"You abandon your duties."
Twenty children and five adults had grown to a population of almost a thousand. Dials ruled with an iron fist and did a mixture of communism and nationalism as every citizen had a purpose. In the past, something bad happened and almost every human was wiped out besides all the rich who over the course of three hundred years froze themselves. The number of frozen was around fifty million.
"I've taken a day off."
BB had been confronted by his adoptive father, Dials, at a café. BB had been appointed as the warden of a prison, and he was basically as much a prisoner as guard. He decided to take the day off and get some raspberry jam.
"Why?"
"Couldn't you figure that out?"
"Because of what happened?"
"Yes."
Most of his friends had been imprisoned but BB decided to pull strings and had their release dates pushed to an earlier date and gave them privileges.
"You could be executed."
"Suddenly, a hundred murderers I've become very close with could end up on the street with flamethrowers and the sort."
Dials knew he wasn't bluffing.
"There will be no next time."
BB sat with his jam before heading back to the prison. In an earlier adventure, his right shoulder had been blown to shreds and it made his duties very hard. Luckily, BB was ambidextrous. He kept that a secret from Dials and made sure he looked weaker than he did. Though, to keep up with his duties as a warden and as a revolutionary, he ate meat and other things than just plain jam. He also made sure to exorcise and train in certain martial arts with help from his ally, General John Sears.
"Alright, everyone in their cells."
The lunch period was over as he sent them all back. The chief guard, Alexandria of York sent them back with harsh words and a few hits with a baton.
"We need to figure something out."
"Why?"
"I heard a click when I used a pen."
"That's most likely a ballpoint pen. If not, it's bugged."
She frowned as her eyes sank. She spent years learning how to speak normally but wasn't caught up. The group's time machine, ODETTA, was hidden outside the city and nobody left the city. She trained as an assassin, so it wasn't impossible but still very hard.
"Can you two hurry this along?"
A prisoner yelled at them from across the cafeteria. His name was Scott. He was also in on it. He was a dictator in the past and tried to become a radio host before becoming a political prisoner. Now all he did was sit in his cell and write poetry that was meant to be propaganda for the city of Backtown. Scott was tall, thin, and he had brown hair that went into muttonchops across his face. He was charismatic and hated propaganda as he believed that it took the fun out of committing crimes against humanity. He was also BB's best friend.
"Can you give us a moment? We're in the middle of a work talk."
"Yeah, but I'm on the clock and I want to be out of this stupid job."
All the other prisoners grumbled in agreement as Scott sat back at his desk. The prisoners often worked the worst jobs.
"Fine."
BB opened the files and began assigning jobs. Scott always got propaganda duty and Sears was sent to weapons assembly and training courses. The city guard relied on the general turned mercenary for training as he was one of the best hand to hand fighters of his time.
"What about me?"
Mistress was an orange skinned girl with telekinetic abilities. She was half alien and half human.
"You can go to either construction or instruction. Next!"
"Let me guess, propaganda?"
"Nope. You're going out for scouting."
Dials made bomb vests that activated if a person walked too far outside the town. It was around three miles that someone had to leave to be made into paste on the wall. Sears had lived life working on these types of things but wasn't good at them. BB had spent some time doing engineering as he made solar panels for Backtown. Together, they removed the gunpowder from the device and walked him out of the place before BB yelled at Sears and sent him away.
"Thanks man, I'm not coming back."
"That's the plan."
They shook hands and he watched his friend run away. BB shed a tear and got back to work. As he walked through the street, people whispered and spoke about him in rude terms.
"I heard he runs a crime syndicate out of the prison."
"I heard he ran a truck through the police station."
BB's daily duties came to a climax with him going to see if those in solitary confinement were alive and ready. Number one was Joey Diostar. He had not been that good of a student before he was picked up by a time traveler. He could stop time for two minutes and was built like a truck. BB was also secretly letting him out of his cage to be an underground fighter.
"Time to wake up. You're going to be scouting tonight."
Joey was put up with the same unexploding vest and hauled away to the edge of the city. BB needed crime if he wanted to make more people go to prison and thus keeping himself indispensable.
"See you soon."
"ODETTA will be happy to see you. Scott is with her."
"Oh Scott, my favorite person in all of time."
He was obviously being sarcastic as he was sent away. He was curious about what his daughter was like after he spoke with briefly after she became an ai. It felt good. Though, Dials had heard about BB sending two of his allies to the outside and them not coming back was very suspicious. So, he had a hunter that was very loyal to him go out. The hunter wasn't a prisoner who was sent to die and if he came back it had to be something tasty. The hunter was a man that personally retrieved food for Dials. He never trusted getting food from BB. His distrust was well placed. Meanwhile, BB took time to work in his journal.
I need to cut the power and light up for when Dials comes to raid. Mistress is ready to open some minds as she's already placed some psychedelics in the water.
We plan on placing the blame on Scott and Joey for when it happens. I'll be in the hospital and Alexandria will have to deal with that fool for a little bit. That will leave me time to get done with the plan. Take that Dials!