REEVES RAN UP THE STAIRS, he was walking among the just released White Intersexuals from their cells — they were in jubilation on the 'driveway' area of every tier of C-Block.

He found Joe standing alone with two black eyes. The Wesleyan reeled back, when Reeves approached him holding a pistol...

Joe had not seen Reeves since he was admitted in the infirmary after he was beaten-up — for gossip-mongering among the Wesleyans. For a split moment, Joe thought he had come to whack him — he froze and was staring at his gun coming closer, by his approaching looming steps...

Reeves spoke up to him...

"Hey Joe, have you seen Troy?"

"No..."

The red headed boy responded gingerly, his eyes were still locked on the pistol that Reeves held. They both then saw Kiki-boy and Hank appear running towards them. Kiki spoke first in allure of the armed Reeves...

"Hey Reeves, dude — you got a gun! Have you shot any of those bitches out there?"

"No," Reeves replied flatly.

Even though he had just shot to wound a female sergeant in the control room earlier in self-defence to disarm her — but, he lied to not to be swank about it — as to how these rumour-mongers would love to hear some inflated stories.

"Where are our guns, we wanna fight too?"

Hank tittup and Reeves nodded back with some tolerance — even-though their presence nettled him...

"The Preacher is getting them for you all — I got to go find Troy."

"Whoo-hoo! Can you believe that I am finally gonna get a gun, man," Kiki bragged aloud. Joe just ignored him, and he turned to Reeves...

"Reeves, what are the Preacher's plans — what do we do now?"

"I really don't know. The guards in the watchtower are shooting to kill. Just stay put in here — and don't leave the block."

Reeves could not locate Troy on that tier so he started running down the stairs — and Joe followed him — calling out his name...

Reeves realized that Joe had trailed after him. The portly Intersexual walked along his side, he then mettled with his guilt before he spoke haphazardly...

"Sorry man, it's my fault and I know I said those stupid things without thinking to those guys — I really screwed that up, Reeves — and even back at the wall in the University, I screwed that one too...

"You don't deserve to be here in prison with the rest of us Wesleyans, because you could have done it all alone out there, in finding your mother — you didn't need me that day at that wall too — and you could have left all alone because you had a good plan, man — but I slowed you down, and I screwed that one up too..."

Reeves was attentive to his spate of random slapdash sentences before he went to tap him to stop...

"Come, Joe, you did not screw up anything, okay?"

But Joe intervened back again...

"You never say it — but deep inside, you know it that I fucked it all up — I felt so real shitty — and that is why I stayed away from you all these while here in Tombscradle."

The mentally distraught Joe was almost in lachrymose tears when he said that...

Their friendship had strained since they became inmates inside the prison walls — even though they still bumped together occasionally in the big-yard — but it was hardly on a one-on-one just like the Wesleyan days.

Reeves did not know that Joe carried the guilt of their capture at the Wesleyan wall badly — and had dwelt deeply in it, remorsefully taking their arrest very personally.

Since then, Joe had sessile in the sodality of his Wesleyan fatuous schoolmates for that same five years — while, the antithetic thinking Reeves was buoyant instead — because he was the schemer by nature — who had been plotting consistently on how to jump the electric fenced prison wall — and escape to be a free-male since the day of his arrival...

But today was Liberation Day by the Preacher for the denizen — today was neither the time nor place for past self-reproach and self-pity — Reeves horseplay to distract Joe from his sadness — he was head-locking Joe like he used to do at Wesleyan and rapped the butt of the gun on his head and laughed out...

"Not now fat-fuck, we talk about this over a beer once we get out of here — heck, I don't know what the fuck I just said, because I have no idea how the fuck a beer would taste like — but listen, Joe...

"We are really going to get out of here today, buddy — so all I want you to do is to stay alive, until all of this shit out there is over, okay?"

Reeves wanted to keep as many of them alive until they step out of the prison walls — the Preacher may have masterminded a device — but he has not shared it with anyone yet...

Reeves too remembered that he had questioned many of the enigmatic Doran's plans in the past and he never got a straight forward answer either — but today — after witnessing the feat that Doran had pulled for the past hour since their first assault in the Auditorium — to follow through with the Preacher's plan was now the only leverage for him — and it seemed like the only option of opportunity for anyone else in there to get out of the prison life.

They both heard laughter from behind...

"You need a shot-gun to put a boar-like Big Joe down."

It was True Bob with his arm swathed in bandages, ridiculing Reeves' horseplay rapprochement with Joe.

Reeves fist-bumped with Troy, who had come along with Bob...

"I need a favour from you, Troy. I'm gonna rescue someone in F-Block — and I want some backup, are you in?"

Reeves needed Marlin Petroff with him too — if he was to head later to the unfamiliar Washington D.C. to find for Laura Jensen.

*

The fenced sally-gate to the Negro's yard was unlocked and that unleashing the fifty unbridled overzealous armed Latino 'ganga' led by the fervent Ramirez — they scuttled out with war cries inside the Blacks' turf to psyche them of their arrival...

Capt. Olsen was with Warden Graves — both were looking out of the window of her top IMU floor office...

Guard Preslie Baker in the watchtower — she heeded to the instructions by Capt. Olsen on the walkie-talkie radio...

"BIRD'S EYE OVER — DON'T SHOOT THE BEANERS — I REPEAT, DON'T SHOOT THOSE BEANERS — THEY ARE ON OUR SIDE!"

Warden Graves had ratified her captain's plan to enforce Ramirez's fighting Latinos to hold off the insurgents until the Governor's backup arrived — now, Olsen was requited back into the warden's good-books for the workable strategy.

The last of the Hispanic ran pass through fenced gates before it was latched and secured in bolt and chains. Another guard tossed a satchel of rifle ammunition clips — and Ramirez and his lieutenants distributed the ammo among the Chicano 'clica.' The Latinos then intersected into the Blacks' Blocks A and B, where the Negros took cover from the advancing enemy.

Marlin looked out of his window at the dispersing Blacks who ran away to safety from a possible massacre by the shooting Hispanics. He also spotted from afar of two figures running towards the Latino fenced grounds.

He was very sure that one of them was Reeves Jensen.

'Was he rabbiting out?'

Hajja and his men positioned themselves in breach, looked out of the ground floor of the Block A's barred windows — the Blacks spotted the advancing Hispanics nearing.

The Black leader cussed...

"The bitches have sent the wetbacks to slaughter us!"

The sinistral Zinga then reminded him, showing the rifle that he held...

"Hajja, we are low on ammunition, Mon."

The freed Blacks had amounted to a total of six hundred but they were armed with a mere two dozen AK-47 rifles that they obtained from winning the gun-battle with the 'ninja-turtle' riot squad in the big-yard...

The Negros now faced fifty bloodthirsty 'Cholas' storming over — the hired guns of the warden.

"Then, it is One-bullet, for One-Bean-head!"

Hajja responded while spotting the trigger-happy Chicanos who were firing away at A-Block...

"Steady — aim those brown turds — hold..."

The invaders were at close range — and Hajja hollered out ...

"Fire!"

Volleys of shots rang out in a unison barrage — and more than a score of Latinos either dropped dead or were wounded in the hail of bullets. Ramirez discerned that his men were reduced by a quarter — he yelled out orders to the survivors, who sidled in retreat...

"Take cover! Take cover, fast!"

Behind the gun smoke, the Blacks cried out victorious — after seeing the rest of the Latinos fleeing into the empty B-Block, which was evacuated by the Blacks, for strategic purpose.

Ramirez barked in rage to his lieutenants...

"Fuck those Jigaboos niggers! Those cowards are not coming out to fight us like real men — I want that cunt-ass Hajja and every one of his Sambo dead by today!"

The remaining holed-up Mexicans were equally raged — they continued to fire back at the Negros in A-Block.