Page 5 of Factory Thief

I curse up a blue streak as he departs, through the front door rather than the window this time.

JACK

My cell door is inches-thick solid steel. Tiny holes too small to even put my finger through provide a jagged view of the hallway beyond. If I wanted to stand next to the drab blue-gray door and stare through the holes, I could see the guard tower which stands sentinel over us all. How do I know? I did that for hours on end when I first moved here.

They say we’re the worst of the worst. The most violent, most dangerous of all the inmates at Sandpiper Cove State Prison. Violent gang members, serial killers, and men who just plain went crazy from the confinement and can’t exist in general population any longer.

I’m not one of them. I’m an innocent man. I know what everyone is thinking when I say that. More than half the prison population maintains innocence even years after being behind bars. I’m not one of them. I’m truly innocent.

So, what am I doing in solitary confinement in one of the harshest, most controversial penitentiaries in the world? That’s the kicker. I’m in here for doing the right thing.

No, I didn’t shoot a child molester or share proof of government wrongdoing on some internet site. I truly did the right thing. I committed no crime whatsoever.

I’ve explained to my attorney that it all started when I landed my dream job. Xtera Pharmaceuticals Corporation, or Xtera for those into the whole brevity thing, offered me a starting salary package I just couldn’t refuse. Great salary, stock options, full benefits package, vacation and health care. It was perfect. Well, it looked perfect.

There was just one caveat, which was not made clear at the start. I would have to sell my soul to work for them.

Not literally. Xtera is not the devil. They’re way worse. The devil only punishes sinners. Xtera spreads misery to the innocent.

I explained to the cops I’m not a killer. I’m a data analyst. I crunch numbers. The numbers collected during Xtera’s numerous and myriad drug trials.

Most pharmaceutical companies play shifty games with their business. Everything from buying off politicians— they call it making very generous campaign contributions—to adding something like vitamin C or anti-reflux medication to a cancer drug to keep their patents for a bit longer. That’s to be expected in our current healthcare system.

But thankfully, most of them draw the line at out-and-out criminal acts, however. I soon learned Xtera wasn’t most companies.

When I saw the assistant D.A., I told her that what set everything in motion was my analysis of the results of a new drug trial. A new compound was said to be able to shrink tumors with little to no side effects for the imbiber. So far, so good. What could be wrong with developing a drug which helps people?

Only, it wasn’t helping them. Not at all. Whoever was in charge of the trials took great pains to obscure the fact there was no clear correlation between taking the drug and remission. The damn thing was a glorified, hideously expensive placebo.

I naively pointed it out to my supervisors. I was such a fool. I imagined I’d be commended for doing so. Maybe even promoted. Instead, I got told to shut up and mind my business. I went back to my cubicle in a huff and downloaded the data onto a flash drive.

I wanted to expose them, and someone in H.R. got a good look at my file and decided I was too much of a risk to be kept around.

It wasn’t much of a surprise when I got my walking papers the very next day.

It was a huge surprise to be arrested for murder.

I didn’t even know the elderly woman who died. The police searched my place and found the murder weapon, a blood-stained knife.

My lawyer never listened to my explanations. He advised me to plead guilty for a lighter sentence. It didn’t matter that I was innocent. He was convincing enough that it seemed like a good idea at the time. A lighter sentence sounded real good when I heard the prosecutor was floating life imprisonment. My ‘light’ sentence turned out to be fifteen years, with no possibility of parole.

Fifteen goddamn years.

That put me in the slammer, but not in solitary.

In solitary the guards call mefruity.Why? Because I wound up in here after refusing to give a gangbanger named Icepick my fruit cocktail. We rolled around in the commissary, his head got smashed against a support beam and he wound up in a coma.

So here I am, in solitary, for a ‘violent attack,’ even though I was only defending myself.

What keeps me up at night is that I learned once you’re in solitary in Sandpiper Cove State Prison, you’re pretty much there for life. There’s a path out back to general population, but it’s almost impossible. You have to prove for years you’re not a threat, and you have to squeal.

My problem is that I’m not actually in a gang so, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t squeal. I have no one to squeal on.

I want to scream when I think I’ll be spending the next fourteen years of my life looking at these concrete walls. The solitary cell features a stone cot covered in a thin mattress. The only other furniture to speak of is a combination toilet and sink. Yeah, it’s as gross as it sounds.

Food is delivered three times a day through a slot in the bottom of my cell door. Once per day I’m allowed into what laughingly passes for my exercise yard. It’s a ten-foot by six-foot concrete cell with an open air, barred ceiling. At least I can see the sun, on some days, depending on the time of year.

We’re not allowed radios, or televisions, or the other tiny luxuries the general population may enjoy. We can’t even put up pictures on the walls. All we can do is check books out from the prison library when the cart rolls around once a week. Most of the books are damaged and missing pages, so it’s a frustrating experience at best.

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