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fiction: serial fiction
faraway: chapter seven
Rayner carefully drew the "X" across the date -- August 5, 2037. He smiled -- catching so much hell from other guards over his "cushy" job, but knowing the pressure cooker which he sat in. Stewing. Quietly.
"How goes the artwork, Mister Rayner?"
Rayner leapt at the sound of Spaulding's voice. No matter where position Rayner sat, he never saw Spaulding enter the room, never heard the old man's bootsteps. It spooked the young man almost as much as the personal attention he now enjoyed from the warden.
"Um, okay. Sir," Rayner said nervously, snapping a salute and standing at ease. "I, uh, I suppose I'm just ..."
"Lacking inspiration, I would assume," Spaulding said gravely. "It is difficult to create in this tomb."
Rayner regarded Spaulding with a sudden sense of worry. "They're not coming to save us, are they sir?"
Spaulding smiled wanly at the young man and said nothing, instead choosing to walk past him into Grayson's room.
Grayson was using an old-fashioned exercise machine, which simulated walking up stairs. He had lost a great deal of weight in the time since his crash, now just getting off of bedridden status. He looked loose and tired, even to Spaulding's weary eyes.
Unlike Rayner, he noticed Spaulding come in. "You look like hell turned down your application, Ken," he said by way of greeting.
"Maybe they were using Union routing," Spaulding sighed, taking a seat.
Grayson's smile fell like a gymnast losing her balance. "I take it that means you don't think they'll make it."
"Au contraire, mon frere," Spaulding said, slowly removing his glasses with both hands, and examining them in the light. "I am certain they won't. My psychotic little puppet just got off the line with them."
Grayson simply stared at Spaulding, wiping the lenses of his spectacles on the tail of his jacket, until the warden was ready to speak again.
"The Union forces met with the current owners of Omaha," Spaulding said with obvious terror lurking behind his voice, "who also have transcontinental aspirations, only south to north. They've been in pitched battle outside Chicago for more than six months. They call themselves The Circle -- just like that strange bit of intel we've been hearing -- and have absorbed several regular army units and materiels themselves. They've fought off the Union, who are rerouting through relatively friendly Canadian territory."
Grayson got down off the exercise machine, his mouth a quivering ring. "But they ..."
"Got ambushed," Spaulding said tiredly. "They expected no serious resistance and were pasted by artillery the second all their forces were inside the Cook County line. They'll need serious regrouping. They'll be here in six months via their new route, and only an advance group then."
"... so that means ..." Grayson began.
Spaulding said nothing, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes.
"The lights go out this week ..."
Spaulding remained silent.
"Kill the prisoners, Ken," Grayson said gravely. "If we ..."
Spaulding interrupted, "The supplies are gone. Long gone. If we still had the power to kill them all, we'd still be in the dark in four days."
Grayson's brow furrowed anxiously. "Ken ..."
"Not to mention there may still be, through some miraculous joke of fate, five highly skilled and dangerous prisoners loose with rifles and ammunition. Seventeen guards have died mysteriously, a fact which has been terribly difficult to suppress. I can only surmise that Damu is at work. Oddly enough, there is reference to 'The Circle' in some of his referenced files, as well as the information you brought from Omaha."
Grayson started, "I ..."
"In about two weeks this place will be survival of the fittest," Spaudling said grimly, "and I owed it to you to tell you that. A group of the most vulnerable non-prisoners -- wives, children, and so on -- are getting on the only transport choppers, heading to the forward observer point deep in the Rockies. It'll only carry so many people, but I can make sure you get a seat."
"I'm not going anywhere," Grayson said, his voice still far away. "Get me a pistol down here ..."
Spaulding nodded. "I'm having Rayner move you up to my office, an indulgence I doubt I'll need. I'm going to stand firm in the Situation Room until ... whenever."
Spaulding stood, nodded to Grayson, and said nothing more before storming out of the medical facility.
• • •
Jonesy paced to and fro in the small space. His electrical supplies were limited, and his access to Lira had been gone for a month, so his technical skills were less than useful and he was far edgier than anyone would have liked.
Damu pondered this, twirling a bullet on the backs of his fingers, as he watched the hacker's movements. His father had always loved it when he would twirl things on his fingers -- an act as natural to him as breathing -- so he did it often, rarely noticing that he did so.
They both flexed at the sound of motion from above. Munoz dropped down from a vent, landing between them, two pistols aimed at him. He smiled, and the guns found their holsters.
Munoz reached into his coveralls and pulled out an envelope. From it, he pulled three locks of hair -- two different grades of blonde and one of brown -- and tossed them into the fusion lantern to disintegrate. He made a complex series of gestures towards Jonesy.
"Ish," Jonesy said, translating quickly, "he says he got one at the power generators, one in his bed, and one marching in a line, which was dangerous but really effective."
Damu nodded quietly, saying nothing. Munoz sat down and grabbed a slice of bread.
"This week the power goes off, huh?" Jonesy asked.
Damu nodded again.
"I'll still have some power, though?"
Damu smirked slightly and said, "yes, you'll have enough to run your 'Book and maybe a camera for an hour. Three hours if just the 'Book."
"I won't need it if I can't work anything," Jonesy said quietly. "You won't need me anymore."
"Paul," Damu chuckled, "You're fit and smart, and you can handle a gun. Of course we'll still need you. It's all going down soon enough, so try to chill."
Jonesy shrugged, and resumed his pacing. Munoz looked expectantly at Damu, who simply shrugged, the bullet marching back and forth across his fingers.
• • •
In other hidden passages, Harata stared down the scope of the rifle he decided on -- a simple AR-20 assault rifle with half the range of the SSG he'd been shooting since he was a child. On the other hand, this was an automatic weapon that'd be much more effective. Up close and personal, the way his masters told him the most brutal murders should always be. Wiping the scope with his shirt sleeve, he dry fired the weapon in his mind and planned his first shots.
• • •
Grayson sat looking at Simpson, who stared down from Spaulding's window at the somnabulent courtyard.
"Are you all right, Commander?" Grayson asked.
Simpson nodded, saying nothing. The briskness of his subservience had wavered, and he was more a walking bundle of kindling than anything else now.
"You don't have to stay with me, Commander," Grayson said. "I've got a pistol and I trained with Ken, I'm more than fast enough to defend myself."
"This is one of the best non-electrical views of the largest area of prisoner concentration," Simpson said, his voice a dry monotone. "With twenty hours of power left, I'll find this view helpful. I was considering getting some gunslots put in, but couldn't juggle the power requirements."
Grayson said nothing in response. Simpson was starting to creep everyone out, and only Grayson and Spaulding had to deal with him for extended periods of time. Grayson slid a hand across the pistol and wondered if he'd have to fire on a gray uniform instead of a black one as he suspected.
Spaulding walked in just then, looking haggard. His blazer hung loosely, buttons akimbo, and he was carrying his pistol in his right hand. "Simpson, I need you to oversee that ... errand we discussed."
Simpson spun precisely on his heel in perfect military precision, saluted, and marched out. Grayson shuddered visibly once he was certain the younger man had cleared the outer door.
"Why don't you just kill him?" Grayson asked, horrified. "That man is gonna blow any minute."
"I'm trying to aim him," Spaulding said, leaning on a wall, "hoping he blows up in the right direction. None of the other guards are as skillful."
"None of the other guards are as dangerous," Grayson said worriedly. "I don't mean to tell you how to do your job, Ken, but ..."
"But you're gonna try anyway," Spaulding returned, rubbing his eyes. "I'll make sure he has better things to do than brooding here with you, pretending to protect you. I'll ask Rayner to come in here, instead of working monitor ports."
Grayson nodded. "What's going to happen?"
Spaulding considered this for a moment. "We're going to war. Chances are high we'll win, but it'll be ugly. Boer War in South Africa ugly. We're barricading ourselves in, and after dinner tonight, there'll be no food for the prisoners."
"You're right, Ken," Grayson said gravely. "That is rather ... unpleasant."
"As a distraction, I'm opening a pathway between the male and female prisoners. My guess is that they'll keep each other busy and elated enough to lessen their combined threat." He shrugged.
"When I was a boy, some of my classmates showed me a movie like that," Grayson said. "Penitentiary, I believe it was called."
"Remind me to enjoy your encyclopaedic knowledge of crass film some other time," Spaulding said wryly, his eyebrow arched. "In the mean time, I still think we can pull this off. The staff quarters are now stocked with almost exactly three months of carefully rationed food, which coincidentally, is exactly the amount of power the perimeter defenses have left, and the due date for the forward observers from the Union. If all goes well, everything will work out fine, and we may even still have some prisoners left to act as a rudimentary work force."
"Peace offering to the new masters?" Grayson asked. "I don't think they'll be recognizing the thirteenth, fourteenth or fifteenth amendments as valid. Your little booby hatch here could be a twenty-first century plantation."
"I don't think so," Spaulding replied, scratching his head with the butt of his pistol. "Remember who these people are -- led by an extremist major, probably not an IQ above 105 in the whole batch, looking to absorb the staff here completely. Remember what you and I did, by ourselves, in Australia back in the old days? I believe I can handle these people, and whether the new 'president' hero is Thornton or Simpson, he'll be reading lines from my script."
"Despite your attempts at retiring by coming out here!" Grayson laughed.
"Yes, well ... I'll get Rayner in here, and assign Simpson something he'll enjoy." Without anything else, Spaulding walked out of the converted office.
• • •
Simpson whistled slightly as he walked down the solitary confinement corridor. He walked to the end, past one hundred fifty cells, an antiquated HK90 submachine gun bouncing companiably against his ribs, his 10mm pistol held close to his datapad. He stopped at the end of the hall, keyed a code and opened the door.
The brighter light from the hallway shone in on the nine by nine foot cell, brightly shining on a gaunt, grim faced prisoner in blue uniform pants.
"Juspeczyk, Walter John," Simpson said, reading from a pad in his left hand.
Juspeczyk squinted into the light at Simpson's imposing form, grunting by way of a reply. Juspeczyk had been in solitary for more than four years, and wasn't much on social graces.
"Your sentence has been commuted under Federal Penal Code 1614-7." Simpson said quietly.
Juspeczyk mulled that over for a moment, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Ya mean I'm out of here?"
Simpson smiled brightly. "That's exactly what I mean."
Juspeczyk started to stand up, and was starting to grin when the bullet blasted clear through his forehead and out the back, spreading his brains across the wall like an egg yolk across a skillet. Simpson closed the door quietly with the same hand holding the pistol, turned around, and opened the one across from it.
The light from the hallway found a fat Black man, dozing lightly on his cot. Simpson spoke clearly, saying "Nickleberry, Damian Ralph. Your sentence has been commuted under Federal Penal Code 1614-7."
"Whazzat?" Nickleberry wondered, glancing up from his nap.
Simpson smiled again, wishing he had enough bullets to do this with an automatic weapon.
• • •
Madelyne Fujikawa stood, her back to the classroom, scrawling the six steps of the scientific method on the blackboard. She smiled to herself, recognizing the subtle sounds of children recording their lessons, absorbing knowledge. She turned and looked over the little heads -- ten years old to thirteen -- as they worked to grasp the concepts.
"Now, who can tell me," she said, perching her chalk-holder behind her hear, not disturbing her short black hair, "why we use the scientific method?"
Six hands shot towards the ceiling, with three more following more slowly. Madelyne chose little Sammy Martinez, a little girl with raven hair evenly helmeting her head, who began to speak as the room fell under a curtain of darkness. The red glow of lower power emergency lights gave the room the strange illumination of worry.
"Everyone remain calm!" Madelyne said quickly. "This is just like the drills we've done in the last few weeks. Everyone get your books and your papers and line up single file at the back of the room. We're going to walk you to your parents' quarters, in an orderly fashion. No running, no shouting, just like we practiced. Line up, now!"
The children responded quietly and Madelyne took her place at the door. She saw teachers in other doorways mirroring her actions as guards started to take positions at intersections of the hallways.
Sammy Martinez, the shortest girl in class and the one who lived closest, was at the front of the line and looked up at Madelyne with big, expectant brown eyes. "Ms. Fujikawa, are we gonna be okay?"
Madelyne knelt down and smoothed Sammy's hair where her backpack had disturbed it. "The Warden has prepared us for this for months, Sammy," Madelyne said, making sure her voice betrayed none of the uncertainty she felt. "We've practiced and everything. You'll be fine. Now, come on, let's get you home." Madelyne walked out confidently, signaled to the nearest guard, and started walking her class towards the residential sector under the diminished glow of emergency lighting.
• • •
There was a click, easily audible in Damu's makeshift headquarters. He turned to Collins, as he had done so many times, and sighed. "That was it. Power's off. That means right now, people in their suddenly dark cells are looking up and noticing the clocks are blank. Reaching for cell doors that aren't locked. Noticing there's no guards anywhere. Our teams should have the cafeterias and other necessary resources under control."
"Any chance we'll learn who El Mysterioso is?" Harata's voice came from the passageway. He came in and sat down next to the silent Munoz, slapping the cat burglar's shoulder as he sat down.
Munoz smirked and said nothing. "He'll come foreward if he needs to," Damu noted. "He's smarter than me, since nobody's trying to kill him personally."
"Yeah, but you've got the plan," Jonesy said. "Which we should know by now, right?"
Damu sighed and then began. "Okay. Here's the long and the short of it ...
"My father asked me to sacrifice myself and come here to Faraway, as part of a larger plan loosely referred to as The Way -- or to people who don't know it all The Circle -- sixteen years ago. He was in negotiations with a lot of people on the outside and in the DOC system on how to, finally, overthrow the US government. I believe since that time, the efforts of our friend Fidel to bring international parties to bear would have probably been successful. My father asked me to come here, take over the scene as best as I could, and get ready to take Faraway as an impregnable fortress for the unified people of color living in this country."
Harata swallowed hard and Jonesy's jaw dropped. "Your dad asked you to go to jail on purpose, so you could take over?"
Collins spoke up. "When this monstrosity was being built, his dad Dajan came to me in the county lock up, disguised as the informant they'd been sending at me, and told me he would send help. Somehow, he knew I would come here, and he would send somebody to help me organize the people here so we could seize the place as close to intact as possible. He called it 'a Kwanzaa present for the future,' a fortress we could take from the inside, since it cannot be invaded from the outside. I told him he was crazy, but that I'd go along with it. So I came here and I watched. I watched the White Knights form, I watched the Order slowly come into its full power, unable to run the whole system from here but rock solid inside. I watched the Yakuzas and the Korean Mob and the other Asian gangs start to get picked on in the last ten or fifteen years or so. I advised Ishmael here on who to make friends with, on what the deal was. He was everything his father promised and more."
Harata boggled at the concept. "So, this plan has been in effect ..."
"... since my dad caught wind of the idea of this place," Damu interjected, "2010 maybe. He's been readying me for this since I was seven or so. It's all working as planned. The government has been overthrown. As Jonesy's surveillance has proven. The forces of the Way, a coalition of people of color, are takin' names and working it. Our job is to have this place ready for them, a jewel of martial architecture that can serve either side, if they can posess it."
"Faraway is outta juice, dog," Jonesy said, tiredly, starting to grasp the idea.
"They'll be bringing plenty of double As," Damu smiled, referencing the ancient electrical containers. "My sister should be heading our way, I guess, with some more help. That was the plan. I just hope we don't starve before they get here."
"Your family is f**kin' crazy, man," Jonesy said, amazed.
"So says the man who's father pioneered virtual sex," Damu replied dryly.
"So what's next on the agenda, Ishmael?" Collins asked quietly.
"If my father was right," Damu said carefully, "they'll look for a way to diminish our combat capacity and hope as many of us as possible kill each other. They'll also barricade. They don't know we have access to them, so they have no safety at all. My guess, based on the fact there are women prisoners, is they'll open up the door and let people get their freak on, while dropping a gaseous agent into the vents and hope it carries. They may not have the nerve to do the gas, with no power. It's what I'd do."
Harata still had some confusion. "How could he have known all this? How could this Dajan have seen the future so accurately?"
Collins chuckled. "Dajan couldn't see sh*t. He's an incredible tactician and soldier, but he ... let's just say he had help."
"Seker," Summers said, breaking his own silence. "One of the last messages I got was from him, saying I had to provide for the woman and baby, in case they couldn't be with me, and to get ready to see his biggest practical joke. Seker is a magician."
"Priest," Damu corrected. "In one of the oldest traditions of our people, able to peer through the veil of time. Sort of. Finally applied to tactical and strategic planning. Dad called it 'cheating.' I've just grown up with it, so it's the only way I know. Anyway, next on our agenda is figgering out how to take and hold the guard armory."
Jonesy balked. "I am not goin' in for no shootout with guards, man, I'm ..."
"I'm going," Harata said quietly. "That's why you need me. I'm a shooter. I can handle any weapon in there. And now, there are no cameras to show me bringing a troop of armed prisoners through these passageways."
"Yup," Damu confirmed, "and I've explored enough as Leonard to know we have a crawlspace exit just inside the armory door. We have to coordinate the prisoners ... heh, ex-prisoners, now. We've just gotta get our troops together, reconnect, and get to work."
"We're going to take over Faraway," Harata marveled.
"Welcome to the new world order," Damu smiled, standing and pulling free his pistol. "Gear up and let's make it happen."
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