Paradigm

by Helen Stringer

  “What?”

  “And you ain’t supposed to be it.” He looked up at Sam and shook his head. “Sorry, son.”

  Sam watched as the old man slipped away into his drunken slumber again.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’d better go.”

  He strode out of the room and back outside with Nathan scurrying to catch up.

  “Sam…Sam…What was all that about?”

  “He said…I thought maybe he knew something about my headaches, but he didn’t.”

  “Then what was all that about locules?”

  Sam walked over to the car and took out his keys.

  “Beats me, but I…” His voice trailed away.

  “What?”

  Sam nodded toward the car window. There was a reflection. A reflection that shouldn’t be there.

  They turned around slowly. Half a dozen policemen were standing right behind them, guns drawn. And they looked mad.

  “Open the trunk.”

  Chapter 9

  OVERALL, SAM HAD TO ADMIT that things really didn’t go too badly. Sure, the cops roughed them up a bit, and once they found out who was driving, the biggest one came over and whacked him in the head with the butt of his shotgun, which rang his bell and sent him crashing to the ground. Then the smallest one grunted and gave him a few kicks in the ribs that weren’t going to heal any too quickly. But they didn’t treat Nathan too mean, and eventually just threw the two of them into the back of the nearest cop car and headed back to Century City. All of which was practically rolling out the red carpet compared to the way they would’ve been treated in some cities.

  Of course, the cops had found the box, too, which wasn’t great. And now they were in a cell in the basement of some big building back inside the city, which was also less than stellar. The least great thing, though, was the fact that the police had left the GTO perched on the hillside.

  “I don’t see why they left the car,” muttered Sam. “It was faster than any of their rust buckets. You’d have thought—”

  “Will you stop going on about the fucking car?” said Nathan, glowering at him from the other side of the cell. “There are worse things than losing the car.”

  Sam glared back.

  “Yeah, but not many.”

  He got up and went to the front of the cell. It was all bars, with a barred door set in the middle—a design that didn’t so much say “jail” as “hamster cage.” He rattled the door and the whole wall shook. So…an afterthought, then. There had probably been a more substantial jail somewhere else but Sam was willing to bet that the mayor of Century City had lost control of it at some point. The people in the Entropy Inn hadn’t seemed too impressed by him but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be dangerous when riled. If Sam’s experience in hundreds of tiny towns all over the Wilds had taught him anything it was that people who hung around in bars seldom admired the ones who made the rules.

  He glanced back at Nathan but he was still in the same deep funk he’d entered when they’d been thrown into the police cars, which was totally unreasonable. After all, he wasn’t the one who’d been roughed up.

  Sam rattled the barred wall again.

  “Y’know, I think we could get out of here.”

  Nathan fired him another grim glare.

  “What is your deal?” said Sam. “It’s not my fault we’re here. Driving up into the hills was your idea.”

  “Yeah, well, if you’d got the light bulbs like you were supposed to and not got distracted by that stupid box no one would’ve been chasing us in the first place.”

  “I wasn’t distracted by it. The guy died in my arms!”

  “That didn’t mean you had to take it.”

  “It did. You don’t understand…I grew up on stories about it. About how important it was that it stay hidden.”

  “Why? What’s so special about a stupid box?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay. Right. So you’re endangering both our lives and my entire inventory over some fairy tale that you heard when you were a kid. And you wonder why I’m mad?”

  “It wasn’t a—”

  “Keep walking!”

  Sam stepped back from the bars just as a familiar figure rounded the corner followed by the short cop. He had a split lip and a gleaming bruise on his cheekbone, though he seemed to have come out best if the officer’s black eye, ripped uniform and missing silver button were anything to go by.

  “Vincent!”

  The Rover stopped and smiled briefly at Sam before receiving a sharp shove towards the door of the next cell.

  “Oh, don’t we get to share?” he smirked.

  The policeman grunted, pushed him inside and slammed the door.

  “Friendly town, isn’t it?” said Sam.

  “We don’t allow no stinkin’ Rovers inside city limits,” growled the cop, stomping away.

  Sam watched as Vincent settled down on the narrow bunk and leaned back, his hands behind his head. He had the look of someone to whom this kind of thing happens all the time.

  “You don’t seem worried.”

  “Nah. The penalty for trespass is flogging and being tossed out. No big.”

  “Flogging?!”

  “Yeah. The mayor’s big on law and order.”

  Sam stared at him.

  “Law and order?”

  “If you can call it that. Seems to involve flogging and hanging mostly. And always strangers, never citizens. But I guess that’s always been the way of things.”

  “So…um…what’s the penalty for a chase?”

  “A chase? You mean running from the cops?”

  “Yeah. In a…”

  “In your car? You took it on the lam in the GTO?”

  Sam nodded.

  “How did they catch you? Their wheels are a joke.”

  “We thought we’d lost them.”

  Vincent laughed, then suddenly spat out a tooth, which skittered across the floor of the cell before coming to a spinning standstill near the door.

  “Are you okay?” asked Sam.

  “Yeah,” said Vincent, wiping his mouth. “My time’s running out is all.”

  Sam noticed that although Vincent seemed happy enough to answer his questions, he wasn’t actually looking at him at all—he was looking at Nathan, who seemed to be trying to disappear into the far corner of their cell, his face pale and his eyes dark.

  “Your time?”

  “He knows. Don’t you, Maxie?”

  “Maxie?”

  “Yeah, your friend there. He knows all about the Time.”

  Sam looked at Nathan who just shook his head slowly.

  “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” he said, his voice quiet, barely a whisper.

  Vincent smiled his gap-toothed smile.

  “Have it your way,” he said. “But the Time takes us all. ‘Cepting you, Max. For now.”

  “You mean you’re dying?” asked Sam. “Nathan told me about the Rovers and the lake, but you can’t be more than…”

  “Seventeen. I’m seventeen.”

  “But…that doesn’t—”

  He didn’t get any further. The sound of heavy boots echoed down the corridor and the tall police officer was back, his keys in his hand and his face like thunder.

  “You!” he barked. “Front and center. Now!”

  Sam sighed and walked to the front of the cell, adopting his best surly I-don’t-care expression. The policeman unlocked the door and took out a set of rusting handcuffs.

  “Turn around.”

  Sam turned and the cop cuffed his hands behind his back before hauling him out of the cell, slamming the door and giving him a shove.

  “This way!”

  “Hey, Sam…”

  Sam glanced back.

  “What?”

  “The penalty for running,” said Vincent, enjoying the moment. “It’s hanging.”

  Sam’s stomach lurched, but before he could really absorb the information, he received another sharp shove in
the back and stumbled along the corridor and out to a narrow staircase that led to a dull green corridor and four more flights of stairs. The cop opened a battered door and pushed Sam into what had clearly once been a very impressive house.

  It was in that neo-classical style favored by governments the world over, but its glory days had long faded into memory. Now the paint hung in strips from the corniced ceiling, while dark patches betrayed damp and encroaching fungus on the pastel-painted walls. Multiple panes in the long, elegant windows had been replaced by wood and cardboard and the dark red carpet was worn and threadbare.

  “Uh…Where are we going?” asked Sam.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer, but if it was to a hangman’s noose he wanted some time to prepare. He’d never thought of himself as particularly brave or fearless, but if this really was the end he sure wasn’t going to let anyone see him snivel. He’d read a book once, a history book, about a king in the olden days who’d worn three shirts to his execution so that he wouldn’t shiver in the cold. The king hadn’t wanted any of the people in the crowd to think he was shaking because he was afraid. Sam recalled that the king’s life had little to recommend it, except for the manner of its end. He really hoped that he could show half as much strength.

  The policeman responded by giving him another shove. This time his hand landed on one of Sam’s bruised ribs and he flinched, then glanced back, irritation taking over from trepidation. He glared at the policeman, but decided against making some smart remark and just walked on in silence. After some minutes of trudging, they arrived in front of a set of really impressive wooden doors that looked like they might actually be real mahogany. A thin, elderly woman sat at a small desk to the right and two policemen stood at attention on either side of the door. Sam breathed an inward sigh of relief—places of execution didn’t usually have receptionists. At least, he was pretty sure they didn’t.

  “Chief Danvers to see the mayor with the prisoner!” barked the cop.

  Sam turned and realized that his escort had a lot more of the useless braid on his uniform than the other officers and also sported a couple of ragged looking epaulettes that were probably meant to add to the aura of authority but only served to make him look like a kind of animated sofa.

  “You needn’t shout, Frank, I’m not deaf,” said the woman, standing up. “This way.”

  She led the way to the doors, knocked sharply and then flung both wide.

  “Chief Danvers,” she said, stepping aside so that Danvers could shove Sam through the door. “Honestly, Frank, let the boy walk!”

  Danvers glared at her as she closed the doors and then stood to attention.

  “The prisoner you requested, Your Honor.”

  The room was large and opulently furnished with an eye more to expense than taste, and unlike the rest of the house everything looked new—from the dense, deep pile of the royal blue and gold carpet and the heavily brocaded curtains that hung in complex swathes from the windows, to the massive hardwood desk behind which was an equally impressive red wing-back chair.

  “Take the cuffs off, Danvers. Then you can go.”

  The voice was silky in that slightly threatening way that politicians like to adopt, but Sam couldn’t see the speaker at all.

  “But—”

  “Now, Danvers.”

  The chief of police unlocked Sam’s cuffs and stalked out, slamming the door behind him. Sam squinted towards the windows and the location of the voice and realized that what he had taken to be an extra flourish near one of the curtains was, in fact, the Mayor of Century City.

  The Mayor turned around slowly, his relatively slender rear view giving way to a much more impressive profile, consisting of beak-like face and enormous paunch. By the time he was facing Sam he looked more like a human light bulb—his smallish, impressively nosed head giving way to steadily increasing girth atop two spindly legs that didn’t seem anything like strong enough to support the whole massive superstructure. The effect was accentuated by the fact that he was wearing a wide tie with a capacious old-fashioned jacket and a pair of narrow pants.

  Sam was prepared to accept that the outfit was probably really cutting edge and very expensive, but it still made him want to burst out laughing…which he guessed would most likely not improve his situation.

  “Well, now!” beamed the Mayor. “Here we are!”

  He made is way to his desk with a sort of rolling gait and settled into the huge red chair.

  “Please. Take a seat.”

  There were two overstuffed club chairs in front of the desk. Sam selected one and sat down, sinking into its depths so far that he was left gazing up at the man in the red chair like a naughty schoolchild.

  “That’s better! Now…am I correct in thinking that you are one of the young men who tried to outrun my officers today?”

  “You know I am.”

  “Hm. And why were you running?”

  “They were chasing us. I thought internal combustion engines were forbidden in Century City.”

  “Ah, yes. In being the operative word. We keep our vehicles just outside. Can’t break the law, you see, but not stupid either. Which brings me back to my question. Why were you running?”

  Sam shrugged. He had no idea where this was going, but he’d seen enough in the Wilds to recognize a dangerous man when he saw one—ridiculous get-up or not.

  “You were found with this.” The mayor reached down and placed the Paradigm Device on his desk. “It does not belong to you.”

  “It doesn’t belong to you either.”

  “It does now. Tell me…what were you going to do with it?”

  “It was stolen. I was going to return it to the rightful owner.”

  “I’m sure you were,” smirked the mayor in a tone that made it clear he believed no such thing. “Look, son, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but here in Century City we’re great believers in public safety. We have cameras covering every inch of every street and alley. Every inch. You understand?”

  “Then you know I didn’t steal it.”

  “No, but I think you know what it is.”

  Sam shrugged.

  “No idea.”

  “Really,” said the mayor. “Let me show you something.”

  He pushed a button on his desk and one whole wall slid away, revealing a huge Muthascreen, surrounded by dozens of smaller ones. Sam jumped to his feet.

  “It’s okay, I don’t want—”

  But it was too late. The mayor hit another button and all the screens leapt to life. Sam staggered as they lit up, the pain surging through his brain like a fast-moving train. He caught the edge of the desk and steadied himself.

  “Are you alright?”

  “I’m…I have a migraine. I’ll be fine.”

  “In that case I’d be obliged if you’d get your hands off the rosewood.”

  Sam stepped away, slipping one hand into his pocket and prizing open the pill box. He looked up at the screens. He’d never seen anything like it.

  There were images of every plaza, street and alley of the city. People could be seen coming and going from jobs, stores, restaurants and bars. On a small screen on the left, Sam could make out a man being mugged, while on the one next to it a group of workers were digging a hole in a road. On another he recognized the exterior of the Entropy Inn, and on yet another the rear exit of the Hollywood Hotel. The large screen in the middle showed the forbidding entrance of the Deth, Inc. offices, while on a screen no bigger than the palm of his hand, a woman was looking out of a window and weeping silently. It was the life of the city.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Sam turned and managed a smile, while taking the opportunity of the movement to slip one of the green pills into his mouth. “Did you do it?”

  “Nooo. Well, not the cameras. But this is mine. This wall. All my idea. Knowledge is power, you see. First rule of politics.”

  “And you keep it hidden because…?”

  “It’
s not really in keeping with the style of the room.”

  “Oh, I see.” Sam grinned. “You’re not supposed to do this, are you? Spy on people.”

  “Not according to the strict letter of the law, no. The cameras are to be accessed only in the event of a crime. Both a preventive and an investigative tool, if you will. The idea was to make people aware that what they were doing was being recorded while maintaining some sense of freedom by mandating that it wasn’t to be reviewed except as part of a criminal inquiry.”

  “And you ignored that.”

  “The only surprising thing, as far as I’m concerned, is that none of my predecessors did. This is my fifth term. I know who is doing what to whom and when. Like I said…knowledge is power.”

  “You blackmail your opponents?”

  “Of course not. I merely point out that they might find the kind of scrutiny that comes with public office a little…uncomfortable.”

  “Has anyone ever published anything on you?”

  “Published?”

  “Reported. You know, reporters. The press.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “It’s what they do. Investigate candidates so that voters can know who to elect.”

  “Voters? Ah, I see what you’re getting at. No, no, we outgrew that archaic form of democracy years ago. Only the top families get to vote, and then only the head of household. Amounts to about twenty people.”

  “Ordinary people don’t get to vote on who runs the city?”

  “Why should they? They don’t own property and most of them are poorly educated. They make incorrect decisions based on emotion. It was decided that it would be better all round if voting was limited to those best qualified.”

  “Who decided that?”

  “We did. Now, let’s see… last night at around nineteen hundred hours. Ah! Here we go!”

  The central screen went black for a moment, then sprang back to life revealing a now familiar low-slung grey building, the blank walls lit by widely-spaced gas lights and punctuated by a single door.

  “This is the back of Deth, Inc.” explained the mayor. “Here he comes.”

  The doorway opened a crack. It was dark inside, but Sam was able to make out the figure of the old monk as he emerged carrying the Paradigm Device. He stepped outside and closed the door, but as soon as he did so, all the alarms in the world seemed to suddenly explode into the silent evening air. The monk ran.