resurrected. If not… well, they knew what they were doing. Aside from clear-cut cases of suicide, no one has even tried to escape since we introduced the system.’
‘So, what did Daine use? A deal with the Devil? Do-it-yourself open-heart surgery?’
‘He found a loophole. A loophole which can be noosed only by someone with your qualifications.’
Susan had that deep-down doom feeling again. She precogged all her Dreams being reissued in black-trimmed boxjackets as a memorial set. ‘Governor, please don’t confuse me with one of my characters. I’m not especially qualified for anything apart from Dreaming. I’ve never done anything heroic awake. Most of the time I need a nerve enhance and an armoured andrew guard to cross the road.’
Trefusis ignored her protest. ‘Our prisoners are confined in mind as well as body. Containment is the essence of the penal system. They do not have access to Dreams. But this isn’t Devil’s Island. We do have an extensive vid library. Tridvid, mostly, but we stock much other material. Soon after his arrival, Truro Daine developed a pash for flatties. Specifically, he made an exhaustive study of the North American cinema of the 1940s and ’50s. Are you familiar with the period?’
‘I did a term paper on
film noir
at Eton.’
‘Excellent. I’m not stimmed by twentieth-century arts myself. I have it tagged as an enormously banal period. Our great-grandparents must have been such nasty little people. Truro Daine requested an increasing number of vid tapes. I have a printout.’
Trefusis handed her a curl of silver foil. Red letters stood out. Susan skimmed the list of titles.
‘The File on Thelma Jordon
… I’ve seen that. Barbara Stanwyck is in it.
Dark Passage
… that’s a seminal pre-Dream, lots of subjectivity.
Between Midnight and Dawn
… that I don’t know.
I Wake Up Screaming
,
In a Lonely Place, Cry of the City, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands
,
The Big Combo, While the City Sleeps.
All good stuff.
In a Lonely Place
is rare. I didn’t think even BritLib had a vid. I wouldn’t mind cloning it some time. It’s out of copyright, so I wouldn’t be trespassing against the reproduction laws.’
The governor took the strip back and cracked it in the air. The red dispersed. ‘It seemed a harmless pastime. And it kept him quiet. We’d been expecting more trouble.’
At another slab touch, the door slid open and an andrew warder came in. It wasn’t armoured, but its transparent right hand was set to deliver a disorientation zap. It had a pretty girl’s face. ‘We’d better get down to Daine’s field,’ explained Trefusis. ‘Dr Groome is waiting for us.’
In the corridor, Susan noticed convicts in fleshtex skinsuits performing menial chores. They were, as far as she could tell, unsupervised. Trefusis had an unnerving habit of referring to each prisoner as they were passed, identifying them with their trespasses, snapping ‘cat burglar’, ‘credit creeper’ or ‘information embezzler’, like a tour guide pointing out items of interest. The convicts themselves took this habit as a salute, and returned it with a noncommittal ‘Morning, sir’. For the most part, the prison seemed unfurnished. In cells without doors, Susan saw GP couches built into floors, covered foodholes, excrement apertures and little else. There were no views on the walls, no personal possessions, nothing with any character whatsoever.
It wasn’t at all like the dank and dripping dungeon she had had Vanessa Vail escape from with only a facestick and a sitar plectrum. That had been her idea of the Worst Place on Earth, this was more like a very large DHSS waiting room. The only way she could tell the andrews from the prisoners was that the mechanicals were smiling. On a lower level, a short, fat convict – ‘pain peddler’ Trefusis called him – was abrading a graffito from the wall. ‘Hang Truro Daine’, with a stickman on a scaffold. ‘Here we are,’ said the governor.
Dr
‘So, what did Daine use? A deal with the Devil? Do-it-yourself open-heart surgery?’
‘He found a loophole. A loophole which can be noosed only by someone with your qualifications.’
Susan had that deep-down doom feeling again. She precogged all her Dreams being reissued in black-trimmed boxjackets as a memorial set. ‘Governor, please don’t confuse me with one of my characters. I’m not especially qualified for anything apart from Dreaming. I’ve never done anything heroic awake. Most of the time I need a nerve enhance and an armoured andrew guard to cross the road.’
Trefusis ignored her protest. ‘Our prisoners are confined in mind as well as body. Containment is the essence of the penal system. They do not have access to Dreams. But this isn’t Devil’s Island. We do have an extensive vid library. Tridvid, mostly, but we stock much other material. Soon after his arrival, Truro Daine developed a pash for flatties. Specifically, he made an exhaustive study of the North American cinema of the 1940s and ’50s. Are you familiar with the period?’
‘I did a term paper on
film noir
at Eton.’
‘Excellent. I’m not stimmed by twentieth-century arts myself. I have it tagged as an enormously banal period. Our great-grandparents must have been such nasty little people. Truro Daine requested an increasing number of vid tapes. I have a printout.’
Trefusis handed her a curl of silver foil. Red letters stood out. Susan skimmed the list of titles.
‘The File on Thelma Jordon
… I’ve seen that. Barbara Stanwyck is in it.
Dark Passage
… that’s a seminal pre-Dream, lots of subjectivity.
Between Midnight and Dawn
… that I don’t know.
I Wake Up Screaming
,
In a Lonely Place, Cry of the City, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands
,
The Big Combo, While the City Sleeps.
All good stuff.
In a Lonely Place
is rare. I didn’t think even BritLib had a vid. I wouldn’t mind cloning it some time. It’s out of copyright, so I wouldn’t be trespassing against the reproduction laws.’
The governor took the strip back and cracked it in the air. The red dispersed. ‘It seemed a harmless pastime. And it kept him quiet. We’d been expecting more trouble.’
At another slab touch, the door slid open and an andrew warder came in. It wasn’t armoured, but its transparent right hand was set to deliver a disorientation zap. It had a pretty girl’s face. ‘We’d better get down to Daine’s field,’ explained Trefusis. ‘Dr Groome is waiting for us.’
In the corridor, Susan noticed convicts in fleshtex skinsuits performing menial chores. They were, as far as she could tell, unsupervised. Trefusis had an unnerving habit of referring to each prisoner as they were passed, identifying them with their trespasses, snapping ‘cat burglar’, ‘credit creeper’ or ‘information embezzler’, like a tour guide pointing out items of interest. The convicts themselves took this habit as a salute, and returned it with a noncommittal ‘Morning, sir’. For the most part, the prison seemed unfurnished. In cells without doors, Susan saw GP couches built into floors, covered foodholes, excrement apertures and little else. There were no views on the walls, no personal possessions, nothing with any character whatsoever.
It wasn’t at all like the dank and dripping dungeon she had had Vanessa Vail escape from with only a facestick and a sitar plectrum. That had been her idea of the Worst Place on Earth, this was more like a very large DHSS waiting room. The only way she could tell the andrews from the prisoners was that the mechanicals were smiling. On a lower level, a short, fat convict – ‘pain peddler’ Trefusis called him – was abrading a graffito from the wall. ‘Hang Truro Daine’, with a stickman on a scaffold. ‘Here we are,’ said the governor.
Dr
Similar Books
