Hell and Gone

contact.

But Victor wasn’t the kind of guy to take a hint. So Hardie steadied his right hand on the cane, then used his left leg to push himself upright. The world went a little fuzzy for a few seconds…and then it only got worse. Hardie thought he was in real danger of passing out.

Victor smiled and clapped him on the back, massaging him for a second, which was a second longer than Hardie liked.

“You’re a real old-school badass, aren’t you?” Victor asked.

“How about you don’t touch me?”

Hardie moved the cane, then his good leg. Cane, good leg. A few more steps and he had a system going. By the time he reached the doorway, however, a guard was blocking his path.

 * * *

It was the female guard. Arms crossed, cold, hard stones in her eyes. Hardie couldn’t help but think: this is it. They would admit they had been kidding about the whole warden thing. And then they would savagely beat his ass, and he’d be forced to defend himself with his old-man cane before being thrown into a cell.

Instead, Victor made a hasty introduction.

“Warden, this is Whiskey.”

She just stared at him, eyes slicing straight through his skull.

“Not my brand, obviously,” Hardie said.

Standing behind her was one of the other male guards—one with black Brillo-pad hair and a white mitten of gauze around his right hand. He must have been the one who had gotten his paw caught in the elevator door.

“Hello, Warden. I’d shake your hand, but…”

“Yeah,” Hardie said. “Understood.”

“That’s Yankee,” Victor said.

Victor.

Whiskey.

Yankee.

Was all this for real?

But the biggest absurdity was the idea that he was in charge of these people. If this was all legit, and they (that word again) actually put Hardie to work as the warden of a secret prison to work off some perceived debt, then they could have done a lot better with somebody else. Like, anybody else. Hardie was a born loner. Not only did he not play nice with others, he couldn’t fucking stand others. Everyone except Kendra, the boy, and Nate Parish. And Nate was dead.

Besides that… all Hardie wanted to do was get the fuck out of there. Like he’d spend a single second doing something other than trying to escape?

Victor smiled and said, “All we’re missing is X-Ray. But you can meet him later.”

“Yeah,” Hardie said. “X-Ray. Sure.”

The female guard stepped forward, said, in shaky English: “Warden.”

Already, the Warden shit was getting real old fast. “Look, guys,” Hardie said. “Why don’t you just call me Ch—”

“Hey, now,” Yankee said, shaking his head. “No names. You know that. Victor, he knows that, right?”

“He knows,” Victor said, wagging his finger at Hardie. “You know…right?”

Whiskey reached out to touch Hardie’s arm. “We need…heat.”

“What?”

“On gele,” she said. “It is…too cold.”

“So find the thermostat and turn it up.”

Yankee gave him a confused look. “Only the Prisonmaster can do that.”

“Who?”

“The Prisonmaster,” Victor said. “The man in charge of sending down food, medical supplies, and new clothing as needed. And only the Warden can talk to the Prisonmaster to make these requests.”

Victor and Yankee exchanged a brief look. Hardie probably wasn’t meant to catch it—but he did.

Turning his attention back to Hardie, Victor said, “Look, I was getting to that. This is how it works down here. You call it in, the Prisonmaster has it sent it down. He also controls the environmentals—heat, cooling, water temperature. Without a warden, the Prisonmaster’s been just sending down the bare minimums, enough to keep the facility running. Even environmental requests were ignored.”

“So you want me to talk to this Prisonmaster guy and ask him to turn up the heat?”

“If you would,” Yankee said with a smile that was meant to be charming but came off as slightly overeager, bordering on homicidal. “And there’s also the food situation.”

“You’re out of food?” Hardie asked.

“No,” Yankee said. “We have plenty of food. But it’s the same food—breakfast all the freakin’ time. Muffins, white bread, orange juice, grits, oatmeal, and the most awful slab of gray meat you’ve ever tasted. We’ve had it. We need something else.”

Already Hardie’s mind was racing. Food. Prisons needed food, and the food had be delivered from somewhere. Garbage hauled away, too, right? There was no such thing as an escape-proof prison, because to sustain life inside a prison you need support from the outside. This was good.

“Okay,” Hardie said, trying to give the impression that he was actually giving a shit. “No breakfast. Got it.”

Victor smirked. “That was your predecessor’s big idea, too. He thought breakfast was comfort food.”

“Okay, heat and different food. Can I do anything else for you?”

An extremely awkward moment followed. All three guards stared at Hardie, as if trying to figure him out. And Hardie did the same. Were they putting him on with this bullshit about heat and breakfast?

Hardie decided, fuck it, and pushed past them. Cane, leg. Cane, leg.

Of course, he didn’t make it far.

Once Hardie crossed the next room—which also had a bed and sink—the door was locked.

“Wait,” Victor said, just catching up behind him. “Where are you going?”

“If I’m the warden, I should tour this place, shouldn’t I?”

“Of course. But you gotta put these on, mate.”

Victor pressed something into Hardie’s hand—the stupid goggles.

“No, thanks,” Hardie said.

“You don’t understand. It’s a rule. Besides, you don’t want them gazing into your eyes. Windows to the soul, and all that.”

Hardie could only imagine what he must look like in his suit, with his walking stick and the dorky spaceman goggles in his hand. Something out of a 1980s new-wave music video, most likely. Maybe Mann’s bosses didn’t want to work him to death. Maybe they just wanted to embarrass the living shit out of him.

Victor fitted his own goggles on his face, double-checked his belt and plastic restraint cuffs, then pulled a set of keys out of his pocket, which were attached by a short length of chain to a metal stud on his black leather belt.

“Besides, you’re not going to get very far without keys.”

“Don’t I get a set?”

“I’m sure they’ll send your set down soon. Anyway, they’re electronically coded. You slip a key in the door, the mechanism unlocks, and you’re good to go. There are door keys, cell keys, all kinds of keys.”

Victor hesitated.

“You sure you’re ready for this?”

“Just open the door.”

“All due respect, Warden, we’ve got the smartest monsters you’ll ever encounter. Our survival in this facility depends on following the rules. You show any of them weakness, they’ll exploit it. They will try to befriend you, crawl inside your mind with just a glance. But you cannot listen to them, any more than you’d listen to a rabid animal. Do you understand?”