by G. R. Carter
JR grabbed up Darwin in a bear hug. Together they walked back to the lodge while Sy’s men shoveled dirt in to refill the hole.
JR stopped and turned to take a final look, then steeled himself and rejoined his friends.
“I think you’re right about bringing everyone together,” JR said. “Even if this thing with the electricity turns out to be nothing big, we can still do a celebration of life for Dad. He’d gotten to know a lot of the folks in town. Maybe we can just call it that, bring people together, then if the timing feels right we’ll talk to them about what we’re afraid of.”
“Brilliant, JR. Just the kind of strategic thinkin’ leaders come up with.”
“I’ll get it all set up,” Kara told them. “I’ll get Sy and a couple of the guys to go around and invite as many people as possible to come. Set it up for a couple days from now?” she asked.
“No,” Darwin said. “Let’s do it first thing tomorrow. We’ll spend today takin’ inventory of every asset we’ve got here at the lodge. Every can of food, every weapon, everything that’s still movin’, even tools.”
“I’ve got most of that listed already. Did an inventory for Ben a while back,” Kara said.
Darwin smiled and patted her on the shoulder, but JR was irritated. “Anything else you and Dad had going that I don’t know about?” he questioned.
She shrugged. “You said it yourself, Ben had a real interest in this place. We wouldn't have made it the last few years without him. He gave me a whole list of things to buy for the place.”
“So I guess I own the lodge then?” JR spat. “Since my family’s money bailed the place out?”
“Come on, JR, that’s not quite fair,” Darwin said. “I know it's been a tough day, but what’s with the tone?”
“I’m just tired of finding out things about my Dad and my company from folks who only saw him once in a blue moon. Why didn’t he trust me with any of this?” His face was bright red.
“Ben called it plausible deniability. He said you’d find out in good time, that you’d understand someday,” Kara answered.
“It’s just too much…too much…” JR mumbled and walked away.
Kara started to go after him but Darwin gently grabbed her arm. “Let him go, love. He’s been through an awful lot. Let’s just get to plannin’ what we need to do, right? That’s best for all.”
Kara nodded, but she wasn’t entirely convinced. “Ben was worried about how JR would react to the meeting this week. He said JR’s never happy to follow. Wants to be a leader but not willing to pay his dues. He blamed himself for that.”
“You really did get to know Ben, didn’t you?”
She nodded again. “Since Sy and I don’t have our parents, Ben kinda adopted us.” She seemed uneasy at the comparison but continued. “He gave me a lot of business advice. He said he appreciated giving advice to someone who actually listened.”
“Well, love, let’s put that guidance to good use. We’re gonna have that meetin’ Ben wanted. Just a little different crowd than he anticipated.”
Western Illinois Correctional Center
The Fourth Day
The afternoon hours melted away for Red Morton. Always a question or a situation popping up—he put out small fires to make sure that nothing ever became major. The scratch lists in his pockets nagged at him. Time was running out for him to put off moving inmates considered a threat to the order his Eels tried so hard to preserve. He wouldn’t sacrifice even one of his men for the entire inmate population, that wasn’t in question. Still, the idea that he might be penning a group of human beings up for execution…
With an hour left before the first of three shifts of inmates came down for supper, he finally made his way up to the second-floor control room looking out over the cafeteria. The whole facility had been reconfigured and remodeled since he started here. This was the one place inside the walls where natural light flowed in, invited by the bulletproof glass ceiling. The only shadows were from white-painted steel supports crisscrossing the transparent roof. To some of the older men who remembered shopping malls, it looked for all the world like a food court. By day it helped to illuminate the giant room, by night it was spectacular place to view the solar storms that filled the skies with neon colors.
The beauty was real, but the hassle was, too. Jordan Inc. had spent millions of government grant dollars to retrofit electronic eyes and brains throughout the entire facility. Morton wasn’t convinced how much work actually gotten done correctly; during the more severe storms the system still glitched. He’d gotten used to that, and to the storms, by now.
The control room was dim with no overhead lights. The soft glow of color flat screens highlighted the faces of half a dozen men and women watching every square inch of the prison, looking for any signs of trouble. He walked through the control room, slapping shoulders and making small talk.
“Don’t spend too much time watching the newlywed wing, Porter,” Morton laughed at one of his new Eels. “You’ll pass out if all the blood drains out of your brain.” The room burst into laughter as the young man blushed and flipped one of his six screens to another, less interesting view. There was zero privacy for any inmate, anywhere, even after the place had gone coed and prisoners were allowed to pair up.
He walked out onto the control room balcony and back into the light. His eyes took a moment to adjust as he watched the kitchen staff moving around, preparing for the six hundred inmates that made up the first of three shifts to arrive for their evening meal. Ten Eels were already there, suited up and checking each other’s equipment. One of them looked up and waved at Morton, who smiled back. She was young and had only been on the job about four months.
Morton didn’t really like the fact that guards lower on seniority pulled cafeteria duty. In reality, it should have been the more experienced Eels who were in the middle. Chow time was an invitation for trouble, the only period of the day except yard time when this many were together. But the negotiated contract made it clear: seniority picked assignments, and no old head wanted to be in the middle of the Zoo during feeding.
The kitchen manager walked out from behind the serving station wall. There were a series of windows, much like a bank teller's had been, made of clear glass several inches thick. An opening just wide enough for a plastic tray to slip through allowed meals to be slid out and the staff to stay out of reach.
The portly man in charge of the ten-person staff caught Morton’s eye and gave him a thumbs-up. They’d made pizza tonight, the overwhelming favorite of the general population. With that and the extra “medication” being distributed with the meal—his jaw clenched every time he thought about drugging the prisoners like this—Morton hoped for an extra peaceful night.
Time ran out for him to put off the scratch list. He went to the shift commander’s office in the corner of the control room. The space was really just a cubby with a screen and a chair, but at least it afforded three walls of privacy. He unfolded the list for each tribe, looking over the names, picturing each person’s face. Even with two thousand inmates housed here, he still knew at least a little something about each one. He put together the picture painted by each list, determining motivations for the shot-caller to include them. Most were newbies, or anyone suspected of having loyalties to someone other than the shot-caller on site.
There were a few who seemed to cling to a religion different than Continuity; he knew that only because there had been written complaints filed by the occasional new fish still under the impression their rights mattered in a privately owned prison like this.
The shortest list was eleven; Angel Trevino didn’t like letting go of any member of the Asesinato Uno. As brutal as they were, Unos were as close to a community as any of the tribes. Of the handful of unaffiliated inmates, the few who refused to latch on to a tribe, almost none were Spanish-speaking.
The longest list came from Cha Cha Dawley’s Code 11 Syndicate. That wasn’t surprising; the population here was 40% black, so the tr
ibe had a much larger population to choose from. Morton could have made Dawley’s list for him. In a group that large, subsets were bound to form. Ruthless rulers would always be looking to stamp any challengers out. Morton read up and down the Code 11 list, stopping at a name towards the bottom. Andre Collins.
Morton closed his eyes and leaned his head back. Andre Collins was one of the good ones, not any easy thing to say about any inmate who’d made his way this far into the system. He’d been a perfect inmate since arriving just over twelve months before. Morton suspected his only crime against the Code 11 tribe was encouraging new fish to get right with God and take advantage of every education program offered. To Morton’s knowledge, he’d never caused any drama and was perfectly respectful to Dawley; popularity among the Eels and the new fish was what made him a threat.
He thought briefly about crossing Collins off the list, then decided against it. He tried to convince himself the man was just an inmate, a faceless cog in the wheels of justice. Then he justified that it was for the greater good of peace in the population; that didn’t work either. Ultimately he realized that if it got bad enough for the scratch list to be used for its ultimate purpose, Dawley would take Collins out anyway. The outcome was inevitable.
He leaned up to the screen in front of him, eyes wide open. “Recognize,” he said clearly. He heard a beep and spoke again slowly. “Morton. Eugene. Correctional Officer Union President.” He stayed still for a moment as his retinas were scanned for identification. Another beep and the screen glowed white with the word Grapevine in block letters. All guards had some access to the Network for their own use, but this was a portal only he, Captain Lewis and Warden Marduk had access to. He hadn’t needed to use it until today.
“Access prisoner transfer,” he said, a little louder than he had to. The new members of the COU still laughed at old men like him who once used a mouse to point and click on the screen.
“Access denied,” came a monotone reply.
He tried again. Another denial. “System reset.”
“Access denied.”
“Network search.”
“Access denied.”
“Grapevine, explain access denial.”
“No network access.”
Yeah, no kidding, Morton thought. It’s not working because it won’t work, perfect circular logic. He suddenly reminisced about powering off to reboot his old desktop computer, just as ancient as he was.
Morton thought for a moment about waving one of the whiz kids in who had grown up around artificial intelligence. He didn’t want anyone to see the lists, though, so he gave it one more shot.
“Access diagnostics,” he said.
The screen remained the same, then went black. He leaned up to the screen. “Recognize.”
Nothing happened.
Crap.
Time was running short. He kicked himself for not starting the process sooner. Stupid computers. Now he’d have to do everything manually, without the computer opening and closing the doors to lead each inmate into the holding areas like livestock to the kill floor. “No chance of staying behind the glass now, Captain,” he said quietly to his long-absent commanding officer.
Mentally he started putting together a team to accomplish a task few would want. Then he remembered the list of guards Lewis handed him before leaving: the COU’s own scratch list. Lewis had been adamant about who should handle the transfer. Morton’s subconscious had made him forget that particular order. Now it had to be faced.
He opened the paper, typed and printed on Warden Marduk’s personal letterhead. Morton read the names one at a time, picturing not only their faces but in most cases their families. Eight men and two women stared back at him…including, just as he had figured, Orson McCoy. He’d be glad to have McCoy on his team for this difficult task. Steady hand, strong as an ox, good with the electric wand the Eels carried but slow to use it. Respected and feared by most of the tribes.
But he’d likely been labeled a troublemaker for his resistance to Continuity. Plus word likely got back to Lewis and the warden about his speaking up at the COU’s contract vote. Or they’d been watching on the monitors. The prisoners aren’t the only ones with no privacy here.
He’d address that with Lewis when he got back, but for now his team was set. Without access to Grapevine, only the ancient intercom system remained to call each of the names to meet him in the control room.
One by one they filtered in, curious to find out what the change in routine would be. One of them, the young woman who’d waved at him from the floor below, was still suited in her tactical gear. She seemed nervous, unsure of what she’d done to deserve being called to the office. Morton was surprised that the next to last one to arrive was McCoy, with Kalvin Jackson closely following. McCoy gave him an eye roll and Morton knew he’d gone and found Jackson—Kal, they called him—doing God knows what instead of his job. There was a name he and Lewis could definitely agree on. He’d have to go.
“Special treat tonight,” he said with a gruff smile. “We’re going to move some of our guests out of gen pop and into the holding areas.” Groans and curses met his words. “Don’t worry, it gets better. I suppose as a result of our electrical issues, Grapevine isn’t working, so we’re going to have to do this old-school. I’ll have one of our techs push the buttons for the doors, but we’re going to have to be there to make sure everyone behaves.” The curses got a little louder, right up to the edge of appropriate among the tight-knit group.
“Kalvin with a ‘K,’” Morton said to the last arrival, “you’ll be the first in since you were the last to arrive.”
“Man, you know I hate it when you call me that. Besides I was busy, can’t penalize me for doing my job,” Jackson fired back.
“Don’t think of it as a punishment. Consider it an honor.” The rest of the group laughed and jeered at Jackson, who remained completely unamused.
“Go down to the armory, get suited up. Double-check your tactical suits, make sure those batons are charged up. I’m not anticipating any problems, but let’s make double sure. Who knows what other glitches are being caused by the power. Okay, let’s do this, people.”
The grumbling didn’t stop as the team made their way out the door and down the stairs to the armory. McCoy stopped when he and Morton were the last ones. “Something I need to know, Sarge?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I was looking around the room and this wasn’t exactly a group of high-achievers. I’m not complaining, the job’s the job. But is that the way you see me?” McCoy asked.
Morton thought for a moment, and then lied to McCoy’s face. “Captain gave me the list, I didn’t have any say. But I chose you to help me with them because I needed a steady hand out there tonight. I guess that’s your reward for being good help.”
McCoy beamed and nodded. “Thanks, Sarge. Hopefully this kinda job will help me become a team leader someday.”
He stepped quickly to leave while Morton stood and stared at him. Yeah, Pete and I are going to have words about that one, he told himself.
*****
One by one each inmate from the scratch list made their way to the holding area. Morton made sure to alternate the tribes. No two consecutive men—and they were all men—shared the same allegiance. Some were clearly nervous; seldom was being cut out of the main herd a good thing. Morton let a couple of the Eels spread the rumor that this was for their protection against a verified threat. The lie was a bit of a risk long-term, but more likely to keep their cooperation during the process.
Against orders, Morton was there among the condemned in the holding area, making sure that each tribe was kept separate. He was fully armored in his own tactical suit. The lightweight material holding the plates together actually felt good against his skin. The electrical charge only flowed out when pressed firmly, but in his mind he could feel the current.
He thought briefly about calling his Rapid Response Team to standby. Those dozen men were the only one
s authorized to use the limited collection of military battle rifles, shotguns, and sidearms stashed in locked cabinets at the back of the armory room. Eventually he decided against it. They were already spread too thin to pull more men off the floor.
Morton nodded as Andre Collins made his way in. He was the first of the Code 11 tribe to be put in their pen; that tribe would get three rooms because of their list size. That would give Collins the chance to get the prime spot in the corner, and would keep any of Dawley’s henchmen from making a run at him while the Eels were distracted. It was big risk to put any inmates together in a relatively small room.
Collins was smart; he’d know there was exposure here. “Head on a swivel” was the mantra for a wanted man in lockup. Only the wary inmate lived out his days. Morton had no doubt Collins had figured out something was up.
Full-body scanners drew too much electricity to use under generator power, so an Eel with their suit turned down to zero current had to do a manual pat-down. Jeers and catcalls made the inmates laugh as each one got the physical treatment in turn. Two fully-charged Eels stood within arm’s length during the process; they didn’t find it nearly as amusing.
Each minute seemed an eternity to Morton. When the last of the tattooed White Sheets were locked up securely behind alloy bars, he let out a deep breath he didn't know he’d been holding in.
“That was serious pucker time, wasn’t it, Sarge?” McCoy asked as he flipped the manual switch to lock down the holding rooms' electric latch.
Morton nodded. He looked up at the digital clock on the wall. The time showed that the second group scheduled for dinner would be about halfway through their allotted meal time. He thought about going to the armory to take his Eel suit off, but decided against it. He wanted to get back up to the control room. The extra Syn allocations they were giving the inmates still gnawed at him. Changes to their body chemistry worried him almost as much as…well, almost as much as a prison-wide power outage.