A New Sonic Weapon Needs Human Ears.

Some got caught fleeing with fake vaccine passports. Some got betrayed by friends and family. Some even dressed as tramps and played the part in the city streets until drones rounded up everyone out of step with the government's message. After months spent in the camps trying to survive, the lucky winners were rehoused on toxic bombed out tracts of land no one wanted. The buildings used to rehouse the disobedient, the mad, the grief stricken and the other square pegs were best described as high security prisons with Butlins signs hanging on the gate. The message the government hoped to convey was that we we're holidaying at the taxpayers expense! No reporter or civilian was allowed inside. Once you crossed the threshold you didn't leave, ot at least that's how it's been for the last three years.

Inside we were separated by gender. There were three genders: Male, female and trans. I was with the men and I had my own cell. I had books, painting equipment, writing material and limited Internet on the government information site. Think North Korea, and I'm not exaggerating. My crime that landed me in here, was refusing the vaccine.  It had gone from bad to worse as I had resisted arrest, been labelled violent, and ended up in here. The high security Wing. I can't remember the last time I saw a blade of grass or a cloud. I was entombed in concrete like some transgressive Pharoah. I often walked to the showers or dining room without a top on. I had read somewhere that this was normal for Pharoahs in ancient Egypt. Proud of their physical bodies like dangerous animals. Well that was before. For the last three months we had been tortured nightly by some high frequency sonic weapon. No one knew what was going on. Gossip was sent howling like a ghost from cell to cell. I tried to ignore that bullshit. I did though hear the screams and in the morning through the crack in my door, I saw the bodybags on gurneys containing the shells of people I used to know. Every night at lights out we would all try and grab a few hours sleep before the first blast of murder at one am. This machine generated scream sounded like the highest frequency possible for the human ear. It didn't oscillate or rise and fall in the way music does. It was a flatline blast that lasted an hour until you chose to beat your head against the wall and lost consciousness. I wasn't going to be beaten by this horror. I jumped out of bed as soon as it started and did press ups, sit ups, star jumps, but I was tired and living on half the sleep I would have prefered to have. After one am the next blast was at five am for about an hour and a half. This tended to be the blast that got the weaker lads screaming for mercy, or for their mothers, or for the guards to turn it off. We never got an explanation or even any indication when it would end. Only for it to start mysteriously once more. We couldn't collectivise in this place. It was always one Vacationer at a time out of his cell. Vacationer was the nickname for any prisoner here. One of the lads had escaped in a bodybag and was going to the media with his story. This was the gossip I had heard today. Then something more real came my way. It was a pile of papers delivered by some government lawyer. They were offering me a way out. Take the vaccine and I would get a job in an Amazon Warehouse, a double pod for me and a wife or spy handpicked by the government algorithm, and a lifetime pass for the public transport system. The alternative was I could be euthanized after enjoying a final meal with a fellow suicide getting the needle on the same night. No thanks, I said. I was just starting to enjoy the intense music of the night.