Gunner turned to his crew, grinning, expecting applause. But his smile vanished when he looked at the guards lining the wall. They weren’t stepping in to save the old man.

They were backing away. Their faces were pale. Suddenly, the heavy steel doors at the front of the cafeteria buzzed open. The Warden—a man who never stepped foot in general pop—ran in.

He wasn’t walking. He was sprinting. He ignored Gunner completely. He ran straight to the wet, shivering old man and bowed his head. “I am so sorry, sir,” the Warden stammered, his hands shaking as he handed Walter a fresh towel. “There was a mix-up with the processing paperwork.

We didn’t realize who you were until we scanned your…” Gunner looked confused. “Boss? It’s just an old man.” The Warden spun around, his eyes wide with fear.

“That’s not an inmate, you idiot. Look at the tattoo on his wrist.” Gunner looked closer at the old man’s arm, and his blood ran cold. It wasn’t a prison number. It was a symbol he had only seen in history books. It was a symbol he had only seen in history books — a small, faded triangle with a coiled serpent inside it, surrounded by cryptic numbers.

It was the insignia of the Black Card Operatives, a division so secretive most thought it was a myth. Whispers of them floated through the underground: a unit made up of men trained to eliminate threats before the public even knew they existed. Ghosts in plain sight.

Gunner takes an instinctive step back. “You… you’re lying. This guy? He’s ancient.”

The Warden doesn’t answer. He kneels beside Walter like a frightened child before a god. One of the guards, face pale as paper, whispers to another, “I thought he was dead. I read the file. He was supposed to be buried in an unmarked grave in Belgium.”

Walter rises slowly from his seat, the wet front of his shirt clinging to his chest. He places his glasses carefully in his pocket. His eyes meet Gunner’s — and they don’t look old. They look cold. Calculated. Like they’ve seen things no one should see.

“I gave you a chance to apologize,” Walter says, his voice still calm, still razor-sharp.

Gunner’s bravado evaporates. “Look, I didn’t know—”

“You didn’t care.”

Walter steps forward. Every eye in the cafeteria is locked on him. Inmates shrink back. Guards stop breathing. Even the Warden doesn’t dare move.

“Do you know what it’s like,” Walter begins, voice now carrying over the room, “to be forgotten by your government after thirty years of service? To have your identity scrubbed, your existence denied? To watch the world turn while you rot in shadows because someone deemed you ‘too dangerous to retire?’”

His voice grows more bitter with each word.

“I was sent here because someone made a mistake. A system glitch. Or maybe a warning to whoever still remembers what I was. Either way, I’ve spent the last three weeks listening. Watching. Calculating.”

He turns his gaze on the other inmates — the ones who cheered for Gunner. “You thought he ran this place,” Walter says, nodding toward the trembling man. “But that’s the problem with men like him. They think fear is the same as respect.”

Then he raises his left hand, and every guard in the room jolts to attention.

“Stand down,” Walter says.

They obey instantly.

Gunner’s eyes widen. “What the hell are you?”

Walter smiles for the first time. “I’m the reason this prison hasn’t burned to the ground.”

Without another word, he steps past Gunner and walks toward the center of the cafeteria. The crowd parts for him like he’s radioactive. A few inmates murmur apologies, others bow their heads.

The Warden scrambles to follow. “Sir, we can arrange transport. A private cell. Protective custody. Anything you need.”

Walter pauses. “I need coffee.”

“Right away.”

Within minutes, a silver thermos is brought out from the Warden’s private stash. Walter sips it calmly at a newly cleared table. Gunner remains frozen near the wall, still dripping with the same water he poured, unable to move.

Then Walter says, “Bring him to me.”

Two guards grab Gunner by the arms. He doesn’t resist. They place him in the seat across from Walter.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Walter says, staring into Gunner’s terrified eyes. “I’m going to teach you.”

Gunner blinks. “Teach me?”

“Yes. I watched you run this place like a tyrant. You’re sloppy. You lack control. And you mistake dominance for leadership. That gets men killed. But you’re strong. You’re feared. And with the right guidance, you could be useful.”

Gunner dares a glance up. “You want me to work for you?”

“I want you to learn from me.”

Walter leans in, his tone darkening. “Because if you don’t… I’ll remove you.”

The threat isn’t shouted. It isn’t snarled. But it slices through the air like a guillotine blade. Gunner gulps and nods. “Okay. I’ll do whatever you say.”

Walter leans back. “Good. Because things are about to change around here.”

And change they do.

Within days, the entire block reorganizes itself. The gangs that used to run the yard now report through Gunner, who in turn takes quiet instructions from Walter. Violence plummets. Contraband dries up. Even the guards, once jaded and corrupt, find themselves stepping more carefully, treating inmates with a strange new respect — or perhaps fear.

But not everyone is happy.

On the third week, a man arrives. Not an inmate. Not a guard. He’s dressed in gray, his ID badge flashing red — a clearance level nobody in the prison has ever seen.

He’s escorted straight to Walter’s cell, which now resembles a war room more than a jail cell. The visitor doesn’t speak right away. He shuts the door behind him, locking it manually.

Walter doesn’t look up. “You’re late.”

“We had to confirm it was really you,” the man says. “And we had to see if the rumors were true.”

“They are.”

The man nods. “You’ve… reactivated yourself. Unofficially.”

“I was never deactivated,” Walter replies.

There’s silence for a moment.

“We want you back,” the man says finally.

Walter meets his gaze. “I’m already back.”

The man’s lips twitch into a hesitant smile. “Then I assume you’ve found the anomaly?”

Walter nods slowly. “There are whispers inside these walls. About someone orchestrating movements from the outside. Codes hidden in prison mail. Chatter that doesn’t make sense unless someone high-level is leaking intelligence through encrypted channels.”

“You think it’s a warden?”

“No,” Walter says. “Worse. I think it’s someone from my old unit. Someone we left behind.”

The man swallows hard. “You want extraction?”

Walter shakes his head. “Not yet. I need to finish this. I’ve got the entire prison watching me now. Listening. If I disappear, the rats will scatter.”

“You want to stay?”

“I want to finish what I started.”

The man exhales slowly. “Then we’ll clear your record. Off the books. You were never here.”

“Thank you.”

The man turns to leave, then pauses at the door. “One more thing.”

“Yes?”

“What do I call you now?”

Walter looks up, his eyes colder than ever. “Call me ‘Warden.’”

The next morning, the real Warden resigns without explanation. The prison’s hierarchy shifts overnight. No public statement is made. But inside Stateville, everyone knows: Walter runs the show now.

Inmates walk straighter. Guards follow unspoken rules. The cafeteria never sees another act of violence.

And Gunner? He becomes a shadow of his former self. Not out of fear — but respect. He sits beside Walter during lunch. He passes messages, takes notes, and trains the younger inmates in discipline instead of chaos. He tells anyone who asks that the old man taught him more about life in three weeks than the streets ever did in twenty years.

As for Walter, he never says much. He just watches. And waits.

Because somewhere in the prison system, someone is still sending coded messages. And Walter is ready. Always ready.

After all, legends never really die.

They just change their table.