Eric Flint - Time spike

Lieutenant Joe Schuler lay on the narrow bunk, tossing and turning, feeling every lump of the mattress and every wrinkle in the blanket.

The pillows weren't right. One was too low; two was too high. He glanced at the chair he was using as a nightstand. The small wind up clock he'd borrowed from Woeltje showed he still had four hours of sleep-time. Too many to just call it a short night and get up. He closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to stare at the ceiling and tried to relax. He had been asleep earlier, but it hadn't been restful. He had been dreaming in short, unrelated clips that his brain pretended fit together. The type of dream you seldom remembered. But this one had been a rerun, so he remembered too much of it. He was with Maria, before the split. They were on a picnic. He lay there thinking about that. The two of them had never taken a picnic to the beach. Not once.

He hadn't had the time, and she was just as busy. It had always been fast food, or eating at home to save money. It had been his mother who liked picnics and his father who would load everything up in the car and drive the thirty minutes it took to get the family to her favorite spot. A small park sitting next to a creek. The trees were old oaks filled with acorns, birds and squirrels. Joe and his brother, Keith, would play on the swings and monkey bars, occasionally sneaking a look at their parents lying on a blanket staring at the sky, or sometimes each other. He started drifting away, back to his dreams, wondering if Maria went on picnics with her new husband. Marie Keehn knelt on the flat rubber roof located on the administration building's new wing.

Below her were the offices that use to be payroll; above her was the sky. A portrait of infinity. She spread her bedroll out and laid down.

It was just chilly enough to make for good sleeping weather. She had thought about sleeping inside A-block with the others, then changed her mind. She wanted to be alone. She needed time to think. Hulbert was what she needed to think about. He was in love. It showed. And she wasn't so sure she wanted that. The fact that he fell so quickly hadn't surprised her. She thought men usually did. She'd read an article in a women's magazine once, explaining how it took most men less than two minutes to fall madly in love, and she thought the article had it right. It took most women much longer, the article had said. Many of them were actually married for a year or so before they realized just how much they loved their husbands. Women were considered the romantics, but in reality they tended to be a lot more practical with their hearts. It was men who jumped in with both feet to sink or swim. And she liked it that way. It felt right to her.

Especially now. Her grandmother had told her once that a man had to love a woman enough to die for her. And a woman had to love the man enough to live her life for him. That had struck a cord in Marie. It suited something in her personality. And it was why she was still single. She had been waiting for that man who would lay down his life rather than let her die. And she had been looking for someone she could wrap her life around. As her dear old grandmother used to say, someone worth giving up theshe and becoming thewe for. She didn't know how she felt about Hulbert. She knew without a doubt he would step between her and death. He had already done it. Without his quick reflexes she would have been killed when by that scary cat-thing. It was the other half of the deal that worried her. The giving up of theshe. The becoming awe. She knew the smart women, the ones with good marriages, had remained themselves. They hadn't become clones of the men in their lives. But the "we" had still taken first place. And if that meant changing a few things, that was fine. They made the changes. If that meant talking or raising hell till the man did something important for the "we," then they did that too. It was work.

And with the world turned upside down right now she wasn't sure it was a job she wanted to take on. She knew Hulbert had started the trip to the field already infatuated. The physical attraction, the chemistry, had been there, drawing them together. Then the other things happened: starting a fire, finding a set of prints, skinning out, reducing meat down to its usable parts, easy to transport. And then came the talking of tomorrow and of yesterday and the working together on the today.

And Hulbert had been caught, and she was walking around the edges of it, teetering. "What the hell, girl. Quit lying. You fell." She laughed at herself. Yeah, if she hadn't fallen, she wouldn't be on a rooftop in the middle of the night thinking about her grandmother's old fashion sayings and wondering if the name Marie Louise Hulbert sounded right.

Chapter 25 Joe woke to the sound of a little shriek and a prisoner standing over the next bed. "If I were you, I'd lay still." In the cot across from him he could see Judith Barnett looking wide-eyed at a man with a gun pointed at her head. The man was talking to them both. If Joe moved, Barnett died. Then-the man held the repeating rifle in a way that suggested he knew how to work it-Joe would be next. "Easy does it, fella. We're not in a hurry to die. We're cooperating." The lieutenant slowly sat up, praying the man wouldn't panic and pull the trigger. "Just tell me what you want and where you want me." The lights came on and Joe could see armed men in prison garb lining guards up along the east wall. There were at least ten men with guns, and a half dozen others with nightsticks. Some of them had vests and helmets. They had raided the armory. His eyes went back to the man standing over Barnett. What was his name? The face was familiar. He wasn't one of the death row inmates. He knew each of them too well.

This guy was from… A-block, he thought. Yes, before they had moved the prisoners. Joe glanced around the large room with its dozens of half walls designed to give each prisoner his own cubicle.

A-block's clientele were considered nonviolent. In for robbery, if there'd been no violence involved. Maybe assault, if there'd been extenuating circumstances. But not murder, even in the second degree.

They could be allowed a little more elbow room. And a little more contact with other prisoners. He remembered the name, now. Danny Bostic, in for bank robbery. The man had hit at least four banks before he was caught, but each of the operations had been well planned and he hadn't hurt anybody. Whether that was the result of Bostic's residual morality or simply the fact he was smart, there was no way to know. But, under the circumstances, either explanation was somewhat relieving. Whatever else, he wasn't a hothead. "Danny, we're moving slow." He motioned for Judith to sit up. "Very slow." Bostic took a step back. Using the gun's barrel, he motioned to where the other guards were now standing. "Over there." Barnett scrambled to her feet and rushed to the wall. Joe took his time. He didn't want to spook the man into firing. He could tell the prisoners were edgy. All of them, not just Bostic. If just one man panicked, the whole room would turn into a charnelhouse. He joined the others on the wall, hoping like hell they weren't being lined up just to be mowed down. Then he saw Collins, and that answered a lot of questions. How the inmates had gotten out of their cells, how they had gotten into the infirmary, how they had gotten into A-block without having to bust in the doors. He should have known the second he woke up. They'd all known Collins was a problem. But it had never occurred to any of them that the man would be so egotistically stupid as to throw in with the convicts. Did the lunatic seriously think he would survive in such a situation? He'd probably made more enemies among the prisoners than any other single guard at the facility. "Joe, my boy, hope you slept well." Joe didn't answer Collins. Instead, he studied the man who stood behind him. This would be the prisoner who was really in charge. Joe recognized him immediately, of course. "Luff and Collins," he said. "That's one for the books." Collins grinned and Luff's eyes turned to Joe. They were cold and calculating. "Take them to C-block and lock them up," Luff said. Joe breathed a sigh of relief. They weren't going to be shot, at least not right away. The relief quickly turned to worry as they were herded out the door and into the night air. They had been sleeping, so no one had shoes. Most were without socks. Some of them were like him, in tees, their uniform shirts neatly folded and lying on the chair next to the bed they had been on. A few of the men had stripped down to tees and boxer shorts. Marie woke, momentarily confused, trying to decide if she had heard a shout or if she'd dreamed it. The prison seemed quiet enough. She peered over the edge of the roof, wishing for a pair of binoculars and promising herself she would have Joe snag her a pair when day shift came on duty. The parking lot was empty. So were the areas between the buildings. The armory was dark. So was the guardhouse out by the gate. Moving quietly, she slid across to the other side of the roof, looked over the edge and almost let out a hiss before she caught herself. Even in the dim moonlight she could make out the prisoners leading what looked to be over three dozen guards through the exercise yard to C-block. They were armed, too. She hunched down as much as she could and still see what was happening.