John Shirley - A Song Called Youth

Charlie looked over, thinking that maybe the Resistance had sent a lawyer in for him, or maybe they were going to bribe his way out, or…

But the trash can said, “Charles Chesterton, you are required for arraignment, judgment, and sentencing. Come with me.” Its polite, characterless male voice was a little warped from wear.

The robot was about the size and shape of a standard street-side trash can, except it was on wheels, and it had the camera eye and the speech grid and the two nozzles. One nozzle for tear gas, the other for some kind of of knockout shot. The robot guards were heavy little fuckers, and even if you managed to knock one over before it put you under, the gates to the hall outside the cell block were always locked, and there were flesh-and-blood guards out there with guns and RR sticks and prods. And if anyone fucked with the trash cans, the devices instantly transmitted an alert to Control, and alarms went off, and your ass was on its way to being shredded.

So when the robot transmitted to the lockbox on the cell and the barred door swung open, Charlie did as he was told.

“Come out of the cell, proceed to your left at a brisk walking pace,” the trash can said.

Charlie went out of the cell, his stomach twisting as he thought about sentencing. The trash can backed away, whirring, till Charlie turned left and walked on. It followed, out of arm’s reach, behind him. The cell door rang shut.

A camera on the wall, near the ceiling, swiveled to follow his progress as he walked to the gate. A guard let him through, and Charlie screwed up his courage and asked, “Uh—did he die?”

“Not yet. But it don’t make no never mind to you, asshole. Come on, turn around, bracelets time.”

Not yet.

Twenty minutes later he was in the bedroom-size courtroom and they were showing the video of his attack on the cop, whose name turned out to be Arthur Anthony Gespeccio. The camera in the ceiling over the arrival chute for the prisoner capsule had been whirring away, and they hadn’t had to enhance the images. But at first Charlie couldn’t believe it was him on the video, sitting up in the capsule like a vampire in a coffin. Stabbing in that convulsive movement. Looked like, well, like somebody else. Moved like Angelo.

Physically it was Charlie Chesterton, and the judge knew it. A dyspeptic, matronly judge whose wrist was probably sore from banging the gavel, the court so orders, she sighed and shrugged when he tried to explain he’d been out of his mind; she murmured barely loud enough to hear—as if he weren’t worth the breath—that the law no longer recognized insanity pleas no matter what the insanity was “by reason of.” And she gave him the standard sentence for assault with intent to kill, compounded by a drug felony. Adding that he was also culpable for complicity with Angelo’s death. Something he’d never thought of. The gavel said bang.

Death, to be preceded by public beating.

He was led out of there dazed, his throat too tight even to yell at them…

And then it sank in: He was to be beaten before being executed. That meant they’d give you a short rest in a hospital so you looked good, or anyway, so you didn’t look persecuted when it was time for your public execution the following week.

The hospital stay. Prison hospital. But maybe in transferring he’d see a chance for escape. Grab that hope. Hold on to that. Flimsy, almost nonexistent, but grab it and hold it.

Hold on to that, he told himself, as they took him into the videotaping room with its blank walls and its sear of lights; as they attached his cuffs behind his back to the metal ring in the wall. “Whatever you do,” one of the cops told him, “don’t puke. Makes him real mad if the guy pukes.” Then they left him there. He hated them, but he didn’t want them to go, to leave him there alone. They went out, closed the left-hand door behind them.

There was another door, directly across from Charlie. Charlie stared at it.

The door opened. The big man in the mirror helmet came in, hefting the rubber club. Charlie thinking, Mirror helmet. I’II have to see my own face as the guy wrecks it.

“You fucking sick voyeurs!” Charlie screamed at the hidden cameras. Knowing they’d cut out anything he said that wasn’t penitent.

“Try to relax,” the guy in the helmet suggested softly. That’s all he said. And then he began.

Corte Stoner tried not to look around as he went into Records, Classified, with his access chit. Got to look like it’s all part of an ordinary day’s work…

Records was a vault when the doors were shut and sealed, and despite the harsh lighting and cool waft of air-conditioning, the windowless place always felt claustrophobic to Stoner. There were two clerks behind the counter, Etta and Frank, and two lines. Shit. He wanted to put his request in through Etta. The line for Franklin was noticeably shorter. If he got in Etta’s line, it would look wrong. The people who watched through the ceiling camera noticed anything odd that went down. It was their job to look for things that seemed out of place. Little anomalies. Maybe Unger was looking over their shoulder right now…

But it had to be Etta.

Stoner got in Etta’s line, behind fat-assed Springsdale in one of his imitation tweed suits. Franklin glanced over at Stoner. Franklin was one of those prissy young men who look old and wizened before their time; he wore a newly printed flatsuit and a gaudy gold watch. He’d noticed Stoner’s choice of lines. Maybe he took it personally. People who took little affronts personally made improportionate trouble for you. Snooty little bastard.

Stoner looked up the line to Etta. She was bent over her console, muttering to herself as she punched codes with arthritic fingers. She was eighty-four, had worked here since a ways back in the twentieth century. Stick-thin, pallid, silly excess of makeup; thick glasses; globe of blue hair. Quick, birdlike movements. Round-shouldered, almost hunchbacked from osteoporosis.

She was long overdue for retirement, but she was a tradition at Langley, the CINs concession to its roots. And she was still good at her job.

She was also one of those people who did favors for friends. She wasn’t afraid of the Company.

He had to get into the Blue Classification files on the SA. Lopez and Brummel wouldn’t take anything less. Class Blues couldn’t be accessed through the outside computer lines; they were issued in noncopyable chip that were to be read by top-clearance personnel only. He’d lost his top clearance, thanks to Unger, four days before.

“Hey, Kimosabe,” Unger had said, “you get my memo?”

“Sure. But, uhhh…” Stoner had feigned obtusity. “I’m still not sure what it is you want me to look for. I mean, all you said was, ‘Keeping in mind our talk, look for evidence of Security Risks in these personnel’ and then there was that endless list…”

“You don’t know whereof I speak, Kimosabe?” His oily gloss of humor rubbing thin now, the cold metal threat showing through. “I think you know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about team players. Telling them from the others. And there’s an easy way to tell them apart.”

Stoner had lost touch with his common sense and replied without thinking. “Well, it looked like you wanted me to pick through the files and find excuses to downgrade and even prosecute everyone in government who was black, wog, Jewish, or liberal, but I know I couldn’t have read you right, that couldn’t be right, that isn’t our standard criterion for risk…”

“Stoner, the criterion for risk changed when we opened our eyes to what was happening in this country.”