The IF Maximum Security Detention Center was a compound built roughly 150 meters beneath Io's surface, accessible only by means of shafts bored down through the crust with industrial laser torches, so that the rock walls were as smooth as glass all the way up. There were no lifts or mag-levs; the base on the surface, built around the starport, kept the hovercraft used to access the prison in its own hangars, and except when delivering new inmates or making supply runs, there were no vehicles capable of ascending the access shafts anywhere in the compound. When these hovercraft did come, they were heavily guarded, and the on-site sentries were placed on high alert.

The guards in the prison were on a rotating schedule, with three shifts on two-week rotations. At any time, two shifts were in the pit and one was on the surface. Resupplying and shift changing were carried out at the same time, to minimize the number of descents necessary. At any given time, the prison had no more than a week worth of food and water stored. Should anything happen, those inside would be trapped at the bottom of a 150 meter hole, and with perhaps a few days' rations.

The entire facility was highly compartmentalized. The 483 inmates were never allowed to gather in one place. The six cell blocks were on separate day/night cycles, to make separation easiest. The blocks were then further subdivided into sectors, with ten cells each. Sectors were moved one at a time, and all public areas were specifically designed to provide accomodations for ten seperate groups of ten inmates each. The cells were single-occupancy, 1.5 by 2.5 meters. The walls were volcanic rock, laser-hewn and bare, and the doors were 15-centimeter metal hatches, with temperature-sensing palm locks on the outsides. Every cell was monitored 24 hours a day.

Six months. It could easily have been a year. In this place, time had no meaning. Time was something the warden and guards controlled. In this place each day was singular, isolated. Nothing lasted through the night, not friendships, not alliances, not grudges. Every day was a clean slate. Every day was your first.

And if you weren't careful, your last.

Hale had already gathered all of this information before he was isolated in solitary for his first week. When he got out, he continued gathering. For Hale it was natural; he kept his ears open, and he learned in six months enough to keep him alive through the rest of his sentence.

Hale integrated into his new environment as though he'd grown up there. This was survival, and survival was something Hale did very well. He stayed out of the politics, out of the food chain. Hale stayed on the fringe. But only a few made the mistake of marking him as easy prey, those first six months. They set an example that only and handful would be stupid enough to follow over the entire course of Hale's sentence.

By the end of his third week, it was clear to most that Hale was not fringe at all. Hale simply did not play the game. And he was not kind that those that attempted to enforce the rules.

Hale operated as a machine, completely devoid of feeling. Any emotion he might once have had was now being funneled into the cold fury he kept inside, to fuel him as he fought to survive in this place. In everything he did, Hale was swift, efficient, and utterly ruthless. And at night, lying awake in his cell, he would imagine what he would do once he was finished with this place.

William Hale would pay for his crimes. But so too would Kuniyo Kinoshita.

That, in itself, was enough to grab Hale's attention. He had thought, after his sixth week, that he'd know every face in the prison, inmate or guard. After three months, he'd thought he'd known almost all of their names. Not that Hale interacted with them; he simply watched, and listened.

But the old man he had not seen until now, or at the very least -- and Hale hated to admit the possibility, but there seemed few others -- had not noticed him. The old man was hardly impressive, but that was not the point; Hale noticed everyone.

Hale's sector and two others were in the gym when they first met. Hale was lifting; he'd taken up the practice more out of a need to pass the time than anything else. If there was one thing Hale had left, it was time -- lots of it. He had lost his rank, and his honor, but time he had. Using it up was the hardest part of his sentence.

Lying on the bench, eyes on the ceiling, he heard the voice before he saw the man. "I need to talk to you." The voice was coarse, rasping, but it held a quiet dignity just beneath the surface, a subdued nobility. Hale was reminded, distantly, of Marcus Bryant.

He set the barbell back on the uprights, and sat up. He craned his neck to look at the old man standing a meter away.

"You eat alone," the old man said. It was more an observation than a question. "Make sure you keep doing so."

The old man then moved away, toward the gym's periphery. Hale made sure to keep an eye on him for the rest of their allotted gym time. After, the sectors were split up, and Hale lost track of the old man.

Mircea was placed in Hale's sector, as three vacancies had opened since Hale's arrival. He was a large man, a solid two meters tall, and Hale observed extensive military training during Mircea's four altercations that first week. Apparently he fancied himself a leader, because he set to building a power base in Hale's sector almost immediately. Hale did not mind this; his interest in the politics of Io was purely academic. But Mircea did not like that Hale was not interested in playing along, and said so. That was his mistake--rather than announcing his intentions, Mircea should simply have killed Hale and been done with it.

Hale would have, in Mircea's place.

Lucian Mircea made his move in the showers, apparently assuming Hale would be unarmed. As it happened, he was right; Hale didn't bother keeping shivs. Again, it seemed that none of Mircea's lackeys had told him this. Or why.

Hale knew Mircea would attack him today even before the other inmates cleared out of the showers. There were no sentries standing watch inside, and the diode on the holocam's casing was dark. Mircea had already secured favors from the guard, apparently. Hale was mildly impressed.

He finished his shower before acknowledging Mircea's presence. The larger man was standing in the dressing area, between Hale and the exit. There was a shard of what had once been a plate from the cafeteria in his hand. He made no move toward Hale. Hale looked the man over, and then dried himself and dressed. Mircea seemed to be waiting. A man of honor.

Hale, however, was not.

A towel, flung outspread toward Mircea, blocked his view of Hale momentarily. He swiped it from the air with his empty hand, but it was too late. Hale's foot connected with the man's crotch, and his elbow with the man's face, and then Mircea felt the shiv wrenched from his hand, leaving a jagged cut on his palm. He had only a moment to register this, because Hale jabbed the shiv into the side of Mircea's neck, and shoved downward.

Hale took a step back, to avoid the blood pouring in quick dark spurts from the gash across the man's throat. He leaned back in to take the towel from Mircea's hand, to ensure that there was nothing at hand to stop the bleeding. And Hale wiped his hands with the towel as he watched Lucian Mircea die.

The sentries watched him as he emerged from the showers, watched him all the way down the corridor. But they made no move to stop him.

Later, when Hale was eating in the cafeteria, the old man approached him for the first time since their meeting in the gym. "Heard you killed somebody today." The man took a seat across the table from Hale. The table was not empty, but no one was sitting in Hale's immediate vicinity. A few eyes nearby turned toward the stranger, perhaps curious to see if Hale would kill two in the same day.

Hale met the man's eyes. The intelligence there was undeniable. Hale wondered what this man wanted of him. "You know how people exaggerate," he said, returning his eyes to his tray. "I heard Mr. Mircea slipped on a bar of soap."

"And fell on his shiv," the old man said, tonelessly. "Tragic when there are no witnesses. We'll never know."

"Indeed."

There was silence for a long time. Hale ate his food. The old man watched him.

"Is there something you want?" Hale asked, when he had finished his food.

"What are you in for?" asked the old man.

Hale paused for a long time. "Murder."

"Oh?" The man seemed incredulous. "Someone important?"

"No one important," Hale replied. "Six hundred sixty no ones."

The man's eyebrows lifted. "Not bad. Killed them all at once, or is that a grand total?"

Hale shook his head. "They aren't dead yet."

Fourteen weeks had passed since the last time the old man had spoken to Hale in the cafeteria. Hale, who had been keeping careful and meticulous record of his time here, had observed the passing of his first year here in silence the week before last. Intellectually, he had realized that the first year was the hardest. Intellectually, he realized that it was downhill from here.

Realistically, Hale knew he still had nineteen more years to go.

As before, the old man approached Hale in the cafeteria, and seated himself across the table. The old man ate in silence, apparently oblivious to Hale's stare. When no words were spoken, Hale went back to his food. The old man finished his food quickly, and left.

Hale felt the slip of paper land on his lap.

He tucked it into his jumpsuit, and finished his meal. In the showers that evening after his sector was allowed access to the gym, Hale hid the slip of paper with his dirty clothes, and transferred it to his clean set when he dressed. When he returned to his cell, the lights went off before he had a chance to read it, and here inside Io, "lights out" was literal.

It was not until the following morning that Hale got his opportunity. When the lights came on, he was waiting. He unfolded the slip, and read it quickly, three times through. Then he shredded it into tiny pieces and flushed it down the toilet.

It was a not anything he had suspected. It was a letter, from the outside. The author was not named, but it was fairly plain that it was from Marcus Bryant. It contained the obligatory sentimentalisms, but also more useful things, such as current events both Earthside and intrasystem. And it spoke of Kuniyo Kinoshita.

She was still alive, though that Hale had not doubted. She was working as an assassin for the Gray Wolves, and had murdered enough people, both military and civilian, for Legion to put her on its hit list. As yet, none had been successful. Even Minerva Thoth, Riya's friend -- if such a word could apply -- from Scorpion, was no more.

Hale's mind wandered all morning. Try as he might, he could not put the information out of his head. Riya was succeeding beyond all possible expectations, and she was succeeding for the enemy.

At lunch, the old man returned. "Will you need to reply?" he asked, without looking up from his food.

"No," Hale said.

The old man's eyes flicked to Hale, but returned to his meal immediately.

"You can get information from the outside?"

The old man considered this. "Certain information. I can't always send out for it. But if it comes in, it comes to me."

"And you can send word out as well."

"Yes."

Hale was silent.

"You're thinking I'd make a useful friend in this place."

"I was thinking more along the lines of 'ally'."

The old man smirked. "You think that's a private joke. I know more than you realize."

"Then I take it I needn't introduce myself."

"No. I know you, William Hale." The old man stood, and gave a deep, courteous bow. "I am Diego di Valerio. It is good to make your acquaintance."

"Another?" Hale stopped eating. He'd already received a letter from Marcus Bryant four weeks ago, just before the second anniversary of his arrival here on Io. The letter had been like the first. Pleasantries, politics, and then the useful information, the information Hale needed. Riya.

Unfortunately, this last time had contained precious little. Riya had been spending time keeping under the IF's radar, something that did not fit in with her M.O. thus far. Hale did not believe Bryant's hope, that perhaps she had retired; from the marks Riya had taken out last year, she could have retired a millionaire several times over already. No, it has to be something else. Riya was up to something.

They ate in silence. When Diego left, a folded piece of paper lay in the spot previously occupied by his tray. Hale slid it under his without a reaction, and finished his meal.

He returned to his cell that evening with enough time to read before lights out. He read the letter from Bryant. He memorized it. And then he destroyed it.

Riya was dead, the letter claimed.

Apparently, her down time had not been down time at all. Agents Solenis and Gabriel, in pursuit of Simon Reiner, had stepped into a trap set my Kinoshita and had nearly been killed. But Riya was shot, and they escaped with the prisoner they had come to recover. After, the facility was destroyed and the surrounding urban area cordoned-off. The security forces determined that there had been no possible way for Riya to have escaped.

Hale glowered at the ceiling in his cell long after the lights had gone out. Solenis and Gabriel. The bitter irony was too much for him. His mind rejected it. Those two had walked into her trap. They'd been careless. They'd hit Riya, but had not confirmed her death, nor recovered a body.

No, Hale did not believe it. Riya was not dead. Until Hale saw the body himself, with fingerprint, dental record, and DNA proof that it was her, Hale would never believe that Riya was dead. Stupid of them to assume. Stupid of them to be so ridiculously, blindly optimistic.

Kuniyo Kinshita was alive. Bryant was a good man, but he was a fool. And with fools running things, Riya was not likely to be anything but alive when Hale finally had his freedom once more.

And when he did.

When he did.

Keep low, Kinoshita. Dig in deep. Because when I am free, the hunt will begin. I will find you. The deeper you are, the longer your life shall be. But I will find you. And when I do, I will kill you, and you will stay dead.

Liam Hansen was supposed to have been dead. He had been with the Gabriels' when their plane went down. The mother and daughter were found only after days of combing the tundra, and after that a mild blizzard had interrupted the search. Hansen's body had never been located. When that body showed up on Io wearing a jumpsuit, Hale understood immediately. Bryant had always suspected that it had been an inside job. He had not guessed how far the Wolves' infection had spread.

When he lay awake that night, he understood the purpose of Hansen's incarceration here. He was a traitor, and should have been executed under the SOTF's codes. But the execution had to be reported publicly by law. That would mean two things. First, the IF would look very stupid when it admitted that it had been successfully fooled for the past two decades by this man's disappearing act. And second, the IF would have to admit to the existence of the Gray Wolves. And the last thing it wanted was to publicize the organization's name. They could do their own recruiting. So they sent him to Hale. To disappear. To die.

Well, what the hell. He was being called upon by the IF to serve once again, to perform his duty. He would answer.

"Diego," he said, when he sat with the man at breakfast the next day. He had called the man Mr. Valerio at first, but the man's repeated insistence to use his given name eventually won over habit. Decorum was not so serious a concern here. "I want to kill a man."

"What will that make?" Diego asked without looking up from his breakfast. "Six hundred sixty-... eight? Nine?"

"Hardly. Those were the unsactioned murders. I want you to arrange some privacy for me."

"What am I, your agent? You still owe me for that last message."

In addition to his information passing methods and his networking skills, Diego was Io's contract bulletin board. When someone needed another someone to die, they put money in Diego's hand. Diego put arranged the time and the place, and paid -- or called in a favor from -- a different inmate to do the job. It was cleaner that way. Things were quick and impersonal. And the deceased's allies could not trace the transaction. Twice now Hale had paid his debt to Diego in this manner. It did not bother Hale. Those who came here were the worst of the IF's enemies, the traitors and the terrorists and the few Wolves taken alive. Each death made the world a cleaner place.

"You're never short on work," Hale replied. "I repay my debts."

Diego regarded him for a long moment. "All right. Time and place."

Liam was close to arranging his escape. He had met an old man who was able to get word outside, and had sent out an extraction plea to his associates. They would come and get him if they possibly could. They would want to know what Liam had told the IF. They would torture him. But he would tell them that he had only lied, and they would believe him, because Liam lied well. And then they would put him away somewhere quiet, and arrange to have him killed, but he would disappear first. They would underestimate him. That was the Wolves' weakness, their central and inherent flaw: they thought they were on the side of Right, and so they thought that the enemy, the IF -- and therefore, Liam by association -- was stupid. They had spent too much time hiding in the darkness between the cracks of society; they thought they were invisible.

The old man had told him that his reply had come, but that smuggling it away from the administrative sector -- where the old mn performed janitorial jobs -- was impossible. Too much risk, the man had said. If you want it, you can get it yourself.

Now Liam, utilizing training not used in years, was sneaking through the corridors of the administrative sector, and he felt alive. He'd not done anything like this in years, and he had missed it, more than he could have guessed. Wait here, wait for the holocam's sweep to cycle... now, run, dash past the hallway, and stop, hold still, very still, don't disturb the air. Move slowly, slide the wall, crouch under the window of the watch station. The card, so carefully stolen, opens that door. Swipe it and slide back, quickly, silently. See the guard come out of his booth with his gun to see who went through while he was looking at his magazine, see him swipe his card and peek through the door. Move, slide, slip into his booth behind him, press the button to hold the holocam sweep. Adjust it toward the wall. Now out, get out, get back around the corner before he turns around, he's backing up, he's turning...

Liam was around the corner. He heard the keycard door close, and then the guard's. And he moved down the corridor in perfect silence, under the holocam dome. He swiped the same card at the end of the hall, and slipped through, running so that the guard would not see him when he came to look.

Good. Almost there. This area isn't as tightly watched. Another guard post, but this one is snoring; on the administrative side of that door, there is nothing to see. slip beneath the window, keep your head down. Three doors down. Two. This door.

Liam opened the door as quietly as possible, and slipped inside the supply closet. It was rather large, almost a room. Where had the old man left it? Back wall, third shelf from the top. He started forward, and was halfway across the tiny roof when the ever-so-faint release of a held breath froze him in mid-step.

It seemed like an eternity before the presence spoke. "Sneaking around after bedtime," said the voice. It made a singular disapproving sound with its tongue and teeth. "You've been a very naughty boy, Liam."

Liam turned. In the darkness, on the hinge-side of the door, stood a tall man with angular features akin to that of a bird of prey. He could not make out anything distinct, just shape; it was too dark in the closet.

He acted without pausing to think, to assess. He wanted to take this man off-guard, and to do that, he had to take himself off-guard. He moved forward, hand pulling the shiv from the waistband of his pants, swiping with the blade at the shadows. He hit nothing, cut nothing; the shadows melted into the wall. He felt the stir in the air of the intruder's movement, but he could not turn in time. A boot connected with his leg behind the knee, and the leg collapsed beneath him. He caught himself on his hands. And then a boot came down on the hand holding the shiv. Bones broke. Tissue parted. Pain exploded up Liam's arm. A blow landed against the elbow of his uninjured arm, and the joint bend at a bad angle. Liam fell face-forward against the metal floor. He felt his ruined hand being pried open, and the jagged blade imbedded in it was torn away. A sharp edge came to rest against his throat.

"Do you know who I am, Liam?"

Liam could not find the strength to speak through the pain, but he was able to shake his head.

The swish of movement, and then the click of the closet's light, and Liam was blinded. He forced his eyes open anyways. He had to see. Had to see.

The man kneeling over him was not immediately familiar. It was only after a few seconds that the face registered. A face he'd not seen in almost twenty years. "Will..." he said.