Punktown Read online

  * * *

  Inspectors were brought in, the Gym thoroughly investigated. No violations were charged. The live workers truly were generating the power to the machines, or else aiding them crucially in their functions. In the ensuing weeks, the investigation of Mangaudis Crystalens was leaked to the press, and the Gym was described by the media as an innovative new approach to live labor, just as the president of the company had described it. On VT they showed Mangaudis proudly presenting the various work stations. Three in a row were arcade-style video games that were designed to link into the functions of various machines. He explained that he had a new idea for a miniature bowling alley, one or several lanes, ideas for other stations that would add a bit more recreation amongst the more physical activities. Yolk interpreted this as caution on Mangaudis’ part that no one viewed the Gym as something out of a Dickensian workhouse. Which, to Yolk, it was no matter how many bowling lanes or video games or billiard tables Mangaudis introduced.

  “A Bizarre Genius with a Unique Vision,” claimed the cover of a magazine showing Mangaudis seated grinning at one of the stations in the Gym. A creepy grin, thought Yolk.

  “Drop it,” Vita advised him gently. “You did what you could. He’s a sick bastard.”

  “I feel like a fool.”

  “Drop it before you feel more and more like one. We can’t always beat the devil, love.”

  “When do we ever really?” he grumbled.

  After work hours he sat with employees from Crystalens in a bar nearby. He asked them how those who worked in the Gym honestly felt.

  “Well, it’s not what I went to school for,” admitted a pretty woman with a shaved head who’d told him her name was Terr. “I got laid off from my last job so I can’t be picky. But for now, it pays the bills...and it’s actually pretty fun.”

  “Hey, what’s the problem?” laughed a barrel-chested man in his early twenties as he worked on his fourth beer. “You keep rotating through all these stations so it isn’t boring. We have a good time in there. The pay isn’t great, but it isn’t too little...and look at what we do. It keeps me in my social substances.” The man raised his glass to Yolk.

  “And you’re proud of what you do? You feel important, running around like a rat in a wheel?”

  “Hey, it’s as important as anything, right? What do I care about proud of what I’m doing, so long as I don’t hate it. How about you, friend? Do you like what you’re doing?”

  Yolk just glared at the sweaty-haired red-faced man and polished off his own drink. Apathetic moron, he inwardly cursed the worker. All of you. You care less about your degradation than I do.

  They were ignorant, he countered in the workers’ defense. Manipulated. They couldn’t see their exploitation for what it was...

  The case was closed. Yolk felt guilty that there was nothing more he could do...and also guilty for being the one to bring the Gym out into the open. To be imitated soon, he was certain—here and maybe on other colonized worlds.

  It was less than three months after his investigation of Mangaudis Crystalens that Vita was murdered by two Choom youths for drug money in a subway ladies’ room.

  * * *

  They were unemployed, Yolk argued with himself. Maybe if they’d worked in a place like Crystalens they wouldn’t have had to kill his love for their “social substances”. Places like Crystalens were good so long as they provided jobs of some kind. And his union was effective for seeing that people were employed there, even though in a farcical manner.

  But all this desperate reasoning was not enough to prevent Yolk from buying the black market explosives.

  He spent the last four paychecks on them. Five packets of a material like green clay, each merely a half pound. The dealer had assured Yolk that, while crude, the stuff he’d bought was more than sufficient to level an entire building. Yolk thanked the man, considered shooting him and taking his money back from the syndy scum. But hey, he was just doing his job.

  There was no second or third shift at Mangaudis Crystalens, but a guard robot—a shadowy melding of tank and insect—could be seen moving about in the lobby through Yolk’s night vision binoculars, these a relic left over from distant battles, when robots like that guard and mercenary strike-breaker troops had been the iron gloves on the soft white hands of those like Mangaudis. Yolk crept around the outside of the giant art deco radio like a guerrilla.

  He knew what to do. He was a hero from the Union War, and had brought down more than one factory in his time.

  The cool night air felt good rustling through his hair and against his skin. Through his pain, he felt alive. Young again. He pushed the rolled-out worms of explosive clay against the base of the building, in one place pressed a ball of the stuff into a pipe vent. No wires necessary: it was a smart material, its ameba mind and very stability at the mercy of a special radio code from the tiny transmitter device in Yolk’s coat pocket.

  When all the clay was spent, Yolk stole back to his distant car and sat in it with the window open. He sipped a beer he’d brought with him. He dreamed for a few minutes that Vita—rare, jewel-like Vita—sat there beside him. But he was alone.

  They don’t care, he thought. The workers in the Gym. Those jesters. Those organ grinder’s monkeys. They didn’t even care that Mangaudis was making fools of them purposely. To spite the union officials, and to spite the workers themselves. How much did the union really care? They made their dues...that was what counted. They were just another operation, weren’t they? Like a legalized syndy. So why should he care?

  If he went through with this he was a criminal. The Union War was over. It was lazy, apathetic peace time. Vita had always been proud of him for his sense of justice and fair play. “You’re a good egg,” she always joked. He’d be a criminal...

  They don’t care, his mind repeated. They made their substance money. They were no more ashamed of themselves than the scum who’d killed Vita for their substance money. They didn’t care about themselves, let alone the whole of society. They couldn’t respect others when they didn’t respect themselves.

  The device was in his hand, his thumb hovering over the button, and he was like a man contemplating a change of VT channels, like a man contemplating a rocket target...

  They don’t care. Go home. Do what you can in the union. It was all one could realistically hope to do. One must accept one’s limitations. Like Vita had said, you couldn’t always beat the devil.

  Yolk started up his vehicle.

  Yes, go home. Fireworks wouldn’t bring Vita back. Fireworks wouldn’t wipe the creepy smile off every bloodless face. The car lifted to the two feet it floated off the ground. Just go home. They didn’t care if Mangaudis wanted to take his vengeance out on them.

  The hovercar glided quietly across the empty parking lot, into the silent street. Its passing stirred an empty wine bottle to roll away...

  Well, maybe I want revenge on you, too, Yolk said to the workers in his mind. Because you don’t care. And I’m sick of caring for you.

  He glanced back over his shoulder and pointed the tiny device in his hand.

  And the night burned briefly with his anger...until the robot fire engines came, and a few straggling human firefighters drank coffee while they watched them extinguish the flames.

  WAKIZASHI

  On the walls of the L’lewed’s cell were blown up photo print-outs of his three victims. Soko stared up at them while waiting for the L’lewed to appear from his container like a lazy genie loath to stir from his lamp.

  One photo showed a plump young woman, a human, face down in the long grass of a neglected park corner. She wore only socks. A second poster showed a naked woman curled on her side as if sleeping in the cave-like mouth of a drainage tunnel, in the same park. The third photo was just a woman’s face, apparently a morgue shot. Her eyes were open and her mouth was a huge mysterious smile; she was a Choom, native to this Earth-colonized world, humanoid except for that vast mouth which looked like a wound carved back to her ears.
But none of the three women bore visible wounds; the L’lewed had committed his cruelty within their bodies.

  The L’lewed had a computer in his cell, on a desk below the posters. He had net access, and it was from this—specifically, a site called TrueCrime—that he had called out the photographs of his victims. Soko wondered if their families were aware that their loved ones were displayed this way in the cell of the being who had murdered them. Still, he doubted the families could do anything to violate the L’lewed’s rights to extract information and to decorate his cell. He could only be asked by the warden to remove the posters willingly, and the L’lewed had told the warden that he had hung the posters so as to remind himself of the terrible acts he had committed, that he might haunt himself with these ghosts, and repent for his sins.

  Soko turned his attention back to the prisoner’s container, which sat in the center of the floor. There was no bed in the cell, the prisoner resting in this device instead. More than a bed, it was his life support. When he had been a foreign diplomat living in the embassy of his people, here in Paxton across from the park, he had been transported about in this device by a human aide. That man was now jailed in this same penitentiary for being an accomplice to the ambassador’s crimes; he had carried the genie’s lamp on his back into the park to seek out appropriate victims for his boss.

  Soko heard small grinding sounds, mechanical, such as a very old clock might make before it gonged out the hour. There was a central cylinder, and fused to its sides, two smaller cylinders—all three a brassy-colored metal. From the tops of the two smaller tubes, nozzles now arose. Following that, a spiral iris in the main cylinder swirled open. Peripherally, Soko saw the other human in the cell with him step forward a little with anticipation.

  Though he doubted the L’lewed would ever attempt violence, he rested his hand on the pistol holstered at his hip. Like all the guards at the Paxton Maximum Security Penitentiary, he carried a handgun which would not allow itself to fire if it sensed it was being held by anyone other than the guard to whom it had been issued. (During one escape attempt, a prisoner had chopped off a guard’s hand and kept it curled around the gun he’d stolen, but the gun sensed the hand was not alive and would not function as hoped.) But the L’lewed would not attempt to steal his gun: protected by diplomatic immunity, he was to be returned to his home world as soon as conditions permitted the opening of the portal which gave access to that other dimension in which the L’lewed’s planet existed.

  The prisoner began to emerge from his cell within the cell. It was like watching a child’s play putty stretched almost to the breaking point, as from both of the side nozzles a string of taut flesh-colored matter extended into the air. These pseudopods adhered themselves to the ceiling, as if to hoist out the rest of the being. From the middle cylinder there arose something that reminded Soko of the egg purse of a shark or ray: a squarish, featureless package of flesh with two horn-like limbs at the top, and two at the bottom. The pair at the bottom remained mostly inside the device; Soko wasn’t sure what might be at their ends, just how much of the being remained in the container. The two top horns, somewhat flexible, wavered subtly in the air like feelers.

  There was a grille in the front of the major cylinder. From it came a voice, soft and whispery and sifted through a sand of static. It was the L’lewed, translated.

  “Hello, Officer Soko. And my guest?”

  The other human smiled, and nodded in greeting. “Ambassador Rhh, I’m David-Paul Friesner, the newly appointed spiritual liaison here at P.M.S..”

  “As I had hoped,” whispered the device on the floor, the thing of putty hanging above it like some leafless vine grown from a coppery vase. “A pleasure.”

  “I’m here in response to your request.” Friesner smiled, but he made his expression politely pained. “It’s a difficult request to fill, but...”

  “You must be able to find someone with a terminal illness, who might want the money I offer, to give to her family. Someone who would like to end their suffering...”

  “Well, in fact, after discussing the matter with the warden, we’ve gone another route with your...problem. Um, we have a number of people in this facility who have received a death sentence. I myself don’t approve of the concept of execution, but there are inmates waiting to die, nonetheless. The warden has personally asked a dozen of them whether they would be willing to...assist you in your...ritual...in return for the money you offer from your personal account.”

  “And your results?” The feelers swayed like underwater plants.

  “Well...uh, there was a lot of concern, actually. Of course, most of those on death row are hoping to have their sentences commuted. But also, there was concern about pain. The warden told them...ah...told them that drugging them for pain was not possible, as it would deaden the...death throes...”

  “The Vibration,” the L’lewed corrected him.

  “Frankly, that’s where I see the potential for the greatest public...disapproval.”

  “But did you find an individual willing? Did any of them express interest?”

  Soko turned to watch the other man’s face. He couldn’t believe that any man would agree to being murdered by another prisoner, especially in the manner the L’lewed killed their sacrifices.

  “Yes...yes, there was one. He’s a Waiai; if you’re not familiar, a very humanoid being. His name is Oowoh Kee. He killed five human teenagers who lived in his apartment building. They had apparently raped his wife in the laundry, and yet she couldn’t identify their faces because the Waiai are blind. That is to say, they use a sort of radar in place of sight. In any case, Mr. Kee’s act of vigilantism was deemed first degree multiple murder, and hence his sentence. After all, two of the boys were only thirteen.”

  “And this man...this Kee...wants the money for his wife.”

  “Yes. He’s willing to do this. Even without being drugged.”

  “What a courageous man,” said the L’lewed. With something like a sigh he added, “I would have preferred a female...” He let the thought uncoil wistfully.

  Soko looked to the rubbery entity, back to the spiritual liaison. His throat was dry, and in swallowing to lubricate it his spit caught on the barbs in his throat. He coughed sharply several times. He saw the prisoner’s snail-like horns point his way curiously.

  “There are women on death row, in other facilities,” Friesner said, “but we were concerned that the outcry would be greater. Execution is the will of the majority, or else it wouldn’t be practiced. But those who are against it are very vocal, and their disapproval will be unpleasant, so we’re hoping to keep this low key. The warden has already talked to the Colonial Office in Miniosis about this, just to be sure we’re on safe ground proceeding. Fortunately for us, in light of your status as a foreign dignitary, we’ve been given the go-ahead. We’ll field the protests as best we can. The warden impressed upon all involved parties that time is of the essence here...that you must have your sacrifice within two weeks in order for you to be...spiritually reinvigorated, according to your beliefs.”

  “Excellent,” Ambassador Rhh complimented the man. “You have done a fine job in an admittedly difficult situation, Mr. Friesner. I’m sure you will do very well in this new position.”

  “Thank you.” Soko thought Friesner looked genuinely flattered. “So, ah, we’ll start to arrange this, then. As quickly as possible, in case difficulties of any sort arise. Before Mr. Kee, um...changes his mind, or protests become too...troublesome. Hopefully, within the week. The faster we carry this through, the less chance of someone finding a way to bind it up legally. If we’re very lucky, it will all be behind us before the public even hears word of it. So...I will keep you apprized.”

  “I thank you,” the L’lewed purred.

  “Very good, then. Well, I...I guess that’s it, until later...”

  “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Friesner,” filtered the voice from the container. One of the elastic limbs affixed to the ceiling came away with a s
ound like tape peeled free, and in lowering, extended in the spiritual liaison’s direction. Its end began to flatten into a leaf-like shape somewhat better suited to shaking a human’s hand.

  Before the appendage had completed its molding, Soko had his pistol out of its holster and pointed not at the being itself but at the speaker grille in its life support device. “Ambassador, do not touch Mr. Friesner.”

  The limb froze in the air a foot from the liaison. It began to withdraw, the end resuming its less flattened look. “I meant only to express my gratitude in the manner of your kind, Officer Soko, but as you wish. Until next time, Mr. Friesner, and thank you again.” The central portion of the L’lewed sank back into the container, seeming to compress itself as it did so, wavering snail horns last. The two willowy limbs went slithering back into their twin nozzles, which then retracted into their cylinders with a grind and a clink. The opening in the middle cylinder whirred shut. The L’lewed was so thoroughly gone it felt as if he had returned to his own dimension, rather than simply hidden himself away like a cobra in its basket.

  * * *

  Soko absently ran his hand over the back of his neck, feeling the coarse bristles of his glossy black crew cut. His coffee gave off an aromatic steam that countered the chilly scene outside the cafeteria windows. The sky was a blue so bright it hurt the eyes, looked synthetic, the grounds outside the prison glaring with scraps and patches of reflective snow. What hadn’t melted away from last week’s storm was so frozen now that winter had really descended, it seemed it would never thaw. Soko could see the whole corner of B Wing jutting massively into the scene like the end of a great castle, its featureless white flank adding to the bleakness of the view, though most of it was in blue shadow. Atop every corner of the prison—a massive decoration perhaps meant to make the prison’s presence less threatening, less militaristic to those who lived in Punktown—there arose a giant abstracted pine cone. It seemed to Soko a poor trade off, however, for the coniferous forest that had once bordered the outskirts of this Choom town before Earth colonization. Steam from a huge vent billowed up past the window in irregular clouds, turning golden as it cleared the high wall and was suffused with harsh sunlight.