The Prisoner

by Carlos J. Cortes

  “You sound relieved.”

  “Few ideals survive past sophomore year, and those that do owe much to delusion and wishful thinking.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I believe the center inmates are an obscenity. I’ve gambled my life to stop it.”

  “But you said—”

  “That man is my father, but he’s also a stranger. I’ve been told he happened to contribute his sperm, but I had never met him before.” Over the next few minutes Laurel painted verbal-shorthand sketches of her upbringing by the Coles, the only parents she’d ever known, and the unknown patron of her exclusive and costly education.

  “Is he the leader? Your benefactor—is he running the operation?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know if they’re the same person. I’ve never met him—either of them.” Laurel narrowed her eyes. “We’ve spoken on several occasions; that’s how I know Russo is my father. My benefactor, as you call him, outlined his plan, but it was my decision to become involved. Only Tyler has met him, and I trust both of them.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Ideals is the byword, but it’s more complex than that. The offer came at a difficult point in my life. I was depressed and feeling useless. This was a chance to do something important, something that could change our society a little, and … I wanted to confront my father. It may seem puny, but I wanted him to know I knew of his cowardice.”

  He reached for her hand and wrapped long fingers around it. It felt good. “What about Lukas?”

  “Money. A new life.”

  Floyd nodded. Another puzzle piece to slot into whatever picture was forming in his mind. Laurel followed his profile, sharply delineated against the white wall. “And you?” Laurel asked. “They told me you didn’t ask for much money, only enough to settle your debts and pay off your ex-wife, so I assumed you were also a puny idealist. But you seem to view idealism with distaste.”

  “My involvement was supposed to be slight, and I believe that hibernation has the potential to be a godsend for humanity, but the science is still in its infancy. And if the status quo continues, it will remain so. Let’s face it, next to nothing has been researched since its beginning—Hypnos has made sure of that by keeping a tight rein on the snippets of technology they license. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for free enterprise and for the rights of businesses to extract profit from their patents, but this is different. Hypnos has kept the lid on a technology that could herald a new era for humankind.”

  “How so?”

  “Reducing trauma in patients enduring long surgical interventions was the original reason behind the hibernation research. The U.S. government, however, had already thought of using hibernation to store people and ordered NASA to keep a watchful eye on the research, to be ready to pounce and seize the technology to send astronauts to far-flung destinations.”

  “Yes, but besides cold storage in its different guises, what else could you use hibernation for?”

  “The medical applications are countless; many illnesses are lethal because of how fast they spread through the system before the body defenses can kick in. Think of cancers and all sorts of opportunistic viral attacks. A hibernating body with only a fraction of metabolic activity could have its defenses boosted to a point where an infection would be history as soon as it appeared. For vaccines, we could study the viral mechanisms in slow motion. And develop much more sophisticated surgeries.”

  “But I thought these avenues had been explored already.”

  “Only superficially; most work has been done by the military or Hypnos itself. Imagine what would happen if the technology became available to researchers: Tens of thousands of brilliant minds could study untold applications. They could open avenues we can’t even imagine now. Take endangered species; once the processes responsible for damage and decay were fully understood, the species could be placed in long-term hibernation. Food preservation is another possibility. This technology is in its infancy, and the possibilities are infinite.”

  “Was that the carrot dangled before your nose?” she asked.

  “If they could cajole Hypnos into freeing the technology, there would be untold opportunities for research.”

  “And there aren’t many people around with your expertise.”

  “That’s about it. Of course, I had no idea of the DHS’s involvement.”

  “Come on. Who else? They had to be in it somehow.”

  “Not really. I’ve been aware of center occupants for a few years, and so have scores of others.”

  Laurel jerked back in shock. “You what?”

  “This is a relatively small industry. I always thought the extra space in the center of the tanks belonged to a research operation run only by Hypnos without the DHS’s knowledge. But, as with many other angles in this mess, it seems I was wrong.”

  Laurel frowned at Floyd’s unexpected revelation. “You mean doctors and technicians were in on this?”

  “In on it? No. We thought it was financial chicanery, a way of saving money.”

  “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

  “Therapeutic hibernation is for the rich; it costs a fortune to provide for someone who may be suspended for years. Part of the deal Hypnos has with the government involves a degree of research to improve the system. There’s an inexhaustible supply of willing human guinea pigs out there—disenfranchised people with incurable illnesses inclined to accept inclusion in research programs—but labs are expensive to run. To use the center spaces for in-house research was Hypnos’s original idea—sort of running their everyday investigation under the noses of the DHS and having them foot the bill. When the tanks’ final design was submitted to Congress, the wasteful arrangement of space became obvious and they asked for a redesign. But somewhere along the line a compromise must have been reached, because the centers remained empty. I got the gist of the story eons ago from Peter Blake, the chief scientist at Hypnos.”

  “Now I get it. You thought the inmate they had asked you to revive was a Hypnos research subject.”

  “You got it.”

  “How were you contacted?”

  “First by phone, then at a meeting.”

  “But I thought you’d never seen—”

  “I was blindfolded, but Tyler was there. Once we met him I recognized his voice.”

  “And they told you the center inmates were a Hypnos setup?”

  Floyd didn’t answer for a while, his thumb absently caressing the back of Laurel’s hand. “No, they didn’t; it was my assumption. Another wrong one, by the looks of it.”

  Like the Russian nested dolls, that’s how Hypnos and the DHS had planned the use of the centers in their tanks; a ploy within a ploy within a ploy. She blinked, assimilating for the first time the vastness of the deceit: fifty sugar cubes in the homeland, with between fifty and three hundred tanks each; thousands of center spaces with room for tens of thousands. Worldwide, the numbers would be staggering.

  “Half a million, at least.”

  “What?” Laurel snapped from her calculations to focus on his eyes, bright and tinged with a veil of sadness.

  “That’s the number you’re seeking. Half a million is a fair estimate of the capacity Hypnos has to house the nameless to run its research and, at the same time, provide a limbo for whoever crosses swords with the DHS at home and God knows with how many foreign government agencies in countries where the system is in operation.”

  “Where’s the origin of the system’s flaws? Its use? The safeguards?”

  “There are many flaws—some in the system, and others in the hibernation process.”

  Laurel nodded. Unlike most technologies, hibernation didn’t appear to have been helmed by people driven by good intentions.

  “When Vinson Duran, then an obscure scientist, isolated the protein mechanism governing the onset of torpor,” Floyd continued, “he didn’t publicize his discovery but instead founded a corporation and set out to find the most profitable way t
o use his technology. As it turned out, it became a commercial venture successful beyond Hypnos’s wildest dreams. Once achieved, their goal has been to perpetuate their monopoly by denying others the research tools to further the science.

  “And here lies the origin of the flaws. Hibernation needed ten years of open research to iron out the kinks present in every new technology. Instead, Hypnos offered the government a solution to an otherwise stubborn problem: the prison system. But there was a condition. Hypnos would run it. Our government jumped at the chance and built a dicey legal framework, because they didn’t understand the technology or its implications. Only Hypnos knew some of the finer limitations of hibernation, and they weren’t about to make a full disclosure. As a result, our government imposed a new system controlled by a corporation. These are the system’s flaws: hasty deployment of an untried technology, and private ownership without effective government control. The rest is history and, let’s face it, once the technology was available, to use it as an alternative to the old prison system was unavoidable.”

  “I agree; the previous setup wasn’t economically feasible,” Laurel said.

  “Economic viability was only part of the problem. The fact is, the old system didn’t fulfill any of the goals it set out to do.”

  “Was the old system better?”

  “No, and the question has been debated to exhaustion. I’m just saying there are still flaws in hibernation, but there will be no return to the old system.”

  “Why not?”

  “In itself, hibernation is a strong deterrent because of fear. Prisons weren’t scary enough.”

  “No wonder.” She darted a glance toward Russo, and it suddenly dawned on her that he couldn’t have changed much in eight years. “Has he aged?”

  “Patients in hibernation age differently, but we all age.”

  “He’s supposed to have aged only slightly. Isn’t that right?” She looked at Russo again.

  “Yes, only slightly, but you must factor disbalance in.”

  “I’ve never heard that term. Did you make it up?”

  “Not at all. Disbalance is one of the paradoxes of hibernation. Slowed-down metabolisms arrest aging but not completely.”

  “From what I’ve heard of hibernation, decay progresses but at ten percent of the normal rate. A prisoner can do a century and return with a body only ten years older.”

  “That’s the theory. But reality is different. Disbalance is the phenomenon of differently aged cells sharing the same organism. Some of the cells in a living body continue to work regardless of temperature or metabolic speed. I’m referring not only to the nervous system but also to the respiratory, digestive, circulatory, and endocrine systems. After prolonged periods of torpor, the body hosts a weird mix of free radicals and other antioxidants that serve cells with different lineages—I mean cells that have evolved at different rates. This may trigger the immune system to act unpredictably.” Floyd turned toward Russo and nodded. “That’s one of the problems with him.”

  “Will he pull through?” Laurel asked.

  Floyd moved his hands to form a sphere in midair and then peered into his imaginary crystal ball. “Some contend the future can be known and anything short of accepting predictable doom is denial. Others contend the future has not yet unfolded and may harbor untold possibilities.”

  “How can you be witty in our situation?”

  He lowered his hands. “Because I don’t know what to say, except that miracles sometimes happen.”

  Laurel shook her head, suddenly weary beyond description. A miracle?

  “Wa … ter—”

  Laurel and Floyd jerked their heads toward Russo’s bed, where suddenly a miracle had occurred.

  chapter 34

  22:45

  Still no word from Nikola.

  Odelle Marino kicked her shoes off and closed the penthouse door with her foot without turning around. She laid her briefcase and the file she’d been reading in the back of her official car on one of the matching sideboards flanking the entrance. During the forty-minute drive from DHS headquarters to Chesapeake Bay, she’d studied Hypnos’s breakdown for the next fiscal year—including a hike of more than seven percent in the fees the corporation charged the American taxpayer per inmate and day.

  She darted a quick glance around and sniffed, her unconscious routine when arriving home. Right temperature, right smell, and right order. The Venezuelan couple caring for the gardening and house keeping were inching toward their green cards. After a quick detour to the kitchen to gather a tub of raspberry mousse and a spoon, she climbed to the upper floor.

  The vast bedroom walls had been decorated by Greek artisans to resemble the houses dotting the Aegean Sea islands, in rustic and rough plaster finished in blinding white with several coats of whitewash. On the ceiling, scores of triangles crafted from stout ivory canvas and held tight by ropes overlapped to cover most of the surface. Fluffy clouds in an azure sky peeked from places where the fabric panels met at odd angles. The floor, made from uneven waxed cedar planks, was on two levels. On the raised area sat a huge antique bed, its heavy canopy supported by four dark columns intricately carved with acanthus leaves. The dark wood contrasted sharply with the Egyptian cotton bed linens, stacked pillows, and gossamer curtains.

  After a slight detour to leave the mousse on a rolltop desk, Odelle padded past the bed to the other side of the room, to a wide arched opening flanked by two huge eighteenth-century Spanish chairs with dark tooled-leather seats. Through the arch and a short corridor set with floor-to-ceiling mirrors in aged wood frames, she entered her bathroom—its slanted glazed ceiling now obscured by sliding unbleached linen curtains. Odelle stepped over the slatted teak floor to a sunken rectangular bath of white marble with spidery green veins. She opened the faucet, and a two-foot-wide waterfall arched from a bronze panel on the marble wall. The water temperature would remain constant, recirculating through a thermostatically controlled heater set in the lower floor. When water reached its preset level, a sensor would turn the faucet off.

  Odelle straightened and gazed through wafts of steam to the bath’s backdrop—a jungle rising to the ceiling and covering the bathroom’s rear wall. Heliconias, gingers, and bananas wrestled for space next to anthuriums, ficus, ti, aloes, and yuccas intertwined with passionflower vines.

  She opened a small wooden door set on the wall to a side of the bath and hefted one of the six Baccarat crystal flasks: her perfume, custom-made by Maison Guerlain at their gorgeous Champs-Elysées shop, a bargain at ninety grand a quart. She poured a generous splash of the Madeira-colored liquid into the hot water, and the air thickened with aromas of musk, sandalwood, and violet. She returned the flask to the darkness of its niche, undressed, and laid her clothes on a chaise longue set to a side of the arch.

  Through the passageway, she returned to the bedroom and paused to gaze at the lazily fluttering flimsy netting driven by the carefully positioned jets in the ceiling. Odelle caught her reflection in the mirror. Small breasts, untouched by the knife and still defying gravity, flat stomach, and not a hair on her body below her eyes but for a carefully manicured mound of dark curls.

  When a faint peal echoed, she padded to her rolltop desk and slid back its curved slatted lid. A rectangular plasma panel folded upward and stopped at a slight angle. Odelle glanced at the numbers beside the prompt and choked a curse. Not Nikola; Vinson. For a heartbeat she was tempted to turn around and return to her bath, but running away from a confrontation wasn’t her style. She sat on the leather chair facing the desk and ran her hands lightly over the armrests. She’d bought the chair over the phone at a secret auction: one of the chairs from the railway carriage where the French had surrendered in 1940. She didn’t know which buttocks her seat had nursed: Pétain’s, Hitler’s, Keitel’s, Huntziger’s, or Jodl’s. Not that it mattered.

  Odelle stared for an instant at the tiny camera over the desk and blinked twice. The camera whirred to focus on her face, and the screen dissolved to re
configure into an image of Vinson’s face, drawn in an angry grimace.

  “Any luck?” Vinson opened.

  “Zilch. It’s as if it never happened.”

  “How can that be? No way. … What’s the NHS doing? Then there’s the police. … We must …” When nervous, Vinson had the unsettling—and unrelated to syntax—habit of surrounding odd words with pauses, leaving confused listeners wondering if a hidden significance lurked beyond his comments.

  “There are two million residents in Washington, D.C., three on workdays. I can neither close down the city nor do a house-to-house search.”

  “Have the fugitives left the city?”

  Odelle raised one leg and propped her heel on the desk’s edge, then repeated the movement with the other leg, adjusting her foot on the opposite edge. The camera remained focused on her face.

  “Yes, they probably have by now.”

  Intelligent brown eyes, set in a serious-looking, heart-shaped face in its early sixties, stared back at her. His cheeks had paled, but it could be the light. Odelle scooted her butt to get more comfortable and reached down with her hand.

  “What are we going to do?” Vinson asked.

  “You should calm down and run your company. I will do my job.”

  “But the press—”

  “I’m working that angle.” The previous morning, Nikola had hinted at calling a press conference and disclosing the breakout. There had already been a whisper in the evening’s edition of The Post, tucked away in Hamilton’s editorial. Nikola said he’d call later. That was more than twelve hours ago, and he hadn’t called. She increased the pressure of her fingers and shuddered.

  “And if they talk?”

  She smiled at her interrogator. “Who?”

  “The fugitives.”

  “Talk? To whom?”

  “The press. They could—the government. Not to mention … There’s a design behind this madness.” The face on the screen was a picture of growing discomfort.

  Odelle narrowed her eyes and breathed in her heavenly musk. “They can’t. No paper will entertain gossip or anonymous calls without clearing it with me first. It’s a question of time. Relax.”