BATW Interview: John Blake ("Bane") -- DeathsKnight

Convict Interview
Subject: John Blake
Mal, 31
Murder.

Date: 29 April 2028
Upcoming BATW: 12-14 May 2028


Marcus was seated in the private visitation room when the Guards escorted John inside; he had neither wrist or ankle shackles on, something the Breakfast at the Whitney host rarely saw upon first meeting one of his perspective combatants.

Despite the lack of restraints, Marcus was more than safe before this killer, because John Blake truly was what so many inmates in the country's prisons claimed to be, an innocent man. John had proclaimed his innocence throughout the five-plus years of his trial and appeals; the multiple lie detector tests that he'd taken and passed said he was innocent; and Marcus's innate ability to read people told him that the man was as innocent as a new born baby.

But, evidence is evidence, and eye witness testimony -- despite often being the weakest link in so many trials -- is damning. And now, here John was, sitting in jail awaiting execution for something he'd never done, while the child he'd never seen except in photographs was going to grow up in a harsh society without the only man who would probably ever be able to take care of her and her mother.

This man and his story were exactly what Breakfast needed to increase its ratings. And Marcus Bennett was pleased as punch to gesturing the man to sit before him for a little discussion.

"Do you know who I am?" Marcus asked. When John acknowledged that he did, Marcus asked, or stated, "Then you know why I'm here."

Again John answered in the affirmative.

Marcus looked to the Guards at the door, whose eyes never left the unshackled inmate. They all knew he was innocent, too, but that didn't mean that they didn't have a job to do -- keeping the Visitor safe and secure -- or that, in prison, even an innocent man can go bad when conditions degenerate beyond acceptability. "Excuse us please."

"I'm sorry sir," one of the Guards said, "Without the inmate secure--"

As he so often did, Marcus reached into his satchel and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. The Guard took it, read it, crossed to the far side of the room to make a quick call on his cell, then returned it to Marcus and said, "He can kill you before we can get back in here, you know."

Marcus responded by smiling and said, "I should hope so. If he couldn't, he wouldn't be much good to me, now would he?"

The Guards left, reluctantly, and Marcus reached into his satchel again. He withdrew a laptop, opened it, turned it on, and swung it to face John. A moment later, the interview room was filled with the laughter of the man's now-five year old as she chased a puppy round and round and round the worn old couch in a 1970s era trailer house.

John's reaction was almost immediate, and if it weren't for the fact that he'd been doing such interviews for many a year, Marcus Bennett might have broken down into sobs. But ... this was how he did business; this was how he convinced convicts that they needed to join Breakfast, that they needed to get home to their families, whether they were little girls growing up in mold-infested single wides or Yakuza killers using their ill-gotten gains to support their communities or pre-teen boys trapped in foster care whose most prominent memory of their mother was from an internet video of her arrest for murder.

"I believe that you are innocent and shouldn't be here," Marcus told the man. "Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do to reverse what has gotten you here. I can, however ... give you an opportunity to get home to your little girl. It's an opportunity ... not a guarantee. The only thing I can guarantee you, is that if you stay here, and keep pumping those weights ... exhausting your physical and mental energy in an effort to push out of your brain this horror that you are living ... you will make an excellent looking corpse ... after they have executed you in here."

Marcus reached out, slammed the lid of the lap top down, and pulled the computer back to rest on the table before him; the little girl's laughter and repeated calls of puppy, puppy, puppy could still be heard emanating from the speaker. Marcus waited a moment, then said simply, "It's your choice, John."

John Blake

When the guards fetched him to get ready for a visitor he was quite surprised, it was not often that Cindy visited and even then never during the week. He cleaned up and followed the guards to the Visitors area, when they led him to one of the Private Visitation rooms he started to worry, this was not good. When he entered and saw Marcus, he knew that the time had come, he knew who this man was, he had seen clips of things that happened on the program and he knew that he now had a chance, just a glimmer to win his freedom and return to his family.

He listened in silence at Marcus, he only nodded at the questions, not trusting his voice to sound too hopeful, during his time here he did not just learn to fight, he had also learned not to seem as an easy target. Of course having the muscle to back it up helped a lot. When the laptop came out he thought that it must be blackmail material. It wasn't, it was motivation material, he reached out and took the screen in his hands, studying his little daughter and through the tears, he smiled. His daughter had grown up so fast...he had been gone so long...

Then the screen got slammed close and the laptop slid away from him, any normal man would have lunged for the laptop and the laughing voice coming from it, but John knew it would have severe concequences. So he just sat back and wiped away the tears with the sleeves of his coveralls. He looked at Marcus and gave him a sad smile,

"You know sir, the only reason she is growing up where she is growing up, is because her mother has to work double shifts just to make ends meet. But to a man like you, that is nothing new, to me it is one of the worst things imaginable. A kid needs space to grow up, but also security and protection."

He ran his hand over his eyes,

"You want me to fight against real killers, rapists, murderers and that just to be free and to be with my family?"

He sighed and looked out of the barred window up high on the wall.

"I will never be able to get out through the judical system as my so-called victim was one of their own. I have no other option, but the one that you offer me. So yes, I accept your offer."

(OOC -- This is a long post, but it contains a great deal of information that applies to all writers. Some of this information will be added to the FAQ in the OOC, so it will be more easily available for future reference.)



"I have no other option," the innocent murderer said, "but the one that you offer me. So yes, I accept your offer."

"You won't be sorry, John," Marcus told him, storing the lap top away in his satchel and withdrawing a stapled pack of papers. "I have confidence that you will perform well. You are a strong man, and I don't just mean physically."

Below the bulky prison jump suit, John Blake's muscular form was obvious. Marcus had seen many a body builder come out of the prison system and into his show; often, besides reading or just staring at the razor wire fences and wondering how to get over them, pushing weights was really the only thing to do in the Pen'. And, of course, there was always the self defense side of the activity. The weak didn't do so well in prisons with open populations; and while being big like John didn't guarantee survival against a man with a shank or a group of equally big men, it did at time dissuade others from fucking with you.

Marcus continued his comment, "You're a mentally, emotionally, spiritually strong man, John. I know this without even knowing you. Reading about what you have gone through ... knowing how hard you tried to prove your innocence ... to get back to your family. This strength will do you well in Breakfast at the Whitney."

Marcus pushed the stapled papers across to John. "This is your contract. It spells out, obviously, the terms of your participation. It's long and full of lawyer speak, of course. Our first contract was two pages."

He tapped a finger tip upon the stack of thirty plus pages and grimaced, obviously annoyed with how hard the Feds, the ACLU, and the Complainants of the more than 600 law suits filed over the course of Breakfast had made everything.

"But," he continued, pushing the memory back, "I can give you the highlights in just a few lines."

Marcus licked the tip of his thumb and flipped the pages until he reached the first of several colorful Post-It flags. He pointed to a highlighted sentence, saying, "You acknowledge that because you are facing the death penalty, that your appeals process is exhausted, and that a date for your execution has been set, that you agree to participate in Breakfast at the Whitney with the full knowledge, understanding, and acceptance that Breakfast, itself, might very well lead to your execution ... simply by other means."

Marcus flipped a few more pages. "You acknowledge that, once you are inside the battle area during a battle phase, neither the Production Company nor the Justice Department can be held liable for anything that happens to you." Marcus used his thumb to separate most of the middle of the stack of pages, and looked to John with a wry smile. "Fifteen pages ... it took us fif-teen pages ... to address all of the law suits, when in the first contract there was just the simple line, We are not liable for what happens to you once conflict begins. Can you believe it...?"

He flipped the thick section over, plus another page, until he arrived at another colorful flag. "You acknowledge that, should you violate any of the written or implied rules of Breakfast, that your immediate termination is authorized as an extension of your current execution order."

Marcus considered taking the time to explain about the Security Belt and Cuffs, about how the men in the Control Booth -- with Marcus's permission of course -- could just push a button and John's body would nearly be cut in half by the belt about his waist, with his hands severed from his arms by the charged bands about his wrists. But, he had a plane to catch, and most people had seen the video of the one and only time the device had been used on a living body. So, he went on.

"You acknowledge that while you are on a team, at no time are those team members required to work with one another, nor offer assistance to one another should the need arise. You also acknowledge that harming another member of your team is a violation of the Breakfast at the Whitney rules and is punishable with immediate execution."

Marcus considered telling John that, in past episodes, he had given the Control Booth direction to cause and allow a conflict between two convicts who had been at odds over how to treat a captured Cop. When the news got out that the pair were engaged in mortal combat, the Pay-Per-View audience increased by 30% and the lasting effect was an increase in gross sales as well, although that exact number was harder to calculate.

The point was, allowing the two to engage in a fierce, hand-to-hand fight -- that ironically ended with the cop killing the victor and escaping -- had been good for the show and, if Marcus saw the opportunity arise in the future, he would do what he needed to do to repeat the incident.

He flipped to another colored page marker and sat back in his chair to watch John's reaction. "Finally ... what you get out of this. John ... if you are successful and live to reach the Whitney by 8pm local time, Sunday night ... you get to go home to your little girl."

He gave John a moment to truly consider what he was saying before he continued. There was, of course, more: a million dollar prize, a Presidential Pardon of all Federal crimes, and -- if he chose it -- resettlement with a new identity for him, his girlfriend, and his lovely daughter. But, all Marcus had to tell John was that he'd be going home.

He gave the man a moment to look down at the pages, then -- drawing and expelling a deep breath -- touched on the one point that he feared might become a problem later. He turned the contract over, then flipped just one page -- the last page, the signature page -- and pointed to the line with the last tag pointing to it. "John ... there's one last ... acknowledgement that you have to make, and ... and this one is not in the contract. This one is between you and me ... a gentleman's agreement you could call it."

Marcus reached down into his satchel again, withdrew an 8x10 portrait of a beautiful woman, and slid it to in front of the innocent man. "This is Kate ... Katherine, Katherine Lee. She will be a combatant in the May episode in which you will compete. However ... she will be on the other side ... the Cop side."

Marcus's voice was becoming tentative, almost emotional as he talked. "She has ... made mistakes in her life ... in her career. Although the I feel that it was a mistake, she petitioned to be part of Breakfast. She wasn't recruited ... she asked to join up. I--"

His voice cracked a bit, and he hesitated, clearing his throat before he continued. "John ... I don't believe that she is up to this. I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't already know when I say this, but the Cop team has the advantage. They are better trained ... better armed ... and the rules tend to benefit them a bit more."

It was no secret that the Convicts were under the gun, figuratively and sometimes literally, for much if not all of the competition. While the majority of the audience wanted to see the former Cops kill the current Convicts, there was a significant audience that understood that this wasn't a fight between good guys and bad guys; the Cops were here because they, too, were criminals and, in most cases, were facing the same needle that their opponents were.

But while the audience may have wanted to see a fair fight -- because a fair fight led to more exciting conflict -- the Justice Department didn't want Death Row Inmates returned to the streets, even if they had gotten their by following the rules.

The answer, of course, was give the Cops what seemed like an initial advantage and provide the Convicts with the ability to improve their situation through discovering weapons and other steps. And thus, everyone was happy.

"But ... despite these advantages," Marcus continued, "I fear that she's meat on a stick to some of the more brutal convicts and ... well, I'd hate to see her... well, I think you know what I mean."

Marcus reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen. He held it out before him and finished, "That gentleman's agreement...? For my part ... I will do you a favor. At any point during the competition, you ask ... and you shall receive. For your part ... you do what ever you have to do to keep Kate alive and safe. Take her prisoner. Use her as a hostage. Bring her back to the Home Base. What ever."

Marcus was assuming that John had seen enough of the program to know that Convicts often traded in captured Cops for weapons and such, so he didn't explain the hostage taking concept any more.

"You make your first priority finding her on the battlefield. I can help you with that when the time comes through the Comms you'll be wearing. If you do this ... if you get her out safely, so that she can claim her little bit of satisfaction at having competed in Breakfast--"

His tone was becoming harder; it would have been obvious to even the most causally observer that Marcus didn't approve of this woman being part of his show.

"--then, even if you do not win ... if you are captured or have to withdraw for any reason, or..." Marcus didn't have to say get killed; John would know. "... then I will ensure that the prize money goes to your family. Your little girl will be set for life. A real home ... with, how did you put it, space to grow up...? A big back yard to play with that new puppy."

Marcus was tempted to tell John that he had given the little girl the dog, specifically for the purpose of making the video that had affected the heart-broken father so. But, why muddy the water. John had made his decision to compete, Marcus knew, but giving him anything more to think about concerning his daughter was unnecessary.

He set the pen down upon the contract and sat back...

John Blake

He looked at the contract and after Marcus stopped paging through the contract, he started to read it while he listened to Marcus, he was about half way when the picture was introduced. He looked at the picture. He listened to Marcus' voice and words, he leaned back in his steel chair,

"First things first, a gentleman's agreement? How do I know that I can trust you? It may sound silly for the inmate to ask that of a reality show host, but considering the people you deal with sir, I feel that I am entitled to that question."

He placed a finger on the edge of the photograph,

"And just what is she to you? A man like you wil not go through such lengths to protect just another person if there is no connection."

John did not wait for the answer, he kept on reading the contract.