Chapter 12
The bolt from the security pistol had taken the guard instantly, and the nature of the entry wound ensured that blood spatter was minimum. Wiping a few stray drops of blood from her face, the prisoner caught her breath and listened for other security personnel to come by on patrol. For now, this delinquent was the only one was down here, so she had a few minutes.
She began to undress the guard, searching his pockets for anything of use as she unbuttoned and unzipped. Pulling the guards clothes onto her own figure, she tightened the belt, feeling the scratchy material compress her sore skin, and zipped up the vest. The clothes looked a little big on her, but from a distance it wouldn’t look too much like she was playing dress-up. She replaced the guards gun into its holster, now at her waist, and straightened the name badge above her right breast. Mikhailovich, it read.
The contents of the guards pocket had been sparse, but useful. He had been carrying an RFID equipped identification card, presumably to unlock other parts of the detention complex, a radio, and an extra clip of ammunition for his pistol. They had all underestimated her, and now the prisoner was going to make them pay. Not right now, though. No. First, she needed to escape and find a place to establish contact with the others.
Looking down at herself one more time to gauge her pass ability as a guard, she decided that she couldn’t afford to hesitate any longer and opened the cell door enough to peak out. The cramped corridor was devoid of all life save for a few other prisoners and the rats that had managed to escape from the green spaces above and now gorged themselves on the stockpiles of spoiling fruit and molding bread that the detention team used for meals with the prisoners.
Scanning the cell block, the prisoner spotted what might be an entry door down the hallway to her left. Opening the cell door enough to allow her to move through, she left the cell and closed the door behind her, scanning the RFID to lock the door. Moving down the cramped corridor, her muscles tightened with every step. Her ears twitched at every sound, expecting a guard to open the door at any moment and break her charade. She would kill if it came to that, though. They wouldn’t be putting her into another cell, that was certain. She fingered the RFID nervously against the nail on her right thumb as she approached the door, holding the pistol in her other hand. Her thumb was raw from where the RFID had been chafing against her skin. Her heart fluttered as she gained the door and placed the RFID to the scanning apparatus. The scanner beeped in confirmation of the chip and the door slid open with a jerky whoosh.
The prisoner stepped into the next room and closed the door behind her, sending a discomforting amount of mice skittering into the shadows. The prisoner placed the RFID into her pocket and scanned the room. This was the storeroom; a near empty room save for two large plastic tubs, one full of bread and another full of an assortment of fruit. It appeared that there was enough for two to three days of rations at a time; the bread was starting to mold and the fruit was rotting from the heat and humidity of the room. The pungent stench clawed at her throat. Through the gloomy light of the lone wall-sconce, the prisoner peeked into the vats of rotting food to see if there was anything worth taking; she hadn’t eaten in over a day and was starting to feel weak. Nothing in the rot-piles spoke to her. She decided that she could wait until she made it out to find something to eat, something that wouldn’t prompt her stomach to wring itself out.
From her place in the storeroom, the prisoner could see a sliver of the gleam of kitchen steel in the next room. Who is that kitchen for? Certainly not us in those cells, she thought. The prisoner quietly moved to the entryway and listened into the next room. Nothing. Kitchen must have been off duty. As she stepped into the room, the prisoner noticed that the kitchen was completely bare. All that remained were four chalky, dusty steel preparation tables, bolted to the floor in a pattern that gave each table its own quadrant of the room. Two sides of the room were lined with cabinets and counters, but the doors stood open to reveal the empty storage space behind; no food here. There once had been some gas stoves connected to the wall, but they had long been removed. Rusty squares remained as totem of what used to stand there and the wall-connections dangled helplessly in wait for their next partner. On the opposite side of the room the prisoner spotted another door with an identical scanning apparatus as she had used to leave the cell block.
“Oi, Malcom, what’chu doin’ leavin’ the block? You’re s’posed to be enjoyin’ some special time with that bitch,” a cruel voice crackled on the comms-link through a thick British accent. A part of herself hoped she would get to make that voice regret what it had just said. The prisoner reached to her belt to silence the radio. When Malcom Mikhailovich failed to report back, someone would come looking for him. It would only be a few minutes now. The prisoner needed to move fast. The problem, she realized, was that she had no idea how to get the fuck out of this place. Only one way to keep moving from here, though.
Making her way across the abandoned kitchen, she pulled the RFID from her pocket and prepared to place it to the scanner next to the door. As she approached, freezing panic seized her. She could hear a muffled angry voice with a British accent on the other side, presumably trying to raise someone on a radio connection. The voice was growing increasingly agitated, the prisoner could tell. Open the door and handle this now, or wait for him to come to me, she thought to herself. Before she could calculate, she heard the angry stomp of heavy boots approaching the door. The prisoner reached for her pistol, but it caught on her belt loop, clattering to the floor. The metallic clang echoed through the corridor like a firecracker had detonated.
“Who’s there?!” the voice demanded from across the door. The prisoner quickly bent to pick up the pistol as the door slid open, her helmet bumping into the door as it slid and pulling the protection off of her head. “I said, WHO’S -”
The bolt from the prisoner’s pistol penetrated up through the guards jaw and lodged itself firmly inside his head, ending the thought before he could finish it. Blood trickled from the hole in the guards chin as he fell to the floor. The prisoner had killed twice today, two more lives than she’d ever taken. She let the idea settle in her stomach and found herself surprisingly at peace. The prisoner found herself feeling stronger, as though she had discovered sustenance in the cessation of the lives of those who thought her powerless, but worth a quick rape before they put her to the needle. After all, that’s what Mikhailovich was going to do to her her; the vile British voice had confirmed it.
The prisoner listened for more activity in the detention complex but heard nothing for now, just the sedative hum of electrical paneling. The room she found herself in was some kind of central control room. The acidic smell of electricity was heavy and the prisoner could see a monitor setup with controls for opening cell blocks and video surveillance of the hallways and corridors. That must have been how they noticed that Mikhailovich wasn’t where he was supposed to be. The prisoner grinned, her crooked white teeth biting into her bottom lip as she suppressed a laugh. Observing the prison through the eyes of her captors, a feeling of power grew within her and found an apex in her chest where normally she would feel dread. She’d killed two of them, escaped her cell, and now had her fingers on the controls. Eat shit, you bootlicking fucks.
The prisoner observed the surveillance equipment to try and map an escape by connecting the video feeds. Tracing a path with a broken-nailed finger from feed to feed, she found a path to an elevator. She Reviewed the route one more as she cocked and prepared the pistol in her left hand. The prisoner turned and moved through the door that would take her up and out of the detention complex as she fingered the RFID against her numb and bleeding right thumb. The phone number she’d dialed was burned into her memory. If she could make it to the elevator, she’d be on her way back to the world, back to the others to warn them.