Hellburner

Long time he lay there freezing, with a knot in his gut, replaying that newscast for the information he could get out of it, telling himself they couldn’t prove anything on his mother, she’d at least got some kind of lawyer, so she wasn’t without help—

He’d got a little money ahead, he’d saved it out of his pay, he wasn’t spending anything. He’d tried to give it to her before, for what he’d cost her, but she hadn’t wanted it. Maybe he could get Ben to send it to her. Maybe she’d take it from Ben—she was going to need funds fast, if she wasn’t drawing pay, she never got that far ahead of the bills, and even if she had free legal help, it wouldn’t pay for food…

“Word is, he can’t go in a cell with the women,” the MP said. “Regulations. We can put him with Pollard….”

He didn’t argue. Parton only said he’d report that refusal to the lieutenant.

Parton left. The UDC medics got him up. The MPs locked a bracelet on his wrist that they said he wasn’t to mess with, and took him out and down the hall to the cells.

Guys from his barracks yelled out, along the way, “Hey, Dek!” and he looked numbly to the side. Mason and Chiv were mere. Pauli. Hardesty. And across the aisle—a guy he didn’t know, familiar face, who looked murder at him. So he didn’t look. He walked where they wanted him, they took the cuffs off when he’d gotten to Ben’s cell and they opened the door and put him in.

Ben gave him a sullen look. He didn’t figure Ben wanted to start a fight in front of the MPs. So he got over in the corner, mere being just a double bunk and a toilet, and Ben sitting on the bunk: he sank down on the floor with his back to the corner, feeling the bruises and feeling the silence from the bunk.

MPs stood there a moment more looking at him. He had the fanciful notion that after they left Ben was going to get up and come over and kill him. But he didn’t truly think so. Hit him—yeah. He expected that. He even wanted it. Anything to stop him thinking about the mess he’d made.

The MPs went away.

Ben said, “The place is probably bugged.”

Which meant Ben wouldn’t kill him—not in front of any cameras. He sat mere with his knees drawn up to his chest so tight he couldn’t move and felt numb.

“You going to sit there?”

He didn’t know what else to do. Didn’t care about climbing up to the top bunk. He was comfortable enough where he was—comfortable as he was going to get.

“You sure got a way of finding it, you know that?”

“Yeah,” he said. It cost to say, “Sorry, Ben,” but he did it, past the knot in his throat. He hadn’t said it often enough, maybe, over the years, and a lot of the people he should have said it to—it was too late to tell.

Ben didn’t say anything for a while. Finally: “You break anything?”

“No.” He wasn’t sure about the ribs, and the lately-broken arm and the shoulder ached like hell, but the meds hadn’t taped anything, or sent him back to hospital, so probably not. He just generally hurt.

“Son of a bitch,” Ben muttered. Ben might hit him after all. Ben’s chances of getting out of here and back to his security clearance had sunk, maybe, as low as they could go. Ben had nothing to lose.

Ben muttered, “Get out of the damn corner. You look like hell.”

He made a tentative move of his legs. But he was wedged in. Couldn’t do it without more effort man he wanted to spend. So he shook his head, just wanted to be left in peace a while. Didn’t want an argument… or he just wanted this one to play itself out and come to some distracting conclusion.

“Damn.” Ben got up, came over and grabbed him up by one wrist and the other, turned him back to the bunk and shoved him onto it.