Michael Robinson’s beard had grown to base of his neck. His long unwashed hair touched the tops of his shoulders, and his nails were chewed to the skin.
The trial had taken several strange turns when the DNA testing proved the murdered couple were his parents that had been legally dead for nearly a decade. Victor Bissett had been called as a witness and claimed Michael had been acting extremely peculiar for several months and downright irrational in the weeks leading up to the murders.
Michael had blamed the shooting on Stanley Castillo, but the state of Oklahoma had declared him dead by suicide two months before the murders. The complex's lone camera was angled in such a way that it never recorded the Robinsons entering the building. Michael proved his timeline, but the prosecution quickly countered with several spaces of time where he was at the apartment and could've committed the murders.
The entire case came down to, they were his parents, in his apartment, and he was carrying the murder weapon. Michael was surprised to find that it was even registered in his name.
The jury found Michael Robinson guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
He didn't fit in well at the maximum-security prison. He ate by himself, read by himself, and rarely talked to anyone. As his hair grew longer and his body lost weight, the other inmates started calling him Gump.
On the 385th day, Michael laid on his rack reading. He flipped through the pages of a business management book he'd already read three times before. The bed creaked as his cellmate, a man that was in for strangling his two gardeners, did pushups on the top bunk. They never talked.
A commotion began to roll through the bay. Inmates started yelling and rattling the bars, staring at someone that had come through the front hatch. Michael shrugged it off as a new join and looked back to the book.
Footsteps approached and stopped at the front of his cell. Michael marked his page, closed the book, and turned to see the fat prison warden standing at the entrance of his cell. He was holding a small thin box. He had three guards with him that were all staring directly at Michael.
"Come with me, Mr. Robinson." The fat warden said, unlocking the cell. "Brutus, you stay put."
Brutus looked at the guards, then at the open cell door, and laid down watching Michael as he left the cell.
Michael followed the warden out of the bay, through the long hallway, and past the offices. They unlocked several more doors and walked through a corridor that was labeled authorized personnel only. The guards opened another door to a long hallway but didn't enter, leaving Michael and the warden alone. The pair continued all the way down the stretch in silence and stopped at the last solid door. The warden turned, handed Michael the box, and ordered him to change.
Michael pulled off his jumper and slid into the jeans and plain white t-shirt he had retrieved from the box.
Once he was dressed, the warden unhinged the last hatch and pushed it open. They stepped through the door to the outside world. They were on the side of the prison, three barb-wired fences away from freedom. Four armed security guards stood in their towers but faced away in obedient ignorance.
Without saying a word, the warden unlocked each gate. When the last one swung open, he turned and said, "You committed suicide in here. You're no longer Michael Robinson." He pulled out his wallet, removed a card, and handed it to Michael. "This is you now."
Michael looked down at the card. It was a driver license with his photo. The name read 'Harvey Sinclair.'
"Go on." The warden said, pulling the gate closed. Michael stood on the outside, confused. Each of the gates clicked closed behind him, and lastly, the metal door.
Michael walked across the field towards the main road. What now? As he stepped towards the street, two black sedans rolled to a stop on the curb. Two men exited the first vehicle, one opened the rear door of the second vehicle, while the other approached Michael.
"Please, if you may," the man said gently, gesturing to the open door.
Michael hesitated. He looked at each man, thought about his options, then took off in a dead sprint. He made it fifty feet before the second man jumped on his back and tackled him to the ground scraping Michael’s face on the pavement. The man sat on his back until his partner arrived. They lifted him by his shoulders and dragged him to the curb, waiting as the Sedan pulled up to the curb next to them.
Michael kicked and struggled, but they managed to easily throw his skinny body into the rear of the car. They slammed the door. Michael immediately tried the handle to find that it couldn't be opened from the inside.
There was a clear glass shield that separated the front seats from himself.
"Calm down, it's ok, I can explain." A voice said from the driver's seat.
When Michael saw the driver and passenger in the front, he let out a yell and kicked ferociously at the window. When it wouldn't budge, he tried the palm of his hand. The driver watched as Michael exhausted himself and slouched into the seat in defeat.
"It's been so long," Ender said from the passenger seat.
Michael looked at his brother. Ender's face was slimmer than he'd remembered. Ender had droopy eyelids and a pale face. His cheek had a nervous twitch. It was Ender, but he seemed like a stranger.
"Let me take this," Castillo said to Ender, who nodded in agreement. "I saw Ender two days after I saw you. It was an accident, but it happened. There was no trip to the East Coast. Your parents allowed him to be tortured as Jack tried to train him to be a killer. They nearly drove him mad. They nearly killed him. It would’ve been more humane if they had killed him.” Castillo looked at Michael, “I was furious, but during my time inside this exact prison, I learned you can't act on emotion." He stopped in hopes Michael would look at him. "Quint offered us jobs at The Company. Let us work with him. He felt guilty and acted on that guilt. He taught Ender every aspect of how The Company operates. He knows how to work the software."
"I know everything," Ender interrupted, his knees were bouncing with excitement.
"I wanted to kill Quint right away, but your battery was still working. If we killed him, your location would've been sent to every field worker in the country."
Michael looked up at Castillo, who looked as if he genuinely cared. "Quint hated what your parents had done as much as me. He gave Ender the final say in their fate. I had Ender keep them alive. Once I felt we were both well enough trained Ender told Quint he wanted them to die. Quint messaged your parents' device and acted as if we were all going to run The Company together. Like old times."
"My parents were good people before they got involved with this," Michael finally spoke up.
"They were not the same people you knew Michael, they were animals." He stopped to make sure Michael understood.
"We had a brief window to kill Quint, which would activate the list. The only way we could save you was by sending you here. We killed your parents, framed you, then killed Quint the next day. The list activated and the killings began.” Quint noticed Michael squirm and added “It needed to be done."
"What about Christine?" Michael asked quietly.
"I don't know." Castillo answered, "Honestly. I let her know what was about to happen, she fled, but I don't know what happened after that."
"What about Mimsy?" Michael looked up at Castillo, "What happened to Mimsy?"
"She's alive and well. She threatened Quint. Told him she’d put his address in the paper if he didn’t release you. To shut her up Quint had her framed to cover up the shootings, got her sent away on some drug charge. Official report says the police saw drugs in plain view while investigating her neighbor's electrical fire." Castillo said. "I'm working on getting her out, but I am struggling to bribe the prison. It's just a matter of time. Everyone has their price."
Michael looked from Ender to Castillo. "So, why are you here?" Michael asked breaking the silence. "To tell me that The Company is finished? I’ve been in there a year. I could care less that—"
"The Company is finished under Quint," Castillo cut him off. "We’re here because, How I look at it, all three of us have paid our dues. Ender knows the program, I can recruit, and we can find a spot for you. It's currently in a rebuilding phase, but I've got ideas to make it more efficient. We have the network of hitmen. Only central support was wiped by Quint’s death." Castillo looked directly into Michael's eyes. "You can be completely free if you like, but it would be an honor if you joined us."
Michael looked out the window of the Sedan. It'd been a year and four months since he'd been a free man; a man stuck in a routine, a man trapped in a relationship, a man held back by a life of lies. Was that freedom?
Michael closed his eyes in contemplation. He took a few deep breathes then looked from Castillo to Ender. Michael opened his mouth certain of his answer.