From: John Hale <jth122@psu.edu>
Subject: STORY: Recess
Date: 11 Jul 1994 01:53:59 GMT

The usual murmurings of the chatsubo crowd have grown quieter lately. One
patron walks up to Ratz, consternation on his face,
	"Y'know, Ratz, it used to be better, there used to be better stories, it
used to be more interesting it--shit, if only GUY were here."
	Ratz smiles diffidently and whirrs the gears in his antique arm.
	"Aw, peoples is peoples. You never know what'll come up."
	"Yeah, right." The patron grumbles, sipping his drink, "But it wouldn't
hurt to have a little more action, a little more--"
	Out of a tiny bright hole in the ceiling, a small object appears; it's
descending fast. Scampers of feet on the roof resound through the bar.
	Onto the tabletop clatteres a worn DAT cartridge.
	"There you go," Ratz smiled.
-------
This is not pure Gibson canon, necessarily. But I think it's punk enough.
What do they say in the comics? ``nuff said?'' Why donchall take a
little...

RECESS

     "NO?" He cowers against the wall, weakly facing me, arms flattened
across the cement bricks. Without warning, he wails that maniacial scream
again, flailing arms and legs against the unyielding wall and demands,
"You're not wearing Stupid Pants -- again?"
     "Yeah, I am," I reply evenly from the doorway. "Let's go down in the
elevator now."
     "No!" He flips, face to the wall, pounding on the mortar between the
gritty gray. A little of it chips off.
     Sheesh. If I'd a known these old Levi's were so powerful, I'd have
made some kind of killing on them long ago.
     "Come on, into the elevator." His hands scratch off more of the
mortar as the scream becomes a sharpening shreik. I grasp him around the
arms, and pull him away from the wall with a grunt. He twists his head
around to a painful angle and I can see those watery eyes, the broken
nose from the week before,
     "This week, this week," he gasps for breath after yelling at the
wall for such a long time, "can you not take me to the Programmers? I
mean, I am putting up with you wearing the Stupid Pants, you can't deny
that, can you? huh?"
     It was true. I had promised him I would wear only my old khaki
slacks instead of the blue jeans this week as a reward for being so
docile in the hallway. My words were not equivocal:
     "Look, Four, if you're are this good all the time I'll wear whatever
the hell you want. You've sure made my life easier." This was when he was
being normal, telling me about all the Phillies games he'd seen when he
was out, all the player's he'd met. He'd smiled, stood quietly in the
middle of the cell while the door rumbled shut, and agreed, simply
stipulating -- like a child who wants to describe every detail of his
long-awaited Christmas gift -- that I not wear the blue pants, which as
he explained, caused rather nasty chemical imbalances in his autonomous
nervous system, causing him to flip out or whatever. I don't remember
that part as much as I remember telling him that I wouldn't wear the
pants. I guess I screwed up.
     Because he's thrashing all around the room as I hold him in a
half-nelson.
     "Yeah, I'm sorry, I forgot today was my day on your level. I'll make
sure I reschedule my washing so you don't have to see them."
     "How can you bear to look at them, they're evil incarnate!" he
howls, his one free arm flailing spastically. I glance down at the blue
denim and custom rivets as my other hand fumbles with the binder module.
At least it gives us something to talk about; in that respect he's a
hundred times better than the catatonics. I press the purple button on
the binder module, and his arms are locked together.
     "Ahhhh! It's a cramp, man, a cramp, my arms, owwwwwww!" I put my
hand on his left arm; the muscle is jumping around like crazy.
     "Just relax."
     "Relax."
     "Yeah."
     We stand there for a second as he realizes, deep down, that once
again, he can't get away. He stops fighting and turns around meekly to
face me in that white tunic and white pants. They still haven't
requisitioned any shoes to replace the ones he ate. Suddenly he smiles.
     "Remember, in exchange for wearing those Stupid Pants, I'm gonna
have to ask you for something..." like a teacher kindly, but firmly
reminding her students to complete the cut-and-paste assignment or
something, "...and that something is the usual visit to see the
Programmers. I don't want to seem them this week. As you know, they're
very mean, and I don't want to have to go talk to them, okay?"
     "Well, I'll find out while you're in your session whether or not you
need to see the Programmers this week. It might be a rest week for you."
I've already seen the list: he's scheduled for another programmer
interactive study seminar. He's scheduled to take a PISS, as we say
around here.
     I keep my hand tight on the leash of the binder module, and press my
hand onto the scanner for the door, which jerkily xerographs my palm and
shuts the door. We walk down the cement tunnel under blue lights (the
part of the job we affectionately label the prisoner attendant's 'Blue
Period'). Four continues to babble about what happened last time he had
to take a PISS.
     "....what I find degrading about the PISS sessions is not the fact
that I am an unpaid laborer for the company --although that in and of
itself is sufficiently irking to encourage me to take legal action-- but
rather the fact that the programming staff seems to this of the PISS
sessions as a sort of comic relief for their jobs, whereas I, a prisoner,
have very little to look forward to in the way of weekly activity, and am
therefore very eager to contribute in whatever way I can." As I'm
walking, I can see the computer hardpoint on the back of his neck. You
can see, even in the blue light, fleshtone cover swinging back and forth
over the interface port. It's gone. He turns back down the hall to stare
at me viciously, "You understand?"
     "Ah-huh," I reply, the vision of the interface port fading from my
mind. "Here's the elevator." I gesture toward a dark space in the blue
glow that stretches off down the hall.
     "Oh. Didn't we take a different one last week?" I forgot that this
was one of my more on-the-ball prisoners.
     "I'm not allowed to talk about that, Four."
     "Oh. Okay." The xerograph on the elevator scans my hand again, while
Four looks curiously around. But we still have to wait for the blasted
thing to arrive. And he keeps looking disgustedly at my legs.
     "You remember any more Phillies games?"
     "Huh?" He turns around, as if interrupted from an intense study
session of the aesthetic value of the light fixtures.
     "The Phillies games you were telling me about. Did you remember any
more of them since last week?" Actually it was only about five days ago,
but the days and nights around here are seventeen hours long. A fact of
which Four is unaware.
     "That?" He chuckles, "I made that stuff up."
     "All of it?" I grin.
     "Oh yeah. Phillies are just the only baseball team I'm familiar
with." Even though I'm wearing the kevlar vest, I still feel a little
shiver of fear run down my legs and up my back.
     The elevator opens solemnly and we get in.

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