The Prisoner

by Carlos J. Cortes

  Also by Carlos J. Cortes

  Perfect Circle

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  To Shawna

  acknowledgments

  Most books, I have discovered, are collaborative efforts, drawing on the wisdom of a host of clever people, and this novel is no exception. I would like to thank:

  S. J. Thomas for reading the arcane of my early draft and straightening it with her editorial guidance, comments, and endless revisions that only a talented writer can suggest. That her belief and insight never flagged is beyond me. Thank you for being there.

  Everyone at Spectra. Anne Groell, besides being a gran bruja, proved herself an editor worthy of her towering reputation. Kathy Lord, my copy editor, has the patience of a saint and the eyes of an eagle. Stacks of their notes that I pile on my desk silently remind me what a lucky writer I am.

  Kristin Lindstrom for her support and frequent scolds. She’s simply the best agent a writer can hope for.

  Perry Lindstrom for guiding me through the maze of the American government and sharing Rioja, cheese, friendship, and dirty jokes.

  Luis Cano for his computer savvy and his encyclopedic knowledge of hacking.

  Jim Giammatteo, scientist-head hunter extraordinaire and fellow writer, for his advice.

  Luis José Jacobo for his hospitality and priceless gossip on issues relating to the Dominican Republic.

  I’m especially indebted to the fearless fraternity of urban explorers on three continents, and those who read the sewer chapters to offer priceless insights, in particular:

  Max Action, from Actionsquad, in Minneapolis. I not only picked his brain for countless details about sewer networks but also shamelessly stole a word he coined: “snotsicles.” Thank you, Max.

  Steve Duncan from Undercity for his precious knowledge of rats, roaches, and the atmosphere of deep sewers.

  Greg Luzteka from Silentuk for sharing the finer aspects of brickwork.

  Erik Norris, aka Umbra, from The Vanishing Point for pointing out the right terminology and countless other details.

  My guides to the Barcelona, Rome, and Paris sewers: Jordi Salas, Enric Bonet, and Carlos Parra.

  My everlasting gratitude to the Lord of the Moscow sewers and the rest of the Russian gang who need to remain anonymous.

  author’s note

  The Prisoner is a work of fiction, but the science underlying human hibernation exists.

  Teams of scientists, both in the United States and in Europe, are at present actively engaged in human hibernation research.

  Just like the discovery of fireworks led inevitably to the cannon, human hibernation, if conquered, will most likely change the world as we know it.

  day one

  Inferno, Canto III: 7–9

  Before me nothing but eternal things were made,

  and I endure eternally.

  Abandon every hope, who enter here.

  The Divine Comedy, DANTE ALIGHIERI

  chapter 1

  17:02

  “Remain calm and follow the instructions.”

  Laurel Cole sniffed. Calm? How can anyone about to die remain calm?

  The truck’s enclosure had a subtle smell ingrained in its polished steel surfaces and expanded metal grilles—a smell no amount of steam and disinfectant could remove. It was the odor of fear, of sweat tinged with a whiff of feces and vomit.

  There was a shudder, a hollow thud, and the hiss of hydraulic bolts locking; the rear of the truck had coupled against the building. Overhead, the speaker continued its monotonous mantra. “Remain calm.”

  Laurel blinked. Although it was outside her field of vision, she knew every step to dock the vehicle against the admissions entrance of the prison complex. Shepherd had explained the procedure more than once and with the matter-of-fact tone of firsthand experience.

  Do people scream? In retrospect, it had been a foolish question, but Laurel had asked her trainer—the man she knew only as “Shepherd”—anyway. He didn’t know but offered a warning instead: Whoever opens his or her mouth before they’re told to, or departs from instructions in any way, risks another year.

  Another year? In for a penny—No. Laurel checked the thought. Once you’re dead, it shouldn’t matter for how long: elastic time, darkness, and nothingness. But it did. How long you were dead was important, and the thought of an extra minute would be enough to drive anyone insane.

  Will I dream? Another stupid question. She pushed the tips of her fingers through the wire mesh fronting her cage and narrowed her eyes as a panel behind the truck inched upward, blinding light pouring through the widening gap at its base.

  “Stand away from the doors.”

  Laurel disentangled her fingers and pressed her back against the side of the cage. It wasn’t a question of stepping back but simply leaning. Her enclosure, two feet wide and eighteen inches deep, didn’t have enough space for a step. Twenty-four enclosures to a truck. Twenty-four new inmates on their way to hell.

  A blue-white glare lit the truck’s interior. Tiny stars shone on the wire grille, perhaps a few specks of dust. The light must be UV heavy. We don’t want germs, do we? In the pen across from her own, Laurel peered at a bright orange shape. It was an old man, his shaven head glistening under the glare. Cold sweat. His mouth opened and closed like a goldfish in a bowl. Or, better still, like the face in Munch’s The Scream.

  A snap, and the door to her enclosure swung open smoothly on its hinges.

  “Five-one-five-eight-five-three-one-six, exit your compartment. Remain calm.”

  How thoughtful. Ladies first. After standing in the same spot for several hours, the metal floor outside her pen felt cold. No shoes? Nerves had probably triggered her questions, since she already understood the horror, but Shepherd had answered anyway: No. No shoes. What for?

  “Walk out of the truck and into the adjoining room.”

  Laurel stepped forward, darting a glance back at the pens, each with an orange outline inside—like gaily wrapped mummies, tucked into as many catacomb niches. “Remain calm. Stand inside the circle at the center of the room.”

  Behind her, she heard the truck’s rear panel slide back down, its bolts ramming home. No witnesses, nothing to give the other twenty-three prisoners a clue.

  “Undress and drop your clothes inside the circle.”

  She pulled a T-shirt over her head, tore at the strip holding the trousers around her waist, and stepped out of the cloth as it pooled around her feet. Cold. She maneuvered both feet over the garments. No underwear. No need. Warmth seeped through her soles. Her warmth, soon to wane.

  The room, a perfect cube perhaps ten feet by ten feet, was featureless, with white polymer walls, floor, and ceiling. No openings, no anything. It was empty but for a gray circle and a terrified, naked woman standing on orange clothes. She didn’t notice when the wall facing her started to rise. The continuous floor and lack of features played tricks with her perception.

  “Advance into the next room.”

  Although it was difficult to estimate time—there was no urgency to the process—the wretches in the truck would get a glimpse of eternity. Laurel was sure that, year or no year, some would scream. Perhaps that was the designer’s idea. She stepped forward. The building probably consisted of blocks, every room a carbon copy of the previous one. No, wrong cliché. No carbon here; a snow copy.

  Another circle.

  “Walk to the center of the room and stand inside the circle.”

  The wall behind her must have been sliding closed, as Laurel sensed more than felt movement. She glanced at the ceiling and an approaching
circular gap. The circle where she stood rose, becoming a platform.

  “Remain calm. Don’t move.”

  No. We wouldn’t want me to fall, would we? I might hurt myself. When her shoulders cleared the space separating the levels, Laurel blinked. She feasted her gaze on the left-hand wall. In its center, there was a small square niche, large enough to stand a vase with a bunch of wildflowers, though there was nothing there now. On the floor, right under the niche, there was a gray semicircle. Now what? Remain calm. Walk to the semicir—

  “Remain calm. Step over to the opening on the left wall and keep inside the gray area.”

  The programmer must have felt verbose.

  At the base of the niche were two trays with slimy green things inside. She leaned forward a fraction. Not trays, but slight hollows. Laurel knew what came next, and the thought filled her with dread.

  “To your right are earplugs. Hold one by the larger spherical end and insert the pointed end into your left ear.”

  The plug felt like a blob of jelly, like the candy her mother used to make. Laurel tried to push her auburn mane out of the way and froze when her hand encountered air. There was not a hair left on her body. The blob fell to the floor and jiggled a little before coming to rest. The training had been one thing, but the reality was far more horrifying.

  “Remain calm.” A click, then a different voice, this time female and with a warm Hispanic lilt. “Pick it up and try again, five-one-five-eight-five-three-one-six. No punishment for the accident. The floor is sterile.”

  Laurel recovered the plug. The programmer hadn’t recorded instructions for this eventuality. It could be her imagination, but the new voice had a whiff of humanity, assuming the fallibility of fumbling fingers. After pushing both plugs into her ears, she waited until the voice sounded inside her head. It had switched to the implant in her neck.

  “Continue with the nose plugs. Hold the spherical end and insert the pointed end into your left nostril. Breathe deeply.”

  She held the nose plug, also green but much softer than the earpieces and long, at least three inches. It looked like a fat worm with a bloated ass. When Laurel pushed the tip into her nose, the slimy object slipped from her fingers and rammed deep into her, almost of its own accord. Then it fizzed and expanded, leaving a ball-shaped blob resting on her upper lip. She jerked her head back, panic gripping her muscles in an age-old terror. I won’t be able to breathe!

  “Remain calm. Repeat with your right nostril.”

  Calm. Calm. Calm! Her legs trembled, but she contracted her calves and bunched her toes. Almost over. Almost. With ears and nose plugged, the cold jelly feeling predictably alien, she stood motionless before the empty niche and tried to control her shortening gasps. Her tongue dried to a barky texture, like a piece of beached driftwood.

  “Step into the next room.”

  Laurel did a quick double take. The wall to her right had vanished and now opened into another room, its center occupied by a sinuous form.

  “Lie down on the bed.”

  Bed? Like an abstract white sculpture, the form grew seamlessly from the floor—a shape that reminded her of a sofa dreamed by a stoned avant-garde designer: a formless shiny mass dipping in its center. Laurel sat down and swung her legs over. She adjusted her anatomy to the shape, her shaking legs hampering her movements.

  “Remain calm.”

  For once, the voice made sense.

  Gradually, the bed softened. Like an enormous amoeba, the shape absorbed her body. Laurel felt a powerful suction under her buttocks as the sculpture molded to her back and limbs.

  She scrunched her eyes, terrified of what she knew would follow. The bed continued to move, adjusting, rearranging, softening and hardening in places, molding to her anatomy, and robbing it of any capacity to move. Her legs flexed at her knees and rose, her body adjusting to a child-delivery position. Then her head started to sink. She opened her eyes and tried to straighten out, but her head seemed caught in a vise.

  Her head continued to fall. Now her toes must be pointing to the ceiling, and her head arched back almost to her spine, her throat stretched.

  “Remain calm.”

  Laurel rotated her eyes frantically. They were the only things she could move besides her gaping mouth, which drew in short gasps. The tips of her nose plugs tickled the back of her throat. Most would scream at this point, definitely, or at least whimper, or empty their bowels.

  She detected movement on the fringe of her vision. A thick phallus-shaped green mass neared her face. She saw its tip approach her eyes and pause before the blobs projecting from her nose. This was it: the real thing, the truth. Somewhere deep in her mind, a voice screamed.

  “Remain calm.”

  Then the hoselike object rammed past her lips and slithered down her throat, sizzling, expanding, digging deep into her.

  Then the lights went out, or she passed out, or died, and Laurel didn’t care anymore.

  chapter 2

  17:08

  Impressive. His fears didn’t melt away—he was risking his neck—but the tension twisting Lukas Hurley’s gut into a painful knot relaxed a notch. He twiddled a joystick and zoomed a pin camera for a closer look at the woman’s expression. Yes, there was horror in the disfigured face, her mouth open wide to accept the long green cylinder into her throat. Horror, revulsion, and fear, but she’d done a good job of mostly masking all three. Donald Duck, the woman’s boss, had selected his people well. Lukas thought the moniker he’d chosen apt. His only contact had been a quacking voice on a phone.

  Money could be a powerful enticement and Donald Duck had paid him a truckload already, with a second installment due before the end of the day. The problem was, if the Department of Homeland Security caught him, Lukas could look forward to a similar truncheon down his throat on his way to a tank. His hands felt clammy. He rubbed his palms over the front of his lab whites, then reached down to a drawer and removed three plastic envelopes. He rested them on top of a wastepaper basket he’d positioned to one side under his desk.

  Flat on his work surface, a tablet PC displayed an inmate’s restricted file of a type he’d never seen before. Prisoners bound for hibernation in the central area of the tanks arrived at his station without personal records or names, only numbers—long numbers and a bar code. Lukas peered at a holograph of a serious-looking bald woman with a row of numbers superimposed on her chest. Laurel Cole, 26, 5’3”. Caucasian. Lawyer. 913. Center.

  No term of sentence—not that Lukas expected to see one. Center inmates didn’t merit hope. Yet he knew the courts had sentenced the woman and her colleagues to only a two-year stretch. Someone had doctored their files with the Center tag. Someone from Donald Duck’s team, and that spelled clout.

  The operators outside the fishbowl, as workers called his office, could follow inmates past the intubation room all the way to the hibernation tanks. But not all the inmates. Those earmarked with only a number and a bar code faded from their screens after intubation. There was a rumor that the inmates sent to occupy the center spaces in the tanks were test subjects, willing guinea pigs to improve hibernation technology in exchange for a lump sum paid to their families. But Hypnos, the corporation running the hibernation penal installations, had never confirmed that, and Lukas didn’t believe a word of it anyway. He’d never seen any testing involving center inmates, only oblivion. Supervisors like him were the only ones with clearance to escort these rare souls on their voyage—a task made more palatable by a modest bonus each time they donned the cloak of eternal ferryman. Lukas, a modern-day Charon with a Christian evangelist’s name—a supreme paradox.

  During hibernation, inmates were suspended in concentric rows inside tanks measuring thirty feet square and nine deep. A cross-shaped, six-foot-wide empty area bisected each tank to simplify maneuvering the bodies in and out of their allotted positions and up to the maintenance labs above.

  When engineers at the Department of Homeland Security had studied the layouts, they complained
about the wasteful arrangement. Can’t we pack inmates closer? Why the empty corridors and centers? Eventually they had seen the sense in the corridors, because they were necessary for operation, but insisted Hypnos find a use for the center of the space and increase the tank capacity by four, from 136 to 140 inmates. Hypnos Inc. obliged and produced a design to populate the central areas. Yet the blueprints presented to Congress were the original ones: 136 inmates to a tank and an empty middle. An empty space that didn’t show up in any statistic and didn’t appear occupied in any of the scant published diagrams available to the public. And such spaces were always deserted in the tanks the DHS inspectors were allowed to see. Congress approved the untouched arrangement—a clear sign of someone’s powerful and anonymous footwork. Lukas suspected the unknown someone or someones used the extra room to store enemies.

  In his ten years at the company, he’d accompanied a dozen wretches into areas that didn’t exist in the station’s formal layout or its architectural drawings. It was a clever ploy. Where to hide a tree? In the woods, of course. Where to hide a body? In a tank full of them. Yes, the C area looked innocent enough, but it was a limbo for anonymous souls.

  Lukas pecked at his tablet PC and the holograph grew. Laurel. The Spanish name of a splendid Mediterranean shrub: Laurus nobilis, bay. He tasted the name of the woman in the photograph, pondering that Romans used bay’s aromatic leaves to make triumphal crowns for victors. Laurel—what an encouraging name. He’d risked storing the files Donald Duck had supplied on his tablet to learn the faces and names he otherwise would have never known.

  The first time he had heard the quacking voice on his cell phone—obviously filtered through a distorting circuit—Lukas thought someone was having fun and severed the call. That was before two men pushed him into the back of a car as he was leaving for work, drove him to an abandoned warehouse, and made him stand before a quacking speaker. He’d never met the voice’s owner, but it belonged to a persuasive man. A few days after his abduction, Lukas fielded a call from Cuzco, Peru, to learn from his awed bank manager that Donald Duck was not only persuasive but also true to his word.