“Well, then you one lucky fucking black man.” The Guatemalan moved around to face him. His face was almost kindly, softened with the endorphins and maybe something else. “But see, blood, ’bout now, where you come from ain’t where you at. ’Bout now, you in South Florida State. You in the Confederated Republic, niggah. Roun’ here, they only got the one way of being black, and sooner or later that’s the black you gonna be. Ain’t no diversity of product in the Republic, they just got this one box for us, and sooner or later they gonna squeeze you in that box right along with the rest of us.”
Carl looked at the wall some more. He took the decision.
“Now, see, that’s where you’re wrong.”
“I’m wrong?” The other man chuckled. “Look around you, blood. How the fuck am I wrong?”
“You’re wrong,” Carl told him, “because they already got me in a whole other box. It’s a box you won’t ever see the inside of, and that’s why I’m getting out, that’s why they need me. They can’t get anyone else like me.”
The Guatemalan propped himself against the cell wall and gave Carl a quizzical look.
“Yeah? You got moves, trash, I give you that. And what I hear from Louie, you got some fucked-up wirin’ inside you. But that don’ make you no stone killer. Two hours ago you walk out of here with my boy’s best shiv-work up your sleeve, but what I hear is Dudeck still walking around.”
“We were interrupted.”
“Yeah. By the nice people from COLIN.” But there wasn’t much mockery in the other man’s voice now. He sucked thoughtfully on the cigar. “Shame about Dudeck, that birdshit coulda used some time in the infirmary. You want to tell me what that means, they can’t get anyone else like me?”
Carl met his eyes. “I’m a thirteen.”
It was like peeling a scab. For the last four months, he’d kept it hedged behind his teeth, the secret that would kill him. Now he watched the Guatemalan’s face and saw the final confirmation for his paranoia, saw the flicker of fear, faint but there, covered for quickly with a nod.
“O-kay.”
“Yeah.” He felt an obscure disappointment; somehow he’d hoped this man might be proof against the standard prejudice. Something about the Guatemalan’s patient con math realism. But now abruptly he could feel himself through the other man’s gaze, sliding into caricature. Could even feel himself go with it, let go, take on the old skin of impassive power and threat. “So. About this phone call. What’s it going to take?”
He found Dudeck in the F wing rec hall, playing speed chess against the machine. Three or four others inmates were gathered around: one tat-stamped and certified AC brother, a couple of late-teen wannabe sycophants, and an older white guy who seemed to be there just for the chess. No one from the chapel confrontation—Dudeck would have shrugged loose of them in the wake of the failed gig. Too many undischarged fight chemicals sloshing around, too much blustering talk while they leached back out of the system. Not what you needed at all after a walk-away.
No one paid any attention to the black man as he came up the hall. Dudeck was too deep in the game, and with full audiovid monitoring systems webbed up in the nanocarb vault of the hall, the others were loose and unvigilant. Carl got to within ten paces of the gathering before anybody turned around. Then one of the wannabes must have caught black in motion out of the corner of an eye. He pivoted about. Stepped forward, secure in the knowledge of how the monitoring system worked, puffed up with association and proximity to Dudeck.
“Fuck you want, nigger?”
Carl stepped in and hit him, full force, with one trailing arm and the back of his hand. The impact smashed the boy’s mouth and knocked him to the floor. He stayed there, bleeding and staring up at Carl in disbelief.
Carl was still moving.
He closed with the tat-marked spectator, broke down a fumbled defense, and tipped the man into Dudeck, who was still trying to get up from the console. The two men tangled and went down sprawling. The second sycophant hovered, gaped. He wasn’t going to do anything. The older guy was already backing off, hands spread low in front of him to denote his detachment.
Dudeck rolled to his feet with practiced speed. A siren cut loose somewhere.
“Got some unfinished business,” Carl told him.
“You’re fucking cracked, nigger. That’s monitored, unprovoked aggre—”
He let the mesh drive him. Dudeck saw him coming, threw together a Thai boxing guard, and kicked out. Carl stamped the kick away, feinted the guard, rode the jab punch response, and then broke Dudeck’s nose with a close-in palm heel. The Aryan went over again, explosively, backward. The second serious AC member was staggering upright. Carl punched him in the throat to keep him out of the fight. He went down, choking. Dudeck had bounced up, hadn’t even wiped the blood from his nose. Old hand. His eyes were blank with fury. He came in like a truck, a flurry of blows, all simple linear shit. Carl beat most of it, winced on a stray punch that scraped his cheekbone, then snagged the other man’s right arm at the wrist. He locked up the arm, twisted it, and slammed down with his own forearm. Dudeck’s elbow broke with a crunch, audible even over the sirens. The Aryan shrieked and went down for the last time. Carl kicked him as hard as he could in the ribs. He felt something give. He kicked again, twice, into the stomach. Dudeck threw up on the second impact, softly, like something rupturing. Carl stepped over the Aryan’s twitching body to avoid the pool of vomit, stamped in the man’s already bloodied face, and then bent over him. He grabbed Dudeck’s head up by one ear.
“New rules, birdshit,” he hissed. “I’m working for the man now. I can do what the fuck I want with you. I could kill you, and it wouldn’t make any fucking difference now.”
Dudeck foamed blood and spit. Fragments of a tooth on his smashed lower lip. He was making a low grinding noise somewhere deep in his throat.
Carl let go and stood up. For a moment, he thought he’d stamp on the crumpled form at his feet again, hard into the base of the spine to do some damage the infirmary wouldn’t easily put right, into the face again to destroy it utterly. Maybe go back for the ribs until they snapped inward and punctured something. At least, he thought, he might spit on the Aryan. But the rage had drained abruptly away. He couldn’t be bothered. The Guatemalan had what he’d asked for. Dudeck was out, infirmary-bound. Let the remainder of the Aryan’s shitty Jesusland life take him the rest of the way down. Marsalis didn’t need to see or inflict any more damage. He already knew, within parameters, how it would play out. They stacked men like Dudeck in cheap coffins five-deep outside the poor fund crematoria across the Republic every Sunday. Most of them never made it out of their twenties.
At the far end of F wing, the gate clanged back and the intervention squad piled through. Body armor, stunwrap carbines, and yells. Carl sighed, raised his hands to his head, and walked down the siren-screaming nanocarb hall to meet them.
“Cordwood Systems.”
“Marsalis. Print me.”
“Voiceprint confirmed. You are speaking to the duty controller. Please state your preferences.”
“Jade, lattice, mangosteen, oak.”
“Opening. What are your requirements?”
“I’ve just been hired out of custody by the Western Nations Colony Initiative. They want me to run a variant thirteen retrieval outside UNGLA jurisdiction.”
“That is contrary to—”
“I know. I’ll be in New York in a couple of days. Tell the perimeter crews to expect me. I’ll be dumping my newfound friends as soon as practically possible.”
CHAPTER 13
“Did you have to fucking hospitalize him?”
He shrugged. He’d dumped his prison jacket earlier—stripped off shoes and socks, too—and the beach sand under his feet was cool and firm. The night air brushed his neck and his bared arms like loose-drape silk.