HUNCHED OVER, I scuttle down the alley. Halfway to the end, I pick up a metal bar that must have once been part of a balcony rail. I lean on it like a cane, but it will give me a weapon if I need one. At the open mouth of the alleyway, I hesitate. My feet don't want to go any further. My thoughts and my heart race each other. Go back. Go back. People wrapped in coats and shoulder blankets hurry by, intent on getting quickly from one place to another. Are they cold, or fearful? I'm not sure. Their gazes are downcast, hoods pulled across faces. They don't greet each other. They don't smile. I shiver, and my mind keeps whispering the same words. Go back. Just go back. You can still go back.
But where, exactly, would I go back to? The drop zone? I work up what saliva I can in my dry mouth and hack and sputter as I hobble down the street. I'm right. People give me a sizable berth, alarm showing in the widening of their eyes. A woman clutching the hand of a small boy crosses the road to avoid me. I shuffle along in the shadows under stoops, around corners, putting some distance between me and the drop zone.
The pavement is crumbling, like everything else. Old papers skip along the street or soak in puddles near gutters that eject foul-smelling steam. As I shuffle, a splinter of glass burrows into the pad of my foot. I don't care; not yet. But I will. I'm sure I'm leaving bloody footprints behind me, but I don't want to look back to check. I'm debating with myself whether or not it's better to stop and have a look at my foot, when I freeze.
Ahead of me in the intersection looms a thick, metallic body. Chunks of steel, reflecting the grey sky, worked together in semi-humanoid form. It sees from a single curved pane of black mirror that comprises its void face. Perfectly still, framed in aether's characteristic blue-tinged heat shimmer, the Sentry takes in everything around it. The people passing by. Bone-level facial features. The rapid beating of my heart.
I draw a ragged breath and tell myself there's nothing to be afraid of. I've done nothing wrong. Or at least, I've already been punished for what I've done. The Sentries are here to protect us; to enforce justice in a way that humans cannot. They uphold the Ten Laws of the New World Covenant, impartial, blind to diversities, without feeling. They are our government, and beyond that we're free to make our own choices. Our own mistakes. Our forefathers, strangling in red tape, frozen by eternal debate and endless committees, eventually, out of desperation, made a sharp turn to this drastically simpler system. They meant for us to live in a world that balanced basic protections with freedom of choice. But they underestimated mankind's ability to adapt, to commit atrocities in new ways that defy computerized logic. Those who are brought to 'justice' are often the desperate, the destitute, and the helpless. Our world is thinly disguised chaos, and the scales of justice have been replaced by guillotines with legs. A shiver runs through my body as I realize what I'm thinking— as I realize that I am even capable of thinking it.
Erasure should have removed every part of my personality— every opinion, dissension, every thought that is me. Political views violate the Second Law. To have them is dangerous. To have them after an erasure is unthinkable. Is it possible they were embedded so deeply within my basic understanding of the world that they passed, unchecked, into my new life? And if so, what else could have come with them?
My eyes fix on the Sentry. Now I'm afraid. I take a deep breath and start counting backward. I hobble into the street, cross in front of the machine. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight. Ninety-seven. Its jointed, steely toes enter my peripheral vision. I move into its shadow. Eighty-two. Eighty-one. I step onto the opposite curb. The metal monster has not moved. Seventy-eight. I'm OK. I'm safe. Seventy-six. Shifting metal behind me. I glance back. Its face has turned toward me. It makes no other move. I duck my head and shuffle off, trailing bloody footprints behind me.