11Session 6
It took every ounce of Spike's self discipline to restrain his raw nerves as the guard tightened the brace around his neck. Laid on a table and strapped down like a sacrifice in some B-horror flick, he forced himself to concentrate on breathing slow and steady even as the guards chatted about some inane program they'd watched last night.
Too late, even if he'd wanted to breaking free struggling was pointless against the metallic clamps. In a way it was better not to have a choice now. Any fuss he made would only make things worse. And he wasn't about to make the mistake of believing things weren't already bad.
Nor that they couldn't get worse.
"Hey Spike?"
Faye's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He'd nearly forgotten he wasn't alone this time. The table to his right held Faye, the one to his left held Jet. And they were all restrained to the point of not being able to move. That didn't count talking, at least. "Yeah?"
"This uh … does this hurt?"
He rolled his eyes and grumbled. "How the hell would I know?"
Jet's voice, the timber slightly higher than normal, joined her inquiry. "Well, pard, you have been through this."
"I don't know about you, but I don't retain a lot of valuable information while in a coma."
Jet inhaled sharply. "Sorry, forgot about that part."
"Trust me, I didn't." Already Spike's fingers itched for a cigarette. Something to take the damn edge off. But no dice. Especially clamped down to the point of not being able to move.
A guard strode by with a checklist in his hand. "Yup. Yup. And... yup. Alright, prisoners secured. Numbers are in the machines. Let's hit it."
The machine rumbled to life. Out of the corner of Spike's left eye he watched the robotic arm sweep down and toward the side of his neck. He gritted his teeth knowing damn well what was happening even before the first searing burn of the laser hit, etching the prison bar code onto his skin. Line by line it marred him, and he couldn't move a fraction of inch. Clearly neither could Faye nor Jet. To their credit, neither screamed. Jet grunted a bit, and a stray hiss escaped Faye now and again. Spike only managed to stay silent through his breathing exercises. It didn't mean he wasn't flinching. By the time the neck was done it felt like someone had pressed it into the burner of a stove.
Then the machine moved to his bared forearm and started the procedure all over again. It droned on while the guards sipped cups of coffee and complained about some sports event. Spike didn't catch what it was, nor did he care. The lives of the Bebop crew were being altered. Bad enough when he faced the system. But now … all of them? The holding cell was one thing.
Shit was about to get real.
Feeling like his left arm had been pressed to the Swordfish's engine after a long flight, the machine finished and went back to resting.
A lackadaisical guard wandered by and flashed each tattoo with a handheld monitor. It beeped, he nodded, all six times to complete on Jet's neck tattoo. "Got it."
Another called from down the hall. "Transport's ready!"
"Right on time. Let's start with #240594126."
Spike's breath caught in his chest. Already it started, numbers instead of names. Identities stripped to something inhuman. And worst of all … he'd been marked with his old number from Quidlivun Cavus. He couldn't stop the shiver that rippled through him as the chains rattled on the guard's approach.
Jet grumbled as the guards led he and Faye down the hall toward the transport van in the sealed garage. Their hands had been cuffed behind their backs right at the tattoo table. A quarter hour had passed since they'd taken Spike, rattling chains and all, from the room. He had to admit it, it worried him that Spike might've tried something reckless.
His heart sank with each plodding step through the station. Eyes of officers followed him with gazes he could not meet. What would they be thinking of the Black Dog getting collared like this?
He reached up to brush fingers against the raw skin of the left side of his neck. Marked, literally. His head hung lower. The glint of firearms at the ready did not escape his lowered gaze. To his surprise Faye hadn't uttered a word.
The door of the transport opened and they pushed Jet and Faye in, chaining the cuffs behind their backs to the wall of the van.
For the first time Faye spoke up, "I can't sit back like this. It's not comfortable."
The guard didn't get a chance to reply before Spike's acidic reply to Faye cut him off. "How do you think I feel?"
Jet and Faye turned to find Spike right behind the driver's wall. His hands cuffed together suspended from an overhead bar. His ankles shackled to the floor panels. Faye blinked and mouthed a reply that didn't become audible at all.
Eyeing the guards seated on either side of him both with guns on their laps aimed at him, Spike snapped. "This is a little overkill."
They didn't say a word. The doors closed with a double knock on the sidewall. Jostling, the van rolled forward.
Despite himself, Spike yelped and looked up forlornly. "My hands are already going numb!"
The processing room for Ganymede's Bayside Prison was claustrophobic inducing, and locked down tight. One more moment that Spike did not recall from his shipping out to Quidlivun Cavus on Pluto. He didn't regret that for a moment. His first memory of that wretched ice box was waking up in their barely existent sick bay brought out of a medically induced coma. Confused, sore as hell, and on the verge of his guts turning inside out for lack of substances to throw up, they were memories he preferred not to dwell on.
Still, surround by armed guards he stood dressed in a similar dark blue jumpsuit, the same damn prison ID printed on the stripe. Outside he forced that half-lidded, chill as a night on Callisto, demeanor. It couldn't have been farther from the truth. Inside he was one guard's itchy trigger finger twitch from lashing out, despite the full shackle job.
The guards all moved with at a snail's pace, checking and double-checking the ID numbers and the rest of the intake information. After verification, two metal bracelets were securely clamped onto each of their wrists. Spike eyed his own set, already the mental gears turning on what they were for. No point in asking.
Jet and Faye blessedly held their tongues, not boiling the hot water any more than it already was. If they could just make it to the general population without making waves … Spike took a deep breath. Hell, if he could just get the guards to realize these restraints were entirely unwarranted.
The door opened and two men in suits walked in. Well, one walked in … the other waddled. The figure's presence alone triggered an unvoluntary step back from Spike, rattling the shackles on his ankles.
Spike's dry mouth couldn't even squeak out a word, not that it would have helped him. Warden Walrus wasn't the dickhead's real name, just what Spike and the other inmates had dubbed the well-blubbered warden of Quidlivun Cavus. He was one of the last people Spike wanted to see.
Walrus's jowls wobbled as he laughed and smacked the other man's shoulder. "Heh! Well, what do you know, Callus. I was right about your incoming, thought that number looked familiar.
Callus adjusted his overly cheery pastel tie. "That string bean there?"
"Trust me, give him a week, you'll never forget him." The jovial manner vanished, and Walrus's eyes narrowed. With a pudgy finger thrust at Spike he snapped, "Don't turn your back on him. Lost a good guard to his antics. He's a killer, murdered more inmates than any other force on Pluto."
Spike shot up tall, as tall as he could. "Debatable! You got it all wrong. Not shocking considering how little you left your quarters! I only fought when the guards thrust me into fights with other inmates."
"The fights, yes. Particularly vile fates for any who faced you."
"How much did you earn off those?"
Walrus lunged forward and struck Spike across the cheek. The blow stung, but it was pathetic. In a real fight that big guy would be seized by gravity. It did not escape Spike's eye that Warden Callus's eyebrow cocked and he stroked his chin.
Walrus held his hand up, even when Spike offered nothing more than a heated glare. "I'm tellin'ya, Callus, watch this one. And if he's any trouble, send him my way and I'll deal with him. I owe this bastard for that trick he pulled."
Spike snapped, "I didn't have anything to do with it!"
"One of these days, 240594126, I'll figure out how you got a signal out of my facility. No one was supposed to know you were there."
There is was, the admission. What Spike had suspected all along, and even Jet, whose jaw hung loose, had come to understand. Not that they could do anything about it.
Walrus folded his arms. "It's a good thing the trash has been removed from circulation. Shame that had to happen twice. Good luck, Callus. I'll be checking in." He waddled out the door.
The moment it closed, Warden Callus folded his hands before him and met each gaze with a rather unsettling smile. "Welcome to Ganymede's Bayside Prison. I know you'll find your time here entertaining."
Spike cracked a knuckle with his thumb.
See You Space Cowboy
