"Vanceattle? Which one?"
Shrug.
"Don't you have a watch?"
"Lost it."
You've got to help him, Shadow said.
"Well, um, look." Fischer rubbed at his temples. "I live close by. We can call from there."
There weren't that many Vanceattles in the lower mainland. The police wouldn't have to find out. And even if they did, they wouldn't charge him. Not for this. What was he supposed to do, leave the kid for body parts?
"I'm Gerry," Fischer said.
"Kevin."
Kevin looked about nine or ten. Old enough that he should know how to use a public terminal, anyway. But there was something wrong with him. He was too tall and skinny, and his limbs tangled up in themselves when he walked. Maybe he was brain damaged. Maybe one of those nanotech babies that went bad. Or maybe his mother just spent too much time outdoors when she was pregnant.
Fischer led Kevin up to his two-room timeshare. Kevin dropped onto the couch without asking. Fischer checked the fridge: root beer. The boy took it with a nervous smile. Fischer sat down beside him and put a reassuring hand on Kevin's lap.
The expression drained from Kevin's face as though someone had pulled a plug.
Go on, Shadow said. He's not complaining, is he?
Kevin's clothes were filthy. Caked mud clung to his pants. Fischer reached over and began picking it off. "We should get you out of these clothes. Get you cleaned up. We can only take showers on even days here, but you could always take a sponge bath…"
Kevin just sat there. One hand gripped his drink, bony fingers denting the plastic; the other rested motionless on the couch.
Fischer smiled. "It's okay. This is what you do when you really—"
Kevin stared at the floor, trembling.
Fischer found a zipper, pulled. Pressed, gently. "It's okay. It's okay. Don't worry."
Kevin stopped shaking. Kevin looked up.
Kevin smiled.
"I'm not the one who should be worried here, asshole," he said in his whistling child's voice.
The jolt threw Fischer to the floor. Suddenly he was staring at the ceiling, fingers twitching at the ends of arms that had turned, magically, into dead weights. His whole nervous system sang like a tracery of high-tension wires embedded in flesh.
His bladder let go. Wet warmth spread out from his crotch.
Kevin stepped over him and looked down, all trace of awkwardness gone from his movements. One hand still held the plastic cup. The other held a shockprod.
Very deliberately, Kevin upended his drink. Fischer watched the liquid snake down, almost casually, and splash across his face. His eyes stung; Kevin was a spindly blur in a wash of weak acid. Fischer tried to blink, tried again, finally succeeded.
One of Kevin's legs was swinging back at the knee.
"Gerald Fischer, you are under arrest—"
It swung forward. Pain erupted in Fischer's side.
"— for indecent assault of a minor—"
Back. Forward. Pain.
"— under sections 151 and 152 of the N'Am Pacific Criminal Code."
The child knelt down and glared into his face. Up close the telltales were obvious; the depth of the eyes, the size of the pores in the skin, the plastic resilience of adult flesh soaked in androgen suppressants.
"Not to mention violation of yet another restraining order," Kevin added.
How long, Fischer wondered absently. Neural aftershock draped the whole world in gauze. How many months did it take to stunt back down from man to child?
"You have the right to— ah, fuck."
And how long to reverse the reversal? Could Kevin ever grow up again?
"You know your fucking rights better than I do."
This wasn't happening. The police wouldn't go this far, they didn't have the money, and anyway, why? How could anyone be willing to change themselves like that? Just to get Gerry Fischer? Why?
"I suppose I should call you in, shouldn't I? Then again, maybe I'll just let you lie here in your own piss for a while…"
Somehow, he got the feeling that Kevin was hurting more than he was. It didn't make sense.
It's okay, Shadow told him softly. It's not your fault. They just don't understand.
Kevin was kicking him again, but Fischer could hardly feel it. He tried to say something, anything, that would make his tormentor feel a little better, but his motor nerves were still fried.
He could still cry, though. Different wiring.
It was different this time. It started out the same, the scans and the samples and the beatings, but then they took him out of the line and cleaned him up, and put him in a side room. Two guards sat him down at a table, across from a dumpy little man with brown moles all over his face.
"Hello, Gerry," he said, pretending not to notice Fischer's injuries. "I'm Dr. Scanlon."
"You're a shrink."
"Actually, I'm more of a mechanic." He smiled, a prissy little smile that said I've just been very clever but you're probably too stupid to get the joke. Fischer decided he didn't like Scanlon much.
Still, his type had been useful before, with all their talk about competence and criminal responsibility. It's not so much what you did, Fischer had learned, as why you did it. If you did things because you were evil, you were in real trouble. If you did the same things because you were sick, though, the doctors would sometimes cover for you. Fischer had learned to be sick.
Scanlon pulled a headband out of his breast pocket. "I'd like to talk to you for a little while, Gerry. Would you mind putting this on for me?"
The inside of the band was studded with sensor pads. It felt cool across his forehead. Fischer looked around the room, but he couldn't see any monitors or readouts.
"Great." Scanlon nodded to the guards. He waited until they'd left before he spoke again.
"You're a strange one, Gerry Fischer. We don't run into too many like you."
"That's not what the other doctors said."
"Oh? What did they say?"
"They said I was typical. They said, they said lots of the one-fifty-one's used the same rationale."
Scanlon leaned forward. "Well you know, that's true. It's a classic line: 'I was teaching her about her awakening sexuality, doctor. 'It's the parents' job to instruct their children, doctor. 'They don't like school either, but it's for their own good. "
"I never said those things. I don't even have kids."
"No you don't. But the point is, pedophiles often claim to be acting in the best interests of the children. They turn sexual abuse into an act of altruism, if you will."
"It's not abuse. It's what you do if you really love someone."
Scanlon leaned back in his chair and studied Fischer for a few moments.
"That's what's so interesting about you, Gerry."
"What?"
"Everyone uses that line. You're the only person I've met who might actually believe it."
In the end, they said they could take care of the charges. He knew there had to be more to it than that, of course; they'd make him volunteer for some sort of experiment, or donate some of his organs, or submit to voluntary castration first. But the catch, when it came, wasn't any of those things. He almost couldn't believe it.
They wanted to give him a job.
"Think of it as community service," Scanlon said. "Restitution to all of society. You'd be underwater most of the time, but you'd be well-equipped."
"Underwater where?"
"Channer Vent. About forty kilometers north of the Axial Volcano, on the Juan de Fuca Rift. Do you know where that is, Gerry?"
"How long?"
"One year minimum. You could extend that if you wanted to."
Fischer couldn't think of any reason why he would, but it didn't matter. If he didn't take this deal they'd stick a governor in his head for the rest of his life. Which might not be that long, when you thought about it.
"One year," he said. "Underwater."
Scanlon patted his arm. "Take your time, Gerry. Think about it. You don't have to decide until this afternoon."
Do it, Shadow urged. Do it or they'll cut into you and you'll change…
But Fischer wasn't going to be rushed. "So what do I do for one year, underwater?"
Scanlon showed him a vid.
"Geez," Fischer said. "I can't do any of that."
"No problem." Scanlon smiled. "You'll learn."