Older men -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
An hour after bail had been set, a dapper thin faced bailbond broker
came to see him.
"Want out?"
"Sure."
"If I put up bail you'll be out."
"No Home?"
"You're classified as a criminal, ineligible for a Home till either
you're found not guilty or serve your time."
"Well, but I'm broke. I can't buy a bailbond."
"You can work it off. I'm going to spring you right now. As soon as
they let you out, meet me in the southwest corner of the park, just
across from the post office."
Ollie did. He thought his bail had been arranged by the deputy.
The broker kept him waiting in the park for half an hour, but was brisk
when he appeared.
"My name is Lansing," he said. "Come on. We're taking a little trip."
He steered Ollie to the copter tower at the park's center and with him
boarded its endless-belt manlift. They were carried ten stories to the
roof, and as they stepped off the manlift an empty copter hovered at
hand. It bore on sides and bottom an address, a phone number, and the
word _Bailbonds_, all in big letters.
The copter rose under the tower's control as soon as they'd entered it,
and continued to rise till Lansing selected a prepunched destination
card and slipped it into the auto-pilot. Then a knowing red light
winked on, the copter levelled off and headed southwest, and Lansing
took one of a pair of chintz-padded wicker seats, motioning Ollie into
the other.
"How do you like the idea of going to a Home?" he asked abruptly.
"I'd rather be dead."
"I know someone who agrees with you. A fellow with bad health who wants
to die but doesn't have the guts to do the necessary. Feel like helping
him out?"
Ollie sighed, smiled grimly, and shook his head. "No, thanks!"
"You might die yourself, Hollveg." Lansing's voice was heavy with
menace.
"I might," Ollie agreed hotly. "I might get murdered. And maybe the
same thing will happen to this supposedly sick man you want me to help
out. He may not want to die any more than I do. I've heard you suicide
salesmen do a lot of murder-for-hire."
"You've heard too much, Hollveg."
Lansing took a plushlined metal case from an inside pocket and removed
from it a filled syringe, complete with needle.
"This won't hurt," he said in a sneering imitation of a doctor. "But
it'll end your independence like a barbed wire fence."
Ollie began to sweat. "I've heard of those zombie-shots too," he said.
He looked wildly around, then controlled himself and gestured almost
calmly toward the sky, land, and water visible through the cabin's
plastic walls.
"Maybe you can put the needle away for a while," he suggested. "I'm not
going to walk out on you right now."
Lansing smiled and complied. "You may keep your health a long time
yet," he said urbanely. "If you're sensible, we might even find steady
work for you."
Ollie suppressed a shudder.
Lansing tuned in a Western on the physeo. Soon the odor of sage and
horse-sweat filled the cabin.
Ollie watched avidly. He hadn't seen enough physeo to be bored with it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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