Story code: ST-000435
Part 2: The Dead Lens
Marcus sat frozen on the bench. The news anchor on the muted television smiled, mouthing silent, cheerful words. Marcus looked down at the gap between the steel slats. The cold glass vial of Humalog and the crude steel shank rested side by side. Life and death, neatly packaged.
He slipped the vial into his breast pocket, feeling the chill against his damp shirt, and slid the shank down his left boot, tucking it away from his rotting right foot. The metal dug into his calf, a sharp reminder of the clock ticking down to nineteen hundred hours.
He needed a needle. Hector hadn’t given him a syringe. That was the leverage. Even with the insulin resting against his chest, he was just a dying man holding a useless bottle of medicine.
Marcus stood, his vision tilting dangerously. Black spots danced at the edges of his sight. The thirst was suddenly unbearable, a deep, hollow scraping in his throat. He limped toward the water fountain near the cell block entrance, drinking for a full minute, but the tepid water tasted like dust and did nothing to quench the fire in his blood.
He had to try the system one more time. There had to be a way to break the corporate wall without spilling blood.
He dragged his dead weight toward the grievance kiosk stationed in the administration wing hallway. The journey took ten minutes. Every step on his right foot sent a shockwave of nausea up his spine. The canvas of his boot felt tight enough to burst. He leaned heavily against the wall, swiping his plastic ID card through the kiosk’s magnetic reader.
The screen flickered, displaying his account balance: $12.14.
Marcus tapped the screen, navigating to the medical appeals menu. His fingers left sweaty smudges on the glass. A prompt popped up, bearing the Apex Correctional Management logo: *Standard Medical Grievance. Estimated Review Time: 30-45 Business Days. Filing Fee: $5.00. Proceed?*
He hit ‘Yes’. He didn’t have thirty days. He didn’t have thirty hours. He navigated to the emergency medical injunction screen.
*Emergency Medical Override requires clearance from the Regional Administrator. Please scan biometric proof of life-threatening trauma.*
Marcus leaned down, trying to lift his right leg to the scanner panel, but his knee wouldn’t bend that far. The pain flared, blinding and white-hot. He groaned, leaning his forehead against the cool plastic of the kiosk. He tapped the commissary tab next, searching for ‘insulin syringes’.
*Item restricted. Medical authorization required.*
“Hey. Move it, Vance,” a voice barked.
Marcus turned his head. Officer Davies, a young guard with a buzz cut and a bored expression, stood holding a clipboard. “You’re holding up the wall. Kiosk time is limited to three minutes.”
“Davies, please,” Marcus wheezed, his breath smelling heavily of acetone and rotting fruit. “Look at my foot. I have the insulin. I just need a syringe. Just one. I’ll give you my commissary balance.”
Davies wrinkled his nose, stepping back to avoid the stench. “I don’t want your twelve bucks, Vance. And I don’t distribute sharps. That’s a termination offense. Read the memo.”
“I’ll die.”
“Then fill out a bodily disposition form,” Davies said, tapping his baton against his thigh. “Not my department. Get back to your block before I write you up for loitering.”
Marcus stared at the guard’s impassive face. There was no malice there, only the terrifying, blank efficiency of a man protecting his paycheck. The corporation had built a perfect wall of bureaucracy, and Marcus was bleeding out against it.
He limped away, heading toward the industrial shop. Maybe he could steal a heavy needle from the leather-working station. But when he reached the double doors of the shop, the heavy padlock was engaged. A printed sign taped to the glass read: *Closed for inventory audit per Regional Administrator.*
The system was sealed tight.
By eighteen hundred hours, Marcus was back in his cell. The air felt thick, like breathing through wet wool. He lay on his thin mattress, shivering uncontrollably despite the sweat soaking his uniform. The ache in his right foot had evolved into a constant, shrieking agony. He pulled his pant leg up. The purple mottling had spread past his ankle, creeping up his shin in dark, jagged webs.
His body was consuming itself. He could feel his organs struggling, his blood turning to acid. He reached into his left boot and pulled out the shank. It was heavy, crafted from a thick coil of a bedspring, ground down to a razor edge on one side. A handle had been fashioned from tightly wrapped electrical tape.
*You bring me proof he is not breathing. And you get the needle to go with that juice.*
Marcus closed his eyes, imagining Alvarez. He knew the man only in passing-a quiet guy doing a ten-year stretch for grand theft, always keeping his head down. Marcus was in for embezzlement. White-collar crimes. He had never held a weapon with the intent to kill. He had fudged numbers on a spreadsheet, not carved a man’s throat in a shower stall.
But as a fresh wave of dizziness hit him, followed by a sharp, squeezing pain in his chest, the numbers stopped mattering. The moral line he had drawn for himself his entire life was blurring, washed away by the primal, screaming instinct to survive.
At eighteen-forty-five, the cell doors clanged open for evening rec and shower time.
Marcus forced himself up. His legs trembled so violently he had to grip the stainless steel sink to steady himself. He tucked the vial of insulin back into his shirt pocket and slid the cold steel shank up the sleeve of his uniform, gripping the tape-wrapped handle with sweaty fingers.
He stepped out onto the tier. The noise of the cell block crashed over him-shouts, echoing footsteps, the clatter of metal doors. He moved like a ghost, dragging his dead right foot, letting the current of inmates carry him toward the East corridor.
The corridor leading to the Block C showers was a long, narrow tunnel of painted cinderblock. As Marcus reached the entrance, he looked up at the ceiling corner. The security camera’s red recording light was glowing steadily.
He checked the clock on the wall. Eighteen-fifty-eight.
He leaned against the damp wall, listening to the hiss of the shower water echoing from the tiled room ahead. Through the steam billowing out of the doorway, he could see a single silhouette moving behind the frosted glass of the second stall. Alvarez.
Marcus’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, irregular rhythm. His grip tightened on the shank inside his sleeve. He tasted blood where he had bitten his lip.
The digital clock flipped to nineteen hundred hours.
Above him, the security camera whirred faintly. The red light blinked once, twice, and then went completely dark. The lens rotated downward, facing the blank floor.
Hector had delivered. The corridor was blind.
Marcus stood alone in the shadow, his fingers wrapped tightly around the steel blade, the sounds of the running water pulling him forward into the steam.