He shoved the pills into a pocket of his jumpsuit and zipped it shut.
"And what does this other button do?"
"Flashlight," Garotte said, "Give it a try."
A tap of the button triggered an impressively powerful, moonlight-white beam of light.
"Handy," the security lead said, handing it back, "Mind if I ask what you need the cane for?"
"Bad hip. Rock climbing, when I was young and stupid. I tell you, brother, we spend all of this time designing vehicles to get us to hard to reach places, then we go off and do damn fool things like rock climbing. I swear I don't know how we as a species make it out of our twenties. Regardless, usually I don't need it, but trust me when I say that one bad day is all it takes to convince you to start carrying it around, just in case. Since you folks have a little bit more gravity than you ought to, I figure today is gonna be one of those days."
The security guard gave a nod.
"You're clean. They may take that away from you if you'll be interviewing inmates."
"Naturally," Garotte said with a nod of his own.
The four men drifted out of the docking bay and down the claustrophobic corridor outside. A few twists and turns brought them to the waiting area for a shuttle, which looked like a slightly up-sized version of the Armistice. A few more handshakes and folksy colloquialisms were exchanged, and Garotte was loaded with one of the men onto the shuttle and taken to the surface. Gravity reared its ugly head, making his fit frame feel as though it was creeping toward the three hundred pound range by they time they landed.
"Oof. I don't know how you boys do it," Garotte proclaimed as he tried to straighten himself out upon landing.
"You get used to it," his escort replied, beeping open the doors and leading him into the arrival processing area.
"If the good lord is with me, I won't be here long enough to have to," he said, putting the cane to use and adopting a realistically stiff and unsteady walk.
Next came the gauntlet of checkpoints. He was walked through a sequence of increasingly sterile and bland hallways, past doors fortified with bars and fancy exotic plastics. Periodically he would be stopped and asked some variation of the same three questions: "Who are you? Why are you here? Do you know the rules?" Regardless of his answer, his credentials would be crosschecked, he would be interrogated, and he would be briefed on security policies. Finally he found himself at the office of the warden, a man named Christopher Menlo. Like most of the other people that Garotte had been dealing with since he'd landed, Menlo had a very distinctive look about him. The extra gravity had prompted the development of a considerable amount of flat, hard muscle, which on his already formidable frame produced an individual who seemed like he should be led out on chains while a smaller man beat a kettle drum. This appearance was in stark contrast to his disposition, which was extremely academic. He was dressed in a tweed suit with elbow patches, a vest underneath. His hair was close-cropped and thinning. The walls of the office were covered with diplomas and accreditation from assorted respectable institutions. On the desk were a few more pictures and a candy bowl filled with tiny mints. After reluctantly raising his arm to shake hands, and being rewarded with a handshake that refreshingly did not attempt to crush his hand to gravel, Garotte collapsed gratefully into a chair.
"Oh my lord, I do not do hi-g very well. Honestly, you would think the boys in charge would at least do something about the gravity in the administrative areas," he said.
"Some of the other prisons have compensators, but I'm glad we don't around here. If you've got a facility of inmates that have adapted to high gravity, best that the administration is on even terms," Menlo remarked, "Now, I realize that, if my staff has done its diligence, this will be at least the sixth time you've had to answer these questions, but I'm afraid we can't be too careful."
"Perfectly understood, Warden. This isn't my first trip through a Super-max. Do you mind if I take a handful of those?" he asked, pointing to the mints, "The ship they hooked me up with is missing a few of the usual amenities, and my teeth haven't seen a brush in... Well, in too long."
"Please. I can't stand the things."
Garotte scooped up a handful, tossed a few in his mouth, and dumped the rest into his shirt pocket.
"Full name?" Menlo asked.
"Dr. Kenneth Marcus Cisco. Kenny, if you like."
"Says here you've got a degree from MacCree University?"
"I do."
"That's where I did my criminal justice degree. Friedland still running things when you were there?"
"I didn't have him, they were still telling stories about him."
"Yeah. Yeah, they would. About him, they would. Now it says here you're looking to evaluate some of our inmates? Care to expand upon that."
"I'd have to see your security clearance, if you don't mind. They didn't get me the full personnel briefing before they gave me word I'd be coming here."
"Of course," Menlo said, bringing up his credentials on a wall screen.
Garotte gazed at them for a moment and nodded.
"Alright. The boys in the psych wing of R&D are looking for a test group for a new medication. Mood and behavior regulation. It is targeted at individuals with a very specific quirk in their psychological makeup. You've got an inmate that fits the profile exceedingly well."
"Jessica Winters?"
"That's the girl."
"And if your evaluation turns up what you're looking for, you'll be taking her with you?" Menlo said with a raised eyebrow, glancing over the certificates and permits that Garotte had managed to install during the journey.
"That's correct. We'd put her into suspended animation, or at least heavy sedation, and transfer to a testing facility."
Menlo studied the briefing for a few moments more.
"Your credentials check out, but I must say that this sort of thing usually takes months to clear."
"I suppose the science boys back at HQ have some pull with the right people. Either that or they've been working at it for months. They don't tell me that sort of thing. I'm just the man asking the questions."
After a few more moments of consideration, Menlo made a decision.
"Here's the rules. You'll be in interview room A. That's high security. Half-inch of transparent ceramic between you and the inmate. All communication will be done through intercom. It will be monitored and recorded. There will be two guards on either side of the glass, at all times, two more in the adjoining hallways. If my boys say something, you do it, fast. If I say anything, you do it, twice as fast."
Garotte nodded.
"You need anything before we begin?"
"Just a word or two with you if you don't mind," Garotte said, pulling out his slidepad, "What are your feelings about Miss Winters as an inmate?"
"In all honesty, I wish I had a hundred more just like her. Quiet, follows the rules. Keeps to herself. Only request was for an eReader and periodic access to the fiction catalogs."
"What subjects?"
"Heh. Paranormal Romance, as I recall."
"Really?" Garotte said with a smirk.
"Pretty much exclusively."
"Well, good to know. Whenever you're ready, we'll start with her."
The two men stood, Garotte with some reluctance, and made their way out into the hallway.
"Get me Inmate 38E-75, Jessica Winters. Interview room A," Menlo barked before turning back to Garotte, "Just follow this gentleman."
Garotte limped his way deeper into the complex while Menlo returned to his office. In the hall, a guard lingered with his partner. The older of the two, a droopy faced man with a badly scarred right hand and a piece of his right ear missing, watched with narrowed eyes. His badge read Johnson.
"That guy's going to talk to inmate Winters. That's what he said, right?" he said.
"Yeah. What of it?" said his partner Andrews, a younger and less dedicated member of the staff.
"Just wanted to be sure. Hey, you're on coms tonight, right?"
> "Yeah... I was supposed to start fifteen minutes ago," he grumbled.
"You want to switch shifts?"
"You kidding me? You are offering to sit in that freezing little shack for the next four hours?"
"I got nothing better to do."
"Deal, sucker," he said with a shake.
The pair separated, Johnson working his way to the radio room on the upper level of the complex. Since conduit ran from every antenna in the array to this tiny shack closet of a room, it tended to be a good thirty degrees colder than the rest of the facility, and emergency oxygen masks were kept on hand due to the elevated nitrogen levels in the air, a result of the lackluster pressure seals.
"You're relieved," Johnson said to the woman currently manning the cramped, knob and button-laden console, but it was hardly necessary. The woman at the controls was already on her feet, eager to get out of the veritable freezer.
She pulled off her headset, dropped it on the control panel, and marched out without so much as a nod. After donning the appropriate equipment and checking levels, Johnson carefully adjusted the security sweep interval and twisted one of the transmitters to an off-frequency, tapping out a quick coded message and attaching a few frames of security cam footage before restoring the previous settings. Due to the peculiarity of the frequency, most receivers filtered the short message out, interpreting it as crosstalk or static. One radio, however, received the message loud and clear. It belonged to a ship drifting at the outskirts of the system. The ship was a NXLRR-0025c, and no sooner had it received the message than ran it through a deep encryption algorithm and relayed it. The message bounced through various communication channels, sometimes randomly, and finally arrived at its destination.
#
"Commander! We've got a transmission from one of the surveillance squads!"
Commander Purcell looked up from her current task, which was the replacement of a leaking power cell in her sidearm, to the underling at her door.
"Put it on my display," she said, pulling her datapad from the wall.
After a few moments the surveillance footage of the disguised Garotte came up, with the message "This man may be attempting to relocate person of interest #2. All credentials appear legitimate." Purcell brought up the information she had been able to dig up on the prisoners her benefactor had indicated were of concern. None of the images matched the man in those transmitted by her field agent. She ran the frames through a matching algorithm that failed to find a match with a confidence of greater than 40%.
"Our intelligence suggests that there have been no direct inquiries regarding any of the prisoners we are currently watching for at least three months, correct?" she asked the underling.
"Yes."
"This isn't a coincidence then."
She considered her options. She could contact her benefactor, but getting a valid window would take time. There was a better source of knowledge at hand.
"Wake up Karter. Now. He is going to answer some questions," Purcell ordered.
By the time she made her way to Karter's cell, there were already medical personnel readying an injection. He was motionless on the floor, still sedated from the last time, tubes in his arm keeping him hydrated and nourished without the risk of waking him up. The cell was unlocked, and two medics accompanied by three armed guards administered the injection and slowly backed away, as though they were dealing with a wild animal. After a few seconds, Karter stirred, his struggling to sit up.
"Ma?" he said groggily, "Get some beans and rice going. I'm going to..." he began, until his eyes opened and he slowly remembered his current predicament. "Oh. This is still happening."
"Karter. I am going to ask you some questions. You will give me swift, direct, and honest answers."
"No."
"That was not a request, Karter."
"I don't care. You sedated me. I don't like that. If we're going to be doing business together, you can start by not sedating me."
"If you don't answer my questions, I will have my men put you under again."
"Oh, god. Are we going to go through this again!? Are you stuck in a loop or something?" he raved, rubbing his eyes, "You can't intimidate me into doing what you want me to do by threatening to do something that will prevent me from doing what you want me to do. 'Either do what I say or I'll make sure you can't do what I say!' It makes you sound like an idiot! And by the way, I really have to take a leak."
"Are you going to answer my questions?"
"Are you going to sedate me again?"
"... If you answer my questions to my satisfaction, then I will not have you sedated again."
"There you go. That's positive reinforcement. I respond well to that. Write that down."
"The war criminals you used to work with," she growled, "Would they try to mount a rescue?"
"They are all locked up, so no."
"One of them escaped recently. It is believed that he had help."
"Which one escaped?"
"Phillip Winchester."
"Heh. No he didn't."
"It is all over the news."
"Oh, I don't doubt that he escaped, but he isn't Phillip Winchester. That's an alias. I can't believe that he made it all the way into a prison without them figuring that out. You're talking about the British guy."
"What is his real name?"
"Hell if I know. I just called him the British guy. His name wasn't what I was interested in."
"What were you interested in?"
"Well, he asked if I could create a concealable weapon that could propel a watermelon seed to lethal velocities. That was pretty interesting."
"Would he mount a rescue attempt?"
"Not on his own, but he'd probably go along with the suggestion."
"Is this him?" she asked, holding up the datapad with the transmitted image.
Karter squinted at it.
"It doesn't look like him, which means it probably is. That was one of his stunts."
"He may be attempting to liberate a woman by the name of Jessica Winters."
"Don't know that name, either. It was always codenames with that crew."
Purcell brought up the file image she had of Winters.
"Oh, yeah. That's our heavy weapons guy."
"This is a woman."
"You handle ordinance like she does and you officially count as a guy in my book."
"Would he attempt to free her?"
"If he wanted to blow some stuff up, then yes, he would free her. And he wouldn't attempt to, he would do it. That limy bastard had thousands of back doors installed into hundreds of agencies even before he started working with me. You give him a data connection and a half an hour and he could convince you he was your own father for at least a little while."
"You are certain that this man will free this woman, and that they would attempt to retrieve you?"
"If the two of them are in the same place at the same time then chances are they're already halfway through some master plan."
Purcell considered his words. "Thank you, Karter. You have been very helpful."
With that she turned to her medics.
"Put him back under," she said.
"Oh. Oh, so that's how it's going to be, is it?" Karter said in irritation.
"Yes, Dee. You have continually illustrated that you cannot be trusted. It is clear that the only way to work with you is to adopt the same behavior."
"That's all well and good, but you do realize that you can't just keep me sedated."
"I assure you. I can."
"We'll see... and one of your guys is going to have to clean up because there is no way I'm going to be able to hold-"
The guards restrained Karter long enough for the injector to be pushed to his neck and, after a brief struggle, he was unconscious again.
"Get a message to our surveillance team and the inside operative," Purcell ordered Marx, who was shadowing her, as always, "If that man leaves the planet alone, destroy his ship as soon as it leaves sensor range
. If he even appears to be leaving with Jennifer Winters, kill them both, by any means necessary, even if it means blowing our cover. In a few days, cover won't be a problem anymore."
"Yes, Commander."
Chapter 15
Garotte was seated in a room somewhat reminiscent of the standard interrogation room made famous by so many police dramas. There was cheap LED lighting arranged into faux-florescent ceiling fixtures, because at some point it had been decided that the long, dangling bars of light were ideal for government buildings. The room was divided into two matching halves by a wall. The upper half of the wall was thick, high-durability glass. The bottom was the same sturdy metallic sheeting that made up the rest of the prison's structure. A counter top ran the length of the wall just below the glass, and in the center of the window was a small speaker grill, giving the overall effect that he was visiting some sort of deluxe teller window at a very luxurious bank. A pair of men were in the room with him, dressed like police officers in riot gear, complete with high impact vest and face shield. He pulled the single metal chair up to the counter, took a seat, and turned to one of the guards.
"Do you need to take this?" he asked, holding out the cane.
"Shouldn't be necessary. The glass will be sufficient to prevent the inmate from attempting to utilize it," he replied.
"Good to hear it," Garotte said with a nod.
The door on the other side of the glass was opened, and in was led the prisoner, hefty looking restraints holding her wrists behind her back. Jessica Winters was far from the first person one would picture when envisioning an inmate of a super-max facility. She was a short-ish woman drifting into her mid-thirties. Her face was round and dimpled, with a button nose and thin arching eyebrows over her green eyes. The rest of her body was a match, with round, soft curves despite a lengthy stay on the high gravity world. There were a few more pounds on her than the media indicated was appropriate for models and actresses, but she wore them well and enjoyed a natural fullness to her form that was no less attractive. She was dressed in a dark blue prison-issue jumpsuit that wasn't quite designed with someone as generously proportioned as her in mind, leaving the fabric around the chest and hips straining just a bit to contain her figure. Her blonde hair was cut short, but there was still enough of it to see that it was naturally curly. All things considered, it was difficult to picture her breaking military law. Baking cookies after soccer games and inspiring the wrong sorts of thoughts in the neighborhood boys, maybe, but not the sort of things that gets one placed in super-max.
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