His hand moved those words, no matter the injuries—-no matter the mood. He had to know how things were going on the outside. Beyond those walls of energy and bars made of laser light he knew nothing, nothing except what came to him through his one allowed possession, the ancient tablet that could receive emails, which nobody had written anymore for at least two decades. There were other ways to communicate now, those ways were forbidden to inmates. His thoughts were just waking, he knew the morning cycle was about to begin. He had to rely on the rhythms of his body to know what time of day it was, down there, so far below from whatever the sky looked like now. Without those rhythms, he’d be lost to time. That was the greatest punishment he could think of. He worked hard to hold onto every day, hour, minute and second. He wanted to stay sane, the only way to stay the leader of his clan.

The morning was moving in the way it always did, the faint glow of the laser bars began to brighten and there were more coughs and clearing of throats between the deep snores of slumber. He had just written ‘Dear Brother and Child’ when he heard the slow hum of the PD, Penitentiary Droid, in its mass of metal plodding down the aisle between those cells. He heard a voice, a familiar voice, “Hey, watch it, you’re hurting me—-I don’t want to hurt you…”

The hold on his throat must have become tighter because the next words were just grunts and groans. The hulk of steel stopped and for an instant the bars flashed out of existence. Jake Origin couldn’t see in that flash of darkness, he could only hear the hulk of steel throw the man into his cell. Then in a hiss and grumble, the laser bars seared back into place. He looked up and saw his child, his brother. Jake Thirteen stood there with a look of disgrace on his face. But then that face dissolved into a sly smile, something they both could do very well, “They caught me doing what we always do best, you know what that is Jake Origin, big daddy and brother of us all.”

He knew exactly what he had meant. That’s what all those emails had been about. They had hoped the code words they had been using would not let the authorities know what they were about. Jake Origin felt a moment of panic and whispered a little bit too loud in his consternation, “But—-did you get the chance to leave one of us outside?”

That smile that he knew so well since it was his own, slid across the face of Jake Thirteen standing no more than a foot from his face. He waited a moment for drama and then said, “No worries, they caught me out on the street. They have no idea where the lab is.”

“And the others?”

“Two fully grown, three half way, ten still splitting cell for cell.”

Jake Origin sighed a deep release from his lungs in relief. He scratched the top of his head and in the same moment those walls made of energy cleared to translucence, in cells on every side, he could see his selves, two through twelve, and now thirteen. One had died long ago with a bullet through his head. He wondered how long it would take before the army was ready to break them all out of there. At least now he had a cellmate to share those empty days with until they found freedom.

There was a light ping from the tablet he had left on his bed. On the screen were the words: You have mail.