The Paranoid Thief (4 page)

To
sit there so smugly in my last moments of life!
Randolph raged within his
mind. If ever there was such a thing as hell, Randolph would have turned over
his soul to give him the strength and time to break his bonds and smash that
face back to hell with him!

Not able to look to his arm as his sleeve was
cut open and the needle of death bit into his body, Randolph closed his eyes
and tried to banish from his sight the slight up-curve grin of Mr. Hilden’s
lips. But as the cool liquid crawled up his vein in search of his heart,
Randolph’s imagination showed Mr. Hilden break out in hideous laughter, knowing
only moments of Randolph’s life remained. The insanity to bear such an image to
his grave caused Randolph to rant violently within him; to vow whatever
remained of his soul into death would descend onto Mr. Hilden like a merciless
corporate giant engaged in a hostile take-over.

What Randolph supposed the afterlife to feel
like was anything but groggy. However, that’s how he felt. And to add to his
bewilderment, Randolph found he could barely pull a thought together till the
last image of Mr. Hilden comfortably seated behind the window floated up into
his irises. With a start, Randolph jerked fully awake and for a second or two
he blinked before he sat up on a plastic-steel bed, covered with an allergenic
non-cotton fiber cushion. In his next thoughts, Randolph realized this wasn’t
the execution chamber, nor was he back in the city’s cell. The next surprise
superseded all this when Randolph understood,
I’m alive?
Beyond astonished to find this realization true,
Randolph rolled his eyes in his head and over his new seven-by-ten steel
enclosure, with its single entry door and stainless steel toilet under a
folding sink.
I am alive, but alive
where?
Randolph probed ever corner within view.
Is this more of Mr. Hilden’s surprises? Perhaps some sort of torture
for implicating him in the Henderson’s deaths instead of going to my grave in
silence?
Questions as these Randolph knew to be a waste of time till some
interactions was done to give clues or answers. As Randolph cataloged the
obvious questions, his trained eyes automatically picked out the video camera
and audiphones mounted in the ceiling, disguised as mere rivets.
Typical...
he mused as he wiped his face
with both hands, only then realizing the restraint rings were gone and his face
held four days of stubble growth. With this revelation, Randolph stood and did
some stretching movements to A. work out some kinks in his bones, as the
previous cell allowed little movement, B. check out the elasticity of his new
orange coveralls, and C. to better have a look around without appearing to do
so.

To all appearances, after Randolph’s
examination, he was indeed in a normal maximum containment cell meant for
dangerous inmates. And as the security people would be watching him for the
fight or flight need in all humans, Randolph moved to the rectangle hole in the
door like a good boy, so all would nod their overpaid heads in approval.
Besides, I could use some idea as to what
lies outside the cell.
The first thing Randolph took note of was that the
designers held some level of education. For the cell doors had been placed so
no guard would have his back turned directly behind another cell door. Next
Randolph figured his new quarters resided in a small prison, for he counted
only five doors on the other wall, which meant the total cells on his block was
around nine or eleven. This he confirmed with the presence of a single doorway
in the end wall with the all-important red EXIT sign above its frame. Further
examination placed his cell three doors away from the opposite wall.

Randolph next bent an ear to the ambient
sounds of the air circulation unit, the steady drip, drip of a leaky water
pipe, and the unmistakable sound of a florescent light tube in need of replacement.
These rather mundane sounds informed Randolph his cell held the only occupant.
Strange that, unless everyone is in the
exercise yard, which is mandatory for inmates in normal city prisons,
however, unheard of in corporate-owned federal prisons, where Randolph felt
certain he must now reside. After all, he was supposed to be dead. “Hmm...”

Randolph disliked the notion of what this
might mean and turned away from the hole to straighten out his spine on the
cell door. By all accounts everything looks normal but yet not. Randolph then
absently rubbed his face before he checked his eye brows and hair stubble.
A good month will have to pass before any
plans of escape could be seriously considered, that is unless I shave my head.
But as Randolph objected to the bald look, awaiting his hair to grow out would
gave him time to get the pattern of the guards, food delivery, and identify the
magnetic key circuitry in the wall by the door. All important preliminaries
regardless of his hair preference, though totally useless until some knowledge
of what lay beyond the door at the corridor’s end presented itself.

While Randolph considered, he ran a hand
over the back of his neck and winced in pain. “What the hell?” he exclaimed to
the sudden explosion of angry nerve endings. Why he had not noticed the damaged
skin before now was irrelevant; however, what was relevant after he gently
explored the bruise located on his spinal column was the suture layer
approximately one inch in diameter.
This
is not a good sign.
Randolph removed his hand to lay his head back on the
cool door.
To the best of my knowledge
I’ve been in no accident to warrant spinal exploration. Conclusion,
Randolph surmised, closing his eyes in apprehension,
a controlling chip has been inserted.

By force of will Randolph refrained from scowling
up at the video camera while he considered this all-important discovery. As he
remembered it, the news video implied such devices were still in the
experimental phase and had yet to yield up all their capabilities.
However, if I remember rightly, the chips
have been deemed illegal to be used on humans, as the Mental Health Institute,
about the only governmental organization that could over rule the cooperate
world, has vetoed the project.
This far-sighted ruling had been decided so
corporations couldn’t make it mandatory for their employees to have one
installed. A logical outcome of the chip to further manipulate their workers as
the corporations owned and ruled everything else, including most of the government
agencies.
Though that
knowledge is kept on the hush
hush
.
Which bring to mind why I’m still
alive.
By manipulating certain drugs, a presumed
executed criminal could be removed to such a facility as a perfect guinea pig
for further testing. “Hmm...” Regardless of the reason for the suture, Randolph
had to admit he had jumped to an unverifiable conclusion. There could be a
dozen reasons for the surgery to his neck, all possibly just as distasteful.
With a look skyward, Randolph pushed off the door, filled a small metal cup
with warm water from the sink and sat down relaxed-like, legs crossed, back to
the wall, and took small sips from the cup. He’d found out everything he could
without any interaction with his captors, so now was not a time to panic on
conjecture, now was the time of recon.

Five days of observation set the pattern
for meal delivery and the unwillingness of the guard to say words other than
“meal time” or “hand over your plate.” However disappointing this was, Randolph
was still able to discern an elevator some distance past the door to the prison
block. Another confirmation his new home was no normal prison, for most placed
a sound barrier in between elevators and cells to limit outbursts from echoing
through the shafts. This bit was cataloged along with no other prisoners present
on his cell block. Add this to no yard time and no showers meant he would have
to use a wash cloth for personal hygiene and make up an exercise program to
keep in shape. Of course an entire week had yet to pass, so it was still
plausible yard and shower time was given once a week. As Randolph debated on
waiting out the time or simply stripping down and wiping
himself
off, the unexpected sound of the corridor door opening, followed prominently by
the voice of a pleading woman, caused him to delay a bit longer on his
decision.

“Let go! Please...you can’t do this! No,
no, no, stop it!” The panic-filled voice echoed down the hall, mingled with the
sounds of someone struggling against one or two stronger people. “It’s all just
a mistake!” she wailed as Randolph bent to look through the meal slot. “I was
only dong research!”

Randolph focused on a slender woman with
short brown hair who struggled against two brutes while she cried. “You’ve got
it all wrong; I can show you!” As she continued to plead, her long oval face
showed cosmetic stains of tears, a sign she’d been crying for about an hour,
depending on how much make-up she applied.

The two muscle men in unremarkable standard
corporate uniforms held tightly to her upper arms and ignored her pleas like
well-trained goons. Upon halting at a cell near Randolph’s in the other wall,
they turned and slammed the woman face first into the wall, so one could open
the door to his left by inserting his card key. “No, no, no, you don’t
understand, I’m claustrophobic!” she then screamed.

From his angle, the woman was no corporate
looker, but rather built like an athlete with braless breasts barely showing
through the white ruffled blouse and small hips under the black mini-skirt
which just covered her fanny. Randolph lowered his eyes beyond the new fashion
black mini-briefs, meant solely by their designer to catch male eyes when women
bent over, and noted tanned, strong-looking legs which if used right could be
very detrimental to any man’s family jewels. At a guess when they shoved her in
the cell, Randolph figured her to be around 31, and around five-seven.
Quick too,
he observed, as she bounced
off the cell floor quick as you please trying to make the door before it
closed.

Randolph eyed the two impassionate men as
they walked out of the cell block while the new captive rapidly pounded her
fists on her door. But as this pair allowed the steel door to slide back on its
own, instead of closing it themselves, it afforded Randolph the chance to count
out their footsteps to the far elevator, even over the hysterical woman who for
several minutes reacted like a wild animal, before she wore herself out and
slid to the floor in frustrated sobs.

Randolph rubbed his growing beard and
stood. The addition of this woman gave him new information to his growing list
and possibly an invaluable source to more in the woman herself. That is, if he
could get her talking. “Hmm...” With a shrug, presently indifferent to her
obvious distress, Randolph knew now was not the time to explore this new avenue
of possibilities. But later, when she calmed and stopped sobbing, she might
open up and fill in the gaps. So he walked away from the door, refilled his cup
with warm water and settled in to wait.

Sometime later Randolph awoke from a light
doze to the sound of the woman pitifully calling out, “
Hello,
is anyone here? Please, if anyone is, say something. Please, I can’t take this
seclusion.”

Still unmoved from his position on the bed,
Randolph pondered the benefits of silence while her mental state broke down.
That would make her easier for extracting information however, Randolph had to
admit his own humanity wouldn’t permit it, at least not until he knew why she
was here, for some people deserved such treatment. “Hmm...”
Oh hell, I’m just a softy.

“Please talk to me. I’ll go insane if I
don’t talk to someone. I can’t take this loneliness.”

“So, what are you in for?” Randolph broke
in while she was in a fit of crying.

Her first words were not understandable,
but finally she calmed enough for them to be understood. “Jill! My name’s Jill,
Jill Wander. Who are you?”

“John,” he lied simply.

“John?” she asked in a quivering voice that
began to steady.
“John who?
Do I know you?”

“I rather doubt it,” Randolph replied as he
changed positions to relax against the wall with hands clasped behind his head.
“I normally don’t work west of the Eastern
time
zone.”
Which was true, but his last successful job had led him into the state of
Luashess
after a rich corporate CEO whose bank credits
needed removal after screwing over his employees when he rewrote their pension
and pocketed seventeen million credits in the process. Randolph gave a rueful
smile of remembrance on that job. Hired by the employees to recoup their
hard-earned retirement funds, Randolph had transferred equal funds to over
seven-hundred bank accounts, minus his commission and expenses, leaving the CEO
2.23 credits in his personal account, which was just enough to buy a cheap cup
of coffee. Randolph’s smile broadened slightly further as he recalled the two
secret accounts he’d stumbled on, buried deep in the bureaucracy of the
corporate finances, where the CEO had his two girlfriends’ monthly expenses and
apartments included in the company’s house cleaning finances. This bit of
information was the coup-de-
grâce
when he unlocked
the security code so any competent accounting clerk would find it easily in the
monthly book balancing.

“John, are you still there?” Jill’s voice
broke into his reminiscing.

“Yeah sure, it’d be rather hard for me to
be anyplace else right now.” Randolph turned his head toward the door in a
normal bid to make
himself
better heard and inquired,
“So tell me, what corporation is this?”

“Seriously, you don’t know?”

“I was rather unconscious when I was
brought here, wherever here is.” Hopefully she’d tell him.

“No kidding, who do you work for?” Jill
asked back without answering his question.

“I am but a lowly business man, in finances
really, when men like those two brutes who brought you here busted into my
office and knocked me out.”

“You work alone, then?”

“I find it better to do so, or so I thought
till I wound up here with no one to wonder where I am. So tell me, where am I?”
Randolph tried again as plainly as possible.

“The city of
Calaway
,”
Jill finally answered. “Do you know it?”

Randolph shook his head. “No, never heard
of it. What state is it in?”

“
Yanncy
, some
miles in the Hopeless Desert,” she supplied.

Yanncy
, he mused,
picturing the continent.
Yanncy
was the redefined
lower half of California and Arizona borders when the
Yanncy
Corporation bought all mineral rights to land and air quality. Definitely out
of his operational range as he preferred the East Coast, where the buildings
were built to withstand hurricanes and therefore much easier to break into for
a competent thief.