The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma

by Trenton Lee Stewart

  Hertz, the Ten Man in the seersucker suit, was in a fight with two vehicles. Spinning, running, lashing out with his necktie (which he held like a bull whip), Hertz snarled and laughed as a sleek black van and the Ten Men’s fake ambulance maneuvered around him like angry elephants—roaring, charging, backing up, and blaring horns. One moment Hertz’s tie would wrap around a door handle and he would start to yank the door open; the next he would have to give up the attack and leap aside as the other vehicle bore down on him. The van kept sounding its horn, and the ambulance its siren, apparently in an attempt to disorient him. His briefcase lay open on the ground, but the vehicles weren’t giving the Ten Man any chance to reach into it; the best he could do was kick it out of the way whenever one started to roll over it.

  Through the windows they gaped with wide eyes and wrinkled noses (the odor of burnt rubber reached them even inside the building), trying to determine whether it would be possible to make it to the gate unnoticed. But some seconds passed before they could make any sense of the spectacle—not least because smoke from the madly spinning tires drifted in clouds over the scene, now obscuring one vehicle, now the other. But then a gust of wind momentarily cleared the air, and with a jolt they recognized the drivers of the vehicles: Rhonda and Number Two.

  “Whoa!” Kate said.

  “They’re unbelievable!” said Reynie.

  Sticky nodded, but he was already turning away. “We can’t possibly go out there, though. So what do we do?”

  “Let’s go out the back,” Kate said, trotting past him to take the lead. “I’m getting an idea.”

  Again they sneaked through the empty corridors, pausing to listen at every odd sound, and at one point narrowly avoiding discovery as two Ten Men burst out of a room and walked quickly toward the front of the prison. (“Are you serious?” one was asking the other. “But wouldn’t that diminish the market value?” The other shrugged and said he only knew what he’d been told.) Luckily the children had smelled cologne in the corridor and slipped through a different doorway just in time.

  At last they reached the rear of the prison complex. Peeking out another set of double doors, they saw S.Q. Pedalian loping along in the distance, speaking into his radio as he hurried around a corner of the building. He was carrying Garrotte’s briefcase, the one Milligan had dropped from the roof. Then he was gone, and save for the widespread demolition debris and the looming crane near the wall, the area seemed clear.

  Kate pursed her lips, listening, then led the boys toward the building’s opposite corner, away from the one S.Q. had rounded. On a mound of rubble along the way she discovered her half-crushed bucket, its fliptop dangling by a sliver of metal—she removed the fliptop with a jerk, as one removes a loose tooth—and despite its poor condition she belted it on again as a matter of principle.

  At the side of the building they saw the large open-sided shed she’d told them about. The Salamander was still there, sitting in plain view and seemingly unattended.

  “Constance,” Reynie whispered as they stole toward the shed, “is anyone hiding in the Salamander?”

  Constance snorted, shuddered, and looked up with wild eyes. Several strands of Kate’s ponytail clung to her damp face. “What?”

  Reynie cringed, laid a finger to his lips, and repeated the question.

  “Who cares?” Constance muttered, and buried her face in Kate’s ponytail again. It was unclear whether she’d actually been awake. But obviously she wasn’t going to be of much use.

  Kate laid her gently on the ground and tiptoed over to inspect the Salamander. With a look of relief, she motioned the boys over. “I know how to drive it,” she said, “but it would be great if we could activate the noise-cancellation thingy, wouldn’t it? We could break out without anyone even noticing.” She pointed to a complicated panel of switches and buttons.

  Reynie looked at Sticky. “Can you figure it out?”

  Sticky bent close to the panel, studying it. “I think this will do it,” he said, throwing two switches and turning a dial. “It ought to?—” His mouth kept moving, but no more words came out, for all sound around them ceased. It was the strangest sensation, like having one’s ears plugged by invisible fingers. They looked at one another and nodded.

  The boys took seats on benches near the front, their movements utterly, eerily silent. Kate leaped down and retrieved Constance, then started the engine—they could feel the vibrations but heard nothing—and took the wheel. The Salamander backed silently out of the shed, jerked to a stop, and eased toward the rear of the complex.

  As they moved along, Sticky continued to study the panel of switches. Something had caught his attention—a curious little antenna he couldn’t account for—and he started to mention it to Reynie and Kate, but of course he couldn’t. The Salamander rounded the corner, and Kate pointed toward a section of the prison wall that seemed ready to buckle. Weblike fissures ran outward from a damaged, crumbling portion about ten feet up. Reynie looked from the wall to the gigantic metal beam suspended from the crane nearby. He suspected Kate was right; something had gone wrong with the crane, and that beam had struck the wall. As they drew closer he noticed the yellow hazard tape wrapped around the operator’s cab of the crane, warning people away.

  Kate steered the Salamander in a wide path around the dangling beam (even Kate could be sensibly cautious sometimes), then stopped and motioned for the boys to get out. With a flurry of gestures she indicated she intended to ram the damaged wall. She had mentioned this plan earlier, when they were running through the corridors. But she hadn’t provided much detail, and now Reynie and Sticky responded with gestures that meant, “What about you?” Kate indicated that she intended to jump out before the collision.

  Moderately satisfied, Reynie and Sticky climbed down and reached up to take Constance. They carried her a safe distance away, hearing after a dozen paces or so the crunch of their own footsteps and, from a distance, the continuing sounds of conflict.

  “It’s like breaking out of a prison of silence,” Reynie said.

  “Don’t jinx us,” Sticky said. “We haven’t broken out of anything yet.”

  As Kate backed up the Salamander to get a good start at the wall, they did their best to make Constance comfortable on the ground. She mumbled and moaned—she was absurdly miserable—but there was little they could do for her at the moment.

  “By the way,” Sticky muttered to Reynie, “Mr. Curtain also added?—” But he stopped speaking when they saw the Salamander lurch forward. Kate had gunned the engine.

  The Salamander accelerated rapidly and was soon moving so fast that the boys were horrified at the thought of Kate’s leaping out of it. Then they were horrified she might not leap out at all, for she was still at the wheel and the wall was fast approaching. But at the last instant she turned, ran, and leaped out the back, tumbling backward from the momentum when she hit the ground. Then she sprang up with a grin, threw out her arms, and took a bow, as if this weren’t an escape attempt but rather a spectacle put on for an appreciative audience.

  In truth it was a spectacle. Even as Kate bowed, the Salamander smashed into the wall behind her, sending up a great cloud of dust. The razor wire atop the wall snapped like twine and went furling away in both directions, and cinder blocks and vast chunks of cement fell down all around the Salamander. The debris hammered the armored vehicle with such force that it shuddered visibly with each impact, yet so soundlessly they might have been giant wads of cotton.

  And then the show was over. The Salamander had come to a rest with its nose jutting out on the far side of the wall. Rubble lay all around and inside it, but beyond the Salamander the boys could plainly see Stonetown River rushing past. They were seconds away from freedom.

  And yet the breakout was not as quiet as they had hoped. The crash itself may have been silent, but it was instantly followed by a curious whining sound that seemed to come from two separate directions, traveling along the tops of the prison walls. Reynie and Sticky grimace
d at each other, realizing what it was. All around the prison the razor wires, vibrating from the Salamander’s impact, were sending out a telltale, spooky song.

  “Quick!” Reynie said, and Sticky stooped to help him get Constance onto her feet.

  Kate was trotting away from the Salamander, smiling with satisfaction. As soon as she could hear her footsteps, she congratulated herself. “Not bad, Kate. Now you just have to?—” Her voice was cut off in mid-sentence. Startled, she glanced behind her—and a cry of fright passed soundlessly from her lips.

  The Salamander had reversed out of the wall and was rapidly bearing down on her. Already it was so close that it filled her vision completely. She had no time to leap out of the way, and with half a second’s delay she would have been struck—but Kate didn’t delay. She flung herself down and let the huge machine pass silently over her, its bulk blotting out the sun, its enormous treads churning the earth on either side. Then it was past, and leaping up Kate saw the boys dragging Constance out of the Salamander’s path.

  “—?a remote control!” she heard Sticky saying to Reynie.

  And looking past them she saw Mr. Curtain.

  He sat in his wheelchair near the building’s back door, his face livid with fury, manipulating a small device in his hand. “This is mine!” he snarled as the Salamander rolled to a stop beside him. (Evidently he’d switched off the noise cancellation.) “You are not to touch it!”

  “Too late,” said Kate simply. “And it’s too late for you, too,” she added, and was looking for a snappy way to elaborate when her brain registered the familiar red helmet he was wearing. Speech failed her. Her heart, already hammering, tripled its pace. The helmet was affixed to the back of his wheelchair.

  Mr. Curtain had made the Whisperer portable.

  So this was the final adjustment Mr. Curtain had been working on, this wicked improvement on his wicked invention. And yet so much had not gone according to plan, and his expression betrayed a complicated mixture of fury, disappointment, outrage, and triumph.

  “You have spoiled my day, children,” Mr. Curtain said sharply. “But as you can see, there is always the night. Now tell me, where has your protection gone? Can it possibly be that you have been left to fend for yourselves? Oh dear, how unfortunate for you!”

  “The same could be said for you,” Kate retorted.

  “On the contrary, Miss Wetherall, I am once again in control. Come with me now and I will spare you the gloves. I may even let you keep your memories. You shall be my defense as I track down and eliminate my enemies.”

  “We won’t do it, Mr. Curtain,” Reynie said, and though he knew he should be terrified, he felt strangely unafraid. Was he just too used to being frightened? “We won’t do what you say. You should know that by now.”

  Mr. Curtain narrowed his eyes. “You prefer to be brainswept, I see.”

  “You might want to save your energy,” Reynie said. “There are twenty more agents on their way here right now, and Milligan’s already taken care of McCracken and most of your other thugs. How tired are you right now, Mr. Curtain? Do you feel strong enough to brainsweep twenty agents?”

  Mr. Curtain stared hard at him. “I do not trust you in the least, Reynard…” A shadow passed over his face, an expression first of doubt and then of angry wonder. “And yet… I sense you’re telling the truth. There really are more agents on the way. And McCracken hasn’t responded to my radio calls…”

  “Because he’s down for the count!” said Sticky, stepping boldly forward. “Just like Sharpe. Just like Crawlings and Garrotte. Try calling them on the radio! Reynie’s telling the truth, all right.”

  Mr. Curtain hissed at him, and Sticky jumped back in fright.

  “I thank you for your suggestion, Reynard,” Mr. Curtain said coldly. “Perhaps I had better save my energy. Rather than waste my Whisperer on your little brains, I shall simply make use of my gloves. This is your last chance to obey. You will form a circle around me as we move?—”

  Reynie interrupted him. “If he comes after us, scatter,” he said to his friends. “He can’t chase us all down—he doesn’t have time.” Sticky nodded, and Kate slung Constance up onto her back. They prepared to run.

  Mr. Curtain glared. “Your foolishness grows tiresome, Reynard. There is no need to catch all of you. One shall provide insurance enough. And the easiest to catch shall also be the most useful.”

  Everyone knew who he meant, including Constance, who opened her bloodshot eyes long enough to bug them out at him. Then she closed them and lowered her head again, too sick even to be impertinent.

  Mr. Curtain snorted and looked at Kate. “Are you tired, Miss Wetherall? You look it, I’m afraid. You do indeed. And you have no chance of outrunning me. My wheelchair never tires, and you are carrying extra weight. Perhaps you should unburden yourself and make it easier on everyone.”

  “Fat chance,” Kate growled. “Even if you catch me, I’ll fight you. Believe me, you won’t like it.”

  “Oh, I think I will,” said Mr. Curtain dryly. He reached inside his suit coat and took out his gloves.

  “We’ll all fight you!” Sticky yelled, and he shook his fist at Mr. Curtain. (Then, feeling slightly ridiculous, he coughed and lowered his arm.)

  “He’s right,” Reynie said. “You may be stronger and faster, and you may have those gloves, but there are three of us and only one of you. And you have to go soon or you’ll risk being caught.”

  Mr. Curtain seemed extremely taken aback. “Risk? Caught? You dare suggest to me…” He began taking deep breaths to calm himself, and Reynie noticed that his knuckles were white from clenching the armrests of his wheelchair. Evidently he realized that they were prepared to do what they said. They were ready to engage in a fight they would certainly lose—indeed, painfully lose—in order to protect their whiny friend, and Mr. Curtain had no idea how to handle it.

  Reynie pressed the advantage. “This isn’t about winning anymore, Mr. Curtain. It’s about getting away.”

  Mr. Curtain started to reply, then cut himself off, clamping his mouth shut and staring upward at the sky. He was breathing noisily through his lumpy nose.

  “Your only chance,” Reynie went on, “is to jump in the Salamander right now and drive out through that hole in the wall. Delaying will only get you captured. It’s up to you.”

  Mr. Curtain slowly lowered his gaze to Reynie’s face. “I see what you are up to,” he said. “You think if I do what you suggest, I’ll have to leave my Whisperer behind. You think it’s too heavy for me to lift into my Salamander alone.” He drummed his fingers on his armrests, his eyes darting back and forth.

  “But you can see Reynie’s right,” Sticky said. “If you want to have any chance of escaping, you’d better do it now.”

  “Do not pretend to be interested in my welfare, George, and I will not feign interest in yours.” Mr. Curtain was nodding to himself, as if he were arriving at a decision. “I assure you, if I must make my exit, it will not be without my Whisperer. It is everything I have, do you see? No, of course you do not see. No matter. It is my all, and I will protect it at all costs. Therefore at least one of you must come as my hostage.”

  “I think we’ve been through this already,” Kate said tartly. “There’s no way…”

  But she didn’t finish her thought, for Mr. Curtain had just taken out his radio.

  “You think your Ten Men will come help you?” Reynie said, thinking fast. “They have problems of their own.” As if to prove his point, a boom and scattered shouts rang out in the distance. (For all Reynie knew, this was a worse sign for them than for Mr. Curtain—but Mr. Curtain couldn’t be sure, either.) “They’re probably wishing they had a different employer right about now.”

  Mr. Curtain hesitated, offered Reynie a sardonic smile, then raised the radio and did exactly what Reynie had hoped he would do. “S.Q.! Come to the rear of the prison at once—at once, S.Q.! Do not make me?—”

  S.Q. could not have been far away, for almost i
mmediately he appeared around the corner of the building, running at full tilt. There was nothing left to do now, Reynie thought, but hope he was right.

  As S.Q. ran up, Reynie looked him straight in the eyes. “Don’t do what he says, S.Q.! You know he wants to hurt us! You know he does, S.Q.!”

  Stunned, S.Q. drew up short, looking back and forth between Mr. Curtain and the children. “But…”

  “But?” Mr. Curtain snapped. “But? You may not say ‘but’ to me, S.Q. Pedalian!”

  S.Q. cringed and turned apologetically to the children. “I’m sorry. You just don’t understand…”

  “But we do understand!” Kate said, shaking her head. “You want to do what’s right, and you want to believe that Mr. Curtain is good—but he isn’t, S.Q.! Think about it! What he tells you never feels right, does it?”

  “I… well, I don’t…” S.Q. shifted back and forth, clutching at his head.

  “We know what it’s like, S.Q.,” Sticky joined in. “Not wanting to be alone, wanting to have a family. We’ve all been there. But you can have that and do what’s right, too. Trust your instincts, S.Q.!”

  Mr. Curtain was quaking with rage; his forehead pressed hard against the front of the Whisperer’s helmet. “S.Q.!” he bellowed. “Stop chattering with them and do as I say! This is absolutely your last chance?—”

  “Or what?” Reynie challenged, turning on him. “You’ll start removing his memories again?”

  S.Q. gaped at Mr. Curtain, whose shock was plain enough. It was the shock of having been exposed, not of having been falsely accused, and S.Q. saw this as clearly as anyone. After a long moment he drew himself up and shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, I won’t do it, Mr. Curtain. I won’t do what you say.”

  Mr. Curtain’s jaw dropped. “You… but you…”