Chapter Three – The Tour

There was a quiet knock on the door then a mop of unruly dark hair poked through the opening. "Nurse Summers? I'm Xander Harris, tour guide extraordinaire."

Buffy got up from her desk and walked over to the smiling man. "Just call me Buffy." She stepped out into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind her then twisted the knob to make sure it was locked. She slipped her key card into the pocket of her lab coat and looked up at the tall man. "So, where to first?"

"You've already seen the infirmary, so… um…" He motioned down the hallway. "The inmate pods are the closest, so how about we start there?"

"All right. Lead the way, Mr. Harris."

He started down the hallway with a chuckle. "Please call me Xander. Mr. Harris is my father." They rounded the corner and when they came to a junction in the hallway, he led her to the right. "We have just over one hundred inmates divided into five pods. They range in age from nineteen to… I think Hal is pushing seventy-eight. We're a minimum-security prison, so we don't get the hard-core criminals. Our guys are mostly non-violent offenders, white collar crimes, property crimes, drug crimes… things like that. A few are here for armed robbery, but none of our guys have been convicted of anything like assault, rape, or murder. Most of them are pretty easy going, just hanging out and doing their time."

"Only a hundred inmates, though? Wow, this state is apparently pretty crime-free."

Xander chuckled. "Not really. There are five or six other prisons in this state. We're one of the smaller ones, so I guess that's why the state sold us off to a private company. We probably cost more than we were bringing in."

Buffy gave him a sideways glance as they made their way down the absurdly long hallway. "How does a prison make money, anyway? It's not like it's a tourist attraction. Do you make license plates like in the movies?"

Xander stopped as they finally reached a non-descript slate-gray door and turned to face her. "This prison sells organically grown produce. We have huge gardens and several green houses that the inmates work in, plus there's money from the state and possibly the federal government. I'm not sure how it all works; I just know I get paid for babysitting a bunch of grown men dressed like pumpkins."

He slid a keycard through the reader at the side of the door then pulled it open when the lock released with a loud clank. Buffy followed him into a huge circular room with a bank of computer monitors set smack in the middle. The walls of the entire room were actually floor to ceiling windows with the exception of one section adjacent to the door they'd just come through. That section had another of the slate-gray doors set into the middle of a solid wall that was covered with official memorandums, clippings from newspapers, photographs, printouts of miscellaneous jokes, and humorous and vaguely pornographic memes taken off the internet.

The window walls looked out over five different common rooms filled with tables, chairs, and couches. Men wearing bright orange prison uniforms were milling around chatting, playing cards, drawing, reading, or watching the large, flat-screen televisions bolted to the walls of each room. Xander closed the door then pointed to a building schematic mounted on the back. "The pods are set up like a wheel. The room we're in is the control center. It's the hub and the pods are the spokes. Each pod has a common room, which you can see below us, twelve single-occupancy cells on the upper floor, and six double-occupancy cells on the bottom floor along with the showers. Directly underneath this room are the meeting rooms for counseling sessions, lawyer time, and visitation. The bottom floor hallway of each pod opens to a fenced in garden with a greenhouse. The spaces between the 'spokes' are the recreation areas. They have a basketball hoop, weightlifting equipment, tables, benches… things like that. We can control all the doors and lights from up here. There's cameras in every cell, the common rooms, the hallways, the greenhouses, the yards, the showers, and overlooking the gardens that we can activate if we need to see what's going on."

Buffy looked over the schematic, trying to make sense of the tiny writing. When Xander mentioned the cameras she looked at him in surprise. "Cameras in the cells? The showers? Isn't that like… a violation of privacy or something?"

Xander shrugged. "I asked the same thing when they were installed, and I was less than politely informed that inmates have no expectation of privacy. They're the property of the prison."

Buffy frowned. "Property?"

Xander glanced over his shoulder at the three guards currently manning the control room then lifted his finger to his lips as he nodded toward the door, clearly indicating that they would talk about it later.

Buffy nodded and looked at the schematic, pointing to the section behind the paper covered wall. "What's this part? It's not another pod, is it?"

"No, that's the employee dorm. It used to be a sixth pod, but they remodeled and expanded it to house the single guards. There's a bunk room, a common room, a shower room, a small kitchen, and an entertainment room that has televisions, computers, game systems… you know… entertaining stuff."

"One bunk room? For all the guards? Maggie said you were a family, but that's… wow. Males and females sharing the same living space?"

Xander shook his head with a grin. "All the guards are male. The only female employees are you, the warden, and the kitchen and janitorial ladies."

"Oh. All male. Great. Uh… how many… uh… all males are we talking about? And am I gonna spend most of my time turning them down because they don't have any other options?"

Xander laughed. "No. Some of us are married and the single ones… well… let's just say that some of them don't play for your team."

Buffy's brow furrowed slightly. "Team? What te…" Her eyes widened as comprehension dawned. "Oh! Team! Okay… I get it."

"And the ones that do…" He shrugged. "It's up to you, I guess. Warden Walsh is pretty lenient about employee fraternization, probably because we're pretty much self-contained out here and she doesn't want her employees getting too… uh… tense or… frustrated… or whatever."

"Frustrated… right. So… are you one of the not-my-team players?" At Xander's shocked and indignant expression Buffy's babbling mode kicked into high gear. "Oh! No! I'm not saying that I think you… I mean, you're very… uh… manly? … Um… I was just asking… uh… if you're single… um… not that I'm asking you out or anything… I mean… you are cute, but I'm here to work, not date… not that you aren't datable! It's just…" She buried her blush heated face in her hands and muttered, "Oh god, just kill me now."

Xander's laughter was contagious as he patted her gently on the shoulder. "It's all right, Buffy. No, I'm not gay, and I'm not single. My wife's name is Willow and she's at our house currently cooking up our first kiddo."

Buffy's giggles had a slightly hysterical edge as she took in this new information. "Oh. Okay. Good. Uh… how many other wives are living out here?"

Xander smiled at her, still chuckling. "Six at last count. They're together most days with their assorted kids at the dining hall; homeschooling the ones that are old enough and letting the smaller ones play."

Buffy's jaw dropped. "There's kids here? At a prison?"

"Yeah. Don't worry, though, they never see the inmates because they stay on the pods the entire time they're here. The only times they leave is for court stuff that can't be handled by teleconference or medical stuff that can't be handled in our infirmary… and, you know, when they've served their sentence and they're released."

"Oh… well… that's… uh… yeah." Buffy turned and walked over to the bank of windows that looked down on the common room of the first pod. She watched the inmates for a few seconds then asked, "How many inmates do we have?"

Xander stepped up behind her. "A hundred and three. Pod A has nineteen, B has seventeen, C and D both have eighteen, and E has twenty-one."

Buffy frowned as she totaled that up in her head. "But that only adds up to ninety-three. Where are the other ten?"

Xander glanced at the other three guards again and nodded toward the door. "I'll show you. They're in the solitary confinement cells. Let's go."

They left quickly and walked down the long hallway. When they reached the junction they continued straight on and Buffy looked down the hallway that led to the medical wing, mapping in her mind. 'Right leads to the pods… left leads to… guess I'll see.'

Xander filled her in on the way. "The solitary confinement cells are in the oldest part of the prison. They're actually underground. When the prison was remodeled, the building on top of them was demolished and the administrative building was constructed. It contains the dining hall and kitchen, the laundry facilities, the offices of the warden and associate warden, and the female employee dorm."

"So why are ten of the inmates in solitary confinement? Maggie was very proud of the fact that 'her boys' are very well behaved."

Xander shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Before Walsh, we never even used any of those cells, but for the last three months or so, those ten inmates have been living in them 24/7."

"Why? What did they do? Was there a riot or something?"

Xander shook his head. "No. I don't know what they did; their files are locked up in the warden's office and only Walsh's inner circle is allowed to look at them." He stopped in front of a heavy metal door and knocked lightly.

"How long have you worked here?"

He looked over at her as he knocked harder on the door. "Five years for the prison, just over a year for Walsh."

"So I guess you aren't one of the 'inner circle' then, and the group isn't as 'tight-knit' as Maggie told me they were."

He chuckled. "No. There's only a few of us pre-Walsh employees left and we kind of stick together. She brought a lot of the staff with her when her company took over running the prison, and by 'her company' I mean she owns it, the company and the prison, and that group sticks together. We're like two separate cliques; the jocks and the chess club. It's all very high school." The door swung open, letting out the unpleasant odors of damp and rot, and Xander started to step forward, only to be stopped by a hand on his chest.

A small, weasel-faced man dressed in a wrinkled guard's uniform pushed Xander backwards then stepped through the door and pulled it most of the way shut behind him. "The hole's off limits today, Harris. Our new Section Leader is… uh… meeting the inmates and doesn't want to be disturbed."

Xander glanced back at Buffy then turned to the man in front of him. "Which inmate is he… meeting, Tomkins?"

Tomkins smirked and leaned back against the wall next to the door. "Why do you care? Got someone special you're wondering about?"

Xander shook his head. "No. Don't worry about it, I'll show Buffy this area later… when he's… done."

"Buffy? What's a Buffy?" Tomkins finally seemed to notice Buffy standing just behind Xander.

She stepped forward, showing more confidence than she felt, and held up her prison ID badge. "I'm Nurse Summers, new Head of the Medical Department. I'll need to be admitted to this area if there are inmates being kept here. I need to examine them to make sure they're being cared for properly."

Tomkins looked her over then snorted and turned around, pushing the door open. "I'll check with Finn, but you're probably gonna have to wait. Hang on a sec. I'll be right back." He slid through the opening and pushed the door shut behind him with a loud thunk. They heard a few footsteps going down then nothing.

Xander stepped over and leaned on the wall next to the door. "Finn. Never heard of him, must be Walsh's kid. I'd heard he was coming to work here, but how the frilly heck did he get Section Leader?"

Buffy frowned at the door. "This is a section? How many sections are there?"

Xander held up his fingers one by one as he named them. "Solitary, three for the pods – A, B, and C shift, and the administrative section."

"So this Finn person runs the Solitary section?"

Xander shrugged. "Guess so, although we didn't have a solitary section until about three months ago. Like I said, we didn't send inmates to the hole. If they misbehaved, they just got locked down in the 'sit and think about what you've done' cell." At Buffy's eyebrow quirk, he elaborated. "We'd just stick them in one of the empty cells on their pod for a few days. No books or TV or human contact of any kind. They're stripped down to their skivvies and given a blanket and that's it. They stay in there until they realize that whatever got them in there was wrong and they have to sign some kind of contract saying they won't do it again. It's all very new-age or whatever. The longest any of them have been locked down since I've been here was thirty-three days, and that's just because he's a stubborn shit. Wanted to see how long he could last, I guess. We finally let him out when the stink started making it all the way to the common room."

Buffy chuckled just a tiny bit. "What did he do?"

Xander grinned, a lot more than Buffy was. "Some idiot made fun of his accent and he gave them a swirly." Buffy looked confused and Xander sputtered, "You've got to be kidding me! You don't know what a swirly is? Didn't you go to high school?"

Buffy crossed her arms over her chest and glared. "Yes, of course I did, but I spent most of my time studying, when I wasn't at cheerleading practice or training, so I didn't have time for doing swirlying or whatever."

"You were a cheerleader and you still don't know? Didn't you hang out with the football team? The jocks I went to school with were swirly masters."

Buffy looked embarrassed as she dropped her arms and stuffed her hands into her pockets. "No. They didn't really like me all that much because I wouldn't… you know… with any of them."

Xander blushed faintly then nodded and cleared his throat. "Oh… well, let me explain. A swirly is when you stick someone's head in the toilet and flush it."

Buffy's mouth dropped open again and she gave an indignant huff. "That's so mean! And gross! Ew!"

Xander shrugged. "Yeah. On both counts. I've had a couple and it's not the world of fun the jocks make it out to be."

"So this guy gave another guy a swirly and stayed locked down for thirty-three days because of it? That's not stubborn… that's stupid."

Xander shrugged. "Yeah… maybe. But he doesn't take shit from anybody, so he refused to apologize and never did sign the contract, but when someone hasn't showered in that long… yeah… he reeked. But hey… upside… nobody's made fun of him since then."

Just then the door swung open, startling them both, and Tomkins poked his head out. "Nope. Nobody's allowed down here today. You'll have to do your examinations some other time. Bye now." He pulled his head back in and started to swing the door shut. Just before it closed, they heard a scream.