Juno Steel and the Infernal Grind (Part 2)

Arc poster by Ellison Estephan

**Juno Steel and the Infernal Grind (Part 2)** is an episode of the Penumbra Podcast in the Juno Steel series. It is the ninth Juno Steel episode of season 4, and the sixteenth overall.

## Overview

What is the recipe for a prison break? Take one family, tear them apart, tenderize their minds, marinate them in fear and paranoia... then leave them to sit, confident that they aren't going anywhere.

And that confidence is key. Because the moment you think you have the Aurinkos beaten, the moment you're certain they've given up on themselves and each other? That's when they show you you're wrong.

### Trigger Warnings

* Incarceration and prison
* Enclosed spaces and sudden loud noises
* Torture
* Mob violence
* Emotional abuse
* Threats of violence and death
* Manipulation and "brainwashing"
* Abuse by mental health professionals
* Self-inflicted harm
* Starvation and sleep deprivation

## Episode Summary

During "group therapy," Buddy Aurinko manipulates another prisoner into starting a fight, then takes advantage of the confusion to talk to Juno Steel, who has been transferred by the algorithm written by her late father, Palomine Aurinko, into her group. She asks for Juno's plan, but he admits that the ideas he had have fallen apart. They have four days to come up with a plan to take advantage of their pre-arranged pickup by Juno's associate Ms. Likely. Buddy explains to Juno that the prison she once broke her wife, Vespa Ilkay, out of was merely a prototype of this one. She doesn't recognize her father's design in such an advanced form, and barely recognizes herself.

Buddy *does* have ideas, though. She tells Juno a successful escape has four components: "the Cell-Break, the Jail-Break, the Getaway, and the Insurance." She knows what to do for a Jail-Break: since she's been in the prison, assigned to laundry duty, she's stolen pieces of guards' uniforms and now has three complete sets. Juno already took care of the Getaway, so now they need to collaborate to locate Vespa and Jet Sikuliaq, plan how to escape their cells, and plan what to do if and when something goes wrong.

Buddy knows Vespa and Jet are alive, because she's seen Vespa. Three weeks ago, Vespa escaped her cell and visited Buddy in hers. She's been making her own escape plan, and has seen Jet, but before she could tell Buddy the trick to slipping out of cells, she was caught and put in solitary confinement for a week. Juno says he's sure Jet will have figured out what to do for the Insurance, so he and Buddy don't need to figure out the plan, just assemble the family and combine their ideas.

Since Juno's labor in the prison is food prep, Buddy sees a way to agitate the inmates, to take the attention of the guards off him. Late in the prep shift for lunch, Juno lies to another prisoner that a recipe has been changed, and they add an industrial chemical to the meal, making it completely inedible. The day's schedule thrown off, Juno and Buddy expect to improvise.

The inmates know it's lunchtime, used to the schedule, but they are kept running in high heat for "recess" until the inmates snap, and protest. A guard, using the Palomine voice modulators all guards wear, tells them there will *be* no lunch today, and blames it on the algorithm. The assembled inmates begin to chant demands for lunch and walk together towards the doors. "They had programmed us to have lunch, and by god, we were going to have lunch."

Juno peels off from the crowd, looking for Jet and Vespa in the solitary cells. Instead, he comes across Cutler, the prisoner Buddy previously goaded into a rage by poking at his habit of saving his pudding pods. He shows Juno that he's been secretly keeping a pet Voidmouse, named Richard, and feeding him the pudding. Juno remarks that Cutler seems calmer and more talkative since the inmates started protesting, and Cutler tells him he's been imprisoned for fifteen years, and Richard has kept him sane. As they chat, Cutler asks whether Juno's missing friend has green hair, and offers to show him the way, since Juno told him where the pudding is stored. To Juno's surprise and consternation, Cutler hits him hard enough to knock him unconscious.

When Juno wakes, he's in the infirmary. He tries to ask a guard for aspirin, but sees a syringe stuck in his neck. Vespa appears and tells him to be quieter. She's been faking--or possibly inducing--heart attacks in order to be sent to the infirmary, because when an inmate steps out of the schedule, the prison staff isn't sure what to so with them instead. After bickering, she and Juno admit in unison that they're glad to see each other. He tells her that they're breaking out, and she returns that she does know where Jet's being held, but she's worried about him. He's not acting like himself, and Sasha Wire is planning to execute him.

## Cast

* Joshua Ilon as Juno Steel
* Stewart Evan Smith as the Voice of Palomine Aurinko
* Sarah Gazdowicz as Buddy Aurinko
* Chloe Cunha as Vespa
* And Lydian Meloccaro, Tyler Rosati, and Mertz as the Ensemble