Chapter 3: The Pattern Man
Pope's office smelled like old books and furniture polish. The warden sat across from me, moving a knight with careful precision. The chessboard between us was worn smooth from years of use.
"Your bishop is exposed," Pope said, not looking up.
I glanced at the board. He was right. I'd left it hanging three moves ago, a deliberate mistake buried in what looked like an aggressive attack.
"Damn," I said, reaching for a pawn instead. "Guess I'm not as good at this as I thought."
Pope's lips twitched. "You're better than you're pretending to be, Mr. Miller." He captured my bishop anyway. "But I appreciate the courtesy."
Smart man. Doesn't miss much.
I studied him while pretending to study the board. Mid-sixties, reading glasses on a chain around his neck, wedding ring worn thin from decades of wear. The way he touched it absently when he was thinking—muscle memory, the kind that came from a good marriage. The slight tremor in his left hand when he reached for pieces on that side of the board—early Parkinson's, maybe, or just old tennis elbow.
But it was his eyes that told the real story. Tired. Disappointed. A man who'd started this job believing in rehabilitation and spent twenty years watching the system prove him wrong.
"Your wife," I said, moving my rook. "She's not well, is she?"
Pope's hand froze halfway to his queen. His eyes snapped to mine. "What makes you say that?"
"The way you check your watch every ten minutes. The prescription bottle in your desk drawer—I saw it when you opened it earlier, anxiety medication. And you've got that look. The one people get when they're worried about someone and trying not to show it."
For a long moment, Pope said nothing. Then he moved his queen, trapping my king in three moves I couldn't avoid.
"She has cancer," he said quietly. "Breast cancer. Stage two. The treatment..." He trailed off.
"I'm sorry, sir."
"Why would you notice something like that?" Pope asked. "Why would you care?"
Because I need you to like me. Because allies matter in here. Because you're one of the few decent people in this place and I might need that decency later.
"Because I pay attention," I said instead. "And because you've been good to me. Seemed fair to return the courtesy."
Pope studied me the way he'd study a chess problem. Finally, he nodded. "Checkmate, Mr. Miller."
I looked at the board. He'd trapped me perfectly.
"Well played, sir."
"Same time next week?" Pope asked.
"I'd like that."
As I stood to leave, Pope added, "Mr. Miller? Thank you. For listening."
"Anytime, Warden."
The common area during afternoon rec was controlled chaos. Inmates clustered around TVs, card tables, the two pool tables that had seen better days. The air smelled like sweat and industrial cleaner and something else—tension, thick enough to taste.
I was shuffling cards at an empty table when he appeared.
Charles Patoshik. Haywire.
He didn't walk so much as drift, like a ghost uncertain of its own existence. Mid-forties, rail-thin, eyes that looked everywhere and nowhere at once. The other inmates gave him space automatically—the kind of space you give to broken things with sharp edges.
He stopped three feet from my table. Stared.
I kept shuffling. "Can I help you?"
"Patterns," Haywire whispered. His eyes tracked the cards moving through my hands with laser focus. "You see patterns. Like me."
Shit.
"Just card tricks, man. Nothing special."
"No." He stepped closer. The other inmates were watching now, waiting to see if the crazy guy was going to do something crazy. "Your patterns move differently. They... they bend. Like light through water."
My hands stilled. "I don't know what you mean."
Haywire's gaze shifted from the cards to my face. His pupils were different sizes—medication, probably, the kind they gave to people whose brains didn't process reality the same way as everyone else's.
"You're going to make things disappear," he said. Not a question. A statement of fact. "Not tricks. Real disappearing. I can see it. The space around you... it wants to forget you."
The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees.
He knows. He can't possibly know, but he knows.
"You should sit down," I said carefully. "Have some water. It's hot in here—"
"The space wants to forget you," Haywire repeated. His voice was getting louder. Other inmates were starting to edge away, not wanting to be near whatever breakdown was coming. "But I'll remember. I always remember the patterns. They talk to me. They tell me secrets."
"Haywire." CO Stolte's voice cut through the room. He was already moving toward us, hand on his baton. "Come on, buddy. Let's get you back to your cell."
Haywire didn't resist. He let Stolte take his arm and guide him away. But as he passed my table, he leaned in close enough to whisper:
"Be careful what you make disappear. Sometimes things don't come back."
Then he was gone, shuffling toward his cell block with Stolte beside him.
The common area slowly returned to normal noise levels. Conversations resumed. The pool balls started clicking again.
I sat very still, cards forgotten in my hands.
He saw it. The Low Presence Zone. He fucking saw it.
My mind raced through scenarios. Haywire was crazy—everyone knew that. Nobody would believe him if he said anything. But what if he kept watching? What if his broken mind could see through the field when others couldn't?
Problem for later, I decided. Can't do anything about it now.
I gathered my cards and stood. Time to make myself visible somewhere else.
HAYWIRE'S POV
The patterns were screaming today.
They always screamed, but today was worse. Louder. The new fish—Miller, the guards called him—had patterns that moved wrong. Bent wrong. Like looking at a reflection that didn't quite match.
Charles sat on his bunk and pressed his palms against his eyes. The medication helped sometimes. Made the patterns quieter. But it also made them fuzzy, hard to see clearly, and he needed to see clearly.
The space around Miller wanted to forget him.
That's what the patterns said. The air itself trying to slide past Miller without noticing, like water around a stone.
Impossible things, Charles thought. But I see impossible things every day.
The tattoos on his own arms—fractals, mathematical spirals, visual representations of the patterns only he could see. Other inmates thought he was insane. The doctors thought he was schizophrenic.
Maybe they were right.
But the patterns didn't lie.
Miller was going to disappear. Really disappear. And when he did, people would forget he'd ever been there at all.
Charles lay back on his bunk and stared at the ceiling. The cracks formed a pattern too—branching, recursive, beautiful.
He'd remember Miller.
Even when everyone else forgot.
DANIEL'S POV
I found Sucre in the yard, practicing the palm technique I'd taught him yesterday. He was getting better—the coin vanished from his right hand, reappeared in his left—but his timing was off. Anyone paying attention would catch the transfer.
"Slower," I said, sitting down across from him. "Speed doesn't matter if the misdirection is good. Make them look at your face when you talk, not your hands."
Sucre tried again. Better.
"How's Maricruz?" I asked.
His face lit up the way it always did when someone mentioned her name. "She wrote me back, man. Finally. She says..." He hesitated, smile faltering. "She says Hector's been around a lot. Her mother likes him. Says he's stable, got a good job, you know?"
"And what does Maricruz say?"
"She says she's waiting for me." Sucre's hands clenched around the coin. "But I don't know, Danny. What if she gets tired of waiting? What if her mom convinces her I'm no good?"
I could read the desperation in every line of his body. The way his shoulders hunched, the rapid blinking to keep tears back, the white-knuckled grip on hope.
He loves her more than life itself, I realized. And he's terrified it won't be enough.
"You'll get out," I said. "And when you do, you show her you've changed. Show her you're the man she deserves."
"Yeah?" Sucre's voice cracked. "You really think so?"
I know so. You're one of the good ones. You survive. You get your happy ending eventually.
"I know so, hermano."
Sucre wiped his eyes quickly, embarrassed. "Thanks, man. You're a good friend."
Friend.
The word hit harder than I expected. In my old life, I'd had drinking buddies, hookups, people I worked with. But real friends? The kind who'd have your back when things went to hell?
Those had been in short supply.
"You too," I said, and meant it.
Movement across the yard caught my attention. T-Bag was holding court near the weight benches, surrounded by his crew—four white inmates who followed him like pilot fish following a shark.
And T-Bag was staring directly at me.
He approached ten minutes later, crew in tow. Inmates nearby found excuses to be elsewhere. Even Sucre tensed, hand dropping to his pocket where he kept a sharpened comb.
"Magician," T-Bag drawled. He had a Southern accent thick enough to cut with a knife, and a smile that would've been charming if it weren't for the absolute emptiness behind it. "We haven't been properly introduced. Theodore Bagwell, but my friends call me T-Bag."
He extended his hand.
I looked at it. Looked at him. Read everything I needed in the first three seconds.
Psychopath. Not the movie kind—the real kind. No empathy, no remorse, just calculation and hunger. The way he held himself, loose and confident, said he'd hurt people before and enjoyed it. The scars on his knuckles weren't from fighting—they were from hitting things that couldn't fight back.
And the watch chain hanging from his pocket—stolen, probably, from someone who couldn't say no.
I stood slowly, didn't take his hand. "Daniel Miller. People call me Danny."
T-Bag's smile widened. "Danny. That's friendly. I like friendly." He glanced at his crew, who chuckled on cue. "See, Danny, we got a system here. Protection, you might call it. You're putting on shows, entertaining folks. That's good business. But good business needs protection."
"From what?"
"From accidents. From misunderstandings." T-Bag's eyes were flat as a snake's. "From folks who might take offense to a new fish getting uppity."
Protection racket. Classic.
"What's the cost?" I asked, keeping my voice level.
"Just a small tax. Say, half your commissary each week. And maybe you do a private show for me and my boys now and then. Keep us entertained."
Behind T-Bag, his crew was watching with the kind of anticipation that said they'd done this before. Probably dozens of times. Find a target, apply pressure, collect payment.
I could pay. It would be smart to pay. Build a relationship, even a transactional one, with someone who had power in the yard.
But T-Bag wasn't someone you built relationships with. He was someone you either dominated or got dominated by. There was no middle ground with predators.
"Let me show you a trick instead," I said.
T-Bag's eyebrows rose. "A trick?"
"Yeah." My hands moved, pulling his pocket watch from his chain before he could blink. "See this? Watch carefully."
I held the watch up, let him see it clearly. Then I walked three steps to the nearest inmate—some random guy who'd been trying very hard to be invisible during this whole conversation.
"Hold out your hand," I told him.
The guy did, confused and terrified.
I placed T-Bag's watch in his palm. Then I walked back to T-Bag.
"Now," I said, "go get your watch back."
The yard went silent.
T-Bag's smile didn't waver, but something dark flickered behind his eyes. He walked slowly to the guy holding his watch, took it back without a word.
The random inmate looked like he wanted to disappear into the concrete.
T-Bag returned to me, pocket watch in hand. "Cute trick, magician. Real cute."
"Here's another one," I said. "I don't pay protection. Not to you, not to anyone. But I don't make enemies either. So how about we just stay out of each other's way?"
For a long moment, T-Bag didn't move. His crew tensed, waiting for the signal to jump me.
Then he laughed. It sounded like breaking glass.
"You got balls, Danny. I respect that." He pocketed his watch. "We'll stay out of each other's way. For now."
He walked away, crew following.
Sucre exhaled hard. "Jesus Christ, Danny. You know who that is? You know what he does to people?"
"Yeah," I said, watching T-Bag disappear into B-Block. "I know exactly who he is."
And I just made an enemy I can't afford to have.
But backing down would've been worse. T-Bag would've owned me, and ownership was the one thing I couldn't give anyone. Not here. Not ever.
I'd deal with the consequences later.
That evening, lying in my bunk, I built my mind palace.
Three days until Michael Scofield.
Pope: Ally. Lonely, scared for his wife, genuinely decent. Chess games build trust.
Sucre: Ally. Pure heart, desperate for his girl, loyal to a fault.
Haywire: Unknown threat. Sees too much. Avoid when possible.
T-Bag: Enemy. Predator. Narcissist. Will retaliate eventually.
Avocado: Enemy. Humiliated. Watching for revenge opportunity.
Bellick: Suspicious. Watching me. Looking for excuse to write me up.
Stolte: Friendly. Thinks I'm harmless entertainment.
I closed my eyes and reached for the Low Presence Zone. Just a test. Just thirty seconds.
The field spread out from my center like ripples in water. The air around me shifted, became heavy, became forgetful. My cellmate's snoring continued uninterrupted. He couldn't see me even though his bunk was six feet away.
Twenty seconds.
The headache started building behind my eyes. Pressure. Like someone pushing thumbs into my temples.
Twenty-five seconds.
The world started to feel distant. Unreal. Like I was fading even from my own perception.
Thirty seconds.
I dropped the field. The headache spiked, then faded to a dull throb.
Haywire was right, I thought. I'm going to make things disappear.
The question was: what else would disappear with them?
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