Beggars and Choosers (33 page)

A Liver messiah in East Texas had proclaimed this the Time of the
End. He was quoting Revelations on the four horsemen, with a twist: The
horseman of war must be loosed by the Livers. Now. When the state
security squad tried to arrest him, he and his followers blew away
thirty-three people with illegal Mexican weapons. The governor, said
the newsgrid with concern, was virtually certain to fail reelection.

In Kansas, a soysynth factory owned by the D’Angelo franchise was
ripped apart by hoarders, who carried off the treated and untreated
soy. They also wrecked three million dollars of robotic machinery.

The lieutenant-governor of South Dakota was somehow knifed to death
in his sleep, within a protected enclave.

Livers in San Diego broke into the world-famous zoo there, killed a
lion and two elehippos, and ate them, following a report that animals
could not get the new plague.

The northeast had been hit by early winter. Small towns were
isolated without gravrails, starving without food. People starved.
Small towns like East Oleanta.

Where was Miranda? And what was she waiting for? Unless something
had gone wrong in the last steps of the project. Unless the GSEA had
discovered Eden, traced it back from the carefully disseminated rumors
in the little isolated Liver towns.

Unless there was even more that she, and Huevos Verdes, hadn’t told
me.

For the first time, I wondered if she wasn’t coming for me at all.

“The greatness of the Constitution is in its Will to the common
people,” Jimmy Hubbley said, his pale eyes bright.

“The greatness of the Constitution is in its checks and balances,”
Leisha had always said. Leisha. Who. Was. Dead.

The dark lattice in my mind was furled tight as an umbrella,
impenetrable, a thin sharp line that cut me inside.

Where were the checks and balances on Huevos Verdes?

“Take me around the compound again,” I said to Peg.

She was slumped in a chair in commons, watching a scooter race
someplace in California. A part of California without plague. “I don’t
want, me, to take you again. You seen everything you’re gonna see.”

“Fine. I’ll go alone.” I wheeled the chair away from her. I didn’t
dare exercise my upper body, not even after she’d locked me in at
night. I couldn’t see the surveillance monitors but I knew they had to
be there. I settled for furtively hoisting myself a few inches above
the arms of my chair several times a day, lifting my useless legs,
careful to choose different locations each day.

“Wait, you.” Peg sighed and heaved herself up. Roughly she shoved
the chair forward.

A white corridor with the featureless doors locked.

Another white corridor with the featureless doors locked.

And another white corridor with the featureless doors locked.

The landing stage, guarded by Campbell, who was asleep but not very.
Another white corridor with…

A piece of Abby’s wedding dress lay snagged on a rough spot in the
wall.

“Damn!” Peg said, with more energy than I’d ever heard her say
anything. “That bitch can’t keep nothing tidy, her! This stupid stuffs
everywhere!” She snatched it up savagely and tore the small oblong into
even smaller pieces. Her face was a mottled, angry red. There were
tears in her eyes.

Why was there a rough place on a nanosmooth wall to snag a piece of
dropped lace?

“Stupid bitch!” Peg said. Her voice caught.

“Why, Peg,” I said. “You’re jealous.”

“You shut up, you!”

Through the zoom portion of my corneas, the rough place on the wall
had an added-on look. Not a mistake in the nanoprogramming, but a bump
built later, with another clocked nanoassembler, manually. Why?

To snag an oblong of lace?

Every oblong was different. The lace had been programmed that way.
To make a unique pattern on an old-fashioned wedding gown.

To make a code.

Peg had recovered herself. Blank-faced once more, but with red eyes,
she shoved the torn bit of lace in the pocket of her hideously
unbecoming turquoise jacks. Her mouth twitched in pain. No sympathetic
shapes slid through my mind. Peg didn’t know what pain was. Peg hadn’t
seen Leisha die, mud caked on her thin yellow shirt, two small red dots
on her forehead.

“Let’s go, you,” she said impatiently, as if I were the one who’d
delayed her.

A code. The bits of lace were a code, in a place where every word,
every action, every chance encounter was monitored. And everyone was
encouraged to be “tidy” and pick up litter, because Brigadier General
Francis Marion had been the tidiest son-of-a-bitch to ever attack the
British army.

How many people were involved? Abigail and Joncey, most certainly.
Who did they have with them against Hubbley? Did they have anyone on
the outside?

I saw again the gray canister. PROPERTY OF U.S. ARMY. CLASSIFIED.
DANGER.

“See,” Peg snarled when we got back to commons, “you seen
everything, you! Now can we stay put?”

“I get bored staying put,” I said. “Let’s do it again.” And I
wheeled away my primitive chair, hearing her curse behind me.

Three days later, three days of ceaseless wheeling, the door to
Jimmy Hubbley’s private quarters opened and he and Abigail came out.
When Abigail saw Peg, she lowered her eyes, smiled, and pretended to
finish zipping the pants to her jacks.

Peg was behind me, where I couldn’t see her face, but I could see
her hands, large and rough on the handles of my chair. In the
stiffening of her hands—controlled, habitual—I saw that she already
knew about Abigail and Hubbley. Of course. Everyone would know; you
couldn’t hide it in a place like this. Joncey must accept it. Maybe it
advanced his and Abby’s plans for the counterrevolution. Maybe he
thought Hubbley was just spreading his genes in the allowable natural
way to strengthen the human genome. Maybe Hubbley even thought he was
spreading Francis Marion’s, to every pretty soldier with a duty to Will
and Idea.

“Evenin‘, Peg,” Hubbley said. She choked out some reply. Abigail
smiled demurely. She made a shape in my mind: flowers with tiny, deadly
teeth in their sunny yellow centers.

“Evenin‘, Major Hubbley,” Peg choked out. I didn’t even know he’d
been promoted.

But now I had him.

==========

At dinner the commons was full. Abigail sat with her friends,
laughing, sewing on her white lace wedding dress. Her face was flushed
and giddy. Above, in the world I now knew only from the

HT, it turned November. Sixty-seven days underground, and Miranda
had not come.

Joncey stood with a group watching a pair of gamblers play Devil.
The twelve-sided dice, made of some shiny metal, flashed as they were
thrown overhead. Everyone shrieked and laughed. Peg sat slumped,
blank-faced, in her chair, her rough hands slack on her knees. I’d
asked her for paper and pen, which made her first suspicious and then
disgusted.

“What for? You got your library terminal, you.”

“I want to write something.”

“You can speak, you, to the terminal anything you want saved.”

“I want to write it. On paper.”

Her suspicion deepened. “You can write?”

“Yes.”

“I thought Major Hubbley said, him, that you wasn’t no donkey, you.”

“I’ve been to donkey schools. I can write. Can’t you read?”

“Course I can read, me!”

She probably could, at least a little. Liver children usually
learned to read basic words, if not to write them. You needed to read
names on packages at the warehouse, on street signs, on scooter bet
sheets. I hoped to hell she could read.

An unseen monitor watched me, of course. I bent over the paper Peg
brought me, coarse pale sheets probably meant to wrap something in. I
couldn’t remember the last time I’d written anything. I was never very
good at it. The pen felt heavy in my hand.

Drew, bold it like this.

What for, Leisha
? I
can speak, me, to the terminal
anything I want it to know
.

What if someday there aren’t any terminals?

In your nose hairs! There will always be terminals, them!

Slowly I printed A HISTERY OF THE SECUND AMERICAN REVALUTION.

Three hours later, after much crumpling up and tearing of paper and
fidgeting in my chair, I had three crossed-out pages. They described
James Francis Marion Hubbley’s philosophy, activities, and goals.
Hubbley himself strode across the room, looming over me. I wondered
what had taken him so long.

“Now, Mr. Arlen, sir, I’m glad as Sundays that y’all are interested
enough in our revolution to write it down. But naturally I want to
check what y’all are sayin,” for accuracy. Y’all can understand that,
son.“

“Does that mean y’all think anybody’s going to actually see it?” I
said, handing over the papers. But baiting him had no effect. His face,
always bony, looked gaunt and drawn. The skin around the eyes bunched
in thick ridges. He hardly glanced at my “histery.”

“Hail, that’s fine, son. Only y’all need more on Colonel Marion.
Inspiration is the heart of action, we always say down here.”

“I haven’t ever heard any of you say that.”

“Ummm,” he said, not really listening. He gazed distractedly around
the room. Abigail was still laughing brilliantly with her friends,
sewing on her everlasting wedding gown; she’d been at it for three
solid hours. She was now around seven months pregnant, and the white
lace cascaded over the bulge of her belly. Joncey had disappeared. So
had Campbell and the doctor. Peg, awake beside me, gazed at Hubbley as
if at the sun. Something was happening, something I didn’t understand.

The shapes in my mind were tight and hard, as closed as the dusky
lattice. I was running out of time.

Bracing my hands on the arms of the wheelchair, I lifted my torso
inches off the seat. Then I shifted my weight to the left hand, until
the chair—not anywhere as stable as a powerchair— toppled. I fell on
top of Peg, who instantly had her hands around my throat, squeezing. I
fought with myself not to respond. Every fiber in my arms screamed to
slug her, but I kept myself still, eyes wide, choking to death. The
room wavered, dimmed. It was eternity before Jimmy Hubbley pulled her
off me.

“There now, Peg, let go, the man ain’t nghtin‘, he just fell… Peg!
Let go!”

She did, instantly. Air rushed back into my lungs, burning and
painful as acid. I gasped and wheezed.

Hubbley stood restraining Peg, although she topped him by ten inches
and was undoubtedly stronger than he. He kept one arm around her waist.
With the other he hauled my chair upside down. Spectators had gathered.

“C’mon, y’all, this ain’t nothin‘. Mr. Aden’s chair tipped—see how
this metal thing is bent underneath here? Calm down, Peg. Shoot, he
ain’t even armed. You hurt, Mr. Arlen, sir?”

“N-n-no.”

“Wail, these things happen. Starrett, lift Mr. Arlen into this here
chair. Where’s Bobby? There you are. Bobby, this is your department,
straighten out this metal so his wheelchair don’t tip again on him.
That’s downright dangerous. Now, y’all, it’s gettin‘ close to lights
out, so just move on to your quarters.”

I was lifted into a commons chair. Bobby took a power brace from his
pocket and straightened the metal strut on the underside of the chair
in fifteen seconds. Lacking a power brace, it had taken me half an hour
and every ounce of strength I possessed to bend it that afternoon.

Hubbley took his arm away from Peg, who shivered. He left the room.
I picked up my “histery” and let Peg wheel me to bed and lock me in.
She was rough, upset at herself for overreacting, wondering if anyone
else had seen how desperately she had protected Jimmy Hubbley. She
really didn’t know that everyone else saw, and mocked, her hopeless
passion. Poor Peg. Stupid Peg. I was counting on her stupidity.

In my room I humped up the blanket on the pallet, trying to make it
look as if I were underneath. This wasn’t easy; the blanket was thin. I
left the wheelchair conspicuously empty, to my right, visible as soon
as the door was partially open. I positioned myself behind the door,
propped against the wall, my useless legs tucked under me.

How long would it take Peg to undress? Did she go through her
pockets? Of course she did. She was a professional. But a stupid
professional. And sick with passion.

Stupid and sick enough? If not, I was as dead as Leisha.

I was sitting in almost the same position Leisha had when she died.
But Leisha had never known what hit her. I would know. The shapes in my
mind were taut and swift, silver sharks circling the closed green
lattice.

The note in Peg’s pocket was written with the same pencil as my
histery—it might have been the only pencil in the entire bunker—but not
on thick pale wrapping paper. It was written on a piece of lace from
Abigail’s wedding gown, an oblong discarded oh-so-carelessly along a
corridor, an oblong with fewer lacy perforations than normal and so
room to scrawl, in a hand as different from my histery as I could make
it. Of course, a handwriting expert would know the writing was the same
person’s. But Peg was not a handwriting expert. Peg could barely read.
Peg was stupid. Peg was sick with passion, and jealousy, and
protectiveness for her crazy leader.

The note said:
She is traitor. Plan with me. Arlens room safest
.
I had written it amidst all the crumpling and tearing and fidgeting of
my histery, and it had not been hard to slip it into Peg’s pocket. Not
for someone who had once picked the pocket of the governor of New
Mexico, Leisha’s guest, because the governor was an important donkey
and I was a sullen crippled teenager who had just been kicked out of
the third school Leisha’s donkey money had tried to keep me in.

Leisha…

The silver sharks moved faster through my mind. Could Peg puzzle out
the word “traitor”? Maybe I should have stayed with words of one
syllable. Maybe she was more professional than lovesick, or less stupid
than jealous. Maybe—