Down the row, a woman's voice sobbed that everyone had forgotten her. I heard the sound of a guard's boot kicking the cell door and a voice saying, "Be quiet, you delinquent. If you hadn't decided to defy the System you'd be back with your friends now singing hymns to the Triad or some other damned thing like that." The woman's voice continued to wail, and the guard's boot slammed into the bars a few more times until it stopped.

The cell block was alive with murmurs and shuffling and ...