Now

Marjory Marx had become a CO straight out of high school, two years ago.  She was tough-minded and was using her bi-weekly paycheck to pay for night classes.  She was escorting a group of prisoners from the law library back to their unit when the alarm sounded.

In the two years she’d been here, she’d never actually been on duty when it had gone off.

Most of the inmates she was escorting stopped, then calmly lay down on the ground; the vast majority of them had been here longer than she had and knew the routines even better than the guards.  They weren’t interested in starting anything- not out in the open, anyways- and, besides, attacking a woman- even if that woman was a CO- was the sort of thing that certain parties might take offense at.

Marx looked around as she heard the first gunshot, the report loud and unanticipated in the abruptly stifling air.

She looked around wildly- the instinct to find out where the shot had come from overpowering her training- and found herself coming face-to-chest with a big man in prison blues.

Hogarth, her brain supplied uselessly, as the man gave her a gap-toothed smile that seemed almost gentle.

“Hey, pig,” he crooned, reaching with thick fingers to catch hold of her uniform, “never did like you much…”

She kicked hard and the toe of her boot impacted just under his knee with predictable results, but it was too late now.  Other prisoners had started to realize that the COs were not in control of the situation.  A few started getting to their feet.  A guard in the tower yelled at them to get down, but then there was a sound like water sizzling on a hot pan and the tower guard screamed and dropped his rifle- what was left of it- and tucked the stumps of what had once been his hands into his belly as he doubled over in agony.  More prisoners were rising.

Marjory had always tried to be fair in her exchanges with inmates, but she was a stickler for the rules.  She’d seen enough of what happened when guards got too close to inmates, and the penalty for allowing yourself to be compromised was, at a minimum, the loss of your job and the impossibility of ever getting another job within corrections.  She’d reported more than one inmate for inappropriate advances, too, and that made her a bit less than popular with some of her charges.

Three more men surrounded her, their hands pawing at her uniform as they dragged her away from her post.

*****

Now

Jesus “Big Daddy” Toronto whooped a high-pitched yodel as his body’s blood temperature reached inhuman levels.  At nearly seven feet tall, the man’s lanky form towered over his fellow Santiagos, and he used his height advantage to spot guards scurrying to find cover behind the screens of their tower balconies.

At first, Toronto had only been picking them off as they put their heads up, but he quickly realized that the plasma he was generating was more than hot enough to burn straight through the weak metal screens and the kinetic energy his attack imparted propelled the liquid metal in a spray that seared and charred even the guards that he couldn’t see.

“C’mon, Big Daddy,” Mouse growled.  His voice, normally a cruel whisper had been amplified by the Boost into a powerful, booming roar, and Jesus flashed the shorter man a grin.  Mouse was stalking towards the locked door that the guards used to get access to the stairs in the tower.  There was an electrified fence between them, but Jesus gestured and the wires fell away like party streamers.

Mouse marched through the hole, ignoring the drops of molten steel as they fell on his broad shoulders.  He reached the security door and punched the lock with one meaty fist.  The door folded like a sheet of cardboard and the lock shattered, exploding on the far wall of the tower.

Mouse bounded up the stairs; he was short, but his powerful legs carried him three steps at a time without difficulty.  Jesus strolled after him; he figured that Mouse could draw the fire of any guards remaining in the tower- their rifles couldn’t hurt the tiny brick, anyways- and Jesus could mop up, then start overriding gate controls from the tower station.

There was a bark of gunfire and Jesus flinched, almost losing his balance on the stairs.  Another boom and the tinkle of tiny pellets hitting the floor and rolling down the stairs.  “Ow,” Mouse growled.  “That hurt.”

There was a wet thud, then the sound of glass shattering.  Jesus took the last few steps and entered the control room where Mouse was wiping his hands on his pants, having just heaved the remaining CO over the edge of the tower.  Jesus stepped out onto the balcony and waved; he saw an answering wave from another tower to the east, and he turned to grin at his diminutive partner.  “Looks like we got control of the towers,” he informed him and Mouse grunted.

“Time to spring Gabriel,” Mouse opined.

*****

Sergeant Eleanora Martinez, AFPD
Now

I shoved back hard and my chair overbalanced, dumping me ass-over-tits.  Fortunately, my head was tucked, or that could’ve been the end of me, right there.  Ramos’ fingers closed on empty air and he lost his footing for a moment, not that it helped me any.  I rolled to my side, grunting as I got to my hands and knees.  Behind me, I could hear Ramos starting to climb over the desk-like partition, making his way through the frame of the shattered window.

I scrambled to my feet just in time to feel one of Ramos’s meaty hands drop heavily onto my shoulder and start to tug me back.  I rode with the momentum and spun, jabbing stiff fingers into the nerve cluster in his armpit.  My fingers bent and tried to fold backwards, but they held long enough to loosen his grip and I slipped his grab.  Before he could get his guard back up, I pivoted and smashed the knuckles of my other hand into his trachea.  I felt the rings of cartilage crunch under my fist, heard his gurgle as he staggered back.  His eyes seemed to glow with murderous intent, and I backed into the door, feeling desperately for a doorknob that I knew would be locked.

The door opened and I fell through as a black clad CERT officer sidestepped my falling body and brought up a heavy pistol.  “Get on your knees!” he barked, but Ramos wasn’t having any of it.  He lunged forward, trying to reach the officer, and the reports of the gun going off in that confined space felt like the end of the world.  Ramos’s head snapped back, streamers of blood geysering from wounds opened in his throat, his mouth, and between his eyes.

The guard- a big man with salt-and-pepper hair under his CERT cap- reached down and helped me to my feet.  “You okay, Sergeant?” he asked.  His voice was higher than I’d expected, almost adolescent to my stunned ears, despite the lines on his face.

I gasped and nodded and he reached into a breast pocket and pulled out a clean, white hankie which he handed over to me.  I realized with a start that my nose was running and tears were streaming from my eyes.  “My name’s Lou,” he said as I mopped my face with his handkerchief.  I started to hand it back, but he held up a hand.  “Keep it,” he said and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ellie,” I finally managed, “I’m Ellie.”

“Well, Ellie, we seem to be in a bit of a precarious situation,” Lou said after a moment, “I hate to ask, but are you good to move?”

I blinked.  “Yeah,” I said after a moment, “I was a little rattled, but I should be fine now.”

“Good.  Stick tight with me- we’re going to get back to processing, which should still be pretty secure.  Once we get there, I want you to hunker down while me and my boys figure out what’s going on, okay?”

I nodded.  “Where’d you get the gun?” I asked.

He grinned.  “My car.  I was just bringing it to put it in my locker in the armory when the balloon went up.”

We were met at the doors by the desk sergeant and another CO who’d been taking her break in visitation.

“Control, this is Officer Lou,” he said, speaking quickly and clearly into his walkie, “I’m over in visitation with three souls and one popgun.  We’re looking to make processing- can you spring us?”

There was a pause and nothing but static.

“Control?” Lou asked again, his face darkening.

His radio squawked and a familiar voice came online.  “Lou, this is Network.  Not sure what’s happening with your ops center, but they went offline about a minute ago.  I am popping your door.  Stay on this channel and let me know when you get to processing,” Anne ordered.

The electric motor growled to life and the door slowly slid open.  We piled out and Lou barked “clear!” into his radio as the last CO came out.  There were several inmates between us and processing.  Two of them had lain on the ground, as they were supposed to in the event of a lockdown, but another three had formed a knot around the door into processing.

“Son of a bitch,” the desk sergeant growled, “what the Hell are the towers doing?”

“Being overrun, I think,” Lou answered, his face grim.  “We need to make a path.  Mitchell,” he said, turning to the CO, “keep our ass clear, wouldja?”  The young woman nodded and Lou continued.  “I’ll take point.  Everybody ready?”

We all nodded and Lou darted ahead.

“Back away from the door,” he yelled as we approached, “I will shoot and I will use deadly force!”

“Whatever, puta!” one of the inmates sneered, and Lou emptied two rounds into his chest without breaking stride.  The inmate dropped like a ragdoll, but Lou had gotten too close and the other two pounced on him.

His gun came flying out of the pile; I don’t know if he threw it away or if one of his assailants stripped it from him, but it landed just a couple feet in front of me.  I scooped it up and dropped to one knee, checking the magazine.  There were five shots left.

There was too much ambient noise and my ears were still a little stunned- thank God- so I didn’t actually hear Lou’s body being broken.  It all happened very quickly and then the two remaining assholes got up from where they’d dropped him and started for me.

I shot the lead man, wasting two shots and getting the third into his hip and he spun, faltering slightly, but not stopping.  I emptied the last two rounds, clipping him in the thigh, and blood sprayed as one of the heavy bullets must have nearly severed his femoral artery.  His buddy was on me as I regained my feet, and I whipped the barrel of Lou’s pistol into the side of his head.

He stumbled and I followed him, grabbing his chin with my free hand and pressing the flat edge of the gun against his temple and twisting.  He resisted with more-than-human strength, but the muscles controlling the movement of a man’s head just aren’t designed to take the weight and torque of a one hundred fifty pound woman swinging violently on them.  He twisted and slammed into the ground, knocking the wind out of him as the desk sergeant caught up.

Mitchell came up behind, then, and stomped on the man’s wrist before he could regain his feet.  He howled, and I shut him up by the simple expedient of dropping to my knees again and smashing the butt of Lou’s gun into the center of his face.  His eyes rolled back into his head and we advanced on the door.

I paused to grab Lou’s walkie off his belt.  “Network,” I yelled, “we’re at the door!  Open it up!”

The door slid open and I pushed inside.  Mitchell and the desk sergeant grabbed Lou’s arms and dragged him in with us, then Network shut the door again.

“Check him,” I grated.  He didn’t look good.  Blood bubbled around his lips and his arms and legs seemed to be bending all wrong.  If he survived this, he sure as Hell wasn’t going to be able to go back on the line.

***************************************************************************************************************************************************************

I imagine being at ground zero during a prison riot must seem unbelievably chaotic; looking at it from the outside, with the perspective of distance and time, would undoubtedly reveal systems working with and against each other to create a strange sense of order, but it wouldn't be clear to the ma on the ground.  Throw in the fact that our heroes in this scene are a bunch of mundanes and the bad guys are metas, and this looks like something that could go very badly, very quickly.

At least Network's watching their back?

This picture- and all the artwork for Shooting stars- is brought to you by the amazingly talented and lovely .

Shooting Stars is an epic tale (okay, maybe that's pushing it, but I've always wanted to call something I wrote an epic) taking place in  and will feature characters by , , and an appearance of Esau by .

Sgt. Ellie Martinez and Network belong to .

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