Young and Dangerous Ko had the small of his back pressed into the corner of the holding cell, legs pulled up on the foam cot, knees to his chest, his head flat against the cold wall. With mechanical boredom he was ripping pea-sized balls of material from the mattress and flicking them across the short distance to the stainless steel toilet bolted on the far wall. The dots of foam landed in the murky, stinking bowl one after another. The plastic-coated sides of the cell were made of some kind of wipe-clean germicidal supersynthetic that was way past the need for replacement. Decades of enterprising criminals had whiled away their confinements scoring their names into the plastic or leaving obscenities that railed at their petty injustices. Mostly, the graffiti was of the kind that suggested certain law officers engage in anatomical impossibilities, or attempt sexual congress with their mothers. The depressing familiarity of the narrow room weighed down on the young man, and he masked a heartfelt sigh with a move of his hand, letting his fingers wander across his face and through the dark spikes of his hair.
