The Quest of the DNA Cowboys (24 page)

‘Jesus. Did you …’

The speaker roared.

‘Silence!’

‘They beat him un …’

‘Silence! This is your last warning!’

Reave slumped on the bench with his head clasped in his hands.

‘Prisoners will not hide their faces. Prisoners will face the camera.’

Reave sat up scowling sullenly. A heavy ominous silence settled over the room. It seemed to Billy that it was all over. He could think of nothing that might turn up to get them out of the place. Hope of rescue seemed a very long way off. Again the speakers barked.

‘79021 face the door. 79022 face the door.’

Billy and Reave examined their dog tags.

‘That’s us.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Silence!’

They walked slowly towards the door, feeling naked and helpless.

The Steward-1 left, and A.A. Catto stepped into the shower. Her body felt pleasantly tired and, for once, she wanted nothing more than to lie back and think over the events of the day. She might not have gone along with everything that had happened, but, all in all, it had been more interesting than most parties. The 360-degree needle jets struck her body from every direction, and it tingled exquisitely. She flicked on the warm air and, once dry, she flopped back on to her bed.

She had had enough of her own reflection for a while, and she dimmed the ceiling mirror, and the surface was covered by a swirl of yellow moiré patterns. She stared at them and gradually she felt her body begin to float.

She flicked on the alphaset and adjusted it to a medium setting. A sense of euphoric wellbeing spread from her head to her toes and fingertips. The combination of the alpha waves and visual stimulation sent her drifting out to a soft yellow haze that was far more beautiful a high than could be obtained from any of the ordinary pharmaceuticals. She rolled sensuously on the bed, and it was slowly twisting across the universe. It was as though she was basking in the light of a thousand lazy suns.

A melodic tune pulsed through her beautiful universe and something suggested that it didn’t fit. The face of the Valentino Steward floated across her memory. It really was a good idea to design her own specials. It was a delicious idea. The idea of a constant stream of custom-made lovers gave her a hot liquid feeling deep inside the warm cosmos of her body.

The tone came again and A.A. Catto realized that it was the console. She was back on the bed again, stretching out an unsteady hand to the answer button.

‘Yeah?’

Her voice was far away and dreamy. Unintelligible sounds came from the speaker and the screen was a random blur of drifting colours. A.A. Catto giggled.

‘Who is that wanting to speak to me?’

‘It’s me, Juno Meltzer.’

‘Juno … how nice to hear … from you … Juno.’

The words became gibberish again. A.A. Catto listened to them with rapt interest.

‘I’m not very sure what you’re trying to say to me, Juno. Your words are not very clear.’

Juno Meltzer’s face swam slightly more into focus, but the colour still changed and floated off the screen.

‘If you shut down the alphaset you might be able to make some sense out of what I’m saying.’

‘Now maybe that would be a possibility.’

‘Switch off the damn alphaset for a minute.’

A.A. Catto didn’t like the idea.

‘Juno, I …’

‘Turn it off for god’s sake.’

A.A. Catto’s hand went out to the alpha control before her brain realized exactly what it was doing. She hit reality with a bump.

‘Damn you, Juno. What do you want?’

‘I suppose you haven’t had your vid channel open.’

A.A. Catto scowled. Surely the stupid girl hadn’t called her from her blissful state to talk about vidshows.

‘Of course I haven’t. I’ve been out of my brain for hours. Why?’

‘There was something very interesting on newsfax.’

‘Newsfax? Are you crazy? You called me up to tell me about newsfax. I had the ceiling going and was right out on alphas.’

‘That was evident.’

‘Well now you’ve brought me down, what was so wonderful on newsfax?’

‘Personnel have arrested two strangers in the L-4 area.’

A.A. Catto shrugged.

‘So? Personnel are always arresting L-4s.’

‘No, no, they weren’t L-4s. They were strangers. They claim they’re from beyond the water. They said they came through the swamp.’

‘You mean that they claim to be …’

‘That’s right. They’re real genuine natural-selection humans.’

‘Not gene-jobs or L-4s?’

‘Plain folks if their stories are true.’

‘Then they’re just like us?’

‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. Just because the DNA structure’s intact doesn’t immediately make them the equal of anyone in the five families. Even when there were plenty of natural humans running around, we were still pretty superior,’

‘That’s true.’

‘Punch up a re-run on the newsfax item. They’re quite interesting.’

‘Hold on then, I’ll split-screen.’

A.A. Catto pressed a series of buttons, and Juno Meltzer’s image was pushed to the left of the screen. On the right was a film clip of two hard unkempt-looking men being led across a compound by an escort of Personnel-3s. A.A. Catto clapped her hands in delight.

‘I want one. I want one.’

Juno Meltzer moved back to take up the whole screen.

‘What do you mean, you want one?’

‘I could have a party or something. They look very different. They look as though they might be interesting.’

‘They look dirty, and like they might be carrying all kinds of horrible diseases.’

‘Oh, they can be cleaned up and decontaminated. I still want one.’

Juno Meltzer looked doubtful.

‘Don’t you think it’s going a bit far? I mean, you know, outsiders?’

‘I always thought you told everyone that you couldn’t go far enough.’

‘Yes but …’

A.A. Catto interrupted Juno’s protests.

‘I don’t care. I want one. I want one before anybody else gets them. I wouldn’t put it past my loathsome little brother to try to get his hands on them.’

‘I heard something about you and your brother …’

‘You keep quiet about that, Juno Meltzer, or I’ll kill you. Understand?’

‘I …’

‘Listen, I’ll talk to you later. I’ve got to call Personnel before Valdo does.’

A.A. Catto cut the connection and punched some more buttons. A hard-faced man in grey appeared on the screen.

‘Personnel. May I help you?’

‘I want the prisoners who claim to be from outside sent up here straight away.’

‘They’re under interrogation at the moment.’

‘The interrogation must be stopped. I want them sent straight up to me, after they’ve been showered and disinfected.’

‘I’ll see what I can do, Miss Catto.’

A.A. Catto slammed her small fist into the console.

‘You’ll do it.’

‘Yes, Miss Catto.’

‘Name?’

‘Billy.’

‘Billy what?’

‘Billy Oblivion.’

There were two of them. One playing Mutt, the other playing Jeff. They’d been through his name and origins. The friendly one put a hand on Billy’s shoulder.

‘Where are you from, Billy? Where’s Pleasant Gap?’

‘I’ve no idea. I’ve been through the nothings so many times.’

‘Liar.’

The bad guy lashed at Billy with his fist. His head exploded in a painful shower of stars and he sagged against the restraining straps that held him in the hard, upright chair. The chair was bolted to the floor in the centre of a small bare room. The bad guy pushed the bare light globe so it swung backwards and forwards in front of Billy’s face. The bad guy put his face very close to Billy. Billy could see his strong white teeth and feel his breath on his face. His voice dropped to a vicious whisper.

‘You’re a fucking little liar. You’re a dirty little L-4 who managed to get his hands on a portable generator.’

The good guy smiled sympathetically.

‘You’d do well to tell him the truth. He’ll only hurt you if you don’t.’

‘But I’m not an …’

‘Where did you get the generator, kid?’

‘In Pleasant Gap.’

‘Where’s Pleasant Gap?’

‘I told you. I don’t know any …’

Smash! Billy’s head reeled.

‘Where did you get the generator?’

‘Pleasant …’

Smash.

‘Name?’

‘Billy, Billy Oblivion.’

‘Place of origin?’

‘I …’

‘Are you going to tell us the truth, kid?’

‘I’ve been trying to. I’m not an L-4. I don’t even know what an L-4 is. I didn’t know there were any laws here against porta-pacs. I don’t even know where here is.’

‘How did you get here, then, mister outsider?’

‘On foot.’

‘Through the swamp?’

‘After our canoe sank.’

‘In the swamp?’

‘Yes.’

Smash!

There was a pause while they waited for Billy to be sick. The good guy lifted Billy’s head.

‘You really shouldn’t lie to my friend here. He’s got a whole lot of sophisticated stuff that he could use on you. This kind of thing is only openers for him.’

The bad guy laughed.

‘Think I should tell him about a few of them? Like maybe the needles that you can stick through the flesh and scrape his bones with.’

The good guy shook his head.

‘I don’t think we’ll need it with this boy. I’m sure he’ll cooperates. Let’s try again. Name?’

‘Billy Oblivion.’

‘Place of origin?’

‘I …’

‘Place of origin?’

‘If I tell you, he’ll just hit me.’

‘Not if you tell the truth.’

‘But I WAS telling the truth. I did start out from Pleasant …’

Smash!

The bad guy scowled.

‘I thought we’d sorted out that business.’

‘I don’t know what else to say. It’s the truth.’

‘Why not …’

The door opened and another grey-uniformed figure came into the room. The bad guy smiled at him.

‘What the hell do you want? Don’t you know we’re questioning a prisoner?’

‘They want your prisoner up at the top.’

‘The hell they do, we’ve only just begun to work on him.’

‘They want him and the other one. Straight away.’

The bad guy started to button his tunic.

‘Who wants him? I’ll sort them out.’

‘It’s a directorate order.’

‘Directorate?’

‘Miss A.A. Catto called in herself. Shower, delouse, and send them both straight up.’

‘What does she want them for?’ .

‘To fuck her, probably. That’s all the families seem to think about.’

‘Why can’t she get herself a Steward-1? I got to turn in a report on these two.’

The third man shrugged.

‘It ain’t my problem. Orders is orders.’

‘When Data want their report, I’m going to send them straight to you.’

‘Do what you like.’

He took a slip of paper out of his pocket and handed it to the bad guy.

‘Here’s a receipt for prisoners 79021 and 79022. They’re off your hands now. You don’t have to worry about it.’

The bad guy took it grudgingly.

‘Okay, but I don’t like it.’

Billy felt himself being unstrapped from the chair. He was hauled to his feet, and at that point he passed out.

He came to under the shower. Reave, who’d been holding up Billy’s head, helped him to his feet and supported him.

‘They sure messed you up.’

‘Yeah. You were lucky they picked me to work on first.’

‘Do you know what they’re going to do with us now?’

‘I was pretty groggy, but I heard something about how we were being sent to the top. Whatever that means. Some guy came in and stopped the other two beating me up.’

‘Maybe they’re about to start treating us right.’

The water stopped and jets of warm air dried them. Reave helped Billy out of the shower, and a grey-uniformed guard led them to a glass cubicle and told them to step inside. They both suffered a moment of panic as yellow-green fumes began to fill the chamber. They found that they could still breathe, even when the gas filled the whole cubicle. An extractor fan was switched on and it quickly cleared. The guard opened the door and led them to a table on the other side of the room, where pants and jackets of some striped material were laid out.

Billy and Reave quickly dressed. They were each given a pair of plastic slip-on shoes and led through a series of corridors to a moving walkway. The walkway led eventually to a set of blue steel doors. The guard inserted an electronic key and the doors hissed open.

Beyond them was a lift. A lift, however, that was fitted with contour seats. The guard told Billy and Reave to sit. He strapped them in and then stepped back outside. The doors shut and the lift rocketed upwards at a tremendous acceleration that pushed Billy and Reave down into their seats. Minutes passed and finally they came to rest. The doors sighed open again. Three men in light blue uniforms and short-cropped blond hair were waiting for them. Each held what looked to Reave like some kind of stun weapon.

Billy and Reave were unstrapped from their seats and led on to another moving walkway. High, almost subliminal music came from hidden speakers, and the corridors were decorated in rich gold and pure white. The city seemed to be presenting another face to them. Reave leaned close to Billy and whispered in his ear.

‘This looks a good deal better than down below.’

Their guards seemed to ignore the conversation. They changed direction twice, then left the walkway. They marched Billy and Reave down a short corridor and halted in front of a pair of gold double doors. One of the men in blue pressed a bell. After a short delay the door slid back and with one of the guards, they stepped inside a luxurious apartment. In the centre of the large main room a girl of about thirteen wearing heavy makeup and a slightly incongruous silver sheath dress stood flanked by two well-developed blondes in short pink tunics and thigh-length pink boots. The girl looked angrily at the two guards.

‘Who told you to bring them to me in that condition?’

‘That was how they were sent up, Miss Catto.’

‘In prison suits, and one of them covered in bruises. Is it the way I’m supposed to be presented with people? I want clothes for them, and a Steward with shaving equipment. I also want a Medic for the one who’s been beaten up, and the names and numbers of the Personnel officers who did it. Do you understand?’