Act III

"Nonlethal. Lethal. Unstable."

-1-

Haley’s heart races as he watches a metal gate slide down the front doors of the Northland Penitentiary—locking Maxwell inside with the two inmates—DeCartes and Belle. A gnawing regret settles in his stomach for a moment, but he pushes it away to focus on his next job.

Finding a way out of Ft. Pride before Headquarters arrived.

Without Maxwell’s presence looming over him the sparse desert base suddenly feels endless.

Haley walks towards the communication booth near the soldier barracks and grimaces at  the bodies of the corporals piled up, a few prisoners  desecrating the bodies.

The prisoners ignore him as he walks past and for reasons he doesn’t understands Haley starts to cry.

The small communication booth held 5 stalls and was the only location in Ft. Pride calls could be made. The booth was filled with inmates trying to use the equipment to connect to someone off base. They’re arguing with each other over how to use the equipment. Haley knew they wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone without first bypassing the communication system encryption.

“I can help you,” Haley says so quietly the arguing prisoners don’t hear. He repeats himself to be heard.

The men turn toward him at once, Haley notices they all have stolen weapons in their hands and none of the men look relieved to see him. 

N4520, a former hitman, steps forward, a group of men stand behind him like they are his guard.

“Maxwell’s little bitchboy,” N4520 spits. The man balances a stolen gun in his hand.

Haley couldn’t remember N4250’s name but the N in front of his number meant that he was a nonlethal prisoner. The man had been a contract killer for an offshoot of the Bosnian Mafia and only knew how to kill with a long distance sniper rifle between he and his victim.

The man next to him, U9360, was something else entirely.

U9360  landed in Northland Penitentiary just 8 months ago for child abduction. His victims were never found and it was widely believed he’d killed and eaten them--even though police could never prove it.The U meant he was unstable, the few prisoners with the U designation were  chained in darkened cells at all times; hooked up to feeding tubes and IVs so the guards didn’t have to go inside their cells to feed them.

“We’re the same,” Haley says quickly raising his hands. “It’s not what you think--I just –I want to escape too. I can help.I--”

“We’re not the same,” N4250, the hitman says and the men behind him mumble in agreement. “Because see you walk around in the fresh air getting that sun on your skin and hot food in your stomach--”

 "He smells nice and clean too,” U9630, the alleged cannibal, adds with a smile. His teeth are pointed and silver tipped and Haley starts to believe the accusations about the man eating human flesh were true.

N4250, the hitman, turns his weapon on U9630.

“Back the fuck off the boy,” The hitman commands and U9360 steps back sheepishly. “If you can help me get in touch with my people I see no reason I can’t bring you with my men and I…but you better make yourself useful, little bitch. Start talking.”

Folding his arms to make himself smaller, Haley moves between the crowd of men to the communication system.

“You have less than 12 hours before headquarters comes with back up,” Haley tells them, trying to keep his voice calm while typing in the encryption code and unlocking the communication system.

 “All communication in this room is recorded so you shouldn’t say where we are going.”

He watched N4250 make several calls before someone picks up for him. He talks to his contact in rapid Croatian before he disconnects. As he hangs up, prisoners walking by shove their way to the communication equipment to make there own calls.                                                  

“My brothers are coming for us,” N4250 says and turns to Haley. “They’re sending a helicopter. They should be here in a few hours, anything else I need to know in the meantime ?”

“...Sgt. Maxwell is locked inside the penitentiary.”

“Good,” N4250 smiles. “I think we could use some entertainment until they get here and Dawes has wanted a bite out of you for a long time.”

“Dawes ?”

The hitman’s gaze goes to U9360, the cannibal, who was suddenly walking towards Haley with an unsettling look in his eye.

"But--I helped you, we agreed--,” he starts to argue but he’s cut off by U9360, Dawes, pouncing like an animal, tackling him to the ground. The prisoners standing around cheer as Dawes’ pins Haley onto his stomach and sinks his  teeth into Haley’ ear.

Haley is too shocked, too disgusted to scream, he shoves Dawes off his back and the prisoner’s watching them whistle and boo as they grapple with each other. Dawes grabs Haley by his hair and slams his head hard into the ground, disoriented but determined Haley kicks and scratches at Dawes—the man was big but he was nothing compared to Maxwell’s size.

Haley screams as Dawes grabs his wrist and brings Haley’s hand to his mouth. He nearly breaks his fingers, attempting to jerk his hand out of the cannibals grasp. There is something different about U9360’s teeth, they feel stronger and sharper than human teeth. They tear into the skin of his hand and sink into the tendons of Haley’s palm. His teeth are like a vice, just waiting for Haley to move so he  rip his hand clean off. Blood runs in bright rivers down his arm.

Their growing audience of prisoners laugh as he struggles to escape; fueled by fear Haley kicks, punches and spits at Dawes, but the man seems intent on biting  all of his fingers off. Out of the corner of his eye Haley sees a few prisoners who were walking by stop to stare at the fight but they don’t intervene. The corporals were all murdered. There was no one left to intervene.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,—what the fuck was that ?,” the hitman says suddenly.

The hitman kicks Dawes away, the man growling like a mauling dog and Haley takes back his hand, it's pulp like and throbs with pain. Haley stays on the ground cradling the hand in his arm too afraid to take a god look at the damage

Digging the sole of his boots into Haley’s spine, the hitman  pulls the bottom of Haley’s shirt up and Haley suddenly knows what the man saw.

“No--"

“Shit. He’s got Daddy's initials on his back,” one of the men says.

“Want to escape my ass,” N4250 says. He hikes Haley’s shirt up more to see the beginning of an RLA symbol covering his side.

“I—it’s not. Let me explain--,” Haley says, but he has to stop when he feels Dawes teeth pierce his exposed side.

The man had come out of nowhere and Haley manages to kick him the face. Their audience hisses.

“You know… if no one can get to the warden,” N4250 says, stepping on Haley’s other hand, crushing it  under his boot. “We may as well give his punishment to his boy.”

“You think he has enough of a dick to cut off ?,” one of N4250’s men says and they all laugh.

“We'll see. Go find a knife,” N4250 tells someone and they run off towards the mess hall.

Haley takes the second it took for N4250 to turn to get enough leverage to turn himself over and kick the hitman in the groin. The moment of disorientation gives Haley the second he needs  to stand up and run.

A few of the hitman's men try and barricade him from leaving  the communication booth but he slides underneath them. Most of them just yell crude remarks after him, but a few start chasing him and one is even wasting bullets on him.

Haley doesn’t know where he is running to, there aren’t many options right now. All of the prisoners see him as an extension of Maxwell—an extension that wanted tortured and killed. 

He hadn’t planned on that. 

He’d always seen himself as one of them.

He knows he can run faster than the men chasing him and he makes for Maxwell’s quarters on the other side of camp. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off his hand was going to start to burn and Maxwell had a supply of morphine in his nightstand.

Going to Maxwell’s quarters would also give him a few seconds to grab his few belongings. Then he’d just have to find somewhere to hide until he came up with a good escape plan.

Before Haley can even fully commit to going back to Maxwell’s quarters his plans are changed. As he approaches Maxwell’s quarters he sees the door is open and a dozen inmates are sitting outside of it, all of them drunk and high on Maxwell’s Clarity, a few in a daze of morphine. Two are so high they are playing with Chrysler’s decapitated head and laughing.

The two playing with the head notice Haley approaching immediately and start shouting obscenities at him.

Making a turn before they decide to chase him too,  Haley starts towards the supply shed instead. He runs inside and is thankful the small shed is empty before locking himself inside. The supplies—food, cleaning products, tools, weapons, and toiletries had been emptied out by the prisoners but there was still a stack of the bright green prison smocks sitting neatly on a bottom shelf.

Outside the supply room shed the prisoners who had been chasing him knock on the door calling for him to come out. He ducks and lies on the floor as they shoot bullets at the door.

When the noise outside dies down and his heart rate feels normal Haley nervously looks at his hands. His left hand, the hand the hitman stepped on was  throbbing, his middle finger was bent forward and he couldn’t move it, but he could still move the rest of the hand. 

The cannibal had gone for his dominant hand and he’s relieved to see all five fingers are still attached, but that’s all he can say. The palm is bloody and split open to the bone and the tip of his index finger was attached by a few centimeters of skin.

Haley wraps the hand in the spare green prison clothes, the pain wasn’t as bad as he would have thought but he needed to clean the wounds soon or he could lose the entire hand.

-2-

He waits an hour before walking out of the supply shed, giving the prisoners at the door time to get bored with waiting for him.

He carefully  and painstakingly changes into a set of the spare bright green prison clothes. The prison clothes don’t hide Maxwell’s initials on his neck but he would at least blend in with the inmates.

It looked to him like more than half of the inmates had found their way off the base. Those that hadn’t found a way out were indulging in whatever activity they could find.

Haley keeps his head down and doesn’t talk to anyone, trying to blend in. He walks slowly for the mess hall to find water and something to use as a weapon. The rampaged mess hall is empty except for one prisoner, N1212, a man in his 50s who was sitting at a table silently drinking coffee.  The N meant he was a nonlethal threat and Haley decides to ignore the lone prisoner, but the man acknowledges him.

“How much time do you think we have of this ?,” N1212  asks.

Haley shrugs and keeps walking, carefully weaving through the tables.

“Aren’t you the warden’s consort--”

“No,” Haley snaps turning to the prisoner.

N1212 was older, he was the type of prisoner who spent his days in his cell working out or reading. He never yelled obscenities or looked at the dogfights but he was strong and Haley’s eyes land on the row of kill marks running up the man's arm.

Haley stops walking and back tracks to  go to sit next to N1212, careful to keep his wrapped hand, behind him.

N1212 stares at him, his eyes traveling briefly up and down Haley’s body before landing on his face.

“God damn, how old are you, kid ?,” N1212 asks. “Warden has some fucked up taste--”

“I don’t belong to Maxwell, I’m a prisoner here just like you,” Haley says. “I’m trying to escape…do you want to come with me ?”

“What’s your plan ?”

Haley looks down.

“I don’t know yet. I need to get a weapon and some food first,”

“All the food and knives were taken first,” N1212 tells him.

“Maybe we can find something in the barracks--”

“There is no we,” N1212 shakes his head. “I’m just enjoying my time out. I know I’m getting dragged back into that cell one way or the other so I may as well do it with dignity. No use fighting destiny…you should consider that.” 

“I don’t belong here. Don’t you have…people who can help you ?,” Haley asks, softly touching the bloody family crest, branded on the prisoner’s forearm with his non-broken finger.

N1212 laughs

“I'm an enforcer, that means I had to kill people who were my friends...even my family once. If I go back to the Santoro Family I’d just end up killing more and get right back here…Nah, I’m ready to atone for my sins--”

“You’ll be here the rest of your life,” Haley reminds him. “Maxwell isn’t giving the prisoners the lethal injection, he’s just shooting them you know—and he misses—he misses a lot and they spend hours half dead--”

“Sounds about right,” N1212 says, shaking his head. “It’s about what I deserve after the shit I’ve done. Sometimes you have to accept your place in life. Makes it easier to cope… What are you in for ?”

“Nothing,” Haley tells him. “I didn’t do anything. My big brother stole some shoes and put drugs in his jacket pocket and then he gave it to me.”

Under the table Haley bends back his sliced open palm until  tears form in his eyes.

“You got a lawyer ? The warden can’t keep you in here for life for that--”

“I tried to runaway three times,” Haley adds.

“I thought running away was a death penalty.”

“I’m not going to die here,” Haley says. “Reinforcements will be here soon…May hand is injured...help me, we can go together. Please.”

“They sure didn’t make them like you in my day,” N1212 smiles.

“I’ll do whatever you want if you help me,” Haley says quietly.

Haley needed this man if for no other reason than that he had two  working pair of hands.

N1212 bows his head closer to Haley and places a hesitant kiss on his lips, softly stroking the skin on Haley’s cheeks before kissing him again. Haley can taste the sweet coffee on the man's lips and he parts his lips to allow the prisoner to deepen the kiss but the prisoner backs away.

“Sad story, pretty face, is that how you get the other men to help you escapee ? That won't work  this time. I’ve accepted I’ll die here, I’ve found my peace. You should find yours.”

Haley stands up from the table, he’s tempted to knock over N1212’s coffee but thinks better of it. With all the knives gone from the kitchen Haley settles for a fork and puts it into the waistband of his stolen prison uniform. He empties a small powdered milk container and fills it with water before walking out of the mess hall, ignoring N1212 and going towards the vehicle garage.

The vehicle garage typically held 5 military Humvee’s, but they were all gone now.  He should have known they’d be gone.  

The vehicles only went 500 miles before having to be refueled at a station. With no clearance to use the RLA’s  fuel stations, the prisoner’s who had taken them would likely be caught or die of heat exhaustion.

Haley looks over at the communication booth and spots the Bosnian hitman and the cannibal still pacing outside. He needs to call his sister, she’d help him, but he’d have to wait for them to leave first.

 

***

 -3-

Haley watches from small window in the supply shed as a white helicopter flies into airspace and picks up the Bosnian hitman and his crew, including the cannibal. A part of him wonders if Maxwell can see this from where he’d locked himself in the penitentiary and if the man was beating himself up over it.

Maxwell terrifies Haley even more than Harlow ever had. Because Maxwell has so much power.

Had so much power.

When the Bosnian helicopter is out of sight Haley walks as nonchalantly as he can into the communication booth. There are only a few men inside now, each of them having deep conversations with someone over the lines and paying him no mind.

Haley quickly dials Isla’s Syndicate.

The screen blinks white and then gives him a  message.                                    

“Please enter security clearance code for international calls”

“No,” Haley says under his breath, his stomach dropping. He didn’t have international code, only headquarters had it.

For the first time he hates Isla, his only living sibling, for traveling around the world like she didn’t have a care in the world. 

She had him.

His mother was in rehab and his grandmother was in a nursing home, neither places would let them take a call from a death row penitentiary

Out of options he types in Audrina Laurenti’s name, unsure if it would even connect.

To his surprise her face shows up right away. She’s in the familiar infirmary at Camp Harmony, looking exactly as she had when he’d last seen her nearly two years ago when she’d help the cartel kidnap him.

“Alex ?,” she says, her eyes wide.

“Audrina, I need your help,” he says and he hates himself for crying tears of relief. “Please you have to get me out of here....I don’t know what else to do--”

“It’s okay, calm down—where’s Maxwell ?”

“No. Not Maxwell,” Haley says and he tries to explain everything to her but he can’t. “He’s mad…he’s been been killing people…. but he’s gone now and the RLA back up will be here soon and I don’t know anyone else--”

“Maxwell’s gone ? What did you do ? What’s wrong with your hand--”

“Nothing.The prisoners…their cells opened and they just got out. All of them. I don’t know how. They’ve killed all the soldiers and Maxwell’s locked inside the penitentiary--”

“Fucking hell,” Aurdina sputters. “Fucking hell those murdering psychopaths are all free ? How is this not on the news--”

“It doesn’t matter,” Haley snaps.  “I just need you to call Isla and tell her I want to come home--”

The image of Audrina is quickly engulfed in black with a soft whine as the communication room shuts down and the power cuts out. Prisoners in the middle of calls curse but they go silent as a cool electronic voice sounds over the base’s speaker system.

“Inmates of Northland Penitentiary. This is the Republic Liberation Army. Come out and get on the ground with your hands up or you will be shot on sight.”

The air fills with the deep hum of airship engines followed almost immediately by the rhythmic pounding of  hundreds of pairs of boots on the ground. Haley looks out the window of the communication booth as hundreds of RLA soldiers, dressed in tactical gear, grab any prisoners they see and immediately stun and cuff them. The prisoners who fight or try to run are shot without warning.

 

Firefights break out between prisoners with stolen weapons and the RLA special forces. In the mayhem Haley’s eyes land on Chrysler’s headless body—it’s a few feet away from the communication booth and none of the soldiers were paying attention to it.

He crouches low on the ground and using all the strength he has left drags Chysler’s body into the communication booth with one hand. The  heat had only made the decomposing process even worse on Chrysler’s corpse; flies circle the bloody neck stump where Chrysler’s head had once been.

Holding his breath to keep the stench  away, Haley undresses the corpse and changes into Chrysler’s uniform—it’s too big on him and covered in dried blood but at least he wouldn’t get shot on sight.

Crawling on his knees and sticking to the perimeter of the camp, Haley searches for the nearest RLA airship he can stow away on.  Figuring it best to stay away from the melee  he makes his way towards the  RLA combat airship parked in the back of the camp, away from the rest of the  fleet.

Once he’s within a few feet of the open airship door, he stands up and breaks into a run to the ship. With only a few steps between him and the airship’s open door , he feels a weight on his shoulder and arm jerks him back violently from behind.

“NO!,” he screams, pulling himself away from the grip. “Please, let me go,let me go--”

“Shut up !” a female voice spits at him. “Where the hell do you think you’re going ?”

He turns and his body goes numb when he’s met face to face with Lt. Cassia Winthrop, her face cut sharp with disapproval. She secures magnetic handcuffs around his wrists, he winces against the pain as the metal brushes his injured hands.

Haley’s mother had once had an ongoing  affair with Lt. Winthrop’s  father, Sen. Winthrop that resulted in Harlow. The senator had probably breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Harlow was dead. He didn’t have to keep financially supporting Harlow and secretly bailing him out of prison.

The lieutenant’s hazel eyes fill with rage as she stares at him. She was dressed in bullet proof fatigues and boots like all the other soldiers. He knew she didn’t like going out in the field. 

“What’s in your hand ?,” she asks looking at his injured hand, still covered in the green prison shirt.

“….Someone tried to eat my hand off--”

“Don’t you fucking dare get smart with--,” she starts, unwrapping the injured hand.

Instead of finishing her sentence she chokes on her own words the moment she sees the wound, taking a few shallow breathes before turning away from him and vomiting. The sound makes Haley wince and he starts to feel nausea growing in his own stomach.

“Cover that up!,” Lt. Winthrop orders.

With his hands cuffed behind his back Haley doesn’t know what the wound looks like now , but he does his best to cover it back up.

“Lt. Winthrop,” he says looking at her as she tries to regain her composure. “Lt. Winthrop, please I don’t want to stay here ma'am—I want to go somewhere else--”

“You don’t get to go somewhere else,” she says putting a rough hand on his shoulder. “You’re going to tell me why you’re dressed like a soldier and why that airship is over here--”

“Isn’t that your airship ?”

Lt. Winthrop frowns. She scans the  front of the ship looking for the RLA identification number that should be on the hull but it’s not there. Only the name Hummingbird IV.

Alarmed, she quickly touches the radio channel buttons on her syndicate.

“Hummingbird IV,  this is your commander. Who is piloting this ship ? Respond immediately.”

In response the airship’s back engine glows a bright red and the small ship levitates slowly off the ground.

Haley eyes go wide as an RLA uniformed figure steps into view on the window of the airship, waving at them.

“Hummingbird IV, I can see you waving.” Lt. Winthrop shouts into her Syndicate. “I repeat; respond with your ID number. Who is piloting that ship ?”

The figure continues to wave as the ship ascends.

“I said respond with your ID. Who is piloting this ship ? This is your commanding officer speaking, soldier !”

“She’s not a soldier,” Haley says quietly.

“What did you say ?,” Lt. Winthrop demands as the ship rises to flight altitude and heads West.

“Her name is Belle. She was a prisoner.”

 

----

 

Maxwell paces the entrance to Northland Penitentiary, eagerly scanning prisoners as they are individually brought back into the penitentiary by the RLA special forces. He’d been locked in the penitentiary for ten hours with nothing to do but empty his flasks. 

Now that Cass’s troops were here he tries to hid just how inebriated he is.

His flickering gaze halts as he sees Cassia Winthrop approaching, walking a handcuffed Haley in front of her. Maxwell can’t help but to smile to see Haley’s fourth attempt at escape had failed. And looking at the new bruises on his face and body it has failed spectacularly.

“I see you didn’t get very far,” Maxwell taunts, enjoying the fury in Haley’s eyes.

Haley struggles against the cuffs, trying to turn to face Cassia.

“You can’t leave me here with him, ma’am.” Haley begs the lieutenant. “Please, he’s going to hurt me--”

“How about you shut the fuck up ?,” she says pushing  Haley to sit on the ground.

“I'm going to make you regret ever trying to escape--” 

"Lieutenant, please--" 

She holds her hand up to silence them both before placing her hands behind her back. She tilts just slightly at the waist to look down at Haley.

“I need you to understand something. I am not your ally. I am not your friend. I am not your mommy and most importantly I’m not like Maxwell. I am  much, much worse than him because I don’t think you're cute,” she says quietly and crouches until they are eye level. “You became RLA  property the second you tried to escape my military base and if you ever try to escape again you’re getting an execution date and I will come back to this fucking cesspit and take you out personally. Do you understand, Haley ?”

He doesn’t respond but looks at the floor.

“I believe she asked you a question,” Maxwell tells him.

“You shut the fuck up too ! ” Lt. Winthrop shouts standing and turning her anger to him, her face burning red. “You had literally one job, Ken; keep the lunatics behind the glass. The only reason you don’t have a motherfucking bullet through your skull is because I can’t find anyone else to do this fucking job. What the fuck, Maxwell ?”

“Cass—Lieutenant I--”

“You nothing,” she spits. “Did you know I was going to put in for a request to transfer for you ? That I was starting to feel bad ? Well, not anymore. As far as I’m concerned you are never leaving this place either ! You fucking useless piece of shit--”

Her tirade is interrupted by a beep from her syndicate, he eyes glide across the message for over a minute before she turns back to Maxwell, her anger cooled.

“My men did a 40 mile perimeter check. All of the prisoners they can find are in,” she tells Maxwell. “How many do you have ?”

“Counting the dead and Haley, 66, ma’am.” he says slowly.

“How many are unaccounted for ?,”

“31, ma’am,” he says quietly. “8 unstable, 16 lethal and  and 7 nonthreats--”

“They’re escaped prisoners with weapons,” she snaps. “They’re all unstable now.”

“Most of them will die before they even see another civilian.” Maxwell reminds her. “The Sprawl is thousands of miles away--”

“It’s not the Sprawl we should worry about. There’s a private boarding school 600 miles north of here and they could make it there with the Humvees,” she says touching her Syndicate. “Delta-7 this is Lt. Winthrop. Someone  put the Arkham Academy  on notice. Lockdown the school until we can account for every single one  of these psychopaths.”

When she turns back to Maxwell he holds her gaze.

“Lieutenant, I can start putting together a prioritization of who we should find, maybe it can help us figure out who is behind this--” Maxwell starts.

“Stand down,” Lt. Winthrop says. “I’m leading this, you have other things you need to do--”

“I do ?”

“Yes. You’re fucking job.”

 

 

***

Maxwell didn’t think he’d ever see Cassia Winthrop in his bed again, but she spends three nights is his quarters while he is made to sleep in the empty soldier barracks that were still covered in the remains of soldiers from the prisoner’s massacre.

A special forces medic had sewn Haley’s hand back together as best he could and between the injury and the morphine he was slow to clean the barrack back to standard.

Surrounded by her special forces team, Cassia took up post in Maxwell’s office, orchestrating her men in the  prisoner retention effort and the investigation into what happened.

With all of his staff murdered, Maxwell was forced to serve as warden and prison guard under his commanding officer’s watchful eye.

On her fourth day, Lt. Winthrop steps into the soldier barracks. She sighs, disgusted by the filth and sits carefully on a bed across from where Maxwell had made a makeshift desk out of a bed and a storage crate. Haley stands a few feet away from them, carefully wiping dried blood off a bedframe.

Lt. Winthrop lays a row of small discs on the makeshift table. The discs he’s burned off the woman, L2390

“My white hats tell me these are the origination point of  the hack that opened the cells,” Cassia tells him. “These were on a prisoner, how could you--”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am but you’re transport let her come in here with them--”

“So ? You left them on the execution room floor,” she argues, unsure why she is arguing—he was her subordinate.  “You should have destroyed them or investigated them. You said she was in lockdown with you. Why would you let her out of your sight ?”

“The building was on lockdown, I didn’t think she could get out. She said she was going back to her cell so I let her go. I don’t know how she got out--”

“The roof,” Lt. Winthrop explains. “And maybe if you were sober you would have noticed.”

 “Cass-”

“Sergeant--”

“Lieutenant Winthrop…,” Maxwell starts. “I have been thinking about this too. You have to know this was an inside job. How else would her contacts have known the best time to come and pick her up.”

“I’m bringing that to internal investigation,” Lt. Winthrop says. “You and I have bigger concerns."

“Bigger than a breach inside the RLA ?”

“Yes. 18 soldiers murdered. 24 civilian deaths by escapees and counting. Those deaths are on your head--”

“I had no control over this, you can’t put that on me--”

“I am,” she says. “I already have in a report to headquarters. I’m going back to the Sprawl now to handle the media and console the families who thought the monsters who killed their loved ones would never see the light of day. I’m leaving my men in charge until your new rotation comes in.”

“Cass,” Maxwell says softening his voice. “I can help you. I am too smart to be left here, you know that. You need my help…I swear if I stay here any longer I’ll snap one day and kill myself if he doesn’t do it first.”

Maxwell looks over to Haley who was doing an admirable job of looking like he wasn’t eavesdropping.

“You won’t,” she smiles standing up. “I know you Maxwell, you’re too arrogant to kill yourself.”

She walks around his makeshift desk and leans close to him, pressing her knee into his groin, adding just enough pressure to be pleasurable. She closes his eyes with the tips of her finger and presses her lips to his. Without thinking he reciprocates her touch. It brings back decade old feelings of when they’d been in law school and he’d though he’d right every wrong in the world with her.

“Before I go back to Headquarters should we go back to your quarters for old time sake ?,” she whispers.

Maxwell stills, unsure if her can believe what he’s hearing.

“Is that a yes ?,” she asks

“…Yes,” he breathes, his hands wandering down to the patches and bars covering her breast, more blood rushing to his growing erection.

Cassia presses down harder on his erection with her knee.

Maxwell recoils from the pain and she slaps him lightly across the face, laughing.

“I can’t believe you said yes ! You’re so fucking pitiful you know that, Ken ?,” she taunts backing away from him. “Well, I’m leaving. I’m also putting one of my staff in charge of you and this shithole so I never have to talk to you again.  And if I ever do  see you again you’ll probably be in body bag or behind a cell door… so I guess this is goodbye.”

Laughing to herself she makes a point to strut out of the barracks, tempting him with her swinging hips, slamming the heel of her shoes into the prefabricated wood until she disappears on the other side of the door where she quickly commands her men to ready her airship.

“Fucking cunt,” Maxwell shouts to himself, watching her board her airship in the distance. 

 

 

----

-4-

4 years later

The Republic Liberation Army soldiers stationed at Northland Penitentiary in Ft. Pride don’t talk anymore.

They hadn’t been talking for a week.

They all stare at the newsfeeds, watching  wordlessly as the world unfolds and reforms, seemingly without them.

Their enemy, The Eastern State had been quickly making it’s way though Western Republic territories over the summer, promising freedom and prosperity to Republican citizens who felt crushed under the weight of the RLA’s restrictive laws and the cartel’s escalating violence.

The Eastern State Guard claimed the eastern most Republican territories first, followed by the small outer cities and most of the Sprawl despite the cartel resistance. And for the last week the Eastern State Guard had brought their campaign to Ft. Perch.

Command Sgt. Kenneth Maxwell watched the newsfeeds more intently than any of the men at Ft. Pride.

Maxwell sits  in the empty mess hall on Ft. Pride, facing the large hologram displaying a live shot of the opulent RLA Headquarters skyscraper, where General Meredith Baxter-Finch was inside meeting privately with Eastern State representatives.

Reporters had given up adding commentary on the meeting, they just let the camera rest on a live shot of the building, where both RLA and Eastern State special forces stood guard outside the exterior staircase that led to the front doors. 

Alex Haley sits  in Maxwell’s lap, gripping  Maxwell's chest to keep himself balanced, his sense of gravity  undone by the mix of muscle relaxants, pain killers and Clarity he’d been shot up with this morning to ease the pain he could never shake. Maxwell’s broad arm, pinned against his waist was the only thing holding him upright.  He absently grazes the back of his good hand against the rough stubble on Maxwell’s cheek.

In the silence Haley hears the Syndicate in Maxwell’s ear emit a soft buzz. The Sergeant reads the message privately and a careful smile spreads across his face.

Maxwell taps into the rarely used intercom function on his Syndicate, delivering a message across his entire base.

“Fort Pride. This is your sergeant speaking. All prisoners are to be locked and shackled in their cells immediately. All soldiers report to the mess hall immediately. I repeat. All prisoners are to be locked down and all soldiers are to report to the mess hall immediately.”

Th Sergeant  tries to keep his tone even, but it proves harder than he’d expected.

Haley whines softly through his gag, running the back of his disfigured hand over the metal strip covering his mouth.

“Not now,” Maxwell says, his fingers steepling against Haley’s waist in impatience as his soldiers filed into the mess hall.

Maxwell had originally come into the mess hall for an early dinner, he didn’t like his men seeing him eat or do anything human anymore. If he was feeling generous he’d bring Haley and feed him. He liked to watch his subordinate struggle to eat with his fucked up hands as entertainment.

Haley’s broken middle finger on his left hand had never quiet healed right after it had been stepped on the night of the escape and now it was permanently pointing downward in an unnatural way. Haley claimed not to be able to feel the hand the cannibal, Dawes, had taken a tear out of.  The hand was covered in a fingerless black leather glove for Maxwell’s sanity, years of infections and improper sutures had made the scar even more unsightly than the original wound.

Maxwell remains silent, his eyes on the screen as his soldiers take their seats facing the hologram of Headquarters, sharing confused glances with each other behind his back.

“Watch the screen,” Maxwell commands his soldiers every few minutes and they obey, not sure what they were watching for.

And then it happens.

First in the square outside the RLA headquarters and then on the top of the building.

The RLA flag comes down.

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The prison uniforms at Ft. Pride are green because they stand out against the desert and it looks like (because of the SH-LILE paradox line) the prison uniforms during the Helion Era were green too. Fun !