John Shirley - A Song Called Youth

“A guard stopped us. We had a permit to go to medicenter for Kitty, so he let us go. But he did it like he didn’t want to.”

“Did he run an ID check?”

“Yeah, I think he did. But he let us go…”

Chu stood. “You are a known agitator. Your permit is for your wife; they would not have let you go, too, at this hour, unless…” She looked at the door, spoke with brisk authority. “We must go. Everyone go, quickly. I will be in touch.”

They stood, everyone suddenly uncomfortable, as she got up and walked hastily across the mattresses to the door, stooped, and stepped through. They heard the outer door creak and clang shut behind her. She was gone. Just like that.

“She spooks easily,” Lester said.

“Maybe we better go, too,” Vreeland said uneasily.

Kitty’s stomach churned with tension. Nausea welled up in her. “Lester, I think I’m gonna be sick. Is there a toilet here?”

“They took it out. You got to use the public down the hall. Go ahead, babe, I’ll be there in just a minute.”

She moved across the mattresses toward the way out, staggering a little on the soft and uneven walking surface, went through the door. Bitchie was sprawled in the next room, alone, his makeup smeared, his paper dress in dingy tatters. His face was drawn, hollow-eyed, pasty with pancake. His hair was a stack of dirty yellow coils. He was loading the little medinject unit attached to his leg with his black market Demerol-amphetamine mix; she could see his genitals, like a droopy white snail, under his printout skirt. He’d been a pilot, once; he had this place by contract for two years, and his two years were almost up. He hadn’t worked at anything but collecting rents from whores for a year. He couldn’t stay off the drugs, and when he was on them, he couldn’t stay out of drag. Drag queens are not generally considered the Right Stuff.

She looked away from him—the sight of him made her stomach writhe even more—and went out the half-open door into the back hall. Chu hadn’t even closed the door. Kitty’s stomach contracted again, and she nearly threw up on the floor of the narrow metal hallway.

She was running by the time she got to the bathroom. She went in and, with not a second to spare, threw up in the vacu-flush.

She felt better almost immediately, then embarrassed. God, she must be unattractive this way, all puffy, throwing up half the time. No wonder Lester was ready to—Oh, don’t be silly, that’s not why he’s doing it.

But she went to the sink, looked in the mirror, grimaced, tried to pretty herself up a little.

Five minutes later she gave up. She rinsed out her mouth and went out into the hall.

And saw two SA bulls dragging Lester away, down the hall… up ahead of Lester, three other bulls were shoving Vreeland along; he was resisting, and they jabbed him with shock-prods, making him tense up and stagger. Where was Shood?

But… Lester. They had Lester.

His hands were trapped behind him in permaplastic handcuffs, and he was bleeding from the back of his head, and she thought, Chu was right.

She started after them, but the bulls stepped into an elevator. The doors closed on them, and on Lester.

And that was it, that was all: he was gone.

Charlie was alive and Angelo was dead.

Angelo was gone. Charlie had sweated him out, metabolized him out, pissed him out. Burned him out.

But Charlie was here because the neurological Angelo, using Charlie, had stabbed a cop. Dead, Angelo had put him here.

It was an autonomic cell, robot-guarded, one of the newer cells; Charlie didn’t rate a human guard. He was in the cell with another guy, a short, taciturn, spike-haired Chinese in a bloodied JAS who’d come in that morning from an AntiViolence beating. His face all patchy with red welts, bruises.

Charlie had been in the cell alone, awake all night, till just after the pathetic breakfast, when they brought in the Chinese. Charlie tried not to stare at the Chinese when the trash-can escorted him in. But he couldn’t help looking at his battered face, wondering what they’d leave of Charlie Chesterton’s face if that cop died. Or even if he didn’t… Stabbing a cop. Great.

You’re screwed to the max, Charlie.

The place was cold and echoey and unyielding. It was a great, slow-moving mower machine you were caught in.

Charlie paced around the little plasticrete cell. There was just enough room for pacing to be pacing. Moving around hurt, because when the cops saw he’d stabbed one of their buddies, they got him down and kicked him, maybe ten times; Charlie had just managed to cover his head with his arms. Before they did anything more than bruise the hell out of him and crack a few ribs, the sergeant came in and stopped them, told them, “He’ll get all that’s coming to him.” So, right, it hurt to move, but he was too restless and scared to sit still, and anyway, it was cold in there.

The Chinese guy was sitting sullenly on a bunk and following him with his glare as Charlie paced. Past the two thin bunks, ripped-up platforms coming out of the wall; past the seatless toilet. Naked white walls on three sides marred only by dinge and a word someone had smeared in feces: ShitPigs, in ocher.

On the fourth side were bars floor to ceiling. Square-edged bars, not even comfortable to put your hands around. Some drugged jackass about two cells down was braying with maddening regularity, about every ten minutes, “ Yermasuxen sh’piz’n’hurb’d!” Technicki, over and over. Your Mama sucks everyone, shit-pigs, and I hurt bad, your mama sucks everyone, shit-pigs, and I hurt bad, your mama…

“ Fuck off!” Charlie screamed back after an hour of it. Adding in technicki, “ Yotta basherbruh awl cuzzabrufugznay!” You ought to bash out your brains on the wall, ’cause your brains are fucked, anyway. The jackass paused his braying to laugh cretinously, then went back to “ Yermasuxen sh’piz…”

“Shit pigs,” Charlie muttered as the brain-damaged jackass bellowed for the three-hundredth time. “Now we know who was in this cell before us.” Nodding at the smear on the wall. “You take the wrong designer drugs, mix ’em with video-direct, and you end up like the shit-pigger over there.”

That’s when the Chinese guy said the only thing he said the whole time he was in with Charlie.

“More likely,” the Chinese said hoarsely, “he got brain damage from the beatings.”

Charlie winced and closed his eyes.

How long before they came for him? According to the AntiViolence laws, he had to be in front of a judge and sentenced within seventy-two hours because he was charged with assault with intent to kill. A couple days left till the deadline. But he’d stabbed a cop. Hurt him bad, maybe killed him. In a case like that they’d give him priority. And because he’d attacked a cop, they’d probably sentence him to death, with the new laws, even if the guy lived.

Sure, maybe since the senator had gotten himself snuffed, and since the NR was going to make sure the public knew the senator had been railroaded, Congress would have to re-examine the AntiViolence Laws. A few months down the line, they might even suspend them.

But it’d be too late for Charlie.

They’d given him his one call. He’d tried to call his NR contact—but the fucking fone had rung buzzed times before someone had answered, and before he even had a chance to tell them where he was the operator cut in with “Please recredit fifty newpence,” and his time was up and the cops were dragging him away from the fone and…

The NR didn’t even know where he was. Didn’t know what had happened to him.

He heard the squeak of the trash can’s wheels at the bars.