insult him. "Geh ah mah ahn." I whispered petulantly.
Prick.

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

I spent the night staring at the ceiling and fiddling with the radio. After today's events, the normally unyielding plywood-like mattress felt like heaven, and the uniform pajamas felt considerably less scratchy than usual. The radio I had was not cooperating though – the sounds that came through were hushed and buzzy at best. Still, it was better than nothing; and I was able to listen in on most of the conversations.

It turns out that despite the deafening silence that engulfs the penitentiary at night, the guards are far from silent. It's funny, because I've never heard them make so much as a peep during the night; when in reality they talk constantly. Every channel – almost every channel - was filled with either idle chatter or updates from around the penitentiary. There were about five channels that were silent, but open. I don't know much about radios, but I did manage to figure out that as long as I didn't hit the tiny 'talk' button or turn the volume up too loud, I should be fine.
I wonder if that guard knows his radio's missing. He should have by now; it's a pretty important bit of equipment to lose.

Unfortunately, their conversations weren't the, "Hey, this is the code to unlock this door" kind of useful – but the kind of useful that you might end up needing in a tight spot.

*Sigh* Forty-seven's still in his elimination cell.
Is he not signing the thing?
Intercom's malfunctioned; he's not getting any instructions.
Shit.

B2-11's lock won't snap – we need maintenance down here ASAP.
Roger.
What?
Don't be an idiot. I meant roger – I got it.
Got what? *Snickering*
I'll report you, you goddamn piece o-
B clear.
D clear.
...
Is C clear?
C?
C's clear.
Finally. Rounding B east...B1 cleared.
Rounding D west… D1 row cleared.
...
COME ON C! Pick up the pace, goddamn.

It was getting easy to figure out – one channel for random updates, one for …malfunctioning stuff? Maybe? And one for the regular guards… I think. There were eight others for similarly distributed work. Those eight didn't include the five silent ones – I had yet to figure out what the last five were for. I kept cycling through them anyways, just in case I managed to pick up some random exchange.

C3 row cleared.
Not yet. Where's C1?
S-sorry. I just started yest-
C1 cleared. Please keep chatter off.
Ri- yeah. Sorry.
Sh. B2 row clear, B2-14 is out of bed though.

Okay. B,C, and D must be our cell wing names… so, they checking up on us. How'd the guards know if someone was out of bed though? I've never once noticed them shining a flashlight through the windows; everything was always pitch blac- Omigosh… their goggles. Sneaky bastards. What's that stuff that lets you see in the dark? Infrared, right?

I continued flipping through the channels for the rest of the night, and was lucky enough to find one of the five silent ones speaking up. It was maintenance. Like, the actual maintenance crews who were busy arguing over whose turn it was to go fix the lock that someone had complained about earlier.

I found it odd that all the guards had access to every single radio channel though – like, this radio I had now could cycle through them all… assuming there were only thirteen stations. I thought the guy I stole it from was just a regular hall guard – and a regular hall guard shouldn't have the privilege of knowing what maintenance was talking about. Then again… I don't have much insight on how SHIELD operates or how much information they want to give out to their guards. There was the off chance that I had just managed to steal this from a more important guard though; like I'd just been lucky enough to be tackled by that particular one.

I'd hoped that they'd talk about tomorrow's elimination stuff; but the only elimination-related thing they'd talked of was about that guy locked in his cell, and someone named Beady who was exempt from the eliminations for the rest of the week. Maybe they meant Torres? I'm guessing she hadn't told me her real last name, just like I hadn't given her mine. Maybe Beady was her last name and she didn't have to go through the elimination because she was sick. Maybe if I threw up I wouldn't either.

~~~~~~~01100101 01011000 01100101 00100000~~~~~~~

Many affected citizens felt sick to their stomachs when they thought of their missing loved ones. Their children, significant other, parent, sibling, grandparent, or friend was missing; and for some odd reason, the police were horribly unhelpful. Unfortunately, these people had no way of knowing that there were similar families across the country going through the same struggle - or that SHIELD was keeping the police from advancing any further in their investigations.

Among these affected citizens were the Smiths, and Mister and Misses Smith were not happy. Despite having filed a missing person report, the police remained adamantly useless while simultaneously insisting that they were 'doing their best'. Mister Smith was especially unimpressed, as the police had harassed his wife at her workplace and even insinuated that their child was missing because they'd run away to escape the law. Unfortunately there was not much he could do about it, aside from fume and rant when his wife was out of earshot or dig the heels of his palms into his eye sockets when he sat on the loo and contemplated the unnaturalness of the situation. As most people did in this position, he feared the worst and hoped for the best.

This season was especially hard though, as Christmas was just around the corner and nearly every advertisement or show on TV reminded Misses Smith that this year the family gathering would be just one member short. She'd descend into hysterics, and Mister Smith was usually an hour away at the college teaching a class at the time – he only ever witnessed the painful aftermath of his wife's breakdowns. It was these factors - the tears and the lack of action on the police's behalf - that prompted Mister Smith to take that fateful journey to his child's apartment several states away one weekend.

He wasn't sure what he had expected. He'd browsed enough internet forums and articles and gathered so much contradictory data that he was just as prepared to see the whole place covered in FBI tape as he was to find it already settled in with a new tenant. Instead he found something in the middle.

The two-story apartment complex was completely cleared out – not a single car occupied a parking space or inhabitant looked out from a curtained window. The only source of light that night came from the three orange streetlamps on the other side of the sidewalk. This was his child's home address though; he was their cosigner; he remembered their happy grin when he offered to help furnish the…

He squashed that thought, and made his way up the open stairs on the far right of the building. His child had lived on the second balconied floor, in room eight. Honestly, the whole place looked more like a very fancy motel than actual apartment, but his youngest had always been fond of smaller rooms for some reason. It might have had something to do with cleaning, or security… Or perhaps they just didn't want to be reminded how alone they were here, and the small rooms and furniture made it seem fuller. There were plenty of larger places to rent that were in the same price range. Maybe it was the location instead.

Whatever the reason, this place had certainly not been deserted three months ago during his last visit. For all he knew, his child could have gone missing the day after he'd left and he wouldn't have been the wiser; it was when they didn't call for his wife's birthday three weeks ago that the Smith's contacted the police.
And what a help they had been.

He paused outside the door. The window next to it had been smashed in – impossible to gauge when, but it allowed him to reach around inside and unlock the door… probably as the window smasher had done as well. The door creaked open lopsidedly; the bottom hinge had fallen off. Closer inspection revealed that the bottom middle of the metal door also had a dent in it.
Kicked in? He wondered. Why smash a window to get in when the door kicking had already done the job?
Perhaps they were separate events.

Nevertheless, as he stepped over the threshold and into the living room, he was horrified to realize that either his child's apartment had been well and truly vandalized; or the officers were not lying when they hinted that his youngest had run from the law. Why else conduct such a thorough search and leave the room in the upside down state that it was in now? What had his kid done? Where were they? He'd much rather have them safe and visible in jail than hurt or dead or lost in some… he suppressed a cry at the sight of the broken photo frames containing family and friends on the floor.
He needed to find his child.

His trip around the apartment took over three hours. Not once did it pass through Mister Smiths mind that he was trespassing or tampering with evidence – there hadn't been any police tape to warrant that thought. There was nothing of monetary value in any of the rooms though; indicating that it probably had been vandalized… or maybe only the expensive things were of evidential importance to the police.

Out of habit– he'd caught his youngest child criminally hiding something in a similar place once when they were seventeen or so – he checked the doors in all the rooms. On one occasion they had removed the lock and handle from their bedroom door and cut a small compartment into the wood to hide things. Apparently it had only been in use for several months before Mister Smith caught them in the act of tightening the handle back on. His child insisted that the thing was just wobbly and had wanted to tighten it up, but the redden cheeks and tips of the ears suggested something more nefarious than mere household maintenance.

It'd been a failed test. Mister Smith had, at the time, expected something much worse when he stuck two fingers in the gap; like drugs. It had made the 'F' on their test seem so inconsequential that he just about cried with joy. Even now as he unscrewed and pulled off the handle of the door at the end of the apartment, he once again felt his heart drop to his stomach and his limbs grow cold as he recognized the too-big hole neatly carved into the wood on the inside of the handles resting place.
He doubted it was a failed test nestled inside the wood.
He wondered why they picked the back door, of all places.