by Estes, Danny
Randolph bit down hard on the scream of pain and soon found he’d broken his leg. He wiped his blurring eyes of tears. Where in the hell did they come from? This was supposed to be a secured building. With great effort, Randolph ignored his leg for the moment, wiped his eyes several times, and pulled from his pocket a laser pen, which he used to make holes in the ventilation system so he could hook his belt into one after another in his quest to descend the forty floors to its end. After he gained the thirty-eighth floor, the system turned on, instantly turning the temperature to sixty degrees, which could have been a great help if it were only directed on his broken leg. Randolph ground his teeth, knowing perfectly well what was to happen next, and tried to work faster in his descent. But after gaining only a floor lower, Randolph saw below him the robotic eye of the duct cleaning robot as it ascended the shaft to the blockage he was creating in cooling off the building. With no room to disable the robot, Randolph cringed and pocketed his pen to await the clawing arm grabbing hold of his leg. Upon the machine reaching him, Randolph bit down on part of the belt and held back a scream when the grapple seized his bad leg and began twisting to dislodge the blockage before pulling him down the shaft.
Randolph closed tearing eyes to the agony as the robot moved uncaringly to its docking station, where a panel slid open to dispose of its garbage. Without hope of catching himself, he fell another ten feet into a recently emptied trash receptacle. He hit the solid surface, feeling the instant shock of temperature from dry cold to a hot rainy night and fought to regain control of his fingers before dragging himself up to the lip and scaling out of the container. With a splash onto asphalt, Randolph landed, wincing, and clawed up to a standing posture. He felt his way along the concrete wall till encountering an alcove where he could begin treating his abused body.
Randolph fought to remain conscious the whole time while he eased out of the thousand-credit shirt, using the pen knife to cut it into strips as his hands were too abused to evenly tear the material. Then locating some old paneling, he cut it in strips to use as splints. Next came the hard part in his deteriorating condition. Randolph braced himself, feeling the warm rain running down his face before he pushed and turned his right arm out of its socket. He awoke moments later after blacking out, finding his arm dangling. He pushed the button and ejected the small cylinder through his skin. Still biting back his cries of agony, using only his teeth, Randolph unscrewed the cap and swallowed the pain killers he resupplied while in the hot shower a month back. Randolph laid his head back against the building’s hard surface and let the wonder drug fasten itself to his pain center, where it would block all nerve impulses to inform his brain of his injuries.
After ten long agonizing minutes, Randolph breathed a sigh of relief. Now that he could think, and understanding he couldn’t show up at a med clinic, Randolph reset his arm and proceeded to do the same with his lower leg while the drug was working at full capacity. Next came the patch to his shoulder to stop the small amount of blood flow, then Randolph finished the ties to the splints and sought out a city map before morning could find him. Abstractly, while dealing with his own problems, Randolph wondered if Jill had made it out and where she might hole up. As the city was a large place, and soldiers are trained in city fighting, she should make it all right.
By the light of a liquid crystal map, Randolph identified color codes the local police used to warn travelers off the worst regions in town, and by these warnings, Randolph found where he needed to go. In those bad areas, he ticked off in his mind, I can sell my rather torn and abused pants and shoes, buy medical supplies as well as new clothes, and hide out with the homeless till I have a couple of days under my belt of healing time. The only flaw he saw in this was the possible bullies who frequented those places for what easy picking could be beaten out of the locals.
By morning, however, Randolph was in worse shape. The rising temperature already above eighty and the intensifying heat radiating off the building made it impossible for his system to cool itself off. Even his meds had thrown in the towel, but collapsing on the common streets meant a trip to the med clinic and a jail cell right after his ID had been established. Then again it might not matter where he collapsed, for Mr. Bennett was sure to hear the news in a short while and activate the mini bomb in his skull. Still, a portion of Randolph couldn’t just lie down and die, so he kept moving. Thus as 10 a.m. rolled past, Randolph stumbled into the poorer quarter wearing old clothes and a second brace to keep his leg immobile. Once settled in a small vacant spot in the “Homeless Ally,” as the residents called it, Randolph chowed down on a ham sandwich then opened a bottle of whisky he’d bought with the last of his hard currency from the remains of his business suit and proceeded to drink himself into a stupor. Once in a world of fuzzy numbness, Randolph raised his bottle skyward in a salute to those he would be seeing soon, and downed the rest till blackness reigned total.
Chapter Eleven
When consciousness reintroduced itself into his still quite whole but pounding brain, Randolph puzzled over his current ability to wake, wondering if the feds had raided Mr. Bennett’s building as well, thus making it impossible for the corporate sadist to flip the switch. This meant he had a short reprieve, as sooner or later the feds would learn of the device and activate it out of pure simplicity to the problem of having dead people walking around. Regardless of the short transition of ownership, if the feds really did raid the place, Randolph was in no shape to tryout his skills till he had some days of inactivity, allowing his body to mend.
This had been his plan till the noise level in the long alley told him something was wrong.
Forced to move to crane his neck like all the rest, Randolph saw the dregs of society stumbling his way, complaining, crying and making a terrible ruckus as they moved on past. Not understanding their unheard-of activity in the sweltering hours of the day, Randolph’s first reaction was to scramble away and find a hole to crawl into, but then again the current activities did not fit into the feds’ procedure of fugitive apprehension. Only those fitting Randolph’s appearance would have been rousted from their living space, and this wouldn’t include women and children. Then again, by some astronomical coincidence, Jill could have been tracked into this very alley, rendering such activity necessary. Regardless of the reasons, the group of brutish men behind the mob of undesirable dregs of polite society made sure everyone, including Randolph, was on his or her feet and stumbling to the back alley where the building’s support teams helped keep the flow of merchandise and garbage flowing.
Prodded into unmarked cargo trucks at the end of the alley with shock sticks, the captured residents were packed in like sardines and closed up in the sweltering tin can for ten hours before the hover truck settled to the ground. With a yell, Randolph came to life when someone used his brace to stand up. Then the back opened and the group was herded out of the sweltering cargo truck into a lighted human processing center on hard packed desert ground. Here Randolph caught a blurry vision of the surrounding buildings, but in his state of pain and dehydration, he could only remotely remember an article about such places. Besides, as Randolph was given no opportunity to realign his thought into any cohesive order, he simply deemed it simpler to limp on with the crowd and hope somewhere along the line food and water would be given.
Moved single file by rough hands and electrical sticks, like the men and women before him, Randolph was summarily stripped naked, prodded through a spray of disinfectant, scrubbed by brushes on handles, pushed through pressurized water spray and forced into a line up. As his since of self began to restore itself, a well-dressed man looked over the captive group and directed each in turn down one of two lines leading to long two-story buildings. Once in front of Randolph, the man eyed his obvious discomfort and tapped Randolph’s bad leg. To Randolph’s wince, the man directed two awaiting men to carry Randolph to the infirmary.
“Next,” a bored and balding older man dressed in orderly clothes called.
“Thi
s one has a bad leg, Doc,” the remaining guy still holding Randolph explained.
“Right, lay him down here,” the doc directed.
“Where am I?” Randolph questioned, as his mind started working again.
“Shut up, you!” The brute who’d brought Randolph into the doctor’s office slap Randolph’s face. “Or I’ll cuff you a good one,” he finished, doing so anyway.
To this abuse, Randolph decided it would be less painful to do as requested for no other reason than having a doctor look at his broken leg. Lying on the cold stainless steel table, still without clothing, Randolph was strapped down without comment as the doc moved a sonic imager over the broken leg. While his leg was being tended to, Randolph looked about the facilities. The place was but a rudimentary med clinic, with low cost, basic equipment. The only pricey item he saw was the imager, and that the doc only used long enough to judge the condition of Randolph’s leg. Moving the device aside, the doc walked a few steps to a wall of medical instruments and took down a leg brace with a turn knob at midpoint. For just a second, Randolph wondered about the odd thing, then he caught on to its possible use when the big brute placed a block of wood between Randolph’s teeth. The doc was about to stretch out his bad leg without giving him any pain killers! With dreadful knowledge of what was to come, Randolph struggled against the straps, gaining no headway. He squeezed his eyes shut preparing for the agony to begin.
Randolph awoke to the pounding, throbbing, stabbing pain in his leg, which he alerted an orderly to by his complaints. The unsympathetic fellow advanced and told Randolph to swallow some pills he’d brought. With ill grace, Randolph took the pills, hoping they were something stronger then aspirin; in time he found they were not. This left Randolph in agony with his leg elevated in a plain splint instead of cocooned in a basic cast. Because of the cheap setup, Randolph was forced to take up room in the infirmary for three months before he was able to move about on crutches.
During his time of convalescence, Randolph discovered where he was and why. Apparently, the city he’d been in had its fill of the destitute dregs of society, signing an agreement with a low-cost work force corporation. Randolph, along with all the homeless who were caught in that dragnet, were now owned by “Cheap Labor Incorporated,” interred in an encampment fifty miles out in the desert from the city, and now subject to being hired out for the benefit of having a place to sleep and food to eat. As for the matter of being identified, Randolph found the encampment was run under such low funding, to better supply the corporate heads with a larger credit allowance, he held no worries of being found out. But a side effect of this low cost outfit was that the mini bomb in his head had never been removed. And because of this, Randolph had to reason the implant had only been a bluff, or somehow made useless by the electric pulse scrambler Jill had set off, as surely by now the switch would have been thrown, if not for any other reason than plain curiosity. Either way, Randolph could no longer worry about the device planted in his skull, so he could start concentrating on escaping his new surroundings once his leg was fully healed and he’d disconnected the restraining bracelets about his wrists.
“You there,” a brutish guard with biceps as large as Randolph’s thighs called, bringing him out of his mussing. “Do you know anything about computers?”
Randolph blink, nodded yes.
The guard’s huge hand landed on Randolph’s shoulder as he said, “Good. Grab a crutch and follow me.”
Already having felt the heavy handedness of the guards should he use words harder to understand than a simple “yes sir” or “no sir,” Randolph followed the fellow along the cracking concrete hallway and out into the sweltering heat of day. With the aid of his hand to shield his eyes, Randolph got his first true glimpse of the surrounding world in a few strides, only to have his observation distracted when his guard called out to another by a disabled hover truck.
“Smithy, I’ve an operator for you.” The brute squeezed Randolph’s shoulder hard, causing Randolph to wince as he threatened, “You do as Smithy tells you, or I’ll break your other leg.”
Randolph made the required response and limped over to Smithy.
“You know computers do yea?”
As Randolph had already established this with the first guard, he felt like saying “Duh…” but held his tongue in favor of simply nodding.
“Good, then get over here and have a look at this.” Smithy gestured to the grounded hover truck.
Still doing as told, knowing the weight of the truck had likely already crushed the directional ports—making the vehicle unusable—Randolph rounded the front and froze in place, shocked to his marrow. He stared at two sets of unmoving legs sticking out from under the truck. Quickly he slapped his hand over his mouth in aid of warding off his stomach’s reaction.
Smithy lent his own hands by grabbing Randolph’s shirt and slapping his face a few times till he regained Randolph’s attention. “Pay no never mind to them, as they’re beyond any further pain; however, you, on the other hand, are not. So pull yourself together and get into the cab.” With a shove at the cab door, Smithy propelled Randolph up into the cab, and instructed Randolph to get the truck up off the ground.
Weak kneed, smelling the bodily fluids from the crushed men underneath, Randolph swallowed some of the upcoming bile before he looked over the dead control panel. After a simple visual inspection of the basic controls, switches, and after-market replacements, Randolph found no obvious reason for the cold panel. Adjusting himself, he lay down and popped the under covering. He fished out a flash pen and tester leads from Smithy’s tool kit on the floorboard, then began an hour-long search in the over powering heat, wiping sweat from his face every couple of minutes to see. Only after Smithy’s fifth interruption did Randolph find the lower-grade spliced-in wire in the harness assembly that had fried when extra power ran along the wire. This then told the circuit breaker to automatically trip, killing the panel, dropping the whole weight of the truck on the two unlucky men. Not touching the discovery, Randolph showed the evidence of a saboteur to Smithy.
“Here now, let me see that,” he demanded, pushing Randolph out of the way. After eyeballing the wires Randolph exposed, Smithy sat up and slammed Randolph into the cab’s door. “Here now, are you trying a fast one? How do I know you didn’t just cut that wire?”
Even over his pounding head and throbbing leg, Randolph managed, “Hey, don’t believe me if you wish, I’m only telling you what I found!”
Smithy glared, and his underdeveloped mind asked, “You’re saying the truck was made to malfunction?” To gave Smithy the simplest answer for his abilities to understand, Randolph merely nodded yes, to which Smithy let go, rubbed his bearded chin and pulled Randolph out of the truck and told him to get lost.
Two months later, contemplating three avenues to quietly vacate the premises, Randolph endeared himself to the head foreman by lowering operating cost in repairing simple machinery and electronics. This bit of being the foreman’s pet, added an advantaged of never having to pile into the trucks of human slavery, while giving him access to every building and available supplies. As for the saboteur, no one had a clue, even after discovering three more, less life-threatening acts.
After six months in captivity, Randolph was promoted to record keeping for the outfit, that is to say when he wasn’t repairing something which to his mind should have been replaced two or three years ago. Now having access to a hard line computer, Randolph slowly started learning the local area outside the barbwire fence, roads, small towns and bus routes. While doing so, Randolph found an article describing two corporate executives assassinated by person or persons unknown. Bringing up the full article, it appeared to Randolph, Jill had a new partner. And thinking of Jill brought up a startling realization of what he’d been missing all these years. In my kind of work, he mused, moving from town to town, job to job, is not conducive in discovering and maintaining a family, thus I’d settled for prostitutes, but while their only concern was gettin
g their “John” off as fast as possible, Jill showed me what sex was really all about. Randolph leaned back in his chair and rubbed his growing beard, as they didn’t supply hair removal cream, pondering what he really knew about her, and would it be worth breaking her out of that place. If I did, he continued pondering, I’d have to talk her into retiring while I continued my career. It might also be best if we vacate the continent for one where the feds have nothing on us. Randolph nodded; he’d look into the possibilities later. He finished the daily lists before he set out for his next job.
Chapter Twelve
Three days later, as Randolph was repairing a trash evaporator, two black sedans came to rest at the front of the foreman’s office. Able to eye the vehicles from within the crude shelter for the unit, Randolph felt his pulse quicken and wondered why the FBFC would be dropping in. Surly they can’t know about me? He eyed the six men as they vacated their vehicles, dressed all in black, even on such a sweltering day as this. Randolph leaned on a support beam, wiping his hands on an old rag, and watched the men adjust their jackets as if to make certain all eyes in the compound saw the bulging holsters at hip level. As the group in dark shades acquainted their minds with the landscape, two separated themselves and headed for the office building. Unable to miss the shadows underneath the cars, Randolph pondered the possibility of escape. Am I ready? Do I know enough of the surrounding area to chance a try at getting under one, and dropping off somewhere along the road? Randolph knew with a glance the sun had yet to hit its peak, which meant hours of walking in the desert heat. After only a moment of weighing the hazards, Randolph wiped his brow and discarded the idea as too risky. Others without my patience would probably have gone for it, but that’s what separates me from the pack. I am very thorough in my plans. Randolph turned his back on the possibility without regrets and began replacing the wiring which had over loaded when a safety fuse had been circumvented instead of someone spending the 10 credits for a new one.