This story is set in an anonymous state in the near future, where surveillance techniques and bureaucracy reign. Could this be what your state will look like then?

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Disclaimer: The original characters and plot of this story are the property of the author. No infringement of pre-existing copyright is intended. This story is copyright (c) 2009 Penny Lane. All rights reserved.

This story has previously published elsewhere in a different format. It has been re-edited for this edition.

When Marlon Hillier opened his apartment door, he found three men standing there, dressed in black. The man in front had a purple stripe on each cuff, indicating that he was a Proctor. Surprised by the unexpected visit, Marlon took a deep breath.

"Service, citizens. How may I help you?"

"Service, citizen. We understand this is the registered dwelling-place of Marion Allen Hillier. We have business with her. Is she in?"

"I'm sorry, Proctor, no-one of that name lives here, only me. But my name sounds very similar to that, I'm Marlon Allen Hillier. Are you sure that it's not me that you have business with?"

Confused, the Proctor consulted his datapad. "No, it's very definitely a woman that we want. Do you recognise this picture?"

He held his datapad up so that Marlon could see the display. It showed the face of a young, blonde woman, probably in her mid-twenties, attractive enough if you were into blondes.

"Never seen her before," replied Marlon. "Perhaps you gentlemen would like to step inside, so that we can sort this out."

He stood back, and waved his arm to invite them in. The Proctor motioned him back from the door, and the three stepped inside, one of the accompanying Enforcers closing the door before standing in front of it as if to prevent Marlon from escaping. He knew better than to try any such thing, of course.

"Check the rooms," the Proctor instructed, and the other heavy moved past Marlon, to inspect the three rooms that made up his small living space. It didn't take long.

"Clear, sir," reported the Enforcer.

"Right," said the Proctor. "I am Proctor Julian, by the way. I think we'd better see your ID card first."

Marlon fished it out of his pocket and handed it to the official, who inserted it into a slot at the top of his datapad. The Proctor checked the data, then handed it back.

"Seems to be in order," he said. "This is an apartment designated for couples, isn't it? How is it you're living here alone, then?"

"My partner died six months ago in a traffic accident," Marlon replied, "I've been on the list for a single apartment for a while, but there's too much demand for them, and while there are a lot of couples apartments empty in this block the Housing Authority is quite happy for me to stay here until the demand for the singles goes down."

Proctor Julian nodded. "Much as I thought. Now, can I check your partner's details? I'd better make sure she wasn't the one we're looking for."

"Uh, yes. If we can go into the living area, I'll give you her death certificate."

Julian motioned Marlon into the living area, closely followed by the Enforcer. Marlon went to the small sideboard, but the Enforcer got there first, and opened all the cupboards and drawers to ensure there were no weapons hidden there. Marlon dug out a cardboard box and retrieved a black card the same size and shape as an ID card, which he handed to Julian. Julian inspected the card using his datapad and handed it back.

"What's this woman supposed to have done, anyway?" asked Marlon as he put the card away. "Assuming you're allowed to tell me, of course."

Julian shrugged. "Fraud. We have a positive video ID on her collecting the proceeds from a cash dispenser. Her record led us back here." He frowned. "I have a problem here, Citizen Hillier. You obviously can't be the person we're looking for, but your name is sufficiently similar that it raises some questions in my mind, questions I don't want to ask. The State does not make mistakes, and that's my problem. There must have been some kind of goof-up when they back-tracked the ID, and I can't see how that could happen. I can't solve this from here, so I'm going to ask you to come back to the station with us, so I can work through the data and see what's happening."

"Of course, Citizen Proctor. Happy to be of service." Marlon's heart sank. While it was the duty of every citizen to stay out of trouble, staying out of the way of the Proctors and their Enforcers was an even greater imperative. Enforcers were not known for their social skills.

"Can I get my coat?" he asked. Although they would take him to the station, once this mess was straightened out he would most likely have to find his own way home. The Enforcer lifted it off the coat rack and handed it to him, and he put it on.

The Enforcer spoke. "Hands behind, citizen."

"What?"

"I'm sorry, but we have to cuff you if you are going in our vehicle," said Julian, "It's the regulations, no exceptions."

Julian switched off everything in the apartment, and, hands locked behind him, the Enforcer walked Marlon outside. In the parking area at the front of the building, they loaded Marlon into a cage in the windowless back part of the enforcement vehicle. The three climbed in the front, and the vehicle set off into the city. Finally, Marlon was removed and marched directly into another building, obviously the station Proctor Julian operated from. The man himself was talking to another official when the Enforcer approached with Marlon.

"There you are," Julian said. "You can remove the cuffs, we shouldn't need them here. Citizen Hillier is not under arrest as yet, only investigation." He turned to Marlon. "This is the Custody Officer. I'm going to leave you in his care while I go upstairs and dig into this case. I may come down later and ask you some questions, okay?"

The Custody officer smiled at Marlon. "Can I ask you to empty all your pockets, citizen? I'll seal them in this bag, and we'll sign the seal. I'll keep all your belongings safe until you leave here."

Marlon put the few items in his pockets into the proffered bag, and the seal was signed. He retained only his ID card.

"If you'll just come with me, citizen." He escorted Marlon - accompanied by one of the Enforcers - along several corridors and through locked doors until they arrived at the detention area. He used his ID card to open the door of one of the holding rooms.

"In you go, citizen. I've no idea how long Proctor Julian is going to be, so you may have a long wait. I'll bring you a drink later on."

The door banged shut behind Marlon. He sat down upon the bed moulded into the side of the room and wondered how long it was going to take. Eventually, realising that speculation was fruitless, he took off his coat, rolled it to make a pillow, and lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.

He was woken up by the opening of the door. The Custody Officer came in, holding a steaming mug.

"A drink as promised," he said, adding apologetically, "I'm sorry, it looks like your stay here is going to be longer than we thought. Proctor Julian and his men have been called out to an incident. You may end up here staying overnight. I'll keep you informed, citizen."

The evening came, and with it the Custody Officer bearing a meal tray. When he returned to collect the tray, he brought some blankets with him.

"Looks like you will be here overnight," the man said. "I'll leave full notes on your file so that the duty Custody Officer tomorrow morning knows what's happening. Good night, Citizen."

In the morning, the new Custody Officer brought his breakfast tray, but refused to answer any of his questions about Proctor Julian. Lunch came, and Marlon was beginning to get concerned, partly because there was no news, and partly because the small room offered little in the way of mental stimulation. He slumped on the bed, half asleep and half in a daydream. It was therefore a complete shock when the door opened and an Enforcer stepped in and said, "Hands behind, citizen."

"Where are you taking me?" he asked, standing up and turning around. "Where's Proctor Julian?"

"You're going to the court," the man replied, applying the cuffs. "No more questions."

He was marched out of the detention area, along corridors, into and out of a lift, and into a different part of the building. Eventually, he and his guard stood in a waiting area for a few minutes before he was led into what was obviously the dock of a court. Marlon assumed so, anyway. He had never been anywhere near the justice system before in his life.

In front of him, seated at a desk set much higher than his level, sat a woman who was apparently running the proceedings. She did a double-take as Marlon was lead to a seat and his cuffs removed.

"There appears to be some mistake here. Is Proctor Julian present?" she asked.

One of the other people present, a court official by his uniform, replied. "No, ma'am, Proctor Julian was allocated to an important incident that occurred yesterday afternoon."

"Oh, yes. I know what you refer to. I shall have to conduct this case from the record, then. There seems to be a problem. The accused in this case is a woman, and I have a man in front of me."

The clerk responded. "This person was brought in yesterday by Proctor Julian. I don't think he would have brought someone in if he hadn't been certain of his identification."

The woman frowned, and then looked at Marlon. "Would you give the court your name, citizen?"

"I'm Marlon Allen Hillier, learned citizen. Proctor Julian noticed the discrepancy when he came to my apartment," he added.

"Noted," the woman said, "but next time, only answer the question you've been asked. Understood?"

She busied herself with the case record, displayed upon her terminal, looking thoughtful. She turned to Marlon.

"Do you deny the charge made against you?"

"Learned citizen, I don't think anyone has made a charge against me. Leastways, not that they have told me about."

She turned back to the terminal, using it to consult other information. Then she beckoned the clerk up to her, and they held a long, quiet discussion before she turned back to the courtroom to pronounce her verdict.

"The State does not make mistakes, so I think I see my way clear in this matter. In the case of the State versus Marion Allen Hillier, I find the accused guilty of fraudulently obtaining money on the thirteenth of last month. I find the accused guilty of tampering with identification data. I also find the accused guilty of unauthorised gender reassignment. Because the accused denies her guilt, I double the sentence to five years detention for the first offence. I give sentence of five years detention for the second offence, to run concurrently with that for the first offence, and for the third offence, for regression therapy to be administered. Case closed, take her away."

"But I'm a man, not a woman!" shouted Marlon. He got a punch in the small of his back for his protestations. The Justiciar waved her hand, and the Enforcer, together with a courtroom official, dragged him away. Hands again locked behind him, he was led away down a different route, to end up in a holding room somewhere else in the complex of buildings. The escorting Enforcer had made it plain that any attempt to speak would be met with physical force, so the journey was made in silence.

After an hour, he was collected from the holding room, still cuffed, by a different Enforcer and led away through the labyrinth of passages. Finally, he ended up at a door where a transfer van had been backed right up. He was led into the interior of this and pushed into one of a number of tiny cubicles lining the sides. The cuffs were released, and refastened with his hands in front.

"Hang on to the handle," advised a man in a different uniform, possibly the driver. "We're not going far, but I don't want you to hurt yourself."

Marlon sat down. The cubicle had been moulded from a single sheet of plastic, with a seat at the rear and a grab handle on the front surface. There was no window. When the door was shut, he saw that it had no handle, only small ventilation slots at the top and bottom. The only light came through the translucent roof of the vehicle. He could hear other people being loaded onto the vehicle, and then a period of silence before the van was started and driven away.

The vehicle drove for only a short while, most of it on good quality roads, but at the end it rocked quite violently over what Marlon decided must be a speed prevention device of some sort. Finally after some manoeuvring it stopped, and there were sounds of the cargo being unloaded. Marlon's door was opened, and he emerged to find that the vehicle had been reversed up to a doorway as before, so that he stepped directly into another building.

His escort this time was a woman in a grey uniform he didn't recognise. She looked big and fit enough to handle Marlon, so he did exactly what she wanted him to.

"Hey! Joe! You sure you brought this one to the right place?" she asked the driver.

"Yep. I queried that when he got loaded. This is the correct place, all right. The State doesn't make mistakes, does it?" he replied.

His escort led him into a waiting area where several other cuffed citizens and their escorts were standing. It eventually struck Marlon that every single other person in the room was a woman, and that they were all staring curiously at him.

A woman wearing different collar tabs on her uniform entered the room, and she raised an eyebrow when she saw Marlon.

"What's he doing here?" she asked.

"The driver says he should be here," replied his escort. The other women in the room began to get interested.

The newcomer said, "He'd better come with me to see the Facility Controller. We need to find out what's going on. The rest of you, someone will be along shortly to induct you into the facility. Bring him."

His escort followed the other woman through some corridors and into a lift, emerging at a much higher level. They were shown into an ante-room that held a table and several chairs. After a wait, an older woman emerged from an inner office and motioned Marlon to sit at the table opposite her. The two escorts stood to one side, watching.

"Well, this is unexpected. This place is Female Offender Containment Facility Five, and I am Facility Controller Brand. Do you have your ID card, citizen?"

"Citizen." Marlon got his ID card out and presented it to the Controller. She inserted it into a slot in the personal terminal on the table in front of her.

"That's odd, there's nothing in this that indicates you should be anywhere near this place. You came here through the court system?" Marlon nodded, but remembered to keep his mouth shut. "Let me see if I can find the relevant record dealing with your transfer, since it appears you were supposed to come here. Ah, here we are. That's odd," she said again. She looked at him.

"There seems to be two records for you, one as a man and the other as a woman. It's the woman who has done the crime, so that's why you - someone - has been sent here. Let me see."

She played with the terminal until she had the two records up, side by side, then she swung the display around so that Marlon could see it. He saw his face, and the blonde's face, and the detail below. His he recognised, the other's was all new to him.

"May I speak?" he ventured. The Controller assented. "I've noticed that there is a single letter different between her name and mine. There's also a single digit different between our ID numbers. See, here I've got a three while she has a nine. Perhaps there was a transcription error when the case was being investigated."

The Controller said, "The offences you are said to have committed are fraud, also that you tampered with ID data, and unauthorised gender reassignment. That indicates to me that you are a woman who has tried to become a man to hide her tracks. What do you say to that?"

"I'm a man! I was born a man, I grew up a man, and I've always been a man. I've never done anything criminal. This Marion woman is the criminal, not me. She's managed to confuse the data so that I got mixed up with her somehow. You have to believe me."

"The problem I have with your statement is that practically every woman who comes through those doors protests their innocence to me. Of course they're not, since the State makes very, very few mistakes. In this case, if it's mistaken identity, we can settle it quickly."

She pressed a button on the communicator on the table. "Ask the doctor to come to meeting room two. I need a blood sample tested."

The doctor arrived, found a vein, took her sample and departed. The woman who had brought Marlon up to the Controller's suite departed, and so did the Controller, leaving just his original escort. Time passed, and presently another woman brought a trolley with two trays of food, for himself and for his escort. He ate his under the watchful eye of his escort, still cuffed, and then his escort ate while the new woman watched the prisoner. Finally the Controller reappeared.

"I've had the result of the blood test, and you match both records," she said. "There is obviously an error, and the State does not make errors. I'm inclined to give the court the benefit of the doubt, so you will be joining our facility for the length of your sentence."

"But I'm a man! I can't stay here!"

The Controller held up her hand. "You're under our rules now, and those state that you do not speak unless spoken to." She relented. "The situation you find yourself in is nowhere near as bad as that you'd be in if you had gone to a male facility," she said. "There are twenty times as many male detainees as female, and their facilities can be extremely rough. Oh, we have our hard cases here, but in general we get along quite well. Try to follow the regulations, and your time here will be quite comfortable. You'll find that our Shepherds are a lot less rough than the Enforcers you have encountered up to now." She paused, thinking.

"We have had two cases similar to yours that I can remember. Does that equipment between your legs work?" she asked him.

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, "My partner and I had received permission for a child but she died before we could start one."

"I can't put you on an open Deck, as the Queens would have you strapped to a bed and you'd be screwed to death within a week," she said, matter-of-factly. "If you didn't get beaten to death first. Some of those who are in here are here for murdering their partners." Marlon paled.

"You'll have to go on E Deck," she said, raising her eyes to the Shepherd who had escorted him. "That's the deck we keep the suicide cases, the mental cases, and those at danger from the other detainees. It'll mean solitary confinement, at least to start with, until we work out what to do with you."

As the Shepherd raised him to his feet, he asked, "Isn't there any way I can appeal against this? This has all been a ghastly mistake."

"An appeal automatically gets lodged on every conviction," the Controller replied, "Didn't you know that?" She turned to the Shepherd. "Take him to be inducted. I think the area will be clear now, so there will be less chance of gossip. I'll have a room allocated on E Deck by the time you've got him kitted out and up there."

The Shepherd led him back to the lift, and they travelled back to the bottom level. She took him along to a large room labelled "Stores".

"Marge! It's a bit late. Where did you find this one from?" asked the woman behind the counter.

"He's a different shape to us, so the Controller wanted to make sure he's been brought to the right place," his Shepherd replied. "So far as she's concerned, he has, so he needs inducting."

The woman behind the counter shrugged. "It's all the same to me," she said. "Right, you, I need you to go through to the room at the end and strip off. There's a shower there, don't take too long, I've a home to go to. Come out through the other door when you're dry, and I'll measure you for your uniform. The clothes you arrived in will go in one of these boxes," she waved her hands at the laden racks behind her, "and you'll collect them when you leave here. Assuming they still fit, of course. Marge, the shackles, if you please."

The Shepherd took off the cuffs and Marlon opened the door. On the other side he found a small room with a shower stall in the corner, and a shelf with a cardboard box on it. He stripped slowly and folded his clothes, placing them in the box. Then he climbed into the shower and gave himself a thorough going over.

His brain had well-nigh seized up as the extent of the nightmare unfolding over him increased. He was now just letting things wash over him, reacting at a surface level to whatever was asked of him. He had heard of workmates who had suffered breakdowns, and he wondered if this was happening to him. Indeed, he wondered whether he had suffered a breakdown, and how much of what had happened in the last two days was actually real. Zombie-like, he soaped himself down and rinsed, then allowed the blowers to dry his skin. Totally naked, he walked out through the other door.

He was in a black room. "Stand still there, with your arms down but away from your sides," he was instructed. From several directions and levels, lasers played over his body for a few seconds, then the lights came up. "Walk on through the far door."

The stores woman had had trouble with the scan, enough that she'd had to override some of the suggested measurements. By the time Marlon arrived at the new counter, she had already started picking out clothing for him.

"You can start with those," she said, giving him a pair of briefs. He looked at them incuriously, and then put them on.

"Stand there a minute." She continued collecting clothes, making two piles in front of him. "Seems a bit silly giving you a bra when you're that flat," she said. "But the regulations say you must have them so what I'm going to do is issue you two sports bras. Here, put this on." She held one out to him, but Marlon just stood there.

"Marge, help him out, or we'll be here all night." The Shepherd took his arms and threaded the sports bra onto them, then pulled the garment over his head and down to cover his upper chest.

"Since women's breasts can change size during the month, you will always be able to call me if something doesn't fit," the stores woman said to Marlon. "That applies to all of your clothing. Put this on next," she added, handing a slip to Marge, who pulled it over Marlon's head. This was followed by a seamless short-sleeved light green shift, which was similarly pulled onto Marlon's body. Finally, a pair of simple sandals, consisting of soft plastic soles with one canvas strap over the base of the toes and another over the bridge of the foot completed the outfit.

"Right. You listening?" Marlon nodded, dully. "You have a fresh pair of briefs each day. You have two slips and two bras a week, and one smock or dress a week. Dirty clothing goes down a chute in your wash closet. I give everyone two week's clothing, so you wear one week's worth while the other week's worth gets washed. Understand?" Marlon nodded again.

"Next, what have you done with your ID card? Is it in the box with the rest of your stuff?"

Another nod. Marge walked back through the rooms and returned bearing the box. After some searching the card was discovered and fed into a machine on the counter. This produced a small silver disc which dropped into a cup. The stores officer took the disc and attached it to a length of metal braid, which was then placed round Marlon's neck. The excess was cut off, and the free end fused to the disc, giving him a non-removable necklace. Next she took a wand attached to the machine, and waved it both over Marlon and the pile of spare clothing on the counter. Checking her display, she removed the ID card and placed it back in the box, closing it.

"Good. That disc round your neck is all the ID you'll need while you're inside, and all your clothing has been tagged as belonging to you, as well, which takes care of the laundry problem. I think you're all done here. Marge, she's all yours."

A faint remnant inside Marlon wanted to protest, "But I'm a he, not a she," but he was numb, past caring. Under instruction, he picked up the bundle of clothes and followed the Shepherd out to the lift. They rode up a long way, and then got out to see a corridor facing them. One side was composed of glass bricks between the support pillars, so that there was plenty of light, but no view. On the other side, a row of blank doors. Halfway along the corridor seemed to be some kind of watch station, where two women sat behind desks and watched displays. The Shepherd took Marlon down to the watch station. As they approached the desk, the two women looked up, curious.

"New recruit?" one of them asked.

"Yes, special case," Marge replied.

"Of course, she wouldn't be up here if not a special case." The woman looked at Marlon quizzically, and then said, "that's not a she, that's a he. How did that happen?"

"I don't know the full details," replied Marge, "Just that he's to be kept away from the crowd down below for his own safety."

"Damn right there," the other replied. "Man-meat wouldn't last five minutes on B Deck, and probably not much longer on some of the other decks. We'll keep him safe up here. Ah, he's registered. He's going in E16. Need a hand?"

"No, don't think so. I think he's shocked by what's happening to him."

"Just like most of them, first time inside. Takes them a while to settle down. I'll remote the door for you."

Marge walked Marlon down to the indicated cell and opened the door. He walked inside and put the clothing down on the bed.

Marge said, "If you need anything, or need to know anything, use the personal terminal to call the desk. Right. I'll leave you to get settled in." She closed the cell door, and Marlon was alone.

Fifteen minutes later, and the door opened to admit one of the two Shepherds who had been sitting at the watch desk. Marlon had sat down on the bed, and hadn't moved since Marge left. The Shepherd walked over and sat down on the bed beside him.

"You're finding it hard to come to terms with, aren't you, honey?" she said softly. Marlon's expression didn't change, but his head turned slightly away from her. "Look," she said, "we don't make the rules, our job is to look after you and keep you from harm. We're not particularly interested in why you're in here, but now you are here, we make sure you don't stray from the regulations, and we keep you safe. That's why we're called Shepherds, after all."

Marlon turned his face towards her, but there was little expression on it still. His eyes flickered towards her face, but they were still dull. The Shepherd managed to think of an angle that might get a response from her charge.

"How did you come to end up in a woman's facility, anyway?"

Marlon's face finally showed animation. "I'm a man," he whispered. "I don't know what I'm doing here at all."

The Shepherd had briefly read through his file, but she persisted with her questions.

"There must have been a court session that sent you here. What were you charged with, to get you sent here? And why here, and not a men's facility?"

Marlon looked at her, suspicion plain upon his face. "I thought you just said you weren't interested. Why are you asking me all these questions, then?"

"I'm just trying to get a conversation going," the Shepherd replied. "Look, even if your appeal gets heard immediately, and you get exonerated, you'll be here a few days, so it's in my interest to get to know those who I have to look after. None of this is official, by the way. Sometimes, particularly on E Deck, we have to treat the regulations as guidelines rather than strict by-the-book rules. So, what happened, then?"

"I don't know," replied Marlon. Then, in a rush, his whole story came out, from the knock on the door to the unexpected trial and being sent to the Women's Facility. "So you see," he concluded, "everyone agrees that the fraud was done by a young, blonde-haired woman. Do I look like a young, blonde woman?"

"But the trial record suggested that you are a woman who is pretending to be a man," the Shepherd objected. "How do you explain that?"

"I can't," Marlon said. "When I arrived I got taken straight up to the Controller and had a blood test taken. My DNA matched both my own record and that of the blonde woman. I'm not a woman, I've never been a woman. I've ended up in a living nightmare. What's happening to me?"

Marlon's face began to break, and the Shepherd gathered him to her, lowering his head on to her bosom, comforting him. Marlon wasn't in a state able to shed tears, but he clutched the woman and something passed from her to him, giving him some strength. After a while he straightened up and composed himself.

"Thank you. It's been a while since I've been able to hold anyone like that."

"How so?"

"My partner died six months ago in a traffic accident. I still haven't really got over her death."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Had you been together long?"

"Five years and seven months. We had just been given permission for our first child, too."

"Oh, no! You haven't had a good time of it recently, have you?"

Marlon's face twitched into a wry grimace. "No. That's one way to describe it, anyway."

"Look," the Shepherd said, "I can't do anything about the past, but my colleagues and I can help you survive the future. I'm Alex, by the way, and my mate outside is Sandy. Yes, we're both named Alexandra, only she spells hers with a KS instead of an X. You can call all Shepherds, at least on E Deck, by our first names. You can see them on our name tags, anyway. I can't imagine, given the circumstances, that you're going to be anywhere but E Deck, so you'll get to know all of us. We're the evening shift, Donna and Carla are the night shift, and Belle, Linda, Elena and Kristina do the daytimes. The shifts do change around sometimes, and you may see other faces up here occasionally, but it's mostly us eight because we've had special training. Now, are you in a fit enough state for me to show you round your spacious apartment?"

The attempt at humour got through to Marlon, and he rallied.

"Yes, um, Alex, I suppose I'd better find out how this all works."

"Good. There's not much to tell, so it won't take long, and then I'll leave you in peace."

The room was L-shaped, with the wash room filling out the rectangle. The bed was moulded along one side wall, and the foot of the bed was moulded into a seat. Sitting here, one could access the detainee's personal terminal, which was moulded into the inside wall. Marlon was surprised to find such a thing in a detention room.

"Not at all," replied Alex. "It means that you can call us up, or Sick Bay, or Stores, without anyone having to walk you through the facility. There's also access to several large knowledge bases, you can look at news files, or even take training courses. While you're in here, we don't expect your brain to vegetate. There's a facility library you can access. You use the terminal to choose a book, and it will be made available to you. You can also keep a personal journal, which will be transferred to your outside personal file on release. I will warn you that everything you write will be read by someone on the facility staff, so make sure you keep it clean. Whatever you write won't be censored, though. "

It turned out that the Personal Terminal also served as a video display, so that he could watch certain selected broadcasts even as he lay in bed.

"There's twelve channels," Alex explained, "although not all of them run all the time. You can get news, soaps, sports events, and other programs of interest. Three of the channels are music channels, one of which plays classical music. Channel twelve is special, it runs a keep fit regime every day for detainees, with exercises specially designed for you to do in your room."

Next to the personal terminal, on the inside wall, was the door. This had an inside handle, and a tell-tale to indicate whether or not the door was locked. On the wall on the other side of the door was the feeding station. This was a shelf moulded into the wall, with a matching hatch through the wall, and a transparent cover over it. To use it, you sat on a seat moulded into the end of the wash room. Alex explained how the system worked.

"At meal times, a tray with your food will be pushed through the hatch, and along these guides. Once it slides all the way in, the hatch closes and the cover is released. You lift the cover and eat. If the meal requires eating utensils, they are provided sealed in a slot in the tray. Once you break the seals, the air will activate the plastic in the fork or spoon and they will become soft after a while, maybe twenty minutes to half an hour. Once you've finished, you must put the utensils back on the tray and close the cover. This will lock it and release the hatch. If you haven't closed the cover after half an hour or so, someone will open the door to see if you have a problem."

"Sounds unnecessarily complicated to me," remarked Marlon.

"Ah, but we have people up here on suicide watch," came the reply. "Although I don't think you fit into that category at the moment, we use the same system for everyone, so don't let it worry you. Now, the wash room."

Alex led Marlon into the cubicle which occupied a quarter of his room. There was shower, a washbasin, and a toilet, as he had expected. There was no door. Marlon looked around, and noticed a discrepancy.

"Uh, I don't see any toilet paper," he said.

"No, we've had trouble in the past with people misusing toilet paper, so some money was spent and we have these automatic bowls now. Once you've finished, remain seated while you wave your hand over the sensor and your various orifices will get washed and dried for you. Much more hygienic, in my opinion."

Marlon regarded her unhappily. "I stand up to pee."

"Oh! I suppose you do. It wouldn't hurt you to sit down, would it?" she asked.

"That might work, but it may cause a mess. I'll just have to try it and see."

"Um," Alex said, "Thinking about it, I suppose I should ask you to show me that you are actually male. Up to now, I've only had your word for it, after all."

Marlon flushed, but he realised that he had little choice responding to a "suggestion" from a Shepherd. He pulled up the front of the smock and slip with one hand, and then used the thumb of the other hand to pull his briefs down.

"Oh, my," Alex said, "That's fine, you can put them away now, I had to make sure. It'll help us decide what to do if we have to deal with anything that might come up in the future."

The outside wall of the cubicle, like that of the room, had an area of glass bricks which let light in, but prevented a view out. Below them were two flaps covering chutes.

"The larger one is for your dirty clothes. Push them down there, and they go all the way down and end up in the laundry processing area. The smaller chute is for sanitary towels and tampons." As she said it, she blushed red. "I don't think you're going to need that one, are you? You are also allowed to dispose of other non recyclables down there, although I don't expect there'll be much for you to throw away."

On the outside of the wash room, facing the bed, the cubicle wall had been moulded into a series of shelves.

"Keep all your things on these shelves," Alex instructed him. "You'll keep the room tidy and it will make it easy if we have to move you to another room. How are you feeling now?"

Marlon nodded. "Better now, thanks. I'm still a bit numb. It's a lot to have to take in all at once."

"I know," Alex replied, "Some women break down completely when they first arrive. You've managed quite well, for a first-timer. You're safe enough for me to leave you now?"

He managed a small smile. "Yes, thank you, Alex. I'll try not to let you down."

"That's my girl. Oh, sorry, you know what I mean." She headed for the door. "Oh, after breakfast tomorrow I expect someone will be along to take you to Sick Bay. Every new detainee gets checked over by the doc and her crew. There's so many people in here, it could be quite nasty if someone comes in with a disease, so we check everyone. Okay?"

"Yes, Alex. I'll be ready."

Alex pulled the door shut behind her, and the tell-tale turned from green to red. Marlon turned and examined the room in more detail, his senses now activated. He realised that everything in the room was moulded into the walls and floor. There were no sharp corners, no loose objects. Of course. If you had to make a room for someone in danger of committing suicide, you had to make it as difficult for them as possible. The keyboard of the personal terminal was moulded into the shelf in front of the display, and the keys didn't move when he pressed them. He had used similar terminals on the machine-shop floor of the factory where he worked, sealed and protected against dirt and industrial fluids. The lighting in the room was flush with the ceiling, and operated by touch pads beside the door and at the head of the bed. Apart from the clothing he'd brought with him, everything was fixed down.

He wondered how long he could survive in such a space.

With a sigh, he turned and started putting his clothing on the shelves beside his bed. He discovered that he had been given two nightdresses, presumably one per week. The only other unusual thing he found was a small towel. Given that the shower, toilet and washbasin all had blowers, he wondered what the towel was for. Deciding that he had had enough for the day, he undressed and put on one of the nightdresses, having already showered earlier. He climbed under the quilt on the bed, touched off the light, and lay there in the darkness wondering what else could possibly happen to him. Eventually, sleep came.