Bakuda nodded. She pulled away from the strips, where she’d managed to tie them in the semblance of a knot. She used her teeth to bend the now-joined strips into an L-shape. With the end that wasn’t impaled in her shoulder now in a position in front of her, she closed her mouth on it.
“We argued. Then I told him to go fuck himself. He left, and I didn’t give it a second thought… until the police showed up at my door.”
Bakuda pulled her mouth away from the end of the strip. She’d bent it into a loose ‘v’ shape. She frowned at it, then glanced at Paige, “And?”
“And he’d done it. I- I guess I was still amped up from my performance, and my power’s effects were still empowering my voice, or he was in the audience and was pretty heavily affected. So when I told him to go fuck himself, he, um, he did. Or he tried, and when he found it wasn’t physically possible, he hurt himself until…” Paige closed her eyes for a moment. “Um. I won’t go into the details.”
“Mmmm, shucks to be im. Oo ‘oo” Bakuda raised her eyebrows, still working the metal strip inside her mouth. She pulled away, verified the end as being in a rough ‘o’ shape, and then gripped the strips in her teeth to pull the entire thing out of her shoulder with a grunt. She placed the end she’d just reworked against the bench and slid her mouth down the length of the metal, so she could get a grip on the other end.
Taking hold of it in her teeth, she turned her attention to the wall of the truck between herself and Paige. There were locks placed at regular intervals against the wall, meant to secure the chain of standard handcuffs in place, for those not doused in foam. She began feeding the metal strap through the loop of the lock. Beads of sweat mingled with the water running down her face as she worked.
The knot joining the two straps jammed in the hole. Bakuda pushed a little harder, and wedged it firmly in place. The L-bend in the metal placed the closed ‘o’-shaped loop of metal close to Paige’s shoulder.
“Any bets on Oni showing up?” Bakuda asked Lung.
“I would be surprised,” he rumbled his response.
She gripped one of the metal grilles in her mouth and began working at it with her teeth. It was all one thin piece of metal, bent and woven like chain link fencing, albeit a tighter mesh. Now that it was no longer held securely in place by the metal strips, Bakuda was free to start unwinding and straightening it.
When it was almost completely unwound, she adjusted her bite on it and clenched the second mass of wire, the one that had been in Paige’s mouth, in her jaws, bunching it together into a cylindrical mess about four inches long and one inch across. Still biting it, she turned her head so the mostly straight four-foot length of wire was pointing at Lung, not two feet away from his face. Her mouth still around the tangle of wire, she mumbled, “Need end hot.”
Lung growled, but he did as he was asked. When the end was white hot, Bakuda quickly adjusted her grip, letting go and biting again until the tip was near her mouth. Lips pulled back, she bit down on it.
“How can you do that?” Paige asked, “Doesn’t it hurt?”
“No uffing hit ih urhs,” Bakuda growled. She pulled away, set it so the handle was against the bench, the length of wire against her shoulder, and examined her handiwork. “But tooth enamel is tougher than you’d think.” She spat a measure of blood out onto the floor of the truck, then bit down twice more, pausing between bites to turn the length of metal with her teeth, lips and tongue.
When she extended the length of wire in Paige’s direction, sliding it through the ‘o’ shaped end of the metal strip, Paige realized what Bakuda had spent this much time setting up. She didn’t even need to be asked to bend down against the foam restraints and crane her neck to one side, to put her collar in reach of the overlong makeshift screwdriver. The metal strip with the loop in the end served to hold the portion closest to Paige up, so Bakuda could direct it more easily.
It wasn’t fast work. Bakuda had to use her teeth, jaw and a turning of her head to rotate the screwdriver, and it was a chore to get it back in position if she lost her grip on it. Ten long minutes of silence and grunting were broken only by the sound of two screws dropping to the metal bench, before Bakuda stopped to take a rest and ease her jaw.
“You won’t be able to do anything to my collar without setting it off,” Paige spoke.
“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 flor
escent 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 4-9 asterisk, Blaster 2-6 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 6 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 8. 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.
“Ok. 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 inside 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-”
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