Who's Undercover?

Having formed a mournfully disciplined line, they were forced to absorb the main guard's instructions. "We have one of our undercover guys confined in one of your cells. But obviously, I got no intention to tell you which one. You must know better than tryna think about something shady."

When the weighty metal doors closed behind each inmate, there was literally no one who could go to sleep in their double cells, confronted by a lingering sense of suspicion directed towards their cellmates.

After all, everyone here was a prisoner of the state.

The sleepless night in the new building dragged on as Noah occupied the top bunk, gazing at the dirty ceiling. His mate didn't snore or stir in his sleep, which suggested that either he suspected Noah as much as Noah suspected his mate, or he was indeed the undercover operative.

No matter how tasteless their prison uniforms seemed to Noah, they were nothing compared to the utter tastelessness of the multistoried, somber building whose corridors they passed in orderly rows.

Unwittingly, Noah recalled the day when he was arrested near city hall, along with several others, due to suspicions of a conspiracy to assassinate a politician. More precisely, the flawless mayor of an impeccable city. The mayor recognized as the public official with the highest ratings of policy effectiveness. Thanks to his management, the city witnessed a critical decrease in contamination by 14% and an economic inequality reduction of 21%. More so, it was the mayor who contributed his personal assets to build the most high-edge medical clinic in the whole country.

One might wonder why anyone would attempt to assassinate such a remarkable political figure. But even more than this mystery, everyone here was concerned about something else.

What was Noah doing behind prison bars?

Noah was being vetted.

Yeah, that's right. Noah figured it out early on. After all, it couldn't be that, in all seriousness, in their perfectly safe city with such a low index of social inequality, he had been kidnapped in broad daylight, a black sack put over his head, and thrown into a stuffy, crowded prison truck.

Fortunately, Noah also knew exactly how to pass this test.

No one in the city knew the terrorists in person. That was simply impossible, since all conversations were bugged and cameras hung all over the streets, inside residential houses and commercial apartments. However, many people, including Noah, had heard the rumors that the terrorists had their own code phrase. The phrase that only they would know and that only they could use to identify their accomplice.

So all Noah had to do was avoid pronouncing it. Whatever it was, simple answers like "yes" or "no" certainly couldn't be a code phrase. Nor could it be something too common like "hello", "how are you", or "how's the weather today".

"Hey," came from the bottom bunk shortly after Noah, who had miraculously gone asleep, cracked his sore eyes open at the signal of the morning check.

"Hey," Noah replied. "'Sup, how's it going? How's the weather today?"

Noah locked his gaze on his cellmate, a little crumpled and disheveled after lying on a narrow bunk for several hours.

"What in hell could the weather be like in prison?" anyone would ask. But not in the prison Noah and his cellmate were confined within.

Every day without fail, they were escorted out of their cells, first to be lined up for the morning round of intimidation, and second to march in circles around the center of the prison. The central section, shaped like a cylinder, occupied a few dozen square feet in diameter, which allowed you to see the core of the prison cross-sectionally, like a cake sliced out of the middle. The endless number of floors stretched vertically, offering the viewer the opportunity to overlook what lay above and below.

If Noah wanted to spit, it would probably take a few minutes for his saliva to reach the bottom. That was how far downward the prison extended. And the lower the floor was, the more it became obscured by the darkness, as if the ground floors were completely devoid of illumination. Only the very roof was equipped with a round bullet-proof glass window, perhaps the only ray of sunlight that those confined to the bottom floors were able to catch. And to which they all were expected to aspire.

Precisely in order to avoid the lower floors, Noah kept himself from behaving suspiciously. Now anyone who kept their mouth shut, trying not to inadvertently drop a phrase that was both forbidden and unknown to them, appeared suspicious.

A person unfamiliar with the system might think, 'Why would they even go this far?' If the goal was to catch a real terrorist who had infiltrated into the masses of civilians falling under the radar, why announce the presence of a fake cellmate from the very beginning instead of just eavesdropping surreptitiously?

But Noah surely knew why. Because just a couple of floors below them, "the non-participants," there was a circle for "those who had beheld wicked deeds, yet withheld their testimony." Refraining from active attempts to crack their fellow inmates and rat them out to the guards, any virtuous citizen in the eyes of the perfect city administration turned into a much less virtuous one.

Consequently, the atmosphere reigning in the common dining room reminded of a funeral. The prisoners would initially form a queue, lining up near their respective seats. Next, upon command, they would take their seats on the benches. It was mandatory to start the meal with the soup. Lastly, came apple juice, for any form of diversity was feared and avoided like the deadliest of plagues. Not a single prisoner dared to voice their discontent with monotonous rations. Because diversity could lead to the dangerous path of free thinking. And free thinking led... to the lower floors of the prison.

Most of the inmates hesitated to talk, apprehensive of letting out the wrong message to the embedded spy. And although timid attempts to speak occurred, they only heightened the general tension with which the prisoners tapped on their plastic bowls.

Noah cleared his throat, turning his head to a seatmate on his right. "Hey. What's up? How's the weather today?"

Someone bestowed him with a disapproving gaze, but a handful of people heaved a sigh of relief, gratified by the chance to chat about something safe.

"It's cloudy. And drizzling."

"It will be sunny again before you know it," Noah reassured them.

"Really?"

"Of course."

These words sparked tentative conversations at both ends of the table. In some of them, Noah also found a sense of comfort, eager to express his point of view.

"A little bit cold today. Must be a heating problem."

"Oh, I haven't really noticed. I guess the esteemed administration will figure it out soon," Noah said, addressing the person in front of him.

"Do you like the food?"

"It's delicious."

"I see. How did you end up here?"

"Been out for a walk. Happened to stroll by the city hall."

"Same here."

By nightfall, stretched out on his bunk, Noah pulled the thin blanket up to his ears, seeking elusive warmth and solace. Hidden in the darkness, he faced the wall, huddling in the corner of an already constricted space. He failed to detect it right away, but at some point the warmth of his own hand touched his belly and traveled down, towards the hem of his prison pants. Yet, as soon as Noah caught himself in the unconscious act, he quickly wrapped it all up.

Because right on the floor below them was a circle reserved for "those who had committed socially reprehensible acts within the sight of all." You see, it was commonly understood that a cell inhabited by two people was considered a public area. And if a guard happened to pass by, it would be considered twice as public.

Struggling to fall asleep, his neighbor's snoring adding to his insomnia, Noah thought about Sunny. He couldn't help but picture how she must have been going ballistic now that Noah had screwed up.

Sunny, the leader of the resistance group, embodied an unwavering intolerance to any absurd rules. She would never compromise on restrictions in exchange for security, no matter how attractive it might look. That set her apart from the majority of citizens. Citizens, whose mentality Noah fully understood. He himself had once firmly believed that resistance was pointless, equating it to a foolish form of suicide. Moreover, he also forced himself to believe that there was no actual harm in embracing a seemingly perfect life in the impeccable city that their flawless mayor designed for them.

That was before he met Sunny. Sunny, labeled a criminal by the immaculate society, to whom the perfect mayor of the impeccable city was nothing more than a crafty oppressor.

The next morning, as they made their daily rounds near the bottomless pit that extended countless stories downward, Noah glanced down, bending over the edge. The entire design screamed that going down was meant to inflict the forced inhabitant with an immeasurable amount of terror and despair.

One part of Noah's being couldn't help but succumb to overpowering dread, while the other part tingled with a flicker of curiosity. After all, it was in that very place—in the dismal underworld of the grandiose prison, a place inaccessible to any sliver of light, which made it harder to discern people's actions—it was in that very place, where the only semblance of freedom persevered.