The bear spoke. In a raffish British accent, it said, “Hello, Lessing! Teen here! Remember me? Jason Hollister?”
Marvelous Gap.
God Almighty!
His combat reflexes were still good. He grabbed the bear out of the child’s hands, looked wildly around, howled a warning, slung the toy toward the soup cauldrons in the emptiest part of the mess hall, and dived over on top of the little girl. Chairs screeched and skidded as they tumbled together in a heap under the table.
The thunderclap of the explosion snatched away all sound, all hearing, all breath, and all sensation.
Crockery and cutlery became shrapnel; hot soup turned into fiery napalm; pots and pans flew like cannonballs. Not only did the teddy bear contain an explosive charge, but it was stuffed with undetectable caltrops: sharp, four-pointed stars of brittle plastic that shrieked away in every direction, slashing whatever lay in their paths.
Seconds passed before the screaming began.
Lessing lay sprawled on top of the girl, the table top collapsed over both of them. He didn’t know if he was hurt. The bomb had landed behind the serving counter, limiting the direct force of its blast The caltrops had caused most of the damage. In his mind’s eye he saw the people behind the counter again: two or three prisoners taking seconds, four or five guards, and a cluster of kitchen help over by the coffee urns. They were all dead now.
He had killed them.
Yet what could he have done? The rest of the room was packed; dozens would have died if he had thrown the damned bear anywhere else! Nor could he have rushed over and dunked the bomb into a soup pot; modem demo-devices were waterproof.
The child wriggled and moaned. It was when he sought to roll away from her that he found that he was injured, how badly he wasn’t sure. They lay in a puddle of red, and he knew instinctively that it was his blood, not hers. His left arm didn’t work, and something was wrong with his face. He explored with his tongue and encountered only air: his left cheek was either torn wide open or gone entirely. Both eyes still functioned, though the left one was blurred.
The strange thing was that he didn’t hurt. He had no sensation at all. To his further surprise, his headache was gone.
“We didn’t… we couldn’t… it wasn’t us…” Someone kept moaning above him. It sounded like Gottschalk. Feet stamped on the tabletop over his legs. That hurt, and he cried out. The table tilted, lifted up, and went away, giving him a view of the jagged, blackened hole in the cinderblocks of the far wall where the cafeteria counter had been. Snow was already sifting in to hide the carnage.
Gottschalk ‘s harpy was on top of him, pawing, digging, trying to get at the child. The rebel leader himself was visible behind her, his beard and shirt spattered with red. The woman shoved roughly at Lessing, cursed him, and dragged the limp, dirt-blackened child out. She cradled her, crooned to her, then rose and lurched away.
The pain was beginning now. Soon it would be agony, if he didn’t bleed to death first.
The lib-rebs were innocent this time. They had died here just as Lessing’s people had. Jason Hollister — “Teen” from the Marvelous Gap spesh-op — had given the teddy bear to the kid. Lessing hadn’t seen Hollister among the prisoners, which meant he had already left before the surrender. Right now the bastard was probably watching his bloody triumph on Home-Net in some roach-heaven hotel in San Francisco!
Automatic weapons fire chattered. Screams and shots echoed back and forth in the chaos, and he smelled smoke. So much for good publicity! A woman shrieked and kept on shrieking; Lessing wondered if it were Gottschalk’s witch — or could it be Jennifer?
He went to sleep, shooting or no shooting.
Much, much later he awoke from a lazy afternoon in the movies with Emily Pietrick. Their own love scene had been much juicier than the one on the screen. Now he was both bored and homy again.
Without warning the fabric of that universe ripped apart, and he heard someone say, “He may need a transplant for the eye. Got one in stock?”
A second voice mumbled, “Yah. Think so. Up in Klamath Falls.”
“Get it here, just in case. It’s the arm that’ll be tough, though. Caltrop ripped down through his cheek and into his shoulder. Lots of damage. What’s his blood type?”
“On his dog-tag, doc.” Fingers fumbled at his throat.
“Urn. Get him a stretcher and prep him for immediate ops. The lib-reb woman’s dead, though. Need a body-bag for her. Her husband too. Christ, our guys went nuts with the automatics!”
“Serves the poggers right! It was their fuckin’ bomb! How’s the kid the colonel landed on?”
“Scared out of her weenies, but okay.”
“What a gubbin’ mess…!”
He went back into the theater to find Emily. Maybe the movie would be better the second time around.
You ask whether the Party of Humankind has a solution for the crime problem? Thank you, young lady!
The answer is yes. We are revising all of our laws and restructuring our procedures of law enforcement. We’re rewriting the law books, standardizing, condensing, getting rid of the chaff, and putting the important statutes into language everyone can understand. We’re using our biggest computers for this: machines that can read, digest, cross-reference, and collate a thousand books an hour… and spit out the gist in book form! We’re putting computer terminals in every police station, hospital, courthouse, prison, and government bureau. A single data bank will cover not only every state in the Union but foreign nations that subscribe to our info-network as well. Our computers analyze handwriting, check physical evidence, search data files, compare voice recordings… even do autopsies… all within minutes, and we’re now using DNA genetic codes to tell whether a hair, a blood sample, or a bit of tissue belongs to a given person. Loopholes and technicalities will be eliminated as evidence-gathering procedures are standardized. Moreover, we’re working to develop safe, humane, and almost unbeatable interrogation techniques. Instead of weeks or months to prepare a case, most actions can go to court almost at once.
What about lengthy trial delays, plea bargaining, uneven sentencing for similar offenses, crowded prisons, and The parole system?
Computers and a standardized legal system can’t solve all of those problems, of course, but they will help. Straightforward cases, with solid evidence and no extenuating circumstances, can be decided by computer. After all, why not? Why waste time and money? Our sophisticated computers, checked by human judges, can handle about eighty percent of all cases. The rest will still require a judge and jury. Computers will help in those cases, too, as will the condensation of our law books and a restructuring of our system. We’re also going to allow our computers to consider behavior patterns, psychological profiles, and data from previous convictions. It’ll be a lot tougher on the repeat criminal.
Parole? Time off for good behavior?
We’re getting rid of both of those concepts. They’re no more than revolving doors that put criminals back on the street; they’re unevenly applied, and they haven’t reduced crime one iota. We believe the law should say what it means and mean what it says. You do the crime, you do the time. We need other solutions to overcrowding and to filthy, demeaning, and dangerous prison conditions, of course. These problems only get worse if we convict more offenders, give stricter sentences, and end parole, as I have suggested. Jailing people is expensive, and it fails to produce the results we want: reformed behavior. Prisons are great schoolhouses for young criminals; they are sinkholes of drugs, AIDS, violence, and sexual aberrations; and rehabilitation is as rare as angel feathers! Today seventy-four per cent of our prison population will get out, commit further offenses, and be sent back in for more meaningless incarceration. Rehabilitation simply doesn’t result from jail time. We can’t keep ‘em in, and we don’t want ‘em out. The liberal solution is to mouth platitudes about improving the environment, creating jobs, and spending more money. Your money. We’ve seen how useless that is! You win a little here, you lose a lot there, and your problem keeps growing. Understand this: there is no ‘kind’ solution. There is no way to reduce crime… except to rid ourselves of the criminals. Sorrowfully, and with all the compassion in the world, we must come to the only solution there is: we must put serious offenders to death, as humanely and as gently as possible, without delay or exception. (Uproar)