Floating Prison story

The below is broken into some plot ideas, obstacles and potential resolutions followed then by a brief and unfinished opening chapter. I plan on adding to this but would like some feedback on the general idea in the meantime, i'm not so concerned about spelling and pacing just yet :)

Outline and plot ideas:

Setting:

The earth has flooded entirely following the melting of both polar ice caps.

A last human city named Wellstown exists on the seabed, far below the flooded surface.

After years of oppressive government by the non-elected City Council, a small group consisting of council guards, civil rights leaders, teachers and laymen led a revolt under the guidance of an engineer and scientist named Harold "Harry" Keane.

The revolt was crushed by the council, with rumors suggesting an insider tip off leading to the arrest of all the leading members. However, rather than martyr them via a mass execution, the council decided upon exile to the earths surface where they hoped their influence would die out with them.

Therefore, a floating island prison, a remnant of human history when man thought to remain on the surface, and pieced together over time from scrap metal and using basic but sturdy equipment was created for the exiles. They were provided with means to power the machines they needed to survive and maintain the "island", but not much else.

This story starts fifty years after the exiles were sent to the "island". Most have died and the few that remain are in their final few years.

One day, and without any contact from Wellstown in decades, a pod bearing a young, pregnant woman bursts to the surface and sends turmoil throughout the islands inhabitants.

Characters:

Main Protagonist: Justine. A pregnant woman who is the first person to be exiled from the earths last human city (located on the seabed) in around fifty years. She is delivered by a specialized pod to a prison which floats on the ocean surface.

Other Characters:
Len: One of the comparatively younger prisoners. He is a mechanic who handles most of the repairs and maintenance of the prisons machinery. He was only 14 when exiled.

Marty: A former council guard of the undersea city. A giant of a man who was part of the revolt that led to the original exile. He was also a close friend of the deceased revolt leader Harold (Harry) Keane.

Maggie: A teacher involved in the revolt. Very bitter about her circumstances and has become something of a nuisance around the prison now due to her constant negativity and nit-picking.



Driving the Plot:

The child born on the surface becomes ill, and his mother decides to try and find a way to return to the sunken city to save him.

Using the parts remaining from the previous pod, and harvesting enough fuel, she will be ready to return in one year at the earliest.

- Series of setbacks.
Trouble getting help from the only mechanically gifted person on the island. His attitude is that it can't be done and he won't endanger the island by provoking the under water city
An explosion (caused by the council??) when harvesting the fuel destroys part of the island and valuable supplies (hydroponics/growth system), forcing the protagonist to move faster and also to now have to find a way to save the island dwellers before they starve or die of thirst.
The pod suffers damage on the decent, making it impossible to use it to return again.
The council guard capture her and this time intend to execute her by expulsion into the pressurized deep water.
The underwater city is in turmoil as the citizens have grown tired of the harsh laws implemented by the council, many are ready for outright revolt.
the protagonist discovers that there is actually a huge portion of the city that has been sectioned off by the council in order to maintain control over a smaller population. The opening of this would accommodate not only for the current inhabitants, but also the islanders on the surface and ensuring a more comfortable living environment and allowing the city to grow.

Questions:
- Is she captured and executed, but not before airing footage of the huge but secretive expansion to all the citizens of the city?
- Does she live and return to the surface to save her son and her islander friends?
- Are the islanders rescued and brought to the city?
- Is her son saved?
- If she dies, do the citizens take up her struggle, revolt and return to the surface to save her son and the remaining islanders?
- Why is she sent to the surface and not executed instead?
- Why were all the remaining islanders exiled and not executed?
- Is the island monitored by the council and do they know of it's existence?
- Why is the city built and what has happened to the planet?
- What will happen to the council once the truth is revealed?
- Who are the council and what do they want?



- Additions

Justine is not the first person to try return to the city below the water. Lenny (the mechanic) once helped the former engineer Harold with building a submersible which collapsed under the pressure and killed him. Lenny has since then never thought about trying again, and he is naturally hesitant and even vehemently against supporting Justine's idea.

There is a large submersible code-named "Cerberus" used by the council guard to patrol and guard the city from unwanted visitors. Justine knows about this since she is the most recent to have been sent up. She will need to find a way to avoid this if she hopes to return and get help for her son.

The unused portion of the city is nearly two thirds it's current size. When the revolt happens, some of the council guard escape there after Cerberus is destroyed/taken by the rebels/Justine and the islanders.
Is there something (another Cerberus, weapons, a method of finding the last piece of land on earth) that they hope to take/destroy?






Opening:

She snored mildly in a black basin flecked with soft blue lights that flickered occasionally, as if scared by the sounds she made.
Her hands cradled a belly swollen with new life.
Upward the pod moved, through the blackest, coldest waters toward it's inevitable conclusion, an arrival to a world it contents had never seen.
Far above, on the planets drowned and lifeless surface, the prison awaited them.


For two days now Len Barry had been been knee high in gunk and shit he didn't have a name for, but just knew it's smell would remain on him for a week at least.
The collection tank for the islands drinking water was fairly self sustainable and only required a good cleaning out every two to three years, and he seemed to be the lucky s.o.b to get nominated every time.
His back ached as he bucketed out another layer of the sludge which caked the great tanks floor like burnt grease in a pot. Another few buckets and he would be done finally. The colony had no detergent to speak of, but he was able to siphon off most of the water to three smaller reserve tanks before undergoing the laborious task of dragging the gunge out by hand.

Again he cursed his luck for been laden with the task, but being the youngest of the group had it's perks and flaws he supposed.

From outside he could hear the soft bells of the buoys and occasional muffled shouts from his fellow prisoners. Most were too old now to get around so easily, so they stayed in the Big Room, near the central pool where they played cards and talked about times long ago, in a place far below.

The memory still twanged for Len, still cutting sharply despite the fifty or so years passed since he last walked the corridors of Wellstown. But most of all he missed being able to have a beer or take a shower whenever it suited him. There was a freedom there in those small things deep under the waves that was stripped from him here, in this prison without walls.

"You brought it on yourself, smart ass", a voice told him in no uncertain terms, and yes, he knew that too. He had chosen a side, he had believed they were in the right but the others had disagreed, strongly. And so he found himself here, approaching the end of it all, one way or another, and how he wished he could now go back and change it all.


The last bucket was emptied and he breathed a sigh. If he got lucky maybe he would die before having to do this again.
He climbed the steps of the ladder carefully, placing each step with focus, for he had seen what happened if you missed one and he didn't want to go that way, no sir.
He reached the top, pulled up the lights and shut the tank behind him.
"OK Marty, you can pull the sludge door now, let that shit out of there. And hold your nose!"
Below him, Marty Kehoe, eighty four years young and still strong enough to knock a horse out, mumbled something inaudible and pulled the rusted orange lever beside him, releasing two days of sweat and tears into the oceans great big recycling plant.

Len liked to think of some poor mech like him, far below outside Wellstown getting a cloud of thick gunge down on top of him as he tried to weld. He smirked at the thought, but he knew it was also impossible, the pressure at that depth meant the only thing going outside was the auto-mates, radio controlled arms used to patch any leaks or dents. A human body would collapse on itself in that pressure, an ugly and painful death.

"Like Harold's" the voice told him.

"Yeah" he thought, "like Harolds". He spat the memory away and descended.

"How's she looking Lenny? We good for another while yet?" Marty shouted. His own increasing deafness had amplified his voice to a boom. The man was old, and bent slightly now, his hands though strong, were incapable of anything but dogged labor. Time had worn away at this once giant, but he remained defiant, if only in voice now. Len always liked that about Marty, he imagined it's why Harold had approached him all those years ago with his proposal too and was why Len had never minded him calling him "Lenny" in the first place. His snoring, though, was another matter altogether, not that mentioning it would make much difference now anyway.

"Yeah Marty, we're good, for another year or two anyway. Next time we'll send you down eh?" He winked and took the water bottle from Marty's hand and drank deeply. "Hoist you up there and drop ya straight in. Throw Maggie in there too to keep you company."

The older man laughed, a single parp. "Hah! Ah yuh, an' ye can leave her in there too Lenny, coz she won't be gettin' back out again!" He held his swollen knuckles aloft, made a strangling gesture and chuckled again.


Len chuckled along with his friend. He spied Maggie in the distance telling some poor misfortune, maybe Christopher, maybe Jean (he could never tell them aprt from a distance, the other problem with greying hair), everything they were doing wrong with whatever it was they were doing. The woman was relentless in her corrections. She had been a teacher one time, in the before, as he called it sometimes when he wasn't too maudlin' to care to recall it.

She'd been a looker too Len remembered, had her fair share of suitors that one, but never married, never had kids. None of them had. It had almost been like a silent agreement between them all, that they wouldn't bring any others into their world. No-one deserved it anyway.