It takes a certain hubris to believe man can control time. Hubris or genius. One often wonders what the difference is.
~ editorial published in Aristegui Noticias I3–2070
Sunday February 12, 2073
Brevard County, Florida
Federated States of Mexico
Iteration 3
There was something viciously beautiful about spring. The way people cheered the end of a nice, clean winter always made Nialls smile. Rabid plants brutishly destroying the earth around them to make space for roots and branches, velvety-pink petals laced with seduction and death, it was a metaphor for life, really. A brief, violent struggle, and in the end, the fastest would win the day.
Or course, spring brought the occasional rare fog to the sunny shores of Florida. Thick as soup and filled with adulterated sounds like the cries of the damned. A local penitentiary was prepared for fires, floods, and hurricanes, but a thick fog made it impossible to see more than a meter or two in each direction. The watchtowers and cameras outside were useless. Only the locks inside stopped the prisoners from running loose. For now.
Nialls leaned back in his bunk and watched the open-circuit TV replay the news headlines. A triple homicide two towns south of here. A whole family murdered. No suspects. He smiled as Detective Rose, with her perfect black curls and trademark red jacket stepped in front of the cameras. No doubt, the newscasters were plotting murder in their minds as the detective upstaged them with the poise of a pageant queen.
It would do him no end of good if someone finally snapped and killed the woman. He’d personally pay to have it done on live television if the killer would guarantee that Detective Rose would die. The last unsung idiot who went after her found, much to his terminal regret, that Detective Rose kept a small ceramic knife concealed on her person.
A death sentence for the unfortunate man. A boon for Nialls, who learned from the deceased’s mistake and made plans to take the detective out with a sniper rifle should the opportunity ever arise.
He toyed with the idea frequently. It’d be much easier to do everything he wanted if the only competent police officer in the area was in a shallow grave. But there was a chance, tiny and thin, that she might not die the first time he shot at her. That was enough to make him keep his distance—Detective Rose was not the kind of person who gave a man a second chance to kill her.
That, and—of course—the walls of this prison.
As if to remind him, knuckles rattled the bars of his cage. “Nialls Gant, up and at ’em. You know what time it is.”
“Officer Breck, a pleasure as always. Am I in the kitchen detail today?”
“Laundry,” Breck said. “Get your hands up here.”
With a sigh, Gant walked forward and placed his hands through the slot to be cuffed. “Is this show really necessary?”
“How many people did you kill, Gant?”
“I was convicted of money laundering, not murder.”
“Three was it?” Breck asked without bothering to listen. “Four? Five? Everyone knows you did it.”
“If I did something, there would be evidence.”
“Not if you’re smart about it.”
“Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty, Officer?”
“The United States became a protectorate of Mexico in 2025,” Breck said. “But it would be the same either way. You’re a killer.”
Gant rolled his eyes and waited for Breck to open the cell door. Shuffling with handcuffed legs and hands, he followed the now-familiar route to the laundry. Steam coiled up from the aging washing machines. “No company today?”
“Don’t complain. You’re out of solitary, aren’t you? Working the shift alone means no one’s going to shank you.”
“Indeed.” He watched the steam curl in front of the security camera.
“Hands.” Breck held out his key, impatience written across his broad features.
Gant held his hands out.
Breck looked down, leaned forward . . .
Gant reached up and grabbed his head, twisting the officer’s face until his fat neck popped. “Who needs a shank?” Bending down, Gant picked up the discarded keys. “Thank you ever so much, Officer.” He unlocked his cuffs. There were two minutes left before Breck was due to check in again, long enough to wipe down Breck’s body to keep the medical examiner from pulling a fingerprint. There was only a slim chance that anyone would find Gant if his plan came to fruition, but old habits died hard. Anyway, it was senseless to leave Detective Rose with any clues.
To further ensure no evidence, he deposited Breck’s corpse in one of the industrial dryers.
He set it on “permanent press.”
Days like this, he wished he had flunkies. There were so many things to do when planning a prison break: guards to watch, alarms to reset, bodies to hide. It was really quite distracting. Nevertheless, needs must, as they said.
He picked up Breck’s truncheon.
Time to go muddy the trail.
Gant didn’t saunter down the hall; that would have drawn attention. He kept his pace measured, quick, light . . . just like the pathetic errand boys who were trying to shave time off their sentence with good behavior. As if fetching and carrying for the guards was going to get them home faster than busting a few heads open.
The other inmates looked up when Gant walked into the cellblock without his guard or chains.
He smiled. “Good evening, gentlemen. May I recommend putting your shoes on?” He held up the master key. “I’m about the pull the fire alarm. All of you will be exiting the building in a disorderly fashion. Run. Jump. Cluck like a chicken. I don’t care. As long as you leave the building in under two minutes, you’ll only have to deal with the police.”
Still smiling, he stuck the master key in the lockbox, twisted, and pulled the fire alarm. It was there only for life-threatening emergencies. Only meant to be used if the guards outnumbered the prisoners. It shouldn’t have been built at all. Too tempting.
I’ll never get over the stupidity of those in law enforcement.
“Come along, gentlemen. I haven’t got all evening. Time and tide wait for no man. Stand up, stand up. Carmichael, why aren’t you wearing . . . you know, never mind. Just go. You.” Gant stopped in front of a cell where a younger man lay in his bunk. “Who are you?”
“Camden.” The boy looked at him.
“It’s time to leave, Camden.”
“Ain’t happening, man. I seen those guns in the turrets. I was here last time some jack fool tried to make a break for it. They took his hands off with bullets.” Camden held his arms up like he was holding an assault rifle. “Rat-a-tat-tat. You know, man? That’s a tune I ain’t dancing to. You have fun. I’m staying here.”
Gant sighed. “You’re wasting my time, Camden.” In one smooth motion, he raised the truncheon and brought it down hard on Camden’s neck. “Stay here if you want,” he told the corpse with the broken neck.
An alarm sounded lockdown on the far side of the prison. Someone had tried to bust a buddy out with them. He’d made plans for that. Or, rather, he’d made plans in case someone tried to use the prison break to take a detour and make some extra cash by offing a rival. But just because he planned for such an eventuality didn’t mean the idiots had to go do it.
Out in the prison yard, gunfire rattled the windows. Rat-a-tat-tat indeed.
Best to use the parking-lot exit then.
Gant hummed as he strolled down the empty path, sirens wailing in the distance. Cell Block B was a great tomb—no, not a tomb—a cathedral to human ingenuity. Inmates were given one hour of computer time each month, but it had been more than he needed. One tiny computer virus and—on his signal—the sirens lost their voices. The lights were darkened, killed with a single keystroke. And outside the barred, bulletproof glass, the prison-yard lights illuminated the fog like the dawn of war. So poetic. Genius, even, if he would allow himself a brief moment of immodesty. He wished he could have recorded the moment for posterity.
One day, he’d have to blackmail someone to make a film of his life. If they didn’t spring for the fog machine, he’d break their femur a quarter inch above the patella. A difficult infliction to master, but it always got his point across.
He pushed the prison doors open and took a deep breath of the vapor-choked air. Brilliant. Now, where was the coward?
Gant sauntered as he moved into the parking lot. The car-park lights far overhead were dimmed by the fog. The turret guards were distracted. At the far end of the lot, he could hear someone trying to start a car, but he couldn’t see them. Which meant no one saw him as he approached the bright blue four-wheel-drive monstrosity with a temporary tag still in the window.
Officer Wilhite’s aunt had passed unexpectedly a month ago, and she’d left her only surviving relative a tidy sum of money, a fact the bullying guard couldn’t stop bragging about as he watched the inmates eat lunch. It couldn’t have happened to a less worthy person. Wilhite was the kind of man roaches looked down on for not having enough class. He was a thing that fed off whatever the bottom-feeders left over. If he’d gone into crime—and Gant wasn’t entirely sure the officer wasn’t supplementing his income with some illegal activity within the prison—this was the guy the gang would leave for the cops to drag in.
No one wanted him.
Even the understaffed prison system hadn’t objected when Wilhite gave his notice.
Gant hadn’t planned on leaving tonight. He’d been waiting for Detective Rose to be distracted or for the weather to be perfect. A tornado or a hurricane that drove the guards out of the turret would have been ideal. But fog on a night when Detective Rose was chasing someone a hundred miles away and Wilhite was leaving early? It was as if God Himself had stepped down from his cherub-encircled throne and given Gant the key. It was divine intervention.
Or diabolical.
Someone swore in the depth of the fog.
Gant smiled, fading back into the darkness, giving Wilhite a path to his car.
“Crazy, sonofa—” Wilhite stopped in the ring of sickly-yellow light falling from the lamp overhead. He was watching the tower, head leaning this way and that as he decided whether to go back or not. The former prison guard shook his head. Turning back to his car, he fumbled with his new keys.
Gant moved in for the kill.