Chapter 1

Prison isn’t like you see on the television. Strangely it’s less violent and less scary since not a lot happens day-to-day. The problem is, that low-level fear is always grinding away at you. It wears you down over time.

It wears everyone down over time.

At 5’8” tall and about 135lbs I was on the small side of average, and size matters in here.

‘Aiding and abetting’, ‘Dangerous driving’, ‘Street racing’, ‘Operation of a motor vehicle without a licence’, ‘Operation of a stolen motor vehicle’, ‘Failure to stop when requested by a police officer’, ‘Distracted driving’, ‘Attempted Vehicular Homicide’ ... translation: I was driving the get-away car and things got out of hand.

What’s that come to? 12 years inside a medium security prison. Who goes to a medium security prison? Anybody. Just remember, what you went to prison for ain’t the only things you’ve done, it’s just what they caught you doing ... and could prove ... like dodging around a police roadblock at 170 km/h in a stolen Honda with two bank robbers in the back.

Without those two (since we were all sent to different compounds) I had no buddies when I arrived, and went through hell for a few months. Deciding that big Jake was the lesser of the many evils, I managed to become his “celly”. His size and demeanor (not to mention his willingness to fight) kept me out of the line of fire of the other predators in the pound. I wasn’t his “bottom” but I did everything else. Beds made, swept and cleaned, shave or a haircut... “Robbie,” he’d say “You’re the only one I’d let get that close to me with a blade, and that’s ‘cause we both know you have more to lose by slitting my throat than I would...”

He wasn’t wrong.

I’d seen men my size, “softer” or “prettier” get taken in my some of the big sods in here. They lasted 8 months to a year. You’d often find they hung themselves or managed a sharp blade out of something and just bled out. Cleaning up for Jake, doing his work and folding his clothes, along with talking with him, teaching him; (first checkers, then chess and eventually keeping his secrets) ... None of these were enough for us to be ‘square’. If we ever got out of here, I was going to owe him everything I had, and more.

I never tried to escape, I never tried to fashion a shiv or intentionally got into a fight. Jake and I took the worst maintenance jobs, him knowing full well I’d be doing all the work. “I just gotta be well rested Robbie ... like the Lion, I’m here for protection of the group, not the hunting.” (he’d seen a wildlife documentary just last week, so he knew everything about it of course) He did kinda look like it, and I told him. “D’zat mean we’re gonna let your mane grow?” He had dirty blond hair, and keeping it trimmed neatly was a terrible chore, but I used my money to buy nice combs, and our allotted time with a pair of scissors was spent keeping it well trimmed, even to the detriment of my own personal grooming. Long hair was a bad idea in the Yard. Give someone something good to hold you by, and they will. You’ll regret that. Even given that, Jake’s hair was kept just shy of the length that someone else could grip it. Gave me lots of practice cutting and trimming it, and as these things go; Jake loaned me out to other guys to trim their hair.

Now, you gotta have a value, nobody wants to be worth nothing. I was a servant to a big dude (Jake called me his Groom, even though I said I could be his Valet). “Naw, Robbie, yer a Groom. Ya gotta start at the bottom and leave room for promotion!” He laughed “One day you might become a Footman, then a Valet, then finally one day ya’ might make the jump to being the Butler.” He said, showing that he was a fair bit smarter than he’d let on.

When I’d taught him chess, he had me read and de-code the moves from the book I’d found on the library cart, but his memory was incredible, and he was winning the monthly tournaments after a year. After three years he got his designation as Grandmaster, with special dispensation to play all his games virtually, on account of his “lack of mobility”. He’d laughed for days about that term.

The two of us were in our cell, it was after lights out, but we were talking still. There had been an influx of new guys last week, and the pecking order hadn’t yet been re-established. We were discussing the troubling possibility of one of the newer big guys rising to the top of the heap so fast. It wasn’t just that he was big (he was!) but he could handle himself in a fight and was as cold blooded as they got. Jake figured he must have had some time served before since when he beat Raoul senseless, he knew to avoid his face and avoid breaking any bones so the poor guy couldn’t even get away to the infirmary. Damaged tendons and heavy bruising suddenly made Raoul a softer target, and anyone with a beef against him (there were many) could now contemplate some revenge since he wasn’t totally on his game. Raoul took some good shots in the next few weeks until someone broke his ribs bad enough for the Warden to move him to the secure medical wing for two months of recovery. He’d find the Yard a different place when he returned.

Drugs aren’t an uncommon thing to get in prison, corruption in the guards was no small thing. It was just too easy to look away and get a hummer while some weed, acid, or coke went on their merry way past you, often a little lighter after the trip. Guards were human, and not paid exceptionally well.

“Jake...” I said, interrupting him from his pontification on whether or not he could take the new guy. “Are you seeing this?” “Damnit, Robbie, if you have some good shit and you didn’t share I’m gonna tell Big Maswebe that your ass is his for a week ... I don’t see nothin” he said. “I think I’m having a flashback then! There’s swirling colours and everything!” I said with some wonder, and fear. “You got a free one? God damn! You sure are a lucky S.O.B...” he chuckled. What I didn’t say was that there were knives in the swirling mix of colours, but when they seemed to fall onto my chest, I gave startled lurch and then my back, left shoulder and my ass all exploded in pain. I groaned in agony. “Fucker, you whip yourself off in the toilet, we’ve talked ‘bout this before...” came Jake’s voice from the bottom bunk. It was summer and the lower one was cooler for our resident Lion. I calmed my breathing. The pain wasn’t getting worse, in fact it seemed to be very slowly going away, but sleep was long in coming that night.

I woke up at revelry, and immediately started stripping our beds. It was a Wednesday and all our linens were to be out for collection before breakfast. Uncharacteristically Jake took mine before I could throw them through the bars into the waiting hamper. He inspect them before dropping them on the floor for me to pick up and toss. “You find anything?” I asked, careful to keep my voice on this side of respectful. “Nope, I’m glad you are keeping to our agreement about using the Shitter for that...” he said with a smile... “Now, let me smell your breath...”

In here, I try to keep my head down and my ears perked at all times in here. Small guy just walking by ... I’ve heard a few useful tidbits over the years that have kept me out of trouble: “I don’ know what it was, Billy says he never saw it...” Heard passing a short black guy on week 1 after I saw my vision. “ ... then it hits me and I swear, my shoulder and ribs exploded Mia Madre! fuck me if I didn’t cry!” Caught in passing from a heavy Hispanic by the showers 2 weeks after the incident.

Now I never kept much from the Big Guy, but since I really didn’t know what was actually happening, he didn’t hear anything about it from me.

Every month we had to inspect the boiler drains pipework. Story goes that there was once a small leak from one of the condensate drains, and it went unnoticed for a long time until it finally broke and the escaping steam shorted out the pump motors, at which point the hot water (both showers and building heating) cut out. The cold, smelly inmates rioted after three days and a guard was severely injured (they never mentioned in the newspaper that nearly 30 prisoners were injured as bad ... or worse than that one guard). It was dirty, cramped, hot work and the warden and the engineer required photos, both regular and thermal, so here I was crawling with a flashlight in one hand and a FLIR camera in the other.

Big Jake was lying down on our jackets just beside the boiler, catching an after-breakfast nap while I crawled. I should have noticed that the light down there was better, I hadn’t gotten halfway through the job before I found the portal. It was around a corner, next to a pipe chase that led into the South Block. There was a story that some guy tried to sneak out, got caught in the bars, and died since he couldn’t breathe properly. It took ‘em days to find him. I admit, I checked to see if I’d fit ... That was years ago, I’d been here just last month, and this thing wasn’t here. “JAKE!...” I called back to the entrance ... no answer, fucker was asleep already. I pulled out the FLIR and took a regular photo. Calling it up on the screen, all I could see was the pipe chase. I blinked and shook my head a few times to clear it. Looking up I could still see this ... thing.

I switched to Thermal Imaging and took a look through the camera ... nothing. I took a picture, the thing still wasn’t showing up on the camera. I focused on the light ... it was about 5’ high and 3’ wide. The colour was a kind of pink. It kinda looked like a doorway. Having an idea, I took the lens cap off of the FLIR, and released the thread that held it attached to the body. I set the camera down, pointed at the pink doorway and set it to record. I crawled over and tossed the camera lens cap through the light and heard it bounce off the wall of the pipe chase just behind it. I guessed that it was just some sort of light, maybe a mirage? Like I fool I reached out to pick up the stupid lens cap.

I was still lying on a hard floor, but instead of smooth concrete, it was now tightly packed flagstone. The lighting wasn’t my flashlight, but small torches that hung in metal cages on the wall. Above and to my left were the same knives I had seen in my vision, but they looked solid(er?). In for a penny, in for a pound. I might not have been a big jailhouse brawler, but any inmate will grab any free shiv they can get their hands on, and these were beauties. I reached up and grabbed for the floating Weapons.

The three blades fell into my hands as soon as I touched the first one. Two of the three of them cut me. The one I reached for was about 2 feet long, polished and double edged coming to a wicked sharp point. It was single handed with a small pommel, and a very small guard with a ring for your index finger. The smallest one was a Fairbairn-Sykes, I recognized it easily enough. It was a no-gloss matte black and sharp as a razor. Lastly, there was what looked at first to me like a sharpening steel, just a really long fancy one with a knuckle-duster guard. Perhaps it was to keep these blades sharp? I put all three down, to look at my cuts. They weren’t bad, and in fact the smaller one seemed to be sealing up really fast, probably something to do with just how sharp these blades were. I’d need to go to the infirmary to get them cleaned ... then it hit me ... I was Free!

I don’t really know how long I just stood there, breathing. No smell of other men, no bleach cleaner, no overcooked food ... it was heaven.

“Well, Robbie-boy.” I spoke out loud to myself. “Status - report!” It was a phrase I’d used ever since childhood. Some cartoon penguin had said it and I laughed every time I saw that show. As soon as I said the word “Status”, the air in front of my face was replaced by a light greenish-looking screen. On it were printed:

Name: Robert Vittorini Talent: Shadow Rogue Experience: 0/1000 Level: 0 Items: 0 Silver: 0 Titles: None Attribute points: 0 Skills: None Bonus: Tertiary Weapon* Restrictions: None Strength: 5 Speed: 5 Endurance: 5 Agility: 6 Intelligence: 5 Mana: 1 Health: 12/13 Weapon: Close Combat Dagger*, Long Dagger, Parrying Dagger Shield: None Weapon level: 1