Page 25 of Redstone
“It most likely means that he simply wasn’t issued an intake number,” Harrison said with cold calm. “One bot did return a blank notation.”
“Why doesn’t Mr. Alexander have an intake number?” Tamara Carson asked. She was the president’s resident flunky, and Demarcos had honestly expected her to be way more of a pain in the ass than she was actually being. It was strange, having the support of someone on the very definition of “the other side.” Not that he wouldn’t mind trying to sway her to his side, to be honest; she was sharp in a way he respected and had dealt with plenty of her own shit growing up as a natural in a Regen universe. Now, however, was not the time to be thinking of her.
“We didn’t have a chance to issue one to him before his introduction into the general population.”
“Before he was stolen out of his Regen tank and shoved into the Pit by a yet-unidentified guard,” Demarcos corrected, just as cold as Harrison. Fuck that son of a bitch, he wanted professional? Demarcos would professionally get his ass canned by the end of this.
“If you’re looking for further justification, I have nothing new to offer you,” Harrison said. “Internal investigations are proceeding into the unauthorized extraction from the clinic, but I’d think you’d be more interested in what’s happening to your clientnowthan resurrecting the past.”
“That happened less than twenty standard hours ago; it’s hardly the past,” Demarcos argued, but he knew that flying this flag wouldn’t get him anywhere with the warden. “What happens next, then?”
“We have to confirm that the blank is indeed Kyle Alexander, and then a guard will remove him from the common area and complete his intake properly.”
Well, that sounded fucking ridiculous. “How will you ensure his safety while he’s waiting around for a guard to pull him out of there?”
“It isn’t our responsibility to ensure anything other than his presence, Mr. Gyllenny.”
If a person like Warden Harrison had been in charge of the lower levels of a tower on Bayt, there would have been no one left alive in under a year. “You have a constitutionally mandated duty to tend to the needs of your subordinates under adverse conditions.”
Harrison folded his hands complacently. “Prisoners don’t qualify as subordinates. At best, they’re low-value human capital. At worst, they’re enemies of the state. Recent laws passed by the Alliance Senate spell out new provisions inmaximum-security prisoner care that necessitate some hard decisions, but the welfare of my guards comes before the welfare of any of the prisoners in Redstone.
“Is it a hard system? Yes, I acknowledge that it is. But I reiterate: every person in this prison has been convicted of murder at a bare minimum, including your client. His upcoming trial focuses not on his guilt but on his culpability for the murder. I certainly hope that he lasts until then, but if you were so concerned, you should have fought harder to get him into a lower-security facility, where prisoner comforts are given more weight.”
If he ground his teeth any harder, Demarcos was going to lose them. “Continuedsurvivalisn’t a comfort, it’s a basic expectation of—”
“Excuse me,” Tamara interrupted quietly. For the most part, she seemed about as forceful as a puff of air, but there were occasions when she’d speak out, and Demarcos found himself shutting up even though he hadn’t intended to. “But what’s the procedure for getting him an intake number?”
Harrison pivoted smoothly to address her. “He’ll be brought into the guards’ room just outside the prison entrance, his retinas will be scanned and entered into the system, and we’ll do a DNA match as well. Then he’ll be associated with a number and returned to the general population.”
“Who does the actual scanning?”
“Our guards.”
“Unacceptable,” Demarcos said instantly. “At least one of your guards has proven to harbor ill intent toward my client, to the extent of attempted murder—”
“That is an unwarranted assumption—”
“And given that your internal investigation hasn’t turned up the guard in question yet, the idea that you would let a potentially murderous individual have access to my clientagain—an individual whoisyour subordinate even if his or her identity isn’t known—calls into question your judgment.”
Harrison frowned. “The entire process will be observed. There’s no way that—”
Demarcos couldn’t keep his mouth from twisting incredulously. “One of your guards broke my client out of the Regen tank in your clinic. That was observed too, and nothing has been done. Don’t tell me my concerns are unfounded.”
Harrison’s lips thinned. “Fine. Fortunately, Redstone has a new transfer from Caravan, who just arrived a few hours ago. There’s no way this individual could be the one whosupposedlyendangered your client”—and here Demarcos had to take a deep breath just to keep himself from screaming— “so I’ll instruct my chief to have him do the intake. Is that acceptable to you?”
It was the only concession Demarcos was going to get at this point, and he knew it. “Yes.”
“Good.”
Tamara didn’t say anything, just kept her hands folded demurely in her lap, but there was something about the way her eyes shone, about the way the lines at the edges of them had relaxed, that made Demarcos wonder. Did she know something he didn’t? What was her game? She had said she didn’t have any real loyalty to President Alexander, that she was his charity case and nothing more, but she had made it a point to be involved in all of these conversations, and in none of them had she come down on the side of Harrison and his guards.
He’d have to get her alone and talk to her later.
“I’m glad we’re agreed,” Harrison continued. “As soon as Kyle Alexander appears on vid, I’ll have the guards retrieve him. If he doesn’t show up in the next four hours, I’ll gas the prison and have my people search it manually.” He smiled thinly. “You’ll be welcome to observe if it goes that far.”
“I’ll take you up on it if it comes to that.” Demarcos hoped it wouldn’t, but if that was what it took to ensure Kyle was still alive, well …
Harrison clearly didn’t mind paying the price in potential anarchy among his prisoners.
