The Civil Engineers Read online



  The

  Civil

  Engineers

  A novel

  by

  Mich Moore

  Copyright © 2012 Mich Moore

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

  To all engineers - past, present, and future.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Part One

  1

  San Francisco, California

  The woman sat down hard next to the silent man, her mind full of persistent thoughts. It was twenty minutes past five, and the sun was sinking fast in the western sky. The heavy, ornate doors that led to the Saint Francis mission, a hot meal, and some benevolent attention had not opened for over an hour. She and the others taking up posts outside had grown hoarse calling for the invisible friars who ran the shelter and public kitchen. Why the doors could not be left open had always been a mystery to her. Oh, to be sure, they would eventually let them in ... after the others already inside had had their fill. But by then it would be too late. The sun would have already set, and the cold wind blowing in off the bay would have bled her of all interest in the friars and in their good intentions.

  Dancing by her feet, a conga line of garbage swirled about, windblown and indiscriminately obnoxious. She sighed, remembering a time when the city's brick sidewalks were clean enough for a child to play jacks on and never get dirty hands. Now the mortar was cracked and often filled with enough urban flotsam to wilt the heartiest of souls.

  Uncharacteristically heavy today, her purse was at her side. She had known that today she would not have to worry about it being stolen. The stars had finally aligned in her favor. She knew as much the moment she opened her eyes that morning.

  She needed to talk about what she had planned to do; about why she had decided to do it ... that much was true. But confess? That word, confession, had been in her brain all night. The thought amused her. I've been agnostic since I began playing with Barbie dolls. To whom would I confess? And why? If there had been a god, he had never shown one iota of interest in her life. It was as if she had been created by scientists in a laboratory with skilled and curious hands, and then abruptly set aside for another project that had been deemed more fun and filled with greater promise. A single sentence formed in her heart: Make your confession for posterity. The weight of the words grew heavy within her, and her innards began to quicken.

  The man beside her stirred for the first time in thirty minutes, more from the stiff breeze than from any conscious act of self-propulsion. She knew him. He was a fixture at the shelter. At other times he was at the wharf, playing Spanish guitar for tourist quarters. When he was lucid, he would talk about his glory days as a tenured philosophy professor at San Francisco State. He was a cultured sort who had once eaten dinner at Hayakawa's home. He bragged that he could hold a packed class of dim minds hostage for hours as he parsed Thomas Aquinas in between puffs of Pall Malls. When he was drunk, which was often, he would just twitch and piss on himself until he passed out. She had often suspected that he had been a virtuous person at one time in his life. She had often believed the same of herself.

  "Maurice," she whispered, "I have to tell you something." She had decided to confess. "I am about to commit a sin."

  His head flopped to the side in some sort of acknowledgment, and he began to drool. She pulled her purse in closer to her body and slowly closed her eyes.

  "Listen to me—I used to believe. I used to believe in happy endings. But yesterday, right after the six o'clock news, I stopped." A hollow-eyed hooker trudged by the river of penniless men outside the shelter. This was her fifth march around the block. Two more and the walls of Saint Francis would come a tumblin' down ... . Truth be known, her nearest customer was probably seven kilometers away. She appeared almost ready to give it away. "Another family jumped off the bridge." She shed a tear. "They can't find the baby." The woman wiped her eyes with her sweater. "But I used to believe."

  Maurice gave a start and then wet himself.

  "When I was in the eighth grade, I went to school with a lot of scary kids. If you made them angry, or if they just wanted to have some fun ... they'd hurt you. You know, like when little kids pull the wings off flies.

  "I tried to stay hidden. I tried to make myself as invisible as everyone else, but it didn't work... . There was this one girl, Shana Moonat. She was the prettiest of them. And the meanest. One day she caught me on the stairs while I was coming from homeroom and she told her friends, 'Watch.' Everybody gathered around us, and she kicked me in the stomach. It hurt so much that I fainted. They took me to the hospital. I had to wear a stomach brace for a year. Shana was expelled, but I had to switch schools. I wrote her family a letter telling them that I'd forgiven her, but no one ever wrote back." She slowly exhaled. "Yes, I used to believe."

  The woman looked around. There was a commotion down the line. Jennifer was here! The earth angel from social services, Jennifer Brown, braved the cold to see the unwashed, the unloved. The homeless woman's spirit lifted a couple of inches off the dirty sidewalk and poked its head out into the gloomy world, prompting the woman to pump her fist in the air with the enthusiasm of an NFL cheerleader. The angel noticed and flashed an effervescent, "Hi, there!" smile and mouthed, "I'll be there in a sec." Satisfied that the gesture had been seen and appreciated, the homeless woman's spirit withdrew and settled back down again exhausted and spent on its bed of cigarette butts and dried gum.

  Nevertheless, she had stopped believing. The Rubicon had been crossed.

  "I healed a lot. I started to see the good in people again. My parents loved me and they wanted me to be happy, so they paid for me to go to college, where I would be safe and free to learn. And I did. I studied biology and I loved it! I decided to become a doctor in my junior year, and I began my residency two days before my twenty-seventh birthday. Dad and Mom were so proud of me. Those were the happy days. The best of times ... ." A colorful montage of still-vivid memories crowded her mind, and her voice trailed as she stopped to watch them all before they faded from view.

  The earth angel steadily made her way down the tattered line, speaking to this one, giving a loving pat on the cheek or hand to that one. The woman took notice of her progress and was even eager to speak with her. But she had to finish her story—yes, her confession—to Maurice.

  "I met the only man that I've ever truly loved on a blind date. I had dated others, but with him things were different. It was as if we had been divided from the same flesh. My body started to die if I couldn't reach out and touch him. I needed him like I needed air. When he was promoted and reassigned to Milwaukee, I followed, even though he had asked me not to. I loved him. And somehow it worked out. And he married me! I was worthy to be his wife! Then I became pregnant. We were just thrilled. But I lost the baby in my second term. Shana had also damaged my uterus. He cried, cried tears no man should cry. The good times stopped... . He began to hate me. I would tell him over and over that it wasn't my fault, but ... it never seemed to get through.

  "We both started drinking, just to get through the
days. The nights were worse. Sometimes he would hit me. And I hit him back. Then he would leave and stay out all night. My love carried me through those times, too, and I forgave him. We drove to the Poconos to celebrate our third wedding anniversary, and the day that we got back I knew that he didn't want the marriage anymore. And I was right. He told me that he wasn't happy and that he wanted to move on. I cut my wrists and showed him. He called 9-1-1 and stayed with me that first night. When I left the hospital he was gone, gone for good.

  "My brother bought me a first class ticket back to Memphis. You know, that was the first time I'd ever flown first class. It's so much better than coach. Lots of leg room, and they give you a real knife and fork!"

  Jennifer the Angel reached the woman. She held out a cup of warm coffee and a lovely smile.

  "Mary Goodwin! Oh, my gosh! It's so good to see you!"

  The women embraced like old friends.

  The angel pulled out a few bills from her pocket. "I want you to have this."

  But the homeless woman gently pushed the money away. "No, please. Give it to someone who needs it—"

  Jennifer gave her a sad face. "Mary, darling, you need it, too."

  "Not anymore. I've leaving town."

  Angel Jennifer's mouth formed a small O. "Did your brother finally send for you?"

  With almost superhuman strength, the woman fought back the wild tears that were suddenly crowding her eyes. "No, Todd lost his job. He and his wife are going to move to Alaska and stay with her parents. It's just a two-bedroom apartment. Not enough room for me."

  Jennifer's face drooped some. "Oh, Mary. I'm so sorry. Well, do you have enough for your meds? You'll need your meds, sweetie."

  Mary clasped the angel's smooth hands. "Oh, your concern for this broken spirit warms me so. I have enough. And, you know, the voices don't bother me so much now. That's a good thing, wouldn't you say? I don't need to take those nasty pills anymore. It's a blessing. Yes, I think so."

  The angel's face fell completely. She handed the woman a bagel from her satchel. The woman received it out of politeness. "So where are you going?"

  "I'm going home!"

  "Where's that?"

  "It's ... it's ... up north. A farm ... with horses and apple trees. And real seasons! Snow in the winter and ferocious mosquitoes in the summer!"

  The women laughed.

  "Well, how are you getting there, honey? Are you taking the bus?"

  The woman bit her lip before answering. "To be honest, I don't know. But I'll make it. Don't you worry. I'll make it."

  The angel looked worried. "I know that it's really tough out here on the streets. But you've got people who care about you here. And winter is coming. Should you be traveling now?"

  The woman smiled at the angel, basking in the real compassion that a passing mercy was blessing her with. "Yes. It's time for me to go. I just have one stop to make—" She turned to look down at the top of Maurice's greasy head— "... to set things right, Maurice." She turned back to face the angel. "And then I'll be on my way home." The homeless woman suddenly grasped Jennifer's free hand. "Ma'am, you are a real angel for people like me, who have lost everything. If there is a god, may he bless you and your family with every good thing."

  The women embraced again and then Jennifer moved on down the line, skipping the unconscious Maurice. In time, the icy night swallowed them all.

  The next day, the woman took a westbound city bus and got off at the Shraeder Street stop half an hour later. She turned south and headed up the block towards Waller Avenue. Along the way, she read the numbers on the apartment buildings: 842, 840, 838, 836 ... until she reached 832. Then she stopped and pulled out her cell phone. She dialed 9-1-1 and told the dispatcher that there was a shooting in progress and to please send the police right away.

  She threw away the cell phone and carefully pulled the .38 snubbed nose special out of her purse. She sprinted up the steep stairs to the front door of the flat numbered 832 and buzzed the door. An unpleasant female voice crackled out at her at high volume over the intercom. "Who is it?"

  She affected a rough voice. "Is Shana home?"

  "Who is this?"

  "It's Brenda. Tell her that I've got her money."

  "Brenda? Brenda? Okay, wait a minute."

  A minute passed. She could hear police sirens approaching from the distance.

  She started to mutter to herself: "Please, let me have this. Please. Please."

  Someone had heard her. The front door opened, and Shana Moonat herself stood before her. She had aged and packed on some weight, but it was definitely the same girl from middle school. She was wearing a black sequined dress and teased hair. A night out on the town perhaps. Ms. Moonat took one look at the filthy woman standing on her stoop and looked disgusted. "Lady, get off my porch."

  The woman stood her ground. Mean words no longer hurt her. "My name was Mary Goodwin. I went to Sauterfield Middle School with you. You assaulted me, and I wanted you to—"

  Shana Moonat became livid. She had spent all day at the hair salon trying to look presentable for her asshole boyfriend who was taking her out to dinner that night to explain why he was still seeing his ex-wife, and here she was talking to some crazy, old bag of bones holding a gun—???

  "—hear my confession! For I have become a serpent. And now I shed this old skin and put on the new garment ... of Retribution!" She had practiced this part a hundred times, and it had still come out flat and conversational.

  Shana Moonat snarled at her before slamming the door shut. The woman who had been merely good Mary Goodwin leaped forward, jerked her right leg up high, and kicked the door in. She stumbled inside, caught Moonat by the legs, and brought her down. The woman hit her head hard on the side of a sofa and was momentarily dazed. Then she began to screech like a banshee. The place came alive with the sounds of screaming children and a multitude of running footsteps. Someone large and musty was coming up on the two women fast. But he wasn't going to make it.

  She raised the gun and aimed it point blank at Shana Moonat's head. "An eye for an eye. A soul for a soul. You destroyed my life thirty years ago, and now I get to return the favor."

  Shana Moonat threw up her hands around her face. "No, no, no ... please, no!"

  But the woman poked the gun's barrel through the mass of stiff hair until it came into contact with the unprotected side of Moonat's head. "It's a lesson from the universe: Don't give what you aren't prepared to receive." Mary Goodwin squeezed off three shots. Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Shana Moonat's body violently flopped and shuddered on the cheap shag carpet. A police officer screamed at Mary Goodwin from the doorway. "PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON OR I WILL SHOOT!"

  The woman carefully set the gun on the floor. As the policemen approached her she cried out loud, "When I was a little girl, I believed in fairy tales! I believed that if you were smart, and had a good heart, that all of your dreams could come true! I never stopped believing that! Not until yesterday! Yesterday, my heart gave up! Yesterday, it said, 'Mary, close your eyes, 'cause the world is full of shit!'"

  The officer jammed her up against a wall and ran his hands up and down her rail thin body, searching for more weapons.

  The cop spun her around as three others attended to the now still body of Shana Moonat. The woman was handcuffed and read her Miranda Rights. And then she was hustled toward one of the many police cars hiked up on the sidewalks. A large crowd of neighborhood folk was gathering at the scene. Some were in jogging suits or jeans, but most were wearing work clothes: good wool suits, oily caps and overalls, starched hospital uniforms ... her erstwhile fellow drones from her first incarnation as an utter fool.

  The officer gripping her arm was moving too quickly, and she tripped and fell on one knee. Some in the crowd gasped. Suddenly it seemed as though there were thousands of people huddled around the garish scene. Television camera crews appeared and blinding lights snapped on. Teenagers clowned in back of the on-air reporters. Some were filming the action on thei
r cell phones. All of it, along with the gaily twirling lights atop the police cruisers playing off her bloodied face and hands in an almost whimsical way, gave the mise-en-scène a macabre, circus-like atmosphere.

  Here was her chance. "Once upon a time I had an American dream! It was stolen from me! And now I want it BACK!" She imagined herself to be roaring with righteous fury, but even she could hear that her voice had merely gone up an octave and was trembling.

  The policeman at her side hissed, "You've gotta do it without the bullets, sweetheart."

  He flung a car door open and pushed her in, but she somehow managed to squirm out of his hold. She twisted her neck around until she was once again facing the crowd.

  "Don't let anybody steal your dream! Fight them! Destroy them if you have to! Because you have the right to pursue your happiness! Don't let anybody stand in your way! God bless you! God bless you all! And may God bless these United States of America!" This time her voice soared. To everyone standing within a ten-meter radius of the cruiser.

  Then the cop put her in a half nelson and literally threw her into the back seat. Two young men in business attire watched as the police cruiser started up and began to thread its way through traffic.

  "Now, that was interesting."

  His friend turned to him, his heart racing. "It was, wasn't it?"

  2

  Lincoln Hills State Prison, Nevada

  The prisoner awoke to faint birdsong wafting in from ... where? He shifted on the narrow mattress. He had been dreaming of making love to a younger and naked Diane, and had been rewarded with another pointless erection. He switched his mind to the piles of paperwork waiting for him at his desk at the Lab, and soon managed to doze off again. Immediately he began to dream of Diane again, but this time she was short-haired and vaguely Chinese. She wore an oversized housecoat as she fried a skillet full of tiny blue potatoes. A purple ferret was perched on her left shoulder and it sang out, "Lips unused to thee, bashful, sip thy jasmines, as the fainting bee."

  A part of his sleeping brain recognized the words. They were from an Emily Dickinson poem titled "Come Slowly, Eden." Skillet grease popped and a sandstorm rose to engulf them.

  Birdsong again—a sweet-natured scat of melodic whistles and aria-esqe trills. This time he was fully awake. And then he remembered—Officer Stewart, the morning shift guard, had been learning bird calls with his son. Lately he had taken to practicing a couple of the more intricate ones to pass the time as he patrolled the floor. At first there had been a couple of complaints, but they had quickly died down. Many of the inhabitants in cell block B-7 had not heard a real songbird in years. Stewart's vocalizations had become welcome diversions in otherwise tense and dreary lives.

  The prisoner lifted his head off of his pillow and reflexively held his breath. The air was mildly acrid, the result of an airborne brew of industrial disinfectant, unbridled sweat, and perpetual piss. It was the fragrance of all prisons deep in the belly of summer. But something was slightly different this morning. There was a shimmer in the stillness of the air of—what?

  He put the question down. His head ached. No wonder. He had not released any natural energy in over three days. His hormones were probably ready to sabotage his entire nervous system by now.

  The Playboy calendar beckoned from the west wall of his study corner. As was their custom of late, his eyes fastened themselves upon the luminescent beauty posed inside that five-square-centimeter window onto the starless pink heavens of the poontang universe. Miss August's breasts were cotton-candy luscious, enough to earn her a round of hearty applause from both cosmos. Yet she was enigmatic with this particular man of earth. He knew that while the sparkles in her eyes were on him, they were not for him. Her eagerness was for a distant prize that could only be obtained in the world that he had been expelled from five years ago. He imagined himself kissing her frosted lips, careful not to smear the gloss ... inhaling the imaginary, dainty puffs of berry-tinged breath from her mouth.

  Beneath her picture was a brief profile:

  Hi! My name is Sophia, which means wisdom. I'm currently working on completing my master's degree in business, and it is my goal to be at the helm of a Fortune 500 company someday.

  He grunted. And if I weren't sealed in this tomb, I could be there at your side as you sinuously wound your way up the corporate dance pole. Yas-sir!

  The man yanked his eyeballs away from Wisdom and glanced down at the day grid. Friday.

  It was August 6th.

  Millions of random bytes flooded his brain's RAM and coalesced into a single thought: Neal Aaron Broussard, today's your birthday! flashed onto his mind's screen. And as quickly as he remembered, he forgot.

  He took a step back and felt relief. No, not relief. Tension. He held his hands out and flexed them. That helped a bit. Then he plucked the acoustic guitar from its wall holder and played the scales, barely tugging on the strings to keep the sound of the music just inside his cell. He practiced for ten minutes and then gently rehung it on the wall.

  As he tidied up his bunk, a syncopated symphony of coughs, farts, and swear words crept into his ears as forty other cage dwellers arose to bear their fangs at yet another day. Someone screamed, a crazy ululating howl that made the hairs on the back of the neck rise. That was probably Martinez. He had been doing that a lot lately, especially at dawn when most of the block was still sound asleep. Few of the men appreciated the reveille. The doctors had prescribed him sedatives, but they only made him loopy and screamy. And it continued now. Broussard felt a familiar anger rise up wearily within him. Sleep was the only real opportunity for a prisoner to deny the harsh reality that he was indeed locked up in a nine-by-six cage like a shelter dog. Only they were worse off than their canine counterparts; no earthly savior was ever going to come by and declare a convict as cute as all get-out and scoop him off to some rainbow-and-pixy-dusted happily-ever-after. The only way most of them were leaving there was feet first.

  Martinez let out one more screech.

  "SHUT THAT SHIT UP, MUTHA FUCKER!" someone from the first floor tier shouted.

  Martinez: "They're gone! Let me go home, man! Let me get my babies back, pleeease."

  "I SAID SHUT UP. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THIS SHIT!"

  Martinez: "I got nothing left! My heart is gone, man!"

  "YOUR FRIGGIN' MIND IS GONE!"

  Martinez, audibly crying: "The ways of the Lord .... The ways of the Lord. Mother dear, help me! HELP ME UNDERSTAND!"

  Another chained voice chimed in with a gruff sing-song voice: "It's summertime. And the livin' is easy. Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high."

  "YOU SHUT UP, TOO, MUTHA FUCKA!"

  Martinez: "PLEASE! I want to go home! I need to get my babies! Lord Jesus, help me! Ahhhh!" His voice was strangled with refreshed misery.

  A guard bellowed at him to quiet down, but the wailing continued.

  Martinez was a thing possessed lately. He had received bad news from home a few weeks back, and something inside of him had snapped. Now the entire cell block was trapped with a truly crazy person. The prisoner tuned them both out. Whatever. Whatever. Now that was quite an interesting addition to the American pop lexicon. It could be the answer for every riddle, every paradox, every unbearable truth. Einstein had been sniffing up the wrong skirts. The Grand Unified Theory did not collapse into one elegant equation, but into one ineloquent word: Whatever! Part of him smiled. Grimly.

  Broussard sat up and executed his daily exercise program: one hundred stomach crunches, then rest; fifty push-ups, then rest; twenty chin-ups on the bars, and then rest. Then he paced his cell a few times to get the kinks out and then climbed back up into his bunk. A large, hardback book was tucked in one corner. It was his calculus book from his freshman year at CAU in Atlanta. He opened it, savoring the familiar text and vivid, primary-colored graphics. Carefully taped onto the inside cover was a postcard from Disney World. On it he had written in neat block print: "From Here to the Stars!" The memory of the exact moment in
time when those words had been written came flooding into his mind.

  He heard loud, rapid boot steps slapping against the floor outside. Two guards whizzed by, batons out. Other cage dwellers began to yell, laugh, sing, or moan. Good times!

  Broussard stretched out on his mattress and placed his pillow over his head until the noise died down some thirty minutes later. He picked up the book again. He was actually trying to determine whether the book touched on the subject of linear transformations. If not, he would have to make another trip to the library and hope to find a linear algebra textbook. On his way to the table of contents, his eyes espied those words again: "From Here to the Stars!" And his thoughts traveled back in time. He had been a seventeen-year-old nerd extraordinaire living with his Uncle Curtis in Atlanta. Both of his parents had been MIA for almost a year, and his mother's youngest brother and wife, Claudia, were the only human beings blocking the entrance to a life of being alone and on the streets. Claudia, a pediatric nurse, worshiped at the altar of higher education, and it was she who saw to it that he had everything that he needed to do well in school: paid tuition, new books, computers, music lessons, a collie named Ray, spending money, and even a used Honda stick shift. Most important, she made sure that Broussard received love, making no distinction between him and her own children. One week after he had won a state-sponsored math contest by posting the highest score ever recorded in its history, Uncle Curtis and Aunt Claudia drove the entire family first to Disney World and then later that day to Merritt Island to witness a night launch of the space shuttle Atlantis. After that thrilling event, his uncle had taken him aside and carved these words into his heart: "Neal, you are this family's golden child. And I believe in my heart that you've got the brains to do anything. Son, that can be you one day flying to the stars."

  After they had returned to the hotel, he had taken out a postcard featuring Mickey Mouse that he had purchased with the intent of mailing to his mother. Instead he had written the words, "From Here to the Stars!" and stuck the card in his pocket. He had meant that then. Funnily enough, sixteen years later he still did.

  The commotion outside died down, and life returned to the familiar levels of discomfort.

  As he flipped through the pages, footsteps approached. Another body entered his energy field. He looked down at Officer Stewart.

  "Morning," the guard said cheerily. Stewart was a large man with the musculature of a body builder. Or a Cyclops. The only thing that kept him from being totally dominating was his sparse moustache. Not only were the hairs few in number, but they also grew at odd angles. Broussard constantly fought the urge to blurt out, "Just cut it off and be done with it!"

  The prisoner closed the book and replaced it in its corner. "Good morning." Neal jumped down to speak with him face to face. "Thank you for an excellent rendition of the wood thrush."

  Stewart's boyish features erupted in surprise. "Hey, that's good! Most people wouldn't know a wood thrush call from a hole in the ground. And the guys in here are just plain dumb asses. Bunch of zeroes," he muttered.

  Broussard's anger flared again, but this time with a little more zing. Stewart noticed the change in demeanor and quickly added, "I mean, most folks just don't know about birds."

  The caged man let it go. Stewart was basically okay people and was just attempting to make life more tolerable for everybody, himself included. "I agree."

  They both fell silent. Four-point-nine seconds lurched by. Sharp, yelping sounds broke the mutual silence.

  Officer Stewart looked west, down-tier, and chuckled. "Man, Martinez is hitting maney on all eight cylinders. If he keeps this up, they're gonna have to move him to the psych ward."

  "Promise?"

  "No." A tiny smile flickered across his thin lips. "Catch you later."

  "Later." The prisoner watched him go.

  "Hey, Butch. You got some hot water?"

  That was Juggy, his next door neighbor, and 'Butch' was Broussard's prison tag.

  "Yeah, hold on."

  For some reason, during the summer months, the hot water came through the cell pipes at an astounding 185 degrees Fahrenheit. It literally jumped out of the tap smoking. The problem was, it only lasted about fifteen seconds, and then they had to contend with the more tepid temps, which were only good for washing blood or spit down the drain. Juggy had probably already used his ration of hot water with his morning's bathing. Neal got out a two-meter long piece of rubber tubing and attached one end to his tiny sink's faucet. The other end was threaded through the small rectangular opening in his cell bars—what the inmates affectionately referred to as a mail slot—and out and into Juggy's own mail slot less than half a meter away. Juggy tugged on his end of the tube.

  "Okay. Go," he said.

  Neal turned on the hot water tap and counted five seconds. Then he shut it off.

  "A little more," Juggy said.

  "Nope. That's it." Broussard yanked on the tube, coiled it up, and put it back into its place in his desk.

  Down block, Martinez began to beat on his bars. One could not tell if he was using his head or his fists. Knowing Martinez, probably all three.

  The rich smell of coffee filled the immediate air. Neal inhaled deeply, breathing in the exotic flavors. Diane always said that the best part of drinking coffee was smelling it as it brewed.

  "I got enough for two, Butch," Juggy sang out.

  "Thanks, but I'll have some later. Work first. Pleasure later."

  "SHE'S BEATING ME! SOMEBODY, HELP ME!"

  Juggy grunted. "They better do something with him."

  Broussard did not reply. Short of knocking him unconscious, what could be done for him? He was probably too far gone. Broussard's mind drifted back towards linear transformations, which he thought might be useful for analyzing some recent 3D-motion problems that he had encountered in the Lab. He wouldn't have library access for another two days. Of course, he could get some of the info off the Internet at the Lab, but that wasn't going to be nearly as enjoyable as gorging himself on a meaty book. Without thinking about it too much, he went through his paper files. Each folder had a label. The first label read: "Sheet Music." He set that folder aside and continued sifting through the rest:

  MIT Budget

  Schematics

  Vendor List

  Employees

  James Mit

  Jessie Mit

  Professional Prisoner Program Guidelines

  Juggy continued. "My nana sent me some dried salami. I'm going to set a little aside for Vicky, and tonight I'm going to make some gumbo."

  That caught Broussard's attention. He and Juggy had become neighbors four years ago, five months after Broussard's arrival at Lincoln Hills. The old con was a talker, and so Broussard had initially spent a lot of time avoiding engaging in conversation with him. Until one day when Juggy offered up a bowl of his "blue plate gumbo." That had caught Broussard by surprise. He had not realized that inmates were doing any cooking in their cells, and since most of the cells were model examples of squalor, he had refused his offer. But Juggy (and those intoxicating smells) eventually wore him down, and much to Broussard's surprise the stuff was actually pretty good. The oldtimer had managed to create a robust roux punched up with tinned oysters, jerk chicken, dried sausage, dried onion, and even some okra. Then he had poured this wonderful goulash over a bed of fluffy white rice lightly raked over with sweet basil. After picking out the indecipherable pieces, Broussard had wolfed down the rest. That day he had become a Juggy convert.

  "You need anything?" Broussard asked.

  "You got any white pepper?"

  "Black and red."

  "That'll do. It'll be ready by six."

  Broussard rejoiced. He'd be back from work, changed and relaxed by the time dinner was served.

  "All right!" Broussard washed up, shaved, and slipped on a clean pair of prison blues.

  Time was strictly regulated at Lincoln Hills. From eight to nine in the morning prisoners were allowed to wash and dress. Fr
om nine-oh-five to nine-fifteen the first of four shifts made the journey through the serpentine halls of the main wings of the building to the main mess hall in the center rotunda. Breakfast was served until ten-fifteen, and then it was back to the cages until noon. Lunch was from twelve-fifteen to twelve forty-five. Then it was out into the exercise yard for socializing, basketball, picking fights, whatever a body was in the mood for, and then back to the cages one hour later. The next three hours were free time. A man could either stay home, go to his job, or attend one of the many classes that was offered. Lock up was at five o'clock and lasted until evening chow at six. Everyone was tucked in for the night by eight.

  Broussard stood in a ragged line with his food tray in his hands. Fernandez, the hot cereal server, gave him a nod, and he returned the gesture. Some guys wouldn't have. They would have reserved their public curtsies for the meat and vegetable servers at lunch. That made no sense to him. People were people, and Broussard made it a habit to be polite to anyone deserving. Fernandez offered him an extra dollop of oatmeal, but he refused it, patting his belly.

  He scoped out his favorite table beneath the far right window and sat down. He was fast and snagged a chair with only about twenty centimeters of space between it and the rear wall. That was not enough space for most of the other inmates to maneuver around in, so he was relatively safe from a rear attack. Several newspapers were laid out flat on the table. Broussard chose one.

  The prisoner quickly unfolded yesterday's New York Times and glanced at the front page, never taking his eyes off the other diners for more than five seconds at a time. Three articles caught his attention. One involved the shooting death of a famous rapper in New Jersey. Another senseless death. He skipped that one. The second was one of those stories that read better in the New York Post:

  "UFOs in Boston Harbor?"

  Someone jostled his table, causing his coffee to spill. He and the offending felon exchanged the obligatory glares, and then the other man moved on.

  Boston (AP)—People living in the Boston Bay Area are calling it the most spectacular UFO sighting in that area in years. Police say that several dozen people reported seeing bright lights over Boston Harbor over the weekend. One man described them as "a string of orange lights" that hovered over the Tobin Bridge before plunging into the bay waters. One hour later a tugboat captain reported seeing a "massive creature" in the water which kept pace with his boat. Others who witnessed the object described it as a whale. However, Geraldine McNally, 57, of New Brunswick, gave quite a different story. "Me and my mahjong club were on Grape Island and we all saw it. It wasn't a whale or a submarine or like such. It was a man. As big as a house. And he was glowing, like he had electricity in his skin. He swam right past us." She added with a smile. "He was very attractive."

  These descriptions are almost identical to the account given to authorities by the sole survivor of the British freighter True Blood, which broke apart and sank off the coast of Greenland last week.

  He took a break and scanned the mess hall. Everything looked calm enough. Several of the inmates were engaged in real conversations, complete with sloppy grins and awkward gesticulations. Even the guards on the floor and along the catwalks looked relaxed. The knot in his gut uncoiled a bit.

  The third story was strangely familiar. It seemed that the deputy mayor of Los Angeles had been gunned down outside a church by unknown assailants while visiting Camden, New Jersey, last week. And while there had been at least a dozen witnesses to the crime, including the pastor of the church, there had been no formal police investigation into the matter. When the mayor of Los Angeles had personally called his counterpart in Camden to get some straight answers, he had been told that the New Jersey politician was unavailable to speak with him. One police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, "Those people should stay out of this. The mood here isn't good."

  Broussard smiled. Really, now? Like so many unwary travelers, years ago he himself had somehow managed to wash up upon the rocky shores of New Jersey, broke and nearly broken. Newark, New Jersey to be exact. His girlfriend at the time, Barbara, was staying at her cousin's house near the outskirts of town, and they had agreed to let him stay there until he hustled up enough money to move out west. It had taken him three days to figure out that he had landed in the midst of possibly the meanest, most assbackwards people on the face of the continental United States. If they weren't trying to beat you out of your money, then they were plain just trying to beat you. Barbara had begged him to stay, but she knew that he was miserable. On the fifth day, her drunken aunt had tried to settle a discussion about some missing fried catfish by hitting him over the head with a 40-ounce bottle of beer. He had managed to knock the bottle out of her hand, and she and her heretofore saintly mother had grabbed their pistols from their aprons and shot him out of their kitchen. He and Barbara slept in a neighbor's van that night, and the next morning at dawn had literally run to the Greyhound bus station. Then he had dropped Newark from his mind like a pair of dirty drawers. No. The mood had definitely not been good then either.

  "Hey!" Something huge and dark hovered over him. Broussard postured.

  A bear of a man stood in his space, his oversized hands clamped on the edge of the table. "You want that?" He was gesturing towards Broussard's bran muffin. Broussard shook his head.

  "Can I have it?" He had a mouth full of cheap grillwork and angry acne on his jowls. Obviously, he was not one of the regular OGs or he would have just boosted the muffin and anything else that he wanted.

  "Sure."

  He snatched it off the tray and then invited himself to sit down. Broussard had seen him in the mess hall a couple of times before, always buzzing from table to table to pounce on stationary food, just like a fly. An enormous fly with gold-plated teeth. A superfly.

  "What's up, Fly?" Broussard asked.

  Fly squinted, his expression vacillating somewhere between rage and involuntary glee. Then he grinned. "The sun and the moon and the friggin' Milky Way at night! Only ain't gonna be no moon tonight!"

  Broussard worked on his oatmeal. "Oh? Why's that?"

  "It's invisible 'cause it's in conjunction with the sun! That's when the moon bends over and tells the earth to kiss her fat, white ass!"

  Broussard relaxed a bit. "A new moon."

  Fly's head bobbled with excitement. "A new everything! The stars are changing, man. Just like with the times." He bit into Broussard's ex-muffin. "That's right." He leaned closer. "You Butch, right?"

  Broussard did not reply.

  "Man, I need a favor. Lissen. I got a new lawyer who says that he can get my sentence reduced."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. He says that the public defender fucked me up, man. Didn't handle the depositions right, filed my papers late ... whatever he could do wrong he figured out a way to do it." He shrugged, blameless. "I ain't supposed to be here."

  Broussard sipped his water. "Sounds like you got a raw deal, bro."

  "Bloody raw! Now, look. The dude says that he can fix all that, redo the depositions enough so that I can at least get some attention from the appeals court. All he needs is five hundred dollars to crank up the machine again."

  Fly eyed the motionless sprig of grapes resting up against the remnants of the oatmeal, and his hand began to twitch.

  "You want them grapes?" he asked.

  "Yes," Broussard answered.

  Fly smothered his disappointment. Instead he began to pop out a rhythm against the table with his fingers while he barked, "Three-six-nine. The goose drank wine. The monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line. The line broke. The monkey got choked. And they all went to heaven in a little row boat." He burst out laughing. "That was the first rap song, dude! Shirley Ellis put it out back in the sixties. That heifa knew what was coming."

  Broussard kept his eyes on the man's hands. "Whatever."

  "So look ... back to business." He leaned in, talking low. "Like I was saying, all I need is five bills, and I can get back to m
y family and get my network ramped up quick and start my appeals."

  Broussard looked at him. "Do you have five hundred dollars?"

  Fly slapped the chipped Formica with one puffy hand. "Hell, no! But my old lady's got two, and my stepbrother says that he'll front me fifty. So that leaves two hundred and seventy-five."

  Broussard gently corrected him. "That's two hundred and fifty."

  Fly took offense at the correction. "Fuck you." He looked around the room once, checking for anyone's raised antennae, and then angled his big head and whispered conspiratorially, "You give me the rest of the money and I promise—on my mama's grave—that I'll pay you back as soon as I walk out of here. AND, I'll pay you back with twenny-five percent interest. So you get what I'm saying? You give me two hundred and seventy-five and I give you back three hundred and sixty-three. That's solid R-O-I, man. Even the bank won't give you that."

  His math was wrong again, but Broussard chose not to point it out this time. Instead he asked, "Are you serious?"

  "Sho! It's a good deal!"

  Broussard could not help but laugh. He held up empty hands. "Do I look like I have three hundred dollars on me? You think I'm slumming here until my trust fund kicks in?"

  "Don't you work for Dina Hodges? In the Lab?"

  "Yes. So? She isn't paying us."

  "No, but you could get it from her. You could ask her for the money. Say you wanted it for one of your own people—"

  "No." The subject was closed. He had been down this road before with others. Every guy had a sob story, the last one more creative than the one before. One guy with a particularly gut wrenching tale of woe had even convinced him to actually approach Dina about a small loan, and the woman had become so incensed that she almost dropped him from the program. Later, Dina let him know that she was there to provide the Lab with support, not its employees. Got it? Yes! He had been handed his first lesson from the penal system: No handouts.

  "Think about it, man. That's a good deal."

  But Broussard was finished with this conversation. "No, thanks."

  The Fly bared his teeth. "I know why you don't help me. All you vanillas think you better than a common man."

  Broussard looked him straight in the eye. "No, just more thrifty."

  Fly flew out of his chair and swiftly acknowledged the sounds of twenty high-powered rifles being cocked in his direction.

  He settled for a threat. "You better watch your back," he snarled and flew off to the next table.

  Broussard turned his attention back to his meal. Near the end of lunch a raucous argument broke out between two inmates sitting near the front doors. There was nothing physical, just a lot of cussing and shoving. The guards let them blow off some steam before stepping in with their batons to knock a few heads. Within five minutes the two would-be combatants would be all kissed and made up. Then the bell rang, signaling that lunch was over, and everyone stood up and hurriedly took their places in line. The convicts allowed their bodies to be led back out into the winding halls, down three steep flights of stairs and towards the two sets of enormous double doors, called the Fat Boys, that opened onto the main exercise yard. All of them were thrumming with an energy that wasn't coming from messed up minds or denied genitals. This energy was surging from arms and legs, muscles and tendons. The men were anticipating a sweet taste of freedom and getting a molecular buzz from it. Someone in back of Broussard laughed from his gut and it provoked a tiny tee-hee in his belly, too. Yahoo! It was time for recess!

  3

  Broussard stepped outside. The sun's rays seemed to bear a grudge against the inhabitants of the earth; they hit him hard from overhead. He took in the sights before him. Great expanses of white concrete stretched out and up towards the horizon and the sky. Giant loops of concertina wire were bolted to the eight-meter high walls. The yard itself was devoid of anything that could be fashioned into a weapon, which meant just about everything. A lonely rubber ball took up space in one corner. It was the sole sports tool for over one hundred men. Most of the yardbirds just lined up against the walls and went through their exercise routines. In the playground's dead center, and out in the open so that the guards could have unobstructed views, a couple of homemade chess games (complete with Styrofoam pieces) were hastily begun, and more than a few inmates quickly surrounded the players to watch.

  Lincoln Hills was populated with the usual gangs—the Brotherhood, the Clan, the Kings, every Mafia denomination, the Bloods, the Bleeds, and the Ninja Knights. At the moment, representatives from the Clan and from the Peruvian Mafia were caucusing in opposite corners of the yard, no doubt carefully selecting their next victim for the midday entertainment. They would not kill the inmate, of course. Maybe just punch him up a bit, make him defecate on himself. Anything for a few yuks. They were facetiously termed Grade-B inmates. These were the ones who could be trusted to be outside the confines of their cells without trying to murder a guard or another prisoner. Many of them could work on campus and some even off campus; they all wore invisible badges of good citizenship, the otherwise cursed inhabitants of Lincoln Hills State Penitentiary.

  Broussard staked out an empty corner and pressed himself into the pocket of the converging walls. It felt safe to be there. He took a deep breath and briefly closed his eyes. The first time he had done that, two men had thrown him to the ground and stomped him senseless. He had spent five days in the infirmary. Second lesson: Always stay alert.

  "Hey, Butch!"

  He flicked up his eyelids to behold Abdul strutting towards him in all his menacing glory.

  "Hey," Broussard responded without enthusiasm. He did not like Abdul, who was both mean and dull. It was his pattern to start off with the usual about-nothing nattering—toe cheese, petty arguments with the guards, undecipherable dreams, blah, blah, blah—and then to progress to sleep-inducing recitations of the ingredients of his latest culinary fantasies. "Man, let me tell you about the wild berry cobbler I came up with last night!" Normally Broussard would just grin and bear it, but today was different. He sniffed the air. It was warm, odorless, and preternaturally calm. The sky itself had a slightly greenish tinge to it, as if he were looking at it through a pair of Ray Bans. Yes, today was definitely different. A chill raced up and down his spine. Was a summer cold coming on? He felt the tension again. His head still hurt, and he was in no mood to deal with any kind of nonsense. Abdul was still standing there expectantly, so he explained his situation to him in a manner from which his fellow inmate would glean the most clarity.

  "Fuck off."

  The other man was visibly taken aback and seemed prepared to strike. Broussard straightened up to face him. Abdul outweighed him by a good thirty pounds, but Broussard had a longer and faster reach. They had established that fact during their last go around when they had tangled in the yard during Broussard's sophomore year at Lincoln. That time his attacker had paid a visit to the infirmary. But he had learned a third valuable lesson: When in doubt, make a preemptive strike.

  Broussard's eyes withdrew from Abdul's eyes and swiveled down to a spot five millimeters above the Adam's apple. One blow and the other inmate would be put out of commission for months. Abdul knew it. Broussard knew it. And they both arrived at the same conclusion at the same time.

  Abdul's glare softened, and he released some of his internal pressure. "Kiss my ass," he hissed and scuttled off like a wounded vampire. Sonny immediately took his place.

  "You got a smoke, man?"

  "No," Broussard replied. "I'm out." Smoking was banned at Lincoln Hills, but somehow everybody had a cache of cigarettes. Broussard did not smoke but kept them around because they were good trade.

  "Shit," he mumbled. His hands jangled nervously at his sides. "Ain't nothing going right today. The AC was off in my cell. The toilet backed up." He stared into space. "Hell, I couldn't even jack off this morning. Something's wrong. The air is wrong. I can smell it."

  Broussard looked up at the hard blue of the sky. "What do you think it is?"
>
  Sonny slowly shook his grizzled head. "Earthquake, maybe? A storm? Who knows? But it's something big." His thick lips twitched in agitation. "Sure wish you had a smoke, man."

  Broussard held up his empty hands. "Nada."

  A huge shadow fell over them. "Smoking will kill you." It was Big Tim. Tim Holbrook was one of those big 'ole corn-fed southern boys who looked best in dirty overalls swinging a chainsaw. He had flaming red hair with freckles to match. On hot summer days like today he wore a cap and long sleeves to protect his fair skin. Otherwise he would just show up nearly half naked, much to the consternation of the prison staff. No one quite remembered what had landed him at Lincoln, which was highly unusual, but the scant scuttlebutt on the subject was that it was drug related.

  Sonny laughed. "You mean before the man kills me?"

  Big Tim beamed, showing two rows of perfect teeth. "Sonny, you're going to die of old age like the rest of us."

  "Shee-it! I'm gonna be laid up with two young fillies. I'll be screwing them both so hard that all the blood will leave my brain, and I'll get a brain coronary. And when the autopsy man cuts me open and sees the situation he's gonna write down on his report, 'This coon died from ACUTE BONER ECSTASY!'" Sonny laughed again. "I'm going to die a young man. A young, happy man!"

  Big Tim offered a look of avuncular indulgence. "A man can't know true happiness unless he has God in his life." Big Tim was a Bible thumper of the most obnoxious kind.

  Sonny rolled his eyes. "I stopped believing in God the day after I got here."

  "A lot of men lose their faith when they first go to prison."

  Sonny spat. "I meant to earth."

  "Oh." But Big Tim was undeterred. "But he believes in you. Read your Bible. He's here, living with you. He's with your children, taking care of them. Keeping them fed and in school."

  Sonny slapped the air with his left hand. "There you go, talking out your ass again. Welfare's my babies' daddy now. And to the best of my recollection, God ain't never been out to my house, and I'm quite sure that he don't give a rat's ass about any of my kids. 'Cause if he did then he wouldn't have allowed their daddy to be thrown in prison on trumped up charges."

  "Right. Right."

  "I told you: I didn't rob no bank. And I sure as hell didn't carjack nobody. I ain't never hurt nobody in my life! But police see a black man on the street between eight and five and automatically assume he's up to no good."

  "Right. Right." Tim looked pained. "God cares about all the children."

  "My ancestors were slaves! What kind of supreme being would allow a man or a woman to be bought and sold like an animal?"

  The question hung unanswered in the clear air. Broussard snuck a peek at Big Tim as he grappled for a plausible answer. Finally, he said, "Just read your Bible, man."

  "I've read the Bible," Sonny replied. "Probably more times than you have. The Bible doesn't have all the answers. The only book a man's got to cling to now is the Jack Jaw."

  And now it was time for Broussard to roll his eyes. He sighed. Men always seemed to need something greater than themselves to crow about when the world twirled their way, just as they needed something greater than themselves to blame when the world suddenly stopped spinning and threw them on their behinds. At Lincoln Hills, the Jack Jaw was that 'greater thing.' Basically, it was a collection of pseudo rules, regulations and social remedies written and handed down by old cons facing oblivion. The book rejected all Judeo-Christian based laws and mores as capitalistic propaganda, and proselytized a heterogeneous belief system composed of nihilism, tribalism, and a sprinkle of voodoo. At its core was the axiom that man could lead a more satisfying life if he lived by the world's natural laws, rather than those fabricated by religion or courts.

  Big Tim grimaced. "That's the devil's book."

  Sonny's dark eyes flashed. "Why? 'Cause you aren't the star of it?"

  "No. Because Jesus isn't the star of it."

  "Look! Jesus, if he did exist, was a man. He weren't no god. He weren't no angel. And he weren't no ET. He was a man ... with a hell of a PR campaign." Sonny laughed out loud at his own words. "Shit, the only thing Jesus can do for me now is get me a cigarette."

  Big Tim's effervescence withered a tad. "You're just a little lost, Sonny. Hey, let me show you a letter my pastor sent to me last week. He-"

  But Sonny cut him off at the pass. "Tim, the only reason your pastor pays you any attention is because your mama feeds his lazy butt every Sunday. Without her he'd probably starve. The dude's worse than a stray cat."

  Tim's face turned bright red. "I'm not ashamed of the gospel," he said. "And I'm not ashamed of its messengers."

  Sonny spat out a wad of green-flecked phlegm and muttered nastily. "Well, you should be."

  Just then Mike Bautista strolled over, hands jammed into his pockets. He looked awful. His eyes were red and tight, and his nose and lips looked rubbery.

  He greeted all with a wheezy "What's up?"

  "Nothing much."

  He swiped at his nose. "Man, these allergies are kicking my rear end." He moved uncomfortably in his army jacket. "Ain't this supposed to be summertime? It's freezing out here."

  The men looked at each other. It must have been at least eighty degrees.

  Sonny took an exaggerated step backwards. "Get away from me! You got the Bangkok flu!"

  Bautista wiped his runny nose. "Naw, it's just allergies. I ain't sick."

  Bautista was considered by most to be a respectable person. He was only one of a handful of Filipinos there. He had come to Lincoln Hills eight years ago as a teenager and was doing hard time on a multiple-murder conviction with special circumstances, crimes to which he freely admitted to committing. There were volumes of gossip about the case, which had involved his then fiancé and a couple of her brothers. Broussard had heard the quick and dirty versions during his first year and had quickly forgotten about them, only keeping the pertinent details indexed in his mental Rolodex: multiple second-degree murders, kidnapping, homemade explosives, gunfight with Modesto cops. That last bit, if true, made him more dangerous than most. Most people had a fear if not grudging respect for the power and range of the law. Those who did not were analogous to captive tigers without cages; when provoked, they had no behavioral boundaries. But strangely enough, it was Bautista with whom Broussard got along best. He never started a fight. Never gave anyone the evil eye. Didn't go behind another's back. Bautista just kept to himself. And when a body was tired of bullshitting around with him, he would simply take off and leave them alone. A model prisoner in anyone's book.

  As the others continued to shuck and jive with each other, Broussard looked around. Over near the northwest corner of the yard several men stood shoulder to shoulder, pantomiming conversation. Behind them stood a man. He was a husky fellow and a good head taller than the rest. His head was shaved clean, and a thick moustache the color of straw framed his mouth. It was Billy Speitz. Another man with bright red hair was with him. Broussard looked away. Whenever a really scared newbie arrived, Speitz would proposition him. In exchange for certain favors, Speitz would see to it that the newbie would receive protection during recess, contraband cigarettes, and maybe some fresh vegetables or canned goods—whatever Speitz's wife might have shipped to him that month. It was generally a symbiotic arrangement, so the guards let it happen. Broussard had no voiced thoughts upon the situation. That might have been dangerous. And Billy Speitz was a dangerous dude. He had a well-known disdain for everything connected to the Business Center, considering it a sell-out move by an inmate. Therefore, Broussard and Bautista were always in his sights. This gave recess an extra strain.

  In about five minutes the red-haired man left Speitz and pushed his way through the human fence. He walked quickly by their group, head down, and Broussard noticed that one of his eyes was swollen shut. Hmmm. Maybe these little interludes weren't so consensual after all.

  Bautista hawked up a green loogie and fired it against the wall. "So, Neal, you going to the Lab
today?" Bautista was the only prisoner from cell block B-7 who called him by his given name. And that was because they not only worked together at the Lab, but played together in the prison band.

  Broussard nodded.

  "I wonder if those parts came in yet."

  "Yeah, they're here," he replied. "But we had to go to a different vendor so we'll need to rework them."

  Bautista looked surprised. "Omni didn't ship?"

  "No."

  "Yeah? What's going on with Omni?"

  Good question. What was going on with Omni? Omni Metals was a precision metal works company in Georgia that specialized in producing custom stainless steel ball bearings, among other things. The Lab had been using them for the last two years to manufacture the titanium joints and legs for the MITs. They had a good track record of providing superior product and excellent customer service. Last month they had unexpectantly returned the Lab's check and cancelled the order. Allan Chang, the Lab manager, had been nonplussed at the time, but that had made it all the more maddening to Broussard and the rest of the staff. Moving forward, Chang had suggested that they get their non-standard parts from Lee's in Canada. And to hell with those dingbats at Omni.

  "Don't worry about it. We've got the parts. We'll just have to machine them a bit. But it should turn out okay."

  Bautista grunted; the explanation seemed to satisfy him. He pulled out an overripe peach from his jacket and bit a hole into it. Almost immediately he spat the piece of fruit out onto the ground, making a bad face. "Nasty!" And before anyone could say or do anything, Bautista lifted the peach high above his head and lobbed it towards a garbage can about ten meters away. It probably would have landed squarely in the middle of the can if it had not been for Abdul walking directly into its path. The peach clipped him neatly on the side of his head, then amazingly ricocheted off at a ninety degree angle and continued another seven meters to skip across the top of another prisoner's head. It then sailed another two meters, right into the face of a guard. All of this took place in about three seconds. All three men looked around, temporarily stunned. Bautista and Sonny burst out laughing. It had been comical but Broussard knew better. As soon as they discovered who had thrown the peach—fingers started pointing accusingly in their direction—there was going to be hell to pay. He groaned. Here we go again with the drama. Abdul came charging towards them like a flank-strapped bull. Broussard wanted to run. The crowd parted before Abdul like the Red Sea before Moses, and he let out a loud battle cry that would have made any Apache warrior envious. Jesus! A split second later the security siren went off, and everybody not carrying a gun or a Bruno instantly dropped to his knees with his arms raised high above his head. Although there was plenty of chatter, no one dared to move. The rule was: If you moved, the trigger on a tower guard's gun moved. It had happened half a dozen times before with bloody results. Those waters had been tested and been proven to be deep indeed.

  The prisoners were kept squatting for about five minutes. Then the head guard, Lieutenant Vermillion, blew his whistle, signaling "at ease." Broussard rose slowly to his feet, his joints complaining all the way.

  Two guards, rifles at the ready, pushed their way through to the group. One of them had tiny pieces of peach flesh dangling from his nose hairs.

  "What's going on?" one of them asked brusquely.

  "Nothing," Sonny offered. "Everything's copasetic. Mike here just lost control of his fruit."

  The other guard turned on Bautista. "Did you throw that peach?"

  Bautista held up his hands. "Look, I'm sorry. It was an accident. See, I was aiming for that garbage can over there, and Abdul here got in the way—"

  Abdul hastily stepped forward. "He hit me in the head, man! That's battery! Arrest him!"

  Then Broussard spoke up. "Sergeant, it was an accident. Mike wasn't out to hurt anybody."

  Sonny and Broussard watched the guard's face. His jaw was tensing and his eyes were unblinking. Those were the telltale signs of fatigue and near constant stress. Broussard silently chuckled. Well, we had something in common after all.

  Broussard lowered his voice to almost a whisper. "It's okay."

  The guard's green eyes shifted mechanically to Broussard, then to Bautista, and then finally to his partner. "All right."

  He gave a hand signal to the tower guard, and the prisoners watched as the marksman lowered his weapon and held out his arm, giving the "all clear" hand signal.

  The first guard relaxed. "You boys behave yourselves." He and his partner pulled away.

  "Yes, sir," they all chimed together.

  After they were out of earshot Abdul turned to Bautista and threw a mock punch. "You and me, man."

  Bautista laughed again. "Piss off."

  Abdul shrugged. "All right. You talking smack now 'cause you with your buddies, but you just wait. I'm gonna get you alone and shove your head so far up your butt they gonna need a telescope to find it." He started to walk away.

  Broussard tapped Bautista on the shoulder. "Some advice. Take care of this. Abdul isn't going to magically go away. And the Lab can't afford to lose you."

  Bautista sneered. "Abdul don't scare me."

  "I know. But—" Broussard realized that he was not going to get through to him with reasoning. Bautista was fearless, and was probably welcoming some sort of attack by Abdul that would allow him to blow off some steam. The two would duke it out, Bautista would end up being beaten silly and placed in the infirmary for the next month, and the Lab would lose its senior technician.

  "Hey! Abdul!" Abdul stopped in his tracks and turned around. Broussard waved him over. At first the prisoner gave him a WTF? look.

  "Come here. I want to talk to you." Broussard smiled to put him at ease.

  Bautista's eyes snapped to his with some heat. "What you doing, man?"

  "Handling your business. You can thank me later."

  He started to say something smart but then thought better of it and backed down. "You crazy."

  Abdul stomped over, still wearing his I'm-gonna-get-you-sucka! face. Think fast.

  "What you want?"

  Think fast.

  "Say, remember last week when you were telling me about that sweet potato mousse that you were thinking about making?"

  Abdul's malevolent gaze downshifted a gear. "That was a yam mousse," he growled.

  "Right." Broussard took a buddy step towards him. "Well, it sounded so good, I told my girl about it and she said that if she can get you the ingredients... . Would you mind making it for me—er, us?"

  Abdul's eyes grew as round as saucers. "Hell, no!" His large jaws cracked opened wide like those of a pit bull's, and he yelped happily, breaking free of murder-mode. "She gonna do that for me? Today must be my lucky day!" Then he guffawed loudly and glanced towards the heavens as if he half-expected to see God himself giving him the thumbs up. "That's sweet. All right." He was now purring like a contented lion. "But tell her she's looking at putting out some serious chink 'cause I ain't gonna make no half-ass mousse. First class, man! First class all the way."

  "No problem. Hey, tomorrow you just give me your shopping list and I'll pass it on to her next visiting day."

  Abdul was nodding, already plotting and planning. "Hey, I'm gonna need some ackohol."

  "What kind?"

  "I usually use what I got handy. But my preference would be Meyer's Rum."

  Broussard thought about that. All visitors were searched for contraband, and 'ackohol' was a definite no-no. "I'll see what I can do."

  "Now, I can do it without the booze, but I'd prefer not to. It's my own special touch that my granny taught me. Hey, I got a funny story."

  Broussard groaned inwardly. Hell! Well, for the sake of peace ...

  "I was living in St. Louis back in '87, and I had a warrant out for my arrest ... "

  The story went on and on until finally, "... So's I give it to her and she says, 'Wait.' So I just sit there. Do you know that within ten minutes my record was as clean as the inside of a j
unkie's wallet, and I was on my way home! You believe that shit?"

  Broussard shook his head slowly. "Unreal."

  "And do you know—"

  Lieutenant Vermillion blew his whistle again, and the cons began to arrange themselves into two raggedy lines. Broussard sighed with physical relief. Recess was over and no bones had been broken.

  Back inside his cell he composed a letter to Diane. He told her that he had been dreaming about her a lot lately, and complained about being away from her. Then he told her about the encounter with Abdul and about the yam mousse and his thoughts on how best to smuggle in a couple of ounces of the rum. He hated to ask her to do this; she always tried to play by the rules. But that would work in their favor. The inspection team would never suspect her of any wrongdoing and would perform only a cursory search of her care packages. He promised her that this would be the only time that he would ask her to do this, but they both knew better. An inmate's life could be saved if he and his outside support team could come up with the right ransom: heroin, cigarettes, foreign porn, you name it. He closed the letter with a sketch of his house in Marin showing two stick figures—one male and one female—holding hands in front of it.

  He sealed the envelope and got out his favorite book of poems by Everett Thatcher and retrieved an old photograph of Diane tucked between pages seventy and seventy-one. She was looking directly into the camera lens, squinting from the day's brightness. There was no indication of when the picture had been taken, but it must have been a good day. She looked happy. He and Diane had only been dating six months when The Incident occurred. He had been lying low since his divorce and had really not been in any emotional shape to begin another long-term relationship. In fact, she had been but one of three girls that he had been interested in at the time. But they had had several things in common: a love for Latin jazz, poetry, playing guitar, and long hikes in the mountains. She had her own money and was motivated in bed. He was kilometers shy of being in love, but she had eased his loneliness and sometimes made him laugh. Her love made his incarceration bearable. That and his work.

  He carefully replaced her picture inside the book and put all away. A large horsefly buzzed into his cell and landed on the wall opposite his bunk. He considered it as it made its way from one artificial horizon to the next. It went about its business with casual mindlessness, and yet when he merely flexed one of his thumbs it took off. A creature of two minds? Two consciousnesses? One dedicated to the mundane, the other hardwired for survival? That was an intriguing thought, and he wrote it down in his notebook titled Observations des Animaux.

  At two o'clock a guard came to take him to his monthly appointment with the prison shrink. Ordinarily he would have looked forward to the interaction, but now it just seemed like one more tedious chore to drill through. He felt like telling the guard, "I'm sorry. My life is an unending nightmare. Would you mind coming back after I wake up?"

  He and the guard trudged down the large halls again. At two-fifteen they entered Ward D which housed the infirmary and the doctors' offices. His appointment was on the second floor. The hallways here were cool and bright with soothing pastel colors. They stopped outside of D201, knocked, and waited.

  Dr. Janice Navarro greeted him with her customary power handshake. She motioned for him to take a seat as she flipped through his chart. It had a blue-bordered label on the tab which read: "Neal Aaron Broussard."

  Broussard avoided looking directly at her. Instead he focused on her shoes. Long ago Juggy had let him in on a secret about women: If they didn't know a guy and whether or not he was worth talking to, they would check out his shoes. If they were trendy and expensive, then she would give him a go. If not, he got the cold shoulder. (Juggy had had very little formal education, but the man knew reams about the opposite sex.) From that point on he incorporated that test into his own potential-date-selection process. After all, turnabout was fair play. Dr. Navarro was normally impeccably dressed. And today she had chosen to wear sturdy, unadorned slingbacks with sensible squared toes. He thought that Juggy would have approved. And if he weren't in prison, he probably would have asked her out. But just once. Because there was still Diane.

  The desk phone rang. The doctor's eyes flicked to her patient. "Excuse me." She stood and crossed the large room in three long strides. Soon she was lost in conversation.

  There was a dream catcher hanging in the large barred window that was nailed shut. It swayed evenly with the gentle currents of the room. Relaxing. Everything was coordinated to relax and subdue. As was his habit, he looked around, taking in the trappings of a real life. Almost every square centimeter of the work surfaces was covered with file folders, binders, books, magazines, boxes of tissue, or crayon drawings. (The doctor had two preschoolers.) The August issue of Reader's Digest caught his eye. He picked it up and chased down the funny parts. But after a minute or two he was bored and turned his attention to the hard stuff. Two muscular rubber plants stood sentry beside a massive cherry bookcase. On the top shelf Navarro kept her old textbooks and the latest volumes of professional journals on institutionalized crazies.

  On the middle shelf was a framed poster that read:

  "God is dead."

  —Nietzsche, 1882

  -------------------

  "Nietzsche is dead."

  —God, 2016

  He smiled to himself. That one was always good for a chuckle.

  On the bottom shelf lay a jumble of papers and footsies and such crap. He placed the Reader's Digest on that pile, imposing his will upon her disorder. It was a pathetic move, but it made him feel better. And that was the ultimate goal of going to see a doctor, right?

  She finished up her call and returned to her chair. "Sorry 'bout that."

  He held up a hand. "No problem."

  "How are you today, Neal?"

  "Fine."

  "How are you doing on the new meds?"

  "Fine," he lied.

  Her gaze dipped with mild disappointment. "You aren't taking them, are you?"

  "No," he confessed somewhat meekly, figuring that this tone would take some of the sting out of her anger.

  "Might I ask why not?"

  "I'm still not sleeping that well."

  "Maybe you didn't give them enough time."

  "Maybe."

  "Would you like to go to back to the Ativan?"

  He shook his head. For the last six months, he had been fighting to fall asleep, and when he did his dreams were discordant, even terrifying. Oftentimes he would see the faces of friends from high school, tormented and screaming in pain. Dr. Navarro had decoded these nocturnal phantasms as manifestations of his latent feelings of guilt about The Incident. He did not agree. He rarely felt guilt. So it did not make sense that he would start this late in life.

  "Maybe it's something that I need to work out without chemicals," he offered.

  She looked skeptical. But, of course, he mused, her line of thinking was that one pill—the right pill—was going to ultimately be the panacea for all of his mental ills. She, like most psychiatrists, fervently believed that the myriad mental dysfunctions within a person's mind could be resolved not with a well-balanced life, but with the correction of chemical imbalances within the brain. Hey, you aren't depressed because your life has been in the crapper for the last twenty years, it's because your neurotransmitters are all jacked up! Now here's another dose of brain candy that's going to whip those bad boys into shape!

  "Maybe..." Her eyes glazed over. At that moment they were two different species without a common tongue.

  Peaceful silence enveloped the room as she jotted something down in his file.

  "Um," he began slowly. "There's a guy on my floor who's going bonkers."

  She looked up. "Oh? What's his name?"

  "Martinez."

  "Samuel Martinez. I know." And she resumed writing.

  "Well, he's driving us crazy. And it's making it real tough to get any sleep these days."

  Her eyebrows arched. "He's o
n the max dosage of tranquilizers."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  "Well, can you do anything else because apparently they aren't working."

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know ... move him? Put him in the psych ward."

  She smiled again and closed his file. "It's booked solid until next spring."

  She took another call, and his mind went outside. Not to the prison yard, or even to Reno, the closest city. It went to the fat interstate highway that coursed through the mountains about a mile away, the Truckee River hugging all of its curves. In his mind he was driving a mint-condition 1964 pearl white Barracuda with leather bucket seats. Segovia was caressing his ears as he cleared the dead lands of Nevada and headed west towards California. Home. Copper haired cows and feeble barns soon dotted the plump hills, indifferent heralds of his return to the civilized world. He eased into the fast lane and pushed his foot against the accelerator and let the car loosen up its monster V8 engine a bit. Soon he was gliding over the road at ninety-five kilometers per hour. Free! He was free!

  "Neal, you are aware that you have a psych review coming up in six weeks?"

  He caught the last part of her question. "Yes."

  "Would you like me to make any recommendations on your behalf?"

  "Can you recommend that I be set free?" he replied, only half jokingly.

  "I don't know. Can I?"

  "I believe that you can," he answered truthfully.

  "Based on what evidence?"

  Anger like bitter bile rose from his belly. He wanted to scream at her, "BASED ON THE EVIDENCE THAT I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE!" Instead he calmly answered, "Based on the fact that I don't belong here."

  She gave him a level look. "You murdered three people, Neal. You injured society. Just where do you think you belong?"

  "I performed a service for society." He was being sardonic, but it could not be helped. Life imprisonment stretched out before him into infinity, and it was truly beginning to unhinge him.

  "Is that what you are going to tell the parole board? To the families of your victims? To their children?"

  Victims? He wanted to punch a wall. They were certainly not victims! Bad seeds. High-functioning psychopaths. But victims? Never! Reason fled from him and he found himself in the grips of a white hot fury. He did not dare answer for fear of saying something really stupid. Dr. Navarro was a pain in the ass but an ally. It had been she who had recommended that he be liberated from the pit of Ward A when it became apparent that he would probably die there sooner than expected. And it had been she who had personally vouched for his professional integrity before the warden when he had applied for the Senior Mechanical Engineer position at the Lab. No, it would not help him in the slightest to disrupt that relationship in any way. And so he stashed his emotions in a safe corner of his mind and sat in silence and watched the dream catcher to see if it had caught any of his thoughts. It was motionless.

  "You once said that you thought that God had commanded you to go to work that morning."

  He did not respond.

  "Do you still believe that?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "I don't know. Maybe because that's what a crazy person says. Crazy people are always talking to God."

  "And you weren't crazy—temporarily insane—that morning?"

  "I was very angry that morning."

  "Angry enough to kill three people?"

  "Apparently."

  "And are you still angry?"

  He had to pause and think about that one. And, of course, that was all she needed to know. She stood and extended her hand. "Neal, it was nice seeing you again. Same time next month?"

  He took her hand and firmly shook it. "Without a doubt."

  After he was placed back inside his cell, he punched the walls until his knuckles bled. He groaned. Another dumb move. He had to be at work in fifteen minutes. He hastily wrapped the cuts with gauze and duct tape. When his armed escort arrived he kept his hands down close to his sides.

  The Lab was a fifteen-minute shuttle ride away. Bautista sat in the next seat up from him. There were eight others riding with them. Lincoln was situated on over five thousand acres of parched desert between Sparks and Reno. The main building which housed the inmates was near the center of the parcel. The laboratory—the newest building in the prison's recently renovated Business Center—was situated near the main entrance to the prison. Building seven stood three stories tall and contained a staff of forty civilian employees and one hundred inmate employees. To the good, tax-paying citizens of Nevada, it was the latest boondoggle to be forced upon them by an indifferent Washington. To inmate number 460864-N, it was concrete-and-steel salvation.

  A hardy stand of Joshua trees mingled easily with clumps of sagebrush and wild aloe around the building's perimeter. There was even a small reflection pool with wrought iron benches that the inmates would never sit on. The guard shack was at a discrete distance away and was itself hugged at the knees by imported flowers.

  After the guard inspected the shuttle driver's paperwork and performed a head count on the passengers, he raised the reinforced gate and waved them through. The driver parked in a designated space and let them out into the waiting arms of armed handlers.

  As they were led toward building seven, they passed by the generator shacks. Inside, two ancient diesel Kohlers were rhythmically chugging and belching away like chained dragons. Their emissions had been off the charts for years, and the EPA had issued fines to the prison twice in the past three years for both air and noise pollution. Both fines had been beaten down with promises from Warden Davidson to upgrade the system. To date, nothing had been done, and the Business Center continued to play host to its chorus of roars, whines, and clacks. "Those things are gonna blow one day," Bautista shouted.

  "Tell Allan," Broussard shouted back.

  "Why? He ain't gonna do nothing 'bout it!"

  The prisoners were released to the Lab by the intake guard. From that point forward they were on their own. Theoretically, they could have stowed away in one of the large storage lockers and hid out until someone took them away. Or they could have run to the kitchen and swiped all of the cold cuts, breads, and cheeses that the local organic market supplied them with. The staff lounge always beckoned; the men could slip onto the overstuffed couches and slurp on the wine coolers that Chang thought he was hiding underneath the kitchen sink. Instead they marched single file to the scrub room and washed their faces, necks, arms and hands-all exposed surfaces. They had to repeat this process every time they entered the Lab from the outside. It was a monumental pain, especially the topical radiation scrubber, which in itself was slightly toxic. But it was absolutely necessary. Some of the transistors on the chips that they were working with were so small and delicate that even tiny alpha particles could corrupt data flow. Even common human-hosted microbes could be nasty. But while everyone agreed that all of the washing and scrubbing and rinsing were necessary, everyone also felt that the incessant cleaning took too large a bite out of the workday. There were many vocal complaints, but as the powers that be had branded it as an absolute necessity, the staff had resigned themselves to the routine. Unhappily so.

  After cleanup, it was on to the locker room to change into a set of sterilized work clothes. This month it was Hawaiian shirts and Ben Davis pants. At Bautista's request, next month they would be wearing dashikis and Kung Fu pants. The month after that, Walters was styling them in athletic tee-shirts and chinos. Wardrobe rotation had been one of Dina's more popular ideas.

  As they shed their prison blues and donned the clothing of free men, a heavy feeling of solemn contemplation descended upon them. They were no longer thieves or liars or worse, but obedient acolytes taking part in a high religious ceremony. They were (yes, temporarily) leaving the world of relentlessly cold reality behind and entering the equally sturdy domain of adult make-believe, where for the next three hours they would in fact be free men. Human beings of und
eniably excellent intellectual pedigrees and pursuits. Within these walls, they could apply frictionless thinking to complex situations, create and resolve chaos, command change, even banish group-think inertia-all within the virtual ecosystem, and all without bearing the psychic burdens of being men in chains. In the Lab they were once again on the inside looking out upon a world becoming more absurd by the day and laughing their heads off about it. Freedom had become their god, and the Lab its holy temple.

  Broussard, Bautista, and the others stepped into the main office together and were immediately assaulted by Tom Petty's "Runnin' Down a Dream" blaring from the stereo system. Chang had obviously come to work early ... for a change.

  Broussard grabbed a cup of coffee from the kitchenette and headed towards his cubicle. Eric Powell, the other mechanical engineer, jumped out from behind a ficus tree and intercepted him.

  "Hey, Neal." Prison tags were not allowed in the Lab.

  "Hey." Broussard responded.

  "Did Allan talk to you about Lane Instruments?" This was vintage Powell. He would bring up really important matters without any sort of preamble. Just zero to sixty in one second. This behavior had bothered many on the staff at first, but gradually people became adjusted to his rhythm and ultimately began to see a silver lining in it. There was never any dead air or wasted energy with Powell. It was, "Hello. Here's the current situation/problem/crises, and here are my suggestions for resolution of same. Goodbye." It was a highly efficient form of interaction that disallowed the usual banalities.

  "No, but I haven't checked my emails yet. Who are they?"

  "They might be the guys who can supply us with a lighter rotor."

  Broussard perked up then. "Really?" He made his way to his cube with Powell in tow and sat down. "What's the catch?"

  Powell shrugged. "There's a tiny drop in tensile strength, but it'll be barely noticeable."

  "Can they just supply the rotors or do they want to sell us the entire motor?"

  "Well, at this point, they're looking to ship the entire motor, but way under what Dunn is charging."

  "Well, that's fine and dandy but we've already bought and paid for ten Dunn motors—"

  "—And we need twenty more."

  "I don't know ..." Broussard flipped through a few notes on the Dunn motor and the Engineering department's current dissatisfaction with it. "Allan's the manager. It's his call."

  "He said that it was up to you."

  Broussard held up his hands in protest. "You know, you guys are always trying to force me into playing pro tem Allan when he's out of earshot, and I do NOT want the job!"

  But Powell was not to be deterred. "I'm not asking you to manage me, Neal. I've already done the legwork; I just need you to approve it."

  Broussard thought about it for a few seconds. "Eric, remember the last time we did this?"

  Powell stroked a fat pimple on his chin. "Not really." Powell was a thief, and like most thieves a consummate liar as well.

  "I signed off on those 'really cheap' solar panels you ordered sight unseen, and then they invoiced three thousand dollars over quote?"

  "That was a billing error, okay?"

  "Yes, and it was also my behind in a sling."

  "But we got that sorted out."

  "After Allan threatened to throw me off MIT. Sorry. I don't need that kind of stress right now."

  Powell let out a loud sigh of exasperation. "Look, the part works. It's under budget, and they'll make our modifications and be ready to ship within two weeks. This is doable."

  "Okay. Get a prototype in here by the end of next week and we'll take a look at it."

  "We don't need one. I've already crunched the numbers. I told you. It'll work. The vendor's coming by tomorrow with a presentation."

  Jesus. Broussard really felt like saying something very unkind at that moment but he held back. Powell was a pretty intelligent guy who simply didn't like getting bogged down with too many time-consuming details. And he totally understood that. They only had three hours a day to work on the MITs, so they were always running up against one deadline or another. But that did not mean that they had to resort to black box engineering. They had to demonstrate one hundred percent due diligence with all of the MIT components, even the less than glamorous ones. This way there was no worry about the various anti-Dina's swarming over them and the MIT program screaming malfeasance. "I don't want a slick video showing me how it's going to work. I want a working prototype in here showing me that it works. By next week! And I'd like to have a copy of all of the drawings and the cost sheets by tomorrow night. And tell your vendor buddy not to get too excited about selling us the entire package at this point. My primary interest is in the rotor."

  "But—"

  "Now you asked me to make an executive decision and I've just made two. So we're both happy now, right?"

  Powell looked anything but happy right then. Broussard figured that the vendor must have promised him a helluva goody bag to go along with that presentation. And now Powell was going to have to go through a long, dry hump without any lubrication. Oh, well. Not his problem.

  Powell looked ready to press his point further. Broussard held up a deflective hand. "Let it go."

  Powell's jaws tightened. "I'm going to take this up with Allan."

  "That's what you should have done in the first place. And ask him why we're putting another empty black box on the mother board."

  "What?"

  "The little doohickey that showed up last week. What's it for? It's crowding out one of my heat sinks."

  "Oh. Dina wants that."

  "Since when does Dina get a say in engineering?" Broussard sighed. "Forget I asked." Dina was the PPP's golden angel. "Ask Allan if it's absolutely necessary, okay?"

  "Will do." Powell cut loose a wide, yappy grin. "Now he'll have two things to be pissed off about. I heard that Davidson's coming over tomorrow."

  "Seriously? Wonder why?"

  Warden Davidson avoided the Lab like the plague. Only something extraordinarily good or something exceptionally bad would force an appearance. In any case, drama was sure to ensue. Allan Chang and Warden Davidson got along as well as two male Japanese fighting fish, and the customary professional courtesies were not always sufficient to mitigate the animosity between them. So why the sudden visit?

  "Maybe he's just coming to see Dina," Broussard suggested.

  Powell shrugged. "Maybe. But why meet here? Davidson's office is just as good as Allan's. Better!"

  Broussard sighed, ready to move on. "I don't know ... "

  "Oh, well ... I'd better get back to work." Powell receded into the soft tans and browns of the office décor. Broussard fired up his computer and blew through his emails: Boring. Boring. Don't know. Are you serious? Respond later. Boring. Clueless. Whaaat? Don't know. Hmmm. Place in My Little Pony file. Place in Horse Manure file. Oh! There was the pre-meeting announcement from Chang for two-thirty about his meeting with Warden Davidson. So rumor was now fact. What was up? He accepted the meeting and scrolled through the rest of his new messages. Respond later. Boring. Arrgh! Don Klein, one of the volunteer robotics specialists assisting them with MIT from Colorado Springs, was griping about the polyurethane skin that the design team had encased the MIT bodies in, saying that they were of "inferior quality and overpriced." Broussard cringed. They were sure as heck not overpriced! Broussard shot off an email to him explaining the MIT's criteria and basically asking him, "Why the fuss? Those skins were for prototypes of a robotic toy, and therefore not needing high-end materials at this point." He should have also pointed out that it was Don's team who had been responsible for buying that particular skin against Lincoln's advice in the first place. Of course he did not, but he did add: "Don, skin design and selection normally rest with the engineering and design teams at Lincoln Hills. However, we certainly value any input from other departments on this and any other matter concerning MIT design. Cheers!" He punched the SEND button. Klein and Bill Thompson, another offsite volunteer, w
ere both retired bodies from NASA. Because of their exceptional work records, the two men still enjoyed almost sinful privileges, like access to Air Force Space Command's Cray computer. This, coupled with their outsized egos, allowed them to think that they were the Dungeon Masters on MIT.

  Broussard opened his "Personal" folder. There was a message from Diane! He clicked on it and eagerly read its contents:

  Happy Bee-Day, Babe! How are you feeling on this fine day? I hope you aren't too depressed about it. We're ALL growing older. But we're getting better, too, right? I have your present and I'll give it to you next visiting day. I spent half my paycheck on it so I hope you like it!! You'd better like it!!! Well, gotta run! I'm on my lunch break. Stay sweet! I L-O-V-E You!