Cages (15 page)

"Jeez, man, how do you do
it?"  Remi coughed, sucking in air.  "I was waiting for
you, you know.  I didn't know it, but I was waiting for you to come."

My smile fell.  There was
a certain desperate tone to Remi's voice, a straining only barely
controlled.  Hero worship I wanted.  Idolatry was another matter
altogether.

He continued on.  "I
been here a year now, in and out of classes, in and out of solitary.  I
want out!  Out, man!  Do you know the last time I stayed in one place
for a year?  Never! But you...you make me want to stick around, just to
see what you're gonna do next."

"What if there is no
next?"  I flopped onto my futon, heard the boards creak. 
"I had to take Conyers on this time, Remi, but I don't want to spend the
next five years locked up in here.  He's holding all the cards.  The
keeper of the keys.  If I keep antagonizing him..."

Remi was quiet a moment. 
"You don't mean that, Sam."

"Yeah, I do.  Hit
the hornet's nest once and don't get stung, you're lucky.  Twice and it's
a miracle.  Only a idiot hits it a third."  I sighed. 

Remi snorted loudly and banged
his fist on the wall, making me nearly jump off the thin mattress.  "
You
don't mean that!
"

I fished my pillow out from
under the futon and ground it into my face.  "Jesus, Remi. 
Fine.  I don't mean it."

"Good man." 
Remi stopped banging.

"Crafty crafty crafty
crafty," another voice, a girl's
,
called.  "They got you too, huh?"

I slid off the futon and
pressed my head to the porthole.  I couldn't see anyone in the cell
directly accross from me, but I knew who it had to be.  "Susan? 
Yeah, they got me." 

"I'm surprised, I'd have
picked you as a ringer for the ninth circle.  A liar, you
know."  Her voice was pleasant and floaty.  She'd always had a
sing-s
o
ng way of speaking and
even though I had never really been friends with her, I knew her voice well
enough to notice that something was terribly off.

"What?"  I
tried to wipe some of the dust away from my porthole to get a better view, but
much of it was on the outside. 

"Don't bother," Remi
drawled.  "She's nuts.  That's why they put her in here. 
They didn't know what else to do with her."

"Did you see a demon,
Sam?  I saw two!  Two demons, masquerading as
men
.  The Devil's work is never done,
even here, I guess, but they didn't last long.  You hear? 
They
went away!
Good news for our
side."  Suddenly I saw a blur of black hair at her porthole and heard
a repetitive thud as she banged her forehead slowly against the glass. 
“But sometimes they come back.”

I shook my head,
incredulous.  "I don't get it.  I've known Susan for
years.  She was kind of a barbie girl.  Do you know what
happened?"

Remi shook his head. 
"She had a completely different class schedule than me.  Didn't know
her.  Still, she rants about her two demons a lot.  My guess is she
saw a Beast and flipped.  It's frankly driving me insane just listening to
her.  I've even gotten into shouting at her for hours, just to drown out
her
never-ending
babbling."

Poor Susan. I had sort of gone
out with her best friend once, in the way that middle schoolers ever "go
out" - a question was asked and answered in the affirmative and then we
were going out, until we both got busy with school and kind of forgot about
each other.  Susan was the class president type, high up on the
hierarchy.  Not the sort you'd pick for Class Whacko. 
"Wow.  I never would have thought."

"Hey Sam," Remi
giggled.  "How long do you think it'll take for Conyers to get
removed from the riser?"

I curled my lip.  "I
think we'll find out soon, and by soon, I mean the minute he gets free."

Two hours later the door to
the Bell unlatched again. 
Two
guards
, not Conyers’s flunkies,
marched in lock-step, making a beeline straight for my cell.  The
wheel rasped against the door as it unscrewed, the horrible grating noise of
metal on metal.  The two dour guards beckoned me to come out and I obeyed,
the open spaces of even just the Bell feeling wide after the cramped
cell.  With a start, I noticed that one of the guards was Biff, his
friendly face clouded over with duty and contempt.  "Hi Biff," I
said, and he started, as if suddenly surprised to recognize me.

The other guard snorted and
pushed me out the door.

"Give 'em Hell Sam!"
Remi yelled.

"We're in Hell,
Sam!" followed quickly after from Susan.

It was late, well past lights
out.  The dance would have wound down by now and most students would be
back in their dorm cells.  Remembering Conyers's and Largo's conversation,
I doubted that even the Blind Hall was left alone for the normal illicit
after-dance activities.  There would be a lot of horny teenagers alone in
their rooms tonight, with only their frustration and their roomates for
company.  I knew the route to Conyers's office well and under the momentum
of the guards we made quick time. 

The outer lobby was empty and
Biff opened the inner door.

"What am I going to do
with you, Mr. Crafty?"  Conyers sat at his desk, looking at his right
hand.  The skin there had been killed and peeled away with some sort of
acid, the raw meat below glistening and bright.

I shook my head. 
"You could have just poured gasoline on it."

Conyers frowned. 
"And where do you think we keep the gasoline here, Sam?  This is
Quarantine.  We don't have any gasoline."

Made sense.  I shrugged
and plopped heavily into the chair in front of his desk.

He stared at me. 
"You didn't answer me, Mr. Crafty.  What am I going to do with
you?"

"Gonna keep me locked up
in the Bell for a while, I assume."

He nodded. 
"Maybe.  Maybe.  I just have to say, Sam, this makes me
sad.  I thought we were friends."

"You thought
wrong."  I looked down at my shoes, nice brown loafers for the dance.

Conyers's lip curled. 
"It's no mystery any more.  I smell the Beast on you."

"
Screw
yourself with that," I
snapped.  "You can't smell
crap
."

His tone grew somber. 
"Oh yes I can, Sam.  And you're only making it worse."

I glowered, then nodded to his
hand.  "That hurt?"

"Yes.  It hurts like
hell
."

I shrugged. 
"Sorry."

"No you're
not."  Conyers opened the lower drawer of his desk, looking for something. 
"You wanted some attention.  Didn't want the kids calling you
rat.  And it's clear to me that this is only the beginning.  It's
been a little more than a month.  I'm not sure I could survive another
five years of Sam Crafty." 

His silver revolver was
clutched in his hand, pointed at my heart.

"I could shoot you right
now, son.  All I got to say is that I saw your eyes go red and I can plug
you so full of holes the dentist won't even be able to recognize you.  I
could even shoot your eyes out, so they can't check the color.  And if you
continue to
screw
with me, I
will call you into this office and unload this weapon into you.  But
maybe...maybe I should just do it now."  The hammer clicked back,
one, two, three times.

I shot him a bird. 
"Screw you, Conyers.  You're not going to do it." 

His face was turning
red.  "I've killed lots of kids like you.  I have no qualms
about doing it."

"Oh yeah?  What
qualms you have about losing control of the student body?"  I leaned
forward, bringing my forehead closer to the barrel.  "Didn't you know
what game we were playing?  What you prize more than anything is your
control over the students, keeping discipline by fear and sheer force of
will.  That's why you made such a big deal out of getting me locked out of
class the first day, so that I knew my entire life rested in your hands. 
Very effective.  But the entire student body just saw you look like a
fool, and they saw who you blamed for it.  If I suddenly get killed going
Beast, people are going to find that awfully convinient.  It'll make them
doubt you, make them think that they're in just as much danger from you as the
Beasts.  The tighter you try to control it, the more fringe groups will
splinter out to challenge you.  Kill me and you upset the very nice little
applecart you've taken such great pains to build."

Conyers's composure slipped
for a moment, but then it was back, full force.  All smiles. 
"This isn't Beirut, boy.  This is Quarantine.  The brats here do
what I say, when I say.  They don't got the balls to do anything."

I raised an eyebrow. 
"Then you've got no reason not to pull the trigger."  

He hesitated, and I knew I had
him.  His neck bulged with veins as he realized his blunder; he had let me
see him unsure, worried that I might be right.  "You're going back to
Solitary, son.  For a very long time.  Let's see how much these kids
remember your shining example once you're in a metal box. Biff!"

The door opened and Biff stuck
his head in. 

"Take Mr. Crafty to his
dorm room and retrieve his books and study supplies.  Then lock him in the
Bell and throw away the key."

Biff led me alone through the
halls, through the barricades at the end of the hall and out towards my dorm
cell.  He tried his best not to look at me, but I wasn't having any of
that.

"Funny, isn't it?

Biff only stiffened and
continued marching, eyes forward.

"I pull a prank on you
and I get no punishment at all.  Pull one on Conyers and I get God knows
how long in the Bell.  Kind of a double standard, huh?"

Biff rolled his eyes. 
"I'm not stupid, Sam.  One offense can be forgiven.  It's
understandable; new kids act out all the time.  But when you knowingly
disrupt the routine...I got no pity for you, and I've seen all the same movies
you have.  Sorry, in real life the prisoner doesn't turn the guard against
the warden."

I gaped.  "The
routine?
 
You think this is about
routine?
"

He nodded.  "You
don't understand.  The routine keeps everyone alive here.  You wake
up at a certain time.  You brush your teeth at a certain time.  You
eat breakfast, you go to class. 
At a certain time
.  When kids
start deviating from the routine...that's when we have trouble.  It could
be a kid going Beast.  Or it could just be some jerkoff we have to peel
resources away to go protect, endangering everyone else.  When you disrupt
the routine, you put all of us in danger."

"
Crap
," I spat.  "Why does
talking to you always make me feel like a
jerk
?"

Biff shrugged.  "You
are a
jerk
, man."

"You should be the
Principal of this place, Biff.  I mean that with all sincerity."

He sighed.  "I'm no
teacher, Sam."

I unlatched the door to my
cell.  "That's okay.  This is no school." 

Dave and Ben were ecstatic to
see me, once they woke up properly, but they sobered quickly on seeing
Biff.  "Why didn't you tell me what you were doing?" Dave asked,
in awe.  "I made all those sawblades for nothing."

I shook my head. 
"Not at all.  I was pretty sure that all these cells are
bugged.  And this proves it; he knew what we were planning before it happened. 
That's how he tried to turn the joke back on us.  I really only needed one
sawblade for the punchline, but the number of them covered up their purpose
well.  You did good, man."

"Awesome.  Come back
soon, buddy," Dave said.  Then he grinned.  "Hey, I don't
want to get spoiled.  Having two delinquent roomies leaves a man a lot of
space."

Ben only muttered a quiet
"Goodbye," but his eyes were bright.  Clearly he had enjoyed the
spectacle of the evening.

I gathered up my books and
tried to slip my music player into my bag.  "No way," Biff said,
taking the player from me.  "No entertainment devices in the
Bell."

"Oh come on, Biff! 
I'm gonna go crazy in there.  Remi's in there for two months and he barely
did anything.  How long do you think he'll leave me in Solitary for what I
did?" 

Biff licked his lips
considering.  All I had to hope for was that Biff was as decent a guy as
he seemed to be.  Then he stiffened.  "Sorry.  Principal's
orders."

I stuffed everything else into
my bag (which had been re-searched in my time in
S
olitary) and waved goodbye to my friends. 
"Don't forget me, locked up in there."

Dave laughed.  "Not
gonna happen.  Remember, I'm still in the Banner Society.  They never
stop talking about you."

Biff led me out, latching the
big metal door behind us.  As we were walking he knocked into me roughly,
sending my bag tumbling to the floor.  "Watch where you're
going," he snarled, snatching up the bag and shoving it back at me.