Prison was a surprisingly political landscape. Prisoners constantly exchanged information and favors, trying to get a leg up over the competition.
They could have run for congress.
Prison was also tribal. If you sided with one gang, another would take it as a personal slight. With a single decision, you gained incredible power and leverage, and at the same time, was forced into confrontations with a gang you never had a problem with before.
There was no reason for Harper to choose me over the champion. I had very little to offer. Even less, actually, than she might think.
She slipped on her baggy clothes and cheap shoes. She tied her hair back and peered up at me.
There was an awkward moment. At least, it felt awkward to me. She smiled and immediately averted her gaze, just as I had averted mine.
This was a one-time thing, I told myself. It was never going to happen again. It never should have happened in the first place. We just happened to be in the right—wrong?—place at the right—wrong?—time.
We were spaceships that passed in the night.
“Are you ready?” I said.
She smiled distractedly and nodded.
I turned to approach the door when she reached out and took me by the arm.
“Wait,” she said.
I searched her face but couldn’t ascertain what the hold-up was.
She bit her bottom lip, gnawing on it like a flaxod with a new chew toy.
“About last night…”
I waved a hand dismissively.
“It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone.”
She looked me over and seemed confused by my response.
“Why would it matter if you told anyone?”
Because you’re with the champion.
“I don’t want there to be any… problems for you,” I said. “Due to your other… clients.”
I couldn’t meet her eyes when I said it. I didn’t like to imagine her with someone else. But in this case, I was the someone else.
“Oh,” she said.
I could hear the disappointment plainly in her voice. She nodded and looked a little beaten.
“Well, I had a great time anyway.”
“Me too,” I admitted.
I turned to lead us out of the cell when she pulled back on my arm again. She went up on her tiptoes and pecked me on the cheek.
“Thanks,” she said, “for saving me yesterday.”
“I thought you already thanked me for that?” I said with a wink.
She laughed and braced her stomach with both hands as if she might explode with laughter otherwise. It was a bawdy, roguish laugh, and brought a smile to my face.
“Yes,” she said, “I suppose I did.”
No matter what happened in the future, I knew this would be one of those few moments in life I would recall and look back on often. I stored it away in a dusty corner of my mind.
I’d need it to remind myself it had actually happened and wasn’t just a fantasy.
I took a moment to record every last detail of the scene. The way her hair sat on her head, tied back, and still a mess. The baggy clothes she felt so comfortable wearing compared to the sheer fabric dresses they forced the Prizes here to wear. The curve of her cheek when she smiled, favoring one corner of her mouth more than the other.
We turned to head through the door when the public speaker system whined and someone cleared their throat on the other end.
“Attention,” a deep voice said. “Your previous supervisor has been removed from his post and replaced. He wants you to know that life in the prison will continue as normal. The riots have come to an end. He wishes to run a series of investigations to discover what caused them to happen.
“Over the next few days, we will be running a series of interrogations with interviewees chosen at random from among the prison population. You will be assigned a time and expected to keep your appointment. Non-compliance will result in severe punishment.
“A reward will be paid for anyone with salient information. The riot leaders will be punished harshly. Anyone who knowingly withholds information will enjoy the same fate. The new supervisor runs a tight ship and we suggest you follow the rules if you do not wish to be thrown overboard. That is all.”
Harper and I shared a look.
“What do you think that’s all about?” she said.
“Looks like we have a new supervisor.”
“Well, he couldn’t be much worse than the last one.”
Want to bet?
The walk to the Prize Pool was surprisingly uneventful. We strolled side-by-side and might have come to the end of our date and I was now walking her home.
Instead, we were walking through the largely empty but massively demolished hallways of a prison recovering from a riot.
The prisoners had been rounded up and forced to clean up the mess. They scrubbed the walls using old-fashioned elbow grease and were watched over by guards armed with shock rifles.
Every so often, I glanced over at Harper, who glanced back at me. We shared a look and peered away again.
If she was anything like me, she was thinking about last night’s activities, and although it might never happen again, it was still something worth thinking about.
“Attention,” the deep voice over the speaker system said. “Smiok Gen, prisoner identification number 76453. Please report to the supervisor at nine o’clock this morning. Any activities, including pit fighting, you were meant to take part in, have been suspended. Report to the supervisor at nine a.m.”
Every few minutes, a new name was called, and each time, I listened intently, in case one of those names turned out to be mine.
Finally, we reached the Prize Pool. The door was one of many that fed into the area. It couldn’t be described as the heart of the compound but it was the heart of all baser instincts. All the females were contained within this single small block. Occurrences like the riot would be far more common if it wasn’t for the Prize Pool to calm aggressive attitudes.
Not that everyone got their fair share, of course. But it worked for the most part.
“Well, this is it,” I said.
“This is it,”
