Nullified Read online

  Nullified

  An Empowered series prequel story

  Dale Ivan Smith

  Contents

  1. Story

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by Dale Ivan Smith

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Rocking Book Covers

  Published by Dale Ivan Smith

  Portland, Oregon

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.daleivansmith.com

  Created with Vellum

  The rust brown prison walls loomed over the Yard, the force projectors atop them gnawing at the San Diego sky like black teeth. I sweated in the little tomato patch the Warden had granted me, struggling to save my six tomato plants while ignoring their faint screams in my mind.

  The Yard in the women’s section of Special Corrections was deserted, except for Lenore and me. Lenore pumped iron beneath the south wall, ignoring the 100-degree temperatures that had driven everyone else inside, wearing her red knit cap despite the heat.

  I wasn’t given enough water. The warden allowed me a single watering can’s worth each day. They gave me an ancient tin thing with a bent spout and faded green paint. It barely held a pint’s worth of water. I glared at the gold-colored null cuffs locked on my wrists. Once upon a time, I could have waved my hand and willed the plants to draw water from the air and from the ground. I was an Empowered. My power let me hear plants, make them grow, even kill them. But the null cuffs on my wrist blocked that power, kept it from me. I wanted to punch the bastard who invented nullification tech. It must have been someone on the Heroes Council.

  Just beyond the force dome, the huge white sphere of the desalination plant shimmered and billowed. Lenore called it Xanadu, after an old poem she knew. Looking at the distortion for very long gave me a headache. It mocked me. All that salt water transformed into fresh H20, and the prison only gave me a tiny can’s worth for my tomatoes.

  I worked my spade into the hard soil to help the water reach the roots. I wasn’t going to let them win. No way. I was growing plants. If I couldn’t use my power, fine, I’d do it the old-fashioned way.

  Something clinked against the blade. My gloved fingers brushed against a smooth glass surface. A brown vial, like an iodine bottle, lay in the soil, sealed with a screw-top cap. Inside was a rolled piece of paper.

  The sight stopped my breath. A message in a bottle, planted right where I would find it.

  I should turn it in. The rules said no written or recorded messages, especially not for an inmate still in blackout, and I was in blackout for another month. But someone had left me a message, and I sure as hell wasn’t turning that in.. I slipped the vial inside my coveralls and went back to working my little tomato garden.

  I couldn’t read it in my cell, the cameras would see me open the bottle. Same for the cell block, or the cafeteria, or the showers. It had to be in the yard. Even then, cameras watched.

  I headed to the tool shack with the empty water can and spade. As I approached the permacrete deck surrounding the tool shack, I made myself stumble and fall.

  Glass crunched inside my coveralls. I got up, made a show of brushing myself off over the permacrete, then another show of trying to brush my shoes, grinding the glass shards into powder, while the C.O. inside the shack laughed at me through the open window.

  I handed my tools, gloves and ball cap to her.

  “Getting clumsy,” she said. “You don’t want to be falling on that spade, it could go badly for you.”

  She could laugh all she wanted. I had the message.

  Lenore was doing jumping jacks as I passed. The null cuffs on her wrists flashed in the sunlight. Her black skin glistened with sweat.

  “Come on, Mat, you could use the exercise,” Lenore called out to me.

  “Maybe later. I’m busy now.” I stopped just inside the door to the central building and palmed the paper, read the neatly printed words in the shadows there.

  “I thought you should know. Your grandmother is very ill and may die,” the note read. “She’s been diagnosed with serious illness. We can help you get in touch with her.” I rolled the paper back into a little tube, slipped it in a pocket.

  Grandmother Ruth, dying? Was that true, or just B.S., left by someone trying to rattle me. Who was “we?” My heart raced, and I tucked the paper inside a pocket.

  Blackout meant I received no news, not just general news, but no personal news of any sort, no letters, no postcards, no packages either. Other prisoners were banned from using their news privileges for another inmate, blackout or no blackout. It sucked.

  The rest of the day my stomach was twisted in knots. I kept telling myself that note was B.S., but worry I barely ate dinner. Had something really happened with Grandma Ruth? She was the only family I had left. I had to find out how ill she was.

  The only way I could find out was the prison grapevine. I’d pieced together hints about the grapevine, been taunted about it by bullies—especially that bitch Tricksie—but I’d never tried to use it. Breaking the rules meant infraction points, and I had accumulated a pile already, mostly from fighting with the likes of Tricksie and her cronies. Leonore said I had a thick head, but I was tired of being set up by Tricksie and friends.

  I just had to be smart about how I got to the grapevine was all.

  Ming Li would know. I’d ask her. We got along okay.

  I went looking for her the next morning at breakfast, but she wasn’t in the cafeteria. Nor was she in the yard, or in the factory.

  I learned from old Barb that Ming Li had punched a C.O. and was in the control unit— solitary confinement below ground—for God only knew how long. Perhaps always. My one contact for black market info gone. I stood in the hot sun and ground my teeth. Tricksie, maybe I could get it out of her. I could take her. I was taller, had a better reach. Maybe it would be worth spending time in the control unit.

  I went looking for her but couldn’t find her. Figures. Just when you wanted to find the pain-in-the-ass you usually didn’t want to find, she wasn’t around.

  The rest of the afternoon I was jumpy, riled up about Ruth. It was stupid. I didn’t even know if any of this was real, or why someone would tell me. I tried harder to tell myself that someone was messing with me

  There was one other inmate I could ask.

  I found Lenore preparing to do chest presses in the yard. Of course she wore her red knitted cap. I’d never seen her bareheaded.

  “Good, y’all can spot for me, and I’ll return the favor,” Lenore said when she saw me. I frowned. Leonore’s workouts were brutal.

  “Don’t scowl at me,” she said, sounding like my grandma for an instant. “You need the workout. Scowling don’t change that.”

  She finished her next set. “Your turn.”

  She loaded up my bar and spotted as I worked. My muscles screamed after the first three reps.

  I finished my set. Lenore had to grab the bar so I didn’t drop it on myself.

  I sat up. “I need to ask you something.”

  “Y’all can wait until we’re finished.” There was no arguing with that tone.

  After weight lifting, she had us run laps around the yard until my lungs were fit to burst. I would have gotten angry but I was already blown from the workout.

  “Oka
y, what did you want?” she asked once we’d finished our run. I swear she wasn’t breathing that hard after all those laps.

  “I need . . .” I gasped for more air, couldn’t seem to fill my lungs fast enough. “I need to know about my grandmother.” It wasn’t hard making my voice a whisper, my words came out as a hoarse croak.

  Her eyes narrowed. “What’s this about?”

  I told her about the note, in a low whisper.

  Lenore gave me a sharp look, leaned in close. “Can’t do that. We’d both wind up with a load of infractions.”

  “I have to know now. I can’t wait.”

  She shook her head. “You’re a fool, Mat. You gonna throw away news privileges?”

  “I don’t have those privileges for another three months.”

  “It’s only three more months.”

  But I had to know now. I couldn’t wait.

  Lenore patted my arm. “You just gotta hang tight, girl.” Her words were matter-of-fact, firm.

  I clenched my jaw. I wanted to argue with her, but I knew that tone. You couldn’t argue with it. I’d tried.

  Still this was easy for her to say. She was a lifer. She’d been in Special Corrections twenty-five years, longer than I’d been alive. She was patient. She had the time to be patient.

  I wouldn’t look her in the eye after her refusal, and her soft chuckle didn’t help my mood one bit.

  I only had one option left.

  Two days later I was watering my tomatoes. Three plants now looked close to death; I had to get more water. A shadow fell over me. I turned to see Corrections Officer Mabel Fitz standing there. She was six-two and built like a linebacker. She had a mocking look on her broad face, and her hand rested easy on her holstered stunner.

  She glanced at the yellowed vines. “Tomatoes don’t look too good.”

  I bit back the first answer that came to mind, namely “no shit. lady.” I forced myself to be polite. “They need more water.”

  Her mocking grin widened. “Jam, macadamias, or smoked salmon would get you more water. Maybe even a little fertilizer.” She lifted a dried leaf shot through with holes. “Or maybe even a little natural insecticide. The aphids really love tomato plants.”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  Fitz became mock serious. “Oh, yeah, you don’t have any of those things.”

  I was due for gift privileges when I was no longer in blackout. Three months. It might as well be ten years as far as my dying tomatoes were concerned.

  “No, I don’t.” My fingers balled into a fist. I wanted to slug that mocking grin off her face so bad. But that wouldn’t let me do what I was about to do, so I just put up with her stupid sadistic crap.

  “Too bad for your plants.” Fitz jerked her head toward the main building. “Get up. The warden says she’ll see you shortly.”

  I rubbed my hands, and flexed my fingers, trying to banish the phantom pain that came from being too close to the dying plants. Despite the null cuffs locked on my wrists, I felt the vitality ebbing from the vines and stems, an arthritic ache in my bones. All the inmates wore null cuffs. No one talked about them. Leonore told me to let go of thinking about my power while I was in here. Easy for her to say. She didn’t seem like she noticed being nullified. None of the others didn’t. Made me wonder if they just didn’t care, or if they didn’t feel the echo of their power like I did. If I were in Special Corrections long enough, would I stop feeling those echoes?

  I turned in my watering can, garden gloves and trowel and followed Fitz across the yard.

  Fitz took me to the prisoner’s waiting room.

  The sweat box. It was three levels below the warden’s office, a windowless little room by the boilers. I closed my eyes. The warden had to help me. After Lenore had refused to help me find out about Grandma Ruth’s situation, I had badgered a couple of C.O.s about seeing the warden, including Fitz, which showed how desperate I was. Even so, it took a lot of asking.

  I kept wiping away some sweat, but it didn’t help. I just made more. Pacing didn’t help either, and it didn’t burn off the nervous energy I felt. Finally, after what felt like six hours, Mabel got a call on her wrist talkie and took me up to the warden’s office.

  Fulbright’s office was wood paneled, with a low pile carpet, a fancy painting on the wall, and a bonsai tree on her mahogany desk. No filing cabinets. No bookshelves, just a ledger. She didn’t even have a computer.

  An African violet drooped in a steel flower pot on the warden’s desk.

  Fulbright didn’t rise when I entered, followed by Fitz. Another C.O., Naoko Kondo, rumored to be a judo master, gave me the once over from beside the warden’s desk. I’d never seen Kondo throw anyone but had seen her slug a prisoner once. Nasty bitch.

  The African violet moaned softly in my mind. It had been starved of water and nutrients.

  The warden closed her ledger. Her eyes were emerald green, unblinking, and her blonde hair was pulled back tight in a pony-tail, not a strand out of place. She wore a man’s suit over a white dress shirt buttoned all the way to the top. No jewelry.

  She liked to pace the high gallery above the prison factory floor, watching us girls work. She held our little world in the palm of her hand.

  “I understand you have a special request.”

  I swallowed and tried to wet my mouth. A cut-glass pitcher filled with water, along with two glasses, was on a silver tray on an end table behind the warden's desk. I longed to fill one of the glasses with cool water, quench my thirst, and give some to the dying African violet. I couldn’t block the plant’s sorrowful moans. Anger started working its way up from my gut. I pushed it back down. That was the last thing I needed right now.

  I licked my lips. “I need to find out if my grandmother is okay.”

  Fulbright’s green eyes narrowed. “You know the rules. No news from the outside. Period.” She tilted her head. “You been on the ‘vine?”

  I shifted my feet. “No, ma’am.” Besides, did she really think that if I had, I’d say so?

  Kondo walked behind me and twisted my right arm behind my back. Fitz watched from beside the door, a slight smile on her face.

  I gasped. “Ma’am!” I wanted to elbow Kondo bad, but I let her crowbar my arm. Hurt like hell.

  “You lie,” Kondo whispered in my ear. Her breath was hot on my skin.

  Fulbright picked up a fountain pen, black with gold piping, and twiddled it between her fingers. “If not the ‘vine, then how?”

  Kondo’s grip felt like iron, pushing my arm into the small of my back. It was all I could do to not drop to my knees. I started to jerk my head back, to hit her, but managed to hold off.

  “I just, just got a bad feeling about her,” I said through my clenched teeth.

  Fulbright smiled thinly. “You expect me to believe that you dreamed she was in trouble, or otherwise just ‘know’?” She put down her pen. “Don’t insult my intelligence."

  I fought to stand straight as Kondo kept up the damn crowbar act with my arm in my back. “No, ma’am, I won’t.” My voice was hoarse.

  Fulbright glanced at Kondo. “Ease up.”

  My arm no longer dug into my back but was still pinned.

  Fulbright leaned forward. “How did you learn that your grandmother is allegedly sick?”

  “There was a note, in an iodine bottle, buried in the yard, near my plants.”

  The warden’s expression hardened. “Why didn’t you turn this over to the guards at once?”

  “I—“

  She cut me off with a raised hand. “You were hoping to learn more.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The warden sighed. “Brandt, a message in a bottle can be considered part of the ‘vine.”

  “But I didn’t talk to anyone!” I half-shouted.

  “Because you didn’t have the chance,” Kondo said in my ear. “No inmate would help you.”

  “Guess not,” I said.

  “Fucking obvious,” Kondo said.

  I was alw
ays a terrible liar.

  Fulbright made a dismissive gesture. “Doesn’t matter. Blackout is part of the penalty you pay for the crime you were convicted of. You were convicted of illegally using your superpower. You know that blackout is one of the consequences.”

  I wanted to tell her that Grandma had raised me, had cleaned my scrapes, sewn my clothes and tried to teach me how to get on in the world. I hadn’t listened. I figured Grandma didn’t know anything when it came to being an Empowered.

  “This is a special case,” I blurted suddenly.

  “Everyone claims their need to know something from outside is special, Brandt. Everyone,” Fulbright said, her voice low.

  She must have seen my jaw clench. She raised an eyebrow. “You disagree?”

  I should have kept quiet. Lenore always said we were better off silent “She cares about me, Warden. She raised me.” Angry tears welled up in my eyes. I bit my lip, tried to force them back.

  Fulbright rolled her eyes. “That never works with me, Brandt,” she said.

  “It’s not,” I began, and coughed. I hated being like this. Kondo snickered quietly behind me, still pinning my arm against the small of my back.

  Fulbright leaned forward, tapping her fingers. Her emerald gaze bored into mine.

  I looked down at my feet.

  “You were going to say, Brandt?” The warden’s voice held a hint of sympathy. My stomach roiled at the tone, but I forced myself to answer.

  “I know you don’t have any reason to believe this, ma’am, but she’s everything to me.” I raised my head. I wiped at my eyes with my left hand.

  Fulbright nodded. “I can see you are concerned for your grandmother.” Something in the way she said that sent a chill down my spine.

  “Unfortunately, rules are rules. Even I must abide by them.” She stood and came around the desk, face suddenly sympathetic. Another chill ran down my spine. The transformation had been so abrupt. I felt myself tremble and tried to fight it.

  “I can’t tell you what happened to her, Mathilda,” Fulbright said, switching to my first name. “You must keep in mind that you aren’t allowed to know anything about what is going on outside. And if you hope for a parole at twenty-one, you need to focus on your outlook and behavior here.” She nodded. “That bottle could be considered part of the ‘vine. But I’m not going to count it. This time.”