John Shirley - A Song Called Youth

“That’s right, Frank, I’m a former US Marine, and I just didn’t want to shoot the man down in cold blood, I wanted to give him a gun, and of course I’d have a gun, and we’d, you know, go at it.”

“Sort of an old-fashioned Wild West gunfight, eh? You’re a brave man! I understand you had to sign a special waiver…”

“Oh, sure, I signed a waiver saying if I got hurt, the government couldn’t be held responsible.”

“Bill, we’re running out of time. Can you just tell us quickly what it was like for you, Bill Mitchell, to kill a man.”

“Uh, sure, Frank, killing a man with a gun has its mechanical aspect, like, you got to punch a hole through the guy, and that causes damage to internal organs, so they’re no longer workin’, and of course loss of life-givin’ blood. Now, what it feels like to do that… oh, boy. Well, you almost feel like the bullet is, you know, a part of you, like you can feel what it would feel, and like, you imagine the bullet nosing through the skin, pushing through muscles and smashin’ through organs, bustin’ bone, flyin’ out the other side of ’im with all that red liquid… just blowing the bastard away. And it feels good knowing that he’s a criminal, a killer, that he deserved it. And you feel a kinda funny relief like…”

“Bill, that’s all we’ve got time for now. Thanks for letting us know… What It’s Like!”

The cell they’d moved Spector to that morning was significantly smaller than the first one. And dirtier. And there was someone else in it, wearing a bloodstained prison shirt. The guy was asleep, his back turned, on the top bunk. The cell had two metal shelves that passed for bunks, extending from the smudged, white concrete wall, and a lidless, seatless toilet. They wouldn’t tell him why he’d been moved, and now, looking around at his cell, Spector was beginning to suspect the reason, and with the suspicion came the stink of fear.

Don’t panic, he told himself. You’re a United States senator. You’ve got friends, influence, and the strings sometimes take a while to let you know they’ve been pulled. The defense contractors and the Pentagon need you for that military appropriation bill. They’ll see you through this.

But the cell seemed to mock all reassurance. He looked around at the cracked walls; the water stain on the white concrete near the ceiling looking like a sweat stain on a T-shirt; the bars in place of a fourth wall, dun paint flaking off them. The graffiti burned into the ceiling with cigarette coals: Julio-Z 2019!! and Whoever UR, yer ass is Fucked!! and At lease you a TV star!! Once??

Spector’s stomach growled. Breakfast that morning had been a single egg on a piece of stale white bread. They were going out of their way to show they didn’t treat him any differently than anyone else. The media scrutiny had seen to that.

His legs were going to sleep from sitting on the edge of the hard bunk. He got up, paced the width of the cell, five paces the long way, four the short.

He heard a metallic rasp and a clang: echoey footsteps in the stark spaces of the hallway. Trembling, he went to the bars. A middle-aged, seam-faced man wearing a real three-piece suit, carrying a gunmetal briefcase, was walking up behind the guard. He walked as if he were bone-tired. Some lawyer from Heimlitz’s firm, Spector supposed.

The bored, portly black guard said, “Got to look in your briefcase there, buddy.” The stranger opened his briefcase, and the guard poked through it. “No machine guns or cannon in there,” he said. A humorless joke. He unlocked the door, let the stranger in the cell. Locked it behind him and went away.

Spector looked at the sleeping figure on the top bunk. Still snoring, out cold. No need to ask for a private room for the conference with his lawyer.

“Senator Spector,” the man said, extending his hand. “I’m Gary Bergen.” Bergen’s hand was cold and moist in Spector’s.

“You from Heimlitz’s office? It’s about time.”

“I’m not from Heimlitz,” Bergen said. “I’m a public defender.” Spector stared at him. Bergen looked back with dull gray eyes. “Heimlitz is no longer representing you. They formally withdrew from the case.”

Spector’s mouth was dry. He sank onto the bunk. “Why?”

“Because your case is—well, the word ‘hopeless’ was used. And your wife is in the process of seizing your assets, garnishing your bank account. She refuses to pay an attorney.”

Spector suspected that Bergen was taking some kind of quiet satisfaction in all this. He sensed that Bergen didn’t like him.

Spector just sat there. Feeling like he was sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and if he moved, even an inch, he’d slip and go over the edge and fall, and fall…

He conjured some motivation up from somewhere inside him and said, “Senator Burridge’s committee will provide the money to…”

“The Committee to Defend Senator Henry Spector? It’s been disbanded. Public opinion was overwhelmingly against them—and they had to think of their careers. Frankly, Senator, the public is howling for your blood. For the very reason that you are who you are. The public doesn’t want to see any favorites played. And they’re sure you’re guilty.”

“But how can anybody be sure of that? I haven’t gone to trial, there’s only been a hearing—and by now they should have streamed the video. That should’ve vindicated me. I’ve been waiting to be invited to a court screening…”

“Oh, they’ve streamed it… Someone leaked it digitally to the Internet. Went from there to Grid-TV news. Everyone’s seen it—apparently everyone but you. They saw you holding that gray box, pointing it at your bodyguard, making him attack those people. A close-up on your face as you shouted, ‘Kill them!’ The autopsy on Kojo turned up the brain implant that made him respond to the prompter against his will… and we saw you pulling that gun, shooting your bodyguard in the back—to make it look as if he’d gone mad and you’d killed him to protect yourself.” Bergen was enjoying this. “Too bad you didn’t have time to get rid of the video.”

Spector was unable to speak. Finally he managed, “It’s insane. Moronic. Why would I go to that much trouble to kill Sonia Lerman, a woman I didn’t know…”

“Your wife says you were obsessed with her. That you watched Sonia’s editorials and they incensed you. You babbled that Sonia deserved to die—and so forth.” He shrugged.

“The bitch is lying! That’s perjury! I never saw the Lerman woman, on TV or off, before that interview! My ‘wife’…” He snorted. “God, I had no idea she hated me so much. Wendy’s lying so she’ll get everything. The video. The video—it can’t have shown me saying ‘Kill them.’ I didn’t say it!”

Bergen nodded slowly. “It may surprise you to know that, actually… I believe you. But the video contradicts you. Of course, they were at the UNO station for twenty-four hours before the police picked them up. The whole thing was transmitted from your place through your comm system to the UNO station and recorded there.”

“They tampered with them!”

“Possibly. But try to get the judge to believe that…” And he smiled maliciously. “You’ll have two minutes for that at the trial.”

“The brain implant—whoever set me up had to have arranged that! We could trace Kojo’s recent past, find out who his surgeon was when he…”

“Before your defense committee disbanded, they tried that tack. Kojo had cerebral surgery just after you picked him out from the bodyguard portfolio at Witcher Security. He was to have an implant inserted to improve his speed and reflexes. The technicki who provides implants for the surgeons was contacted by someone by fone. The man he saw on the screen offered to transfer fifty-thousand newbux into the technickis’ account if he’d consent to some unauthorized ‘adjustments’ to the implant. He consented, and the implant’s ‘adjustment’ turned out to’ve been one of the army’s attack-and-kill mind-control instruments. Remote-control. Experimental. But apparently it works.”