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With an intense glare, Jonas sat across the small table from Cain. Cain’s eyes remained focused upon the sharp blade held tightly in Jonas’ hand.
Cain finally broke the long silence. “So, what’s your verdict?”
“I think castration is a good start.”
Cain halfway smiled, expecting a partial grin from Jonas in return. Jonas didn’t offer the slightest humorous facial expression. His cold unrelenting eyes bore into Cain. Cain paled, and his tiny smile retracted.
“That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think, sir?” Cain asked.
“Now it’s sir? It’s amazing how manners can rise to the surface whenever such a severe sentence is enacted.”
“Surely, you’re not serious about actually doing that, are you?”
“I did mention it was a good start. Not the entire punishment.”
Cain swallowed hard. “Look, surely there’s some kind of plea bargain for me? On Earth, I’d get an attorney and a chance for a reduced sentence.”
“We’re not on Earth.”
“I don’t think you’d do it,” Cain said. Sweat cropped on his brow.
“Are you challenging me?”
“No, sir. I . . . I can’t see you taking a knife to my—”
“Here’s the thing, Cain. The reason I know I can do it is because Jessica was innocent.”
“Innocent? She’s a damn prisoner!”
“And you were her guard, dammit! She might be a prisoner, but that doesn’t give you the right to violate her.”
Cain noticed the boiling anger rising inside Jonas. “She didn’t know it was going on. She has a Sleeper Chip.”
“You see? I expected you to go there. The fact that she wasn’t aware isn’t justification. I come from a different generation than you. Because of my age, it’s easy for me to ask myself, ‘what if Jessica was my daughter, and I found out that some scumbag was fucking her without her consent?’ For me, there isn’t a simple solution that requires only one type of punishment. I’d ensure the person suffered, and in no way would he ever be able to even contemplate doing that to anyone else. When I’m finished with you, you will be reminded every day of your crime.”
“Barbaric punishments? That won’t set well with authorities.”
“And what you did isn’t barbaric?” Jonas asked.
“Your punishment far exceeds my crime.”
“File an appeal.”
“How?”
Jonas stood. “Ah, that’s right. You can’t.”
“So there’s absolutely nothing I can do to plead my case?”
“Cain, the prisoners here are the worst of the worst. But you’re a monster in a different category altogether. You’ve betrayed everything you were hired to be, and regardless of anything you say, you can’t undo what you did. No one here influenced you to act like this, which means this was your secret nature that you had somehow kept hidden from everyone else as you grew up. I believe others that personally know you can testify to it because you probably did perverted things to them, but you silenced your victims through threats, fear, and intimidation.” Jonas leaned toward Cain and pointed the knife at him. “My guess is that you suffered a similar thing when you were a boy, too. Right?”
For the first time since Jonas had talked to Cain, guilt hung on Cain’s face. Sadness reflected in his eyes. He glanced down and slowly nodded. Tears surfaced and dripped onto the table like raindrops. The hardness and smugness that Cain had tried to maintain vanished as his mind shifted back to his earliest memories when he was the victim.
Jonas walked to the door and opened it. In the CIA, he had worked as a profiler, amongst other things, and the information he dropped on Cain wasn’t mere guessing, it was the typical history and behavior for why some men became rapists. Without even knowing it, HR had placed Cain into the ideal situation where he held absolute power over any woman that was controlled by her Sleeper Chip. The Sleeper Chip was a dangerous tool in the hands of the wrong CAM-L controller, but Jonas understood that no amount of rationalization with Grayson would make him abort the use of the chips in the mines, not with the type of prisoners he kept requesting. Although Grayson might have thought he was doing the overcrowded prisons on Earth a favor by taking the nastiest prisoners into his labor force, he was most likely setting up the Mars encampments for devastating failure. Needless to say, Jonas disliked the use of the Sleeper Chips more and more.
Without saying another word to Cain, Jonas stepped outside the door and locked it. While he didn’t plan to exact the punishment that he had threatened Cain with, he did intend to have a chip implanted into Cain and send him to the mining pits. After discovering the Martian insects, they had lost several miners. He didn’t like that Cain wouldn’t know or feel his punishment, but he didn’t want to risk the chance that Cain might escape from their grasp. If he obtained weapons, Cain wouldn’t hesitate to seek retaliation. That wasn’t beneath him. Vengeance from Cain wouldn’t be mild.
***
After Jonas returned to the security office, he sent a phone message to Grayson about the Chinese robots Derek had encountered, asking what they could do. During the fifteen-minute wait for a response, he called the laboratory where Clark had taken the Martian insects.
“What is it, sir?” Clark asked.
“Did you talk to the chemist about getting a toxin analysis?”
“She’s working on it right now.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Sure. But, you’re not going to believe this,” Clark said.
“What’s that?”
“These creatures are quite smart.”
“In what way?” Jonas asked.
“They can spell.”
“In English?”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit.”
Clark chuckled.
“See? I knew that was a joke,” Jonas said.
“No. I’m laughing because I can’t see people believing it the first time I tell them. But, it’s true.”
“How is that even possible?” Jonas asked with a frown. “They’ve not been around us long enough to learn our language, even if they were capable of spelling in the first place.”
“In many ways, I wish that you were correct on that, sir. But, I think we’re in a lot of danger since I know that you’re wrong.”
“Wrong?” Jonas frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Clark explained how the creatures had formed letters with their bodies and then the warning he had been given from their letter choices off the keyboard. “I’m not trying to alarm you, sir, but if what they’re saying is true, the rest of these insects in the corridor and the open chamber are hostile and will attempt to kill us the longer we stay here.”
Jonas sat in stunned silence for almost a minute. “Tell the chemist that I need her to get a move on finding out the chemical components in the toxin. Express how critical the information is, for all of our sakes.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll tell her.”
Jonas ended the call. He rested his elbows on the desk and placed his chin atop bridged fingers. The worst he had imagined settling Mars to be was the harsh terrain and the extreme cold. He had never expected to find living creatures or the threat of assassin robots. There was a limit to their defense capabilities inside of Olympus Mons. Prisoners already greatly outnumbered them, but the Sleeper Chips maintained control, provided no more malfunctions occurred. The insects, which could incapacitate a man in seconds with their toxin, were an even greater threat since they were inside Olympus Mons with them. Because of their camouflage and small size, they could be concealed in any of the cracks and crevices in the surrounding walls. Realistically, there was no safe place to hide from them.
Flamethrowers might exterminate a vast number of them, but the insects scrambled quickly. They’d never kill all the creatures before being swarmed and overtaken. Sadly, they didn’t have enough flamethrowers to exterminate a tenth of these insects. Nothing short of napalm could possible destroy the massive nest on the other side of the shaft wall.
Jonas took a deep breath and held it. He didn’t remember a time since his son and daughter-in-law had been killed when he had felt this uneasy. Fleeing from Mars in a reasonable amount of time was next to impossible. They didn’t have a large enough fleet available to send the prisoners back to Earth. Even if Grayson was willing to send transport shuttles to Mars to carry them back—Jonas knew Grayson wouldn’t—that was seven months of waiting. And of course, the contracts Grayson had made with the prisons probably prevented him from ever sending them back to Earth.
They might be fortunate enough to have adequate room for some of the staff and guards to board Earthbound shuttles, but not for all of them. That meant leaving behind several dozen guards and staff members, but he didn’t see any peaceful lottery taking place for those who had to remain behind. They’d fight to get aboard, if the threat of these deadly insects increased.
Since he was the Warden Supervisor and the Head of Security leader, he considered himself no less than the captain of this ship. He’d willingly stay behind until either help came or everyone remaining, including himself, were dead.
Jonas realized the hundred or so prisoners were food for the Martian insects. He supposed it was a better sacrifice than the alternative, but he didn’t like the idea, not even for the worst prisoners from Earth. Yet, he could justify it as well. Under the control of the Sleeper Chips, they’d never suffer, and with some of their previous outrageous crimes, the majority of the prisoners probably deserved more severe deaths than being killed by the insects.
What troubled him the most though was the information Clark had given him. These creatures were able to communicate, and they understood English. So, they understood any communication Jonas gave to his guards and staff. Making any advance into their territory to attack was possibly suicide as these insects would anticipate their approach and react in kind.
As small as they were, these insects were capable of squeezing through the airshafts, electronic wiring ports, and into narrow crevices along the corridors. Since they blended in with their surroundings, they held a greater advantage for surprise attacks. Should they be like other animals after they had tasted blood, their cravings to find more meant that the insects would probably plot strategic attacks.
Jonas sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. The insects were only one of their problems. He still needed to worry about the Chinese cyborgs that Derek had suffered attack from. They were probably approaching Olympus Mons. And then there were the defective Sleeper Chips. These were all detrimental difficulties he and his staff faced. Being the Security Chief didn’t seem as secure as it once had.