A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  They entered the underground passage. It smelled of urine. Padovani hesitated. It could be the last chance to run. He imagined running down the tunnel toward the light and getting an easy shot in the back. It’s difficult to speculate when your life is on the line. He decided to wait a little longer. They left the tunnel.

  Padovani stayed a few steps ahead of the others, and right away he noticed a group at a bench. Three were sitting down and the rest were standing around it. They were black, probably illegal sub-Saharans, and they wore sunglasses even though they were under the shade of an enormous willow. One of the seated men made a gesture, rubbing his fingers with his thumb. Padovani interpreted that as an offer of drugs. He nodded slightly, hoping that Ringo wouldn’t notice.

  The black man got up from the bench and walked slowly toward him. Padovani turned and studied the situation. Leidi was gasping for air with her mouth open, leaning on the wall of the passage. She was out of combat. The Indian felt a twinge in his chest. His pulse was speeding up.

  “I’m going to talk with the black guy,” he whispered to Ringo. “He’ll take us to Terry. Watch out, just in case.”

  Ringo nodded. He seemed to be paying full attention to the drug dealer who was approaching and to his companions who were watching from the bench. Padovani smiled at the black man and offered him his hand. When the other man took it, Padovani jerked it hard.

  “You son of a bitch!” he shouted. “You sold me shit!”

  He tangled his leg between the drug dealer’s and pushed him until he fell with him. They rolled around on the sand together, holding each other. The other man was stronger. Padovani couldn’t last much longer and covered his face to avoid being hit. He felt himself being picked up and punched in the stomach. Ringo took out his gun and began to shout, “Let me go!” while he pointed the gun at one of them, then another. Padovani took the opportunity to shout himself.

  “Police!”

  The black men let him go and everyone, including him, began to run toward the bench. The Indian jumped over it to hide in the trees as fast as he could. The drug dealers were ahead of him. He tried to follow them because he thought they were headed toward an exit. They had to be used to running from the police. But they were faster, and he lost them. He paused in a clearing next to the park fence. He looked back and didn’t see Ringo, but he seemed to hear Leidi’s booming voice.

  He took off his jacket, and protecting his hands with the cloth, he climbed the bars of the fence. His chest was going to explode. With great effort he rolled the jacket over the lance points on top of the fence so he wouldn’t stab himself as he went over. He hung from the other side and jumped to the street.

  He remained squatting, hidden behind the low wall at the base of the fence, trying to catch his breath and let his head clear. The palpitations in his chest seemed more and more irregular.

  He began to walk toward the Puerta de Alcalá in shirt sleeves. It was still hard to breathe but he couldn’t wait any longer. No one was following him. He thought about grabbing a taxi parked near Cibeles, and he realized that he had forgotten the money inside the jacket hanging on the fence.

  “Shit.”

  He paused a moment to think. He didn’t need that much money. He could get by without the wad of bills. It really wouldn’t be hard to steal a tourist’s wallet—one of those “antiquated analog travelers who still used airplanes,” according to the contemptuous terminology of the FarmaCom advertisements—in the Puerta del Sol. But he didn’t want to try his luck and get stopped by the police.

  He looked again at the stretch of street behind him. He didn’t see Ringo or Leidi anywhere. They were probably searching for him inside the park. If he was careful, he could go back without being seen and get his jacket. He decided to try it, at least, with all his senses alert and his reflexes ready to run. He’d never been faster than a bullet, but he had gotten old with a biography like his, and that had to mean something.

  He turned around and hid behind a building so he could see the place where he had escaped from Retiro without being seen. He stuck close to the wall and put his head out around the corner. A woman who was going past walking her dog was startled to see him. But that didn’t bother Padovani: what did was seeing Ringo inside the park right under his jacket. He hid again fast.

  He hasn’t seen me, he thought. He leaned his head out again, the minimum possible to be able to scrutinize the enemy. Ringo was talking on the same mobile phone the Northern Group driver had given him. He was gesturing a lot and sometimes pointed at the jacket, which was still rolled up on the lance points. Even from far away Padovani could see his anger. On the other hand, it was impossible to guess how Leidi felt, waiting at his side, because she did nothing besides wipe the sweat from her face. But then she fell face down on the ground.

  “Fuck.”

  A sudden faint. Padovani watched Ringo’s reaction, which was lightning fast. The little wall at the fence didn’t let him see well, but Ringo appeared to be trying to reanimate Leidi on the ground. Maybe mouth to mouth resuscitation, maybe heart massage, or both. Whatever it was, after a minute, Leidi stood up again with his help. Then the big man began to hit Ringo.

  The Indian shuddered. He felt the same confusion that he saw on Ringo’s face. Leidi had grabbed him by the neck and was trying to throw him on the ground. What the hell was happening? A horrible idea struck Padovani: the fat body didn’t contain Leidi anymore. How? When had she taken the vacating pill? Who’d given it to her? He reviewed the last few hours, terrified. He was sure he hadn’t eaten or drunk anything.

  Ringo escaped Leidi’s arms—or whoever’s they were—and began to run away. The big man must have immediately understood that he couldn’t catch him because he didn’t even try. Padovani saw him holding himself up on the fence. With every breath, his body trembled. When he finally recovered his breath, he felt through his clothing until he found the tranquilizing gun. Holding it, he followed Ringo. The jacket with the money was in the same place. The Indian waited a little longer in case one of the two returned. No one appeared.

  Impatience wouldn’t let him wait any longer. He didn’t want to fight with any cheap thief for the jacket. He crossed the street and climbed the bars. He got as far as he could, stretched his fingers, and caught the sleeve of the jacket. He pulled on it until he managed to get it off.

  He let it fall to the ground with his loot. He was exhausted. The lining of the jacket had ripped a little but the money was still in the pocket. Holding onto the little wall, Padovani stood up. He remained upright until the dizziness passed. He put on the jacket. He had to find Terry as soon as he could. He was worried about what had happened to Leidi. He wasn’t going to be as foolish as to take any pill, but . . . is that what had happened?

  Then he heard voices. On the other side of the street some black men who he recognized in an instant had just seen him. They took off toward him in an attitude that didn’t promise friendship. Padovani decided that the trick of shouting “police” wasn’t going to work with this group.

  He started running in the direction of Gran Vía with the hope that a crowd might dissuade the Africans before they caught up. He didn’t know what speed his client’s body could reach—and maintain—but he would find out soon.

  IX

  He entered a flower shop panting. The clerk gave him a look, noticing the tails of his shirt. Padovani tucked them back into his pants, dried the sweat on his forehead, and with a trembling voice asked for three roses. The florist stopped paying attention to his clothes.

  “What color would you like?”

  The Indian leaned with a hand on the counter and swallowed before he answered. The air was heavy with the odor of flowers.

  “Gray . . . like a flagstone.”

  He took the last bill of one hundred euros from the pocket of his shirt. The rest he had thrown in the air as he ran to entertain his pursuers. He had also dropped the jacket.

  “Can you change this bill for me?” He paused to breathe and
touch his chest. “I couldn’t get change for it. Please.”

  It seemed like a reasonable request, but he was afraid the clerk wouldn’t want to help him. He felt like a student who had memorized everything except the question that happened to be on the test. He looked at the man on the other side of the counter whose physical appearance seemed on the frail side. The florist took the bill with a tired air, put it in the cash register, and returned the Indian his change, including all the necessary coins. Padovani grabbed the bills and coins, dropped what he didn’t need, and put seventeen euros and eighty-nine cents on the counter.

  This was the exact code to contact Terry: one, seven, eight, nine. No doubt there were a lot of others. But the French Revolution belonged to his old comrade.

  He saw the owner of the flower shop count the money.

  “You’ll have to wait a little,” the man said. “You can take that seat.”

  Padovani closed his eyes and fell to the floor.

  He dreamed he had his neck in the stocks of a guillotine. He recovered consciousness, tied hand and foot to a dentist’s chair. He saw double. He tried to focus his sight on the strap that held his right arm. He struggled with it.

  Then he realized that he was not alone. A man dressed in a green surgeon’s scrubs seemed intent on moving around a variety of sharp metal objects that rattled on a tray on a side table. It took a few seconds for Padovani to recognize him. He had uncombed thin white hair, glasses, and seemed a lot heavier. The years had changed his body. But not as much as mine, Padovani thought.

  “Terry.”

  “Who are you?”

  “It’s me. . . .” His tongue was asleep, as if he had been anaesthetized. “The Indian Padovani.”

  Terry raised a plastic glass to Padovani’s mouth, who drank the liquid on one swallow. He had thought it was water, but it had a bitter aftertaste. He closed his eyes and sighed.

  “I thought you’d changed back. That’s why I tied you to the chair.”

  It was hard for the Indian to keep his eyes open.

  “Could they do that if I didn’t take the vacating pill? Untie me, please.”

  Terry returned to the side table and left the plastic glass there.

  “The vacating pill is a FarmaCom fiction. . . . They need to make the European Commission believe their drugs are necessary, but the IPv12 hardware does the work. We’ve known that for years. Europol knows it, too. In fact we learned it thanks to them, although that’s another story.”

  That explained what happened to Leidi.

  “They exchanged someone who escaped with me. They brought the client back without the pill. . . .”

  “The client?” Terry shook his head. “I don’t think that’s what happened. When you escaped from the nursery, FarmaCom lost control over you, which is good, but it has a bad side: the police network takes over. They’re supposed to have to ask for a judicial order to change a body, but in practice they do it whenever they want. They have people prepared for this kind of exchange. Your friend is probably now inside the body of a Europol staffer, and probably they’re interrogating him right now.”

  “And the client?”

  “The client won’t even find out. He’ll still be happily on vacation, then he’ll go back to his body, interchanging his mind with the staffer who has it now, without noticing a thing. It’s three-ball billiards.”

  Padovani felt so deflated that he was surprised that the straps that held him down weren’t too big. He didn’t understand why Terry wouldn’t let him go, but he didn’t have the strength to insist. But he had enough for a new question.

  “Why haven’t they exchanged with me?”

  “No idea. They have some reason. But they’ll do it at the best moment for them, and you can’t stop them. Except. . . .” He grabbed some long tweezers from the side table and smiled. “Except if you’ve had the inhibitor installed. For now you should stop thrashing and stay tied down.”

  Padovani woke up at once. The end of the tweezers held some kind of little metal spider.

  “What are you going to do with that?”

  “Poke it up deep in your nose. Don’t worry, I gave you an anesthetic dissolved in the water.

  “A pill. . . .”

  Terry laughed.

  “Trust me. I’m not paid by FarmaCom.” He scratched his head with his free hand. “Although I admit I bought the drug from them. . . . But it’s not a vacating pill. Or it is, and I don’t know about it. . . . Well, what does it matter? It’s only a painkiller. Stay still.”

  Padovani couldn’t believe he’d been so careless. At the first opportunity, he’d let someone drug him. Just what he’d promised himself to avoid when he got to Europe. He felt pain in his chest. His heart was beating fast again but crazy, skipping one out of every three beats. Terry said he didn’t work for FarmaCom, but he could be working for Sink-Tooth.

  “Do you stay in touch with our old comrades?”

  “Hmmmm. . . . No. Although I read the news. Lately they’ve mentioned us a lot.”

  The doorbell rang. Terry turned.

  “Shit. Someone’s at the door.”

  Padovani stretched his neck to look in the same direction as Terry. He recognized Ringo in the little closed-circuit monitor.

  “That’s one of the people who escaped with me.”

  “Did he follow you?”

  “No!” Padovani was drenched with sweat and his chest burned. “He told me . . . he told me he wanted to pass some information on to you. I don’t know how he found us.”

  “He followed you. I don’t like this. Let’s finish this right away.”

  “Please. . . .”

  He let his head fall back on the chair. The pill dissolved in the water wasn’t agreeing with him. He’d never had a heart attack and didn’t have anything to compare the pain to, so he didn’t know if he had time to announce that he was dying or if it was worth the effort. He needed the inhibitor or the police would find him, and that would be as bad as death.

  If it was all a trap by Sink-Tooth, Terry would have already said so. They’d want to know what he knew and for him to know who was killing him and why. But Terry didn’t seem to know any more than him what was happening.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “My arm. . . .” he moved his head toward the left.

  “Do you have heart trouble?” Terry adjusted his glasses and took another look at the monitor, where Ringo was still waiting. “You don’t know, of course. The truth is that I didn’t read the instructions for the analgesic. I hope there weren’t warnings.” He added under his breath, “That would be fucked up.”

  The doorbell rang again. Terry held the tongs halfway toward Padovani’s nose.

  “Finish it now,” the Indian begged.

  “I’m thinking about whether this guy,” he pointed to the monitor, “hasn’t actually exchanged. . . . Probably he’s an undercover cop who infiltrated the nursery. They do those kind of things. . . . Of course, that’s why he wanted to find me.” He began to puff. “We’re both fucked.”

  Padovani couldn’t breathe. The pain in his chest and arm was unbearable.

  “Hurry. . . .”

  Terry’s hands trembled. He missed the nostril and the little spider fell on the ground. He didn’t try to look for it.

  “I can’t do it! I have to get out of here. I’m sorry.”

  He threw the tweezers on the table. Padovani shouted.

  “Listen. . . .”

  Terry didn’t wait for him to finish. He ran from the room, leaving him tied in the chair. If he hadn’t left, the Indian might have sworn at him, something not too elaborate but very sincere about his mother. He also wanted to point out the illogic of his hypothesis: if Ringo was a cop, and the person who had entered Leidi’s body was a cop, why the hell had they fought in Retiro? He could have said all this if he had had the breath to do so and if someone had been there to listen to him. But that wasn’t the case.

  He tried to cough hard because he’d read t
hat this was what you should do in the event of a heart attack if no one can help you. Suddenly something began to buzz in his skull. He clenched his teeth. The doorbell rang again, but by then he wasn’t there to hear it.

  X

  His hands were still tied, but now he was lying on a bed. From the corner of his eye he saw a shadow that was moving to his right. He turned his head that way and found himself looking into the eyes of someone he knew. A second later, silent as a ghost that had just been frightened, the man slipped out of the room and shut the door.

  He easily freed his wrists from the head of the bed. They had used a silky-feeling handkerchiefs to immobilize him. He sat up in the bed. At his side was a naked woman with a slender brown body and long black hair, laying face down. She seemed to be sleeping.

  He was also naked. Even a little more to see waist-down. His eyes stopped on the erect penis, which pointed straight up at the ceiling. He hadn’t passed enough time outside to fail to recognize his own dick, although he hadn’t seen it that tense for many years. His client must have taken advantage of the lack of cardiac problems swallow a pill to achieve such a prodigious effect. The quality of his companion must also have had some effect—and her experience, judging by the silk handkerchiefs.

  Padovani sighed. He was back. In what seemed like a hotel room, bigger than many of the houses he had lived in as a boy.

  He heard the noise of running feet in the hall. Hand banged on the door.

  “Police!”

  Shit, he thought. The voice was familiar. He got out of bed and ran to the window. He couldn’t open it. They pounded on the door again. He looked at the bed. The girl with the long hair kept sleeping in spite of the noise. Padovani swallowed. He realized she was dead.

  Double shit.

  “Open the door or we’ll knock it down, Indian!”

  That was Mendoza, he said to himself. He took advantage of the few seconds he had left before they smashed open the door to get a towel from the bathroom and cover his erection. Since he couldn’t escape, at least he could surrender with dignity. Mendoza and Salinas knocked down the door and came in at the same time, pistols drawn and pointing at him.