Novel Excerpt: Faraway
You can read the first chapter of Hannibal Tabu's second novel, Faraway, broken into parts for mobile consumption.
What's the story about? The biggest problem with building the world's smartest prison is an inmate whose life's mission has been to get inside.
Two floors down and half a level away, Richards stood waiting outside Simpson's door, about to knock for the third time when the smooth plexisteel surface gave way to a half naked man, wrapped in a sheet.
"Riot?" Simpson asked excitedly. "Breakout attempt? Hostage situation?"
"Nossir," Richards replied nervously. "The Old Man got an urgent eyes-only call from HQ and suddenly wants to talk to everybody on staff. You first."
Simpson gazed incredulously at Richards, trying to size him up if this was a joke, but could see only tense preparedness in the younger guard, standing with his cap in his hand, his blond hair falling everywhere in its bowl cut. "Give me ninety seconds and I'll walk back up with you. Stand here." Simpson slammed the door in Richards' face and was back out in seventy, walking ahead of Richards towards the stairs.
Simpson walked in to Spaulding's office alone to find the warden buttoning his shirt. "Ah, good," he said, still buttoning, "close the door and sit down, Simpson."
Simpson looked warily at the warden but did as he was told. He took off his hat and sat it on his left knee, back straight, ready for whatever had shaken Spaulding from his normal state of mild indifference to reveal this man, green eyes sparkling with newfound direction.
"Simpson," Spaulding said as he pulled on the jacket to his dress uniform, "you know I don't like you, right?"
Simpson opened his mouth, a stock "yessir" ready to fly out, but it was stunned shut by the sudden and antagonistic personal revelation. "Um, excuse me, sir?" was the best he could manage, his voice shaky as a boy at the door of his prom date.
"I said I don't like you," Spaulding said, sliding the worn Bible on his desk neatly into a drawer, away from sight. "You know that, right? Never have. You're anal retentive, obsessive-compulsive, overbearing, slightly psychopathic, and constantly seeking external validation to make up for the fact your wacko parents named you after a goddamned cartoon character. I have an advanced degree in psychology, so I feel qualified to say these things. On top of all that, you're a jerk. Thus, I don't like you and I never have. The staff of Faraway were all picked due to a certain misanthropy or problem with people in general, lurking somewhere in their psychological makeup. I know because I suggested that as a criteria for selection when this prison was being built, to maintain its security. As much prisoners ourselves, locked away from polite society, than those poor ankle braceleted bastards we babysit. Not going too fast for you, am I, Simpson?"
Simpson gaped dumbly at his superior, and finally shook his head nervously. His cap tumbled quietly to the floor, but he was too transfixed to notice.
"I'm telling you all this because, on top of all that, you are the most trustworthy, skillful and reliable person on the staff," Spaulding continued, fastening cufflinks to his jacket, "a veritable model soldier, best qualified to help me with what I have to do. I know that because I gave the final approval of your assignment here. I did it with every single person who wasn't convicted of a major felony who inhabits these obsidian walls. I have since before the prison was opened, because I was the one who conceived of and designed this prison, way back when you were a wee lad, back in the quaint year of 2010."
Simpson still gaped, saying nothing.
"Yes, I designed the world's finest prison from a psychological standpoint," Spaulding said, reaching for his cap atop a hatrack. "and let myself be talked into being its warden, its babysitter, its principal. Now I have been talked into much more, as you shall see in a matter of moments. I'm not going to bother telling you why you're in my office instead of doing whatever you normally do at ..." Spaulding glanced at his plain black and white analog wristwatch, "hm, almost five in the morning. I'm simply going to replay the message sent to me by Secretary of Corrections Stuart Grayson, my college roommate and the man who talked me into becoming the overseer of this godforsaken lump of sh*t. Come, sit here and press play."
As Spaulding walked around to the front of his desk, Simpson mirrored in slow motion and sat in the big chair. He pressed the tiny black arrow at the bottom left of the screen, and watched the entire message wordlessly and without a change in his terse expression. The screen went black, which Spaulding observed by watching the reflection fade from Simpson's almost-black brown eyes.
"Sir ..." Simpson started. Unable to come up with anything else, he gazed down at his knees.
"The responsibility placed upon our shoulders is greater than that held by any men in American history," Spaulding said quietly. "You and I are to hold sacred and safe the promise of the land of the free, home of the brave. The irony that this is our duty, considering we are assigned to serve as takers of freedom and men who quell bravery, is not lost upon me. Nevertheless, here we are. I need you, right now, to tell me you can do this. I will soon begin to institute policy that will be draconian, will cause great deals of discontent amongst the populace and the staff, and will no doubt cause hundreds of lives to be prematurely taken. I will need you to serve without question, without hesitation and without reservation, understanding that my goal is to hold this place as a bastion of Americanism until such a point when we can be relieved from our guard, figuratively and literally. This will require you to have faith in me, to not just believe but to know that I know better than you do, to know that my way is the right way. It means calming down your own tendencies to overanalyze, quieting your incessant suggestions and reports. It means, more than likely, killing men, women and children, guilty or not, by your own hand."
"Children?" Simpson asked suddenly, shaken from his shock. "The only children here are families of staff members, with the women's populace kept so deep underground and away from the men ..."
Spaulding merely gazed levelly at Simpson in response.
A glimmer of understanding caught spark in Simpson's mind. It marched across his face like the forces of the Khan across Mongolia. He looked down again; dark murky thoughts windsurfing the currents of his brain and conscience. After a moment, he looked back at Spaulding. A shock of recognition penetrated him, finally seeing Spaulding's facade -- genteel, elder servant of public will -- forever torn away, replaced by a much harder man who had taken lives as casually as taking a deep breath, dressed smartly in a gray uniform with DOC insignia on his collars and epaulets, gray cap locked atop the crown of his head, shiny black boots to his knees ...
"You can count on me, sir," Simpson said quietly. He stood, saluted, and stood at ease. "What can I do to help you?"
"Well, first of all let me thank you for this decision," Spaulding said calmly, "because it saved your life, and possibly mine." A nickel plated nine millimeter pistol appeared from behind Spaulding's back, which he calmly slid into a pocket holster on his right thigh. "You're too determined for me to have not completely in my confidence, had you not responded quickly and honestly, I'd have to kill you here and now. Luckily for both of us, you're too much a creature of habit to be lying or have that much ambition. There's not another person at this prison who would do, only you can be my right hand, operating in shadows to insure our goals. Only you will be privy to as much as I know. Together we will save this country. Come."
Spaulding walked slowly towards the door, and Simpson fell into step just behind. As they walked back to the Situation Room, Spaulding handed Simpson a pistol just like his own, and said, "Oh, I should mention something to you. I served in the CIA, before the DOC absorbed it, for more than twenty years. I am more than capable of killing at least twenty-five highly trained guards before I would be killed myself. Should your ambitions ever rise, I will kill you at the first sign of duplicity, before you can ever raise your hand to me, before the thought finishes making a circuit of a single neuron. Remember that, obey me without question, and I'll put your face on this when we're done. I hate attention. It's part of why I'm here. You, on the other hand, can be remembered in history forever as the man who saved America, an unblemished, romantic national hero the likes of which hasn't been seen in centuries. Choose wisely, and for the rest of our time together, Mister Simpson."
Simpson nodded solemnly, slid the pistol inside his jacket's normally neglected inner holster and said nothing. Together, they walked through the Sit Room and towards the Conference Center.
| back to the index |
