by neetha Napew
It led me down the tunnel a good way, then through a second door; this, a dilating circle that cycled open at another electronic signal and admitted us to the chamber beyond. This was the prison proper, the area of the cells. Along each wall were dilating doors of heavy metal, each about twenty feet apart. The Clancy led me to the sixth door on the right, dilated it with another beep, and took me inside.
The cell was spacious, well-lighted, and comfortably furnished. Indeed, I was a little surprised at the lavish-ness of it. There was a network comscreen for news and entertainment, a chute from the library where stat copies of articles or reprints of novel tapes would be delivered on request. The toilet was enclosed and at the far right comer. When the standard melodrama relates a picture of the average modern prison as a hell-hole full of rats, lice, and sadistic jailers, it is giving the viewer a representation of the standard prison of the Fifties, maybe even through the Seventies and early Eighties. But prison reforms have been drastic in the last couple of decades, and prisoners are no longer treated as animals.
The Clancy led me to the cot, backed me into it until I understood that I was to sit. I plopped backward, and was pleased with the springiness, the softness of what had looked like only a mediocre bed. The cuffs opened, fell away to hang at the Clancy’s side. It floated back to the dilated door, went through, letting the portal spiral shut in its wake.
Seconds later, the central mail delivery chute next to the library receptacle made a buzzing sound, and something dropped into the tray beneath it. I got up and went to the wall, picked the small, blue square of plastic out of the tray. It was a penitentiary credit card with my name and number. The jailer had submitted my name to the central city banks and had discovered, within a minute or so, that I was a good credit risk and had plenty of cards already. Upon discovering this, he had punched the prison computer to issue me a card for my stay in jail. With it, I could order anything over the phone (which was set next to the wall of the bathroom) and have it delivered by mail. The bill would go to my wife (if I had one, which I did not), to my lawyer (if a professional firm handled all my credit payments, which Alton-Boskone and Fenner did for me), or to my bank, where, the moment I had been checked into my cell, my accounts had been frozen by government order. In the end, the prisoner paid, but at least he lived well enough during his confinement.
That day, my lawyer, Leonard Fenner, came to visit me in my cell. Using pressure in the right places, he managed to bring Harry with him. We sat and talked for more than two hours, about inconsequentialities at first, then, increasingly about my predicament. It would not be so bad, Leonard asserted; if they could only charge me with kidnapping Him. First of all, the android was not considered a citizen, and, therefore, was a piece of property belonging to the State. Kidnapping could not be upheld in court; it was only a matter of grand larceny. But I had not just stolen Him. I had assaulted the WA representative who had recognized us that night in the Cantwell Port lot. I had killed game on a government preserve. I had assaulted a police officer in Anchorage at that recharging station. I had illegally converted a taxi from auto-to-manual and then had stolen it I had stolen a police car belonging to the Alaskan state patrol. And, most serious of all, I shot North American Supreme Court Justice Charles Parnel in the leg. The WA was charging me with intent to kill.
“Intent to kill?” Harry screeche’d. “Why, that’s absurd! This boy couldn’t kill anyone if—“
“Harry,” I said, “let Leonard spell the story out. No matter what we would like, we have to face things as they’re going to be.”
“It’s ridiculous!” Harry huffed, but he kept quiet.
I was not so certain that the charge was ridiculous. What had I been trying to do when I grabbed that rifle and whirled? I had fired into the light. I must have known there would be someone behind it I must also have known that the bullet would hurt or kill whoever was there. Couldn’t that be termed intent to kill? Even if it was a gut reaction, something I had done without thinking.
“Here’s what we aren’t worried about,” Leonard said. “One, they will never be able to uphold a charge of grand larceny. First of all, they were going to destroy the android anyway. It is not as if you stole something precious. And they will not dare tell in public what the android did to get itself condemned.”
“You know?” I asked, surprised.
“I told him,” Harry said. “He ought to know all the circumstances if he’s to do his best for you. To hell with security.”
“Go on,” I said to Fenner.
“Anyway,” he went on, “grand larceny will fall through. Maybe petty or nuisance theft, but that usually only requires a double reimbursement to the victim by the victimizer. Used to be punishable by a prison sentence, but not under WA law. Next, they will charge you with assaulting the WA rep in the taxi lot at Cantwell. Tell me the situation.”
I told him.
“He did not draw first?” my crafty little attorney queried.
“No.”
“Think. Did he go for a gun?”
“Yes, but I shot him before—“
“Then he went for a gun?”
“Yes.”
Fenner chuckled. “Did he start for it before you pulled your own?”
“I can’t remember,” I said.
“You’re right,” he said. “Of course he drew first. And you had no way of knowing it was not a contraband weapon held by a non-WA Citizen. So much for that charge. Now, killing game on a government preserve only allows for a fine. Hellishly stiff. But maybe we can get it reduced since we can prove you didn’t eat any of it. You didn’t, did you?”
“No. But how did you—“
“My guess,” Harry said. “If the android was continuing to evolve, I thought He might find it essential to have large quantities of energy foods. I knew you weren’t the type to kill for the fun of it.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Hell’s bells, men,” Fenner said, “will you let your shyster lawyer lay out his news and views?”
“Go ahead, Leo,” Harry said.
“Gee, thanks,” Leonard said. He continued pacing across the floor to the toilet, then back to the bunk where we sat. He punctuated all his words with his hands, waving them, slamming them together, slapping them against his hips. “Next, we have the problem of the stolen cars. You are going to admit to stealing both of them. There is no way around it, no way to disguise what you did. But we can argue that, since both vehicles were government property, you should be dealt with less severely than you would be for stealing private property. The case of Halderbon vs. World Authority sets a precedent for such an argument, whether it will get us anywhere or not.”
“Now we’re to the bad part,” I said.
“You’ve got it right,” Leonard said, pacing faster, slapping both hands into both hips in time to his step. “In the case of the Anchorage cop, you’re still a little in the clear. We can easily prove you did not initiate the assault with intent to kill. After all, you tied him up, left the heat on so he would not freeze. That’s simple assault, and we can handle that. But the big problem comes with Justice Parnel—who you so unkindly shot in the leg. What in good hell were you doing, boy?’ ‘
I recounted the experience, went over it time and again from the moment Parnel had turned the light on me, until I had left him in the arms of the ranger at the main ranger station.
“You did see that he got medical attention,” Leonard said. “We can argue that this proves you did not intend to kill. But they are going to fight like hell to keep the bigger charge, ‘cause it’s their only way to strike back at you for all you’ve done. I’m going to talk to Parnel tomorrow. I’ll try to talk him into dropping the charges to simple assault. He, being the victim, can do that whether WA likes it or not.”
Then they went, leaving me alone in the cell that night, the next day, the next night, and all of the following morning. But at noon on my third day in prison, as I was trying to concentrate on the melo
dic intricacies of a Lennon-extrapolated symphony that was playing in my wall stereo, Fenner returned with my bail papers, ushered me out to the desk where I signed another set of yellow sheets. From there, a WA clerk led us out of the prison complex, onto the roof of the building to the same landing pad that I had been brought in on, days earlier.
“Wait a minute,” I said, grabbing Fenner by the arm and towing him to the wall at the edge of the roof, away from the landing pad where there was a busy rush of arriving and departing officers. “What the devil is going on? I thought I was in serious straits. They don’t issue bail to people in the maximum security cells.”
“You were put into maximum security only because the WA wanted to make a big issue of your apprehension. All of your crimes are bailable except assault with intent to kill. But I have talked with Justice Parnel.”
“And he reduced the charge?”
“Not only that. He withdrew his complaint altogether.”
“What?”
“He dropped the charges.”
“I shoot a man, send him to the hospital for a week or two, and he drops the charges?” I shook my head. “What was his price?”
“You don’t buy the Justice Parnel!” Fenner said.
“Then who is your mutual relationship?”
“You insinuate that I deal illegally to get my clients lighter sentences?” His tone of voice had changed. It bordered on anger now, was tainted with a sour, ugly streak.
“Okay,” I said. “It was done honestly. But, Leonard, how in hell did you do it?”
He smiled and was his old, jovial self again. “I had a long talk with the Justice. I know his political leanings. I researched him well before I went to see him. I convinced him, without directly perjuring myself, that you had the same leanings and that your stealing the android that had been condemned to destruction was a manifestation of your political beliefs. I told him that I could not reveal all the circumstances behind the decision to destroy the android and behind your decision to rescue Him, but Justice Parnel was speaking warmly of you when I departed. He understood your ideals behind the theft, understood you thought he was a WA trooper about to shoot you when you returned fire. It was enough, I guess.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“You’re fantastic,” I told him.
“Never. Just thorough. Now, can I drop you someplace in my copter?”
“At the Cul-de-sac. Grid 40I. You know it?”
“Best French restaurant in town,” he said. “Of course, I know it. We lawyers are not necessarily slobs.”
At the Cul-de-sac, the maitre d’ gave me a corner table in a dark section of the main room and left me to the top-heavy, young blonde waitress who gave me a menu, requested my wine order, asked if I wanted a drink of any sort, and went away to get my Whiskey Sour while I perused the menu. All in all, it was a delightful meal, and I managed not to think about anything but the taste of the food—and whether or not the young blonde’s blouse-bulging attributes were real or silicone-induced. I had no compunction against marrying a girl with chemically-created allurements, so long as they were indistinguishable from the real thing. As far as I could tell, these were. I played a game with myself, trying to decide whether or not I should ask her to marry me. I listed what I could see of her faults and her virtues. In the end, I decided to come back in a day or two and look the merchandise over again.
Outside, in the corridor, I boarded a pedwalk, one of the faster ones, and rode it a block and a half to a Bubble Drop station. There, I got off, moved through the turnstile, and onto the drop platform. The destination keyboard slid quickly down in front of me. I keyed my address in less than five seconds, then walked forward and sat down in the hard plastic seat that had slid in front of me. Attached to the bottom of the seat were the compressed air cylinders. A moment later, the chair moved into the tunnel, through the bubbling foyer where it moved over a discharge vent that blew the plastic around me in a teardrop. The plastic hardened instantly, and I shot forward into the sucking wind of the tunnel, pulled by the constant currents kept in operation there and also propelled by my own cylinders. At the hundreds of crossroads where tube slashed through tube, I sped by Bubbles going opposite ways, sped across the intersections inches ahead of them, saw others zip behind me, missing me by millimeters. The computer routed perfectly, but it was still a bit difficult to sit and watch the journey in a Bubble Drop tubeway.
So I thought. I had been trying not to think, but there was no way to deny what was going through my mind. I had spent hours on the concept in the prison, and I had still reached no conclusions. The android was God. He had said so. But why would He choose to come to Earth in such a laborious manner? And what was He planning to do here? Was this the Second Coming? Or wasn’t He the Christian God? Was He the Buddhist version? The Jewish? The Hindu? Or, and this seemed most likely, was He not like any version of God that Man subscribed to?
I knew the last must be correct. We had never understood the nature of God. Our religions, all our religions, with all their extensive theories, doctrines and dogmas, all of them were totally wrong. But I am one who does not believe in criticizing something until you can replace it with something better. And I could not formulate any theories on the nature of this God of ours. His nature was a mystery beyond my immediate comprehension.
I worried about what was going to happen to the world when He began to bring His changes. Was the fabric of our reality going to change so drastically that many of us would not learn to fit into it? No, He had said we would be changed intellectually, our minds opened to full awareness. What a world of geniuses would be like was a toss-up question. In theory, it sounded quite lovely. In practice, it might be intolerable. A society of cold, thinking machines was not what I considered Utopia.
Before I knew it, I was shunted out of the main tubeways and into an exit tunnel. The Bubble swept through the exit foyer, crossing a suction vent where the molecules of the Bubble were instantly broken down, and the powdery residue slid down through the grating to be reconstructed into another Bubble, and another after that, and so on, for as long as the Bubble Drop system was operational. The chair stopped on a ramp; I stood, and walked off into the corridor.
I caught an elevator up, rose 104 floors to my level and debarked. In this apartment level, there were no pedways, for this was a relatively exclusive area. I walked along the thick carpeting to the door to my apartment, placed my thumb on the identification lock, and waited for the computer in the Yale system to decide I was one of those authorized to enter. A moment later, the door began to slide back. As I stepped through, two bullets smashed in the frame of the door and showered me with chips of wood. I fell, rolled inside, and made a vocal order to close the door.
It slid shut just as the killer on the other side slammed into it. I got shakily to my feet, trying to figure out what I should do. I was almost in a state of shock, for the killer I had seen when I rolled into the apartment was a dead ringer for the android in His humanoid form . . .
XI
I went to the nearest easy chair and collapsed in it. My mind was in a state of pandemonium, trying to rationalize what I had seen. It did not help any when the recurring word Frankenstein whispered across the front of my brain like a cold, dry wind. At first, I tried to tell myself that it was just chance resemblance—that a thief had come up to this floor, had waited for someone to come so that he might rob them. But why would a thief bother coming up this far? It would be just that much more difficult to get out, for he would have to use the elevator to go down enough levels to reach a Bubble Drop station. The elevator could be stopped as soon as I turned in the alarm, and there was an alarm call-box not ten feet away. And if he had planned on robbing me, why shoot to kill? Why not just take the money and run? No, I was only deluding myself. There was nothing so simple as chance resemblance here. That man in the corridor had been one of His android selves, and it had been trying to kill me.
Now, why? Why . . .
; The only reason I could find was that, perhaps, He thought I would tell the WA people where He was, that He had not been killed after all. But that was senseless. Surely, He would know that I would keep faith, would not turn Him in. Even if I had wanted to, surely the time to have done it would have been while I was in jail and without much hope. I could have done it then to make my sentence easier. But to kill me now was pointless.
Besides, He was God. And God did not kill without some sort of divine reason. Wasn’t that right? Or was it? I reminded myself that He was not the sort of God we had envisioned. He differed physically. Why not mentally? Why not a God who is sadistic? And maybe He had been lying to me. Who said that God did not lie? But what in the hell was He trying to do? Why kill me? What possible purpose could be served? I was right back where I started, nothing solved, but a great deal of apprehension spread on where there had not been any before.
Then I heard the noise. I had thought that He had gone away when the door closed Him out. Now I could hear Him forcing His weight against the heavy panel in an effort to either snap the lock or throw the door off its sliding track.
I stood up, suddenly frantic.
The door squeaked. I looked for a weapon. The door rattled as the bottom coasters slipped out of their grooves.
There was no weapon.
The door lifted, started bending inward. The wheels on the upper track snapped, popped, and scraped out of their track. The door swung inward.
I ran for the bedroom, slid that portal shut behind me, and thumbed the lock on it. A slug snapped into the door, came through, leaving a hole as big as a quarter near the top, and cracking the plastic of the portal, until it looked like a spider web. That would go down in a second. One solid push, and the pieces would fall inward, and He would be on top of me.