by Mark Alpert
Joe lunged forward. His legs flexed at the Emissary’s command, propelling him toward Billings, and at the same time he reached for the guard’s nightstick. It happened so quickly that Joe didn’t even realize what was happening until he stood nose-to-nose with Billings. Joe’s left hand gripped the blunt end of the nightstick and his right hand clamped over the guard’s mouth. Because the Emissary had taken full control of his body, he felt like a bystander. He could only stare into the guard’s terrified eyes and wonder what the Emissary was going to do next. Strangle Billings? Break his neck? Club him with the nightstick?
But she did none of those things. Instead, Joe felt a horribly sharp pain in the palm of his right hand. At first he thought Billings had bitten him, but the guard’s mouth was closed. Billings tried to pull his face away, but Joe dug his thumb and fingers into the guard’s cheeks and held on tight, pressing his burning palm against the man’s lips. Then Joe felt something rip through his skin. Something tiny and jagged emerged from the center of his palm and pierced the guard’s upper lip.
Billings widened his eyes and screamed. Joe’s palm muffled the noise, but it was still loud enough to make his hand vibrate. The guard’s head shook uncontrollably and the rest of his body writhed in pain. And then, after five or six seconds, Billings closed his eyes. He went limp but stayed on his feet, standing there with his head lolling to the side and his arms dangling. He looked drunk, in a stupor, but he still clutched his nightstick.
After a few more seconds Joe regained control of his own body and stepped away from the guard. When he raised his right hand he saw a small wound in the center of his palm. There was a similar wound on Billings’s upper lip, half-hidden by his mustache. Joe thought of the picture the Emissary had shown him, the image of the black insectlike machine cruising through his blood vessels toward his brain. Now it was inside Billings.
Actually, the device inside him is a copy of the one inside you.
“What? A copy?”
All of my machines are self-replicating. They build copies of themselves from the raw materials in their surrounding environment. The device inside you assembled duplicates from the molecules in your bloodstream, and one of those duplicates is now inside the guard, interfacing with his brain. And because all my devices are networked together via radio and microwave transmissions, I can communicate with you and him at the same time.
Joe’s throat tightened. He stared at the half-asleep Billings, whose mouth hung open as he swayed in the middle of the room. “And you can control him too? Just like you control me?”
No, my interface with the guard is more primitive. Because I don’t have time to develop a full connection with him, I’ve shut down his consciousness. I will simply control his muscles and voice box.
“So he’s nothing but a puppet now?”
Why are you so disapproving? You need the guard’s help to escape from this jail. Isn’t that what you want?
Joe grimaced. He knew he was making a mistake. Instead of siding with the Emissary, he should be resisting her with all his strength. But she was right: he wanted to get out of Rikers. He wanted it so badly he was willing to trust her.
He pointed at Billings. “How is he going to help me? He can barely stand up.”
In response, the guard opened his eyes and stood up straight. He slid the nightstick into the holster on his belt, then turned to Joe. “Take a good look at me. Does anything seem out of the ordinary?”
The Emissary was using Billings’s voice. Although the pitch and tone of the guard’s voice sounded the same as before, his diction was different—more precise, less blustery. But the biggest change was in his eyes. There was no life in them now.
Joe shivered. “You look … all right, I guess.”
“Will the guard’s coworkers suspect that something is wrong?”
“Just don’t start any long conversations with them, okay?”
“Understood.” The guard pointed at the door to the holding pen. “Let’s move, Joe. We’re getting out of here.”
* * *
They left the holding pen and returned to the intake room. The group of newly arrived inmates was gone; they’d obviously moved on to their assigned cellblocks, leaving behind a big pile of plastic bags stuffed with their street clothes. Two correction officers bent over the pile, pasting an identifying label to each bag. Another two officers manned the guard station next to the security gate, at the far end of the room. Billings grasped Joe’s arm above the elbow and started to lead him across the room, heading for the gate.
That door is one of the entrances to this building. I’m going to ask the guards there to let us out. Please remain silent while I converse with them.
Joe felt disoriented. When the Emissary spoke inside his head she still sounded like a young woman, but now she was also controlling the movements of the heavyset, middle-aged man walking beside him. Although Joe had begun to think of the Emissary as a person, an individual, now he saw it clearly wasn’t. It was a computer program, and what’s more, it was completely unlike any program written by humans. It could tap into the Internet and build its own machines and invade human bodies and occupy all of them at the same time. And there was no telling what else it could do.
He glanced sideways at Officer Billings. The man’s dead eyes looked straight ahead. Joe shivered again.
They stopped at the guard station. Two correction officers sat behind the station’s protective glass, both of them youngish black women. One was slender and pinch-faced, and the other was chubby and round-cheeked, but both frowned when they saw Billings coming. The man apparently had a bad reputation. Joe started to worry that the officers at the gate wouldn’t let them out. These guards already disliked Billings, and that could make things more difficult. Joe clenched and unclenched his hands, anxious as hell.
Billings raised his chin toward the speak-through grille embedded in the glass. “This inmate has been granted an immediate release. His name is Joseph Graham, number 21-4662-38. The release order should be on the computer.”
The slender, pinch-faced woman leaned toward the grille from the other side of the glass. She was still frowning. “What’s that number? I didn’t hear you.”
“It’s 21-4662-38.”
She went to her computer and typed it in. After a few seconds she nodded. “Yeah, the order’s here. But it’s too late to release him now. The shuttle buses stopped running an hour ago. He’ll have to wait till tomorrow morning.”
“The order specifies an immediate release. To comply with the order, I’ve arranged an alternative method of transportation.”
The pinch-faced guard looked askance. “Alternative? What are you talking about?”
“A car is waiting for us outside. The warden has approved this release order. You must comply with it.”
The guard stared at Billings. Her round-cheeked partner did the same, furrowing her brow. What made them suspicious, Joe realized, wasn’t so much what Billings had said but how he’d said it. He didn’t sound like the loud, foul-mouthed guard that the other correction officers couldn’t stand. He sounded like a machine.
Now Joe was so nervous, his teeth started chattering. The Emissary was screwing things up, and there was nothing he could do to help her.
No, I’m listening to you. I will adjust my demeanor.
Billings raised his hand and rapped his knuckles against the glass. “Hey, have you two gone deaf?” he shouted. “When the release order says immediate, it means fucking immediate. Now open the goddamn gate!”
The correction officers weren’t happy about his outburst. If anything, their frowns grew more severe. But they stopped looking so intently at Billings. The slender guard leaned back in her chair and waited a few seconds, just to irritate him. Then she pressed a button on her desk and the security gate opened.
Joe took a deep breath as he and Billings stepped outside. They stood in a parking lot behind the jail, a deserted rectangle of asphalt. The sun had gone down half an hour ago and the lo
t was empty except for three blue-and-white Department of Correction buses parked in the corner. These were obviously the buses that shuttled inmates to and from Rikers Island, but they were out of service until morning. Intensely bright floodlights shone down on the barred windows of the empty buses and the blank gray walls of the Otis Bantum Correctional Center. It was a dismal sight, and yet Joe was ecstatic. He smiled and took another deep breath, filling his chest with the steamy night air. He was out. He was free.
Billings still clutched his arm, though. The guard turned left and started marching alongside a high chain-link fence topped with loops of razor wire. As Joe hurried to keep up, he noticed that the fence enclosed the parking lot. There was an exit about a hundred yards ahead, but a guardhouse stood next to the opening in the fence, and inside the guardhouse were two more correction officers.
Joe stopped smiling. He wasn’t free after all. They had to either climb over that fence or slip past the guardhouse. And then they’d still have to get across the guarded bridge that connected Rikers Island to the rest of the city.
“What’s the plan?” Joe whispered. “How—”
Look to your left, on the other side of the fence. Do you see that parking lot?
Through the chain link he saw dozens of cars parked in another lot outside the jail.
That’s the lot for the correction officers. They go into the jail through a different entrance. Officer Billings owns one of the cars there, a 2014 Ford Taurus. The keys to the car are in the officer’s pants pocket.
“But how can we get to the car if it’s on the other side of—”
I’ll talk to the correction officers in the guardhouse. I’ll use the same demeanor and tone of voice that proved effective before.
Joe nodded. Strangely enough, he was getting accustomed to the Emissary’s voice in his head. Although he still hated sharing his brain with her, he had to admit that communicating this way could be useful.
They walked toward the guardhouse until the correction officers spotted them. One of them stepped outside and shone a flashlight. “Who’s that?” he shouted. “Is that you, Billings?”
Billings stopped a few yards from the guardhouse. Keeping his grip on Joe’s arm, he raised his other hand and pointed at the officer. “Put down the damn flashlight! You’re blinding me with that thing!”
The officer didn’t lower his flashlight. He was a tall, hulking white guy, in his late twenties or early thirties. “What are you doing out here? You’re not supposed to leave the jail this way.” He kept the flashlight on Billings’s face for another second, then aimed it at Joe. “And who the hell is this?”
Joe shielded his eyes. Billings, meanwhile, clapped him on the shoulder. “This is the luckiest fucking inmate on Rikers. Joseph Graham, number 21-4662-38. The warden just ordered his release. You can look it up on the computer.”
“A release?” The officer narrowed his eyes. “At night?”
“It’s a special case, emergency request from the NYPD. Immediate release, no waiting.”
“And how were you planning to get him off the island? The buses don’t start running again till five in the morning.”
Billings shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I’m going off duty anyway, so I can take him in my car.”
“Are you nuts? That’s against all the rules.” The officer swept the flashlight up and down, illuminating Joe’s filthy pants and shirt. The guy squinted and stepped closer, suspicious. After a few seconds he turned back to Billings. “You better bring this guy back to intake. Just turn around and go back.”
Billings shook his head. “Why are you giving me such a fucking hard time? I told you, it’s a special case.”
“Bullshit. I know you, Billings. You’re trying to pull something. I don’t know what the hell it is, but you’re not getting away with it this time.”
The officer reached for the radio on his belt. At the same time, he gave a signal to his partner, who was still inside the guardhouse. The second officer—who was bald and black and just as big as the first guy—stepped outside and turned on his own flashlight. Unlike the guards inside the jail, these officers carried guns. Semiautomatic pistols jutted from their belt holsters.
Joe trembled. He felt weak, hollow. The big white officer was talking into his radio, trying to contact his supervisor. Soon they’d figure out that the release order was a sham. The plan was ruined.
No, it’s not. You’re going to escape now. Get ready.
Her voice made him panic. Get ready? How could he get ready? He wasn’t even close to being ready! But a moment later the Emissary took control of his legs. Against his better judgment, Joe stepped toward the correction officer.
Annoyed, the officer lowered his radio. “Hey, asshole!” He trained his flashlight on Joe. “Get the fuck back!”
Joe’s legs froze and his hands rose in surrender. And while the officer glared at him and shone the flashlight into his eyes, the Emissary took advantage of the man’s inattention. Billings removed the nightstick from his belt, leaped forward, and swung it at the officer’s head.
Joe heard the smack of the nightstick against the man’s skull, but he didn’t see it. He was already running. Under the Emissary’s control, his feet pounded the asphalt, propelling him toward the opening in the fence next to the guardhouse. An instant later he heard a shout of dismay, and from the corner of his eye he saw Billings charge toward the second correction officer. But Joe didn’t get a chance to see what happened next. The Emissary kept him running forward, past the guardhouse and the fence.
She steered him left, and he raced down the narrow driveway that encircled the jail. He saw the lot where all the correction officers’ cars were parked, but the Emissary didn’t guide him toward Billings’s vehicle. Instead she hurled him toward a T junction about two hundred yards ahead, where the driveway merged into a wider thoroughfare. The road was empty and silent. The thick walls of the jails on Rikers muffled all the noises within.
Then he heard a gunshot. It came from behind him, from the guardhouse, but once again the Emissary wouldn’t let him slow down or even turn his head around. For a moment he wondered whether the big, bald correction officer had shot Billings, or vice-versa. And then he heard an even louder noise, a howling siren that arose first from the Otis Bantum Correctional Center and soon echoed across all the other jails on Rikers. Someone had raised the alarm.
The Emissary made him run faster. She tilted him forward and pumped his legs and swung his arms. He took great gulps of air that whistled down his windpipe and into his lungs, but it wasn’t enough. His chest heaved and his muscles burned. Joe felt a burst of panic. She was pushing him too hard. His body couldn’t take this.
He sprinted past another parking lot. As he neared the T junction he noticed that the road ahead was the one he’d seen from the exercise yard, the perimeter road that ran along the island’s shoreline. If he turned left at the junction he’d eventually get to the bridge that went over the East River. But if that was the Emissary’s plan, then Joe was doomed. He’d never get past the armed guards on the bridge. It was insane, suicidal. And a moment later it became even more hopeless, because Joe spotted the headlights of two Department of Correction patrol cars. One cruised up the shoreline road from the south and the other came down from the north. Both cars had spotlights mounted on their hoods, and as the vehicles converged on the jail they swept their spotlight beams across the road.
The Emissary was silent. For the first time Joe was desperate to hear her voice. He wanted to know what her plan was, where she intended to take him now, how he was going to escape. But she said nothing. She just lowered his head and flexed his legs and sent him barreling into the T junction.
As soon as he ran onto the road, both patrol cars aimed their spotlights at him. One car was a hundred yards to his left, the other fifty yards to his right. He was trapped, cornered. The only option was to surrender. But instead the Emissary flung him toward the guardrail on the other side of the road and made him ta
ke a flying leap off his right foot. Joe hurdled over the guardrail and landed on a slope covered with weeds and garbage. Then he raced down the slope and splashed into the East River.
The water was a shock. It was so much colder than the steaming air. Joe stumbled forward until the water was up to his waist, then began to swim. The Emissary guided his arms, moving them in swift, strong strokes. Soon he was twenty yards from the island, then thirty. When he lifted his head from the water he could see the South Bronx in the distance, a line of glimmering streetlights on the horizon.
But then the spotlights found him. They illuminated the choppy water, turning the river a vivid shade of green. At the same time, Joe heard a high-pitched squawk coming from the island. It was the sound of a megaphone being turned on.
“Stop where you are.” It was a man’s voice, probably one of the correction officers in the patrol cars. “If you don’t stop, we are authorized to shoot. Repeat, we will shoot you.”
Take a deep breath, Joe. You’re going to dive.
The Emissary helped him by taking control of his breathing muscles and expanding his chest. Then she plunged his head into the water and swept his arms in a breaststroke. His body jackknifed and he went down deep.
He couldn’t see a thing. Without the Emissary’s help, he would’ve panicked and immediately come up for air, but she kept sweeping his arms through the cool black water and propelling him forward. He stayed under until his lungs were screaming and he was absolutely sure he was going to drown. Then his head broke the surface and he took an excruciating breath.
But the spotlights were still trained on him, and the officer with the megaphone was still threatening to shoot him. Worse, he saw another spotlight off to his right, this one coming from the river rather than the island. A patrol boat sped toward him, bobbing over the waves.
You’re going to dive again. Just—
“No! I can’t!”
Trust me, Joe. Just take a deep breath.