The old man, shoulders aching, sat slowly back in his chair and rubbed his tired eyes. The dim light from the battered desk lamp no longer provided him with sufficient lumination as it had some twenty years ago when he had first brought it to the office. Still, it was eminently preferable to the sterile glare of the flourecent lights set in the ceiling. And the small pool of illumination on the desk did give his after-hours presence in the office a sense of comfortable isolation; at times like this - 6:30 on a Friday afternoon - with the central office empty and dark behind the bare panes of his office door, he could imagine himself stranded alone in a pool of light. The lonely silence of the empty office soothed him. He sighed and shook his head, smiling to himself. Utter nonsense. He was just an overly-imaginative old man - barely a year away from retirement - working late on a Friday afternoon because he was too slow and inefficient to get his work done during regular office hours. And this was work that had to be done. The file sat open on his desk, contents exposed for his inspection. It concerned one Theodore "Teddy" Grant, convicted of two counts of armed robbery and one count of kidnapping. Grant had been an inmate of the Point Hope Maximum Security Facility for over twelve years now, and had finally come up for parole. The board had approved his application, but only by a three to two margin; California state law required the approval of the Prison Warden before the prisoner could be released. A quick perusal of the relevant documents showed that Grant had been a model prisoner for the last several years - no fights (that the prison officials knew of, anyway); no confrontations with the guard; he had completed three years of course work for a degree in the liberal arts... The old man snorted. Liberal arts. He recognized the advice of a clever lawyer there. Still... The old man knew what prison was like. He had worked at one facility or another for most of his adult life and had actually been Warden of this particular penitentiary for over twenty years. He knew what prison was like; it was not the kind of place one kept a man unless it was absolutely necessary. And some men deserved a second chance. Sighing, he signed his name across the approval notice and slipped the forms back into the folder. That was almost it; just one... "Joe?" The old man looked up, startled. It was Carol Jenson, the new Deputy Supervisor of State Correctional Facilities. Well, not really new any more; she had been at the job for almost a year now. Ever since Rachel had... "This package was with the Benson parole application," she said, placing a thick envelope on his desk. "It fell out of the file at the Records Desk; they were going to throw it out." He ignored the envelope for the moment, looking up at her as she stood, barely illuminated at edge of the small pool of light thrown up by his desk lamp. Her long, blonde hair framed a face that would have been pretty had not her nose been broken and poorly set a number of years ago. He knew the story: an abusive husband. Tragic, but she had divorced him a long time ago and moved on with her life. Suddenly, he found himself in need of company. Perhaps the isolation wasn't what he needed just now. "You're here late," he joked, trying to keep her talking. "And on a Friday too. What's up?" "Just tidying up," she answered, smiling a tired smile. She kept to herself, generally. He was surprised to realize that he didn't really know her at all; even after almost a full year. "Trying to clear off my desk. Besides, it's kind of lonely at the apartment with Karen in Europe." Karen? Who... ah, her daughter. "Isn't she back yet?" "Huh-huh. Her and Jennifer are camping somewhere in Scotland. She should be back late next week." Carol shifted her purse up on her shoulder and turned to go. "Don't be working too late now, alright?" "This is the last one," he promised her, watching wearily as she disappeared into the darkness. What must it be like, he thought, to have a child... a family? Shaking his head, he turned his attention to the envelope she had brought. It was marked RB-006C; part of the Robert Benson file. Probably some sort of discretionary comment, by the look of it. Obviously, someone had thought that this material was relevant to the decision of whether or not to approve parole. He tore it open. A piece of paper slid out, followed by another, smaller envelope, and then a pair of cassette tapes, labelled "A" and "B". He glanced at the paper, skimming over the handwritten text and then down to the signature: "Burke". Burke! He felt his breath catch in his throat as he stared at the name. Harrison Burke had been the chief liaison between the regional correctional facilities and the state government. He had also been a good friend of the old man's. He was also dead. Cancer. The body of the letter was uninformative. It simply read: "Joe: Before deciding on the Benson application, listen to these tapes. Burke." The bastard always had been taciturn. Hands shaking, the old man reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a portable cassette deck, a holdover from the old days when he had been obliged to interview the inmates directly. Now, of course, there were just too many inmates, and one needed a masters degree in something or other before one could so much as look at an inmate. He shoved the "A" cassette in and punched the play button. The voice emanating from the speaker was immediately recognizable: It was, indeed, Burke. Silence. Silence. The old man brought a hand up to his face and fought back the tears. Burke's death hadn't been quick and it hadn't been painless. The memories... The tape fell silent, except for a quiet hissing. The old man reached over and hit the stop button. He sat there in silence for a few moments, face expressionless as he tried to digest what he had just heard. Then he reached over and pulled open the smaller envelope. Eleven pictures; polaroids. They were numbered. The first one featured Rachel - it WAS Rachel - crouching on a prison bunk, holding a newspaper from last June: proof of when the picture had been taken. She was dressed in loose-fitting prison fatigues. Her usually neat blonde hair was in disarray, and her blue eyes were wide with fear. He flipped quickly through the pictures, never dwelling for too long on any one image. It was just too painful. Number three: August. Rachel was wearing only a pair of panties in this one. The paper sat beside her on the bunk while she cupped her ample breasts towards the camera, as if offering them to the viewer. Number five: October. Her face was visible only in profile as it nuzzled against an unidentifiable man's crotch. Only the base of his penis was visible, but one could clearly see the bulge in her throat as she accommodated its bulk. A thin line of drool dangled from her lower lip and onto her naked breast. Number nine: February. This one was taken from behind as she was obviously being sodomized, again by an unidentifiable man. She had her face turned back over her shoulder towards the camera. Her mouth was open and she appeared to be panting, although whether it was in fear or lust he couldn't really say. Number ten: March... The old man threw down the pictures in disgust. He felt a catch in his throat and was forced to swallow back the tears. "Burke," he muttered, "you asshole." What have you done? He took a deep breath. Emotions again under control,the old man reached over to exchange tapes. He hit the play button: The old man leaned forward in his chair turned up the volume on the tape deck. Was she being... <"Joe... I just have to... w-want to tell you how much I..." She groaned. "H-how much I... I like it h-here." A rhythmic slapping sound could be heard in the background. He could hear her sniffling as she tried to speak her lines. "P-please, Joe... please. D-don't approve B-Benson's application. Please... let me s-stay here. I love it so much... Ah... ah..." Her moans grew in strength and volume until finally they peaked in a series of short, staccato screams, which quickly died away. There were a few moments of silence, with only heavy breathing and then: "Joe!!! Help me! Help..." Her voice was cut off suddenly as someone brought the recording to an abrupt end.> The old man - Joeseph Orlando, Head Warden of the Point Hope Maximum Security Facility - sat in stunned silence while the tape deck hissed impotently on his desk. The glow of the desk lamp, which had seemed so dim and inadequate only one hour earlier, now seemed to him to be all too bright; he felt exposed and vulnerable. A target. What should he do? Free Rachel and take the consequences? He couldn't prove anything, but he now had no doubts regarding her guilt in embezzling prison funds; Burke's story had rung true on that point. But that didn't mean she deserved what had happened to her. Still, if her situation was brought to light, he knew that he would have trouble proving his ignorance; in all likelihood, the best that would happen would be that his career would be ruined and pension lost. The worst? Well, he didn't want even to consider it. Leave her there? Was that really an option? How would he sleep at night if he did that? How could he ever forget her final, pathetic cry as the recording was cut off? He and Rachel had been friends once; or, at least, he had considered her a friend. Evidently, she had held a different view on the matter. It was an agonizing decision to make. Still... Still and all, Joeseph Orlando had not reached his present position by being unable to make tough decisions. This was one of the hardest, but he had to face facts and do the best he could. He straightened up in his chair, his mind made up. Really, he had little choice. Moving slowly, he reached down and...