Eric Flint - Time spike

"Blacklock left the two old crones and took the honey with him.

They're both as old as dirt, and look like shit. But what the hell.

I'll take care of them myself." Luff took the roster and looked at it.

"Casey Fisher, she's their guard. I take it you plan to take care of her, too." Collins shrugged. "Okay. You go to the infirmary. But remember, you're the one who made the rule: none of the women are to be hurt." "Killed," Collins said. "We'll need the nurses. I don't want any of them hurt. Are you understanding me?" "Not a problem. I won't lay a finger on either of the nurses." "Or the guards, or the kid,"

Luff said forcefully. "You have a job to do tonight. No horsing around. And I mean that. We take the prison tonight. We take it, and then we get ourselves in a position to hold it." He saw the resentment well up in the man, resentment and suspicion. It would be just like the stupid bastard to start an argument in front of everybody. Adrian needed to defuse this, for the moment. He gave the big prison guard a friendly clap on the arm. "Hey, man, relax. We'll party big tomorrow.

You want that guard, that Casey Fisher, she's yours. Tomorrow.

Tonight, we've got work to do. And the first thing we're going to do is take A-block. After that, while we mop up, you can take care of the infirmary." Collins nodded, but Luff knew the man had no plans to wait. He was dumb as a rock. Before this night was over they might need those nurses' cooperation. Luff knew the two women in the infirmary. He had been sent to clean the clinic a few times before the Quiver, and he'd seen them work. They did a good job under pressure, but if they were scared, they'd cave. If Collins hurt that baby or raped one of the women guards in front of them, neither nurse would be any good after that for days. Well, this was a simple problem. After Collins turned away, Luff gave Butch Wesson a small hand signal that said: stick close; I have a job for you. There really wasn't any reason at all that Collins needed to stay alive any longer. Adrian was tempted to just shoot him in the back right now and be done with it.

But a gunshot might alert the guards sleeping in A-block. And he was leading a bunch of cons. Even though he'd picked them personally, some of them were still a little unpredictable. If they saw the leadership fall apart right in front of them, one shooting the other, they might get their own ideas. No, better to do it quietly. By the time most of the cons found out, it would be a done deal-and Luff's authority would be enhanced rather than undermined. *** James Cook reached up for the six-inch metal bar from the small opening the health examiner required for ventilation in the cell house, that had come loose during the Quiver. He'd taken it down from time to time and had patiently filed the end to a reasonably sharp point, and then placed it back. He just wanted to make sure the sharpened bar was still loose and would come easily into his hand if he needed it. Which he figured he would, with a prisoner uprising underway led by Adrian Luff. "Boom," he whispered into the dark,

"we're trapped like a couple of bug-eyed flies on fly-paper." "Yeah, I know. You got anything useful to say?" Cook watched the black giant roll off the bottom bunk and press his ear to the floor. The cell house was empty. They were the only two still behind bars. "They be a lot of blood spillin' soon. You afraid?" Cook chewed on his bottom lip, not sure what to say. To admit fear was to admit to a weakness, a very stupid move when behind bars. But the Boom wasn't exactly a normal con. Honesty could just as easily be what the giant was after.

In the end he decided on a non-answer. "Do I look stupid?" The giant shook his head. "Nah. You be one of the smart ones." He sat up facing the bars. "Half the guards is gone. And the whole world is gone. All that's left is us and the monsters outside the walls." Just to keep his mind off his fear, James blurted out an idle question he'd been wondering about. "How'd a black man wind up with an Italian last name like Bolgeo, anyway?" As soon as he asked the question, he realized what a stupid thing it'd been to say. You never knew exactly what might set off Boomer's temper. Most of the time, the huge man was genial enough. His boys all called him "Uncle Timmy" and the only thing you usually had to watch out for was his cut-throat killer way of playing spades. But when he did lose his temper, the results were legendary. The man must be pushing sixty, but he was still hard-bodied despite his enormous size, and he was almost literally as strong as a bull. Fortunately, the Boom just chuckled. "Well, they be two theories in the family 'bout that. One of them is that Great-grandpa Luigi was an Eye-talian. The other is that Great-grandpa was a high yeller nigger passing as an Eye-talian, who invented the name. I hold to the second theory, myself." "Ah." That seemed safe enough. "Now it's my turn to be nosy. What you in here for?" "Second degree murder. I got charged with first degree, but the jury wouldn't go for it." "You had atrial? " Most convicts didn't. Their sentences resulted from plea bargaining. James' public defender had urged him to do the same, but James had refused. Stupid, probably, but he hadn't seen where he could do anything else. "Did you do it?" That question was so astonishing that James' jaw almost dropped. Cons didn't ask each other if they were guilty or not, because nobody except a fool would try to claim he was innocent in a prison. Didn't matter if he was or not. That was another form of weakness, and you never showed weakness. The Boom really was an odd one. Of course, with his size and capacity for fury, he could afford to be odd. With anyone else, James would have just issued a noncommittal grunt. With Boomer, though… "No, I didn't." "You was framed?" James barked a sarcastic laugh. "Oh, come on, Boom! 'Framed?' The cops don't bother to frame Injuns. Or niggers, or greasers. Or poor white trash, for that matter. The prosecutor had a killing to clear off his docket, I was a handy suspect who fit the bill and didn't have an alibi, and there it was. Their case was weak enough that the jury wouldn't go for a first degree, but they found me guilty of second." "What happened?" "I was in a bar one night. Friday night, after work. It'd been a bad day and I was pretty much tying one on. Which was stupid, because when I'm in a bad mood like that I can lose my temper if I've drunk too much. Sure enough. Some asshole starting ragging me, I got pissed, chose him out, we stepped outside and I beat the crap out of him." He took a deep breath. Even now, he still got angry thinking about it. "But that was it. We fought, I won-hands down-he was lying on the ground with a slip lip and a buncha bruises, and it was over. My hands hurt and I felt stupid as hell. So I went back into bar, paid my tab and went home to sleep it off." He took another deep breath. "Which I did. The next morning the cops were at my door arresting me for first degree murder. Seems the asshole went to another bar afterward and got himself killed about three hours later. They found him in the parking lot with the back of his head caved in. Probably from a baseball bat." Boomer nodded. "And nobody saw you come home and could vouch for your whereabouts." "Yep. They said they had motive, method and opportunity." He spit into a corner.

"Never mind that the motive didn't make any sense. I'd already whipped the guy, for chrissake, so why would I be seeking 'revenge'? I won, he lost, it's over. Never mind that they never found the murder weapon.

Never mind that no eyewitnesses ever placed me at that other bar.

Never mind that I'd never heard of that other bar and nobody hadever seen me there." He shrugged. "But you know how it is. I had a juvie record. Nothing really heavy, but enough to made me look like a bad boy. I'm not white. I'm not a person of color from a so-called good family. I had no alibi. It was an easy case for the prosecutor, and he didn't give a flying fuck whether I was guilty or not. Hell, neither did my own so-called lawyer." "That how it is." The Boom started laughing softly. "But that all behind us now, boy. We in a new world that ain't got no prosecutors. Just Adrian Luff and his goons and a buncha dinosaurs." After a while, James started laughing too.