The Hourglass Read Online Free PDF Page A

morning. Marland was already awake, nervously picking at her
fingernails again. She gave Sarah a tentative smile, which Sarah returned.
Heather was still snoring away on the bench.  A guard came about half an hour
later. She threw a protein bar to each of the prisoners and grinned when the
bar she threw at Heather landed on her chest, waking her up with a snort. The
guard unlocked the door and held it open.
    “C’mon ladies.
Time to go, your bus awaits.”
    Heather held up
the protein bar, disgruntled. “Is this it?” she demanded.
    “You can eat on
the way,” replied the guard. “Let’s go.”
    They all
shuffled out into the corridor. Sarah ripped open her bar and munched on it
thoughtfully. She wondered what the food situation would be like on the ship.
She often went without breakfast, more for the lack of food than anything else,
and she was quite happy with the protein bar. It tasted like rubber but it was
filling.
    Protein bars
were one of the few readily available foodstuffs that didn’t wax and wane with
how well the war was going. It was synthesised some fifty years ago by someone
with no sense of taste, smell or presentation, but it had, they were all
assured, all the necessary vitamins, proteins and minerals that were needed.
They were originally intended to be an emergency food source but had quickly
become the staple food product for many people in the city. Sarah supposed that
meant her city was probably always in a semi-state of emergency. 
    They passed
through the small room with the desk and walked down a few corridors before
emerging into the sunshine outside. The light made her blink and shade her
eyes. They were in an enclosed pen made out of chicken wire attached to the
back of the building. Slowly her surroundings came into focus as she
acclimatised to the glare. There was a bus waiting on the other side, its door
neatly lining up with the door in the wire fence. It was a small, dingy bus
with a beaten and depressed look about it. It looked old, almost pre-war. She
wouldn’t have been surprised if it was. Pretty much all new technology and
money went into funding the war effort. The city and its people usually had to
make do with what they already had, and she figured that herself and her fellow
prisoners probably ranked below the city when it came to funding. The guard
unlocked the wire fence door and ushered them through, her hand on her gun in
case any of them dared to run. Heather elbowed herself to the front and went
in. Sarah had no idea why anyone would be so keen to get on the bus. Or at
least, she didn’t until she entered it herself. The seats were as beaten up and
sad looking as the outside of the bus. Bits of padding leaked out from most of
the seats and there was graffiti everywhere. She wondered inanely where people
had got the pens from. Each seat had room for two people and lined both sides
of the bus. Every two-seater had a single person on it. Heather had smugly
spread herself over the last empty two-seater so that she didn’t have to share.
Now Sarah and Marland were forced to decide who to sit next to. Sarah wished
that they were all wearing little badges that detailed their crimes. She would
rather deal with a small-time thief like she was supposed to be than a murderer.
She looked around. Everyone on the bus was young. The details she had been
given prior to her court case had indicated that she could be sent to a
juvenile farm if proven guilty, and while it wasn’t exactly a farm they were
going to, the juvenile part looked about right. A few people were looking her
way now. She would have to decide quickly, in case the person she sat next to
decided to read too much into her choice. She chose the first seat where the
person on it was sitting up next to the window, so that she wouldn’t have to
ask them to move over to make room for her. She hardly registered what the
person looked like, trying so hard to go unnoticed herself. Marland looked at
her desperately as she