John Shirley - A Song Called Youth

Just over his head, sparks flew from the old iron post. It took him a moment…

And then he knew they had made him, were firing at him, and his cover was scanty. His scalp contracted with fear. He heard Steinfeld shout, “Give Hard-Eyes covering fire!” He glimpsed Rickenharp up and running toward the truck, firing the Uzi-3, a double-barreled submachine gun, letting go from both its barrels, shouting something; the truck door swung open, a man flopped out… Hard-Eyes thought, That guitarist’s got balls. He ducked back, hunkered behind a big fallen cornice on a pile of debris, almost immediately bullets skittered across rubble just by his head. Not a better spot, maybe worse. Raised his head a fraction to see a man getting out of the truck on the other side, firing through the smoke and flame rising from the twisted hood, returning Rickenharp’s fire. Rickenharp running toward the back of the truck… 9-mm rounds kicking chips out of the street at Rickenharp’s heels.

Steinfeld’s voice in his headset shouted, “Hard-Eyes, if you’re clear, run back of the station, come round to the rear of the truck, supervise the liberation—”

He wasn’t clear but Hard-Eyes ran, thinking, Any second now I’ll know what it feels like to get a rifle slug in the side of the head. Maybe it wouldn’t feel like anything, if he was hit by an explosive round. His nervous system would be exploded with the rest of him before it could transit the information. Sure, keep telling yourself that.

Then he was at the back of the truck and Yukio was there ahead of him, had cut the chains looping through the steel rings (Where was Rickenharp? He heard the maniac rattling of the Uzi-3, realized the rocker had circled behind the truck’s driver, was taking him out… heard Willow shout from the back of the second truck, yelling at the prisoners to get out, but where were the guys who’d guarded them? Watch it, watch your ass, those guys must be… ) The prisoners—dark faces, leaping out, looking around, eyes wide—

Suddenly a man without a face, SA bull in full armor was there, tracking the pistol to Jean-Pierre. Little Jean-Pierre in his black cap, face blacked out, funny little guy, would scream like the devil if you beat him at checkers and beg you to play again. Standing between Hard-Eyes and the bull. Jean-Pierre’s back to the bull. Yukio turning, trying to shoot past Jean-Pierre. The armored SA soldier pointing something, it was hard to see in the shadow of the truck—Hard-Eyes was trying to get a firing angle—the dark killing thing in the bull’s hand spraying white fire. Jean-Pierre’s head erupted, bits of it flying out to carry the cap off—

Yukio fired and the bull staggered. But he was armored, was still on his feet, tracking the gun toward Yukio. Hard-Eyes thought, If I hit him at this range with a grenade, it’ll kill Yukio, too.

Then Rickenharp was running up behind the bull, shoving his gun against the back of the guy’s neck, under the helmet—at that range no armor’s going to help—

The helmeted head lit up with the fire behind it and tilted from the neck at a strange angle… the bull staggered and fell…

The prisoners were running helter-skelter for the subway station, Jenkins and Willow herding them. Sporadic fire racketing as the others exchanged rounds with two SA bulls crouching in the rubble across the street.

Hard-Eyes fixed on them, crouching behind an overturned stone bench, firing at someone he couldn’t see. He raised the M-83, set up a grenade round and tracked till he felt that little interior bell ringing: You’re sighted in.

He fired and the bench flew backwards, maybe five hundred pounds of stone leaping back and smashing the men. Damn, it makes you feel bigger than human. And then sick.

Steinfeld was shouting, “Retreat, trucks coming!”

Hard-Eyes ran through the veils of smoke, saw someone kneeling, trying to get up, blurred through the smoke but— It’s one of ours. Hard-Eyes bent to help him up— oh, it’s Hassan —bullet through his leg, looked like it had taken out the man’s knee; he was going to need a brace… The two of them running like men in the three-legged race…

Down they went into the wrecked Metro station, flashlight beams whipping, all wavery with the running of those who carried them…

Someone else, Rickenharp, was helping him with Hassan, who in his pain was shouting for Allah. Then they’d reached the station, were onto the tracks, the pool of light around the lanterns. Sympathizers who’d waited there took Hassan onto a stretcher, the Arab trying not to weep with the pain and then giving in, and they hurried down the tunnel to the camouflaged entrance that led into the sewers, and the escape route, Hard-Eyes thinking, My mouth is so dry. Lips chapped. Wish I had a beer.

In the Cloudy Peak farmhouse. Walking down the hall. The copper boy was gone. But some small, still voice tried to tell Swenson, Now’s your chance, go and get into a car, smash through the gates, Stisky, run …

The guard was walking ahead of him, down the hall. Escorting him to the extraction. “Just a routine CC extraction, sir.” Cerebro-Chemical extraction.

Just draw out a little of your brain juice, sir, through a straw, sir, won’t hurt a bit, sir, won’t damage you, won’t erase anything, it’ll just tell us exactly what you’ve been up to and that you’re not who you’re pretending to be and who all your associates are. Sir.

They’d tried to do them all before the Service. But Swenson had been last on the list, and they’d been running late, because one of the servants, it turned out, had been a member of the Communist Party, and had to be dealt with, though in all probability his membership had been a caprice of years ago, and chances were he was utterly loyal to Crandall…

It was nearly midnight. The guard had hidden a yawn behind his hand. Had shrugged apologetically when Swenson had asked, “Can’t it wait till tomorrow?” The guard wasn’t wearing his helmet, a sign that this was more or less a formality. He had his gun, the kind that fired explosive pellets, strapped to his thigh. Unlocked. He had his back to Stisky. Most of the house was asleep. Stisky… Swenson… could grab the gun, put the man down, run for the garage, get a car, and with a little luck get away.

So why didn’t he do it?

It was as if he were still in the procession. He was floating along, still seeing the Service, the DNA icon slowly rotating there; what a marvelous thing when the boy Jebediah came to stand before the altar and the holo image of the molecule descended to enclose him, began to spin, and the chanting reached a climax, and the wooden bowl was passed, in it the oak leaf, and a little blood from each was taken so that the oak leaf was floating in blood when it reached Swenson… Stisky… Swenson…

“An end to wars,” Rick Crandall told them, “when all bloods are of the same blood, when only one race remains. Will that race be divided against itself? It will not.”

Run, Stisky.

The beauty of the children’s voices lifted in hymn, singing, Our Nation is the Sword.

And they were all united in their unthinking, unquestioning belief in Rick Crandall. I was the fly in the ointment, Swenson/ Stisky thought. I was the muddying track in the white snow. A man divided against himself.

Run.

The guard was opening the door for him, and he stepped through, carried through by the current, and it was too late to stop. He didn’t look at the technicians. He saw Ellen Mae at the foot of the bed, whispering urgently to Sackville-West, the old man scowling as he listened, shaking his head now.

She doesn’t want him to do it to me, Swenson realized. Because she’s afraid they’ll extract the details of my relationship with her, she’s afraid they’ll hear about all the things we did…