—You’re an Ignorant Idiot by Chad C. Mulligan
continuity (12)
IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE AUTOMATIC BUT ACTUALLY YOU HAVE TO PRESS THIS BUTTON
A shrill ringing gaffed Donald through the ears and dragged him struggling out of the deep water of sleep. Cursing, he managed to focus his eyes on the wall-clock and saw it was only nine-thirty anti-matter. He tried for a while to convince himself that what had disturbed him was nothing more than Norman leaving for work a quarter-hour later than usual. But the ringing repeated.
He almost fell off the edge of the bed and forced his arms into the sleeves of a robe. A good few people didn’t own such garments any longer; if they had callers before they were dressed they went to the door as they were and if the callers were shocked that was their problem. At least half the shiggies off the circuit who had briefly stayed in this apartment owned nothing but street-clothes, and those exiguous enough to pack in a single bag. But he was a little old-fashioned.
He made it to the door still less than normally alert, and when he checked through the spy-port to see who was outside all that registered on his mind apart from the number—four of them—was that his callers were from out of town. This was demonstrated by their carrying coats slung over their arms.
Stifling a yawn, he opened the door.
All the visitors were youthful in appearance, though at closer sight the one standing closest to the entrance might have been older than Donald. All wore rather formal clothing: sweaterettes and slax in shades of grey, green, dark blue and beige. The effect was that they were wearing uniforms, one apiece. All seemed to have natural hair, neither dyed nor coiffed. It struck Donald, much too late, that if a group of yonderboys wanted to gain access to someone’s home this was exactly how they would have disguised themselves, discarding their gaudy shirjacks with the built-in fake musculature and their skin-tight codpieced slax.
The one who headed the rest said, “Morning, Mr. Hogan. You don’t have any shiggies here at the moment, do you?”
“I—uh—what’s it got to do with you? Who are you?”
“One moment please.” The man gestured to his companions and advanced with them at his heels; Donald, even yet incompletely awake, fell back, feeling very vulnerable with nothing on except his flimsy thigh-length robe.
“Didn’t expect to be back here so soon,” the spokesman said affably, closing the door. “All right, check it out fast!”
The three sparewheels tossed their coats on handy pieces of furniture. Each proved to have been concealing something in his covered hand. Two of them had small instruments which they proceeded to point at the walls, ceiling and floor, watching them intently. The third had a bolt-gun, and he strode rapidly from room to room of the apartment peering around suspiciously.
Donald’s heart began to feel very heavy inside his chest, as though it were pressing on his intestines and threatening to squeeze up vomit from him like toothpaste from a tube. He said weakly, “Back so soon…? But I’ve never seen you before!”
“I get only our own stuff,” one of the sparewheels said, lowering his incomprehensible instrument. The second nodded. The third returned from his tour of inspection putting his gun away in a concealed pocket beneath his left arm.
“Thank you,” the spokesman said mildly. “Ah—shagreen, Mr. Hogan. I think that should explain our visit adequately…?”
There was no menace in the gentle questioning note on which he uttered the words, but abruptly the heaviness of Donald’s heart became so great it seemed to have stopped altogether, and he could imagine the ponderous burden dragging him down to the floor.
Shagreen. Oh my God. No!
He hadn’t heard the word, to his knowledge, since a day ten years before when the colonel, in that office in Washington, warned him how he would be activated if the need arose. And the reference to “coming back”, and to “our own stuff”—!
I told Norman. Last night I was sick and stupefied and couldn’t control myself. I told him the truth. I’m a traitor. Not just a spy, not just a fool who can start a riot without trying. I’m a traitor too!
He licked his lips, absolutely unable to react even to reveal his dismay. The spokesman was going on, and certainly he did not have the air of an official sent to arrest a traitor.
But all the things he could do would be equally bad.
“I’m Major Delahanty. We haven’t met before, but I feel I know you better than most of your friends do. I took you over from Colonel Braddock when he retired last year. These are my assistants, by the way—Sergeant French, Sergeant Awden, Sergeant Schritt.” The sparewheels nodded but Donald was much too confused to think anything except that he now, finally, knew the name of the colonel who had administered his oath was Braddock.
He said, “You’ve come to activate me, hm?”
Delahanty looked quite sympathetic. “Didn’t pick the best time, did we? What with that shiggy turning out to be an indesper and then you getting fouled up in the riot last night … Schritty, why don’t you fix some coffee for the lieutenant here and maybe for all of us?”
That fixed it firmly in Donald’s mind: “the lieutenant here”. Probably the choice of phrase was calculated. It bit home on his brain like a steel claw.
“I—I have to go to the bathroom,” he whispered. “Sit down and make yourselves at home.”
* * *
When he had emptied his bladder he tugged open the medicine cabinet and stared first at his own reflection, bleary-eyed, unshaven, then at the bottles, packets and phials ranged on the shelves. He stretched out his hand for some Wakup tablets, and his fingers brushed a neighbouring jar. Out of habit he read the label. It said: POISON. NOT TO BE TAKEN.
All of a sudden he was as frightened in reality as he had imagined in his long-ago nightmares. He clung to the side of the washbasin to stop himself keeling over, teeth chattering, vision tunnelled down to a single bright white patch, which was the label bearing the burning words.
Faust felt like this. The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, the devil will come and Faustus must be damned … How long did he buy with the currency of his soul—ten years?
What are they going to make me do? At least I have one hope denied to Faust … Might not be quick, but provided they assume I’m favouring my bowels not my bladder they’ll give me five or ten minutes. The lot at one go should be enough.
He snatched up the jar and flipped off the lid. At the bottom of the opaque container a dusting of whitish powder lay, mocking him.
He was abruptly very cold, but the shaking from terror was at least driven away by the honest shivers that now racked him. He dropped the jar, and the lid after, in the disposall, and gulped down the Wakup pills he had at first intended to take.
After another couple of minutes he turned and left the bathroom with careful, unhurried strides.
* * *
It was a fresh shock to discover that, instead of dialling for coffee from the block kitchen as a stranger might be expected to do, Sergeant Schritt had used Donald’s own maker, kept in his bedroom along with a can of his favourite blend.
Christ, how much do these people know about me? Earlier, when I talked so dangerously to Norman …
His voice, though, remained reasonably steady when he said, “I didn’t realise you’d been watching me so thoroughly.”
“Routine, I’m afraid.” Delahanty shrugged. “We much prefer our operatives to live alone, as you know, but that in itself, these days, is pretty much of a suspicious circumstance, what with there not being enough accommodation to go around. Mr. House is as clean as they come, of course, a good respectable mosque-goer and holding down a very responsible position, but the fact that you were both working the shiggy circuit has given us some uncomfortable moments, I must confess. Especially last night when we detected that ingenious gadget in the polyorgan. I haven’t run across that one before, and it’s the next best thing to foolproof, blast it.”