Caxton looked up and saw the woman from the picture staring out at her through the window in the door. Her complexion was much clearer in person.
“Wall up,” one of the guards shouted. Caxton didn’t know what that meant, but apparently it wasn’t directed at her. The woman in the cell—Gertrude Stimson—moved away from the window at once.
“Prisoner Caxton,” the CO said, bending down to unshackle her legs. If she felt like kicking him for his trouble she only had to look to the side and see the stun gun another guard was pointing at her neck. “Welcome to the SHU. You will be confined to your cell at all times unless we come for you. When we do, we’ll say ‘wall up.’ That means you move to the back of the cell with your back against the wall. If you don’t wall up, we will perform a forcible extraction. You don’t want that. Mealtimes are at six-thirty, noon, and four-thirty. Your exercise period will be from one in the afternoon until two. You’ll be taken to the showers once per week, at six P.M. every Thursday. You just missed your slot, it looks like. We’ll bring around a deodorant stick for you a little later on. If I remove your hand restraints now, will you behave?”
“Yes,” Caxton said, in the meekest voice she could manage.
He unfastened the plastic handcuffs. Caxton flexed her fingers to try to get the circulation going again. “Here’s a clean blanket and a clean washcloth.” They were both made of the same scratchy nylon that looked like it couldn’t be torn or burned. “Prisoner on the floor,” he shouted, and COs all around the circular housing unit repeated the call. “Door opening!”
An alarm sounded, a high-pitched clanging that went on for ten seconds, and then an electronic lock in the door thunked open. The CO pulled a lever that released a second mechanical lock and then hauled the door back.
Inside, Gertrude Stimson was standing up against the wall, her hands above her head. She didn’t move at all except to blink as Caxton stepped inside the cell.
Before they could close the door on her Caxton turned around to say, “I’d like to make a phone call. An email would be fine as well. Is there a sign-up roster, or—”
“No outgoing calls. No computer time. If you want to write a letter, let us know and you can dictate it to us through the bean slot. Now wall the fuck up so I can close this door.”
Caxton hurried to the back of the cell and pressed her back against the wall.
The CO poked his head in to peer into the corners of the cell, as if someone else might be hiding inside. “Enjoy your stay.”
The door alarm rang again for ten seconds and then it was shut with a double thunk of closing locks.
For a long time Caxton just stood there with her back against the cold wall. She didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. Eventually she realized she was waiting to be told what to do next.
It was getting to her already. They were turning her into an inmate, even inside her own head.
Stepping away from the wall, she rubbed at her wrists and looked around. There wasn’t much to see. The cell wasn’t wide enough for two beds side by side, so much of the space was taken up by a tall bunk bed made of scratched aluminum. It had been designed in such a way that it had no sharp corners nor any pieces that could be broken off, even by a determined prisoner with a lot of time on her hands.
The only other furniture in the cell was a combination sink and toilet made of the same rounded aluminum construction. There was no seat on the toilet, and its opening was narrower and long rather than round.