Page 16 of Redstone
“Mr. Gyllenny,” the sallow-faced man sitting behind his desk said coldly. “There’s no evidence that this was anything other than a mistake.”
“A mistake?” Gyllenny rounded on the warden, and Tamara took a deep breath, slowing down her racing heart as she tried to figure out what was going on. “No, the mistake was leaving him alone in your custody for any length of time. Jerking him out of your Regen tank before his treatment was even finished and throwing him, completely unprepared, in with those wolves? That was deliberate, and I don’t trusther”—he thrust a finger back at Tamara— “or the son of a bitch she’s working for any more than I trust your damn doctor to keep order in his own med unit!”
“Doctor Kleinman assures me that the guard’s actions were carried out without his knowledge or permission.”
“So, guards have constant access to the med unit, without having to sign in or provide verification of their identity? You can’t even give me the name of the person whoillegallyand against all standing orders attempted to murder—”
“Don’t be dramatic, Mr. Gyllenny, there was no attempted murder here.”
“No?” he asked scathingly. “What would you call what happens in that holo?”
Tamara cleared her throat. “Excuse me.” Both men looked at her impatiently. “I’m sorry, but I’m completely lost. What’s going on with Mr. Alexander?”
“As if you don’t know,” Gyllenny snapped, but the warden—Harrison, Tamara remembered—inclined his head slightly.
“You should see it.” He tapped a finger on his desk, and a holovid appeared above it. Tamara drew closer for a better look, and it started to play.
There was the med unit, a Regen tank … Tamara could make out Kyle’s face under the glass. Then the guard, in full uniform and helmet, came in and stopped the cycle. There was no alarm—no one came in to check on Kyle, and he was jerked out of the tank and hauled down the corridor almost faster than he could walk. The holo ended with a door opening into a narrow hallway and the guard shoving Kyle through and shutting it behind him.
Tamara knew her eyes had gone wide, but she couldn’t stop it. This was bad. This wasn’t the plan. “What happened next?” she demanded. “Is he all right?”
“What, now you’re pretending to care?” Gyllenny’s laugh was hollow. “Don’t bother.”
Tamara rounded on him before she could stop herself. “You can think what you want, but the fact is that I had nothing to do with this, and I don’t want to see Kyle Alexander injured any more than you do!” She made an effort to modulate her tone. “He’s going to go to trial, and he’s going to take responsibility for his actions and acquit my employer in the process. It’s the only way President Alexander can remove the stain on his reputation, so why would I want to impede that?”
“Credits go a long way toward covering up stains and repairing reputations, and Raymond Alexander has the means to pay people in money or influence or blood,” Gyllenny replied, his intensity so fierce that Tamara felt heat rise in her cheeks like a radiation burn.
“Regardless,” Harrison broke in, his dry voice flat and even. “There is every reason to assume that Kyle Alexander is alive.”
“Show me,” Tamara said, and a new holo sprang to life. This one was confusing at first, not a shot of the little corridor but of the central room in the prison, where over a hundred inmateswaited hungrily by the doors, anticipating the new arrivals. Only then there was a sudden surge to the right, the crowd refocusing on a narrow door. Tamara used her mods for a quick facial recognition, searching, searching—there. The familiar face she’d been waiting to see, gone a second later through the little doorway.
It took a few minutes, but he eventually emerged again, with a nude body slung over his shoulders, and strode off toward the other side of the main room and out of it without being harassed any further.
The holo stopped. Tamara frowned. “No, keep it going.”
“The cameras only work in the shielded parts of the prison. That side hall isn’t one of them. It leads to the core, which is an unfriendly place for technology.”
“Unbelievable,” Gyllenny muttered to himself. “What about the man who took him? Who the hell is he?”
“Prisoner 2751. A separatist and terrorist from the planet Paradise, responsible for the deaths of more than twenty Alliance soldiers in an explosives attack. He keeps to himself in Redstone, not a member of one of the established gangs. He sleeps close to the core, from what I understand.”
Gyllenny scoffed. “You don’t understand very much about what goes on in the prison that you’re charged with maintaining control of, do you?”
Warden Harrison killed the holo and leaned back slightly in his chair. “Redstone handles the worst criminals in the whole of Alliance space, Mr. Gyllenny. If I was given carte blanche in maintaining control, I would have them drugged to the eyeballs or placed in cryosleep to serve their debts to society, but alas, that’s considered cruel and unusual. So instead, we make do with the limitations of a system that allows them a certain amount of autonomy. Certainly, theirs is a mini society of frightening consequence, but it has little to no consequence inthe larger universe. By ignoring them, I render them irrelevant, Mr. Gyllenny.”
“What about their safety? What about their right to—”
“They have a right to life and nothing further. If you were so convinced of your client’s innocence, then you should have fought harder to get him placed in a medium-security holding facility. Redstone is no resting place for the innocent.” Dark eyes calmly glanced between the two of them. “I’ll deploy bots to do a sweep of the whole of the prison tomorrow. You’ll have more answers then. Dismissed.”
“We’re not your employees; you can’t just dismiss us.”
“I am the warden of this prison,” Harrison said coldly. “Andyouare a guest here. If I determine you to be disruptive to the running of Redstone, I can and will have you sent off-site, regardless of your connections. You may work for great powers, butIam the only power of note here.” He waved them out. “As I said, dismissed.”
As soon as they were in the hall, Gyllenny rounded on Tamara again. “I’m sure you’re pleased.”
“I meant what I said,” she insisted, not bending an inch now that she knew where things stood. Kyle was safe with Isidore, no matter how horrendously he’d gotten there. “I want Kyle Alexander to stand trial. I had no idea this was going to happen, and I’m not any happier about it than you are.”
Gyllenny snorted. “Sure. Like his little brother dying in prison wouldn’t be a huge coup for the president.”
