Chapter 21: Barronville State Pen

“When you are impossibly outnumbered—run.”

Excerpts from the diaries of Panpar

∞

“There’s more in that bag than just clothes and a laptop,” Jim said as he laid the computer onto the Panera Bread tabletop. He opened it and pushed the button to begin the device’s warm up. “Let’s just hope my passwords are still useful.”

Jim already called in a favor, finding out where Decker Albright was housed (Ban Max as his inside man called it) that he was in cellblock D, and he was in cell #113. All of this information was useful, but it didn’t answer one very important question. How hard would it be to get him out of there?

“You sure it wouldn’t be easier just to create one of your portals and just yank him out?”

“It’d be much easier,” Whitney agreed. “But Jo-Karna told me every time we create a portal we weaken the veils and weakening the veils, letting what’s on the other side of them get through, is what we are fighting against. I’m afraid we don’t have much choice, but to get him out the hard way. The difficult part will be doing it without hurting anyone.”

“And you’re sure we need him. According to the person who told me where he was, he is not a model prisoner. Two months ago, he put an officer in the intensive care unit and said he did it because the officer looked at him the wrong way. She also said it took a dozen more officers to subdue him, and three more officers spent time in the hospital with serious injuries.”

“I think you are asking the wrong questions,” Whitney said. “It sounds to me like we are bringing the right person. Bolimar is not a kind place. It isn’t suitable for the weak hearted. What you should be asking is whether or not you want to come with us.”

Jim shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t think I really have much of a place in this world anymore. My partner’s dead, and I don’t think I have a job anymore. No family and no love life. Bolimar sounds like as good a place as any.”

Jim brought up a government web page, typed in his name and password and went into the site. He typed in the name of the prison and detailed photographs of the prison and its yard came up.

Jim studied it for quite some time without saying anything. He rubbed his chin, pointed at different areas of the yard, and then shook his head. After some time it looked like he made a decision.

“I would say this would be your best bet for entry,” he said pointing at a row in between two buildings. “You said you can shut down the power, but can you shut down the back-up power? I’m sure they’ll have generators.”

Tommy nodded. “I can black it out completely, and I can shut down all communications to and from. Cell phones, land lines, all of it.”

“But what about the doors within the prison? I’m sure that a lot of them are operated by power.”

“That shouldn’t be any different from picking a big lock. I should be able to do that too.”

“I think Margraves was right to want you two on his side. Too bad he screwed that up,” Jim commented. “Okay, so you will have to go down between these two buildings and ... crap,” he said.

“What?” Tommy asked.

“These towers here, here, and here. It’s possible that as soon as the power goes down they’ll use night vision. They may even have high powered rifles with night vision scopes.”

“Do they use power? Batteries?”

Jim nodded.

“Now that I know about them I can shut them down too. Any other possible surprises?”

“If I think of any I’ll be sure to bring them up. So, you go down between these two buildings and you’ll have to turn left here. You want this cellblock. Once you’re in,” he said as he changed the page to a layout of the specific building. He studied it for a second. “I think the best route would be here.” He pointed along a narrow corridor circumventing the wider corridor ending up in a long row of cells. “I’m sure that everyone will be on high alert, but I’m not sure how mobile they’ll be. If there’s no power, they may not be able to move between sections at all. It depends on whether or not they have equipped the doors to work without power. This might be good and it might be bad. You could walk into a building and everyone might be right inside of the doorway waiting.”

“I’ll know before we walk in whether or not there is a large group inside. I can see their shadows even if there are walls in the way.”

“Well. It looks like the only thing we need to do is get you the proper attire to conceal your faces.”

∞

Tommy and Whitney stood along the edge of the tree line parallel to the fence. It was already dark and Tommy was wearing an all-black outfit, including a facemask they purchased along the way, and Jim had bought large zip ties for cuffing anybody that they subdued. He had them in his back pocket. Whitney’s battle gear was already all black, and her bracelet was capable of hooding her face.

“You ready?” Whitney asked Tommy. He nodded, closed his eyes as he prepared to shut off all of the power to the facility.

That’s when the dogs started barking.

Jim hadn’t thought of it and they hadn’t either, but as the first sounds of barking filled the night air, it only made sense they would be a part of the defense system. The guards may not be able to hear them approach, or hear them whisper, but the dogs could.

“Shit,” Tommy whispered.

Language, she thought instinctively, “Can’t you shut them up?” Whitney asked.

Tommy shrugged. Show me where.

Whitney focused in on all of the shadows that were around. There were quite a few. Guarding an entire prison, it seemed, took a lot of labor. There were more than a hundred shadows spread around the outside of the prison and she counted ten dogs. By the shapes it seemed most of them were German Sheppard, but not all of them. Two of the shadow shapes seemed more like Doberman Pinschers. Whitney showed Tommy where these shadows were and a second later, the barking stopped.

What’d you?

Muzzles, he thought back, I didn’t know what else to do.

Tommy closed his eyes and began to search out, feeling for every electrical device within his range, finding many, phones, the night vision scopes that Jim had mentioned, cameras (which wouldn’t be an issue once the power was down) phone lines, computer systems, outlets and lights. He searched deeper into the compound for the systems. He was looking for the main power grid. He took a deep breath and shut it down. As soon as the power shut off the backup generators kicked in and sirens started to wail. He found the system backing it up and shut that one down too. A third system kicked in, run by batteries, and he had to trace and shut that one down. Once all three were down, he used his mental fingers to cut the supply lines, enabling him to withdraw his attention to it. The sirens wound down, but men began shouting orders off in the distance. “Lock it down. Lock it down!”

Tommy disabled all of the night vision goggles and the two of them stepped out from the tree line.

They headed over to the fence line, right at the point Jim had suggested, and Tommy used his mental fingers to cut through the fencing.

You might be a little on your own until we get inside, Whit. I have to keep focused on those dogs, otherwise they’ll lead them right to us.

Okay, she thought back. Just keep your eyes open so I can see where I’m going.

∞

Decker Albright stood up as soon as the lights went out. The sirens blared as if someone was escaping. The alarms heightened awareness, sending everyone into a frenzy, including the prisoners. It meant the guards would be posted at all of the strategic entry and exit points, and there would be extra patrols searching the grounds.

The backup power quickly came on, bringing the lights within the compound back to life, but that too was quickly rectified. The lights went dim again, came back up momentarily, and all went dark...

I’m not crazy after all.

Doubt invaded his mind for so many moments along his sentence that he began to wonder where he’d found hope in the first place. At first, he believed he did exactly the right thing. He made the best decision he could possibly make, but it was difficult to keep faith when you were looking at spending your entire life behind bars, taking the high road, protecting a girl from the very sentence you were serving.

The girl who broke my nose. The girl who I wanted to pay back a thousand times over--Whitney Leighton.

It wasn’t until after the incident (the incident was what he called it in order to avoid remembering his cousin’s eyes going dead) he learned the girl’s name. It turned out to be harder than he imagined finding out. He had to convince one of the other guys in his gang to do some digging, and her name hadn’t come back to him for almost two weeks.

Whitney Leighton was her name. Decker didn’t quite know how it was possible, but apparently, this girl was blind and deaf. It wasn’t her condition in and of itself, he found difficult to believe. Helen Keller was blind and deaf so it wasn’t completely unheard of. What made this girl unique was her ability to fight like nobody else he’d ever seen.

That and her eyes are silver. Just like the eyes of the girl in my dreams.

That was how the whole thing had begun in the first place.

Before he began dreaming of that girl (his dreams didn’t start happening until he was ten) his life had no real meaning. He was just another kid dealing with a verbally and physically abusive father (and a father who loved the bottle more than he loved anything else). He was just a kid failing school, having trouble with teachers, trouble with girls, and trouble with just about every other stupid thing he could think of.

At first, the dreams helped him. At first, the girl in his dreams began to come to him, teaching him how to fight. She wasn’t completely silent either. She talked to him, comforted him, told him his life would end up having great meaning and he would end up doing things that would change the world. She didn’t really say how, but she began to teaching him to swing a sword. His dreams so vivid they seemed real, and he practiced even more outside of his dreams. She taught him how to be fast, where to draw his strength in order to increase his speed beyond a normal person’s, and she taught him how to use a sword with disciplined precision. She taught him how to use other weapons as well.

Things began to go better with his life, at least at first. It wasn’t a magic cure. He still had to deal with his drunken father, but his father’s insults didn’t seem to hurt so much and when his father raised his hand to him, Decker was able to deal with that too. She taught him how a smaller person could easily cope with a larger attacker, and she taught him how to do it without seriously hurting said attacker. It was a skill that ended up coming in very handy, because once he had proven to his dad he couldn’t hurt him anymore, his father quit trying to. Drunk or not, his father learned not to raise his hand to his son anymore.

His life began to take a turn for the worse after the girl quit coming to him in his dreams. Once he learned everything that she had to teach him about fighting, she stopped. She accomplished what she set out to do. It took years, but at thirteen, he was a fighting machine.

It didn’t mean he quit dreaming. It just meant his dreams changed. He began to dream of humungous creatures showing up from some unknown place. They showed up by the thousands, armed with staffs shooting green fire, their eyes glowing a similar color, and they were hell bent on destruction. Within a short time, it seemed like every city in the country burned with green flames. These creatures were about ten feet tall, had muscles the size of tractor tires and would laugh at gunfire. It took weaponry much more massive to take one out, but their staffs were good at dealing with anything that could shoot larger artillery at them.

They weren’t coming alone. There were creatures much larger than the hammerheads. There were creatures as big as dinosaurs, which were even more difficult to kill. Most of these creatures were four legged ground-walkers, but not all of them. Some were Pterodactyl in appearance, with heads shaped like giant spears and their method of attack was to pierce large structures or even tanks with their projectile heads.

Without the girl’s guidance, (Jo-Vanna, she called herself Jo-Vanna) he was on his own to figure out why she taught him the things she did. He didn’t know exactly how learning to use a sword would help him against creatures of that magnitude, but it was all he had. He began to collect other troubled boys his age to help him when the time came, and he began to teach them how to fight.

And how to be ruthless. Only a ruthless person without fear could face something that frightening.

He formed his gang and named them the Onyx Ravens. He called them that because the girl in his dreams showed him where to find a black stone she said was very special. He made the stone into a necklace and he wore it around his neck. The stone itself wasn’t Onyx, but Onyx was another name for black, so ... Onyx Ravens.

Back then, his faith in his dreams had been absolute. He was so sure everything he saw in his dreams would become a reality. He formed his entire life perceptions around them. After five years behind bars for a crime he hadn’t committed, doubt was easier than faith.

Except for the one you had two months ago.

Decker walked up to the little window with wire mesh that cut into his solid metal door. He peered through it see pure darkness. He could hear other inmates as they beat on their doors, some sounding as if they were doing it out of panic; others as if they were riled up, knowing there just might be a chance someone would release them from their sentence.

It’s gotta be me, though, right?

That’s what his dream told him a couple months before. It was the one and only dream over the past five years and in that dream, Jo-Vanna instructed him to decommission the guard in question. She told him his shadow was the perfect shade of black. The guard was the one and only guard within the compound that could escape detection by her sister, Whitney (Jo-Laina. Her sister’s name is Jo-Laina).

At first, he was going to ignore the dream entirely. The fact that Jo-Vanna (the girl) abandoned him for so long infuriated him. What she did to him was far worse than anything his father ever did, because at least his father came to visit him in the joint. In many ways, Decker hated his father, but his father was the only visitor he had over the past five years. His father was a drunk, but he was a loyal drunk and his kid was still his kid. It didn’t hurt that his father also seemed to be making some big changes. He hadn’t had a drink in the past five years. He didn’t have to question that, because Decker could see it on his father’s face. He could see in his father’s eyes he was no longer drinking and had a healthier looking skin. His father was an asshole, but he was an asshole who still loved him.

In the end, he did what his dream told him to do for two reasons. One he did it because he had nothing else to lose. He was in the joint for life without parole anyway, and two, if Jo-Vanna was telling him to take out a guard because that guard could avoid detection by her sister, than it could only mean her sister was coming to get him out.

She’s finally repaying her debt.

He wasn’t sure what that meant. He didn’t know if that meant his other dreams were about to come true, and his skill with a sword was about to become needed, but he hoped so. He hoped he wasn’t crazy and if he needed his sword, he’d swing it, and swing it true.

∞

The language outside of the prison was akin to what you’d expect to hear inside of a bar filled with bikers in the worst part of town. The guards patrolling the compound couldn’t be any more frustrated. If they pulled out a flashlight, it didn’t work, their night vision gear seemed suddenly defunct and their dogs weren’t barking out warnings. The dogs still seemed agitated as if there were something to bark at, but no barks came.

Whitney and Tommy huddled down close to the building on their left, but remained motionless. They were stuck where they were, because there were guards passing back and forth between buildings. It wouldn’t be long before their patrols would begin passing up and down the sides. The situation still had the guards disoriented, because it was way outside of their protocols but it wouldn’t be long before they came up with a game plan to deal with it. The guards stationed in the towers (snipers according to Jim) were already beginning to figure out their uselessness and were coming down to ground level, further inhibiting the twins’ ability to move forward.

What are we going to do, Tommy? The idea is to not be seen. At least not until we get inside. Then we should only have to deal with one or two at a time.

I have an idea, Tommy answered.

He had been keeping the dogs muzzled by wrapping his invisible fingers around their snouts, but it was time to change tactics. He reached out to the outer edges of the compound and began rattling the fence line at a point far away from them. He let go of the dog’s snouts at the same time, and the dogs went nuts. They all seemed to bolt off in the same direction at the same time, focusing the attention of the guards to where the dogs ran. One minute they had seven guards circling close to where they were, the next they had none. They were free to move forward.

Why didn’t you do that in the first place?

What? It’s not like we’ve been planning this for months, Tommy replied.

Whitney began to move slowly forward, Tommy following closely behind, as they made their way to the door of Cell Block D.

Once they arrived at the front corner of the building, they only had to deal with two guards who remained behind. Both were on the alert, but both were nearly blind in the utter darkness, and neither of them was near the door they were heading. As long as they were quiet, they could at least make it there.

One of the guards was a building over on their right, and the other guard was two buildings over on their left. Each of them was facing toward the outside of the compound as Tommy and Whitney began to sneak their way across the open alleyway that split the compound.

What are we going to do when we get to the door? They’ll hear that open for sure?

Just because they’re not dogs doesn’t mean that they can’t hear a fence rattle.

Yeah, but if you do that won’t you bring the dogs back this way?

Tommy thought about it for a second. Yeah. Good point.

They finished making their way up to the door, but Tommy didn’t unlock it. It was a large, heavy double-door. He could unlock it, opening it with just a little noise, but not completely silent.

Just do it, Whitney thought to him. We’ll figure out what to do if things go crazy.

Tommy rattled the fence in two different areas at the same time. There was one on the other side of the guard on their right, one over by the other. Each of the guards immediately called out, “STOP. WHOEVER YOU ARE! WE’RE ARMED AND PREPARED TO SHOOT!”

The dogs immediately began to howl out their warnings and the guards all began to move in the direction of the noises. Tommy unlocked the door, opened it, and they both moved inside.

It was quiet. Whitney could sense more than a hundred shadows inside of the building, but most of them were inmates. The only difference between those shadows and the shadows of the guards were the guards had more freedom of movement. It seemed like there were only a dozen or so shadows moving up and down the corridors of the cellblock but that was a manageable number. None of them was close, however. She and Tommy began to make their way toward the corridor Jim suggested.

The closer they got to the row of cells the less they had to worry about being quiet. The inmates were restless. It was difficult to tell how many of them were banging on their doors (Whitney guessed it was all of them) but the noise became more and more deafening as they came closer.

“Quiet down in there!” a voice called out in the darkness. One of the guards stationed at the door they needed.

What do we do now? Tommy asked.

No choice. Just open the door and invite him in.