Alexander Smith - Lockdown

"This is where we part company, for now," he said. "This elevator will take you all to your cells. Don't try anything funny or you'll end up decorating the walls."

He pushed us forward with his massive hands and we entered the cabin, the remote turret following our every move.

"It's quite a ride down to the bowels of the earth," he said as the doors began to close. "So I hope none of you are claustrophobic."

Then he was gone, and with a deafening whir of gears the armored elevator began its descent to the darkness at the bottom of the world.

FOR THE FIRST MINUTE or so none of us spoke. We didn't even look each other in the eye. It was a strange mix of emotions. There was fear, of course, so thick you could almost smell it beyond the stink of dust and oil, but there was also something else. I guess it was pride-if we acknowledged each other, then we were also acknowledging our own helplessness, our own panic, and after what we'd just been through, nobody wanted to do that.

In the end, it was me who broke the ice.

"I just want to get this out in the open," I said above the sound of the elevator's descent. "I didn't kill anyone. They framed me, they shot my friend and set me up for the fall. I'm not a killer."

Gradually, the other three boys raised their heads, and for the first time we all got a good look at each other.

"Join the club," said the kid who I'd seen in court. He was shorter than me, but wider, his body tensed like a cat that's puffed up its fur. He brushed a strand of untidy dark hair away from his face and cast a nervous gaze up at the machine gun in the ceiling before continuing. "Those guys in black drove a car into some old woman. Killed her. They knew everything about me, they got my prints onto the wheel, they knew I wouldn't have an alibi that night or any way of proving I didn't do it. Name's Zee, by the way."

"Zee?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. The question brought a brief smile to his face.

"Got four older brothers and sisters. Mom was adamant that I was the last one, so she called me Zee. What about you?"

"Alex," I replied. I looked at the other two kids. They were the complete opposite of each other-one resembled a beanpole, his uniform hanging off him like rags on a scarecrow, the other had probably eaten way too many chocolate bars in his time, but his green eyes were sharp and his gaze fierce.

"Jimmy," said the beanpole, hoisting up his trousers. "Yeah, I didn't kill nobody either. Same story as you, Alex, they murdered a friend of mine. Stabbed him, though."

We all turned to look at the fat kid. For a minute it seemed like he was going to cry, then his expression hardened and with his fists clenched he spat out two words that sent chills down all of us.

"My sister."

There was still no sign of the elevator stopping. It might just have been a psychological trick to make us feel like we were going deeper than we were, but I doubted it. It takes a long time to travel a mile underground.

"You saying they framed us all?" asked Zee, shaking his head. "Doesn't make any sense. Why would they do it?"

"Maybe they've got cells to fill, targets to reach," suggested Jimmy, but his tone of voice made it clear he didn't know. None of us did. Not then.

"Listen," I said, certain that the elevator car was bugged and motioning for the other boys to come closer. "Whatever happens in there, whatever they've got in store for us, we've got to stick together. Right?"

"I've got your back," said Zee. "I'm getting out of here no matter what."

"The only way you're getting out is in a coffin," hissed the kid who had lost his sister. "Haven't you heard about this place? There is no way out."

"Well, I'm with you guys," said Jimmy, ignoring the remark. "Ain't no way I'm spending the rest of my life in this hole."

The noise of the elevator shifted pitch and with a bone-breaking shudder it came to a halt. Before the doors could open, however, there was one last hate-filled remark from the corner of the cabin.

"We're all going to die in here."

THE MOMENT THE elevator doors opened my senses came under attack. I can describe what I saw when I stepped out into Furnace but I can't tell you how I felt. I was so overloaded by what lay before me that I'm sure part of my brain shut down just so that it wouldn't overheat. It was like a survival mechanism to stop me going insane. I took in the details but they didn't register on any emotional scale.

The elevator had taken us to the very depths of the prison-a stretch of bare stone that was easily the size of a soccer field-and above us for as far as we could see lay its tortured, twisted interior. Furnace certainly deserved its name. The walls were made from the very rock of the earth, their surfaces rough and red, and the half-light of the room made them flicker as if they were on fire. The sunless yard was vast and circular, and arranged in rings around the outside were countless cells, the gray metal platforms and jagged staircases resembling a rib cage against the fleshy walls.

I stared at the elevator shaft, which rose in a relentless line above our heads, the top barely visible where it entered the red rock of the ceiling-broken only by a giant video screen hanging over the doors. The elevator was the only way in or out, and there was absolutely no other means of getting back up.

The hiss of pneumatics snapped my attention back to the walls beside us and I saw two more machine guns protruding from the rock like black limbs. They trained their sights on us as we staggered from the elevator into the vast chamber, each with an unblinking red eye that seemed to assess our every move. I wondered whether there was a human at the other end of the controls, or whether some dark robotic intelligence had its finger on the trigger, ready to fire at the smallest sign of trouble. I couldn't decide which would be worse.

I was so overawed by the prison itself that it took me a while to notice it was full of people. They swarmed across the courtyard in front of us, mostly kids about my age, some a little older and even a couple who looked like they should still be in middle school. Some hung out in groups, their stares and swaggers a clear message that they were in charge. Others hung back in the shadows or peered over the bars of the platforms, all sickly faces and baggy eyes. Most were staring at us, some laughing and shouting "new fish," others shaking their heads in compassion. Their gaze made my cheeks burn, and I lowered my head so nobody would see.

It didn't take long for a few of the kids to step forward, but it was pretty clear that they weren't a welcoming party. Each of the six boys wore a black bandanna with a crude picture of a skull painted on the front. It would have been laughable if they didn't all look as though they were about to make us walk the plank.

"Let me guess," I said, starting to speak before I even knew I was doing it. "You're in here for piracy."

I heard Zee snigger to my side, but there wasn't even a hint of a smile in the pockmarked faces before me. One of the boys, not the biggest but by far the ugliest, stepped right up to me, so close that I could see the dirt clogging his pores.

"Get this straight from the start, new fish," he said, jabbing me in the chest with a filthy fingernail. "You on our turf now, so you take orders from me."

My heart was pounding so hard it felt like something inside me was about to burst. I tried meeting his glare with one of my own, and was holding up pretty well until I suddenly started thinking that this was how the kids at school must have felt when Toby and I had pressed them for money-powerless, furious, ashamed. The thought washed through me like acid, and my head dropped. Looking back, that little moment of self-realization probably saved my life. I've seen the Skulls kill people for nothing more than standing up to them.