The Sopaths

by Piers Anthony

  Abner set down the meal, then drew his pistol. “You know what this is,” he told the black-haired sopath.

  “It’s a gun, shithead,” the boy said disdainfully. “I want it.”

  “Stay on the far side of the cell,” Abner said. “If you move, I will shoot you.”

  The boy stayed on the far side, not calling his bluff, which was just as well. Abner unlocked the gate and opened the door with his left hand, never letting the pistol wander from its target. Gomez shoved the towhead in, then lifted the tray of food and set it in too, on the floor.

  Abner closed and locked the gate. He holstered the pistol. “Now you may eat,” he told the boys. “There is enough for both of you, so you can share.”

  Both started toward the food, then paused, eying each other. “Mine,” the black-haired boy said. He was the larger of the two.

  “Yeah?” the towhead asked disdainfully. He drew a small knife.

  But the towhead had misjudged the proximity of the black-haired boy. The first boy lunged into him, grabbing for the knife. He dislodged it, and it went skittering across the floor.

  The black haired boy had similarly misjudged the tenacity of the tow. The smaller boy, evidently an experienced fighter, rammed into him with a head-butt that knocked the wind out of him. He fell back, gasping, with the tow on top. There was no hesitation; the tow reached for his face and poked a stiffened finger into his right eye, hooking it gruesomely out.

  The black hair screamed in pain and shock, but did not give up the fight. He reached up, caught the tow by the hair, and hauled his face roughly down to his own. The black hair opened his mouth and bit the tow’s nose. It was no token effort; blood spurted as the black hair wrenched his face from side to side, ripping off the nose. It was the tow’s turn to scream in pain.

  In the moment the tow’s concentration faltered, the black hair heaved him over and rolled on top of him. He grabbed the tow by the hair on both sides and lifted his head, then smashed it down against the floor. He lifted and smashed again, and again, as hard as he could, until finally the tow stopped struggling. He was unconscious or dead.

  The black hair got off him, his right eyeball dangling by the nerve cord. He found the lost knife. He picked it up, returned to the tow, and stabbed him repeatedly in the face and neck. Now there was no question: he was dead.

  Only then did the black hair seem to feel the full impact of his pain. He fell down against the wall and screamed.

  Abner looked at Gomez. The other turned his face aside and vomited. It had been such an absolutely vicious fight, completely unnecessary. Because sopaths didn’t share.

  Abner drew his pistol again, aimed carefully, and shot the surviving boy through the head. This was not an execution so much as a mercy killing.

  “I thought I could handle it, but I can’t,” Gomez said. “I’ll finish my shift tonight, but you’ll need someone else tomorrow.”

  “I understand,” Abner said. “I don’t like it much myself.” Bile was rising in his throat.

  They made sure both boys were dead, then hauled them to the sewer pipe and shoved them in.

  The second night a solid red-haired Pariah woman joined Abner. She was Maxine, Gomez’s ad hoc wife, evidently the tougher of the pair. She accompanied him as they checked the honey traps. They were of different types; some pits, some closed cages, some merely candy that was securely anchored so that a child would have to let it go in order to flee. Like monkeys, sopaths had difficulty ever letting go.

  The signal brought them to one with a sopath girl who glared menacingly at them from the closed metal cage. She was unkempt and dirty, with wild brown hair, like a feral cat. “Leave me alone!” she said.

  “Are you hungry, honey?” Maxine inquired. “We’re going to take you to a prison cell with a good meal.”

  “Don’t touch me, bitch!”

  “Or you can stay here,” Maxine concluded. She and Abner made ready to leave.

  “I’ll go,” the girl said quickly.

  “Then we’ll have to cuff you for the trip. Put out your hands.”

  The sopath hesitated, then slowly put them out. Maxine applied the soft plastic handcuffs. Then Abner opened the cage and released the girl.

  She tried to bolt for freedom, but Maxine still had hold of the cuffs and restrained her. Maxine had evidently thought this process through, and was doing an excellent job.

  They drove the girl to the Heller Cellar, as a Pariah wag had put it, and locked her in, alone. “We’ll fetch the food,” Maxine said. “Meanwhile catch yourself a nap.”

  They checked the other traps, and found another girl, this one a filthy blonde. They took her in, pausing along the way at Maxine’s house, where she fetched a package of sandwiches and chocolate milk. The sopath eyed them, drooling.

  “The gamines tend to be hungry,” Maxine remarked. “Homeless because they’re runaways, having to scour garbage cans and try to steal from stores.” She glanced at the girl. “You’d be better off reforming and going home, honey.”

  “Go fuck yourself in the asshole, bitch.”

  They came to the cellar. The first sopath was lying on the back bunk, evidently asleep. Abner unlocked the gate while Maxine released the cuffs and pushed the girl through. Then she put in the food package. “There’s enough here for the both of you,” she said per the formula. “Just be nice and share.”

  The blonde drew her knife and quietly stalked the sleeping girl, not about to give her the slightest chance to wake and compete for the food. She stabbed down viciously. But at that moment the other moved, striking with her own knife. Neither wound seemed to be lethal, but now they were in combat, stabbing each other repeatedly.

  It was over within a minute. Both girls collapsed. Now their wounds looked mortal, and in any event both would soon bleed to death. The food was untouched. All because sopaths wouldn’t share, again.

  They gave it time, to be sure. “I’ll dispose of the bodies,” Abner said at last.

  “I’ll clean up the mess,” Maxine said, fetching bucket, mop, and scrub-brush.

  “We make a good team,” Abner said grimly.

  “We do,” Maxine agreed. She smiled in a manner that hinted she would be amenable to more than a work relationship, were he interested. He ignored it.

  The third night they caught another boy.

  As luck would have it, another neighbor was bringing in another sopath, a girl, a screaming hellion. “One of each,” Maxine remarked. “This should be interesting.”

  That gave Abner another twinge, but a sopath was a sopath regardless of gender, and it was clear that the girls were as vicious as the boys. Abner hated to admit it, even to himself, but he was curious whether there would be a difference.

  They put her in with the boy and Abner went to fetch the food, it being his turn. When he returned, Maxine was gone, a note in her place: emergency at home, she would return soon. Abner suspected that she did not want to witness what happened. Abner found that perversely reassuring: she was not really all that tough, and he was not alone in his guilt.

  “There is enough here for both of you,” Abner said as he passed the food through the bars. “All you have to do is share.”

  The children had ignored each other. Sopaths didn’t care about sopaths any more than about souled folk. But the arrival of the food changed that. That was tangible, and they were hungry. Both dived for it, and neither would back off. In a moment they were savagely fighting each other. The boy flung his arms around the smaller girl and hurled her away from the food. But she stabbed him in the gut as she went, using a concealed knife, and he sank to the floor, bleeding. She calmly stepped in and slit his throat. Then, as he bled to death, she ate the choicest morsels.

  Abner watched through the bars, appalled again by the complete lack of conscience of a sopath. The girl was about six, with curly red hair, a rather pretty child, relatively clean and well-dressed. She had to have a family home, as she was no street urchin.

  “Back off,”
Abner said when she finished. “I have to remove the body.”

  She looked at him, seeming to become aware of him as a person. “Let me go,” she said.

  “I can’t do that,” Abner said uneasily. “Now go to the far side of the cell. I will kill you if you come toward me or try to escape.” He hated the fact that it was not a bluff. He would do what he had to do, if she forced the issue. A sopath was a sopath; it was an illusion to think that it was worse to kill a girl than a boy.

  “You’re a sopath survivor,” she said.

  “I am.”

  She moved to the far wall and stood facing away. She evidently understood the protocol. He unlocked the gate, put his hands on the small body, and hauled it out, never taking his eyes off the girl. If she moved, he would drop the body and whip out his knife, striking without pause.

  She didn’t move. He relocked the gate.

  He dragged the body outside and left it there for the moment. He returned to the cell. The girl had turned around and was standing beside the bunk. She looked neater than before; she must have redone her hair, washed her face and hands, and straightened out her dress. “You should be all right for the night,” he said.

  She shook her head. “Not here.” She peered at him appraisingly. “I’ll trade. Let me go and I’ll give you a nice fuck.”

  Abner was shocked despite his awareness of her nature. “You’re a child!”

  “I’m a sopath. We do what we choose. I know how.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Why was he even talking with her? He knew there was no chance of giving her a conscience.

  She lay on the bunk, lifted her skirt, and spread her legs. She wore no panties; she must have removed them when cleaning up. She put her hands to her hairless cleft and drew the vulva lips apart to show her open vagina. “You have to let me put your cock in my cunt for you, slowly, so it stretches and doesn’t hurt. Once it’s in, then let it spout. Or I can suck it. I promise not to scratch or bite. Or use my knife; you can disarm me first, once we agree on terms. That’s easier.”

  It was evident that she knew what she was offering. She had had sex with a man, maybe more than one, in more than one manner. Abner was horrified, yet also morbidly intrigued. How could she have come by such experience? “No.”

  But she persisted. “It isn’t as if you’re doing it with a real girl. I’m a sopath. I won’t tell.”

  “As if a sopath could ever be trusted!”

  She laughed. “Got me there, handsome. But I won’t tell if it’s worth it to me not to, so you can trust that. I never told before, because it would be bad for business.”

  “We have no such business.”

  She spread her legs a little wider. “You can put it in my ass if you like that better; there’s more room in there.” She licked a finger and poked it into her rectum.

  He averted his gaze, as much to mask his burgeoning horror as from any modesty, and tried to change the subject. “How old are you?” Her dialogue and action seemed too cynically mature for her appearance.

  “Seven. I’m small for my age. But I know what’s what. Some men like to fuck little girls.” She smiled winsomely. “Try it; maybe you’ll like it.”

  “I’ll never like such an abomination! I’m not into children.”

  “Yet. Doesn’t my cute little cunt give you a hard-on?”

  “No!”

  “Yeah? Show me your pecker, then. I’ll bet it’s swelling.”

  “Your attitude revolts me. Are you trying to make me kill you?”

  That got to her, because she realized that he could kill a sopath. She drew down her dress. “So what do you want?”

  He tried again to change the subject. “You were kicking and screaming when you were brought in. Why are you so calm now?”

  “I can behave when I have reason. I do it all the time, at home and school. Throwing a tantrum didn’t work. Offering a fuck didn’t work. Maybe being reasonable will.”

  She was smart. That made him uncomfortable in another manner. “You’re still a sopath.”

  “And you’re a souler. That doesn’t mean we can’t deal.”

  He had to cut this short. “I’ll bring more food in the morning.”

  She rolled off the bunk and to her feet. “You have to let me go. I’ve been out too long. Mom will worry.”

  “What do you care about your mother’s concern? You’re a sopath. Sopaths don’t care about the feelings of others.”

  “I care because it directly affects my welfare. I’m not stupid; I’m damn smart. My IQ test didn’t show it because I knew smart could be dangerous, so I faked a few wrong answers. But I knew all the answers.” She paused, considering. “Except one. What does DMZ stand for?”

  “Demilitarized Zone. It’s where neither side brings weapons or sets up military installations.”

  “You must be smart to know that.”

  “No. I was in the military. It’s the kind of thing you pick up.”

  She shook her head cannily. “Maybe so, but you are smart. I like that.” She peered at him. “There’s something about you. Maybe it’s your strong soul.”

  Her insight made him nervous. “This is not about me. You were trying to talk me into letting you go.”

  “Yes. I’m smart. In fact I’m the bastard child of Mom’s affair with a genius. Dad doesn’t know, and I sure as hell won’t tell him and break up the family. I know how to behave like a souler, and I do it at home so my folks don’t catch on.”

  “Then why spill such secrets to me, a stranger?”

  Again that assessing look. “You’re not really a stranger, Abner Slate. I know about you.”

  He was startled. “How do you know my name?”

  “This is my neighborhood. I looked at a city chart. I have eidetic memory. I can name your whole artificial family. I know how you’ve been snagging sopaths and killing them.”

  He was startled again. “How could you fall into our traps, then?”

  “You’re cute and smart and you keep your word. I wanted to get to know you, find out your secret. Maybe fuck you.”

  “You wanted to--” He retrenched, realizing that she was baiting him. “You put your life at serious risk because you think I’m cute? That’s not smart.”

  “I can escape when I want to. But I want you to let me go. It’s better that way. Maybe if I smile and say please, just like a real girl?”

  Abner’s uneasiness increased. “I still can’t let a sopath go.”

  She eyed him yet again with that disturbing assessment. “What’s your price?”

  “No price,” he said as he turned to leave.

  “There’s always a price. If not a fuck, maybe information? I’ll make it worth it.”

  “What information could you possibly have that would justify my releasing a sopath?”

  “Like maybe who else likes child fucking. Some respectable family men. Even some policemen.”

  That made him pause. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Then you’re being a fool. I can tell you things to save your life. You trust the police? Don’t.”

  “Why not?” He knew this was treacherous ground, but he couldn’t let it go.

  “Because they’re using you to do their dirty work. I bet they have a dossier on you, to convict you of murder, if you ever cross them. They are like sopaths. Some of them have pretty thin souls.”

  She had a fairly adult vocabulary when she chose to use it. He was getting to know her, and that made him reluctant to condemn her. “How can you know this?”

  “Would you trust a policeman who fucks a child? My ass could tell such stories!”

  Abner was sickened, but what she said made awful sense. The police had been phenomenally cooperative, letting Pariah do the sopath-killing for them. Yes, they needed to be rid of sopaths. But a dossier would indeed be a deadly legal weapon. This was something he needed to discuss with Pariah.

  “And I think there are some grown sopaths,” she continued, orienting on his interest like the l
ittle predator she was. “Teen, anyway. Not many, but some. Maybe some older yet. They got through before the type was identified. Spies, assassins, slaughterhouse workers, mercenaries, politicians, corporation bosses. They’re good at what they do, because they’re smart and have no scruples, like me.”

  Again it rang distressingly true. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Call me Nefer. I’m in a regular family. They don’t know, as I said, because I behave when I’m with them. It’s an effort. Sometimes I just have to get out and be myself for a few hours. I usually sneak out at night when they think I’m in bed, but I can’t afford to stay out too long or they’ll catch on. I got tempted and let you catch me. I won’t do that again. Now let me go; I’ve paid a fair price.”

  Abner realized that he was no longer capable of killing her. She had made him sympathize with her, exactly as she intended. And she had provided him with useful insights. Nefer was eerily intelligent in a way he had not realized any child could be. She was a sopath, but he had to honor the deal he had somehow tacitly made.

  He sighed. “You have given me things to think about. It does seem only fair that I make the trade.” He unlocked the gate and opened it. Would she attack him the moment she was able to? If she did, he would be able to do the right thing and kill her.

  But she didn’t. She stepped out and paused. “We’ll stay in touch, Abner.”

  He was surprised. “I thought you’d get far away from here.”

  “No, as I said, this is my territory. Where my contacts are. You’re a contact now.”

  “Why would I ever want to be that?”

  “For information. We’ll trade. I may need your help some time. I’ll pay, one way or another.”

  Abner considered, and realized that this was an appalling but valid offer. He was making a deal with a sopath, who would pay with information. “With luck we’ll never meet again.”

  Nefer shrugged. “I’m sorry we didn’t fuck. It might have been fun with you. It’s usually such a chore. You’re a good man, like my dad, only more savvy. I kinda like you. I’d kiss you if you let me.”