The gloved hands of a correctional officer closed a set of cuffs around his thick wrists, and then Aaron stepped forward as the steel door was unlocked and then opened before him to reveal two burly officers.
‘Keep your back turned,’ one of them snapped, as if Aaron needed telling, his back to the open door.
Aaron felt more restraints locked into place around his ankles, and then he was turned around by one of the guards.
‘Time for your counsel meeting.’
Aaron allowed himself to be guided out of his cell and turned to walk down the featureless, silent corridors. The sound-proofing of the cells deadened all noise, unlike the rowdy halls of other prisons, and there was no stench of urine and sweat that stained penitentiaries across the United States. Aaron noted that every other cell in the block was sealed, and with no windows there was no way to tell who else was incarcerated within.
The two guards led him down toward the exercise area, but instead of continuing on they turned down a side corridor and led him toward an interview room located on the southern-most tip of the building. The door to the room was open, and as Aaron was led inside he came face to face with his counsellor.
Byron Thomas, a graduate of Harvard and regular visitor to Aaron since his incarceration, stood from his seat and waited as Aaron was sat in a steel chair bolted to the floor. His manacles were fastened to steel rings in the floor and on the table before the guards withdrew, pushing the door to the interview room close to the jam for privacy but never shutting it completely.
‘Good to see you again, Aaron,’ Byron said in a deep, melodious tone.
Aaron nodded in silence. Byron was, like Aaron, an African American with an impressive physique, six foot four and with broad shoulders. That one could be a former Special Forces soldier and Vietnam veteran, and the other the inhabitant of dusty libraries and law schools seemed impossible to Aaron, but there it was. The academic and the killer, occupying the same room and yet worlds apart.
Precisely as planned.
‘You have progressed well over the past few weeks, Aaron,’ Byron said as he opened a file and then began to slip out of his jacket.
‘It’s peaceful here,’ Aaron replied. ‘I wonder why inmates fear it so much. The solitude is wonderful.’
‘Most men are not you, Aaron,’ Byron said as he began undoing his tie and pulled a slim, silver object from his pocket that he slid across the table to Aaron’s fingers. ‘People mostly do not naturally enjoy being alone.’
‘Fools,’ Aaron replied as he picked up the sliver of metal and turned it expertly in his hands, slipping it into the locking mechanism of the manacles at his wrists and deftly unlocking them. ‘They leech upon the attention of others.’
‘Leech,’ Byron echoed. ‘That’s a strong word, Aaron. Do you really despise other human beings so much?’
‘Give me a reason not to.’
Byron quietly slid out of his pants as opposite him Aaron silently unlocked his ankle restraints and stood, removing his gray prison slacks as he moved around the table. Byron walked around to the opposite side and sat down.
‘Love, compassion, generosity,’ he said.
‘Hate, greed, apathy…,’ Aaron replied, slightly adjusting his voice as he spoke and began putting on Byron’s shirt, pants and jacket.
‘… fear, shame, rage,’ Byron continued smoothly as he slid into the prison slacks and began fitting the manacles about his ankles. ‘I don’t care anymore. None of it matters.’
‘Everything matters,’ Aaron said. ‘You just have to begin to care about yourself enough to care about the world outside, the people in it.’
Byrson’s voice darkened, more gravelly now.
‘What the hell for? I’m inside for the rest of my life several times over. You think anybody out there cares a damn about me? You think I give a damn about them?’
‘And yet you’re progressing well inside this facility,’ Aaron said as he reached into the pocket of Byron’s jacket and removed a small envelope. Inside, beneath the letter it contained, was a fine dusting of gray powder. Aaron dipped his fingers into it and smoothed the powder across his temples, dusting his hair with the soft gray ash. ‘Perhaps, with time, you will find yourself moved to less demanding surroundings.’
Byron licked his fingers and smoothed his own temples down, smearing away the powder in his own hair before he reached down and placed his hands inside the manacles on the table top. Aaron slipped the slim glasses on as he reached down and quietly clicked the manacles closed around Byron’s wrists.
‘Why the hell would I want to move?’ Byron snarled. ‘This place is perfect! I don’t have to listen to idiots like you spouting your psycho-babble to anybody who’ll listen! I don’t have to watch war veterans spat on in the street!’
‘The Vietnam War was a long time ago, Aaron,’ Aaron soothed. ‘The people revere and respect our servicemen now.’
Byron gestured to the cell around them with a hateful grin. ‘Doesn’t look much like that to me, does it?!’
‘You’re here due to the murder of several innocent civilians, Aaron,’ Aaron said calmly. ‘Surely you don’t expect to walk the streets with…’
‘I expect a goddamned trial!’ Byron screamed as he shot up out of his seat and yanked wildly on the chains.
The door to the interview room burst open and the two guards rushed in as Byron thrashed and snarled, fighting uselessly against his captors as they wrestled him face down onto the desk.
‘If I ever see you in here again, I’ll kill you with my bare hands!’ Byron screamed.
One of the guards looked up at Aaron as he struggled to keep Byron pinned down, fully occupied with the task.
‘Get out of here!’
Aaron nodded, his eyes wobbling with fear as he hurried out of the interview room and turned down the corridor. Two more guards were rushing toward him and he pointed back toward the room.
‘Hurry, they’re struggling with him in there!’
The guards dashed past, night sticks in their hands as Aaron continued on. The desk sergeant at the first set of gates opened them immediately as a silent alarm, flashing red lights that would not agitate the other inmates, warned him of the unfolding drama back on the block.
‘He gone crazy again?’ the sergeant asked as Aaron walked through.
‘Can’t stand the solitude,’ Aaron replied as he passed by. ‘Blames everybody but himself.’
‘Shouldn’t murder people then, should he,’ the sergeant replied as he filled out a form and passed it to Aaron. ‘Sign here please, doctor.’
Aaron dutifully signed the form, having practiced the signature in his mind a thousand times. The sergeant compared it to another on file, and then opened the second security gate to allow Aaron to pass through.
‘Have a good day, Doc’.’
‘You too.’
Aaron passed through no less than twelve more gates, all manned by security staff who had seen Byron pass through a half hour before. Nobody challenged him, although he was subject to the same rigorous searches as Byron would have been on the way in. There was nothing to find, and ten minutes after donning the Doctor’s clothes Aaron James Mitchell walked out of the prison’s main entrance and into the parking lot.
The sun was up in the sky now, the fearsome orb flaring in the perfect blue sky. Mitchell inhaled deeply on the air, but forced himself to walk normally as he pulled the doctor’s keys from his pocket and hit the central locking button. A silver Prius’s tail lights flashed nearby and Aaron subtly altered course toward it, conscious of the watch towers arrayed around the prison and the armed guards likely watching him from within.