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2033

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THE EMACIATED REEVES was both sweating and shivering on a bunk of the prison infirmary. He had red spots all over his face and body. Both of his hands were bound in leather straps to the side of the bed, while he grimaced uncomfortably from the itches and aches. A handwritten marker-pen sign hung outside the bed screens curtain...

'Quarantine — Chickenpox.'

Nearby, was a nurses' station with two nurses on the night shift in the infirmary — and their only stay-in patient for that night was the seventeen-year-old Reeves Jensen. A Black nurse, Giselle in her late twenties was entering data into a computer while an older White nurse Cindy was knitting...

"This is interesting that the death rate in Tombscradle dropped significantly for the first time last month because none of these freaks had either died in fights or suicides."

The older nurse retorted. "Hey, what are you doing? You are supposed to be entering data — not snoop on the Warden's C-files record and inmate's database." Giselle laughed at her own gaffe.

The records entry were part of the updates which Dr Sharmini Bose had to submit to Warden Graves — who reviewed and forwarded it to the Governor of Texas, Gertrude Harris, who would then have a concluding look and say — before submitting the final report to Washington, on the semen collection in Tombscradle...

The Governor had won awards for three consequent years for the project in Tombscradle — and she had high expectations to maintain its efficiency — and in return, she had put a lot of pressure on the warden with her never-ending demands.

"I find this more interesting than reading a mystery novel on our night shift. You see, all these inmates to me are really like some interesting storybook characters — well, some of them have real, shitty, dark pasts."

"Don't let Bose catch you doing that."

The wily Black nurse laughed again. "It ain't nothing, Dr Bose will not know," she went back snooping into other restricted information...

"Hey Cindy, that Preacher-guy, I was checking his background the other day..."

Cindy interposed straight off by saying without taking her eyes off her knit-work...

"Oh! He is one big 'hog' — he even broke the midget's nose. Is he still in solitary, after the whipping he got?"

"Yeah he is there, but listen here — did you know that the Preacher was 7 years old when the cops found him being locked for several days, starving in a basement of a coal cellar in his house? They broke into his house after neighbours complained about a foul stench — and they found that his mother had committed suicide by burning herself alive. They then rescued the malnutrition kid, from that basement and they put him in a Convent-orphanage," said Giselle, enlightening the older nurse with Tombscradle's internal hearsay.

Nurse Cindy was the judgmental apathy sort...

"Hmm, he is one creepy psychotic looking feller — with all those scars on his face — I think it is self-inflicted."

Nurse Giselle nodded and was prying into other data record updates — and one caught her eye, and she called out...

"Oh, my dear Jesus! The poor thing — this kid's mother just died yesterday..."

Nurse Cindy was stumped in bewilderment — but, she humoured at the same time...

"What, you just said his mother died when he was 7? Did the Preacher's mom resurrect after 3 days and died again? Which is which?"

The Black nurse responded in with a burst of fake humourless laughter — before she disclosed...

"No, I'm sorry — I was referring to that chickenpox kid in quarantine over there — Eve...

"His mother, Laura Jensen died last night."

*

Reeves overheard the conversation from behind the bed screen; even though he was gaunt in a delirious fevered state of mind — he forced his eyes to open — stared indistinct at the ceiling above for a while. The news of Laura's death was an overwhelming emotion to process at that bleary moment; instead, memories of the Wesleyan University in Delaware — seeped into his mind — where he remembered requesting the director of IIRC in her office about the information on his family history — and, he recalled Tina Martin's initial response...

"I am afraid that is so, Reeves — I am sorry that there is no one out there for you."

Another distinct voice came in — it was Joe's divergent argument that he once had with him at their 'secret place' of their school...

"You are one of us — just an orphan boy — our parents are dead and gone, and you too — you will die alone once you decide to jump over that fucking wall, you moron!"

Tina Martin's voice returned again — but differing...

"Life is actually over that wall — if you don't scale it now, you never will. Go find for Laura Jensen — she is your mother."

Now, after five years in prison — it was too late — Laura Jensen was now dead...

Tears finally flowed from the corner of his eyes — and his heart was burdened heavily with the sense of guilt from his inaction and cowardice to leave Wesleyan alone — when the opportunities were there for him then...

Reeves felt like a conditioned acrophobic monkey that had climbed to the highest branch of the tree but once reaching there — was afraid of heights — he could have left — and he could have searched — and would have found this woman in the outside world before she had passed away on her deathbed — instead of rotting here in prison, he could have known his mother — for that same five years...

Now, Laura Jensen will remain as a faceless name in his memory.

Too weak to cry out aloud, Reeves continued to shiver more in his feverish state.

*

After a long tacit pause, the Black nurse's voice was distinct again after her fingers clacked the keyboard, she exclaimed again...

"This is really odd — oh-my-sweet-Lord — this is getting more weirder, Cindy listen to this — it says here that coma patient Laura Jensen died on April on the 16th in Riverside Methodist Hospital, Columbus, Ohio at 2.13 pm — but, at 3.47 pm on that same day — there was a request from that same hospital to transport another coma patient to St. Elizabeth Hospital in Washington D.C.

"...and guess what, Cindy — the patient's name is Mimi Jensen."

The knitting older nurse looked up and shrugged — and Giselle defied to her colleague's anticipated dispute...

"Don't say this is a coincidence, Cindy, both patients share the same last name — Laura Jensen and Mimi Jensen t— both are White females in a coma, and the biggest shit to swallow is that they are both are of the same age of 29 years old. Looks like a conspiracy as far as mystery novels go..."

"Come on you silly, Jensen is a common last name. My guess is that during the last days of the Medusa, some White trash redneck male would have bashed his own kissing cousins on their heads to get them into a coma — before he committed incest and got busy impregnating them — now, how is that for my male-pig conspiracy happened back then?" Cindy guffawed hard to her own imaginative theory.

Behind the see-through hanging screen in the quarantine area, Reeves eavesdropped to Nurse Giselle's last bit of information. He was deliriously — but was chanting softly to himself with his eyes shut — inculcating it to memory...

"Mi-mi-Jen-sen-Liz-Beth-hosp-tell, Wash-in-ton."

"Mi-mi-Jen-sen-Liz-Beth-hosp-tell, Wash-in-ton..."

A ray of hope aspired from within him — before he reeled into the deep helix web of unconscious kip...

"I — will find you — Laura..."

*

A yellow light blinked over the Infirmary entrance door with warning beeps that startled both the nurses inside. "What the fuck...?" was the response of Nurse Cindy while Giselle scrambled upright — she switched the PC to the monitor-mode with the CCTV video-feed outside the Infirmary. It showed the image of a doctor and a few prison guards pushing a gurney in a hurry.

"What is Dr Bose doing here? She went home hours ago, right?"

The older nurse kept away her knitting kit. "This must be some real emergency — come on Giselle, let's go."

The two nurses opened the door just in time for the arrival of the gurney with an East Indian doctor in her thirties entering the infirmary — her doctor's white-coat was drenched with blood...

"Dr Bose, what happened?"

Dr Sharmini Bose did not elucidate...

"Prepare the operation-theatre, Cindy!"

On the gurney was an unconscious Doran in a straitjacket — he was bleeding from his waist below...

*

Capt. Olsen ran towards the Infirmary and was intercepted by one of her junior guards at the hallway...

"Captain Olsen, it is the Preacher..."

"He was in the hole — what the hell happened?"

The perplexed female guard expounded...

"He castrated himself, Sir!"

*

On the operation table, Dr Bose checked the unconscious Doran's vitals. "He has lost lots of blood — he will go into hypothermia if he does not get an immediate transfusion — what the hell is his blood type?"

Nurse Giselle reacted with a fast response. "It is B positive, doctor." The stymie doctor looked up...

"How do you know that?"

"I saw it in his chart records the last time..."

Nurse Giselle snooping around looking for gossips paid off.

"Double confirm the exact match — he has lost a lot of blood in solitary, and our Infirmary's blood bank won't be enough — Giselle, look into the records for inmates for similar his blood type — and the guards will round them up — hey, be fast!"

Giselle rushed to the PC upon receiving the instructions — while Dr Bose attempted to stop the bleeding with Nurse Cindy.

.

*

Warden Graves drove furiously on a dark desert road. She peeped at the floodlights of Tombscradle Penitentiary a mile ahead, while still speaking on her hands-free device...

"Where the hell did that son of a bitch get a piece of glass from? Did you all search him before he was thrown into solitary?"

She accused the headless Captain of Guards who was stupefied and panicky without a clue at that moment. It was always some gossamer excuses she heard from the obsequious head-guard — whom she felt she had promoted to the ranks too soon — but, Olsen's despot nature was very much needed in the line of duty in this Level-5 maximum security facility, to impose the fear in the inmates — but, certainly not for her thinking aptitude nor decision making skills.

"Damn it, Olsen, what's his condition now?"

The conjecturing Capt. Olsen made an assumption. "Dr Bose is stopping the bleeding — but he looks very weak, and I don't think he will make it."

"That bastard will have to make it — or else, all hell will break loose tonight."

The Warden's car arrived fast at the prison — and the metal main-doors unlocked and the car soared in after hitting the hump. A strident sound was coming from above — a chopper descending and landed in the prison exercise yard, blowing up sand and dust.

The Governor has sent backup...

Erica Graves informed Olsen on the phone. "Notify Dr Bose that the medical team from Huston is here."

*

Warden Gates paced impending ahead with some prison guards — and the Huston's medical personnel wheeled carts of medical surgery equipment, following them on the corridor. Capt. Olsen intercepted her employer while the rest proceeded into the Infirmary.

Before the Warden started to badger, Olsen spoke out first...

"I am very sorry Warden — nobody anticipated him to go to that extreme."

"Use your head, Olsen! He wants a fucking Christ-like complex with this self-righteous suicide attempt of his. He wants to herald his martyrdom death as a proclamation to his blind-bat followers — so that, they will fucking go on and ignite an uprising in Tombscradle!"

Graves impugned, envisaged her reply based on Doran's growing esteem and his reputation of delivering aspiration of hope to the segregated forlorn prisoners who were in despair...

She had thrown Doran into solitary regularly in the past — after his numerous anti-establishment sermons that he had given in the yard to the inmates — those sermons about uniting them and standing against the prison system. The last time, it was Corporal punishment when the rebel-monk had vehemently head-butted Corporal Vinnie's nose at the Projector room — punishing him by public flogging for all to witness and fear...

No matter what punishment she imposed — the Washington's pet-prisoner was always a constant threat to her prison instrumentation.

"Warden, you think the rest of the prisoners will cause a riot?"

"Yes you fool, they would! If the Preacher dies tonight that will spur rumours and erupt anger that we killed him when he was in solitary!

"That son of a bitch has already got more than half of the gen-pop on his side — with the promise that he will crush our prison system — and lead them out of these walls to freedom...

"Yes Olsen, they have got something brewing right below our noses now — and we have to be on top of the game to counter it!"

"What do we do Warden? I can increase security and..."

Erica Graves interjected Olsen instantly — and negated by delegating her own commands...

"Wait, for now, you go and conduct an immediate shakedown on all the White-inmate cells — starting with those fucking monks — check for any sharp and dangerous objects because those Jesus-freaks will next follow pursuit, by slicing their nuts off to sabotage our semen collection operation!"

The warden needed to protect Governor Gertrude Harris' top priority and it was her only interest — and, a possible riot — would imperil the semen collection project and everything more in Tombscradle.

Olsen nodded and paced away while Warden Graves headed to the Infirmary to have a grip of control of the situation over there.