by Ben Bova
“Amy Barone-Stein,” the hall monitor said, “a person is looking for you.”
Amy glared up at the grayish robotic face, a parody of a human being’s. She did not care for robots, and this one, with its flat eyes and weirdly moving mouth, looked more idiotic than most. “What is it?” she asked.
“Someone outside wishes to speak to you,” the robot said, “and has asked me to bring you there. “
“Well, who is it?”
“She told me to give you her name if I were asked, or if you told me that you did not want to meet her. It is Shakira Lewes. “
Amy’s mouth dropped open. Debora Lister moved closer to her and nudged her in the ribs. Shakira Lewes had not run the strips in years, but Amy had heard of her. Kiyoshi Harris claimed she was the best female runner he had ever seen, and her last run, when she had led three gangs from Brooklyn to Yonkers and lost them all, was still legendary.
She was the best, Amy told herself; I’m the best now.
“Oh, Amy,” Debora said. “Are you going to talk to her?”
“Might as well.”
“You’ll miss the Chess Club meeting,” the blond girl said.
“Then I’ll miss it.”
“I’m coming with you,” Debora said. “I’ve got to see this.”
“Miss Lewes requested the presence of Amy Barone-Stein,” the robot said. “She did not say-”
“Oh, stuff it,” Amy said. The robot’s eyes widened a little in what might have been bewilderment. “She didn’t say I couldn’t bring a friend, did she?”
“No, she did not.”
“Then lead us to her.”
The robot turned, leading them past a line in front of a Personal, then through the throngs of students crowding the hall. Amy wondered how Shakira Lewes had made the robot do her bidding. Technically, the hall monitors weren’t supposed to fetch students from the school levels except for an emergency, but this robot was probably too stupid to tell that it was being deceived. The robot’s back was erect as it marched along on its stiff legs. Damned robots, she thought, taking jobs from people. The hall monitors had once been human beings.
By the time she and Debora reached the elevator banks, a small crowd of boys and girls was following them. They all clambered aboard after the robot and dropped toward the street level. When they emerged from the school, Amy saw more boys clustered around a tall, dark-skinned woman with short black hair.
“Ooh,” Debora whispered. “Maybe she wants to challenge you.” Amy shook her head and motioned at the robot’s back. A robot could not harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; to this creature’s simple positronic brain, possible harm would certainly include strip-racing.
“Amy Barone-Stein,” the robot said in its toneless voice. “This is Shakira Lewes. “
The boys stepped back as Amy approached. The woman was slender enough for a runner, if a bit too tall; most runners, like Amy, were short and slight, able to squeeze into even the smallest gaps between passengers during a run. Shakira Lewes had a perfect, fine-boned face; she looked a lot like an actress in a historical drama about Africa Amy had recently viewed. She wore a red shirt and black pants that made her long legs seem even longer. The boys were staring intently at her. None of them had ever looked at Amy that way, not even after hearing about her run against Bradley Ohaer’s gang.
“You may leave us,” Shakira said to the robot. The hall monitor turned and went back inside. The woman sounded as arrogant as a Spacer; Amy looked up at her, filled with admiration and hatred. “I’ve heard about you,” Shakira continued. “I’d like to talk to you.”
Amy stuck out her chin. “What about?”
“Alone, if we could. “ Alone meant walking among the crowds, standing on a strip or localway to talk, or, if one was lucky, finding an unoccupied chair or bench somewhere.
Amy said, “If you’ve got something to tell me, say it here.”
“She’s going to challenge,” someone said behind Amy; she looked around. Luis Horton was with the group; he’d been mad at her ever since she beat him on a long run up to the Yonkers Sector. “She’s going to challenge,” Luis repeated. “Maybe Amy can’t take her.”
Amy said, “I can take any runner in New York.”
Shakira frowned. “I said I wanted to talk. I didn’t say anything about running. “
“Afraid?” another boy asked.
Shakira’s face grew grimmer. Amy saw where this was leading; the others expected a challenge. Normally, she would have demanded one herself, but something felt wrong. It didn’t make sense for this woman, who surely had better things to do, to come looking for a run against Amy, whatever her fame. Shakira had to be out of practice, and would risk much graver consequences as an adult offender if she were caught by the police. Yet what else could she want Amy for? Perhaps something illegal-some illicit enterprise where a boy or girl who could easily shake off a police pursuit might be useful.
Amy shrugged. “Come on, guys. Anybody can see she’s too old to run the strips now.”
“I’m old, all right,” Shakira said. “I’m nearly twenty-one.”
“Lewes isn’t scared,” Luis muttered then. “Amy is.”
Amy’s cheeks burned. They were all watching her now; she even imagined that the crowds passing by were looking at her, witnesses to her shame. “I’m not afraid of anything,” she said. “Make your run, Shakira Lewes-you won’t lose me. From here to the Sheepshead Bay localway intersection-unless you’re too old to make that long a run.”
Shakira was silent.
“Now! Or are you just too old and tired to try?”
The woman’s large dark eyes glittered. “You’re on. I’ll do it.”
A boy hooted. Even Debora, who would never run the strips herself, was flushed with anticipation. Amy was suddenly furious with them all. She wasn’t ready for this run; she realized now that she had been hoping Shakira would back down. If the woman actually beat her, she would never live it down, while if Amy won, the others would simply assume Shakira was past her prime. She had risked too much on this challenge, and still didn’t know what Shakira wanted with her.
“Let’s go,” Amy said.
“Just a minute. “ The woman raised an arm. “This is one on one, between you and me-and I still want to talk to you later.”
“Talk to me after I beat you,” Amy said without much conviction, then followed Shakira toward the nearest strip.
Shakira strode along the gray bands, moving to the faster strips at a speed only a little more rapid than usual. Amy kept close. Most of the boys and girls had already headed for the expressway; they would greet the victor at the Sheepshead Bay destination. Luis and two of his friends were following to study a little of Shakira’s skill before joining the others. There were still some gaps between passengers, but the strips were already getting more crowded.
Shakira showed her moves, increasing the pace. She did a side shuffle, striding steadily, then moving to an adjacent strip without breaking her pace; Amy followed. She did a Popovich, named after the runner who had perfected it, leaping from side to side between two strips before bounding from the second one to a third. She even managed to pull off a dervish. Turning to face Amy, she leaped into the air and made a complete turn before landing gracefully on a slower strip; a dervish was dangerous even on slow strips.
She was good, but Amy knew the moves. Show-off, she thought; the woman was only trying to intimidate her. Flashy moves were more likely to draw attention, as well as wearing out a runner too soon. She followed Shakira onto a localway, then swung off after her, leaving the boys behind. She had caught Shakira’s rhythm, but remained wary and alert; some runners could lull a follower into their pace before doing the unexpected.
They danced across the strips toward an expressway. The crowds were thick on the strip next to the expressway platform. Shakira reached for a pole and swung herself up; Amy grabbed the next pole. The woman’s long legs swung around, never touchi
ng the floor and barely missing a passenger, and then she was back on the strip, her back to the wind as she grinned up at Amy.
Amy gripped her pole, about to follow when a few people suddenly stepped to the strip just below her. She caught a glimpse of startled faces as her legs swung toward them; there was just enough space for a landing. A woman swayed on the strip; a man grabbed her by the arm. Amy knew in an instant that she could not risk a leap. Shakira turned, ran past more commuters, stepped to her left, and was gone.
Amy hung on to the pole; the wind tore at her legs. She hauled herself aboard, numbed by the abruptness of her defeat. She had lost before they even reached lower Manhattan; tears stung her eyes.
Someone shoved her; passengers surrounded her. “Damn runners!” a man shouted. Other riders crowded around her; a fist knocked her to the floor. “Get the police!” a woman cried. Fingers grabbed Amy by the hair; a foot kicked her in the knee. She covered her head with her arms, no longer caring what happened to her; she had lost.
A plainclothesman, a C-6 with seat privileges on the expressway’s upper level, got Amy away from the crowd before she was beaten too badly and took her to City Hall. Police headquarters were in the higher levels of the structure; Amy supposed that she would be turned over to an officer and booked. Instead, the detective led her through a large common room filled with people and desks to a corner desk with a railing around it.
She sat at the desk, feeling miserable and alone, as the plainclothesman took her name, entered it in the desk computer, called up more information, then placed a call to her father on the communo. “You’re in luck,” the man said when he had finished his call. “Your father hasn’t left work yet, so he’ll just come over here from his level and take you home. “
She peered up at him. “You mean you aren’t going to keep me here?”
The detective glowered at her. He was a big man, with a bald head, thick mustache, and brown skin nearly as dark as Shakira’s. “Don’t think I haven’t considered detaining you. I shouldn’t even be wasting my time with you-I have a very low tolerance for reckless kids who don’t care about anyone else’s safety. You could have started a riot on that expressway-maybe I should have left you to the tender mercies of that mob. Do you know what can happen to you now, girl?”
“No,” she mumbled, although she could guess.
“For starters, a hearing in juvenile court. You could get a few months in Youth Offenders’ Level, or you might get lucky and be sentenced to help out in a hospital a few days a week. You’d get lots of chances to see accident victims there.” He pulled at his mustache. “That might do you some good. Maybe you ‘II be there when they bring in some dead strip-runner who wasn’t quick enough. You can watch his parents cry when the hospital makes the Ritual of Request before they take any usable organs from the corpse. And you ‘II have deep trouble if you ever misbehave again.”
Amy squeezed her eyes shut. “Stay here,” the man said, even though she hardly had a choice, with the common room so filled with police. She sat there alone, wallowing in her despair until the detective returned with a cup of tea; he did not offer anything to her.
He sat down behind the desk. “Will you give me the names of any runners with you?”
She shook her head violently. Much as she hated Shakira, she would not sink that low.
“I didn’t think you would. You’re not doing them any favor, you know. If they meet with accidents or end up hurting somebody else, I hope you can live with yourself.”
The detective worked at his desk computer in silence until Amy’s father arrived. She glanced at his pale, grim face and looked away quickly. The formality of an introduction took only a moment before the plainclothesman began to lecture Ricardo Stein on his daughter’s offense, peppering his tirade with statistics on accidents caused by strip-runners and the number of deaths the game had resulted in this year. “If I hadn’t been on that expressway,” the man concluded, “the girl might have been badly roughed up-not that she didn’t deserve it. “
Her father said, “I understand, Mr. Dubois.”
“She needs to learn a lesson. “
“I agree.” Ricardo shook back his thick brown hair. “I’ll go along with any sentence she gets. Her mother and I won’t go out of our way to defend her, and we probably share some of the blame for not bringing her up better and supervising her more. You can be certain there’ll be no repetition of such behavior. “
“I imagine you’ll see to that, Mr. Stein-a solid citizen like you.” Mr. Dubois leaned back in his chair. “So I’ll do you and your wife a favor, and let Amy here off with a warning. She’s only fourteen, and this is her first offense-the first time she’s been caught, anyway-and Youth Offenders’ Level is crowded enough as it is. But she’s in our records now, and if she’s picked up again for anything, she goes into detention until her hearing, at which point she’ll likely get a stiff sentence.”
“I’m grateful to you,” Amy’s father said.
“Listen to me, girl.” Mr. Dubois rested his arms on the desk. “Don’t think you can lie low for a bit and then start strip-running again. We know who you are now, and you’ll be easy to spot. Not many girls run the strips.” He glanced at her father. “I think I can count on you to keep her in line. Wouldn’t do your status any good to have a criminal in the family.”
“You can count on me, Mr. Dubois.”
Amy’s father did not speak to her all the way home. That was a bad sign; he was never that silent unless he was enraged. He left her outside the Women’s Personal and went on to the apartment.
She dawdled as long as she dared inside the Personal, then dragged herself down the hall, filled with dread, wondering what her parents would do to her. They would have discussed the whole affair by now, and her mother had probably mentioned the guidance counselor’s earlier message.
They were both sitting on the couch when she entered; there was no use appealing to her mother for some mercy. The two rarely disagreed or argued in front of her, and in a matter this important, they would present a united front.
She inched her way to a chair and sat down. She would not be beaten; her parents did not believe in physical punishment. A beating, even with all the bruises the expressway riders had already left on her, might have been better than having to endure her father’s harsh accusations and talk about how humiliating her offense was for all of them. She hadn’t thought of them at all, of how upset they would have been if she were injured. She hadn’t thought about how her pathological display of individualism might damage Ricardo’s reputation at work, or her mother’s among their neighbors. She hadn’t considered how such a blot on her record might affect her own chances later, or reflected on the danger she had posed to commuters. She hadn’t thought of the bad example she was setting for younger children, and had completely ignored her father’s earlier warning about such activity.
By the time her father had finished his lecture, repeating most of his points several times, it was too late to go to the section kitchen. Her mother sighed as she folded their small table out of the wall and plugged in the plate warmer; her father grumbled about missing the chicken the section kitchen was to serve that night. They had been saving their fourth meal at home this week for Saturday, when Ricardo’s parents were to visit with a few of their own rations; Amy had ruined those plans, too.
Amy pulled the ottoman over to the table and sat down as her mother sprinkled a few spices she had saved over the food. Her father took a call over the communo, barked a few words at its screen, then hung up. “That was Debora Lister. “ He moved the two chairs to the table, then seated himself. “I told her you couldn’t talk.”
Amy poked at her zymobeef and broccolettes listlessly. Just as well, she thought. Debora would only be calling to tell her what had happened when Shakira showed up, alone and triumphant, at Sheepshead Bay.
“You won’t be taking any calls from your friends for a while,” her father continued. “I’ll notify the principal at schoo
l that you’re not to leave school levels except to go directly home, and a monitor will note when you leave, so don’t think you can wander around during the return trip. When you’re not in school, you’ll stay here except for going to meals with us or to the Personal. And in your free time, when you’re not studying, you’ll prepare a report for me on the dangers of strip-running. You shouldn’t find the data hard to come by, and you’ll present it to me in a week. “ Ricardo took a breath. “ And if I even hear that you’ve been running the strips again, I’ll turn you in to the police myself and demand a hearing for you. “
“Eat your food, Amy,” her mother said; it was the first time she had spoken.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’d better-it’s all we have left of home rations for this week. “
She forced herself to eat. Her father finished his food and propped his elbows on the table. “There’s something I still don’t understand,” he said wearily. “Why, Amy? Why would you do such a thing? I thought you had more sense. Why would you risk it?”
She could bear no more. “I’m the best.” She stood up and kicked back the ottoman. “I’m the best strip-runner in the City! That’s all I’ll ever do, it’s all anybody will remember about me! I was the best, and now they’ve taken it away!”
Her father’s gray eyes widened. “You’re not sounding very repentant, young lady.”
“I’m sorry I lost! I’m sorry I was caught! I’m sorry you had to come and get me, but I’m not sorry about anything else!”
“Go to your room!” he shouted. “If I hear any more talk like that, I will raise a hand to you!”
Alysha reached across the table and grabbed his upraised arm as Amy fled to her room.
Her life was over. Amy could not view matters any other way. The story had made the rounds quickly. She had lost to Shakira Lewes and been picked up by the police; Luis Horton was doing his best to spread the news. A hall monitor noted the times she left the school levels and reminded her, right in front of other students, that she was expected to go straight home; a few boys and girls always snickered.
