--United American Continent, 2031. (stop)
--Incarcerated Citizens per 100,000: 2900. (stop)
--The Samuel Norton Act of 2020 privatized all Prisons in the United States. (stop)
--Canada annexed 2021. American occupation of Mexico 2023. (stop)
--Official formation of the United American Continent, Nov. 2023. (stop)
--Inmates of Prisons deemed Level 5, Max Sec, UD/ED are no longer officially citizens of the UAC. (stop)
--The Norton Act stipulates that corporations may do as they see fit with prisoners who fail to show marked improvement at the Level 5 Max Sec definition. Capital punishment is commonplace. (stop)
--By 2025, Incarceration (either "end-user rehabilitation" or "undesirable/dissident expatriation/deportation") is the biggest business in the Americas. (stop)
--The Moreton Company, Ltd. is arguably the biggest name in 21st C incarceration. Their twelve institutions house more than nine million prisoners. One of their facilities is Level 5, Max Sec, UD/ED designation. (stop)
--Robert Gunton, the warden of Moreton Facility 12, 250 km East of Las Cruces, Cuahuila, UAC, is a wealthy man, single, fifty-four years of age, from a wealthy Southern family. He rose quickly through the ranks at Moreton, and could be Warden at any facility of his choice. He chose Facility 12, known among its inmates as 'The Last Stop,' because as a Level 5 facility, he is afforded much latitude to operate as he pleases. Privately, he is a cruel, sadistic, diabolic individual, but fits the corporate mold at Moreton well, as he is also fastidious, orderly, detail-oriented, and driven to weed out the undesirables of the UAC, sanitizing the nation one at a time. (stop)
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Warden's Message to Incoming Moreton Facility 12 Inmates
(recycled -- with embellishments -- for every new group of arrivals.)
(recycled -- with embellishments -- for every new group of arrivals.)
You men and women... You are the dregs of society. You are what is rotten and fetid in America today. You are worthless, a burden on everything and everyone around you. You have failed at every conceivable nuance of life. You are all multiple offenders, all serving life sentences. Most of you have re-offended while an inmate. America has nothing left for you. America does not want you. "I served my country," "I am a good mother," "I played college ball for USC," "I have a family," "I go to church..." These things no longer apply to your existence. Your excuses are your own. **single out specific offenders** You are thieves. Murderers. Arsonists. Rapists. Domestic terrorists. Homosexuals. Drug users and pushers. Many of you are Double-Y offenders. There is no chance of rehabilitation for you. (note: Double-Y syndrome is a genetic mutation present in some males. Specifically, it is a deformity of the X/Y chromosome pair, resulting in the YY pattern. This pattern gives the afflicted person a predisposition for antisocial behavior, specifically very brutal crimes, including rape and serial murder of women. -ed.) And now you have come here, to my Facility. Make no mistake -- this is your Last Stop. Here you will live out your worthless, hollow lives, and here you will be summarily executed if you step out of line or so much as fart without say-so. Here there is no visitation. No time off for good behaviour. No parole. No pardon. Your asses belong to me. And do not test me -- or you may discover there is a fate worse than death. **The Warden always ends his 'welcome' by selecting a new inmate -- the worst of the worst -- and reading their rap sheet from his simple, metal lectern and dais -- a process which in some cases may take minutes. At the end of which, the lead guard puts a .556 round into that inmate's skull. If any others step out of line, they too are dealt with.**
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...of course, the reality of Facility 12 is that the Warden has his own private Hunger Games happening, live, for his own enjoyment. Sure, lots of people die at Facility 12. Lots more live out their existences. But Facility 12 is also Warden Gunton's personal experiment. Every dossier of hardened criminals who enters Moreton Facility 12 passes the Warden's eye. And many of those selected for transfer to F.12 do so because they fit a particular set of criteria, and when those individuals inevitably cross a line, they end up disappearing. The inmates whisper 'Absolom...' There is no escape. No return. Inmates selected for 'deportation' are transferred, gagged and deprived of sight and sound, in the dead of night. Insertion is by helicopter, with no fewer than six fully armed guards, and two escort gunships.
The island referred to as 'Absolom' is about six miles wide, and at its longest, seven miles long. It is not large, but due to the topography, climate and vegetation, it can take more than two days to travel tip-to-tip. It was once a lightly populated island, and contained two resort complexes on its Eastern shores, and the accompanying villages to house the support staff. The resorts were failed endeavours, as the waters are shark-infested, hostile and rocky. The island is sub-tropical, and covered in dense jungle. There is no electricity on the island. No running water. No services of any kind. There are eight species of venomous spider, four species of deadly snake. There is very little game. Once you arrive, you cannot leave. It is forced survival of the fittest.
It has been proven (by the maybe 75 inhabitants of Absolom) that 'going it alone' is an impossibility. Loners will die of exposure, thirst, snakebite, starvation, rivals hunting them for food or sport, or any combination thereof. The inmates have created two tribes on the island. One is known as the 'Outsiders,' and exists in the ruins of the original workers' housing compound, in the Southwest. These people are the savages, the bestial, feral. They would kill you as soon as look at you. These are cannibals, murderers, sociopaths. Heads full of bad wiring. They have adopted the look of their station. To exist among the Outsiders is to constantly fight for place, and might makes right. Oddly, it is the Outsiders' camp that receives supply drops from Moreton. Medicine, food, supplies. These drops are infrequent, and often the catalyst for warring between the Outsiders, and their neighbours to the North. The current leader of the Outsiders is Norrix Killian.
The other camp is populated by the 'Insiders.' Their camp is located at the North end of the island in an area accessible only via a marsh, or via a rocky, sheer outcropping which is next-to-impossible to scale. The Insiders attempt to make something from nothing. A life from the darkness. They are constantly under siege from the Outsiders, and usually on the verge of extinction. This game of predator and prey amuses the Warden to no end. The leader of the Insiders is Rosary 'Rosa' Hernandez.