[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
a trace in my bloodstream and the only controlled
substance I could think of that I d used over the last
few years since I d cleaned up my act. With a sinking
feeling I realized that if I hadn t been in serious
trouble before, I was now.
We reached the bullet-pocked steel courthouse
and the plastic-encased back seat of the patrol car
became my porta-prison cell. The unit I sat in quickly
ejected itself into the loading dock where a large
robotic claw grasped my tiny cell and placed it on a
conveyer line headed for the automated courtroom.
I tentatively tried kicking the side of my cell, only to
be rewarded with a pre-recorded message,
Destruction of police property will increase sentence
time by three percent.
I didn t try kicking it again. Even a few extra days
in a modern prison could easily mean the difference
between life and death.
Before I d even reached the underground court
area, the speaker in my traveling slammer
announced, Under the authority vested in this
computer by the Supreme, you have been found
guilty of abuse of an unauthorized controlled
substance number four thirty-one, commonly called
jet or hacker sauce. Any statements you make will be
ignored as per Penal Code two million, five hundred
thousand, four hundred, fifty-six of the Powers Act of
2014. Please remain silent. You will be sentenced
momentarily.
I didn t have long to wait.
The charges were repeated by my cell s speaker
as it jerked alone the cable into the steel-walled
chamber that served as the automated courtroom. A
super computer presided at the judge s seat with two,
85
worn TV cameras bearing mute witness as they
carefully recorded the event.
You are sentenced to four months of
detoxification, the computer rasped at me. Due to
the suspension of habeas corpus, there are no
appeals.
Four months? Wait a minute there must be a
mistake. Four months can t possible be the correct
sentence for
Next.
Wait a minute! I yelled helplessly as the conveyer
line started, whisking me out of the courtroom and
back toward the surface. I reached the darkness of
the night where another arm removed my cell from
the line and stacked it into a pile of cubicles, each
with another misfit trapped inside.
Where we headed, I yelled through my plastic
cage to the tired-looking recomb sitting in the cubicle
next to mine.
Does it make a difference?
To me.
He smiled a grin that revealed a double line of
stainless steel teeth. Timothy Leery s House for the
Addicted.
I know my face grew pale. You re kidding. I
thought they closed that place down two years ago.
And reopened it. Economizing, you know.
I didn t have a chance to say anything else
because the roboarm clanged another cell on top of
mine, completing the stacked load. Our automated
truck lurched to a start, pulling out of the dock, then
sped into the night, taking me to Timothy Leery s
Home for the Addicted, the world s first and least
successful experiment in automated mental health
care.
86
CHAPTER 13
e approached the detox hospital,
whose neon sign blazed in the
night, boldly proclaiming in pink
and blue to all the darkened
landscape that we were
approaching:
Timothy Leery s Ho-e for the Addicted.
Yeah, the neon was showing its age with the m in
Home missing, causing hoots of derision and a
debate among the inmates headed there whether it
should be pronounced Timothy Leery s Hoe for the
sex addicted and Timothy Leery s Hoe for the
Afflicted . There was lots of laughter.
Nervous laughter.
Way too much.
Like you d expect from those acceding the gallows
while trying to project an image of being tough and
fearless.
One of the prospective inmates in the cubicle
below me started a raunchy rendition of Just Say No
to Drugs and Dough, suggesting it might have been a
return visit for him. Nothing like a musical interlude to
soothe the drug-starved nerves, the recomb next to
87
me hollered over the raucous musical rendition.
Nerves? I answered. What nerves?
We circled the driveway leading to the front of the
tall, three-story building and I was aware of the
pleasant smell of syntho-rain on damp earth and
vegetation. Barely visible in the garish blinking neon
light was a huge flower bed that stretched in front of
the building and the round, shiny bodies of robo-
gardeners.
Maybe things won t be so bad after all, I tried to
convince myself, forcing all the stories I d heard about
the terrors of this rehab center out of my cringing
consciousness. Any place this pretty can t be too bad
to be in.
But then the autotruck we rode in continued
around the building and my assessment took a nose
dive. With a shudder I saw the truth. The building s
front was only a facade, designed to impress those
viewing it from the road. Behind the bill-board-like
front was a massive pit that looked like it most likely
descended straight into the depths of Hell.
The truck carrying us went straight for the pit
without slowing, traveling down a concrete ramp into
the blackness that couldn t be penetrated by the lone
floodlight dancing along the rim of the pit looking for
escapees.
Why aren t there any lights down there? I called
to the recomb next to me.
The guards don t need them.
I closed my eyes and tried not to shake. Why s
that?
The guards don t have eyes.
I have eyes, I protested.
You re not running the place, my new friend told
me.
That seemed sensible enough at the time.
88
The truck lurched to a stop, throwing all the
inmates it carried onto the floors of their cells. The
doors flopped open in the darkness and an abrasive
mechanical voice instructed us: Patients will
disembark to the left, following the red line.
It might as well have told us to follow the yellow
brick road. Because in the pitch blackness of the pit,
we could see nothing.
Follow the red line, the mechanical voice ordered
once more.
What red line? I asked myself. It was now so dark I
couldn t see my hand in front of my face. I was free to
move but where to.
Where s the damn red line? I asked aloud.
Get out of the cubicles and follow the red line,
the voice said. Those failing to follow this order will
be severely punished, it added ominously.
One of the prisoners to my left yelled loudly,
Where s the freaking red line? Hey, let go of His
voice vanished in a gurgling sound and there was a
flash of electrical energy.
The second flash lasted long enough to freeze
frame a picture that seemed to claw at my mind. A
skeletal, eyeless mech monster hovered over the
prisoner who d been protesting, a glowing cattle prod
in the mech s hand held spear-like as it touched the
helpless man s body which writhed on the dock,
shuddering with the electrical arch coursing into his
body.
Come on, the recomb ordered, taking my arm. I
saw the red line in the electric spark. It s over here
somewhere. We need to head this way.
I followed in the darkness, my hand on his
shoulder, picking my way like a blind man. I only [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl exclamation.htw.pl
a trace in my bloodstream and the only controlled
substance I could think of that I d used over the last
few years since I d cleaned up my act. With a sinking
feeling I realized that if I hadn t been in serious
trouble before, I was now.
We reached the bullet-pocked steel courthouse
and the plastic-encased back seat of the patrol car
became my porta-prison cell. The unit I sat in quickly
ejected itself into the loading dock where a large
robotic claw grasped my tiny cell and placed it on a
conveyer line headed for the automated courtroom.
I tentatively tried kicking the side of my cell, only to
be rewarded with a pre-recorded message,
Destruction of police property will increase sentence
time by three percent.
I didn t try kicking it again. Even a few extra days
in a modern prison could easily mean the difference
between life and death.
Before I d even reached the underground court
area, the speaker in my traveling slammer
announced, Under the authority vested in this
computer by the Supreme, you have been found
guilty of abuse of an unauthorized controlled
substance number four thirty-one, commonly called
jet or hacker sauce. Any statements you make will be
ignored as per Penal Code two million, five hundred
thousand, four hundred, fifty-six of the Powers Act of
2014. Please remain silent. You will be sentenced
momentarily.
I didn t have long to wait.
The charges were repeated by my cell s speaker
as it jerked alone the cable into the steel-walled
chamber that served as the automated courtroom. A
super computer presided at the judge s seat with two,
85
worn TV cameras bearing mute witness as they
carefully recorded the event.
You are sentenced to four months of
detoxification, the computer rasped at me. Due to
the suspension of habeas corpus, there are no
appeals.
Four months? Wait a minute there must be a
mistake. Four months can t possible be the correct
sentence for
Next.
Wait a minute! I yelled helplessly as the conveyer
line started, whisking me out of the courtroom and
back toward the surface. I reached the darkness of
the night where another arm removed my cell from
the line and stacked it into a pile of cubicles, each
with another misfit trapped inside.
Where we headed, I yelled through my plastic
cage to the tired-looking recomb sitting in the cubicle
next to mine.
Does it make a difference?
To me.
He smiled a grin that revealed a double line of
stainless steel teeth. Timothy Leery s House for the
Addicted.
I know my face grew pale. You re kidding. I
thought they closed that place down two years ago.
And reopened it. Economizing, you know.
I didn t have a chance to say anything else
because the roboarm clanged another cell on top of
mine, completing the stacked load. Our automated
truck lurched to a start, pulling out of the dock, then
sped into the night, taking me to Timothy Leery s
Home for the Addicted, the world s first and least
successful experiment in automated mental health
care.
86
CHAPTER 13
e approached the detox hospital,
whose neon sign blazed in the
night, boldly proclaiming in pink
and blue to all the darkened
landscape that we were
approaching:
Timothy Leery s Ho-e for the Addicted.
Yeah, the neon was showing its age with the m in
Home missing, causing hoots of derision and a
debate among the inmates headed there whether it
should be pronounced Timothy Leery s Hoe for the
sex addicted and Timothy Leery s Hoe for the
Afflicted . There was lots of laughter.
Nervous laughter.
Way too much.
Like you d expect from those acceding the gallows
while trying to project an image of being tough and
fearless.
One of the prospective inmates in the cubicle
below me started a raunchy rendition of Just Say No
to Drugs and Dough, suggesting it might have been a
return visit for him. Nothing like a musical interlude to
soothe the drug-starved nerves, the recomb next to
87
me hollered over the raucous musical rendition.
Nerves? I answered. What nerves?
We circled the driveway leading to the front of the
tall, three-story building and I was aware of the
pleasant smell of syntho-rain on damp earth and
vegetation. Barely visible in the garish blinking neon
light was a huge flower bed that stretched in front of
the building and the round, shiny bodies of robo-
gardeners.
Maybe things won t be so bad after all, I tried to
convince myself, forcing all the stories I d heard about
the terrors of this rehab center out of my cringing
consciousness. Any place this pretty can t be too bad
to be in.
But then the autotruck we rode in continued
around the building and my assessment took a nose
dive. With a shudder I saw the truth. The building s
front was only a facade, designed to impress those
viewing it from the road. Behind the bill-board-like
front was a massive pit that looked like it most likely
descended straight into the depths of Hell.
The truck carrying us went straight for the pit
without slowing, traveling down a concrete ramp into
the blackness that couldn t be penetrated by the lone
floodlight dancing along the rim of the pit looking for
escapees.
Why aren t there any lights down there? I called
to the recomb next to me.
The guards don t need them.
I closed my eyes and tried not to shake. Why s
that?
The guards don t have eyes.
I have eyes, I protested.
You re not running the place, my new friend told
me.
That seemed sensible enough at the time.
88
The truck lurched to a stop, throwing all the
inmates it carried onto the floors of their cells. The
doors flopped open in the darkness and an abrasive
mechanical voice instructed us: Patients will
disembark to the left, following the red line.
It might as well have told us to follow the yellow
brick road. Because in the pitch blackness of the pit,
we could see nothing.
Follow the red line, the mechanical voice ordered
once more.
What red line? I asked myself. It was now so dark I
couldn t see my hand in front of my face. I was free to
move but where to.
Where s the damn red line? I asked aloud.
Get out of the cubicles and follow the red line,
the voice said. Those failing to follow this order will
be severely punished, it added ominously.
One of the prisoners to my left yelled loudly,
Where s the freaking red line? Hey, let go of His
voice vanished in a gurgling sound and there was a
flash of electrical energy.
The second flash lasted long enough to freeze
frame a picture that seemed to claw at my mind. A
skeletal, eyeless mech monster hovered over the
prisoner who d been protesting, a glowing cattle prod
in the mech s hand held spear-like as it touched the
helpless man s body which writhed on the dock,
shuddering with the electrical arch coursing into his
body.
Come on, the recomb ordered, taking my arm. I
saw the red line in the electric spark. It s over here
somewhere. We need to head this way.
I followed in the darkness, my hand on his
shoulder, picking my way like a blind man. I only [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]