This is the prologue (which is rather obvious if you just scroll down a bit). Sorry for the formatting, it seems that the forum dislikes indentation...If you like what you see, you can buy a copy here: https://www.createspace.com/3519745 Or here: http://www.amazon.com/Hawthorne-Effect-Maria-Josefina-Marione/dp/0615505694.
Prologue
Palamede Town hall: Prison
7:23 pm
Palamede Town hall: Prison
7:23 pm
They open his door slowly, just wide enough for a guard to slip through into the cell. The fluorescent light above his bed flickers and hisses as the door clicks shut. The prisoner drags his gaze up from his hands where they lie neatly folded in his lap. The guard steps back in surprise and glances down at the paper clutched in his fist. Cell 121. There has been no mistake. He tries not to think about what the headlines of the paper sitting in the guard station say.
The young man is sitting exactly where they left him sixteen hours ago. He is wearing the same clothes; he has the same neatly combed hair, but the similarities end there.
“Someone is here to see you,” The guard tells him from the doorway. He will go no closer.
“Who is it?” The prisoner’s voice is quiet and even, but there is an undeniable edge to it. The guard shifts uneasily under his black-rimmed gaze.
“I don’t know. But you shouldn’t keep them waiting.” And I want to get out of here. This kid gives me the creeps. I wonder if he really killed— The prisoner gets to his feet and takes a stiff step toward the door.
Five more guards wait for them in the hallway, and the procession makes its way down the hall, past the rows of cells. With each step, voices echo out from behind the doors. Men and women calling for friends, for family, for justice. And some of them for death. The guard hardly even notices these cries now. They have become nothing more to him than white noise, the soundtrack to his workday. It’s the silent ones that get to him now.
They reach the visiting room after what feels like an eternity. The guard opens the door and motions for the prisoner to enter. This side of the glass is sparsely furnished. A straight-backed chair has been bolted to the floor in front of a reinforced wooden desk. The only decoration is an oversized analogue clock eight feet off the ground. A steel cage ensures that, should someone manage to get up to it, there would be no way to use the clock as a weapon. All in all, the prisoner’s side of the visitation room is a cold and unfriendly place.
“You have fifteen minutes.” The guard tells the young man before backing out into the hallway. His job is done. Someone else will watch the kid and his visitor until the timer goes off and it’s his turn again.
The prisoner’s tired, searching eyes follow him out of the room. Not until the door slides shut and the bolt is thrown does the prisoner look to see who has come to see him. A pin prick of recognition edges into his consciousness. He picks up the phone receiver and presses it to his ear.
“You look like hell.” The young man sitting on the other side of the glass tells him, studying his face as though searching for a secret hidden among the pores.
“I feel like hell.” He answers, looking back through the Plexiglas window.
“Never thought it’d be you, you know.”
“Yeah.”
There follows a silence that is equal parts awkward and personable as each considers the other’s predicament. Wondering just what it is like on the other side of the glass. It seems odd that only a quarter of an inch of synthetic material holds them apart.
“I don’t understand it.”
“Yeah. Me neither.”
“I keep playing it over in my head,” tracing a finger over the carvings in the table, “and I can’t figure out where it went wrong.”
The visitor’s eyes rake over the prisoner.
“Would you do one thing for me?”
“Sure. What have we got to lose?”
“Tell me the story. Tell it to me from the beginning. Tell me what you saw.” There is a moment of consideration, of careful calculation, and then a shrug.
“We have fifteen minutes.”
“That’s all I need.”
