Fin

by Larry Enright

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  “Why wasn’t I told about this?”

  “I’ll give you one guess.”

  Trask pulled back his outstretched hand. “What was he doing at the train station alone?”

  “How did you know I was alone?” Fin asked.

  Trask blanched.

  Clayborn said, “He’s got a man on the inside. That way the cops can make certain they’re nowhere to be found when the DDs have something going down. Am I right Trask?”

  “No comment.”

  “You might want to check with your stoolie again. SIA showed up in full force. Too bad we were a day late and a credit short.”

  “This isn’t right, Ben, and you know it. Cytown is ours.”

  Clayborn pulled out his Commlink. “You want to see the authorization? It comes straight from the top. I’d be happy to ram it down your throat for old time’s sake.”

  “Don’t bother.” Trask signaled to his men that they were leaving. “Have a nice day,” he said, and stormed out of the bar.

  “What the hell did you do to yourself, Blue?” Clayborn asked.

  Fin tried to tell him, but the alcohol was wearing off and the Creep was tightening its grip around his throat again. He couldn’t breathe. He collapsed.

  When he awoke, he was lying in a strange bed in an ill-lit, dirty room. A human in a lab coat was taking his vitals.

  “Where am I?” Fin said.

  “Northend Clinic,” the man replied, running a med-scanner over Fin’s chest. “Breathe for me. That’s good. Again.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m from Polyclonic. Agent Clayborn called Emergency Services and they called us, and it’s a good thing. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “What happened?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  Fin shook his head. “Just bits and pieces.”

  “Bad batch of Creep, I’d say. Looks like your vitals are stable now. Get some rest. Lay off the Creep for a while. OK?”

  The man left. Ben Clayborn entered the room.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he said. “You’re not a Creeper. Why did you do this?”

  “I didn’t. It was Book. How did you find me?”

  “How do you think, Junior? I tracked your Commlink. Glad to see you got it back, and your gun. I loaded it for you with a fresh power pack.”

  “You know Lieutenant Trask?”

  “We go way back, trained together at the academy.”

  “He did not graduate?”

  “He was screwing the crew chief’s daughter. You figure it out.”

  “Were you on the train that the gang said was coming?”

  “I told you I couldn’t get a strike team ready in time.”

  “But there was an unscheduled train. The DDs knew it was coming and assumed it was the police. They obviously have access to the Metro servers and the train monitoring system. They must have a man on the inside.”

  “No shit.”

  “I am confused, sir.”

  “Yeah, I can see that. I called in a favor. A friend of mine at Metro sent a false signal down the Northend line.”

  “You were bluffing?”

  “I was saving your sorry ass. You disobeyed a direct order, Blue. I told you not to go in there. We do things by the book or we don’t do them at all. But I guess you don’t get that, do you?”

  “I am sorry, sir. What you told Lieutenant Trask about having authority . . . That was also a bluff?”

  “Trask never was any good at poker. Get up.”

  “Sir?”

  “Come on. Get up. Walk with me. My Lev is parked outside. I’ve got to get going.”

  The rundown clinic consisted of one exam room and a long dim hallway lined with Cybernites who had stumbled in drunk or high or injured or were just looking for a place to crash. Clayborn and Fin stepped around them, making their way to the door to the street. A Green was there taking a break, smoking a cigarette. He had some paramedic training and ran the clinic using black market medicine he purchased with donations. Clayborn gave him a few credits and they left.

  Out on the street, Clayborn unlocked his Levcar. “I talked to Commander Roberts about your situation.”

  “And?”

  Clayborn’s eyes fixed across the street on a suspicious-looking Yellow propositioning a Green in front of a burned out storefront. Two Whites were lurking in the shadows around the corner, waiting for the bait to lure the mark into their trap. Clayborn looked back at Fin. “Look, why don’t you take a few days off? You’ve got the time.”

  “I would prefer to face whatever consequences I deserve as soon as possible.”

  “Trust me, you will, but you don’t want to be anywhere near the commander right now.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “One of the latest batch of undercover agents whose identities were compromised turned up floating facedown in a sewer in the Eastern Bloc a few hours ago.”

  “This is my fault,” said Fin.

  “Go home, Blue. I mean it. Get some rest. I’ll see you in a few days.”

  Clayborn got into his car and lifted off. Fin headed home. On the way, he passed a self-recycle booth. A Green was staring stoically at its open door. He stepped inside. The door closed. A light flashed inside the booth. The five-credit sign flickered. The door opened, releasing a puff of ash into the rain.

  Fin kept walking. When he got to his apartment, he found his door hanging askew on its hinges with the word traytr spray-painted on it. The lights came on as he entered. Classical music began to play.

  “Welcome home, sir,” the Homecom said in its usual pleasant voice.

  Fin panned his Pulser around the room. The smell of urine and feces was overwhelming. His apartment had been trashed. Graffiti covered the walls. His furniture was ripped up and broken, the vidscreens smashed. He checked the other rooms. They were trashed, too. His waterfall painting was slashed down the middle and the box containing his credits was gone. He came back into the common room.

  The Homecom said, “Should I start your shower now, sir, to bring the water up to temperature?”

  “No, thank you. What happened here?”

  “As you can see, there has been a break-in. I notified the police and your employer. The authorities said they would come when they could.”

  “Call them back. Tell them it was a mistake. Tell them not to bother.”

  “Should I call maintenance? There is the matter of the broken door and there are quite a number of damaged systems in the apartment.”

  “No. That won’t be necessary.”

  Fin left and started down the corridor toward Mama’s. When he turned the corner, he stopped. Several doors ahead was the Cybernite, Nova. She was holding a package in one hand and struggling with the lock on an apartment door with the other. Her violet skin glistened in the dim light of the hall. She glanced up, her gray-blue eyes fixing on him.

  “Hello,” Fin said, surprised.

  “Hi there,” she replied. "You don’t look so good. You OK?"

  “I am fine. Can I help you with that?”

  “No, thanks. I’m good.”

  “You live here?”

  “No, isn’t it obvious? I’m just breaking and entering. See you around.” She opened the apartment door and went inside, closing it behind her.

  Fin continued down the hall to Mama’s. His persistent knocking brought an angry Kron to the door. His face looked more beaten than the last time Fin had seen him.

  “What do you want?” Kron said.

  “Is Mama here?”

  “Of course, she’s here. She’s in bed. It’s the middle of the night.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “That’s none of your damn business.”

  “I am sorry to bother you, but my apartment has been broken into and vandalized.”

  “What’s that to me?”

  “I need a place to stay for the night.”

  “The homeless
sleep downstairs.”

  “I am not homeless.”

  “Traitors sleep there, too.” Kron slammed the door in Fin’s face.

  Fin spent the night on the downstairs hallway floor.

  Chapter 6

  Mama found Fin asleep on the floor early next morning and brought him upstairs to her apartment, insisting on making him breakfast. She kneaded a square of Reconstitute between her knotty yellow fingers and threw it into the frying pan. It was her sweat that gave it the salty taste she and Kron favored, or so she always said.

  “Just once, I like to try some of Millie’s tunnel rat. That would be living the high life, but then the Man is the one doing that, right?” Smiles in Cytown were like pauses in the rain. They never lasted long, and it was hard to remember the last time you saw one. She shrugged. “Who am I to judge? The poor do what they can and the rich do what they want. Isn’t that what they say?”

  Fin paged through The Word and read her a passage.

  I do not expect you to be perfect. You are not and will never be. I expect you to make mistakes, but I also expect you to learn from them. Do good. Love one another. Cause no one any harm that you would not wish upon yourself. Judge not each other for there will come a day when I will judge you and hold you accountable for your actions.

  “That’s nice, honey," she said, "but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the Man to pay up if I were you." She set the plate of crisped Reconstitute in front of him. “There. Just the way you like it. And no need to rush. That big dumb lug of mine left for work an hour ago.”

  She poured him a cup of what she called “some of the best water around” that she had filtered through a square of faded red muslin passed down to her many years ago from a Series-98 friend who had died in a bombing at a Westside factory.

  “Don’t you be thinking what you’re thinking,” she said when she noticed Fin staring at the wet cloth draped over the edge of the sink. “A bit of color never hurt anyone, and if the Man wants to recycle me over it, I say let him.”

  Fin smiled at the old Cy who had always been so kind to him. He took a bite of the Reconstitute. "I wish I could cook like you, Mama.”

  “Nobody cooks like Mama, sweetie.”

  “What gives it this granular texture? The rations they send me have so little of it they fall apart in the pan.”

  “No idea, but the cheaper the Recon, the more that’s in it. I have to get ready for work. If I miss my train I’ll be late and the mistress won’t be happy.”

  Mama’s impression of her employer getting flustered over the specks of dust that had collected on her expensive belongings since yesterday’s cleaning made Fin laugh.

  “If you need a place to stay for a bit, you’re welcome to bunk with us,” she said. “We don’t have a spare bed or a spare room, but there’s always the couch. Just watch the spring on the left side. Kron hasn’t gotten around to tying it back down. Oh, and we’re still under our monthly allotment so help yourself to a shower. Believe me, you really need one. There’s a clean towel in the closet. Don’t mind the stains. The water’s been a little off lately. All right?”

  “I appreciate this, Mama. I really do, but Kron will not be happy.”

  “No, I suppose he won’t. And he doesn’t take much stock in all those ‘love your neighbors' in that God-word thing you read.”

  “I do not want to make things any more difficult for you than they already are.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about me. I can handle that big Pasty.” Then she tapped her cheek, reconsidering. “On second thought, maybe you should be somewhere else when he gets home from work tonight so I have a chance to set him straight.”

  “Did you see my apartment?”

  Mama sighed. The things she had seen in her short life weighed heavily on her thin frame, this no less than the rest. “Such a waste . . . Such a shame.” She shook her head sadly. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dreamed of having a place like yours, Fin. I’m sorry. I truly am.”

  “Please tell Kron I do not intend to press charges.”

  “How did you know?”

  “It seemed fairly obvious that he was involved.”

  Mama sighed again. “You're a smart one, you are. I tried to stop him, but there were so many of them, and you know how he gets all worked up by the others. They were so angry with you. I’m sorry, honey.”

  “I do not understand why they consider me a traitor. I was only trying to help.”

  “I don’t think they see it that way.”

  “Death’s Door is dangerous, Mama.”

  “The world’s a dangerous place.”

  “They need to be stopped.”

  Mama’s voice rose. “No, you need to stop before you get yourself killed.”

  He stared at her disapproving finger. “Mama, Creep is killing our people.”

  “Fin, honey, sometimes things aren’t as black and white as you’d like them to be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged the question off and excused herself to finish getting ready for work. When she returned from the bedroom in her uniform, she was carrying a pouch like the polyvinyl bags of Creep that Fin had seen packed inside the crates on the Death’s Door train, but with different markings. She slid the pouch into her handbag when she noticed him staring at it.

  “Where did you get that?” he said.

  “Get what?”

  “That bag of Creep.”

  “What bag of Creep?”

  “The one you just put in your purse. I cannot believe you are a user.”

  “Half the town is. The other half are addicts.”

  “Where did you get that?” he said again. "It does not bear the DD mark."

  She threw up her hands. “You just won’t let it go, will you? Fine. If you must know, Kron got it off a pusher and paid twice the train price because of you. He was one of the ones in line when you shut them down. He recognized you, honey.”

  “Oh,” said Fin. “I see.”

  “We had to dip into the credits we’ve been putting aside for a new place closer to the city where it’s safer.” Her voice wavered. “Something always seems to come up just when we’re getting close. We’ll never get out of Northend.” She put on the smile of the brave warrior and shoved despair down deep into that pocket in her mind where she kept the ugly, the sad, and the desperate things she wanted to forget, despite knowing she would have to face them someday. “But that’s life, right?” she said.

  “Mama, possession of Creep is a crime punishable by immediate recycling. So Council has decreed. If they catch you in the city with that . . .”

  She held her fists out in front of her, a common position for a Cybernite submitting to handcuffing. “Then take me in. I don’t care.”

  “I am not going to arrest you.”

  “Then what are you going to do, Fin? I don’t have time for lectures. I need to get to work.”

  “I will get you help, a doctor, a human doctor in a city hospital who can treat you. Please, Mama, let me help you.”

  “You might as well put a gun to my head and pull the trigger. Hospital is like jail, Fin. By the time they let me go, I’ll lose my job, my husband, my apartment, everything.”

  “But you need help.”

  She took the Creep out of her handbag and brandished it in his face. “This is my help.”

  “I cannot accept that drugs are the answer.”

  “That’s because you’re programmed that way.”

  “That is not true. I think. I reason. I act independently. I have rights. I am my own master. So Council has decreed.”

  “Listen to yourself, reciting that silly nonsense they drill into our heads day in and day out. Didn’t they also decree that the Man made us in his image to help him? Didn’t they also say that we’re supposed to be partners and how things will get better someday if only we believe they will? Wake up. Nothing will ever get better. It’s all a lie. We were supposed to have rights. Do we? We were supposed to be treate
d like human beings. Are we? Do you really think the Man cares a whit about us? It’s not the drugs you should be worried about, honey. It’s them.”

  “Mama, I know things are bad. I know that what they say is not what they do. I know it is wrong and some day they will have to account for their actions, but I beg you, do not do this.”

  Her expression was as unyielding and impenetrable as the Periculum shield.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I am your friend.”

  “You’re a cop, honey.”

  “That is what I do, not who I am.”

  “Fin, you’re not like us. They made you so different, the way you think, the way you act, everything about you. You don’t belong here. And your job—the way the Man pampers you—it makes folks afraid of you.”

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  She avoided his gaze. “I have to get going. I can’t be late.”

  “You are afraid of me.”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “Give me the Creep, Mama. I will turn it over to the local police and tell them I found it on the street. I will pay you double for it when I get the credits. There will not be any trouble. I promise.”

  She dropped the Creep into her handbag and snapped it shut. “Maybe it would be best after all if you didn’t stay here.”

  Fin nodded in resignation. “Thank you for the breakfast, Mama. It was delicious as always.”

  “Take that shower first, OK? You really do stink.” She left on a forced smile.

  Fin showered and returned to his apartment where he carted his broken furniture and everything he owned down to the trashcans. There was little that could be saved: a few pieces of clothing that hadn’t been shredded, some plates that the vandals hadn’t broken, a few utensils they hadn’t stolen. He threw them all away. He didn’t want them, these rewards of the life he didn’t deserve any more than Mama deserved to scrape by day-to-day, meal-to-meal, and dose-to-dose. He didn’t want any of it.

  Word spread quickly on the street that an apartment was being cleared out, a good one by the looks of it. The scavengers descended on the trashcans, picking through his discards. He didn’t care. He no longer wanted any of it and they desperately needed it. When his apartment was empty, he began cleaning it, refusing the Homecom’s offer of help. Every disgusting piece of filth the angry Cys had left behind, every reminder of just how much they hated him, every stain, every smell—it all had to go. And he had to be the one to remove it—not some machine, not the Man, him.