Criminology

Eight

                  

It was the middle of the night and I lay awake on the top bunk with a cigarette in my mouth.

"You ever gonna put that thing out?" Danny asked from below.

"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you."

"What's up?" He hopped out his bunk.

"Thinking." I whispered.

"Ah, I'll leave you to it then." He climbed back into bed.

"You're a tech geek, how would you, you know, do it."

"Hmm well the best way would be to do something that would shut off all the electricity, but you'd have to move fast the backup generator would take ten minutes tops to lock everything down again."

I put out my cigarette and rolled over closing my eyes. It seemed like I got five minutes of sleep when the doors buzzed again. Today we were inside, it was raining. Danny and I sat at an empty table. I smoked another cigarette while he ate the disgusting oatmeal they had given us. All of a sudden the cafeteria had quite down a bit and Jorge was walking towards our table.

"What do you think he wants?" Danny asked.

"Just don't say anything."

He stood in front of us staring dead at me then took a seat and picked at my plate.

"Long time no see Jace."

"What's up Jorge, what do you want?"

"Nothing really, just wanted to talk."

"About?"

He stopped playing with my fork and leaned close to me. "I heard you got yourself a little girlfriend."

"What are you talking about?"

"No need to pretend Jace. Don't worry me and my boys won't tell anyone anything. Just tell me what you're planning."

"I don't know which one of your boys told you that but they're wrong."

"Well when he confronted her about it she said otherwise." He laughed.

My hands clenched into a fist.

"Ahh there it is, the Jace I like. A true killer."

"If you don't want to end up in solitary I suggest you leave now."

"Of course, just tell your girl I said hey." He started to get up. "Let me know how she is." He winked.

I jumped up from my seat but Danny held me back. He walked away laughing. I sat back down angrily.

"How the hell could he have found out?" I accidentally yelled at Danny.

"I don't know." He stammered. "Jorge really does have guys watching out everywhere."

"You need to go talk to her. He said one of his boys talked to her. Make sure she's okay."

"Why can't you go?"

"I told her I would only go to her again in case of an emergency or not till I had figured out a plan. Please Danny."

"Alright alright, just try to stay out of trouble."

He got up and walked to one of the guards. After a couple of minutes they sent us back to our cells since the rain hadn't stop. I paced the room for a while, tried reading a book then resulted to smoking a cigarette again. It seemed like forever but he finally came back.

"What took so long?"

"Sorry."

"Is she alright?"

"Yeah, she said one of Jorge's friends went in and tried intimidating her but she didn't say anything and got him put in solitary."

"Jesus, first Conner now Jorge." I sighed.

"Conner? You mean as in Mr. Conner?"

"Yeah, he's pushing for a new hearing on whether I should be transferred to a max."

"Dude you need to get out like now."

"I know I know. I'm thinking."

"Want some help?"

"I thought you didn't want to get involved."

"Guess I changed my mind."

We spend the rest of the day and night trying to come up with "the perfect plan." We gave up halfway through the night when a guard caught us up. I hopped back onto my bed, still trying to come up with an idea.

"Fire alarm." I whispered.

"What?" Danny asked from below.

"Wouldn't the fire alarm wet the control system thus shutting everything down?"

"Not bad. With the controls getting wet a wire would have to short."

"But how could I keep the water from shutting down? They'd immediately try and turn it off."

"A fire?"

"The water would obviously take it out." I thought for a second. "Would you be able to somehow hack into the system from a computer?"

"I've never tried but possibly. They have my original laptop locked up in here somewhere."

"You couldn't just from any computer?"

"Now without having at least a couple days to install a program and connect it to the buildings electrical system."

"Gosh you're a nerd."

He laughed.

"Okay. Let me see what I can do. In the meantime there's really no other possible way you could think to keep the water going?"

"Not really. Unless I found a way into the control room."

"The water would create an enough distraction to get the guards all to the control room. Add a prison fight to that in the yard and it's almost be too easy to get away."

"How are you going to start a prison fight?"

"I haven't thought that far. But you have to admit that is a pretty good plan."

"With the cells open they'd have to force us outside rain or shine. You could easily sneak away back into the building."

"I'm going to talk to Alysha, maybe she can get your laptop and make things easier for us."

"You do that. I'm gonna call it a night." Danny rolled over and started snoring.