Eric Flint - Time spike

"Knowing Bruce Boyle, he's probably knocking down his fourth boilermaker at Jimmy's, telling himself he was hallucinating. It was all I could do to get him to agree not to turn this over to the siblings, like we're supposed to." "Excuse me?" asked Morgan-Ash. The grin stayed on policeman's face, but the humor in it vanished completely. "The siblings. Those clowns from FEMA. They've given orders-just as arrogantly as they do everything, speaking of assholes-that 'anything unusual' is to be turned over to them immediately and not to be discussed. Apparently, deep matters of national security are involved." "Huh?" asked Leo. He frowned at the carcass. "I mean, sure, it's nasty-looking. But I really can't see where even a thousand of these things running loose would be more than a local problem, for a while. Hell, it's not even the size of a mountain lion, much less a bear." Tim barked a little laugh. "Oh, you'll get the news tomorrow. It'll be all over the country's news channels. It seems-no, I'm not joking-that the disaster at Alexander wasn't any sort of natural catastrophe. It turns out it was a terrorist attack." "Huh?" Leo repeated. Obviously, Nick had already gotten the story from his friend. His own grin was sardonic. "Oh, sure. We knew Al Qaeda was crazy. Now we know it for sure. They strike at the Great Satan by blowing up thousands of our hardened criminals."

"Good God," said Morgan-Ash, his normal imperturbability shaken.

"That's… that's… preposterous." "Yeah, it is." Tim's grin was finally replaced by the scowl it had so thinly covered. "I really, really hate being played for a damn fool. Even by people who are polite about it, which these shitheads certainly aren't." He poked the carcass again. "That's why I brought this thing here, after Nick told me about you guys. I just held my peace until I was sure you weren't fruitcakes." Margo smiled. "Don't jump to conclusions. We're Ph. D.'s, don't forget. Probably a bigger concentration of fruitcakes in academia than anywhere else. Not to mention that we've spent most of the past few years living half a mile underground in an old iron mine.

That's got to be borderline fruitcakery, at least." The state police officer smiled back. "Yeah, I guess. But you're pikers in the fruitcake department compared to the of-fi-cial clowns who are telling me that Moslem terrorists blew up a maximum security prison." Again, he poked the carcass. "I wonder how they'd explain Nasty here?

Probably claim it was a stem cell experiment gone bad." He leaned back and shook his head. "No, I think I'll toss in with you folks. Nick and I spent quite a bit of time talking it over. So. Now what?" The scientists stared at him. The tall, skinny policeman planted his hands on his hips. "Looks, folks, you might as well understand something right from the start. I guess for you this whole thing is just a matter of scientific curiosity. Well, that's fine. But for me-and there'll be more than just me-it's goddamitpersonal. These are small communities down here in southern Illinois. It ain't Chicago. I knew a lot of the people who worked at Alexander. One of the guards was my high school girlfriend. And the lieutenant in charge of afternoon shift, Joe Schuler, was my best friend. I've known him since we were both six years old." He looked down at the carcass, glaring fiercely.

"I want to know what happened to my best friend. I want to know what happened to my high school sweetheart. Whatreally happened. Not some lying bullshit fed to me by federal agents covering up God knows what." He shifted the glare to them. "Do you understand? I'm not interested in spending years under a mountain somewhere studying more data. You're scientists, I'm a cop. I think a crime's being committed and I want to goddam fucking well know the truth. And I don't much care what gets taken apart in the process." Margo couldn't help it.

She burst into giggles. "What's so funny?" asked Harshbarger. She shook her head, weakly. "Sorry, Tim. I wasn't laughing at you or your feelings. It's just…" She shook her head again. "I think you've just ended a debate that we've been having amongst ourselves for almost eight years now. Call it the Eggheads vs. the Dudley Do-Rights." She gave her companions a serene gaze. "I've always been one of the Dudley Do-Rights, myself. And I do believe we just won the debate." Morgan-Ash smiled, and stroked his beard. "So am I. Oddly enough, since I'm normally the most conservative of this lot of wild-eyed radicals. And, yes, I think we just won the debate." He gave Malcolm and Leo-who'd been charter members of the Egghead faction from the beginning-a gaze that was just as serene as Margo's. "Wouldn't you agree, gentlemen?" O'Connell and Dingley were eyeing the state police officer. His hands were the size you'd expect from a man that tall.

And they looked quite capable of taking many things apart, if he was in the mood. Which he so obviously was. "Guess so," said Leo.

Chapter 18 "Hey, Injun!" James Cook took a deep breath and kept walking. "I'm talking to you, sister!" The voice was coming from one level up. The line of sixty men he was in was making its way across the metal grating that porched the fourth floor of the five-tiered cell house. The metal stairs leading to the ground floor were packed.

He was trapped. He looked around for a screw. There. At the door. A guard. If he could get close enough to be seen, if he got stuck, at least he wouldn't bleed to death before they found him. The line moving from the back of the cell house to the door slowed to a snail's pace. He knew the score. He had just hoped it would be someplace else, someplace in the open. His uncle had explained it to him as soon as they knew he was going to be doing some serious time. "Boy, how you start is how you go, so be careful. You're looking at half a lifetime behind bars. So, as good lookin' as you are, you have no choice. If you don't want to be turned out and punked out, you're going to have to be one hell of a hog. You can't back down. You gotta beat the shit out of some big motherfucker. Hell, you might have to kill someone as soon as you get the chance. Whichever way you go, make sure the shitheads know you got heart, that you done it. But try to do it in a way the turnkeys can't pin it on you. There's no sense upping the ante to a lifetime behind bars." The old man looked grim. "And never forget one thing, either. There's no men behind them bars. Just animals.

Wolves and rabbits. And you'll be one or the other. So make up your mind as to which." It hadn't taken James more than a couple of days in the fish tank to realize his uncle was wrong. There were quite a few men behind the bars, actually. They were just hiding it from the wolves because they didn't want to become rabbits. He slowed his pace to match that of the line. Fear was the one thing he wouldn't show.

"Hey, squaw! What's your hurry?" Cook resisted the urge to drop his hands into his pockets. The voice was closer, but not close enough for him to play his hand. There was still a chance the guy intended to take it to a blind; someplace the guards wouldn't be so likely to see.

He walked with the line, not crowding the man in front of him and forcing himself to keep his breaths steady. Finally, they were through the door and onto the street. This was better, but not the best. He glanced around and spotted where he wanted the fight to take place. It was a small area of hard concrete and scattered gravel. It was the same area where he had picked up the small stones he now carried inside his pocket. The footing was good, too, which he'd need against a man a lot bigger than he was. He'd finally gotten a glimpse of the guy who was after him. He probably outweighed James by a good fifty pounds, and it didn't look as if much of it was fat. He hunched his shoulders, jammed one hand into each pocket, and picked up his pace.