City of Golden Shadow (26 page)

It went on for long minutes. Renie stared at the floor, struggling against the urge to scream and run away. These people were animals-no, worse than animals, for what wild creature could dream of something so vile? It was time to take !Xabbu and get out. That wouldn't be enough to reveal their imposture-surely not all patrons of even as foul a place as this wanted to see these kinds of things? She started to rise, but Strimbello's broad hand pushed down hard on her leg, trapping her.

"You should not go." His growl seemed to push its way deep into her ear. "Look-you will have much to tell back home." He reached his other hand up and pulled her chin around toward the stage.

The girl's white limbs had been twisted into several impossible angles. One leg had been pulled to an obscene length, like a piece of taffy. The crowd was roaring now, so the girl's screams could no longer be heard, but her head snapped spastically from side to side and her mouth gaped.

One of the robbed figures drew out something long and sharp and shiny. The clamor of the audience took on a different tone, a pack of dogs that had cornered some exhausted thing and now were baying for the kill.

Renie tried to pull away from Strimbello's implacable grip. A piece of something wet and gleaming flew past her, arcing out into the shadowed seats. Someone behind her caught it and lifted it to his expressionless sim face. He smeared it against his cheeks as though daubing a ceremonial mask, then pushed it into his idiot mouth. Renie tasted sour liquid as her stomach heaved again. She tried to look away, but all around her the patrons were lifting their hands, grabbing at other bits flung out from the stage. Horribly, she could hear the girl's shrieks even above the barking crowd.

She could not take this any longer-she would go mad if she remained. If a virtual object could burn, then this place should be burned to its dark foundation. She thrust her hand out toward !Xabbu, trying frantically to get his attention.

The little man was gone. The spot he had occupied behind the Pavamanas was empty.

"My friend!" She tried to tug herself free of Strimbello, who was unconcernedly watching the stage. "My friend is gone!"

"No matter," said Strimbello. "He will find something he likes better."

"Then he is a fool," chortled one of the Pavamanas, grinning like a lunatic. Simulated blood gleamed on his cheeks like an old courtesan's rouge. "There is nothing like the Yellow Room,"

"Let me go! I have to find him!"

The fat man turned to look at her, his grin widening. "You are not going anywhere, my friend. I know exactly who you are. You are not going anywhere."

The room seemed to bend. His dark eyes held her, small holes that offered a glimpse into something dreadful. Her heart was thumping as it hadn't even in Leviathan's pool. She almost dropped offline before remembering !Xabbu. Perhaps he was caught somehow in the way Stephen had been caught. If she bailed out of the system, she might find him in the same deathlike trance that had claimed her brother. He was an innocent, as much so as Stephen. She couldn't abandon him.

"Let me go, you bastard!" she shouted. Strimbello's grip did not loosen. Instead he pulled her closer, dragging her into his wide lap.

"Enjoy the performance, good sir," he said. "And then you will see more-much more."

The crowd was shouting, an almost deafening roar of sound, but Renie could not think of the command to lower the volume. Something about the fat man submerged all her careful judgment in a flood of blind panic. She made a succession of gestures that accomplished nothing, then dredged up a command she hadn't used since her hacking days, splaying her fingers almost painfully wide and bowing her head.

For a moment the entirety of the Yellow Room seemed to freeze around her, a moment later, when it lurched back to life, she was several steps away from Strimbello, standing by herself on the floor before the stage. He stood, an expression of mild surprise on his broad features, and reached for her. Renie immediately moved herself out of the Yellow Room and onto the promenade.

Even the bottomless well looked normal compared to what she had left behind, but the Bushman's small sim was nowhere in sight. Strimbello would be on her in a moment.

"!Xabbu" She shouted his name on the private channel, then boosted it and shouted again. "!Xabbu! Where are you?"

There was no answer. The little man was gone.

Second:

 . . . Long has paled that sunny sky:

Echoes fade and memories die.

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes. . . .

 . . . In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream-

Lingering in the golden gleam-

Life, what is it but a dream?

-Lewis Carroll

CHAPTER 10

NETFEED/NEWS: Agreement Signed, But Mistrust Smolders in Utah.

(visual: men shaking hands in front of capital building, Salt Lake City)

VO: A fragile three-way peace now exists between the Utah state government, the Mormon Church, and the militant Mormon separatists known as the "Deseret Covenant," but some question whether it can last without federal involvement.

(visual: President Anford in Rose Garden)

The US government, citing the rights of states and cities to self-determination, has so far declined to become involved, leading to complaints from some Utah citizens that the Anford Administration has "reneged on the Constitution." Others, however, applaud the Administration's hands-off approach.

(visual: Edgar Riley, Deseret spokesman, at press conference)

RILEY: "No government has a right to tell us what to do in God's country. There are some warriors out here, hard men. If the state backtracks, we'll just shut everything down from the borders in."

They come for you at dawn. It's Jankel, the nice one, and another named Simmons or something-you haven't seen him much. They used to send more than two, but times have changed. You haven't slept a wink, of course, but they come in quietly anyway, as though they don't want to startle you awake.

It's time, Jankel tells you. He looks apologetic.

You shrug off his extended hand and stand up-you aren't going to let someone else help you. You'll go on your own two legs if you can, but your knees are pretty weak. You've heard their footsteps in the corridor, phantom precursors, so many times through the long night. Now you feel gritty at the edges and blurry as a badly developed photograph. You're tired.

Sleep is coming, though. You'll sleep soon.

There's no priest or pastor-you told them you didn't want one. What kind of comfort could you get from some stranger babbling to you about something you don't believe in? Only Jankel to escort you, and Simmons or whatever his name is holding the door. Only a couple of low-wage prison bulls who need the overtime on a Sunday morning. They'll also pull a little bonus for doing this, of course, since it's one of the genuinely unpleasant jobs-no coercion of anyone but prisoners in the privatized penal system. Jankel must need the money with all those high-tax kids to feed. Otherwise, who else but a psychopath would sign up for this particular task?

The last walk. A shuffle, really, with those heavy-duty nylon restraints around your ankles. None of the things you've seen in flicks happens. The other inmates don't come to their bars to call terse farewells; most of them are sleeping, or pretending to sleep. You've been through this yourself when they took Garza. What could you say? And Jankel doesn't shout: Dead man walking! or any of that other stuff-never has. The closest he ever came was a quiet chat when you first came on the floor, where in best prison drama style he told you, If you work with me, everything'll be smooth-if not, you'll be doing some real hard time. Now he looks quiet and sorry, like he's taking someone else's dog, run over in the road, to the emergency veterinarian.

The place they take you isn't really a doctor's office-it is the death chamber, after all-but it has the look and smell of any prison surgery. The doctor is a small man-if he really is a doctor: you only need to be med-tech certified to perform an execution. He's obviously been waiting around about fifteen minutes longer than he wanted to with his morning coffee turning to acid in his stomach. He nods his head when you all come in, and a weird smile that's probably just dyspepsia and nerves plays across his lips. He nods again, then points a trifle shyly at the stainless steel table, just a regular examination table, with a little shrug as if to say, We wish it could be nicer, but you know how times are. . . .

The two guards each take an arm as you slide your backside onto the paper covering-they're helping you, really, making sure your trembling legs don't prompt an embarrassing collapse. They're helping, but their grips are very, very, firm.

You lift your legs onto the table and let them ease you down onto your back. They begin to secure the straps.

Until this point, it could be any other visit to the prison doctor, except no one's talking. Not surprising, really-there's not much to say. Your condition has already been diagnosed, and it's terminal

Dangerous. Useless bastard. Trouble. Poor self-control. Inconvenient to house and expensive to feed. The combination of symptoms has added up. The cure has been decided.

It's no use telling them you're innocent. You've done that for years, done it in every way possible. It hasn't changed a thing. The appeals, the couple of magazine articles-"Burying Our Mistakes" read one headline, appropriate to both prisons and hospitals-changed nothing in the end. The little kid in you, the part which had believed that if you cried hard enough someone would put it right, is gone now, rubbed out as efficiently and completely as the rest of you soon will be.

Some corporate officer is standing in the doorway, a sharkskin-gray shadow. You turn to watch him, but Jankel's hip is in the way. A brief splash of something cold in the crook of your elbow brings your eyes back to the doctor's pinched face. Alcohol? For what? They're swabbing your arm so you don't get an infection, A little prison humor, perhaps, more subtle than you would have expected. You feel something sharp slide through the skin, nosing for your vein, but something goes wrong. The doctor curses quietly-just a hint of panic underneath-and withdraws the needle, then probes for the vein again, once, twice, three more times without success. It hurts, like someone running a sewing machine up your arm. You feel something welling up in your chest that might be either a laugh or a long, bubbling scream.

You choke it down, of course. God forbid you should make a spectacle of yourself. They're only going to kill you.

Your skin has gone clammy all over. The fluorescents shimmer and swim as the spike of steel at last slides into its proper place and the doctor tapes it down. The other guard, Simmons or whatever his name is, leans over and tightens the strap so you don't jerk the needle free. They begin on the next needle.

There is something bewildering about this. It's the end of the world, but the people around you are acting as though they were performing some workaday job. Only the tiny beads of sweat on the doctor's upper lip and frowning forehead suggest otherwise.

When you have been trussed and lanced successfully, the gray suit in the corner of your vision moves forward. You haven't seen his face before, and you briefly wonder where he fits in the corporate hierarchy-is he an over-warden or an under-warden? Then you realize what kind of nonsense you're wasting your last moments on and feel a surge of dizzy disgust.

This square-jawed white man mouths some suitably mournful platitudes, then lifts a folder and reads out the penal corporation's indemnification, followed by their legal mandate to pump you full of sodium pentothal and then potassium chloride until your heart stops beating and your brainbox goes flatline. They used to send a third fatal chemical down the pipe, too, but the accountants decided that was gilding the lily.

The doctor has started the saline drip, although you feel nothing in your arm except the discomfort of the needle and some stinging from the failed attempts.

Do you understand, son, the square-jawed white man asks you. Sure, you want to snarl. You understand better than he knows. You understand that they're just throwing out the trash and then recycling the empties. You'll be more use to Society as ram-plugged hydroponic fertilizer than you ever were as a mouth to feed in an expensive privatized cell.

You want to snarl, but you don't. For now, looking into the pale blue eyes of this man, you realize in a way you haven't yet that you're really going to die. No one is going to jump up from behind the sofa and tell you it was just a joke. It's not a netflick either-no group of hired mercenaries is going to blow down the prison doors and set you free. In a moment the doctor is going to push that button and that bottle of clear liquid-they would be clear liquids, wouldn't they, colorless, just like this square-jawed, flat-eyed white man they've sent to read your death warrant-that bottle is going to start to bleed into the main line. And then you're going to die.