-5-

In Unit 8, word had it that some were mocking gang leader Henry Plough behind his back for taking on a “yellow kid” as his bunkmate. Board found it somewhat ironic that it was the Chinese man’s color and not his sex that these mockers found worthy of their contempt. But word also had it that Plough was not going to discard the kid because of the controversy. To bend to the opinions of others might be a sign of weakness. And besides that—though Plough was never openly affectionate to the young man in view of others—Board suspected that Plough was simply too fond of the man to trade him in for another new “fish”.

More prison gossip had begun to spread: this, that John Board had been recruited as the cameraman who would record executions so that these films could be entered into computers and thus accessed by the Bugs from their home world. Board had had his sentence radically reduced as a result of this arrangement. Board was sorry to hear this rumor bounce back to him, though he knew it had been inevitable.

One prisoner came up to him in the outdoors exercise yard, in the center of the prison, and spat at him, “Heard you sucked off the warden to get your term cut down, Bones.” (Board had never been a bulky man, and had grown even leaner in prison.)

He ignored the man, turned away. But a few days later, in the Unit 8 rec room, one prisoner said loudly to a friend, “Hey, there’s the ghoul. Bones, you gonna to be filming Old Sparky, there, eh? When do you get your guard uniform?”

“Fucking traitor,” said the other man. “You got no shame, huh?”

A guard came over and tapped this second man on the knee with his truncheon. “Shut your cake hole.” But Board thought that the guard’s intervention on his behalf just made things look all the worse.

Board was counting the days to the fifteenth of June. The day of the first execution he would film for the Guests. Only nine more days. Eight…

One day after Board and his cell mate, Mike Rake, had been locked in for the night, Rake sat down next to Board on his lower bunk and whispered, “Bones, keep your eyes peeled. Today Tommy Bench told me he saw Abe Jug hand Linterna two packs of cigarettes…”

Abraham Jug was the man who had attempted to rape Board in the showers almost two years ago, when Board was himself a “fish” or new inmate waiting to be broken in. Board had stabbed Jug in the eye with the end of his toothbrush, causing the orb to be dislodged from its socket, hanging on his cheek. It had had to be removed altogether in the prison infirmary. And Linterna, of course, was one of Unit 8's incarcerated Assassins.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Rake went on.

“No,” Board admitted, looking down at his overly-worn shoes, “it doesn’t.”

“Now that you’re in with the warden, Bones, I’d try to get switched to another unit if I were you.”

Board looked up at the man’s face. “I’m not in with the warden, Mike.”

“I didn’t mean it that way…it’s not like you’re a snitch or anything. But what I’m saying is, people are looking at you harder, now. And maybe the ones who have a grudge against you will want to act on it, because your term has been reduced…and they have less time to get to you.”

“I appreciate your concern, Mike. Thanks for the information.”

Rake glanced at the thick black bars that caged them in, then whispered, “Just don’t tell anyone you heard it from me…”

The next day, in the cafeteria, the twenty-year-old Chinese man with whom Board had once bunked gave him a smile when they were lined up for their chow. Board just nodded almost imperceptibly in return. He had made enough enemies without adding Henry Plough to the list. The Chinese man looked away quickly, as if embarrassed or a little bit hurt. Board felt somewhat guilty, but he was finding that guilt was a luxury one could not afford in prison.

Seven more days. Six.