Tasìa shut her locker; she grabbed a terracotta towel before she headed for the lavatory area where the toilet stalls filled one side of a cement wall and the shower stalls filled the other. Only two of the dozen stalls were in current use.

She could smell smoke of marijuana and tobacco coming from the two stalls the farthest away as water sprinkled from the showerheads. It was just enough to draw the smoke down when breathed into the pouring water.

Even as they tried to hide their activity, as smoking was only allowed outside in the yard, the girls giggled with abandon as they talked to one another. So long as they cleaned up after themselves, Missi was not likely to bother them.

Those inmates were too preoccupied to notice her presence, thought Tasìa. Their unbridled behavior helped cloak her own activities and helped give her a measure of privacy in what she needed to do.

She entered one stall, shut the plastic shower curtain behind her, and she placed the towel over the curtain's support bar so no one would enter her stall by accident.

In the center of the lowered floor in front of her was a drain. The latticed cover was held in place by simple bolts. Tasìa flicked the switchblade, and she used the point to twist the bolts off. The pipe fixed onto the drain hole was wider than the cover. This design she would use to her advantage.

Tasìa placed the magnetic strip up against the pipe seam where it was nearly flat instead of rounded. She fastened the switchblade knife up against the magnetic strip.

With the latticed cover set back in place, Tasìa left the lavatory. She next checked up on the snack machines in the breakroom to confirm that nothing had been restocked since she had been in it for a cup of coffee several hours previously.

There were two bars of Noog-Noogs in the vending machine at that time; there were none in it now.

She walked back to her cell. On the way back, Tasìa noted Castro was not in her own cell. Most likely, she was visiting in the last cell where Ria lived. Tasìa slowed her pace as she made her approach.

After a quick glance in both directions to make sure no one was watching her, Tasìa peered over into the trashcan beside Castro's locker. Inside the trashcan lay a fresh Noog-Noog wrapper.

To ready herself for what now felt like the inevitable shakedown, Tasìa double-checked her own locker to make sure nothing else had been planted in it.

Satisfied that her inspection yielded nothing out of the ordinary, Tasìa got down on her knees and she searched underneath her cot. She felt around along the metal supports.

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Nothing but a few cobwebs that now stuck to her fingers.

Tasìa stood back up and she examined several other hidden niches and creches that could have been exploited in the small six-foot by nine-foot cell.

She then made certain everything was up to code in her legitimate effects. The right number of clothes and garments, the right number of personal items, and the right number of commissary items; in all of this, she double-checked to make sure she abided by the dictate of the institution.

The sweetener packs she swiped from the kitchen for her coffee she lined up in a box and then she carried over to Este-Oeste's cell.

"Hey, Marcìa. When do you get out of here, in seven weeks right?"

"Yeah. Why do you ask, are you throwing me a party?"

"I'm just looking at you right now, bunched up with your legs propped, envying the fact that you appear not to have a care in the world. On the verge of getting out of this shithole, it must be nice."

Este-Oeste nodded her head. Her neck tightened up with her lips wrinkled in wan smile before she spoke.

"Like being on the threshold of a dream. Like we use to have them, I mean."

Este-Oeste put her book down. She pointed with a nod of her forehead at the box of sweeteners.

"You want me to hold on to those for you?"

"If you would, I would be obliged. Please, just don't tell everyone I'm acting paranoid - like I'm expecting something to go down."

Este-Oeste casually mentioned, "I would be kind of frantic too if I had pissed off the lieutenant."

The girl spoke again when Tasìa's only response was a quizzical stare.

"Ria, her highness, the heinous-ness that infects this place, has been telling everyone how upset the lieutenant is with you. According to her, you have been walking that line for some time. Scratching away at his tolerance.

"I can't fathom how she comes up with that line of bullshit. If anyone was flying under the radar before that spider climb, it was you. That's why it was so shocking to everyone in the first place. It seemed oh-so out of character for our sweet and meek little Tasìa."

Marcìa's tone suggested she was imitating the speech and paraphrasing other inmates from conversations she heard when Tasìa was not around. She then wrung her hands up against her eyes and gave a pouty face in mockery of soft-hearted Renny, the girl who cried in the gym.

"Ria is framing the narrative as she always does," Tasìa answered. "She knows what's going down, and she wants to get ahead of it, and she wants to control it.

"Listen. I appreciate it if you hold on to these. Take as many as you want, Short-Timer."

Este-Oeste smiled thinly. Being the PM veggie-prepper, she didn't need anyone's charity in acquiring sweetener packs from the kitchen. Still, she accepted the offer gracefully.

"I appreciate that," she answered back. "Most days that I'm here, I'm not really here, you know."

"Believe me, my friend. It shows."

Marcìa gave a phlegmy snort out of her nose. Tasìa wondered if the girl had any sense of etiquette outside of the IMCQ. Probably not.