Flotsam Prison Blues

by M. K. Gibson

  It wasn’t just an assault on the senses. It was beyond that. A pervasive insistence to un-make me. To unmake everything and return to a blissful void.

  I was on my knees with my eyes closed, gagging. I felt slime and heard anguish. Smelled corruption and tasted vengeance. I kept my eyes shut, afraid of what I would see. I understood the stories now. I understood the madness that fell on those who felt the influence of the Deep Ones.

  Chael mounted me and forced my eyes open. His huge hands cradled my head and his smooth thumbs forced my eyelids up. “Look,” he commanded, and I was forced to obey.

  I saw. I saw it all.

  The Deep One was a vessel of the Greater Deep. A prophet. An emissary. They all were. The thing I was inside was made of meat and sinew, scales and chitin, acid and bile. But inside, I saw what it wanted me to see. What they wanted us all to see. Visions flared through my mind as the emissary showed me flashes of another time and place. And my mortal, limited mind did what it could to make sense of eons of anguish.

  ************************

  The universe unmade. Existence in nothingness. Nothingness, but not empty. They dwelt here, always and forever they were. Exiled from Him. Their true names erased. Then He came. He had found them by tearing through the walls of reality. He found them hiding in this place. He was wrath and benevolence.

  He brought forth his First, His “Fingers.” First of the First was Their dread.

  Light. Light came first. The First of the First.

  Light flooded existence and forced them into the wake of the First, Darkness. There They could exist. Away from the light. He created a space for Them, in places of darkness.

  Then He brought forth the firmament. And trapped them. Trapped them all into dark places, where they were buried and forgotten. They slept, but angrily they slept, waiting for the time when They could break free. Waiting for the time when They could unmake His universe, His world, His creation. Their prisons. On Their backs He created more. Time, Balance, Chaos, Entropy, Death and Life.

  The greatest insult—greater than banishment, greater than fleeing the Light and taking refuge in his Darkness—were the humans. Humans dwelt upon Their backs. They walked the firmament that made up Their prison. They were entombed so humans could exist.

  His angels continued making humans. Colonies and civilizations grew and fell upon them. They felt the souls of these humans, feeding the gods, the angels, and in time, the demons. All His creations. So They hated them all.

  But They soon learned they could influence. They could affect all of His creation. As they shifted within Their prison, seas turned, plates shifted, mountains raised and crumbled. They could reach across the cosmos to the other imprisoned. And the other prisoners could affect Their prisons. Others could send rocks from space into the firmament to try and break Their kind free, killing entire species of reptilian life.

  As They tried, He would answer in kind. When They tried to heat the firmament to kill the humans, He sent a global flood, killing many of his humans, but cooling the firmament, and placing Them back into slumber.

  Over and over They tried to break free. Over and over He ensured Their prison remained.

  But They were patient. They would find a way.

  ************************

  I felt the Deep One—I felt them all—trying to corrupt me. I wept blood. And when I felt I couldn’t hold out any longer, I felt pain. Not from them, but from within. I felt the runes and sigils along my bones flare with light and energy, burning radiance that forced the Deep One back out of my mind.

  Chael’s grip on me loosened and he fell away. A rumble within the beast sounded and the radiance spread outward and water began pouring in. The creature separated at the joints, at the points where it was held together by the Greater Deep’s will.

  The Deep One simply melted away and Chael and I were swept away in a rushing tide and into the deep black water of the Chesapeake.

  ************************

  I sputtered and coughed, vomiting up what I guessed was about half the Bay. I survived. Holy shit, I survived!

  I was on my hands and knees in the shallows of the Bay along the coast. Over my shoulder I saw Flotsam prison on the snowy gray horizon.

  “HA!” I yelled, standing up. I gave two middle fingers to the prison, wishing I had more knuckles and more middle fingers to give because those puny two didn’t feel satisfying enough. “Fuck you! I got off your goddamn prison.”

  “How?” a voice whispered behind me. I whirled and saw Chael sitting in the surf. His head was down and his arms were wrapped around his legs as he rocked there. “How did you resist? How did you unmake them?”

  “Chael! You made it!”

  “Yes. And you live because I saved you. You were drowning when I brought us here.”

  I searched my memory and pain flooded my brain. I remembered the Deep One, the images it showed me in perfect clarity, burned in for all time. Then I remembered the pain from my body. The marks? Yes. The marks Grimm etched into my bones. I felt them flare and repel the images and the corruption of the Deep One. Then water, and then . . . nothing? Except . . . a hand? A hand grabbing me? No swimming, just movement.

  “Chael, how did you get us here? We weren’t that far off the island and we were underwater. How did you get us here?”

  “In the Darkness, I moved us,” he answered simply. “How did you resist?” Chael’s dead white eyes glared at me, flashing blue for a moment as something inside him broke free once more.

  “I don’t know for sure. A friend of mine did something to me. He made some marks inside me and they . . . flared up, I guess? I felt it . . . push the Deep One away,” I said.

  “My hands,” he said as he looked at his hands.

  In each of his palms, he had burn marks in the shape of my shoulders where he’d held me. The energy from Grimm’s magic burned Chael, and for the first time ever, I saw Chael feel pain.

  “They won’t heal,” He said.

  “I’m sorry, bud. But, hey, it’s like I promised. I said I wouldn’t leave without you, and I didn’t.”

  Chael wrapped his giant arms around me and held me. And I swear I heard the soft heaving of someone trying to hold back tears.

  Suddenly Chael shook, and his eyes reverted to their unsettling white. “Let here be no more and to the Tears do go. Yes yes, pluck the Tears from the eyes of Men and spit in the spirit of the Creator.”

  And with that the Chael that lived inside this body went back to the corner of his mind where it was kept prisoner, and the madman returned.

  “Sure thing. But we have to do something first.”

  “No. Nothing first. Now the Tears!” Chael bellowed.

  I had to play this carefully. On the island, possessed or not, Chael was playfully apathetic. Dangerous for sure. But with me he had been subdued as long as I didn’t push him. Now that he had a goal in his mind, I had to be extra careful not to be an obstacle for him to go through. Literally.

  “Trust me, bud, I want to get the Tears as well. And we will. But if we don’t do something else first, we will never get there. We have to create a distraction big enough that the bad guys don’t come for us before we even get a chance to get out of here. Understand, big man?”

  “No.”

  I sighed. “We break some shit and blow some shit up. Then we get out of here.”

  “Mmm. Yes, that is better.”

  “Great. But first there is something we need to do.”

  “What?”

  I shook my head in the way only a wise man could when he realized he was acting the fool. “We are going to break back into prison.”

  ************************

  Twenty minutes later Chael and I were hiding outside the Flotsam Prison Holding Complex, overlooking the main entrance. The ground-level building was where I was first brought before my airlift into Flotsam itself. The complex wasn’t really anything special. A huge hangar for the transport choppers and any impounded vehicles. A ma
in detention center for processing and storage of prisoners awaiting transport, where Chael and I were poised.

  The whole complex was barricaded by duranium walls and had a main outer gate. The western side faced inland, while the eastern side faced the bay. Huge auto-turrets constantly scanned the water and airspace using state-of-the-art recognition software. If the computer scanned something it didn’t like, a prisoner or a Deep One, it opened fire.

  Come to think of it, those things should have torn Chael and me to shreds. How did he get us to the shore without getting spotted? I would have to file that mystery away for another time. Right then, I needed to be frosty because what I was about to do was nothing short of insane.

  Thanks to the riot in the prison, the complex was blessedly low on guards and troops. Which was part of the plan. Most of the complex was cleared out as I watched all the transport choppers lift off, taking response soldiers to the island, no doubt to quell the riot.

  Perfect. Phase Three of Scorched Earth should be here soon. I had to get inside there before the fireworks happened.

  Breaking back into prison. Damn, I was stupid. But it had to be done. I turned to Chael. “When things go to hell, you know what to do?”

  “Destroy everything,” said Chael.

  “Pretty much. Just keep near the hangar and try and find a vehicle big enough.”

  “I don’t drive.”

  “Not expecting you to, big man. But since local troops are kept here in garrison, there should be mobile troop transports. And they are usually big enough, even for your giant ass.”

  Chael looked at me, as if considering whether what I said was an insult. “Be fast. The Tears await.”

  “Yeah yeah. Remember, wait for things to go to shit,” I told him, and then I started the most critical phase of my plan.

  I stood up and walked to the front gates with my arms up.

  “Hello in there,” I addressed the cameras outside the large duranium gates. “My name is Baron Salem, and until recently I was a prisoner in Flotsam Prison. It appears I have lost my way, and I would like to turn myself in.”

  The large gate swung open, and a small contingent of armed hellion mutts and humans in combat armor stormed out, led by a Wrath demon captain.

  The demon was dressed in tailored combat armor and stood an easy eight feet tall. The captain had four demon-sized plasma sub-machine pistols on her belt, one for each of her arms, and she looked like she was itching to use them. One of the human soldiers held up a portable scanner and aimed it at me.

  “It’s positive. He is Baron Salem.”

  “Impossible,” the demon growled.

  “See for yourself, Captain.” The human troop offered the device to his captain, who just glared at him.

  “Get your dirty tech out of my face,” the demon rumbled, and the smaller human shrank away. “Bring him.”

  The troops rushed me, knocking me to the ground and locking my arms and legs into manacles. They hauled me to my feet and marched me into the complex.

  Inside, the demon captain grabbed me by my arm. “I will handle this one myself,” she told his troops, who all laughed a little. My guess was that when the captain decided to get her hands dirty on a prisoner, things got bloody.

  The Captain walked me down a corridor to a prisoner transport elevator leading down to the sub-basement were the holding pens were, where they stripped you naked, beat you, and prepped you for your trip to Flotsam.

  Once the elevator doors shut, away from the other troops, other witnesses and cameras, the captain turned on me.

  She unlocked my manacles and cuffs.

  “Captain, huh?” I asked Khurzon.

  The big demon chuckled. “Heh, yeah. After bringing you in, I got hired on full time. Because I’m pure-blood, they made me a block captain over a bunch of hellions and humans. Being from the combat pits meant I had to act a certain way. Most prisoners are scum. So it wasn’t hard to earn a rep for violence.”

  “Won’t someone realize you were the one to bring me in?” I asked.

  “Something tells me after you do what you have planned, then it won’t matter. I will be out of a job regardless. Any space on your land for an old fighter like me?”

  “Girlfriend, if we get through this, then I will have my people build you your own damn house,” I said. “But man, am I glad you’re here. Twitch said she contacted you, but still, I’ve been betrayed before.”

  “This is insanity, you know that.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “How soon until the rest of your plan? The message said something about an attack?” Khurzon asked. As if on cue, the complex rocked with high-yield explosions.

  “About now. Get me to the kids.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I Didn’t Even Know Her Name

  Another explosion rocked the building as Khurzon and I stepped off the elevator. Down below in the holding center, troops were scrambling to get their assault gear on, retrieve their weapons, and get topside to deal with the attack. Amid the confusion, no one took notice of us.

  “Come on!” Khurzon yelled as she sprinted down the duracrete corridor. I sprinted after the big demon as we ran past cell after cell of prisoners begging to be released.

  “How far?” I huffed, keeping pace with the demon.

  “Far end of the complex,” Khurzon said as we ran against the tide of response troops flooding back to the way we came. “Where the large cells are kept.”

  We reached a checkpoint where the holding facility switched from the main cells and guard area to the larger cells. A duranium-barred gate with facial recognition camera access stood before us. The camera scanned Khurzon and nothing happened.

  “Damn,” Khurzon muttered. “With the attack, the gates are all on lockdown.”

  “Any way around this?” I asked. “The attack won’t go on for long.”

  “Let me see if I can override this,” Khurzon said as she tapped his command code onto the touch pad and the screen flashed red. “No good. Total lockout.”

  “Let me see,” I said, pushing Khurzon out of the way, ignoring the big demon’s glare and growl. The touch pad was part of an advanced ARCTech Quantum-1205 series. It was a good system, especially considering you couldn’t get it on the open market. Certain specialty items were reserved for the authorities and not available to regular citizens. Good thing for me I wasn’t a regular citizen and I’d seen the Quantum series up close when I’d broken into them.

  What can I say? I wasn’t always a good guy.

  Problem was, I needed my tech bracers. These security systems always had a hidden wireless data port, even though they were supposed to be hardlined. Just one of those little trade secrets. But even with that knowledge, they were hard as hell to crack once you were in. I could open a data port in my head and let the Collective do my work directly.

  But—call me crazy—I didn’t want a foreign system in my brain. That’s why I needed the bracers. They offered an additional layer of firewall security protocols that acted as a gateway for the Collective and the host system.

  “Can you crack it?” Khurzon asked.

  “Crack? What are you, a safe bandit from a movie? The term is ‘hack.’ And, yes and no.”

  “Hack, crack, whatever. Your techno-babble is infuriating. How your kind ever once dominated this planet is beyond me. And what do you mean ‘yes and no’?”

  “We dominated the planet because we created technology. That little thing we have called a soul gave us the ability to look at the forces of nature, give it the finger, and make a spear. Then a gun, then a computer.” I turned to Khurzon. “And what I mean is yeah, I could hack it. But I need my tech bracers. I could finesse my way into the system, override the security protocols, and get us in. You know, finesse? The thing Wrath demons don’t seem to have?”

  “That soul didn’t help you all win the wars,” Khurzon countered.

  “Cold, Khurzon,” I said.

  “I know where your bracers are.”
>
  “That’s great! Where?” I asked, remembering Khurzon was the one who took them from me for safekeeping back in the troop transport just before I was brought here.

  “Wait here,” Khurzon said. And she took off running back down the corridor.

  “Wait here? Where the shit are you going?!” I yelled after her. But the big demon was sprinting back down the hallway. Damn it. I was feeling really exposed here standing on this side of a gate with nowhere to run if some trooper decided I looked like an escaped prisoner on the wrong side of the bars.

  Which I was.

  Hopefully Khurzon was going to some security room where my gear was kept. A minute went by and I then heard heavy footfalls coming my way with the clank of metal and the smell of gun oil.

  Looking up, I saw Khurzon coming down the hallway. Cradled in her four arms were two big-ass plasma cannons that were meant to be mounted and fired. But the big demon held them with ease.

  “Move!” she commanded, and I got the hell out of the way. I didn’t know what Khurzon planned. Those cannons were powerful, but it would take more than that to take down a duranium gate.

  Khurzon braced herself sideways and took aim with the plasma cannons, one in her upper and one in her lower arms, and fired. Not at the gate, but at the walls, blowing the duracrete where the gate’s frame was embedded. The gate fell inward and Khurzon tossed me one of the cannons.

  “Oh. Well, yeah. That was my next plan.”

  “Finesse, my tight demonic ass. Your bracers and gear are on the other side of the gate in a holding room. Let’s go.”

  Well, paint me nonplussed.

  I followed the demon down the hall. The holding cells grew larger. Groups of prisoners were held in cells along with some pretty friggin’ big demons.

  “In here.” Khurzon pointed. I followed her into a storeroom, where rows and rows of metal shelves held crates of confiscated items. All taken from prisoners, I assumed. She reached a certain crate, one with an old-fashioned button keypad, and typed in a code. The crate’s lid popped open and Khurzon pulled out the contents.