by R. E. Vance
Mr. Cain saw my gaze rest on those prisoners. “Our first occupants. All from the kidnapping debacle. Only thirty-seven so far, but I fear that they are just the beginning.”
I walked over to the barred rooms, my feet crunching on neatly raked gravel. Immediately in front of me was a black cell roughly as big as a compact car. From the way the lights were set up, I knew it held the monster-under-your-bed. Next to his cell was a soft pink one about a quarter of the size of the doll house we visited in the park. Inside was a small mattress the size of a cigarette pack, on which was a crying pixie. “Hi there, Mable,” I said.
The little pixie, her arm still in a sling, looked at me with big betrayed eyes before giving me her back. I left the little creature to her grief.
Cell after cell was filled in a macabre zoo only made all the more ridiculous with its wacky color scheme. No amount of happy-go-lucky colors like periwinkle or cyan could lessen the misery of the scene. I saw the hill troll from the news report, his massive lumbering body hunched over in sadness and frustration as he sat on a bed made of cold steel. There were other Others there, too, who hadn’t made international news—a qalupalik in a giant fish tank, a namahage and three krampuses who mulled about in neighboring cells, each flogging themselves with their own tails.
Others of all shapes and sizes occupied cell after cell, each one of them falsely accused of kidnapping a child and imprisoned without the right to a fair trial. Guilty without the means to prove innocence. Before I could ask Mr. Cain what evidence each one of them had against them, I saw someone that made me take three steps back.
In a standard human-size cell sat Ms. Reynolds. She wore bright orange overalls typical of women’s prisons. “What the …?”
Ms. Reynolds gave me a forlorn look, like she couldn’t believe that I was seeing her in such dire straits. A single tear escaped her eye and rolled down her face. “Oh, Mr. Matthias. I really had hoped we wouldn’t meet like this.”
I turned to Mr. Cain. “I think there’s been a mistake … she’s human.”
Mr. Cain shook his head. “Shapeshifter. Changeling, to be specific.”
“But … but …” I turned to Ms. Reynolds, my eyes asking for confirmation.
The former children’s caregiver gave me a forlorn nod. “I burnt ten years and spent a lot of money on plastic surgery to become Ms. Reynolds. The humans would have never trusted a daycare run by one of the fae, but Ms. Reynolds … everyone loved Ms. Reynolds.”
I couldn’t believe it; her appearance was so human. Her smells, her mannerisms all screamed “human.” Eccentric, overly happy human, but human nonetheless. I ran over our encounter in my head and realized that her appearance was perfect, but some of her mannerisms were not. For one thing, she was completely undisturbed by an angel landing at her front door. For another, she immediately welcomed Penemue and me as the co-adoptive parents of a human child. And then there were the lilac pedals … a popular candy for the fae. How could I have missed that?
But despite the deception, there wasn’t a part of me that believed she had anything to do with the kidnappings. A silent rage grew in me as I thought about the community that she faithfully served for so many years—a community of parents whose children she had cared for.
How quickly we turn our backs on those we claimed to trust only days before. I felt an old familiar feeling for my fellow humans bubble within me: shame.
I walked over to Ms. Reynolds’ cell and put my hand through the bars. Mr. Cain shifted his weight, but I cast a warning glance at him over my shoulder before turning back to Ms. Reynolds. “I am sorry for what my people have done to you. You do not deserve this and I promise I will make this right.”
She took my hand in hers, wrapping her fingers tight around mine. “Thank you,” she said. Then, letting go of my hand, she hugged herself, her arms not long enough or strong enough to offer her much comfort. She nodded at me. “I know you will try, Mr. Matthias. And for all our sakes, I hope you succeed.”
New Living Quarters and Empty Chest Cavities
Mr. Cain took me to the prison staff dormitory, where I would be staying whenever I was on the island. Several vending machines lined the far wall, and when I started to dig out some change to buy myself a coke, Mr. Cain put his hand on my forearm. “No need. They’re all free.”
I gave him an I’m-impressed head nod and pushed the button. A cold red can clunked its way down to the trapdoor. “Want one?”
He put his hands on his waistline and shook his head. “Side effect of mortality. You’ve got to watch what you eat.”
I snapped its tab, its carbon escaping with a hiss. “Good thing I’m not gonna live forever.” I took a big, satisfying gulp to drive my point home.
A large man the size of the vending machine came over and, in a voice that would have given Michael a run for the Most Bassy category, said, “Evening, Mr. Cain.” Up-close, I realized I was wrong—he was several inches taller than the vending machine. Based on the bulk he carried under his short-sleeve, blue button-up shirt, he weighed just as much.
“Ah, just the man I was looking for.” Mr. Cain gestured up at the giant. “This young gentleman has the very unironic name of Bear. Bear, please make the acquaintance of Mr. Matthias, our newest recruit—and your boss, I’m afraid. He’ll be heading Prisoner Relations, which puts him one rung above the Head of Guards.” He tapped Bear’s chest in consolation.
“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” Bear downshifted. From his voice and mannerisms, I placed him as a farm boy turned marine. I served with many of those types. Hard workers, used to being up at the crack of dawn and pulling long days, tough as nails—if the nails were encrusted in diamond shielding.
“Corps man?” I asked.
“Hoo-rah!” Bear bawled.
“Pleasure to meet you, Bear,” I said, reaching out for a shake. He took my hand, and it was like being shook by a paint can mixer.
Mr. Cain gave us a casual salute. “Now, gentlemen, if you will excuse me. Bear here will show you around and take you to your quarters. As for myself, I shall return to the lighthouse, where further business requires my attention.”
With a nod and a final handshake, Mr. Cain bid us goodnight, leaving me with the biggest human I’d ever encountered.
↔
First things first—Bear showed me around the staff facilities. The building had everything you’d expect on a luxurious cruise ship: lower floors were filled with rec halls, game rooms, a gym and pool. The main lobby housed the cafeteria; it was there that guards and staff meandered about. I guess with only thirty-seven prisoners, they weren’t very busy.
But then Bear showed me one more room before our tour ended. It was a circular space big enough for one person to man the swivel chair in its center. A beefy guard currently sat in the chair, his eyes glued to hundreds of screens, which completely encased him, showing the operator every inch of the prison.
“The FishBowl,” Bear said. More unironic naming. Mr. Cain really needed to work on his nomenclature. “This place is rigged with the latest security: cameras, sensors, infrared light, weight-sensitive flooring … and this.” He pointed to the bottom right-hand corner of each screen. A tiny round-faced clock sat in each screen. “TBM counters. Hundreds of them. And each sensor is rigged up to an alarm that will alert us as to exactly where the problem is.”
He handed me a watch that looked more like a silver cigarette case than something you wore on your wrist. “Billy,” he said to the man in the operator’s chair. “Show him. Time and weight.”
Billy nodded, his eyes never leaving the screens. With the flick of a switch, he set off an alarm in some distant corner of the prison. Immediately my watch lit up with a banner scrolling the words Time being burned. Unusually light weight detected. The upper two-thirds of the screen displayed a map to the sector in question and several lights on its side flashed red.
“The whole team’s been alerted,” Bear said. “Push that and count to three.”
I pushed t
he button on the side Bear was indicating and the screen turned from a map to security camera footage of the area in question. As instructed, I counted; just as I muttered “Three,” several guards in full riot gear entered the room on my watch’s screen. Batons at the ready, they used sensors to efficiently scan the area. With nothing found, they turned the sensors on each other.
“As you know,” Bear said, “a lot of Others can cloak themselves. Invisibility, camouflage, shapeshifting. The guards are trained to scan themselves just in case a would-be escapee tries to disguise itself as one of us.”
“So the ‘clock a guard over the head and put on his uniform’ routine is out, huh?”
Bear’s lips did the exact opposite of smiling.
“So much for 1980s TV tropes,” I muttered to myself.
Bear ignored me and gave Billy a signal. “Let ’em know.” Billy pushed a big red button and my watch went silent, but I could still see the guards on the FishBowl screen. The guards made their annoyance known with a simple and colorful game of Charades that they directed at the security cameras.
“OK,” I said. “Air-tight security.”
“The best. The watch’s interface will tell you everything you need to know. It is shock proof, water proof and bullet proof.” Bear gave me a look that told me he wasn’t kidding. “You must keep that on you at all times,” he said. “For your own safety,” he added when I did not immediately clamp it on.
I begrudgingly took off my Mickey Mouse watch and put it in my pocket before dutifully wrapping the new tech monstrosity’s rubber fastening around my wrist. I tightened the strap and Bear touched the screen. The strap tightened even more, with a click, until I was sure it was in danger of cutting off my circulation. “For your own safety,” he echoed.
I didn’t need Bear to tell me that the watch was permanently strapped on and that removing it would require a code or security override. The clamping sound and the presence of its large face reminded me of one thing I almost forgot in the luxury of The Garden and the staff dorm.
I was in a maximum security prison.
I could have complained, made some noise about the watch being locked on me, even pulled the “I’m your boss” card, but I knew it would get me nowhere. Besides, if I was going to be this guy’s boss, I couldn’t let him know he’d gotten to me. So instead, I did what any good boss would do when establishing a pecking order.
I yawned.
Bear took the hint with a grizzly “This way,” holding the door open for me.
↔
I was escorted to a small apartment, where I was happy to find all my stuff waiting for me. The place was far better stocked than my bedroom at the Millennium Hotel. The living room was complete with a fully loaded fridge, a large flat-screen TV, a PlayStation and Netflix. Boy, oh, boy … talk about luxury.
A comfy couch faced the TV, an immaculate coffee table between them. To one side was my bedroom, and I didn’t have to go inside to know a king-size bed waited for me. Another door led to a bathroom, and just beyond, by the window, sat a large oak dining table.
My bags, which I was sure had been thoroughly scanned, searched, dismantled and reassembled, sat on the table in a kind of presentation that said, “Our service stops just before actually unpacking for you.” They had, however, embarrassingly laid out each one of my toys—only a couple Transformers and a handful of He-Mans (He-Men?)—side by side. I also brought with me an old Atari and one of those handheld single-game units: Pac-Man. And Castle Grayskull, of course.
As soon as we walked in, Marty stuck his head out of the toy castle and hissed at Bear. The massive security guard looked down at Marty, unimpressed, and said, “That thing scared the bejeezus out of the security. You really must warn us when you have exotic animals in your luggage.”
I smiled, remembering what happened. I had been there. A guard named Jim—a scrawny fellow who was six pounds away from being a bona fide skeleton—opened Castle Grayskull, exposing Marty in full viper glory. The guy dropped the toy castle and backed away, his hand fumbling for his belt Taser and failing to find it. That, if nothing else, told me these guys weren’t ready to handle Others. After all, as far as they knew, he was just a snake. And even if they did understand he was an Other, well, as far as Others go, Marty was pretty tame. But that would be dealt with later. For now I just wanted to get on with my day, or night, or early morning … or whatever time it was. Hard to tell when your new living quarters are underground.
Seeing Bear’s stare of disapproval now, I put my hand out. Marty slithered up it. “What? Marty, here?” I said. “He’s harmless. His poison glands were removed—the serpentine equivalent of neutering.”
Marty stopped crawling up my arm to hiss at me, then slithered his way up and onto my shoulder, where he sat on me like a Predator’s shoulder gun. “He’s harmless,” I repeated. “Seriously. The most dangerous thing he’s ever done was bruise Jim’s ego.”
Bear chuckled at that and leaned in close to pet Marty on the head with fingers thicker than rubber stoppers. Marty hissed, then licked Bear’s palm with his forked tongue—a gesture that was either a kiss of friendship or marking Bear for death … with Marty, you really could’t be sure. “And Jim’s pants,” Bear chuckled. “Let’s not forget that casualty.” I gave Bear a forced laugh that the overgrown human took as genuine. “We’re not allowed pets, and I haven’t told Mr. Cain about him—yet.” His tone told me this was a warning. Then he smiled, something occurring to him, and said, “I don’t think Mr. Cain will like having a snake here. You know … this being in The Garden and all. Too … ahhh—”
“Foreboding?” I offered.
“I was going to go with too much obvious symbolism, but whatever floats your boat. You have a good night, Mr. Matthias. And welcome to the team.”
“Thanks, Bear,” I said with a casual salute.
Bear returned the gesture and left me to my new room. I looked at my watch: ten to midnight. Good … plenty of time, then.
↔
I took a look around my room before doing the first thing any justifiably paranoid person would do in my situation. I scanned for bugs.
I pulled out my Atari and Pac-Man and pretended to try to set it up. Of course, setting up a 1977 Atari on a Smart Full HD LED TV was damn near impossible. It was like trying to get a car’s window roller to work on the Starship Enterprise. It just wouldn’t work. Not without some serious fiddling.
So I fiddled, got frustrated and took the device apart, careful not to expose the two tiny transistors that, once combined with Pac-Man’s innards, would act as your standard homemade bug detector. Feigning frustration with the Atari, I picked up Pac-Man, and under the guise of changing its battery, put in the two transistors. Then I played Pac-Man as I casually walked around the room and looked for hidden cameras, mics or any other kind of electronic surveillance equipment.
I didn’t find any.
But there was the issue of my watch—my watch, not the unwieldy one Billy gave me—and, of course, magic. I pulled out my Mickey Mouse watch and scanned the room. Again, nothing. Then I searched every nook and cranny for one of the magic suppressors, like what we found at the Tree. Again, nothing.
OK—no magic surveillance here either.
I was beginning to think that maybe this Mr. Cain was on the up-and-up, when I looked at my wrist watch.
The thing had three little holes, spaced apart so that each imprint made the three points of a triangle—Memnock Securities’ logo. On a hunch, I held Mickey Mouse close to it and noticed that it spun around slightly faster than it should.
So I wasn’t being paranoid, after all. Well, that was fine with me.
I wrapped my hand, wrist and new hi-tech watch in a plastic bag and went into the shower. It was a luxurious bathroom, complete with marble walls and not one, but two shower heads—you know, just in case you had company. I turned both showers on and waited for the room to steam up before I thumped my chest three times.
With a whoomp, TinkerB
ell emerged from my chest. GoneGodDamn, it felt weird whenever she did that. She fluttered around three times, stretching as she did so. In the six years I’d lived with Tink, we’d gotten exceptionally good at Charades. Given that I was pretty sure the watch had a mic on it, too, I gestured, Did you see all that?
Tink nodded. Marty slid into the bathroom and hissed up at the fairy. Tink put her thumb on her nose and taunted the snake with a wiggle of her fingers. The gesture would have been quaint in the 1950s. It was absolutely adorable now.
Marty did what Marty always does. He hissed.
Guys … play nice, I signed. Turning to Tink, I mimed, See anything else? Something I missed?
Tink gave me a devilish smile, nodding with big exaggerated head bobs.
I gave her a curious look. She mimed walking down a winding staircase, opening a heavy trapdoor and pointing down.
Did you see something? I asked, holding my fingers to my eyes and then pointing down. Like I said—we are exceptionally good at Charades.
She shook her head and then cupped her hands over her ears.
So she heard something. What? I shrugged.
She spun around three times, then curled into a fetal position that she held in mid-flight. Then she balled up two fists and held them against her eyes like she was crying.
Crying … as in children crying.
GoneGodDamn it! my mind screamed as a fury I have rarely felt before consumed me.
I was right.
I friggin’ hate being right.
Flashbacks and Retro Camper Vans
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AGO—
Twenty-four hours ago I was sitting in a camper van watching Others being hunted for crimes they did not commit. Penemue and I had been staring at the little black-and-white TV in Conner’s van in growing horror for a time that felt eternal. Sinbad watched the screen in confusion. We might have stayed like that for a long time had it not been for Sinbad, who looked up at me with her big brown innocent eyes and said, “They’re hunting Others when they should be hunting ShouldNotBes.”