He felt somewhat uneasy about the realization that the science of effectively destroying large numbers of people with the aid of another mass of people and a bunch of armaments had always received more attention from humankind than any other kind of science.
The very fact that something like that could ever be a science already sent a chill down his spine. It was hard to realize that one could learn its theory and turn it into practice.
But that was just his initial reaction.
Things eventually became clearer to Hagen. Demetrious had been right: any conflict, any fight, any battle, any bout, and any altercation was essentially warfare. However, victory would forever remain out of reach. A war as a phenomenon could have no end. Every battle one won would invariably be followed by another. The same concerned lost battles.
Therefore, people would constantly fight for victory as hard as they could. It would sometimes come at the cost of one’s very existence—or that of one’s platoon, one’s army, an entire country... Humans had regularly fought between themselves, so humanity could, by extension, be considered a schizophrenic species constantly vying for domination over itself. Just like that soap-making guy from an old movie.
Mike even started to view his conflict with Lorenzo differently. It was a cold war of sorts. The only reason they saw each other as adversaries was that they had known nothing about each other, and that their first encounter had been an altercation. Lorenzo was supposed to punish Hagen according to some prison code, but between the solitary confinement and the end of his term, he’d never gotten round to it before leaving the prison. The cholo wanted revenge—he even used their common contacts to send Hagen a message, saying he’d wait for him to be released and then kill him.
Hagen had heard enough threats by then, so he was afraid no longer. The guy wanted to kill him, eh? Let him try.
He’d suspected that Demetrious’ choice of recommended reading wasn’t merely aimed at the development of Hagen’s intellect. Dem could have chosen chemistry or biology, after all, or even nineteenth-century English literature—there were plenty of options. But the idea that kept crossing his mind was this: some unknown power must have been preparing him for something—all the while concealing its actual intentions.
Whenever Hagen would enter the ring, he thought of himself as a small army on the battlefield, preparing to engage in combat with another small army. His characteristics were his supply trains. His skills corresponded to an army’s firepower. And Hagen himself would stand at the center as the leader of the troops. The outcome of the battle would depend on his army’s formation and his choice of which military units needed to engage the enemy first, and which were to be kept in reserve.
Planning fights became a priority. Other inmates were hardly ideal for leveling up, but he’d have to make do with what he’d been given.
Hagen had gone through quite a few experiences when it felt as though the very same power that had given him the interface took over his faculties during dangerous moments in the ring. That was what had always helped him in fights against much tougher opponents. Hagen had originally feared it, but then realized that he was the power all by himself. Even if this hypothetical party did exist, it was Hagen who would do the fighting.
And he’d been the winner all along—not some mysterious entity.
He could be certain of that much.
* * *
HIS NEW FOCUS notwithstanding, he’d still occasionally feel like watching TV. After reading, learning Spanish, and then taking classes of Russian with Roman, he felt like relaxing and making his brain unwind before he’d proceed with the training.
Hagen was sitting on a chair one day watching the hip-hop channel on the TV when he suddenly saw a familiar face on the screen. The narrator’s voice bubbled away,
“Easy Sammy C’s road to glory was full of struggle, misery, and disappointment. He’d been on the hip-hop scene for over twenty years... with less than 30 YouTube views as of recently. Easy Sammy fell depressed and dejected, yet he would not give up.”
The picture of the screen was replaced by a video of Sammy talking.
“Everything changed the day some unknown boxer played one of my tracks as his signature music. There was a record company executive in the audience—finally someone got to appreciate my stuff, knowmsayin? A day after he’d listened to my CD I was on my way to Cali to record an album!”
Videos of Easy Sammy became replaced by a panorama view of an enormous concert hall. The new hip hop star was jumping all over the stage.
The narrator continued,
“The previously unknown rapper’s album topped the charts in just three weeks—in the US first, and then, Britain and Japan.”
Some footage of Sammy wearing a few pounds of gold chains on his neck followed.
“I don’t know anything about the guy that had made my voice heard, but what I know is that if it weren’t for him, I’d still have been a struggling artist. If you can hear me, dude, let me just tell you one thing—don’t give up. Keep your eye on the prize. Someday your own flow... uh, I mean, your own fists... Anyway, I’m sure you’ll win!” Sammy was a lot more eloquent on his tracks for sure.
The rapper made his way through a crowd of fans and got into a limo.
Next came the dates of his new tour.
Hagen brushed away the unexpected wetness from his eyes and headed toward the prison court. It was time for him to practice countering choke holds.
Whenever Hagen didn’t fight in the wooden ring, he trained as hard as he could. The blacks and the Latinos both gave him some limited access to the weightlifting machines. However, he had a feeling this would only last until he and Roman managed to “get them on the Interwebs.”
The recreation room also had an old PlayStation 3 console. Ironically enough, its owners were the neo-Nazi Wild Boys. However, since neither the Latinos nor the blacks would let them approach their TV sets, the bodybuilders with all sorts of intimidating tattoos—skulls, swastikas, and Celtic ornaments—had discovered that they’d have to engage in shuttle diplomacy with the members of what they had considered inferior races to beg them for some video gaming time. Sometimes their “racial enemies” would condescendingly let them play. However, they’d usually just hog the PlayStation and have a go at it themselves. The glum neo-Nazis would then gather nearby waiting for one of the PoC’s they’d hated so much to get tired of gaming and grab the controller.
It was fun to watch actual gangsters with palms so huge that they had to try hard to hit the controls play GTA V with such enormous gusto, committing numerous crimes and then getting arrested by the virtual police and being fined a few thousand illusory dollars.
Hagen noticed that wherever one assembled a crowd of men, the place would instantly become a schoolyard. Same rules, same games, same cliques. Even the fear of the “grown-ups,” or the prison administration, was the same. Weaker “boys” would be subjected to the same humiliations as elsewhere—they’d get bullied mercilessly and have their food snatched away from them.
However, Hagen was no longer among the bullied. Many of the inmates had already been aware of the kind of punch Blueeyes could throw, so there were progressively fewer and fewer of those wishing to check whether he was the real McCoy.
Mike didn’t turn into a bully himself, though. He’d even forgiven Trevor for leading him to the trap in the corridor that could have cost Hagen his life. Trevor was so amazed by this show of kindness that he started to behave in a highly obsequious manner, flattering Mike and trying to express his gratitude in all kinds of ways. He would follow Hagen like a flunky. He’d pull out the chair for him at the canteen, and volunteered to bring him books from the prison library.
Having noticed that, Roman uttered a scornful “Shestiorka![3]” Mike didn’t speak Russian that well, but decided against asking his cellmate about the meaning of the word.
Mike had another epiphany: it was hard to watch another person being humiliated, but harder still to watch people
being eager to humiliate themselves.
The sight of Trevor’s screwed-up face with eagerness to serve his new master writ large upon it depressed him. The gratitude of a broken person felt like a burden. It made it all the harder to show the man a clenched fist and say,
“Leave me the fuck alone while you’re still in one piece, sh... Trev!” Mike couldn’t bring himself to say “shithead.”
He’d never have thought of intimidating someone—in particular, a creature as harmless and pathetic—but he’d been brought to the realization that certain people only listened to the words of others when there was actual strength backing them up. And, most importantly, it wasn’t necessary to humiliate one’s opponent to give them a show of your strength—a lesson Goretsky had never managed to learn.
In the meantime, Roman Kamenev’s startup was going full speed ahead.
Each of Hagen’s Mondays started with a long and tedious search through every box with cabinet hardware in an attempt to find yet another part. It felt just like rummaging through endless chests and graves in Skyrim. However, instead of gold or amulets, Hagen would find a processor, a memory module, or a hard drive (which stank so bad Hagen nearly threw up). He could but imagine how this little object had gotten smuggled into prison.
Having gathered all the parts, Hagen assembled a computer in a few hours, using a DIY wooden housing.
“It’s ready,” he told Roman the same evening. “But how do we bring it over here?”
“That’ll be taken care of without you. What you need to do is prepare for the hardest part. You’ll need to select the tools that you’re going to need. You’ll get them once you get the box, but you’ll have to return them later. Each screwdriver is numbered and accounted for.”
“OK, but when do we do it?”
“It might happen any day now. Try not to get killed in the ring. We’ll have to install the server the very night we receive it. Storing the thing underneath a bunk would be dangerous as hell.”
There was a mass fight in the prison block a few days later. No one knew how it had started, but there had been many broken tables and chairs. The recreation room sofa didn’t survive, either. Once the guards came, all the inmates dispersed just as quickly. There were no obvious suspects. Everyone denied their participation, claiming they’d only “gotten caught in the action.” The irate administration had initially intended to punish everyone and perform a decimation to boot, but eventually decided against it.
The very next day all the inmates were busy at the workshop making furniture to replace what they’d damaged. Hagen realized the box with the server would be smuggled out with one of the new pieces of furniture.
* * *
A FEW DAYS after the mysterious fight, Hagen nearly bumped into Jim right next to the cell door as the guard walked out, carrying the very same box filled with old computer parts that Roman had kept under his bunk.
Hagen’s heart skipped a few beats. They were done for. Their plan had fallen through. His dreams would never come true now.
He tried to imagine what serving a couple of years might feel like. However, Jim winked to him, saying something weird,
“I advise you not to forget the name of God in your art.”
“Eh?” Then Hagen nodded hastily, just in case. “The name of God. Certainly. By all means.”
Jim went off nonchalantly, while Hagen rushed into the cell. Roman was sitting on his bunk, browsing through some magazine.
“Has old Jimmy found the parts? What’s gonna happen now?”
Hagen’s tone of voice alarmed Roman for a moment, but then he relaxed as he realized what Mike had just said.
“Comrade, didn’t I tell you old Jimmy was on our side?”
“So he knows about the server?”
“Of course not!” it was Roman’s turn to panic. “Make sure he never so much as suspects anything of the sort!”
“But what about the parts in the box?”
“Jimmy thinks we assemble tattoo machines. It’s also illegal, of course, but viewed as a minor misdemeanor. And our employers pay him real well. That’s why he turns a blind eye to it. However, he has some religious guilt about it, which is why he preaches it to every inmate to get a tattoo with a cross or the name of God—preferably white people’s God. Anyway, most of the tats Latinos get are like that. Don’t worry none, comrade.”
“But why did he take the box away?”
“We’re in for a sleepless night. The administration will be making a surprise inspection. Make sure you don’t have any illegal stuff on you. Any weed, pills, or edged weapons?”
“I’ve never had anything to do with any of that stuff, even on the outside.”
Roman crawled underneath his bunk and produced a couple of porn mags. He leafed through them and sighed heavily as he approached the toilet bowl.
“Bye-bye, my darlings.”
Roman started to rip the pages to small pieces and flush them, wiping off imaginary tears in a theatrical manner.
“Why the surprise inspection?” Hagen asked, already familiar with the prison lingo.
“The administration must have gotten a leak about illicit activities in our block. And everyone’s been edgy since the recent fight.”
Hagen froze. “What if the startup is the reason they’d decided on the inspection in the first place?”
Roman frowned. “I sure hope not, comrade. I think it should be the usual again—drugs, shivs and sexual violence,” he snorted and uttered an unfamiliar Russian swearword starting with “blee.”
Just as he had predicted, the lights in cells went on at three in the morning. All the floors of the prison block filled with guards. They must have been summoned from all across the prison complex for the sake of speed. Each guard wore white medical gloves. They were accompanied by military types of some sort, clad in camo and armed with automatic rifles.
They’d split into groups of three guards and one heavily-armed soldier, and proceeded to search every cell meticulously. The inmates were taken out, pushed against a wall, and given a thorough frisk.
Hagen stood with his hands behind his head, yawning while the guards searched through his bed, his clothes, and personal hygiene items. One of the guards bent over the toilet bowl and aimed a flashlight beam inside. Then he gave a triumphant yell.
“I’ve found something!”
“Comrades, this isn’t what you think.”
The guard rolled up his sleeve, reached into the bowl, and finally produced a ball of soggy paper. He’d already realized his mistake, but still yelled.
“Shut up, you! We’ll handle this on our own.”
Nevertheless, the inspection did yield some results. According to Roman, that was typical of every surprise inspection. They’d found a few caches with tools for making shivs, as well as a couple of actual shivs and a few other things purloined from the workshop. One could but marvel at how anyone could have managed to smuggle all that stuff into the block under such heavy surveillance.
Around a dozen inmates ended up in solitary confinement once the inspection was over. Roman got rounded up as well, charged with trying to block the sewage system with garbage so as to goad other inmates into protesting.
Hagen felt sorry for his “comrade” but also somewhat happy about the fact he’d be able to level up without being disturbed the next couple of days without his cellmate’s Argus-eyed stare upon him.
* * *
A WHILE LATER, once Roman had gotten out of solitary confinement, he said worriedly,
“We’ll have to get some of those crappy prison tats, comrade.”
“Why is that?”
“Jimmy should by no means suspect that we were working on anything other than tattoo machines. He’s been acting shifty ever since the inspection. He must have recognized some computer parts.”
“What makes you think so?”
“He was asking me just the other day why ‘computer guys’ like us only made tattoo machines and never got inked ourselves. That’s
real suspicious. Doubly so in your case, comrade.”
Mike had never considered getting a tattoo before. Or, rather, he’d never thought he’d absolutely have to get one someday.
Two days later, Roman brought a sheaf of papers with tattoo designs and placed them on Hagen’s bunk.
“I’ve found the best tattoo artist in our block. He’s the real thing. Used to work in a studio before. Choose something you like but it’s gotta be something conspicuous—something old Jimmy would see, in other words. So a small symbol on your wrist or your ankle is out of the question. The forearm is your best bet—this way, it will be visible if you wear a T-shirt.”
“You don’t seem too happy about it yourself, though,” Hagen pointed out.
“Why would I be?” Roman grunted. “I have a cool tat on my left ankle. There’s another on my right that still needs to be finished. They were done by the same person and in the same style. And now I’ll have to wear some silly doodle on my arm—not what I’d planned for it.”
“Do you think this guy’s a bad artist?” Hagen studied the first sheet in the sheaf. “It doesn’t look any worse than what you see on the outside. Not that I’m any expert.”
“It’s not about what they ink on you. It’s the materials and equipment used. You have no idea of what kind of toxic shit they use to make ink here. Burnt plastic, ballpoint pen refills, burnt paper... The machines of the sort that we’re allegedly making could also be used in torture chambers, I kid you not.”
Hagen kept flipping the pages, trying to find some design. He didn’t care much about what he’d get as soon as it would make him less suspicious in Jim’s eyes.
Still, one of the designs made him pause and hold his breath. It was a bear’s head logo. As soon as he’d focused on it, a system message popped up:
Level Up- The Knockout Page 37
