Demolition Man Page 3

  Warden Smithers stepped forward, a small piece of paper in his hand. He cleared his throat portentously, as if he was about to speak words of great import. "John Spartan," he said. "You've done great deeds for the city of Los Angeles. So it is with some regret that I am required to hereby-"

  "Skip it," growled Spartan. He was shivering uncontrollably now, and his arms and legs were stiffening, the muscles bulging under his skin as if his body was actually turning to ice,

  Smithers stopped, cleared his throat again and gave it another try.

  "John Spartan," he said, his voice ringing in the icy chamber. "You have been sentenced to seventy years sub-zero rehabilitation in the California Cryo-Penitentiary. Your crime is the involuntarymanslaughter of thirty-''

  "Skip it," Spartan ordered.

  The last thing he needed to hear before voyaging into eternity was a recitation of his crime-even if it had been a horrible mistake. He would maintain his innocence even if he was forced to take it with him to his frozen grave.

  He was beginning to shake with the cold now, great racking shudders, chemical-induced tremors that shook his whole body. The blood in his face had drained away, leaving his skin a severe parchment white, the only color in his face the burning intensity of his dark eyes and the ice blue of his lips.

  Spartan-no surprise-was not performing like the other men who had shared his horrible fate. They had screamed and twisted on their cold, subterranean gallows, desperately trying to break free. Spartan fought the process, too, but not with his body-it was too late for that, a futile waste of energy. Spartan resisted with his mind.

  But he was going under, and no one now had the power to change his destiny. Smithers shook his head ruefully as if he genuinely regretted the duty he was forced to perform.

  "I'm sorry, John," he said. "An order is an order, you know. If you had realized that a long time ago, you wouldn't be standing here now."

  John Spartan summoned up all the strength he could muster, forcing his lips and tongue to function.

  "Thanks for the advice," he managed to croak. "I'll bear it in mind."

  Smithers flashed him a cruel smile. "Don't go catching cold, Demolition Man."

  "Fuh . . . fuh . . . funny." The single word required superhuman effort.

  One of the technicians hit a button on the console, and John Spartan sank into the cryonic chamber.

  "See you next century," said Smithers with a grin. "Sleep tight."

  The casing door closed over John Spartan, and the monitors and gauges began spitting out information. Spartan's cryo-file was opened with that day's date, the date of completion of sentence, and the date of theoretical parole.

  There was no policy on early release because the question had not yet arisen. Not one of the frozen inmates had served close to even a small portion of his sentence, and the authorities had as yet to decide what constituted time reduction for good behavior. Of course it was difficult to assess the conduct of a group of formerly violent, homicidal men now frozen as stiff as a bunch of fish sticks.

  The rest of the cryogenic process inside Spartan's pod was computer controlled. A superchilled clear gel flooded into the compartment, molding to Spartan's body, packing and preserving his rigid figure.

  Spartan was still barely conscious, aware that this process had entered a new phase. A mechanical arm delivered a small white chip into the center of the gel. The interaction of the fragment and the gel brought the process to a close. In an instant the sludge froze solid, as rock hard as a diamond, the opposite of watching ice shatter.

  The temperature readout dropped until it read one half of one degree above zero degrees Kelvin. In the last second before the chamber froze over, John Spartan's face contorted, but not into a rictus of fear or dread, but into a defiant sneer.

  4

  Violent crime remained a growth industry for the remainder of the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first. With the extraordinary proliferation of vicious malfeasance came the ever-increasing development of cryo-penology-another booming growth industry. Consequently, California Cryo-Penitentiary X23-1, the facility in which John Spartan had been incarcerated back in 1996, had by the year 2032 grown to three times its original size.

  One thing had not changed. Smithers was still warden of the complex. His bright career in the prison system had stalled some time in the second decade of the new century, and the great future that had been predicted for him all those years ago had never come to pass.

  He was a gray-haired old man now, the absolute ruler of his cold, silent kingdom, but he was embittered by his fate and resentful of the success of others promoted over his head to jobs more important than his own, assignments he considered to be his rightfully, had it not been for the ineptitude and stupidity of his superiors.

  But Smithers was, by nature, breeding, and training, a career technocrat, and he performed his duties to the letter or the rule book, even to the point of pointlessness.

  When his compuclipboard buzzed early one Monday morning, he knew who was calling and why. And like a loyal servant of the state he had all his information marshaled and ready.

  The ultraflat-screen video monitor on his compuclipboard burst into life, revealing the head and shoulders of Lieutenant Lenina Huxley, an officer of the SAPD-the mega law-enforcement agency known as the San Angeles Police Department.

  "Mellow greetings, Warden William Smithers," she said.

  This again, thought Smithers. For thirty-six years he had been going through this same routine, always on Mondays.

  "Yeah," said Smithers. "Be well, Lieutenant Lenina Huxley."

  Of course Smithers hadn't been reporting to Lieutenant Huxley for thirty-six years. The attractive young woman was still in her early twenties and didn't mind looking at her face on the monitor-it was her attitude he couldn't stand.

  Huxley had jet black hair, cut short in a pageboy that brushed her slim shoulders. Her skin was flawless and smooth, and her dark, almond-shaped eyes were wide set and stared out of the monitor in amusement.

  There was a mischievousness about her lips, something that suggested that in private, she was disdainful of authority. But that was not the sort of thing that you let show in the brave new world.

  Lieutenant Lenina Huxley was talking to Warden Smithers from her bubblelike police cruiser, which was gliding down an absolutely spic-and-span city street. Every building she passed was in good repair, and every inch of the sidewalk was swept clean. Other emissionless cars hummed by, the drivers observing to the letter every traffic rule, and no one even dared to think of exceeding the speed limit.

  "As it is a beautiful Monday morning," said Huxley, "and as my duty log irrationally requires it. . . ." Lenina looked into the mirror of her car and fussed with her hair, using both hands. Cars did not require anything as primitive as a steering wheel. You could use one if you chose to, if a feeling of control was required, but very few people bothered.

  ". . . I am hereby querying you on the prison population update." Satisfied with her appearance, she looked away from the mirror. "Does the tedium continue, Warden Smithers?"

  Smithers smiled sardonically at the image on his board as he walked through his silent kingdom.

  "Your earnest questionage is as amusing as it is irrelevant, Lieutenant," he said, talking directly to the compuclipboard in his hands.

  "Is it?" asked Lenina Huxley.

  "You know it is," snapped Smithers. "The prisoners are ice cubes. They do not move. They have no thoughts; they have no feelings. Their criminal instincts are being reprogrammed as they sleep. The process of reform is slow and monotonous. Therefore, Lieutenant, the tedium is almost permanent."

  Lenina Huxley frowned. "I find this lack of stimulus truly disappointing. As officers of our law-enforcement agency, I would imagine our lives should be a bit more exciting. Don't you think, Warden?"

  Smithers peered at the young woman, real suspicion in his eyes.

  "I try not to, Lieutenant," he said. In fact, if he h
ad his way, thinking would be outlawed-after all, virtually everything else had been.

  "Is that so, Warden Smithers?"

  "Yes it is," said the older man. "Of course you are young and you may think all you want. Things don't happen anymore. We've taken care of all that." He looked around the cavernous interior of the prison, at the thousands of units containing cryogenically suspended prisoners. "Everything runs smoothly. That's the way things are supposed to be. No surprises. No crime."

  And it is so boring, thought Huxley.

  "I'll have to fiber-op you back after the morning nonparole hearings, Lieutenant," he said, doing his best to sound busy. "Have a peachy day, and be well." His image vanished from the screen in a poof of static.

  "Same to you," grumbled Lenina Huxley.

  Warden Smithers walked to the entrance of the secure area and placed the back of his hand onto a screen set in the wall. Almost instantly, a female voice spoke to him, a voice so perfectly modulated to be smooth and cheery yet devoid of emotion that it could only be produced by a computer.

  "Coding accepted," the machine said. "Retina confirm, please."

  Smithers leaned forward, placing his left eye against a peephole embedded in the wall next to the hand scanner. A red laser beam passed across the Warden's eye, reading the configuration of colors and imperfections in his retina, an individual characteristic more particular to a single human being than a fingerprint. A retina scan could not be forged, fudged, or duplicated. It was thought to be foolproof.

  The laser matched the eye to a series of codes entered in the security computer. It checked out and the door opened silently, a section of wall sliding away.

  "Thank you and be well, Warden William Smithers," said the computer voice.

  Two guards flanked the barely conscious cryo-prisoner who was strapped into a lustrous and uncomfortable wheelchair. The seat was made of gleaming titanium, but its design looked peculiarly archaic, a throwback to the long-ago nineteenth century, a time when prisoners were restrained in such devices.

  Smithers dropped behind his desk and flicked on his compuclipboard. He got right down to the business of the parole hearing. Shortly after the cryo-detention of John Spartan, the California Correctional Commission did get around to working out parole guidelines for prisoners who had been subjected to the cryo-discipline. As the United States Constitution was still suspended, the CCC had come up with a simple piece of public policy: There was no parole-never-for anyone.

  However, Warden Smithers had to go through the motions of explaining this to hurriedly thawed prisoners. It was largely a waste of time, but Warden Smithers had plenty of time on his hands.

  As the groggy prisoner tried to focus on what was going on around him, Smithers read from his clipboard. "Twenty-nine years ago the parole system as you knew it was rendered obsolete."

  "Huh?" said the prisoner.

  "Federal Statute 537-29 requires that we go through the formality of a hearing for all prisoners incarcerated before the repeal of the parole laws."

  "Who?"

  "Cocteau Behavioral Engineering, B.E., will continue rehabilitation by altering your behavior through synaptic suggestion during cryogenic-induced sleep. Nightie night," said Smithers. "Your hearing is now over."

  "Wha?" The prisoner was making feeble attempts to get out of his chair. The guards could have restrained him with a single finger.

  "You are to be returned to your cryo-cell immediately." Smithers looked down at his compuclipboard. "Do you understand what I've just said, Mr. .. . Horace Bateman?"

  His eyes half open, Horace Bateman attempted to find the right words to say. He didn't want to go back to sleep. He would do anything to avoid that. Go to regular pen-go straight if he could convince the law that his lawless, recidivist days were done for good.

  Smithers didn't want to hear about it. He drummed his fingers on his desk, waiting for Bate-man's response. But the hapless man was still groping for the right words to beg and plead for mercy.

  "Guards," said Smithers impatiently, "nod his head for him, please."

  One of the guards grabbed a handful of the prisoner's cold, sweaty hair and nodded the man's head.

  "Thank you, Mr. Bateman. See you in six years." He did not attempt to stifle his yawn or conceal his boredom. "Next, please."

  Two medical technicians-med techs in prison argot-pulled a prisoner from his pod and loaded his still unconscious form onto one of the wheelchairs. There was something familiar about him, something from the long dead past. The prisoner had a well-muscled body, black skin, and blond hair. . . .

  Lieutenant Lenina Huxley decided she would drive. She pressed a button on the dashboard of her police cruiser, and a steering wheel emerged from its compartment and locked into place. She coded her badge into the computer in the console.

  "Huxley," she said. "Lenina. Coding on for activation instructions."

  The same serenely annoying voice that cleared Warden Smithers through his security check responded to her. "No police presence is requested in the city at this time. Report to your station. Good morning, Officer Huxley."

  Lenina moaned softly. Boring. "Oh wow," she said aloud. "How exciting."

  But the computer voice had not gone away. "I detect a promoted level of stress in your tone. Would you like me to prescribe a foodaceutical to assist in mood elevation?"

  "No!" snapped Lenina Huxley. "What are you? My mother?" Lenina immediately tried to calm her voice. You could get in real trouble if you sassed a computer. The little sneaks . . .

  "I mean, no. But thank you for caring." She rolled her eyes and waited to see if she would get a scolding. But the rebuke was not forthcoming.

  "All right," she said. "Reporting in."

  It was going to be another exciting day in paradise. Or so she thought.

  5

  Lenina Huxley's route to work took her right by a lengthy, block-long expanse of whitewashed wall that encircled a hospital. In the bad old days an expanse of pure white like this would have attracted the immediate attention of slogan writers and graffiti artists, culture or eyesore, depending on one's politics and sense of aesthetics.

  In the new world the wall merely remained pristine, undefiled white. Until that morning . . .

  Despite draconian litter laws, none of the San Angelenos noticed that just that morning, standing in front of the enticing white wall was a small round, tin object about the size and shape of a coffee can. Odder still, no one noticed that the can was ticking. . .

  Abruptly, the ticking stopped to be followed by a small, sharp explosion that sprayed a series of multicolored inks on to the wall, frescoing a crudely painted message. It read: life from hell-be.

  Pedestrians stopped and gaped, their mouths open, aghast that anyone should have sought to upset public order in such a disgraceful, disrespectful and deceitful manner. The passersby looked around, half expecting to see dark clouds heralding the end of the world rising over the Hollywood Hills.

  But the apocalypse was forestalled by two shock poles that emerged from the wall, dropped into place, and generated a cleansing burst of lightning that burned the message off the wall. The shock poles retreated into their slots, and no one would have been the wiser.

  Except the mayhem didn't end there ...

  In the middle of the street a manhole popped open, and a crude periscope emerged just as a food truck pulled into the lot nearby. Workmen got busy unloading the food modules, the whole operation observed by the young man under the street.

  "All right," he whispered, "that's it. In twelve hours there will be another delivery." Edgar Friendly pulled off his glasses and wiped them on his ancient, greasy mechanic's overalls, then returned his eye to the periscope.

  "Good, glorious food. In twelve hours they'll be back . . ."He shook his head of wild, uncombed hair in wonderment. "These assholes are nothing if not predictable. God, how I love hating this place."

  There were two other young men with him, crouching in the sewer pipe. They looked
just as disreputable as their leader. There were some people, the young and disenfranchised, normally, who couldn't or wouldn't fit into the sterile world above them. Collectively, they were known as the Scraps, leftover from the perfect, regulated society they refused to join.

  They were dirty and wild, but they were alive in ways that the upper people would never understand. But there was a downside. They were hunted, hated, and hungry-food supply was strictly controlled and doled out only to those who conformed.

  "Tomorrow, we strike!" said Edgar.

  His fellow Scraps exchanged worried looks. "We're not ready, Friendly."

  "Hey, Mason, it doesn't really matter if we're ready or not anymore. We've got nothing to lose . . ." He shrugged. "Except maybe our lives."

  Edgar Friendly withdrew the periscope and dropped down into the sewer. "Well, let's go. Things to do," said Friendly. "People to see . . ."

  No one from the bad old days would have recognized the police station where Lieutenant Lenina Huxley was based. It was softly lit, impeccably neat and, most shocking of all, almost completely silent. Needless to say, there were no criminals-anywhere. They were not sitting at desks giving statements, under interrogation, or being hustled into cells.

  Police officers of every shape, size, and ethnic origin worked without rush or worry, observing the activity of the city on a vast array of monitors.

  The loudest voice in the room-and he barely spoke above a murmur-belonged to Merwin, the impossibly perky dispatcher who spoke into his headset as Lenina Huxley passed.

  "Greetings and salutations," he whispered into his microphone. "Welcome to the emergency line of the San Angeles Police Department. If you would prefer an automated response, please press one." Callers almost invariably preferred to talk to a machine.

  Lenina Huxley went to her station just as one of her tough-looking colleagues sidled up to her- Lieutenant James MacMillan, widely thought to be the meanest cop in the district. They exchanged nontouching handshakes, each of them making a concentric circle with their open palms.