I sat there holding the tablet and stared at her. I counted five in my head, and then pushed the tablet at her mouth. She opened up and I popped it in without ceremony. She swallowed it whole. Then I held up the cup of water.
“Wh-” she started to say, and I whipped my hand up again.
“No talking, right? Nod that you understand.”
She nodded. I took my hand away. I pushed the cup toward her.
“You can live for three days without water, Ms. Harper,” I said. “But I wouldn’t advise it. This is nasty shit, especially for someone who’s used to filtered. I’d drink it, though, because we’re all leaving in a bit, and you’re going to be on your own for a while. I doubt anyone else is going to help you.”
I held the cup up to her lips and tipped it. More ran down her chin than got into her mouth, but she greedily gulped what she could. When it was gone she lay there panting and licking the last dirty drops from her lips. I nodded.
“Okay. You’ll live a little longer, then.” I got up.
“Wait!” she croaked, her voice sounding rusty and deep. I turned back to her suddenly, bringing my arm back, and she leaned away from me in shocked panic, eyes widening.
“Please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
I stood there, poised, but didn’t bring my arm down. I stared down at her, and then knelt back down, leaning in close. I could smell her sweat, her fear.
“Don’t,” I said slowly, “speak.”
Eyes wide, she nodded dumbly.
I started to get back up, but paused. “Listen, Ms. Harper-I’m a civilized man, okay? I promise you’re going to be fine, if you just shut your mouth and relax. Okay?”
I didn’t know why I’d said that. I wanted her to believe it, though. I was a civilized man. If I’d been given a chance, if I’d been born ten years sooner, if I’d been rich, I would have… done something. Anything. I looked at her until she nodded again, faintly, afraid to move too much and set me off again. When a hand fell on my shoulder, I almost grabbed it and flipped the motherfucker over my shoulder, but let the urge pass through like a ripple of potential energy.
“C’mon, Cates,” Tanner said cheerfully. I wasn’t sure how I’d come to tell them apart, but it had become suddenly easy. “You ready to die?”
Turning away from Harper, I made a mental note to replace the tape on her mouth, not because anyone was going to hear her, but because if she started shouting I didn’t doubt that someone, maybe even Gatz, would shut her up.
“We’ve got to strap you down. When the toxin hits your nervous system, there’s probably going to be some convulsing.”
I stared at Kieth, who had somehow found the time and materials to shave his head smooth again. His scalp gleamed in the sickly light of the kitchen. I was sitting on the big crate, with Kieth, Milton, and Tanner standing around me, each of them holding a length of synthetic rope. Orel leaned against a wall, smoking a cigarette, disdaining to do any actual work. For a second, my balls crawled up into my gut and my tongue shriveled to a stump. I was going to entrust my entire existence to these people. If they weren’t incompetent, they wouldn’t shed tears if I never made it back-unless of course I was bearing buckets full of yen at the time.
The moment passed. It didn’t matter: I wasn’t going to live through the week, anyway. I’d killed System Cops, I’d taken on the job of assassinating the leader of the Electric Church, there were hits out on me. I could feel the struggle falling away, and calm took its place. I was just waiting for the impact, and the few seconds before were blissful, peaceful-empty.
I nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Kieth nodded. “I just want to make sure you understand what’s about to happen to you. Administered correctly, this solution will induce a deathlike state. This means that while you may-or may not-retain perception, you will certainly lose all conscious control. Your breathing and heartbeat will slow to almost undetectable levels. To most examinations, you will appear deceased. If you do retain perception, it will be… most uncomfortable.”
I let Milton take my arm and begin tying a rubber tube around my forearm. “If I retain perception?”
Kieth shrugged. “Not many people survive this. There just isn’t much information available.”
This struck me as funny, and I burst out laughing. Kieth and Milton shared a look, but didn’t say anything. I listened to the rest of Kieth’s speech with tearing eyes as I struggled to regain my composure, but the laughter kept dribbling out of me. This was classic. This was appropriate. This was how the Gweat and Tewwible Avery Cates was going go out, after all the fighting and scrabbling and suffering. He was going to just lie back and get executed.
Kieth plowed through my hysteria. “You’ll possibly feel pain. Don’t discount the psychological impact if you do have your wits about you, Mr. Cates-it’ll probably be very claustrophobic.”
Still giggling, I waved at him. “Come on, Mr. Kieth, hurry it up, now.”
Milton tapped the vein that had risen in my arm and nodded with professional satisfaction. Kieth picked up a slender syringe and looked apologetic.
“I tried to scrounge an auto-hypo, but they’re scarce, so we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.” He held the syringe up so I could see it. The seriousness on his face almost started me laughing again. He still thought this all mattered. “The, uh, the Monk will have another syringe just like this one, containing a little cocktail of chemicals. If Mr. Gatz can really control it, it will be injecting it directly into your heart when the time comes-when you are inside and momentarily secure. Mr. Cates, Ty can’t stress this enough: The ‘waking up’ process is not going to be pleasant. You’re going to go from as near dead as you can be and still be alive to fully functional within seconds. It will be much like doing a hard reboot on a computer system. That, Ty knows with certainty, will be very painful.”
I nodded, feeling some control coming back to me. “Understood.”
Kieth looked unhappy. “Ty doesn’t think telling you this serves any purpose, but everyone else seems to feel you should know that you need to come out of stasis within four hours or so. Longer than that and you may not ever come out. You can only play dead for so long, eh?”
“Understood. Let’s get this show on the road. It’s time.”
Kieth held the syringe up and tapped it with one finger, squinting at it. Then he looked around at the others and back at me. A terrible excuse for a smile came over his face, unpleasant to look at. “See you on the other side, Mr. Cates.”
I lay back and they strapped me down tight. Milton held my arm in position, palm up, and I made a fist. I looked around at all of them as Tanner leaned over me with a piece of leather to slip between my teeth. I was still calm, still feeling the last tingle of the laughter rippling inside me, but a coppery taste of terror had oozed into my mouth. I swallowed it back and it stuck in my throat.
“Don’t fuck up,” I said, my voice tight and harsh, as if little bits of glass had gotten lodged in it.
“Fuck you,” Tanner snapped, jamming the leather between my teeth roughly. “We don’t ever fuck up.”
A bit of motion caught my eye and I turned my head to see Orel pushing off from the wall and crushing his discarded cigarette. Our eyes met, and he winked as he sauntered out of the room. I knew that look. That calm determination always preceded a calculated murder. He’d waited until I was tied down, and now he was going to put a bullet in Marilyn Harper’s brain. A hot blade of panic sliced through me: How had I not seen this coming? The answer was galling: For all his outward urbanity, our fake Orel was not a civilized man.
I kicked, I screamed, I struggled against the ropes. But Milton and Tanner held me down with surprising strength, and Kieth leaned in like a doctor, grim and serious.