Grendel Unit

by Bernard Schaffer

  General Milner glanced at Bob and Frank, then back at the guards standing behind the Warden, and said, "But you have weapons."

  Another cluck, and a soft laugh, and Drexel said, "That's true. Very observant. But you see, what I meant to say, was that no one else is allowed to have weapons on Gratersfield. It is a security measure. I am sure you understand."

  Frank and Bob made quiet noises of protest as the general reached around his waist and unbuckled his gun belt, saying, "Of course. If we cannot abide by the rules, then what are we to become?"

  The warden watched Milner hand his belt and holster back to Sgt. Buehl. Bob removed his own weapon and collected Frank's next to put them on the ship. The only gear the men wore were rectangular computer scanners holstered in their belts. He flicked his hand in their direction and said, "You won't need those either. Secure them in your ship as well."

  "Actually, we do," General Milner said. "They contain proprietary software designed to do a proper audit."

  "But we have all our audits up to date. You can simply review the logs."

  "Enough!" The General drew in his breath sharply to collect himself and said, "I am afraid you are verging dangerously close to refusing this inspection, sir. Be advised that it is within my authority to shut this entire operation down and return with a squadron of Unification soldiers, if necessary. They are in the sector and can be here within half an hour if the next words out of your mouth are anything other than you acceptance of this inspection and your welcoming of my men. Is that clear?"

  The warden stiffened and looked sick at being spoken to that way in front of his subordinates. The greasy tip of hair dangling over his forehead quivered as he attempted to collect himself and assuage the situation. He forced himself to relax and appear pleasant, which seemed more vulgar an expression than his scowl, Frank thought. "Of course you are welcome, General," Warden Drexel said. "Perhaps my confusion is a result of not understanding why you are here. You see, we are not due for inspection for another six months."

  "I was in the area," Milner said, lowering his voice. "I've just been promoted, you see, and I'm eager to get started. Unfortunately, there are many other sites that do not enjoy the sterling reputation Gratersfield has."

  "Oh?" Drexel said, his face widening into a greasy smile.

  "I thought I'd knock out the easy ones first."

  "Well, I am sure you will find everything in peak operating conditions and we are very glad to have you here."

  "Thank you, Warden. Now, what I will need is unrestricted access to your facility for me and my team."

  "Well," Drexel winced, "that will not quite be as easy as it sounds."

  "Why not?"

  "We operate on a very restrictive security clearance. Not even our most senior people have absolute access to the prison. I am afraid, you will need to be accompanied by several guards at all times, both so that you may go where you need, and also for your own protection."

  "I am sure we'll be fine," the general said. He looked back at Bob and Frank and said, "My boys can take care of themselves."

  "I'm certain," Drexel said. He was about to continue speaking when he stopped at what sounded like a siren wailing, growing louder as it approached, coming out of nowhere and then suddenly loud enough that all of the guards turned and looked around the roof in confusion.

  They saw the twirling figure of a man spinning in cartwheels through the air, screaming for help as he crested over the prison's roof and scrambled to grab a hold of the side, but it was useless. He was too far away, and then the man vanished under the edge of the roof again and the siren of his scream dissipated into the wind again.

  "What in the hell was that?" Bob whispered.

  The guards slammed into one another as they raced to the side of the roof, raising their weapons in preparation to fire, shouting, "Man the walls! They're trying to climb up!"

  But the walls were empty. There was nothing on the hard concrete below but the bloody red pulp of what had been the man they'd seen flying through the air moments before, and standing next to him were two other forms. One was the smaller shape of a prisoner who was looking up at the roof, calling out, "You almost made it. I'll say that's a triple."

  The second being was much larger, standing tall enough to cast the first one in his shadow, and he roared, "Triple? That was at least an inside-the-park homerun. He almost made it to the roof!"

  Frank's eyes widened at the sight of his former teammates and he lifted his head to shout down at them, but Bob touched his arm with his hand and shook his head slightly. They both knew it was imperative to the operation not to alert the staff who they were. The three of them stepped back and Frank stopped to take one last look at his friends before he vanished behind the guards assembled at the edge.

  Far below, Vic Cojo turned and looked up at the roof once more, gauging the distance that Monster had thrown the prisoner and said, "It was a good throw, but not your best. Double or nothing?"

  Monster shrugged as he turned toward the sea of prisoners crowding together to keep away from the mantipor. Both he and Vic were blocking the main gate to let them back into the prison, and while they were sure they could overrun Vic, none of them wanted to be flung through the air next. "Do you see anyone good?"

  Vic held his hands above his eyes and scanned the crowd, searching until he saw a muscular, bald-headed human whose bare chest was slick with sweat. There was a series of jagged scars across the prisoner's abdomen, and Vic nodded when he saw it. "Jasper Welch. Species trafficker. He got sent away for kidnapping Yandarian infants and selling them to the Sapienists for experimentation."

  "Perfect," Monster muttered, storming immediately toward the group. They recoiled in fear, their faces etched with terror and revulsion at being so defenseless. A few of them had postured like they might try and rally against the mantipor, but none of them had dared step forward. None of them seemed to believe the man being singled out by Monster and Victor Cojo was worth dying for.

  These men were hunters, predators of the weak and innocent and Monster felt the blood of battle pumping hot throughout his being, bringing life to his atrophying body and spirit. He saw the look of fear in the faces of these cruel men and roared aloud, showing them his fangs.

  The prisoners around Welch scattered out of the way, but the man himself stood indignant, folding his thick arms across his barrel-chest. "Piss off," he said. "You know who I am?"

  Vic Cojo's arm shot out against Monster's chest to halt the creature, and he said, "I do. Tell me where Bal Ghor is and I'll ask my friend here not to teach you how to fly."

  "Yeah, right," Welch sneered. "Don't even try it, you disgusting beast. Keep your damn paws−"

  The next sound Welch made was a high-pitched scream as Monster snatched him up by the arm and leg and whipped him violently around like a shot-putter, swinging him all the way around before sending him flying into the air. The guards high above them on the roof let out a gasp of astonishment as the whirling body of one of their prisoners was flung toward them, the man's screams both horrific and morbidly funny.

  One of the guards raised his rifle and fired, blasting a hole through Jasper Welch's chest as he spun, and the screams stopped. Welch's body continued its ascent and crashed against the upper lip of the roof, splattering the guards' boots with blood. Warden Drexel watched the inmate's body tumble back down to the ground and he turned to the guard who'd shot and said, "What the hell are you doing? Why did you shoot that man?"

  The guard sputtered a little and said, "H-he was coming up, sir. The prisoners aren't allowed to come up to this level."

  "He wasn't coming up on purpose!" Drexel shouted.

  "But…the rules," the guard said.

  "Give me that gun," Drexel said, taking the rifle from the guard. He aimed it at the group of prisoners below and said, "Whoever flings the next person up to this roof is going to be shot, do you hear me?"

  Vic and Monster looked up at the warden, neither of them moving. Vic said, "I
think he's talking to you."

  "He must not be a fan of baseball," Monster said.

  Vic turned slightly and looked out at the range of mountains deep in the wasteland. The nearest one was over a hundred yards away. "Okay, new game. We'll call it human horseshoes. One point if you touch the mountain with any part of the prisoner, two points if you actually land him on the mountain."

  Monster scratched his shaggy chin and said, "Do all the parts of the prisoner have to be attached to him in order for it to count?"

  Vic thought for a moment, then said, "As long as he's in one piece when you throw him. You can't just start tearing parts off and flinging them. That's too easy."

  "Fair enough," Monster said.

  Together, they moved toward the crowd of inmates to pick out another candidate, with Vic shouting, "Tell me where Bal Ghor is!" The inmates were too busy running to answer, and Monster roared as he raced forward to grab the nearest one. The man screamed as he struggled against the mantipor's vise-like grip, his screams lost in the sea of confusion of prisoners scrambling and yelling, when the warden fired a single shot in the air. The rifle's report made everyone stop and look up at the roof.

  "What the hell are you doing?" the warden shouted.

  Vic pointed at the nearest mountains and said, "It's okay. We're throwing them that way now."

  "No!" Drexel yelled down at them. "No more throwing prisoners. That is officially forbidden now. From now on, you will just have to make do killing each other like civilized people, or whatever the hell you are."

  The prisoners around Vic and Monster used the warden's intervention as a means to escape, scurrying around them both as they fled for the prison gate. Vic patted the mantipor on the back and said, "Well, that was fun while it lasted. You're looking hairier already, pal."

  Monster watched the last of the prisoners vanish through the gate, disappearing down the dark corridors like roaches in a tenement building. They had feared Monster, true enough, and in the narrow corridors of the prison they could never mount a large enough physical attack to be of any danger to him, because he was not a human. But Cojo was. Monster looked down at him and said, "They will kill you. You know that. This Bal Ghor and his people will come for you, and there will be too many of them, even for you."

  Vic did not respond as they walked back into the prison together, seeing that the guards had pulled away from the roof, so that it was just the two of them beneath the bright blue sky, alone in the emptiness of the barren planet. "What if we tried to go it on our own? How bad can living in the mountains be? I'm sure together we can handle whatever we run into."

  "There is no water," Monster said.

  "Maybe there's some kind of plant. The native species have to have some kind of way−"

  "There is no water, and I am not going," Monster said. He stopped at the entrance to the prison and looked at his former captain, seeing dark circles under the man's eyes and those eyes seemed dull, as if the once-bright flame of intelligence and strength within them had softened and gone dim. The sadness in the man's face reflected Monster's own pain and humiliation, and he found his determination to stay angry at Cojo wavering. "For whatever it's worth, I have no wish to see anything bad happen to you, human. Perhaps tomorrow, we can take our meals together. I am tired of eating in my cell."

  "That sounds good," Vic said softly. "I'd like that."

  "If they let you live that long, that is," Monster said, then he turned to leave.

  22. Welcome to the Terrordome

  The group of guards and visitors followed the Warden away from the ship, onto what appeared to be a large circle built into the roof. The Warden swept aside his long coat and lowered himself to the ground, laying his hand flat against its surface. He said his name, "Warden Reginald Drexel," and the circle jolted abruptly, then began to lower.

  Frank looked up at the circle of light above them, watching the sky grow smaller and smaller, and it felt like he was seeing the last of his freedom slipping away. First he was down among the guards, and next, he'd be down among the prisoners. It would take a miracle to think that they'd ever make it to the top of that roof again. Frank felt light-headed as they lowered and he stumbled slightly, having to steady himself to maintain balance.

  Bob Buehl frowned at him and said, "You feeling all right?"

  "I'm fine," Frank said. "After flying with you all these years, I'm just not used to such a smooth and bump-free descent. It's throwing my stomach off."

  The Warden was talking to General Milner, telling him about all of the improvements they'd made and how efficiently the facility was operating. The man shifted figures and statistics around like he was playing a shell game and the General nodded and said, "very good," even as the platform landed and the elevator doors opened. The corridor they entered was well-lit and decorated like an office building, and Milner saw it was populated with nothing but women.

  One of the young ladies looked up sheepishly from a desk as they approached, careful to avert her eyes from the Warden and return to her work. She was dressed in an orange jumpsuit and her nametag said inmate. Her long red hair was tied back in an elaborate knot, and she glanced at Frank with large, doe eyes, and he smiled reflexively. He was a sucker for a pretty face.

  They passed more female inmates along the way, each of them working nervously, each of them beautiful. "This place must have a hell of a human resources department," Frank muttered to Bob Buehl.

  The Warden was like a bat, instantly whipping his head around to Frank and saying, "You noticed our little lovelies then? Yes, we are quite glad to be able to offer at least a few of these poor souls a bit of solace from the…" the Warden pointed down at the floor to indicate the cells below, "Well, I am sure you can imagine what would become of them if we allowed the inmates to have their way. It cuts down on our payroll expenses considerably, having a built-in workforce."

  "You have no female prisoners in general population?" General Milner said.

  "Of course we do," the Warden said with a laugh. "We obviously can't have everyone up here, now can we? So we have to be highly selective." He turned to watch one of the women hurry across the hall to get out of their way, his eyes lingering disturbingly long over the length of her form. "And they are highly motivated to remain up here, you know. The ones down below have a rather hard time of it."

  Warden Drexel watched the General as he spoke, searching his face for any sign of reaction. The General remained quiet and stone faced while Drexel spoke, and there was a brief moment of tense silence among the group. General Milner looked at a particularly lovely dark-skinned girl and said, "Well, sir. You almost make me wish I was staying longer."

  The Warden visibly relaxed and he continued walking, going on about expenditures and the costs of feeding such a large assortment of prisoners. Frank rolled his eyes as they followed behind the guards, but he saw that Bob's face was twisted in a scowl and that he visibly flinched every time they passed another female inmate. "Hey," Frank whispered, "Stay in role."

  "I don't stay in roles," Bob hissed. "I fly the ships. I don't do all that spook crap you and Vic do."

  They passed another girl, no older than eighteen, and she had backed away from them to press herself against the hallway wall, clutching a stack of files thicker than she was. She looked down at the floor as they passed. There was open fear in her eyes. "Sons of bitches," Bob muttered.

  "What the hell is your problem?"

  "When I was a kid, after Unification stamped out the rebellion, they took the wives of the men who'd fought. Conspirators, they called them. No trial, no fancy lawyers to defend them. Just gone. They got my aunt and two of my older cousins. Guess where they got sent?"

  Frank let out a long, slow breath, taking his time before he responded. It wasn't easy, what he was about to propose, but he said it anyway. "Let's find them," he said. "What the hell, we're already breaking out two inmates. A few more shouldn't hurt."

  "Don't bother with it. They're dead," Bob said.

&
nbsp; "How do you know that?"

  "Because the prisons sent notices to our family, telling us they'd already been disposed of."

  Another young woman was waiting for them at the end of the hall, sitting at a secretary's station. She was the prettiest of them all, with bright blonde hair, and dressed in expensive civilian clothing, despite her inmate's nametag. Surely the clothes were a gift from the Warden, and surely he'd handpicked her from the others. Frank felt ill when she smiled widely at the Warden and purred, "Welcome back, Warden Drexel. Shall I get drinks for you and your guests?"

  "No thank you, dear Agnes," the Warden said as he opened the doors to his office and waved for them to follow him.

  Frank looked at Agnes, watching how her expression changed the moment the Warden was out of view. Disgust clouded her eyes like drops of oil falling into a pool of water, spreading out slowly. Frank leaned back to Bob and said, "We are the good guys, right? I mean, the more we peel back the curtain, the more I'm not so sure."

  "We're the good guys, yeah," Bob said, pointing back and forth between himself and Frank. "We just happen to work for some really slimy, scum sucking people."

  The doors opened to the Warden's office, and they filed in behind the guards, keeping toward the back of the room and staying near the doors. Warden Drexel waved for them to come in and said, "Don't be shy, gentlemen. Typical soldiers. Always wanting to stand with their backs to the walls. I assure you, there is no safer room in this entire prison. Once you are within this room, there is no way in or out without my permission." He suddenly clapped his hands together and said, "So, I hope you don't mind staying a while!"

  The Warden let off a great guffaw of laughter, and General Milner smiled casually at him and said, "Well, as pleasant as that sounds, I am afraid we have considerable work to do. My men really must begin their inspection."

  "And so they may," the Warden said. "Each of them will be accompanied by a squad of my guards, for their own protection of course, and they'll be escorted at all times."