Escape from Incel Island

Chapter One They don’t call me Mankiller Jones for nothing. They call me Mankiller Jones because I tell people that’s my name and I throw kind of a fit if anyone calls me anything else. Honestly, I have a feeling most people call me Shirley behind my back. Or Mx. Jones if they’re feeling formal. It doesn’t bother me too much what people call me, because I’m never around to hear it. I’m always too busy infiltrating and exfiltrating the deadliest places on Earth. “War and disaster” would be my middle name if I hadn’t already legally changed my middle name to Danger. I only feel alive when I’m surrounded by the dead, the dying, and the people who don’t know they’re about to find themselves in those categories. I only feel alive in the hottest of hot spots. Spots like Incel Island, which inched over the horizon to greet us just as the sun rose behind us. It was smooth flying, our octocopter equipped with all the newest and finest stabilization the US Army could afford. Get in, get the data off the computer, get out. Save the world. Just another job. My passenger, Dr. Helena Morrison, looked uneasy. I hadn’t gotten a read on her yet. About a decade younger than me, I’d guess, somewhere in her mid-twenties. Which means she’d finished her PhD damn fast. Computer types were like that these days, and Dr. Morrison was definitely a computer type, down to the slightly old-fashioned blue hair and the practically gauche black T-shirt emblazoned with some coding reference I didn’t get. “It’ll be fine,” I said. “We’ll be the first women they’ve seen in what, five years?” “Yeah.” I guess I felt like enough of a woman that day to not want to correct her. “How’s it going to be fine?” she asked. One hand still on the stick, I rested the other on the assault shotgun on the floor between our seats. Kel-tec KSG. “It’ll be fine.” Ten minutes later, I set down the octo on Gateway Rock three miles offshore. No ships, planes, rotos, or even drones were allowed on or over Incel Island proper; supplies and the occasional official visitor all passed through the tiny, lifeless Gateway Rock. There was no staff—none could be trusted not to help the prisoners escape. Automated turrets spun to turn their gaze and barrels on us as we made our way to the rowboat. Dr. Morrison didn’t complain, not verbally. The look on her face communicated her fear and disgust clearly enough. “There’ve been seventeen escape attempts in the five years of the project,” I answered, even though she hadn’t asked. “Can’t let them get hold of even a motorboat.” “It just seems inhuman,” Dr. Morrison said. We strapped on life vests and stepped into the boat. “Sure,” I said. “That’s probably true.” • Our contact stood on the dock, waiting for us. A young white guy, less than thirty, with a machete strapped to his belt. He was shirtless and tan and he was clearly showing off his decent physique. The stubble looked alright on him, but he needed to fire his hairdresser because shaggy hair can be done right but he hadn’t done it. Sir Donald Lazlow IV, Esquire. That’s what his entry in my dossier said his name was. Who was I to judge someone based on some pretentious name they’d chosen for themselves? “Miss Jones?” he asked Dr. Morrison in a cloying voice, clearly ignoring me to focus on my younger and slightly more feminine companion. “Imma just call you Duckie, then,” I said as I stepped out of the boat. “Like Donald Duck.” I stood to my full five foot ten, my shotgun held casual at my side. “My name is Sir Donald–” Words crawled out like slugs from the cave of his mouth. “Duckie.” “Heya, Ducks!” Dr. Morrison said as she joined us on the docks. “That right there is Dr. Morrison,” I said, “with whom you will not be on a first name basis.” The dock was a reasonably modern affair, wood decking held afloat by pontoons. A few scattered fishing boats—some old, some homemade, none equipped with sails or motors—filled up most of the available space. On shore, a couple dozen makeshift houses constituted a fishing village. “Alright,” Duckie conceded, “Dr. Morrison, Miss Jones.” “Mankiller,” I supplied. “Call me Mankiller, Duckie.” “That’s offensive,” he replied. I mean, he was probably right. Incel Island was, at the end of the day, an open-air prison. “Come, my lady, let us walk,” Duckie said. He reached out and touched Dr. Morrison on the upper arm. In one instant, she recoiled bodily, I drew a combat knife from my belt and stepped forward, and Duckie… hissed. Like a vampire at a cross. The next moment, calm had returned. “My apologies, Dr. Morrison,” Duckie said. “I only meant to direct your attention to–” “I don’t give a shit what you meant to do,” Morrison said. I liked her more and more. “You snarled,” I said. “Human nature,” Duckie said, waving his hand as if to bat away a fly. “Men are creatures of testosterone, there’s no helping that.” “I know plenty of men who don’t snarl when they don’t get their way,” I said. “History would not be made by such men, I’m sure. Those of us on the island have suffered greatly. We were promised women, and were given only each other.” “The real treasure was friendship all along,” I suggested. “You’re mocking me.” “You’re astute.” We stared at one another, sizing each other up, until an air raid siren cut through the silence. It was far away, somewhere up in the trees on the hill behind the beach. “I’m afraid we have to hurry,” Duckie said calmly. “They’ll be here soon.” You don’t really argue with a statement like that. In fact, you usually don’t even have time to ask for clarification. I didn’t like him. I didn’t trust him. I also didn’t