Chimera

by Will Shetterly

  "I can give them some hints. But Singer's lawyers are as good as mine. I doubt we'll breach corporate confidentiality."

  "Sometimes you get lucky."

  I spent the day packing. I could've walked away from everything I owned, but I didn't have to, so I didn't. It's true I could've moved out in an hour, but I had the day, so I took it. I put padding around the breakables. I labeled each box with its contents. I noted a few things that I hadn't used in a year and set them aside for the Salvation Army. When Rita and I were together, we'd moved often. She had always complained about the way I threw things together. After I stacked my worldly goods in the middle of the living room, I almost took a picture to send her.

  I thought about going to a casino. It might've been fun to give Arthur a big grin if he was out on bail, but I decided against it. I wanted to keep the day simple.

  I thought about smoking. I'd done my twenty-four with interest. But I had a shiny new lung and another that had begun to clean itself out. I liked the idea of setting out like a knight purified for battle.

  I spent much of the afternoon and evening reading Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi and wondering what he would think of the river now that it had gone from clean and wild to dirty and tame. I watched the news; Zoe and I had already been forgotten. There were human disasters and natural ones, political squabbles and domestic ones, little victories in sports and little defeats in weather. I fixed food and ate it, spicy potatoes, garlic, tofu, and peas for lunch, pasta with tomato sauce and spinach for supper. I took a long walk through my neighborhood, then came home and slept. It was a day. I liked it.

  Early the next morning, in front of Prosperity Indenture Services, Frederick's military stride came to an abrupt halt at the sight of me. "What do you want?"

  "What does anyone want here? Buy me."

  "I thought you were a detective."

  "I was. Isn't getting indentured like joining the French Foreign Legion?"

  "We have to ask a few more questions than they did." He thumbed the office door. The door swung open as the lights came on, and we went to his desk. "You're not wasting my time?"

  "I value my time, too. I expect to get top dollar for it."

  "Good." He put on a pair of datashades, twitched his fingers a few times above the top of the desk, then said, "Hold up your right thumb."

  I did. "This is a hell of a place to hitchhike."

  He didn't bother to smile. His eyes stayed focused on a point midway between us. "Chase Oliver Maxwell."

  "Yep."

  "I'm recording this. Do you grant permission for us to view your medical history?"

  "If I don't?"

  "Then you can look for another indenture service. We only take healthy clients."

  "I grant permission."

  "Thank—" He frowned, then looked at me. "You've got an Infinite Pocket."

  "Doesn't belong to me. Only way I'd get money for it is on the black market."

  "We can't send out a client who may have a weapon."

  "I won't have one."

  "This says the Pocket is keyed to a SIG—"

  "That's right." I popped the pistol out of the Pocket, appreciated its weight in my hand and Frederick's moment of discomfort, then set the pistol on the counter between us. "Take it. The safety's on."

  He picked it up. "Nice."

  "You've got half a dozen lie detecting programs running on me, right? Voice, eyes, breath, pulse, skin, and facial expression, I'm guessing."

  Frederick nodded as he set the pistol aside.

  "I no longer have any weapon of any sort in the Pocket. Well? Does anything suggest I'm lying?"

  "If we make this contract, I'll have to tell your buyer about the Pocket. You'll probably get a blink test every day to be sure you haven't put anything in there."

  "You're a good man, Gunga Din."

  He smiled. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself, Mr. Maxwell. So many of our clients come to us in tears. What're you interested in? Sex work gives the best buck for the bang."

  Well, neither of us liked the other's sense of humor. I said, "The same deal as Zoe Domingo. Same work, same camp."

  He narrowed his eyes at me, then looked between us, then shook his head. "Her location's legally sealed."

  "Do her papers say you can't sell someone to her camp who asks to go?"

  "No. But the intention—"

  "Isn't spelled out in the documents, is it?"

  "Well, no."

  "Okay, then."

  "How long a term are you looking for?"

  "What's the minimum?"

  "One year. For a healthy male human, we can pay fifteen thousand UNos, which would come to twenty-two meg US. If you wanted a five-year contract—"

  "One's fine."

  "Any other stipulations?"

  "Nope."

  "When do you want to start?"

  "Something wrong with right now?"

  "Not if that's what you want." He printed the contract and handed it to me. "Sign and date that, and we're in business."

  I scanned several pages of fine type. "What does 'reasonable incentives and disincentives' mean?"

  "They've made an investment. They have to be sure they'll get some work out of you."

  "Yeah. But what's that mean?"

  "You don't have to worry about it so long as you do your work. You did notice that your contract automatically terminates if you suffer permanent harm? And you still get to keep the money."

  "You're being vague."

  "We can't know the circumstances at every camp. That clause is there simply to make sure you don't refuse to work."

  "And this bit? About accepting the camp's medical services?"

  "Some people pretend to be sick. The doctors can catch that."

  "I see."

  "You're free to walk away, Mr. Maxwell."

  "I know." And, knowing that I no longer was, I signed to make John Hancock proud. When you choose a course of action, commit to it.

  Frederick took a dull grey band from a cabinet, fiddled with it, then handed it to me. "You know what this is?"

  I nodded.

  "Put it around your neck."

  This part was harder than the signature. The Little Angel would transmit my location at all times. If I left an area where I was supposed to be, it would beep a warning. Then it would sound a siren that would grow louder up to, but just short of, the point of causing permanent damage to my hearing. Then it would send a stimulus to the pain centers of my brain that would rapidly increase in sensation. If I continued to stay outside the designated area, it would trigger my sleep centers. One would-be escapee fell unconscious in a stream and drowned. The Supreme Court ruled that wasn't the indenture company's fault; the escapee had signed a contract accepting the Little Angel. Just as I had.

  I looked at the date Frederick had set on its side. After next Christmas, the band's molecules would abruptly fail to adhere, and I would be free. I put it around my neck, then snapped it shut. It shifted to lie smoothly on my skin like a wisp of gauze. A year of your life should weigh more than that.

  After putting on the Little Angel, I transferred fifteen meg of indenture funds into a savings account. Part of the rest went to my landlady. A smaller part went to the storage company that would pick up my furniture. The largest part went to Brady Xi with a short history of Zoe's case and instructions to investigate Singer Labs and Oberon Chain.

  I lingered a second over tapping "send" on the final transaction. That was my last legal instant of freedom.

  Frederick sent me into a small room for an Insta-Scan to confirm that I was healthy and to make sure I hadn't hidden anything in my body. My clothes and everything I had carried with me, including the SIG, went into a shipping box to join my possessions in storage.

  Frederick gave me a set of gray underwear, socks, coveralls, and slip-on shoes, then a pert token and an address in Simi Valley. His farewell was, "Thanks for doing business with Prosperity Indenture Services. Recommend us to your friends!" />
  Clothes are the softest prison walls. In the elevator, a business woman in a sleek suit wrinkled her nose slightly and edged away from me. On the street, I kept getting "what's one of them doing here?" glances. It was a relief to enter the privacy of a pert.

  If I'd known how long it would be before I had privacy again, I would've treasured that ride more. Instead, I wondered what I would find, and what I had left undone.

  The ride ended too soon in the fenced-in yard of a warehouse. Several humans and chimeras dressed like me waited in the sun. I started toward a tall, thin woman in burgundy coveralls. Without glancing up from her datapad, she said, "Over with the others."

  I said, "Skin cancer's fairly permanent."

  That got me a glance. "Noted, lawyer. I think your free zone includes the shade along the other building."

  I nodded to her and headed there. Two steps short of the shade, the Little Angel began beeping. The sound was annoying, but not so annoying as baking in the sun. I took another step. The alarm around my neck screamed, and so did I. My entire body felt like snack time for fire ants. My muscles convulsed. I fell and barely managed to scramble back away from the shade.

  Ms. Datapad said, "Huh. Guess I was wrong," and continued to jot on the pad.

  An older Asian man in indenture grays helped me stand. "How you doing?"

  I was slick with sweat, and my legs danced like the Scarecrow's in The Wizard of Oz, but the pain had stopped almost instantly. "Fine, now."

  "I'm Cho."

  "Max."

  "What you in for?"

  "One year."

  "Huh! I do five. Bank going to repossess house. One year, huh? You be okay when you get out, if you made right investment."

  "I made the right investment."

  More indentures showed up while Cho told me about his wife, kids, granddaughter, and mother. None of the others were dressed in grays when they arrived; the woman with the datapad got the newcomers fitted with coveralls and Little Angels. As the yard filled, I realized that many indentures chose to postpone their service until the day after Christmas. I asked Cho why he didn't wait for New Year's, and he laughed. "Western New Year come too early. Beside, sooner I start, sooner I finish."

  Ms. Datapad gave a speech when everyone had arrived. Her name was Carol O'Grady, but for the time of our indenture, it was God, and her chosen delegates were archangels. She had six, big men and women whose uniforms had a crisp silver sheen. They carried control wands at their hips—the reason we should worship them. The wands controlled the Little Angels. If a Little Angel went off by accident, the archangels could stop it. If we annoyed the archangels, they could set off our Little Angels. Frederick hadn't mentioned that. I would've bet there were other things he hadn't mentioned. I would've won.

  Two ancient buses stinking of gasoline and oil carried us to an air field where an equally ancient charter plane with a similar stench flew us to Duggan, Montana. The service was lousy. No in-flight HV, no attractive attendants. The archangels brought us bowls of cold Nutrigruel. When I asked if it was vegetarian, the archangel laughed and said the bosses weren't paying for meat for untrained indentures.

  Montana cold came as a shock to a California boy, but I didn't notice it as much as I might have. I was looking for Zoe. Shivering on the runway by the plane, I watched flatbed trucks cross the snow to fetch us, then searched for her among the drivers. They were all sullen humans in archangel silver.

  The drivers passed out coarse blankets and had us climb on the backs of the trucks. A short ride took us to Duggan Indenture Camp, a complex built during the Prison Boom at the end of the last century. When the Libertarians legalized adult drug use, the U.S. suddenly had twice the prison space it needed. Fortunately, indenture camps required cheap housing, so everyone was happy, except for the inmates—excuse me, indentures.

  I looked for Zoe on the orientation tour, in the work halls, kitchen, laundry, mess hall, green house, and exercise room. There were almost as many chimeras as humans, but none of the chimeras was a small woman with jaguar hair.

  After I was given a cell with a dour little man, I looked for her among my floormates. Only human men and women were on my tier. At the ten o'clock lights out, I lay on my hard bunk thinking she must be sleeping in one of the chimera wings and wondering what my next year would be like if the bad guys had already gotten to her. Driving through the camp gates, I had seen a new grave like an open wound in the snow-covered cemetery. Just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard someone, far away, crying hopelessly. I didn't know whether to hope it was Zoe. I listened to the crying until it stopped, maybe five minutes, maybe two hours, and then I slept.

  The work day began at six with an alarm. We had half an hour for the communal toilets and showers. My morning habits were shortened by the bosses's decision that men would be better off facing the Montana winter with beards.

  The camp provided the same breakfast every day: a dense brown bread that I rather liked, hot Nutrigruel, orange-flavored VitaJoy, and coffee as dense and flavorful as dirty dishwater. For indentures with funds, a second food line called the credit counter served scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, grits, bagels, pancakes, waffles, orange juice, milk, espresso, and cappuccino. The prices weren't posted; they just scanned your ID and charged your account.

  On that first morning, I asked the archangel at the credit counter how much a few things cost—the answers were four times higher than the most overpriced hotel restaurant food I'd ever eaten. But money, as the archangel pointed out, was no object; the camp would extend you credit so long as you extended your period of indenture. I said "Uh huh" and got into the camp food line.

  Human indentures took the near side of the hall; chimeras took the far. I carried my tray to a table on the border where an old dogman was reading a coverless copy of Anna Karenina. I said, "Morning."

  He didn't look up. "It's real nice that you're not prejudiced, but if you don't get over with the skins in twenty seconds, you'll be using your gruel for shampoo."

  "Name's Max. I'm looking for a cat called Zoe."

  "Five seconds."

  I got up. "She throws herself under a train."

  None of the humans looked like they wanted a critter-lover at their table. I spotted a familiar face in a group of newcomers and joined them, saying, "Hey, Cho."

  He gave me a wary nod. A wiry Hispanic man said, "Don't you know nothing, man? You got to be careful, got to learn how the game is played."

  "I get tired of games."

  A black woman laughed. "Then you must be tired of life. That why you're here?"

  I shook my head.

  She said, "I was turning tricks and investing my money in my arm. Now I'm going to make me a nest egg and get a new life." I looked at the plate of bacon and eggs in front of her, and didn't comment. She said, "They call me Ginger, 'cause I spice up life."

  The Hispanic man said, "Then stick your finger in my gruel, Ginger. This shit's flavored for Anglos."

  I took a taste of mine. "It's not flavored for anyone."

  "Then it for us," Cho said sadly. "We not anyone."

  If you managed to finish breakfast early, you could hang out in the mess hall, your cell, or the company store. Like the second food line, the store's credit terms were generous, and so was the mark-up. A porn vid, a pack of cigs or hemp, or a bottle of alcohol cost as much as an indenture earned in two days. The presence of smoke and drink in the camp surprised me, until I saw that the company wanted you sober for work and didn't care what you did in your off hours. Anything that made you more content with your fate made them more secure that you wouldn't do anything desperate. They can't make a profit from a suicide.

  Lines formed for work details at 7:30. If you were late, you got a shock for each minute that had passed—the guards called them "'centives," based on the language of our contracts. Cho took too long in the toilet after breakfast, and had two 'centives. When I pointed out that it was his first day and he didn't know better, I got one for wasting work t
ime and another so I would know better.

  Work came in many forms. Indentures who were a few years into their service took care of the camp, washing clothes, mopping floors, cleaning dishes, mixing and heating food for the camp line (nothing that I ate there could properly be said to have been cooked). Skilled indentures did high-grade labor, which ranged from making clothes for designer shops to tending the hydroponic garden beds where they grew exotic vegetables for pricey grocery stores. The rest of us did shit jobs, which took the most literal form in turning human and animal waste into fertilizer sold online through upscale gardening sites, but also included sorting and cleaning truckloads of waste excavated from garbage pits and landfills.

  I was assigned to D&D, dump and display. The crew boss gave me an old military parka, heavy gloves, insulated boots that no longer fastened, and instructions to the loading docks where I learned the routine.

  Trucks heaped high with the last century's garbage came through the big doors every twenty minutes. That had the advantage of letting in fresh air to clear the smell and the disadvantage of letting in the Montana winter. As soon as a truck butted up to a dock, we scrambled on board and unloaded its frozen haul.

  At first, the most disgusting parts were visual as you discovered what accompanied the things that the pit crews thought might be useful. The worst I found was a decaying cat's head that fell out of the back of a radio cabinet, but I heard stories of dead babies in blankets and murder victims in oil drums. I never saw anyone volunteer to open a refrigerator.

  Once the truck was unloaded, it took off, and we D&Ders moved from dumping to displaying by doing a quick sorting of what we found. The goods ranged from the remarkably well preserved where landfills had remained airtight to the bizarrely mutated where strange chemicals had worked, alone or in combination with other industrial concoctions, on everything around them.

  Anything that might be damaged by water—TVs, toasters, typewriters, clothing, bedding, books, magazines, etc.—went on one side of the dock. Anything that might not—chairs, tables, china, plasticware, etc.—went on the other side to be hosed down. That was when the most disgusting part of the job usually became the stench freed by the warm water. That was also when you could make new and more dramatic unpleasant discoveries as hidden things were washed out of the things you cleaned.