Back | Next
Contents

eleven

Maisso's was located amid the jumble of aging tenements, crammed economy stores, and anything-to-go food shops squashed together along the streets of the West Side in the blocks north of the university campus. From piled windows and sagging shelves, the stores offered the city's most amazing variety of goods: clothes, shoes, electronics, knickknacks, all of it cheap—and untaxed to those who talked the right code words. More Poles once lived in the neighborhood than in any community outside Warsaw—drawn, perhaps, by nostalgia for Arctic-Siberian winters and the Windy City's fond evocations of homey breezes howling in from the steppes. As they dwindled, Puerto Ricans and Hispanics had taken over the area. Nowadays it was a general haven for refugees seeking relief from the increasing costs and restrictions of maintaining automobile lifelines to the suburbs.

The place itself was like a big, dark cavern, down creaking steps inside a dingy doorway on a side street—the kind of place that students everywhere liked to lose themselves in as a contrast to their visible aboveground existence during the day. There was a hole-in-the-wall serving as a bar on one side, a counter peddling sodas and snacks on the other, while from a raised stage at the far end a bizarrely clad rock group played to a floor crowded with shaking, gyrating bodies. The music was loud and brutal.

"See, a change," Sandy said. Demiro and Rita agreed.

"What'll it be—beer, beer, or beer?" Bruce called above the din.

"How about a beer?" Demiro answered.

"Are you staying on the soft stuff, same as last night?" Rita asked Sandy.

"I'd best," she replied, patting her tummy. She and Bruce had obtained a pregnancy approval, which meant they qualified for benefits. She was still excited about it and had talked about little else the night before.

"Sure you don't want to change your mind? You're drinking for two now, remember," Demiro quipped.

Sandy grinned. "Keep a tab. I'll make up for it after."

They quickly got into the swing of things and started dancing, changing partners for a while, then back again—Sandy taking things slow and easy, but enjoying herself. Then Bruce introduced them to Eric, who was into philosophy and classics at the university and looked the part: bespectacled, tall and gangling but with hefty shoulders, a mop of hair falling across his forehead, and wearing a baggy, roll-neck sweater, its color impossible to discern in the gloom and psychedelic lighting.

"Why classics?" Demiro asked him as they sat on a seat at the foot of a pillar, behind a bunch of people standing watching the action on the floor.

Eric swigged from a can. "Well, I'm not a tech, I don't do art, and nobody believes the history and politics they teach anymore. It's the only thing that's not doctored."

Demiro wasn't going to get into any of that tonight. He shook his head, smiling to himself, and looked away. Eric was with more of his own friends, and the two groups merged to find partners for more dancing, everyone mixing well.

The band took a break, and recorded music of a different style and tempo took over, slower, more structured, beginning quietly with a steady, driving rhythm, then rising to a pounding crescendo of brass and percussion. The kids seemed to enjoy it, responding with a lot of stamping, finger-snapping, and what looked like hands-on-hips, pseudo-Spanish dance motions. It was vaguely familiar, but Demiro couldn't place it.

"What's that?" he asked Eric, as Eric emerged from the throng, breathless and clammy, to down a mouthful from his drink.

"Ravel, Bolero."

"Is that what it's called? Not bad."

"It makes a change."

Eric seemed to change his mind about going back. Demiro shifted to make room for him to sit down. Demiro looked around and sipped his beer. "I guess they need to unwind, too, just like the rest of us, eh?"

Eric leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His manner seemed serious for this kind of occasion, but Demiro had already figured him as one of those intense kinds of younger people. "Times are getting tense," he said. "I don't just mean here, in this city. All over. There have to be changes."

"How d'you mean?"

"The system has run out of credibility. Nobody believes the garbage that gets pumped out about anything anymore. And when they just keep cracking down harder, that's when you know they're losing their grip. Repression is always the last phase before things cave in. You see it all through history."

Demiro raised his eyebrows and looked up at Rita, who had moved over with Sandy to stand by them. "Repression? Do we have repression?"

"Don't tell me you never see it," Eric said. "What do you do, anyhow?"

"Me? I'm with the Army."

Eric looked away, shaking his head bleakly. "That's all we needed."

"Don't worry about it."

"Don't worry, he says."

"Come on, do you think I'd have said so if it made any difference? Go ahead. I'm interested."

"What they're telling people is an illusion. A make--believe reality that gives them a pretext for hanging on for as long as they can get away with it. But they don't even believe it themselves anymore—not privately. The public stuff is just pretense."

"How do you mean?" Demiro asked.

Eric waved a hand toward the now-empty stage, where some people were pulling back a set of curtains at the rear to uncover a large screen. "You'll see in a minute."

"Why? What's happening?"

"We're hooking into a pirate link that some hackers somewhere are going to try and crash through one of the comsats," Eric answered. He meant an illicit communications channel. By law, all publicly operated receiving -equipment was required to embody a system of preset codes that denied access to unapproved transmissions. Conceived and ordered by bureaucrats who were not engineers, the task was an impractical one, and pirate broadcasters were always breaking in to make political statements, show foreign program material, sell hard-core porn, or just for the hell of it. "If they break in, they're going to get Daparras on the channel and spray it all over the country. That would be a real gas."

"Isn't he some kind of anarchist, terrorist, something like that?" Rita said.

"Who told you that?" Eric asked her, looking up.

"I've seen the name on subversives lists."

"Subversives lists? Where was that?" Eric's brow creased. "So what in hell do you do?"

"Work for the government. I'm a clerk with the Economic Coordination Board."

"Jesus! Who's letting these people in here?" Eric pleaded.

Bruce, who had been listening, grinned. "I brought 'em. Relax. They're okay."

"That's just what they tell people, Tony," Eric said, turning back. "It's part of the illusion. Daparras writes books on philosophy and ethics—that you can buy legally anywhere except in Consolidation countries. He talks to people. And he set up a string of homes for kids who were orphaned in the fighting when the Soviet empire broke up. What kind of terrorist is that?"

"Who are the hackers?" Demiro asked. "Are they around here somewhere?"

Eric stretched back his elbows for a moment and -returned a you-should-know-better smile. "That's something we don't get to find out. They could be anywhere from here to Texas."

Demiro turned to Bruce. "What are you getting us into now?"

"I told you it would be different," Bruce said.

"Interesting?" Sandy suggested.

And then a wave of cheering broke out all around. They looked back at the stage and saw that the screen had come to life and was showing the figure of an elderly man. He had a full head of white hair beneath a black skullcap, and a wispy beard that hung in tufts like a shortened version of a Chinese mandarin's. His face was hollowed and parchmentlike, but with eyes that gleamed brightly, and he held his frame upright, evidently with plenty of life left in it yet.

"Yeah, I've seen him before." Demiro nodded.

"Of course you have," Eric muttered. A hush fell all around. Daparras was already talking.

". . . came back to this country because I wanted the truth to be known. They called me a tool of Offworlder propaganda, as I knew they would. They said I was a threat to law and order." The old man paused and looked down at his frail form, turning up his palms bemusedly to show the absurdity of the suggestion. Delighted laughter rippled around the room. "And yes, they put me under arrest, in my own house, where I'm supposed to be right now—but as you can see, I am not. So, they have not managed to shut me up just yet." The room registered its approval by another chorus of cheering.

"Since we probably won't have much time, let me tell you what life in the Federation of Eurasian Republics was really like. As most of you know, I was there through its inception, and I lived there for over twenty years as it emerged from its troubled beginnings and evolved into the unique social and political organism that it is today."

Daparras waved a hand briefly in front of his face. "It isn't the cesspool of anarchy and violence that you are told, with people being left to fend for themselves without care or compassion while others grow fat on vast fortunes. Yes, I admit that some of the several dozen republics, national congresses, ethnic provinces, and loosely federated territories that now extend from Poland to Kamchatka might be accused of permitting rough justice to those who transgress upon the rights of others; but if so, the fault is one of the state's leaving its citizens too much freedom and independence, instead of stripping them, as is ever more the case here, of the ability and the right to defend -themselves."

"Right on!" someone shouted.

"And, yes, it is true that some individuals are rewarded more than others. But it's the freedom of all to choose that decides those rewards—not a law passed by a few, which inevitably creates privileges that the few will have the power to sell. The FER provides opportunity for everybody, growth—without the phobias about resources running out and the imminence of collapse that have been paralyzing everyone over here since the end of the last century. For the people of the FER, everything is not all over; everything is only beginning! The space industries of the Consolidation states are bankrupt and languish under a dead-weight of bureaucratic inertia. Meanwhile, the Off-worlders have come to dominate near-Earth space, and the Siberian industries that are free to trade with them prosper. A Consolidation family loses its social benefits for an unlicensed birth—surely the ultimate in obscenity. FER children are welcomed as priceless assets—and what could be more natural?"

Sandy and Bruce smiled at each other and entwined hands. But there was a wistfulness on their faces as they listened.

"See what I was talking about earlier?" Eric whispered to Demiro.

Demiro nodded. All around, others were staring intently, hanging on every word. This was the kind of message they didn't hear every day. On the screen, Daparras made a brief, appealing gesture.

"It is not difficult to understand what makes this possible. For almost a century, the peoples of the lands that today make up most of the FER lived with the consequences of allowing a tyrannical minority enough power to literally steal an entire country—all its land, all its property—and to enslave its population. They know what happens when power becomes concentrated and is unaccountable to anyone.

"There is an irony in my talking to Americans like this, for most of the younger people here have never been taught about their country's origins. It is a sad fact that Russian schoolchildren know more about Western history than the graduates of many—"

The picture vanished suddenly to leave a random wash of colors flickering across the screen, and the voice cut out.

"That's it. It's been traced back," Eric said resignedly. "The beam's been cut."

The room registered its disapproval with a chorus of shouts, hisses, boos, and whistles.

Demiro wondered how common this kind of thing was becoming. From what he knew, such a gathering would be a prime target for infiltration by security agencies. Instinctively, he cast an uneasy eye around the place, and almost at once caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure on the far side of the room briefly raising what could have been a miniature camera—there were night-vision types that could snap a face in settings as dark as this. Just what Demiro needed in his file. And especially after his interview that afternoon with Colonel Rowan.

He leaned across and murmured in Rita's ear. "Come on. It's time we were leaving."

* * *

The next day was fine and warm for the end of September. Since they had the jeep for the weekend, Demiro and Rita decided to make the best of it. They packed a picnic lunch and drove up to the wooded, hilly country bordering Wisconsin, forty miles northwest. Leaving the road, they followed a dirt trail up among trees and boulders, and came to a shaded and secluded spot in a grassy grove by a small lake. They swam naked, dried off, and made love on a blanket in the sun. As she reached for her clothes to get dressed afterward, Rita saw a stag standing motionless, which had been watching them through the trees. Its expression could only be described as nonplussed, like that of a ten-beer-a-night redneck who had stumbled upon a gourmet wine-tasting ritual.

"I guess it never knew it was possible that way," Demiro surmised. Rita laughed.

Then they heard a low droning sound somewhere to the south, which after a few seconds became discernible as getting closer. Rita sat up, wrapping a blanket around herself. Demiro stood to pull on his pants. The rhythmic thwacking of rotor blades beating air resolved itself against the background drone, and moments later a helicopter, white with state police markings, appeared over a hilltop. It came lower, circling and banking to get a good look at the jeep and the figures beside it.

"Jesus, don't they ever leave you alone?" Demiro growled, watching it. Suddenly all the fun and laughter had evaporated out of the day.

"They probably check this area for drug growers," Rita said.

"It makes you feel like you're living in some kind of zoo. They can come and check you out, anytime they want."

"Don't let it bug you, Tony. Don't let them spoil our day."

The chopper straightened up and disappeared over a ridge to the west. Demiro watched it go, then turned back and forced a grin. "You're right, why should they? So . . . what have we got?"

Rita finished putting on her shorts and top and opened the picnic box. "Well, let's see now. Chicken salad in a sandwich, and there's cheese."

"Sounds good."

"A pie that I picked up, and some thick cream to go on it. And some fruit, juice, and a flask of coffee."

Demiro sat down again and tried to make talk, but his manner was still troubled and distant. Rita assumed he was brooding because it would be their last day together for some time. After she had put away the picnic things and collected the trash into a bag, she went over and sat next to him, resting her head against his shoulder.

"Don't get too down," she told him. "It'll only be a month."

For a moment it seemed as if he hadn't heard, then he said, "Do you think all those things are true—what that guy Daparras was talking about last night?" It was an odd question, since Demiro often said similar things himself. And Bruce was aware of it to—otherwise he wouldn't have invited them along. So Demiro wasn't really asking for an answer. It was just a way of raising the subject.

"Why? What are you—" Rita started to ask, but then they heard the sound of a vehicle approaching up the trail.

"I was wondering when they'd show up," Demiro said resignedly.

A state police Range Rover came around the bend and stopped behind the jeep. Demiro and Rita stood up. Two troopers climbed out of the Range Rover and sauntered across. One was heavily built, with a paunch sagging over his belt, florid-faced and fleshy, wearing sunglasses and a dark, baseball-style cap; the other was smaller, with plain, metal-rimmed glasses and a mustache, carrying a short-barreled shotgun.

"Well, what've we got here?" the larger of the two drawled with a leer. "Mr. Lover Boy himself an' a pretty cute piece of ass. Good fuckin' today, was it, folks?"

"It's none of your business, mister," Demiro said tightly.

"Oh, touchy, touchy. I think we have a case of offended sensibilities, Hank." Hank sniggered obligingly and moved forward to poke among the picnic things with the end of the shotgun.

"If you've got some business, state it," Demiro said.

The larger of the troopers turned toward the jeep and contemplated it. "Now that would appear to me to be an item of government property. I do suppose that your -being here, in possession of it like this, is all legal and properly accountable for?"

Demiro sighed and walked over to the jeep to open the glove box. "Yes, everything's—"

"Real slow and easy," a voice warned as he reached inside. He heard the sound of a gun being cocked behind him.

Demiro turned back slowly, holding out the wallet containing his papers. "I'm with the Army at Kankakee," he said. "Warrant officer, Third Battalion Supply and Support. Everything's legit."

"Well, let's see about that, now." The trooper scanned the documents while the smaller one with the shotgun began checking the various recesses and compartments of the jeep. "Warrant Officer Anthony Demiro, huh?"

Rita clung to Demiro's arm, feeling his growing anger and frustration. "There's the requisition and approval, transport officer's clearance. It's all there," he said. "They let me use it for my two days off. Is that okay with you?"

"So why would you bring it to an area like this? You wouldn't be carrying any illegal substances, now, by any chance?"

"Look around. It's nice here. It's a change from the stinking city. Is that so strange?"

The big trooper looked across inquiringly at Hank. Hank shook his head. "It looks clean."

"Run an R7 on him and the vehicle," the larger one said, passing across the papers. Hank went back to the Range Rover, leaned inside, drew out a mike on a cord, and began talking to someone.

"What do you do?" the big trooper asked Rita.

"Bureau of Economic Coordination. In the city." The trooper's eyebrows rose a fraction. That seemed to carry some weight.

"Nothing. It's all clean," Hank called from the Range Rover. "Want them to run one on her too?"

"Nah. I guess they're okay. . . . As you were, soldier. You can get back to your basic training."

Demiro watched the trooper stride ponderously back to rejoin his companion—arrogant, unhurried, without care or apology. The Range Rover reversed onto the grass by the track and bumped away in the direction from which it had come.

Demiro sat down and unscrewed the top of the flask with a savage twist of his fingers to pour himself some coffee. "Suppose I found a way to get us into the FER. Would you go?" he asked suddenly.

It was so unexpected that for a moment Rita could only gape. "Defect to the East?" She sat down by him and raised a hand to her brow. "Tony, are you serious?"

"Why not? Maybe through Europe. Alaska's too risky. They've got it all sealed up with electronic fences."

"I don't know. I never . . ." Rita shrugged helplessly.

"How much longer could you put up with this kind of' shit? Think about how Bruce and Sandy will have their baby: with somebody's permission, have to give it a number, be ordered around, insulted, treated like kids who can't take charge of their own lives. . . . I don't want us to be like that. I want to be me. The FER's got opportunities, a chance to make something worthwhile of ourselves. Here they just keep putting the squeezes on tighter and tighter until you can't breathe, and in the end you just rot away." He took a drink from the cup and looked at her. "You heard what Daparras said about kids. You don't need any license there. They want big families—like we always talked about. You can pick what kind of school you want for them, what things they do there, what kind of health care they get. . . . It isn't all spelled out to you by somebody you never see. What kind of place is this to raise a family?"

"You are . . . you are serious?"

"Sure, I'm serious. Maybe we could even go farther, to the Offworld independencies, maybe. Maybe what he said is true, and they're not militarized slave-labor camps. . . . What do you think?"

Rita slid an arm around his neck, kissed him, and held her face close. "I'll go wherever you go. That's all that matters."

Already the day was as it had been again, as if the troopers had never existed. "God," he sighed. "Do you know how much I love you?"

"Of course I do," she whispered. "It's as much as I love you."

* * *

Demiro returned to base on time that evening and found a message waiting for him to report to Major Kellend. Kellend informed him that he had been selected for the special assignment and should see Colonel Rowan for the details. Demiro would be shipping out first thing the next morning. His orders were to fly to Atlanta, Georgia, on a priority service ticket, where transportation would be waiting to take him to a place called the Pearse Psychological -Research Laboratories, fifty-odd miles north of the city.

 

Back | Next
Framed