The Selling of Suzie Delight Page 8

CHAPTER 8

  Suzee Delight

  JUST BEFORE WE STEPPED OUT the door, Charlie told me, “We have to get to the center of the arena. So just give them a good show, tell them what they want to hear, and once we’re in position, I’ll put an end to this nightmare.”

  I thought I would be frightened.

  But I stare up at the stands of a coliseum that has seen more death than I can imagine, and I discover the crowd is not faceless. Behind the private boxes, a woman with my face on her gown weeps openly into her hands. Nor is she alone.

  I see many people waving signs—mostly in Standard, but some also in Mergotte, or Kaithe, or Hannish—and they say things like, “Thank you, Suzee!” and “We’ll Fight On When You Are Gone,” and “You Become Infinite Today.” I don’t believe in the Infinite, where all our purported selves from a multiverse of infinite lives are supposed to join into one all-knowing Self. I don’t believe in the multiverse either.

  I believe what I can prove. I think that when we die, we are simply gone, and all that we might have become dies with us. But I do appreciate my unknown supporters’ attempts to give me comfort.

  I try to find the signs that call for my death, but there are none. Not one.

  I try to find the faces of the people who hate me, the ones who are eager to see torture and horror and death, but except for the Administrators and their many guests and supporters in the center-front-row box, I cannot find one.

  The rivers of sound pour down from the stands and batter me, too loud to be heard. They can only be felt as waves pounding against my skin.

  The sound in my head is my own breathing, which is slow and steady. I find this odd. My heart always races before a performance, but for this performance, I am impossibly calm.

  I am suddenly aware of smells. Sunlight on the grassy arena field. Heat-baked dirt from the flat bare patch of ground in the center where the Deathmasters have erected the frame to which I’m supposed to be bound. Sweat and food carried by coliseum vendors up and down the aisles. Charlie’s hair, which blows in the little breeze brushing against my skin. From the day I was taken away from my parents, she has been the only human being I ever loved.

  She is with me.

  She came for me. And I don’t know what she has planned, but I trust her. When we are done with this, the two of us will be together for the rest of our lives.

  Charlie

  THE AUDIENCE WASN’T THE SCREAMING MOB of death-worshippers Charlie had anticipated. Front and center sat the gloating Administrators, come to see the final destruction of their most famous victim. But once Charlie looked beyond their gathering of rich and powerful cronies, everyone else appeared to be on Suzee’s side. Charlie could only read the signs that were in Standard, but each of those—every single one—was either calling for Suzee’s pardon, or promising to carry on for her once she was dead.

  This wasn’t right.

  Charlie knew who paid to watch executions. There were two groups. People who liked to see things suffer—who liked to hear them scream and beg for mercy before they died—they made up the big group. Family and friends made up the little group—people who sat in the stands and begged deities and fate and anything else that might move the hand of the person with the power to grant a pardon to offer a last-minute reprieve and a refund of the money paid by the Death Circus to win the execution.

  Charlie knew as fact that Suzee didn’t have family: all Order E children were removed to education centers and boarded in dorms when they turned two, and the breeders who gave birth to them were permitted no contact. As for friends, Charlie was it.

  Only, the people in the stands suggested that Suzee had a whole universe of friends. The people in the stands were just the very rich ones.

  There were over two hundred thousand of them.

  The palm of her right hand began to sweat. The tiny, deadly package in it began to take on the weight of every innocent man and woman standing above her.

  Beside her, Suzee walked quietly, confidently, trusting Charlie to save her life. Charlie could not be so calm. Her heart was in her throat. These were not the people who needed to die. They were cheering for Suzee, shouting, “Pardon, Suzee! Pardon, Suzee!”

  But she didn’t have any more time to think. She had tampered with the controls of the Longview’s shuttle—a clumsy bit of programming on her part that had fused the hatches shut the instant they closed behind Suzee and her.

  Everyone on that shuttle was competent, though, and the instant they tried to open a hatch, they would discover it was locked, and they would find and reverse Charlie’s program.

  She hoped she’d made enough of a mess to keep them inside the safe air for half an hour. She did not want anyone who had helped her reach Suzee, who had made it possible for her to get back to the only person she had ever loved, and to the only person who had ever loved her...

  The longer she hesitated, the more chance one of the crew would discover what Charlie had done. The more chance her people would be harmed if she went through with her plan.

  If she murdered two hundred thousand plus innocents. That was her plan.

  It was a bad plan.

  She wouldn’t be killing the death-chasers, the ghouls, the cheering bloodthirsty bastards who had attended every other execution she’d been required to certify.

  She would be slaughtering two hundred thousand plus innocents... and if there had been only one innocent in the stands, if the only person who had come to offer comfort was the dowdy, sobbing woman just back of the Administrator’s private box, wearing her shabby clothes, waving her misspelled sign that said, “I WILL ALWASY LOVE YOU, SUZEE DELIGHT!”—a woman who from her appearance had almost certainly spent every rucet she had to get here to let Suzee know her life had mattered to someone else...

  It would still have been a bad plan.

  If Charlie murdered one innocent to save the life of the woman she loved, she would be no better than those who claimed their right to slaughter innocents for their twisted visions of some “greater good.”

  Charlie realized she was crying, realized that her pace had turned from a steady walk to a near-standstill.

  Realized in the same instant that her face and Suzee’s were on every enormous screen that surrounded top of the coliseum, and than on that screen she could see Suzee looking steadily at her.

  In the instant she saw the two of them together on the big screens, she recognized the expression on Suzee’s face as one of resignation.

  Suzee knew.

  Charlie began to cry harder, and felt the tug of the binder on her left wrist as Suzee’s fingers intertwined with her own. Felt a squeeze that was meant as comfort.

  Charlie realized that she had a choice. Not a good choice, perhaps—but a choice that would allow her peace of mind. She could live a monster—and Settled Space had enough monsters. She would not join them.

  Or she could choose to die human.

  She would take that option.

  Charlie slid her right hand over her pocket, pretending to scratch an itch. The canister was gone when her hand dropped to her side again.

  She looked at Suzee, and Suzee gave her the smallest of smiles, and squeezed her hand once more. In a whisper loud enough that the holocasting and amplifying equipment could pick it up, Suzee said, “Charlie, understand that none of what happens to me today is your fault. Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t choose your work any more than I chose mine. But... please... when this begins... stand where I can see you. I want your face to be my last vision and memory.”

  The holocasting and amplifying equipment broadcast Suzee’s whisper to the crowd. They fell silent.

  Charlie and Suzee reached the execution frame, and the waiting Deathmasters. Unable to think of anything else to do, Charlie undid the binder at their wrists, and let go of Suzee’s hand. She stepped back and turned Suzee over to the Deathmasters, gave her Gen-ID confirmation on their pad, watched them confirm that Suzee was also who she was supposed to be.

  Hal
f of the recorders were trained on her—she knew everyone could see the tears running down her own cheeks. They could all see that she had allowed the unpardonable to happen. She cared about one of her prisoners.

  If the Administrators had not planned to have her quietly murdered before, they certainly had reason to condemn her now.

  One of the masked Deathmasters took her arm and said, “The prisoner has requested you over there where she can see you.”

  He placed her directly in front of the Administrators’ box, blocking the view of some of the replacement Administrators. Those men immediately and loudly demanded that she be removed so they could have a good view of the proceedings.

  The Deathmaster who’d led her there turned to stare at them. The black mask he wore, featureless except for the eye holes, was a symbol of terror across Settled Space. He was Death without mercy, Death without pity, Death as pain prolonged, Death as suffering heightened past breaking.

  Not even administrators of worlds were immune to that silent stare, that stare that judged them and found them wanting.

  The Pact Worlds most powerful men, who’d been standing and shouting, grew quiet and sat down.

  It seemed to Charlie that the whole of the universe took one slow inward breath, waiting to see what might happen next.

  In her eario, Shay’s voice said, “You did well. We’ll take care of you, Charlie.”

  Transcript (excerpted, seven hours from execution start): Danyal Travers Reports on the Execution of Suzee Delight

  Suzee Delight: (sharp cry of agony, then silence)

  Danyal Travers: The Death of the Hundred Knives continues. That’s six knives now, at a rate of exactly one-point-two knives per Standard hour. As a reminder, each blade has been coated in a pain agent said to be unbearable. Because Suzee has been able to maintain her silence after being run through with each knife, the head of the Association of Registered Deathmasters—to demonstrate how these knives work—has provided recordings of previous executions where this technique has been used.

  Further, after a protest from the Pact Worlds Administrators present that the knives had been altered to make things easier on the prisoner, the Head Deathmaster demonstrated on the Administrator from Burnell’s Rock, using one of the knives prepared for Suzee and permitting the Administrator to pick the knife to be tested. The Deathmaster merely scratched the skin of the Administrator, not even drawing blood.

  The Administrator had to be removed from the arena because his incessant screaming, even after the administration of pain blockers, interfered with the recording equipment.

  Blood tests of Suzee Delight have shown that she has no drugs or pain blockers in her system, and neuro-reads indicate that she feels every bit of this.

  The Deathmasters have been instructed to make her death last for five days, and I can see the pain on her face. Everyone can. It’s hard to imagine her enduring five days of this. But—aside from the moment when she is run through with each knife, she’s not making a sound.

  Because she isn’t screaming, or begging for her life, or doing anything except standing there in silence, the producers of this event have been showing previously unreleased recordings of her life as a courtesan.

  If you’re joining us in progress, Suzee Delight has just taken another knife, and in the most extraordinary execution I have ever seen, is bearing the pain silently. Now another recording has gone up on the big screens.

  The note I’ve just received from one of the producers says that this recording is reputed to be the events leading up to the five murders—

  Look! The Administrators have just stood up, and are attempting to leave their box, but the guards around their enclosure are refusing to let them. And now the recording has started.

  From Recording: Radiva Kels, Chief Administrator of Cheegoth

  This is the simplest thing in the world. We just change the law to require that all citizens accept government nutritional services in order to make sure everyone is cared for equally. We have justification for it as an expansion of the No Hungry Child program, basing this expansion of services on the outbreak of Order B women across the Pact Worlds who have starved themselves to death because of body-image disorders.

  It’s the change of one single line in the existing law: “mandated for the benefit of each citizen child of Orders B through E from birth to age nine” becomes “mandated for the benefit of each citizen of Orders B through E from birth to death” that expands its reach to all ages and full life-spans.

  From Recording: Stannal Bregat, Chief Administrator of Cantata

  My God, that’s brilliant, Radiva. We simply help them. Everyone wants help.

  Meanwhile, the instant they are put on birth-to-death government support, their Order listing drops to E, though of course there’s no need to point that out. We want them to keep working at their existing jobs, after all—and we’ll have to change employment laws to make Order E citizens eligible for Order B, C, and D employment, though of course at Order E pay. At that point, all of their work will go into taxes to support the programs that will support them. We can lower the mandated standard of living to keep costs down.

  From Recording: Soth Smithe, Chief Administrator of Third Earth

  We can make this even better. By mandating lifetime nutritional coverage, we’ll also have to institute lifetime medical coverage, so people like those poor women can be forced into medical treatment for their own good…

  From Recording: Radiva Kels, Chief Administrator of Cheegoth

  That is better. When we reach that point, we write the laws that allow us to act unilaterally for the greater good.

  Within the next few years, we’ll need to make our terms in office permanent just so we can ensure our programs remain funded.

  We’ll add additional programs as necessary to keep one hundred percent of the Order E population taxed to the point where they have no alternative but to stay on the programs. By keeping them on the programs, we can force them to do what’s best for themselves.

  One line of law—and we can amend that line without it raising so much as an eyebrow. Everyone loves No Hungry Child, or at least the idea of it. We’re just making it a tiny bit better.

  Danyal Travers: That’s slavery! Suzee Delight told me that’s what they were doing, and I called her a liar. Administrators of the five most important worlds in the Pact Worlds system really were conspiring to enslave everyone in the Pact Worlds.

  I’m Order B.

  They were going to do that to me...?

  CHAPTER 9

  Suzee Delight

  THEY SEE WHAT I SAW. Hear what I heard. Not just the people in the stands, but everywhere in Settled Space.

  Through the weight of pain so terrible it almost stops my thinking, I find my voice, and call the nearest Deathmaster over.

  “I want... to speak to them,” I say. “May I?”

  He does not hesitate, but moves one of the holocorders directly in front of me, then holds it up so I can speak into it easily.

  “No one,” I say, “no person... no religion... no government... no business... no organization... has the right to own one second... of your life...

  “... Or to demand that you spend one... instant... of your precious time in any... pursuit you do not choose.”

  I falter, but looking at Charlie standing before me, I find my strength, and push down the pain, and aim my words at her.

  “Your life... belongs only to you. Live it to... bring yourself joy. Live it... to create something... wonderful.

  “Live it... so that in your last moments... you can truly say... I have lived... I have loved...

  “And... I have... no regrets.”

  Shay

  THE FEEDS WERE LOCKED, which meant that they went directly to every person who had subscribed. Nothing could block the signal. The Administrators had insisted on this. The Pact Worlds officials had expected the execution of Suzee Delight to be a cautionary tale for anyone thinking of acting against them.

/>   Instead, in cities and villages across Settled Space, people had just heard Suzee’s words, and now Shay was feeding them more parts of the life Suzee had lived but had never owned.

  She gave them the dark side of the life of Suzee Delight.

  Shay was carefully and slowly building a fire.

  Across Settled Space, that fire was getting hotter. Suzee’s crowds were growing and their rage was spreading.

  In the stands above the trapped Pact Worlds Administrators, an ugly mood had taken the crowd; they were demanding that Suzee be pardoned, and while they had not yet moved to block in the Administrators and their cronies, their shouts were getting louder.

  Every secret recording of Suzee demonstrated that, for all the unsavoriness of her work, she had been gentle and kind, talented and hopeful, young and beautiful, and it became clear with every grim segment of her private life laid bare before the audience that she’d had to fight to make the most of the life that had been allowed her. Between beatings and torture by “clients,” between ordeals of humiliation and shame, she had pushed herself above that life. She’d studied the science and math she loved, even though she was not permitted to use it. She was kind to those of her clients who did not mistreat her, and did her best to create real relationships with them.