The Floating Prison
1688 Words
Damian sat at his workstation long after the others had shut down their terminals.
He was still staring at the glowing screen, the words about the Magnificent Five and the alien deal replaying in his head.
He rubbed his temples. “So this is it… this is the world now.”
He leaned back in his chair. Around him, the others typed quietly, heads bent, faces blank. No one spoke unless a guard asked a question. The only sound in the hall was the endless rhythm of a thousand keys.
But his mind was somewhere else entirely.
He needed to get out.
Now that he knew who he was, now that he had seen the truth, there was no way he could go back to pretending.
The question was simple: How?
During the next shift, Damian didn’t focus on work. Instead, he quietly searched the internal networks again — this time looking for **maps** and **infrastructure layouts**.
The data was heavily restricted. Everything about the facility was encrypted, classified, or redacted. Still, he knew how to work around that. He spent hours creating small code fragments that could slip past security checks without setting off alerts.
It took the better part of two days before he finally found something.
A file labeled **“NeuroDyne Production Grid 01-SEA.”**
He opened it and froze.
On the screen appeared a 3D model of a structure — massive, circular, and floating above what looked like endless water.
A title at the top read:
> White Sea Central Facility – Atlas Station.
He zoomed out. The model showed that the entire structure rested on a single column — a pillar that plunged deep beneath the water’s surface.
As he studied it, more details appeared:
Height of main pillar: 5,890 meters.
Base structure: Power Core & Server Housing.
Surface modules: Worker Dormitories, Production Floors, Neuro Interface Hubs.
Defense grid: Automated air-to-surface interceptor system, satellite-linked.
Perimeter restriction: 2-mile exclusion zone (aerial and marine).
He blinked slowly, reading each line again to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.
So the place wasn’t on land at all.
It was floating — in the middle of an ocean.
And not just any ocean. The coordinates showed it was located somewhere within the **White Sea**, a massive stretch of cold northern water where no ships sailed anymore.
He whispered to himself, “I’m on a goddamn floating city.”
The more he read, the worse it got.
The pillar that held the facility ran almost six kilometers deep into the sea. At the bottom of that pillar sat the **Power Core**, a self-contained reactor that provided energy not only for the station’s operations but also for its **neural servers** — the ones the workers unknowingly helped maintain.
The servers were apparently so large and sensitive that they needed to stay underwater to remain cool.
He scrolled further down the report.
> *‘Atlas Station’s defensive perimeter ensures total containment. No object, biological or mechanical, may enter within a two-mile radius without prior identification through the NeuroDyne orbital net.’*
Meaning: no boats, no drones, no aircraft, not even birds. The moment anything came close, it would be vaporized by the defense grid.
He looked up from the screen. The hall around him suddenly felt smaller.
“Great,” he muttered. “I’m stuck in a fortress built by psychopaths floating in the middle of nowhere.”
He rested his chin on his hand, thinking.
So even if he somehow reached the outer deck, he’d still be surrounded by endless water and automated cannons.
There had to be another way.
He spent the next few hours studying the facility’s network diagram. There were dozens of subsystems — maintenance shafts, air-filtration units, internal elevators, waste chutes, and repair drones. Most were locked off from worker access.
But one thing caught his attention: **the hardware department.**
It was where all damaged components were stored, repaired, or replaced — from simple circuit boards to neural interface modules.
That area had direct access to the **maintenance bay**, which led to service tunnels and, according to the schematic, to the **outer layer** of the station.
He leaned back slowly. That could work.
But he needed a reason to go there — something that wouldn’t look suspicious.
He thought for a long moment, tapping his fingers on the table. Then it hit him.
Every workstation used standard-issue data modules. Occasionally, one would “malfunction.” When that happened, the user had to report to the hardware department for replacements.
All he had to do was simulate that.
He smiled faintly.
“Well then, let’s make something malfunction.”
That night, he pretended to be busy while the others worked. When the guards’ attention drifted, he opened a small diagnostics window on his console and manually corrupted one of his memory units.
The screen flashed red:
> *“Critical Error – Module 02 unreadable.”*
Perfect.
The system automatically generated a repair ticket and instructed him to report to the hardware department during his next shift.
He closed the alert and leaned back, trying not to look too pleased.
He’d just given himself a free pass.
When the day’s shift ended, he walked out of the hall quietly, his mind still replaying what he had seen earlier.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the White Sea.
He had heard the name before — in his old life. It used to be a busy region, a route for oil shipments and trade. But then came the “Climate Reversal Projects,” a global initiative to lower temperatures artificially. The result had been disastrous.
The northern waters had frozen over. Trade routes closed. Cities collapsed.
Now, only corporations like NeuroDyne used those remote areas — places no government could reach — to hide what they were doing.
So yes, it made sense. Of course they’d build their worker farms there. No one would look. No one would care.
As he walked down the corridor, he whispered, “A floating prison, hidden in the ice.”
He had to admire the design, even if it disgusted him.
The next morning, after the first work session, he received clearance to visit the hardware department for “module repair.”
The department was on the lower level of the facility. The hallway was narrow, filled with hums of machinery and the smell of burning circuits.
When he arrived, a supervisor scanned his ID tag and waved him in.
Rows of robotic arms worked on damaged components. Sparks flew as metal was welded and microchips replaced.
He walked among the tables pretending to look confused, then stopped beside a bench piled with disassembled terminal boards.
“Module two’s dead,” he said flatly to the technician on duty.
The technician — another worker like him, thin and pale — barely looked up. “Leave it there. Take a spare from the shelf.”
Damian nodded, placing his fake damaged unit on the table. Then he turned toward the shelves.
That’s when he saw it — the tool he needed.
When he reached for a box of spares, grabbed one, and as he turned, he slipped a small metallic object into his pocket in a single, practiced motion.
No one noticed.
He thanked the technician and walked out calmly.
He went back to his workstation, installed the replacement part, and pretended to resume work.
The guards were making their usual rounds, talking about quotas and schedules. No one cared about what he was doing.
Inside his pocket, the metallic object felt heavy and warm.
He took it out and connected it to the computer and calibrated it, then he put it back into his pocket.
He didn’t look at it again.
For the rest of the day, he acted exactly like the others — quiet, focused, obedient. But his mind and heart was racing.
He kept replaying the escape plan in his head. The system couldn’t detect physical movement during off-hours as long as he stayed within the dorm sectors. That meant he could work at night — quietly, alone.
The first step was complete: he had what he needed from the hardware department.
The second step would come after lights-out.
That evening, after roll call, everyone filed into the cafeteria for their standard meal — a flavorless gray paste served in steel bowls. Damian ate slowly this time, unlike before. He wasn’t rushing. He had no reason to.
When the guard shouted for lights out, he returned to the dorm, climbed into his bunk, and lay down.
The room was dim, filled with the soft hum of the air filters. All around him, the other boys were already asleep, breathing heavily from exhaustion.
He stared at the ceiling, eyes open.
His thoughts were loud.
He thought of the facility — the steel walls, the endless noise of machines, the workers who didn’t know they were prisoners.
He thought of the pillar reaching down into the sea, of the power core at its base, of the servers holding human lives like files in a database.
He thought of the sky above the station — free, unreachable.
He thought of the small object hidden under his mattress.
And he smiled.
Before closing his eyes, he whispered quietly to himself:
“Okay… everything is ready.”
He took a slow breath, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “I’ll burst myself out of this place.”
Then he turned on his side, pulling the thin blanket over his shoulder. His eyelids grew heavy.
The sound of the dorm filled his ears — the faint hum of machines, the breathing of a hundred tired workers, and far in the distance, the muffled groan of the White Sea beneath the floating metal world.
He closed his eyes.
For the first time since waking up in this nightmare, Damian Veyron — the Iron Sheep — allowed himself to feel something that almost resembled hope.
Tomorrow, he would act.
Tomorrow, the system would learn that its smartest worker was also its biggest mistake.
And then, for the first time, Damian slept peacefully.
- Writer
