Then I fell asleep. I was very tired. It was all very tiring.
The fun part of falling asleep was that I woke up to the sound of the door sliding open. A heavy metallic scrape. Not loud or painful to the ears but very distinct. Then I panicked. The adrenaline rush made me both bold and, I assume, articulate.
“Alright, assholes. Let me out of these restraints. I’ll fuck you all up. Pussies. Stupid pussies. You guys are just scared of all this, right? Buncha punk bitches. With your… little… bitch. Faces. Can’t do shit.”
A guard, a new one I think, came to the side of the table. “Alright there, Gun Show, calm down. I can do one of two things depending on how crazy you want to keep being. I can take you to your cell or I can leave you strapped to this table again.”
Again? That was a concerning word. Clearly I’d woken up before. The woozy head was making sense now, but there were no memories to validate the logic.
“Is cell a euphemism for murder?”
“WorldGov has very strict laws against murder, especially of prisoners.”
“WorldGov?”
“Yeah, you’re officially a prisoner of the state. You and your little girlfriend. You’re being kept here awaiting transfer.”
“But… my butt. You guys…”
“Implanted a prisoner tracking and identification device.”
Well, the butt was a wonderful place to hide things. This was making more sense. Jail was better than death. And a cell was better than this table. Plus, Marine would be more likely to find me there.
“Okay. Cell, please.”
The guard got me off the table, gave me a very classy black and white checkered jumpsuit, and took me back through the evil villain basement reception area. I reasoned that there was no use in making a break for it. My legs were noodles and my stomach was a soup of displaced organ mush from the feel of it. Beyond that, there were just too many floors to be dealt with between here and an exitable doorway.
We got to the prison area. It was pretty much as you’d expect. Two cells across from one another. A wall blocked the nearest one from being able to see into the hall. At the left side of the room, next to the hallway that led in, was a desk and computer. A guard sat at it, typing away. He looked up for a half second when we came near and then went back to the keyboard.
“Psycho finally woke up? Boss wants ‘em both in the same box.”
Both? It didn’t stand to reason that they could mean anyone else. We rounded the corner and I saw her. Marine was sitting in the eight-by-eight cell looking dejected. The door clicked open when the guard pressed a button on his desk.
“Don’t cause any trouble.” The guard who’d brought me gave the warning and started back down the hall.
“Hold up.” The guard at the computer got up and went with him. He didn’t return immediately so I turned to Marine.
“They got you, huh? How’s your ass?”
“What?”
“Your ass, they didn’t… do anything? To your ass?”
She looked at me like I was crazy and shook her head.
“Son of a bitch!” Unacceptable. But I’d have to worry about it later. “How’d they find you?”
Marine’s voice was low and, though she tried to hide it, frightened. “They killed the card. I dropped out of the ceiling into a storage room and… and it didn’t work. Buzzed red. I couldn’t get back up into the ceiling and they got me.”
I laughed, hoping to lighten her mood somehow. “We really nailed it.” I let my laugh trail off into a nonchalant sigh. “Well, not bad for less than a minute’s planning. We’re inside anyway. What’s the plan now?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Plan?” She looked around, motioning at the jail around us. “What fucking plan, Laze?”
“Yeah, and I am not really digging on it, to be honest. And it seems like they’re playing by some rules here, so why the hell wouldn’t we try to escape? You want to try to escape from WorldGov proper?”
Marine shifted around, her lips pulled tight in annoyed thought. “Alright, you’re right.”
“Oh—”
“No. Don’t you fucking even. I said it, that’s good enough. Let’s just do whatever we can.”
“Great.” I sat down a few feet in front of her on the floor. “Oh right, check this out!” I got to my knees and lifted my shirt up. It was all gross and purple and green like I thought.
“Holy shit, Laze.” She leaned forward putting a hand on my stomach. I winced away from it, half because her fingers were like tiny icicles and half because I just hadn’t expected the firm caress of a woman. “I’m sorry. Oh… just… are you okay?”
“Yeah, no. It’s fine, more or less. I don’t feel like I’m bleeding internally, but that’s half the fun, I think.”
She put her hand back on my stomach, lighter this time. She had a sad concern in her eyes. Watching her start to hate herself because of my injury hurt somehow, more than the bruises. It wasn’t really supposed to go like that. I pulled my shirt down and forced a smile.
“Hey. It’s fine.” She looked up at me when I said it, hesitantly moving herself back to a sitting position. “We’ve got other stuff to worry about anyway. The food here’s probably awful.”
Chapter
SEVEN
Being put in a cell has a real mood-ruining quality to it. I really wanted to sort of be the bright shining light in the whole situation and, in my mind, that was going to be easy. Marine and I would be playing tic-tac-toe on the floor and it would always end in a draw because tic-tac-toe is mathematically solved and anyone who still plays tic-tac-toe is an asshole. Seriously. You play center and then a middle-row side and
