The Dragon Writers Collection Read online

  “This is your plan?”

  “Yep. You got a better one, Dool?”

  “Well-”

  “Then shut up and play along. We’ve both been here before and we know the layout.”

  “Do I really have to do this?”

  “No. You can leave now if you want,” said Heck with no trace of animosity. Dooly heaved a great sigh. He wasn’t leaving.

  “Speak up, Dool!”

  “We want change,” he mumbled, waving his sign halfheartedly. “We want change.”

  “Louder, Dool!” said Heck, keeping up with a crowd of protesters. Then Heck joined in, “WE WANT CHANGE!”

  “WE WANT CHANGE!” the protesters chanted. “WE WANT CHANGE.”

  “WHAT DO WE WANT?” someone shouted with a megaphone, inciting the crowd.

  “CHANGE!” came the reply from scores of protestors, including Dooly and Heck.

  “WHEN DO WE WANT IT?” called the instigator. They were standing outside of the Justice Hall, where the Prime Minister was meeting with the First Minister of Justice over some controversial investigations conducted by the Commonwealth Bureau of Investigations.

  “NOW!” demanded the crowd, carrying signs.

  “Damn, these guys stink!” Dooly said in Heck’s ear. “Don’t protesters take showers?”

  “Most of them are career protestors. See the shirts they’re wearing?”

  “Yeah, ‘PRO-TEST Inc.’ Very original.”

  “Today they protest against the Prime Minister and the First Minister of Justice, but tomorrow they might protest in support of them.”

  “What’s the system coming to?” said Dooly, shaking his head. “Folks are so lazy they can’t even protest for their own causes, they gotta pay someone else to do it for them.?”

  “WHAT DO WE WANT?”

  “CHANGE!”

  “Come on, now’s our chance.” Heck and Dooly maneuvered through the crowd of protesters for hire to the very front, near the agitator. Once they got near the agitator, Heck body slammed him and the pair rolled to the ground. The agitator jumped to his feet and glared at Heck as the man rose to his feet.

  “What’s your problem, pal?” demanded Heck, moving in closer.

  “What’s yours?” asked the man, his voice barely heard above the din. “My people will kill you if I tell them to.”

  “Ah. Well, I suppose that counts for change,” said Heck as belligerently as he could. “I admire your convictions!”

  Before he realized what happened, the crowd descended on him, kicking and punching and swinging signs. Dooly waded in flinging protesters away until he was near Heck, who was egging on the crowd. Seeing that the protest had once again become dangerous, police in riot gear came out to break it up. Many of the protesters fled from the heavily armed men who also wore body armor, riot shields, and shock batons.

  But Heck and Dooly made a point to continue taunting and provoking the crowd, drawing a group of angry protesters closer to the rigid line of riot police.

  “Come on you hippies! Is that all you got?” shouted Heck, he wasn’t very good at taunting.

  “You’re a bunch of filthy little cowards! Come on you...” Heck marveled as Dooly launched into a string of curses and epithets, some of which Heck hadn’t even heard of before. But it worked. Five protesters closed in on the pair as chaos reigned all around. The police were standing in a line, not willing to be drawn into the fray individually. Every few seconds, the police took one step forward in and simultaneously banged their shock batons on their shields creating a very loud crack.

  Dooly relented from his taunting. The five men who had fallen prey to Dooly’s skillful taunting were still advancing. Then, one of them charged at Dooly and the rest followed. Dooly and Heck backed up some, toward the police, to diminish their attacker’s force. Dooly caught his attacker in a bear hug and using the man’s own forward momentum, he spun around toward the police line and plowed into two police officers. Heck tried the same tactic but fell short, and tried to bring the fight closer to the police who were refusing to step in.

  Dooly’s world turned very quickly into pain and darkness as blows from shock batons stunned him senseless. Heck’s fighting partner saw what fate had befallen his friend and Dooly when they fell beneath the shock batons and he retreated to the safety of his friends, leaving Heck standing close the police but nowhere near Dooly. The protesters tried to goad Heck into stepping away from the police so they could, ‘fight fair,’ but Heck just gave them an obscene gesture and looked for Dooly. Finding him behind the police line with booted foot on his back and unconscious, Heck tried to taunt the police into coming after him. But that proved futile. Palace Drift Police were the best officers taken from the best agencies in the Commonwealth, they were not easily taunted.

  Heck knew what he had to do next. There was no other way to get in there with Dooly. Unfortunately, he also knew that the beating Dooly received from shock batons would pale in comparison to what he was about to get.

  It was time to assault a police officer.

  CHAPTER NINE

  When Heck awoke he was in a small holding cell with several other malcontents arrested during the riot that he had started. He recognized his surroundings. This cell was located near the Marshals Service Detention Area and was sometimes used as an overflow for the Marshal’s prisoners. And here was exactly where he’d hoped they would put him and Dooly. There were no surveillance systems in this part of the drift. It was so far from the surface that, even if someone escaped, they would never make it past all the Marshals, Bureau agents, and other federal officers that they would have to pass by to escape.

  Pain shot through his side when he stood, probably a bruised rib, and one eye was swollen. When the lightheadedness passed, Heck made his way around the cell until he found Dooly who was asleep on a bench.

  “Dool!” he whispered, poking his friend in the shoulder. The movement caused him more pain and he amended his earlier assessment. Broken rib. “Wake up!”

  Dooly looked remarkably well, though Heck wouldn’t know until his friend decided to get up. No bruising or apparent broken bones to speak of.

  “What?” he groaned, opening one eye. Then the other eye opened. Wide. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Never mind. Get up.” Dooly started chuckling softly. “What’s so funny?”

  “You,” he said stifling his laughter. “You got an ass-whippin’!”

  “Ok, fine. I got an ass-whippin’ and you didn’t,” he growled. “Happy? We have work to do.”

  “How much time?” asked Dooly as the pair made their way to the front of the cell.

  “Twelve hours,” Heck said, eyeing the clock on the wall.

  “Is that enough time?”

  “It has to be,” he whispered.

  “I hope this works. Once they figure out who we are, we’re dead meat!”

  “It will work, Dool,” he said with confidence. It was high time to get the plan moving. “GUARDS!”

  Dooly started walking around in the cell, looking this way and that, poking other prisoners and making them mad. Then he started rambling incoherently.

  “GUARDS!” he shouted again. “This guy is nuts! Get him outta here!”

  “Don’t parking lot that I-beam with stratus clouds! I’ll kill you!” Dooly accentuated his ramblings by crossing and uncrossing his eyes and occasionally pointing at the wall. “Answer me, you insolent utensil!”

  One of the prison guards sidled up to the bars, amused by Dooly’s antics. “What’s his problem?”

  “He’s crazy!” said Heck, as Dooly poked a sleeping prisoner in the gut. The man jumped up to face him but backed down when Dooly started babbling again.

  “You’re a damn tobacco stamp! That’s what you are!” Dooly followed the now cowering prisoner around the cell. “Your plastic earlobes have cost me some serious candles!”

  The guard seemed content to watch the Dooly’s antics until Dooly had the other prisoner cowering against the bar
s, begging the guard for help.

  “Knock it off, freak!” the guard said in his best, stern guard voice. “You don’t want me to come in there!”

  Dooly looked at the guard as if he had never seen one before and cocked his head sideways, not unlike a dog when it hears a police siren. Then, dragging the hapless prisoner along by his throat, he put his face against the bars where the guard stood and whispered, “I like brain matter. I’d like yours, but I don’t think you have enough.”

  The guard fell for Dooly’s taunt and shoved a shock baton between the bars, trying to strike Dooly. Heck grabbed the guard’s arm and held it fast against the bars. Dooly slugged him in the face, knocking him unconscious and pulled his limp body tight against the bars. Heck started fishing around inside the guard’s pockets until he found what he wanted, an access key. Then he took the shock baton and set it to its highest setting and shocked the guard to ensure he would remain unconscious for a while.

  By now all of the prisoners were intently watching the drama play out before them. These weren’t hard core fugitives, they were paid protestors who got caught acting up. It was a job for them. And, in all likelihood, their boss would be around soon to get them out.

  The man that Dooly had traumatized walked over to Heck and shook hands with him. “Thanks, mister. That was more fun than protesting! It was great how that guard just shoved his baton in between the bars. Don’t they teach these guys anything in guard school?”

  Heck shared a laugh with the man as he opened the cell door. His fellow prisoner and conspirator followed Heck and Dooly out of the cell then began to fish around in the pockets of the guard. Finding a small holocard, the man smiled and went back inside the cell. Heck and Dooly dragged the guard to a small anteroom, presumably an interrogation room. Heck put on the guard’s uniform, then dressed the guard in his clothes and locked him in the cell with the others.

  “Take it easy fellers!” said Dooly jovially. “Maybe we’ll see ya at the next protest!”

  Heck handcuffed Dooly with his hands behind him and held the shock baton at his friend’s back. Then they proceeded along a passageway that led to an elevator, passing a few guards along the way. Heck hurried along after passing the guards, knowing it wouldn’t be long before their absence was discovered. He used his victim’s access card to open the elevator doors and hurried inside. Heck could see a pair of guards walking quickly toward the elevator. He didn’t know if they were on to him or if they simply wanted to share the elevator but he wasn’t taking chances. The door slid closed and the elevator began its rapid descent.

  “These cuffs are too tight,” Dooly complained. “Can you loosen them?”

  Heck stuck his pinky in between the handcuff metal and Dooly’s wrist and said, “Nope. They’re just right.” Then he gave the cuffs a bit of a twist, eliciting a string of curses from Dooly while he smiled at the tiny surveillance camera hidden in a screw hole above the door. The pain was Heck’s way of telling Dooly to keep acting.

  The door opened and Heck stepped out into the Marshals Service Detention Area. This was the biggest risk to their plan. Any number of Marshals or employees of the Service would recognize Heck Thomas, as he was a longtime veteran and well known among his peers. The convicts might present a problem for Heck too, because he was just as well known among the criminal community. Many of the fugitives he’d caught were decent enough folks and didn’t resent him for doing his job. Others resented him. A lot. Those were the ones who would know he’d gone dark and might turn him in out of spite. But they would cross that bridge when they got to it. Dooly wasn’t nearly as likely to be recognized by anyone, other than the criminals.

  Heck kept moving Dooly along. Being a good deal taller, Dooly provided Heck with some anonymity. That and the prison guard uniform would be, he hoped, enough for them to survive any cursory looks. If they encountered any close scrutiny, however, they and Laylara were as good as dead. Thinking of Laylara forced Heck to focus, he had purpose. This was no different than any other mission, only the stakes were higher. Much higher.

  The Marshals Service had a very nice reception area. The lighting was warm, the floors were carpeted, and portraits of famous lawmen from all of the participating Commonwealth nations adorned the wood paneled walls. But the empty spot where his own portrait once adorned the wall leaped out at him. He was glad of one thing, though. They hadn’t put his image up on the Commonwealth Most Wanted List, which was prominently displayed in the Detention Area. It was one less way for someone to recognize him.

  The fact that his portrait hadn’t been replaced by that of another lawman, warmed his heart somewhat. The Chief Marshal knew Heck very well. And while they could do nothing to help him now, the Service hadn’t given up on him.

  The pair approached a desk that was so tall they had to look up to see the Marshal seated behind it. “What’s your business, guard?”

  “Prisoner for Block 14.” Heck thought the voice sounded familiar.

  “Charges?” asked the Marshal as he peered down over his desk at the prisoner and Heck.

  Heck tossed a small holocard up and onto the ridiculously tall desk. The Marshal plugged the holocard into his computer and a holographic data stream appeared before his eyes listing Dooly’s counterfeit biographical information and a DNA sample that was linked to his false ID. The man read the charges and nodded to Heck as he tossed the holocard back.

  “You need directions, Guard?”

  “No, sir. I know the way.”

  The Marshal nodded and went back to his work, the computer having already registered the presence of the new prisoner and his cell assignment.

  Heck and Dooly proceeded through a few passages until they reached the area known as Block 14. Block 14 was guarded by two Marshals Service prison guards who were well trained. A large steel door with the number ‘14’ in bold red was the entrance to the sally port that led to the prison inside. The walls were bleak and painted a neutral tan color, the floor was dull gray tile and the lights were bright and harsh.

  Heck did not want to go in there. That was where the real prison began. It was a prison that held some of the Commonwealth’s most wanted criminals. Even though housing for prisoners here was typically not long term, it was high security. Too high security.

  Dooly doubled over in pain, groaning and he dropped to one knee. “I need a doctor!”

  “Sure you do, now that we’re here! Get up, slug!” Heck shoved Dooly who fell over on his side, still handcuffed. The guards, who had clearly seen ineptness from the regular drift prison guards before, walked over to assess the situation.

  “What’s his problem?”

  “Him? He don’t want to go in there is all,” Heck answered with a sneer while Dooly drooled on the floor.

  “You should take him to sick bay, Guard.”

  “Why?” Heck said belligerently. “You know he’s faking.”

  “And you know, Guard, that we follow procedure in the Marshals Service Detention Area,” said the Marshals Service guard with irritation. “Nurse’s station determines if they are faking. Not me. Not you. Got it?”

  “Okay, big man. Whatever you say,” Heck nodded, and shook his head. “On your feet, toad!”

  When Dooly didn’t respond, Heck reached down and jerked him up by the crook of his arm. Dooly dropped a well-placed kick to his shin and it was all Heck could do not to register the pain. He did his best to look angry instead and hoped the guards just wrote him off as being an unprofessional Drift Guard.

  “What was that for?” he asked Dooly through clenched teeth.

  “For tweaking my handcuffs, that’s what!” he retorted. “Or would you rather take these cuffs off and we settle this like men?”

  “Easy, killer. You can lay off the acting, now. We’re almost there.”

  “Who’s acting?” he muttered grimly.

  Before they reached the nurse’s station, Dooly started complaining about his handcuffs again. “Come on, you know the nurses don’t like us bein’ cu
ffed from behind. Lighten up!”

  “Fine. You whine worse than a three-year old!” he grumbled. “Stand still!”

  Heck moved Dooly’s handcuffs to the front, left them unlocked. While Dooly muttered truthfully about losing feeling in his fingers, Heck steered the pair toward a break room he had used in the past. Heck thought it was about time for things to heat up, he couldn’t believe they’d made it this far without getting caught.

  Heck rapped the tip of his shock baton on the door. The effect of the electric charge as the baton struck the door made an unnaturally loud noise. An irritated nurse in a red jumpsuit poked her head through the door. Heck’s heart lurched, he knew this woman. He knew her very well.

  “What is it?” she asked, her blue eyes peeking out from her blond hair. Most nurses kept their hair pulled back tight and out of their face, but Heck knew one who always let her hair down in the break room.

  “Uh, disturbance at the nurse’s station ma’am. They need all nurses there right away.” Heck tried to keep Dooly between himself and the nurse, but it was no use. The nurse was more intent on the voice she recognized than on what Heck was saying. Dooly scowled and rolled his eyes.

  “Really? My alert isn’t going off.” This was a problem. If Chloe recognized him, she could ruin everything.

  “Just came from there ma’am. They told me to knock on the break room door. Sorry to bother you.” Heck turned and acted as though he were taking Dooly back toward Block 14.

  “Wait!” she said, staring intently at the pair. “I know who you are.”

  Heck froze in his tracks. “You really should go to the nurse’s station, ma’am.”