“Sir, I don't want to die.”
There was nothing I could say, literally, so I just held his hand. I tried to convey the message: You'll be okay you big bag of bolts. But worried that was disrespectful to robots I changed it to: I'm here for you, Buddy.
“Help them,” he said, and died, milky froth bubbling around his mouth.
I told myself he was just a robot and I shouldn’t be sad but my heart was still broken. I would not let him die for nothing. Jonah was up and healed but hadn't seen me. He was admiring his naked body in the reflective walls of the prison. I wondered, not for the first time, if he wasn't suffering from some kind of mutant dementia.
Kawalski still held the smoking hot needle. It gave me an idea. If I stuck the thing in my eardrums it would destroy my hearing, making me immune to Jonah's commands. As well as make me deaf for life. An extreme solution but it was an extreme moment.
I picked up the needle. Feeling the heat as I held it against my ear. I would have to overcome the lifetime of advice of not pushing a Q-Tip in too far. I was calling up every reserve of willpower I had left when I noticed a small pocket on the front of Kawalski's shirt.
It had a symbol of crossed-out ear. I opened it and took out the small yellow packet inside.
"Combat Earplugs - 100% Noise Reduction."
Oh.
12.
The earplugs blocked my ear canal and generated some kind of white noise, I could hear nothing except my own racing heart. Jonah and I stood opposite each other like men in a duel. The earplugs were skin colored and designed to be discreet. If he saw them I was dead.
He shouted something and I felt the familiar pushing in my head. He gestured for me to come and I did, powerless to stop myself. Even without my hearing as long as I knew what he wanted I had to obey. When I got closer I could read his lips, he told me to get on his back. He wanted me to be a passenger in his rampage.
He cleared the prison wall like an impatient man jumping a turnstile. We landed in Yard D. The fighting men were there doing training. They stared at Jonah like rubes at a county fair. I thought about all the times we had repeated "Always Ready!" How obvious now that it was just a well-worn phrase that had lost all meaning.
Paul was in the guard tower. I was proud to see him react so fast. A little too fast. He had not taken time to steady his aim and the missile sailed harmlessly past Jonah's left ear. The mutant retaliated by striking at his tower. With my earplugs, I watched Paul and a ton of bricks fall silently into the yard.
The crash woke the fighters, who approached cautiously, picking up weights and iron bars to use as weapons. Jonah went up to the martial arts instructor, John, grabbed him, and crushed his neck until it looked like a bent accordion.
It was like that old prison logic: find the biggest guy you can and pick a fight with him. I could see the other men lose faith. This was the Prison’s only line of defence and it was failing. If I didn’t do something, they’d all die.
I could feel him inside my head, pushing, but this time I gave myself the order: Kill Him. Taking the soldering needle I had hidden in my sleeve I drove it carefully into the soft tissue in the corner of his eye. His back arched violently and I was thrown off like I was at a rodeo. I landed 10 feet away, next to an unconscious Paul.
Jonah stumbled like a drunk at 2AM, clawing at an area just in front of his face, not quite able to reach the needle. The fighters had backed off, waiting to see how it would play out. They were now joined by male and female Prisoners who filled the ranks behind them. Someone handed me a shank.
Jonah was trying to give commands, but it had no effect. Whatever part of his brain did that, I had destroyed it. I could feel my voice returning. I joined in the battle cry and we rushed him, bringing him down in a storm of bloody wounds.
~
When it was all said and done we crushed his head with a barbell to make sure he wouldn’t come back. Then I took the people to see their Saviour. Kawalski lay there sadly, like a toy soldier that had been cast aside by a child called to their dinner. They carried him inside gently, as if they couldn't stand for him to be damaged any further.
13.
A three day vigil began. I don’t know why they chose that length of time. Something in their genes maybe. The women covered Kawalski in flowers from the garden and sat around him chanting. The men took stone from the tower and used it to construct a monument in the desert. They each carved a new stripe into their flesh to honor him. No one told them to but they did.
As a mutant slayer I was exempt from the work. Paul had broken a few bones and I visited him in the infirmary where he filled me in on everything that had happened. Moss was dead, he had finally taken his lethal injection. I wasn't surprised but the news still hit like a hammer.
I asked him about Sophie but he said he hadn’t heard from her in a while. My hopes of all-is-forgiven reunions dashed, I re-concentrated on the mission.
Moss was buried in the garden and under a pretext of paying my respects I snuck out there and broke into his shed. I got my hands on the pamphlet, which contained both good and bad news. The bad news: Rebecca had been right and the lifespan of the trees was capped at 28 years.
The good news was that attached to the pamphlet was a small envelope containing five tree seeds. It would be enough to grow a new colony and keep their people safe for another generation.
I carefully took the envelope containing the seeds and placed them in my pocket. I was ready to sneak away quietly with my prize when I received a summons that Chief Kinkaid wanted to see me in his office.
14.
Sitting in the Chief's office, I felt the old familiar atmosphere of the Prison surrounding me and I longed to be back at the Orchard. The Chief's whole demeanour was different. There were no threats or displays of authority. He invited me to sit down like I was an old buddy stopping by for a chat.
“Would you like a Dr. Pepper?” he said.
He produced a glistening can from behind his desk. I was tempted but to give myself a position of strength I refused.
“Suit yourself,” he said before drinking it himself.
Chief: 1 Me: 0.
“Welcome back, Christopher. I always knew, if someone was going to tip over the apple cart, it was gonna be you. You know, I told everyone you were dead? Do you have any idea how dumb that makes me look?"
I shrugged.
"Why'd you do it, Chris?"
"I had to know."
"About your Mom?"
"Yeah."
"And?"
"Not all of it."
“Are you sure you want to know?”
I nodded.
He took out a cigar and began to smoke.
“I was a young trusty back then. Everything was going as planned.The siren had sounded and we were waiting in the yard for Kawalski. He never showed up.”
He grimaced at the stale-tasting tobacco.
“People didn’t know what to do. The Board tried to get them to go back to their cells but they wouldn’t move. it was like they were robots and part of their programming was gone.”
I could understand.
“The Board were clever, they knew the people wouldn’t be happy until a substitute was found. If they didn’t have joy they would have to have blood.”
“Mom.”
He took a deep drag.
“She was perfect. She made trouble from the moment she got here. She had contributed only one thing…and that she didn’t give up without a fight. She wasn’t even fully human.”
I could have happily reached across the table and smashed him to bits with some of his garish golden art. Thoughts of the tree people stayed my hand.
“She was tough I’ll give her that. I watched her disembowel a buddy of mine with those legs of hers.”
"Shame she didn't kill you too," I said, losing all fear of him.
"Don't act so high and mighty,” he said. “We all do what we have to do."
I thought about Jonah, Martin, Matthews. I sup
posed he was right.
“Is Barton still alive?” I asked.
The Chief nodded at me through a cloud of smoke.
"You’ve got some balls. Yeah, pissed off but alive. It was a few days before we found him."
I found I didn’t care much either way.
"You've always been curious about this desk, haven't you?" The Chief said, changing the subject and pointing to the roll up behind him.
I admitted I had.
"What do you think is in there?"
"Nuclear launch codes," I said, half-joking.
"Go ahead, open it," he said, stubbing out his cigar.
He unlocked it with a small key. I went around the desk and nervously placed my hand on it, feeling like I was touching the sacred tabernacle.
"Go ahead."
I opened it. Inside were books: Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung, The Golden Bough by James Frazer, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and The Holy Bible by Various.
“You need to know how people work to run a place like this," he said.
"Did you know about -
"Your books? Yes, Tag, I always knew. I'd be pretty fucking stupid if I didn't.”
“Then why were you so mad when I read to Brian?”
“Keeping up appearances. That’s all. I wanted you to read, wanted you to be smarter than the rest of these dumb bastards. I thought it would come in handy someday. I see I was right."
I started to doubt the concept of my own free will.
"So, what? You brought me here to start a book club?"
He chuckled and went to the window to look down at the prisoners.
“I don't know if you noticed but the people are getting old time religious out there."
The mourners were chanting in a repetitive drone.
"At times like this heads have a hard time staying on shoulders."
"That's too bad," I said smiling.
He leaned over the table, turning on the old menace.
"I'm like Dracula, Chris, if I die I take down the guy who killed me. That's your stumpy ass."
"Okay, what are you suggesting?"
"Damage control. They'll make a new religion, we can't stop that. But we can make sure it takes on...a shape we like. Kawalski's gone, they need a new Saviour."
He looked at me meaningfully. I looked behind me to see if someone else had entered the room.
"Me?"
"No, Barton. Yes, you."
"I don't think that's going to work. They know me, they're not gonna accept me as that."
"They know who you used to be. I told them you were dead remember?"
He took the bible from his collection, it was illustrated and he turned to a passage showing the shepherd wandering in the desert.
"40 days and 40 nights Chris, that's how long you've been gone. We couldn't have planned it better."
I turned the page. The shepherd was being offered balls of bread by a weird looking guy. He was resisting the temptation.
"Alright,” I said, “tell me what I have to do."
15.
The arrangement was to be as follows: I would collect the Effort, as Kawalski had done, (I wouldn’t need any great strength, the anti-grav tech in his backpack took care of that) and take the food to The Orchard. The story would be that the Orcharders were the last survivors of the War. The place they lived was radioactive which meant they couldn’t leave and no one else could enter. One day the radiation would fade and the two communities would be reunited.
We left the time frame deliberately vague but I had a feeling it would be about 28 years.
I got a nice room in the Honor block to wait out the rest of the Vigil. I thought about arranging to meet Sophie, my mind ran with scenarios of tearful reconciliations but deep down I knew I was being selfish. She said she didn’t want to see me again so I would leave it to her to approach me if that’s what she wanted.
I thought about Olivia, the woman I had cheated on Sophie with. I hoped that whatever changes were coming in the Prison would help her out and wherever she was she was okay.
~
The vigil ended, the Prisoners gathered in the Yard to see me off. I wore Kawalski's bag, I had drawn the line at donning his torn jacket. Despite the anti-grav technology, it pressed down heavily on my shoulders.
Kawalski's monument was simple and noble, as he had been, a small stone tower on the site where he had given his life. I thought that for the Prisoners, having something to look out outside the walls would one day stretch their vision to new horizons.
Not far from the entrance I turned and waved and this time they waved back. I had gone from a sad little boy, reading books in his cell, to being the centre of everything. Why then did I feel as light and inconsequential as a ball of seeds blowing in the wind?
16.
I said a silent prayer for Moss as I used the machete to hack my way through the killer vines. I wasn't sure if I had gotten stronger or they had gotten weaker but I found I could do it with one hand tied behind my back. In the research station my eye was drawn to the specimen under glass. That might come in handy, I thought, taking it with me.
~
The Prisoners had treated me like a Messiah and the tree folk treated me as the prodigal son. They made a big fuss about my hand. I would have to make a new one.
I presented the pamphlet at council and gave everyone the good news about the seeds. Sapphire and her cohort were silent and I knew it would not be long before they claimed they had always believed Rebecca.
~
Back at Robert's place, I gave an abridged version of the day's events.
“Good to have you back,” was his only comment.
The words poured out of me then, about my life, about my Mom, everything.
“She was a good person,” I said, “and they killed her. They burned her to death. It's like they wanted to kill the good part of me. My love. To burn it away.”
“They failed.”
THE END
Acknowlements
Thank you to my friends Alicia, Guillaume and Cian, for keeping me going and being nice. For my Dad for buying me the laptop on which most of the novel was written. Alison for letting me write at work. D for teaching me novels have to be planned. Members of ARTS anonymous in Cork and Dublin for listening. To Etaoin and the other folks at Fennely's, for putting up a sandwich board that said I was an author. To Mount Mellaray for providing a quiet, contemplative space. To the Frank O'Connor Library for their pleasant staff. Thanks to my readers; Martin, Dayanna, Chokole and Louis. Special thanks to Conor O' Leary for his digital expertise and Maya Fox for her wonderful cover. I'd also like to thank David Gaughran for his empowering talk on self-publishing and his guide: Let's Get Digital: How to Self-Publish and Why You Should, available on Amazon.
Richard Sean Clare
March 2016 to July 2019
The Earth is My Prison Page 16
