Chapter 55
The world tilts off its axis as I open the cover.
The first page is as thin as lace, every word on it handwritten.
By agreement of the original prisoners, the information contained herein will become the private property of Noah’s Valley Correctional Institute warden Helen Hayes, heretofore to be known as the Record Keeper.
The Record Keeper will ensure that no one in the Valley can access this information unless deemed necessary for the community’s survival.
The true history of our origin dies with the first generation.
So sayeth we all.
Disbelief stipples my skin, icy pinpricks of unease.
Below that declaration are hundreds of signatures, curved and crammed all over the page, written in different-colored inks. Blue, black, even purple, all of them faded by time. Several are no clearer than chicken scratch, but others I can read.
Linda DuPree
Jolly Hendrix
Allen Johnson
I turn to the next page, scaring up the scent of dust and decay. This paper feels different than the previous page. It’s thick and smooth, like an oak leaf. Whatever the material is, it’s preserved the black ink so well that the words look like they are newly written.
Part I: The History of Noah’s Valley
Panic scrapes at my tender edges. It’s becoming difficult to breathe. An essay is pasted below the title, originally written for something called The New York Times. It’s dated August 15th, 120 years ago.
Thanks to generous funding from TechnoSphere founder Arrow Korr, the Behavioral Realignment and Inheritance Study (brAINS) is ready to accept its first 400 volunteers.
This unique project in southeastern Minnesota, dubbed “Noah’s Valley” by its founders, is the first in a planned series of experimental settlements designed to separate violent offenders from the general population.
Footsteps overhead reveal someone is moving through the Record Keeper cottage—Marina? Simon?—but I can’t stop reading long enough to care. My heart beats a sick, thudding rhythm in my chest.
All 400 volunteers are serving multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole. Should the experiment succeed, however, Korr envisions similar facilities will be built to house lesser criminals, indigents, and migrants “more humanely” going forward.
The footsteps sound like they’ve entered the library.
To give the volunteers the best chance of rehabilitation, Korr’s experts have constructed a walled agrarian society that minimizes prisoner stress.
Basic burdens have been eliminated: each volunteer will be assigned a name, a spouse, a house, and a profession.
Positive behaviors will be modeled and rewarded, with the Valley’s legal, religious, and educational systems designed to promote radical equality, conformity, unity, and acceptance.
Volunteers will be delivered inside the settlement with the requisite supplies and resources to survive in perpetuity.
Then the insurmountable wall surrounding Noah’s Valley will be sealed.
Korr opened up in an interview, admitting that it’s bittersweet to begin a project he will never see completed, but that he is honored to offer “[his] fellow man a path to redemption.” The biotech mogul was referring to the study’s ultimate goal: that law enforcement officials will eventually declare the volunteers’ descendants reformed, inviting them to return to our law-abiding society after five generations.
According to Korr, multigenerational confinement provides an ethical alternative to capital punishment that “ensures the offenders’ worst tendencies are eradicated and the harm they caused fully repaired” before any descendants have their freedom.
The footsteps overhead stop.
While many support its mission, certain human rights advocates oppose the Valley initiative. One concern nearly halted the project in its infancy: who will free the fifth generation?
Korr amended the Valley’s blueprint in response, adding “a concealed exit set to automatically open 120 years from the official day of founding.” He hopes others will see the compromise as a gesture of good faith but is “willing to bet our volunteers won’t want to leave anyway.
They’ll have it better in there than most of us do out here. ”
Other concerns raised include the risk of inter-prisoner violence, particularly given the severity of some qualifying offenses.
When asked about the protocol should a volunteer need to be removed from the sealed experiment before the fifth generation, TechnoSphere’s public relations director responded as follows:
“Safety is the most important thing to Mr. Korr. That’s why Noah’s Valley has guard stations positioned at even intervals throughout the community.
Their warden—Dr. Helen Hayes—will be given an electronic tablet that enables outside communication, in addition to controlling a basket that removes volunteers, if necessary, to shelter atop the wall until they can be safely collected and returned to traditional incarceration. ”
The TechnoSphere PR team also had an answer for critics who raised alarms about the safety of southern Minnesotans. “For the security of the nearby environs (and in addition to the Valley’s great wall), Arrow will be donating a multi-million-dollar Verdant Beast? to guard the settlement.”
The implementation of TechnoSphere’s latest biodefense system was instrumental in fast-tracking DOC approval for this project, particularly given CEO Arrow Korr’s newly appointed position as Secretary of Defense.
Korr assured the public of the experiment’s safety, citing successful trials of the Verdant Beast? in their corporate-owned testing facilities as proof of concept.
I feel as though I’m made of dust, one second from blowing away.
“A real kick in the pants, isn’t it?”
I whip around to face the voice behind me.