Escape from Furnace

Furnace Penitentiary, in the distant future, is the world’s most secure prison for young offenders. It is buried a mile beneath the Earth’s surface. One way in and no way out. Once you're here, you're here until you die, and for most of the inmates that doesn't take long - not with the sadistic guards and the bloodthirsty gangs. Convicted of a murder he didn't commit, sentenced to life without parole, ‘new fish’ Alex Sawyer knows he has two choices: find a way out, or resign himself to a death behind bars, in the darkness at the bottom of the world.

Only in Furnace, death is the least of his worries. Soon Alex discovers that the prison is a place of pure evil: where creatures in gas masks stalk the corridors at night, where giants in black suits drag screaming inmates into the shadows, where deformed beasts can be heard howling from the blood drenched tunnels below waiting to kill. And behind everything is the mysterious, all-powerful warden, a man as cruel and as dangerous as the devil himself, whose unthinkable acts have consequences that stretch far beyond the walls of the prison.

Together with a bunch of inmates - some innocent kids who have been framed, others cold-blooded killers - Alex plans the prison break to end all prison breaks. But as he starts to uncover the truth about Furnace’s deeper, darker purpose, Alex's actions grow ever more dangerous, and he must risk everything to expose this nightmare that's hidden from the eyes of the world...[4]

Alex, Zee and Gary are on the loose in Furnace tunnels and caves but are eventually found by the warden, the blacksuits and their hounds. Alex and Zee are condemned to a month in the 'hole', the solitary confinement, while a wounded Gary is taken to the infirmary. In the pitch black hole, where all the worst nightmares come true, Alex and Zee manage to stay sane by communicating to each other by banging on the steel pipes and the frequent visits of Simon - he yanks them out of their cells and works with them and his friends in order to make an escape attempt: first through a steeple, later through the incinerator. In the prison's underground mazes Alex and Zee discover the dark truth: the inmates are lab rats; the wheezers perform procedures on them in order to become blacksuits but these experiments sometimes fail so they're either turned into 'rats' which seek only for food and revenge or 'mutants', half rats half boys, who are harmless because they remember their old lives. In the infirmary Alex finds Gary and Donovan (who is later smothered by a pillow) who are turned into blacksuits. Alex's second escape plan doesn't go smoothly either: Zee is taken to the infirmary but is later saved by Simon and Alex, the steeple doesn't lead to the outside but to one of the rats' lair and on their way through the incinerator Alex, Zee and Simon are caught by the blacksuits.

Alex undergoes the blacksuit procedure, while Simon, Zee and Ozzie are locked up. With the 'nectar', a dark liquid full of tiny golden flecks, in his veins, Alex starts to forget things - his life prior and in Furnace, his friends and even his name - and what's left is a cruel, merciless hatred toward the weak and a lust for power. But to become a real blacksuit, he has to pass a test, in which he successfully kills many rats and Ozzie. As a new recruit, he finds out other secrets: the existence of the 'berserkers' (creatures that are bigger, stronger, more merciless and with no rational thoughts as the blacksuits), and the nectar - the essence of it (the darkness that lies in someone's fear of death) and the motives behind it (to create perfect soldiers without fear, pain nor pity). When he has to pass another test by killing Zee, Alex starts to remember his name so he attempts to escape for the third time along with Zee and Simon, this time through the elevator that connects the prison with the main gate. After a while, he starts to feel weak due to the lack of the nectar; without it he can either become a boy again or completely lose his mind and become a merciless killer, worse than a berserker, but Simon takes care of it. In the prison's 'gen pop' they and the other prisoners successfully defeat their enemies sent - first the blacksuits, later two berserkers - and reach the main gate. They are finally free. Hearing the police sirens, Alex, Simon and Zee run for it while in Alex's mind there's Furnace's voice screaming I am coming for you.

The inmates are on the run with the police and the SWAT on their heels, but are also chased by Furnace nightmarish creatures that carry the 'red-flecked' nectar - it has evolved into a plague, so the infected creatures or humans spread it by attacking and/or killing others. Trying to get as far away from the prison as possible, Alex, Zee and Simon hide first in a mall, later in the metro where they meet Lucy. After encountering some infected, Alex is bitten by a red-flecked berserker that causes him to teeter on the brink of insanity thanks also to Alfred Furnace's voice and visions - he wants Alex to be his right-hand man in the new 'Fatherland'. Soon they realize that the city is in a state of chaos and destruction, a war between Furnace's infected and humanity. After an attack of the infected in St Martin's Cathedral that Alex, Zee, Simon and Lucy survive, they are brought by Annabel and another soldier to a supposed safe place of PMCs, later revealed as the blacksuits. During their short capture, Alex, Zee, Simon and Lucy discover another inconvenient truth: the red-flecked nectar has been created by Alfred Furnace and is more powerful than the warden's nectar, and the Furnace Penitentiary is not the only place where blacksuits are created. They decide to destroy Furnace's tower with Furnace and his creatures in it. When Alex comes to meet Furnace, he finds instead Warden Cross who fills himself with the red-flecked nectar. He fights Alex but is eventually defeated. Drinking from Cross' blood, Alex becomes a berserker. On the tower's roof while the building is being bombarded, Alex promises to find and kill Furnace.

Alex is brought by the army, along with Zee, Simon and Lucy, to St Margaret's hospital where he, Simon and other Furnace creatures are studied by Panettiere and others while the plague's spreading through and out of the country. During the experiments, Alex drifts in and out of sleep where he experiences Furnace's memories. With Zee's visit, Alex realizes that he's expendable - he doesn't have any information about the nectar reproduction/annihilation or the whereabouts of then culprit. So Panettiere kills him but is resurrected by Sam. After Cross' death, Alex's considered Furnace's right-hand man, therefore, Sam and some berserkers help him and his friends to escape. With Panettiere and her army on their heels (they want to study Zee's immunity to the nectar), they spend the night in Alex's house, where he finds out that his parents haven't abandoned him as he remembers but have been trying to get him out of prison, and then they finally reach the island where Furnace is. At last, Alex meets Furnace who's still alive by being attached to a machine and wants Alex to be his heir - Alex is the only one who could handle the nectar and remember his history, and that's what the Stranger needs to survive. He accepts Furnace's offer, in doing so Alex's nectar is replaced by the Stranger's blood in Furnace's veins. Furnace is turned to dust and the Stranger manipulates Alex in continuing the war. However, with his friends' support Alex ends it by killing all of Furnace's creatures, including Simon, through telepathic images of freedom and peace. When Panettiere finally reaches them, she receives all of Alex's blood and dies while Alex's saved by receiving a nectar transfusion. Alex, Zee and Lucy are then brought to a military base where he's interrogated about what's happened. As time passes, the three of them and the whole world are trying to live a better, normal life, and Alex goes under the knife in order to become human again.