by Ben Bova
You gotta understand, I was in love with Jade. But she couldn’t be in love with me. Not in her business. Her pimp would beat the hell out of any of his whores who took up with anybody except himself. I had known her since we were kids together runnin’ along the alleys and raiding garbage cans, keepin’ one jump ahead of the dog packs. Back when her name was still Juanita. Before she had her eyes changed. I had kissed her exactly once, when we was both twelve years old. The next day she turned her first trick and went pro.
But I had a plan. For the past five years I had been savin’ up whatever cash I could raise. Usually, you know, I’d get paid for my work in food or drugs or other stuff to barter off. But once in a while somebody’d actually give me money. What? Naw, I never did much drugs; screwed up my head too much. I usually traded whatever [deleted] I came across. I seen what that stuff does to people; makes ’em real psycho.
Anyway, sometimes I’d get real money. That’s when I’d sneak out to the housing tracts where they had automated bank machines and deposit my cash in the bank. All strictly legitimate. The bank didn’t care where the money came from. I never had to deal with a living human being. All I had to do to open the account was to pick up a social security number, which I got from a wallet I had found in one of the junkyards when I was ten, eleven years old. Even that young, I knew that card was better than gold.
So I had stashed away damn near a thousand dollars over the years. One day I would use that money to take Jade outta the city, out of her life. We’d buy a house out in the tracts and start to live like decent people. Once I had enough money.
But then the [deleted] Controllers had arrested Jade. What I heard about the Controllers scared the [deleted] outta me. They were bigger than the city oinks, bigger even than the state police or the National Guard. They could put you in what they called International Detainment Centers, all the way out in Wyoming or Canada or wherever the hell they pleased. They could scramble your brains with some super electronic stuff that would turn you into a zombie.
That’s what they were goin’ to do to Jade. If I let them.
I sat in the last row of benches. The trials of the pros were already goin’ on. Each one took only a couple minutes. The judge sat up on his high bench at the front of the courtroom, lookin’ sour and cranky in his black robe. A clerk called out one of the girls’ names. The girl would be led out of the holding pen by a pair of women oinks and stood up in a little railed platform. The clerk would say that the girl had been arrested for prostitution and some other stuff I couldn’t understand because he was mumblin’ more than speakin’ out loud.
The judge would ask the girl how she pleaded: guilty or innocent. The girl would say, “Innocent, Your Honor.” The judge would turn to a table full of well-dressed suits who had a bunch of laptops in front of them. They would peck on their computers. The judge would stare into the screen of his computer, up on the desk he was sittin’ at.
Then he’d say, “Guilty as charged. Sentenced to indeterminate detention. Next case.” And he’d smack his gavel on the desktop.
I remember seein’ some old videos where they had lawyers arguin’ and a bunch of people called a jury who said whether the person was guilty or innocent. None of that here. Just name, charge, plea, and “Guilty as charged.” Then—wham!— the gavel smack and the next case. Jade wouldn’t have a chance.
And neither did I, from the looks of it. How could 1 get her away from those oinks, out from behind that bulletproof glass? Where was this commotion Big Lou promised, whatever it was supposed to be?
They were almost halfway through the whole gang of girls, just whippin’ them past the judge, bang, bang, bang. Jade’s turn was cornin’ close; just two girls ahead of her. Then the doors right behind me smack open and in clumps some big guy in heavy boots and some weird kind of rubbery uniform with a kind of astronaut-type helmet and a visor so dark I couldn’t make out his face even though I was only a couple feet away from him.
“Clear this courtroom!” he yells, in a deep booming voice. “There’s been a toxic spill from the cleanup crew upstairs. Get out before the fumes reach this level!”
Everybody jumps to their feet and pushes for the door. Not me. I start jumpin’ over the benches to get up front, where Jade is. I see the judge scramble for his own little doorway up there, pullin’ his robe up almost to his waist so he could move faster. The clerks and the guys with the laptops are makin’ their way back toward the corridor. As I passed them I saw the two oinks openin’ the glass door to the holding pen and startin’ to hustle the girls out toward a door in the back wall.
I shot past like a cruise missile and grabbed Jade’s wrist. Before the oinks could react I was draggin’ her up the two steps to the same door the judge had used.
“Vic!” she gulped as I slammed the door shut and clicked its lock.
I said something brilliant like, “Come on.”
“What’re you doing? Where’re we going?”
“Takin’ you outta here.”
Jade seemed scared, confused, but she came along with me all right. The judge was nowhere in sight, just his robe thrown on the floor. Somebody was poundin’ on the door we had just come through and yellin’ the way oinks do. There was another door to the room and the judge had left it half open. I had no way of knowin’ if that toxic spill was real or not, but I knew that the oinks would be after us either way so I dashed for the door, Jade’s wrist still in my grip.
“You’re crazy,” she said, kind of breathless. But she came right along with me. And she smiled at me as she said it. If I hadn’t been wound so tight I would’ve kissed her right there and then.
Instead we pounded down this empty corridor and found an elevator marked JUDGES ONLY. I leaned on the button. Somebody appeared at the far end of the corridor, a guy in a business suit.
“Hey, you kids,” he yelled, kind of angry, “you’re not allowed to use that elevator.”
Just then the doors slid open. “Emergency!” I yelled back and pulled Jade inside.
When we got down to the street level everything seemed normal. Nobody was runnin’ or shoutin’. I guessed that the toxic spill was a phony. I couldn’t imagine Big Lou doin’ something like that just for me, but maybe he needed his bomb gizmo bad enough after all. Anyway, I told Jade to act normal and we just walked out into the central courtyard nice and easy, me in my shabby jeans and sneakers and her in her workin’ clothes: spike heels, microskirt, skintight blouse. They had washed off her makeup and her hair looked kind of draggled, but she was still beautiful enough to make even the women out there turn and stare at her.
The work crew was still tryin’ to tug that fallen window sill outta the cement when we walked past. 1 steered Jade toward the boarded-up entrance to the old subway.
“We’re not going down there!” she said when I pushed a couple boards loose.
“Sure as hell are,” I said.
“But—”
“Hey, you!” yelled a guy in a soldier uniform.
“Come on!” I tugged at Jade’s wrist and we started down the dark stairway underground.
The steps were slippery, slimy. It was dark as hell down there and it stunk of [urine]. The air was chilly and kind of wet; gave you the shakes. I could feel Jade trembling in my grip. With my other hand I fished a penlight outta my pocket. What? I always keep a light on me. And make sure the batteries are good, too. You never know when you’re gonna need a light; trouble don’t always come at high noon, y’know.
“Vic, I don’t like this,” Jade said.
“I don’t either, honey, but we gotta get away. This is the best way to do it.” I clicked on my penlight; it threw a feeble circle of light on the filthy, littered tiled floor. “See, it ain’t so bad, is it?”
Jade was right in a way. The subway tunnels really were dangerous. We had heard stories since we were little kids about the hordes of rats livin’ down there. And other things, monsters that crawled outta the sewers, people who lived down there in the dark for
so long they’d gone blind—but they could find you in the dark and when they did they ate you raw, like animals.
I was kind of shakin’ myself, thinkin’ about all that. But I wasn’t gonna let Jade be taken away by the Controllers and I wasn’t gonna play with no bombs for Little Lou or Big Lou or anybody. I was takin’ Jade and myself outta the city altogether, across the bridge and out into the housing tracts on the other side of the river. I’d take my money from the bank and find a place for us to live and get a regular job someplace and start to be a real person. The two of us. Jade and me.
Okay, maybe it was just a dream. But I wanted to make my dream come true. Wanted it so bad I was willin’ to face anything.
Well, there ain’t no sense tellin’ you about every step of the way we took in the subway tunnels. There were rats, plenty of’em, some big as dogs, but they stayed away from us as long as the penlight worked. We could see their red eyes burnin’ in the dark, though, and hear them makin’ their screechy little rat noises, like they was talkin’ to each other. Jade had a tough time walkin’ on those spike-heel shoes of hers, but she wouldn’t go barefoot in the sloppy goo we hadda walk through. My own sneaks were soaked through with the muck; it made my feet burn.
Jade screamed a couple times, once when she stumbled on something squishy that turned out to be a real dog that must’ve died only a few hours earlier. It was half eaten away already.
No monsters from the sewers, though. And if there was any blind cannibals runnin’ around down there we didn’t see them. The rats were enough, believe me. I felt like they were all around us, watchin’, waitin’ until the batteries in my light gave out. And then they’d swarm us under and do to us what they had started to do to that dog.
All the subway tunnels meet under the city hall, and I sure as hell hoped I had picked the right one, the one that goes out to the river. After hours and hours, I noticed that the tunnel seemed to be slantin’ upward. I even thought I saw some light up ahead.
Sure enough, the tracks ran up and onto the Ben Franklin bridge that crossed the Delaware. It was already night, and drizzling a cold misty rain out there. No wind, not even a breath of air movin’. And no noise. Silence. Everything was still as death. It was kinda creepy, y’know. I been on that bridge lotsa times; up that high there was always a breeze, at least. But not that night.
At least we were out of the tunnel. On the other side of that bridge was the housing tracts, the land where people could lead decent lives, safe from the city.
I knew the bridge was barricaded and the barricades were rigged with electronic chips that spotted anybody tryin’ to get through. Those people in the tracts didn’t like havin’ people from the city cornin’ over to visit. Not unless they drove cars that gave out the right electronic ID signals. But I had gotten past the barricades before. It took a bit of climbin’, but it could be done. Jade could take off her spike heels now and climb with me.
But in front of the barricade was a car. A dead gray four-door with government numbers stenciled on the driver’s door. Only the guys standin’ beside the car weren’t government. They were Little Lou and his goon driver.
Lou was leanin’ against the hood, lookin’ relaxed in a sharp suit and open-collar shirt. His hair was slicked back and when he saw Jade he smiled with all his teeth.
“Where you goin’, Sal?” he asked, real quiet, calm.
I had to think damned fast. “I thought we was in the tunnel for the Station! I must’ve got mixed up.”
“You sure did.”
Lou nodded to the goon, who opened the rear door of the car. I started for it, head hung low. He had outsmarted me.
“Not you, stupid,” Lou snarled at me. “You sit up front with Rollo.” He made a little half bow at Jade, smilin’ again. “You sit in back with me, spiff.”
Jade got into the car and scrunched herself into the corner of the backseat, as far away from Little Lou as she could. I sat up front, half twisted around in the seat so I could watch Lou. Rollo was so big his elbow kept nudgin’ me every time he turned the steering wheel.
“You was supposed to be at the Thirtieth-street station at nine o’clock,” Little Lou said to me. But his eyes were on Jade, who was starin’ off at nothing.
I looked at my wristwatch. “Hell, Lou, it’s only seven- thirty.”
“Yeah, but you were headin’ in the wrong direction. A guy could lose some of his fingers that way. Or get his legs broke.”
“I just got mixed-up down in the tunnels,” I said, tryin’ to make it sound real.
“You’re a mixed-up kid, Sally. Maybe a few whacks on your thick skull will straighten you out.”
There wasn’t much I could say. If Little Lou was waitin’ for me at the bridge he had me all figured out. I just hoped he really needed me enough to keep me in one piece so I could set up his bomb gizmo for him. What would happen after that, I didn’t know and I didn’t want to think about.
We drove through the dead, empty city for a dozen blocks or so. I had turned around in my seat and was lookin’ ahead out the windshield. Everything was dark. Not a light in any window, not a street lamp lit. I knew people lived in those buildings. They were supposed to be abandoned, condemned. But nobody bothered to tear them down; that would cost the taxpayers too much. And the people who didn’t exist, the people whose names had been erased from the government’s computers, they lived there and died there and had babies there. I was one of those babies. So was Jade.
“Are those tits real?” I heard Lou ask.
Through the side-view mirror I saw Jade turn her face to him. Without a smile, with her face perfectly blank, she took his hand and placed it on her boob.
“What do you think?” she asked Lou.
He grinned at her. She smiled baek at him. I wanted to kill him. 1 knew what Jade was doin’: tryin’ to keep Lou happy so he wouldn’t be sore at me. She was protectin’ me while I sat there helpless and the dirty [deleted] [deleted] bastard climbed all over her.
“Thirtieth-street station cornin’ up,’’ said Rollo. His voice was high and thin, almost like a girl’s. But I bet that anybody who laughed at his voice got his own windpipe whacked inside out.
Lou sat up straight on the backseat and ran a hand through his hair. Jade edged away from him, her face blank once again.
“Okay, Sally, you little [deleted]. Here’s where you earn your keep. Or I break your balls for good.”
Lou, Rollo, and me got out of the car. Lou ducked his head through the open rear door and told Jade, “You come too, cute stuff. We’ll finish what we started when this is over.”
Jade glanced at me as she came out of the car. Lou grabbed her by the wrist, like he owned her.
If Lou had been by himself I would have jumped him. He was bigger than me, yeah, and probably a lot tougher. But I was desperate. And I had the blade I always carried taped just above my right ankle. It was little, but I kept it razor sharp. Lou was gonna take Jade away from me. Oh, I guess he’d let her come back to me when he was finished with her, maybe. But who knew when? Or even if. I had only used that blade when I needed to protect myself. Would I have the guts to cut Lou if I could get him in a one-on-one?
But Lou wasn’t alone. Rollo was as big as that damned city hall windowsill. There was no way I could handle him unless I had a machine gun or a rocket launcher or something like that. I was desperate, all right. But not crazy.
The Station was all lit up. Cleaning crews and robots were crawlin’ all over the old building, but I didn’t see any oinks or soldiers. Later I found out that they would be pourin’ into the area in the morning. The Chairman was due to arrive at eleven A.M.
Lou took me and Jade to a panel truck marked PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT. Two other guys was already sittin’ up front. And there was my gizmo, sittin’ on the bare metal floor. All by itself. No bomb in sight. That made me feel better, a little.
They hustled us into the truck and made me sit on the floor, big Rollo between me and the back door and Lou across fr
om me. He made Jade sit beside him. She kept her legs pressed tight together. We drove off.
“Where we goin’?” I asked.
Lou said, “There’s a maintenance train cornin’ down the track in half an hour. You set up your gizmo where we tell you to and we see if it can spot the train at the right distance away and send the signal that it’s supposed to send.”
“What’re you guys gonna do, blow up the Chairman?”
I got a backhand smack in the face for that. So I shut my mouth and did what they told me, all the while tryin’ to figure out how in hell I could get Jade and me outta this. I didn’t come up with any answers, none at all.
When the truck stopped, Rollo got out first, then Lou shoved me through the back door. The other two guys stayed in their seats up front. Lou pushed the gizmo across the truck’s floor toward me. It was heavy enough so I needed both hands.
“Don’t drop it, [deleted]head,” Lou growled.
“Why don’t we let Rollo carry it?” I said.
Lou just laughed. Then he helped Jade out the back door. I thought he helped her too damned much, had his hands all over her.
We was parked maybe ten blocks away from the station. Its lights glowed in the misty drizzle that was still cornin’ down, the only lights in the whole [deleted] city, far as I could see. Some of the people livin’ in the buildings all around there had electricity, I knew. Hell, I had wired a lot of ’em up. But they kept their windows covered; didn’t wanna let nobody know they was in there. Scared of gangs roamin’ through the streets at night.
All those suits and oinks and everybody who had been at city hall was all safe in their homes in the tracts by now. Nobody in the city except the people who didn’t exist, like Jade and me. And the rats who had business in the dark, like Little Lou.
I saw why Lou didn’t want Rollo to carry the gizmo. The big guy walked straight up to a steel grate set into the pavement. It must have weighed a couple hundred pounds, at least, but he lifted it right up, rusty hinges squealin’ like mad. I saw the rungs of a metal ladder goin’ down. Lou shone a flashlight on them. They had been cleaned off.
