Angelopolis A Novel Page 0,97
the twelfth century, when the Venerable Clematis had breached the Watchers’ prison—the angel storage facility in western Siberia was the largest angelic incarceration project in the history of angelology. It contained holding cells, examination rooms, laboratories, a complete medical center, and solitary confinement chambers for angelic life-forms and, when necessary, human beings who obstructed their work. There were facilities for intake procedures and facilities for disposing of dead creatures. There was a crematorium. As the scientist in charge of this massive operation, every possible technological advantage for the containment of the enemy was at his disposal.
The prison had been in various stages of planning since the 1950s, when the Russian Angelological Society had begun searching for a site that could accommodate the masses of creatures they had taken into custody. After two decades of fruitless attempts the society made a deal with the Kremlin to occupy the space directly below Russia’s largest nuclear facility in Chelyabinsk. The agreement was controversial among the angelologists—especially Western angelologists, who objected to any alignment with the Russian government, which had blocked their efforts in Eastern Europe—but, after negotiations, a deal was struck: Below the frozen fields, molded out of the concrete foundation of the plutonium nuclear reactor, there would exist an immense secret observatory and prison facility.
While similar observatories existed elsewhere—Godwin had personally visited a structure in the American state of Indiana and another in China—there was nothing that could compare with the magnitude of the Siberian panopticon. The storage capacity of the facility was enormous, with thousands of cells below the earth. The prison could hold up to twenty thousand angelic beings, from the lower angelic life-forms to the highest. At present, it was filled to capacity.
Access to the panopticon could be gained only with security clearance, and only via specialized tunnels. Godwin always traversed the south tunnel, but passageways opened through each quadrant, each one equidistant from the central cavity, where the glass-and-steel holding cells stretched in a seemingly endless curve, each one lit by a neon light, and each—when the prison was full—containing an angelic being. The prison had three levels. The ground floor held the lowest angelic life-forms. The next ring of cells contained the more dangerous breeds—Raiphim, Gibborim, Emim. Level 1 held the Nephilim, and it required the highest level of security. The three levels formed an elegant and intricate ovoid structure that, when one first encountered it, seemed like a glass honeycomb, each cell crawling with an angry wasp.
In the very center of the rings of cells, separated from the creatures by a vast expanse of blue-lit space, stood an observatory tower, a large glass capsule that rose from a concrete floor like a spaceship. The observatory tower was constructed entirely of tinted panels, and it remained darkened, so that the glowing holding cells seemed like rings of fire around a dark center. Inside the capsule, scientists worked night and day, monitoring the creatures.
It was an ingenious structure, modeled on a classic panopticon prison of the variety developed by Jeremy Bentham in the nineteenth century. A team of engineers had adapted this original concept, reinventing it to suit the particular purposes of angelology. The original intention of a panopticon had been to enforce a psychological control over the prisoners. A central tower was equipped with blinds so that the prisoners could not be sure when they were being observed by prison guards. When the blinds were closed, the prisoners behaved as if they were being watched. Angelologists hoped to employ the same principle. An observer standing inside the tower had the power to watch each and every cell. When they changed the opacity of the Plexiglas, the angels could no longer see the scientists standing behind it. The creatures did not know when they were being watched and when they were not. The effect was the illusion of continual surveillance. The angels were severely punished for any infraction of the rules and in time became obedient and docile.
The angels had nowhere to hide. The cells were ten feet by ten feet, cold, and gray, as if the harsh Siberian climate had been translated into the interior realms of the compound. There were no blankets, beds, or toilets, nothing more than what was absolutely necessary to sustain the creatures. Some of the imprisoned angels had been held in these conditions for decades, and would continue to live out their lives under the observation of angelologists. These creatures were listless and resigned. Recently captured creatures, the hope of release still