Learning the Hard Way 2

by H. P. Caledon

  “How do you get a new area under your control?” Keelan asked, as he still hadn’t understood Rainer’s way of gathering power. It was too... political. Keelan didn’t understand politics either—he just knew that both were kind of mucky.

  Rainer eyed Keelan skeptically.

  “Would be nice to know how it works so no one can surprise me if they try to take over your area and control,” Keelan explained, going for indifferent.

  “Or so you can learn how to take it from me?”

  “No, patience is not one of my virtues, and after having seen your kind of power, I know it’s not for me,” Keelan said, sitting up straighter. Rainer didn’t look convinced, so Keelan got up to prove just how impatient his nature was. “Listen, if I wanted to sit and watch something grow, I would have brought a fucking plant in here. I like it when things move along quickly and smoothly, and it doesn’t if you build shit one brick at a time. I like things uncomplicated, which is why I always work alone! So there’s no one there to complicate matters.” Keelan barely made it through without choking on his own bullshit. He had plans. Long-term, even.

  But, judging by the growing smile on Rainer’s face, it looked like Keelan had painted a credible image of himself as a stupid thug with no visions for his own future.

  Keelan suppressed the urge to smile.

  “Okay, sit down again, and I’ll give you yet another lesson on life in jail,” Rainer said with a gloating smile.

  Keelan fought the urge to cut it off his face.

  The lesson turned out to be useful, though. Of course, Rainer’s way of gaining power was to start at the bottom and work his way up by buying allies. It took Keelan a while to word a question so it wouldn’t sound like he was indicating Rainer was a coward shying away from confrontations.

  “Do the others in here work the same way? Or do you have experiences that can help me secure your place on the throne?” Keelan asked, trying to sound submissive enough to keep Rainer in a good mood.

  Rainer wasn’t just a coward—he was also paranoid and self-centered. Keelan knew that... now, but it had cost him a month in darkness and Mike a lot of pain not discovering it sooner. The idea of his own worth was his Achilles heel.

  “Some go for the throat,” Rainer said, hesitantly.

  “Then those will be the ones I keep my eye on.”

  “You don’t just go up to someone in the food line and kill them. You do, which is why you will never rise through the ranks in here. That’s not how the game is played. Democracy, of course, is a joke and no one votes.”

  “That was absolutely useless information,” Keelan mumbled.

  “There are also other aspects of this job description we need to discuss,” Rainer said quietly and picked at a fingernail. Keelan waited, and Rainer finally looked up. “As in what you get out of it.”

  “That’s not a job description, that’s wage settlement.”

  “And what are you, the fucking union rep for hired muscle?” Rainer bellowed and got up. “Don’t think so much. Leave it to the horse, it has a bigger head!”

  “You know what I think?” Keelan asked, got up, and stared indifferently at Rainer. “I think you should just write all this down on a piece of paper and send one of your followers by with it when you’re done. This isn’t us discussing a job description, this is you fucking around in circles. Figure out what the hell it is you want and find my door. Then we’ll see if I open.” Keelan left the cell.

  Wow, that was stupid.

  Keelan made his way back to his cell, where he found Mike still asleep. He’d felt everything in him burn from looking and listening to Rainer gloat. He could barely reel in his excitement about one day turning that gloating smile into a grimace of fear. The thought alone almost made him chuckle menacingly. That was probably also the reason he’d just talked back to Rainer. It was either that or attacking him then and there, and the time wasn’t quite right for that.

  Keelan reclined on his bunk and listened to Mike’s breathing.

  A few hours later Sal came to the cell. “Rainer’s proposition.” Sal handed Keelan a note.

  Keelan sat on a chair and read it.

  “That question you asked him? When he didn’t answer,” Sal said, nervously fidgeting with his hands.

  Keelan looked at him, expectantly.

  “A fight, one on one in the arena. None of the bosses in here fight their own fights, they send someone. If you want to knock Rainer off and take over his domain, then you have to fight the fight yourself. If you do, then he can’t deny you a fair fight for power. He can’t send someone else. It’s either fight you himself or relinquish everything to you, no questions asked.”

  Keelan looked surprised. “Is that all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Sal?”

  “Uhm, Rainer is a good fighter. Not as good as you, but he has brute strength. And he has loyal people elsewhere. He feels threatened by you, that’s why he keeps you close. That’s why he gave you Mike, so you could be kept busy, but they say you don’t use him.” The words spilled out of Sal, and he seemed so nervous he couldn’t look at Keelan at all.

  A small smile formed on Keelan’s lips. “You didn’t answer my question, Sal.”

  “Take me in when you take over?” Sal asked in a tiny voice. It wasn’t a request. It was a plea.

  “Taking over wasn’t my plan,” Keelan said, but the shock on Sal’s face cut him off.

  “Please?” Sal knelt by him and grabbed his arm. “If you don’t, please don’t tell him I told you all of this. Please?”

  Keelan stared at him, wide-eyed. “How did you end up in Delta?”

  Nearly a minute passed in silence as Sal thought. Finally, he looked up at Keelan who only saw an empty shell of a man. “I don’t remember,” he whispered. “Please?”

  “I won’t say anything,” Keelan said.

  Sal got to his feet and almost ran from the cell.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll smarten up,” Mike said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Mike propped himself up on one elbow and stared hatefully at Keelan. “When you fuck him over, too. Abandon him.”

  An awkward silence followed, and Mike lay back down and stared at the ceiling.

  Thoughts and feelings were at odds with each other, and all Keelan saw was Mike’s eyes going empty and him being reduced to a shell like Sal. If Keelan didn’t take it upon himself to help rectify the damages Rainer had inflicted by keeping Keelan from keeping his promise, then that would be the outcome. Before Keelan had made a rational decision, his emotions had the words leave his mouth.

  “Mike. I found an escape route—”

  “Yes, thank you, I know!” Mike turned to stare at him again.

  Keelan wondered if Mike had seen him work on the plans at night. But it didn’t add up. “How?”

  “Look at me!” Mike yelled and got up, wincing from the pain, but when Keelan stepped forward to help him, Mike pushed him away. “I know you found a way out. How the hell do you think I ended up looking like this? And now what? Are you trying to sell me some bullshit about you being sorry? Your word is nothing but hot air nicely wrapped up in a fart, but I trusted you! I actually thought you and I were getting along pretty well, but boo fucking hoo!”

  Just as Keelan had sucked in air to defend himself against the accusations, the door opened, and two guards came in.

  “Mike, pack up,” one of the guards said.

  “Why?” Mike demanded.

  “You’re a free man. Your transporter is waiting.”

  Chapter Four

  Oh, shit, he’s gonna tell them everything, was Keelan’s first thought as an expression of total relief washed over Mike’s bruised features. He kept hoping it wouldn’t happen, but he didn’t really believe it. There was too much in the conversation they had just had that didn’t fit.

  Mike gathered his few belongings and left the cell. As soon as the door closed behind him and the guards, Keelan found every
thing he had on the escape and ripped it to pieces before he started a fire. If any of it was found in his possession, it would mean more than just a month in the hole. He’d heard of prisoners disappearing forever. That, and Rainer would probably never finish with him if the notes were found and could be traced back to the Blood Brothers’ cell he’d had first dibs on. Rainer would probably also figure out that the blueprints were the reason his follower died.

  Keelan burned some of the materials from Mike’s lessons at the last just to have an excuse to burn things and smog up his cell if anyone came.

  And someone did—Rainer and two guards.

  One guard grabbed Keelan and pulled him back from the fire. Keelan didn’t resist. Rainer tried to save some of the burning pieces of paper.

  “What’s this?” a guard asked and pulled the paper from Keelan’s hand.

  “Mike’s stuff.” Keelan shrugged and made himself comfortable on a chair, but he never took his eyes of the guards.

  “We were told you were planning an escape. You’re not trying to get rid of the evidence, are you?”

  “An escape?” Keelan repeated, managing to make the guard sound like he was out of his mind.

  “You do know that there’s only one way out of here, right?” a guard asked.

  “Actually, there are two. One through the iron doors in the center hall and one through the last cell on the second floor in the north corridors. But that door leads into a room full of guards, so you’d have to have a death wish to count that door as a way out.”

  “Still think you’re so fucking smart, huh?” Rainer sneered.

  “I think you think I think I am,” Keelan said. Rainer’s temper exploded, and he slapped Keelan across the face so hard that Keelan bit his cheek.

  The guards stepped closer while Rainer glared challengingly at Keelan. But Keelan didn’t move. He remained seated and let the thick, coppery liquid accumulate in his mouth while sensing the tension in the room rise. He focused solely on Rainer, who was the most threatening person in the room. He liked seeing the insecurity flicker in Rainer’s eyes, even though Rainer attempted an unyielding gaze. Keelan just stared back without letting his anger shine through.

  Finally, the guards stepped back, allowing Rainer to do the same without looking like he was fleeing.

  Keelan spat out the amount of blood he had in his mouth and hit Rainer’s boot. He wondered if Rainer would try to humiliate him further by rubbing his boot clean in Keelan’s clothes or in other ways see if he could force Keelan to clean it off.

  The guards stayed where they were while Keelan never took his gaze off Rainer. A pissing-contest had started and—to Keelan’s surprise—Rainer backed down and left the cell with the two guards.

  The situation was becoming dangerous, and Keelan had no doubts that Rainer would retaliate, and soon.

  “Hope you don’t need that arm for much longer. Can’t wait to rip it off you and beat you to death with the wet end,” Keelan mumbled and poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue to determine the extent of the damage. It wasn’t bad.

  Over the next few days, Keelan kept a low profile and stayed out of trouble while counting the days to the escape and going over every mental detail of it. Rainer’s focus seemed glued to the back of Keelan’s head, and Keelan knew it. Other than that, Rainer kept his distance.

  Keelan had acknowledged that it would be useless to hope Rainer would forget everything about the incident and leave him alone. Sal had even been by one evening and warned Keelan about Rainer and some allies—a few of whom were guards—plotting revenge. Nothing in Delta was free, and Rainer paid the guards and other accomplices with Sal and the other followers. The details regarding the revenge as described by Sal were so disturbing that Keelan had no trouble admitting to himself he was scared shitless.

  The timetable moved closer, and Keelan gathered the few things he needed for his escape. As the situation was, he found it best to not call too much attention to himself, even though it meant missing the opportunity to humiliate Rainer in front of everybody and then take him in as his possession.

  As he’d done on his rehearsal runs, Keelan snuck out into the corridors, and shrouded by darkness, made his way to the center hall and the ventilation system. In the dim lights, he saw and recognized a still figure by the iron doors. But something was wrong with it.

  It was Sal, and he was dead. From the look of it, he certainly hadn’t died from natural causes.

  Keelan hesitated. But it was too dangerous to stay, and the new fish came in today. He had to wait in the ventilation system until they had led the prisoners out of the prison transporter and then make his move, or he’d have to wait another three months for another to arrive. He doubted he would survive Rainer and his plans that long.

  No one was in sight as he climbed the steep wall and loosened the rope he’d managed to hide away a few meters up the wall. Climbing the rope, he made it to the ventilation system, where he removed the grate and climbed in. He replaced the grate behind him and bellied his way toward the dock. The closer he got, the harder the challenges became. Among other things, he had to keep up with a strict timetable of the pipes being closed off in segments to equalize pressure. It hurt like hell in his sinuses, and his nose began to bleed in the last segment.

  The final segment finally opened and allowed Keelan access to the grate from where he could keep an eye on the people and the prison transporter that had just landed. He waited there for four hours until the prisoners were led away.

  Suddenly the future seemed scary. The thought of freedom was immeasurable. It was so different than the life he was used to in prison, and he contemplated whether it was possible to forget how to live in the free world. Not even juvie had had that effect on him, even though things were definitely also different in there.

  The inner gates between the dock and the prison closed again, and Keelan could emerge from his hideout, replace the grate, and run to the transporter. Focusing on the slightest movements around him, he moved through the big ship. The only life he detected was in the cockpit, so Keelan drew his shiv and waited in a small enclosure just outside.

  It was the pilot going through the protocols and procedures after having made a drop off, and he continued to make the ship ready for departure. Keelan let the pilot work, as he had no practical experience making a prison transporter ready. Or to fly one... or any ship in general, for that matter. Now he just hoped that Mike’s teachings would work in praxis.

  The pilot finished up and left the cockpit to close down the rest of the ship... as far as Keelan remembered from the lessons. But Keelan couldn’t wait any longer. He knew that the crew would be back soon, and they had to report an all clear before departure. A thermal scanning of the ship would reveal an extra body on board. Even if he just killed one of the guards to take his place, the corpse would take too long to reach the temperature of its surroundings for it to go undetected.

  The pilot stopped in front of the enclosure where Keelan was hiding. He seemed to have detected a change, and Keelan tried to identify the source—he could smell himself, too.

  Keelan buried the blade in the pilot’s neck and hid the body in a box on the dock before he closed off the ramp and ran to the cockpit. As he strapped in, his gaze roamed the many instruments and blinking buttons, which all tried to give him a plethora of information at the same time. Feeling somewhat confident that he’d located the most important ones, he initiated his first attempt at flying.

  A loud voice shrieked over the loud speakers, and Keelan felt the panic set in. But he managed to reel it in as he mentally went through Mike’s lessons on startup. His thoughts cleared and he pushed the buttons that booted the system and set the ship in motion.

  The voice drowned in the shrill tone of an alarm. Keelan looked to the inner gates and knew that at any moment guards would come through them to try to get him back to his cell. Or they’d just kill him.

  Keelan remembered what Mike had said about the strength of the hul
l on these transporters, so he gunned the engine and turned the tip toward the gates.

  “What are you doing?” a voice yelled.

  “As I see it you have two options, only one of which leaves you alive.” Keelan hit the brakes, but the ship continued several meters more than he’d expected. One or two meters more and he would have breached the gates.

  “And what are those options?” a voice quite a bit more collected than the first asked.

  “If you don’t open the outer hangar doors, I’ll plow down these two and see how much speed I can muster before trying to plow down the hangar doors.”

  “That would be suicide,” the collected voice said.

  “And murder. You see, I’m pretty sure I can destroy both these inner gates and the outer doors enough to cause the whole prison serious pressure problems. Murder, suicide, call it what you will, but the result will be the same. I’m not going back to my cell!” Keelan managed to sound cool and collected, which made him smile. The only question was whether or not he’d lost his mind. “You don’t believe me? Your funeral.” Keelan poked the throttle. The transporter slowly closed in on the inner gates, and the sound of metal giving way reverberated in the dock before the voice, not as collected as before, answered.

  “Okay, okay, we’ll open the hangar doors!”

  “Good man.” Keelan turned the ship around. He searched the dock to find something that could delay them in coming after him as Mike had said they would. They’d just let him out to gather a search team to go after him as soon as he’d left the hangar.

  Keelan almost laughed out loud as he saw a small skiff that he, even without practice, managed to tip over and push into position so that the hangar doors couldn’t close and thus wouldn’t allow the prison to equalize the dock to open the inner gates and send someone after him.

  He left the prison and saw that the prison was carved out of the side of a crater. Pointing the nose straight up, he made it out of the planet’s atmosphere and punched in the heading for the nearest frequency border.