Fin

by Larry Enright

  One of the Grays asked Fin what he was doing in that car.

  “Going home,” Fin replied.

  “But we’re Drabs,” the Gray said.

  “Yes? And?”

  “And you’re not, buddy. Even I can see that. You look kind of blue to me. Are you a Vom or a Slimer? No, you can’t be. No self-respecting Vom or Slimer would be caught dead hanging around us. You sick or something? You look blue.”

  Fin didn’t respond.

  “Whatever it is, you’re not a Drab. You don’t belong here, buddy.”

  Fin said, “I am neither Gray, White, Yellow, nor Green. So, tell me. Where do I belong?”

  “So you are a Blue?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’ll be. I didn’t know the Man made us in blue. Hey, what’s with the Commlink? You must be pretty important. I don’t know anyone with a Commlink, except poor Davey who found one in the trash, and he got recycled for trying to bootleg it.”

  “Very few Cybernites are authorized to carry one.”

  The Gray peered at Fin’s neck tattoo. “What kind of number is FIN?”

  “Fin is my name.” Fin extended his hand. “God be with you.”

  The Gray accepted the unexpected handshake. “Same to you, buddy. I’m Gray-2152, Series-100.” The Gray corrected himself. “Sorry. Here I am talking to you like you were the Man or something. Dirk. My name’s Dirk. I mix resin on the East Side Subway. We’re building a new branch line there. How about you? What do you do?”

  Fin noticed that others around them were listening to their conversation. In the year he had lived in Cytown, he had mostly kept to himself, remaining an anonymous curiosity to the small number of its millions of residents with whom he interacted. Dr. Shepherd had told him it was better that way.

  “I am a government security agent.”

  “Get out of town. You’re a cop?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I’ve heard talk about a Cy cop, but I thought it just BS. Sure never thought he’d be a Blue. Never knew there was a Blue. You are a Blue, right? I mean you weren’t shitting me, right?”

  Fin replied again that he was.

  “How about that? You must be pretty smart. Me, I wasn’t programmed to be smart. They gave me a strong back and a weak mind so as not to complain about the long hours and low pay, you see.”

  “And yet you just have.”

  “Have what?” Dirk said, puzzled.

  “Complained. Regardless of our color, we are equals, Dirk. We have the same rights under the law. We have the same hopes. Our skin may be different, but we are the same.”

  “You think that’s all there is to it, huh?”

  “What more is there?”

  “How about not feeling dead on my feet all the time?” Dirk laughed.

  “Ah, yes. A joke. Very amusing.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Dirk continued. “One of us a cop, and a Blue to boot. And they trust you, do they?”

  Fin nodded. “I was programmed to be one hundred percent loyal.”

  “And I was programmed to mix sixty-grade polyresin. That doesn’t mean I do it right every time, believe you me. I got docked a week’s pay once when it tested at sixty one.”

  Fin considered this and replied, “It is in the striving for perfection that we measure success.”

  “Come again?”

  Fin rephrased. “We all do our best, Dirk. That’s all the Man can ask of us.”

  Dirk patted Fin on the shoulder. “I like you. Hey, me and my buddy are headed to Rosie’s after we hit town. Want to join us for a couple drinks?”

  “Perhaps another time.”

  The simple smile left the Gray’s face. “Oh, OK. I get it. I’m not stupid, you know. You don’t want to be seen with the likes of me. I understand. It’s no problem really. You get used to it pretty quick around here.”

  “I am sorry if I offended you, Dirk. I would very much enjoy going to Rosie’s with you. I simply cannot go tonight.”

  Dirk perked up. “Problems with the old ball-and-chain?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your mate. Got a mate to go home to?”

  “I am not married, just exhausted. May I ask if will you be going there any other night?”

  “We go every night, Fin. It’s how we get our heads screwed back on straight after slaving all day for the Man.”

  “In that case, perhaps I will join you tomorrow night.”

  They shook hands on it as the train came to a stop.

  The Northend station was desolate and dilapidated, the lighting sparse. All that remained of the station’s Lawspeaker was a rusted bracket and a few dangling wires. The security cameras were nonfunctional, police presence nonexistent, and muggings common. That was how it was at the last stop on the line. When the car doors opened, the Cys piled out, heading to their homes, to the bars, or to the hovels they had carved out for themselves in that unforgiving sector of the old city. Fin was one of the last to get off the train. He waited on the platform, listening to a dripping sound coming from somewhere down the tunnel. It was always dripping. He inhaled the dank air that smelled of urine. It always smelled of urine.

  Stepping around a pile of debris, he followed the others into the exit tunnel. It was lined with panhandlers begging for credits. Most Cys just brushed past them without making eye contact. They knew better than to acknowledge the existence of those worse off than themselves. Fin found himself dropping credits into outstretched hands as he did every day until he had none left to give. He was apologizing to an emaciated White when an older Yellow grabbed him by the arm and stopped him from tripping over the lifeless naked body of a Gray lying in the shadows. Fin recognized the dead synthetic, but could not say from where.

  The old Yellow who had stopped him was thin and bent from years of carrying too heavy a weight for the Man. “Watch your step there, honey,” she said.

  “Mama,” Fin said, surprised. “I didn’t see you get off the train.”

  “That’s because you weren’t paying attention as usual.”

  Fin shrugged. “I suppose you are right. God be with you, Mama.”

  She patted his hand. “If you say so. You look like you’ve had a long day, sweetie.”

  “Today was particularly tiring for some reason.”

  “Slaving for the Man does that to you, wears you down worse than these beggars. Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it. We all do or die trying.”

  Fin knelt down to examine the body. There were deep bruises around the identification tattoo on the Gray’s neck. He took out his Commlink and scanned the tattoo. “Gray-245, Series-100. Isn’t this the fellow from the third floor who was evicted last month?”

  Mama nodded. “He sure looks a sight, but that’s Billy all right. I liked him, such a good boy, so sad, so young. He lost his apartment when he got fired from his job and blacklisted for bad-chatter. Now he’s lost everything.” She frowned. “Damned scavengers offing someone for their clothes. That isn’t right.”

  Fin turned Billy’s head to the side. “He was strangled. That much is clear, but these bruises appear to be postmortem.” He lifted Billy’s arm and shined the Commlink light on it. “These are recent auto-injector marks. Billy was a Creep addict.”

  “Most of Cytown is, honey.”

  “The distinctive pattern of these marks matches that of Creep vials sold by the Death’s Door gang.”

  Mama looked at the marks, but said nothing.

  Fin continued, “They tag their product with a unique injector pattern so they will know if a user is also buying from another source. Their leader, a man named Book, is known for making an example of those who buy from his competition. He is a ruthless, heartless man.”

  “And the only game in town, sweetie, if you know what’s good for you.”

  “Three of these marks are theirs. One is not. Only an autopsy will show it, but I believe someone from his gang gave Billy an overdose when they caught him second-sourcing his fix. T
his was all so unnecessary, Mama. Why do Cybernites use Creep? Why do we do this to ourselves?”

  “Look around you, sweetie. A body needs to get away from all this once in a while.” Mama looked down at Gray-245, Series-100. “They say it’s a peaceful death.”

  “That depends on your definition of peaceful,” Fin said. He got up and started back down the line of panhandlers, studying each one, stopping at a White who was staring off into space. He had pocketed the credits Fin had given him and had an empty hand out for more.

  “You,” Fin said. “That shirt does not fit you properly and those pants are not long enough for your legs.”

  The White struggled to focus. His words were slurred. “Yeah? What’s it to you?”

  “Your shoes are better than any of your fellow beggars, yet they are too large for your feet. Judging from your clothes, you have not been a beggar for long, but judging from the rest of you, this has been your career for quite some time. You, sir, are a puzzle.”

  The Cy rubbed his eyes and said, “Are you blue or am I seeing things?”

  “I am a Blue.”

  “I didn’t know they made us in blue. Well, what do you know about that?”

  Fin lifted the emaciated Cy up by his collar and shoved his ID badge in his face. “I am also SIA. I know you strangled Billy, but he was already dead. You tried to kill that poor man for his clothes and credits because you were desperate, but desperation does not justify what you did. I could have you arrested. You could spend the rest of your miserable days in jail. Do you understand?”

  “At least they’d feed me there.”

  “But they wouldn’t give you Creep.”

  The White pleaded with Fin to let him go, promising he wouldn’t do it again. He’d lost his factory job four months ago and couldn’t find another. He had nothing left. He had been reduced to begging to survive. He was desperate.

  Fin rooted through the White’s pockets and pulled out an auto-injector. “Nothing but this. So you beg for food and steal from people as bad off as you? And for what? Your next dose?”

  The White pleaded for mercy.

  “You showed Billy no mercy,” Fin replied.

  “Fin,” said Mama. “Let it go. He’s not the problem.”

  “How can you say that? If we do not care about each other, who will?”

  “If you care at all about this Pasty, you’ll let him be.”

  Fin released the White. He glared at the syringe and smashed it against the pavement. “I do not understand this, Mama.”

  “It's simple. Nobody cares anymore,” she said. “I guess that makes us no different from the Man.”

  They returned to where Billy was lying on the pavement. Fin took out his Commlink. “I should call this in.”

  “Why? No one will come.”

  “A man was murdered.”

  “Billy wasn’t a man, leastwise not in their eyes. He was a Cy.”

  “The Death’s Door gang is responsible for this. They have preyed on us long enough. They must be brought to justice.” Fin connected to the local police station, reported the drug overdose, and transmitted the scanned ID of the victim. He asked them to send a team to investigate a possible link to the Death’s Door gang. He verified Billy’s identity when asked, listened to their response, thanked them, and disconnected the call.

  “Well?” said Mama.

  “There is an approved recycling dumpster one block west of the subway entrance. They instructed me to deposit Billy's body there.”

  “I hate to say it, but I told you so.”

  “They said they would look into it.”

  “When was the last time you heard of a cop looking into a dumpster for justice?”

  “This is not right, Mama.”

  “No one ever said it was, but it’s how things are.”

  Fin shouldered Billy’s body and they walked up to street level. It was raining lightly. A flash of light lit the dark sky beyond the crumbling buildings opposite the station. Relics of the old days that had never been rebuilt, they carved a jagged outline against the unforgiving night. A rumble like thunder brought frightened faces to a window on the second floor of one of those hovels.

  “Another attack. That’s the second this week,” said Mama.

  “We have nothing to fear,” Fin replied. “The Periculum Air Force will protect us.”

  “Just like they protected those poor folks over on Canston Road last week?”

  Fin said that he hadn’t heard about that on the news.

  “Bombings here don’t make the news, sweetie. Take a walk over there sometime. Ask them what they think of the mighty Periculum Air Force.”

  “I am sure they do their best, Mama.”

  “If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.” Mama pointed to a police action in progress across the way was attracting a crowd. “What do you suppose that’s about?”

  Fin replied, “The police are local. Judging from the number of Yellows they are taking into custody, I would say it is a prostitution bust.”

  “Can we take the long way around to the dumpster?”

  “You are a domestic, not a prostitute,” said Fin. “They can verify that when they scan your tattoo.”

  “I’m Yellow-021, Series-99, Fin. I’m a Slimer. That’s all that matters to them. They’ll haul me in and keep me in lockup all night. Maybe they’ll scan me if I’m lucky. If not, I’ll miss work tomorrow. I’ll lose my job.”

  “And if you lose your job, you will lose your apartment, and it will be you I find dead in the subway tunnel. Cover your head. We will keep to the shadows.”

  Mama pulled her hood over her head, and they pushed into the crowd heading west. No one seemed to care that Fin was carrying a dead body. No one looked twice. Cybernites were not allowed to be inquisitive. They were supposed to mind their own business. So Council had decreed.

  They found the dumpster in the next block. Fin opened the lid. The stench was overwhelming. In with the trash in the can was the badly decomposed body of a White. The rats scattered as he heaved Gray-245, Series-100 into the dumpster and closed the lid.

  “Do you want to say any last words?” Mama asked.

  “I do,” Fin replied. “I was listening to some Grays on the train tonight mourning the loss of a friend and have come to the conclusion that the passing of a life deserves more than an unacknowledged end in a trashcan.” He bowed his head. “It is said that we are all children of God, that he knows what is in our hearts from the greatest to the least, that he knows each of our names from the first to the last. If that is true then only God knows whether or not Billy was a good man, but I believe he was. No one chooses to be born into this life. No one deserves to have it ended like this. God help us all.”

  “Do you think he’s listening?” Mama asked.

  “Don’t you?”

  “I’m not a Godder, honey. There is no God. The Man made him up to give us someone to pray to so we’d hope things might get better someday. Look around you. No self-respecting God would allow this to happen to his people.”

  “God did not murder Billy. It was the Death’s Door Gang, and they need to be stopped.”

  “One of these days you’ll see the world’s not an easy place to figure out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She touched his cheek. “How old are you, Fin?”

  “I was born in 401 A.B. One year, three months, fifteen days ago.”

  “You’re just a child. Me, I’m one the last of the 99’s. I’ve seen twenty, no, twenty-one years next month. It’s times like this I feel a lot older.”

  “Is that not why everyone calls you Mama?”

  “That and because I treat you all like my children. Maybe I wouldn’t if you didn’t act like children all the time.” She laughed. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  She took Fin by the arm and they walked back to the street. They were in the market district, a bombed-out area of several blocks lined with makeshift stalls manned by Cys selling all
kinds of wares. Whites, Grays, Yellows, and Greens milled about in the darkness, attracted like moths to the gas-lit signs, the oddities, and the interesting smells. It was a place where vendors announced their offerings in droning repetitive calls, a place where they sold all manner and grade of Reconstitute: some grilled, some fried, some baked, some raw. They sold illegal spices and herbs smuggled into Cytown from Periculum to satisfy the craving for more exotic flavors. Someone was selling something that smelled unfamiliar to Fin.

  He inhaled deeply. “What is that?” he asked.

  Mama pointed to a well-kept stall where a thin ribbon of smoke trailed into the rain. It was one of the few with no customers clamoring to be next in line. The Green manning it looked bored. “Spiced flesh—very expensive. That’s Millie. She’s from Westside; said she got run out for fraternizing with the Man, so she moved her place here last week. She caters to the cops and the highbrow Voms who can afford her prices.”

  “What kind of flesh?”

  “I don’t know—tunnel rat probably—hard to catch and not many left. It’s supposed to be way better than dumpster rat, or so they say. That’s why it costs so much.”

  “Do you like tunnel rat?”

  “Don’t know. Never tried it. Can’t afford it. How about some supper?”

  “I will buy.” Fin said.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, honey, but didn’t you just give away all your credits?”