This Automatic Eden

by Jim Keen

  “Good idea,” she said and walked behind the bar.

  The mirror was an antique; its heavy wooden frame pinned the Professor to the floor, the thug unconscious next to him.

  Alice leaned over and lifted the frame to allow him to slide free on his backside. “As I was saying, I need to see Conner. Thought you might know where he is.”

  He stared at her, lungs heaving under his tight shirt, and said nothing as blood dripped from his mouth.

  Alice sighed, looked around, and grabbed an old bar towel. It stank. She threw it to him and wiped her hands on her jeans. “Tie that around your leg.”

  It took a moment for him to process the request, mouth open. “Excuse me?”

  “Tie it high up around your leg to slow the blood loss.” She took the Walther PP_R from her jacket and let it dangle at her side. “I would take your hand, but feet are cheaper to replace, so thought I’d do you a solid.” Alice held up her plastic hand and waved at him. “You wouldn’t want everyone staring at a cheap print like this, now would you?”

  His eyes widened. “Now you wait a minute, this has all been a terrible misunderstanding. I’ll find him—of course I will—I just need a few days.”

  “If I haven’t heard from Conner by midday tomorrow, I’m coming for you, smart man. Understand?”

  He nodded, eyes bulging.

  “And if you make me come back to this shithole of a bar, I’ll take that useless little pecker of yours along with your hands. We clear?”

  He was.

  Alice stood, exited, and strode to her bike. It wasn't until she had mounted its thin seat that she let herself relax. Her body shook from the adrenaline while her heart beat so hard it drowned out the trucks overhead. She laughed. It came from deep inside, feral in its intensity. She hadn’t felt this good in twelve months.

  Alice started the bike and headed for home, jacket whispering directions in the gloom. Not returning it was against regulations, but what were they going to do? Fire her?

  8

  Alice rose early from cloying dreams full of grinding machines, and drove to Rikers Island in a blur of attitude and police sirens. The warden was a twiggy woman in a faded suit with gray hair pulled into a tight bun. Her office was a mess, every corner crammed with drawers overflowing with loose paper. A faded Mars Is the Future poster was taped to the far wall while the air smelled of dust, coffee, and tobacco. In the background, a PA coughed names and times on an endless rotation. The warden leaned back in her chair and sparked a cigarette, the blue-gray smoke rolling upward into a rattling air grille. She saw Alice’s expression and offered the pack. “Want one?”

  “Thanks.” Alice bummed it and lit the tip, the bitter, acidic smoke scouring her lungs. The packet was yellow and covered in unusual blue writing, all whirls and dots. She inhaled again, and this time the smoke triggered a brittle cough in her chest.

  “They’re Martian, hence the strength,” the warden said. “An old guard sent me them last month. They taste like shit, but free is free.”

  “Martian, huh?” Alice swallowed. “I didn’t know they were producing.”

  “Yeah, little here and there, all part of the president’s grand plan. Most of the stuff is junk though—crap cigarettes, cheap booze, and products that don’t work. Still, it’s a start. Okay, today is growing up all shades of wrong, so let’s get to it—you’re here for Paul Yu, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s my brother.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s official NYPD business, so spare the interrogation, and let me see him.”

  “He’s declined to see you. Family visits are top of my bullshit list; we have a routine for a reason, and you’re messing with that.”

  “This is a police request. You can’t say no.”

  “I need you to understand something first. I have to manage this whole facility on a third of what I need. They slashed my budget, and every penny taken from me goes to the unemployed, did you know that?”

  Alice shook her head.

  “So, when our glorious leaders call asking if all is good, I lie and say everything’s perfect. They don’t need to see any cut corners.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I want to make sure you’re not going to cause problems. Are you that person? Going to make calls once you leave? Say we’re treating poor little brother too rough in here?”

  “I don’t care how you run this place; let me see him.”

  “I have to look after five times the number of prisoners I used to. I’ve got Barlow’s crew coming down from the north and starting a gang war—that, plus all the political traffic, means we can’t keep up.”

  “What political traffic?” Toko was right, Alice hadn’t been paying attention.

  The warden leaned back, eyes hooded through a veil of smoke. “Okay, play it that way, but if this comes back to me, he’ll be the first to pay.”

  “Just let me see him.”

  The warden watched as Alice stubbed out her alien cigarette on the table and left the room.

  The guard led her through a labyrinth of peeling brick corridors; each footfall echoed her passage. She smelled disinfectant, old food, and stale sweat. The building felt ancient, a colosseum packed with meat. Once the president reinstated the death sentence, human life had become a privilege, not a right. Alice hadn’t thought about it much—executions were something that happened to other people—but as she walked deeper, her ignorance melted away.

  Paulie would die in here because he killed the man beating Alice to death. Yes, it had been Paul who set up the drug deal, and Paul who didn’t do the due diligence required, but that didn’t mean he deserved to die. No modern, healthy, civilization should use an-eye-for-an-eye to justify murdering its own citizens. Committing the same acts as the criminal dragged you down to their level and made a mockery of any moral stance. She knew the arguments: the difference between murder and execution being the intervention of an impartial law, the cold application of rules and regulations. That was horseshit. The law was never impartial; she’d seen it meted out day after day, always open to interpretation. The public’s horror and outrage at the Six-Thirty bombing had driven the decision to reintroduce federal executions; what was impartial about that?

  Here, now, were the results of emotions hidden behind legal justification. This building made her sick. It was inexcusable to hide such an atrocity, the actions of cowards. Rikers was just another pressure release for a society left behind—a manifestation of the need to channel rage and anger. It would be more honest to string up prisoners in Bryant Park and force people to see the results of their tacit agreements, watch the corpses twitch as they leaked blood and shit from orange overalls.

  More corridors, more doors, more locks followed by an echoing, windowless hallway with tape crossing the floor. This had been a gymnasium, she realized—a remnant from the days when prisons detained people instead of killing them. Twin fans circled overhead, squeaking with every rotation, the sound echoing down the length of the room. Long plastic tables split the main space, each bisected by a transparent sheet of armor glass that let the visitor and victim see, but not touch, each other.

  Paul was the only person in the room; sitting behind the screen his orange uniform glowed like a Japanese lantern under the hard lights. He didn’t look up as she approached. The guard watched them for a moment, then looked down at his phone.

  The last time Alice had seen Paul he’d been large and hard, muscles chiseled from granite. Now, he was soft, body submerged beneath fat. He’d lost his hair, or had it removed; his downcast skull glistened in the spotlight.

  Their mother died when Alice was seven and Paul four. With no other family, they were swallowed by New York’s social services. The state-run orphanages were long bleak halls full of bitter bullies. Alice learned fast that deference was no deterrent; once singled out, they would forever hound you. She was creamed in stand-up fights—her agility no match
for brute strength—so she had launched an insurgency. Anyone who picked on her, or worse, her baby brother, were dealt with when no one was looking. She shielded Paul as best she could, and he grew up immune from the worst. She had thought it was the right thing, but it meant he was ill-prepared for the streets.

  Age thirteen, and legally an adult, the state released Alice onto a cold Brooklyn street with nothing but old clothes for protection. Paulie joined her, a ward of her care. With no skills to offer, they drifted down to the basement of society, a life spent in the sewers or huddled in derelict doorways. Her smarts, and Paul’s newfound love of violence, got them noticed by the local street runners. Organized crime had grown to fill the void left by the eviscerated social services, and the gangs always needed fresh meat. No one trusted digital communication anymore; nothing was safe with MIs plugged into every data exchange, so communication had devolved back to wax-sealed slips of paper. The runners delivered mail for the gangs pursued by rival runners and law enforcement.

  Alice had loved it, her skills of evasion and speed perfect for the task, but Paul found it hard to fit in. He turned to violence to make a name for himself, a capacity for inventive brutality marking him for rapid promotions. He never learned to be sly though, was too trusting, and walked them into the trap that put her on Mars and him in jail.

  She sat. “Hi, Paulie.”

  Paul tilted his head; their eyes met. His were hers in every way: pale gray and unblinking. The same olive skin, wide cheekbones and full lips. Neither of them spoke. Alice didn’t know what to say, how to apologize, the weight of guilt pressing on her. Why had Toko made her do this?

  He stared at her.

  “Talk to me,” she said. “Please.”

  Anger flickered in hard eyes as he focused on her. “Talk, huh? Been years, and here you are, wearing your police gear as if this is just another day. Bet it is for you, right? Out there, free, laughing at us death-row dopes packed away like sheep. Talk to me? Shit, I ain’t stupid, sister. Bet you need something, right? That’s why you remembered where I am.”

  She started at that, guilt on her face.

  “I was right. I see it. Do me a favor and save the big sister act.” He shook his head. “Talk to me? What you want to know? How much I hate your guts? We can start right there. After everything we did together, you go join the Marines? The cops? My sister out there sucking the man’s teat as if my ticket wasn’t marked in here enough as is.”

  “I’m sorry, Paulie.”

  “Sorry? Well fuck your sorry, and fuck you.” Spittle dusted the glass between them.

  Anger kindled in her stomach. Did he think her life had been easy? She didn’t set up the drug deal; she didn’t send her in there with no backup; she didn’t miss the rendezvous. But the words needed were trapped inside. After all this time, it seemed he was the one with something to say.

  “My big sis don’t like the truth, huh? Hurts, does it? And what you ever do for me, huh? Nothing. I’m on my own, same as ever.”

  That broke her paralysis, and anger filled her, red hot and alive. She snorted. “You’ve no idea, little brother. Ever ask yourself whose goddam fault this is? You sent me in there all by myself, didn’t ask around, just said, sure, my big sis will pick it up. Tanner would’ve killed me, all because you were too juiced to check with a few people. To top it all, you were late, left me alone with the product stuck down my pants and no help. I needed you, Paulie. I needed my brother, but no, you were too busy doing whatever dumb shit you wanted to. So that’s why the Marines, that’s why the fucking cops—because you left me out there all alone. Where were you, brother?” It was her turn to shout now, the words echoing from the hard walls.

  They stared at each other, breathing hard and loud as adrenaline pumped.

  She slumped back in her chair, anger fading. “But, as I said, I’m sorry you’re in here. I didn’t want this life for either of us.”

  He sat motionless, chest heaving, then shrugged. “You shoulda waited for me. Still …” His voice trailed away. “Fuck it. Shit don’t make no difference anyhow. Gotta take what you can get.”

  “Paulie—”

  He cut across her. “You going to say hello even? Or you too good for us inmates?” He raised one wide palm and pressed it to the cold armor glass between them. Condensation grew across the hard surface.

  She reached out and placed her palm against his, separated by an inch of laminate. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean it, for everything.”

  “Yeah, fine.” He leaned back and pulled away his hand, condensation fading. Their breathing slowed, returning to normal. He nodded at her hand. “Someone stuck you, huh?”

  “Yeah, I got hurt bad, Paulie.”

  “You get them after?”

  “No, they got away.”

  “Thought no one fucks the NYPD.”

  “World has changed, Paulie. We can barely keep the lid on. Something’s going to give—now, tomorrow, who knows—but it will blow.”

  “Stinks in here as well, what with all them new laws. It’s like a factory; people come in, go to the chair. In and out, same day service.”

  “You?”

  “Nah, I’m old school, pre-Six-Thirty, see? On the list but my face don’t fit, I’ll be okay, maybe a year before I dance.”

  “What new laws?”

  He leaned forward and stared at her, bald head blocking the spotlight. “Shit, stuck in here I know more than you.”

  “I’ve been a bit … preoccupied,” Alice said and realized he didn’t know she’d been off the force for a year. “What’s it like in here? Any recent changes?”

  “Every day is new and the same, but it’s getting worse. We’re packed in tight, eight to a cell designed for two. Nets for beds, sleep in shifts, the works. It’s all them politicos that turned the screw.”

  “Who?”

  “Them new kids—polite and weak. Got ideas, see, always talking about us banding together, standing up to you lot. Weren’t so much at the start, but now they’re thousands of them. They all go into the chair straight away. Them new police oversee it all. Pisses the warden right off.”

  “What new police?” Alice felt like a dumb rookie on her first street patrol. So much had changed so fast.

  He rolled his eyes. “That’s your department, right? Anyways, they don’t deal with me and you, they’re all over the colleges and protest groups. President has it right, till we catch the fuckers, we’ve got to stick together.”

  Alice’s mind ran with the information. A new police force? When had this happened? She needed to speak to Toko as soon as she could. She checked her phone. Time was up; she had to go.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  “Like what?”

  She shrugged. “Any weird people? Too perfect or hard to kill? Anyone working the ovens say anything about Betas?”

  He shrugged. “No one with that much money would end up in here. No, too many bodies, but no freaks.”

  She looked at him through the glass. “I can’t get you out. If I could, I would.”

  “Figured. Still beats the tunnels, huh?”

  They both smiled. That had been the worst—the first week on the streets, nowhere to go, nothing to eat, freezing rain. They ended up huddled inside a sewer outlet in Queens, desperate.

  “Yeah, you sorted that one,” she said. He’d mugged a lost tourist, and the money got them shelter and food, for that day at least.

  “So, Marines huh?” he said.

  “It was four years of service or lifetime incarceration. Two on the wall, one on Mars, one in rehab. What would you have done?”

  “Would have signed up in a second.”

  “Then why are you so pissed at me? Why’d you turn down my visit requests all those times?”

  “I loved the gangs, you knew that, first place I was ever at home. No one gave a shit after Mom, did they? It was us against them. Then you say sure, sign me up, take the dollar. Felt like you betrayed m
e, turned your back.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “We’ve been on these rails since Mom and Dad passed. I know you were just doing what you thought was right, but it drove me crazy. I was always your dumb brother. Guess that’s why I didn’t tell you about the drug deal upfront; you would have checked it out, told me it was bullshit. I wanted to do something for myself. What an idiot.”

  She put her hand back against the glass. After a moment, he did the same.

  “What you remember of Dad?” he asked.

  “Not much. The cancer hollowed him out, fast.”

  “We were gone by then.”

  “Yeah. I visited him in the hospital a few times. He looked like a burst balloon, deflated and crumpled. He’d seemed so big once, the looming shadow. I remember a few things from before that, his laugh, jokes; one time, he ate my lunch and made me so mad I peed myself.”

  “That the first time he beat you?”

  “No, that was later, after we moved. I didn’t think you knew about that.”

  “I wasn’t that dumb.”

  “I should have told you, but I worried he’d beat on you if I did. He’d hit me a few times before the big one, but nothing like that. He almost killed me, I think. I don’t remember much about it, but the cast on my arm itched like crazy afterward.”

  “How d’you deal with that?”

  “Made a decision,” Alice said. “You can carry the past forever or you can see it for what it is, just memories, nothing more. He never gave a damn about me, so I never gave a damn about him. His weakness won’t ruin my life.”

  “Why was he so angry?”

  She pulled the plastic cigarette from her pocket and shoved it in her mouth, hands trembling. The watching guard tapped the No Smoking sign, but she lit it and flashed her NYPD badge when he walked over. The smoke bit her lungs, heart thumping under the stimulants. She leaned back and exhaled at the circling fans. Why had her dad been so angry?

  She looked back at Paulie. “Never thought about it until now. But it’s obvious. He was jealous of Mum.”