A small brown rabbit hops happily along the grass.
The long green blades brush against his sides as he scampers along the trail, chasing a small green grasshopper. Curiosity navigates his trail and he follows freely and carelessly. Without warning, the grasshopper leaps through the air and flies through a wall of some sort.
A small rabbit hops over to the wall and stares curiously: it's full of patterned holes and made of thin silver strips as shiny as the pond by his burrow. The rabbit sniffs the air in front of the wall: it's warm and tingly, like nothing he's ever felt.
The grasshopper flutters from behind the wall and the rabbit returns his attention back to it. He decides to sniff closer to inspect the unusual insect. His whiskers grow nearer and nearer to the unusual insect. Slowly, so as to not disturb it, his nose inches forward.
Suddenly, the rabbit's nose touches the silver strips of the wall.
Three hundred volts of unmerciful electricity tear through his body.
The hair on his small white tail bursts into flames.
His rigid body shakes uncontrollably.
Blood leaks from the orifices of his head.
And the eyes burst from his skull.
His charred face finally falls from the electrified fence and onto the dirt of the floor, but his left leg continues twitching long after he lies dead on the ground.
The grasshopper jumps back through the chain-link fence and lands on his body; it steps forward and flies off into the wind.
Gray stands on the other side of the fence, staring down at the electrocuted rabbit.
"Dumb animal."
He looks away from the smoke rising from the scorched flesh. The yard lies before him in all of it's rundown splendor: weeds fills the few gaps where concrete hadn't been paved and dust coats the ground. Faded white lines outline an old basketball court in the middle of the cement. The prisoners are scattered around the yard in clusters, talking, shouting, laughing, killing time. Gray stands away from groups, outside the imaginary ring of thieves.
The Android stands on the opposite end of the yard, having dismissed himself informally to collect some money after the brief lunch. Gray stares at him from afar, at his inexpressive eyes, his cold, steel-covered face, and his smooth, mechanical hands. All in all, at least the robot knows when to shut up.
"Hey, Cutie."
Unlike the rest of the yard...
"Interested in a quick game of cards?"
Gray turns his head around to face the direction of the sound; his eyes rest on a tall figure less than ten feet away. Her long red hair sways to the rhythm of her steps; a seductive smile drapes across her face like a satin sheet; he feels her eyes devilishly trailing on him and can't help but wonder what she wants.
But he turns back around and continues staring off.
The Girl leans back on her leg and rests a hand on her chin as she settles on a spot beside him.
"Yeah, didn't think you looks much like a card player." She shifts her weight to the opposite leg as her smile widens. "You seem like the type of man would be into something a bit more... fun."
Gray slowly turns around; he looks her in the eye and responds. "What do you want?"
She leans in and answers slowly, her face only inches away from his. "The better question is... what do you want? And what are you willing to pay to get it?"
He stays motionless for a minute, staring at her with unmoving scrutiny. Then he smirks. "What do I want?"
"You got it, cowboy," she answers with impish smile, still only inches from his.
He continues quietly. "What I want is for you..." She leans her ear in closer to him. "...to tell everything you know about him."
She follows the direction of her finger to the grimacing cyborg yards away.
Her eyes darken. "Him?"
"Yes," Gray answers with a mocking smile, "him."
The Girl stands straight back up and pulls gently at a metal collar around her neck. "Cyberion."
She takes a cigarette and lights up slowly. Gray raises an eyebrow: he hasn't seen a single other person in the entire yard with such thin, fine cigarettes; in fact, he hasn't seen any cigarettes at all.
"You'd be smart to stay away from him." She draws in deeply. "He was a soldier... decorated an' honored and all that fluff. At least he was, but he had some sort of accident on the battlefield: tore his flesh right off."
She inhales, exhales another breath, and stands lopsidedly, apparently annoyed with the job she's been requested.
"Some scientists tried to build him back up with machines and metal organs or whatever as part of some government operation. Anyways, he totally flipped out. Blamed them for 'making him what he was' and 'giving him empty life' or some similarly stupid rants. In his first six minutes of online time, he killed all nine of the geeks who built him."
A cloud of fine smoke trails from her lips.
"Killed ten more people on his way out of the building. Took the feds twenty hours of active assault to trap him and shut him down. Afterwards, they cut him open, deprogrammed his aggression or something and strung him back up..." She flicks the cigarette away and looks at Gray as she trails off. "He doesn't fight anymore, doesn't even lift a finger. And nobody fights him. Not that they could they wants to..."
Gray returns her gaze. "Why would they put an android in a federal prison?"
"Because the law classifies me as human."
Cy walks in from a small distance and stands in front of the two talking inmates. He glances at Gray, then shifts his gaze towards the Girl. They stand in silence for a minute, neither moving nor breathing.
She finally interrupts the silence.
"Cy."
He returns the greeting.
"Red."
The silence continues as Gray stands outside of the morbid staring contest.
"Well," she says, interrupting the unnatural hush and smiling darkly, "pleasure doing business with you." She winks at Gray. "And I'm sure you can find a way of paying me back later."
Red throws one last glance and walks away. "Nice chatting with you again, Cy." Red hair swings behind in perfect synchronization with her steps; the orange jumpsuit that clings to her does nothing to hide the lean, sculpted body.
"You'd do best staying away from her." Gray faces the hulking android beside him with a knowing smirk, expecting to hear a certain speech for the second time that day.
"Who is she?"
The Android keeps his eyes glued on the distant figure of Red, shamelessly offering merchandise to the next customer. "That is what a black widow looks like in human form." Cy peels his eyes away and meets Gray's gaze.
"How do they let women in here?"
"In case you haven't noticed, there aren't your granddaddy's prisons. The bureaucrats in charge of this place don't care about us. Most women that get in here are more than strong enough to take care of themselves anyway. Take Red for example: she's psychotic, doesn't believe in limits or rules or the law. Does whatever she wants, whenever she wants, wherever she wants."
Gray continues his stare. "Sounds a little presumptuous to me."
"Do you know why she's in here?" Gray apathetically shrugs. "It was all over the news about a year ago..."
He stares straight ahead, unwavering. "I don't watch the news."
"It was an orgy."
"What?"
"Red and five or six other kids—college kids—got together at a motel for an all-night sexcapade."
Silence.
"And...?"
"And they went at it like greased-up monkeys. After everybody got their fill, though, little Red Riding Whore got it in her head to take things up a notch; she decided to try out some of her more... intense... sexual practices on a group that seemed open-minded."
Longer silence.
Gray finally gives in. "Well, what happened?"
"They played along with it at first, probably out of some high-minded liberal prurience, but gradually they starts disliking the idea, until they starts physically resists her advances." Cy looks out over the yard. "As you can guess, she didn't take it very well. She was determined to get her fill and ended up completely slaughtering the lot of them, all while getting off on the games she played with them. The cops that closed the case didn't even describe to the media what it was she had been doing to them, only that the bodies were mutilated beyond recognition."
Both of the men hold their silence unwaveringly. The perversity of the story seems to take its time slowly sinking into the atmosphere.
PREEEEEEEEEEEET.
A shrill whistle pierces the air.
"A'ight, let's do this," a small black inmate shouts out in the middle of the court. "E'erbody that wants in better drag themselves out here now!"
A small number of people gather around the young prisoner as he produces a worn basketball and bounces it dramatically between his legs. The inmates gather together and divide themselves into two teams of four.
"You gonna join in?" Cy asks, hiding a mechanical smile.
"No."
"You sure?" the Android asks with mock sincerity. "It'd be a great time to make some new friends and get some exercise."
"I get enough exercise," Gray answers sharply, "and I sure as hell don't need to know any of these lowlifes."
His robotic face suddenly manages to grow strangely somber. "Listen, if you're gonna be stayin' in here, you better get it into your head that you need friends in the right places to survive." Cy looks away. "No better way to get respect than on a court shooting hoops."
Gray doesn't answer.
In the circle ahead, a team stands with a fifth player standing beside them; the opposing team yells out to the crowd for one more player. Gray walks out from behind a group of talking inmates.
"I'll play."
The inmate that started the game bounces the ball to him.
"Bring it, Whitey."
BREAK
He looks like an animal: his hair hung in a long streamlined ponytail of light brown hair from his head and blends in with his equally long beard; his eyes are like polished bone and canine teeth decorate the inside of his huge mouth. His hulking figure is a tower, muscular and daunting with the basketball palmed in his right hand.
The man looks like an animal. And he is two steps away from steamrolling Gray.
Gray stands on the balls of both feet with his hands sternly in a defensive position. Sweat soaks his back, his hair is a mess in his eyes, and his muscles are ready for anything...
But the man in front of him looks like a damn animal.
Just as the mammoth of a man starts a drive right into his face, Gray takes a flying leap straight into the air and toward his hulking opponent. The Hairy Man falters, confused by the speed of his adversary; Gray takes that hesitation to his advantage. In the middle of his leap, he snatches the ball and lands in a sliding crouch on the concrete. The Hairy Man stops and frantically spins around, searching for the ball that had been his only seconds before.
But by then, Gray is already on the opposite side of the court and nine players, including his own team, are caught completely off guard. Gray jogs to the basket with a simple layup; the ball goes rolls in with no trouble.
A prisoner with a pocket watch stands up from the sidelines and yells at the top of his lungs. "Game over!"
The rest of the team jogs up to Gray with crooks smiles and noisily congratulates him.
"Way to go, my man!"
"Give it up!"
"That's stickin' it to 'em."
The five players crowd around, shouting noisily and completely ignoring the odd looks of the opposite team.
"Hey, ladies!" an inmate on the other team yells out. Gray's team pauses for a second and turns to the yelling prisoner. "You forgettin' something?" He steps forward from the angry team behind him. "Like how we just whooped yo' little asses?"
"Man, who gives a shit?" yells the captain of Gray's team, a tall Hispanic with a buzz cut. "Ya'll a buncha cheaters anyway!"
Gray slowly walks away to the place where Cy stands among the crowd that had lines the rundown basketball court. He stands idly beside him, catching his breath and staring at the growing argument.
"…That's bull! We coulda beat your team easy if you hadn't been pullin' those cheap tricks!"
The two sideliners gaze at the building tension.
"That was weak."
Gray turns towards Cy. "What?"
"You and I both know you coulda done a lot better," Cy answers without returning Gray's look.
The shouts in front of them grow louder.
"Maybe I didn't want to do better."
Suddenly, the opposing captain swings at the Hispanic inmate; he barely moves back to avoid the punch when the inmate comes at him with a full-blown tackle. The remaining seven basketball players spread out, moving further and further into the crowd that slowly comes forward to watch the fight.
"And why the hell would you not want to beat out everybody?"
The two prisoners struggle heatedly until the angry captain rises on top, swinging furiously at the hands the second prisoner holds up in defense of his face. His blows become increasingly stronger until he's beating the man beneath him senseless; he manages to knock away his hands and raise a fist to bring it down square on the loser's face.
Thwack.
The Hispanic opens his eyes and sees the captain thrown aside.
His lax body lays motionlessly.
Blood forms a pool from the dent in his head.
And his eyes stand frozen with a look of pained emptiness.
The Hispanic finally rose from the floor and brushes the dirt and blood off.
The Warden emerges from the building beside the yard with his rifle. "Any of you other dumb animals wanna cause a ruckus?"
The entire yard is silent.
"That's what I thought!" He turns back to the building. "Time to go in."
The prisoners follow at a distance in mass formation.
The Hispanic hesitates before leaving and leans over the barely conscious body on the floor; he eyes it carefully and spits.
Gray turns and faces Cy.
"That's why."
They follow the masses towards the building.