"Go away," came the muffled reply.

"Don't you want to soar like an eagle over these prison walls?" Remo gestured grandly to the wall of the solitary-confinement cell. It was plastered with magazine pictures of naked women. He paused, studying the photographic images. "You know, when I was in prison they didn't allow dirty pictures," he commented.

"They're not mine," Grautski mumbled.

"They mine," interjected a voice behind Remo. Remo had been aware of the second inmate since before he'd even entered the cell. But the man had been snoring softly until now. Remo turned to the speaker.

The face peering from the adjacent bunk was as black as the darkest cell shadows. Bloodshot white eyes stared at Remo.

"Do you mind?" Remo asked, irked. "This is a private prison break."

"You gettin' out?" the other inmate growled. He glanced at the closed door.

"No!" Todd Grautski mumbled through his blanket.

"Yes," said Remo.

"I comin', too," the other prisoner insisted.

"No," Remo said.

"Yes," Grautski stressed. "You can go instead of me. And take your damn soul-stealing clock with you."

The second convict sat up, swinging his legs over the side of his bunk. "Don't mind him," he said, waving dismissively at the Todd Grautski-shaped mound of blankets. "He don't like any o' that technology stuff. You realize that is the one and only Collablaster you talkin' to?"

A flicker of something dark and violent passed across Remo's stern features. "I was aware of that," he said icily.

The second prisoner nodded energetically. "They call him the Collablaster 'cause he mail all kinds of dumb-ass bombs to all kinds of college types. Twenty years an' he only killed three guys."

"Allegedly," the Grautski blanket squeaked.

"I did more than that in one day," the inmate boasted.

At first, Remo had been irritated by the man's interruption. But as the other convict continued to speak, something familiar about him tweaked the back of Remo's consciousness.