“You’re not Julie. You sound different. Smell different. I would have known. I would have known immediately.”
“I haven’t been Julie Lippman for close to twenty years. I had surgery to change my looks so they wouldn’t know I was alive. So yeah, I am different. Just like you. We both became other people.”
From the floor Hardie braced himself as he saw Eve take a step toward the Prisonmaster. The monster’s button finger twitched, as if waging some internal struggle. To zap, or not to zap. Eve was not afraid. She took another step and pushed her breasts against the Prisonmaster’s chest. This was no accidental touch. Hardie could tell.
So could the Prisonmaster, whose finger dropped away from the button.
“You remember, don’t you?” Eve asked softly.
“No…no, you’re not here. You’re supposed to be in Europe now. With your husband and daughters. Two of them.”
“My what? What are you talking about? I’m not married. I don’t have kids. I’m standing right here in front of you. Listen to my voice, Bobby. Touch me. You used to love to touch me.”
“Julie Lippman is in Prague right now, I know this, because they have eyes everywhere, and they’re making sure she is safe…”
“As far as the world knows, Julie Lippman is dead and buried, just like you. A tragic little footnote. The college sweethearts who died a year apart.”
“You’re lying, Julie is alive, and she’s up in the outside wor—”
“I’m standing right here in front of you!”
“NO, YOU’RE NOT, YOU’RE UP THERE AND YOU’RE SAFE AND THEY’RE LOOKING OUT FOR YOU. THEY TELL ME! THEY TELL ME ALL THE TIME!”
But now Bobby shook his head, quickly, in a trembling, pre-seizure kind of way, as if trying to shake something loose from the inside of his brain.
* * *
That was the arrangement.
Bobby would stay down here and run the secret prison, deal with whomever his employers decided to send his way. Over the years Bobby became quite skilled at manipulating the inmates—and they were all inmates, to be sure, prisoners and guards alike. Including Pags, who had long since lost the mental capacity to be in charge of anything, let alone this facility. Pags was good at following orders, but not much else.
In exchange, Bobby’s employers promised to make sure nothing ever happened to Julie Lippman. They would be her silent guardians, using the power of their global reach to keep her safe no matter where she roamed.
They sent Bobby regular reports; he lived vicariously through them.
He would not repeat the mistake of the soldier in that story. He would not dare bring Julie to this living hell, would not let her see what he had become. That was out, forever. But he could still be part of her life, in some small way. He could spend whatever equity he’d accrued to benefit her.
“Is someone telling you about Julie Lippman doing all kinds of wonderful things?” Eve asked. “Bobby, I’ve spent the last two decades looking for missing people. I’ve spent the last two decades looking for you.”
“They were…lying to me.”
“Yeah.”
“You did come after me.”
“I did.”
“Just like the sweetheart.”
“I’ve got the necklace of tongues to prove it.”
Bobby lifted his hand toward his head and began to make the cheesy hand signals, straight from Purple Rain:
I
Would
Die
4
U
And with that last letter, he pointed right at her.
Eve couldn’t help herself. She giggled.
“You dick.”
Hardie hated to interrupt this tender moment, but they were still trapped in a steel room with this crazy ex-boyfriend and nothing but knockout gas outside and bedrock below.
“Bobby…whatever your name is, listen.”
He turned in Hardie’s direction. A frown appeared, as if he were trying to figure out some complex math problem.
“Show us the way out,” Hardie said. “There’s gotta be one.”
“It’s okay, Bobby,” Eve said. “You can trust him.”
A strange look came over Bobby’s battered face. Part hurt, part confusion. “No. You don’t get it. There is no exit. No escape at all.”
Prisoner Zero started to grunt. “Huh-huh. HUH-HUH-HUHHHHHH.”
Hardie wondered what the hell he wanted.
Bobby said: “Shut up, Pags.”
“HUH-HUH-HUHHHHHHHH.”
Zero was pointing down at the ground. The room was dark, but when Hardie went down on his knees, he could see it. The faint lines of a seam, obscured by years of grime and filth. The lines formed a square.
Bobby held up the trigger. “Go near that and I’ll take you out. You won’t wake up from this.”
Eve moved quickly this time, throwing an arm around Bobby’s throat and immobilizing his wrist.
“Julie, what are you—”
“Open it, Hardie.”
“Guh-huh-huh-huhhhhh.”
Hardie placed his good hand on the side of Zero’s gurney and gave it a violent shove. The legs scraped against the metal floor. There it was, on the floor. In plain sight, the whole time. An escape hatch. The Prisonmaster here had positioned his old buddy over the single escape route. Hardie brushed away dirt and filth until he located the ancient handle. He had to scrape away grime with the tips of his fingers until he freed the handle.
“No!” Bobby said. “You can’t open that! We’ll all die!”
“What, another death mechanism? Sorry, Bob. Come up with a new trick. We’re all going. You, me, and Eve…”
Hardie caught himself.
“Julie…and my new best friend up there on that gurney. We’re all getting the hell out of here now.”
“No no no,” Bobby cried. “You don’t understand. There is no escape. Not for me, not for anyone they send here. Do you think I didn’t consider using that hatch myself over the past twenty years? Every day it’s crossed my mind. Every fucking day! And every day I tell myself no, leaving will only punish the ones I love. I would only be punishing you. Because that’s what they do, that’s what they’re holding over our heads. That’s the real death mechanism!”
Hardie remembered the images they’d pumped into his mask. Kendra’s house. The bedroom. Her sleeping form…
Eve told Bobby: “We can fight back. All of us. We can take these bastards down.”
Bobby shook his head and smiled. “You have family, Mr. Hardie. A wife and a son, isn’t that right? They will be dead the moment you leave this facility. They’ll see to it.”
“Not if I get to them first. Who are they? Who are your bosses? I want names.”
“That won’t do you any good. You can’t comprehend the complexity of the Industry—”
Eve said, “I hate to say this, Hardie, but he might be right. Once they know we’ve escaped, they’ll be relentless. They won’t hesitate to take out your family. I know how they work.”
Hardie stared at the escape hatch in the floor. So that was the choice? Stay here and keep his family alive…or leave and put their lives in danger?
Hardie had spent two years in exile because he thought he’d put his family in danger. He couldn’t keep hiding.
Sure, they might be in danger.
But he was the only one who could save them.
Hardie kneeled down, found the handle, brushed away the dust. “I’m going.”
Eve nodded. “Go, then. I’m going to stay here and take care of Bobby.”
“Not going to happen,” Hardie said. “Everybody goes home. All four of us.”
Eve shook her head. “You have a better chance if we all stay out of sight for a while. Ten escapees, they might notice. One, not so much. Not for a while, anyway.”
A strange, giddy look came over Bobby’s face. “You mean you’re staying down here? With me?”
“I’m not leaving you,” Eve said.
“Even after
all that I’ve done?”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Okay, then,” Hardie said. He refused to waste another second down here. The hatch came loose after a few violent tugs. The smell was overpowering—wet rock and mold, as though some primordial creature had just woken from an eon-long slumber and released a silent belch.
“Where will this take me?” Hardie asked.
Bobby said, “You should recognize your location once you’re outside. Took me a long time to figure it out. One day they let a detail slip, and it all made sense. They’d want to pick someplace near the university, after all.”
“You know, it would really be great if you just told me.”
“A set of stairs should lead you to the surface. It might be a lot of stairs. We’re pretty far underground.”
Eve touched Bobby’s face, and he leaned into her palm. His mouth opened slightly, quivering. Hardie wondered when she was going to give up the act—that she was this guy’s long-lost girlfriend. It was a stunningly clever move, totally disarming their opponent. What he couldn’t figure out is why she wanted to stay down here a second longer.
“Eve, I’ll send help.”
“Don’t. Take care of your family first. We just have some unfinished business to take care of.”
Some vile thoughts went through Hardie’s mind. He pushed them aside, told himself to grow up. “You’re sure?”
“Go to your family. Besides, I need to check on the others. I’m presuming everyone’s going to be waking up sooner rather than later.”
“I can help.”
“Go,” Eve insisted. “Leave this to me. This is no hardship. I’ve been at war with Secret America for two decades now. Thanks to this place, I now have an army. And we’re going to kick their asses.”
Hardie was two steps down before Bobby spoke to him one last time.
“Doyle, Gedney, Abrams.”
“What?” Hardie asked.
“They’re the ones who put you down here. The ones who fund this place.”
Hardie repeated the names in his head. Doyle, Gedney, Abrams.
He started down the staircase then stopped, turned around, and picked up his old-man cane from the floor. He almost gave Eve and Bobby one last good-bye, but they were otherwise engaged.
Hardie left them alone.
She caressed his scarred, pale face with her fingertips. She hadn’t touched Bobby Marchione in twenty-one years. The last time had been that last night before Christmas break, when he’d brushed her forehead with his lips and whispered good-bye to her. But she touched his forehead, and leaned forward to kiss him there, and she knew it wasn’t really him. The real Bobby had died down here two decades ago. Which is why she calmly wrapped the mike wire around his neck and pulled both ends in opposite directions as hard as she could.
In the movies there was some killer move where you could quickly and compassionately snap someone’s neck by pushing on his chin while cradling the back of his head. Or some such shit.
But Eve Bell didn’t know such a move, so she had to resort to strangling her former boyfriend, sweet goofy Bobby Marchione, with his own electrocution trigger wire, and she was able to see the anger, followed by the hurt and confusion, followed by (she hoped) a little bit of understanding before the light finally went out of his eyes.
It took longer than she could have imagined, almost longer than she could bear.
There it was—her 100-percent success rate.
Eve Bell, professional finder, had cleared her docket. She could take it easy now, couldn’t she? Retire. Kick back, enjoy life. She knew, though, that this wouldn’t happen. She hadn’t cleared her docket. Her success rate was not 100 percent. She had to find the most elusive person of all: a college student named Julie Lippman. Fucked-up spoiled chick who lost her boyfriend and spent the rest of her life throwing a tantrum about it.
Where was Julie Lippman?
Eve thought about it and realized that she wasn’t worth looking for. Julie wasn’t missing. Julie had died a long, long time ago, just like her boyfriend, Bobby.
27
If you go down into the darkness, you must expect it to leave traces on you coming up. If you do come up.
—Derek Raymond, The Hidden Files
A SHORT FLIGHT of steps led down to a skinny hallway, which in turn led to a narrow spiral staircase. Hardie made his way through the hallway in the dark, using the cane for balance. The stale air reeked of something wet and dead and ancient. He was loath to touch anything. Even walking through the passageway in bare feet was disgusting enough.
Then he slammed into the staircase, and he began climbing.
The metal stairs were caked with years of dust and grime and rust. Hardie tried not to think of what he was crunching underfoot. He kept climbing. After a while his heart began to pump wildly, warning him to slow down, take it easy. Hardie would not slow down or take it easy, because he didn’t want to stop and realize that he couldn’t move any farther. And then he’d die here, inside the stairway between Hell and whatever was Up There. So no. No stopping. Keep going. He even thought it seemed like they knew Hardie was ascending, so they had a construction crew working like crazy up top, adding four new flights of stairs for every single flight Hardie cleared. He didn’t care. He kept going…
* * *
And then, the final flight, and a steel door, which Hardie expected to be locked with a dead bolt, possibly even professionally welded shut. It wasn’t. The knob was one of those that turns from the inside, no matter what, even if it’s locked from the outside. The steel door opened up into…
Oh, God.
Another prison?
More cages and bars and walkways and staircases. The only difference was that this prison allowed sunlight to pour through dirty windows. Hardie hadn’t seen light in so long it hurt his eyes.
This prison was also completely deserted, as if the Rapture had taken place while he was underground. Down a hallway of flaking paint, empty cells, dirty floors—nothing. Nobody. Hardie pushed his way through a set of doors. And another empty room. A mess hall, from the looks of the galley kitchen and scuffed-up tile floors, where tables and chairs used to be. Where was he? Why was no one up here?
Another set of doors, another hallway, and finally, within a steel cage, a room with a long table. Lined up on the table were rows of shoes, men’s, all sizes—all of them straight out of the last century. Hardie walked over to the cage door and pulled on the handle. It opened.
Down the hall—murmuring. Hardie panicked. Maybe it was a good thing he’d been alone. Perhaps he’d wandered into the closed wing of a working prison. And once these new guards saw him, he’d be back in the same position. Or worse. There was a push-bar door on the left, leading outside. Should he?
The murmuring grew louder; someone laughed.
Hardie slammed through the door.
The sounds, the sun, the noise—all of it disorienting.
There were people everywhere. Not in uniforms of any kind, but in everyday street clothes. It was sunny out. No, not quite sunny. Just bright, somehow, even beneath a vast, gloomy sky. A cold wind sliced right through him. People were everywhere. That was the confusing thing. Holding bottles of water, laughing, smiling, taking pictures, despite the fact that this looked very much like the grounds of a prison. Barbed wire. Hardie made his way down a steep wide concrete path trying to understand where the hell he was. There was a sign mounted on a concrete wall. The wall had blue-and-tan streaks on it from faded paint jobs over the years. On the wall above the sign were thin red letters proclaiming:
INDIANS
WELCOME
And the sign itself:
UNITED STATES
PENITENTIARY
ALCATRAZ ISLAND AREA 12 ACRES
1½ MILES TO TRANSPORT DOCK
ONLY GOVERNMENT BOATS PERMITTED
OTHERS MUST KEEP OFF 200 YARDS
NO ONE ALLOWED ASHORE
WITHOUT A PASS
Fuck me, Hardie thoug
ht. Oh, fuck me fucking stupid.
The most secure secret prison in the world, site number 7734, was located far beneath the world’s most notorious inescapable prison…which was now a tourist attraction.
They—whoever they were—had a sick, sick sense of humor.
He couldn’t wander around like this, wearing nothing but a jacket and trousers. He ducked back into the building, went to the shoe room, and selected a pair of black brogans in his size. No socks, but Hardie didn’t care. Felt good to have something on his feet again.
The murmuring, it turned out, came from one of the gift shops. Hardie buttoned up his coat, hoping no one would notice his bare chest, then eased into the shop. Everybody was busy looking at souvenir rocks, calendars, CDs, comic books. Hardie saw a stack of black T-shirts, sizes S to XXXL. He took an XL, rolled it up tight, moved behind a bookcase, and slid it into his trouser pocket. Stealing from a prison gift shop; this was a new low, even for him. He made it out of the shop without any alarms going off, then found a quiet corner. Only after he put on the T-shirt did he realize what he’d selected: ALCATRAZ SWIM TEAM.
He buttoned up, looked for a men’s room.
Found one. Straight out of the 1920s, fixtures and everything, but kept tidy for visitors. New soap, new paper-towel dispenser, new signage.
And a large clean mirror, hanging over a row of sinks.
Hardie put his palms on the cold ceramic tile under the mirror and looked at himself.
You.
You look familiar.
But you’re not me.
You kind of remind me of…my dad.
No; not exactly my father. My father wouldn’t have let himself go like that.
But old like my father.
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