Eric Flint: Time spike

He glanced around the twenty-five by forty-five foot entry area and saw Lieutenant Rodney Hulbert, the afternoon shift's second in command. Rod seemed as small as Joe did large. Just a hair over five-six and with no extra meat on him anywhere, he looked like a strong breeze could blow him away. Andy knew the appearance of frailty was about as far from the truth as you could get. The man was a survival hobbyist and hard as nails. He was also the best marksman the prison had, by the proverbial country mile. Every year for the past three, he'd been a serious competitor in the National Rifle Matches held at Camp Perry. "No full moon, but the crazies are wired tonight,"

Rod said, when he came up. He stuck his hand out and shook Andy's.

"I'll be glad to go home." "That bad, huh?" "Yeah. Two attempted suicides, a half dozen shoving matches, and I don't know how many solitary temper tantrums. It's been hell. We've had to use the extraction team three times and the first responders were called out on two medicals." Andy shot Joe a quizzical look and the man shrugged.

"I was waiting till the charge nurse called in. It seems quite a few inmates have refused their meds. With most of them it doesn't amount to much. But some of them, well… the psych meds…" He glanced back toward the bars separating the entrance area from the prison.

"Even some of the diabetics and epileptics turned down tonight's med pass." And he was working short! Andy would swear he could feel his blood pressure climbing, even though he knew that was impossible. Not the climbing-he was damn sure that was happening-but being able to feel it. "Hey, I told you it was going to be a bad night. But who knows, maybe they'll settle down. It's been crazy for over five hours." "Yeah, maybe." Andy thought for a moment. "Any chance of getting one of the afternoon nurses to stay over? Or maybe a day nurse to come in early?" Joe shook his head. "Can't. We worked with only two, and they were both held over from days. I've already told Sterling she has to be here by four in the morning. She said she would. She'll even try to get here a little earlier to help with the set up for the first med pass." Rod nodded his head in agreement.

"They're even shorter than we are. You have to remember, the state doesn't pay squat compared to the public sector. We're lucky we've got any nurses." Andy almost gritted his teeth. He remembered the last meeting. The nurses and the guards were paid the same. The one took a minimum of two years education plus state licensing; the other was anyone with a GED and up. The workload was the same. The danger was the same. The guards were tobe nice to the nurses. The state couldn't afford to lose any more. "Okay, let's get report over with. I have a lot to do." He led them to one of the three six-foot conference tables situated close to the glass double doors separating the entry area and the prison grounds. The wind was blowing in from the northwest, causing the doors to rattle with each new gust. He knew that at forty-three degrees-the temperature the bank's sign flashed as he drove past it a half hour earlier-the wind would feel below freezing.

Stacks of insurance forms and in-service announcements lying on the counter that ran the length of the east wall fluttered each time the door opened and a guard entered. Andy hoped like hell the nurses showed. "Who are my nurses?" he asked, suddenly very worried. Joe laughed. "Man, listen, I can't do this to you. I'll stay over." He looked at Rod. "I can't stay. I've hit the maximum hours allowed."

"Who're the nurses?" "Radford. Jennifer Radford." "Don't know her."

Joe kept his eyes on the clock. "No one does. She just finished her day-orientation. It's her first night working the floor. And Chris Tompkin-she was supposed to train her on nights-called off." "Oh, hell." It was a whisper, but it seemed to carry in the otherwise silent room. Andy shook his head. "Okay." He was quiet for a moment, thinking again. If they were going to have an untrained nurse passing morning meds he was going to have to send an extra C.O. to the infirmary. Things had a way of getting out of hand when untrained personnel dealt with prisoners. The classes helped, but it took time and working in the environment to learn how to stay alive. Even experienced nurses ran into trouble. It hadn't been two months since the last incident. Stanley Frye had stuck Carper Wayne while on their way to the showers. Then, while the nurse was rolling Carper across the exercise yard to the infirmary, Henry John decided to finish him off. Luckily the nurse had just been in the way, not the target. She'd still gotten a chipped tooth, a black eye and some nasty scrapes when he knocked her to the ground so he could plunge a shank-made from a sharpened pork chop bone-into the downed man's heart. "How many of my guards are out of the class that just finished?" Andy asked. "None.

That's who I had. They scheduled every damn one of them to start on my shift. Then they didn't give me enough experienced officers to train them. Every member of your crew is experienced." "Well, thank God for that." "Andy, there's one last thing. It seems the white supremacists managed to get hold of that new Mexican kid that came in last week. We sent him to the hospital. Don't know if he'll make it." "How in the hell did that happen? He was supposed to be in the nursery, segregated. P.C.'d." The nurserywas what everyone called P.C., Protected Custody, a small wing dedicated to the care of child molesters, snitches, serial rapists, rape victims and the uncontrollably insane. And lately, it housed more and more children-aged thirteen to eighteen-considered dangerous enough to be tried as adults, but too vulnerable to be put in the general population. "We have no idea. He came up missing about an hour before supper was served. We went looking and found him inside the garbage dumpster behind the maintenance shed." Andy shook his head. The brutalized prisoner, Jesse Martinez, wasn't a menace to society. He was just young and unlucky. He was a good student, never in any trouble with the law, a quiet boy. But there had been a wreck, and a woman died; and since he had chosen that night to get drunk, he had to do some hard time. "Man, things are fucked up," he growled. "A kid like that had no business in a place like this to begin with. Goddam politicians. They always figure hollering about being 'tough on crime' will win them votes-but there's no way they'll raise the taxes to cover the expense of overflowing prisons." "Yeah." Rod's face was unreadable. "When the bastards finished with him they marked his cheek and forehead with a knife. Their fucking symbol. We tore the place apart looking for the damned thing but came up empty. The prison is on lockdown until that knife is found." "Is there anything more I need to know?" Both men shook their head. "All right, Rod, you go home." Andy already had a headache and knew as the night wore on it would get worse. Lately, they had been on lockdown more often than they weren't.

Hulbert got to his feet. "I would stay if I could, Andy. But the office would shit a brick." "That's okay." Andy glanced at Joe. "I hate for you to stay…" "I know. But I would expect you to stick around if the situation was reversed. Just let me go to the car and get a fresh pair of socks and a couple bottles of water. What did you bring for supper?" "Barbeque chicken, salad, and a couple of pears.

There's enough for the two of us." Rod dropped his lunch bucket onto the table and flipped it open. "I didn't get a chance to eat. Two sardine sandwiches, a bag of chips, a packet of cookies and a diet Coke." "Jeez, Hulbert, no wonder you're so damn scrawny! That stuff will kill you." Joe closed the lid to the bucket and handed it back to the man. "Take it home and feed it to the garbage can." "Okay, but by about four-thirty, you'll be wishing you had it." "I don't think so."