Servos whined and his cell moved. Sideways at first, then downwards, dropping so fast that it made his ears pop. Air came in via thousands of tiny holes. None were large enough to look through, but Perez knew what was happening.
JMS 12.1 had rotated carousel 16 until his particular cell was aligned with one of the tower’s four elevator tubes and dropped it down a shaft. The cell slowed suddenly, making him feel heavier, and throwing him sideways as it was rotated out of the elevator tube.
There was a commotion outside. Other prisoners, with life expectancies only slightly longer than his, shouted obscenities and banged on the steel walls. The ritual had no effect on the guards but made the inmates feel better.
Machinery hummed, dead bolts snicked, and the door opened.
There were four of them. Just the right number to handle a desperate prisoner without getting in each other’s way. They wore black hoods, shirts, and pants. Perez was naked. That, like everything else in the prison, was part of the punishment.
The guard furthest to the left spoke.
“Perez?”
Perez found his throat was very, very dry. He mustered some saliva and forced it down.
“Wrong cell. He’s on carousel five.”
There were appreciative chuckles from the nearby cells. Their thoughts, their memories, were the only epitaph Perez could hope for.
One of the men had a black truncheon. He tapped it against a thigh. “Cute, Perez. Real cute. So what’s it gonna be? Vertical? Or horizontal?”
Perez forced himself to stand. His knees were shaking. The digital readout said he had 42:16 left. “Vertical.”
The man with the truncheon shook his head disappointedly. “Okay, vertical it is. Ito and Jack will go first. You’ll come next and Bob and I will bring up the rear. Questions?”
Perez tried to think of a flip comment, failed, and shook his head.
“Good. Let’s go.”
Perez waited until two of the guards had passed through the door, got a nod from the man with the truncheon, and followed along behind.
The hall was brightly lit and smelled of industrial-strength disinfectant. The floor felt cold beneath his bare feet. Perez was painfully aware of his nakedness and complete vulnerability.
There were catcalls and comments from men and women he’d never seen and never would.
“See you in hell, Perez!”
“Take care, asshole.”
“Sweet dreams.,. shithead.”
It went on and on until they reached the checkpoint. The party stopped, one of the guards placed his palms against a print reader, and the doors slid open.
The first pair of guards went through, Perez followed, and the others came along behind. There was another hallway, shorter this time, followed by a second checkpoint. This one required two sets of prints, one from a guard and one from Perez. The substance inside the reader looked and felt like gray modeling clay. He put his hands against it and looked towards a guard, who nodded his approval.
“It’s for your own protection, Perez. We wouldn’t want to grease you freaks in the wrong order.”
Perez removed his hands from the reader and the doors slid open. “How very considerate.”
“Yeah,” the guard agreed. “Ain’t it just?”
Perez saw that all four of the guards had placed themselves between him and the hall. This was it, then, the infamous death room, where justice would be administered. Justice that came straight from the Old Testament. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a bullet for a bullet.
Perez felt his bowels loosen and his knees start to shake.
“You need some help?” The voice was gruff but sympathetic.
Perez shook his head, turned, and forced himself through the doors. The room looked the way it did on television, only larger. And why not? Live executions were a regular part of the news. He’d seen plenty of them. So many they didn’t mean shit. Not until now, that is.
“Show ’em what death looks like and they won’t do it.”
That was theory ... but judging from the long waiting lines in death row, it seemed as if things were a bit more complex than that.
Perez was a case in point. He hadn’t planned to murder Cissy Conners. He had pointed the gun at her, demanded money from the till, and fired when her hands dipped below the countertop. Just like in the vids, where blood spurted out and the actor lived to star in another show. Except this bullet was real and the woman was dead.
The guard was polite. “Step over here, please.”
Perez did as he was told. He stepped over to the chromed framework and waited while his arms and legs were strapped to cold metal. It was shaped like a huge “X,” as in “X marks the spot,” and occupied the exact center of the cube-shaped room.
Perez looked around. The walls, ceiling, and floor were made of seamless easy-to-clean stainless steel. Dark-clad images rippled across them as the guards moved.
Perez felt an unevenness beneath his feet and looked down to see what it was. His penis had almost disappeared into his abdomen, and beyond that, his feet rested on a chromed drain. A drain that could handle a lot of water, or water mixed with blood, or ...
Perez looked up and around. Now he saw the hoses that hung on all four walls, the nozzles that would spray disinfectants into the room, and the television cameras carefully placed to record his death. He wanted to give them the finger but it was too late. The restraints held his arms and legs in a rigid embrace.
A voice filled the room. It was solemn but somewhat bored as well.
“Angel Perez, having murdered the woman known as Cissy Conners, and having been found guilty of said murder, you are about to die. Do you have any final words?”
“Yeah. Frax you.”
“Not especially original, but heartfelt nonetheless,” the voice said calmly. “Now, you are doubtless aware that a small percentage of the criminals executed in this room are chosen for resuscitation and enlistment in the Legion. Would you like to be considered for resuscitation? Or do you choose certain death?”
Like most of the people who found themselves in his position, Perez had considered certain death and rejected it. Somewhere, just beyond the walls of the death room, other facilities waited. Medical technology so sophisticated that it could bring all but the most massively injured back to life. And life, even half-life as a cyborg, was better than death.
His voice came out as a croak. “I wish to be considered for resuscitation.”
“Your choice has been noted,” the voice intoned.
“And now, in concert with Imperial Law, you will be executed in a manner similar to the way that you killed Cissy Conners. A bullet in the arm, followed by a bullet in the shoulder, followed by a bullet in the chest. Do you have any questions?”
Perez felt something warm dribble down the inside of surface of his leg. “No.”
“May god have mercy on your soul.”
Only one guard remained. He wore full body armor to protect himself against the possibility of a ricochet. He had a long-barreled .22-caliber pistol. It was equipped with a laser sight, reactive grips, and special low-velocity ammunition.
He stepped forward, raised the pistol, and sighted down the barrel. Perez felt every muscle in his body tighten against the expected impact.
The guard did something with his thumb and Perez saw a red dot appear on his left biceps. Seeing the dot, knowing exactly where the bullet would hit, was more than he could stand.
“Oh god, please don’t ...
The slug hit his arm, tore its way through, and flattened itself against the steel framework. The sound, like the pain, came a fraction of a second after the impact.
Perez screamed, fought the restraints, and lost control of his bladder. The urine was still splattering across his feet when the second dot appeared on his shoulder.
“No! No! N-!”
This bullet went through, hit the far wall, and smeared itself across the harder metal.
Perez was still in the process
of absorbing the shock, and feeling the pain, when the guard corrected his aim.
Perez saw the dot slide up across his chest, slow, then stop. He was starting to scream when the last bullet hit.
Rain drummed against the limo’s roof and ran in rivulets down the windows. The palace was a smear of bright light, blocked here and there by the statues that lined the drive, and the fancifully shaped topiaries that dotted the lawns.
The limo threw up a wave of water as it turned into the drive. Sergi Chien-Chu shook his head sadly. He felt sorry for the people at Weather Control. Someone or something had chosen the night of the Imperial ball to screw things up. Within a month, two at the most, they’d be counting icicles on an ice planet, or sorting sand on a hell world. The Emperor had very little patience with incompetence, other than his own, of course, which generally fell under the heading of “bad luck.”
A massive portico jutted out over the drive. The rain vanished as the limo came under its protection and slowed to a stop. A footman appeared and waited for the door to open.
“Buzz me when you’re ready to leave, sir. I’ll be in the parking lot.”
The voice came via the car’s intercom and belonged to Chien-Chu’s chauffeur cum bodyguard, Roland Frederick. He sat twelve feet forward of the rearmost passenger seat and was invisible behind black plastic.
Chien-Chu gathered the ridiculous toga around his rather portly body and prepared to leave the limo.
“Don’t be silly, Frederick. Go home and get some sleep. I’ll take a cab home.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but madam would never forgive me.”
“What if I order you to go?”
“No offense, sir, but I’m a good deal more afraid of madam than I am of you.”
Chien-Chu knew it was true, and knew something else as well: that Frederick wanted to stay and would do whatever he pleased.
Chien-Chu touched the door release. It hissed open. “Well, suit yourself, but it’s damned silly, if you ask me.”
The driver’s-side rearview mirror provided an excellent view of the foppish footman and the now open door. Frederick watched his boss heave himself out of the backseat, refuse a helping hand, and gather the toga into some semblance of order. Chien-Chu was a short man, and what with the gold bracelet, white robes, and leather sandals, looked the spitting image of a Roman senator.
Frederick shook his head sympathetically. The boss hated this kind of crap and would be miserable all night. He’d welcome a ride when the ball was over and Frederick would be there to provide it.
Chien-Chu waved toward the driver’s compartment, turned, and joined a couple dressed as twenty-second-century air dancers. It took him a moment to recognize them as Governor French and her husband, Frank.
“Sergi! It’s good to see you! I love your costume!”
“And I yours,” Chien-Chu replied, eyeing the governor’s next-to-nonexistent attire. She was close to fifty but very well preserved. He leered at her.
“Why, Sergi ... you old goat! Have you met my husband, Frank?”
“Of course,” Chien-Chu replied, exchanging nods with a handsome youth thirty years the governor’s junior. “Frank and I had drinks together during the in-system speedster races last year. A nice finish, by the way ... you nearly won.”
This comment was sufficient to stimulate a highly technical dissertation on Frank’s loss and his prospects for the current year. A somewhat boring conversation but sufficient to carry them through the main doors, down a brightly lit hallway, to the entrance of the Imperial ballroom. Brightly uniformed marines stood along the left side of the wall, eyes front and weapons at port arms.
During this seemingly innocuous journey, all three were aware that batteries of scanners, sensors, and detectors were probing their bodies, clothes, and accessories for any sign of weapons, explosives, or toxic chemicals. Should anything even remotely threatening be discovered, they knew that the marines had orders to fire. Which explained why there was one line of marines instead of two, why all of them wore a receiver in their left ear, and why they stood against the inside wall. Stray bullets, if any, would be directed out and away from the ballroom.
A pair of carefully matched Trooper IIs formed the last line of defense. Like all military cyborgs, they were members of the Legion and stood like statues to either side of the ballroom doors.
They had two missions. The first was to provide the marines with fire support in the case of a massed assault, and the second was to kill the marines if they moved more than a foot out of position.
There was the theoretical possibility of a joint assassination attempt, of course, but, thanks to the carefully orchestrated interservice rivalries that the Emperor had worked so hard to encourage, such an alliance was extremely unlikely.
It was, Chien-Chu thought to himself, a simultaneous measure of the Emperor’s brilliance and paranoia.
They paused while a pair of brightly befeathered aliens preceded them into the room, then they stepped through the door. A truly resplendent majordomo lifted his staff from the highly polished floor and brought it down with a distinct thump.
“Governor Carolyn French, of the Imperial Planet Orlo II, her husband, the Honorable Frank Jason, and the Honorable Sergi Chien-Chu, Advisor to the Throne.”
The sound of his voice was amplified and could be heard by anyone with a pulse.
Chien-Chu had no idea how the majordomo managed to get all the names and titles correct but assumed electronic wizardry of some kind.
The ballroom was huge, large enough to hold a thousand people at one time, and six or seven hundred of them had already arrived. The combined sound of their conversation, laughter, and movement came close to drowning out the ten-piece band.
Though normally light and airy, the room had been transformed into what seemed like a subterranean cave. Columns of light reached up to explode across the ceiling. Multicolored lasers slashed the room into a thousand geometric shapes. People appeared and disappeared as floor spots speared them from below. Their brightly colored costumes and expensive jewelry sparkled with reflected light. Some wore suits and dresses that had been decorated with stardust, the fabulously expensive substance that could only be obtained from the corona of one particular brown dwarf, and was of considerable interest to Chien-Chu Enterprises.
Most of the guests had ignored the announcement, but Chien-Chu knew that at least fifty or sixty had paid close attention and were headed his way. Each one of them wanted something. A favor, a deal, reassurance, information, or variations on those themes. That, after all, was what sensible people did at such affairs, leaving the drugs, sex, and vicarious violence to those with little or no self-respect, a group that was consistently overrepresented of late.
The three of them descended the stairs together, promised to see each other later, and separated.
Knowing that various associates, customers, and suppliers were headed his way, Chien-Chu sought to temporarily avoid them. A newcomer was present tonight, an individual with enough power to influence the Emperor, and therefore someone to know.
Such relationships were necessary for the well-being of Chien-Chu Enterprises, and more than that, for the continuation of the somewhat fragile alliance that sought to counter the emperor’s less rational moments. Moments that seemed to arrive with ever greater frequency.
The merchant murmured a steady stream of hellos, excusemes, and how-are-yous as he wound his way across the floor. The air was thick with expensive perfume, cologne, and incense. His destination was the clump of people that always seemed to gather near the largest of the ballroom’s four bars.
These were the men and women of the Imperial Armed Forces, in mufti tonight, but clearly identifiable by their carriage, jargon and tendency to form tribal groups.
There was the navy, known for their loud braggadocio, the marines, unimaginatively dressed in a variety of ancient uniforms, and the Legion, standing back-to-back as if besieged by the other services.
But these were functiona
ries for the most part, lower ranking generals, admirals, captains, and colonels, jockeying for position and holding court for lesser lights.
Their superiors, the group in which Chien-Chu was primarily interested, had no peers other than each other: men and women who understood what it was to deal with Imperial whims, tight budgets, and corrupt bureaucrats. It was to them that he gravitated, feeling sure that if Legion General Marianne Mosby was anywhere to be found, it would be here among her peers. And he was not disappointed. The military crème de la crème stood all by themselves, protected by a moat of unoccupied floor, turned in on each other.
Admiral Paula Scolari, chief of naval operations, was a tall, angular, and rather gaunt-looking woman dressed in medieval armor. Her choice of costumes struck Chien-Chu as symbolically appropriate for someone who lived in fear of the Emperor, the court, and, he suspected, of herself.
General Otis Worthington, commandant of the Marine Corps, stood to her right, dressed in little more than a jockstrap, lace-up boots, and a sword. His carefully maintained body rippled with muscle and pent-up power. He had black skin, bright inquisitive eyes, and a quick laugh. Though an excellent officer and well intentioned, Worthington hated politics and ceded more power to Scolari than he should have.
Standing to the admiral’s left was the woman Chien-Chu was looking for. Unlike her associates, General Marianne Mosby had chosen the guise of a well-known holo star, and the likeness was remarkable.
She had long brown hair which the merchant assumed was part of the Costume, a heart-shaped face, and full, sensuous lips. And, like the star that she’d chosen to impersonate, Mosby was ever-so-slightly overweight, as though she was inclined to take her share—and a little more.
But whatever extra flesh the general allowed herself was located in all the right places. The bodice of her gown was cut low and wide, so low that her nipples, rouged for the occasion, appeared and disappeared as she moved, and caused every male within fifty feet to watch her from the corner of his eye. Mosby’s attire was conservative compared to that worn by many in the room, but was outrageous by military standards, as was clear from Scolari’s rather pronounced frown.
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