by L. A. Cruz
“Relax. No need to get your panties in a bunch. We all make mistakes.”
She faked a smile. “No, Sergeant. I understand. Don’t get your tighties in a twist.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing, Sergeant.”
She followed him down to the day room. She hated that comment about her panties. She had been hearing it constantly since enlisting. But little did she know that by the end of the day, every single soldier, every single inmate, and even the news media, would get to see her in her underwear.
CHAPTER 2
Later that morning, she stood in the corner of the day room at parade rest and watched the inmates file through the door. They were returning from the mess hall and had forty-five minutes of free time before the 1:00 work call.
The day room was a two-story diamond-shaped room that was lined with steel doors around the perimeter. It was a modern prison concept, designed to foster “community.” Some of the inmates congregated at the steel tables in the middle of the room while others went to their cells to spend the time alone.
Helia’s official duty at the moment, according to Sergeant Erickson, was simply to watch. That was it. Watch. She was supposed to stand there against the wall and watch. To be a presence. She wasn’t supposed to help any of the inmates with rehabilitation, she wasn’t supposed to provide them with guidance nor with support. She was just supposed stand there and watch.
Six weeks of basic training and all she was supposed to do was stand up straight. Apparently, looking tough was half the battle.
Sergeant Erickson had told her to pay close attention to the inmates, to get a sense of their rhythms and routines. In time, she’d recognize deviations from their normal patterns and know which ones she should pay extra attention to.
It was real exciting stuff. In high school, she had spent a summer lifeguarding at the local pool in Zephyrhills where her family had moved after Jersey. She had spent all day sitting in her stand, watching the ripples in the water, frying to a dark brown in the sun, and averting her eyes from the patrons who wore bathing suits so tiny that the suits disappeared into their rolls.
All day, every day, she had sat there. But it was a blast compared to this. Standing up straight all day sure as heck wasn’t what she had joined the Army for. Still, the experience at the pool had taught her one thing, something she certainly couldn’t fault the military for: prevention was better than clean up.
She shifted her weight from one leg to the other. She stood with her legs slightly bent, her back straight, her shoulders back, her chin up, her ponytail just barely touching the cinderblock wall behind her. Sergeant Erickson had suggested she do a lap around the day room every ten minutes to keep the blood moving.
She checked her G-shock watch. Its face was ridiculously large against her slender wrist, its straps as thick as her belt. She might as well have strapped a wall clock to her arm.
Only nine minutes had passed.
“Jeez,” she whispered.
In total, twelve inmates, all wearing brown trousers and brown short-sleeved shirts, had entered the day room. Now five of them were sitting at the tables in the middle, the other seven hiding in their cells. They could be napping. They could be reading. They could be using the toilet. They could be doing whatever they wanted. Sergeant Erickson had told her that a brown shirt draped over the window in the cell door was the signal that they were “going potty,” or “raising the brown flag,” as he had called it.
Two inmates were sitting at one of the steel tables straight across from her. The table at which they were sitting had its corners castrated—for safety reasons—and was now an octagon instead of a square. Chairs sprouted from its central stem like branches off a tree.
One of the inmates was large and had a thick, black beard, and bushy eyebrows. He must have gotten an exemption for shaving. The other was slender and clean-shaven, his cheeks so clean, it looked as if he had never been able to grow a beard. His eyebrows were so thin it looked as if they had been plucked, so thin they almost disappeared behind his thin glasses.
The two inmates were polar opposites.
Helia looked at her watch again. It had been eleven minutes since her last check. She was one minute off schedule.
She started her lap around the perimeter. The two inmates at the center table unfolded a large square of graphing paper and rolled a multisided die across the makeshift playing surface. She passed close to their table and realized it wasn’t a real die, but one made out of paper: a little paper square with dots drawn on the side.
As she passed, the two inmates stopped whispering. The playing surface looked like four sheets of graph paper, the seams taped together, green vines drawn around the border. With his pinky finger raised, the slender inmate placed a row of origami playing pieces on the edge of the makeshift board. A gargoyle. A dragon. A swan. It was some kind of role-playing game, one she didn’t recognize. Definitely not Dungeons and Dragons. Her little brother used to play it with his friends and she could spot it from a mile away.
She paused and her eyes lingered on the homemade board long enough that the inmates caught her looking.
“Wanna play?” the slender inmate said. His voice was as soft as his cheeks.
She cleared her throat. “No thank you. What’s the game called?”
“Mines and vines. We made it up.”
“Interesting,” she said. “An RPG?”
“Around here, that means grenade launcher,” the slender one said.
“Of course,” Helia said.
It wasn’t until she got to the other side of the day room that she realized that she had seen that slender inmate before. Four years ago, a classmate in high school had been doing a presentation about current events, specifically espionage in the digital age, for history class, and he had projected the inmate’s face on the white board.
It was Jesse Fanning. He was the intelligence analyst who had been charged with stealing state secrets and selling them to the Russians. From what she could recall, Jesse Fanning had worked for the CIA and had downloaded classified information onto a flash drive, a tiny two GB thumbnail that he had put inside a condom and swallowed. He was on his way out the door that fateful day when his face turned green and he vomited the classified information all over the floor.
The story had made all the news. Jesse Fanning was one of the most famous prisoners ever to be sentenced to the Disciplinary Barracks. He had been charged with treason and was sentenced to thirty years, but the details of the intelligence reports that he had tried to smuggle out of the CIA were never released to the public.
Helia also remembered something about the Army denying him the hormones he wanted for a sex change. Given his feminine appearance, it made sense.
She took her spot against the opposite wall and checked her watch. The lap had taken two minutes. Eight minutes until her next round.
Sergeant Erickson then entered on the other side of the day room. He stood, rigid, in the same spot that Helia had stood. He was far enough away that he was only about the size of her pinky finger.
Helia scratched her thigh. Her feet and lower back were starting to ache. The only thing worse than standing for so long would have been sitting for so long. Couch sores on the ass cheeks were not a pretty thing. According to her mother. But at least she wasn't sitting behind a cubicle. Or stuck in some submarine, pushing buttons for the Navy. She preferred a free-range job. So to speak.
She checked her watch again. Five minutes to go.
In another fifteen minutes, Sergeant Erickson would be making the announcement for afternoon work call. At that point she was allowed to take a five-minute break and grab a snack in the mess hall.
Four minutes.
She watched Fanning and the bearded inmate play their game. Her shoulders grew tight. The stale air began to feel heavy. Her eyes watered from the boredom.
It wasn’t even the afternoon yet and she was already second-guessing her decision to enlist. She had imagined the
Internment and Resettlement Specialist position would be more rewarding than this. She wanted to work with the inmates, to help them make better choices, to help them get their lives back on track, not stand here all day and rot.
So far, her mother had been right. Don’t work in the prison, she had said. It’s like surrounding yourself with the worst of humanity—and getting nothing in return.
Her mother was nuts. But she had been right.
Helia checked her watch. Finally time to move. She walked in a straight line past the cells on her right. As she passed, she glanced in the tiny windows. The first inmate was lying on his bunk with his knees crossed and reading. In the next cell, the inmate hadn't bothered to hang the brown flag over the window and was sitting on his stainless steel toilet with his pants around his ankles. She quickly looked away.
She passed Fanning and the bearded inmate at the table. She now recognized the bearded inmate too, the black hair, the thickly padded cheeks.
It was Major Makab.
Like Fanning, Major Makab had consumed the news cycle for an entire week. His face was all over the Web. He had worked for the Army as a chemical weapons expert and had been convicted of trying to sell arms to Iran. A brilliant chemist, the papers had called him—and a traitor.
She was surrounded by celebrities.
Lucky me, she thought. Too bad her phone was back in her locker. It might be fun to send her little brother a selfie.
SHE STOOD on the far wall and checked her watch. She wondered what would happen if she broke the routine. Maybe she would mix it up and do her next round after twelve minutes, not ten.
Would Sergeant Erickson have a conniption? Would he ream her out?
Probably.
It was almost worth it.
A break in protocol was a good way to keep the inmates from getting too comfortable, she could say. They had little else to do but sit around and watch their keepers all day long. Uprisings were planned around routines.
Maybe she’d bring it up with Major Detores. Maybe she’d go over Sergeant Erickson’s head. That would most certainly put her on the fast track to promotion, she thought sarcastically.
God, she was bored. She was already thinking of ways to annoy her superiors.
She checked her watch. Nine more minutes had passed. After Sergeant Erickson made the announcement for work call, she would have to take his place while the inmates filed into the hallway and he monitored their behavior on the other side of the door.
Across the day room, he finally gave her the nod. She walked past the cell windows and past the two men playing their game of Fine Behinds, or whatever they called it.
Makab glanced up from the game board as she passed.
Helia stopped. She knew better, but couldn’t help herself.
“So who's the dungeon master?”
Makab raised an eyebrow.
“You mean the Master Sergeant?” Fanning said.
“If that’s what you call it.”
“We trade off,” Fanning said.
“If you want, I can see if they’ll let you have a real die instead of that origami thing,” Helia said. “It shouldn’t be too hard to get.”
Fanning smiled. ”We used to have one. But it was confiscated.”
“For what?”
Before Fanning could answer, Sergeant Erickson was at her side. He grabbed her arm and faked a smile.
“Corporal Crane, a word, please.”
Fanning whistled.
Sergeant Erickson led her to the door, walking backwards so he could keep an eye on the inmates.
“What are you doing?” Sergeant Erickson said through gritted teeth. “Turn around. Keep your eyes on them at all times. Never take your eyes off of the inmates, not ever."
At the wall, Helia stood beside Sergeant Erickson, shoulder to shoulder. There were no other inmates in the day room, just the two playing their game. Neither of the inmates had done anything violent and she didn’t know why she had to keep up this hard-ass routine at all times. A stern countenance was hardly the best way of providing support. A semester of psychology at the Zephyrhills Community College had taught her that. Sure, Fanning’s and Makab’s actions had been questionable. Sure, they were traitors. Sure, they had put the national security at risk, but they were not directly capable of violence. She could see in their eyes. She had known lots of violent people in her short life and the two men who were sitting there and quietly playing their game did not fit the bill.
“What did you say to them, Corporal?”
“I just asked them about their game," Helia said. “I used to play a game like that with my little brother.”
“You are not to converse with the inmates,” Erickson said. “You are not here to make friends. You are here to make sure that they stick to the schedule and that they serve their sentence. Your only questions to them should have to do with clarifying their intentions, and your only statements to them should be directing them toward routine action.”
“I understand, Sergeant, but I also thought that part of our mission was rehabilitation.”
Sergeant Erickson flinched. “There are many ways to achieve that end. Talking with the inmates, with traitors, with treasonous filth,” he added under his breath, “is not one of them. Don’t think of these men as human beings. It will make the job a lot easier.”
Helia felt meek, about the size of the inmates’ homemade die, and she didn’t like it. She had no comeback. “I’m sorry, Sergeant. You’re absolutely right. It won't happen again.”
Sergeant Erickson stared straight ahead. “Are you sure you're cut out for this job, Corporal?”
“Sir?”
“It’s a simple question, Corporal.”
Helia wondered if he’d be asking a man the same question. ”Yes, Sergeant.”
“Then start acting like it," Sergeant Erickson said. “Every decision you make here is a matter of life and death.”
No need to be so dramatic, Helia thought. But before she could think of a clever retort to regain her composure, Sergeant Erickson stepped forward, exactly a boot’s length from the wall and said, “Work call! 1:00 p.m.!”
The cell doors that were closed popped opened and the inmates came out and headed directly toward the door.
“Line up!”
The inmates formed a line at the door.
“Corporal Crane, please go stand on the other side of the door.”
Fanning and Makab got up and approached the line.
“Look over at that table, Corporal,” Erickson said. "What do you see missing?”
Helia glanced at their table. The makeshift game board was still spread out.
“Their game is still out,” Erickson said. “The game pieces are there, but the die is missing.”
“It’s just a piece of paper.”
“Regardless, it’s not allowed out of the day room. Even the most ordinary objects can be turned into weapons. Intercept them before they join us.”
“Me?”
“Who else, Corporal?” Erickson said. “I don’t see any other soldiers in here, do you?”
“No, Sergeant.”
Fanning and Makab were about ten feet from joining the line. Helia stepped forward, a hand in the air as if she were about to stop traffic.
“Gentlemen, I need to see your—“
“They are not gentlemen," Sergeant Erickson said. "You refer to them as inmates, or by their inmate number. That effeminate inmate is number 79806 and the bearded inmate is number 79748.”
Helia was flustered. There was nothing worse than being reprimanded in front of her subjects. “I’m sorry, sir. I mean not ‘sir.’ Sergeant.”
“Inmates, show Corporal Crane your hands. We need to see that die.“
Fanning held up his hands and turned them over, palms out as if he were ready to play a game of patty cake. Makab, on the other hand, held out only one palm. It was empty. The other hand was shoved in his pocket.
“I need to see your other hand, inmate," Helia
said.
Makab slowly pulled his hand out of his pocket. He extended it in front of her, his fingers closed around something.
“Open your fist, inmate," Helia said.
Makab slowly unfurled his fingers, revealing the makeshift die.
“Confiscate that item,” Sergeant Erickson said. “Looks like that will be the last time you will be playing that game, inmate.”
“It’s harmless,” Helia said.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing,” she said.
She stepped toward Makab. He stood at least a foot taller than Helia—and she was not terribly short, about 5’7” in heels. But Makab was definitely twice as wide as she was. It wasn't all muscle but there was enough heft in his gut that she would put him at about two hundred and twenty pounds. Sergeant Erickson must have been right about the food here—the best in the service.
Helia reached out to take the die from Makab’s palm. He had been squeezing it so tightly that it was crushed.
“I’m sorry, inmate. Rules are rules. I need to take that.”
“Do not ever apologize, Corporal,” Erickson said. “Take the die and tell him to get in line.”
Helia could feel her ears turning red. If she was to have any respect among the inmates, Sergeant Erickson had to do his “coaching” in private. She only hoped this embarrassment was something she could recover from. In fact, it might be worth mentioning to the Major.
She reached out to remove the die from Makab’s palm, but he suddenly grabbed her wrist pulled her into his body, his hefty belly hot and sweaty. He pulled his forearm to her throat and held the edge of the die to her jugular.
“Sergeant Erickson was right. Paper cuts can be quite severe,” he said. “Especially on the neck.”
CHAPTER 3
“Inmate, let go of her immediately!” Sergeant Erickson said.
Makab didn't listen and dragged Helia toward one of the open cells. Fanning left the line, whipped around as graceful as a dancer, and trotted toward the same cell.
