John Shirley - A Song Called Youth

Feeling his way along the wall, he crept out of the kitchen and into the cafeteria, straightening up to look around. Ahead was the door into Corridor D. The lights and shouting danced together there. He walked into them.

And out into the chillier open spaces of the corridor.

Someone loomed over him: a big, angry man with a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Molt himself.

“Where are they going to come from, Rimpler? Where will the bulls come from? From the dorm crossovers? From the rear? The front?”

“Probably from the front,” Rimpler replied distractedly. “I intend to meet them, to tell them that I’m taking over again, so there’s no need to worry about it. We’ll negotiate a settlement with you people. It will include an amnesty.”

Molt stared at him, open-mouthed. Rimpler had forgotten that he was a beaten-up old man, grimy, hair matted, chin stubbled. That he’d been behaving half-cracked for days. It was as if a Bowery bum wandered into the mayor’s office and announced he was taking over. “You pathetic old has-been!” Molt burst out. “You’ve really lost it this time.”

Rimpler snorted. “So I’m crazy? You’re locked in here, surrounded by hostile professional warriors far better armed. You have almost no light and you’ll soon have no air. You’re wanted for murder! And I’m irrational? You got yourself into this, Molt. You’re a glory-hounding leech who’s dragged a lot of discouraged people into the shitpit which is your natural home. Now go and tell them that I’m—”

But Molt had stopped listening. He was looking around, his face—lit from beneath by the flashlight in his hand—was grim with suspicion. “Where’s Bonham?” He demanded suddenly. He grabbed Rimpler by the neck and shook him, threw him to the floor. “Where the hell’s Bonham? The lights are out, the bulls are coming—and Bonham disappears!”

Rimpler sat there on the floor, stunned. Molt reached down and pulled him to his feet, shook him again. Rimpler felt as if everything that had gone wrong, all the forces that had gone wild around him, were incarnate in Molt; were wrenching Rimpler’s shoulder, shaking him, screaming at him. “ Where’s Bonham? ” Molt shouted.

“He’s gone!” The reply coming from deep inside him somewhere. “Gone! He and Claire went out the back way—by now they’re gone! You can forget him!”

“ What? You old pig! Why didn’t you—?” He couldn’t articulate his outrage, after that. Molt shouted in wordless fury, and brought the flashlight down, overhand, hard onto Rimpler’s head.

Rimpler saw it coming, and time seemed to slow so he could appreciate the sight…

The shining electric comet arcing down to him, a light roaring to hit him right between the eyes. Rimpler shouted: “Terry!” He heard a crunch, and then a crash resounding like the fall of the Tower of Babel.

Claire saw the luminous dial of Bonham’s watch as he raised it to check the time.

“Right about now,” he said.

Five breathless seconds passed. And then they heard the rattle of semi-auto rifle fire from the front barricade. The rifle fire was instantly followed by the big, sloppy HUH-UMP of an explosion as the bulls fired a concussion shell into one of the barricade’s trucks; a rumble as part of the barricade collapsed. More rattling gunfire, flicker of flames growing from the front of the corridor. A rackety mechanical noise followed by a SCREEEE as Security used a bulldozer of some kind to push the ore crates out of the way. More gunfire, strobe flashes, another explosion she could feel vibrating in the metal of the wall. Her nails dug into her palms, her eyes hurt from the strain as she tried to see her father in the confusion of running men, flashing lights, fencing flashlight beams. Instinctively she started toward the front, calling, “Dad!”

Someone grabbed her arms, pulled her back. After a moment she knew it was Bonham, whispering urgently in her car. “You can’t do it! You’ll get shot if you go up there! Look—they’re gone from the rear!”

The eruption at the front had drawn the guards off the rear barricade. He dragged her to one of the jitneys used as barricade support.

She stopped resisting Bonham when she saw looked over her shoulder and saw Molt jogging clumsily after them.

Molt shouting, “Bonham! You ain’t goin’ nowhere, man!” Still twenty yards away, Molt stopped and raised the rifle…

The light was all patchwork around Molt. For a moment he stood there with his back to the conflagration at the barrier, like a man in a cave standing silhouetted against a campfire. He was outlined in flickering light, his face in darkness.

Then the muzzle flash lit his face as he fired at Bonham—three rounds, all three missing, pocking bullet dimples into the metal of the jitney’s cab. Bonham let go of her and turned, climbed into the jitney, and through it to the other side of the barrier.

Claire stood snake-fascinated, staring at Molt, who was moving toward her again, centering the rifle on her chest…

Screams echoed from the front barricade. The bulls had broken through. Claire saw seven, maybe eight Security bulls in full armor, opaque faces catching the uneven light, as they ran up behind Molt, shouting with amplification, “SAMSON MOLT, DROP YOUR WEAPON, YOU ARE UNDER ARREST—”

Molt spun, pointed his rifle at the nearest bull, and fired. The man staggered but kept coming, raising his own weapon and a flashlight. Molt threw the rifle aside and drew a pistol.

She heard Bonham shout, behind her, “ Claire! Come on! They’re waiting for us out here!”

Molt fired the pistol, a pistol using explosive armor penetrating ammo—a guard fell, his armor ballooning. His amplified scream echoed with ear-ripping shrillness off the steel walls…

Molt ran shouting at the guards… flashlight beams whipping around him…

Claire squinted, trying to see her father…

Bonham shouted at her from behind…

And then Molt stopped as one of the guards shot him. Molt seemed surprised that the bullet hadn’t hurt him much. Then he laughed and moved toward them again.

And, running at them with his gun upraised, howling with laughter—he exploded. The small explosive bullet buried in him detonated and the red of the explosion’s flash was complemented by the red of blood-splash.

We forget we’re made mostly of red liquid, Claire thought. But now she could see it was so—as Molt became a fountain of red liquid. She felt a few hot red drops spatter her forehead.

She saw the bulls move toward her, booming. “CLAIRE RIMPLER, YOU’RE UNDER ARREST—”

Dad’s gone, she thought. It’s hopeless.

She turned and climbed frantically through the jitney built into the barricade, trying to worm out the window on the other side, all the time expecting to feel an armored hand clamping her ankle to pull her back. But Bonham’s hands, instead, pulled her through the jitney’s window and past the barricade. She was in semidarkness, on her knees. Amplified shouts from behind her: “CLAIRE RIMPLER—”

“Why are they trying to arrest me?” she gasped at Bonham. “You said you arranged it.”

“The arrangement had to be secret. Only a few of them know. Come on!” Bonham helped her up, and they ran around a corner, down a transverse passage, up a ringing metal stairway, following the blob of Bonham’s flashlight jiggling on the wall—coming out on the access to the launch deck.

It was lit up, here, and there were uniformed men standing around, looking bored, waiting for them.

Claire screamed with frustration.

Bonham said, “It’s all right—they work for Van Kips. It’s part of the deal.”

One of the men demanded, “You got the transport authorization?”