The Tower

Jade glanced at the flashing red lights above the vent switches. "Well, consider this," he said. "Allander had been locked up for fifteen years. Fifteen. And he took the extra time to come back to the shed just to kill everyone else. He could've been caught, but he risked it. He risked it all. Killed people he didn't even know, just to send a message. You think we've got problems now, Warden? This is just the beginning."

Walker met his stare. A look of recognition passed between the two men.

"How'd he get Greener, Marlow? We got the body parts, we got why he was down there, even how he got cut in half. But how'd the kid get his hands on him?"

Jade ran his thumb across his bottom lip and squinted as he thought. "I bet you'll find one of those metal arms for the food down there," he said. "I'll say Greener's concentration wandered and he hung it too close to Alland-Atlasia's unit."

Walker nodded sharply. "Good man. He's a good man here," he said over his cigar to no one in particular.

A guard called over from across the Hole. "Hey! Docker on the line!"

"Your ride, Marlow. It's here. I'll walk you over."

"I appreciate your time, Warden."

"I appreciate yours. Call me if you need anything else."

Jade swung his leg over the parapet and rested it on the ladder's top rung. "Hey, Banks!" he yelled.

The warden stopped and turned around.

"I'd check for prints underneath the platform. You might be surprised what'll turn up."

Walker snapped his fingers. He stood shifting his cigar around his mouth long after Jade was out of view.

Chapter 22

T H E children finally dozed off, their palms stuck together by their sweat and the duct tape. Since comfort was nowhere to be found, they retreated to the anesthetic of dream. The boy shivered occasionally as his eyelids flickered. His cheeks were a shade of red that normally would have been described as cheerful.

Allander watched the two children sleeping side by side on the bed, tape still covering their eyes. They had found a way to escape their physical bondage, and Allander was proud of them.

Leaning forward in his chair, Allander shook their knees gently and the children jerked from his touch as if they'd been burned. Robbie immediately began sobbing, and Allander moved next to him and placed the boy's head on his chest.

"Don't worry. I'm not here to hurt you. Only to serve as an informant into the little world of your mind, the world that lies beneath your thoughts. The world of your wishes."

His voice was soothing, and the heaving of Robbie's chest lessened. Allander sat the children up on the edge of the bed and returned to his chair opposite them.

"Why can't you take this off our eyes? Why can't you let us see?" Leah asked. Now that Robbie had calmed down, she was stronger, more defiant.

"I will let you see. That's precisely the purpose I serve. I came to your house in need of only the barest essentials." He started to say something else, then stopped as a new thought grabbed him. "Your parents would have stood in the way. Parents create, but can't see the barriers they erect. They pretend to serve and protect but, in reality, they do neither. They can't see, and it's better." Allander's voice trailed off. "If they could, they wouldn't be able to endure the vision."

"What'd you do to them?" Leah asked timidly, not really wanting an answer.

"I spared them the pain of visual catharsis."

"I don't know what that means," Leah said.

"That's all right," Allander said. "Neither do they."

He leaned over and picked a tray up off the floor, sliding it onto his lap.

"Now, I cut up some fruit for you, to replenish you in this"-his hand circled as if trying to pluck the right phrase from the air-"time of exhaustion."

At first, the children resisted being fed, but Allander waved the ripe fruit beneath their noses, and the smell became too enticing. Their small mouths opened and he patiently lowered the tidbits in, one at a time, occasionally feeling the brush of their soft pink tongues against the sides of his fingers.

This was his time, he thought. His perverted communion.

"Now revitalize again, little ones," he said, then giggled uproariously as he pushed them gently on their backs. "You must sleep. You have a learning experience before you."

Noise from the bustling workers outside carried into the building and echoed up and down the hallways. The administration building was adjacent to the cell blocks within the Maingate grounds. It attempted to be more inviting than the prison that surrounded it, but there was something unpleasant about it, an odor that couldn't be scrubbed away, even from the shiny floors. The smell of discomfort.

Jade hooked a quarter into the pay phone and punched in a number, followed by a seven-digit code. "McGuire."

"Goddamnit, Marlow, we told you to check in every-"

"Why don't we just drop that misconception right now. I'll check in for information when I need it. I don't have time to fuck around calling in like a sixteen-year-old girl on a first date."