Sue-Ann Bradley looked carefully at the floor and paid them no
attention. The outside guard pulled the switch that turned on the
tanglefoot electronic fields that swamped the floor of the block
corridor and of each individual cell. While the fields were on, you
could ignore the prisoners--they simply could not move fast enough,
against the electronic drag of the field, to do any harm. But it was a
rule that, even in Block O, you didn't leave the tangler fields on all
the time--only when the cell doors had to be opened or a prisoner's
restraining garment removed.
Sue-Ann walked bravely forward through the opened gate--and fell flat
on her face. It was her first experience of a tanglefoot field. It was
like walking through molasses.
The guard guffawed and lifted her up by one shoulder. "Take it easy,
auntie. Come on, get in your cell." He steered her in the right
direction and pointed to a greensleeved straitjacket on the cell cot.
"Put that on. Being as you're a lady, we won't tie it up, but the rules
say you got to wear it and the rules--Hey. She's crying!" He shook his
head, marveling. It was the first time he had ever seen a prisoner cry
in the Greensleeves.
However, he was wrong. Sue-Ann's shoulders were shaking, but not from
tears. Sue-Ann Bradley had got a good look at Sauer and at Flock as she
passed them by and she was fighting off an almost uncontrollable urge
to retch.
* * * * *
Sauer and Flock were what are called prison wolves. They were
laborers--"wipes," for short--or, at any rate, they had been once.
They had spent so much time in prisons that it was sometimes hard even
for them to remember what they really were, outside. Sauer was a big,
grinning redhead with eyes like a water moccasin. Flock was a lithe
five-footer with the build of a water moccasin--and the sad, stupid
eyes of a calf.
Sauer stopped yelling for a moment. "Hey, Flock!"
"What do you want, Sauer?" called Flock from his own cell.
"We got a lady with us! Maybe we ought to cut out this yelling so
as not to disturb the lady!" He screeched with howling, maniacal
laughter. "Anyway, if we don't cut this out, they'll get us in trouble,
Flock!"
"Oh, you think so?" shrieked Flock. "Jeez, I wish you hadn't said that,
Sauer. You got me scared! I'm so scared, I'm gonna have to yell!"
The howling started all over again.
The inside guard finished putting the new prisoners away and turned off
the tangler field once more. He licked his lips. "Say, you want to take
a turn in here for a while?"
"Uh-uh." The outside guard shook his head.
"You're yellow," the inside guard said moodily. "Ah, I don't know why I
don't quit this lousy job. Hey, you! Pipe down or I'll come in and beat
your head off!"
"Ee-ee-ee!" screamed Sauer in a shrill falsetto. "I'm scared!" Then he
grinned at the guard, all but his water-moccasin eyes. "Don't you know
you can't hurt a wipe by hitting him on the head, Boss?"
"Shut _up_!" yelled the inside guard.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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