The afternoon sun was rather warm and hazy this August day. Jojo lay relaxing in a brightly colored hammock with his hands clasped behind his head.

He had a big smile on his broad face as two flies buzzed lazily above him. It was Saturday in the year 2131 and he had been terminated from the work year. His long awaited vacation had finally come. He knew it would be at least a month, maybe two, before his name would again come up on the posting for the new work year. It had been quite different before.

The crime rate had steadily risen from the twentieth century through the twenty-first. The prisons and jails all over the country had also risen, both in size and number. Even so, they were overcrowded and understaffed. Frequently you would hear about a group of prisoners that had escaped from one prison or another, from one end of the United States to the other. Something had to be done. It was at the beginning of the twenty-second century that big change came to be.

All the prison wardens and heads of any correctional facility from all fifty states came together for a meeting concerning the decaying prison system. After three days of discussing, complaining and arguing, the matter was put to the vote. As it turned out, thirty-eight were for the new proposal and twelve against it.

The State of Kansas, because it was the most centered, the whole state, became the largest prison facility for men the world had ever known. The prisons that had been for men throughout the country would now be used for women. They too had increased the crime rate but were a much smaller group than the men. The facilities the women didn’t use or need would hold the spill-over from the juvenile system which was often bursting at the seams.

At first, buildings were erected, in addition to pre-existing ones, to house the men in the prison state and guards were positioned everywhere among the prisoners. What happened next should have been foreseen, but wasn’t. With so many men all together at once for the first time, they felt a sense of power and were led by it. Riots broke out and rippled through the state of Kansas and, even though the guards were heavily armed, killing many of the prisoners, the prisoners, through sheer numbers, overcame the guards, taking their weapons and killing them. The prisoners could not leave the state as there had been an impenetrable force field constructed around the whole new facility. The U.S. Army had been called. They had the force field dropped long enough to enter and surround the prisoners. The remaining prisoners dropped their newly acquired weapons and surrendered to the Army.