Metropolis - Lower 56th Prison

Tuesday, May 5th, 2089 | 11:19am

She’d been there for three days, but still couldn’t get used to the smell of stale sweat and urine that permeated everything. With money, she could have paid for a nicer, cleaner, company-built cell. Most of them were nicer than even her own home, but she didn’t have any money for that kind of luxury. She’d ended up in one of the public cells, not funded by any of the companies, barely even funded by the state.

The other people in her cell seemed fine with the smell and the idea of wearing the same clothes day in and day out. The drunk guy they had brought in the night before could be considered an exception. All he was wearing were boxers and a left sock, so you could make an argument that he hated wearing dirty clothes – or any clothes, for that matter – even more than she did.

Chris sighed. He, at least, like most of the prisoners they rotated through her cell, knew he would be getting out in a few hours. The other two people who had been there ‘long-term’ like her didn’t seem to mind their situation much. One was a woman in a suit with a perpetually bored expression and impeccable hair. Chris considered this an incredible feat, seeing as she had been there since Chris arrived. Her own hair, she knew, was hanging around her face in limp, greasy strands.

The other was a nondescript man with a nondescript face who had done and said nothing of note since she arrived. All Chris did was watch people every day, and since there were only ever up to five of them, she would have noticed. Focusing on her external surroundings was the only way she could make it through the hours without going crazy worrying over her sister. Every time anxious thoughts started to overwhelm her, crushing her mind, she shifted her focus to analyze her surroundings. Chris had not always been an analyst, an observer. She used to be rash, acting first, thinking and asking for permission later. Life had taught her to be different.

At first, it had been the only way she didn’t drown in self-pity. She had just needed to look around, look at the world, to know that there were people out there with situations much worse than her own. After the accident, it was the only thing that had helped. Every time after that, it became easier, until eventually Chris almost started to see the world as a list of facts. Maybe she was being too cold and emotionless like Rin had claimed, but it was the only way she could keep going.

Now, more than ever, she needed it. She knew she was innocent, but no one else seemed to. From the moment of her arrest, everyone had assumed her guilt without listening to her side. Chris had heard stories about people who ‘fell through the cracks’ of the system, but she had never expected to be one of them. At first, she had tried being outspoken, but , if anything, that had made things worse. After three whole days in jail, she hadn’t managed to contact her sister once. All she had managed to do was meet the most incompetent person on the face of the planet: Barry Andrews, her lawyer.

In their one-hour meeting, he had managed to show up ten minutes late, talk about the wrong case for thirty minutes, waste ten locating the right one and then ten trying to convince her to plead guilty without even listening to her side of the story. In the end, Chris didn’t even know what had led to her being accused of murder.

She hadn’t seen Eddie McKlose for years, yet somehow everyone thought she was responsible for his murder. It didn’t make any sense to her. Even if someone knew about her stash, Eddie had nothing to do with it. Threatening her with Eddie’s death was also a stupid idea when she had absolutely no feelings for the guy, not anymore. Everyone knew that the only person Chris cared about was Rin.

Tears started sliding down her face as her heart rate rose. She had spent every one of her phone calls on Rin, tried any other way she could think of to contact her sister, but it had all been useless. Three days of uncertainty were starting to get to her, though she cared more about Rin’s safety than she did about the possibility of jail. Chris slammed her knuckles into the concrete floor, slightly comforted by the dull wave of pain she felt run through her arm.

Shoving thoughts of Rin aside, Chris forced herself to look at the facts. She was allowed one call a day and she’d used all three of them on Rin over the last three days. It was not too far-fetched an idea that they had just missed each other. Barry Andrews was a useless man; it would not surprise her if he had completely forgotten her request to look into Rin’s safety and whereabouts. Chris spent a while longer calming herself, finally just telling herself it was stupid to worry about anything in a jail cell. There was nothing she could do from behind bars, locked away from the outside world.

If everything really was a mistake, she would be able to clear it up. There would be evidence showing it wasn’t her. The only way she could really end up falling through the cracks was if this had been done to screw her over. In the off chance that this had anything to do with her storage locker, she would hear about it. For now, there was nothing she could do but breathe and wait.

***

Several hours later, Chris was still absentmindedly keeping an eye on her surroundings. She sat on the floor with her back against the metal bars, not trusting the mattresses on the beds. Her spot had the added benefit of the best ventilation in the cramped cell. With four other prisoners and their body odor, she was quite thankful for any molecule of fresh air she could get. Looking at the faces around her, she couldn’t help but envy them a little. They knew, if not their fate, at least the road that had led them there and the one that would lead them away.

The drunk man had finally been given a set of CC clothes and he’d been on his way with nothing to show for it other than a pair of bloodshot eyes. Chris had taken the opportunity to look around her cell and notice her cellmates’ clothes. Unless you were very rich, your clothes were branded, belonging to some kind of clothing package that helped whichever company was branding you, to advertise. Humans had become walking billboards, Chris’ own clothes were all part of last year’s MarcoSoft’s brand package. Every piece of clothing she owned had a little MS logo on it and would until she ended her clothing contract with them. Seeing as clothes would be totally unaffordable to her without a contract, that wasn’t going to happen.

In exchange for affordable clothes, all she had to do was be a walking billboard until her contract expired. It wasn’t a bad deal, which was why virtually everyone had a clothing contract. Scanning the cell to confirm her suspicions, she saw big company logos everywhere except for the nondescript man. She’d finally found something of note about him. Chris smirked and was wondering how rich the man was to afford a brandless lifestyle when a part of her mind registered the footsteps coming down the corridor. Concentrating, she closed her eyes.

Happy with the opportunity to distract herself from her morose thoughts, she dulled the rest of her senses to concentrate on her hearing. The sharp tap of each footstep indicated that he was wearing new shoes, the soles unworn. The slight muffled scrape that followed meant it was leather, or maybe pleather. The shoes were too big to be a woman's, and they were definitely not heels. A man then, but not one of the guards. By now, she knew all of their footsteps. None of them had shoes like that, but more importantly, none of them had that stride.

Chris could already tell that this was a confident man, not easily influenced by those around him. Most people in a jail ended up with hurried, shuffling steps. There was nothing like that about this stranger’s gait. Each step was slow and measured, echoing longer, louder and clearer than any she had heard before. Chris was so caught up in her mental vision of the man that she almost didn’t notice when he came to a stop right behind her.

A couple of seconds passed silently before she heard one of the most beautiful baritone voices she had ever heard, silky and rich. “You must be Ms.Christina Bolen.”

Chris’s eyes snapped open, but she didn’t let her surprise manifest in any other way. The man was still behind her and so he couldn’t see her expression. She wanted to keep it that way until she composed herself.

“Depends on who’s asking.”

“It wasn’t a question.”

“You’re kind of rude for a fancy-schmancy lawyer.”

She turned her head to get a good look at him. With his tailored suit, styled black hair, tan skin and piercing blue eyes, he was beautiful. He reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t remember who.

“How did you know I was a ‘fancy-schmancy’ lawyer?” he asked, bringing Chris’s awareness back to the man looming above her.

“You’re in jail,” she said, her tone of someone pointing out the obvious.

He smiled indulgently. “And?”

“Aaand, the only people who wear nice clothes, silk ties, polished leather shoes and a little too much expensive cologne in jail... are lawyers.”

He cracked a grin.

“I am Castiel Suerte,” he said with polished politeness, “And you are right. I am a lawyer, here on behalf of FieldGreen Incorporated, offering my services on your case.” He waved a case folder in front of him.

Chris pulled her legs slowly to her body, giving herself time to think before she got up and faced him. The height difference was glaring; it always was. The man was over a foot taller than her, but she was used to it and didn’t let it faze her. She smiled a little when he took a step back so he didn’t have to look down at her at such a neck-crimping angle.

“Guess they forgot to put my height into those files,” she muttered under her breath.

She hadn’t meant for him to hear her, so she wasn’t expecting the gleam of white teeth he flashed her way. It was a masculine smile of epic proportions; any other woman would have swooned at the sight, but Chris found herself oddly detached and unaffected by it.

“Why?” she asked, trying to get the conversation back on track. “Your firm will gain nothing from me.”

He opened his mouth to answer, but she interrupted with more.

“I have no money,” she said. “But I am guessing that if you know how to make enough money to afford suits like that,” she gestured at his suit, “you already knew that.”

He eyed her speculatively before answering affirmatively.

“Yes. I am aware.”

“So then. Why?”

“My firm tries to take on as many pro bono cases as the workload allows.”

“That isn’t really an answer. There are hundreds, thousands of cases every day. So, why me?”

There was a pause while he assessed her.

“You are innocent.”

Chris felt her heart skip a beat.

Someone believed her.

Someone actually believed she was innocent, that she hadn’t killed Eddie.

“If you sign this document, I will become your lawyer.”

He handed her a piece of paper, which she accepted in a daze. After three days of continuous accusations and being treated like a murderer, she didn’t know how to react when someone believed her. He handed her a pen. She took it and with shaky hand and brought it to the page. Chris was about to sign it when instinct kicked in. There was no way she was going to sign something without reading it first, but before she that, she considered her not-yet-lawyer.

He was hiding something from her. She looked at the document, printed with a nice letterhead on fine paper. Chris eyed him with obvious suspicion, conveying with her eyes that she knew he hadn’t told her everything. A successful man, as he obviously was, wouldn’t want to have anything to do with someone like her. He wanted something from her, but Chris didn’t know what it could be; she had nothing to give. An image of her storage shed popped into her head, but she immediately pushed it away. It couldn’t be about the paintings, she was just being paranoid. She had to be.

Chris tried waiting him out for an answer, seeing if he would give himself away without further prodding, but instead he just said, “I know Barry Andrews.”

Chris cringed, knowing he had her there. Being represented by a hippopotamus would probably be the better choice.

Flattening her features she said, “Yes, I do too.”

“So then you know…”

He was appealing to her common sense, but if anything, that just made her more wary of working for him.

With him.

Working with him.

Knitting her eyebrows together, she wondered where the thought had come from.

Something told her to sign the document. Something else, namely her common sense, told her not to listen to that first something. She read the document she still held in her hands, buying herself time to think. It had nothing completely binding on it, merely stating that she was switching Barry out for this unknown entity, Castiel Suerte.

“Yes,” Chris finally said, having come to a decision. “He’s the devil I know.”

Chris looked at him. His eyes gave nothing away. Not a trace of emotion could be seen. It was like looking at a wall. A wall painted with a beautiful blue, but a wall nonetheless.

Ignoring all the somethings in her head, she signed it. If worse came to worst, she would just end up with Barry representing her again. Chris cringed at the thought.

A guard opened the cell door and Chris followed her new lawyer down the hall. She listened to the echoes of her footsteps mixed with theirs. Against the concrete floor, they sounded foreboding, almost like she was walking toward her execution.

With a guard leading the procession ahead of Suerte and another behind herself, Chris couldn’t help but wonder if she’d made the right decision. Halfway down the hall, they had to pass through a locked checkpoint. They waited a moment for the heavy metal door to clank its way open. Chris had gone down the hall before so she thought nothing of it until the final loud clanging sound echoed down the empty hall.

A guillotine slicing an end to life, the life she’d had before Saturday night.

Chris took a deep breath as the guard started moving forwards again. She didn’t want to leave that life behind, but she didn’t see what other choice she had.

Without good options, Chris followed. A feeling of dread slowly settled deep in her stomach. A slight tremor traveled down her body as she thought about her new attorney. She couldn’t help feeling like she had given her soul over to the devil.