Free Colony One by E. M. Peters Page B

the bio-stamps that they themselves first patented.
    It was so much worse than she had ever imagined. She had always expected, along with many others, that the corporate oligarchy had their fingers in every pot. In fact, popular sentiment had been that corporations had too much power, but by the time people had the motivation to do anything about it, it was too late. Viewers were bidirectional devices and were in every home, watching every move and amassing surveillance at a zettabyte per second. Corporations influenced and controlled the population through resource and product control, education agendas – everything. People whose voices rose up too loudly on the subject were either paid off or simply forgotten about after a sudden disappearance.
    Corporate Prisons had been talked about before by conspiracy theorists only, and until that very moment, she never believed it to be possible that corporations could pay the confederation enough to look the other way when it came to imprisoning citizens. Perhaps it wasn’t monetary, she reasoned. Perhaps it was blackmail. Perhaps that is how they had turned Ts’ai against her. Something had compromised his morals and his empathy – and it had to be of great significance.
    It had been so easy to dismiss all these things, Jia thought, when she was comfortable in her apartment, sleeping on her soft bed and distracting herself with the viewer. But now it was happening to her. Crashing down on her. There were no distractions where she was.
    What had the world come to? The question resonated in her mind so loudly that it pained her.
    Suddenly, Jia only felt like one very small, very powerless person. The feeling of helplessness dealt a blow more painful than anything she had endured up to that point. In that moment, she felt defeated. Her free will had been stolen. It had been stolen for a long time, she realized – stolen from everyone except a select few. What had the world come to? The question was becoming too heavy, too unwieldy. They had finally broken her, and she finally realized that she had absolutely nothing to lose anymore. 
    “I’ll go,” she said, tears filling her eyes and her hands shaking. “I’ll go to Colony Alpha.”
     
    ɸ ɸ ɸ
     
    Jia looked down to see what she had made with the paper at the community table on Colony One. When she did, she found she had ripped the paper into tiny pieces. She looked up and around. Several of her fellow passengers were staring openly at her – looks ranging from concerned to guarded.
    These people had no idea what was in store for them , she thought. I don’t even know what is in store for us – not with any certainty .
    She searched the faces of nearby passengers and, not for the first time, wondered which of them were World Corp plants assigned to monitor her, ready to strike out at the first hint of her disobedience.
    She reminded herself to take deep, calming breaths. Because the alternative was so much worse, she often seriously entertained the idea that she might be crazy. That she had made up the whole experience in her head – that she was never a research scientist or tortured for information.
    Perhaps she had made it all up to cope with her decision to change her life so radically.
    Perhaps she had a long history of mental illness.
    Perhaps we really are headed to paradise , she considered. Is that so out of the realm of possibilities?
     
     

 
     
     
     
    07
     
     
    Hyperion, Mission Day 10
     
     
    The crew of the Hyperion settled in for a meal in the small mess area of their ship, with the exception of the Captain, who didn’t take meals with the crew if she could avoid it. The craft was commissioned to hold a crew of up to ten, but the galley was the only informal space large enough to fit them all comfortably.
    “What’s for chow this time, Doc?” Charlie asked. Winston had become the de facto ‘chef’ of the group, having little to do on the voyage since everyone had remained healthy. Even