Streetlethal

by Steven Barnes

Stitch was watching him carefully. "Well?"

  "Who's showing me the way?"

  The thin man tapped himself on the chest. His eyes were eager.

  "All right," Aubry said finally. "I'll try anything."

  In the middle of his work shift three days later, it happened. The air in the laundry room was rank with steam and sweat. The men around seemed quiet and expectant.

  Things happened in a rush. One minute he was burning his hands on a load of pants and underwear, the next there was a flurry of movement as two of the inmates, in coordinated action, attacked two of the guards in the room.

  One of the two prisoners gripped his man from behind in a savage headlock, sitting him on the floor and bending over him from behind. "Hold the stun!" he screamed. "If I go out, I'll fall forward and take his neck with me."

  There was no answer from the barricaded guard stations, but the eight men in the room were tense. Then a low, triumphant voice spoke over the intercom: "All right, you assholes. We've got 'em. Wire those guards and let's get moving."

  Only the two who had knocked out the guards seemed to know exactly what was going on. They stood, eyes flashing. "Who's with us?" One screamed defiantly. "We're going to get some reporters in here and talk about Charteris's little racket."

  There were cries of agreement, and laundry was thrown to the floor. The other man spoke. "We can't get out of here, but by now we've got almost ten hostages, and control of our sector. We can hold it long enough to see some action."

  "But they'll turn off the air conditioning!" someone yelled. "We'll suffocate!"

  "We'll take worse if we don't get our story out. Who's with me?"

  Hesitantly at first, then with increasing enthusiasm, hands were raised into the air. "All right!" the initiator yelled. "Everyone to the cell block!" There was a roar, and a tide of prisoners swept out of the room. Aubry started forward, but there was a restraining pressure on his shoulder.

  "No," Stitch said softly. "Don't go with the others. Everything we need is right here."

  "But is—?" Aubry paused, thoughts stuttering. "What do I do?"

  Stitch's voice was urgent. "It's all taken care of. Just trust me."

  Aubry looked uncertainly at the beckoning door. "All right."

  Stitch did a little hop in place and motioned for Aubry to follow him. Aubry heard screaming and the muffled sound of an explosion. There was a growing whine in the air. He felt the vibration of a distant alarm trembling in the floor.

  Then came a sudden stillness of air that was unmistakable and ominous. The warden had cut the pumps in the affected areas. The atmosphere would go bad within hours.

  Stitch hurried him to a corner of the laundry room. The unattended washers and driers, great hulks of chrome and steel, still sighed steam and settled with metallic creaks. Warm water condensed on the ceiling and dripped down into the recycler ducts.

  He chose one of the ventilation pipes and ripped into it with a homemade knife, peeling aside the paint and plaster to get at a flexible layer of metallic sheeting. He tore loose a huge square of it and folded it into a bulky package, jamming it into a makeshift knapsack.

  "Here," Stitch said, handing Aubry the pack. His tiny eyes flashed nervously. "We have to get this grille loose."

  "Grille?" Aubry asked vaguely. Despite his confusion, he found a laundry cart with a leg that wobbled and set to dismantling it. One foot went alongside the thick wire mesh of the basket. The other planted firmly on the ground as he fought with the leg, tearing it free with a snap.

  "Why this one?" he asked, slipping one corner of the bar into the side. He tried a levering motion, then grunted. "Get me something to support this—anything solid and about twice the size of my fist."

  Stitch scampered away in search, bringing back a hunk of machinery. He held it in place while Aubry set his bar against it and under the grille. He heaved, and it began to give way.

  "It's the largest ventilator duct on this level," Stitch said, keeping an eye on the door. 'The only one large enough to hold a man."

  Aubry grunted, relaxing his muscles in preparation for another heave. "Why hasn't anyone done this before?"

  "Because of the ventilator fan. We'll have to rip it out of the shaft to get by. If you tried to do that with the ventilation system going, you'd be electrocuted or chopped to bits. And any interference with the system would show up immediately on the system computer. Only when the ventilator is shut down— during a riot—can it be done. As soon as they find out what's happened, they'll correct the system."

  With a final pop and a shower of plaster of dust, the worried half of the grille gave way completely. Aubry put the lever down, grabbed the grille in his hands, and twisted, exhaling sharply, the veins in his forehead standing out in branching patterns. The grille came loose with a final shudder of metal and plaster, and Aubry threw it aside.

  "Hurry up!" Stitch whispered, crawling into the hole.

  It was pitch-dark within. As Stitch disappeared up the shaft, Aubry looked down, trying to gauge its depth. There seemed no way to tell. Shrugging, he forced his way in. Anything was better than another session in the little room.

  Above him, Stitch moved up shallow handholds with eerie agility for a man partially disabled. The shaft may have been large enough for an average man, but it was too narrow for Aubry's liking. He lost skin from both of his shoulders, and trying to find leverage to hoist his bulk another meter seemed impossible at first.

  Twice he almost lost his grip, sliding down the tube, until his fingers could dig in and stop him. From the darkness above he heard Stitch hiss, "Are you all right?"

  Aubry panted, "Yeah."

  At last they reached a horizontal branch. Stitch moved into it, motioning Aubry to follow. They crept along the narrow tube until they reached one of the great fans that pumped cool air down the pipes. Its blades were still. A faint light from beyond outlined the edges with ghostly luminescence.

  "This is it," Stitch whispered. "You've got to get beyond this, but when you have it you're almost clear." They switched positions in the tube, the air growing warmer and staler with each breath.

  He crawled up to the fan and drew out his pry bar, working at one of the blades. It started to bend, then the pry bar snapped, banging Aubry's hands against the walls of the shaft. Anger flared, followed almost immediately by a wave of nausea. Alarmed, he fought the anger down, trying desperately to change it to another emotion. The only one that came at all easily was fear, a crawling snake of claustrophobia.

  Normally, he would have cursed the fear away, but now it was the only option open to him, so he used it. He grasped the edge of the fan blade, feeling it revolve gently, smoothly on its bearings. He breathed deeply and let his fear explode out of him, into his shoulders, into his arms and hands. His fingers bit into the metal like grapnels. His whole body was locked in unyielding contraction, until he knew that either the fan would give—or his spine.

  His lungs ached and his head swam as he pulled. He heard no sound except his own thundering heartbeat, and then suddenly all sound and all dim light faded to black.

  There was a hand shaking his shoulder. Stitch was there over him. Even in the faint light, the awe in Stitch's eyes was obvious. Aubry struggled upright and realized that he had ripped the fan half out of its moorings.

  Together, they pulled it aside and crawled past. Above him was another stretch of vertical shaft.

  He inched up, mindless of the pain in his shoulders, of the skin being flayed from palms and elbows. There was a chance at freedom ahead, and that was worth any sacrifice. At last they came to a concrete blister. Aubry set his weight, wedging his feet and ankles into the sides of the shaft. He inhaled deeply and heaved, pushing until the heavy grate began to lift. He gave another grunt and pushed it out. It fell to the ground outside with a dull thump.

  At first he froze, expecting to hear running feet and the whine of a shock prod on kill. Nothing. He cautiously raised his head out of the blister, eyes widening slightly a
t the sight of the abandoned hothouse.

  They were at the surface of the desert, in an area domed with thousands of square meters of shatterproof glass and plastic. In it, along with the algae tanks that provided part of the food for the prison, was a garden laced with cactus and fruit.

  Smaller bubbles within the larger housed orchids and other tropical flowers. The scent of citrus and lilac were sweet in the air, and the hanging ferns made the huge room look green and lush.

  "All clear?" Stitch whispered.

  Aubry gave no direct answer, just climbed slowly out of the blister, dropping to the ground without a sound. He helped Stitch out. The little man bent to pick up a corner of the grille, straining without effect. "Come on," he whispered urgently, "we've got to get this back on."

  Aubry wrenched his gaze away from the sunlight streaming through the translucent panels. His breathing was ragged, his scarred fists knotted convulsively. He turned back to the blister, bent his knees, and fastened his hands into a section of the grille. He straightened his legs slowly and dragged it clear of the ground, sliding it up the slanting concrete side and fitting it into place. Stitch watched, silent.

  After the grille clicked down, Stitch pulled Aubry towards a toolshed. "Come on. We have to wait until it's darker, and I have some instructions for you." Aubry trembled with frustration, but followed.

  When the six o'clock buzzer sounded, the two of them crept out of the shed and across the forest of miniature fruit and shade trees to the outer edge of the dome.

  Stitch pressed against the material experimentally. "Plastic," he said softly, watching it give slightly under his fingertips. "Supposed to be unbreakable. So we're not going to break it."

  "How do we get through?"

  "We'll split it along the seam. The glue they used to seal the plastic to the metal frame is even stronger than the plastic— but both of them are stronger than the metal frame. That is where the weakness is."

  Aubry looked at the little man with new respect. "I don't understand—how do you know so much about the prison?"

  "No time for questions." Stitch's hand searched the seams. "It's here," he said scanning each panel in turn. "Everybody knew that Denim worked for Charteris. Did you ever wonder what he got out of it?"

  "Money? Drugs?"

  "That—and more. Women, when he wanted them. And, if need be—an escape hatch."

  Aubry's eyes lit. "Where?" He slammed his palms against the framework of the bubble. Hollow booming sounds vibrated down the length of the wall, but there was no give.

  "Not here, where anyone walking by might test it. Higher up—the next level of panels."

  Three meters from the ground was the next row of squares. It was dark outside, and they were dim. "Drag that table over here," Stitch said. "We don't have much time."

  Savagely, Aubry swept his arm across the top of one of the heavy wood-grain tables, sending plants and potting soil spraying into the air. The legs were screwed down, but the screws were there for stability, not security, and were no match for his desperate surge of strength. He dragged it across the room to the side of the bubble and stood atop it, testing the panels.

  "Damn!" he screamed in the darkening room. "They're still sealed!"

  "Of course it feels that way. But the frame is weaker there."

  "What the hell kind of tool was he going to use? Never mind. I can do it." He shoved, but the dirt on the tabletop slid under his straining feet and he made no headway. He gasped, looking around wildly. So close ...

  "Get me one of the shovels."

  Stitch's footsteps were pinpoints of sound in the dusk as he ran to the toolshed and returned. He handed a slender shovel up to Aubry. Knight set the tang in the tiny gap between plastic and frame, and heaved. Slowly, the sheet began to move. The half-centimeter of unbreakable plastic that stood between him and freedom edged out of place as the metal groove splintered. His eyes narrowed and he set his feet again, hissing, prying, and there was a popping sound as half of the sheet came loose from its slot. Aubry stuck his head out, smelled the air, and fought to keep himself from trembling.

  "Good," Stitch said urgently. "Now—I have to get out of here. The guards will have the riot broken soon."

  "Aren't you coming?"

  "With these legs? I'd never make it across the desert." He shook his head. "Don't even think it. You can't carry me. They'd get us both."

  Aubry climbed back down and dusted off his hands. "How long do I have?"

  "Until the first head count."

  "Then, I'd better move it." They returned to the blister, and Aubry levered the grate out again. Stitch popped into it, pausing only to say, "Good luck."

  "Stitch—" Aubry said, trying desperately to call up his feelings. Gratitude, suspicion, anything at all. All were overwhelmed by the burning need to escape, to leave this place that had taken so much from him.

  Lamely, he held out his hand. The words felt thick in his mouth. "Thank you."

  Stitch shook it, smiling in a way that made him feel vaguely uncomfortable. "Good luck," the little man said. "You're going to need it." Then he was gone, scuffling back down the vent pipe.

  Aubry ran back to the pried panel. He shouldered the crude rucksack and set his hands in the open space, levering himself up and through.

  Dangling on the outside, he closed the panel as best he could, then dropped to the ground.

  The sand rustled as he bent to one knee, trying to get his bearings. There was a faint red glow from behind a rise of mountains. "West," he muttered.

  Death Valley Maximum Security Penitentiary was in the middle of Mesquite Flat. He had to cover close to thirty kilometers to Cottonwood Mountains, northeast of the prison.

  His thin-soled prison shoes slid on the sand as he ran, and the cold air cut into his lungs. As the light dwindled to virtually nothing, his imagination went berserk, seeing sidewinders in every hollow, crevasses beneath every step. A thin edge of frigid wind whistled from behind him, lifting a curtain of sand into the air, snaking in front of him, stinging his nose.

  His legs pumped smoothly, eating distance at a killing pace, until they burned with fatigue and his lungs screamed their protest. He turned his ankle in the sand and slid, rolling, down the side of a shallow embankment. Aubry lay there for a moment, breathing heavily until his ears caught the sound of a patrol skimmer.

  Frantically now, he opened his pack and pulled out the sheet of insulating material Stitch had stripped from the steam pipes in the laundry. Damning himself for leaving the shovel behind, he dug with his hands, listening for the sound of the crisscrossing skimmer. Darkness would not hide him from their infrared scopes. The heat of his body would betray him as surely as a magnesium flare.

  The skimmer's hum faded out, then slowly rose again as Aubry lay down in the shallow trench he had made. Carefully, he laid the heat-reflective material over his feet, covering it with sand. Unrolling it towards his head a few more centimeters, covering, unrolling, covering....

  The hum was coming straight for him. He fought to keep control. At last only his face and arms were left, and he lay the material over his head, smoothed sand over it, and wiggled his arms under.

  The skimmer passed directly overhead, its whine like an angry insect's, fading quickly into the distance. He waited patiently for about ten minutes and was rewarded by the gradual whine of a slower approach. A more thorough sweep. It stopped and hovered not thirty meters away, then took off to another grid of the search pattern, the sound fading to the east.

  How much longer he lay there, breathing sand and his own fear, he didn't know. But finally he peeled the cover back, peeking out timidly. There was nothing. He grinned, triumphant.

  He oriented himself and headed off again. The twisted corpses of mesquite trees rose up like specters from the past, the thin hissing wind giving them voice. He dared not rest or even slow down. The pain of the run slowly crept up his calves to his thighs to his back and chest.

  There is nothing harder to run on than
sand. It presents no traction, false traction, then, suddenly, with a stretch of packed grains, the traction to sprint forward. He stumbled over a gnarled root in the dark, sprawling, and heard something slither away into shadow.

  Tired. Tired. He hauled himself to his feet, ignoring the pain in his joints, the ache in shoulders and skinned palms. Far behind him came the angry whine of a skimmer continuing its ceaseless hunt.

  Ahead of him rose conical heads, hair spraying in all directions, eyes...

  He shook his head. Fatigue. The wind chilled his forehead as it dried his sweat. His nose ran, salting his mouth as he realized that he had reached the Devil's Cornfield, shocks of arrowweed thriving in one of the few areas with accessible goundwater.

  Breath scalding, leg muscles burning with every step, he ran on into the night, towards the gradually expanding vista of the Cottonwood Mountains.

  It was almost dawn, the first orange light appearing in the east, giving depth to the black cutouts of the Grapevine Mountains to the east.

  He stumbled up a hill at the foot of the Cotton woods, his feet swollen and blistered, rubbed and torn by the run. Where was it? He hadn't been able to find the cross-shaped cairn of rock that marked his next stop. He burned from fatigue and hunger and encroaching despair.

  Where . . . ? He missed his footing and fell, sliding down rock, grabbing at plants as he went. "Ouch . . . damn!" he yelled as his head struck something hard. He reached out and felt something pitted and metallic.

  Aubry stood, trying to see where the ancient mining-car tracks led. Light was just beginning to reach his little valley, and he shoved his hurts and fatigue into a distant corner of his mind and followed the tracks uphill. "Please . . ."he gasped, wheezing out the single syllable. The tracks were eaten by wind and weather, and half-buried in sand, but they led him up the mountainside to the gaping slash of a mine opening, and Aubry yelled, running now.

  There were boards covering the entrance, but there was light enough to see that they had been recently disturbed. He wrenched them loose and crawled in, grateful beyond words. He lay there, numb and shuddering, as the dawn came up outside. A thin stream of light cast a wedge of dusty silver into the cave. He looked around, spying a rectangular wooden box.