At that moment, my mouth spoke its first word.
“Damn.”
Chapter 5
Six toddlers waited in front of the square television, leaning in to try to see through the waves of static that flickered across its archaic screen. The sound only worked through one of the speakers—the other produced a distracting vibration as the electrical impulses failed to reach its coils—and the toddlers’ faces puckered in consternation as they tried to discern the words. For six weeks they’d traded stashes of cookies, apple juice, and cigarettes to pay off the other inmates for exclusive television channel rights between the hours of seven and eight, and where the screen had been occupied by cartoon characters it was now displaying political ones.
The toddlers watched in silence as the world council’s version of C-Span materialized. The headline streaked across the bottom of the screen, and a speaker began reading into the microphone.
“We, the members of the world council, declare the Alani’s petition to be in accordance with the World Rights Initiative. It will be signed into law at eleven hundred hours tomorrow morning. At that point in time, the proceedings will be forwarded to Alani’s lawmakers, to continue the will of the council.”
One toddler stood up from the mangled couch, disentangled his orange prison pants from the ends of metal springs sticking through the cushions, and limped in front of the television. He met the eyes of each of the other five, crossed his arms across his chest, and spoke.
“It’s time.”
***
Six Months Prior
After my third or fourth reincarnation, I expected the joys of youth to fade away. I thought that my tongue would become too sophisticated to the pleasure of children’s candy, that I would instead only opt for more elegant sweets. I thought that the innocence of a body’s first kiss would be eroded by the lust in lives before it, and that I would only be able to read advanced novels, or enjoy movies designed for an older audience. But in no way was this true.
Despite the presence of prior memories, children’s enjoyments come from their present bodies and minds. At this point, my favorite show was Scooby-Doo. Chocolate was my crack, and sugar my cocaine.
And in a prison full of children, this made sweets currency.
I met Homer three days out of the nursery, when I was assigned my own cell. In my time in the nursery, I had just barely learned to walk—I could hobble, in a fashion, by holding my dead leg straight and using it like a pivot point. It wasn’t fast, and I couldn’t sustain it for long, but it worked.
But Homer—glorious, ten-year-old, big-boned, lumbering Homer—was my solution.
“Welcome to block C,” said Homer, leaning against the outside bars of my cell, his voice stuttering through a memorized script. “Being the oldest in the block, I am the inmate residential advisor. All problems should be reported to me, and I shall report them to the guards. Do you have any questions, inmate?”
He stared at me, waiting, as the single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling of my cell buzzed and illuminated the half-eaten candy bar in his hand.
“Yeah. Where in fucking hell did you get that?” I pointed to the candy bar with my grubby fingers, my voice slurring words that my mouth was only just becoming accustomed to saying.
“This?” asked Homer, and held up the bar.
“Yes, Sherlock, obviously the bar.”
“It’s payment for my station,” he said, waving the bar outside my cell in a taunting fashion. Part of me, the two-year-old part, wanted to scream how unfair it was. Wanted to kick Homer in the shins and take the bar for myself. But the other part, the part rooted in my past lives, slowly regained control of my consciousness.
“Oh, that’s nice. But it’s just a candy bar. I have a cookie.”
I fished in my pocket and pulled out a hardened cookie, crumbs falling off it as I raised it into the air. I’d saved it from lunch—each prisoner was given one with their meal, and I secretly suspected it was a cheap way for the prison to supply calories to the developing bodies.
The candy bar stopped halfway to Homer’s mouth, and he stared. Cookies were the only form of universal currency in the prison—they were standardized, Carcer’s form of a consumer price index. Everyone knew a quarter cookie could buy one cigarette. Two would get you an hour alone with the collection of dirty magazines the inmates in block D had stolen from the guards. Ten, and you were in the 1%.
“Yeah? What’re you going to do with it?” asked Homer, his eyes on the chocolate chips, caramel smeared around the edges of his mouth.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe eat it,” I said, raising it to my mouth and just stopping as his expression turned to panic, “or, you know, maybe you could have it. If you could help me out, of course.”
“With what?” he asked, his eyes narrowing but still dodging upward to the cookie.
“Whenever I need to go somewhere, you carry me there. I can’t walk on my own, and I need help. I’ll give you one cookie for every four days of work.”
“One for every two days.”
“Three, and it’s a deal.”
“Done,” he agreed, and he reached between the bars. I handed him the cookie, and within seconds it followed the same path as the candy bar, crumbs littering the ground outside my cell door.
So Homer became my chauffeur, and his shoulders my driver’s seat. And Homer helped me explore the prison and begin my search for twelve souls among hundreds, hiding behind new faces and names.
But just as the body never forgets that a child loves cookies, Scooby-Doo, and being tickled, there are things the soul never forgets. Sometimes they’re trivial—a favorite color, an expression or idiom still used centuries after it has lost its relevance, or a tick in the personality.
But they’re always there.
And they're my only way to find the twelve.
Chapter 6
“It’s a tight window,” said Marco. “Everything is going to have to fit together just right. There’s no room for contingency plans. If you miss it, you’ll be stuck for your entire sentence, and I have a feeling that you won’t be getting any parole.”
“I can make it happen,” I said, reading over the outline in front of me. “We’ll be ready to act at a moment’s notice. Preparation is key.”
“It’s still a risk,” said Marco. “We’re talking about a margin of error that is miniscule. Tiny. Are you sure you want to go through with this?”
“Positive,” I answered. “Now how sure are you that these electrical diagrams are accurate? They're fifteen years old.”
“One hundred percent. I verified the vendor myself—the schematics came from someone on the inside, before they were found out and removed. As you know, they cost a fortune. Besides, Carcer’s expense reports show no renovations to their electrical system.”
“And you’ll be ready for us on the other side?”
“Have I ever let you down?”
I laughed, patting Marco on the back.
“Never.”
***
I found Smokestack first, because he was the easiest to find.
Typically, addiction tends to shed away with death, the chemical imbalances in the brain becoming buried with the rest of the body six feet underground. In fact, overdose was the number one cure to heroine and meth addictions - a chance to start over without withdrawals.
However, addictions have psychological components as well as physical ones, and those are the type the soul tends to remember. It gave the term "crack baby" a whole new meaning for parents unfortunate enough to have an addict as a new member of their family.
According to the profile that Marco had put together, Smokestack had drawn more breaths infused with tobacco than not in his past three lives. Nicotine was his oxygen, rolling papers his nutrition. And I doubted that even Carcer had been able to scrub him clean of a psychological dependance like that.
Finding him was as simple as monitoring the cigarette black market.
“Selling or buying?�
�� asked Pete as Homer entered his cell with me on his shoulders. Pete was known for the vast stores of contraband stored on the inside of his mattress, making cell block D an official center for prison commerce. Other merchants had sprang up throughout the prison, but none of them could compete with his rates, his variety, and his often violent business tactics.
For a boy of six years, it was quite the accomplishment.
“Selling,” I said, holding up a pack of cigarettes. They were Almerettos, the cheapest that could be found in the prison.
“Please,” said Pete, waving a hand, “don’t bother. I could roll my shit into cylinders and sell them for more than those. Probably be a better smoke, too. Go visit Mary at the end of the row, she deals with small exchanges. Maybe you'll walk away with a few cookie crumbs.”
“If you say so,” I said, as Homer slowly turned, “but I just keep them in an Almeretto case so they don’t get stolen. They’re Marlecks.”
“Marlecks?” That piqued his interest. Pete whipped his head back toward us. “Now hold on there, buddy. You showed me a mutt when you have a greyhound! Step in, step in. Where did you get them?”
“Around,” I said, not mentioning that the cigarettes were, in fact, Almerettos.
“Nice and shady. That’s how I like it! You’re young still, I could use someone like you around here. You let me know if you want a chance to earn some extra merch.”
We entered. Pete swung his legs off the edge of the mattress because they couldn’t reach the floor, and he pulled a list from his pocket.
“Let’s see,” he mumbled, consulting the list. “Asking price is eight cookies each, only one current buyer at the moment. That’s up thirty-three percent from last quarter. Finder’s fee is two cookies, so that leaves you with six.”
“Deal,” I said, and Homer fished out two cookies from his pocket.
“Cell block F, third cell on the right. Mike. You’ll smell him before you see him. Good thing those aren’t Almerettos too- the bastard hates them. He’d rather go through withdrawals than touch one.”
“Thanks,” I said, and Homer turned to go. “Also, I’m looking for scissors. What’s the price?”
“Hold on there, buddy. Scissors? You can’t just get those into a class 3 death facility.”
“I thought you were the best. Come on, Pete, I know you can get them. What’s the price?”
“Twenty-five cookies. And the best I can do are safety scissors.”
“Done. I want to know as soon as you have them. And here, an extra cookie for your silence.”
“Of course. Our conversation never happened. Confidentiality is key,” he said as we left. “But in all seriousness, I could use one like you. Just two years old and you’ve already saddled up a horse!”
Homer walked to cell block F, dodging inmates betting on games of Go Fish and the daily bug battle, which was supposed to be a wolf spider against ten fire ants. At Carcer, the guards let the prisoners walk freely in cleared areas throughout the day, only locking doors at night. Typically, the guards didn’t interact with the inmates’ lives at all, except to end them.
Pete was right. We smelled Mike before we reached his cell, and my height on Homer’s shoulders held me just above the fog of smoke. The fire alarms would have gone off long before, but their batteries had been neglected for years.
“This Mike?” I asked when we reached his cell and peered inside. I could see a silhouette on the mattress, but the rest was obscured by fog.
“Yeah, whaddaya want?” wheezed the voice. Even at his age, the cigarettes had already added forty years to his vocal chords.
“Well shit, I wasn’t looking for a Mike.”
“Then get the hell out.”
“I was looking for a Smokestack.”
The figure sat there, still, then put his cigarette out on the bed frame. Size four shoes stamped any remaining embers out, and Mike emerged from his cell, hands on his hips and coughing.
“Smokestack died,” he said after a moment of consideration, “four cycles ago.”
“Doesn’t look like it to me,” I said, gesturing to the cell.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked in return. “I know you?”
“Nah,” I answered. “Consider me a business partner—a friend.”
“I never did like businesses,” he answered.
“And that’s why I’m interested,” I said, smiling. “Is the man who caused the great recession of ‘42 in that body? The one who held the oil industry hostage when he stormed the refineries by force and made out with more money than they had earned in the past decade? The one who ran the entire prostitution industry for a decade? I think he is.”
“And so what if he is? What’s it to you?”
“I’d like an encore,” I said, “You had an outstanding first performance. I want a second.”
“I’m listening,” Smokestack took a lighter from his pocket and lit three cigarettes, handing one to both Homer and myself.
Chapter 7
From the state of Carcer, it would appear that the prison was in a financial crisis. Half the lightbulbs were continually burnt out, the water ran with less pressure than a squirt gun, and the meals consisted of whatever kid’s food marketing team had failed to sell the week before. Nothing was new. Nothing was in good, or even fair, condition.
But that was an illusion.
The prison earned millions.
Only the slightest amount trickled back to renovations, as the administrators didn’t care about the conditions. Inmates weren’t meant to live there, they were meant to die there. And if they could die cheaply, then that was for the best.
Carcer hadn’t always been a prison, however. It had actually once been a part of Alani, a resort for the rich on vacation. But when Alani had gone to war with Hemorran, its neighboring nation, the resorts had been leveled by bombs and the beaches soaked with blood. Hemorran took custody of the ruined island as a property, not a part of the nation, christened it a prison for its POWs, and eventually won the war with Alani. After the release of the POWs, Hemorran opened the Carcer to criminals from all nations, for a sizable fee, of course.
And they earned more from that tiny island than their citizens paid in taxes.
***
With the help of Smokestack, I identified four more members of my list. There was Antonio Perez—he had always been a hoarder, and it required us finding those who had the largest stack of cookies in the prison. He hoarded over sixty-two of them, over half of them moldy—but his greed hid that from his brain.
Of all the members on my list I had managed to find, Perez had been the only one to laugh it off.
"You're crazy, it'll never work. You probably just want my cookies," he had said.
"No, Perez. This is for real."
"Whatever, man. Get out of my cell."
As I suspected, Pete had been Tom Noles, and I returned to him with the proposition.
Then there were two more, Angel and Julian Hocksin, twin con men that had scammed their way into international politics. Until their arrest, not even his wife had known that Councillor Hocksin had a twin. As such, he’d always had an alibi when money, or people, went missing.
Lisa Watkins was the last I’d found on my list. There had been only two days left before she was released from the nursery, tottering to her new cell. And even then, it was just a hunch that proved lucky.
We’d been lovers in a past life, Lisa and I, before she killed me to collect on my life insurance. That took guts. I like that in a girl.
“Bye bye,” she had said, holding the pistol to my forehead as she straddled me, her audacity making her sexier than ever. “Don’t take it too hard, honey. I know you’ll find me again. You have a knack for finding trouble.”
And I had, simply because Lisa had a thing for the color blue. And the toddler I spied from on top of Homer’s back had somehow managed to find blue socks in a prison full of orange.
The remaining names on my list I had been unable to find. But t
hat was to be expected—sometimes you just have to know when to take your winnings and run.
The group met one day before the news broadcast, and I drew out the plans on an Etch A Sketch, holding it up for all of them to see.
“What if it doesn’t work?” asked Smokestack, drawing heavily on his cigarette.
“Then we lose nothing. Maybe earn ourselves a few more cycles, but hell, by that time our brains will already be mush.”
“And what’s to say we’ll meet up with you again when we get out?” asked Lisa, sucking her thumb.
“Listen here, if you want to be rich, you’ll find me. I broke into the prison to get you out for a reason—to be part of my team and swindle the world.”
Pete whistled, and clasped his hands behind his back.
“I always did like a good trade.”
Chapter 8
“Let’s go!” I shouted, holding onto Homer’s hair as he ran down the hallway. Pete, Smokestack, Lisa, and the twins (now non-identical, but twins did tend to reincarnate together) followed, each keeping pace the best they could. On the television, just moments before, the speaker had made an announcement we’d all been waiting for.
“It is the will of the council that Hemorran cede Carcer, which was taken in war seventy-three years ago, back to Alani, on account of the war being unjust and using weapons deemed inhumane by the accords. This law becomes active now, at eleven hundred hours.”
Our window had opened.
***
Technology is a bitch.
To me, the benefit of remembering my past lives is that I now have a living database of past experiences in my mind. If I need to ride a horse, I know how. My body might not like it, and I need to build the muscle, but I know the technique from ten years I spent in the cavalry in a prior life. I can blend with even the highest circles on table etiquette, from being born into a royal family two hundred years before—siphoning the money out of their bank accounts had been more than a pleasure. Swordplay has been a hobby of mine throughout at least twenty of my lifetimes, and there are few who can beat me in a duel.
Til Death Do Us Part Page 2