Favel elbowed Jesper. “Let’s get out of here.”
He shook his head. “You promised.”
“This feels like a trap.”
“You’re being paranoid. As usual.”
Favel chewed her lip, trying to decide whether to stay with Jesper.
The next ship arrived. It wasn’t like the Sentinel ships. No rotors. No visible means of propulsion. It was small, the size of an automobile. It landed on the right side of the stage next to the lone Sentinel. Two doors, one on each side of the ship opened, like a great bird raising its wings. A woman, dressed in gray, came out of one door. A man, also dressed in gray, exited the other. Favel had never seen these two before but knew they were the lowest of the Uppers, Bureaucrats. After the Bureaucrats, two extremely muscular men got out of the ship carrying a box large enough to hold another man. These men wore orange jumpers. Prisoners. Probably used as free labor.
The prisoners sat the box on the stage’s left side. Then they went to the large screen in the middle and pushed it back. The screen glided back, far upstage, out of the way for what was to follow.
While the prisoners pushed the screen upstage, the Bureaucrats went to the box. Favel thought Mr. Grady would be in the box. It looked like a coffin. The man opened the box and removed a metal rifle. He detached the rifle’s butt, which he tossed back into the box.
The lone Sentinel clopped across the stage to the man.
The man handed the rifle, which now consisted of only the barrel and forestock, to the Sentinel, who twisted the rifle onto one of its arms. The man fetched a large magazine from the box and handed it to the Sentinel, who clipped it into its gun arm. The man and the Sentinel crossed the stage to the ship, stood backs to it, and faced across the stage.
“They’re going to shoot him?” Favel asked Jesper. The seriousness of the situation caused her to whisper.
“Yes.”
“That’s horrible. I thought with executions they just gave you a shot and you went to sleep.”
Jesper shrugged. “You end up dead either way.”
“This is so barbaric. They’re not even going to vaporize him. They’re going to put a bunch of holes in him.”
Jesper shrugged again.
The woman Bureaucrat closed the box’s lid and called the prisoners over. She had them move the box, just a little, maybe a foot downstage. When finished, the prisoners went across the stage and stood behind the ship. The woman fiddled with the box and a seven foot high curtain sprung up along the box’s left side.
Noise prompted Favel to turn around. While the Bureaucrats had been setting up the spot for the execution, two things had occurred. The amphitheater was now almost three quarters full and the news crew had arrived. So focused had Favel been on the stage that she hadn’t noticed the other arrivals. Newswoman Wendy Heart, “the Voice of the City,” worked her way down the center aisle toward the stage.
Favel rolled her eyes out of habit. The woman’s phoniness irked her, fake blond hair teased up to three times it’s natural height, fake eyelashes, fake tan, fake boobs, but worst of all was her fake sincerity. Couldn’t people see through her? Why so many adored her was a mystery.
A cameraman trailed Wendy Heart, his head covered by a large silver helmet with a single telescopic eye protruding out the front. A small man followed the cameraman, wearing headphones with a small microphone extended on a wire in front of his mouth. He carried on an animated conversation with somebody as he walked.
Wendy Heart went to center stage and checked her face with a small mirror. The cameraman knelt on one knee a few feet in front of her. The headphone man issued instructions to both of them before disappearing off stage.
Wendy Heart smiled her fake smile, nodded, and looked at the cameraman. She talked into a large, black microphone held below her chin. “Citizens. Today we are broadcasting the execution of the traitor, Mr. Anthin Grady, convicted of crimes against humanity, crimes against the City, treason, inciting a riot with intent to cause harm, and another dozen offenses. Capital punishment is only used with criminals who have committed heinous acts such as these and when the criminal has no possibility for rehabilitation.
“Yesterday, five independent, certified physiologists confirmed, unanimously I might add, that Mr. Grady is beyond rehabilitation and capital punishment is not only warranted but indeed would be an act of mercy for poor Mr. Grady.”
Jesper whispered to Favel. “This is insane.”
Favel nodded.
Wendy Heart continued. “As is every citizen’s right, even a citizen so fundamentally flawed as Mr. Grady, the choice on the manner of execution is up to the citizen. Mr. Grady chose death by firing squad.”
“Bullshit,” someone yelled from the crowd.
The cameraman spun and focused on the crowd.
“If you’ll look here,” Wendy Heart said, pointing to the Sentinel. The cameraman turned back around and focused on the Sentinel. “We have a Sentinel to perform the execution. The City hasn’t used firing squads in well over a hundred years, but to grant Mr. Grady’s wish they have outfitted the Sentinel with an old fashioned weapon which fires single projectiles using gunpowder.
“Please show the weapon.”
The Sentinel raised its arm.
“Now, just arriving is Mayor Trebold and several dignitaries.”
The camera man turned and tracked the mayor’s progress down the center aisle and up to the stage. Three others followed him, all men dressed in suits. They crossed the stage, to the right, and stood forward of the ship. The mayor had a grim, serious look on his face.
Wendy Heart went to the mayor. “Would you like to say a few words?” She extended her microphone to him.
“Thank you Wendy. Let me just say this is a solemn, solemn occasion. I consider it a failure of our society to be at this point. We must strive to work harder, be better. My administration is hard at work to see this type of societal lapse does not occur again.”
The crowd murmured.
“But,” Wendy said, “you could have stayed the execution.”
“Yes indeed. This is a grave, grave situation and I gave the matter deep consideration. Especially, since this is an election year.” The mayor chuckled. “I may have lost a few votes by not stopping it. But in the end, we live in a society of rules. The justice system must work.” He held out his hands, open palms. “Who am I to arbitrarily decide who lives and who dies?”
The crowd’s murmuring grew louder.
“Very good of you, sir,” Wendy said. “Would you like to speak on the nature of Mr. Grady’s crimes?”
“Oh no. I think the trial examined those well enough. Let me just say, when a person attacks the very structure of our government, that’s not an attack just on the government but on each and every one of her citizens.”
“There was no attack!” someone yelled.
“He was just getting a petition for us to vote!” another yelled.
The mayor cleared his throat. “This was all examined at the trial.”
“A sham trial!”
“Ah,” Wendy said, “here’s the man of the hour.”
Mr. Grady stood at the top of the amphitheater’s center aisle wearing a white jumper, a black bag over his head, and shackles on arms and feet. An armed, uniformed man led him down the center aisle. Another uniformed man followed close behind.
The crowd’s silence sharply contrasted its previous restlessness.
The uniformed men helped Mr. Grady onto the stage and then herded him to the box. They positioned him on top of the box, back against the curtain. Once there, they removed the bag from Grady’s head.
The cameraman had backward-duck-walked in front of the group as they proceeded to the box. Now he stood and backed across the stage until he reached the center, in front of the screen. He slowly swept his head from the mayor’s group, including Wendy Heart, across the audience to Grady and the two officers.
Jesper grabbed Favel’s hand and clenched it tight.
&n
bsp; Wendy Heart stepped to center stage, back to the crowd, and waited for the cameraman to focus on her. Once he did, she spoke in a soft, serious voice. “As you have seen, Mr. Grady is now in place. Next the officer of the court will ask if he has a final statement to make.”
One of the uniformed men held out a microphone, inches from Grady’s mouth.
“Just,” Grady began, coughed, cleared his throat and continued. “Just one thing. I don’t matter. You can kill me. But you can’t kill the right of every man and woman in a free society to—” They cut his microphone off.
The uniformed men stepped to the either side of Mr. Grady and the Sentinel stepped forward, loud clanking steps on the stage. The Sentinel raised its gun arm, leveling it at Grady.
In unison, the uniformed men nodded.
Favel closed her eyes. Why had she let Jesper talk her into this. His hand tightened even more around hers. Then the noise. Each shot a loud explosion magnified by the stage acoustics. The Sentinel fired five, maybe ten, times. The shots happened in such rapid succession she couldn’t have counted them if she tried.
Then silence.
Favel opened her eyes and saw Mr. Grady, eyes wide, eyebrows raised, as if surprised. His jumper’s front was no longer white. It contained several blossoming red patches. His knees buckled in a jerky sort of way, as if he were trying to keep standing but just couldn’t. He’d sink a few inches, then jerk up, then sink a few inches more. Finally, he fell forward off the box, landing face first. His body jackknifed up for a moment before crumpling and being still.
Somebody in the crowd yelled “Get them.” The audience moved forward.
Favel saw the mayor say something to the Sentinel. It swung it’s gun arm toward the crowd. She pushed Jesper to the ground and threw herself on top of him, one arm over the back of her neck.
A cacophony of noise erupted around her. Yells and gunfire. The yells turned to screams. Favel heard a buzz and smelled ozone which meant the other Sentinels had joined the slaughter and were using their atom weapons. At any instant Favel expected to feel the horrible pain of a gunshot, or worse, feel nothing at all as she was vaporized. She lay trembling on top of Jesper.
“Enough! Stop!” It was the mayors voice.
The sounded lessened, a few people still screamed, but the screams had turned from fear to agony. Most of the sounds were moans and whimpers.
Favel raised her head and hazarded a look. Utter carnage filled the amphitheater. Blood everywhere, body parts, clothing burning, people writhing. A few had escaped injury. Only a few. Out of how many? Three hundred? Five hundred? The stage was better, but some of the crowd had made it to the stage and lay dead. Perfect Wendy Heart, stood mouth agape, eyes wide, as if in shock.
For some reason the scene reminded Favel of stew. A mish-mash of different colors in a tomato based sauce.
Off to the side the cameraman panned back and forth.
The man with the headphones grabbed the cameraman’s shoulders. “How much of this did you broadcast?”
“All of it.”
The man tore his headphones off and sat, head in hands.
“I think we’re safe now,” Favel said, getting off Jesper.
Jesper didn’t move.
“Come on.” She rolled him over. His open dead eyes stared vacantly at her.
“Oh God.” She felt for a pulse. Tears blurred her vision.
She stood and wiped her eyes dry.
Favel stomped to the stage. “Mayor.” When he didn’t respond she screamed. “MAYOR!”
He looked down at her.
“This is your fault.” Favel opened her arm wide indicating everything around them. “It was all broadcast live. Too bad it’s an election year isn’t it?”
Favel didn’t wait for a response, she marched to the center aisle, stopped and looked over at Jesper’s body. This situation was too similar to her mother’s. She wouldn’t think about that.
She spun around, faced the mayor again. “Here’s the thing. My mother was a cook. A great cook. She made this wonderful goulash. People raved about it. They would come to our village from miles away just for her goulash. It had beef, onions, carrots, potatoes, all kinds of vegetables, and spices. Wow did it have spices. She never made it the same way, yet it always tasted wonderful. I asked her what the secret was. She told me there isn’t any secret. It’s everything together. The variety is the secret.”
The mayor stared at her. Silent.
“It’s the same here. The City. Strength comes from the people. The variety.” She shook her head. “Maybe the next mayor will have more sense.”
Favel didn’t wait for his response. She didn’t expect any. After all Favel wasn’t even a person in his eyes. She was a Lower, and worse, homeless. She trudged up the center aisle, stepping over the dead and injured as she went.
As she reached the top, the mayor called after her. “Ma’am.”
It took her a moment to realize he was calling her. “Ma’am,” he hollered again.
She turned, looked down to the stage, shielding the sun from her eyes with a hand.
“Ma’am. I thought you would like to know I’m going to have a bill introduced tomorrow giving all citizens the right to vote. Although, because Uppers use more resources they should have more of a say in the government, so I’m proposing that each Lower gets one eighth of a vote. “
He waited for a response. Favel didn’t care.
“Well,” he said, “it is a start anyway, isn’t it?”
Favel shrugged. “It’s not my fight.”
The Death Gerbil
Dean Weathers pulled the string for the overhead light in his darkroom and examined the still wet prints. The latest photos also had the anomaly. Not good.
He grabbed the dry prints, leaving the wet ones hanging, and pulled aside the black curtain over the darkroom’s entrance, an empty door frame with oversize curtains both inside and outside the frame. He reached through the entrance, pulled aside the outer curtain, and stepped from the darkroom into the spare bedroom. He went down the hallway to the kitchen.
He slapped the photos onto the kitchen table. “Carol, take a look at these.”
His wife, back to him, stirred a pot on the stove. She didn’t turn. “Just a minute.”
He snatched up the photos, marched across the room, and thrust them into her face. “Look.”
She ducked under his hand. “Keep your pants on. I’m almost done.”
He glared at her for a moment, went back to the table, yanked the chair out and sat. “You’d think after thirty-three years of marriage—”
“Thirty four.”
“Thirty four—whatever. This is important but you won’t give me two minutes.”
“I can’t just stop, Dean, or the sugar will clump and ruin the whole batch.”
“I don’t give a damn about your stupid candies. It’s a picture of the gerbil again.”
She stopped stirring and turned. White goo dripped from the wooden spoon now clenched tight in her hand. “From that old camera?”
“Yep. The Brownie.”
“Let me get my glasses.” She turned off the stove’s burner and disappeared to the living room, in a few moments returned, and took the seat next to him.
Dean pointed to the top photo. “This is where I first noticed it. Behind the dog on the left. The little dark spot.”
“Oh my God. It’s Champ.”
“Yep. Weekend before he died, in the park with James and the kids. I got a good roll, but only a couple with Champ.” He moved the top photo aside, revealing the next one in the stack. “Now the dark spot is on the right.”
He moved to the next photo. “That’s the two shots I have with Champ, but here I’ve enlarged the dark spot.”
Carol gasped. Dean nodded gravely. The blurry photo showed a black gerbil and, although the picture was black and white, Dean imagined the eyes as fiery red.
“My God. It’s just—”
“Like the cat. I know.”
; Carol picked up the photo. “It has to be a coincidence. Maybe it’s a field mouse.”
“No, look at the tail. Gerbils have a little tuft of hair on their tails, mice don’t. It’s clearer in the next one.” He pulled out the last photo. The gerbil stood in profile, tail extended.
“What does it mean?”
“Think about it. I take Fluffy’s picture and this weird gerbil shows up in the frame. Two days later Fluffy’s dead. I get Champ in a shot, same gerbil, and a few days later he’s dead. It’s got to be a death gerbil.”
“Ridiculous. What’s a death gerbil?”
“Okay, Miss I-Know-Everything, you tell me what it is.”
“Maybe it’s the camera. Oh wait. I took some pictures at the park, too.” She rose and went to the living room.
Dean followed, leaving the photos splayed across the kitchen table. He stood behind her, arms across chest, while she rummaged through her purse. She produced a small digital camera.
He looked up to the sky, raising hands in mock supplication. “Lord help me.”
She scrolled through pictures on the camera. “Sorry, I know you hate gadgets.”
“I don’t hate gadgets. I hate digital cameras. They got no heart. They’re tacky. People who use them have no respect for the medium.”
“Found one.” She showed him.
“I don’t see anything.” He squinted. “Can you make it bigger?”
“I don’t know. Maybe James can.”
“I don’t think there’s anything there and I don’t want to bother James. Doesn’t matter anyway. Come with me. I’ve got something worse to show you.”
She followed him down the hall to the spare bedroom. Inside, he ripped the outer curtain off the darkroom’s entrance, tearing it from the curtain rod, and tossed it behind him. He reached through the hole in the wall, pulled down the inner curtain, and threw it on the floor on top of the other one.
“Calm down,” she said. “What on earth has gotten into you?”
“Doesn’t matter. I won’t be using this room again.” He stepped into the darkroom. “Come on.”
She followed him, crowding close in the small space. She wrinkled her nose. “You need better ventilation in here. The chemicals smell awful.”
Strange Perceptions Page 7