Rash (19 page)

My injury—a bruised trachea—merited nothing more than the suggestion that I try not to talk for the next few days. I was better off than most. Among the Goldshirts were three broken noses, assorted broken fingers, broken hands and wrists, a broken collarbone, and several missing teeth. Fragger had somehow escaped with only a few bruises and a split lip. Rhino was untouched.

The mood in the dormitory ranged from giddy elation at having “kicked their asses” to depression over having had our own asses kicked. Whatever elation I felt lasted only a few minutes, after which I was left with a raspy voice, thirty-three months of my sentence remaining, and a feeling of hollowness and despair. Hammer’s dream of winning the Tundra Bowl was on indefinite hold, as was any hope I had of earning an early release.

“What do you think he’s gonna do?” I croaked at Rhino.

“I dunno.” Rhino was lying on his bed staring up at the ceiling. “But I bet I don’t get my liposuction.”

Right about then Hammer showed up.

“Good news, nails,” he said. “The Tundra Bowl has been rescheduled.”

We stared at him, uncomprehending.

“I thought it was over,” said Lugger.

Hammer shook his head. “Officially, the game was called due to injuries. We have six weeks to recover, and next time the game will take place on our home field.”

“So we can try to kill each other again?” I rasped.

“That’s right, nail. Only next time there will be some rule changes. No more flying wedges. No more unnecessary roughness. Just a good game of football.”

“So we don’t get to beat the crap out of ’em?” Fragger asked.

Hammer grinned. “I didn’t say that.”

I waited
until everybody was asleep, then sneaked down to the mess hall and turned on the WindO.

Bork?

I waited. A few seconds later a face swam into view. It was not Bork but rather a dark-skinned man with a head of tightly curled white hair. He was wearing a black suit with a pink shirt and a green bow tie. His mouth opened. A bright white blob oozed from between his lips and expanded into a word balloon.

BO MARSTEN, YOU ARE UNDER ARREST.

My hands hung like dead limbs over the keyboard as I gaped at the screen, heart pounding, unable to move or even think a coherent thought. A second word balloon emerged from the dark man’s lips.

HA HA, JUST KIDDING.

The man’s irises began to spin.

Bork? Is that you?

YES, BO.

What do you think you’re doing?

I AM PRACTICING MY SENSE OF HUMOR. ARE YOU AMUSED?

No.

I AM SORRY.

We didn’t win the game. It was a tie.

THEN YOUR SENTENCE WILL NOT BE REDUCED?

No. He wants us to play again in six weeks. I gotta get out of here, Bork.

I HAVE BEEN THINKING, BO, AND ACCORDING TO THE INFORMATION YOU HAVE PROVIDED, MCDONALD’S IS IN VIOLATION OF SEVERAL FEDERAL STATUTES, INCLUDING PROMOTION OF DANGEROUS SPORTING ACTIVITIES, RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT, AND ILLEGAL WAGERING. I COULD PROVIDE THIS INFORMATION TO THE FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL AUTHORITY. THE MOST PROBABLE OUTCOME OF SUCH AN ACT
WOULD BE TO TRIGGER AN INVESTIGATION OF MCDONALD’S PLANT NUMBER 387. IT WOULD NOT, HOWEVER, REDUCE YOUR SENTENCE.

I imagined government agents swarming over the 3-8-7, finding our football gear, interviewing inmates and guards, hauling Hammer off in chains. The investigation would probably spill over to the Coke plant, and maybe to others. If the news got out, it could become a national scandal on par with the pro wrestling scandal of the 2050s, when some of the fake blood used by the performers turned out to be real. There was much to like about the idea of blowing the whistle on Hammer.

On the other hand I’d be back to eating nothing but pizza.

Let me think about that.

THERE IS ANOTHER POSSIBILITY.

Explain.

IF ONE WERE TO SUGGEST TO ELWIN HAMMER THAT ONE HAD THE MEANS TO REPORT HIS ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES TO THE AUTHORITIES, HE MIGHT BE PERSUADED TO OFFER YOU A SENTENCE REDUCTION.

Elwin?

THAT IS HIS NAME.

You want to blackmail him?

YES. MY COMPUTATIONS INDICATE A HIGH PROBABILITY THAT THIS WOULD RESULT IN YOUR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.

Either that or he’d destroy all the evidence and feed me to the bears.

THAT IS POSSIBLE. HOWEVER, I HAVE NOTICED THAT HUMANS OFTEN HESITATE TO DESTROY COSTLY ARTIFACTS. WHAT YOU SUGGEST IS NOT SO PROBABLE AS THE FIRST SCENARIO.

You don’t know Hammer.

Bork raised a hand to his chin and adopted a thoughtful expression.

That’s a very good visual, Bork. You look almost real.

I HAD EXCELLENT SOURCE MATERIAL. DO YOU RECOGNIZE ME?

No.

I AM PRESIDENT DENTON WILKE.

President Wilke was a white guy.

I MADE SEVERAL IMPROVEMENTS TO PRESIDENT WILKE’S BASIC PHYSICAL APPEARANCE, INCLUDING IMPROVED SKIN TONE. I ALSO REPOSITIONED HIS MOUTH AND EYEBROWS, ALTERED HIS HAIR PATTERN AND TEXTURE, AND INCREASED HIS EARLOBE LENGTH. I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE USEFUL TO BE ABLE TO PASS FOR HUMAN.

You’re pretty close. But your skin looks a little too even. You need some blemishes, like those dark spots old people get on their faces.

Four spots appeared on Bork’s face.

Make them different sizes.

Two spots got bigger and one got smaller.

Not bad. Now smile.

The mouth widened into an idiotic grin.

Not so big!

Bork adjusted his smile. It still looked strange, but not completely unbelievable. That is, if you assumed the man on the screen to be a mental patient.

Okay. Now lose the bow tie. . . .

I worked with Bork on his image for almost an hour—I don’t know why. Maybe because it was easier than thinking about my own problems. By the end of the hour he looked quite convincing—as long as he didn’t smile or spin his irises. That last thing was difficult for him. My original version of Bork had a beanie with a propeller that spun every time Bork performed a difficult computation. Despite all the changes Bork and I had made to his design, the urge to spin was so much a part of who he was that he seemed unable to expunge it. In the end I suggested sunglasses, which made him look more like Ray Charles than Denton Wilke.

I think you’ve got it.

THANK YOU, BO.

Except for the speech balloons, of course.

I AM CAPABLE OF SOPHISTICATED VERBAL INTERCOURSE. HOWEVER, YOUR TERMINAL IS NOT EQUIPPED FOR SONIC COMMUNICATION.

I heard voices, clattering, and laughter from behind the serving area of the empty mess hall.

Gotta go, Bork.

I hit the reset key.

“Hey! What are you doing in here?” It was one of the guards. I gave him the standard inmate-to-guard shrug and let him escort me back to my bunk.

The next
week at the 3-8-7 was marked by depression, sluggishness, and petty violence. We were a pitiful sight. There were more splints, bandages, bruises, and missing teeth among the twenty-odd Goldshirts than I had seen in my entire pre-prison lifetime.

With most of us incapacitated, Hammer had temporarily suspended training, so we all had too much time on our hands. We were all a bit testy. Fragger got into a fight with Pineapple over absolutely nothing. Pineapple lost another tooth, and Fragger had to spend a week in solitary, eating pizza and washing it down with water. Rhino, with no hope of a liposuction shortcut, had gone on a liquid diet, consuming nothing but Pepsi and cranberry cider. He had a hollow-eyed, desperate look that made us all treat him like an unstable explosive device. Gorp, dealing with his re-broken collarbone, sank into a funk, ignoring everybody. Nuke never came back from Winnipeg, and nobody asked about him. I was wordless as well as worthless—it hurt to talk, and I had nothing to say.

The results of our visit to the Coke plant were noticed by the paperpants, and suddenly they were no longer the
submissive, fearful herd we had come to expect. They saw a bunch of guys with bruises, cuts, and broken bones. Naturally they assumed we had taken the worst of it.

“Hey,” said Dodo as we passed each other in the mess hall. “I hear you guys got your asses kicked.”

I ignored him, walked over to the Goldshirts’ table, and sat next to Bullet.

“The natives are getting restless,” Bullet said.

Sharing a cell with Rhino had never been a source of great conversation. With him on his hunger fast it was downright bleak. I couldn’t talk, and Rhino wouldn’t. The only bright side was that there were no more Frazzie farts, just a plaintive gurgling.

At one point I got so bored that I leaned over and rasped, “So what are you weighing in at?”

Not that I cared.

Rhino opened his red-rimmed eyes and glared. Try to imagine a 300-plus-pound famine victim and you’ll get the idea.

“Less,” he said.

That was the most talking we’d done in days.

I heard the rattle of a baton dragged across steel bars.

“Marsten?” A guard stood outside our cell.

I sat up.

“Hammer wants you.”

Since I hadn’t done anything wrong recently, I wasn’t nearly as scared as I had been the first time I visited Hammer’s office. I was actually looking forward to it in a way. Something to break the boredom and despair. The
guard escorted me through the plant to the elevator, and a few minutes later I was standing at attention before Hammer’s desk.

Hammer was working on his WindO, punching commands into the screen with a thick forefinger, his face bound up in a ferocious grimace. He looked like a gorilla working a vending machine. Finally he looked up at me.

“I knew you were trouble the first time I laid eyes on you,” he said.

I looked back at him, confused.

Hammer crossed his arms over his massive chest. “I got a message from a lawyer named I. B. Orkmeister. Friend of yours?”

I shook my head. I didn’t know any lawyers named Orkmeister.

“Well, he knows you.” Hammer spun the WindO to face me, and I found myself looking at the frozen image of an elegant white-haired man of African ancestry wearing sunglasses and a dark brown suit.

Bork. Of course.

Hammer stabbed his finger at the screen. “Mr. I. B. Orkmeister is threatening to make trouble for us here at the three-eight-seven. He seems to be under the impression that we have been mistreating our inmates. Have we been mistreating you, Marsten?”

I did not reply.

“What would you rather do—make pizzas or play football?”

“Football,” I croaked. It was true. Even after all we’d been through, football was still preferable to long hours on the pizza line.

“This Orkmeister is threatening to blow the whistle on us, Marsten. Do you know what that means? It means no football. No Frazzies. No wraps. No soyburgers. Pizza, every meal, pizza. Sixteen-hour days on the line. Is that what you want?”

I shook my head.

“He wants me to let you go, Marsten. What do you think about that?”

I shrugged. Hammer was looking at me as if I were a slice of reject pizza.

“Is that what you want?” Hammer asked, leaning forward, his mouth spreading into a wolfish, humorless smile. “You really want me to let you go?”

“I guess,” I said.

Hammer sat back in his chair and stared at me, his tiny eyes hooded.

“Okay, then,” he said after several seconds had passed. “You’re out of here at dawn.”

“What do you suppose that means?” Rhino asked.

“I guess he’s going to let me go.”

I listened to the sound of Rhino breathing on the bunk below.

“Just like that?”

“I guess it pays to have a good lawyer.”

“How do you afford a lawyer?”