by John Shirley
Faye closed her eyes.
Don’t let them do this. Even if you have to kill yourself.
The bunk was old-style. It had metal-mesh under, that made sounds like a crow when she shifted. She might be able to unwind some of that mesh, sharpen it somehow, and tear her wrists up. Better to bleed to death than to …
“Gloria Munoz.”
Just ignore it. Don’t respond to that name.
The cell door clicked. She turned to see who was coming in.
“Gloria …” Gull’s voice.
“My name is Faye Adullah.”
He seemed to have come alone, with not even an autoguard. He licked his lips, looking unusually self-conscious, his arms gangling at his sides. He glanced behind him, then went to the wall beside her, leaned against it, arms crossed over his chest, and spoke in a low voice. “I can arrange it so that you don’t have more than one person. One man only—if it’s me. Otherwise there’ll be a lot of men. They have money and power, these guys, and they can do most anything with you and you wouldn’t like it. If you just give yourself to me, and I mean without a fight, I can … you know … you’d have your own room. There’s a boudoir building and you could have your own … And I’d make it all easy …”
She sat up on the bench and looked at him, surprised at the stab of pity she felt. She could see loneliness, a kind of blurry desperation in his face. But she wasn’t going down that road, at all.
“No,” she said.
“Gloria …”
“Faye. Adullah. And no. No one is going to touch me. No one at all, Samuel. Get me out of this prison and then we’ll talk about you touching me.”
She tried to make it sound believable. But neither of them believed the offer.
“Couldn’t do it if I wanted to,” he said. He shook his head and looked at her with his eyes narrowed. “Last chance.”
“No, Samuel. No. You’ll lose an eye, at least, I promise you, if you try it.”
He smiled sadly. “Oh no. You’d be out cold. But … I don’t want it like that.”
Gull went to the door, and back into the hall, slammed it shut behind him. His shoes squeaked away, and the sound of the slammed door echoed metallically.
In another cell, someone laughed and someone sobbed, maybe the same person.
The boudoir was like a cheesy honeymoon motel complete with a red-velvet heart-shaped headboard on the bed. There was a fake window, an illustration of a window on the lavender wall across from the bed, complete with painted-on curtain, and a view of a moonlit landscape. The painting looked pretty amateurish, probably done by an inmate given a special job. The boudoir had a small, red-tiled bathroom, with a shower.
They’d told Faye to take a shower and leave her jumpsuit outside the door of the bathroom, and she had, because she wanted a shower. When she came out, the guards were gone, so was the prison jumpsuit; instead, translucent purple lingerie was laid out on the bed.
“Fuck that,” she said. She tossed the lingerie in a corner, and pulled the red satin comforter off the bed. She sat down on the mattress, and worked at the comforter with her teeth, gradually ripping holes in it. By the time the man in the ski mask entered, ushered in by the black badgeless guard, she had a serviceable robe, with her head thrust through a rip in the comforter, other parts of it ripped to make a kind of belt.
“Well that’s creative, there, missy,” the man said. His voice was gravelly, and very Southwest. Arizona, she judged.
He was a big man wearing a blue and yellow ski mask; a blue silk robe was tied across his bulbous middle; under the robe he wore silky boxers. His legs were pale, short, and slightly bowed. He wore silk slippers. His eyes in the mask holes were small and gray blue.
“Missy? My name is—”
“I don’t want to know your name! Mine is Faye Adullah. I’m a reporter. A resident of California. I’m not an inmate. I’m a kidnap victim—”
He raised a hand to stop her. “Everybody has a story. That’s yours. They tell me your name is Gloria, so your name is Gloria.” He gestured grandly at the bed. “Now Miss Gloria—here’s the plan. You lay down over there on that mattress and I’ll unwrap the gift that is you. Otherwise I bring the boys in here and they handcuff you. There’s some little rings on the side there under the headboard just for that. And you’ll be sorry I did that.”
“You know, you look like a Mexican wrestler in that mask. Why don’t you take it off? Maybe I’ll like what I see.”
“Not a chance.”
“Your voice sounds kind of familiar.”
He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, then pointed at the bed.
“I guess I need to face facts,” Faye said, sighing.
He nodded briskly, once. “That’s the spirit.”
She sat on the edge of the bed. “Let me see what you’ve got in those boxers.” He sidled nearer. Not quite near enough.
She reached seductively out, stroked his crotch with her right hand. There was an almost immediate response. His eyes went glassy and he stepped closer yet. She stroked downward, pushing the band of the boxers aside, quickly found his testicles, gripped them with all her strength, and twisted. It was an angry grip, and a very hard twist.
“I’ve been working out,” she said, as he squawked, arching his back in pain. “I really think I can rip these right off your body. I’ve got so much motivation built up! So much juice in me. I think I can do it!”
He writhed and swung hard at her face—she was able to block most of the blow with her left hand. “I’m glad,” she said, loud over his yelling, “that you put talcum powder on this dangly ball sack of yours. That way I can keep a grip despite the sweat and—”
He roared with pain and fury and got a jab through, cracking her hard on her left cheekbone. She didn’t care. She was a little amused at how unimportant the pain was; how the possibility of real damage didn’t matter. She really didn’t care. That was kind of funny.
She clawed at his face with her free hand, trying to tear off the mask. He slapped her hand away.
“Goddamnit, GUARDS!” he bellowed.
She tightened her grip till she felt her knuckles cracking. He screamed and hit her again. This time he hit her in the right ear, and she heard a reverberating, a gonging, that seemed to announce the warm rush of pain that followed.
She still didn’t care. She didn’t care if he cracked her head open. She wasn’t letting go.
The door opened. Something rolled in. She knew what it was.
Hurt the fucker before the robot stops you.
She tried to tear the man’s balls off. He shrieked. She clawed at his face with her other hand. He hit her again. She got a grip on the mask and pulled upward. She saw his red, puffy, sweating face for a moment, and recognized it from her online research. He’d been one of the first to push for Statewide as “the destiny of Arizona.”A Congressman …
Pursair? That was it. Representative Pursair, from Phoenix.
Then he howled wordlessly at her, trying to dig his thumbs into her eyes.
There was a hissing, a gaseous gushing, a medicinal smell.
Faye was unconscious before she hit the floor.
Men were talking nearby. She didn’t recognize their voices.
“Her organs check out? He smacked her pretty good.”
“We’re just taking ’em, whatever shape they’re in.”
“Seems like a waste of a tester.”
“The guy was pretty mad. He says no experiments. He says she goes right to organ donation.”
“He might need some organs himself. Or anyway glandular donation.”
A chuckle. “I think he’ll heal up okay.”
Faye tried to speak. But her mouth was gummy; her lips rubbery. When she tried to open her eyes it was as if she had to force open steel shutters. She got them open only a crack.
She was lying in an operating room. Two men in white masks, blue caps, blue tops, rubber gloves were on either side of her. One of them had a large syringe
in his hand.
It would be fast, anyway. They’d kill her and take the organs. She was okay with it.
A door opened behind them, and they turned, surprised. “Warden …”
“New plan,” said the stranger. She couldn’t see him. A deep-southern voice, maybe Georgia. She’d heard the warden was from Georgia. “Don’t touch her. Let her rest in recovery, we’re leaving some clothes for her. Get her up to speed.”
“Pursair won’t like it.”
“He’ll be okay with it. There’s a push to get her out. So … Just do it. We’ve got the bases covered.”
She closed her eyes.
Did I imagine all that? Was it a fantasy?
A moment later, the gurney began to roll, whirring on its own power, to some other room … away from the operating theater.
She wanted to throw up but she was afraid she’d choke.
Don’t throw up.
But she did. They had to turn her over and clear her throat with a tube. She laughed some of the vomit out.
She was waiting for the gate to open. She tightened her fingers on the steering wheel to keep her hands from shaking.
It was midmorning. The sky was overcast; something that wasn’t quite heavy enough to be rain drizzled on the windshield. The car sat there idling, its engine barely audible; Faye just sat there too.
She glanced at the gauges. The car had a full charge. She’d be able to drive all the way to Phoenix without stopping.
She looked at her purse again, doing a reality check. The purse beside her was definitely hers. It was sitting on the brown leatherette passenger seat of the McCrue company car.
She repressed the urge to look in her purse again. Everything was there. Faye Adullah’s driver’s license, her phone, everything. She had already called Phil and left a message. She’d decided not to call anyone else, not yet. No raging calls to the authorities.
Get out first. Don’t rock the boat.
Hortense. Her transgender friend had gotten released and taken the message to Phil and Phil must have started calling …
The gate was rolling open, left to right. Faye took her foot off the brake, pressed the accelerator. The electric car hummed through the opening almost before it was an opening.
She tried to keep from speeding, as she drove the car up to the access road.
This is real. The sweat on her hands was real. The purse … was still there.
“I’m afraid we no longer have your car,” Warden Holmes had said. Ervin Holmes was a spruce, well-tanned man who looked almost too young for the job. He had a flat-top haircut, an apologetic sigh in his voice. “We’ll be making that good. Your car was crushed at a junkyard, actually. But you can use one of our cars and we’ll be in touch about a replacement … of course, you’ll want to have your lawyer get in touch with us, to work out a settlement … We’ve already arrested a number of …”
He’d spoken to her quickly, giving her a cocktail in his office, very apologetic, expecting her to rave at him, seeming relieved when she hadn’t.
Faye had found she was barely able to speak to him. She could talk—she was recovered. She was fed and hydrated and dressed in her own clothes and even coddled for a few hours by a female nurse brought in from the outside. She’d asked the Filipino nurse if she knew what was going on here. The nurse had said no, no idea …
AzPrisSystem Road 54.
Faye turned right on Road 54. She had directions printed out, on the seat under her purse. She didn’t need them. She’d memorized them.
She accelerated to fifty, sixty, seventy miles per hour …
There was a thumping, close behind her. And then, a muffled voice.
She slowed down, listening. She heard another thump, with a metallic ring to it. Louder. Then an inarticulate yell filtered by upholstery, metal, fiberglass …
Another thump.
Just keep driving.
A harder thump came then, and muffled shouts with an edge of hysteria.
Moaning softly to herself, Faye pulled the car over. She put it in park, touched Open Trunk. She heard the trunk pop upward, and a louder shout. A man’s voice was clamoring now. A familiar voice.
She opened the door, got out, and walked back to the trunk. Knuckles bloody, Rudy was climbing out clumsily of the trunk, almost falling out.
Automatically, she helped him stand. He had his orange inmate’s suit on.
“Rudy …?”
He stood there swaying, mouth slack. “Faye! Where am I? How did I get here?” He reached out, supported himself with one hand on her shoulder. “Are we escaping?”
“Oh no, Rudy. You didn’t do this yourself?”
“No. I … they drugged me, I think. I can’t …” He was staring past her, a new alertness coming into his face.
“Faye. Get in the car!”
“What?” She turned to look.
Something reared up, glinting, shuddering, rippling. Its motion didn’t seem to fit its size. It was so big. The motion was a little like a whale she’d seen from a boat once. But she knew what it must be.
“The worm,” Rudy said, voice haggard. “Faye—get in the fucking car.”
“You too, Rudy! Let’s go!”
“No way. That thing is fast. They took out your tracker so it’s after me. I don’t want to fucking live here, Faye.” He pushed past her. “And they’re not going to let me go.”
“Rudy!”
But he was running toward the worm now. Still doped up, he was like a running drunk, wobbling along, almost falling, stumbling sometimes, but picking up speed.
He looked over a shoulder. “Get in the car!” he shouted. “Go!”
The worm was about forty yards back. Rudy was running across the road now, drawing the worm off to the opposite side.
“Fucking go!” he shouted, over his shoulder. “Please!”
She turned and walked mechanically to the front of the car—a wave of fear caught up to her, as if it were coming ahead of the worm to get her, to hold her down for it. She had to struggle to make her fingers work on the door handle. She got the car door open, ducked in, stamped the brake, put the car in gear and slammed her foot on the accelerator. The door was still open, a warning chime going off, but she kept accelerating, looking in the mirror just once, to see Rudy facing the worm, his arms upraised in unmitigated terror …
The worm slammed down on him like a fly swatter.
She gasped and forced her attention back to driving, and saw she’d wandered over the center line. Another car was rushing toward her. She hit the brakes, twisted the wheel, and her car spun like a carnival ride—then jolted to a stop, the engine dead. Faye sat there hyperventilating, trying to figure out how to get the car going again, her hands trembling.
The car she’d almost hit was backing up. It stopped beside her. “Faye?”
She looked up to see Phil, and two men with him. One of them, in the back seat, was a dark-skinned man wearing a uniform.
For a long moment she thought he was a guard from Statewide and Phil was here to hand her back over to them.
Then she looked closer at the uniform, and saw that it was U.S. Marshals Service.
“So they weren’t letting me go,” she said.
Phil shook his head. “It does look like they set you up—‘she was helping a prisoner escape.’ You were supposed to get killed in the recovery process.”
“How many times did I thank you for coming in person?”
“Three. Enough. You want another drink?”
She shook her head. They were sitting in a leather-backed booth, in a dark, fairly noisy bar half a block from the San Diego branch of the Justice Department. It was too early to get drunk, but she thought Phil was close to smashed already. He’d had three vodka gimlets.
She thought about asking him to go to dinner with her, just for the company. But he might misunderstand. He’d feel pressured to come. His wife would be waiting at home …
“Anyway,” he said, “you should thank Hortense. She wasn�
��t going to leave my damn office till I listened to her. Christ I can’t believe you thought I’d set you up!”
“I wasn’t exactly thinking rationally then. And no one seemed to check on me.”
“They told us you’d blown off the appointment! Said you never showed up at all! We thought you were rescheduling or something. I mean—who thought this shit was going on!”
She almost argued that. But finally, just waved her hand dismissively. “Whatever. I did thank Hortense. Took me all day Thursday to find her. We were like hugging and jumping around. She said she’d testify if somebody hid her out somewhere …”
“She might have to testify. I’m not sure how seriously she’ll be taken in court but … you might need her to testify. Statewide’s attorneys are still talking as if maybe they’re going to go with the story that it was all a mix-up, and your story is some kid of revenge fantasy.”
She snorted. “Justice department knows better. The marshals found the girls in there.”
He nodded. “You got those women set free, and Skaffel’s been arrested, and that Burse woman … that’s something. I don’t know how much more we can get. Almost everyone else is claiming they didn’t know anything about Subpod 18 and they say all the organs in the medical annex were from voluntary inmate donors who died of natural causes.”
Faye tried to get the young waitress’s attention, hoping for a glass of water. The young blond waitress was busy serving sailors from a carrier, laughing with them.
“Phil—Rita Burse, Skaffel, so what? There are hundreds of people there who should be in jail. And what about Pursair?”
“Denials, denials. The Congressman has golfing buddies who says he was with them.”
“Yeah I know but—what about getting people in the prison to testify that he was there? What about more arrests? What about investigating the whole place? What about a series of stories on Priority Central about the whole damn thing?”
He winced. “Well—you did your story.”
“It was cursory, Phil! They barely let me cover everything and they edited the hell out of it. They say they’re going to let me do a full story after they do some ‘fact-checking’ but that just seems like they’re blowing smoke. I mean—are they going to let me do the story the way I want to?”