"Two days" Shoebox's contact said by text. So that's why he was here in the yard, passing the word onto Nellis' hardest detainees, the guys that'd been in prison before. Emergence didn't care about a clean criminal record.

The air was flint-dry, it rasped on his throat in the Nevada heat. His limbs were weary, but he felt a surge of exultation when he thought about it.

He pulled himself up on the bar, hauling his own body weight up. Congress decided that weight equipment for convicts was dangerous after watching that movie with Robert DeNiro, but Roo was a veteran of prisons and knew what he needed for the pullup bars; mostly a good pair of gloves, which were easier to score here than in a traditional institution.

"You think they running a game, trying to fuck with us, Roo?"

"Nah, Shoebox doesn't think so." Rufus pointed out.

"Yeah, well you trust the little fuckin' man?"

"He's a reporter, he knows this shit. So what you gonna do?"

"Guess we find out if we bein' played. The longer we wait, the easier it is for them to find our shit," grunted Bloodhound.

"Ain't got nothing to lose," Roo pointed out. 

"Except those documents if this reporter fucks us. What if he sells us out when he reads that shit?"

"Shoebox says..."

"Yeah, I know what the little man says, but what you think?"

"Gotta try. What we got to lose?"

They both glanced up to the lab area; a shiver went up Rufus' spine. They'd both been in there.

There were other differences from a traditional prison; the yards were not divided into Irish, Italian, Blood, Crip and so forth areas, though there were enough people with convict experience to enforce a certain order. In 1992, in LA, hostilities between gangs were suspended in order to fight the LAPD and the same truce held here. It wasn't just hardened criminals involved in that, it was other elements within the Nellis facility. That's why he and Bloodhound, each from sets affiliated with rival gangs, were even talking.

Everyone expected uprisings and attacks and violence, and it was true that there was a little bit of that here and there, but it was mostly the silencing of snitches, a good outlet for people that needed to punch something out -- the feds kept trying to slip in paid informants, but they were sniffed out quickly enough by a variety of means...that was the Bloodhound's job. 

He was from LA, another dealer. Once Bloodhound sniffed out a snitch, they beat the snitch down. The MP's still hadn't figured out how they were identifying the snitches. Some people wanted the snitches dead, but Roo and Bloodhound pointed out that it'd just give the military an excuse. It kinda made Roo amused; a guy that'd been a salesman on the outside was saying, 'we gotta whack this guy' and it was the gangstas in the room at the time that just gave him the sideye, because he was crazy.

Meanwhile, Nellis was becoming a model facility. The others were blowing up with riots and violence, but Nellis was constantly running classes for yoga and tai chi. It looked like a picture of suburban new age bullshit, people with their mats spending half the day bending their joints. 

A couple of the screws, MP's rather than the typical CO's, might have been wise to the idea that they had something up their sleeve.

He pulled in another breath and pulled himself up. The sweat, the endorphins, the clarity of mind helped him. During these sessions, he tried to touch that hot center of his mind, where the magic was. He could feel it, but he couldn't figure out how to consciously use it. He could unlock it in the course of activity, where he entered a dream state. The problem was the drugs. That shit kept him back, made it so that his mind was missing the connection. It fogged him.

There were pullup bars at least, and it was sort of where the old school prison types congregated, the guys who knew street life and jail life. It got watched a lot harder than the yoga mat area, with the more sedate suburban bougie types. Being penned up was hard on the latte drinkers but a lot of them were adjusting.

Still, he'd had enough punishment on the bars, so he let himself down, message delivered. He made his way past some of the others. In other times, they'd probably be rivals, but part of regulating Nellis involved keeping the peace. The truce held, even with one of the guys that had Aryan tattoos. They didn't have to like each other, but they had bigger problems...a glance up showed a drone doing its lazy circuit of surveillance. People gave up flipping the pilot off months ago, in resignation. 

But the idea that they were watching hastened his step, out the yard and among the rest of genpop, regular people that kept a bit of distance. He didn't exactly hide his gang affiliations and people were still uneasy with him, but he didn't really care. They were all dangerous in Nellis, in the eyes of the government, but some clung to their old lives more than others. They saw the neck tattoo and the hard eyes, the tats and the roll. They saw the red. He didn't bother to hide it.

After a couple minutes, he was in the air conditioned tent where he bunked with others. It was the little man in the cage that he addressed the report to, "Yeah, Bloodhound says he's in. He'll guarantee the handoff."