Something New

It's been a while since I posted something, but its not for lack of writing. I've actually been writing a lot. In fact, I'm 30,000 words into the next of the Stone Vengeance series, Opal. I've also been doing a little bit of writing in Valhalla and editing the first book of my Shadow Gods series. Still, I'm not as far along with the editing as I'd like to be. My mind is full of plans, but my fingers can't keep up and the holiday season does cut into what little time I do have for writing. These may be excuses, but they're truthful ones.

Now I mention Valhalla, but not the story. So here's the introduction. Enjoy the possibilities:

In the year 2028, the cost of just the prisoners on ‘death row’ rose into the hundreds of millions. Prisoners without the chance of parole brought that number into the tens of billions. And prisoners with sentences of over 25 years or more escalated the cost into the trillions. Due to this, Congress mandated the creation of Valhalla; a prisoner run facility anchored in the north Atlantic.

In all, five deep-sea oil-drilling platforms were used in the creation of Valhalla. Four platforms were anchored around a center platform and tied together by structural steel beneath the water’s surface. Also deep below the water were tidal current power generators which provided basic heat, lighting, and desalinization units for fresh water. Those mechanical components were housed in a sealed off level and are only accessible from a water level door available during low tide. Above the mechanical level were five levels of prisoner quarters. Between the four prisoner platforms, a total of 5000 prisoner could be housed.

As far as other supplies, every week helicopters flew in crates of food which were dropped on the center platform which was just like a flat table except with guide lights for visibility. Only after the supplies were dropped and the cable retrieved, were the remote-controlled retractable bridges from each of the four surrounding platforms extended allowing the prisoners to reach their food and blankets. New prisoners were also delivered to the facility in the same manner.

In the beginning the facility was stocked to its maximum capacity of five thousand prisoners and was continually restocked every week as prisoner gangs formed and died. Initially Valhalla was meant for only the worst criminals within the system, but after repeated studies indicated rehabilitation was unlikely to occur after twenty-five years of imprisonment, it became the home of many a repeat offender. Within the first year of operations, prisons started running out of prisoners to send to Valhalla. From that point on, the prison populations on Valhalla steadily dropped by the hundreds until approximately only five hundred prisoners remained alive.

It was then deemed supply runs to Valhalla occurred on a monthly basis instead of weekly.  That was three years ago. It was also at this point everyone started realizing there were no life sentences on Valhalla, only death sentences.