Nancy Kress - Beggars and Choosers

That was another reason for taking my walk now. Dr. Turner wasn’t around, her. For a change.

I zipped my parka, me, and picked up the walking stick Lizzie brought me. It’s a good stick. I’d use it even if it wasn’t, because Lizzie brought it to me, but it is good. The right height and thickness. Lizzie’s got an eye, her. When she takes it off her library terminal and Dr. Turner.

Annie said, more gentle, “You be careful, Billy Washington. We don’t want, us, anything to happen to you,” just like she knew I wasn’t going to the cafe after all, just like we didn’t have no bitter fights over leaving East Oleanta. And she put her arms around me. For a minute I held Annie Francy, me, against my chest, her head resting just under my chin, and closed my eyes.

“You,” I said, which was stupid enough, but then it was all right because Annie smiled. I could feel her smiling, her, against my neck. So I said it again. “You.”

“You yourself,” she said, pulling away. Her chocolate brown eyes had a tender look, them. I walked out that door like I was walking on sky. And I didn’t feel too weak, me, neither. My legs worked better than I expected. I got all the way, me, down to the river without my heart racing. Only my mind, it.

Why wouldn’t I leave East Oleanta? Annie really wanted, her, to go someplace better for Lizzie. She was only staying for me.

And why was I staying, me? Because a big-headed Sleepless girl, who was probably Miranda Sharifi herself, might need me. Me, Billy Washington, who couldn’t even help carry water or trap rabbits or move Y-energy heat cones to places where they was needed. It was funny when you thought about it. Miranda Sharifi, from Huevos Verdes and Eden, needing Billy Washington.

Only it wasn’t funny.

I poked the end of my stick, me, in the soft mud and leaned on it to ease my old fool’s body down the riverbank. I was kidding myself. The truth was, it was me that needed Eden. In my head anyway. And I didn’t really know why.

I picked my way, me, over the rocks along the river. We’d got a thaw the last few days, and the river mud was thick as soup dotted with patches of snow. The sun was shining, it, and the water ran high, green and cold, rushing along like agravrail. I saw something dark, me, lying in some snow, and I stumped along for a closer look.

It was a rabbit. With long, clawed paws. It laid on its side, him, on the white snow, its guts torn out. Fox prints dotted the mud, them. The rabbit was reddish brown.

Somebody climbed down the bank behind me. I poked my stick, me, into the rabbit and turned it over. The rabbit was brown.

“Ugh,” Dr. Turner said. “What killed it?”

“Fox.”

“Well, why are you looking so funereal about it? Surely this must happen all the time out here in God’s country. Were you thinking we could eat it?”

“No. Not this rabbit, him.”

“Well, if you can get your mind off the local wildlife, I have news. The President’s declared martial law.”

She sounded upset, her. I didn’t say nothing.

“Congress has backed him up. Good old Article 1 Section 8. That big fuck-up on Wall Street yesterday, and enough state budgets have run out of money so they can’t afford to pay jurors, which means that even where there aren’t food riots the judiciary has stopped functioning in just enough states for ol’ Commander-in-Chief Bonny Profile to declare civil authority inadequate to — you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, do you, Billy? Do you know what martial law is?”

“No, Dr. Turner.”

“The President has put the army in control. To keep peace where there’s rioting. No matter what they have to do to keep it.”

“Yes, Dr. Turner.”

She looked at me, her, sideways. I ain’t never been any good, me, at hiding things. “What is it, Billy? What’s wrong with that rabbit?”

I said, slower than I meant, “It’s brown.”

“So? We’ve seen lots of brown rabbits. Lizzie told me she even had a brown rabbit for a pet, last summer.”

“It ain’t summer.”

She went on, her, looking at me, and I saw she really didn’t understand. Sometimes donkeys don’t know the most simple things.

“This here rabbit’s a snowshoe rabbit. It should of changed its coat, him, by now. Reddish brown in the summer, white in the winter, and here it is the start of November. It should have changed, him.”

“Always, Billy?”

“Always.”

“Genemod.” Dr. Turner kneeled in the snow, her, and studied the rabbit hard. There wasn’t nothing to see, except that reddish brown coat. Almost the same color as the little hairs escaping from her hat onto the back of her neck where she kneeled down, her, in front of me. I could of killed her right then, me, bashed her neck with my stick, if I was the killing kind. And if I’d of thought, me, that it would of done anybody any good.

“Billy — are you. positive the coat shouldn’t still be brown?”

I didn’t even answer, me.

She sat back on her feet, thinking hard. Then she looked up at me, her, with the damnedest look I ever saw on anybody’s face. I didn’t have no idea, me, what it meant, except it reminded me of Jack Sawicki when he played chess. When he was alive, him, to play chess. People used to snicker, them, at Jack for liking chess. It wasn’t no game for a Liver.

Then Dr. Turner smiled, her. She said, “ ‘Oh, my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!’ ” which didn’t even make no sense. “Billy, you have to take me to Eden.”

I leaned on my stick. The end of it was mucky from poking at the rabbit. “There ain’t no Eden, Dr. Turner. The government blew it up, them.”

“ ‘There is no rabbit,’ ” she said, smiling, her, in that same voice that didn’t make no sense. “Down the rabbit hole, Billy. Off with their heads. You and I both know they didn’t blow it up. They missed.”

I looked, me, again at the dead rabbit. The fox had done a job on it. “What makes you say, you, that they missed?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they did miss, and that there are things I need to know. And I’ve decided that the only way left to discover them is to go to Eden and ask. Nicely direct, don’t you think? Will you take me there?”

I picked, me, a place in the river, and stared at it. Then I stared at it some more. I wasn’t going, me, to get into no argument with no donkey. There ain’t never any way to win those arguments. But I wasn’t going to take her to Eden, neither. She had called the government once, her, to blow up Eden, and she could do it again. She wasn’t going to learn nothing from me.

After a few minutes Dr. Turner stood up, her, wiping mud off the knees of her jacks. Her voice was serious again. “All right, Billy. Not yet. But you will, I know, when something happens. And something will. The SuperSleepless aren’t releasing genemod rabbits that everyone can see are genemod rabbits for no reason at all. This is a message. Pretty soon the meaning will come clear, and then we’ll discuss this again.”

“Ain’t nothing to discuss,” I said, me, and I meant it. Not with her. No matter how many genemod rabbits turned up.

The sun was lower now, it, and the air was getting cold. And my walk was pretty much ruined anyway. I climbed the riverbank, me, taking my time. Dr. Turner knew better than to try and help me.

Lizzie was dancing around the apartment, clean from a bath, waving her study terminal. “Godel’s proof!” she sang, her, like it was a song. “Godel’s proof, Billy!”

She was as bad as Dr. Turner with her looking glasses and rabbit holes. Still, I was glad to see Lizzie so happy.

“Look, Vicki, look what happens if you take this formula and just kind of sneak up on these numbers…”