Suspects' Holding Cell

[etcircenses]

The vans drive for what seems like an hour before they come to a stop, and Peacekeepers blindfold and forcefully drag even the most cooperative suspects into a building.

The suspects are all held in one cell, a large, metal room with a thick door and a single ledge that serves as a bench. Bright fluorescent lights beam from overhead. There are no windows and no clocks, no sign of where they might be.

The Peacekeepers take off the blindfolds, though without much care for whether they come off all the way or chafe or stay slung around the suspects' necks. The suspects' hands are left cuffed behind their backs, and even the most ingenious of them won't be able to pick the lock on their restraints, but they're otherwise left to roam freely through the space.

Suspects are removed, one at a time, at unpredictable intervals, by Peacekeepers armed with tasers. Some take three hours to return, while others are back within only a minute. Each of them comes back having been clearly roughed up and pressed for information that they may or may not hold; some are bleeding or sporting the beginnings of black eyes.

They'll be sleeping here tonight.

Comments

sorry for the long wait, was busy from the move, we can keep going or wrap soon, your call

[hiccup1puberty0]

He had escaped from a prison or two in his time but never one like this. Usually they were dusty dungeons, with stupid guards that had uniform patrols. These people could monitor them constantly, the guards were always smart enough to come in groups and had weapons much worse than swords, axes, or even crossbows.

But he got the gist of what she was saying.

"It's strange being watched all the time in this place," he said. "Is that how it is where you're from? Do people have the same kind of machines?"

An excuse to just have a chat about technology while she could maybe clue him on how this stuff worked. He'd realized by now that most people came from worlds where technology like this already existed and even people who didn't who'd been here longer than him had a better idea of how it worked than he did.

She could maybe give him some ideas about it under the pretense of talking about what was in her own world and how it compared.

It's cool! I'm slow as all things myself

[arosewiththorns]

Oh she isn't foolish enough to not consider this a challenge. And it has it's risks, certainly. Failure will merit a punishment worse than this, potentially death in truth, but risks have to be taken at times. All she can do regarding that is try and make certain she's negated the worst of those.

"It can be," she says smoothly, shifting ever so slightly. "It depends on who you are. Some people are considered risks and are monitored, and some places will monitor all just to make sure everything is secure. Banks, shops, high profile offices that may contain things of importance."

"And then you get those who who the public find interesting. Similar to what we go through here in truth. Fame is the reason those people are watched so closely, and I confess I'm not unfamiliar with that. I am reasonably well know where I come from, a person of interest if you will."

Of course, she's monitored for reasons besides being a best selling author, but she won't go into those right now. "The technology has come a long way though. Even what is hear is unfamiliar to me in ways."

Better to be upfront and honest after all. Maybe in turn it will give him a more natural opening to ask how exactly things work.

[hiccup1puberty0]

"How does this kind of stuff work? It's, ah, it's a little beyond what we have back home. We're still treating gears and winches like they're something to write home about. I've figured out how to make some things like the communicators do things that I think they're actually intended to do, hooray for me, but I still have no idea how it all works."

Opening taken and cracked open even farther.

[arosewiththorns]

"Has the concept of electricity been explain to you?" she says for a start, shifting a little as if she's trying to get more comfortable. "As far as I can tell it's all still powered by similar ways. Batteries that will hold onto electricity, or energy if you prefer and use it to power what it needs to. Over time the battery decreases and you either need to replace it entirely or recharge it. Recharging provides it with more energy, and it's usually done by plugging the device into a fixed source of energy."

She smiles faintly, studying him. "Do you understand so far?"

[hiccup1puberty0]

"Yeah, I've learned that much. It's basically controlled lightning, right? And people use it to make machines work."

All machines. So they either had independent sources of it or some fixed source.

"What are the fixed sources? Where does the energy come from in the first place so that there's a place to plug things in?"

[arosewiththorns]

"It's a simple comparison, yes." But Rose will leave it at that, because really, simple is better. Especially when she doesn't know all the technicalities herself. Someone else can do something more in depth with him regarding that.

"It depends on the time and the resources. I'm not sure what here does, but they still mine coal so it must be used in some way. Coal can be burned and the destruction of it in turn creates energy that can be used. So they burn it in a power plant and it travels via wiring to those fixed points to be used. Other sources in wind, where they wind moves turbines and that movement creates energy, or water which does much the same. There can also be solar, when panels absorb the heat and energy from the sun which is converted into electricity."

She pauses, frowning slightly. "I'm sorry I'm not completely sure on the details, I was never particularly focused in science classes."