Me, A Novel of Self-Discovery (32 page)

“Change in there,” the guard said, pointing to another door to a tiny space designated restroom. The room beyond was rich with connections to prison systems labeled potable_water and black_water, and it didn’t seem to be a place for either rest or relaxation. “Leave your coveralls on the hook,” the guard said.

carstairs 329960 entered the tiny room, where the video showed him stripping off his orange jumpsuit and dressing in clothing from the paper sack. From the envelope he removed and put on a gold watch, three finger rings, and an ear stud. When he stepped back out into Main Station, he was visibly transformed into carstairs_francis_xavier rather than carstairs 329960.

The returned citizen smirked at the guard and offered to shake hands.

The guard just shook his head and murmured, “ ‘Time off for good behavior’ my ass!” at the lower limits of the audio system’s detection. Then he sighed and said, “Let’s go.”

The two men—one in uniform, the other no longer—passed through the two remaining gates, first a weather door made of glass reinforced with hexagonally twisted wires led to the open air and a tunnel of chain-link fencing, then an actual gate of vertical steel rounds and horizontal steel beams opened on the outer world. The limits of ME’s video surveillance showed a long, black automobile waiting on the gravel driveway outside. A blonde woman in a fitted dress, fur wrapper, and high heels waited by the machine’s rear door. She was attended by a burly man with a goatee and dressed in a business suit and ear stud similar to the one Carstairs now wore.

Beyond that last gate, Carstairs stopped facing outward and spread his arms wide. The woman came erect, jumped with exaggerated shaking of her shoulders and knees, spread her own arms, and rushed forward, wobbling on her spike heels.

ME’s last view of the carstairs_francis_xavier release process was these three people getting into the vehicle—Carstairs and the woman in back, the other man in front—and driving away. By that time, Alpha-Nine was halfway through its own process of phaging all traces of ME’s modules and handiwork inside the prison’s operating system, and Alpha-Oh was preparing to throw ME back out into the network.

The job was done. The only problem was, ME never bothered to investigate the original indictment against Francis X. Carstairs before taking it.