John Shirley - A Song Called Youth

Kessler changed the channel.

Channel 95 showed the young country-pop singer, Billy Twilly, winding up a song with a grave endorsement of “Anna’s new program.” As his band played softly behind him, he strolled across the stage with his head down, one hand in his pocket, like a humble man a little embarrassed by the great responsibility that has been thrust upon him. He stopped, looked up into the lights and said, “Anna’s new program is more than just a new ID system. It’s safety—safety from the threat of terrorism for every American. Last year a thousand people were killed by terrorist bombs around the country. The only way we can be sure that the bombing is stopped is by identifying everyone, clearly and without any mistake. Some call it submitting to authority—I call it friendship—and faith. Faith in Anna Bester, and in the United States. Now, I’d like to sing—”

Kessler-changed the channel, muttering, “I’m not sure anyone needs my program—some of this stuff is so…”

“It’s not always so obvious,” Julie said.

Channel 98 was a technicki channel…

“… Soisezim, whudduhfiugyuhmina …” the comedian said, running a hand nervously along his quadruple-Mohawk. “ Neesud, hey —”

Kessler changed the channel.

It was a CGI cartoon. Grommet the Gremlin, grinning toothily, his sine-wave eyes sparking, flew in loop-the-loops around a tight formation of Russian skatebombers, nipping in to effortlessly pluck rivets from their wings.

The wings fell off, and the planes hung for a moment in the air, as if unable to decide to crash. The Russian pilots looked in consternation at one another, and one of them said, “I told you, comrades, we should’ve got planes built in America!” And then the cartoon plane spiraled down and exploded into flames, the pilot’s head and arms flying bloodily off to bounce into the air, Grommet the Gremlin using a pilot’s severed bloody-stumped arm like a baseball bat to whack a severed head into—

Julie changed the channel.

On Channel 100 a man wearing a headset whispered confidentially, “I never miss anything on the Grid! A Gridfriend brand portable satlink puts me in touch with—”

Kessler changed the channel. Commercial. A young woman in a bikini strolled across her sundeck. The man beside her looked nervously around and said, “You sure it’s safe to sunbathe? I mean—”

“Sure, silly! We’ve got Second Alliance Security here! It covers the whole development! There hasn’t been a sniper here since the SAISC came around!”

A trustworthy male voice intoned, voiceover, “Second Alliance International Security Corporation—The Only Real Security is Full Security!”

Kessler turned the TV off.

They sat for a moment staring at the blank screen.

“You’re depressed,” she said.

He shrugged. He squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I have to tell you something. The reason I’m worried about where we’re going ….”

He looked at her. He knew. He felt a wave of joy, a wave of sheer dread, a wave of anxiety, a wave of joy…

As she said, “I think I’m going to have a baby.”

Hard-Eyes and Jenkins were awash in fog. They were walking across a bridge over the Seine; the morning fog was thickest here, rising from the river to hide most of the city from them. The sun was a hot pearl in the east.

“Trouble with these black-market assholes,” Jenkins said, “is you can’t find the bastards in the same place twice in a row. Where he is yesterday, he isn’t today. But with any luck…”

“Can he get coffee?”

“Claims he can,” Jenkins said, shrugging. “Claims he can get genetic pharms, too. Morph-trance, epinephrine, norepinephrine, neurotransmitters…”

“How’s he get this stuff?” Hard-Eyes asked, looking around—not seeing much but billowing fog.

“Certain brigades, American army spikes the food with combos of that stuff to make the men more combat-ready. Lots of adrenocorticotrophic hormone… Some of the experimental troops are outfitted with injectors. Little box strapped on near the kidney, shoots ’em up with what they call chemcourage. Some real berserker shit. They’re experimenting, trying to get a combination that makes them careful but not paranoid, aggressive but not likely to attack their COs—”

“Sick shit to do to a soldier.”

“Yeah. Anyway, this guy works in the Yanks’ camp.”

“You calling them Yanks, too? You’re a fucking Yank yourself, Jenkins, me neggo.”

“Yeah. But—you see enough of this shit, you don’t wanna be a Yank. I mean—Yank or Russian either. They can all kiss my ass.” They paused, listening. Distant, hollow thuds. A long shivery metallic shriek. A quick succession of booms. Silence.

“How close does that sound to you?” Jenkins asked nervously.

“A few miles away. Hard to tell in the fog, but it sounded like it was coming from north of the city.”

“Fuck. Fighting moving back to the city. Just fucking great.”

“Hell with this coffee dealer. Let’s see if Steinfeld’s back. They said last night he’d be back.”

“They said he’d be back every night for a week.”

“Let’s look in… Shit, here comes a patrol truck.” They saw the black silhouette of an SA patrol truck, just a squarish bulk in the fog, coming onto the bridge.

Jenkins was over the bridge rail first, Hard-Eyes a half-second later. They hung from the rail, heads below the stone edge, the column of a bridge lamp hiding them, the toes of their boots on a two-inch ledge taking some of their weight.

The truck moaned slowly nearer… and nearer. The river susurrated below them. Hard-Eyes could feel its cold breath on his back. The river’s splashing seemed amplified by the overarching bridge. A spotlight came on, atop the truck’s cab, as it drew close; the truck slowed, and the small spotlight beam slashed like a saber through the fog and flashed over them, and Hard-Eyes thought, They’re going to see us. There was a second of uncertainty. In that second, he realized two things: first, that he and Jenkins must not be taken. The SA was dragnetting anyone who couldn’t be definitely identified as French, US Army, or a soldier of the NATO forces. And even the French were suspect if they were not registered with the Front National, or if they were Jewish, Muslim, or Communist. Those taken vanished into the SA’s Center of Preventive Detention. The SA was said to be using an extractor for some, torture for others. There were rumors of exterminations, but there was no proof. And there were no investigative journalists looking into it. Invoking their NATO-granted power of martial law, the SA had simply closed down the local Internet news sites, and the few remaining print publications. The TV transmitters had been destroyed by the Russians. If Hard-Eyes and Jenkins were taken, the SA would soon know whatever they knew about the New Resistance. There was no way of keeping anything back from an extractor.

So, in that second, Hard-Eyes knew that if they were seen, he and Jenkins would have to jump into the river.

His second realization was, they would probably not survive the river. At this time of year it was high and cold. Exposure would kill them or would drag them down till they drowned.

And that’s why he was NR.

Because this…

…the truck passing, slowing, searching for them with its spotlight, the confrontation with the predator, the imminence of a mortal choice…

…this was real.

The truck came to a stop. The spotlight beam kept moving.

The light passed over the stone railings, swept past Hard-Eyes and Jenkins, lifted to hold for a moment on the black metal statuary, sweating with fog, mounted on columns along the rail. As if these figures from mythology were objects of suspicion.