Three To A Cell

She collapses against the cold metallic floor, the door sliding shut with a loud hiss behind her. The cold of the steel cuts even more sharply against her bruised face. She places both hands flat against the floor, pushing herself up and pulling her legs under herself. She scans the simple cell.

To either side a bunk with the huddled shape of another prisoner curled up on it, only a simple blanket covering them as they began to stir. She rubs the back of her neck, the electrocution and beating the guards had given her after cutting her out of her scout-ship were certainly going to leave some marks. She stands up fully, turning her attention to the door that had just slammed closed. It's obviously locked and secured by some real top of the line equipment. She reaches a hand out, poking and prodding at the seam in the door, right about waist height.

"I wish we'd thought of that." A gruff voice calls from the bench on her right. The voice startles her, but she doesn't turn to look. "Max, you realize we never tried to open the door, we could have been out this whole time!" The voice calls out across the cell. The other shape, which she presumes to be Max, rolls and grumbles on the other bunk. "You're wasting your time if you think you're going out through that door." The shape the gruff voice is coming from stretches and swings it's legs over the side of the bunk.

"Well, what kind of scoundrel would I be if I didn't at least try?" She says confidently, crouching down to get a better look at the reinforced seam. She picks and pulls at the small ledge where the two chunks of the door meet.

"Don't seem like much of a scoundrel to me at all." The gruff voice speaks confidently, nearly presumptuously. A quiet flick of a lighter momentarily casts their face in an amber light, then another. She can see his olive skin and trimmed beard, his short hair jet-black, his eyes reflecting the glow of his lighter that was struggling to ignite his cigarette. "Right Max? Doesn't move like a scoundrel, too stiff and proper." The cigarette catches a glow, reflecting in his eyes as he looks her up and down.

She's wearing what she was when she crashed. A blue jumpsuit, torn in several places giving glimpses of her gray tank-top and black boxer-briefs underneath. Her curly dark hair is trimmed shorter, just long enough to reach her shoulders when down, and it's been tied up into a now loose bun atop her head. An ID necklace hangs around her neck, with a small pearl threaded on it.

"So what do we think Max? Three to a cell, prison must be getting tight. Must be important to someone." The gruff voice starts again, taking a drag of the cigarette as he finishes his sentence, "Soldier? Maybe a fighter pilot? One of those Free System Ace's? No no, too pretty for the rebels. Maybe some middle manager on a freighter? Well but then why would they bring you in here. Maybe-"

"Shut the fuck up!" The shape she presumes to be Max tosses what was supposed to be a pillow across the room then rolls to face the wall, doing his best to shut the entire conversation out. He grumbles and adjusts some but was snoring within moments of the outburst.

"Don't mind Max, he's a nice guy, just a little tired at the moment." He takes another drag of his cigarette and leans forward, placing his elbows on his knees and leaning against them. "OK, so lets start my guessing game again, this time I'll leave Max out of if. Wild card here, are you a Tibannic Gas Financier? Maybe an-"

"Jesus enough," She speaks quickly and firmly, "I'm a recon pilot, ran into a corpo black-site while on a scouting run. I'm Adrienne, most people just call me Adie."

"Sure." He pauses a moment, looking her up and down again. She was no slouch in practically any department, shapely figure, athletic build, even in the jumpsuit he could see the outline of a shapely ass. "Sure ok, well I'm Bryce, just a fixer on the wrong side of a shootout." He stands, grabbing his blanket and stepping into the light of the middle of the cell. His outfit is a simple prisoner get-up, white tank top and bright orange pants, Kari-leather boots on his feet. Clearly the corporate overlords of this sector didn't feel like spending a dime more on their prisoners than was necessary. He points to Max, who's snoring up a storm.

"Let me guess, that's Max?" She says with a self satisfied smirk.

"How'd you guess?!" He smiles sarcastically, holding his hands out to either side, overplaying his confusion. He stepping to the side, positioning himself on the opposite side of her from the door, then extends his arm towards where he'd just been sleeping. "Take my bunk, it's too small for me anyway. I'll nap on the floor until they decide one of us is going free or being released from life."

She steps slowly towards the bunk, looking for some sort of trap in the darkness. Finding none she turns and takes a seat on the hard surface. She watches as Bryce makes his way to the wall opposite the door and begins to construct his nest of blanket. Before he's even settled she can feel herself begin to tire. Staying on her feet had kept her momentum running, and now that she'd finally come to a rest all the exhaustion of the pursuit had caught up to her, hitting her like a ton of bricks. She slowly works herself into a ball, her back facing the wall and her eyes watching her new cell-mates until her lids are too heavy to stay up. She doesn't even see the darkness as they fall, instead she's instantly asleep, reliving some twisted version of the last moments of her flight.

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"So that's it?"

"That's it."

"There's no fuckin' way that's it." Max speaks as he chews a bite of bread. Bryce and Adie retreat to their respective sleeping spaces. Bryce leans against the wall, then slowly lowers himself down until he's sitting. He dips the bread in some lukewarm soup, then takes a bite himself.

"It's that easy." Adie says confidently, raising the bowl to her lips and slurping some wretched soup. "I saw it on the way in, each of these cells is only made for two, this is the only one with three in it, these guards are cheap, they're not going to risk their lives for 700 shak an hour." She dips her bread, picking up on how each of the men eat their rations, then takes a bite.

"OK so, we fake an emergency for you, you're over here on the wall across from the door. What makes you think they'll give a shit?" Bryce dips his bread again. "What makes you think they won't just let you flail?"

"They won't. I can guarantee that."

"What was it you were again? Some kinda pilot or-" Max's question comes through a thick mouth of partially chewed bread and spit.

"I'm a scout pilot for the free sys- it's not important. The point is-" She bites into her bread, "-point is that I'm at least important enough that they'll send someone."

"Right OK and then the plan is we wait to the sides of each door and jump whoever comes to rescue you." Bryce swallows his last mouthful of bread, lifting the bowl to his lips and finishing off his soup. He places the bowl against the floor and gives it a shove. The thin metal bowl skitters across the cold steel flooring and clangs against the door."Only issue is, they move in groups of two."

"That's why we wait for inspection."

"Right right. Inspection." The word practically slithers from Max's mouth. "We just wait 'till every guard in the facility is out and active- that's the perfect time to escape!" He wipes the excess soup from his lip as he finishes his bowl, setting it carefully beside him.

"That's the only time they're not in pairs checking on us. We get our weapon, we're three cells from the end of the row, we get access to their system write info into the overflow buffer, and the system goes down. Unless they've kept up on their security updates, which I doubt they've taken the time to do properly." She leans back against the wall as she finishes the last of her bread. "Simple."

The two men look at each other, then back and Adie. They seem to silently converse for a moment before turning back to Adie.

"OK," Bryce finally breaks the silence. "Next inspection isn't for another 12 shifts, so that's about 6 days."

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"Ok so you're like an ace pilot or something right?" Bryce pulls the soft clean clothes from the small tray the guard slides through the cracked door. "So how come you got all of those on your back?" He motions vaguely towards Adie's back. She'd pulls off her tank top and jumpsuit for the first laundry day since she'd been incarcerated.

"I never said I was an ace. Just a recon pilot-" she looks over her naked shoulder, tossing the cut and burned jumpsuit into the small bin beside the tray, intended for dirty clothes. She keeps her arm held across her breasts as the charred jumpsuit lands perfectly in the bin. She's still got it. She reaches down and begins to pull her shorts down as well, placing them more gently into the bin as she grabs her new prison duds. She grabs a small rolled up news report print out from the same tray, tossing it onto Max's bench in a swift motion. He always wanted to read the news as soon as it was delivered. Bright orange pants and a white tank-top. It's not fashionable, but at least she'll fit in better with the other inmates now. She holds the folded clothes over her chest, shielding her privates with her other hand as she scuttles back towards her corner of the cell.

"Right OK so they're from crashing, which you do seem to do a lot of." Max chuckles to himself as he pulls his fresh tanktop on and shimmies into his bright orange pants. He's a bulky fellow, maybe heavy set, but he carries it naturally. Certainly not the kind you want to meet in a bar fight.

"Not all from crashes." She says with a wry smile as she pulls the bright orange pants up and ties the waist lead in a clean knot. She looks over her shoulder, reaching to point to a small scar beneath her shoulder blade, her other hand holding the still folded tank-top over her breasts. "This one was a target training round that went the wrong direction." She stretches to point to another on her upper arm "This was a fight after my class graduation, I think someone insulted someone's moms or something like that. We were mostly just fucked up and looking for a fight." She unfolds the tanktop and slips it over her shoulders. Bryce watches closely, he can't help but catch a bit of errant side-boob as she pulls the tank top down. He averts his eyes as soon as he realizes what he's seeing, feeling a pang of shame for taking advantage of the innocent laundry day.

"Then this one-" She pulls the bottom hem of the tank top up to about her ribcage and points with the other hand to a large scar on the side of her tummy, "was from my first date after leaving home. When I showed up, the psycho thought I was trying to steal his stash and he cut me across the stomach. Needed nine stitches and spent a week in the hospital."

Bryce and Max both look on, a mixture of impressed and excited by the stories and the beautiful woman showing herself off to them.

"Only good one I got is here-" Max parts the hair on the side of his head, exposing a covered scar stretching from just above his ear, across his skull and down to the back of his neck,"-got clocked by a box at the factory I was workig at." He idly scratches at the scar, then brushes his hair back into place. "Fuckers told me to get back to work so I'd have enough cash to buy a new uniform from the scrip store." Max laughes, but a pain is evident in his voice. "I quit the next day, got a two-bit 'surgeon' to patch it up and joined up with the Blood Eagle Mercenary Company the next day. Made more in my first week than two months salary at that shit hole factory."

Bryce smiles, pulling his own tank-top up and pointing to a scattering of small scattering of scars on his abdomen, just below his rib-cage.

"I spent a year in the Cristos system, spent four months on Christos' third moon, where they do the gladiator recordings." He forms his hand into a claw and mimic biting at the scars, "My last fight was against three wyrmek, all I had was a stick and a knife" He holds his fists one on top of the other, mimicking holding a bat or sword, he swings his imaginary bat to one side, then the other, before his eyes fix to the center. "I knocked one, then the other, I leapt back just in time to keep the third from grabbing my head, but-" He returns his hand to his side, again mimicking a jaw and biting at his own side.

"Did it inject you?" Adie's jaw was slack, enraptured by the story. She knew of the Wyrmek, incredibly venomous creatures with rows of sharp fangs, with gluey blood that felt more like honey than real liquid.

"Bet yer' ass it did. Swore it was a whole liter right in the abdomen- but docs said it was closer to 200 milliliters but I still think they were just downplaying it." He mimes drawing a knife from his hip, "Split that wormy fucker right down the side, and won the fight, but only just. I don't even remember being drug off of the field."

Adie notices the shape of his body. Slender but powerful. Her mind flashes back to her room on her ship, the Arawn, and what she could do with his body and her cache of toys. She lets herself wander for a moment, her hand coming to rest on her chin as she sees flashes of the rubber and steel holding him in place, his lips yearning for her approval as she wrapp her fingers through his hair and pull his lips against hers, kissing him with tender force as his co-

She stops herself. There's a mission at hand, but she has to admit spending such time with Max and Bryce in such close quarters has her thinking of ideas. She pulls her eyes from his frame and puts them squarely on the door as it hisses closed.

"Anyway, I survived, as you can see. Joined up with the Blood Eagles a few weeks later, after breaking out of the cages and stowing away on a cargo freighter they were protecting." He leans against the wall, lowering himself slowly down to sit against the floor. "And now I'm here."

"Not for long, Inspection will be day after next, so we'll be busting out of here before too long." Max settles on his bench opposite Adie's, leaning back against the wall. "Enough about that though, it's just gonna stress me out more. What about that big one that goes from your collar bone up your neck?"

Adie smiles pulling the hem of the tank top aside and turning her head, showing the full scar. It goes right along her collar bone, across her neck and then up to just below her ear on the opposite side.

"Third week of live flight maneuver training, I brought my nose up too quickly, clipped an asteroid that was rigged with a feedback charge so when we targeted properly we got to see an explosion." She relaxes her hold on the tank-top and centers her head again, leaning back against the cold steel of the wall. "Sent my entire craft hurtling backwards and slammed into another asteroid. In the chaos a compressed air tube ruptured and shot across the cockpit, split me open and I nearly drowned in my own blood. " She pauses for a moment, emphasizing the dire nature of the situation. She she watches Max as he leans forward, his large stature had started in her mind as an angry lump yelling into a sensitive and strong mountain of a man. He was strong and sensitive and looked like he could crush a boulder in his bare hands.

"Oh so that one actually was a crash." Max says with a laugh as he turns his attention to the small news-report she'd tossed him from the clothing tray.

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Night came as the lights in the cell click off, each now only illuminated by the glow from the hall, occasionally blocked by a patrolling guard. Adie tosses and turns on her bench, unable to separate her nerves for the next day's daring escape from her growing interest in her cellmates. She rolls side to side, turning over and over in a loop as her stress and thoughts mingle. She thinks of them busting the guard's head open, taking his gun and blasting their way out. She thinks of settling down here with her two prison buddies and raising a family. She thinks of a hail of gunfire raining through the door as they grab the first guard and immediately get decimated by the guard's backup. She thinks of being cradled between the tall strong frame of Max and the slender muscle of Bryce, each pulling as close to her as they can be. She imagines a night of passion before their daring escape. One they could have right now.

Finally she sits up, swinging her legs over the side of the bench.

"Are you two sleeping?" She asks, a note of anger in her voice as her had comes up and combs her fingers through her hair.

"No of course not." Max grumbles from his bench, turning away from the wall and facing Adie.

"How could I, you keep fucking spinning over there, you'd think you're the one sleeping on the floor" Bryce calls out from his spot opposite the door. He stretches out and pulls himself half upright.

"What's on your mind Adie?" Max asks quietly, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees, his arms crossed in front of him. She looks at Max, then at Bryce, then back at Max, before lifting her eyes to the ceiling and leaning back against the cold steel of her wall.

"Can't sleep, thinking about the escape tomorrow and-" She pauses, looking back down to Max, then over to Bryce again. "-and well just thinking." She crosses her arms, and crosses her legs. "What would you two think about doing something fun tonight, just to get out some stress before tomorrow?"

Both men lean forward, each listening keenly as she speaks. Adie leans forward, quickly uncrossing her legs and putting her elbows against each knee, practically mirroring Max's pose.

"We should fuck." She says, a smile stretching across her lips as she speaks. "Not just fuck- but we should all fuck." She moves a hand up to her face, pulling a strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes float from Max to Bryce and back. The two men look from her to each other, then back to her. "C'mon you guys have been cooped up in here for how long with nothing to see, and you're going to pretend you haven't at least thou-"

"I have definitely thought about it." Bryce chimes in.

"Well that's really not- I mean I wouldn't say I haven't thought about it, but it just seems-" Max stammers over his words for the first time in any conversation Adie has heard him engage in.

"Look, you might be scoundrels, but you're good guys, and I've got to be honest-" She nibbles on her lip looking between the two men, "- I mean honestly I've been thinking about it, and I think we could all use a good cum to- ya know- clear our minds and that kind of thing."

"I think- yea I mean I think I would really enjoy-" Max starts to speak, reaching a hand up and idly scratching at the back of his head as his eyes look down to the floor. He's only half way through his sentence, but Adie wastes no time. She stands from her bench, immediately hitting her stride and begins to cross the room. Max's eyes lift, to see hers locked on his, he feels a moment of panic, then realizes what is truly happening.

She reaches him, placing her hands on each of his cheeks and pulls him in for a kiss. Their lips lock as his hands come to rest on either side of her hips. He pulls her close, feeling the heat of her body through the cheap prison fabric. She reaches a hand up, pulling the small band that held her hair up and letting the strands flow free for the first time outside of the shower since she'd arrived. Her hair falls in disorganized curls around her face, just barely reaching her shoulders.