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M A R A N A T H A

© Osfer, November 2005

All rights reserved.

May only be distributed for free.

May not be altered in any way.

Contains material of an erotic and homosexual nature which may be illegal to read in your country, state, province or region.

The author takes no responsibility for transgressions on the part of the reader

Comments welcome at [email protected]

Available on paperback in 2006

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~ Enjoy. ~

Chapter XIX - As Told By Mark Kovalis

Malloy is a big fat dirty cocksucker. Don't you ever tell him I said so, but he is. He's a betrayer, a backstabber and a sneaky goddamn deviant and he fucks boys--I've known this for a long time, and it doesn't matter that the boys want him, it's unchristian. Which is like the biggest fu--like, a really big joke, if you think about it.

Do you people even remember who I am? Mark? Hello? I hacked the Northern Transnational Bank. I hacked that. With my brain. You completely forgot about me, didn't you!

Well, you're not the only one. I've been in the pen four months now and I've had all of three visitors. Oh yeah, did I mention? I'm in jail. Yeah, I know, funny, that. Who knew that hacking the Northern Transnational without adequately covering your tracks could have consequences! One of the visitors was Lucy--she's my girlfriend, and a tigress so fine a geek like me shouldn't be allowed to have her. But I do--or, well, I did.

It's my own fault, really. I kind of pushed her away. Like, really hard. It broke my heart to do it and I think maybe she saw through me but when she visited I told her I never wanted to see her again, that it was her fault for being so ordinary and plain and honest that I had to go do something nuts, stuff like that. I said it all crazy, so she wouldn't think it really was her fault, she'd just think I was an asshole.

It's because she studies Law, see. She has a big future ahead of her, my Lucy, and she shouldn't put that at risk by consorting with a criminal. It'd throw her moral compass off balance, and if she chose to be a lawyer her opposition might someday exploit this piece of info. Wasn't it true, Ms Baudet, that you yourself continued to support a known cybercriminal despite the fact that he admitted his guilt? You are, perhaps, not quite impartial.

The worst was how she looked, across the glass divider between her and me in the Visiting Room, like she knew it was coming and was just really sad that it had happened, not surprised and not heartbroken. Like she'd only hoped I'd say something different, not expected it. That killed me. Literally, I mean. I don't know how else to explain it and if you've never felt it, I don't think you can ever get it, but it feels like there's something inside me, something small, that isn't alive any more. Like one of those conjoined fetuses, except not gross and just really, really... God, I hurt my Lucy so much. It was the hardest thing I've had to do in my life, and considering how wimpy that life's been it'll probably stay the hardest thing for a long while.

I almost broke, while she was holding the phone to her ear in silence, told her I didn't mean it, that I was sorry I fu- screwed up, and that I'd like it if she came to visit me once or twice a week, and that once I got out I'd work so hard to make her happy, to make up for this. I probably wouldn't be allowed to touch a computer, but I could flip burgers or something. Every bone in me wanted to tell her that all I wanted to do, right then and there, was to go home with her and make things nice for her.

But I held out, at least till she was out the door with her nose in a napkin and I was back in my cell. My cell. I'm in jail and in a cell. Sorry if I keep coming back to it, but I just can't quite grok it. I'm Mark Martin Kovalis, straight-A student, working sys administration for the local mall to pad my resume until something better comes along, and I'm in a cell. Which I share with Moses, whom his friends call Moses the Moses.

Moses the Moses has more scars than a three-year-old x-rated rental DVD, and he's the baddest mouse I've ever seen. Even with my ears all the way up I just about reach his chin, and he hardly has any ears left, himself. He has dragons tattooed on his arms, just inks and not freezebrands, which look really eerie under his short white pelt, like a painting seen through milky glass. He has a crucifix etched into his left buck tooth and one half of a David's star, the other is on the right buck tooth, along with a crescent moon. He's a nondemoninational Moses, see.

He, of course, sleeps top bunk and the creaking of the metal springs above me, straining to withstand his solid-muscle weight is like a sword of Damocles, but the bunk hasn't collapsed yet, which is why I'm alive. Actually, Moses the Moses has a lot to do with me being alive. Well, sort of. The way a hammer has a lot to do with a table being made.

You know how prisons on TV always have goofy names that people give them on the inside? Wow, 'the inside'. I can't get over how badass I talk these days. Anyway, Maranatha Penitentiary isn't like that, it's just the Maranatha Pen. It's like the city itself... kind of soulless. Not empty, not by a long shot, but hollow enough to echo, like a cookie jar that's only half full and dwindling, except there's no cookies between Maranatha Pen's light green walls, but thieves and rapists and murderers.

And you know how they say you should make eye contact with everybody when you walk into the pen and walk straight and fast and not flinch when people reach through their bars to grab at the pile of sheets you're carrying as you're led to your cell? Well, I didn't do that stuff. I was actually crying, and I'm not ashamed of that, you know that? If you think that's sad, you can just go to hell, because I don't deserve this, I didn't then and I don't now.

I'm a good boy. Sure, I'm boring and sure, I'm a little sad. I used to stay up all night chatting and coding and sleep through the day in my folks' basement, but I never hurt anybody. I did a favor for somebody I thought was my friend because he made it seem so cool and exciting and said we wouldn't get in trouble. And I got sent to a place where people die all the time. I got sent to the same place as baby-killers and serial rapists, people who do really awful things and don't feel guilty or ashamed, who have such long terms ahead of them that killing one more sad, semi-pudgy raccoon isn't worth a moment's thought. Is that even remotely fair?

I did something with money. Not even real money, pretend money in a bank, and Malloy never even intended for it to really be stolen. I wasn't even trying to steal it for me. And I got sent to a place where I might not live until the end of my sentence, and if I die or get hurt bad here, I just have to suck it up and bear it. If I walk out with one less arm than I walked in with, well, that's my tough luck, says the Law.

Oh, speaking of arms, as I was being walked to my cell by two lady guards with batons, somebody grabbed the sleeve of my bright red shirt and pulled me so I smacked against the bars of his cell, spilling my sheets on the ground. Before the lady guards could interrupt (well before, on account of their being so damn slow) the hand let go of me. Another hand had grabbed it by the wrist, a white hand with shimmering dragons under the fur, and it yanked the other mean hand so hard and at such an angle that the shoulder popped, the bone snapped, pierced the skin and blood sprayed into my face before I even had a clue what was going on.

Moses the Moses had broken the asshole's arm, and was quickly led away to solitary while I was put in the cell I was to share with him, with blood still on my face. I asked if I could wash it off, but the guards were already gone. I thought about wiping my face with the sheets, but then they'd be dirty and I didn't know when they'd get washed, so I just sat in the one chair and tried to think of other things, while the broken-arm-dude's cellmate taunted me about how I was going to be Moses' bitch, now I owed him.

Thing was, though, I didn't cry after that. And when the doors opened for dinner, all at once, ka-klang, echoing hollowly through the haunted corridors of Maranatha Pen, I'd forgotten about the blood on my face. I walked around in a daze, shuffling in line, watching others to see how they stood in line, picked up their tray and held it out to have spoonfuls of thick soup and mashed potato and boiled vegetables smacked onto it. People looked at me funny and I looked at them back, sort of... sort of numb.

Pedro, formerly Padre Pedro until he got replaced in that post, told me he was scared of me that day, and others were too. A none-too-fit-looking raccoon, sharing a cell with Moses the Moses, looking so calm and out of it with his face covered in blood... It kept people out of my way for a while, which you can imagine I really appreciated.

And Moses did, too. When he came back from solitary three days later, he said to my face that he wanted to make like hw as going to fu--rape me, and then admit it was a joke, but he was too tired for that so would I mind just skipping that. It's safe to say I was cool with that.

I'd almost say life in the Pen was bearable. I stayed out of everybody's way, ate at a small table with Pedro and a rat who insists we call him Bo Duke and spent the rest of the time by myself in the cell or in the library eyeing the computer terminal that would double my sentence if I touched it. Moses had his own crowd to hang out with, but people knew he'd mess with them if they messed with him. And there were certainly people, and little brotherhoods, with more clout than Moses the Moses, but I just wasn't worth fighting over. I mean, I'm not some pretty-boy they want to fuck, thank God.

The loneliness hurt like I'd lost a kidney, of course and I cried every other night... but I'm a programmer. I'm good with routines. I can zone out and do stuff repetitiously, and I don't need a lot of attention. Every day felt the same, which some people find terrible and it is terrible, but I could deal with it because it made me feel confident it wouldn't get worse.

Until, about three months after I went in, somebody was brought in that turned the place upside-down. The mellow, simmering sense of dread spiked, like a comatose person's heart rate suddenly bleeping really loudly, meaning they're either about to wake up or have a heart-attack. People stopped shuffling through their dismal lives and started noticing each other again, and I don't mean in a friendly, revive-your-neighborhood-spirit kind of way. Remember the kind of people that live in this place. This isn't Happy Town, and these aren't Happy Tots.

The whole damn mood changed. Everybody knew some things went on--some guys got picked on more than others, some survived by... you know... showing some of the bigger guys a good time, and getting protection in return. People thought that was why Moses the Moses looked out for me and I always let them believe it because, to be frank, I had no idea why he did look out for me.

Until the Preacher arrived in Maranatha Pen.

Things started getting restless almost instantly, just by his presence. There were fights, there were tighter groupings and people... did stuff more open. Like, for a week I didn't shower because whenever I went to the communal baths there'd be guys standing in a group and laughing and moaning and stuff, and I realized they were taking turns on some snow leopard boy, and he was loving it, it sounded like. The next day they were taking turns on a boy that wasn't loving it and a few guys cast looks in my direction, and that's when I stopped showering until the Pen society gained a new equilibrium.

The guards and the warden were pleased with this. They'd noted that the adrenaline level of the whole place had gone up shortly after the Preacher's arrival and I'm guessing they'd applied for, you know, reinforcements of extra budget or whatnot, but that was slow in the coming, as evidenced by the things some of the occu... Hell, I'm going to start calling them all inmates. The things the inmates got away with...

People got raped. People fought, and people were murdered. Not by the Preacher, not at first, but nobody saw who did what and nobody, therefore, was punished. The Law doesn't work the same inside as outside, because the Law is for citizens, and there's none in here. I stuck close to Pedro and Bo Duke, for all the help we were to each other, and while Moses the Moses'd occasionally stick up for me when I was getting pushed around he was mostly hanging out with the Herd, a brotherhood of herbivores, mostly hoofers. They accepted Moses on account of his size, but I didn't stand a chance. Omnivore, me.

And then things settled, after... maybe it was as short as two weeks, you know. Time doesn't mean the same in here as it did out there, either. Things went quiet. People went back to shuffling, although it was a different shuffle. Some of the things from the time of unrest stayed--the inmates had a taste for sex, and knew now that the guards turned a blind eye to it as long as no trouble was made, if only to save themselves some paperwork. And the gangs remained. The Herd. Two groups both calling themselves The Pack, which most people referred to as the Dogtags and the Clawmarks respectively. And most importantly, the Order.

It sounds ominous, like something from a bad anime--I know, okay, but it really isn't lame. The Order doesn't call itself the Order, that's what the rest of us call it. It's not a gang, per se, but it's people who agree with each other and follow the same leader and that's basically the same idea.

That leader, of course, is the Preacher. Saturdays and Sundays he holds services--just an hour reading from the Torah, Quran and New Testament, usually stories that have a lot in common with each other, and then he talks about how they see things differently and what the basic message is that all of them agree on. One empty room that used to be a storeroom was given to him by the management (don't ask me how he pulled that off) that he basically gets to run. It has bars and a lock and he has the key, and he had people get their visitors to bring them cushions to put in that room for sitting during mass, or for the Muslims to pray on, because he opens the room, what, three or four or five times a day?

He sounds like a swell guy, but that's not the whole story. Sometimes he talks about retribution and stuff... one of the boys that got passed around in the showers and didn't like it when that happened to him, a pretty mean lion kid called Kick or something, and the Preacher talked to the guards and they let Kick sleep in the Prayer Room for a while, and during those nights a few guys had to be sent to the infirmary, like they'd had accidents. And those guys were the ones that usually passed Kick around, and those guys didn't do that any more, and they stayed away from the Order and went to join the Herd or one of the Packs. Tensions crept, but they were new, stable tensions.

Man, I'm just going to stop talking about this stuff. Moses is coming into the cell.

"Shortcake," he snorts, banging the metal bar of the bunk bed with an open paw, leering at me. Every expression of his is made into a leer by his scarred lips. "Hands above the covers."

My hands are above the covers, and so am I. I'm lying on my back, reading a two-month-old issue of Wired.

"What is it?" I ask attentively. I feel like snapping at the big mouse, I've known him long enough to think I've earned some equal footing--but I've been in the pen long enough to know that I should assume no such thing. "Services over already?"

That's something I do that makes people like me, I think, on the outside at least. I remember stuff about them, things that they're doing and refer to them so they know I'm thinking about them. It doesn't come naturally to a geek like me, so I have to put extra effort into it.

It hits Moses every time, though, and whatever train of thought was trudging through that massively thick round skull of his takes a short breather. "Preacher gave us a lot to think about," he says with a nod as if he genuinely believes that I'm genuinely interested. "He was talking about how the ways in which Muslim Ifrits are similar to Christian and Jewish demons, and how they're different. And we talked about how we integrate these mythologies into our more secularized beliefs."

"Moses, can you even spell half the words you just said?" I regret the words as I'm saying them, but you know how it is when you just can't stop yourself.

He shrugs-thank God it's not a frown or I'd have to listen to his repetition of the Preacher's sermon for hours until he forgot he was mad at me. "Anyway, like I said, Preacher wants to see you."

This happens once or twice a week. I objected at first, then I simply accepted that I was basically at the guy's beck and call, though I still pretend to be annoyed because Moses then sings the Preacher's praises, and he likes doing that. He's like the kid who brings the schoolteacher an apple in those old comic books.

After our usual banter, Moses opens the door and stands there without moving like a big huge muscular creepy Mickey Mouse in washed-our colors and leers and leers until I get off the creeking bed and hustle past him. The instant I'm outside my tail plunges all the way down-not that I usually keep it raised like some of the foxes on this block, but it just pins all the way down.

I hate how everything's white here. Given, I'd probably hate it whatever color it was, but white means clean, it means hospital or office, it means modern and safe and civilized ant that's just not true here. White means white-washed, tiled so that blood or jizz or whatnot can be easily hosed away. It means not nice.

I try not to look into the other cells as I pass them and I try not to look like I'm trying not to look. I hear whimpering from one cell and while I don't look, I know what's going on. There's two Packmates in there, both tough guys with tats, so they're sure as gum not doing each other, which means they're taking turns on somebody else. And since any of the foxes on this block would be yipping, that means they've got their hands on somebody who isn't as much into what they're doing. Maybe Kick, but considering what 'happened' to them last time somebody touched him, they're maybe too wise for that. Maybe it's some new kid who wants to make it into their Pack and has to go through the hazing first.

I hurry past. My tail can't pin any lower. I shuffle down the stairs and make a bee-line for the atrium because it's harder to get cornered there. I know there's a status quo and I know there's people looking out for me, but all they can do is avenge me after something happens to me and I don't want it to have to happen to me first. Whatever it is. Did I mention two guys have died in here since I went in? I don't want to stay here.

Straight across the atrium and into the Prayer Room, shuffling like a Geisha. Aaand then right back out when a groan and a bark and a thrown cushion convey the meaning of 'knock before you enter'.

The damage is done, though. I've seen it. A very annoyed-looking Kick bent over on his knees, arms folded under his head, chest on a pile of cushions while the Preacher hovers over him, prssed up from behind. Doggystyle, you got it. Quick, hard and dirty, no need to take their clothes off... I've seen him do this twice before which means he must do it a dozen times a day, and from the way some of the boys walk after services, I assume it's not just Kick he does it to. I suppose it's a fair trade, protection from rape in exchange for sexual favors now and then, but it still turns my stomach. He's putting his dick in some kid's ass! Yugh.

"Ow! Owow! Fuck, Preach, you promised you wouldn't tie this time! That fucking sm-"

A growl brings a squeak from Kick's mouth, and then silence. "It was a fuckin' accident, mate, all right? I got distracted. Speakin' of which, Mark? You ain't scampered off yet, 'ave ya?"

I sigh, leaning against the wall to the side of the door. "Right here, Malloy." Oh yeah, the Preacher's Malloy. Shoulda mentioned that, huh.

"Well, how's my masked bandit been this last week? Getting plenty of exercise? And you can come in, we're done."

By which he means he's done, but he's still 'tied' to the boy's butt. I don't want to offend him (and I don't like the looks some of the guys playing cards in the Atrium are giving me) so I sort of sidle inside while keeping as much of my back to the perverse scene as I can. How he gets away with doing this in public I just can't fathom. "Loving it, Malloy, just loving it."

"How come he gets to call you Malloy and you still make me call you-"

"Did I not just say 'hush'? Bite the pillow or I'll yank it out right now. Mark, mate, c'mon, don't be so shy. It's visiting hour in a few minutes."

I cringe, like he kicked me in the stomach. I know he's a goddamn cocksucker, I hate him for getting me into this, but I know him well enough to be sure he wouldn't say something like that to torment me, so I bite back the snide reply I might otherwise have spat at him.

He's probably seen that on my face, because he sucks in a breath. "Shit, mate, I'm sorry. Iknow you ain't had a visitr since you and Lucy... Anyway, I was thinkin' about that earlier, and I thought you might like to take your mind off stuff for a bit. I've got a visitor lined up and I talked to the guard and he's cool with you coming along to sit at the table, too. Would ya like that?"

"OW!" yowls Kick, and from the plop that preceded it and the whining and rustling of clothes that follow, I guess maybe Malloy was a little impatient. He grabs my shoulder and, thinking it's probably safe now, I turn to look at him. He's smiling that cocky smile of his, that smile that got me put in here to begin with, but there's just that faint, faint glimmer of honesty that gets me every single time he tries it on me. "Thanks, Malloy. That's thoughtful of you."

"I'm a positive saint, I am," he says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pushing me out, and I feel really girly saying it, but I just feel totally safe. I guess this is why the 'choir boys', as Malloy's wards are referred to, put up with what he demands of them.

I know there's some people out there that'd get a real kick out of the detailed and vivid description of the logistics of prison life-the guard checks, the friskings, the prisoner numbers, the ear tags and scanners and everything else, but I just kind of breeze through that, you know? I'm a systematic kind of guy to begin with and prison life is regular to the point of being repetitive, so since I've figured out how the system works, I don't even notice it any more.

Suffice to say, Malloy and I make it to the Visitors' Room, and it's another universe. Here you can sometimes get a glimpse of your fellow inmates in a completely different light-I once saw White Keys positively glowing and grinning ear to ear when some doe with a baby visited, and he held out his finger and the baby was playing with it and screeching in delight.

Of course, after visiting hours were over he went right back to being the terror he usually was. There's sort of an unwritten rule that what happens in the Visitors' Room stays in the Visitors' Room. Like the Hammam, the Turkish baths, where fine upstanding Muslim citizens could go and fornicate without social disapproval, because simply nobody talked about what went on in there. Same deal.

It's only moderately busy today, seven of the ten tables occupied, and no babies. There's a tiger lady at one of the tables, talking to one of the Pack guys and for a second my heart stops because I think it might be Lucy, even though she looks nothing like Lucy. After a few months of jail-time, basically the sight of any feline female sets off that ache that runs from my throat to my stomach and that stinging behind my eyes, and if I didn't know better I'd think Malloy picked up on that and squeezed my shoulder as a sign of support.

Or maybe he just squeezed so I'd stop zoning, because we've arrived at the table and there's a lioness-no, a lion boy sitting there. He looks like a total slut, with a tight gray tank top and his hair all spikey and a tight little choker necklace around his throat, and yet he looks really sweet. Hey!

"I recognize you," I blurt out, cocking my head and looking at him more intently.

"Ain't he a charmer? Alice, this is Mark. I dropped you off at his house-well, his parents' house after Owen went missing," Malloy says, trundling over a bunch of old wounds for both the lion-boy and me like one of those steamrollers flattening freshly-laid tarmac. "He helped me to... Well, come to think of it, we didn't end up achieving anything to speak of, but he did help me."

"It is nice to see you again, Mark," says the lionboy, standing up and reaching out to shake my hand, and then we all sit down. He looks so much smaller and is obviously so much younger than even Malloy's choirboys, but he's got a worldiness about him and a maturity that they don't have, and that really clashes with the sweet innocence he radiates. Huh, listen to me, I'm a damn poet. And I don't even like boys, although I've come to think my life would be a good deal nicer if I did. "It's nice to see you too, Alice. You've grown a bit since you were at my house. I see your mane's starting to come through."

"Fuck me, you're right!" barks Malloy and two of the guards at the doors reach for their batons when he stands up to fuzzle the boy's spikey headfur to pluck at the dark tuft at the top. Everything calms down when he sits back down, though there's a glimmer in his eyes that wasn't there before. "How's Nicky?" he asks. "Nicky's Alice's boyfriend, Mark," he explains thoughtfully.

"Well, that is why I came to visit," Alice says, leaning forward and glancing at me with what might be a little distrust. He keeps going regardless. "There was... unrest? Trouble, I mean, there was trouble in the city and then later at police station at edge of town-at the edge of town," he corrects himself. I can't quite place his accent. "Nicky is well, all is well, but many of..." he drops his voice to a whisper. "...of Sharpish' men were killed. And it is not known that Nicky was there, but Sharpish might suspect he was and then..."

"What's your plan, sweetheart?" asks Malloy. The tone of his voice is utterly shocking to me-there's none of that lewd suggestion, no humor, no sarcasm, no cockinesss... nothing. Honest concern. Guess the Preacher has a heart after all. "You wouldn't have come here unless you'd talked it through with Nicky first, right?"

"We want to leave Maranatha, Malloy." As the lionboy speaks the words I can feel the Doberman stiffen next to me. Not stiffen like when he was doing stuff with Kick, but going totally rigid like a statue. He relaxes and exhales before Alice looks up, and actually manages to crack a smile.

"And you want me to help you plan where to go, right? Someplace out of Sharpish' reach, someplace where maybe I've got friend that can help you set up. I get it."

Alice's ears are folded, his tail down. His eyes, too. He reaches out to cup one of the dog's big hands in his own, and as I look at the tough dog in his current state, I wonder if I looked like that when I pushed Lucy away. "Yes, Malloy. I would like that."

I don't know exactly what's going on between Malloy and the boy, or what used to, but I get a serious none-of-Mark's-beeswax vibe, so I just twiddle my fingers and try not to drum them on the table.

Tense, tense, tense, and the seconds drum on. The kid's looking more miserable by the second, and he's about to speak, opening his mouth to no doubt utter some apology when Malloy cracks a smile-not the sweet one from a second ago, but the used-car-salesman smile that gets things done-and pats Alice's hands. "Baby, your wish is my command. Mince that pretty backside of yours right on home and wait for me to get in touch with you. You'll hear from me before sundown."

He's a master of timing, because just as he stands up, leaning over to give the kid a chaste kiss on the lips, the buzzer rings that indicates the visiting 'hour' is over for this week and there's a lot of quickly-finished conversations and pushed-back chairs. The visitors are ushered out and the... and we're herded back to the atrium, in groups of three.

Malloy is quiet as we pad through the halls, our thin-soled cotton indoor loafers making depressingly little noise, as if all our attire is engineered to make even the most badass inmate (I really hate that word) feel like a dope, denied the thud of shoes, the rustle of clothes, the jangle of chains and ding-ding or whatever it's called. I know we raccoons have a rep for liking shiny things, but I guess I'm weird that way.

And so's Malloy. He doesn't deliberately square his shoulders when he walks into the bleak atrium, nor does he flash that smile. He doesn't lay his arm around my shoulder or talk to me like he's a rock star addressing an interviewer, he just walks. And looks around. And the expressionlessness of his sharp-featured canine face sends shivers up my spine.

He walks me to the prayer room and then pauses, leaning against the wall right in front of me, creating a little mockery of privacy for the two of us. "I know I fucked up your life. I knew that, going in, I knew you'd end up here when I went to you to help me rip off Northern Transnational and I did it anyway. I never apologized for that and I don't think I ever will, because you know who I am, Mark me lad? Who I really am? I'm not a loveable rogue. I'm not a thief with a heart of gold. I'm a bad dog, Mark, and you'd best know what that means. I put you in jail to save Owen, even though that didn't work out so well. I've killed people since then to save him better, and I can't honestly tell you that all of them deserved it.

"You know those ethical dilemmas? Would you sacrifice your wife to save your daughter, that sort of thing... I never in my life had trouble answering those. There's two people in the world I'd die for, and you're not one of them, Mark. There's five people in the world I wouldn't kill for any reason, even if it meant everyone in the world, them and me included, would die. And you're not one of them. I'd kill you and Lucy in your sleep if that was the only way to save Owen or my... or the other.

"But I don't believe there's ever only one way to skin a cat. And as long as I'm Malloy, I will never not have a choice. So now there's two choices, and I'm going to let you choose. One: nothing changes. You and I stay in here and everything stays the same as it was yesterday. You get out in a few months, maybe pick up the pieces with Lucy, and I keep fucking my choirboys until I'm gray and my parole comes up."

Oh God, there it is again. That glint in his eyes, that curve in the corners of his lips... I'd thought he was just manipulative, the way some people discover certain facial expressions get what they want, like babies learn that smiling gets them attention and cuddles-but I know better now. An unbelievable amount of that fake, fake smile is the real Malloy. My breath is shallow as I wait for him to continue.

"Option two," he says, dropping his voice an octave, "is the fast road. You get out early, Alice gets out of the city, Owen gets out, everybody's safe. No hidden consequences, mate, if anything goes wrong the only one who suffers is yours handsome and truly."

I really don't have to think hard. I can't. Rationally I know that Malloy's dangerous and nothing good can come for him and that I can stand a few more months of this as long as things stay the same... but in my gut I know I can't stand what I've already been through. I can't spend another night listening to Moses the Moses' snoring, or hurrying past open cell doors because some freak might throw all caution to the wind and nab me and kill me because he woke up stupid and forgot he'd extend his twenty years to a life sentence... "Will anyone get hurt?" I ask, and to this day I don't think I've ever asked a more to-the-point question, even though I don't actually know that when I'm asking.

"Nobody that matters," he says and turns away. He knows I've chosen door number two. He goes into the prayer room and in the time it takes for me to follow him I hear a soft, muffled squeal, a grunt, two hard thuds and then he comes out with the limp body of Kick, blood streaming from a cut over his eye and shouts "Kick's been murdered!" so loud it seems to reach every corner of Maranatha Penitentiary before it echoes back.

And after that, things move very quickly.

We're in a hallway, which means we could be anywhere in the building. I hear shouting and screaming, distant, like in a nightmare. Malloy's here, still carrying Kick's body, so are a few others. Moses the Moses, the mouse. A black wolf I don't recognize. No, wait, Iknow him. He hangs around the prayer room, his name's... Darren or something. There's also Elsaesser, who generally goes by The Alsation and when you talk to him it's totally bizarre because... well, maybe you'll hear for yourself.

We're running, which doesn't bode well. The lights are on, the cell doors are open and this entire block appears empty, while the noise behind us intensifies.

And things start coming back to me.

The shouting that erupted in the atrium, the sudden rush of people as every gang flocked to the side of whichever of its members as already on the scene, immediately separating into groups in diffeent corners like we were in West Side Story or something. Malloy didn't even say anything, he just stood there, holding Kick (who, for a lionboy, isn't nearly as sweet as Alice was) and just watching as accusations flew back and forth.

The guards were slow to react, as usual. Around here they like to wait for a fight to lose its energy before stepping in-two beat-up fighters are way easier to subdue than two guys rearing to go, and maybe they were waiting for backup, too, I don't know. Whatever the case, they took their sweet time and by the time the first guards started to rush onto the scene, the fighting had already started.

It started like most fights here start, two guys singling each other out for a shouting match and becoming more and more heated, more physical. The cause for the shouting was what you'd expect, each accusing the other or his gang of being Kick's murderer. Except, unlike most fights, it happened all over the place at once. One second there was just shouting, and I was moving behind Malloy, ready to dart into the prayer room and throw the door closed-then I blinked, and five fights had broken out simultaneously and then everyone was going for each other. Even the pass-me-around foxes.

Like a gas fire. One second there's just a funny smell, the next the room is filled with fire. No point of origin you can discern, it's just everywhere at once.

"Follow me," said Malloy and I did. I grabbed his shoulder and scampered along as he waded through the mass of combat, like he could walk between the raindrops and not get wet. He looked almost serene, staring straight ahead while people threw fists and home-made shanks and each other within inches of his face. And I followed. And if I hadn't, I'd be a bloody smear on the atrium floor now.

We bumped into Moses, who caame down the stairs and Malloy got him to follow with a mere nod. Moses and I walked side-by-side behind Malloy, and we must have looked like a real posse. Another chance encounter, another nod and Darren-no, Collin, that's his name-came with us. Malloy guided us like a good captain, and speaking of which, he guided us right to the block where Elsaesser the Alsation held court.

"Holy fickende merde," the shaggy-haired dog barked when he saw us approach, and opened the door to his cell. "Savez-vous what's going on da draussen?"

See, Elsaesser's trilingual and either he genuinely can't tell which language he's speaking, he's screwed up enough that he just mixes them up all the time, or he jsut wants to show off. You know what he's in here for? Piracy. The analog kind, with the ships and the skull and crossbones. Arr, matey!

"It's a riot, Elsaesser," said Malloy. "You wanna hang out here and hope it doesn't spill over, or grab some of your guys and come with us?"

"Ou are you gehend?"

"Someplace safe, hopefully," answered Malloy, who more than once told me that while he hated school at the time, he was damn pleased they enforce multiple languages in good old Yerp. "So, coming?"

Elsaesser said yes and whistled for some of his mateys to join us, and it's a good thing, too. We bumped into two Herd members, a pair of donkey twins that wee in for, I don't know, they were inos me sort of paramilitary thing that they didn't want to talk to the police about. They saw Malloy and headed straight for him, and when Malloy stepped back, letting Elsaesser's pirates spring in front of him, he didn't look like a coward. He looked like a chess player. And I was still behind him.

"Du haven't dit me wo we venir, Malloy," Elsaesser growls (note the present tense, because the donkeys were knocked out and we moved past them), but Malloy ignores him. "Malloy! Je'm speaking to dich!"

"Here we are," says Malloy and walks into the library. Well, it's called a library-there's a few books and some heavily firewalled computers, but mostly it's just a room with lots of cameras and a table. He drops Kick on the table and rolls his shoulders, and while Elsaesser and the other pirates (one of them actually called Pirate, on account of the Dalmatian's big spot over his left eye) keep watch at the exit. "Collin, your stick, please," he says and the wolf's ears fold and a growl forms on his lips and then his ears blush and he walks off behind one of the bookcases.

"Now, Mark, mate," says Malloy, suddenly grabbing me by the throat. "This what I'm doing right now is an act," he continues, and he could have fooled me because when I grab at his wrist, his grip only tightens and I can't even draw breath. I'm so shocked at suddenly being throttled that I don't even have time to panic. "Because of the cameras in here. I should say it's only partly an act, because while I'm pretending to coerce you to do something, I seriously need you to do it because if you don't, some of us may well die. Collin! How's it coming?"

Collin comes back from behind the stack, pulling his pants up, holding a smooth metal cyllinder that has brown gunk on it and it totally doesn't register in my mind that this is something he's been keeping up my ass until much, much later. He pulls the cap off one end, revealinga rectangular connector-and while I haven't yet figured out why the thing he's holding smells like poo, I do recognize it as a USB stick. When Collin notices Malloy isn't inclined to take it from him, the wolf goes to one of the computers and plugs it in.

Meanwhile, I still haven't breathed.

"There's an application on that stick that can interface with the prison's backup electrical system. Oh, hold on," Malloy says, loosening his grip so I can take a sudden, gulping breath, and the fog that was descending over my eyes lifts. "I need you to get through the security systems, connect that application to the prison systems, and then do exactly what I tell you."

He shoves me into the seat, standing behind me with an arm wrapped around my neck, and as soon as my fingers hit the keyboard I'm flying. In every figurative sense of the word.

As part of my sentence I was barred from even touching any electronic equipment. I'm not the only one inside with this limitation, which is why there's so many cameras in the one space in all of Maranatha Penitentiary where there's working computers, even though their internet access is routed through the prison systems to restrict their content. So actually getting to type...

It's not just the typing. It's the thinking. The keyboard is such a fast interface if you know the commands and the shortcut keys, and it makes the OS into a reality of its own, one you can shape and change at the speed of thought without interruption. My commands give birth to new windows and kill them just as quickly, exploiting them for a second or two before sending them to their doom. The desktop transforms from the peacful, cheerful, childish candy paradise that the guys in Redmond think is good for us and into a black, sharp world of hard code.

White on black, pages of code and output scrolling bast so fast that if you blink, you've missed a page. But I'm a coder. I don't blink. I begin typing countercommands before the output has even been fully delivered, I start copying strings as soon as they start getting printed. I melt into the machine, man, you have no idea unless you're a coder yourself. Or maybe an artist or a writer, I can imagine it would happen for them, too. You feel like you physically melt into what you're doing.

I've only felt this way once before, and that time I got sent to jail for it. I'd wonder where I might get sent this time, if I had the cycles to spare. Hell, if I had any concentration for anything other than what I'm doing (and admiring the elegance of the prison security system's code and the shocking power of the application on the USB stick) I might wonder at why Kick is coughing and groaning, and maybe, just maybe, I'd wonder where Collin got the stick in the first place.

I almost feel sorry when it's done. My fingers stop, and the screen displays the crude, ASCII-rendered diagram of the backup electrical system in our block. "Malloy? I'm in."

"Good," the dog says, and tugs on my neck, making the chair tilt back until he puts me down again. Collin hovers nearby, telling Malloy to go easy. I'd be scared, if I wasn't so high on hacking. "There's a bug in the system that causes interference in the regular system when the backup's overridden. Turn on all lights in the atrium."

I don't know how to do that, but it takes me all of ten seconds to learn. Trial & error + brain = result. The crude graph on screen is updated to reflect the atrium's layout, I hit five commands and the blocks light up green. The faint, distant echoes I'd almost forgotten about suddenly flare up.

"Mark, you're amazing. Now open the fire doors in the three hallways leading out of the atrium on the ground floor, and the two on the first and second floor."

I'm done before he stops talking. I get what's happening, too: whatever you do in the backup system while the regular system's still online has the opposite effect, and so now all the fire doors are shutting. "You weren't kidding, Malloy," says Colling, gazing at the screen. "Lock the doors on the guard post up ahead and close this one after a ten-second delay. Can you do that?"

"Alread doing it," I reply. And I am. There's no delay function, so I slip out of the application and throw enough code loops at the system to slow it down so when I'm back in the control app, it'll take ten seconds to register my commands.

"Malloy! Why'd you fuckin'... ow..." It's Kick's annoying voice. He's sitting upright on the wodoen table he was dropped on, legs thrust to the side like some toddler sitting on his butt, and Elsaesser's pirates are swooping toward him.

"Pourquoi hatte you hit him sur son Kopf?" the shaggy dog asks with a growl, and his cronies swoop in behind him. All on one side of the table. And Malloy, like a sportsman, simply grins at the confused, approaching gang, grabs me and Collin, and runs around the other side of the table.

So childish, that maneuver, but it works. Collin, Malloy and I sweep past Moses, who gets dragged along and when the four of us run past the oak doors of the library, its one touch of class, the barred doors slide in from the sides and seal the room off.

Four seconds passed since I hit the delayed command. I look around to see if anybody's noticed that I slipped up a little, but it seems it all worked out for the best, so I simply follow Malloy, grinning, while fresh multilingual shouts start behind us.

"This your first prison break, shortcake?" Moses asks me, grinning as broadly as I am. "It's the best part of prison life. Preacher does it with style, too. I bet he's been working on this ever since he came here. I once knew a guy who-"

"Hush up," says Collin, and it suddenly occurs to me I know nothing about this wolf, nearly nothing about the tall, badass mouse, and not nearly enough about the dog who's looking up and down the next corridors before jogging across to the heavy security door.

I'm in a jailbreak.

I'm an accomplice to fugitives. I'll be a fugitive if we make it outside. I'm going to be put in jail for years-years-if I'm caught, or I'm going to be on the run for the rest of my life. Sure, I could be a nowhere man and work constuction and live off the grid, but that's not my lifestyle. And how many jobs are there for freelance system admins without any legal, genuine papers?

"Malloy, I'm not so sure about this," I whisper, tippy-toeing after the him and Collin, With Moses bringing up the rear. He seems to be lagging on account of the sounds of squeals and grunts coming from the library. It seems that the pirates decided to vent their frustration by putting that annoying kid Kick to good use-listen to me! I sound like one of them!-and Moses partly regrets not being there to enjoy it.

Malloy isn't listening, though, and if I were you, neither would I. Pay attention to this next bit, because it blows my mind and it might do the same to you if you're not crazy. Malloy bangs on the door with the palm of his hand, and the metal construction echoes loudly enough that Moses and I look up and down either corridor to our sides. It's a four-way crossing, counting the security door, and we feel really exposed.

Then, against all odds, the door opens. Opening the door is a guard, a broad-shouldered dog with tan-and-black fur, and a stun baton and a tazer in his hands, and I realize we're... Hell, I'm going to say it. We're fucked.

Until I see that the guard is holding them at the business end, with the grip of each pointed toward Malloy, who takes the baton and hands the tazer to Collin, then steps into the doorframe of the gaurd station, grabs the guard by the muzzle, pulls him to his chest and growls into his ear:

"Good boy, Rover."

To be continued.

Available on paperback in 2006

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