by wildbow
“Dumb bitch,” Bakuda muttered, sticking out her lower lip and peering down as if she could investigate the degree of damage to her own lips. “I’m a bomb expert. I understand triggers and catalysts on the same fundamental level you understand walking and breathing. I can visualize mechanical things in a way you couldn’t with five college degrees and a hundred years. Insult me like that again and I’ll end you.”
As if pushed to prove herself, she gripped the screwdriver in her teeth again, and set to work again. A panel was pried off, and the unscrewing was resumed, deeper in the collar.
Paige hesitated to talk again, knowing how easy the girl was to provoke, but the silence was crushing. “I guess it’s a good thing this is a long drive, from Boston to British Columbia.”
“You were asleep a while,” Bakuda pulled away from the screwdriver, talking softly, as if to herself. “Not as long as you think.”
Paige felt something come free from the heavy collar around her neck, saw Bakuda tilt the screwdriver upward, sliding a glass tube with something glowing inside down the length of the metal bar. After another few minutes, another piece of machinery joined the glass tube, as though it were a high-tech shish-kabob.
“Tragic,” Bakuda spoke, on her next rest. “This is beautiful work. Not the actual assembly, that’s crap. It’s obvious the tinker that designed this intended it to be put together by regular schmoes. Wouldn’t have screws and shit, otherwise. But the way it’s designed, the way everything fits together… makes a scientist proud. Hate to butcher it.”
Paige nodded. She didn’t know enough about that sort of thing to risk commenting. As scary as this situation was, as curious as she was, she felt the lingering effect of tranquilizer in her system, an impending boredom.
She closed her eyes.
It didn’t feel like her eyes were closed for more than a minute before she was woken by a shout of “Birdy!” Paige jolted awake, turned to Bakuda, and saw the work was done. Bakuda hadn’t just disabled the collar, but had assembled components into a roughly sphere-shaped setup of metal and wires. It dangled from the remains of the mask and strap, which Bakuda held in her teeth.
Lung spoke, his voice low, slightly accented, “We have stopped. Her device will buy us time, and you will use it to sing. The bomb will not do much damage, but it will slow them and dose anyone hit with a small amount of sedatives. This will make it easier for you to control them, Bakuda says. You will then get them to free us.”
Paige’s eyes went wide. She nodded.
There was a loud sound outside the truck, and Bakuda started swinging the device left and right like a pendulum. The metal doors at the back of the truck slammed open, and Bakuda let go. The device rolled out the door.
Paige sang, not stopping as the device detonated, rocking the truck. Her song was wordless. She was her own accompaniment, using the acoustics of the truck’s interior to generate echoes. She charged her voice with her power, willing those who heard it to obey, to submit in a way she’d never done before.
It might have worked, if there was anyone around to hear it.
A giant metal claw entered the back of the truck, closed around Lung, and dragged him out. When the claw returned to claim her, she stopped singing, started shrieking instead.
“No!” Bakuda’s screams joined her own, behind her, “Fuck you! No! No! I had a fucking plan!”
The arms moved along slats in the ceiling, carrying them through what looked like a massive underground bunker. Everything was concrete, and the room was so vast that Paige could not even see any of the walls. There was only the ceiling twenty or thirty feet above them and the floor, extending endlessly around them, lit by florescent lights at regular intervals. The only thing breaking up the empty expanse was the armored truck bearing the PRT identification on the side and a black square attached to the ceiling, further down.
The arms arranged them in front of the black square—an oversized monitor. A face, clearly a CGI rendering intended to mask the real identity of the speaker, appeared on the screen. When the voice came from the speakers, the filter intended to disguise the woman’s voice didn’t quite hide her strong accent. Paige tried to place it. Not Southerner, not Cockney, but maybe similar? She’d heard someone with that accent before.
“Prisoner 599, codename Lung. PRT powers designation brute four-nine asterisk, blaster two-six asterisk, fire and heat only. Individuals reading or viewing this log are directed to see page three and four of prisoner’s file for particulars on powers. Recommended protocols were properly carried out with sprinkler system and added restraints. Chance of escape following interment in the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center rests at a fairly steady .000041% with no gross deviations in any likely scenarios. Within acceptable limits. Will be processed to cell block W.”
“You’re Dragon,” Bakuda spoke, eyes widening. “No shit. Best tinker in the fucking world. I’d say I’m a fan, but I’d be lying.”
Paige couldn’t help but react to that as well. Dragon had designed the Birdcage and much of the gear the PRT used, including the containment foam. She was head and shoulders above any of the other tinkers that went out in power armor. Dragon sported a wildly different suit each time she deployed. Her stuff was so advanced that a group of criminals who had gotten away with stealing a damaged suit of her armor were now using that same technology to operate as top of the line mercenaries—the Dragonslayers.
Dragon was also Canadian, which was the detail Paige needed to peg her accent as that of a Newfoundlander. Not an accent one heard very often, these days.
“Prisoner 600, codename Bakuda. PRT powers designation tinker six with bomb speciality. Recommended protocols were not properly carried out.” The formal tone of the voice dropped away as she muttered, “I hate to get someone fired, but I’m going to have to report this. Supposed to be in an S-class containment truck and placed no less than six feet from other prisoners… well, at least nothing came of it.”
“Fuck you, Dragon,” Bakuda snarled.
“…Chance of escape from the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center is .000126% with potential gross deviation in the event of introduction of contraband material or a matter producer. With monitoring this chance drops to .000061%. Will be processed to cell block C.”
“Prisoner 601, codename Canary. PRT powers designation master eight. Recommended protocols were properly carried out, with provided restraints and no human personnel being brought within three hundred yards of said individual’s position. Hi Canary.”
Paige blinked a few times in surprise, “Hi?”
“I followed your trial. I thought it was a damn shame things went like they did. I get that it was a reckless accident, but you don’t deserve to be here. I even wrote a letter to your judge, the DA and your governor saying as much. I’m sorry it wasn’t enough.”
The sympathy hit Paige hard. It was all she could do to stop herself from bursting into tears.
“I’m afraid I’ve got to do my job, and that means carrying out my role in enforcing the law. You understand? Whatever my feelings, I can’t let you go.”
“I— Yes.”
“Listen, I’m sticking you in cell block E. The woman that put herself in charge of that cell block goes by the codename Lustrum. She’s a pretty extreme feminist and misandrist, but she protects the girls in her block, and it’s also the block furthest from the hole the men opened into the women’s half of the Birdcage. If you’re willing to play along, buy in or pretend to buy into her way of thinking, I think she’ll keep you safest.”
Paige didn’t have words to reply. She just nodded.
“Okay. Prisoner 601’s Chance of escape from the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center is .000025% with no gross deviations. Do you three understand why I’m telling you this?”
“Our chances of escaping are pretty slim,” Bakuda spoke.
“Yes. The Baumann Detention Center is a structure so complex I had to design an artificial intelligence to put it together. It’s situated ins
ide of a hollowed out mountain, the walls of which are lined with layers of a ceramic of my own design, each such layer separated by volumes of dormant containment foam. If you punched a hole in the outside of the mountain, you’d only wind up with more foam than you knew how to handle.
“That’s the mountain. The prison itself is nicknamed the Birdcage because it is suspended in the center of the empty mountain, hanging only by the same network of tubes that supplies prisoners and food to the cell blocks. Both the interior of the tubes and the interior of the mountain itself are vacuums. Even if an individual were to have powers allowing them to navigate the vacuum, I have three thousand antigrav drones in position at any given time, laying dormant in that lightless void, waiting for any signal, motion, energy or air leakage to awaken them. Once awakened, a drone will move to the location of said anomaly and detonate. Many of my drones contain a loadout of containment foam, but others contain payloads designed to counteract various methods one could theoretically use to traverse the vacuum. Some are quite lethal.”
“These are not the only measures I have taken, but it wouldn’t do to inform you of everything I have done to secure this facility. Know only that your chance of successful escape is negligible, and the chance of you dying or being maimed for attempting it is much higher.”
“Know that while I do retain control over the structure and the ability to observe those within, enabling me to respond to emergencies such as natural disasters, you will not be able to manipulate this to your advantage. I will not, cannot intervene should a hostage be taken, or if an individual should threaten or perform damage to vital or luxury resources. There was no other way to run the prison effectively than to have you police and protect yourselves. I stress: nothing you do can convince me to free you. The elevators to the Baumann Detention Center go one way. Down.”
“I will be depositing you in the elevators now. You will be provided with a limited measure of oxygen, sufficient only to carry you safely to the bottom. Should you slow or stop the lift, or attempt to scale the interior of the tube, I expect you will likely fall unconscious, suffer brain damage or die for your trouble. A counteragent for the containment foam will be applied as you descend, so that you are free before you reach the bottom.”
Lung and Bakuda were carried off in different directionis. Paige was the last to be carried away by the robotic arms.
“I am sorry, Paige Mcabee,” Dragon’s tinny voice sounded, as the arm set her down. “Good luck.”
The ground beneath her shifted, and then she descended.
* * *
Lung walked with confidence to the ‘hole’, a word with double meaning, as it referred to the actual hole in the wall, as well as the more vulgar term for why many in the men’s half of the Birdcage went there—it was the sole route into the women’s prison.
A group of women were on guard on the other side of the hole, standing or sitting at various vantage points there.
“Who’re you?” one of the women asked him. She was a striking woman with coffee colored skin and a mouthful of teeth that looked like knife blades.
“I am Lung.”
“You’re new?”
“Yes.”
“Which cell block are you in?” this question came from a heavyset woman that looked more like a middle aged soccer mom than a prisoner. Lung noted, however, how each of the other girls that were on guard turned to listen when she spoke.
“W, ma’am,” he spoke, taking extra care to not offend.
“You want a girl?”
“I am here only to visit one of my subordinates. Cell block C.”
“Even if you aren’t buying, can’t let you through for free. Gotta pay something. Marquis runs your cell block, still? Divvies up the cancer sticks from his food crates fairly enough?”
“Yes.” Lung reached into his pocket and retrieved a half-carton of cigarettes. He handed them over.
“Good boy. Listen, Glaistig Uaine runs the cell block you’re going to. You keep some of these sticks, you give them to her, so as not to insult her.”
“I will. Thank you for this advice.”
“I do like a polite boy. You run along, now.”
He bowed his head in respect, then walked briskly to the next cell block. A smaller contingent of guards awaited him there, and he handed over the remaining cigarettes, specifying them as a gift for Glaistig Uaine. The guards parted to let him through.
He found Bakuda in a cell all to herself. The walls of the prison were all metal of some sort, painted a dark blue, but Bakuda had scratched formulas and sentences into the walls of her cell, where they glittered silver-gray in the right light. Her cot was pulled into the center of the room to give her more surface to write on.
“Bakuda,” he spoke.
“Lung! This place is amazing!” she grinned maniacally, her scarred lips spread wide, “I thought it would suck, but it’s… it’s like being inside the fucking Mona Lisa of architecture. Genius shit. She wasn’t lying about this place being inside a vacuum, but what’s amazing is what happens when you breach the outside. See, she didn’t make this place tough. It’s fragile. Like she built the most complex house of cards ever. You knock a hole in the wall, and you’re not only pretty much guaranteed to off yourself, but the change in air pressure changes the room configuration, seals off the space so the breach doesn’t affect anyone in other rooms. And even if you stop the main bits from sliding down, the drop in air pressure carries into the next room, and that room seals off. I could spend a decade figuring out how she did this. And that’s the simplest part of it. In busier areas—”
“I do not care about this,” Lung interrupted her breathless rambling.
Bakuda stopped and wheeled around, still grinning. “Okay. How you doing?”
“Satisfactory. My eyes are healing, but I am still having trouble seeing color. I do not like the leader of my cell block, but he is a fair man. He has given me his favor in exchange for telling him about Brockton Bay, a place he once operated. This has helped ensure I am not bothered. That, and the prisoners seem to wait to see what each new inmate can do before they pick him as a target.”
“Yep. It looked pretty grim for me for a few days, but when the freaky girl in charge of this block found out I could fix the televisions here, things suddenly got a lot easier.”
“I see.”
She raised an eyebrow, smiling. “So. Why the visit? Feeling lonely?”
“No.”
She dropped the smile in the blink of an eye. “Then explain.”
“This is your first time in a prison, yes?”
“Yep.”
“I was in prison before I came to America. There are four ways one can survive in such a place. You can join one of the gangs or groups in charge. This was not possible for me then, for I was known to be half Japanese, half Chinese, and there was no gang willing to include such a person. It is not a possibility for me now, either, for I am too used to being in charge to bow and scrape for any length of time without losing my patience. It is the route I see you have taken here.”
“Sure,” Bakuda eyed him warily.
“The second option is to be somebody’s bitch. They give you their protection in exchange for the most base of services. You understand why I would not take this route.”
“I get it, yeah.”
“The remaining options are to either kill someone or to be seen as a madman. In such cases, one demonstrates he is too dangerous or unpredictable to be fucked with.”
“So what are you doing?”
“I thought I would choose the third and fourth.”
Bakuda’s eyes went wide. She backed away, then realized the futility of the move. Lung stood in the middle of the one doorway that led out of the cell. “Why?”
“You insulted me. You failed me. Because I must kill someone, and killing a subordinate of mine who others have cause to protect should also mark me as sufficiently unpredictable. Others will fear me after this.”
“I… I insulted y
ou to get your power going, you know?” she squeaked, “I did it to help our escape.”
“I might have overlooked it for this reason, but we did not escape. You failed me, both here and in the city.”
She flicked her arm, and an arrangement of bedsprings and twisted scrap metal dropped from her sleeve into her open hand. “I’ll punch a hole in the outside of the cell if you come any closer. Air flows out of the room, door seals shut, we both suffocate.”
“You are not fast enough.”
“Wanna bet?”
He did.
Buzz 7.1
Brian was quicker than a guy his height should’ve been. He stepped back out of the way of my jab, then turned his body in what I was learning was going to be a kick. Thing was, I didn’t know where that kick would be directed, and he generally didn’t hold back with his kicks the way he did with his jabs. Knowing this, keeping to his instructions on being unpredictable, I threw myself forward and awkwardly tackled him.
His thigh caught me in the side as he brought his leg around, which hurt, but not as badly as the kick would have. Even so, I succeeded in knocking him to the ground. Any sense of victory I might have felt was short lived, because I fell with him, and he was more prepared for what came next than I was. We hit the ground, he used the leverage of his hands and his still-raised thigh to heave me to his right. Before I had my bearings, he flipped himself over in my direction and straddled me.
I jabbed a hand for his side, but he caught my wrist and twisted my arm around until my elbow was pointing at my bellybutton. I grabbed at his shirt with my other hand, hoping to maybe buck him off me (fat chance), and he grabbed that wrist too. He adjusted his grip on my twisted right arm and pinned my arms down against the ground, stretched out over my head.
“It’s a start,” he smiled down at me.
Realizing the position he had me in, feeling the pressure of his thighs against my hips, his weight resting partially on my lower body, I must’ve blown a synapse. My thought process ground to a halt. It didn’t help that the first place my mind went was interpreting his ‘start’ as being this position leading to something else.