Beggars and Choosers (4 page)

I murmured, “Maybe they have Gravison’s disease.”

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said, have you made any progress penetrating Huevos Verdes?”

“No,” he said, but then he wouldn’t have told me if they have. The
sexual innuendo he missed completely.

“And who will I be keeping under surveillance?” The excitement was a
little bubble in my throat now, still surprising. It had been a long
time since anything had excited me. Except David, of course, who had
taken his sexy shoulders and verbal charm and sense of superiority to
hold in readiness for plunking down temporarily in the middle of some
other woman’s life.

He said, “You’ll be following Miranda Sharifi.”

“Ah.”

“I have full ID information and kit for you in a locker at the
gravrail station. You’ll pass as a Liver.”

This was a slight insult; Colin was implying my looks weren’t
spectacular enough to absolutely mark them as genemod. I let it pass.

Colin said, “She’s only made one trip off the island herself. We
think. When the next one happens, you go with her.”

“How will you be sure it’s her? If they’re using both cosmetic and
electronic disguises, she could have different features, hair, even
brain-scan projection all masking her own.”

“True. But their heads are slightly misshapen, slightly too big.
That’s hard to disguise.”

I knew that, of course. Everybody did. Thirteen years ago, when the
Supers had first come down from Sanctuary, their big heads had given
rise to a lot of bad jokes. The actuality was that their revved-up
metabolism and altered brain chemistry had caused other abnormalities,
the human genemod being a very complex thing. Supers are not, I
remembered, an especially handsome people.

I said, “Their heads aren’t
that
big, Colin. In some
lights it’s even hard to tell at all.”

“Also, their infrared body scans are on file. From the trial. You
can’t move the position of your liver, or mask the digestive rate in
your duodenum.”

Which are both pretty generic anyway. Infrared scans aren’t even
admissible in court as identity markers. They’re too unreliable. Still,
it was better than nothing.

All of this was better than the nothing with David. The nothing of
Stephanie. The something of Katous.
Thank you, lady
.

Colin said, “The trips off Huevos Verdes are increasing. They’re
planning something. We need to find out what.”

“Si, senor,” I said. He wasn’t amused.

We’d walked nearly to the perimeter of the security bubble.

Beyond its faint shimmer, a body pod had arrived for the dead
scooter racer. I could just see some Livers loading him into the pod,
at the very edge of my range of genemod-enhanced vision. The Livers
were crying. They got the body into the pod, and the pod started down
the track. After fifteen feet there was a sudden grinding sound and the
pod stopped. Livers pushed. The pod didn’t move. The funeral machinery,
like so much other more important machinery lately, had apparently
broken down.

The Livers stood staring at it, bewildered and helpless.

I walked with Colin inside Building G-14 looking dizzy, as a victim
of Gravison’s disease occasionally should.

BILLY WASHINGTON: EAST OLEANTA, NEW YORK

When I found out, me, about the rabid raccoon, first thing I did was
run straight down to the cafe to tell Annie Francy. I ran all the way,
me. That ain’t so easy no more. All I could think was maybe
Lizzie
was already safe, her, with Annie in the kitchen, maybe
Lizzie
wasn’t in the woods. Maybe.

“Run, old man! Run, old fuck!” a kid yelled from the alley between
the hotel and the warehouse. They stood there, the stomps, when the
weather was nice. The weather was nice. I forgot, me, that they’d be
there, or I’d of gone around the long way, by the river. But this
afternoon they was too lazy, them, or too splintered, to chase me. I
didn’t tell them shit about the raccoon.

At the servoentrance to the cafe, where only ‘bots supposed to go, I
pounded, me, as hard as I could and the hell with who heard. “Annie
Francy! Let me in!”

The bushes to my right rustled and I almost keeled over, me. The
coons come there for the stuff that drops off the delivery ‘bots. But
it was only a snake. “Annie! It’s me—Billy! Let me in!”

The low door swung open. I crawled through on hands and knees. It
was
Lizzie
, her, who figured out how to get the servoentrance
to open without no ‘bot signal. Annie could no more do that than grow
leaves.

They were both there. Annie was peeling apples and
Lizzie
was tinkering with the ‘bot that was supposed to peel apples. Which
ain’t worked in a month. Not that
Lizzie
could fix it. She
was smart, her, but she was still only eleven years old.

“Billy Washington!” Annie said. “You’re shaking, you! What happened?”

“Rabid raccoons,” I gasped. My heart was going, it, like a
waterfall. “Four of them. Reported on the area monitor. By the river,
where Lizzie…
Lizzie
goes to play…”

“Ssshhhh,” Annie said. “SSShhhh, dear heart. Lizzie’s here now.
She’s safe, her.”

Annie put her arms around me where I sat panting on the floor like
some humping bear.
Lizzie
watched, her, with her big black
eyes wide and sparkly. She probably thought a rabid raccoon was
interesting. She ain’t never seen one, her. I have.

Annie was big and soft, a chocolate-colored woman with breasts like
pillows. She wouldn’t tell me, her, how old she was, but of course all
I had to do was ask the terminals at the cafe or the hotel. She was
thirty-five. Lizzie didn’t look nothing like her mother. She was
light-skinned and skinny, her, with reddish hair in tight braids. She
didn’t have no hips or breasts yet. What she had was brains. Annie
worried about that a lot. She couldn’t remember, her, a time when we
was just people, not Livers. I could remember, me. At sixty-eight, you
can remember a lot. I could remember, me, a time when Annie might of
been proud of Lizzie’s brains.

I could remember a time when being held by a woman like Annie would
of meant more than panting from a bad heart.

“You all right, dear heart?” Annie said. She took her arms away and
right away I missed them. I’m an old fool, me. “Now tell us again, real
slow.”

I had my breath back. “Four rabid raccoons. The area monitor was
wailing like death. They must of come down, them, from the mountains.
The monitor showed them by the river, moving toward town. The
biowarnings was flashing deep red. Then the monitor quit again and this
time nothing couldn’t get it started again. Jack Sawicki kicked it,
him, and so did I. Them coons could be anywhere.”

“Did the warden ‘bot get sent to kill them, it, before the monitor
quit?”

“The warden ‘bot’s broke too.”

“Shit.” Annie made a face. “Next time I’m voting, me, against
Samuelson.”

“You think it’ll make any difference? They’re all alike. But you
keep
Lizzie
inside, you, until somebody does something about
them coons. Lizzie, you stay inside, you hear me?”

Lizzie
nodded. Then, being
Lizzie
, she argued.
“But who, Billy?”

“Who what?”

“Who will do something about them raccoons? If the warden ‘hot’s
broke?”

Nobody answered. Annie picked up her knife, her, and went back to
peeling apples. I settled myself more comfortable against the wall. No
chairs, of course—nobody’s supposed to be in the cafe kitchen except
‘bots. Annie broke in, her, for the first time last September. She
didn’t bother the ’bots while they prepared food for the foodbelt. She
just took a bit of sugar here, some soysynth there, some of the fresh
fruit from the servobin shipments, and cooked up things. Delicious
things—nobody could cook like Annie. Fruit cobblers that made your
mouth fill with sweet water just to look at them. Meat loaf hot and
spicy. Biscuits like air.

She added them, her, right onto the foodbelt cubbies going out into
the cafe, to be clicked off on people’s meal chips. Fools probably
didn’t even notice, them, how much better her dishes tasted than the
usual stuff going round and round on the belt day and night. And of
course with the holoterminal going full blast, and the dance music
playing all the time, nobody would of heard her and
Lizzie
back here even if they was blowing up the whole damn kitchen.

Annie liked to cook, she said. Liked to keep busy. I sometimes
thought, me, that for somebody trying so hard to bring up
Lizzie
to be a good Liver, Annie herself was more than a little bit donkey. Of
course I didn’t say that, me, to Annie. I wanted to keep my head.

Annie started to hum, her, while she peeled apples. But
Lizzie
don’t give up on questions. She said again, “
Who
will do
something about them raccoons?”

Annie frowned. “Maybe somebody’ll come to fix the warden ‘bot.”

Lizzie’s big black eyes didn’t blink. It’s spooky, sometimes, how
she can stare so hard without never blinking. “Nobody came to fix the
peeler ‘bot. Nobody came to fix the cleaner ’bot in the cafe. You said
yesterday, you, that you didn’t think the donkeys would send nobody
even if the mainline soysynth ‘bot broke.”

“Well, I didn’t mean it, me,” Annie said. She peeled faster. “
That
breaks and nobody in this town eats!”

“They could share, them. Share the food that people took off the
foodbelt before it broke.”

Annie and I looked at each other. Once I saw a town, me, where a
cafe broke down. Six people ended up killed. And that was when the
gravrail worked regular, so people could leave, them, for another town
in the district.

“Yes, dear heart,” Annie said. “People could share, them.”

“But you and Billy don’t think they would, them.”

Annie didn’t answer. She don’t like to lie to
Lizzie
, her.
I said, “No, Lizzie. A lot of people wouldn’t share, them.”

Lizzie turned her bright black eyes on me. “Why wouldn’t they share?”

I said, “ ‘Cause people out of the habit of sharing, them. They
expect stuff now. They got a right to stuff—that’s why they elect
politicians. The donkey politicians pay their taxes, them, and the
taxes are the cafes and warehouses and medunits and baths that let
Livers get on with serious living.”

Lizzie said, “But people shared more, them, when you was young,
Billy? They shared more then?”

“Sometimes. Mostly they worked, them, for what they wanted.”

“That’s enough,” Annie said sharply. “Don’t you go filling her head
with what’s past, Billy Washington. She’s a Liver. Don’t go talking,
you, like you was a donkey yourself! And you,
Lizzie
, don’t
you talk about it no more.”

But nobody can’t stop Lizzie when she’s started. She’s like a
gravrail. Like a gravrail used to be, before this last year. “School
says I’m lucky, me, to be a Liver. I get to live like an aristo while
the donkeys got to do all the work, them. Donkeys serve Livers, Livers
hold the power, us, by votes. But if we hold the power, us, how come we
can’t get the cleaner ‘bot and the peeler ’bot and the warden ‘bot
fixed?”

“Since when you been at school?” I joked, trying to derail Lizzie,
trying to keep Annie from getting madder. “I thought you just played,
you, down by the river with Susie Mastro and Carlena Terrell. You’re an
agro Liver, you!”

She looked at me, her, like I was a broken ‘bot myself.

Annie said shortly, “You
are
lucky, you to be a Liver. And
you say so if anybody asks you.”

“Like who?”

“
Anybody
. You shouldn’t go to school so much anyway. You
don’t never see the other children, you, going so much. Do you want to
be a freak?” She scowled.

Lizzie turned to me. “Billy, who’s going to do something about them
rabid raccoons if nobody fixes the warden ‘bot?”

I glanced at Annie. I got to my feet, me, puffing. “I don’t know,
Lizzie. Just stay inside, you, all right?”

Lizzie said, “But what if one of them raccoons bites somebody?”

I had the sense, me, to stay quiet. Finally Annie said, “The medunit
still works.”

“But what if it breaks?”

“It won’t break.”

“But what if it
does
?”

“It won’t!”

“How do you
know
?” Lizzie said, and I finally saw, me,
that this was some sort of private scooter race between mother and
daughter. I didn’t understand it, me, but I could see Lizzie was ahead.
She said again, “How do you know, you, that the medunit won’t break
too?”

“Because if it did, Congresswoman Land would send somebody, her, to
fix it. The medunit is part of her taxes.”

“She didn’t send nobody to fix the cleaning ‘bot. Or the peeler
’bot. Or the—”

“The medunit’s different!” Annie snapped. She hacked at an apple so
hard that pulp flew off the table I stole for her from the cafe.

Lizzie said, “Why is the medunit so different?”

“Because it just is! If the medunit breaks, people could die, them.
No politician is going to let Livers die. They’d never get elected
again!”

Lizzie considered this. I thought, me, that the scooter race was
over, and I breathed more easy. Lately it seemed like they fought all
the time. Lizzie was growing up, her, and I hated it. It made it harder
to keep her safe.

She said, “But people could die from rabid raccoons, too. So how
come you said District Supervisor Samuelson probably won’t send nobody
to fix the warden ‘bot, but Congresswoman Land would send somebody to
fix the medunit ’bot?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it—she was so smart, her. Annie scowled
at me and right away I was sorry I laughed. Annie snapped, “So maybe I
was wrong, me! Maybe somebody’ll fix the warden ‘bot! Maybe I don’t
know nothing, me!”