Part of his mind tried to balk at what it tried to declare treasonous behavior. This prompted Renzo to begin justifying to himself what he was doing. Soon enough, he was a hero of the state in his own estimation.
"Welcome back," Anthony said.
"Pardon me if I'm still deciding if that's a good thing," Harvey said, lying flat on his back, blinded by pain and half suffocated by a bizarre feeling of weakness.
"Let us know if you need the pain meds back," Anthony said. "They thought they'd like to let you be something other than medicated out of your mind for a bit. Your call."
Harvey didn't know how to answer that. "I never thought I'd say this, but where in the world am I?" he asked.
"Ontario Hollows. We've been thinking of moving you to Nampatun, but thought it would be bad form to kill you by jostling you around too soon. So you're still at Ontario. It's just down the tunnel from the Annextun base, if you're trying to get your bearings."
Harvey didn't know why jostling might kill him. He had no recollection of coming underground again. He had no idea why Tony was at his bedside, much less dressed as a minister. But he decided he'd rather die than admit to any more ignorance of basic facts. Besides, he wondered if he was hallucinating. That would explain his brother being a minister. It would be unspeakably embarrassing to find you'd been asking questions of a hallucination. And, perhaps worse, listening to its answers.
"You got shot by friendly fire, by a fellow who mistook a footrace for an invasion. You got shot in the gut, which should have killed you before now, but some day let the surgeon and nurse tell you how the bullet somehow slid past more intestines than it should have, and how well you've responded to antibiotics. You've made a couple or three people believe in miracles," Anthony said.
"Tony?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you dressed as... oh, never mind."
"A minister? Yeah. I even have the job to go with it. I bet that surprises you."
"Tony?"
"Yeah?"
"I keep seeing fire. I'm not sure it's there to burn the dross off, either."
"That's good to know. Lots of people go through life with false hope, and never get through the narrow gate. Let's make sure that's not you, OK? I don't think it is, but I could be wrong, and this is the one thing we don't dare get wrong. It's more likely that you've just been corrupted by bad company, but even that's serious. In either case, it's fixable, if God gets in on it on our behalf."
"I don't know why He'd bother. Not with me."
"Join the club," Anthony said. "And thanks for showing signs of spiritual maturity after a fashion. I'm really horrible at dealing with people who are sure they're just so wonderful that God would miss out if He didn't take them to heaven. That's never ever a good sign."
"Tony?"
"Yeah?"
"I think I might have killed somebody. In cold blood, I mean."
"If you mean Gills, your co-pilot, you're clear by worldly standards, but guilty as hell by Christian standards."
"Translate that."
"He's alive, and well, but you harbored murder in your heart toward him. Christ holds us accountable for our thoughts, you know."
"Oh, joy. And, I'm sorry, but I think I need those pain meds. Soon."
"Before or after confession?"
Harvey hesitated.
"The correct answer," Anthony prompted, "is after. You're still in critical condition, and this is no time to be trusting to kind fate."
"You don't give a guy much room to dodge."
"I don't dare. Too much is at stake."
"Who are you, and what did you do with my brother?" Harvey tossed off, trying to be smart.
"I'll tell you about it later. You're dodging again."
Harvey stared at the ceiling.
"Tony?"
"Yeah?"
"There's too much to confess."
"Hogwash. There might be too much to face all at once, or so much that you don't know where to start, but there's never too much to confess. Think St. Paul, for starters. So, let's start somewhere. Anywhere. Silly. Serious. Big. Small. Doesn't matter. Or, better yet, let's start with a blanket confession and work backwards from there if we need to. Repeat after me, 'Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.'"
"Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner," Harvey said.
"I confess that I have sinned, both by what I have done, and by what I have left undone," Anthony said.
Harvey stared at the ceiling.
"This, lad, is one big reason why we like to have people do confessions on an ongoing basis," Anthony said. "Fewer logjams that way. Keep working on it while I go see if I can line up some pain meds. You look like you need them."
Renzo wasn't horribly surprised when an unscheduled helicopter flew into view. He was disappointed – his beloved Government shouldn't be making such a mistake as he suspected it was about to make. But he wasn't surprised. If there was one thing he'd finally learned, it was that there were people who let Government down, and that fact alone meant that there would be mistakes made. He was sure that, given enough time, matters would straighten out. The question was, how was he to buy time?
It occurred to him that he must try to react properly, if he was depersoned. If he looked hopeful, that might raise suspicions, which was the last thing he needed right now.
It suddenly occurred to him that he might have missed a message telling him to expect a helicopter. Oh, it would never do to wonder about a helicopter visit, if he'd been told. He whipped out his Informer, and checked. No, he hadn't been told to expect a helicopter.
The copter landed. Two burly men got out of the cargo area. They walked up to him with official strides and demanded to see his citizenship card. As Renzo reached for it, they wrested his gun from him. He hadn't thought of that happening. His gun? His gun? Why, it was part of him. He went nowhere outside without it. He'd counted on it to be able to hunt for food. He stared at them in shock.
He thought of trying to wrest it back, but suddenly realized that one of the men had a handgun pointed at him. The man looked like he hoped he'd have an excuse to shoot. Renzo stood still then, as frightened and confused as he'd meant to act.
"Yes, this is the right unit," the man who held his card said. He handed Renzo a card with a number on it: 56999. "That's you, now."
"Yeah. For as long as you last," the man with the gun said. "I can end it for you fast, if you want. But I gotta have an excuse, or else I get in trouble. You wouldn't want that, now would you?"
The card man read Renzo a formal announcement, confirming that, according to the government, he was no longer a person, and henceforth was denied resources meant only for persons, most notably food and water, but also the use of any government property, including the cabin.
"Translated, that means that if you step inside that shack to get anything, I get to shoot you," the man with the gun said.
"I will not be stepping inside, if it is not my right to do so," Renzo said, in a dutiful voice.
"Bleh. You'll not thank me later for letting this drag out," the man with the gun said.
"Enough," the other man said. "If the experson properly accepts his duty to consent to a Noble Demise, there is nothing more to say or do. I commend you 56999, for seeing the justice in your position, and for doing what is best for Society. Hand over your Informer."
After handing it over, Renzo stayed silent and still, afraid to derail his thin chance of survival, which rested entirely on these men going away without doing him bodily harm.
The card man steered his more thuggish comrade back to the helicopter and signaled to someone inside. A man who might have passed, at a distance, for the pre-Julia Renzo stepped out. He'd spent less time in the weather, and certainly he hadn't skipped meals or gotten sloppy about shaving. His eyes showed no cynicism. His mouth had a slackness to it. He seemed perfectly calm about being dumped off at a remote site, to replace a man who was still standing, but had been sentenced to death by starvation.
Renzo hated h
im.
The man ignored him, as he had been taught to ignore all expersons. This didn't improve Renzo's attitude, but he stilled his emotions with the same resolve that he'd used in taking on a pack of wolves.
The gunman seemed to smell an opening.
Renzo's resolve cracked. He inched away from the other men, backing up until he thought he had a chance of running over the ridge without getting shot in the back. He turned and ran, cursing the sagebrush for offering so little substance. A man could hide himself among trees, given half a chance, but it was hard, hard, perhaps impossible, to hide in sagebrush, whether his pursuers were on the ground or in the air. The river had trees and, as a last resort, water to dive under. But there was no chance of making it to the river from here. No chance at all. Not with a man around who had Renzo's own rifle in hand, and bloodlust in his eyes.
Renzo heard cruel laughter behind him, then the whirr of the helicopter as it rose into the air. Cursing himself for his panic, but unable to control it, he dove under the largest shrub at hand, and hugged the ground, hoping they wouldn't see him, hoping even more that they wouldn't see his panic.
He didn't know that they were used to seeing expersons panic at the front end. It wasn't as common as dull, disbelieving shock, but it happened, and wasn't considered a cause for alarm, in and of itself. There would be perhaps one or two extra aerial passes in the next week, and of course his replacement would be expected to report it if he saw the experson trying anything unruly. But Renzo was safe for now, although he didn't know it. For that matter, the