Miami City Hall.
By the time Axel Vance and Warden Holden arrived, nearly every important city official connected to the prison disaster had already gathered inside a large conference room. The two men had spent the better part of an hour explaining everything that had happened before, during, and after the collapse. Once they finished, the mayor’s secretary organized their statements into a written report and distributed copies around the table.
Axel stood quietly near the side of the room while Holden took center stage before Mayor West. The warden placed one hand over his chest and spoke with enough emotion to make it sound as if he were delivering a funeral speech. "Mayor West, that prison was my life’s work. Years of investment and effort vanished overnight and left me with a giant hole in the ground."
Holden shook his head dramatically and continued, "When you work on this year’s budget, you have to find something for me. I’ve got employees wondering whether they’ll still have jobs, families depending on those paychecks, and an entire operation that just collapsed into rubble." His performance might have moved someone unfamiliar with him, but Axel already knew Holden well enough to recognize when money was doing most of the grieving.
Mayor West barely reacted. He continued reading the damage estimates and casualty figures without giving Holden’s emotional performance more than an occasional glance. Watching him, Axel felt strangely reassured because after spending days surrounded by murderers, lunatics, resurrected corpses, and one extremely questionable businessman, he had finally encountered someone who appeared reasonably competent.
The mayor eventually finished reading and placed the report on the table. "I understand the basic situation. What options do we have for handling the fallout?" he asked his secretary, who immediately straightened and opened another folder.
Axel’s attention sharpened at the phrase handling the fallout. He remembered Ed Gein crawling off an autopsy table, the chanting inside the walls, and the prisoners who had lost their minds underground. Yet to the people sitting around this polished conference table, the entire nightmare had already become another political and administrative problem requiring a manageable solution.
The secretary adjusted his papers. "Mayor West, the prison collapse is too large to disappear quietly. There were hundreds of witnesses outside, escaped inmates are already being reported across the area, and sooner or later reporters will start asking why the facility collapsed."
Mayor West nodded. "So what do you recommend?"
"One option is to connect the incident to one of the extremist groups already active on law enforcement’s radar." The secretary spoke as though discussing road repairs. "If the organization publicly claims responsibility for sabotaging the facility, it gives the public a simple explanation and redirects attention away from structural and administrative questions."
Mayor West considered it for several seconds. "That could also make federal anti-terror resources available, but manufacturing that narrative would cost money and create risks of its own. Give me another option."
Before the secretary could answer, the conference-room doors slammed open.
A large, broad-shouldered man with a permanently irritated expression stormed inside. Axel immediately recognized him as Chief Woody, his direct superior at the police department and apparently one of the few men in Miami who considered knocking on a government door an insult to his personal dignity.
"What terrorist nonsense are you people discussing now?" Woody marched straight to the mahogany conference table and slapped one palm against it. "Instead of throwing money at some complicated story, give those funds to my department. I’ll put officers on the street, round up every escaped convict, and anyone who wants to complain can come tell me personally."
Axel closed his eyes for a moment.
Apparently, normal people were still going to remain a minority in his new life.
Rather than listen to politicians and Chief Woody scream at one another for the next hour, Axel found an empty chair near the wall and sat down. He had barely slept properly since being transferred into the underground prison wing, and the last twenty-four hours had included a building collapse, several gunfights, a prison riot, and hand-to-hand combat with a resurrected serial killer. The instant he stopped moving, exhaustion finally began catching up with him.
Axel closed his eyes while the argument continued around him. Voices rose, accusations flew, budgets were questioned, and someone repeatedly demanded to know which department would accept responsibility for the escaped inmates. At some point, Axel stopped caring enough to follow the details.
By the time the meeting finally reached some kind of conclusion, he felt slightly more human. Axel stood, stretched his stiff shoulders, and walked directly toward Chief Woody. "Chief, is there something you actually need me to do? Technically, I haven’t even finished all the formal paperwork for joining the department."
Woody looked exceptionally pleased with himself. "After fighting with these people for the last hour, I squeezed some extra funding out of them." He glanced triumphantly toward the officials around the table before turning back to Axel. "But don’t start celebrating yet. Your prison assignment isn’t finished causing problems."
Axel raised an eyebrow.
"The FBI is here."
That immediately drove away the last traces of sleepiness.
Woody folded his arms. "You were the only actual police officer inside that prison working undercover while all this happened. The Bureau wants someone who personally witnessed the events, so you’ve been ordered to cooperate with their investigation."
Axel’s expression remained neutral, but his thoughts accelerated. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was the country’s primary federal investigative law-enforcement agency, and its appearance was not surprising considering the prison collapse and escaped killers. What bothered him was how quickly federal investigators had become interested in the stranger parts of his report.
Something felt wrong.
If the FBI simply wanted information about the collapse or escaped prisoners, plenty of guards and officials could answer their questions. Axel had personally witnessed the chanting and had also spent days living beside Hannibal Lecter. There was a real possibility the Bureau’s interest went far beyond ordinary prison security.
Woody jerked his chin toward another section of the room. "Come on. They’ve got someone waiting for you."
Axel followed him across the conference area and soon saw a young woman studying several pages from the prison report. She was professional and composed, with the focused expression of someone who had already read the same material several times. Something about her face immediately gave Axel a strange sense of familiarity.
She noticed them approaching and stepped forward. "Chief Woody, Officer Vance. Good morning." She presented her FBI identification with practiced movements. "Clarice Starling. I’m a trainee attached to the federal inquiry."
Axel’s thoughts stopped for half a second.
Clarice Starling.
He knew that name.
In his previous life, Clarice Starling had been the young FBI Academy trainee at the center of The Silence of the Lambs. She was intelligent, disciplined, and ambitious, and her investigation eventually brought her into direct contact with Hannibal Lecter.
Axel suppressed his surprise before it reached his face. Hannibal was already sitting beneath the ruins of Holden’s prison, and now Clarice Starling had appeared only a day later. The coincidence was far too convenient for Axel to dismiss.
Is she here because of Hannibal?
Clarice closed her identification and looked at him. Axel kept his expression professional and asked, "What do you need from me?"
She picked up the report she had been reading and opened it to a marked section. "There’s one part of your statement I want to confirm before we do anything else. You said that before the collapse, you repeatedly heard chanting coming from inside the walls of the underground cellblock."
Axel nodded immediately. "That’s correct."
"You’re certain it wasn’t ventilation noise, prisoners talking through the ducts, or machinery somewhere in the structure?"
"I’m certain."
Clarice studied him for another moment before accepting the answer. She glanced at her wristwatch. "It’s eleven now. You’ve obviously had a rough couple of days, so take the next three hours to rest."
Axel waited for the rest.
"At two this afternoon, we’re going back to the prison ruins." Clarice lowered her arm before looking him up and down. "And before then, change into something that doesn’t make you look like you escaped from the place yourself."
Axel stared at her.
Finally.
Someone had noticed.
He looked down at the torn prison uniform still covering his body. There were dried bloodstains, dust, dirt, and several marks he no longer wanted to identify. After everything that had happened, nobody had bothered suggesting that the undercover officer might want to stop dressing like an inmate.
Axel had almost started wondering whether prison uniforms were acceptable casual wear in this version of America.
"You worry about your investigation and let my officer wear whatever the hell he wants!" Chief Woody suddenly barked from beside them.
Clarice blinked.
For the first time since Axel met her, her professional expression cracked slightly.
Axel rubbed his forehead. "Chief, I need to clarify something. Wearing prison uniforms isn’t a hobby of mine. I just came out of an undercover prison assignment."
Woody ignored that entirely. Instead, he grabbed Axel by the shoulder and pulled him closer as if preparing to share a highly classified secret. His supposed whisper was loud enough for Clarice and several nearby officials to hear every word.
"Axel, remember this. Federal agents are trouble." Woody glanced suspiciously toward Clarice. "If she tries anything strange, you report directly to me."
Clarice’s mouth twitched.
She took a slow breath and managed to keep her voice professional. "Chief Woody, I think there may be some misunderstanding between the Bureau and your department."
Woody sneered. "You must be new if you still care about misunderstandings."
Clarice stared at him.
Axel decided silence was probably the safest choice.
Woody turned back toward his subordinate. "Go down to logistics before you leave. Find Kelly and tell her I sent you. She’ll get you a proper police uniform and whatever basic gear you’re missing."
Axel nodded. "That actually sounds useful."
Having delivered what he apparently considered excellent advice, Woody returned to the conference table and immediately resumed arguing with the politicians. Within seconds, his voice was once again louder than everyone else’s combined. Clarice watched him leave with an expression suggesting her FBI training had never prepared her for anything quite like Chief Woody.
Axel remained where he was and studied the young woman in front of him.
Clarice Starling.
Hannibal Lecter.
The timing bothered him.
Was the FBI actually interested in the prison collapse?
Or had they learned Hannibal was involved?
Perhaps neither of those possibilities mattered as much as the chanting.
Axel glanced inward and briefly called up his system panel. Now that he was finally outside the prison and free to move around, the number of potential specializations available to him should increase dramatically. Prisoner Fitness had already reached its maximum level, and Police Marksmanship had only just begun.
He needed more.
Ed Gein had proven that whatever existed in this world could ignore ordinary expectations about life and death. If one horror figure could return from the dead, there was no reason to assume ghosts, demons, possessed objects, or other supernatural threats were impossible. Axel was beginning to wonder whether finding a well-stocked church and collecting a few religious supplies might actually be a reasonable precaution.
He was still considering the idea when an unpleasant smell suddenly reached his nose.
Axel frowned and glanced around.
What the hell was that?
He cautiously sniffed again.
The smell followed him.
Axel slowly looked down at his own filthy uniform.
After days underground, a prison collapse, dried blood, dust, sweat, and whatever had sprayed onto him during the fight with Gein, the answer became painfully obvious.
Axel sighed.
Before investigating another supernatural disaster, unlocking another specialization, or dealing with Clarice Starling and the FBI, he desperately needed one thing.
A shower.
[Community Goals Ongoing]
500 PS = +1 Extra Chapter
10 Reviews = +1 Extra Chapter
Reviews are always appreciated.
P1treon Soulforger (20+advance Chapters)