This potent elixir had kept the party going for a long time. The serfs were as contented frogs, frogs that were slowly warming in a cauldron of inflation, regulation and surveillance as their wealth was robbed, their self reliance was destroyed, and their standards of living began a long, slow descent back into to the Stone Age. “But who cares,” Devin thought, “so long as one can watch a million channels in three dimensions?”
“Washington Street,” advised a female voice over the loudspeaker. The train decelerated. The doors slid open but no one got on. Everything hung for a moment in the stillness. Then the doors whisked shut. The train accelerated again. The diode lights phased from blue to purple to red. The holographic pitchmen renewed their droning, verbal assault.
Devin pondered Ramielle’s warning. “I’ll case the hotel”, he thought. “I’ll watch for an hour or so to see who is watching for me. Make it two hours. I must be patient. When the coast is clear I’ll go up to my room. I’ll listen at the door. No, they might have sensors. They’ll spring out and tackle me.”
“This is ridiculous. They aren’t going to torture me. I’m not violent. So I broke some petty laws. They’re not Stasi, they’re Americans for God’s sake. They’ve got better things to do than spend resources on me. I’m nobody. She’s just being dramatic. She’s got some issues that she’s projecting. Yeah, that’s it. Her father blew his brains out for heaven’s sake. That’ll make anyone a little nuts. All cabbies are a little nuts to begin with.” He sat without thinking for a few moments, watching blankly as a hologram patient took a fat needled inoculation to thwart the goat flu pandemic which had already killed a whopping two people worldwide. The train began to decelerate.
“I’ll just walk in and go to my room and get my stuff,” he thought. “I won’t check out. I’ll take the subway to the east side. I’ll go to Red White and Blue just to be safe.” He noticed a knot forming in his stomach. “Calm down. Why am I anxious? There’s nothing to worry about.”
The train came to a stop. The holograms went silent and the diode lights turned white. The doors slide open. Again, there was no one coming or going. The doors hung open for thirty seconds. Finally, a man got on board and sat across from Devin at the opposite end of the car. It was the man in the white jump suit from the day before, the disabled fellow, the one who might be a NaPol agent. A chill splashed over Devin.
The disabled fellow bobbed back and forth as the train accelerated. Devin watched him from the corner of his eye. He searched for a signal that the man was actually an agent, a whisper into a hidden radio, a suspicious glare, a micro expression of some sort. There was no indication.
The diode lights phased from green to teal to blue. The holovisions chirped away. The car rattled through the concrete tunnel. “This was a strange coincidence,” Devin thought. “No, you’re paranoid.”
The disabled man started to mumble. “Sunday is the seventeenth anniversary of Freedom Day. On that day, 38,245 patriots died.” Devin did not acknowledge him from across the car. “That’s illegal,” the man continued. “You are in violation of the law.” This got Devin’s attention. He looked up thinking that the man was talking to him. He wasn’t.
“What you talkin’ about, retard?” asked a punky looking teenage kid sitting nearby.
“You are in violation of three laws,” the man replied.
“Oh really?”
“Yes. One: You are wearing clothing that is offensive and is prohibited on public transportation. Two: You are carrying a plastic food container that is made of unrecyclable materials and prohibited on public transportation. Three: you are a minor in possession of an unapproved food containing unlawful amounts of sugar or sugar substitute. Each of these three offenses could result in a $20,000 fine, three days in detention and the confiscation of your parent’s electro.”
“Fuck you, retard,” replied the kid as he wiped his chocolate stained face on his sleeve.
Devin now closely watched the disabled fellow as he stopped talking. If he was a spy, he would assuredly reveal something now. His head was hanging to one side. Dark glasses concealed his eyes but he was clearly fixated on the belligerent kid who was just trying to ignore him and finish his fudge brownie.
“Stop looking at me, retard. Mind your own business.”
The mentally challenged fellow did not speak. The train rolled on. The kid finished his brownie and wiped his fingers on his shirt leaving six brown streaks across his chest.
The challenged fellow chimed in again. “The Chicago Cubs have not won a World Series in…”
A massive jolt rattled the car drowning out the disabled man’s voice. The train rapidly decelerated nearly throwing Devin onto the floor. The kid didn’t budge as he had braced for it in advance. The diodes flickered but the holovision advertisements continued pitching their wares without so much as missing a syllable. The car’s pace resumed. The disabled man was silent the rest of the way.
The train finally stopped but the doors did not immediately open. It was utterly still for a few moments. Sensing something was amiss, the belligerent kid turned towards the door with a look of concern on his face. Then the doors burst open and in sprung two nats dressed in black fatigues who immediately tackled the kid, throwing him onto the floor.
“Teasing retards, eh? You punk ass kid!” shouted one of the nats. The kid screamed out for mercy. The other nat pulsed him. The kid writhed with the jolt. “You’re resisting arrest you little piece of shit. Stop resisting!”
“I’m not resisting!” the kid screamed. “Please. It hurts. Don’t pulse me. I’m sorry. I’m…”
The two nats started to laugh as they held the ninety-five pound kid down, smashing his face into a dried puddle of urine on the car’s floor.
“Pulse him!” ordered one nat to the other. “Watch him squeal. You catchin’ all this retard?”
“It is unlawful to use pulse emitters on minors,” the disabled man declared.
“What?” asked one of the nats. “Why you ungrateful, piece of shit retard. We’re doing this all for you.”
The man just watched in catatonic silence.
“What the hell are you looking at, Sambo?” asked the same nat as he turned to Devin. Devin averted his eyes, got up and hurriedly exited the train before the doors shut. He convinced himself that there was nothing he could do. “Or was there?” He thought. “Forget that punk.”
He crossed LBJ Street and walked two blocks up to the prefabricated Baldwin Hotel. He walked past the entrance and briefly scanned for faces that might be tuned in to him. A security guard seemed somehwat interested. A woman with a burlap net filled with groceries was walking up to him. She glanced at him as they passed. A young man with a face surgically altered in shape and color so as to make him look like Lucifer passed him. Apparently the devil wasn’t interested in Devin that day.
He walked half a block past the hotel, stopping at the corner. Covertly looking back, he saw no one following or watching him and no one standing around looking intentionally nonchalant.
“This is ridiculous,” He thought to himself. He started back for the hotel but a black car pulled up beside him. He froze. The rear passenger door opened right beside him and a man in a navy suit got out. They stood face to face for a moment, staring into each other’s eyes. Then Devin realized that he was in the man’s way and stepped aside. The man scurried past. Devin continued to the entrance of the hotel and went in.
Inside the lobby there were a half dozen people. Two appeared to be hotel employees as indicated by their white, short-sleeved shirts, black trousers, and brown skin. Two old men were playing video games. A large woman was sitting on a scooter sniffing wisps from her oxytank.
There was a young woman at the elevator who had just pushed the ‘up’ button. She exchanged a glance with Devin as he stepped up next to her. The elevator door opened.
The woman pushed the button which was Devin’s floor. The doors closed and the elevator rose. They rode in silence. The doors opened revealing a si
nister-looking man in black uniform. It was a nat. Terror knifed through Devin’s chest. He had nowhere to run. He was trapped in the elevator. He stood there waiting for the nat to do something. The woman slipped past the two of them and down the hall.
“Are you getting off or what?” the nat barked.
“Pardon me,” Devin answered. He exited as the nat pushed his way on. The doors closed behind him. He walked down the hall to his door listening carefully even though it was pointless. If they were there they would have seen him coming on the monitors long before.
He waved his multi card at the handle. The door clicked and unlocked. He pushed it open. It was dark inside as the sensor had failed to illuminate the room. What was lurking in the blackness? He slid his palm along the wall until it triggered the touch light. The room was empty.
Devin packed up his meager possessions: his thermo-jacket, a dirty shirt, his leather satchel. He opened the safe and removed his coins. He went to the window and looked out towards the direction of the gun battle two days before. It was calm now, as if nothing had happened. He imagined the bullet holes and broken windows, and gore. Maybe he would go check out the scene before he went to the Red White and Blue hotel. Devin didn’t know that the signs of carnage had been dutifully and efficiently repaired by midday. Allowing the evidence of insurrection to be viewed by the public was inconceivable to NaPol whose justification for existence was the illusion of security. A landlord slow to patch and paint away the remnants of insurrection would face crippling fines and possible property forfeiture.
Leaving the room, Devin turned back to the small desk along the wall opposite the bed. There was a form. He waved his multi and “Paid in Full” appeared at the bottom along with “Thank you Mr. Mfume.”
Devin left the Baldwin Hotel and went back to the subway station on Mugabe Avenue. “Paranoid,” he muttered to himself as the train doors closed. The train accelerated east.
Chapter Eight
“Please sign, Mr. Rosenthal,” instructed a cosmetically frozen-faced clerk at Devin’s new hotel, the Red White and Blue. The woman made a waving motion with her hand. Devin’s brain finally clicked and he waved his multi over the virtual document embedded in the clipboard held out in front of him. The name “Demetrius Rosenthal” appeared at the bottom along with his photo, morphed slightly in geometry so as to pass the human eye test but fail a cyber-eye comparison. “Thank you. Room 217. Take the elevator. Last door on your left.”
Devin took the elevator up one floor, went to his door, unlocked it by waving his multi and went in. The room was even more Spartan than the Baldwin. The grime-stained walls were cement block. There was a single bed in the corner with a small window above it which was not quite large enough for a grown man to leap out of. The dresser had a holovision sitting on top. The small, white-tile bathroom with filthy, black grout had another, smaller holovision opposite the toilet. Devin went to the window and cranked it open.
The east side of town was definitely seedier, just as Ramielle had alluded. There were liquor stores. Down on the street, bums loitered in front of them asking patrons to use their drinking licenses to purchase them cheap booze. Devin laid himself out on the bed and logged on the holovision. He dozed off to an advetisement for discreet liaisons.
#
It was early evening when he was awakened by a cool breeze upon his face. Stiff from the nap, he laboriously pulled himself out of bed and made his way to the bathroom where he splashed some water on his face.
He heard the sound of heavy footfalls and swishing, polyester pant-legs coming down the hallway in a stampede of polyester and rubber. The rumble grew until it abruptly stopped directly outside his room.
“Anti-patriot!” shouted one of the voices from the hall. Devin remained frozen at the mirror with water still dripping off his face. “Anti-patriot! This is National Police! We know who you are. We know you’re in there! We are watching you on surveillance! Remain standing where you are! Put your hands on your head! Do not attempt to escape!” Devin put his hands on his head with the faucet still running. Sensing that it was wasting water, a signal sent from the Department of Conservation finally shut it off. “In ten seconds we will enter your room and apprehend you! Do not undertake any action that can be interpreted as uncooperative! Uncooperative behavior is justification for lethal force!”
Devin thought about his stash of gold coins in the safe where the nats would quickly find them. His multi was on the nightstand. After examining it, they would quickly discover its illegal aliasing capabilities.
“Shit! Ramielle set me up!” he thought to himself.
How was he going to explain things to the nats? The illegal gold? The illegal multi? “I found it”, he thought. “Yeah, right. Like they’ll believe that.” Who could he roll over on? Ramielle? She already rolled over on him. What about the pawnbroker? No. They knew about him, too. “Who, then?” he thought. “Roth? Yes, Roth!” He thought to himself. He would give them Roth to get off. That would explain the gold and multi. It was true, after all. “Perfect!” Roth was of higher value. The nats would love to have information on him.
There was a crash in the hallway and shouting and stomping, stamping, and stumbling but Devin’s door did not explode into his room and there were no black shirts pouncing on him. The commotion came from the room opposite his in the hallway. He scrambled to the peep hole to take a look.
“Don’t move, terrorist! Get on the ground! Search him for weapons, he could be hiding something! Wand him! Grab his multi! Download it! Cuff him!”
The victim was stripped of his clothes by three nats in black fatigues and sunglasses. “I’m not wired!” he pleaded.
“Strip him down! He’s a liar! Wand him! Hurry up!”
“You’ve got nothing on me,” the anti-patriot explained calmly.
“Careful with his multi! Disable it! Use the magneto-jammer!”
Devin saw a look of odd serenity in the man’s face. It was almost a smirk. It disappeared when the commanding nat booted him in the face and his lips filled with blood.
“Don’t look at me that way, anti-pat! Pulse him again!”
“One second, I’m not done with the body cavity search…” explained another.
“Get your finger out of his ass! Pulse him, now!”
The naked, hogtied man’s eyes rolled back into his head with the pulse-triggered seizure. His teeth ground together and his joints stiffened as far as they could against the nylon restraints.
“Cover those god damn peep holes! We’ve got onlookers!” Devin’s peep hole went black. “Which one of you idiots forgot to neutralize onlookers?”
Devin went back to his bed and waited while the commotion died down and the hogtied, naked terrorist was drug down the hallway. He felt ashamed.
“Roth helped me,” he thought. “He helped me and I was going to give him up just like that.” He shook his head in disgust. “I’m weak.”
He made a pact with himself. He would not give up any person who had helped him in the event he was apprehended. “But what if I have to do time?” he asked himself. “No! No rolling over on people that have helped you. No matter what! Not even if it will save your life. No matter what!”
He felt invigorated by having a conviction for the first time in his life but he knew that it was easy to have convictions when one was tucked safely into an insulated hotel room.
Devin got up and looked out his window. Towering cumulus clouds were breaking apart overhead. The sun sank below the pre-fabricated and reflective gold glass buildings to the west. Slivers of golden sunlight illuminated the shadowy, litter filled, bum strewn alleyways. He contemplated hiding his coins in the hollows of the bed frame but determined that everything he did in the room was probably being surveilled, anyway. A covert act as such would merely draw attention. He dressed and left his room, leaving the gold coins in the safe.
He walked briskly about a block and a half down the street until he came to a fast food restaurant. There was no line a
nd he was hungry so he went in.
He was greeted by a feebly-smiling octogenarian who stood behind a counter which projected a menu of animated, three dimensional depictions of various menu items. There were spinning eco-burgers, dancing freedom fries, and splashing liberty sodas, all arranged into various combinations designed to entice him. The prices were indicated below the pictures; $899 would buy Devin one tofu burger with a side of non-hydrogenated fries and a sugar free soda. He touched the hologram. It asked him to wave his multi. He complied.
“Thank you, Mr. Hammerstein,” came a perky female voice from a hidden speaker.
“What the hell is taking so long?” whined a chubby teenager with glowing, blue-within-blue eyes and an anti-mohawk. The kid noticed Devin looking at him and glared back.
Devin smiled politely at him but the punk just sneered while collecting his five burgers that had just slid down a shoot above the counter. The old man feebly handed him his drink. The portly kid pulled out a small packet from his pocket, dumped the contents into the fizzing soda and waddled off.
“We try to make it healthy for them,” came the old man. “You know it’s the law to make people eat healthy. But they’ll just order twice as much and add their own sweetners. These kids nowadays don’t respect nuthin’,” explained the old man.
Devin’s food slid down the chute and the old man passed him his drink. Devin took a seat facing the window and ate his tofu burger and de-fattened fries. He spiced up the numbingly bland food with ketchup packets and salt which came in packets so small that it required ten doses of each.
In four minutes, his meal was done and another senior citizen attempted to collect his waste paper wrappers. She wore a pin that read “Recycling in Real Time”. The senior hovered within Devin’s immediate space, making him anxious. Some corporate spreadsheet jockey somewhere had deduced that a five-minute customer experience was optimal for profit maximization. Devin got the hint from the hovering attendant and exited the empty restaurant.
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