“I’m working on some of this graffiti,” Cole said. “You know. Trying to clean up the place before we have any more visitors.”
The Squam’s face twisted into a strange mockery of confusion. “Are you expecting another visitor?”
“They don’t seem to leave us alone for very long around here,” Lambert said while squinting to try to get a better look at Cole’s busy hands. “I know about them runes too. They’re not the ones used to unlock the door.”
“I know. I can’t reach those.” Suddenly, Cole stopped and closed his eyes. “Frank,” he said, hoping he wasn’t about to look like the biggest moron in lockup, “can you reach those symbols on the wall?”
“The ones the guards always touch to unlock the doors?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
Cole nodded and returned to his task. Gritting his teeth, he squeezed the splinter harder until the thorn sliced into his thumb. The command he recited echoed so loudly through his brain that he couldn’t stop himself from mouthing the words. The wood chip didn’t respond as well as his own spear, but it did shift slightly into a more angular shape that was better suited for gouging into the iron bar. He didn’t want to look up from the symbol he was carving into. Every bit of willpower he could force into the task was committed to honing the tool in his hand. “How long have you been in here, Frank?”
“Long enough to know those symbols can’t be scratched off.”
The chip in Cole’s hand was responding quicker with the thorn fully embedded in his flesh. When he wanted to saw deeper, it grew a more jagged edge. When his hold on it started to slip, it formed subtle grooves along its surface to allow his fingers to find better purchase. “Maybe not easily, but I think I can get it done.”
“Do you know how they work?”
“All you need to do is know which ones are the triggers and which way you’re supposed to trace the design to make them turn on or off.”
“I figured out that much by watching the guards,” Lambert said. “What else you got?”
“How about this?” Cole had been hoping for a dramatic snap of metal as the wedge of bar he’d cut came loose and fell to the floor. Instead, what he got was the grind of his wood chip getting stuck inside the groove it had made. There was some struggling involved, but he managed to pull his tool loose while also popping the small section of iron from the bar. He picked it up, brushed it off and examined it. Smiling proudly, he said, “Just what I thought. The runes don’t go all the way down.”
“Why didn’t you just cut all the way through the bar?” Frank asked.
“Actually, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do this much. This wood is stronger than I thought. Anyway,” Cole added while tucking the iron wedge into his shoe, “this is better.”
“Was something supposed to have happened?”
Cole dropped to his knees and bent down to the little square door. “Let me ask you something, Frank. Can you see anything special from these bars? Like maybe something the rest of us can’t see?”
“Yes.”
“Whoa, wait,” Lambert said. “How’d you know that?”
Frank’s voice was like a huff of air blown over a dry slate. “Yes. How did you know about that?”
“I’m a Skinner. We know things.”
The cryptic response sounded bad the moment Cole said it, and went over even worse with the other two prisoners.
“You know how to deface prison property,” Lambert scoffed. “That puts you right up there with the dickhead who had this cell before me who broke the toilet.”
“How do you know about what I can or cannot see?” Frank asked.
“We don’t have time for this,” Cole said. “Someone’s gotta be coming by now.”
Lambert pushed his face into the gap between two of his bars as though he expected to pull the same trick as the Squam. “Now you’re worried about them watching?”
After seeing the cross section of the other bar, he had a better idea how far down he needed to saw on the others. His progress wasn’t hampered by the sudden rattling of his cage, but the leathery fist pounding against it sure caught his attention.
“Answer me, Skinner,” Frank demanded while thumping the bars with a scaly fist. “How do you know so much about us?”
Cole knew about the Squamatosapien’s eyesight because of another Skinner’s research. Ned Post had spent some time in the Everglades, tracked down a few of