A Plague of Demons

1

"Why?" the girl asked. She sat across from Bailey at the fold-out table, watching as he ate carefully a bowl of lux-ration soup, with real lichen chunks.

"Why did I go?" He made a vague gesture with a thin, pale hand. "Everything I wanted to do, everything I tried; it all seemed so hopeless. I was trapped, a Ten-Level Yellow-Tag. There was no future for me, no chance to improve. It was a way out."

"You feel differently now?"

Bailey nodded slowly. "I used to grieve for the old days, when the world wasn't so crowded and so organized. I always told myself what I would have done if I'd lived then. Now I see that's just an easy out. It's always been up to a man to make his own way. I was afraid to try."

"And now you're not?"

"No," Bailey said, sounding surprised. "Why should I be? All that out there"-he made a gesture which encompassed all of society-"is just something built by men. I'm a man, too. I can do what I have to do." He broke off, glancing at the girl. "What about you?" he asked. "Why did you help me?"

"I… know how it is. I almost jumped from the Hudson Intermix once."

"What changed your mind?"

She lifted her shoulders, frowned. "I don't know. I can't remember. Maybe I lost my nerve."

Bailey shook his head. "No," he said. "You didn't lose your nerve. Helping me took plenty of that. I don't know what the law says about leaving the center via the back door, but I left all my papers there. You're harboring a tagless man." He put down his spoon and pushed the chair back. "Thanks for everything," he said. "I'll be going now."

"Are you sure you feel well enough?"

"I'm all right. And there are things I have to do."

"Where will you go? What will you do?"

"First I'll need money."

"Without your cards, how can you apply for assignment?"

"You're thinking about legal methods," Bailey said. "I'm afraid that's a luxury I can't afford. I'll go where the cards don't count."

"You mean-Preke territory?"

"I don't have much choice." Bailey leaned across to touch her hand. "Don't worry about me," he said. "Forget me. At worst, I won't be any worse off than when I was strapped to a slab in the slaughterhouse."

"I still don't know how you got away."

"Neither do I." Bailey rose. "But never mind the past. It's what comes next that counts."