Disclaimer: I don't own Prison Break, Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, or Angel. Nor do I profit from writing this. Please don't sue me. Most of the action and some of the lines are taken directly from Prison Break episodes #6 & 7: "Riots, Drills, and the Devil (pt. 1 & 2)".
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'Go assess the situation' his cellmate had said. Michael wasn't quite sure what there was to assess as he hurried down the stairs to the cellblock floor. Toilet paper rained down around him like confetti at a sick parade.
"Hey, yo, Trekky! Stroke is about to get the doc!"
The shout had come from the guards' room underneath the stairs where the controls for the cellblock were located. The mesh screens had been torn away from the room's windows, and prisoners were crawling in and out of them, even though the door was standing wide open. No damage to the knob or the lock, some part of his brain noticed as he ran in, so someone had gotten their hands on a set of keys.
Michael elbowed aside a prisoner and joined the man who sold him the eggbeater at a bank of security monitors. The one that was getting all the attention showed a grainy image of Sara crouched beside an examining room bed, her coat clutched between her gloved hands as inmates beat at the room's windows. It looked like the sick bay office, if his memory served him correctly.
He had to get her out of there.
He ran back up to his cell, shoving aside the men who got in his way. "Sucre, I need you to finish what we started," he ordered as he pulled aside the sheet and ducked in, not really sure what he'd walk in on. From the way Sucre had been acting when he sent Michael away, he was pretty sure his cellmate and Abruzzi were planning on doing something violent to T-bag.
Currently, though, nothing more violent than a staring match between the murderer and the Mob boss was going on. He squeezed between them and yanked the toilet—which someone had thoughtfully put back in place—away from the wall.
"What's going on?" Sucre demanded. "Where're you going?"
"Sick bay."
That attracted Abruzzi's attention. "There's no way for you to get there—we're all locked down."
"I'm not," he snapped. The thought of Sara being hounded by those…animals was enough reason to be snippy. Like Bob, she was a good person (God, there was even a Gandhi quote under her picture in her college year book) caught up in a mess of his making. He wasn't going to make her suffer for his screw ups. He turned to Sucre. "No one touches the CO."
Sucre nodded solemnly.
Michael was putting a lot of trust in a man he didn't know, but out of all the men in this cell, he had a feeling that Sucre was the only one who would stick his neck out to protect Bob. "No one," he repeated for good measure and then was through the hole in the wall and gone.
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"It's faster if we cut through here," Turk called back over his shoulder.
Lincoln couldn't argue with that—he'd been lost ever since they'd gone down the stairs. Marilyn, in his arms, was being a restless little brat, hissing and spitting and trying to escape from his grasp. She'd clawed his arm good, and he was half-tempted to let her go, but he didn't want her running around the prison alone. There were guys in here who'd torture her just for the hell of it.
Turk opened another barred door, and they headed down yet another flight of stairs. What was Michael doing down here?
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The fastest way to get to sick bay was to go up to the roof. It'd also give him a chance to assess the situation like Sucre'd asked him to since he'd have a nice view of the prison yard. Scrambling over to the edge of the roof, he looked down at the window that he knew led to the sick bay office. He could see Sara through the bars and the glass. Her wadded up coat was on the sill in front of her as she deliberately tried to force the window open. She was acting a lot calmer than he thought she would be.
"That's not her," he murmured as the realization struck. That wasn't Dr. Sara Tancredi down there—it was the fake-Sucre's friend, the other body-snatcher.
A helicopter buzzed by low overhead, and he flinched instinctively. A pavilion had been set up in the middle of the yard. That would be the HQ for the warden and other authorities. The helicopter that had just gone by was one of two. The white and blue one belonged to the police, probably state troopers, and the green would be the National Guard.
Time to keep moving. He scrambled up the slope of the roof on his hands and feet until he reached the chimney for a wide air vent. The screen stretched across the mouth to keep out rodents and birds practically fell off in his hands. It was mercifully wide enough for him to enter feet-first.
There was a lot of air vent between him and the doctor, and not a whole lot of time.
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"Scofield's in here?" Lincoln asked in disbelief. They were in the underbelly of the prison now, surrounded by hissing pipes and dripping walls. He'd be surprised if there was anything but cockroaches down here. "You sure he's in here?" He stumbled on the walkway and banged his injured head against a pipe.
Marilyn took the opportunity to wiggle her way out of his arms and take off into the steam.
"Cat, come back!" he called after her, even though he knew she was gone. She was a pretty smart critter—maybe she had the brains to stay undercover until the riot blew over. "Turk? Turk!" Where'd the big guy gone?
Then something heavy fell on top of him, driving Lincoln to his knees as a garrote slipped around his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the green rubber band that Turk always wore around one wrist. Straining against the other inmate, he slammed him back up against a wall. This was going to be very bad.
Lifting up on his toes, he slammed Turk back again and again, trying to loosen his hold on the garrote even just a little. The other man was definitely stronger—almost inhumanly so—and hadn't already had the crap kicked out of him by T-bag.
Air wasn't getting in, and his head was starting to swim because of it. Time to try a different wall. Same result—none, but he did get the chance to free his right hand. The handcuff he'd been wearing when T-bag had jumped him and Bob was still shackled to that wrist. He'd taken the key from Bob and unlocked the other cuff, so he could use it as a weapon. Worked just as well down here, he figured, as he slammed the hook of metal into Turk's gut.
The big man and his piece of wire fell away, and Lincoln staggered forward, clutching at his neck. His hand came away covered in blood. Breathing would be good right now.
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And to think he'd tried to send Scofield away. Now, since Abruzzi had disappeared to God-only-knows-where, Lindsey found himself alone in his cell with one very frightened CO and a pedophile from Alabama who seemed intent on undressing said CO. So far, T-bag had gotten shoes and now belt off the frightened man.
"You're not going to use that," Lindsey growled over his shoulder.
T-bag smacked it lightly against a bedpost. "You makin' up the rules now, huh?"
"It's my house. You got a problem?" Lindsey shot back. Maybe he shouldn't have let Michael and Abruzzi take the lead quite so much. T-bag didn't seem to see him as a voice of authority. He almost wished the pedophile would try something, so he'd have an excuse to kick the man's ass. Lindsey gave the lanky man another look. No, better not try violence if he could help it. T-bag seemed the kind to have a shank or three tucked away for just such emergencies.
"Yeah, I got a problem—we all do." Bagwell cut his eyes to the CO.
Bob swallowed; his blue eyes full of fear and pleading. "No problem…I swear to God. I'm not going to say anything. I didn't see anything."
Lindsey swallowed as he yanked the toilet back away from the hole in the wall.
"Please," the guard pleaded, "Don't leave me." The 'here with him' went unsaid.
Jesus, the man had a daughter. Lindsey didn't know how old, but did that really matter? Even if he was a child-support dodging son of a bitch who lived at home with his mom and occasionally kicked dogs, he didn't deserve to be left at the mercy of T-bag. Bagwell had something sick planned for the CO as soon as Lindsey went into that hole—he could just see it in the other man's eyes. Bob could see it too. "Damn you, Scofield," he muttered.
"What was that?" T-bag inquired.
Lindsey grabbed the guard by the front of his navy shirt and hauled him off the bed. "You, into the hole."
That had Bagwell on his feet in an instant. "Now, see here, what's this?"
"This would be us being behind schedule. This would be Scofield not here to help with the drilling. Since Bob's got nothing better to do, I figure he can lend a hand."
"Now, is it wise to let him see more of our little plan?" T-bag wound one of the CO's shoelaces around his hand.
Lindsey gave him a very deliberate 'are you stupid look?'. "He's already seen enough to bury us for an extra decade if he squeals. Personally, I'd like to breathe free air again before I qualify for an AARP membership, which means I've got a wall of concrete to get through." He continued to manhandle Bob right into the hole as he talked, keeping himself between the CO and the con.
T-bag slinked closer, and Lindsey had the sudden urge to snatch the Bible of the desk next to him and throw it. He wondered if it'd have the same effect on Bagwell that it did on vampires. "I should come too…help you out."
Lindsey jabbed a finger into T-bag's chest to halt his forward progress. "No! No, you need to stay here and watch the rear. I hear you're pretty good at that."
There was a vague flash of annoyance in the man's eyes, but all that came out of his mouth was a teasing, "It has been said."
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The air vents were not a part of the prison Michael had incorporated into his final plan. His progress through the metal ducts had to be creating one hell of a ruckus. He'd evaluated them when he was still mulling over how to break his brother out, and the time he spent studying them was the only thing guiding him now. He paused over a mesh grill covering an opening in the duct and glanced down, trying to get his bearings. Get to sick bay, get the woman currently possessing Sara Tancredi away from her would-be assailants, and then find a way to get her out of Fox River. As long as chaos reigned inside the prison, no place would be safe for her.
Left turn at an intersection. The rough edges of the metal were slicing into his arms. I don't care if I get cut up, just please don't let anything scar. A scar could distort an image incorporated into his tattoo. Some of the images were just notes, reminders to himself about street names, phone numbers. But there were other pieces, like the devil, that had to stay unblemished. Precise calculations could be lost and the entire escape plan could fail if he injured himself in the wrong place. Luckily, I didn't tattoo anything on my toes, he thought wryly.
The duct ended in another mesh screen. He popped it out, carefully setting it next to him in the duct. This was a part of the prison that had been heavily renovated. Fox River's original builders had been heavily influenced by European medieval architecture, and the entire compound looked like a pale stone castle draped in barbed wire. Someone had actually taken the time to install elaborately carved molding along the ceiling in this room, not know that construction crews would come through decades later and lower the ceiling three feet so pipes could be run through.
He reached out and tugged on the nearest pipe—a thin and rusted thing only an inch or two in diameter. It held. He put more weight on it and wasn't greeted by the groan of metal, so he figured it was safe to move across. Locking his ankles together on the top of the pipe, he began to inch himself, hand-over-hand through the ceiling.
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Cass was going to have to reevaluate the evolutionary gap between her and the men pounding on the outside of the fish bowl. They'd just discovered fire…in the form of a burning phone book, which they'd shoved through the hole in the door in an effort to smoke her out. On the one hand, she should probably be pleased that her efforts to defend herself had forced them to try more advanced measures—most of the idiots were bleeding from the wrist after trying to stick their hands through the hole—but on the other, if the fire didn't get put out, she was going to keel over from smoke inhalation. Not a pretty way to go.
Running over, she jammed a trash pail down over the burning phone book, hoping to smother the flames. In hindsight, she probably should have kicked the phone book over to the corner and tried to extinguish it over there. A meaty hand reached through the cracked glass and seized her by the ponytail. "It gonna hurt real bad," the ape-man who'd accosted her earlier and gotten kicked in the privates for his troubles. "If you make it easy, if you make it hard." Something slimy—his tongue—dragged itself across her cheek, and the Oracle had the sudden urge to vomit. She settled for jamming her shard of glass into the crook of his elbow right above the gang tattoo.
The hand holding her hair disappeared, and she scrambled to the relative safety of the back of the room. "Open the door!" the inmate screamed, slamming his hands against the glass. "Come here!"
Right, like that's going to happen. Despite her efforts with the trashcan, the air in the office was heavy and white with smoke. She staggered backwards toward the far wall, coughing, her eyes watering from the sting of it. Dr. Tancredi's carefully applied mascara was running down her face as her tear ducts fought to protect her eyes from the smoke.
A hand on her shoulder made her jump. How'd anyone get in? she wondered as she spun to find an arm reaching down out of the ceiling. Following it up, she found herself looking into the eyes of Michael Scofield.
"Come on," he ordered, wiggling his hand. "Grab my hand."
Cass didn't want to admit it, not even to herself, but a wave of relief flooded through her at the sight of his face.
"Come on!" he repeated. The smoke was getting worse, almost obscuring his face as it rose up through the hole in the ceiling, eager to spread out farther from its source and making it impossible to breathe. The inmates howled and beat against the glass, screaming obscenities and the details of exactly what they planned to do once they got a hold of her.
The Oracle scrambled up onto the exam table and reached out to Michael. "I've got you," he assured her as he seized her arm and used it to haul her up into the ceiling. She kicked off the table, trying to help him as much as this body would let her and once again cursing Sara for not spending more time at the gym. This being saved by the big, strong man was not Cass's style.
Scofield was perched on a large metal pipe up in the ceiling, and as soon as she could, she hooked her elbow on it and tried draw herself up beside him. She'd inhaled too much smoke, she realized as a series of hacking coughs forced her to stop, dangling in midair.
Michael grabbed her around the waist and hauled her up next to him, guiding her into a sitting position on the pipe beside him as she doubled over from the smoke. Her eyes were watering so badly that the world had become one big blur.
A hand touched her shoulder, and she jumped, in spite of herself. "Are you all right?" Scofield asked. "It's ok—I'm not going to hurt you."
She coughed again, into her shoulder, and wiped in vain at her runny eyes. The back of her hand came back smeared with black from the mascara. "Aren't you generally supposed to…get down in a fire?" she joked in between coughs. She smiled weakly. "So, what's the plan?"
"See these pipes,"—he touched the one they were resting on—"We're going to stay on them. They go through the wall, into the hallway, and they're going to get us out of here. All you have to do is follow me."
Cass nodded numbly, trying to force her brain into catching up with the rest of her. Then she remembered. "Wait—we can't leave yet! There's a guard down there…out in the infirmary. They've got him handcuffed to a post…"
Michael's eyes flitted from her face down to the hole in the ceiling, his face hard. "No," he said after a moment. "There's no way we can get to him, not without putting all our lives at risk. COs can be used as leverage. I get back to Abruzzi—he'll find a way to use the bull as a bargaining chip with the police outside."
The look on his face was as uncompromising as granite, but the one in his eyes betrayed a man who didn't like the decision any more than she did. She may not be a real doctor—just inhabiting the body of one—but she understood the concept of triage. A guard—another man—might be able to make it through this alive, but not the lady doctor. She was just rape fodder as long as she stayed within the prison walls. That didn't stop Cass from giving one last forlorn look down into the sick bay office before following Scofield down the pipe.