Treason

by Valerie J. Long

  “You stink,” she accused me.

  “I’m in no mood for that crap,” I returned and rose. “Piss off.”

  “I’ll show you—ugh!” Her uppercut failed halfway, because breath and power left her quicker, owing to my quick double strike against solar plexus and chin, which she hadn’t seen coming.

  Nor had any of the bystanders seen it coming. They only saw their big-mouthed speaker go down, and stared at me.

  I let my gaze wander across their startled faces, before I spoke up. “I’m too fast for you. Take your friend with you and leave me alone.”

  The next day, two women sat down next to me. They didn’t ask for approval, but they also didn’t molest me. Only after some minutes, the blonde to my left spoke up. “I’m Charlie. That’s Sasha over there.” She pointed at the dark-haired woman sitting to my right. “We’d like to thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “For showing Cassie she’s not the unchallenged ruler right after God.”

  I pointed toward the other corner of the yard. “She’s already fit again.”

  “Anyway.”

  “Listen. I’ve got rid of Cassie for now, yes. But I’m busy enough tending to myself. If Cassie comes for you, I won’t protect you. When I’m sitting in the Hole next time, I can’t do anything for you, and if Cassie then thinks you belong to me, that’s not good for you.”

  “We know. But Cassie doesn’t. If she thinks you’ll follow it all up after your visit to the Hole, you’d protect us from out of the Hole, too. At least she’d do it that way.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “But it doesn’t cost you anything if it looks that way. Just the opposite. If Cassie sees that you have friends, she might think twice before trying something truly nasty.”

  That was worth considering. The less trouble I provoked, the better. After all, I had a few more decades ahead of me. “What truly nasty things could she want to do?”

  “She could make a deal with the guards. A few uncommon favors from her and her girls in exchange for a special treatment for you.”

  “I already know all the special treatments anyway. And what uncommon favors would they offer? The guards already get anything they want from you.”

  “Oh no, they don’t”, Charlie objected. “The common fuck, ass fuck, cumming between the tits, that’s all in. They only do blowjobs with girls who’re already broken—one could want to take a bite. But if they want to see two girls swapping their load or how one drinks their juice from another one’s pussy, they need volunteers. Such things are only given in exchange for something. You understand?”

  “I understand.” This way you could please the guards and make your stay in prison easier. Such was the common way, such were the guards accustomed to. Only one prisoner wouldn’t play the game.

  If these men knew that I was one of the best in the business, they’d be even more pissed. But that was exactly the reason I begrudged them my art. My art was reserved for those who knew to cherish it or who I liked to do it with.

  “So, how about it?” Sasha asked.

  “Just stay where you are. That’s okay.” As long as I didn’t have to chit-chat with them about prison food and prison fucks.

  Chapter Five

  “Ey, floozie, you have a visitor.”

  A visitor? Who’d want to visit me here? I rolled from my bunk, plucked my tunic in place, and nicely stood at the rear cell wall. Ed unlocked my cell and stepped aside, waving his baton.

  With submissively lowered head, I scuffled out of my cell and waited.

  “You won’t deceive me, floozie.” His baton hit my buttocks hard. “On with you.”

  I ignored the throbbing in my back and scuffled ahead. Ed kept enough distance to easily stare at my swaying ass. While he kept this distance, he couldn’t reach me with his baton.

  “Good morning, Johanna.”

  The man behind the glass and the speaking grid showed a friendly face. I sat down straight on the plain wooden chair. “Mister President.” I should have been surprised. Had my stay here already blunted me so much?

  “Nicholas.”

  “Nicholas.” Okay, if he’d pretend to be my friend, I’d play his game. For now.

  “How are you, Johanna?”

  Actually, he should call me Jo, but that seemed to be another part of his game.

  “Crappy.”

  “They don’t treat you well?”

  Was he trying to pull my leg? What did he want to hear? “No. The cells are poorly heated and we don’t get blankets. There’s little food, the nutritive value is low, and sometimes the ingredients are spoiled. The guards beat us for no reason, and those who complain are put in the Hole. Which will happen to me right after because I told you.”

  “We’re in private.”

  “You’re dreaming. Everything’s recorded here, of course not officially. Your men outside make sure that the regular listeners are shut off. The others still work.”

  “I’ve given clear instructions,” he said aloud. “No eavesdroppers. If I have this room examined after this talk and find any installation I haven’t been told of before, I’ll make the responsible person account for it. Is that clear?”

  He leaned back and smiled at me.

  After a while, the door at his side opened, one of his Secret Service guys poked his head in and nodded. “Steve’s taking care of that.”

  “Thanks, Jake.”

  Once the door had closed again, he leaned forward to the grid again. “So. Back to our talk. I’ve come to propose a deal.”

  No word about the situation here, of course not. “Let me hear.”

  “We’ll turn it so that you’ll be released early for good conduct.”

  For good conduct? I’d have laughed if I’d been in the mood for laughing. But the situation was just ugly.

  Nicholas waited for my reaction. I only cocked my head and waited.

  “In turn, I’d like to ask you for a little favor.”

  Naturally. I was too useful to rot in this jail forever. I’d only been parked here until they could find some new use for me—and perhaps for letting things calm down after the events. Now they’d pull me out of the hat, and once my job was done—which of course wouldn’t be entirely legal—they’d take me back in here for parole violation. But what alternative did I have? Stay here?

  “Which?”

  “I’d prefer not to discuss that here. What’s your position with regard to this offer?”

  “What’s your offer exactly?”

  “As I said. You’ll be released early for good conduct.”

  “The sentence is considered served?”

  “The remaining sentence will be suspended on probation. What counts is that you’re getting out of here, isn’t it?”

  Did he think I’d already been grilled enough to agree with anything? “No probation. When I get out, the case is settled. Ultimately. Or kiss my ass.”

  “Johanna, you’re not here for a little vice crime.”

  No, you weren’t put in this pit for such.

  “You’re sentenced for robbery, manslaughter, and multiple murder. I can’t cancel that with a snap of my fingers.”

  “Then I’d advise to have my case revisited, so that the sentence will be corrected. Maybe some evidence in my favor was overlooked last time.” There hadn’t been any trial, but only a sentence in my absence, after which I had been quietly deposited here. We both knew that all too well. “It will suffice if there’s a protocol for this new sentence. You’ll surely find someone to create the necessary documents.”

  “That will take a few days.”

  “So what? The next few days, I don’t have any other urgent appointments.” Except with the Hole. Well then.

  “I’d thought you’d leave this place as soon as possible.”

  And sign with blood for it, sure. “You’re welcome to take me along now and do the formalities later.”

  He pon
dered it.

  “That saves you another return here,” I proposed. “And it reduces the risk that I change my mind—because I like it so much here.”

  Chapter Six

  The guards didn’t even talk to me. They knew that I had shafted them, and they also knew that I knew they had heard everything—despite the Secret Service’s efforts. They protected their hunting grounds.

  So they shooed me to the shower massage without comment, then to their operation room, dealt me my beat-up, and afterward, I ended in the Hole in the cell block’s deep cellar.

  Their behavior was different this time, strange. First, I couldn’t guess what it was, but once the door fell close behind me and locked out the last strip of light, it quickly became clear.

  First, there was this splashing noise, and then my feet got wet. The valve of the drinking hose in the wall was broken!

  No, not entirely. When I tried to hold the stub close, I noticed the quickly rising pressure with which the water tried to get through. It was definitely pumped inside!

  The hose was old and weak—after a few moments, the material broke, and the foul water sprayed in all directions. And now? I could place a finger into the wall and try to keep the hole closed, or I could hope that the water wouldn’t rise to the cell’s ceiling. After all there still were the vent openings in the upper part of the door, above my head, but I’d be able to swim.

  No.

  Once the water reached these openings and searched its way out there, there wouldn’t be any air exchange, and I’d simply suffocate. An embarrassing mishap, naturally, a perfect storm, but it was only about a defiant multiple murderess after all, wasn’t it? No reason to shed tears about the victim.

  No investigation would find incriminating details. A worn-out hose, an old valve, and of course there were no means to call the guards in the Hole. What for, anyway? Total isolation was the purpose, and the convicted should in no way gain the impression of being able to communicate by any means.

  Solitary confinement didn’t leave any visible traces of torture, as opposed to the guards’ regular beating orgies, but instead the much-worse psychical and physical long-term damages. Drowning, on the other hand, was more than obvious—except in case of such a skillfully arranged accident.

  Well, then. The old-fashioned, mechanical lock obviously wasn’t suited to last against the water pressure for long, it inevitably had to fail. Consequently, it wouldn’t have withstood a wholeheartedly applied kick, but the dainty inmate, who already had surrendered to her fate, couldn’t have known that.

  My nano manipulator prepared the bolt material, while the water by and by rose to my hips. In a flash of gallows humor, I thanked my torturers for their trap having sprung so early that I hadn’t used the bucket yet.

  To my surprise, I then noticed that I didn’t feel any urge for revenge. No—I rather took the assault on my life like a good sport. I was better, and the silly faces they’d show after this new failure was compensation enough for me.

  Chapter Seven

  “Good morning, Johanna.”

  “Good morning, Nicholas.”

  “This time I’ve made sure that we’re truly alone. Did you consider my offer?”

  “What’s your offer exactly?” I asked him again.

  “You’re released, and in exchange you do me a little favor.”

  “Can you give me a little more detail?”

  “I’m no lawyer, nor are you. Do we need to bother with the fine print?”

  “Of course not. Let’s come to the important questions. During your last visit I told you about the situation here. What actions did you take?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “No. Why should I?”

  “I thought we had a deal.”

  “Which deal do you mean?”

  “The deal that I’m arrested and locked away without resistance, and in exchange you make sure that the sentence will be moderate.”

  “Oh, this deal. Well, you weren’t sentenced to death, were you?”

  “Only to a few hundred years in prison with regular abuse. We hadn’t negotiated that.”

  “What did we negotiate then? I don’t remember that we had agreed on a specific number of years.”

  “And the abuse?” I didn’t mention the assaults on my health and the attempted murder—I didn’t have to show my entire hand yet.

  “Had we fixed anything about it?”

  “No. I had assumed that such isn’t possible in American jails.”

  “Had we fixed that you’ve been brought to an American jail?”

  “No.” So—I wasn’t in America? But where then? “Then I understand why I was brought here in a closed box.”

  “That was mainly to prevent you from being seen. We’d kept your place a secret. We had agreed on that.”

  “Indeed.” So secret that not even I knew about it.

  “You see? I’ve kept all agreements we’ve negotiated.”

  “Right—and all expectations I had are my problem, right?”

  “That’s really not my fault. We could have talked about it.”

  “Yes, that was my fault.” After the tortures in New York, I had been too stirred up—and I simply had assumed that Nicholas meant it well, that he was a little bit grateful. “However, nor do I remember having granted you safe passage for your visit here.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I’ve explicitly agreed to not escape here. I haven’t agreed to leave you alive if you show up here.”

  He looked truly startled. “What are you up to?”

  “I’m sitting here for manifold murder, Nick.”

  “And?”

  “I only want to make two things clear to you. First, I have nothing to lose. Second, there are parts in every deal which both parties may expect of each other without voicing them. That I’m not abused is as self-evident as that I won’t kill you. So?”

  “What so?”

  “What will you do in the future to keep your unvoiced part of the deal, and what will you do to compensate your previous failure?”

  Nicholas made a grim face. “I’m not seeing any obligation on my side.”

  I could look grim, too. “Then we don’t have a deal.”

  “You rather stay here?”

  “I said, we have no deal, Nick. You don’t keep your part, so then I’m not bound to mine.”

  “I’ve kept all explicit agreements.”

  “A Dragon contract doesn’t work that way, Nick.” Scored! For the second time, I had shattered his professional firmness. He had totally forgotten who he was dealing with. Even if I hadn’t been born Dragon—for my Companion Achrotzyber, I was a legitimate Golden One, and that was another unvoiced part of my deals. “Such a contract must be served by the word and the gist of the agreement. You’ve betrayed our agreement.”

  He couldn’t entirely hide his consternation. But like a slippery eel, he tried to wind himself free. “Well then. What will you do now? Kill me? Then you no longer have a contract partner.”

  “I don’t have a contract partner, Nick. We’ve just before clarified that.”

  “No, for the new deal. Or don’t you want to get out here?”

  “I propose you a new deal, Nick. You make sure that I get out of here and that my sentence counts as served, and I’ll listen to what you might want from me.”

  “And you owe me a favor.”

  “That, too, Nick. But not any favor. I’ve got the last say.”

  “That’s nothing.”

  “Your decision, Mr. President. Just consider whose word has proven more reliable in the past.”

  Chapter Eight

  The guards eyed me warily, but left me alone for a while. Had they received new, special directions? Nicholas and I hadn’t agreed on anything like that, so he had no obligation with regard to them.

  In fact, he didn’t even have to get me out of here. But he had already traveled twic
e to visit me—in a foreign country—and there still was something he wanted from me. If it really was important to him, he’d return.

  I hoped for that. I had already pushed my luck hard twice by insisting on my demands. I wanted to get out of here, the earlier the better, before the guards could catch me on the wrong foot. I was so fed up with the beatings! Nanos or not, it hurt! The Solitary on top, and one day their attrition tactics would break through my defenses.

  No, I wouldn’t stay that long. During my talk with Nicholas, I had realized that we indeed had no deal any longer. So there was no reason for me to serve my entire sentence—except for the prospect of early rehabilitation. With the attempt to take my life, I regarded my self-commitment to pay for my misdoings as fulfilled. Wasn’t a convict pardoned after a failed execution?

  Perhaps I was already worn down, so that I adjusted my principles so quickly? Or was I only bored?

  The prospect of being beaten up or put into the Hole each week for the next thirty to forty years didn’t appeal to me at all. Hadn’t I just had this thought before?

  If my thoughts already ran in circles like that, how accountable was I then? Was I already cracked?

  I looked up into the sky. You should be able to just fly away, free as a bird, without an idea of law. Outlawed, yes, that matched my situation well. Free game for everyone. Cartel, Syndicate, corrupt cops, prison guards, fellow prisoners—all had it in for me, and nobody held them back, not even the law. Above all, not the law!

  No. If I wanted justice, I had to take it. Steal it, if necessary. Wasn’t I the best in that area?

  “Hum,” Sasha uttered at my side. That was the only warning I got. Then the shot rang.

  The rifle bullet hit me mid-chest—and angrily whistled away. The guard on the watchtower balcony stared at me in disbelief. The same applied for Cassie, the features of whom just changed from a murderous nasty grin to bare horror. If I had horns and red-glowing eyes, she couldn’t look more terrified.