Chapter Three: The Plan Begins

In an instant, two inmates were dead, one prison guard wounded, and several prisoners hit by stray bullets.

All the guards present, including Alderson, panicked. He tried to regain control, firing another warning shot into the air.

But who were these people? Most sentenced to life or more than fifteen years were hardened criminals with nothing to lose. Seeing two men die so abruptly, and so many others struck down for no reason, their eyes went red with rage.

The guards’ blows and shouts became the final catalyst. The inmates seized the chairs, trays, and cutlery at hand, hurling them at the guards. In a heartbeat, the entire cafeteria dissolved into chaos.

Gunshots and curses filled the air.

Zhou Yi didn’t get up. Spotting blood on the floor, he quickly smeared some over his own face, then lay down and played dead. At a time like this, not getting caught in the crossfire was all that mattered.

Before long, someone triggered the alarm. More guards poured in, quickly subduing the fighting inmates—some beaten down with rifle butts and left groaning on the ground.

Everywhere, people moaned in pain.

Of course, there were corpses too. Aiden sprawled face-down on a battered stainless steel cart, head twisted to one side, eyes wide open and unblinking, a pool of blood spreading beneath him. He was far beyond saving—his forehead and cheek bore two blisters where the skin had peeled away.

Alderson spat, holstered his gun, and wiped the blood from his brow.

He scanned the room. None of the guards had died, but many were wounded. His face was full of frustration as he shouted at his side:

“Call an ambulance, now! And request reinforcements! Even if they’re inmates, we can’t let so many die at once, or we’ll all be out of a job!”

The bellow seemed to galvanize the uninjured guards into action.

Zhou Yi kept his head down, listening intently.

People moved back and forth by his side—just one or two sets of footsteps, probably checking the injured.

As for the rioters and those watching, all had been herded into separate areas: some squatted facing the wall with their hands on their heads, some sat on the open floor, but the groans were the most abundant sound in every corner.

Zhou Yi dared not open his eyes. All he could do was lie motionless and feign death. If he stood up now, he’d be sent straight back to his cell. Fortunately, plenty of bodies littered the cafeteria floor, so he hardly stood out.

He had no idea how much time passed. His limbs began to tingle with numbness before he finally heard the distant wail of ambulances and police cars.

The sound of the ambulances struck him as oddly beautiful.

Zhou Yi cracked his eyes open slightly. The tension in the cafeteria still ran high; guards were scattered everywhere—some standing atop tables, some slumped to one side, faces and heads streaked with blood. The wounded were many.

Of course, most of the injured were inmates—dozens, sprawled in every direction.

Just as Zhou Yi opened his eyes, Alderson strode toward him. Zhou Yi shut his eyes at once. Soon, a jumble of footsteps and voices signaled the arrival of more police and medical staff.

To Zhou Yi’s left lay the corpse of his tagalong, William. To his right was a man bleeding from a gunshot wound. A toppled table shielded Zhou Yi’s body. As the crowd rushed in, Zhou Yi lifted his head.

From here, he could see the clock on the wall. The hands pointed to 15:21.

Zhou Yi felt a measure of relief. The later he left, the easier it would be to mask his movements.

The arriving doctors, of course, attended first to the wounded guards, quickly diagnosing and carrying them away one by one.

Doctors were in short supply, so many of the reinforcements from the police pitched in to help, and even a few reliable inmates lent a hand. For a while, there were few true overseers left in the cafeteria.

Zhou Yi slowly sat up, grabbed a napkin, and wiped the blood from his hands. The kitchen lay directly behind him.

He began to edge sideways toward the kitchen. At that moment, a doctor, having just sent two officers carrying an injured man outside, looked his way.

Zhou Yi quickly raised his hand and, turning to face the doctor, pointed weakly toward the kitchen, lowering his voice, “Doctor, someone’s hurt in the kitchen—they crawled in there. Might be a cook.”

A nearby guard glanced over, saw Zhou Yi’s blood-smeared, trembling face, and relaxed his guard. He gestured for the doctor to go check it out.

Dragging a stretcher, the doctor approached. Zhou Yi hurried to help him carry it, and together they headed toward the kitchen. At the corner, Zhou Yi looked up and saw that to the left was the kitchen, to the right the changing room—and here, there were no surveillance cameras.

He took two steps forward, pointing toward the changing room. “He’s not in the kitchen—must have gone to the changing room.”

The doctor paused and took two steps toward the changing room.

Before he could step through the door, Zhou Yi sprang up, swinging his arm in a sudden blow to the back of the doctor’s neck.

It was a complete surprise; the doctor went down without a sound.

Zhou Yi’s heart pounded in his chest. He caught the doctor’s body, laid him gently on the ground, then quickly dragged him into the changing room. He stripped off his inmate uniform, swapping clothing, shoes, and socks with the doctor. He even donned the doctor’s glasses.

A wave of dizziness struck him, as if his head would explode.

“Number Twenty-Eight... Base Station...” Strange, fragmented words echoed in his ears. He seemed to be lying on a metal slab, his back pressed to icy steel, the chill seeping into his bones and blood.

This vision lasted longer than the previous ones. Zhou Yi’s legs went weak, and he braced himself against the wall to keep from collapsing.

He had no idea how much time passed before he pulled himself together, wiped the sweat from his brow, and bit his tongue to stay alert.

He hadn’t the luxury to dwell on these strange memory fragments—he couldn’t afford delay. The chip in his abdomen still needed to be dealt with. Zhou Yi pressed his lips together.

If he tried to escape, the detector at the door would go off as soon as he passed. He had to remove the chip first.

He opened the doctor’s emergency kit, found a scalpel, and, biting down on a scrap of cloth, prepared to operate on himself. There was no time for anesthesia—who knew how long he’d already wasted? The chip had to come out, and fast.

He stared into the mirror for a few seconds, then switched the scalpel from his right to his left hand. He felt as if he were going mad—how had prison changed his habits so drastically? And now, these memory fragments—was it some kind of intermittent amnesia?

He shook his head, forced himself to focus, and felt around his abdomen. Sure enough, three finger-widths above his navel was a tiny puncture mark. He cut along it, a searing pain making his whole body shudder.

Gritting his teeth, he pried open the wound and dug out a chip the size of a grain of rice.

After wiping the wound and applying a dressing, he dipped the bloodied gauze and smeared it over the doctor’s face. He stuck the extracted chip to the back of the doctor’s neck.

He then washed the scalpel at the sink, shaved his beard, trimmed his hair short, straightened his clothes, found a face mask in his pocket, and put it on.

Squatting beside the unconscious doctor, Zhou Yi hesitated. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, but to keep the man from waking too soon, he had to find a way.

He rummaged in the emergency kit, found a vial of diazepam, and his eyes lit up. He quickly drew up a dose and injected it into the doctor’s vein. At this amount, the doctor wouldn’t wake for four or five hours.

Just then, footsteps sounded behind him.

Zhou Yi swiftly fitted a cervical collar around the doctor’s neck, secured him to the stretcher, and tore off the ID badge, tossing it into a trash can. Only then did he half-turn to look at the newcomer.

A guard had entered. Zhou Yi recognized from his uniform that he was from Midcity Penitentiary. Seeing Zhou Yi dressed as a doctor, the guard immediately lowered his gun.

“Hey, I saw an inmate come in here with you just now?”

Zhou Yi nodded slightly, lowered his voice, and pointed toward the kitchen. “There’s another casualty over there. Help me carry this man out—he’s got a neck injury. Delay could be fatal.”

The guard hesitated, saw the steely resolve in Zhou Yi’s eyes and his knitted brow, and paused a moment.

As Zhou Yi worried he’d been found out, the guard flicked the safety on his gun, slung it over his shoulder, and moved to the other end of the stretcher.

Zhou Yi finally breathed a sigh of relief and reminded him, “Careful—don’t jostle the stretcher, or you’ll cause further injury. On my count—lift!”

So professionally did he speak that the guard only nodded and crouched down, taking hold of the stretcher and waiting for Zhou Yi’s signal.

“One, two, three—lift!”

At the last word, they hoisted the stretcher up.

Zhou Yi, carrying the medical kit, staggered as he helped lift the stretcher. Together, they labored toward the cafeteria doors, where several ambulances waited outside.

Glancing at the license plates, Zhou Yi saw a few in sequence, the rest all different. Clearly, this many ambulances couldn’t come from a single hospital or emergency center—they must have converged from all over. Zhou Yi allowed himself a small breath of relief.

He walked up to the nearest ambulance. He remembered the doctor’s badge identified him as a physician from Michigan General. As long as he avoided that hospital, it would be hard to identify him right away.

Without slowing his pace, Zhou Yi asked a paramedic beside the ambulance, “Which hospital’s ambulance is this?”

The medic hurried over and took Zhou Yi’s side of the stretcher. “We’re from Johns Hopkins—it’s the closest hospital!”

Zhou Yi nodded. “Careful with the patient’s head—get the stretcher inside. I’ll give him a quick dressing before you go.”

The medic smiled and expertly slid the stretcher into the ambulance. The guard stood to one side as Zhou Yi placed gauze over the man’s left eye, quickly wrapping his head in bandages. With half his face hidden, even acquaintances would struggle to recognize him.

Zhou Yi jumped down from the ambulance. Just as he turned to tell the medic they could set off, a hand clapped him on the shoulder from behind.

“Wait!”

A familiar voice rang out, and Zhou Yi froze where he stood.