“I know,” said Kane with a friendly smile. “That’s why I came to you.”
He returned to the main hallway and went directly to the elevator. Pushing the appropriate button, he realized there was no point in putting off the inevitable. He had to go home sometime.
The shaft doors opened upon his Enclave living level. Just outside the shaft was a wrought-iron gate, tall and heavy, with metal hinges that looked like tarnished brass. Kane placed his right hand flat on the small iridescent panel on the front of the gate, where the keyhole should have been. Within the panel, the sensor grid read his handprint, decided he was not a slagger thief or a roamer, and the gate swung open noiselessly.
The promenade was virtually deserted at this hour. The broad pedestrian avenue was lined with evergreen saplings, giving the recycled air a pleasant fragrance. The trees were illuminated by lamps hung from the lower branches.
Kane passed rockcrete stoops leading up to single-dwelling apartments. Each facade looked the same, with one window facing out on the promenade. In the half-dozen lit windows he glanced into, he saw the same furnishings, the same color schemes.
Conformity, standardization, whatever the euphemism, the four-room apartments were essentially interchangeable.
He often wondered wryly why outlanders and Pit dwellers viewed the Enclaves as some sort of enchanted land, heaven on earth. He supposed they were, if your idea of heaven on earth was a cell block.
Kane went up the stoop to his flat and opened the door. It was unlocked. None of the doors on any Enclave level had locks. It was a carryover from the Program of Unification, when the Council of Front Royal had decided that privacy bred conspiracy. The council had further decreed that since everyone had the same possessions as everyone else, there was no need to steal, especially among the elite. The desire for privacy was viewed not just as gauche, but as an expression of deviant thinking. Kane was pretty sure, though, that the Pit residents had locks on their doors.
Once inside, Kane went to his cabinet and found his bottle of vintage wine. He uncapped it and took a long swallow. Grant, who had found it during a Pit sweep the year before, had given it to him as a gift. He would be annoyed with him for treating the rare liquor like common trash-hatch hootch. It was curious that the predark delicacy had survived so many years and still retained its full-bodied flavor. The Beforetime vintners had certainly known their craft.
He carried it over to his sagging couch and flopped down, looking out through the three tall windows on the far wall at the lights glittering on the surface of the Administrative Monolith. From his pocket, he took out the compact disk and held it in his palm. Morales had suggested he take it to the Historical Division, but since this wasn’t an official line of inquiry, he would be risking having his request channeled to Salvo for confirmation.
He tipped the bottle up and took a pull, felt the thick, fruity liquid scorch a path into his stomach. He considered swallowing a sedative capsule along with it so he could reverse his anxiety and get some sleep. But the tranquilizers often made him feel as if he were walking underwater, and such sluggishness of mind and reflexes was anathema to a Magistrate.
Glancing around at his few paltry personal possessions, he realized that he had absolutely nothing anyone would want, except maybe the bottle of wine. It wasn’t much, but it was all he was ever likely to have. Most of his property had been inherited from his grandfather and father. Since his apartment was more or less the Kane ancestral home, it should have been filled with relics of earlier generations.
But it wasn’t. A couple of lamps, a chair, a table, a sofa, the futon in the bedroom, a few antique books wrapped in plastic, a couple of ancient muzzle loaders confiscated from traders nearly thirty years ago, and a pix of himself standing between his father and mother.
He looked at the image of the cocky, eager kid he used to be. He was smiling in the picture. His father and mother weren’t. His dad had the same dark hair and high-planed features, but he looked brooding and unhappy. His mother looked the same.