Mars Needs Books!

by Gary Lovisi

  They can do that. They can do anything to you they want. Of course he couldn’t remember much of it now. Maybe that’s why he was here.

  Wherever here might be.

  But every once in a while Ryan was able to free a strand or so from the cobweb that made up his mind. And then, he had a memory. Then he could remember and even think about those memories. He savored every one of them. It’s wonderful to have a memory. But he always wondered if it was truly his, or not. Was it his or had it been planted into his mind? He wondered if it was something he was actually remembering on his own, something of his that had come back to him after so many years? Or was it something they’d programmed into him? Something they wanted him to remember? Something that was not a part of him at all. Something they wanted him to think was a part of him?

  Ryan thought about that now.

  He thought about the old days.

  He thought about the man....

  He’d been called, “The Man Who Can.”

  Ryan thought that they had called him that name once.

  Someone did.

  Somewhere.

  A long time ago.

  In another world.

  In another reality.

  He didn’t know if it was his reality or not.

  But the memories came back now.

  They flooded into his mind.

  The Man Who Can!

  The Man Who Can.... What?

  Ryan was afraid to think about what.

  Afraid of what what might mean.

  He closed his eyes and dreamed.

  He wished he was on Mars.

  He wished he was feeling better, just sitting down and able to relax, maybe read that old paperback.

  But that was not to be.

  The old memories came back now.

  The Man Who Can.

  Ryan could see the man standing there. Tall, strong, handsome and much younger. Tough and sure of himself. And it was someone he thought he knew.

  He thought it was....

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE MAN WHO CAN

  ...him!

  They told him two things. Don’t talk. Don’t think.

  They enforced it with revocations of privileges, beatings, solitary. He liked solitary. Actually, for someone with his unique personality, it wasn’t half bad. Later on they put him in genpop, general population, and tried the gang rape thing. Four cons. They didn’t get very far, but it was the principle of the thing. He wasn’t fair game. For no one! Everyone should be made aware of that. They were. He wasn’t worth their trouble either. It didn’t bother him. He had time. He waited. Afterwards he got two of them. Slit their throats. Cracked the third guy’s head. Made the fourth guy fly. Right off the 3rd Floor tier. That guy hit the ground landing face-down—splat on the concrete. None of them four would ever bother him again. No one else did either.

  When the new kid came in Ryan told him to watch his ass. He didn’t mean it figuratively. The new kid was young, inexperienced, chicken-shit pure. At least for this hellhole. Sure, he was big and bad out on the street, but in here he was just so much fresh meat. Porterhouse steak. He told the kid to watch his back. Anyone mess with him, he told the kid to do all he could to hurt the guy back as much as possible.

  “What do you want me to do? Kill him?”

  “Kill him?” Ryan said shocked. He couldn’t believe the kid. “Damn right! Kill him three times if you gotta! People will be watchin’. Think you’re one crazymother. They’ll stay away from you. That’s fine. That’s what you want. You stay away from them too. Don’t talk. Don’t let no one get a chance to know you. Find out you’re human. Never, ever smile. Unless, of course if you’re beating out someone’s brains. Then feel free to smile all you want. You can even laugh if you like.”

  The kid nodded, understanding for the first time now.

  Ryan added, “And never, ever, let anyone do you a favor or give you anything. Do not ever accept a gift. Of any kind. Don’t ever take it or you’ll regret it later!”

  Now, no one messes with Ryan. Or the kid. They read books. Paperbacks. All kinds of science fiction stuff. Robert A. Heinlein, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Poul Anderson, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Eric Frank Russell, Frank Herbert—all the legends. All kinds of great stuff about people on other planets, other worlds.

  Any world.

  As long as it isn’t here.

  Here is a maximum security prison.

  They talk in whispers.

  They are the only two insiders.

  Everyone else is an outsider.

  There’s another guy in another cell. Don’t know what he’s in for but the cons are giving him a hard time. Ryan lets it be known he’s his friend, and a friend of the crazy kid. They don’t like their friends to be messed with. That stops the man from being messed with. The guy is grateful. The three of them talk. They talk about a lot of things. They want a lot of things. The most important thing they want, is better. They want things to be better. Better things inside. Better treatment. Maybe to get outside? That’s the best thing they think of, but of course it’s an impossible dream within the walls of this very special prison.

  There were two others. They bunk together. Ryan knows they’re doing it to each other. But that, in and of itself, doesn’t bother him. They’re honorable, they keep it to themselves. It’s their private business. They’re getting hassled by some of the younger and newer cons. Ryan goes to talk with them. Then the five of them talk to these young cons, in the yard, behind the pump house.

  It goes real fast.

  Real hard.

  There is no other way really to “discuss” this type of thing in here.

  A half dozen teeth on the ground. A couple of broken bones. The face of the chief wise-guy troublemaker kissing the bricks. Again and again and again, his new address now is the prison hospital ICU.

  The five of them form a club. A mutual protection society. Anyone can join. More do. It gets bigger and bigger. They don’t start trouble. They don’t take sides. They don’t care from Mafia, Muslim warriors, white Aryan supremacy guys, faggots, drug addicts, two-bit criminal moron losers with shit-for-brains. It’s all the same in here. The dregs, the most violent, the most wicked offenders this society could produce. And that’s saying something! The seven percenters. It was his job to bring them all together.

  Ryan did.

  The club grows.

  Others join them. More and more. Time passes. They manage the cons now. They keep things cool. No fights. No rapes. No stealing. No trouble. Otherwise you get trouble back ten-times as bad as you tried to give. A couple of guys feel the heat. Their deaths are fast and hard and serve as dire warnings to all others.

  That stops any confusion or competition.

  It’s not long before they work with the warden. They cooperate with the guards. They mingle, network. It’s not easy, it takes a lot of changing of old stereotype ideas. All around. It also takes a lot of time, but they’re in the nation’s newest maximum security prison, and all they have is time. No one’s ever getting out of here still sucking air. And they all know their next destination is a ride on the belt into the incinerator, and a handful of dry black ash thrown down the toilet by some relative back home they never knew they had.

  So they plan.

  They plan like brainy little mothers.

  The new warden is lax. The guy seems to be the last of the bleeding-heart political-correct libs from some long ago fantasyland that used to be the United States. It seems like he don’t really understand what the truth is here. Criminals are criminals. It’s plain and simple. That is who they are, and that is what they do. Don’t expect a snake to act like a puppy dog, that is outside its nature. Ryan and his guys don’t explain it to him either. The guards are lax too. Some have been bought off, some are no better than the scum they guard.

  Ryan and his group are all so friendly. Attitudes are peachy. The cons get calm. The guards are cool. No serious trouble for a long time. The atmosphere is good. Ripe
. Getting riper by the minute.

  The big day finally comes. They’ve been planning for months. Complicated shit. Like when Ryan got the Entertainment Committee to show that Steve McQueen film, The Great Escape. Usually, everyone would be cheering, joking, shooting the breeze during a film. Not them. Not during this film. Everyone was quiet. Thoughtful. Real serious. Serious as hell. Planning—dreaming serious, about getting out.

  This place was the first of the old MSPS Centers (Maximum Security Prison System) for hard core violent criminals. It housed the worst of the worst, the most vile predators our society had to offer. It boasted the hard-core 7% of violent, evil, serial killers, mass murders, home invaders, child rapers, and others that commit over 70% of all violent crimes. They also had a large percentage of what were termed “special politicals.” That’s really where Ryan came in.

  They were all here. Collected like Satan’s Hit Parade. His very best, warehoused in this newest of Max-Sec prisons. Here there was no attempt at rehab. No programs. No early out. There was no out at all. Ever. For anyone. Except death—natural or otherwise.

  And that’s the one thing everyone wanted most—even more than life itself—to get out!

  Even for a day.

  Even for an hour.

  Even for a few damn minutes!

  And Ryan had a plan to make that happen.

  He knew they’d probably all die doing it. He even told them so. They understood it, and still all of them signed on. It didn’t matter. They were all waiting to die anyway.

  He’d been working on The Plan for months. The other cons treated it as some kind of sacred project. It was the closest any of these freaks ever came to an actual feeling of holiness in their miserable lives, that they hadn’t perverted terribly. Nothing was spared for the success of The Plan. Everyone was in. After all, they had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

  What’s life in a Max-Sec prison compared to even one day of freedom on the outside?

  Some citizens outside the place might say it wasn’t worth it. Some cons inside might say it wasn’t worth it either. But when you’ve served ten, with life to go, the days are long and there are just too many of them to spend caged like a rat in a box. Sure, prison was entirely what every one of them deserved—or worse—but they still wanted out at any cost.

  When you’re in prison for life and you know you’re going to die there—there isn’t anything more important than one thing....

  Getting out!

  It becomes an obsession.

  They all had the same obsession.

  They had it real bad.

  * * * *

  The Warden decided to watch the old-time program on his private office view screen once more. Quietly, thoughtfully. It always lifted his spirits when he was a bit down to view this simple old program.

  He smiled. The cons finally had a chance to watch The Great Escape. He’d allowed it this one time. They loved it. It was the kind of film that spoke right down deep into each con’s gut. It was their favorite film.

  The Warden had his favorite film too. A film all his own, that spoke down deep into his own gut. It was a one-hour episode of an old-time Vid-tube show...what used to be called a television program, originally telecast way back LastCen. It was an episode from the Golden Age, when the Vids had been called “TV.” This particular one went way back to the classic era of the 1960s. It was in old-style black and white. Strangely enough, the primitive lack of color lent it an arty look that gave it a severity and impact that color never could. But none of that mattered because it was so incredible. So full of his own particular truth. It was Spec-Fic. Or speculative fiction. What had been called “science fiction” back then. That was when citizens believed there was a future worth dreaming about instead of the nightmare that existed today.

  Now that they were actually living in the future it wasn’t so pleasant. Science fiction had lost its meaning.

  The Warden’s favorite story was from an anthology program called The Outer Limits. The particular episode was titled, ‘The Zanti Misfits’. Even now its cold logic gave the Warden chills. So right, so true, so full of crystal clear justice that it sang its song right into his ever-loving warden-heart.

  Ostensibly it was a simple story about ugly monsters from outer space or some such silly notion. Alien invasion by the Zantis, a race of horrible insects with human-like faces. The actual story however was about what the Warden believed to be a bold and innovative way to deal with the worst hard-core violent criminals. What did a civilized society do with them?

  What do you do with your worst misfits?

  The Zantis had found a solution. So had the Warden and the Governor.

  The Zantis sent their misfits to Earth.

  To be executed by the humans.

  The warden and the governor had James Ryan to deal with their Zantis.

  It was all thanks to the DOC and approved by The Authority.

  It was quite simple really. The old TV show clearly gave them the answer.

  KTA.

  Kill Them All.

  The cons were planning to break out; serial killers, mass murderers, multiple rapists, child molesters, contract killers, out-of-control psychos, and hundreds of mass-murder terrorists, Mafia, gang killers, and dangerously violent politicals. Too many damned politicals. They were the most dangerous to the system. They were the ones the system really wanted to make go away. The others just offered the smoke screen.

  Ryan was helping to make that possible.

  How were these men going to be properly handled, dealt with, taken care of, and punished for their crimes?

  It would be done just like the Zantis did it.

  KTA.

  The Warden smiled.

  He shut off the disk.

  All was right once more in his world.

  * * * *

  Ryan had the cons declare themselves an independent government in exile. A government of the oppressed and downtrodden. They never even mentioned the fact that they were outlaws, murderers, convicted incarcerated criminals. They declared independence from the worldwide Authority, and from the Eastern Security District of what had once been the old United States of America.

  They were not criminals at all they told the world news media, they were prisoners of war against an evil capitalistic, imperialistic system. They never mentioned that in every case they were the evil in that system.

  They proclaimed open revolt against the hated government and openly opposed The Authority.

  They even had their own flag! Ryan thought that was a particularly nice touch.

  Ryan set up a Central Committee based upon quaint old communist guerilla warfare planning. It was all doomed to failure. He was there to ensure failure. He became the President and con leaders were cut in on prime slots such as Secretary of State and Secretary of War. They even had a Treasury and Treasurer. That guy was a former corporate bigwig who had embezzled half a billion dollars from stockholders and retired employees of his own company. Ryan had them all work it like a shadow government. When the time came they would take over the prison and declare themselves independent of all authority. They would immediately petition the United Nations for recognition of their independence and national status. The fact that the old UN was practically defunct now didn’t dawn on these geniuses, nor that the new worldwide Authority would never stand for such a rebellious act.

  It was all a sham of course. Most of the morons Ryan was in with couldn’t plan a hot date with a pre-paid hooker, much less pull off this serious revolutionary crap. But it gave them focus, it bent them all to his will, and it shut them up and stopped them from thinking too much about what he was really doing.

  Ryan’s job was the most dangerous of all. He was the Judas goat—or maybe, just plain Judas. If the cons ever got wind of what he was really up to he would be skinned alive. Slow. Then cooked—roasted over an open flame. He was rightly concerned about that part. He knew he could bet on that becoming a serious reality if he was ever found out,
and the skinning part was no exaggeration either. Even worse could happen—if the cons could think of something that could be worse. Which was always possible. In that area, at least, there was no lack of imagination or originality among inmates for those kinds of things. Some of the sadists were even specialists in their own way of torture and mutilation and took great pride in it.

  But they’d never find out. It was all set. Planned. This was a cut-and-dried, tried-and-true operation to manipulate the group mind. And as in all things, the media would be their conduit from the group to the public. It was a new operation run by the Department of Control. The DOC had become more proactive than usual, but pretty much the same kind of thing that had gone on since the formation of the Security Districts years earlier. Now DOC was hitting their stride. This operation was one small example of what it was doing all throughout the world regarding security matters.

  The cons would never find out. They were too stupid to do anything but go along. These were the worst of the worst. They had no hope, no purpose. Ryan had given them some hope now. Even more, he’d given them a purpose. Unite—work together—and get out! They’d do whatever he said. They were all suckered in by his game. They had no choice. And anyway, they deserved what they were going to get.

  Of course the prison authority cooperated. Only the worst of the crooked guards were working the blocks on that fateful day. If any of them were offed it would be no great loss. Just like with the guards over the Zanti prisoners. Security would be lax. Some of the cons—they called themselves troops now—thought it might be a set-up. Ryan told them to forget about that. They had their own CIA, and things had been prepared for them in advance.

  Not to worry. Ryan waited, patient, then it happened.

  The cons took over the prison in one hour. It went smooth and fast. According to plan. Ryan had special squads ready to make sure inmates didn’t go berserk. Everyone knew the rules and obeyed them. There were standing orders to kill anyone who broke those rules. The enforcers were some of the worse offenders, but they also were the ones who wanted to get out the most. They, like everyone else, had things they were itching to do on the outside. Some were very evil things. So everyone stayed calm. Real business-like. Time enough for craziness when the fireworks really started. It wouldn’t be long to wait, he promised them. First he had to do one more thing. It was pretty important.