Chasing a Familiar Shadow

by Aman Gupta

  “I disabled the firewall,” said Trista.

  7:37 PM –

  “Disabled the firewall,” said Sam. “Onto the AI.”

  “It knows I’m here,” said Trista. “It’s blocking me.”

  “Leave it to the professionals,” said Sam.

  7:40 PM –

  “We got 2 minutes left,” said Trista.

  “How far are you?” asked Sam.

  “I have disabled 7 modules. 3 are left,” said Trista.

  “I got 2. Screw it,” said Sam.

  She stood up and ran to Trista.

  “I got this one,” said Sam. “Let me take this.”

  Trista hesitated for a second but gave Sam the keyboard.

  Sam saw Trista hadn’t disabled 2 modules that Sam already had managed to disable. Sam quickly disabled the two modules.

  “Here’s the last one,” said Trista.

  Every time Trista would disable it, the AI would enable it automatically. “I got stuck here last time too.”

  “Maybe the second AI is enabling it,” said Sam.

  “Damn! You’re right,” said Trista.

  “Send me the command history. I’ll run it on my computer,” said Sam.

  “There isn’t time,” said Trista.

  Trista rushed to Sam’s computer, and ran the commands to disable the 7 modules.

  7: 42 PM –

  “Done!” said Trista.

  “Awesome!” said Sam.

  “Okay. Now, together. Run the last command,” said Trista. “Now!”

  They both ran the command and disabled the module. They waited for the AI to enable it again, but it didn’t.

  “It’s down!” said Trista, smiling.

  “It worked!” said Sam, laughing.

  “Almost 7:43. Enable the firewall,” said Trista

  7: 43 PM –

  “Done!” said Sam.

  “Done!” said Trista.

  Trista was still on her computer.

  “What’re you waiting for?” asked Sam.

  “Nothing. Almost done.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Trista pushed Sam up towards the ceiling, who managed to grab the duct on the sidewall. She climbed inside.

  “Now, give me your hand,” said Trista. “Hurry!”

  Sam hesitated. It was the most opportune moment to avenge Vira’s pain. Vira’s request of Blood for Blood rattled her brain.

  “They’re here. Hurry. Pull me up,” said Trista.

  “No!” said Sam as she closed the window.

  “Sam! Sam!” yelled Trista.

  A minute later, Sam saw through the duct window, that the guards had entered the room. They pointed their guns at Trista.

  “Who’s here with you?” yelled the guard.

  “No one. I’m alone,” said Trista.

  “Tase her,” said the guard.

  Sam saw Trista being tased by the guards. She went down on the ground after being hit a stun gun with a pulse stronger than a million volts.

  Sam stayed there for a minute, while they took Trista away. She felt bad for doing it to Trista but felt she deserved it.

  Sam had memorized the way back to the maintenance room. She made it back without caring about the cameras and joined the queue as it was returning from the dinner service. Mart noticed only Sam had managed to return. There was a grimace on her face.

  Sam quickly went to the cell. She didn’t want a visitor tonight. She hoped that no one saw her in the corridor when she was returning. A few minutes later, they closed the cells.

  Sam laid on the bed, thinking about Trista. She didn’t hear any sirens or Captain Brad yell at the inmates. She didn’t know what happened to Trista, but it was tomorrow’s worry. Tonight she had won.

  Chapter 26: Insincerity

  Sam waited the entire night for her cell to open. Somewhere in her heart, she wished for Trista to return, even though she quickly dismissed the thought every time it occurred to her. Or perhaps she would’ve taken for questioning given her cellmate had done something terrible. But nothing happened. The next morning in the yard, Sam learnt from Mart that Trista was indeed missing. Her sources hadn’t found Trista in the infirmary or the solitary unit. Mart feared that Trista had died, and was probably lying in the morgue, only to be buried outside the walls of Clarence in a ditch. Or even worse. What could be worse than dying, Sam thought. After a minute of silence held for Trista in the yard, Mart, Fred, and Fort confronted Sam.

  Sam told them that Trista saved Sam’s life by allowing her to escape. They had run out of time, and only one of them could escape. Trista made sure it was Sam. It took some convincing, but Sam managed to convince everyone except Mart. Mart mentioned though Trista was selfless, she wouldn’t have stayed longer than necessary if it would have comprised the escape. Mart pulled her aside to have a private talk.

  “I told you what happened,” said Sam. “I tried, but she didn’t reach for the hand.”

  “I want to believe you, Sam,” said Mart. “But you’re making it impossible.”

  “We both would’ve been caught, so she decided to stay back,” said Sam.

  “Did she give you a message? What’s the code word?” asked Mart.

  “What code word?” asked Sam.

  “Whenever a Brotherhood member volunteers, they give a message for the leadership. What’s the message?” asked Mart.

  Sam was caught in a spot. Her lie was about to get caught. Trista hadn’t given a message to her. Sam felt Mart was trying to bluff her.

  “She didn’t give me one,” said Sam.

  Mart shrugged and told Sam to get out of there. Later, she told Daffy to keep an eye on Sam.

  During the breakfast service, Sam sat alone. She would look at Mart and the rest occasionally to see if they were spying on her. But none of them were. Their trays were still filled with food. Fiona was trying to hide her tears. Sam was the only one in the entire hall who was eating. She didn’t know what was worse – her first breakfast here or at the South side. The contrast was striking. Here, she wanted someone to talk to her, but no one did. At the South side, she wished to be left alone.

  Sam got up and went to Fiona. When she tried to sit next to her, Fiona retaliated. She pushed Sam, who fell on the ground.

  The guards saw the incident and grabbed Fiona, dragging her away. The entire room looked.

  “You’re a killer! You’re a killer!” cried Fiona. “She killed her. She killed her.”

  Sam was emotional, so she went back to her seat, wiping her tears, laying her head down on the table. Half an hour later, the bell rang. Everyone was escorted back to their cells.

  The next hour was painful. The guards were roaming around the block as if nothing had happened. Just like at the morning count. The guards didn’t even acknowledge Trista’s absence. No repercussions for Sam or anyone else. It was almost like Trista never existed. Trista had hidden some of her belongings in the cell. The stuff on her bed was missing. Sam went through the secret hole in the wall that Trista had casually mentioned in a conversation and saw a couple of photographs that Trista had hidden and a necklace she would play with.

  Sam opened the necklace and saw a picture of a young girl. She didn’t look anything like Trista. The photographs were of Trista. One was labelled as ‘First day at Verati’ and the second one was labelled as ‘Last Day at Verati’. She looked happy in both of those photographs. Sam examined the photographs closely, as she could see a reflection in the glass behind Trista. Almost as if knowing who clicked those pictures would help Sam know more about the woman she had left behind. But the reflection was too faded.

  The first photograph, representing her first day, was Trista sitting at her desk, looking directly at the camera on her right while the table was filled with post-it notes and files. One of the post-it notes pasted on the computer screen stood out to Sam.

  ‘From Boss – Complete Unit Testing for Behavioral Identifier’

  The second photograph, depicting her last day, was Tri
sta hugging someone. Sam couldn’t see their face. Only Trista’s as she was in tears looking at the camera. Sam did recognize someone on the top corner of the photograph. It looked like Olivia. Olivia wasn’t sad but didn’t look happy either.

  Sam heard a guard approaching the cell. She quickly hid the photographs and the necklace in her stuff.

  The guard yelled for the cell to be opened and told Sam to get out. Sam got out of the cell. A couple of guards escorted her. Several minutes later, through twists and turns, Sam approached a corridor she recognized. She saw the three cameras rotating around.

  A male inmate was standing at the spot. They handed Sam a mop and a bucket of water.

  “Twice,” said the inmate. “The entire floor. 30 minutes.”

  Sam nodded.

  The guards and the inmate left.

  Sam looked around. She had flashbacks of her sprint through the corridor. She didn’t know that a couple of minutes had already passed. A tap on the floor broke her state of trance. It was the inmate who told Sam to get to work.

  Sam began mopping the floor. She felt it was perhaps Trista’s job, and that’s how Trista knew about the timing and the secret route. Trista knew the right door out of the three in front of her, and when the cameras were out of sync. Trista didn’t have a watch, so she had to do everything via intuition and the specific positions of the cameras. A miscalculation and they both would’ve been caught, and wiped off the face of the planet. Just like that.

  The corridor was bigger and dirtier than Sam believed. She had only seen a portion of it last night. She could only clean it once before the inmate came back.

  “Are you sure you did it twice?” asked the inmate.

  “No, just the once. I mistimed,” said Sam.

  “You’re kidding me?” said the inmate. “Fine. Just do it quickly before Eisen comes.”

  “Who’s Eisen?” asked Sam.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to know,” said the inmate.

  “Would you help me?” asked Sam.

  “After what you did to Trista, you’re lucky you’re still breathing,” said the inmate. “Man, No one can break the first rule of Brotherhood.”

  “What rule?” asked Sam.

  “Nothing bad happens to a Stone at Clarence,” said the inmate, before leaving.

  Sam was perplexed but wiped the floor. She wasn’t interested in meeting Eisen. It took her another fifteen minutes, but she was done.

  The inmate came back and saw Sam had completed the job. Sam was ready to go back to her cell, but the inmate told her that she had to do 2 more floors just like this one.

  “It’s a prison. What did you expect?” asked the inmate.

  “I don’t know. I did laundry at South, so don’t know the mopping gig,” said Sam.

  “Laundry as your first job?” asked the inmate.

  “Yeah, had a friend there,” said Sam.

  “I’ve been here for 5 years, have almost 50 friends who worked and ran laundry some time in their stint, and yet I never got there for a day. Laundry isn’t for your friends or your enemies. Don’t you know the saying? You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Laundry is honey, darling,” said the inmate.

  “What, you think I got the job because of some masterplan?” asked Sam.

  “Kill the chicken to scare the monkeys,” said the inmate.

  “Do you always talk in phrases?” asked Sam.

  “The leopard doesn’t change his spots,” said the inmate. “If he does, he ain’t a leopard.”

  He escorted Sam to the floor above. He left her there and told her she needs to complete it quickly to make up for the lost time.

  Sam spent the next 45 minutes cleaning the two floors. She kept thinking about the Brotherhood’s first rule. Is she still alive because she was a Stone? How did her last name matter?

  After completing her job, she was escorted to her cell. The lunch service was to start after half an hour. Sam hadn’t eaten a full meal since yesterday. Her stomach was making funny noises. She could sense the hostility brewing in the cell block when she looked outside her cell through the iron bars. Everyone was looking at her. She gulped and stepped back into the darkness.

  The lunch service was uneasy. No one was eating. The guards sensed trouble brewing up, so Captain Brad Bell was called. When he arrived, every inmate started eating. They knew, either his rod or the meal on the plate, everyone was getting out of there with a meal in their stomach. They didn’t even chew the food. Sam ate some mashed potatoes. The food was better than the South’s.

  When she put back the tray, the inmate gathering the trays hissed at her, before seeing Mart. Sam turned around and saw Mart looking at her. Sam couldn’t take the emotional turmoil anymore. Her actions had already started to take a toll on her mind. She couldn’t sleep, sit or stand without fear, trauma, and pain.

  While they were being taken back to the cells, Sam stood behind Mart. She whispered to Mart that she needed to talk to her. Mart pretended that she didn’t hear her.

  Sam was pacing up and down in her cell before it opened. She realized it was North yard time. She stayed in her cell. Every time someone passed her cell, Sam would get ready to defend herself. She already had an inclination that no one believed her story. She didn’t know how long the rule of Brotherhood would protect her.

  She saw Mart walk by her cell.

  “Mart!” she yelled, but Mart was already gone. Dejected, Sam sat back on her bed.

  Mart returned and entered the cell.

  “You need to listen to me. I didn’t kill Trista,” said Sam as she stood up.

  Mart pushed her onto the bed. “Stay down!”

  “I didn’t kill her. You need to believe me,” said Sam as tears filled her eyes.

  “I know that,” said Mart.

  “You do?” asked Sam.

  “Yes. You just left her there,” said Mart. “Out of whatever vendetta you had against us when you conspired with the guards to transfer to North-West.”

  “I didn’t conspire with anyone,” said Sam. “You guys got me here.”

  Mart smiled, then started laughing. “You’re funny.”

  “I’m not joking. I didn’t plan to be here,” said Sam.

  “Well, then someone else did!” yelled Mart. “And they won, didn’t they? Trista is gone!”

  “Gone where?” asked Sam. “Have you heard anything? The guards are pretending like nothing happened.”

  “That pretty much explains it, doesn’t it?” said Mart. “She has been taken east like Marge and Claudia.”

  “East where? Who’s Marge?” asked Sam.

  “You really don’t know anything, puppet. I never should’ve tried to get you under my wing. The vultures had already dug their claw in,” said Mart.

  “Stop talking in your fucking metaphors. I’m tired of it,” said Sam. “By the way, why did we even disable the AI? What did that solve, huh? If it weren’t for your stupid test, nothing would’ve happened, and Trista would still be here. It’s on you. Every single one of you.”

  “It wasn’t a test, you stupid girl. We needed someone who could match Trista’s skills. Trista couldn’t do it alone. She tried before, but she lost. We lost Brenda pretty soon after that,” said Mart.

  “Who’s Brenda? The woman that Trista won against?” asked Sam.

  “Yes. We lost Brenda to cancer. Final stage,” said Mart. “She was Trista’s cellmate. Trista had to euthanize her to end her suffering.”

  “Why did we disable the AI?” asked Sam.

  “AI controls the security here at Clarence. Disabling it makes the system dependent on humans, making it blind when the eyes are closed. We’re trying to close them forever using our own program,” said Mart. “Disabling the AI was only step one. Trista said she would need at least 100 days to write and test her own program since she only had 10 minutes a day.”

  “So that’s why you think she wouldn’t have stayed back?” said Sam.

  “Yes, that’s why your story d
oesn’t check out. The job wasn’t done,” said Mart. “It barely had gotten started.”

  “Why? What program was she supposed to write?” asked Sam. “What was it supposed to do?”

  “Sorry, I can’t tell you that. I don’t trust you anymore, Sam. I think it’s best you left us,” said Mart.

  “What do you mean?” asked Sam.

  Fiona entered the cell and stared down Sam. She took out a knife from her pocket. Sam got up and ran towards the sink. Fiona looked at Mart and stabbed herself. Repeatedly.

  She threw the knife at Sam, who caught it.

  “Murder! Murder!” yelled Mart. “Guards!”

  Mart ran outside, yelling. The guards, outside the glass window, ran inside the block, and a siren was sounded. Every inmate got to their cell. Sam was shocked. Fiona died instantly, with blood filling up the floor.

  The guard entered the cell and saw Sam standing with a knife in her hand. Sam was too stunned that she forgot to throw away the knife.

  “Drop it!” said the guard as the sirens could be heard. Everyone went back to their cells.

  Sam dropped the knife and raised her hands.

  “Turn around!” said the guard.

  Sam turned around while the guard cuffed her. They took her a few minutes later, while the entire North-West block recited in unison.

  “Kill the Traitor…Kill the Traitor…Kill the Traitor!”

  Sam stopped when she reached Mart’s cell.

  “You bit the hand that fed you. Your dad would be so disappointed,” said Mart.

  Sam was handed over to Captain Brad Bell’s men.

  “Get this bitch next to her owner in solitary,” said Brad.

  Sam was smacked a couple of times, before being forcibly taken to the solitary wing. The walls smelled like urine. The floor smelled like shit. The surface was rough, and the corridor was dark. Barely any lights. The steel doors on either side were shut. Sam could hear banging noises coming from some of the rooms. Perhaps the inmates were losing their minds, Sam thought. At the end of the corridor, Sam was put inside a corner cell. It was barely wide enough for Sam to spread her legs fully. Almost as if the cell was telling Sam where to place her head in case she wanted to sleep. It was around 8 feet deep and 4 feet wide by Sam’s estimate.