Tartarus-4

They make me swallow the pills while the cameras zoom-in for proof.

One white disc every shift-doxxa, 20 mg, stamped with a smug little "XX."

A micro-dose of fog to keep the desert sun soft and my memories softer.

I'm Rexx Locarius: "augmented corrections officer," badge 7743, good for one more day in the concrete eye the prisoners call Tartarus.

My implants still light up the place-infra-pulse in the security rails, micro-tremors in a prisoner's jaw, the fine print flickering under every corporate logo.

But the medicine blurs the picture just before it clicks into focus, like a half-remembered face in a dream you're not allowed to finish.



This morning a crate the size of a family coffin rolls off the shuttle-mil-spec alloy, private life-support, no paperwork anyone can read.

When the locks hiss open, she steps out:

Alathea-purple eyes that storm and clear in one breath, crystal lattice climbing her spine like living math.

She calls herself "political custody," but she walks intake the way a landlord inspects new property.

One glance at me and I feel the pill coating peel right off my brain.

Dr. West's hologram-part therapist, part surveillance drone-marks the spike in my vitals and prescribes "mindful breathing."

Marlo, the only crustacean in a nine-ring dust bowl, slides me a whisper:

Manifest reads thirty-seven bodies.

Life-support shows thirty-eight heartbeats.

Tell me that's just a typo.

Down in the stacked districts, inmates swap contraband coordinates with military timing.

From the watchtower it looks random; from behind my overstimulated retinas it feels choreographed-like someone's tuning the prison the way you'd prime explosives.



Maybe the pills hide nothing more sinister than burnout.

Maybe the gaps in my past are just concussion static.

But Alathea keeps looking at me like she's flipped ahead to my missing chapters, and I keep wondering what I signed away the night my head got plated with steel.

They dose me so the patterns stay fuzzy.

The patterns are sharpening anyway.

If remembering is a crime, I'm about to go full repeat-offender.