Suddenly, the man called Ben Fry opened his eyes.
He was lying on his cell cot. He was under the blanket, fully clothed. He had slept—for a minute—five—he wasn’t sure. There’d been a nightmare. He’d dreamt he opened a closet in his mother’s house and it had been full of butchered bodies. As he woke, his heart was beating fast, his breath was trembling. But it was all right. He remembered where he was. Calm settled over him. His hour had finally come.
Now it seemed to him that he became himself again. The meticulous, unemotional precision of his thoughts seemed to grind back into motion after a long lapse. Images like the one in his nightmare—and a million even uglier images from an entire lifetime—seemed to scrabble back into their recesses like rats scattering from a burst of flame. He could climb down from his tower now and they wouldn’t trouble him. All he had to do was follow the plan.
The capsule, that was the first thing.
The man called Ben Fry glanced at the clock—a plastic digital stopwatch he kept strapped to his cot. He had set it to time the pictures in the control booth video monitors. Forty-eight cells, each displayed for ten seconds. An eight-minute cycle. In one of his trips to the visiting room, he had seen his own cell come up and he’d begun the count from there. He waited till it was his cell’s turn to be shown. Waited till the turn was over. Then he waited a little longer to be sure. And even then, he was careful, just in case. He rolled over on his side to face the wall.
The blanket hid his hands as he worked them down under the waistband of his pants. His fingers probed the tender flesh on the inside of his thigh. He found the scar, the place where he’d cut himself. He took several deep breaths, gazing at the whiteness of the white wall. Then he grabbed a hunk of flesh between his thumb and forefinger and began to squeeze.
He squeezed hard. White flashes went off in front of him, an explosion of white pain then sparks of it sprinkling down like fireworks. The man called Ben Fry stared at the wall, his teeth gritted, his eyes bulging. A pocket of encysted pus had formed around the capsule inside him. His fingers were pushing the cyst upward. He could feel the object itself—not with his fingers but from within. He could feel its sharp edge lancing through layers of flesh toward the surface. He squeezed harder. The capsule was forced up with the pus, slicing through his interior. A wave of red agony washed down over his eyes, red agony dancing with the sprinkling white flashes. Even the man called Ben Fry was amazed at how much it hurt.
Then, with a gloppy, squirting sound, the flesh of his thigh burst open. Just like that, just like popping a pimple. He tugged the blanket aside so he could peek down and see. He saw the yellow pus burbling down over his leg. It soaked into the green fabric of his pants, a spreading stain. Making a noise down in his throat, the man worked his fingers in deeper. As the pus ran out of him, he could start to feel the capsule itself pinched between his fingertips. The gouts of pus kept coming. He couldn’t believe how much there was. Then there was blood, watery and pale. And in the middle of the red-and-yellow gush, the dark tip of the capsule itself poked out of the torn skin.
With his other hand, the man called Ben Fry caught that small tip, pinched it between thumb-and fingernail. Tears poured from his eyes as he slowly drew the thing out of his body.
The capsule was slick and slippery with his fluids. He tamped it dry on the bedsheet so he could get a grip on it. Then he took the thing in his two hands and snapped it in half. It broke pretty easily. It was designed that way. Now it was in two pieces, one shaded blue, the other red. Each piece had one sharp end and one end that was flat. Using the sharp end of one half, he poked a hole in the flat end of the other. Like poking an opening in a tube of glue. He repeated the process on the other side.
He had about six minutes left before the video camera went on in his cell again. It was plenty of time.
Ignoring the burning pain in his thigh, he rolled off the cot. He crouched down at the cell door. He used the blue half of the capsule first. Squeezed it four times, once each where the lead section of the door latched to the upright, once each where it connected to the computerized sliding mechanism. At each spot, he left a dab of viscous blue fluid. Then he used the red capsule the same way, in the same places. The red fluid and the blue fluid mixed.
The man called Ben Fry moved back across the small cell. He squatted, his back to the door, his hands covering his neck, his head down. Positioned like that, he watched the red bloodstain spreading slowly over his pants leg. He was conscious of a small hum of excitement all through him while he waited, but nothing more. He wasn’t afraid. He had planned this out in his mind, every step of it. His plans were perfect—they always were. Now it was just a matter of making them happen.
A second went by. Another. The blue fluid and the red fluid from the capsule mixed on the cell door. Finally, there was a quiet, sizzling hiss—a near-silent explosion that blew the door free of its locking mechanism.
The instant he heard it, the man called Ben Fry leapt back to the door. He seized it by the mesh, shoved it back. The door didn’t budge. For a moment, the man felt dazzled, confused. This was not the plan. But he shoved again. And the door did slide back this time exactly as it was supposed to—not a lot, just a little. Just enough.
The man called Ben Fry squeezed through the narrow gap and stepped into the pod gallery.
He was out.