by Thomas Green
No matter how this played out, I owed Sora more than I liked.
The door slid open and Hades entered. He wore his darkness-made helmet and immediately stopped to look at the bodies.
My heart nearly stopped beating.
“Are you both unharmed?” he asked, voice calm.
I nodded all my muscles clenched. Leaving my post was an offense punishable by being cast into the Lower Prison. And I had no excuse.
Hades’s shadow stretched, flooding the ground. It wreathed the legs of the corpses and started dragging them from the room. “I will need to borrow you, Doctor. The floor is secured, and the escape attempt has been halted.”
I slowly exhaled with relief. “May I leave my wife the rifle, just in case?”
Hades flashed a smile. “Of course.”
I removed the rifle’s strap from my shoulder and handed Jasika the weapon. She took it without blinking, checked the magazine, put the strap over her shoulder and braced the butt against her shoulder. We exchanged nods and I rose, asking, “What can I do for you?”
Hades finished moving the bodies out of the room. “Come.”
With a heavy heart, I gave Jasika one more glance and followed him into the hallway. “Do we know what happened?”
“Roughly.” Hades’ jaw clenched. “Before we reach the meeting, I need to ask you. Have you noticed anything suspicious about our Japanese friend?”
Conflicting interests clashed within my mind. I arched an eyebrow. “How come?”
“Lucas’s escape plan revolved around using a stick welder to seal the doors. The same welder Sora’s friend had me bring in to help repair the water pipelines Lucas apparently broke earlier. I do not believe in such coincidences.”
And Sora was the first person to arrive to the originally broken pipes. Did he break them in the first place to initiate this whole escape plan sequence? Possibly. Still, I owed Sora for tipping me off to go help Jasika. Also, his threat of him killing her wasn’t something I could take lightly, so betraying Sora was out of the question. “I haven’t noticed anything suspicious.”
“Me neither and that troubles me.” Hades sighed. “He also happened to be the first person to realize they would be escaping through the Upper Prison. We could have easily wasted another half an hour pacifying the Lower Prison if he didn’t immediately convince me it was pointless and that we needed to secure the upper levels.”
So, I wasn’t the only one Sora tipped off. After I ran back, he must have gone to Hades and told him the same story. A bitter smile played on my lips. This matched what Sora told me. He may have enabled Lucas’s escape attempts only so he would thwart them himself, which he did, and thus improved his rank. Him manufacturing a crisis so he would be the hero who ended it would make sense. Not to mention his apparent hatred for Lucas, who was not going to get off easily. “I still, however, believe Lucas has an insider in the Upper Prison.”
Hades stopped walking and turned to me. “What makes you say that?”
“When I went to watch some security tapes, there were irregularities in the recordings,” I said, wearing my professional smile. “Plus, Lucas’s plan always hits our defense’s weak points which I do not think is a coincidence either.”
Hades’s lips curled up. “I agree. Your next task is to find this infiltrator, Doctor.”
“As you wish.” I didn’t feel up to the task, but that shifted the focus from me leaving my station during the last escape. Keeping Jasika safe was a priority that eclipsed everything else.
We continued in silence and soon reached a meeting room where the civil staff, the heads of maintenance, security, facility management and head physician, already awaited. Sora sat by the table his expression grim. On a chair by the far wall sat Mina, Lucielle’s right hand. Beneath her feet lay Lucas, unconscious and tied up.
Hades took his seat and I the one next to him. If only my seat was further from Mina. That woman gave me the creeps. Every time I was close to her, all my self-preservation senses screamed I had to run. This time was no different and I had to focus to keep my thinking steady.
“Give me the damage report,” Hades commanded.
The head of maintenance cleared his throat. “We’ve sustained severe damage to the control rooms. Our communication systems are in shambles, the farming support system is about to collapse, door controls are running on the last backup location, and the power plant is inoperable, albeit functioning… for now.”
Farming support system? I narrowed my eyes. While it would make sense for Tul Sar Naar to be built fully self-sustainable, I never quite imagined they could grow plants in here. Then again, the aether liquefaction system was extremely wasteful, which left a lot of energy to utilize. The reason Tul Sar Naar was built as a flying island was, among other reasons, that the flying mechanism was an efficient way to consume the aether impossible to process. There were likely more systems like that in place.
“What of the critical system?” Hades asked.
“The ventilation and energy management are untouched while the water management is how it was before. The power plant’s controls are the only damage the vital systems sustained,” the maintenance chief replied.
Hades nodded and turned to the head of security. “What’s the prisoner status?”
Boris replied instantly. “The prisoners are secured in the Male Ward. We are still counting the causalities.”
“We’ve lost thirty-eight prisoners,” Sora said. “Twenty-eight males and ten females, all killed during their escape attempt. No demigods or other high-extraction-value prisoners are among the dead.”
The chief of security glowered at him, but that was all he could do. That Sora was the more capable man for the job was beyond obvious to everyone. Not to Boris’ shame though since no one ever expected him to be able to compete with a divine-powered senior agent of Japan’s top security agency.
“As for the physical security,” Sora continued, “I will establish barricades at the breached defense points and adjust the guard schedule, with your permission.”
“Before that…” Hades appraised him with a long stare. “Lucifer’s escape plan used a welding machine brought in upon your friend’s request. An awful coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
“Not a coincidence.” Sora smiled while the rest of us stared at him in disbelief. “Lucas’s escape plan isn’t really a plan and not truly about an escape.”
Awkward silence took over the air.
“Care to elaborate?” Hades asked.
“Lucas is running a domino-style destruction scheme. That means he creates a disruption to the established routine and then uses whatever reaction have to create the next disruption. His aim is not to escape, but to cripple the facility and then escape from whatever new place he would be transferred to.”
How I wished I had a power to tell if someone was lying. What Sora said sounded plausible and would explain pretty much everything. Yet this on-the-fly improvisation approach didn’t fit what I knew of Lucas. There would also be no explanation for the mystery of wooden boxes and the blonde girl that I saw on the cameras record but couldn’t find in person. But I had no counterargument or motivation to delve into this topic. Sora made his threats far too clear.
Nobody else had one either.
With a frown, Hades nodded. “How does one counter such strategy?”
“Killing the perpetrator is the easiest option,” Sora said.
“Not happening,” Mina snapped. I jumped in my skin despite being well aware she sat behind me. “Luci needs him undamaged.”
Sora sighed. “The second option is to stow the perpetrator away until a new routine is established.”
“Sounds better,” Mina said. “One month in extraction should suffice.”
“As a medical professional, it is my duty to remark that such approach would be highly damaging to his psyche,” I said.
Mina dismissed my comment by waving her hand. “He’ll be fine.”
“We will do that then,” Ha
des said. “Sora establish the new routine. Amarendra, you know your tasks. You two may leave.”
Sora and I rose, and we left the room.
“Your tasks?” Sora asked the moment the door closed behind us.
What was I supposed to tell him? To avoid the question would be extremely suspicious. But I also couldn’t tell him the truth since he was my prime suspect. “The prisoner corpses may cause an infection,” I said. “I need to stop that from happening.”
“Well, good luck.” Sora smiled and walked away.
I watched him stroll through the corridor. My inability to read the man was becoming an ever-increasing problem.
I tore my mind away from him and refocused on the issue at hand. How would I find Lucas’s insider?
I sat in the treatment room. While I had managed to clear most of the mess, the place was still far from arranged. Lucas’s crew stole the welding machine from here and threw around the other supplies to cover their tracks. I couldn’t believe such a strategy worked.
Practicing shortened my wait. I would not risk Jasika coming here, so I now worked alone. I dearly missed her company and silently prayed she and our child would both remain healthy. And so, I turned my mind to other matters. Vishnu’s power flowed through me and I was starting to figure out what its capabilities were.
After some playing around, I found a way to stretch my power outside of myself. There, I could fill space and noticed my aether automatically mirrored the air’s natural density. I lowered the density and objects in the area floated into the air, as if their gravity decreased. Okay, my aether wasn’t mirroring the air’s density, but the gravitational fields. When I increased the density, they fell with a loud hit. A set of experiments confirmed my idea. I could influence gravity. Begrudgingly, I had to admit people calling me a higher god, especially Jasika, may have had a point. Because this was not a power a mortal could dream of.
The door slid open and two guards brought in the man I requested them to. Loki was pale, covered in sweat, and his eyes darted around. To use my treatment room for an interrogation was nonstandard, but men tended to be nervous when visiting a doctor.
I motioned to the chair I placed five feet away from mine. “Please, take a seat.”
Loki did, trembling.
His nervousness almost brought a smile to my face. Lucas had two known accomplices, Loki and Wukong. But the monkey king was a former special force operative, so interrogating him would be a waste of time. I motioned the guards away. “Leave us.”
Loki tensed as the door closed behind them.
“Tell me, Mr. Svensson,” I said, my tone calm and my gaze sharp. “What is it like to work with Lucifer?” I used his real surname in contrast with Lucas’s divine soul on purpose, hoping to further rattle him.
He gulped. “I’m not working with him.”
“Oh, please.” I waved with my hand as if dismissing the answer. “Everyone knows you two have been cell mates for months.”
“He never… told me anything,” Loki stuttered.
I took no pleasure in this cruel dance, but I had a purpose to accomplish. “I will be straightforward, Mr. Svensson. I am searching for whatever insider Lucas has in the Upper Prison”
“I know nothing about that,” he said, but kept stuttering. He knew, obviously. Unlike Sora, this man I could read.
“You see, we have this tale in India. A poor woman bathed in the river and when done, she found a venomous snake in her pot. Hoping it would kill her and end her misery, she brought the viper home. Dismayed upon the next morning, she opened the pot and found a precious jewel lying inside instead of the snake. She sold the jewel to the king, ending her poverty. The king placed the jewel into a casket, which he brought to the queen. Yet inside the casket, they found a baby they both desired and thus brought up as their son.” I took a swift break, measuring Loki. “You have trusted a snake, hoping he would end your misery. Now, the information of him turned into a jewel. But the jewel won’t end your poverty unless you sell it.”
He nodded with a grim smile. After a long pause, he spoke softly. “Suppose I could help. Would that get me into the Upper Prison?”
“Should a man from the Upper Prison be convicted of betraying Hades, you would indeed fill in the freed spot.” I hadn’t arranged this with Hades, but I doubted he would mind. Plus, if I gave Loki and evasive answer, he would close up and stop talking.
“I’ve heard one name discussed between Lucas and Wukong…” Loki sighed. “Zeus.”
With a suspect, I could ask around. And the natural spot was the camera control room. After all, this was where I stumbled upon the deleted recordings. In the Upper Prison’s main hall, I used the coffee machine to fill two cups.
As the device worked, I gazed at the statue Apollo and his team were building. The apology statue for Lucielle was starting to take shape. The general design was a super-sized statue of Lucielle, displaying her as a golden goddess with wings. I had to give Apollo credit because even at the half-made stage, the statue was already breath-taking. The Greek God of Art knew what he was doing. Not to mention his three assistants were also art-oriented deities.
While we could not harm Lucas, at least for now, Hades figured an opportunity could arrive later when Mina would leave. And if that didn’t pan out, he had already purchased the materials so the cost was spent and at worst, he could use the statue as a gift to obtain general leniency from Lucielle. Given the current events, he would need that sooner rather than later.
The machine finished, so I grabbed the two cups of coffee and headed to the camera monitoring room.
The man watching the monitors was tired as ever, working twelve-hour shifts day after day with no weekends. Ever since the last escape attempt, Hades deemed it too risky to have the camera feed unwatched even during the time when prisoners slept. But he had no extra staff to man them.
I sat down next to the man and placed two cups on the table. “I’ve brought you coffee.”
“Thanks.” He sported a smile and took the cup. “I suppose you’ll want something in return.”
“So would the fates have it.” I returned the smile. “Did Zeus ever come here to view security records?”
“No.” He sipped the coffee but then paused. “But I may have seen him exit from here when I was off-duty once.”
Interesting. “Who had the duty that day?”
“Greg.” The man’s face slackened. “But he died in the last escape attempt.”
“I am sorry for your loss,” I said with a perfectly trained expression. As the director of an oncology clinic, I had to say this line more often than I had liked. “Could you recall when it was?”
“It was about three weeks ago.” He frowned. “I don’t remember the precise day, but there should be a recording.” He motioned above himself where a small camera watched the room.
After a few more exchanged lines, I sat by one monitor and watched the recordings. The maximum replay speed was times sixteen, but I couldn’t follow the picture on more than times eight. This was going to take a while. The camera was positioned above the door, watching the operator’s back and seeing what they displayed on their screens.
Four hours of watching later, I saw a man with short, curly, blond hair enter. That matched Zeus’s haircut, so I tensed. He exchanged a few lines with the man who then served as the operator. Zeus sat down and watched something on a monitor. I couldn’t see what because he shielded it with his body. Soon, the operator walked out the door.
Zeus started moving fast, clicking on the board, images flicking on the screens. Even on times one speed, I couldn’t see what all he was doing. He was fast, certain in every movement, as if he had done this a hundred times.
He finished before the operator returned. A while later, Zeus exchanged a few lines with the operator, rose, and left. But he didn’t turn to walk to the door. Instead, he walked backward to ensure the camera didn’t see his face.
I frowned. “Does the prison use facial recognition softwa
re?”
The operator nodded. “It’s the only high-tech feature we have.”
Not once during this time did Zeus reveal his face to the camera. Was that intentional not to be found by facial recognition software or was someone impersonating him using a wig?
I thanked the operator and left to see Hades.
Sora and I flanked Hades as he knocked on Zeus’s door. When I told Hades of the possibility, he took the initiative and led us here immediately. Zeus has lived here for almost two years, arriving with the first batch of revived and captured demigods. He and Hades were close, like brothers, which was who their divine predecessors once were.
“Who’s there?” Zeus asked from the inside.
“Me,” Hades said, voice cold.
The door slid open and Zeus stood on the other side. He wore cotton pants, sandals, and no shirt. His form matched the Greek statues, his muscles perfectly sculpted. He had blond, curly hair, a broad smile and piercing blue eyes. “What is it, Brother?”
“Step aside,” Hades commanded. “We need to search your chambers.”
He shrugged, made space, and motioned inside. “It’d be good not to wake up the girls.”
Hades entered and remained by the door, nodding at me and Sora. “Do what you need to do.”
With a tightened chest, I entered. On a large bed fashioned into clouds lay three naked girls, all sleeping soundly. If my memory served me well, I recognized there a werewolf, a witch, and a lesser, Nordic Goddess. Zeus sure lived up to his ancestor’s reputation. Otherwise, wardrobes rimmed the walls, the room featured a wide table and contained a glorious bathtub. Everything was fashioned white, often decorated with gold.
I gave Hades an awkward smile. “There is no way we wouldn’t wake them up.”
Hades waved with his hand. Darkness spread from his palm and wrapped the girls’ heads. “They will keep sleeping soundly.”
That left me with the problem of never before searching a room. As I hesitated, Sora advanced. “I’ll take the left half.”
I needed to thank him later. While I walked to the right side of the chamber, I watched Sora’s movements. Nonchalantly, he kept opening wardrobes, moving things around to search every drawer. I did the same, starting with the table. A monitor lay on the desk and a PlayStation 4 stood in a case beneath. I searched the drawers, finding car magazines and thriller novels.