Beggars and Choosers (42 page)

“But, Vicki—”

“Oh, why am I talking to you? You don’t understand the first thing
I’m talking about!”

She got up, her, and walked away.

She was half right. I didn’t understand, me, all of it, but I
understood some. I thought of Annie not wanting, her, to leave East
Oleanta, not even to get Miranda Sharifi free.
We got it good
here, Billy. There ain’t nothing to be afraid of here . .
.

Vicki came back. “I’m sorry, Billy. I shouldn’t take it out on you.
It’s just…”

“What?” I said, me, as gentle as I could.

“It’s just that I’m afraid. For Lizzie. For all of us.”

“I know.” I
did
know, me. That much I knew.

“Do you remember what you said, Billy, that day that Miranda
injected us with the syringes, and she and Drew Arlen were arguing
about who should control technology?”

I don’t remember that day, me, real clear. It was the most important
day in my entire life, the day that gave me Annie and Lizzie and my
body back, but I don’t remember it real clear. My chest hurt, and
Lizzie was sick, and too much was happening. But

I remember, me, Drew Aden’s hard face, may he rot in Annie’s hell.
He testified against her at her trial, and sent his own woman to jail.
And I remember the tears in Miranda’s eyes.
Who should control
technology . .
.

“You said it only matters who
can
. Out of the mouths of
the untutored, Billy. And you know what? We can’t. Not the syringed
Livers or the syringed donkeys in their shielded enclaves. And without
some pretty sophisticated technology of our own, any really determined
technological attack by the government or by this demented purist
underground could wipe us out. And will.”

I didn’t know, me, what to say. Part of me wanted to hole up with
Annie and Lizzie—and Vicki, too—forever in East Oleanta. But I
couldn’t, me. We had to get Miranda Sharifi free, us. I didn’t know
how, me, but we had to. She set
us
free, her.

“Maybe,” I said, slow, “there ain’t no underground stirring up
fighting. Maybe this is just a… a getting-used-to period, and after a
while Livers and donkeys will go back, them, to helping each other
live.”

Vicki laughed, her. It was an ugly sound. “May God bless the beasts
and children,” she said, which didn’t make no sense. We weren’t neither.

“Oh, yes, we are,” Vicki said. “Both.”

==========

The next week we left, us, to walk to Oak Mountain Maximum Security
Federal Prison in West Virginia.

We weren’t the only ones, us. It wasn’t the East Oleanta Council’s
original idea. They got it, them, off a man walking south in one of the
slow steady lines of people moving along the old gravrail tracks.
Feeding in the afternoons in pastures and fields. Leaving the grass
torn up to lie in the sweet summer mud. Deciding together where the
latrines should be. Making chains of daisies to wear around their
necks, until the daisies get slowly fed on and disappear, the same as
cloth does from the weaving ‘bot. Vicki says, her, that eventually
we’ll all just go naked all the time. I say, me, not while Annie
Francy’s got breath in her beautiful body.

Our second day on the road I talked, me, to another old man come
along the tracks clear down from someplace near Canada. His grandsons
were with him, carrying portable terminals, the way the young ones all
do, them. They were moving south before the weather gets cold again.
The old man’s name was Dean, him. He told me that Before he had soft,
rotted bones, him, so bad he couldn’t even of sat in a chair without
nearly crying. The syringes came to his town in an airdrop, them, at
night, the way a lot of towns got them. He said they never even heard
the plane. I didn’t ask him, me, how he even knew it was a plane.

Instead, I asked him if he knew, him, what the government donkeys
were doing about all the Livers on the road moving toward Oak Mountain.

Dean spat. “Who cares? I ain’t seen no donkeys, me, and I better
not. They’re abominations.”

“They’re what?”

“Abominations. Unnatural. I been talking, me, to some Livers from
New York City. They set me straight, them. The donkeys ain’t no part of
the United States.”

I looked at him, me.

“It’s true. The United States is for
Livers
. That’s what
President Washington and President Lincoln and all them other heroes
meant, them, for it to be. A government
for
the people,
by
the people. And the real people, the natural people, is us.”

“But donkeys—”

“Ain’t natural. Ain’t people.”

“You can’t—”

“We got the Will and we got the Idea. We can clean up the country,
us. Rid it of abominations.”

I said, “Miranda Sharifi’s not a Liver.”

“You mean you believe, you, that the syringes come from Huevos
Verdes? Because of that lying broadcast? Them syringes come, them, from
God!”

I looked at him.

“What’s the matter, you an abomination lover, you? You harboring one
of them donkeys?”

I raised my head, me, real slow.

“ ‘Cause a few donkey lovers tried, them, to join up with decent
Livers. We know how to deal with those kind here, us!”

“Thanks for the information,” I said.

All the way back to Vicki, I breathed funny, me. I could feel my
chest pound almost the way it used to, Before. But Vicki was all right,
her. She sat on a half-busted chair by the gravrail, in the shade of
some old empty building, brooding. The people from East Oleanta went
around her doing what they always do, them, paying her no attention.
They were used to her.

“Vicki,” I said, “you got to be careful, you. Don’t go away from us
East Oleanta people. Keep your sun hat on, you. A
big
sun
hat. There’s people going south, them, that want to kill donkeys!”

She looked up, her, cross. “Of course there are. What do you suppose
I’ve been telling you for days and days?”

“But this ain’t some big-word argument about the government, it,
this is
you
—”

“Oh, Billy.”

“Oh Billy what? Are you listening, you, to what I’m saying?”

“I’m listening. I’ll be careful.” She looked ready to cry, her. Or
shout.

“Good. We care, us, what happens to you.”

“Just not to the government,” she said, and went back to staring,
her, at nothing.

==========

We walked the tracks, us, for days. At places in the mountains it
was pretty narrow, but we weren’t none of us in any particular hurry.
More and more Livers joined us, them. At night people sat around
Y-cones or campfires, them, talking, or knitting. Annie liked teaching
people to knit. She did it a lot, her. People wandered, them, into the
woods to feed or to use the latrines we dug every night. There was
ponds and streams for water. It didn’t matter if the water wasn’t too
clean, it, or even if it was close to the latrines. The Cell Cleaner
took care of any germs that might of got into us. We wouldn’t need no
medunit, us, ever again.

The young ones carried their terminals, them. The older ones carried
little tents, mostly made from plasticloth tarps. The tents were light,
they didn’t tear, and they didn’t get dirty. They didn’t even get that
mildewed smell, them, that I remember from tents when I was a boy, me.
I remember, me, a lot more than I used to. I kind of miss the mildewy
smell.

When it rained, we put up the tents, us, and waited it out. We
weren’t in no hurry. Getting there would take as long as it took.

But Annie was right. Nobody had no plan, them. Miranda

Sharifi, who gave us back our lives, sat there in Oak Mountain, and
nobody had the foggiest idea, them, how we were supposed to get her out.

I never saw, me, other donkeys beside Vicki, who laid pretty low. A
few times strangers gave her dirty looks, them, but me and Ben Radisson
and Carl Jones from East Oleanta sort of stood up, us, near her, and
there wasn’t no trouble. Some other people didn’t even seem to realize,
them, that Vicki was a donkey. Since the syringes, a lot more women got
bodies, them, almost good enough to be genemod. Almost. I told Vicki,
me, to keep her sun hat pulled low enough to shade them violet genemod
eyes.

Then we came, us, to some town with a HT in the cafe. Vicki
insisted, her, on watching one whole afternoon of donkey news-grids.
Lizzie sat with her. So did me and Ben and Carl, just to be safe.

That night, around our campfire, Vicki sat slumped over, her, more
depressed than before.

There was her, me, Annie,
Lizzie
, and Brad. Brad was a
kid, him, who joined us a week ago. He spent a lot of time, him, bent
over a terminal close to
Lizzie
. Annie didn’t like it, her. I
didn’t like it neither. Lizzie’s body was feeding on her dress faster
than mine or Annie’s, the way the young bodies did, them. Her little
breasts were half hanging out, all rosy in the soft firelight. I could
see she didn’t care, her. I could see Brad did. There wasn’t a damn
thing Annie or I could do.

Lizzie
said, “The Carnegie-Mellon Enclave hasn’t lowered
its shield once. Not once, in nine months. They have to be out of food
completely, which means they have to have used the syringes.”

She didn’t even talk, her, like us anymore. She talks like her
terminal.

Annie said sharply, “So? Donkeys can use syringes. Miranda said so,
her. Just so long as they stay, them behind their shields, and leave us
alone.”

Vicki said sharply, “You didn’t want them to leave you alone when
they were providing everything you needed. You were the one, in fact,
who had the most reverence for authority. ”Give us this day our daily
bread…“‘

“Don’t blaspheme, you!”

“Now, Annie,” I said, “Vicki don’t mean nothing, her. She just
wants—”

“She just wants you to stop apologizing for her, Billy,” Vicki said
coldly. “I can apologize myself for my outworn caste.” She got up, her,
and walked off into the darkness.

“Can’t you stop bothering her?” Lizzie said furiously to her mother.
“After all she’s done for us!” She jumped up and followed Vicki.

Brad looked helplessly after her, him. He stood up, sat down, half
got up again. I took pity, me. “Don’t do it, son. They’re better off,
them, alone for a while.”

The boy looked at me gratefully, him, and went back to his
everlasting terminal.

“Annie…” I said, as gently as I could.

“Something’s
wrong
with that woman, her. She’s jumpy as a
cat.”

So was Annie. I didn’t say so, me. Their jumpiness wasn’t the same
kind. Annie was thinking, her, about
Lizzie
, just like she’d
always been. But Vicki was thinking, her, about a whole country. Just
like donkeys always did.

And if they didn’t, them, who would?

I thought, me, about Livers not needing donkeys no more, and donkeys
hiding behind their shields from Livers. I thought about all the
fighting and killing we’d watched, us, that afternoon on the newsgrids.
I thought about the man who’d called donkeys “abominations” and said
the syringes was from God. The man who said he’d got the Will and the
Idea.

I got up, me, to go look for Vicki and make sure she was all right.

VICTORIA TURNER: WEST VIRGINIA

They don’t understand. None of them. Livers are still Livers,
despite the staggering everything that’s happened, and there’s a limit
to what you can expect.

I walked toward West Virginia wearing my new legal name and my
rapidly decaying dress, full of health and doom. Where was Heuvos
Verdes in all this? Miranda Sharifi had been tried under the most
spectacular security known to man, and the press from thirty-four
countries had waited breathlessly for the Lancelotian high-tech rescue,
the snatching from the legal fire, that had never materialized. Miranda
herself had said not one word throughout the trial. Not one, not even
on the stand, under oath. She had, of course, been found in contempt,
and the crowds of Livers outside—syringed, all—had raised enough
un-Liver-like howls to compensate for the silence of ten sacrificial
lambs. But not for Huevos Verdes’s silence. No rescue. No defense, to
speak of. Nada, unless you count syringes raining from the sky, pushing
up from the earth, appearing like alchemy out of the very stones and
fields and pavements of the country the Supers were utterly, silently,
invisibly transforming.

Drew Arlen had testified. He’d described the illegal Huevos Verdes
genemod experiments in East Oleanta, in Colorado, in Florida. The last
two labs were apparently only backup locations to East Oleanta and
Huevos Verdes, but Jesus Christ, there were only
twenty-seven
Supers. How in hell had they staffed four locations?

They weren’t like us.

That became clearer and clearer, as the trial progressed. It became
clear, too, that Arlen
was
like us: stumbling around in the
same swamp of good intentions, moral uncertainties, limited
understanding, personal passions, and government restrictions about
what he could or could not say on the stand.

“That information is classified,” became his monotonous response to
Miranda Sharifi’s defense attorney, who was surely the most frustrated
man on the planet. Arlen sat in his powerchair, his aging Liver face
expressionless. “Where were you, Mr. Arlen, between August 28 and
November 3?”

“That information is classified.”

“With whom did you discuss the alleged activities of Ms. Sharifi in
Upstate New York?”

“That information is classified.”

“Please describe the events that led to your decision to notify the
GSEA about Huevos Verdes.”

“That information is classified.”

Just like wartime.

But not
my
war. I had been declared a noncombatant,
removed lock and stock and retina print from any but the most public
databases, in perpetuity. Three times over the last year I had been
picked up, transported to Albany, and knocked out, while bio-monitors
gave up their secrets to scientists who, most probably, had by now
syringed themselves with the same thing. The results of the
biomonitoring were not shared with me. I was a government outcast.