Escape from Alcatraz

Posted on Sun Jul 6th, 2025 @ 7:40pm by Lieutenant JG Jacqueline Holder & Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil

2,524 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Character Backstories
Location: San Francisco Bay, Earth
Timeline: 2381

Jacqueline took in the scene of ancient prison as the ferry drew closer to the island. The ancient buildings weren't much to look at, yet they were there. So much history behind the walls, in the guard towers, on the island. She could almost feel the energy coming from grounds even from her position behind the guardrails on the boat.

Her mind drifted to what it might have been like to have been a prisoner there. Or a guard. She let her bag drop to her feet as she breathed in the salty air and felt the wind against her face. None of the prisoners ever survived the swim that she and 13 other cadets were about to undertake, though more than twenty had tried over the years when they attempted escape when the prison was active in the 20th century.

It seemed like so long ago. But then again was it? The buildings were still standing here, not completely eroded by wind and waves. She was often compelled by the history of places, and she found herself wanting to walk the halls of the old prison, though the only tours still offered were virtual these days.

Her mind was brought back to the present as she felt the boat begin to slow as they reached the far side of the island. An announcement that it was time for the swimmers to prepare to get in the water. No gear for her, other than a wetsuit to protect her from the cold Pacific waters during the roughly 2.5 kilometer swim back to shore. She grinned with excitement as she picked up her bag and found a bench. She dug her wetsuit out of the and began taking off her shoes.

Jean-Baptiste stood at the boat's port railing, the zipper of his wetsuit halfway down, and the damp ocean air passing its invisible fingers through the fine hairs along his neck. Morning light broke over the deck in thin and pale bands; catching on the small flecks of salt gathering at the corners of his eyes.

Beyond the railing, the sea shimmered and shifted brightly, like a membrane of hammered silver--restless and and alive. Mist pressed-in from the east like a massive wool bedcover--Berkeley vanishing beneath it, Angel Island reduced to a colourless smudge. The air stank of kelp and rust--imbued with something cold and electric, as though the entire San Francisco Bay were holding its breath.

He closed his eyes a moment, grounding himself on the deck and against the rail. When he opened them again, he seemed to take-in the sky in one single glance, the clouds being no more than some gentle brushstrokes of flax-white entrapped in a blue far too bright to hold.

With a subtle shift of his shoulders, he turned away. A medium-sized duffel swung at his side, bouncing softly against his hip.

Near the bench, he eased himself down, fingers finding black bootlaces like old friends. One loop, and another, the leather tugging against the creases of his palm, the cold and wet deck beneath his bare heel once the boot finally slipped free. He gently flexed his toes, pale against the greying planks, and a satisfied expressions passed across his face.

Around him, the voices rose: young cadets seemingly burning off their collective nervous energy through lilted laughter that ebbed and flowed like struck matches. But he chose to stay quiet, head bent, as though listening for something deeper beneath the chatter--the still of the sea, the heartbeat of Alcatraz Island just ahead.

Then he looked up, his eyes meandering across the deck, pausing here and there as if memorizing everything. His gaze--at once watchful and unguarded--carried the look of a young man who seemed naturally adept as standing both inside the world and just outside it.

On the deck just behind the young man Jacqueline hopped up and down a few times as she tugged on the waist of her wetsuit, pulling it into the proper position on her hips. She laughed at herself as she reached her right arm over left shoulder and tried to push and pull the shoulder of the wetsuit into place. She then reached her left hand over and behind her neck and grasped a hold of the right side of the back of her wetsuit and pulled, reaching her right arm out and rolling her shoulder, finding the sweet spot inside the material for freedom of movement.

Once she felt comfortable enough with the fit, she looked around for someone to help her with the back. She decided to try to catch the attention of the soulful looking fellow cadet standing nearby.

"Hey." She walked into his space and spoke softly as she looked up at him. She was short, she looked up at almost everyone. She didn't mind though, being small was an asset when you were a pilot.

"Mind giving me a hand with this zipper?" She smiled as she made her request. "I think I already wore myself out just getting this thing on, I should save some energy for the swim."

Jean-Baptiste had felt the vibration of her footsteps before he heard her voice--a soft consonant snap against the salt-bright air. He looked up, and for a moment it seemed the sun had climbed her shoulder and perched there, small and daring. She stood close enough that he could see the faint tremor in her hands, several wisps of fly-away hairs that escaped her braids waving in the ocean's breeze, and a faint trace of exertion across her brow.

Something in him folded then, as though a thin sheet of paper were being creased at the corner--an old reflex. It was the astonishment of being needed in even the smallest of ways. She asked, and he felt it pass through him: the warmth of her nearness, the humility sutured into her words.

"Sure. No problem," he said with gentle steadiness, as though he'd been waiting all morning to be asked for something so simple and human.

He rose, one hand already moving before his mind caught up, fingers brushing the edge of her wetsuit zipper. As he drew the zipper up, his knuckles grazed the back of her neck, that warm and narrow column that seemed to pulse with life larger than either of them. For a moment, he watched the rise of her shoulders, the gentle curve of her spine, and the ocean beyond her blurred into a boundless, bright repose. Then she turned slightly, and he caught a glimpse of her eyes--clear and bright as if they'd been rinsed by all the morning light from the bay. And just like that, without a single gull shrieking overhead, something immense shifted inside him--silent and irreversible.

Jacqueline reached back and checked that the zipper was in place, then let her hand fall casually to her side before reaching it out in a greeting. "I'm so sorry, where are my manners. I'm Jacqueline. Thanks so much for that. That was so nice of you. Some strange girl asks you for help with her wetsuit, and you're like sure no problem. Anyway, I really appreciate it."

Her hand came toward him, small and open, fingers still trembling faintly from the overexertion of pulling on the suit. He took it almost automatically, but the contact felt like something greater--a thin, invisible filament seemed to stretch between them, catching the early light in ways he couldn't yet name. Her palm was warm, almost jarringly so, and her grip firmer than he expected. In that instance, he saw the fine lines around her eyes that spoke to laughter more than worry, the half-moon dimple that flickered into existence when she smiled, the subtle strength vibrating beneath her chatter.

He found himself studying her face with the reverence one might give a sunrise after a long night. Each vestige of expression registering somewhere deep in the quiet chambers of his mind.

"Jean-Baptiste," he said at last, voice softer than he had meant it to sound, and carrying all the salt and ache of the sea around them. "But you can call me JB."

He didn't let go immediately. It was a moment too long, perhaps--just enough for the pulse beneath his thumb to imprint itself in his memory. Then he released her hand, slowly and carefully, as if it might fall and break if he moved too quickly.

"So have you done this swim before?" She asked. "This will be my first time. I know the the water is chilly out here, but I hear you don't really think about it after the first few hundred meters."

"No," he said, his eyes steady on hers. "First time for me too."

JB simply could not pull his gaze away from her face. He admired the shape her mouth made when she spoke, each syllable carrying a bright, conspiratorial energy--as if she were letting him in on a secret only meant for him.

"I grew up around warm currents," he added. "Caribbean bays, water like silk. Nothing like this." He tipped his head slightly, a shy trace at the corner of his smile. "But I figure you're right. After a few hundred meters, it's just you and the horizon. The rest disappears."

"No way!" Jacqueline tapped him on the arm in surprise, like one might hit an old friend after a good natured ribbing. "You're from the Caribbean? Where did you grow up?" She asked, intrigued and excited to meet someone that she might have something in common with. "I'm from Barbados. A really small town, you've probably never even heard of it."

JB felt the warmth of her touch ignite across his arm. His smile broke fully now, unguarded, the kind that seemed to start in the eyes and tumble downward.

"Barbados?" he echoed, the delight evident in his voice. "I grew up in Bainet, Haiti. Small world, huh?"

"No way!" She repeated the phrase again, this time her smile growing even brighter. She was eager to talk to him more, but the other swimmers were starting to gather at the diving platform. It was almost time.

"After the swim we should get some coffee, or like breakfast or something. We can share war stories about making it to shore and see who managed to swallowed more water," she paused realizing how little she knew about him, realizing how out of the blue her invitation might have seemed. "I mean, unless you have plans or something. Totally no pressure kind of thing. It's just cool to meet someone else from the islands is all."

Her invitation came out easy and clearly without pretext. She gave him a casual glance and a shrug of her head toward the platform suggesting that they should make there way there.

He watched her words spill-out, bright and impulsive as sparks skipping off a flint. The invitation caught him off-guard in a way that felt nearly holy--like a soft bell rung in some deep internal chapel he never noticed existed. He heard her say coffee, breakfast, no pressure, but underneath he felt a gentle current of electricity that was far rarer: an open door, swung wide without caution or agenda.

He held her gaze a breath longer than was strictly necessary, the world around them collapsing into the tiny portico of her eyes. A gust of wind pushed at the collar of his wetsuit; somewhere behind them a gull shrieked and the deck boards groaned under shuffling feet. But all of it felt completely distant, half-dreamed.

"Breakfast sounds perfect," he said, each wording landing carefully, as though he were setting fragile glass figurines on a high shelf. His voice carried an edge of wonder.

He let the last syllable hang between them, then followed her nod toward the platform, his pulse quickening under the seal of his suit. And as he stepped after her, he felt something subtle and irrevocable begin to turn beneath his sternum. it was some small, yet enormous shift. Like a tide rolling in at dawn. Soft and unstoppable.

"Great! I am always so hungry after swimming, aren't you?" Jacqueline asked as she stepped up onto the platform. "I don't know what it is about swimming. I could run ten miles, and it doesn't work up the appetite like a 500 meter swim does."

JB climbed up beside her, the last shiver of the deck echoing up his spine. He stood a half step behind Jacqueline, close enough to catch the lift of her voice, to feel the kinetic glow she carried around her like a personal tide.

Her comment about swimming and hunger tugged a short laugh from him, quick and low. He drew in a breath that tasted of salt and fog, eyes darting once to the cold sweep of water waiting below them.

"Yeah," he said, the word blooming out on a warm exhale. "There's something about it--like the water wrings the energy right out of you and replaces it with this wild, bottomless hunger."

He paused, the edges of his smile softening as he studied her profile--the hair at her temples lifting a little in the breeze, the sharp light of anticipation glowing behind her eyes.

"Back home," he went on, dipping into an almost confessional tone, "after a long swim, we'd always stop at this little dockside spot. Fried plantains, fresh mango slices. Salt still in our hair." The memory seemed to shimmer in the air between them and he could almost smell the scorched-sweet oil in the fryer.

He turned his gaze back out to the water, feeling the quiet buzz of her presence at his side--like standing near a sudden, gentle flame.

"There's a place across from the Embarcadero Museum I know of--it's real coffee, real eggs," he said. "After you eat, you'll want to do the swim again."

She laughed as she tucked the ends of her braids into her swimming cap. "I don't know about that. But, the place sounds perfect."

Her heart was racing now, adrenaline coursing through her veins as the race marshall called for swimmers to step to the edge of the platform. This part was daunting, her brain still considering the challenges the feat would bring over the next however-long-it-took. Once she was in the water facing them, that's when she would begin to feel alive.

"Look for me," she added anxiously as the start gun fired. Her words trailing off as she dove off of the platform, a small shriek coming from her lungs as she anticipated the icy shock of the water enveloping her, though she was moving now with no time process, and no turning back.

A sharp breath filled his chest, so sudden it almost hurt. He stood there, half-crouched, the cold mist rising to meet his face while the rest of the cadets were now moving away against the bay's current. He would be a full five seconds behind the pack. But it didn't matter. He'd already won.

Under his breath--low enough that it belonged more to the wind and the waves than to anyone human--he let the words slip out.

"Always have been."

Then he dove.

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