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'Maybe it's some food he heard about.'
Bull Heinman's slow mind swirled the concept around, hoping it would make
sense. 'What the hell are you talking about?'
'Don't move,' said a woman's voice behind him. 'There's a Colt .45 pointing
right up your ass. If you don't want to become a huge polo mint, you'll drop
the sound gun and get up against the wall.'
Bull had assumed the position against the padded cell wall before he realized
he'd been duped.
Rimmer, Ernest, Jimmy and Trixie hurtled down the corridor at the speed of
sound. They reached a sound-proofed door and bounced from ceiling to floor,
waiting for phase two of the plan to come into operation.
Heinman sounded the alarm. He pressed the panic button and started screaming
'Voice break! Voice break!'
The door at the end of the corridor opened, and four armed prison officers
came skidding through.
'Now!' Jimmy hissed, and the four soundwaves threw them-selves against a wall
and ricocheted back through the open door.
There was a squeal of leather as the rear-most officer spun in his tracks and
squeezed the sound-gun trigger.
The highly pow-ered microphone 'received' Ernest's soundwave, sucked it back
down the corridor and trapped it in the gun's holding chamber.
The three remaining soundwaves formed themselves into a high-pitched wail, and
hurtled out of E wing, down a stairwell, under a door and arrived in the
Security Operations room, which was teeming with warders and banked with floor
to ceiling surveillance equipment.
A blue-suited security officer turned from a matrix of sonar monitors and
shouted: 'They're here!' as the three soundwaves ricocheted round the room.
A group of officers ran for the sound-gun cabinet, scattering newspapers,
half-finished burgers and styrofoam coffee cups across the polished floor.
'Lock the door and seal it!'
'We've got 'em!'
An officer pressed the send button on his walkie-talkie. 'All points, repeat,
All points: we have voice breakers isolated in Security Central.' But by the
time he'd said this, it was no longer true.
8.04.
Tonto whirled the dial on the amplifier's tuner, and locked in on the prison
security frequency.
'All points,' he was hearing, 'repeat, All points: we have voice breakers
isolated ...'
Jimmy, Trixie and Rimmer zipped into the guard's walkie talkie and sped along
its transmission frequency.
They were escaping as radio waves.
Jimmy led, followed by Rimmer and Trixie. Somewhere, they lost Trixie, and
just Jimmy and Rimmer hurtled on at the speed of sound.
'... in Security Central.'
Jimmy and Rimmer crashed through the amplifier's speakers into the cab of the
dry-cleaning truck.
Tonto looked round. 'Jimmy? You here?'
Jimmy's voice: 'Let's go!'
Rimmer's voice: 'Where are we?'
'Who's that?'
'He's called Rimmer,' said Jimmy. 'He's all right. We can use him on the next
job.'
'What now?' Rimmer was saying.
'We pick up a couple of bodies and get out of here.'
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The dry-cleaning truck crunched up to the security barrier outside the Body
Reclamation Unit.
Tonto leaned out of the cab window and smiled pleasantly: 'Laundry.' He
prodded a thumb towards the back of the truck, and up-graded his smile from
just plain pleasant to downright charming.
The guard consulted his clipboard. He shook his head, tutted and turned the
pages.
'Nope,' he said, simply, and turned to go back to his warm cabin.
'What do you mean, "nope"?' said Tonto, his smile changing down to first gear.
The guard returned. 'There's no laundry delivery down on the sheet. I can't
let you in.'
Tonto slid his smile into reverse and reached under the dash-board.
Rimmer's essence bounded around the cab and groaned. This wasn't the plan. In
the plan, the guard raised the gate and waved them through. He'd seen it in
the movies thousands of times. Didn't this guard ever go to the movies?
What was wrong with him?
Tonto swung his flower-power gun through the open window and pulled the
trigger. There was a dull, flat, metal click, before Tonto remembered he
hadn't loaded it.
'Sorry,' he shook his head and blushed. 'Jesus.' He fumbled three bullets into
the chamber.
The guard had unfrozen, and was scrabbling with his brand-new leather holster
when Tonto spun the barrel, levelled the gun and pressed the trigger once
again.
Click.
'Ah. God, sorry, sorry.'
Click.
'My fault. Man, talk about un-together.'
The gun fired. The guard fell.
'Sorry, man,' he said to the dead guard, 'but you're the Establishment.' He
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