Ned patrolled below, looking out for people sneaking around near the walls. It barely ever happened, but every now and then some stupid kid, or a few teenagers, would get curious and see if they could climb the gate or hop over it from a tree. Never worked, but couldn't let the little bastards get away with trying it, either.
He propped his legs up on his desk and noisily slurped his large cup of coffee, glad that at work, his wife couldn't bitch at him for being too loud. A man should be able to drink a damn cup of coffee however he wanted. How else was he supposed to cool it down?
His favorite part of the job was the time it gave him to write his novel. All the other guards hated the boring night shift, but like most writers, he was a night owl. He also liked that it gave him a reason to sleep all day and avoid his wife.
The blank page of his notebook stared at him like a living thing. Oooo, that's good. I should write that shit down. He grabbed his pen and made notes, then returned to his novel. Sal, his main character, had to get past a large wall. He tried climbing a tree but fell and busted his head. Tyler described the head wound in exquisite detail, sure that his readers would love that. He sure knew how to paint a picture. He used up three whole pages of tiny writing on that one bit, proving that the jerks in his community college class didn't know shit about quality writing.
Footsteps outside his door alerted him to his boss, Mac, a big guy who walked like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. Oooo, I need to remember that too.
Mac pushed open the door. "How are things?"
"Good." Tyler scanned the screens again, left to right, clicking through the cameras. Same pattern each night.
Mac sipped his own coffee, but somehow made less noise than Tyler. "Okay, don't screw up tonight. Tomorrow's going to be big."
Hell, yeah, big. Tyler was up for promotion and would finally be able to buy that sweet laptop he'd seen at Walmart. No more pen and paper for him—though he did secretly crave the sound of a typewriter as he pounded out the greatest novel ever. But no one used typewriters anymore. He heard he could buy an app for his computer that would simulate the sound of one, which could be cool. He'd have to look into it.
Mac walked out, grunting about something or other, and Tyler relaxed and looked up at the sky. Being in the mini tower gave him a nice view of the stars. He loved the quiet of the night and feel of the breeze. He pulled out his notebook to describe the night, an exercise one of his teacher's had taught him.
Ned, the night patrolman, called out from below, ruining Tyler's mojo.
Damn! He usually had more peace.
"Hey, I got something here."
Shit. Tyler hoped that something wasn't trouble. He looked down and saw a girl standing by Ned. "Hold on, I'm coming down."
He descended a cramped set of stairs and opened the door. Ned and the girl looked up at him. She had brown hair and blue eyes. Something in his lower regions tightened as he thought about how pretty she was, but fraternizing with the patients here would get his ass booted for sure, so he kept it in his pants. Mostly. He might make another exception for her.
She shook as if scared, and stared at him.
Ned grabbed her arm and pushed her forward. "I found her wandering around." He paused, as if expecting a response. "I should bring her in."
Tyler looked her up and down and licked his lips. "She try to get over the wall?"
"Yes." Ned nodded. "She... um... was climbing a tree."
Tyler shook his head. "Teenagers. All right, wait a moment." He climbed back up to his tower, typed his password into the controls, and the gate opened.
"Thanks," Ned shouted as they walked in.
Tyler sat back down again, repositioned his legs on the table, and grabbed up his notebook. He wrote a few descriptive paragraphs about the blue-eyed girl, stuff he could never let his wife see.
Ned had seemed off tonight, had been awfully polite, and hadn't even called the girl a bitch—which was his favorite word.
Wonder what was up with him? Maybe he needed a raise too. Whatever.
He'd followed his orders, and now his promotion was secure. Mr. Steele had told him that a brown-haired girl with blue eyes would come tonight, and he'd told Tyler to let her in. So he did.
Chapter 112 – Sam
The rough hand of the guard pushed me through the gate and past the guard in the tower. Once we'd cleared his line of site, the man before me shifted and morphed, his hair growing longer, body trimming down, and shape twisting... until he was a she. Robyn leaned over, short of breath, and fear for her unborn baby tweaked my conscious. Maybe she shouldn't have come; we had no idea what her particular para-power would do to her child, but she'd wanted to, and I didn't want to stop her.
I needed her to find my own child. Selfish, but there it was.