‘Thank you, Officer Kown. I will do my best. Though I ask you to remember what materials I have to work with.’
‘I will be keeping a close eye on you, Prisoner Welby.’ She nodded curtly to him, not bothering to wait for any response, turned on one heel, and strode away down the corridor towards control.
In one of the cells she passed, a skeletally-thin prisoner whose standard red prison-suit hung from his frame like loose skin, was singing softly in a language she didn’t recognise. He didn’t acknowledge her passing. Another murderer — she forgot his name — and one of Welby’s cult friends.
On the other side of the corridor was the cell whose occupant had been shouting while Ella had been talking to Welby. She stopped outside it and peered through the screen. The occupant, a man by the name of Mercer, was lying naked on the floor with pieces of his latest meal strewn around his body, smeared on walls and furniture. His eyes were closed and he looked to be either asleep or dead. Closer inspection revealed his chest to be moving slowly up and down, confirming that it was the former. Unimpressed, Ella strode the rest of the way into control, ignoring the other cells — some empty and some inhabited — as she went.
Control was a low-ceilinged cylindrical room with a large central desk. A couple of surveillance monitors hung from a metal beam just above the desk, which was littered with datasheets and pieces of paper. The armoured guard who had conversed with the naked prisoner was talking to Theo, the duty admin.
‘Guard — who are you?’ demanded Ella sharply, stopping before the desk.
The suited guard started guiltily and turned to face her. ‘Er, it’s Jayce,’ answered a voice from inside the suit. Safe behind the desk, Theo, a slightly chubby, friendly young man in his mid-twenties, set his face impassively, aware that somebody was about to get in trouble, hoping to shield himself from any fallout by virtue of neutrality.
‘Why is that prisoner lying there naked, Jayce?’
‘Er, Ma’am, I don’t really know,’ mumbled Jayce. Despite being larger than Ella as well as fully-suited, he managed to wilt somewhat, seemingly shrinking into himself.
‘Well what are you going to do about it?’ she demanded angrily.
‘Er, I, I don’t know, Ma’am.’
‘I thought he was fucking dead for a minute there, Jayce! Get the doctor and get him examined, will you? Macao makes more than your yearly wage from each one of those poor bloody human battery-hens in there, as long as we keep them alive.’ Jayce wouldn’t — or couldn’t — look at her any more. ‘Do you know how much they’re worth dead?’ Silence from the defeated Jayce. ‘Hmm?’ she prompted. He shook his head. ‘Take a guess.’
‘Nothing, Ma’am,’ he admitted guiltily.
‘Damn right! Now get Doctor Hobbes and get in there. This isn’t a concentration camp, Officer. These people may be closer to vermin than human beings, but you’ll damn well treat them like human beings anyway. That man is ill.’
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ whispered Jayce.
‘Go, then!’ yelled Ella into his black-visored face. He scarpered.
‘Sorry, Ella,’ said Theo, shuffling from foot to foot behind the only partially-safe barrier afforded by the control desk.
‘I saw Jayce yelling into that man’s cell while I was talking to Welby,’ she explained more calmly. ‘We have to take a more professional line with them. Strict, distant, but not unnecessarily harsh. Okay?’
‘Sure.’ Theo shuffled a stack of papers together a little nervously. ‘We’d have got him out, Boss, if we had a couple more guys here to help. But everyone’s scared to go in there after Murkhoff. I didn’t want to force Jayce, and I’m supposed to stay at the desk, right? I didn’t think one guy could do it alone, and Rachelle’s off sick today.’
‘Even so, Theo, it isn’t right to just leave him like that. I’ll stay and lend a hand. Also, at a time like this I’d rather you left the desk than just stood there helplessly. Use a little common sense.’
‘Sure, okay.’ Ella felt a little calmer now and Theo seemed to sense this. ‘Get you a drink?’ he suggested cautiously.
‘No, thanks, Theo, I’m fine. I’ll take a look through the records for a minute.’
Ella wandered round to the other side of the desk, making Theo move aside so that she could see the monitor, and began to call up the prison-wing’s records. Here was Welby’s name, one of the more recent prisoners to arrive at Macao. Multiple murder, like most of them. He had killed three men — co-workers — at Platini Dockyard. Tortured them to death in horrifically brutal fashion. Apparently they’d been bullying him about being a homosexual. For the record, he’d denied the accusation about his sexuality. He had, however, admitted the murders. He had never shown any remorse or regret. Now, of course, he had religion. Double bonus. Ella had read Welby’s record before, but she was still nauseated afresh this time. She turned to Theo, puzzled.
‘What makes Welby so influential with the other prisoners, Theo? I don’t get it. Physically he’s unremarkable, if a little creepy. His record is nothing special for the sorts of scum Platini Jail send us. He doesn’t seem unusually intelligent or persuasive to talk to.’
Theo looked over her shoulder at the monitor, studying it as if the answer might simply be written there. It clearly wasn’t. ‘I don’t know, to be honest,’ he admitted. ‘He seems to talk a lot at mealtimes and exercise breaks. To the others, I mean. When we try to overhear he tends to go quiet. I assume he’s talking that cult rubbish to them. But he’s always polite to us, never showed any signs of wanting to make a problem. This about that church he wants to start?’
Ella Kown rubbed her chin thoughtfully. ‘Kind of,’ she said.
Just then, Doctor Hobbes came dashing in, Jayce trailing after his small but purposeful form like a black leaf sucked along in his wake. Hobbes looked a little flustered.
‘What have you been doing to them?’ he demanded simply, coming to a stop, a little out of breath.
‘Us?’ replied Ella innocently, putting a hand to her chest.
‘Nobody with anything sticking out of their eye this time, I trust?’ Hobbes continued. It was hard to tell if he was joking or not.
‘Not yet, good Doctor, but the night is young,’ said Ella levelly. ‘Number twelve is lying naked on the floor of his cell.’
‘Naked,’ repeated Hobbes tonelessly. His white jacket was torn on one elbow, Ella noticed. This was a little at odds with his usual clean and dapper appearance, which was a good trait in a doctor, she thought.
‘Correct.’
‘Great. Does he look alive?’
‘You’re the doctor. You tell me.’
Chapter Nine
A voice was calling from the darkness, silken and sibilant, its words twining together like snakes, hypnotic, compelling, beckoning him onwards. He swam through a field of asteroids, following that voice like a shark homing in on the merest trace of blood in water. The blackness smothered him, enfolded him, threatened to ink him out of existence. And yet he knew no fear — that blackness was also blanketing, womb-like. He sensed the proximity of invisible rocks that tumbled and rolled around him, poising to crush him like unpredictable living things, masses of malcontent.
But the voice was calming, drug-like, a loaded needle leeching its soothing medicine into space. He tasted it, smelled it, felt it infuse his being and fill him, dissipating him smoothly into the matrix of the universe, melting and moulding him into a bodiless shade. He rode his own quantum probability wave, neither here nor there, yet everywhere.