A Song Called Youth (69 page)

He turned to Kojo, to tell him to “escort” them to the door . . . and saw Baxter stretching his right arm toward Kojo; in Baxter’s hand was a small gray box like a garage door opener. And Kojo had frozen, was staring into space in a kind of fugue state.

Spector thought,
Assassins.

Kojo stood and turned toward Spector. Spector looked desperately around for a weapon.

Kojo came at him—

—and ran past him, at the woman. A wrist flick and he was holding a knife. She looked at him calmly, resignedly, and then she screamed as—his movements a blur—he closed with her, drove the slim silver blade through her left eye. And into her brain.

All the time Baxter continued filming, showing no surprise, no physical reaction. Spector gagged, seeing the spurt of blood from her eye socket as she crumpled. And Kojo stabbing her methodically, again and again.

Spector stumbled back, fell onto the sofa.

“Kill Spector after me, Kojo!” Baxter yelled. Baxter turned a knob on the little gray remote-control box, dropped it—and the box melted into a lump of plastic slag. Spector stared, confused.

Baxter stepped into the cameras’ viewing area, closed his eyes, was waiting, shaking, muttering a prayer that might have been Islamic—then Kojo rushed him, the small Japanese leaping at the big black man like a cat attacking a Doberman guard dog. Baxter just stood there and let Kojo slash out his throat with one impossibly swift and inhumanly precise movement.

Kill Spector after me, Kojo.

But Spector was moving, ran to the cabinet, flung it open, snatched up his .44, turned, and, borne on a wave of panic, shot Kojo in the back.

Kojo would have turned on Spector next, surely.

But in the pulsing silence that followed the gunshot, as Spector looked down at the three bodies, as he stared at the big, red oozing hole his bullet had torn in Kojo’s back . . . seeing Kojo’s own PressFlesh had come off, exposing the puckered white scar on the back of his head, a scar from recent brain surgery . . . 

Looking at that, Spector thought,
I’ve been set up.

And the Security guards were pounding on the door.

“Today on
What It’s Like
we’re talking to Bill Mitchell, from Vendorville, Pennsylvania, the first man to participate in an actual
legal duel
with an AntiViolence Laws convict. Bill, you wanted to execute the man ‘in a fair fight,’ is that right?”

“That’s right, Frank, I’m a former US Marine, and I just didn’t want to shoot the man down in cold blood, I wanted to give him a gun, and of course I’d have a gun, and we’d, you know,
go at it.”

“Sort of an old-fashioned Wild West gunfight, eh? You’re a brave man! I understand you had to sign a special waiver . . . ”

“Oh, sure, I signed a waiver saying if I got hurt, the government couldn’t be held responsible.”

“Bill, we’re running out of time. Can you just tell us quickly what it was like for you, Bill Mitchell, to kill a man.”

“Uh, sure, Frank, killing a man with a gun has its
mechanical
aspect, like, you got to punch a hole through the guy, and that causes damage to internal organs, so they’re no longer workin’, and of course loss of life-givin’ blood. Now, what
it feels
like to do that . . . oh, boy. Well, you almost feel like the bullet is, you know, a part of you, like you can feel what it would feel, and like, you imagine the bullet nosing through the skin, pushing through muscles and smashin’ through organs, bustin’ bone, flyin’ out the other side of ’im with all that red liquid . . . just blowing the bastard away. And it feels good knowing that he’s a criminal, a killer, that
he deserved it.
And you feel a kinda funny
relief
like . . . ”

“Bill, that’s all we’ve got time for now. Thanks for letting us know . . .
What It’s Like!”

The Chicago City Jail.

The cell they’d moved Spector to that morning was significantly smaller than the first one. And dirtier. And there was someone else in it, wearing a bloodstained prison shirt. The guy was asleep, his back turned, on the top bunk. The cell had two metal shelves that passed for bunks, extending from the smudged, white concrete wall, and a lidless, seatless toilet. They wouldn’t tell him why he’d been moved, and now, looking around at his cell, Spector was beginning to suspect the reason, and with the suspicion came the stink of fear.

Don’t panic,
he told himself. You’re a United States senator. You’ve got friends, influence, and the strings sometimes take a while to let you know they’ve been pulled. The defense contractors and the Pentagon need you for that military appropriation bill. They’ll see you through this.

But the cell seemed to mock all reassurance. He looked around at the cracked walls; the water stain on the white concrete near the ceiling looking like a sweat stain on a T-shirt; the bars in place of a fourth wall, dun paint flaking off them. The graffiti burned into the ceiling with cigarette coals:
Julio-Z 2019!!
and
Whoever UR, yer ass is Fucked!!
and
At lease you a
TV
star!! Once??

Spector’s stomach growled. Breakfast that morning had been a single egg on a piece of stale white bread. They were going out of their way to show they didn’t treat him any differently than anyone else. The media scrutiny had seen to that.

His legs were going to sleep from sitting on the edge of the hard bunk. He got up, paced the width of the cell, five paces the long way, four the short.

He heard a metallic rasp and a clang: echoey footsteps in the stark spaces of the hallway. Trembling, he went to the bars. A middle-aged, seam-faced man wearing a real three-piece suit, carrying a gunmetal briefcase, was walking up behind the guard. He walked as if he were bone-tired. Some lawyer from Heimlitz’s firm, Spector supposed.

The bored, portly black guard said, “Got to look in your briefcase there, buddy.” The stranger opened his briefcase, and the guard poked through it. “No machine guns or cannon in there,” he said. A humorless joke. He unlocked the door, let the stranger in the cell. Locked it behind him and went away.

Spector looked at the sleeping figure on the top bunk. Still snoring, out cold. No need to ask for a private room for the conference with his lawyer.

“Senator Spector,” the man said, extending his hand. “I’m Gary Bergen.” Bergen’s hand was cold and moist in Spector’s.

“You from Heimlitz’s office? It’s about time.”

“I’m not from Heimlitz,” Bergen said. “I’m a public defender.” Spector stared at him. Bergen looked back with dull gray eyes. “Heimlitz is no longer representing you. They formally withdrew from the case.”

Spector’s mouth was dry. He sank onto the bunk. “Why?”

“Because your case is—well, the word ‘hopeless’ was used. And your wife is in the process of seizing your assets, garnishing your bank account. She refuses to pay an attorney.”

Spector suspected that Bergen was taking some kind of quiet satisfaction in all this. He sensed that Bergen didn’t like him.

Spector just sat there. Feeling like he was sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and if he moved, even an inch, he’d slip and go over the edge and fall, and fall . . . 

He conjured some motivation up from somewhere inside him and said, “Senator Burridge’s committee will provide the money to . . . ”

“The Committee to Defend Senator Henry Spector? It’s been disbanded. Public opinion was overwhelmingly against them—and they had to think of their careers. Frankly, Senator, the public is howling for your blood. For the very reason that you are who you are. The public doesn’t want to see any favorites played. And they’re sure you’re guilty.”

“But how can anybody be sure of that? I haven’t gone to trial, there’s only been a hearing—and by now they should have streamed the video. That should’ve vindicated me. I’ve been waiting to be invited to a court screening . . . ”

“Oh, they’ve streamed it . . . Someone leaked it digitally to the Internet. Went from there to Grid-TV news. Everyone’s seen it—apparently everyone but you. They saw you holding that gray box, pointing it at your bodyguard, making him attack those people. A close-up on your face as you shouted, ‘Kill them!’ The autopsy on Kojo turned up the brain implant that made him respond to the prompter against his will . . . and we saw you pulling that gun, shooting your bodyguard in the back—to make it look as if he’d gone mad and you’d killed him to protect yourself.” Bergen was enjoying this. “Too bad you didn’t have time to get rid of the video.”

Spector was unable to speak. Finally he managed, “It’s insane. Moronic. Why would I go to that much trouble to kill Sonia Lerman, a woman I didn’t know . . . ”

“Your wife says you were obsessed with her. That you watched Sonia’s editorials and they incensed you. You babbled that Sonia deserved to die—and so forth.” He shrugged.

“The bitch is lying! That’s perjury! I never saw the Lerman woman, on TV or off, before that interview! My ‘wife’ . . . ” He snorted. “God, I had no idea she hated me so much. Wendy’s lying so she’ll get everything. The video. The video—it can’t have shown me saying ‘Kill them.’ I didn’t say it!”

Bergen nodded slowly. “It may surprise you to know that, actually . . . I believe you. But the video contradicts you. Of course, they were at the UNO station for twenty-four hours before the police picked them up. The whole thing was transmitted from your place through your comm system to the UNO station and recorded there.”

“They tampered with them!”

“Possibly. But try to get the judge to believe that . . . ” And he smiled maliciously. “You’ll have two minutes for that at the trial.”

“The brain implant—whoever set me up had to have arranged that! We could trace Kojo’s recent past, find out who his surgeon was when he . . . ”

“Before your defense committee disbanded, they tried that tack. Kojo had cerebral surgery just after you picked him out from the bodyguard portfolio at Witcher Security. He was to have an implant inserted to improve his speed and reflexes. The technicki who provides implants for the surgeons was contacted by someone by fone. The man he saw on the screen offered to transfer fifty-thousand newbux into the technickis’ account if he’d consent to some unauthorized ‘adjustments’ to the implant. He consented, and the implant’s ‘adjustment’ turned out to’ve been one of the army’s attack-and-kill mind-control instruments. Remote-control. Experimental. But apparently it works.”

The guard came back, waited impatiently. Desperately, Spector said, “The man on the screen must’ve been . . . ”

“It was you, Senator . . . the technicki recorded the transmission . . . it’s pretty damning evidence. But I’ll tell you what . . . ” His voice creaked with mockery. “I’ll see if I can get you off with a ‘mercy execution.’ You know, death by injection, sedative overdose. I think you’ll prefer it to being clubbed to death on television. Well, good afternoon, Senator.”

The guard opened the door, let Bergen out, locked up behind him, and Spector was alone.

Except for the guy climbing off the top bunk. The guy looking at Spector and chuckling. “Hey, Spector, man, that guy’s really got a hard-on for you, you know? Public defender! Shit! Unless you get a Special Pardon—and I can’t remember the last time anybody got one—you’re fucked but good, man. Screwed royal. They ain’t gonna give you special treatment just because you’re a senator. That’s the PR cornerstone of the AntiViolence Laws, man:
Everybody
gets screwed—equally.”

He was a wiry little dude with a yellowed, gap-toothed smile, flinty black eyes, and the spiky color-shifting hair of a Chaosist. It was hard to get a real handle on what he looked like, though, because of the bruises, the swollen tissue, and crusted cuts on his face from the public beating. Still, he looked familiar.

“You almost recognize me, man? Jerome-X. At your service, home-bro.”

“Jerome-X,” Spector muttered. “Great.”

Jerome-X gave that slightly brain-damaged chuckle again. He was pleased. “ ’At’s me, my man. Yeah. Yeah. I got the hot trans ’n’ they know it up ’n’ down the freak-en-seize. I do some music too. I got a band now—shit, why not? I got the style. I got the name. I got . . . ”

“You got
caught.
” Spector observed.

“Hey, pal—thas better’n bein’
set up.
You were right, man—sure as shit, they tampered with those vids. Not editing, pal—image reconstitution. You’re talking to the VideoMan Hisself. I know. Computer analyzes a digital image of a man, right? Gets him moving, talking. Then codes its analysis digitally. Samples it. An’ generates an image of the guy you
can’t tell
from the real thing. Uses, like, fractal geometry for realistic surface texture. And they can animate you to do whatever they want. Sample your voice, synthesize it to make you seem to’ve said whatever they want . . . ”

“But that isn’t . . . ”

“Isn’t justice?” Jerome-X shook his head. “You’re too much. I didn’t think justice was high on your list of priorities, man. I seen you on TV, Spector—I know about you . . . hey, how many people who ‘committed robbery’ or ‘murder’ were people who were annoying to the local status quo or the feds—or the Second Alliance? Especially the SA. So they’re videoframed. Convicted on the evidence of some security camera that just happened to be there . . . 
ri-ight.
How many people died like that, pal, huh? Hundreds? Maybe thousands. About half the people convicted go down for videod evidence these days. That’s a lot of lucky cameras. Sure, maybe if there were more time, you could prove the tampering—but
you,
big shot, you’ve seen to it you got
no time
and no chance for appeal. . . . ”

“Videoframing . . . I don’t believe it.”

“Hey, you
better
believe it. But most people don’t know about it, so it’s no use tryin’ to tell the courts. The up-to-dates on computer-generated images is kept under lock and key. They want the public to think it’s really crude, see . . . and all the people involved, the government, the networks, no one wants to believe anything like that about it because, hey—this thing is a
moneymaker!
People got all jaded about violence from the last few generations of TV and movies, right? So they need it in big doses now—and the ratings are great on these shows so the advertising revenues are orbital, just sky-high, so the government makes big bucks off heavy-taxing that revenue and the networks—you get what I mean. No one wants to rock the boat . . . fuck it . . . me, I’m gettin’ out in the morning, already got my beatings for pirate transmissions, videograffiti . . . but you . . . they’re gonna splash you all over the studio, pal. ’Cause you’re the Case now. And you’re Big Ratings . . . ”