Dr. NoSleep (host)

Is that what it was?

An incident?

Sipes shrugs.

You tell me.

I read the report, but I want to hear you tell it.

We've got some time.

I sigh, knowing he won't take no for an answer, and I proceed to tell him how, as a security guard at Site 33, I took a man's life.

The story I tell him is not the truth, because if I told him that, I would surely be out of a job before the ride was over.

The real story is this.

The place was in chaos, alarm klaxons pealing, gunshots erupting from somewhere at the other end of the corridor, shouts and screams and exclamations of surprise and pain.

I'd been escorting a couple of D-class toward a testing chamber along with a guard named Gidden when it happened.

Both Gidden and I turned around to look toward the source of the noise, forgetting for a moment about the two violent offenders in our charge.

Suddenly, there was an arm around my throat and a hand clutching at the pistol in my holster.

I knew who it was without having to look.

Marler, a big, mean bastard who'd been convicted of killing two families, both with young children.

I gripped his arm with one hand, trying to pull it away from my throat to ease the pressure on my windpipe.

With my other hand, I tried to fight him for my pistol.

I failed at both.

He jerked back with his arm.

The cartilage in my neck crackled as it compressed.