EVO Universe 1: The First (2 page)

A Private First Class in full gear holding his M16A2 walked up to the window of his rental car giving Mark the cue to flash his badge and credentials.

The Private nodded and signaled to open the solid steel gates blocking the outside world to the prison letting him in; it was then that Armitage realized the need for the extra firepower.

Inside the Mountain View Unit was a perpetual war zone. There was a huge gaping hole in the side of the main building, and a massive hole in the side of the forty-foot wall, which enclosed the facility. A large personnel vehicle now blocked the hole keeping residents and nosey reporters from getting in. There was also an obliterated watchtower, and two destroyed vehicles, one smoking and one still on fire covered in debris from the watchtower partially brought down. The local fire department continued to put the hose to it to kill the flames. Littered inside the compound were local police, state troopers, special agents, correctional officers, and National Guard. Paramedics were also on site attending to the wounded, which appeared to be both correctional officers and local police. Mark had to admit, rioting was a common thing that could break out in regular prisons both male and female; but this was a battlefield; and he had never seen anything like this in his life much less his career.

As he parked and stepped out of his rental looking around, his longtime friend and fellow SAC Dustin Mercer who was put on this case, and then requested the brass to send Mark, fueled his sentiment as he walked up to him, “Ain’t never seen no shit like this in my
life
Mark.”

“What the hell happened here?” Mark asked as he looked around at the damage all around him.

Dustin filled him in, “Prison break, one dead C.O.; several guards and police badly injured.”

“Only one dead?” Mark scanned the yard again surprised that the amount of damage around him only caused one fatality.

“Yeah, what’s left of the poor bastard on top of the smashed in squad car over there,” Dustin pointed to the caved-in Impala with the Gatesville police colors smoking and covered with debris from the massive hole made in the front of the building from the eighth floor.

The only thing of the dead seen from Armitage and Mercer’s distance was a leg as forensics took pictures of the scene before the paramedics removed the body.

“How many broke out?” Mark asked as he walked with Dustin to the prison.

“One,” Dustin dryly answered his partner.

“Just one,” Mark asked stunned, “Who broke her out; an organized gang or a terrorist cell?”

“No one broke in to break her out; she broke out all by herself,” Dustin nervously returned.

Armitage gave Mercer the look that it was too early in the morning for jokes; Mercer returned the look meaning that this time he was not yanking his chain.

“Dustin, you’re telling me
one
inmate did all this damage?” Mark looked around is disbelief.

Dustin not prepared to explain to him fully what happened yet motioned for him to hurry up, “Just walk with me…”

Armitage followed Mercer into the facility where they went through security and saw some of the injured that was brought down from the eighth floor; some were talking to field agents and accounting their version of what they saw, while others just sat there with blank expressions on their face unable to speak much less comprehend what they just saw.

Armitage continued to follow Mercer in as they took the elevator heading for the video surveillance room on the second floor.

“At 12:00 A.M. this morning, now escape convict Sophia Dennison was scheduled for execution by lethal injection.” Dustin began to rundown the events of six and a half hours ago.

Mark asked, “What was she in for?”

“Four years ago she murdered her husband, Lieutenant Robert Matheson, a former decorated Iraq War Marine Vet in cold blood, stabbed the poor bastard like forty-one times in their bed, bitch was found two states away in an airport hotel in Oklahoma with a one way flight to Brazil,” he said.

“Why’d she do it?” The motive did not mean anything to him. Mark wanted info to understand the mind state of the fugitive he would be hunting.

“Two point five million dollar trust fund…” Dustin responded.

Mark knit his eyebrows, “Say what? You mean insurance…”

“No trust fund.” He clarified, “Kid got it when he completed boot camp…father is a well-known Four Star General who comes from old money, and I mean after the Civil War days type money. He’s also got a
lot
of connections in both the military and private sector. Did very well for himself in both, poor kid was so trusting he dumped all the money into their joint savings and checking accounts, red flags went up when it was all transferred into her personal account within the same bank which she got a month prior to killing him. She transferred the money the same night she killed him. They’ve got actual footage of her withdrawing some of the money in cash from an ATM, driving through a toll heading to Oklahoma and checking into a hotel near the airport there.”

“Was he crippled or something?” Mark asked as they got off on the second floor of the building.

“Took shrapnel to the chest from an I.A.D, badly burned left arm, and lost sight in his right eye …other than that pretty healthy,” Dustin responded.

Mark now perplexed, “So how did she overpower a Marine? She kill him in his sleep?”

Dustin’s face was one of disgust, “Worst…she injected him with a serious paralyzing neurotoxin…numbs everything except for nervous system…poor bastard felt everything…and get this…she did this
after
she banged him.”

“How did she get a hold of…?” Mark began to ask.

Dustin cut off his question, rushing with him following to get to the surveillance room, “She’s a licensed neurosurgeon, graduated with full scholarship to Texas Southwestern then she did her residency at Memorial Hermann till graduation and got a position there. Records show she lifted it from their research facility.”

Mark threw out the driving question, “Okay, so how did she escape before her execution?”

Dustin uneasily hesitated again before he answered, “She didn’t escape…she was executed.”

Mark stopped dead in his tracks holding his hands up in frustration, “Wait! What? What the hell you mean she was “executed”? Then what the f…?”

Dustin grabbed his arm ushering him to keep moving, “Just walk with me man…”

“Dustin so help me if you don’t start making some damn sense,” was what Armitage thought as he snatched his arm away and followed him into the security observation room to look at some footage; one of the correctional officers in the room tensely monitored the series of screens as they walked in.

Dustin began his explanation, “At twelve midnight Sophia Dennison was executed…she was pronounced officially dead by the local county coroner at 12:05 PM…then this happened…”

Armitage watched the video feed at 12:07 PM, one of the officers walked over to remove the straps from a now deceased Sophia Dennison. The pronounced dead would begin arching her back and gasping for air scaring the living piss out of the 6’2” correctional officer, causing the pastor in the room to faint, and freaking out everyone else within the room and on the other side of the observation window.

What was even scarier was in the process of trying to sit up, the 5’6” 110-pound woman in a hyper-hysterical state ripping both her 6-inch thick arm restraints from the very table itself while rattling repeatedly, “Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out!”

Armitage would have thought it a fluke, a rush of adrenaline if his still 20/20 vision did not show the same woman snapping the restraints for her chest and waist right from the table itself sending pieces of metal that attached the restraints to the table flying. As she sat up, a correctional officer overcoming his shock and fear rushed over to restrain her when with one swipe of her arm, she launched a man who had at least 150 pounds on her clear across the room slamming him violently into the wall behind him. He dropped face first onto the ground like slab of beef.

After effortlessly popping the last two restraints from her legs, Dennison rolled off the table dropping to her knees sniveling, “I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember!”

“Dennison! St...Stay down!” a second male Correctional Officer trembled as he gave the order.

“I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember! I remember!” was what she continued to babble as she fought to her feet stumbling and falling against the glass patrician, separating her from the audience who had watched her execution on the other side.

They scattered in terror and disbelief as a second officer lunged to tackle her to the floor. Much to his own shock and dismay Dennison’s apparent adrenaline rush allowed her to stop him in his tracks, in the struggle she managed to grab him by the front of his shirt lifting him off his feet.

Sophia screamed, “No!”

She threw him backward as if tossing a stuffed teddy bear. His near bone-crushing blow against the wall was anything but that of a stuffed bear tossed, he too dropped face first hitting the concrete floor with a sickening thud; the wall behind him made of solid stone partially caved in from the impact he made.

She then stood there clutching her skull; she appeared to be in excruciating pain shaking like a leaf. In frustration, she screamed pounding on the reinforced observation glass cracking it, her blathering chant changed to, “I…got…I got…to get…out…”

She hit the glass again with a heavier shot giving it a large shatter pattern. It looked as if an aluminum bat had hit it; one more shot would send glass raining everywhere, while on the other side of the glass people screamed backing up terrified at what they were witnessing. As a disoriented Dennison looked to deliver another blow four guards swarmed on her in an attempt for a dog pile…it went horribly wrong.

Armitage watched in disbelief as one woman tossed around correctional officers like rag dolls. There was no finesse to what she was doing; making it obvious that she was not a trained combatant, but her strength apparently was beyond what the four guards could handle combined. In one swipe of her hand, she accidentally backhanded a male guard into a tailspin; in an attempt to break free, she threw an elbow into another’s chest.

The shot lifted him off his feet and folded him in half as he hit the floor back first; he rolled to his side gasping for air as if she broke his sternum; reports would later show that she actually shattered it. The female guard in the mix hung desperately onto one her legs in a failed attempt to bring her down. Dennison’s movements thrashed her around like an ankle biter holding onto a mop as the last male guard having enough grabbed his baton and let loose a skull crushing shot to her skull. It staggered her and drew blood, but she remained standing; he stopped because he stood looking at the same metal baton bent in half.

“What the f…,” said the stunned male officer.

Before he could not finish his sentence, Sophia now with blood dripping down her face from a possible fractured skull and a severe concussion grabbed him by the front of his shirt. She pulled him in on instinct, and then shoved him backwards sending him through the shattered glass hitting a couple of witnesses knocking them down as he slammed into the back wall on the other side. His limp body fell more awkward and painful, as the freight train of a throw knocked all of his senses out of him.

She was in daze as she wiped the blood off her face, as the yelling and screaming now filled the lethal injection room; realizing the window was broken, she advanced to freedom, but felt a weight on her right leg. It was the female officer holding on for dear life.

“Let…me go…please…let me go…,” a still out of it Sophia pleaded.

“I can’t do that Sophia…,” a now terrified female correctional officer returned still bound by duty.

Sophia reached down grabbing her by the front of her shirt pulling her to her feet, lifting her into the air with one arm.

The officer now screamed and held onto Sophia’s arm for dear life while pleading with her, “Please Sophia….you know I got kids…please…”

Sophia tried to reassure her, as she only wanted her to let her go, “I…I’m not…”

Before she could explain to the female officer calming her down, a voice called out, “Dennison!”

BLAM!

Was all that rang out as she staggered back a bit releasing the female officer who scurried away for cover, the front of her green jailhouse scrubs became red; as she tried to advance forward, gunfire erupted into the lethal injection room. Armitage watched in disgust as bullet after bullet tore through the young woman’s body due to panic fire, after twenty shots she was down on her knees; it took five more to drop her, one hitting her skull, which snapped her neck back as she crashed onto the now bloody floor lifeless once again.

It should have been over, but Armitage remembered what Mercer said. Mercer watched his most oldest of friends turn to him with a visage he had never seen on him before.

Mark uttered with unsettling nervousness, “You said…she escaped…”