by Simon Janus
“Absinthe. Drink up.” O’Keefe raised the bottle in a toast.
Keeler glanced at Cady. He’d been silent all this time, an observer at O’Keefe’s heels. Cady looked nervous. No, not nervous. The deputy governor was bricking it. From the look on his face, he knew the shit was hitting the fan and he didn’t know which direction it was coming from. But Cady needn’t worry. In all likelihood, Keeler was standing directly in its way.
“Cheers,” O’Keefe said.
Keeler knocked the absinthe back in one gulp. It was nasty shit, tasting like a mix of drain cleaner and cough syrup. Although the spirit burned on the way to his gut, its effect went straight to his head. His skull throbbed, feeling creased.
“Jesus,” Keeler croaked and cleared his throat.
“The only way to kill brain cells,” O’Keefe remarked and patted Keeler on the back.
“Feels like it.”
“Are we ready?” O’Keefe demanded.
“Yes,” a nervous voice replied from behind a console.
“Activate Jeter.”
The technicians pounded keyboards at their consoles, activating monitoring equipment scattered throughout the North Wing. Hydraulic actuators hoisted the Throne into the air. Jeter’s nose tube pulsed as a green fluid sped towards him. The fluid resembled the absinthe Keeler had drunk. Its aftertaste still clung to the back of his throat.
The fluid disappeared into Jeter’s nose, exciting him instantly. He grunted, champing at his muzzle. His hands strangled the Throne’s armrests. His eyelids fought against their stitches and his muscles tightened into knots, bulging from his emaciated body. He released a musk overpowering his previous unsanitary stink and Keeler took an involuntary step backwards.
Electricity charged the air. Keeler’s body throbbed. Although he couldn’t detect a sound, his eardrums vibrated, sensing the off-the-audible-scale activity. His subsided absinthe headache returned with a vengeance, the agony forcing his eyes shut for several moments. Although there were enough electronics to create a magnetic field all of their own, he knew the energy wasn’t coming from any of the machinery. Keeler opened his eyes and stared at Jeter, and his heartbeat quickened.
Green fluid pumped faster and faster into Jeter. He uttered a bestial roar into his muzzle and stiffened against his leather restraints, the material creaking under the strain. Blood leaked from the corners of his eyes. Awestruck, Keeler couldn’t tear his gaze away from the spectacle.
“We have to renew his restraints daily,” O’Keefe said, close to Keeler’s shoulder.
“You’ve turned him into an animal,” Keeler accused.
“Don’t bullshit me, Keeler. He was an animal to begin with.”
Keeler snorted.
“He bit out his own tongue, you know. He’s a very troubled man.”
He isn’t the only one, Keeler thought. He feared what could happen to him. If Jeter was anything to go by, there seemed to be no end to what could be inflicted upon him. He wondered what this technological freak show had to do with finding Lefford and Allard.
“Are you sure that isn’t my destiny up there?” Keeler pointed at the writhing Jeter.
O’Keefe shook his head. “Don’t kid yourself. You may have killed a kid, but you’re nothing special--not like Jeter. There’s only one Jeter.”
As if O’Keefe’s words were a cue, Jeter worked his magic. Splitting and cracking masonry shattered the air. A monitoring panel arced and fused, shorting out in a hail of sparks. A technician jumped back from his console when his computer monitor imploded. The North Wing throbbed.
“Are you telling me Jeter is causing all this?” Keeler demanded, having to shout over the din.
O’Keefe never got to answer. A shockwave knocked everyone off their feet. The wave seemed to have emanated from Jeter, but at the same time, it hadn’t. Whatever the cause, the North Wing was immersed in an energy field that made everything pulsate. Keeler felt as though he was at the bottom of an ocean.
This sensation lasted several seconds before the North Wall ruptured. Keeler whirled as a diagonal rent raced across the stonework. Other tears presented themselves, each one appearing faster than the one before. Shards of masonry tumbled free and dust erupted from the cracks, forming into clouds. Keeler clamped his hands over his ears to shut out the shriek of stone grinding against stone.
Standing only feet from the devastation, Keeler was transfixed by the spectacle, unable to comprehend what he was witnessing. Hands yanked him back. Keeler turned to see and found it was Cady who had a hold of him. His face was a mask of disbelief.
The technicians undoubtedly had witnessed this spectacle many times before, but they still bore looks of frightened primitives observing their first eclipse. Jeter stood out of his chair as far as his leather restraints would allow. Keeler noticed that Jeter had broken his wrist under the load. Only O’Keefe seemed to lap up the event with something that Keeler recognized as pleasure.
“Is this the end of the world?” Keeler asked Cady.
Cady shook his head. “Much worse.”
The spider web of tears became too much for the North Wall to bear and the stone lost integrity. The wall liquefied and the resultant lava vaporized before it struck the ground.
“My God,” was all Keeler could say. The guard at the entrance had been right. This was hell.
An untidy twenty-foot high by thirty-foot wide elliptical rent gaped where the North Wall had stood. Melted stone drizzled at the edges of the opening, but quickly solidified. Beyond the hole, open countryside stretched out, disappearing at the horizon where London streets should have existed. It was after midnight but through the hole, hazy afternoon sunshine fought to break through a yellow-green smog. The impossible visage shimmered as if viewed through a heat haze.
O’Keefe took Keeler by the arm. “Didn’t I tell you there was only one Jeter?”
Keeler stared dumbly at the governor then turned to Jeter. The sociopath’s body was frozen in a permanent contortion. Blood leaked from every orifice. He looked as if he was coming apart at the seams. Keeler didn’t understand how Jeter could cause all this.
“What has he done?” Keeler asked.
“He’s created the Rift. That’s the name we’ve given the phenomenon. We wanted to probe his mind, try to understand the beast that lurks within man, and he produced this.” O’Keefe smiled. “Fascinating, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Keeler replied without a hint of sarcasm. For all the fear he felt, he still couldn’t deny the amazing spectacle.
“Instead of telling us what he did to his victims, he created this,” O’Keefe said. “The Rift is the world where his thoughts thrive.”
Keeler glanced back over at Jeter’s Rift.
“You wanted to know what you’d volunteered for, well here it is.” O’Keefe pointed at the Rift and the world beyond it, “Through there are Lefford and Allard. We need you to find them. Bring them back and document whatever you can while you’re there.”
“What’s through there?” Keeler demanded, but his voice lacked authority.
“We don’t know.” O’Keefe forced a smile. “That’s why we’re sending you.” He patted Keeler on the back. “Go now, before Jeter breaks down.”
With all the secrecy, Keeler always thought he might have signed on for some sort of suicide mission. He had no doubts now. O’Keefe had screwed him. Keeler wanted to tell O’Keefe he was a son of a bitch, but it wasn’t worth the trouble. Anyway, Keeler got the feeling O’Keefe probably knew that about himself already. Besides, O’Keefe wasn’t all to blame. Keeler had had a hand in screwing himself. He turned away, crossed over to the Rift, took a breath and stepped inside.
Chapter Two
Cady’s Cover
As Cady watched Keeler step on to the ledge created by the Rift, the urge to yank the inmate back from the brink almost overwhelmed him, but curiosity prevented him from doing the right thing. He wanted to see what would happen as much as O’Keefe and his team of lab coats, even if i
t was at Keeler’s expense, so he let the man step through.
There was a surface tension to the Rift’s shimmering haze that prevented one world from pouring into another and Keeler had to push against the shimmer, stretching it, before he punctured it. The Rift sealed itself the moment Keeler was through.
Cady couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed--and neither could Keeler by the look of him. The inmate simply stood a few feet from where he’d entered this new world. Cady thought it odd. Essentially, Keeler was only a short distance from him, but in actuality, who knew how far he’d traveled? Cady found the notion both mind bending and frightening. He felt O’Keefe’s shadow fall across him and turned. O’Keefe smiled at him.
“I told you that you’d be impressed.”
“Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” Cady demanded.
O’Keefe looked Cady up and down. He smiled, seemingly approving of the outburst, and stretched out an arm, turning Cady around. “Let’s find a quiet corner to ourselves to discuss matters. We can leave the boffins to do their thing.”
O’Keefe led Cady to an abandoned console, one of many, stashed far from the North Wall. The console had given its life in the pursuit of science in some incident not unlike tonight’s with scorch marks chasing up the sides and melted wires dangling from a shattered monitor. O’Keefe pulled up a pair of swivel stools and sat. Cady’s seat creaked when he put his weight on it.
“I suppose it’s time I brought you up to speed,” O’Keefe said.
Although Cady was the deputy governor, he hadn’t been party to any developments inside the North Wing. He’d tried to ingratiate himself with O’Keefe to learn more, but had been unsuccessful up until tonight. The invite to join in the festivities came out of the blue, although it had smacked more of a summons than an invite. O’Keefe had wanted him there tonight for a reason. Instead of being brought into the fold, Cady suspected O’Keefe had found out about him.
“That would be nice,” Cady replied, doing little to hide his contempt.
“Don’t use that tone with me. You’re not the only one who’s been keeping secrets.”
Cady’s stomach knotted. O’Keefe had found out. Dammit, they’d promised him that his cover was airtight. He knew he should have refused the assignment when the Home Office had offered it to him. He wasn’t built for undercover work. He was a pen pusher not a spy. They should have sent in a cop, a trained professional, not him. Well, it was too late now. Play dumb, that was all he could do. It was something he could do well.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
O’Keefe wrinkled his face and raised a hand. “Let’s not insult each other.”
Cady swallowed hard.
“I’ll make it easy on you. I’ll tell you what you are and if you’re honest about it, I’ll tell you what’s going on here. Deal?”
“Deal,” Cady replied after only a flicker of hesitation.
“You’re a Home Office mole. They’ve got itchy feet over this project and they want to make sure that their investment doesn’t take a one-way trip to turd town. More importantly, the Home Office wants to make sure it doesn’t get tainted with any splash back. Am I right?”
The bastard knows everything, Cady thought. He wondered who’d being talking and more importantly, who’d screwed him.
“Come on, Cady. We had a deal. Pin the tail on the donkey for me.”
Cady knew there was no way of bluffing his way out of this. O’Keefe had the intel--and a gun judging from the bulge under his jacket.
“Okay. You’re right,” he admitted.
O’Keefe smiled. “Who’s your contact--Saunders?”
“Yes.”
“What a prick. He needs to grow a backbone.” O’Keefe gave a parental glance over at the Rift for a moment before returning his focus to Cady. “Tell him everything’s okay and not to worry. Just leave me to manage this. We are progressing and we should be online before the end of the year.” O’Keefe stared at the Rift. He swelled with pride. “Tell him we’re on the verge.”
“On the verge of what?” Cady didn’t feel the same swell of pride. What he’d seen of the North Wing Project scared him. “What is going on here?”
“We’re on the verge of something fantastic, Matt,” O’Keefe said.
Cady had glimpsed only a fragment of the fantastical and didn’t disagree. “You know more than you let on to Keeler just now.”
O’Keefe nodded.
“You lied to him.”
“He didn’t need to know. He’s not important. He’s an inmate. A convicted killer.”
“He’s a human being.” Cady pictured Jeter in his Throne. “If he’s in any sort of danger, he has a right to know.”
“He deserves nothing of sort.” O’Keefe fixed Cady with a stare that sparkled with contempt. “He’s a guinea pig.”
Cady saw the futility of the argument. They were poles apart when it came to the treatment of inmates, so he let the subject drop. “A guinea pig for what?”
“Do you know what wormwood is?”
“You mean the prison?” Cady asked, puzzled.
“No, the herb.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Wormwood is the core ingredient of absinthe.”
Cady shrugged.
“Absinthe used to be all the rage until it was found to be a poisonous hallucinogen. The drink is outlawed in the States and watered down in Europe.”
“All because of its wormwood content?”
“Yes. This prison is built on a particular variety that doesn’t exist anywhere else in nature. It’s extremely potent and virulent, like a weed. That’s where the prison got its name, Wormwood Scrubs. Before the prison, this place used to be a scrub of wormwood.”
“The prison has been here over a hundred years.”
“Yes, and the wormwood has never stopped growing. We’re forever having to do construction work to prevent the foundation from collapsing.”
“You’re saying that the wormwood created that?” Cady pointed at the Rift.
“In part--yes. Jeter is doing the rest with a little help from the electronics here. How much do you know about Jeter?”
Cady remembered the sickening violence. At the time, television and newspapers had played down the degradations he’d committed, but even that was too much. Not a discriminating killer, he’d mutilated men, women and children by turning them inside out, literally, as if he was looking for a lost keepsake hidden inside his victims. It was a surprise that he was tried as sane. “Nothing other than what I saw on telly or read in the papers.”
“You should really read our inmates’ case files. There’s a wealth of knowledge to be had.” O’Keefe took out a cigarette and lit it. “Jeter killed at least twenty-six people over a five year period. In actual truth, no one knows how many he killed or even when he started killing. During his interrogation, he alluded to others and made reference to a boy he’d abducted. He claimed he’d swiped the kid the day before the Met arrested him. No one ever found the boy he mentioned. Personally, I think he was playing with his interrogators to keep them off balance.”
“So what has that got to do with what’s happening here?”
“Do you know why it took Scotland Yard so long to catch him?”
Cady shook his head.
“Foreknowledge.”
“Foreknowledge?”
O’Keefe nodded. “Foreknowledge. The third eye. A six sense. ESP. Whatever you want to call it, he has it. Jeter’s wires may be crossed, making him fucking lethal, but it also makes him remarkable. You really should read his file.”
“So what is the point of all this?”
“The Scrubs has the highest rate of psychiatric and psychotic episodes in the prison service. We outstrip Broadmoor for fuck’s sake.”
O’Keefe had Cady’s attention. He couldn’t deny his own fascination and he couldn’t imagine how the Scrubs could be worse than Britain’s premier facility for the criminally insane. There w
as a lot more information to be had and he didn’t want to be given the mushroom treatment like Keeler, so he asked a stupid question to tempt O’Keefe into spilling the truth. “Isn’t prison overcrowding and an outdated facility to blame for the problems here?”
O’Keefe sneered. “Don’t give me that college sociology crap. We discovered the incidents were due to the wormwood. Basically, inmates have been tripping. The guards too. It’s the reason why staff work six-hour shifts and not eight.”
“You can’t afford to have wardens losing it, I suppose.”
O’Keefe nodded and took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Nobody really knows what the detrimental effects of wormwood are, so the Home Office asked us to find out.” He glanced over at the distortion in the North Wall. “Jeter’s been an interesting side effect.”
Even with what he’d seen tonight, Cady still didn’t know whether to believe O’Keefe, but there was something odd about the Scrubs. He’d experienced some abnormalities of his own during his short time at the prison. Headaches were one symptom that plagued him. They were coming much more regularly now and he wasn’t the only one. He’d noticed most of the wardens popping Paracetamol during their lunch breaks. There’d been other symptoms too. Occasionally, he would have sworn he’d seen inmates walking through locked doors like they were ghosts, but this had only occurred when he’d worked late. Inmates from different wings claimed attacks after nightly lockdowns. Cady knew of one suspicious death that had been put down as a suicide when evidence failed to support foul play. Inmates also claimed they’d seen Jeter in their cells, although the duty wardens confirmed he hadn’t left his own cell.
“What’s the government’s interest?” Cady asked.
“At first, it was psychiatric and psychological research, to see if the wormwood theory had any merit. They couldn’t let this place remain, if it were true.”
“You said, ‘at first.’ What changed?”
“Jeter. During the course of some early tests, he produced a small Rift. The researchers saw a niche. They believed they had a unique way to study Jeter’s mind. They could physically enter his psychosis and discover what made his fucked clock of a brain tick. I bet a couple of those eggheads over there thought they were in for a Nobel or three.” O’Keefe snorted a derisive laugh. “But Jeter being Jeter, he’s turned everything on its head. Now, the team here doesn’t know what to think.”