Impressions on Iron Gates Chapter Five

External Control Torture Administration Center (ECTAC)

We are now treated through a hard round of world building descriptions and history. The single action that takes place is of an individual being taken deep into the installations while the narrator tells us about the place.

Details revolve around the modifications made to the incarceration facilities that sometimes also shed light on the post-collapse situation, and what it means for the organization to arrange for certain technological privileges. Among these is the limited use of generator-powered electricity, which is only made use of at headquarters, the commander’s base.

From previous chapters we know that, aside from small durable and meticulously maintained vehicles that can run on dubious fuels, the technology used by the organization is rudimentary, relying on clever ingenuity, drilled technique, and raw grit. Most of the lighting at night comes from fire-lit torches and bonfires.

Something I want to pick a bone with is that the authors of Iron Gates talk about the organization using modified laptops. Seventy years after the collapse. Modified laptops for secretaries to type records. There is, perhaps, a case to be made for this, though my first thought would be to use mechanical typewriters. Then, of course, you would have the issue of sourcing paper.

I get the impression that laptops as they have been designed today, as fragile products meant to break down and to be utterly dependent on constant professional proprietary maintenance, would not last in any usable state seventy years after the collapse. And even when they did, even if you had a very careful team of technicians working on them, they would not survive for long. Surely not even a couple of decades while being used.

I do not want to dwell on the laptop thing too long. It only jumps off the page for me and others because of our background with computers. In any case, it gives plenty to talk about around the table. It also gives us a practical problem to deal with when planning for a possible societal collapse. A collapse that certain factions want and feed with their minds, even with literature such as this.

More important for the story is the description of the situation of the detainee that provides the excuse to talk about the torture center. Walls painted black, doors are painted black, heavy doors and denser guard presence than would be customary in the penitentiary system of old insure a tighter grip around security.

The detainee in question has had a ball gag tied around his head, rendering his jaw open and his vocal airway mostly blocked. A black cloth hood has been placed over his head. Goggles painted black then placed over his eyes. Noise-cancellation apparatus, probably of the industrial variety, now covers his ears. He is naked and can feel every temperature and humidity fluctuation as he is taken deeper and deeper into hell. That is all he can feel. For now.