Beggars and Choosers

Jack said, “Thank you, Supervisor. And one more thing—”

“Hey!” a stomp screamed at the other end of the cafe, “The foodbelt stopped, it!”

Dead silence fell.

The holo of Samuelson said sharply, “What is it? What’s the problem?” For a minute he almost sounded, him, like a person.

The stomp screamed again, “Fucking thing just stopped, it! Ate my meal chip and stopped! The food cubbies don’t open, them!” He yanked at all the plasticlear cubby doors, and none budged, but of course they don’t never budge, them, unless you put your chip in the slot. The stomp slammed on them with his club, and that didn’t help neither. Plasticlear don’t break.

Jack ran, him, across the cafe, his belly bouncing under his red jacks. He stuck his own meal chip into the slot and pressed a cubby button. The chip disappeared, it, and the cubby didn’t open. Jack ran back to the terminal.

“It’s broke, Supervisor. The goddamn foodbelt’s broke, it — eating chips and not giving out no food. You got to do something real quick. This can’t go no two weeks!”

“Of course not, Mayor. As you know, the cafe isn’t part of my taxes — it’s funded and maintained by Congresswoman Land. But I’ll notify her myself, immediately, and a technician will be there from Albany within the hour. Nobody will starve within an hour, Mayor Sawicki. Keep your constituents calm, sir.”

Celie Kane shrilled, “Fixed like the warden ’bot, you mean? If my kids go hungry even a day, you mule bastard—”

“Shut up,” Paulie Cenverno told her, murderously low. Paulie don’t like to see donkeys abused to their faces. He says, him, that they got feelings too.

“Within one hour,” Jack said. “Thank you for your help, Supervisor. Dialogue over.”

“Dialogue over,” Samuelson said. He smiled at us, him, the same smile like on his election holos, chin up and crinkly eyes bright. The holo pushed a button on his desk. The picture disappeared. But something must of gone wrong because the voice didn’t disappear, it, only it sounded all different. Samuelson still, but no Samuelson we never seen or heard campaigning, us: “Christ — what next! These morons and imbeciles — I’m tempted to just — oh!” The terminal yelped and went dead.

A woman at a far table screamed. The stomp with the biggest wooden club had grabbed her food, him, and was eating it. Jack and Paulie and Norm Frazier charged over, them, and jumped the kid. His buddies jumped back. Tables crashed over and people started ru

Outside, the Y-lights made Main Street bright as day. I could feel my heart banging but I didn’t slow up, me. Angry people got no sense. Anything could happen. I panted, me, alongside A

In A

But on the other hand, plastisynth don’t never get vermin.

Lizzie said, her eyes bright, “Do you think a donkey will come, them, to fix the foodbelt in an hour?”

I gasped, “Lizzie… hush, you.”

“But what if in an hour no donkey don’t come to—”

A

She brought me a blanket, one of those she’d embroidered, her, with bright yarns from the warehouse. More embroideries hung on the wall, woven with bits of pop can the young girls make jewelry out of, with torn-up jacks, with any other bright thing A

A

“Billy — did you see, you, that woman in the cafe?”

“What woman?” It was nice, her sitting so close.

“The one standing, her, off by the back wall. Wearing green jacks. She don’t live, her, in East Oleanta.”

“So?” I snuggled under A

“She looked different,” A

“Different how?”

A

She said slowly, “Different like a donkey.”

I sat up on the sofa. The blanket slid off. “You mean genemod? I didn’t see, me, nobody like that.”

“Well, she wasn’t genemod pretty. Short, with squinchy features and low eyebrows and a head a little too big. But she was a donkey, her. I know it. Billy — you think she’s a FBI spy?”

“In East Oleanta? We ain’t got no underground organizations, us. All we got is rotten stomps that want to spoil ilfe for the rest of us.”

A

FBI is a whole other thing. All them federal outfits are. They don’t come to Livers unless something donkey is threatened, and once they come, them, they don’t let go.

“Well,” A

I didn’t want to argue, me. But I didn’t want her to worry, neither. “A

“Well, I hope you’re right, you. We don’t need no visiting donkeys in East Oleanta. Let them stay, them, in their places, and us in ours.”

I couldn’t help it. I said, real soft, “A

She knew, her, that I didn’t mean the Bible. Not in that voice. She snapped, “No. I never heard of it, me.”

“Yes, you did. I can tell, me, by your voice. You heard of Eden.”

“And what if 1 did? It’s garbage.”

I couldn’t let it go, me. “Why’s it garbage?”

“Why? Billy — think, you. How could there be a place, even in the mountains, that donkeys don’t know about? Donkeys serve everything, them, including mountains. They got aircars and planes to see everything. Anyway, why would a place without donkeys ever come to be? Who would do the work?”

“ ’Bots,” I said.

“Who would make the ’bots?”

“Maybe us?”

“Livers work? But why, in God’s name? We don’t got to work, us — we got donkeys to do all that for us. We got a right to be served by donkeys and their ’bots — we elect them! Why would we want to go, us, to some place without public servants?”