Chapter 74 Preparing to Enter the Prison

After dinner, everyone set up their tents inside the first-floor cafeteria and prepared to spend their first real night inside the prison. With a concrete ceiling overhead, heavy metal doors at the entrances, and barred windows separating them from the outside, there was finally no reason to organize a rotating night watch. The prison fences could stop ordinary walkers, while the large number of dead still wandering outside the secured sections would make most human survivors think twice before approaching the complex. After exchanging goodnights, the exhausted group eagerly disappeared into their tents.

Magnus Vane didn’t stay in the cafeteria. He returned to the third floor and claimed the black leather couch in the former warden’s office, where a faint stain still marked the carpet despite the cleanup earlier that day. It wasn’t because he disliked sleeping with everyone downstairs; he had given his tent to Rick, Lori, and Carl back at Hershel’s farm, and sleeping on a couch sounded considerably better than spending another night on the floor in a sleeping bag. There was, however, one other reason Magnus had quietly escaped upstairs.

Carol had seen his eyes redden during dinner.

That alone would have been manageable if she had simply ignored it, but Carol had spent the rest of the evening periodically glancing at him with an understanding, almost motherly smile. Every time Magnus accidentally met her eyes, her expression seemed to say, It’s okay. I understand. Somehow, that was more embarrassing than getting caught crying outright. By the time dinner ended, Magnus had decided retreat was the only dignified option left.

“God, that’s annoying.”

He pulled his shirt over his face and rubbed at it furiously with both hands. Magnus had spent weeks building an image of being dependable, dangerous, and almost impossible to shake, only for one plate of spaghetti to threaten the entire thing. Every time he remembered Carol’s knowing smile, the same feeling of secondhand embarrassment crawled over him again. If the system had offered a crafting recipe for a hole deep enough to hide in, Magnus might genuinely have considered making one.

He sighed and pulled the shirt away from his face, leaving it draped loosely across his stomach. Despite all the complaining, the truth was that he felt unexpectedly good inside, and the warmth from dinner had nothing to do with the food. The group hadn’t been ordered to give anything back to him, nor had anyone been trying to impress him. They had simply chosen to share because Magnus had shared first.

A faint smile appeared.

Then Magnus slapped himself lightly across the cheek.

“What are you grinning about? Sleep.”

He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. Several minutes passed, then several more, but sleep refused to come. Eventually Magnus turned again, then again, and somewhere during that pointless struggle the entire night quietly disappeared.

By morning, Magnus stood outside the cafeteria with dark circles beneath both eyes. He knocked several times against the heavy metal door and raised his voice. “Up! Everybody up!”

Within seconds, yawns and muffled complaints came from inside the tents. Glenn, somehow still the first person to respond despite the previous day’s fighting and cleanup, stuck his head between the flaps of his tent with his hair pointing in several directions. “Magnus, please tell me today’s a day off. I feel like somebody beat me with your hammer.”

“Are we clearing the cell blocks today?”

Beth appeared from the tent nearest the entrance before Magnus could answer. She wore a T-shirt, shorts, and loosely fitted boots as she crossed over to unlock the door for him, looking far more awake than Glenn. Magnus shook his head and lowered his voice slightly. “Not today.”

Glenn immediately groaned.

“Then why are you waking everybody up?” he complained, covering his eyes with one hand. “I was actually sleeping.”

“Because mornings exist for a reason,” Magnus replied. “And because sleeping until noon is how you turn into Dale.”

Dale’s voice came from somewhere deeper inside. “I heard that.”

Several people laughed.

Magnus moved farther into the cafeteria and stopped outside Shane’s tent just as the former deputy emerged already dressed. Shane looked considerably more composed than he had the previous morning, although the emotional exhaustion hadn’t completely disappeared from his face. Magnus studied him for a second before saying, “You’re coming with me today.”

Shane glanced at the dark circles beneath Magnus’s eyes.

Then back at his face.

He wisely said nothing and only nodded.

Hershel had also woken and was buttoning his shirt when Glenn started complaining again. The older man gave his daughter’s boyfriend a disapproving look. “Glenn, you’re young. Try acting like it.”

Glenn smiled awkwardly.

“Yes, sir.”

He retreated back into his tent before Maggie could laugh at him.

Rick approached while pulling on his jacket. “Where are you two going?”

Magnus had expected the question.

He reached into his pocket, unfolded a slightly yellowed sheet of paper, and slapped it flat onto one of the cafeteria tables. Rick and Shane moved closer while Magnus smoothed out the damp creases. Several winding lines had been drawn in ballpoint pen, with evenly spaced marks indicating gates, corridors, and separated sections of the prison, while one large black star stood out near the center-right portion of the crude diagram.

Rick leaned over it.

“This is the prison?”

“Close enough.”

Magnus pointed toward one end of the drawing. “We’re here. Administration building. The secured door beside it connects into the back side of Cell Block C.”

His finger moved along the route.

“Beyond that are Cell Blocks A and B, plus the inmate work areas, recreation sections, classrooms, and the rest of the facilities we saw on the warden’s map upstairs.” Magnus traced several intersecting corridors before tapping the black star twice. “And this is where we’re going today.”

Shane studied the symbol.

“Officer control room.”

Magnus looked up.

“You recognized it?”

“Educated guess.” Shane leaned closer to the map. “A prison this size can’t have every officer moving inmates across the entire facility every time somebody needs food, recreation, classes, work detail, or yard time. You’d split the population into controlled sections and put officer stations at the important crossings.”

He tapped one of the corridor intersections.

“You’d also separate inmates by security level and behavior, not just by whatever crime put them inside.”

Magnus stared at him for a second.

Shane noticed. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Magnus had known where the control room was because he had studied the official facility layout upstairs. Shane had identified its function after looking at a hand-drawn map for less than a minute. Magnus couldn’t help thinking it was a shame the original Shane Walsh had never lived long enough to reach the prison with Rick’s group.

Fortunately, this Shane had.

Shane looked back at the map. “What exactly are we doing there?”

That brought Magnus back to the reason for the trip.

He explained what he had discovered upstairs: the prison’s electrical systems were down, the generator needed to be restored eventually, and activating it without first disabling the alarm could potentially draw every walker in the interior corridors toward them. The marked control room between the cell blocks was the most likely place to find the relevant alarm controls or at least information about the prison’s security systems. More importantly, the entire facility had become part of the system’s Long-Term Occupation Mission, which meant Magnus had no intention of wandering through it blindly if there was a safer way.

“We’re not clearing the cell blocks today,” Magnus finished. “We’re scouting a route and seeing whether we can reach that control room without committing the whole group.”

Rick lowered his head and studied the map.

Shane simply nodded once.

Then turned toward his tent.

A few minutes later, he began putting on the heavier protective turnout gear Magnus had assigned him. The bulky equipment wasn’t easy to secure alone, especially around the shoulders and back, and Shane struggled briefly with one of the fastenings. Glenn noticed and started moving over to help.

Andrea reached Shane first.

“I’ve got it.”

Shane glanced back, clearly surprised.

Andrea stepped behind him and adjusted the gear across his shoulders before fastening the sections he couldn’t comfortably reach himself. Her hands lingered for a moment against the broad protective coat while Shane stood unusually still. “Thanks,” he said.

Andrea shrugged.

“Consider it repayment for the shooting practice back at the farm. Don’t read anything into it.”

Shane gave her a look but didn’t argue.

Magnus watched the exchange from beside the table.

Something about it tugged at his memory.

Then it clicked.

Right. Shane and Andrea.

In the original timeline, there had definitely been something between them, although Magnus couldn’t immediately remember exactly when it had started or how far it had gone. Considering how drastically his presence had changed events, whether that relationship would develop the same way now was anyone’s guess. Still, Andrea voluntarily stepping forward to help Shane put on his gear certainly wasn’t nothing.

Magnus decided it wasn’t his problem.

Not yet, anyway.

He turned back toward Rick.

Rick remained bent over the table with both palms braced against the surface, his lower lip caught slightly between his teeth as his eyes moved repeatedly over Magnus’s simplified prison map. Unlike Shane, who had accepted the scouting plan almost immediately, Rick was clearly evaluating every corridor, gate, and possible point of failure before deciding whether he liked it. Magnus didn’t interrupt him.

If Rick saw a problem, Magnus wanted to hear it before they stepped through the first locked door.

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