BREECH

The explosion from deep within the earth was shattering, the percussion slamming into their chests, staggering the inmates as they shuffled along. 

Resigned, they glanced at each other with incomprehension, rifle barrels pointing, threatening, moving them along the dimly lit shaft that opened into an area similar to a small underground station. 

The heat was oppressive and there was a strange undistinguishable but electric smell that stirred a sickening fear.

From a tunnel opening at the end of the platform, a huge hydraulic piston returned slowly past queuing prisoners and in a mechanically automated sequence, a squat, cylindrical carriage rolled alongside the platform from a siding on the other side of the track. With a low hiss the ram slowly returned, buffering the rear of the waiting car.

There was a murmur of disbelief, a whispered prayer.

A guard waved a scanner across each man, before pushing him into the car, another guard perched in glass sided cubicle at the side of the platform, wrote the result in a register. 

In defiance, one man stood up to his captor and asked what they were doing.

“It’s just a number.” The guard barked, violently forcing him into the crowded carriage.

The registrar gave a nod to the control room, “Fifty!”

In response, the ram pushed the carriage deep into the tunnel.

The lights dimmed. 

Their last sight was of the guards turning their backs and covering their ears.