Two other factors went into writing this story; both involved the idea of a “perfect” jail. One was the notion that the lure of escape was the only thing that kept most inmates alive, especially the ones with long or indeterminate sentences. I read somewhere about a prison chaplain saying that if the inmates truly believed that they could never possibly escape from the jail they were in, they would go insane or commit suicide. The other factor was the kind of idea that only a science fiction writer would think of: suppose we made a jail that is as good as we can possibly imagine, a jail that actually works the way we good citizens say we want our jails to work, a jail that helps its inmates to become honest, upright, tax-paying citizens.
The result was the campus-like and absolutely escape-proof prison in Escape!, with its electronic sentries and all-seeing computer, SPECS. But to make the prison work the way I wanted it to, there had to be a human side to it. The machines can do only so much; the jail with its electronic marvels is merely a box in which to hold prisoners. To make the jail work in a way that would transform those prisoners into healthy, self-reliant, honest citizens required a human mind, a human soul, a human purpose. Thus Joe Tenny entered the equation, and became the main force in the resulting story.
Joe is modelled very closely on a man I knew and worked with for several years. The real “Joe Tenny” was a man of enormous talents and passions, a teacher, a scientist, a man who had worked himself too hard for his own good. He died much too early. The world is poorer for that. A pale shadow of him lives on in this story. That’s not enough, but if this story shows you how we can use what’s best in us to make the world better, then Joe’s vital spark of life is not completely extinguished.
Escape!, incidentally, has generated more mail from readers than any other single story I have ever written. I credit “Joe Tenny’s” indomitable spirit for that; he was the kind of man who made people feel good about themselves.
CHAPTER ONE
The door shut behind him.
Danny Romano stood in the middle of the small room, every nerve tight. He listened for the click of the lock. Nothing.
Quiet as a cat, he tiptoed back to the door and tried the knob. It turned. The door was unlocked.
Danny opened the door a crack and peeked out into the hallway. Empty. The guards who had brought him here were gone. No voices. No footsteps. Down at the far end of the hall, up near the ceiling, was some sort of TV camera. A little red light glowed next to its lens.
He shut the door and leaned against it.
“Don’t lem ’em sucker you,” he said to himself. “This is a jail.”
Danny looked all around the room. There was only one bed. On its bare mattress was a pile of clothes, bed sheets, towels and stuff. A TV screen was set into the wall at the end of the bed. On the other side of the room was a desk, an empty bookcase, and two stiff-back wooden chairs. Somebody had painted the walls a soft blue.
“This can’t be a cell… not for me, anyway. They made a mistake.”
The room was about the size of the jail cells they always put four guys into. Or sometimes six.
And there was something else funny about it. The smell, that’s it! This room smelled clean. There was even fresh air blowing in through the open window. And there were no bars on the window. Danny tried to remember how many jail cells he had been in. Eight? Ten? They had all stunk like rotting garbage.
He went to the clothes on the bed. Slacks, real slacks. Sport shirts and turtlenecks. And colors! Blue, brown, tan. Danny yanked off the gray coveralls he had been wearing, and tried on a light blue turtleneck and dark brown slacks. They even fit right. Nobody had ever been able to find him a prison uniform small enough to fit his wiry frame before this.