From Vast Taiga to Breotish Seas Cold

[Havenshire]

INTERNMENT CAMP 211,
Northern Stoneback Mountains
Late August 1952

Prisoner 24601 shuffled through his well-worn groove in the exercise yard, ignoring the jostling of his fellow prisoners. The sky was grey and cloudy, promising more cold rain, to soak into their itchy, uncomfortable prison-issue pajamas. The discomfort had almost become a routine for 24601. Mentally he kept time by gently slapping his hands against his thighs as he half-waddled half-shuffled around in the eternal circle of mandatory exercise. Whilst he did so, his eyes idly roamed about, his mind elsewhere. The bored guards leaned on their searchlights and machine-guns, watching the prisoners with lazy disinterest. The Yard Commissar idly gazed at his stopwatch, counting out the minutes. Noone escaped from Camp 211, and noone ever really tried. Maybe it was true what 23589 had said, that they doped the gruel so as to keep everyone docile. That was before 23589 had been declared mentally unsound and removed to a different camp, though. Trains bound east from Stanchester, so the old dark joke went.
Trains bound South from Norham ended up here. Trains came and went, moving people, but noone got off and they never came back.

24601 suspected that the mentally deficient were simply dropped into the cold Breotish Sea, a hard lead bullet between their ears. It was a suspicion he kept to himself, and fervently hoped was not true. His Son, a dim memory from his former life as someone with a name, had been born with Mongoloid Syndrome. He was taken away for special treatment. It was about that time, he recalled with pain, that his descent into someone only worthy of a number had begun.

As he lost himself again in those memories it wasnt untill the shrill blast of a whistle that he returned, once again, to Camp 211. Exercise was over. "All Prisoners will return to their cells untill called for duty."
They shuffled in perfect silence, herded by bored but watchful guards with hard, heavy batons into a single long open-air corridor fenced by barbed-wire and landmines either side of the corridor. It led them back into the main concourse, where they would be stuffed back into their stuffy, poorly ventilated and unheated barracks. Every time a new shipment of prisoners came they had to build their own barracks using scrap material, otherwise they slept on the ground. Alot of the early prisoners had died that way. Now, though, sometimes the camp authorities would provide more substantial material for repair of existing barracks or the construction of new ones. But what once had been a tide of subversives, dissidents, malcontents, the unlucky and the unwanted had eased into a sporadic trickle of the truly foolish. 24601 did not pity the newcomers. He scorned them. To have things so easy and still buck the system enough to earn a trip here? They deserved this. But he...he did not.

Once back in the all-too familiar barracks- Barracks 246, of which he had been the first person to arrive into, though the fifty who came after were quick to fight for the warmest spots- he crept into his corner, where a moth-eaten blanket and a well-worn mattress rested. As one of the camp old-hands, he had traded many days labour and scraps to earn even this much. He guarded it jealously, along with his winter store of "edibles", mostly groundnuts and a potato he was planning on eating sometime around october, if he could keep it dry and away from mould. Those who ate the mould got sick. The sick got removed. Sometimes it was better to go days without food then risk it.

"Hey, 24601, you doing lumber shift tomorrow?"
24640. A young scrawny man with hollow eyes. His crime was failing to volunteer for the People's Air Force in 1945, when there had been genuine fear that Engellex's bomber fleets would attack during a particularly icy diplomatic incident. His lack of patriotism had been noted, and now he was here.
"No, '40. I traded my shift already for sewing class. It is still too wet to gather firewood properly." 24601 had learned by careful watching and listening how to survive. It was why he was still here, some three thousand days after his first arrival. Another seven thousand to go. '40 was one of his few remaining friends from that first arrival, if they could truly be called friends.

'40 was about to reply when suddenly there was the sound of shrill whistles being blown. Shit, an inspection. 24601 thought.
"ALL PRISONERS STAND TO ATTENTION, HANDS BY YOUR SIDE!"
The guards moved in a phalanx in lock-step, batons whipping out at anyone too slow to move out of the way. They fanned out when they reached the centre, and began rummaging through people's meagre piles of crap looking for anything contraband, which tended to be anything the guards didnt particularly like you having. 24601 stood to perfect attention, trying not to get noticed. He'd survived these suprise inspections before. They would not find his potato.

"Prisoner 24601! Come here!" shouted a guard, as the Commissar himself swept in, his dark-brown uniform tightly pressed and uncreased for once. That was bad. The Commissar's uniform was a clue as to his current state of mind. Messy, he was drunk and predictable in his rage. Tidy, and who knew where his rage would fall.

"Prisoner 24601! You have been chosen for special duties." said the Commissar, as the prisoner rapidly came to attention before him. "Very special duties. You are needed in Sunder. You will be showered and prepped for your new role. If you're very lucky, you may even have your name restored." He smiled cruelly. "Or you might get sent east of Stanchester."

24601 carefully schooled his face to composure, but his brain was in shock. Special duties? After all this time? What the hell could they need him for? He quickly snuffed even the ember of hope that threatened to flare. No, this was simply another new, frightening and unpredictable stage in his long purgatory. Hope would make it worse.

"Thank you Commissar Sir!" he shouted with obedience.
"Fall in behind us 24601. You will not need to pack, I doubt you have anything worth taking with you." He sneered.

24601 briefly glanced back at his old friend, whose eyes betrayed his thoughts, even if his rigid face did not. Stay Safe old friend.

 

[Havenshire]

HUMMINGBIRD FACILITY,
Sunder Aerial Research Complex
Mid-September, 1952

24601 no longer really thought of himself as just a number anymore. It was true, some nights he still woke in a cold sweat, the harsh bark of guards echoing in his sleep-fogged mind. He still remembered the cold and the damp, the scramble for even the tiniest specks of food. His hands still shook when he didnt concerntrate. But now the rigid routine his life followed was one filled with more comforts, more respect. He had been unexpectedly promoted from worthless animal to valuable pet. Oh, he didnt have illusions of equality like some of the other staff here. He still understood that the Regime would dispose of him the moment he ceased to be of use. He knew that any and all comforts and tokens of respect he was afforded were purely incentives to maximise his usefulness. Previously, he had deserved only the Stick. Now, they used the Carrot aswell.

It worked very well, naturally. Knowing that he was a pet, a pawn, a puppet didnt stop him from being pathetically grateful and fawning whenever they served him hot meals, or called him...Doctor. It was a title that almost made him laugh. He had done no science, indeed, barely used his brain, since they had thrown him into 211.

But now it was all coming back. He still did exercise daily at an appointed time, and had to ask for permission to use the lavatory, but it was a permission that was often -granted- and he could do the exercise -alone-, watched only by -one- guard. Even the smallest of concessions to humanity left him awestruck and sobbing with joy, sometimes, for all that he knew its cynical motivation.

As for his work...he almost allowed himself the pleasure of a smile. They wanted him to do exactly what he had always enjoyed most, found the most passion in, untill his son had died. They wanted him to work on engines for Helicopters, and solve complex and difficult calculations relating to aerodynamics and the physics of a rotating blade. He was confident that they would complete their current project in a few short months, and be able to demonstrate the next incarnation of the Hummingbird soon. The H-49G-3 would be a three-seater configuration, with an even more powerful engine. The millitary had made it clear they wanted larger and more robust models, capable of lifting heavier and heavier cargos. Currently they thought of the Helicopter in terms of airplanes, and, using the development of flight as a rough-guide, wanted the good Doctor and his team to go from the current, spartan framework designs, to something approaching the "Fighter" or "Bomber" of a Helicopter, something that could deliver heavy damage to enemy forces.

Whilst the Doctor chuckled at such notions, he had to concede that the device that had fascinated him since he had first seen a working model of it in 1924 was fully capable of such...brute force applications. Bombs of the kind they were thinking of, though, would be incredibly difficult and impractical to utilise, however. But he had to concede that, from an engineering standpoint, there was really nothing except power- a problem newer enginers were solving every three months or so- stopping them from mounting heavy machine-guns or even grenade-launchers on the Hummingbird.

But the Hummingbird was, despite the main focus of this facility and all its research, only one potential shape for a Helicopter. A still heavier and completely enclosed design, codenamed the Egret, was also being designed and prototyped at this very facility. It, when finished, would be capable of a max takeoff weight of maybe 7 or even 7 and a half thousand pounds, making it the first effective mass transport helicopter of millitary utility in Havenshire's arsenal.

The Good Doctor wasn't on the Egret team. Yet. But given his background and credentials, he had been allowed to know some things, in case his help was needed more urgently on that project, rather than simply this ongoing effort to maximise the utility of the Hummingbird.

"Doctor? We need your input on the latest test model. Its developed an unexpected fault..."
He turned, disturbed from his reverie. The other lab staff and their deferential attitudes almost made him feel like he was...back there. At the University. But he had to remind himself that, like him, they were former non-people. Useful material which could be discarded as soon as it stopped being useful. It was best not to grow too attached to them, he thought. It would make it hard for him to remain useful if he got sad everytime an Assistant was...removed from the project.

"Good. I expected as much. Any word on my application to the Other team?" he said, as a way of making conversation. He already knew the anwser, but found that filling the air with words rather than silence helped reassure his team and keep them focused on their tasks.
"Alas, no. Still, its a pleasure to be working with you, Doctor. Perhaps you might have time to look at some calculations I have been doing..."

And so it went.