Red Cells

THREE: UNMASKED

The main body of the Trans-Paxton Penitentiary was circular. Not for panoptic considerations (there was no central watch house, a camera in every cell instead), but because this form better stabilized the structure within its spherical pocket. There were only two levels for cells, though a “basement” level – off limits to prisoners – housed the facility’s power sources and life support systems.

The prison’s interior space would cover an area of three hundred acres, and thus it was a fairly good walk from the recreation yard to the administration wing and the warden’s office. In his orientation Stake had learned the prison’s capacity was three thousand. After only two years it had already slightly exceeded that number. Many cells meant for two, including his own, now housed three. But if this prison continued to prove a successful venture, word was that more pocket universes would be opened to house similar institutions. The most attractive feature there, despite the expense in transportation, was that escape was all but impossible, the potential threat to society greatly removed. Hopefully there was even a deterrent in knowing that if arrested and incarcerated you would be so distant, so apart, from family and from society itself, with no possibility for visits, conjugal or otherwise – just chats on vidscreens. The isolation was absolute… aside from your fellow prisoners, and the prison staff.

Having passed through several locked and guarded doors, Stake and his escorts entered a long and rather narrow corridor connecting to the administrative wing. The walls of the tubular corridor were composed of windows, the first Stake had seen in the structure. Outside there was only the black void in which the prison hung suspended like a bug in amber.

“So you really pulled a fast one, huh?” the human guard was saying behind his faceless helmet. “I’ve heard of people escaping from prisons, but never smuggling themselves into one.”

“Didn’t they teach you not to fraternize with the prisoners?” Stake asked him.

The guard gave him a little push to quicken his pace. “Don’t be a smart guy with me, Stake.”

Overheard, the string of inset lights illuminating the tunnel flickered, seemed on the verge of going out and casting them into darkness – as if the tunnel itself might suddenly dissolve and let in the void. Stake was reminded of the apparent power surge in the rec yard. As before, the power stabilized before any of them could remark about it.

Stake turned his head as they walked to look out the curved windows as best he could. From a distance his impression had been of flat blackness, but now he could faintly discern a kind of subtly layered and seething darkness, a chaos of billowing interstitial matter churning it on itself, swirling around the prison like a turbulent atmosphere.

And furthermore, he was catching glimpses of dimly luminous white bodies out there against the blackness. Quick, darting fish-like forms, and slower drifting forms resembling trilobites fringed with rippling fins. He had heard about these creatures – differing types of interstitial life-forms – but had never seen them apart from VT programs. One ribbon-like specimen could grow to a mile in length, though he didn’t see any of that sort out there now. These apparently primitive life-forms were translucent, quasi-corporeal, and the occasional captured specimens had soon dissolved like soap bubbles. They were poorly understood, but had proved harmless.

A new creature – larger than the others, but still white and luminescent – swam into view with oar-like strokes of its multiple jointed legs, long like those of a giant spider crab. It alighted on the outside of the tubular corridor as if to gaze in at the men, and Stake looked back over his shoulder at it in something like awe. “I wonder if these critters are trapped in this hole we made,” he reflected aloud, “or if they can come and go from it.”

“Who the fuck cares?” the guard said, as they reached the far end of the tunnel.

When the trio were admitted, Stake saw that two other guards – again, one man and one machine – already stood in the room, to either side of a prisoner in an orange uniform seated in a chair. Though this man had changed his hair style, dyed it blond and shaved off his goatee, it was still like looking into a mirror. The man stared back at Stake with a twitchy nervousness. Stake sighed heavily, then switched his attention to the warden behind his large glass-topped desk. Above it floated an overlapping variety of color-coded holographic monitors and control pads.

The warden himself, Stake was a bit surprised to find, was a Tikkihotto – one of the few truly humanoid races. That is, aside from his eyes, or what he had in place of eyes: numerous thin tendrils sprouting from his skull sockets, probing at the air sinuously. Attired in an expensive five-piece suit, he lounged in his cloned leather swivel chair smiling, and said to the guards who had brought Stake, “I hope you’re being careful with this one, boys; he was a deep penetration operative for the Colonial Forces during the Blue War. Weren’t you, Mr. Stake?”

“You seem to know enough about me without me having to tell you,” Stake said. “From this,” he gestured toward the warden’s virtual computer displays, “and from him.” And he gestured toward the blond man.

“Please be seated, Mr. Stake.” The warden motioned toward a chair placed in front of his desk, and Stake did as he was asked. The guards who had accompanied him still flanked him. As he settled in his chair, he noticed a wooden showcase covered by a sheet of glass, hanging on the wall behind the warden’s desk. The case contained a traditional Tikkihotto axe called an e-ikko, its handle brightly colored in blue and orange. An award of some kind, perhaps military, from his home world. Stake idly wondered how many prisoners had sat here eying that tomahawk and fantasized about making a grab for it.

The Tikkihotto said, “In case you don’t remember from your orientation, my name is Dinhoo Cirvik, the warden of Trans-Paxton Penitentiary since its inauguration. And your friend here needs no introduction, of course.” He swept his arm toward the orange-suited prisoner, and said his name anyway. “Edwin Fetch. How curious, isn’t it, to have two men named Edwin Fetch in the same prison? With the same face, no less.”

“Maybe he’s an imposter,” Stake said drily.

Cirvik scowled. “I expect only truthful answers from you from this point on, Mr. Stake. And a more respectful attitude, if you want to make things easy on yourself. I understand of course that it’s your nature to be deceptive. You were deep operations on Sinan because you could imitate the enemy physically. And I’m sure you’ve used your odd chameleon skills in your line of work as a private investigator. Ah… but how is the private investigation business these days, Mr. Stake? Not too good, I hear. Perhaps it’s the economy. People don’t have the extra money to send private dicks sneaking after their cheating spouses, taking vids. Which is how you came to work for Mr. Fetch here, isn’t it? A special sort of job? No doubt something you had never done before?”

“Correct,” Stake replied. “I hadn’t.”

“Hard times, then? Down on your luck, to take on such a job?”

“Yeah. Down on my luck. And it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.”

“I’d have to agree with you there, Mr. Stake.” Without Cirvik turning his head toward Edwin Fetch, some of his ocular tendrils shifted to point toward the man, swimming in the air. “If it’s any consolation, Mr. Fetch has even worse luck. He pays you a hefty sum of twenty thousand munits to do his six months in jail for him, and instead of keeping his nose clean he gets arrested for dealing purple vortex in Miniosis. Just about the time you came here!” Cirvik chuckled. “Imagine everyone’s surprise when his true identity was discovered. So he was extradited to Punktown, and here he is in custody awaiting trial – again. Without bail this time, because of his little trick in hiring you. So now he not only faces the six months for the original sentence, but a new sentence on top of that for dealing in Miniosis, and something extra for deceiving the system in what is essentially… I don’t know, evading custody? Escape? The prosecutor’s office will decide what to call it. But Mr. Fetch has at least been cooperative in explaining your presence in our facility, Mr. Stake, so that may work in his favor somewhat.”

Stake glanced at Fetch again, but Fetch was looking down into his lap now, picking at a thumbnail.

“What about me?” Stake asked Cirvik.

“What indeed? Well, what you did was illegal, of course. Helping a convicted criminal elude captivity. Hindering apprehension, abetting a fugitive… accomplice to a drug dealer after the fact. Again, the prosecutor’s office can decide how to perceive it. Until your trial, you’ll be held in custody at this facility… since you’re already here, and all.”

“Will I get bail?”

“I’m told no… not with your deceptive ways, Mr. Stake. You could impersonate someone too easily and escape from Punktown before your trial date.”

“They could implant a GPS chip.”

“Talk to your lawyer about it. You have the right to a lawyer, after all, so you’ll be given the opportunity to communicate with one via the ultranet. You can choose one after our meeting here is done. If you can’t afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you. But what am I saying? You have twenty thousand munits, don’t you?”

Stake sighed again, and wagged his head. He had no idea whether his own sentence would be less than six months, or even considerably more. “I knew this was a bad idea,” he mumbled bitterly.

“It was. And so you can stop the ruse and assume your natural appearance now, please.”

“It isn’t that easy. Some people with my condition can control it more… they can change like that.” Stake snapped his fingers. “I need a little more time for it to fade once I let it go.”

“How long?” Cirvik asked dubiously.

“It varies… it’s not entirely predictable. Not too long. Like I say, my control over my gift is iffy. I can’t look directly at people too long in case I let my guard down and start to copy them. And to keep a hold on Fetch’s face, I was looking at a picture of him throughout the day.”

“Well you’d better not play any further tricks with your appearance during your time here, Mr. Stake, or I assure you you’ll regret it. If you’re thinking of masquerading as another prisoner… or a guard… or even me…”

“I can’t do Tikkihottos,” Stake interrupted. He gestured at his face. “It’s the eyes.”

“Anyway, no tricks. At the first sign of such activity I will put you in an isolation cell… are we clear on that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes sir. Good… I like that tone better. Spoken like a former soldier. You need to find your way back, Mr. Stake, to the man you were. Instead of imitating creatures like Mr. Fetch here, who not only corrupts his customers but has obviously done his best to corrupt you.”

Stake glanced at Fetch again. “I can assure you, Warden Cirvik, that my association with Mr. Fetch is finished.”

“Very good, Mr. Stake. Very good.”

This time Fetch looked up to smile at Stake, crinkled eyes sparkling, and shrugged his shoulders in a sarcastic kind of apology.