The breeze on the exterior side of the compound felt lighter and warmer than any that ever occurred on the inside of the facility.
Felicité lay back with her head tilted on the chair rest. The CO Missi squatted down beside the wheelchair where Felicité set.
They watched out into the distance for a truck to arrive.
Missi smoked at a cigarette and squinted as she watched the blonde Argentinian.
"You are the last inmate I thought I would ever see be allowed out through the front door."
Felicité chuckled.
"Sounds like you are going to miss me."
"Ha!" Missi answered with a grin that dug into her shoulder where she leaned her head for a last drag of smoke.
She blew out the air and answered.
"I'm only here because I pulled checkout duty for my extra time."
It was the first time Felicité had seen the CO since the confrontation. From Missi she might even receive a few straight answers.
"Who are these people picking me up?"
Missi glanced at the digital stenograf she held in her hand.
"I don't recognize these jokers. I'm only here to verify they are who they say they are and sign you out to their custody."
Her word choice perked Felicité's curiosity.
"Is this normal? Any of this normal?"
Missi stood up and flicked the cigarette butt into a drainage grate.
"To be honest, Ms. Paz. No.
"If you believe the scuttlebutt talk going on all about the facility, a special administrative session was ordered to empanel a grand jury. You were facing additional charges."
Felicité lifted her naked leg to show the CO the wounds she endured on her right thigh when Ria stabbed her with a tranq needle while she was showering.
She pushed her head up and leaned forward as she protested.
"You can't charge someone with murder who was merely defending herself."
Missi shook her head with a smile set on her face derisive and thin.
"Oh, you sweet Summer child. Of course you can. Before he got shit-canned, Brossi insisted on it."
"Is that normal?"
"Fights happen all the time in prison. Inmates kill inmates. Wardens give a shit only to the extent their careers are effected. Not this time though. He took it very personally."
Felicité expired as she leaned back again.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
My life turned upside down over fucking worthless piece of shit Ria Javierra!
Missi shrugged her shoulders.
"You know something. I don't get it either. Look sharp. There they are."
Missi picked up her duffel bag. Inside was her TSR-80 and everything else that she owned.
On the far extreme of the parking lot, The familiar model of vehicle slowly approached. It was an F-150. The color was non-standard as anything Felicity had ever seen. Camo done up in monochromatic shades of pink.
She made out the driver, a beefy well suited guy, and a woman in the passenger seat dressed in gaucha attire as if she just had came off the range.
"You called them jokers," Felicité reminded her. "What did you mean by that?"
"Spooks. Paperwork on that stenograf just radiates it hard. When you see so many shortcuts taken in the standard legalese like I'm looking at right now, you are in all probability dealing with spooks."
When the truck reached the curb, Missi signed her over and transfered the digital document to the lady passenger.
As Missi helped Felicité into the back seat she caught the Argentinian's gaze. Missi gave her a hard squint.
"If you see Tasìa out there, and I strongly suspect you will, tell her, she ain't welcome."
Missi shut the door before Felicité could answer back.
As they pulled out of the parking lot and turned on to a country road, the lady in the front passenger seat began to stick her tongue out and spread it as if to absorb sunlight.
She giggled.
"Can you taste it, Paz? That aromatic taste of freedom in the air, coming down radiantly, hopping from beam to beam in the skylight? Freedom!"
Felicité glanced from one side to the other out the windows around them as the countryside rolled by. Just how did she feel about this?
Felicité had not seen anything but a static scene of trees and hills from behind a double set of barbed-wire fences for over a year.
She felt more indifferent than even she expected.
"I'm not even sure that I am free," answered Felicité.
The woman affected a sweet country girl demeanor. For all Felicité could tell, her manner may have even been sincere.
"Really?"
The woman sounded taken back by Felicité's response.
She cleared her throat as she continued.
"I'm sorry to hear that. You are to remain in my custody until a certain task is completed. But once that matter is settled, you are to be granted by the authority of the Salvage a full pardon. Does that sound like a deal? A pardon? How about it, Paz? A fresh start!"
"Helping you do what exactly?"
Frown lines curled beneath a tangle of ash-brown hair as if she would be upset and disappointed if Felicité was not copacetic with the sentiments she was about to lay-out.
"Like any decent, red-blooded human being, you hate fascist don't you? They say that you do. That is why I asked for you.
"Help me hunt down some mother fucking fascist, Paz. It's the right thing to do."
"Hunt fascist? Are you serious?"
Elise lifted up the hard-wired stenograf that bore her secured copy.
"As serious as the contract I signed up for. You with me?"
Felicité realized that she was being asked to search for Kutuzov's crew. She kept her suspicion to herself.
"Why the fuck not? It sounds better than anything else I have going on at the moment."
"Paz, is it okay if I call you Paz?"
"Sure."
"Well then, that settled, call me Elise."
Elise brought a small leather case out from her cowhide jacket pocket.
"I need you to lean forward, and hold your head still. Can you do that for me, Paz?"
Felicité did as she was instructed. From the leather case, Elise brought out a multi-tool. It was quite different than any of which Felicité was familiar. A pressure read-out gauge and tempered kinetic bar with a sliding scale ensured that it would be very difficult to break what was being operated on with it.
Elise began to pry Felicité's cochlear implant with it.
"I'm not sure if that is a good idea," Felicity warned.
"It will be okay," Elise insisted. "That substance Ria Javierra tried to inject you with, did anyone mention what it may have been?"
"No," Felicité answered, "the labcoats kept it all hush hush. Perhaps they did not know either. Even after the toxicology testing they just walked around me acting discombobulated."
"Honestly, I don't know either," answered Elise. "But we need to find out if it interfered with your implant."
Elise removed the implant from the socket behind Felicité's ear. After the bounty hunter removed the device inside from its outer carapace, she held another tool over it. A laser pin scanner.
Elise raised her eyebrows. Her eyes were an unsettling green.
"Ah! Now, that is interesting."
Felicité asked her, "what," as a familiar itch returned to her lips.