Chapter 57

The first order of business was a new identity. He called in a favor with some guys he knew, and they gave him a crisp new ID and 30 years of history. William Brady was a high school history teacher, with bouts of high blood pressure and periods of mental instabillity. By 3 p.m., he was ready. He called Eames' phone.

"Eames," she said, answering quickly.

"Hey."

"Where are you?"

"I'm going under at Tates."

She was at work, so she didn't say his name. "I don't like this," she said quietly.

"I know."

"When?"

"I've got a plan... should get picked up tonight... after they take me through intake, I'll call my cell. Keep it with you. I'll call you regularly, so you'll know I'm okay."

"Isn't there another way?"

"If you have a better idea, let's hear it. Donny's clock is ticking, Eames!"

She frowned and nodded against the phone. "I'm with you, Bobby. Be careful."

"I'll call you."

"I'll be waiting."

It was on the tip of his tongue, but he didn't say "I love you." He took just a moment to rake his fingers through his hair, and then he headed to the bus station. His twenty dollar brick was tucked inside his coat pocket.

The bus ride gave him plenty of time to alter his prints, and it was satisfying to hurl the brick through that sorry excuse for a judge's window. He spent the first night in holding, and in the morning was sentenced to 30 days at Tates. He'd acted strangely enough to get himself sent to MO for evaluation.

Bobby kept silent for more than an hour, and then she pumped him full of truth serum. The drugs made him tell the truth, but to the doctor, the truth sounded crazy. In the swirl of thoughts conjured by the drugs, Bobby managed to latch onto his lie once more. He told her he was William Brady, a history teacher, and when she asked him if people were being murdered here, he simply asked, "Why would they do that?"

She had enough information to satisfy her evaluation. She prescribed medication, which he cheeked and spit out at the earliest opportunity. Finally, Bobby was allowed a phone call. It was disappointing that she couldn't answer. Bobby had no idea that she was covering for him with Ross at that very moment.

"Is that your partner's cell phone?" Ross asked.

"Uh, yeah. He... he left it. Said he didn't want to be disturbed on his leave."

"Tell you where he was going?"

"No. Just somewhere quiet." Ross accepted her answer and walked away. Alex picked up Bobby's phone and made a note in her ledger. 1:05 p.m., Goren ok signal received.

He hadn't seen Donny yet, not in the rec area or the lunchroom. Bobby decided he must be in isolation. Donny's fear would have certainly kept him out of Genpop. At lunch he made a work of art with his peas and carrots. Then he began pounding his meatballs with his fist. A fellow inmate befriended him, tried to help him so he wouldn't get sent away. The man wore an Altoona college shirt, and Bobby knew it must belong to Donny. He asked if he would let him go see his friend.

"Alexis, I'm still on my cruise," he said into the phone. I thought I'd see Frank's son, but... I guess he's, uh, in a single room below deck."

Watch your back, Bobby.

"Okay," he said before hanging up.

Alex worried. She knew it was tearing him up not to know if Donny was safe or not. She also knew Bobby didn't sound like himself. After she made a note of the call, she said a silent prayer, one hand drifting up to the cross at her neck.

Bobby caught his newfound 'friend' roughing up one of the other inmates. He jumped the guy, thinking he had done the same to Donny. Bobby let his anger go, punching the man repeatedly in the face, until he felt a baton across his neck and was overpowered by two of the CO's.

They sent him back to the psychiatrist. She tried to give him his medication, and he stubbornly refused to take them.

"Swallow," she said. "I need you to swallow. You're cheeking them." She was frustrated. The Doctor knew her patients were much better off medicated and in the company of the other inmates than they were in isolation. "Swallow the damn pills!" She ordered, raising her voice.

Bobby spit them across the room.

She replaced two more in the paper cup in front of him. "Okay, now you listen to me. The guards already called the warden. Just take the pills," she warned him. "I'm here to help you."

"I take these pills," Bobby said, "they'll put batteries in me."

"Swallow, or they're gonna take you to isolation."

"Fine," he said. "Let 'em."

"No, You don't want that," she said as the warden entered the room.

"Mr. Brady," the warden called. "Giving my staff a hard time?" She spoke to the doctor next. "The guards tell me this inmate has been problematic."

"He's under control, warden," the Doctor said.

"It is under control," Bobby said, "It's simply that I don't wanna take my pills. I said it a few times and nobody seems to be listening to me. I don't wanna take my pill. Not gonna take them." He flicked the cup and the pills off the table.

"Okay, Mr. Brady," the warden said.

"Just no more pills!" Bobby cried.

"That's the last time you act out, you're going downstairs."

"I don't think that's necessary!" The Doctor protested.

The warden stared at her. "You're new, Doctor, you're not getting the big picture."

"I... I see an inmate who could decompensate in isolation."

"My staff has to put up with constant abuse. They get urinated on. They get blood and feces thrown on them. These people have to learn restraint."

Two days in, and Bobby was taken to Heaven. They strapped him to a wheelchair for the transfer, still worried that he might become violent with them. A muffled voice came through one of the thick isolation room doors. "Bobby?"

He turned his head and saw Donny, alive and healthy. Bobby looked down to hide his relief, and the men pushed him farther down the hall. The room they took him to was bright and hot. In the center of the room was a bare stainless steel table with leather restraints lying in wait. Bobby's breath came faster, and when they started to free him from the chair, he bucked at them.

"Okay, c'mon, big man," one of the guards said.

"No, too hot, let's get out of here," Goren pleaded.

"It's hot 'cause we're next to the boiler."

"How long do I have to be in here?" Bobby asked. They laid him down and strapped him to the table.

"See, that's not up to us. It's up to you," he was told. Bobby tried to raise up, but they stretched a heavy chain over his waist. The guard cinched the leather straps at his ankles.

They pronounced him secure and left the room. The door closed with a heavy click. Bobby lay staring at the ceiling, his mind racing, and full of regret. He lifted his head and peeked at the restraints across him. He tugged, testing the bindings at his hands and feet. He told himself not to panic as he felt the sweat bead up and roll down his face, into his ears and the hair at the back of his neck. There was a light overhead, the only thing to focus his attention on. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the light as a red starburst inside his lids. There was an annoying buzz in the room as well, the zap of electricity coursing through the lights or something in the mechanical room next door. Light, and heat, and a constant drone. As the hours crept by, he thought maybe Ross was right. Maybe he was crazy.

A powerful thirst built up inside him, and he coughed a little, summoning the courage to call his captors. "Can I get some water, please?" Bobby called. There was no response. He worked hard to maintain control of his fear as he suffered. Bobby started to count backwards from ten, as a way to keep a grip on his sanity.

He could hear distant sounds of life beyond the room, indiscernable noises that reminded him there were others here. In desperation, he called out again. "Need some water!" His eyes teared up as he realized no one was coming.

Every day, Bobby had called shortly after 1 p.m. Alex stared at the clock. It was nearly two thirty, and no word yet. With fear gripping her heart, she wrote on the pad. One hour late, no call. Alex raised her knuckles to her mouth, praying for his safety.

All he could think about was water. Lowery had died for lack of water, and Bobby knew with the heat of the room, he was becoming dehydrated. He asked for it again, and sometimes his voice failed him. The word came out a whisper. "Water."

When he found his voice, it sounded strangled. "I keep asking for water," he cried. He coughed. "I'm asking for water, please!" He struggled against the restraints and screamed. "I keep asking for water!"

"We got water, here," a voice finally responded from somewhere in the hall.

"I keep asking for it!" He called back.

One of the CO's came in with a small paper cup. "Here's your water," he said, holding it over Goren's mouth. Bobby struggled to touch his lips to the cup. The officer dumped the entire contents out and it spilled over his mouth and down his neck, lying useless on the steel table. Bobby gasped and choked a little. "Give me some water," he said again.

"Can you believe that?" One of the officers said to the other. "He spilled his water after all that bitching." Bobby fought against the restraints again.

"Give me some more, please?" The heartless men left the room, and Bobby sobbed. He gasped for air, but no tears came. "You spilled it all over!" He screamed at them, and his voice echoed in the barren room. "You spilled it!" He turned his head. He could almost feel the little puddle soaking past the hair on the back of his head. "I'll take the pills, just get me out of here! I'll take the pills, just get me out!" He begged.

Alex waited, but there was still no call. Her prayers continued.

After two days in Heaven, they took him to an isolation cell. Donny saw him again and screamed out his name, but Bobby didn't recognize him. He could barely make sense of anything around him. It was a miracle he was on his feet. The guards dumped him onto a bunk in a narrow cell and left him.

Alex was beyond worry now. She stared at his lifeless phone, wondering if the time had come. Captain Ross came in, decked out for a night at the symphony, and Alex sighed. She needed his help. Bobby needed his help. She jogged after him and caught him at the elevators. "Captain?"

"Overture begins at 7, Eames, I got a half hour to get to Lincoln Center."

"It's about Goren," she told him.

The elevator doors opened to reveal Ross' date, Elizabeth Rodgers, dressed to the nines. Ross frowned at her. "Talk to me on the way down," he ordered.

Alex followed him in, and as the doors closed, he asked, "What?"

She told him. She told him everything, and did not manage to hide the fear she was feeling. Rodgers stood agape, and nodded in acceptance to Ross' apology. The Captain and Eames went right back up to Major Case.

She was going to leave without him, But Ross stopped her. "No. We'll go together."

"All right Brady, back to heaven," the guard called.

Bobby was crunched onto one end of the bunk, too weary to move. "No," he managed to say.

The guard called in assistance. They picked him up and carried him out.

"Hey, I'm a cop," Bobby admitted.

"Yeah, me too," the guard said sarcastically.

"No," Bobby muttered, until they drew closer to the room. He screamed. "Noooooo! It's too long, it's not fair!"

Ross peppered her with questions: how did he manage to get in, how come his prints didn't show in the system?

"He took care of that, and created an alias," she said.

"On his own?" the Captain asked. "How many people in MCS are involved in this?!" he demanded.

"Counting you and me?" she asked. Implicating the Captain managed to shut him up.

"I'm gonna arrest you, gonna arrest all of you," Goren told them as they sat him on the table again. He could already feel the warmth in his skin. "Gonna arrest the whole prison, gonna arrest the whole world."

"Gonna arrest us?" One of the CO's asked. "How you gonna do that?"

"I'm a cop. Badge number..." Bobby struggled to remember. "Badge number... 8-8... it's crazy 8... I killed Dillinger, bang bang bang! I'm a space cop from a space ship. I found Jimmy Hoffa." Even as they chuckled at his ranting, they laid him prone and worked to strap him down. Bobby raised his finger, aimed at the lights above, and pretended to shoot them all out.

Ross' diplomacy got them in, and Bobby out. Alex left with a newfound respect for her Captain. They waited outside the gates and watched the bus pull out. Bobby was in that bus. Alex looked over at Captain Ross, put the car in gear, and followed.