The Dragonfly Effect

The Colston Maximum-Security Penitentiary in South Carolina was a grim place, with high walls of reinforced concrete ringed y multiple guard towers. It housed many of the most dangerous offenders in the prison system. Inmates were seldom seen in the common areas without handcuffs and leg-irons, surrounded by armed guards. It was a point of pride to the warden and his staff that no one had ever escaped from Colson in the facility’s sixty-six year history.
The cells were cramped and depressing, separated by two-foot-thick walls and iron bars. Comforts were virtually nonexistent beyond thin mattresses and skimpy blankets… except for isolation unit 1727 in cellblock D.
Compared to the other cells, it was a five-star-hotel suite. It was roomy, with a memory-foam bed and a sixty inch wall-mounted TV offering four hundred seventy-five satellite channels. There was a computer and a well-stocked library. The furniture had been shipped from Harrods in London, and was made from the finest leather. Meals were delivered from local restaurants – not exactly gourmet, but infinitely better than prison food.
Most amazing of all, when the guards looks into isolation unit 1727, they noticed none of this luxury. They saw an ordinary cell with an ordinary inmate in an ordinary orange jumpsuit. There was nothing wrong with their vision. A powerful post-hypnotic suggestion was affecting their minds. They saw only what the inmate wanted them to see.
Life here was so comfortable that sometimes Dr. Elias Mako wondered why he would ever consider leaving. It was restful to stay in here and let the country forget the nasty business of his arrest and trial, and the fact that he’d been declared a menace to society.
But Dr. Mako had big plans – plans that could not be executed from inside Colston’s massive walls.
The guard arrived with a tray from Barbie’s Q. Excellent ribs, but the Styrofoam and aluminum foil definitely detracted from the dining experience. No matter. Dr. Mako wasn’t planning to eat it anyway.
He peered into the guard’s eyes and said, “Hello, Ralph. You will now come in and shut the door behind you.”
Three minutes later, Ralph was wearing the orange jumpsuit and enjoying Barbie’s ribs while Majo, in Ralph’s uniform, was striding purposefully down the corridor.
His face did not match the picture on Ralph’s ID badge, but that was not a real problem. It was the word of just a few seconds for Mako to hypnotize the sentries at the various checkpoints. Soon he was out of lockup altogether, enjoying a cup of coffee in the guards’ break room. He exchanged a few pleasantries with the tall fellow who was restocking the snack machines. Several minutes later, it was Mako in the snack-machine man’s coveralls, driving toward Colston’s main gate in the vending company’s van.
“That was fast,” commented the sentry in the guardhouse.
“Have a 3 Musketeers,” Mako offered, handing a candy bar up through the window.
It was an error. As the man moved to accept the gift, another sentry behind him got a good look at the van’s driver – the single black brow, striking dark eyes, and hawklike Roman nose. It was not an appearance anyone would forget.
“Hey – you’re not the same guy who came in here!”
Mako knew a moment of alarm. It would be easy to bend either guard, but not both at the same time.
His burning eyes brought the first sentry under his control in a matter of seconds. “Your partner is an escaping inmate. Arrest him before he gets away!”
And while the two guards wrestled on the floor of the booth, Mako reached in the door, pulled the lever that opened the gate, and drove out of prison forever. He was a free man.
There was much to be done.