An update? This quickly? Amazing! Obviously none of this belongs to me. I'm not sure-- how quickly does this seem to be moving? I don't want it to seem like it's going too fast but if you take into account how long the real experiment lasted, it did go quickly. And erg. I'm getting way to into this fic but it's going to be a short one and I'd rather not leave it.
Chapter Three
The reinforcements stumbled in, looking irritated and tired but ready to deal with the problem none the less. By that point, the prisoners had taken off their stocking caps and torn off the numbers that were sewn on their outfits and the insults continued, seemingly endless.
"Meeting. Out front," a more muscular guard instructed, and everyone filed out front save for one guard by the name of Mark who stayed in, trying to calm everyone down again.
Out front, everyone stood in silence for a moment, savouring it after being stuck in the noisy hell for the last few hours. It was Bryon who spoke first, taking up the position of leader with ease. "We gotta get 'em under control. Mark can't do shit without some kind've weapon—none of us can do a lot without a weapon." He held up the billy club, which was only visible because of the nearby streetlamp. "This thing isn't doin' anything."
Johnny spoke up then, using a tone Soda had never heard out of him. "Well get some weapons. What about... fire extinguishers? Those things hurt like a bitch." Soda wondered if that had ever been used on him, but chose not to ask at that moment.
"What? Actually use force?" One of the other guards, a strange freshman by the name of Rusty James, nodded excitedly.
"Yeah, man. Beat the shit outta—" Johnny cut him off, his voice just as quiet as ever but carrying some new authority. He held himself differently, and Soda wondered if he had changed any over the course of the two days.
"No. Use th' fire extinguishers t'move 'em. Take their beds. Get ridda the ringleaders. We can calm 'em down."
Soda decided to speak up then, an idea beginning to form. "Psychological?"
"Yeah. Psychological."
Prison
Ponyboy jumped back a bit as the door was hit with the billy club again, but the insults continued to stream out of his mouth. Everyone else was doing it, and all it had taken was one harsh word from someone who sounded like Steve, but he hadn't been sure.
There was no way they could lose in something like this, and the guards would have to give up if they wanted to restore any kind of order... but something didn't feel right.
It was sudden; a blast of cold air, not even air... something else that made them stumble back from the doors of their cells and the insults turned to confused cries as the prisoners tried to move away. Seconds later the door was forced open, and a short guard stepped inside, ripping the clothes from their bodies and leaving them standing there, completely exposed. He surveyed the group, and Ponyboy shivered both from the cold and nerves that had seized him when moments before he had felt like king of the world.
"Come with me." The voice was familiar, so familiar and Ponyboy should have known, had he not been worried about M&M as he was dragged from the cell, accused of being a ringleader and shoved into a small closet, crowded with six others, deemed 'solitary confinement'.
The beds were taken from their cells, tossed into the middle of the hall and then they were locked in again. Everything was quiet, until one guard began to heckle one of the prisoners.
"Cocksucker..."
Every insult that had been thrown was coming back at them. They rattled the bars of their cells, used the extinguisher to keep them back from the door and whenever they would come near, pushups were to be done.
Ponyboy slid down the wall, wrapping his arms around his legs in an attempt to hide his nakedness from the guards, feeling afraid and alone.
Prison
Johnny sneered, spraying the prisoners with the fire extinguisher again. "Stand up," he ordered, giving another short burst of the freezing carbon dioxide, watching as the prisoner scrambled to his feet. He watched as Mark took the prisoners from the cell closest to solitary, forcing them into three of the other already crowded cells.
"This," Bryon announced, motioning to the cell that now stood empty, "is the privilege cell. Those who did not participate in the rebellion, get in. You," he pointed to a lanky young man with curly, black hair, "come here."
"Whaddabout this one?" Soda motioned to a prisoner who had been disturbingly quiet, the one who had caused the disruption the previous day.
"C'mere."
The prisoner moved slowly, and upon entering the cell was handed his uniform back. He donned it, and a sigh of relief escaped his lips before he lay down on one of the cots and closed his eyes, ready to sleep. A third prisoner was brought forward, one who had contributed but had stopped shortly after the guards re-entered and was deemed "good" by Sodapop, who shoved him forward.
"There will be no more meals," Mark announced, "no clothes, you will not wash unless you are put into the privilege cell. Is that clear?"
All that greeted his question was silence, and the silence remained even after the guards from the night shift went home.
Prison
Two-Bit hadn't slept that well in ages, but it was interrupted when someone dragged him roughly out of his cell, stripped him of his clothes, and shoved him back into one of the "bad" cells before putting one of the ringleaders into the privilege cell.
"What—you can't fuckin' do that," he protested, pointing at the now clothed prisoner. "He started it!"
It was Steve who was smirking at him from the cell, arms crossed in front of his chest. It was unbelievable, the nerve of the man... had he told someone about the rebellion? After all, how else was he to get into the privilege cell? It made perfect sense, to him at least, even though he would have thought differently under other circumstances.
"QUIET," one of the guards roared, prodded Two-Bit in the chest with the billy club and quieting him immediately. By the time the guards changed, several of those who had participated in the rebellion were lounging in the privilege cell, while those who had very little to do with it sat shivering in the regular cells, feeling exposed and betrayed.
"You sold us out," Ponyboy yelled from one of the cells. "Fuckin' squealer." Two-Bit had never heard Ponyboy swear before, even if he was in college, he always considered him a little too good for that sort of language.
But then again, he had considered the youngest Curtis above accusations, as well. "What the hell're you talkin' about? I never said a—"
"SQUEALER," someone else yelled, and everything fell quiet again when one of the guards hit the bars of a cell with the club.
The guards changed again, but Two-Bit had begun to notice that they all looked the same. Always frowning, sneering, prodding at them with the clubs and yelling at them to be quiet. When the night crew came in, he could no longer ignore his need to use the restroom, and managed to get the attention of one of the guards.
"What is it?" He sounded bored, tired, a number of things that Two-Bit wasn't in the mood to place.
"I need t'piss."
At this, the guard laughed, a cold laugh that made him realize that there wasn't going to be any sort of chance to use the bathroom.
"Lights out."
Prison
Soda threw another bucket into one of the cells. "Piss in there," he commented, snickering at the look of embarrassment that crossed the prisoner's face before the lights went off and everything went silent, save for the sound of a few prisoners relieving themselves in the buckets.
The silence was wonderful, and he welcomed it after the chaos that came with the rebellion. Flashlight on, he walked up and down the hall with the other guards, occasionally waking the prisoners purely for his own amusement. If there was any change in his personality, he hadn't noticed it, and assumed he was being completely normal.
"FUCK—LET ME OUTTA HERE..." There was sobbing coming from solitary, breaking the comfortable silence. Sodapop strode over to the door and rapped it twice with the club.
"Quiet in there."
The noise only increased, accompanied by what sounded like someone hitting and kicking the door. The cries of the prisoner within got increasingly louder and more incoherent, but he could still make out some threats.
He's faking it, Soda thought, and turned his back on the door, leaving the sobbing individual to the punishment he surely deserved. He and the other ringleaders, minus Steve Randle, who continued to lounge in the privilege cell. That'll change.
When he left for the night, replaced by the morning crew who immediately woke the prisoners up for count, the screaming continued, and just as he turned the corner he saw Johnny lead a struggling, dark-eyed prisoner out of solitary, leading him toward a side room to be interrogated.