Jaid Black - Death Row excerpt

How I grieve for you…for all that you have lost and for all that you will continue to lose as you grow into manhood. Why couldn’t life have dealt us a better hand, my son?

But when all is said and done, it still comes down to this: there is no utility in wishing for a different life, nor is there any use in dreaming of a happy ending.

There is only the reality of our existence and the reality of our need to survive.

December 24, 2216

40 miles outside the Mayan pyramidal ruins of Altun Ha in former Belize, The United Americas of Earth, December 17, 2249 A.D.

Kerick Riley’s dark head came up slowly, his cold gray eyes flicking dispassionately over the smirking face of the prison warden. Wiping mud from his eyes, he rose up to his feet from the pen of wet dirt and blood he’d been kicked into, simultaneously noting everything there was to see about the executioner. From the pristine white silk robe the warden wore, to the flash-stick in his hand that could ignite and thereby sizzle a man to death at mere contact, nothing escaped his notice.

For fifteen years, seven months, three weeks, and five days, Kerick had waited with an inhuman patience for the arrival of this moment. He’d never allowed his mental acumen or extreme physical strength to lessen from lack of use over the years, that both would be there to serve him when the hour of reckoning had at last come upon him.

Never once in all of those fifteen plus years had he allowed his thoughts to betray him. He knew when it was safe to think, and he knew as well when it was necessary to create a void in his mind to prohibit a detection scanner from probing what went on in his thoughts.

From a young age he had been taught the necessity of control, his mother having gone so far as to beat the lessons into him. She’d used such harsh tactics not because she had hated her son, but conversely because she had adored him, and more fundamentally, because she had wanted him to live.

The lessons in bodily and mental control passed down from Tara Riley had done more than help Kerick survive in the violent world of twenty-third century Earth; they had also made it possible for him to survive this day. Today. The dwindling hours of remaining daylight prior to his execution.

Kerick’s sharp gray eyes continued to study the warden, but betrayed none of his emotions. They simply calculated and assessed with an almost robotic precision, doing the same as they’d always done these past fifteen years. He realized that the sadistic warden had always despised—and envied—his ability to think and behave as though he were a machine, for it made predicting his behavior impossible.

Warden Jallor tapped the flash-stick against his thigh, his eyebrows shooting up mockingly. He believed he’d won, Kerick knew, thought indeed that the prisoner was about to die…

For nearly every waking moment of the past fifteen years, Kerick had calculated, assessed, plotted, and planned. He had noted the weaknesses of the 50-story structure surrounding him, had made certain that he’d learned all there was to know of the seemingly impenetrable fortress that was his prison. For the most part, he understood that Warden Jallor was correct—Kong was an impenetrable fortress. But Kerick also understood that there was no such thing as invincible, and he had spent fifteen years learning how to defeat the undefeatable Kong.

Officially entitled Correctional Sector 12, the penal colony of Kong had gotten its nickname from an old black-and-white movie none from Kerick’s time had ever seen but all had heard tell of. It was said that in the old movie the god-like ape King Kong could escape from any prison, but not even the Mighty Kong could escape Sector 12. For most prisoners, that statement turned out to be chillingly true, but for Kerick Riley…

“Remove your clothes,” Warden Jallor snapped, his patience nearing an end. His icy blue eyes flicked down to the innocuous bulge in the prisoner’s pants. “Now.”

He wanted to kill him. For year after bitter year, Kerick had comforted himself with thoughts of Jallor’s death, with thoughts of avenging himself—and avenging his mother. But for the moment at least, such was not to be. He needed the warden alive. For now.

Kerick’s stoic gaze never wavered from Jallor’s as he slowly, methodically, removed first his prison-issued woolen tunic and finally his woolen pants. Both garments were a dirty, muted brown, filthy and greasy from having been worn for three solid years without a cleaning. In truth, removing the disgusting clothing was practically a relief. It would mean he was naked during the escape, but so be it.

When he was finished, Kerick stood before Warden Jallor in stone-faced silence, his heavily muscled six-foot five-inch frame completely divested of clothing, his brooding eyes that saw everything piercing the warden’s.

He was a stupid man, Kerick knew. Sadistic but stupid. Removing the prisoner from his chains would prove to be his downfall.

With the sensory chains on, Kerick never would have stood a chance at escaping. The moment he ventured outside the perimeter of the Kong penal colony, the sensors within the chains would have detonated and his skin would have gone up in flames, charring him to ashes within seconds.

But on the day of execution the chains were removed—the only day in a Death Row inmate’s life where that was so.

Warden Jallor stepped towards him, careful to keep his distance, his smirk deepening. “Fifteen years ago you swore this day would never come to pass,” he said in a mocking tone. “Indeed, how the mighty have fallen.”

For the first time in fifteen years, Kerick smiled—a gesture that caused the warden to frown. “Yes,” Kerick agreed, his deep rumble of a voice scratchy from a prolonged lack of use, “how the mighty have fallen.”

Two guards appeared behind Jallor. The warden made a dismissive motion with his head, indicating it was time to retreat and step aside while the flash-stick was detonated. The warden barely had time to gasp before the flash-stick was snatched from his hand, rendering him completely defenseless from an assault.

“What are you doing?” Jallor snapped at one of the guards, his eyes promising retribution. “Hand the weapon over and take your place at the—”

The warden’s words came to a halt when the “guard” holding the flash-stick peeled off his face armor. Jallor gulped as he looked up into the grim ebony face of Elijah Carter, a Death Row inmate who was scheduled to be executed next week.

Kerick walked slowly towards Jallor. His jaw tightened as he came to a stop before him, staring down at the wide-eyed warden. With a growl he picked Jallor up off of the ground by the neck, his grip tightening until the warden’s throat began to elicit gurgling sounds.

“Don’t kill him,” Elijah warned. “Not yet.” He glanced over to the secret panel in the execution pen that allowed for a magistrate of justice to escape should situations like this one ever arise. That panel would take them to the outermost perimeter of Kong. From there, Kerick, Elijah, and Xavier would be on their own in the jungle. “The DNA scanner only responds to living flesh prints, amigo.”

Kerick grunted, but said nothing. He tightened his hold on the warden’s neck fractionally, letting Jallor know he’d never allow him to live once they’d gotten from him the palm scan they sought.

Nostrils flaring, Kerick turned his head and stared hard at Elijah. Seeing his familiar face, and realizing as he did that Elijah would be executed next week if they were caught, he regained his sanity long enough to let loose of his hold on the sadistic warden.

Jallor gasped when Kerick released his throat. He panted for air as he fell to the ground and turned eyes filled with hatred on the prisoner-turned-executioner.

Kerick smiled slowly, his steel gray eyes locking with the warden’s. “Indeed,” he murmured, “How the mighty have fallen.”

“Shit.” A beleaguered Nellie Kan ran a hand through her sweat-drenched hair and sighed. She turned to the Spanish-speaking guard of Fathom Systems, Inc. and attempted to converse with him using what little of the language she’d managed to acquire while living and working in the Belizean sector these past two years.

Back when the sector had been its own nation the prominent tongue of the people living here had been English, but that had changed a few decades past when Belize had become federated within the United Americas of Earth colony. “Que le paso al sistema de ventilacción?” she asked in a thick accent. What has happened to the ventilation system?

Christ! she grumbled to herself for the thousandth time in two years, was it too much to ask of the mega-conglomerate company to provide air within the Altun Ha biosphere for its scientists and other workers? Apparently it was, for she had put the same question to the same guard at least three times a week for as long as she’d lived and worked within the synthetic black glass dome known officially as Biosphere 77.

“Doctor Kan, voy a ver lo que pueda hacer antes de irme esta noche,” Juan promised on a grin. I’ll go see what I can do before I leave for the night, Doctor Kan. Juan was as accustomed to having this conversation as Nellie was. “Te digo buenas noches.” I bid you goodnight.

Nellie smiled at the aging guard as he turned and walked away, the flash-stick in his hand absently thumping against his armor-encased thigh as he strolled from the sealed chamber whistling to himself. She watched him for a moment or two before turning back to the virtual reality display module she was currently working with, then settled back in her seat to resume her research.

Three more weeks, she thought excitedly, her heartbeat thumping against her chest as her fingers flicked over the keyboard. At the rate she was acquiring data, she would be able to produce a test serum from a randomly sampled control group of sub-humans within three weeks time.

She refused to consider the possibility that Boris Karli, her chief rival at Fathom Systems, might beat her to the punch and develop a serum first. She was aware of the fact that the lying, manipulative son-of-a-defective-droid had been thumbing through her notes on the sly, but she doubted that he had enough ingenuity to do anything with them.

If Boris defied expectations and developed a serum, well then, the more power to him. Nellie’s goal was to ease the suffering of sub-humans. Dr. Karli’s goal was and had always been fame and notoriety—preferably attained with as little work as possible.

Which was why Nellie doubted he’d figure out even the basics to a serum. He was one of those types of males who thought he knew everything, yet understood very little. The serum, she realized, was up to her.

And when it was done, when she had found the answers she was seeking, she would be careful, of course, to never break her word to the older, infected woman who had given her the dusty, worn-out diary that had proven to be a vital aide…and chillingly accurate.

Nellie would never tell anyone—anyone—that the basis of her entire research was derived from the journal of one Dr. Tara Riley. To do so would mean not only academic suicide, but it could also mean…

In life, the discredited Dr. Riley had been branded a heretic by her scientific peers. In death, she was still regarded as heretical, though there were those who whispered behind closed doors that perhaps—perhaps…

Perhaps Dr. Riley hadn’t been as insane as the Hierarchy would lead people to believe she had been.

Her ideas had been…bizarre. And because of the oddity of them, because of the fact they had seemed too fantastical, too completely unbelievable, they had been systematically dismissed as the delusions of a paranoid schizophrenic. That schizophrenia had been cured and done away with decades ago…well, no scientist would have dared to bring that reminder up to her accusers in order to defend the outspoken heretic known as Dr. Tara Riley. Not if they had aspirations for waking up alive the next morning. That nobody had seemed to know exactly who the doctor’s accusers were was proof positive it was a stone best left unturned.

Too hot and sweaty to concentrate on her work, Nellie sighed as her hands fell from the keyboard and she slumped further into the chair. She ran a hand through her dark red hair, absently reminding herself it was time to get a hair shearing. A low-maintenance female scientist, she preferred to keep her hair cropped short so she didn’t have to mess with it. That she’d allowed it to grow so long was a sure sign of how immersed she’d been in her research as of late.

When the air in the laboratory grew too heavy and oppressive for her to remain inside, she took a deep breath to keep from passing out, then stood up. Parting the heavy woolen robe she was wearing into a wide vee, Nellie removed the thick article of body décor, allowing it to fall to the ground and cascade in a puddle around her feet. Naked, she padded across the lab chamber toward a storage closet, her goal to find a sheer robe or pantsuit she could don long enough to reach her domicile.

“Oh come on,” she muttered to herself as she rummaged through the storage closet. She parted three woolen lab suits that had been slung haphazardly on cheap hangars to see if any sheerer body décors were hanging behind them. “There has to be—”

She stilled, the hair at the nape of her neck stirring. She swallowed nervously, recognizing the sensation she’d just experienced for what it was:

Nellie closed her eyes briefly as she steeled herself to remain calm, realizing as she did just who that someone was. She could feel her heart rate betraying her, but she’d undergone enough detection scans in her life to realize when her mental and bodily reactions were being probed for answers and when they weren’t. She felt no nausea, no cramping in her mind, so she knew she was safe. For now.

And now she also understood why the ventilation system was no longer working. She had, after all, been through this routine almost as many times as she’d been through the “what’s happened to the ventilation system” conversation she frequently had with Juan. Difference was, she hadn’t been expecting this tonight, for Henders hadn’t come into the lab all day long.

Reminding herself it was best just to play along, she bent over into the closet, pretending obliviousness to her employer’s voyeurism as she took her time searching for a sheer lab suit. She knew just how to angle her body into a lean, knew how far apart to keep her ankles, so that Vorice Henders would be given an arousingly close-up view of the folds of flesh between her legs.

Perversely, she felt her body respond to the knowledge it was being watched. She realized, however, that the tightening of her nipples and the saturation between her legs wasn’t being caused by Vorice Henders the man—it was being caused by the idea of knowing a man, even a man like Henders, was watching her in this way. A big difference.

Nellie took her time locating a sheer lab coat, giving her voyeuristic boss plenty of time to bring himself to completion while watching her. In a world where men took women at will—and often times against the women’s will—she supposed giving Henders jack-off material was a small price to pay for her independence. She was protected within the biosphere, an accomplished scientist allowed to work for pay rather than be bound to a male for free, and that’s all that mattered. For now.

Still feigning obliviousness, she turned around and offered the sensory cameras a full view of the front of her nude body. She allowed a confused frown to mar her face as she pretended to glance around, searching out other places where a sheer lab coat might be located.

Just then the ventilation system came on full blast, inducing Nellie to gasp when the chilled air hit her square in the face. Her rosy nipples immediately hardened and elongated, which she realized was what Henders had been hoping would happen. His office was located on the other side of the concourse, but she almost felt as though she could hear him gasping and groaning while he yanked his disgusting self off into oblivion.

Nellie debated within herself as to what she should do for as long as she felt she could get away with it without arousing suspicion that she was clued in as to Henders’ activities. She could put on her body décor and retreat to her domicile—or she could finish this perverse little show, perhaps earning herself the right to be left alone for a month or more.

Closing her eyes, she ran her hands over her breasts, her full lips parting slightly on a sigh as she began to massage her nipples. She used her thumbs and forefingers to latch onto the bases, gasping as she massaged upward to the tip of her nipples and back. She tried to pretend she was alone in her domicile and doing this for her own pleasure, for Henders was a vile, disgusting man, and it made her skin crawl to think about the fact that he was watching her do something so private and intimate.

It’s best this way, Nellie, she reminded herself. You need to finish that serum and Henders is your only protection from the others.

Resolved, Nellie continued to massage her nipples as she hoisted herself up onto a nearby table and spread her thighs wide so her employer would get the best show possible. She was careful not to knock over any beakers as she settled atop the table, preparing to masturbate herself into orgasm.

She continued to toy with a plumped up nipple in one hand while her other hand began roaming downwards, over her lightly tanned belly, then lower still through the triangle of dark red curls pointing toward the flesh of her cunt. She could feel his eyes on her, devouring her, more intense than they’d ever watched her before…

Her fingers found the warm, wet flesh of her pussy. She moaned softly as she began running them through the sleek folds, spreading the puffy lips wide open for Henders’ voyeuristic pleasure with the hand that had dropped from her breast. “Yes,” she murmured, pretending she was alone, “yes.”

Nellie gasped at the first touch of fingers to clit, the hedonistic sensations jolting through her not fabricated. She continued to pretend she was alone, then no longer cared if she was or wasn’t when the pleasure grew in its intensity and she drew nearer to orgasm. “Oh god,” she breathed out as her fingers briskly rubbed her clit in a circular motion. Her nipples jutted out as her head fell back and her eyes closed. “Yes.”

Panting heavily, she moaned as she masturbated herself faster, faster, and faster still. Her free hand came up and rubbed over her stiff nipples, then fell once more to her lap. On a groan she stuffed two fingers into her cunt, gasping and moaning as she finger-fucked herself with one hand and masturbated her clit with the other.

Blood rushed to her face to heat it. Blood coursed into her nipples, elongating them to the point of near pain. She could feel his eyes on her, the intensity of his stare more powerful than ever before…

“Oh god.” She stifled a loud moan as she broke, contenting herself with a softer one. Gasping, she fucked herself as hard as she could with two fingers as the orgasm ripped through her belly in a tidal wave of sensation.

When it was over, when she’d given Henders his show, she fell onto her back, exhausted. From the angle of the cameras, she knew he couldn’t see her face. All he could see was her body laying spread out on the table like a submissive offering, her nipples stabbing up into the air, the flesh of her cunt ripe and swollen from a recent and powerful orgasm. She laid there for a couple of minutes like that, panting until her breathing resumed its normal gait.

Deciding she’d given the perverted Henders more than enough time to jack himself off once or twice, she sat up slowly, then looked around for her woolen lab coat. It was still laying where she’d first dropped it, puddled in a heap on the floor next to her chair at the virtual reality display.

She felt the sensory cameras turn off as she walked over to where her lab coat lay, and she breathed a sigh of relief at realizing that the show was well and truly over for tonight. Her nostrils flared at the injustice of it all as she snatched the woolen robe up off of the ground.

It wasn’t right—the horrid price all women had to pay for freedom. And, she thought bitterly, was freedom at such a steep price truly freedom at all?

If the world had been a different place two hundred years ago, if males hadn’t been so highly valued over females, then couples wouldn’t have rushed off to genetic specialists to make certain the babies they birthed were all males. The result a couple of generations later had equaled disaster, for the planet was now overrun with men, making it so females of all races and nationalities were very rare—and very expensive.

Nellie couldn’t recall how many times she’d been verbally slandered in her thirty-two years for petitioning to the Hierarchy for the right to practice a career over being auctioned off for marriage. But she’d never permitted the negativity of others to thwart her from her goals, for she’d always known she was born to be a scientist. Hypothesizing and finding answers came to her as easily as breathing. Researching and experimentation was as natural to her as violence was to sub-humans…

Sub-humans, she reminded herself as she finished donning the woolen lab coat—she was their best hope for help for few other scientists seemed to care if they lived or died. If she had to endure Henders and his voyeurism for a bit longer in order to finish that serum, then she would. She had lost her own mother to infection. She wanted to save other children from the same fate that had for all intent and purposes orphaned her at age fourteen.

Ten minutes later, Nellie flicked off the virtual display screen and padded over toward the sliding sensory door, ignoring the sound of rushing air as it whisked open. With the same rushing air sound it closed behind her, now sealed off against anyone not possessing either her, Henders, or the guard Juan’s DNA genetic map.

Walking quickly toward the airbus railway that would take her to the other side of the biosphere where she lived, she didn’t pay much attention to her surroundings. She gasped a moment later when she walked head first into a man, her face hitting a solid wall of muscle.

“I’m so sorry,” she offered in the way of apology, her head coming up to find the man’s face. “I wasn’t paying attention to…to…”

She swallowed a bit nervously when her large green eyes found his steely gray ones. They were so intense—frighteningly intense—that for a moment she feared a sub-human had broken into the biosphere. But when she considered that his eyes were steel gray as opposed to that haunting blood-red color, she knew she was letting her overactive imagination rot her brain. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going,” she finished breathily.

The man said nothing, which made her more nervous. He simply stared at her from under the cowl hood of his black robe, his intense eyes flicking over her face, and over her body. He was a big man, much bigger than her five foot seven inch frame, and broader across the shoulders than any man she’d ever before seen.

Nellie backed up a step. He was handsome, yes, but he was far too intense. And eerily quiet. “I have to be going,” she said dumbly, uncertain what to do or say. She backed up another step as her eyes flicked over his chiseled masculine face. The rest of his features were as intense as his eyes—brooding lips, a hawk-like nose, an expression akin to chilled stone…

She turned and walked away from him, no longer caring if she came across as rude or not. The man frightened her. And given her family history, it took a lot to frighten Dr. Nellie Kan.

She could feel his intense eyes following her movement, like a predator tracking prey. She realized that he was still watching her, not needing to turn around and see him to confirm it. She walked faster, and faster still, desperate to reach the main atrium off the corridor where she knew she could lose herself in the crowd…

Nellie picked up the edges of her woolen robe and sprinted at top speed toward the corridor. The footfalls matched her pace, the sound of them getting closer and closer and—

She pushed open the heavy doors with an oomph, and bodily thrust herself into the atrium. She breathed easier, understanding as she did that males—even that male if he possessed a modicum of intelligence—would be less likely to ignore her protected status and claim her when others were around to view the illegal activity.

A group of ten females, chained and naked brides-to-be, were led in a procession in front of her, preparing to be taken to the bathing chamber before being auctioned off in marriage to the highest bidder. A group of young males were gathering around to watch, their moods light and festive as they playfully tweaked at the nipples of the females passing by.

“Can’t wait til I have enough yen to buy one,” a blond teenager with a hard-on announced.

“Shit, me neither,” another one laughed as he ran his fingers through a frightened bride-to-be’s thatch of nether hair. “Cummon, Auctioneer Morris,” he said to the man holding the females’ chains, “can’t I fuck this one before you take her off to the auction block…”

Nellie expelled a deep breath as the normalcy of day-to-day living ensued around her, serving to calm her down. She was safe—for now. Her badge made it so she was safe in the atrium, her protected status clear to one and all.

If she thought it odd that the huge man with the intense steel eyes hadn’t followed her into the atrium, that he apparently didn’t want others to see him, she dismissed the peculiarity of the situation as she threaded her way through the crowd and walked quickly toward the airbus railway.

The Fugitive
The Hunter
The Avenger
The Trilogy