The Jailhouse Scene 3: Sentencing
Camille slipped inside the safehouse and found herself facing three guns. Then the people holding them recognized her and lowered them.
“Great Mother of Renewal!” gasped the man in the center, throwing his arms around her. “How did you escape!”
“I had help,” she explained. “A man calling himself the Doctor came in posing as a customer. He got me out, but they caught him. Jason, we have to go back.” She pushed past him and into the next room, where several others were gathered.
“Look, I’m grateful to this Doctor for saving you,” Jason went on, trailing after her, “but we can’t break into the Jailhouse to rescue one man.”
“I’m not suggesting we go in for one man; I’m suggesting we go in for everyone.”The entire crew stared back at her. Something clattered onto the floor.
“We’re not ready for that,” said a tech. “We may have the weapons and the manpower, but we still can’t hack through the security.”
“We can now,” Camille smiled, drawing the sonic screwdriver. “The Doctor used this to remove my manacles and to open doors. I suspect it has quite a few other uses, too, if we could figure them out. I’m making it your job to study it.” She handed it to him, and he stared at it in awe. “Now, let’s find out what else he’s got in these pockets that we can use.”
They found two small keys, a credit chip, a variety of batteries, a small spool of wire, a chunk of quartz, a pack of tissues, three broken watches, six fuses, nine microchips, a bag of chocolate-covered cashews, a pen that wouldn’t write, a magnifying glass, some twine, a couple of small abstract drawings consisting of circles and lines, a few random computer parts, and a wallet with a blank piece of paper in its ID slot.
“Why would an infiltrator carry a blank card in his wallet?” asked Jason. “I’d expect a variety of ID’s to choose from.” He handed it to Camille, trying to hide his skepticism.
She took the wallet, and the card was no longer blank. It read, “You’re out of your mind.” She giggled and handed it back to him. Now it read, “It’s psychic paper, you dolt!”
Jason laughed, too. “That might be useful after all.”
* * * * *
“You have been found guilty of aiding in the escape of a prisoner. Sentence is six months’ service at the Jailhouse under the supervision of Tirlene and Vargas Alvin.” The judge banged his gavel, and two guards began to manhandle the Doctor away.
“I’d do it again,” he said defiantly. “I’d free them all if I could. You don’t scare me.” But that was a lie. In actuality, he was terrified. Not of confinement or the possibility of torture; he’d been through both before, many times over. Physically, there was nothing they could dish out that he couldn’t take. But mentally, emotionally… that was another story.
He pulled away from the guards and tried to make a run for the exit, though he had no idea where to go from there. More guards closed in to block his path. As the first two leapt at him, he dashed toward the door behind the judge’s bench instead. He was stronger than they expected; he threw off the first one that tried to tackle him. But more came, and he couldn’t hold them off for long. Three of them together managed to pin him to the floor, and then someone knocked him out again.
“Take him to room twelve,” Tirlene smirked.
* * * * *
“Camille, I’ve got news!” It was Deirdre, who had been at her computer all night gathering information. “Your Doctor has officially been sentenced to six months at the Jailhouse.”
“Oh, no,” Camille sighed. “We’ve got to speed things up. What have you found on the wardens?”
“Not much on Vargas, I’m afraid,” Deirdre shrugged. “He was a prison guard before the conversion; no marks on his record for good or ill, and no indication how he got to be warden. Tirlene, on the other hand… She has a history of cruelty dating back to early childhood. I found her school records. She was the type of kid who burned bugs with a magnifying glass and dissected people’s pets. She became a surgical nurse, apparently trying to use her tendencies constructively, but her licence was revoked for excess cruelty to patients.”
Camille leaned over and studied the screen. “But the citations don’t start until after her first year,” she noticed. “Then they’re too frequent for it to have been a gradual change. Find out what happened.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Alex.” Camille turned to the tech. “What have you got on that tool?”
Alex sighed in wonder. “I’ve identified the settings for removing the manacles and opening the doors, but that’s about it. It’s got a lot more uses than we can access right now.” He shook his head. “It seems to work as a scanner, but it reports the information in a supersonic code. I’ve got the computer picking it up, but it hasn’t been able to decrypt it yet. I think you could control any computer, anywhere, with this thing, if you only knew how.”
She took it from him, amazed. He was showing her the two relevant settings when Deirdre cried, “I’ve got it!”
Camille dashed over to the screen. As she read it, her face went slack. “Oh, Great Mother,” she breathed. “She’ll destroy him.”
Scene Selection
1. Delavega 5. Break-in 2. Room Twelve 6. Rescue 3. Sentencing 7. Escape 4. Testing Commentary