by James Goss
I glared at him. There were times when there was no place for flippancy.
I left him in solitary. He could rot there as far as I was concerned.
Donaldson had been religious. Or, at least, her family was. And so their beliefs had made it onto her personnel forms. According to custom, her body would be placed in its bier and rest in the chapel overnight before being disposed of the following dawn (Relative HomeWorld time).
Someone would watch over Donaldson during the night. I decided it would be me. I was glad the casket was closed. It meant I could sit and feel sorry for myself.
I hadn’t really known Donaldson very well. I’d liked her. I currently felt terribly responsible for her. But that was all. That and a terrible sense of guilt stretching eight hours ahead of me.
There was a gentle cough and 428 slid into the chair next to me.
For a moment I ignored him. I really couldn’t think of anything else to do.
428 didn’t seem in a hurry to speak either.
We just sat there, staring at her casket in silence. I could tell, from the anguish on his face, that he felt as guilty about this as I did. Not guilty as in he’d murdered her, but guilty as in terribly responsible for her death. I wondered if the guilt, his guilt, my guilt, would ever feel better. I glanced across at 428, trying to work out if he still felt crushed under the guilt of his victims. If he could come here and sit by me … Well, he must do, surely.
We sat there for a little while more. I stopped checking my watch every five minutes and gradually a stillness settled over us. Donaldson’s casket, Prisoner 428 and me. Lit only by the candles, the air perfumed gently by the artificial flowers I’d ordered up from synthesis, and much more so by the flowers 428 had brought. He’d found real lilies (I have no idea how), but soon the air reeked of them.
Suddenly, I realised it was almost dawn. The night had drifted by in its gentle melancholy. 428 stood up and bowed to the coffin.
‘Doctor …’ I said and then paused. I couldn’t bring myself to thank him.
‘Tell Bentley I am sorry,’ 428 said to me, his voice soft. ‘And, just so you know, solitary is just as easy to get out of.’ He smiled sadly, patted me on the shoulder, and then left.
The Oracle blipped me from Level 7. His face was pulled into a fat comedy of dolour.
‘I hear you have had a tragedy,’ he intoned, his fingers waggling upside down. ‘Most regrettable. Most sad. Most … purple.’
‘Is there a point to this?’ Normally I did a better job of hiding how irritated I was by the Oracle.
‘Oh, am I interrupting?’ the Oracle slapped one hand with another, ‘Silly me, I should have foreseen that … I wouldn’t dream of interrupting you on such a serious occasion, only. what with your sad events … the aura reaches even down here. Such sad thoughts impinge on the clarity of my visions.’ I couldn’t believe it – the fool was blaming us for messing around with his phoney clairvoyance. It wasn’t even as though he was a real mystic – simply a well-informed gossip. But he wasn’t harmless either. I thought putting him charge of Level 7 was a decision made in rather bad taste.
As though answering some apologetic comment from me, the Oracle held up his hands. ‘There’s really no need to say sorry for the interference in my visions! It’s most regrettable, but these things happen. However, rest assured, my dear Governor, that you are not to blame.’ The way he said it, he clearly did blame me. ‘It is simply that …’ He pressed his fingers into his forehead, sinking them into the flesh around his temples, ‘Ah, yes, such a pity. I should be able to see clearly ahead, but as it is, with so much interference there is a cloud … through a veil of burgundy thoughts …’ He kneaded away at his eyebrows, and then assumed a face of benevolent piety. ‘I can tell you this. Soon you will have to consider the fate of Level 7. Miserable wretches that we are.’ He wagged a finger at me and terminated the blip.
Clara was back on the landing pad. And she was holding up a new placard.
‘This time I painted it myself,’ she said, with a shrug. ‘I think if I’d got the kids to do it I’d have ended up on a list. And not a good list.’
‘I see,’ I said, looking at the placard. ‘And in what way do you expect me not to interpret this as a terrorist threat?’
‘Oh,’ she glanced up at the placard. ‘Did you get the documents from last time?’
I scratched my head. To be honest, So many pieces of paper came my way. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t think so.’
‘Well, honestly,’ she sighed. ‘It’s a conspiracy.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, trying to be helpful. ‘Maybe I’m just really behind on my paperwork.’
‘You seriously expect me to believe that?’
‘We have had a lot on,’ I said. I could hear how tired my voice sounded.
She rolled her eyes. ‘The Doctor is very important.’
‘That may be. But he is Prisoner 428. We have 427 other prisoners, all of whom are just as important to us. He is being looked after and he is being cared for in accordance with the Protocols. Please believe me. If you have questions about the judicial process that sent him here, I urge you to pursue them with HomeWorld.’
‘I can’t,’ said Clara and glanced over her shoulder. ‘I really can only get lifts here. My, er, transport doesn’t like me much.’
‘Pardon? Your shuttle?’
Clara pulled a face. ‘It’s temperamental. It used to hate me. Now it just kind of tolerates me. Home or here. That’s it. And not necessarily in the right order.’
‘Got you.’ I didn’t get her. She seemed to be talking gibberish.
‘Honestly,’ she rolled her eyes. ‘One day it’ll break down and I’ll end up stranded in one place. Can you imagine that – oh!’ she covered her mouth in embarrassment. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘Not at all,’ I said stiffly. ‘Carry on telling me all about your travels.’
‘No, no,’ Clara assured me. ‘I’m done now I’ve put my foot in it. We can do politics if you’d prefer. The new President of HomeWorld is proving thoroughly unpopular. I can talk about that if you’d like.’
‘I’d rather not,’ I said tightly.
‘Then there’s always the weather …’ Clara looked up at the star-filled sky, as though expecting rain.
‘If you’ve nothing meaningful to say –’ I was pleased at how acidic I sounded – ‘Perhaps I’d better leave you to talk with your … craft about making other arrangements to get you home. If you will excuse me, I have a prison to run.’
‘I see.’
‘Clara. Do you like me?’ I didn’t know why I said it.
‘Like you?’ She looked startled. Like a jam jar had asked her how to vote.
‘Never mind. I must go.’ I stood up quickly, embarrassed.
‘Before you do …’ Clara coughed and waved her sign importantly. ‘My sign. I’ll read it out to you, shall I?’
‘Please don’t. I can read.’
‘Free. The. Doctor. Or. The. Killing. Will. Start.’ She paused. ‘There!’
For some absurd reason she looked pleased with herself.
I just groaned. ‘You’re too late. The killing has already started,’ I said and left her there.
Her face fell.
I didn’t think I’d come out and see her again.
If I’m going to be truthful, in the lift back to my office, I did feel a little troubled at how I’d left things with Clara. A tiny nagging voice told me it would be so much easier to just be nice to her. But it was too late for that, and now my office awaited along with Bentley’s judging stare. I went back in and slumped down at my desk. A Custodian brought me tea. I didn’t drink it. A Custodian, possibly the same one, brought me more tea. I barely touched that. I just sat watching Clara on the camera, standing in the landing bay, patiently holding up her sign. Eventually, her arms got tired and she rubbed one and then the other. Then she marched up and down a bit. Finally, she put the sign down on the ground, huffed, and walked sadly away.
&n
bsp; 6
I felt so tired that day. That was my only excuse for everything that came after it.
There’d been two more power outages in the night, one more in the daytime, and then, just when I’d turned in for the night, another came. The worst one yet.
The siren woke me. It felt as though I’d only just put my head down, but it seemed two hours had passed. I worried that one day I’d actually drift back off and sleep through an emergency.
I pulled myself out of bed and hurried to the Control Station. Bentley was there. She actually looked tired, for once. Since Donaldson’s death she’d been looking tired a lot. Several other Guardians were there – more than were strictly needed to man the workstations. They were hanging back, against the walls, out of the way of the Custodians. Was it my imagination or were the Custodians getting twitchy? There was something about the haste of their movements that seemed almost ill-at-ease.
My gaze went automatically to the Situation Clock. We’d had five minutes of this already. The day’s disruptions had been fairly small by comparison – three-minuters. Little nothing emergencies. Now, we were pushing well towards six minutes. The map of the Prison plan, promising to update. But nothing was going on.
‘Report?’ I asked the room, hopefully.
For once Bentley didn’t answer. She had vanished under a control panel, cursing. Her deputy Marla came hurrying over, holding up a plastic clipboard. ‘Sir, the outage is affecting the rerouting. We can’t get into the system to stabilise it.’
‘Soon you will have to consider the fate of Level 7.’
The Oracle’s words returned to haunt me – perhaps he wasn’t a total fraud. The noise of the sirens grew. We had now slid past six minutes and work was stopping. All eyes were fixed on the board. They were slowly drifting towards me, expecting me to tell them what to do. To produce a miracle.
Bentley finally pulled herself up from under the control panel. ‘There’s nothing we can do, Governor,’ she said, tersely admitting defeat, ‘We can’t hack into the system to deactivate it. Once we hit seven minutes we’ll have a cascade failure.’
Bentley was the kind of person who could say ‘cascade failure’ without looking at all sheepish about it. She didn’t even give off the impression that she’d heard it once on a training course, thought it cool, and memorised it for later use. When she said ‘cascade failure’ she meant it.
Thinking of what the Oracle has said, I nodded. ‘Can we isolate and eject Level 7?’ I asked. It was the only bit of The Prison that could be ejected. At least they’d have some chance, and it would free up critical resources. Buy us a little more time.
Marla checked a couple of icons on her clipboard. ‘They’d have limited motive power and only enough oxygen for twelve hours’
I didn’t care. ‘That’s probably twelve more hours than us. The Oracle may think of something. After all,’ I smiled, ‘he seems to have an opinion on everything else around here. Start the uncoupling.’
If nothing else, it gave everyone something to do.
The clock hit six minutes and forty seconds. Funny. Once we got to seven minutes, there’d be no great explosion. None of us would die. Probably the first we’d notice is the lights going a little dim. The air getting a trifle warm. The doors taking a bit longer to open. But once the cascade failure had happened, then the collapse of the prison would speed up from there. Death would creep over us. And it wouldn’t be pleasant.
At six minutes and forty-five seconds, another alarm went off. The two sirens wailed at each other like courting beasts, a sound that was ugly and blocky and shrill, and then the main alarm cut out. Mercifully, the clock reset and the Prison Plan flickered, seeming to shift slightly, before finally reloading. It was as if nothing had happened.
Almost silence.
Except …
Bentley spotted it. ‘Level 6. All the doors are open.’ That explained the other alarm still sounding.
Level 6?
‘And another thing,’ sighed Bentley. ‘428 is out of his cell.’
Normally Bentley would deal with this. But she had remained in the Control Station, going methodically through the systems, checking off each one and ensuring its performance was optimal. Until the next time the whole thing fell over.
So I went looking for 428. I took a Custodian. Just in case.
The annoying thing was that 428’s timing was dreadful. This was the worst moment to be pulling his running-around stunts. He was normally more careful. He usually slipped in and out of his cell without troubling the alarms, but this time he’d lit the board up like a festive display.
As we made our way to Level 3, I marvelled at how quiet The Prison seemed at night. Even with the alarm, there was just muttering from the cells. Clearly, they’d got used to sleeping through the alarms. I called out to reassure people that everything was under control. The thing is, I didn’t know if I was lying or not. We’d been less than twenty seconds away from a slow and lingering death. With a bit of luck, most of them wouldn’t have woken up.
428’s cell was open and empty. A note was pinned to the door: ‘Back in 5 mins. Sign for any parcels’. I did not find it funny.
The Custodian was able to trace his footsteps. They led right the way down to Level 6.
Level 6 looked wrong. If the rest of the Prison had been quiet, this was icy. There wasn’t a sound. It was just one long corridor at the bottom of The Prison. We put people here we did not want to think about. I’m not proud of that, but there are some people in The Prison you just can’t handle normally. When corrective therapy and normal restraint fails, then we have little option other than to drug them up and ship them down to Level 6. It was where we could forget our failures.
My Custodian sent out a worried alarm chirrup. I queried this on my clipboard and then I realised what its problem was. It was trying to connect to the other Custodians on the level but there were no other Custodians here. Normally you don’t notice them. They’re either housed in the walls, or gliding up and down corridors, silent and efficient. The Custodians are part of the Prison. On Level 6 there were no human Guardians – only Custodians. Even if they weren’t patrolling the corridors you’d expect to find them docked in the walls. But nothing. Not a sign of one. Curious. You got so used to having them around as part of the furniture that their absence was disconcerting.
That there was no sign of the prisoners was one thing. But for the Custodians to have vanished as well was extremely odd. I looked behind, just to check that the Custodian I’d brought with me was still there. It was. The corridor back to the lift stretched away behind it. It suddenly seemed a very long way away.
And then the light at the end of the corridor flickered and went off.
Without thinking, I turned to the Custodian and ordered it to investigate. As soon as it glided off, I knew it had been a mistake to send it. But I couldn’t bring myself to call it back. I just watched it smoothly passing down the corridor, listening to the slight hum as it travelled. It went into the darkness. I could still see its shape moving. I could still hear it. Or could I? I blinked, and now all I could see was darkness.
I was now on my own, and we were under threat. I blipped for help. But there was no answer from the Control Station. I was cut off.
Carefully, I reached for a cell door. It was open. Inside was empty.
I blipped up to the Control Station again. I used the code for Escaped Prisoner. The situation was getting even more serious. And, in theory, my emergency call should be carried on the core transponder. No need for complicated communications. And yet still no response.
I reached over to another cell door, a terrible suspicion forming in my mind. It was also empty. I looked around more forensically. No sign of a struggle. No facetiously helpful note.
I tried out three more cells. All of them empty. Then I backed out into the corridor. I was completely alone. My footsteps echoed.
I opened another cell door, belonging to Prisoner 37. It was also, obviously, empty. I
stood, looking around. There was something wrong about the sheer emptiness of the cell, as though I was missing something. I tried to work out what it was.
It took me a while to work it out. The cell was neat. Not the neatness of someone with good habits. The entire cell had been scrupulously tidied after its occupant had left. There weren’t just no signs of a struggle. There were no signs that anyone had been here for a while. How long had Prisoner 37 been missing? I was pondering this when I heard the footsteps outside. Something, someone was coming.
I did not react as the Governor of the Prison. I reacted as a frightened man, as a coward. I told you I was tired. It’s the only excuse I can offer. With a frightened man’s ingenuity, I slid the door closed silently and crouched low down, out of sight of the window. I felt a terrible fear, like a child’s game suddenly being played in deadly earnest by grown-ups. The footsteps got closer.
I tried to work out a way of fighting back. If I pushed the door … well, would that work? Could I use the door as a weapon? Would it knock my attacker off balance, giving me a chance to …
I counted the footsteps. They were not stopping at any of the other cells. This meant that, in all probability, they weren’t coming for me. They did not know I was there.
The footsteps passed my cell. I breathed out. The footsteps stopped.
They came back. They stood outside my door.
This was it. Either I somehow used the door against them or I prayed they weren’t looking for me.
I breathed in, tensed up, and shoved the door. It didn’t spring open, it didn’t fly open. It just eased open gently. Of course. The doors had been fitted with hinges which prevented them opening too quickly.
A hand took the door. A hand opened the door.
Someone stood over me. Watching.
I found I could barely move.
It took all of my courage to look up, to open my eyes. To see …
Prisoner 428 was standing over me.
‘Hello, Governor,’ he said. He was wearing a sardonic smile, clearly amused at finding me huddled on the floor. His smile was so sour it was practically a grimace. ‘And what’s a sir like you doing crouching in a place like this?’