Code Violation
by William Meikle

WARNING - TEMPER VIOLATION

WARNING - TEMPER VIOLATION

WARNING - VIOLENCE VIOLATION

YOU HAVE RECEIVED A TWENTY POINT PENALTY

YOU ARE THIRTY POINTS FROM COMPULSORY READJUSTMENT

Mark Walters looked down at the fragments of the bottle at his feet and fought back his impulse to stomp the glass into even smaller pieces.

The monotone voice from the wristband stopped its litany and lapsed back into silence.

He fought to bring his breathing under control, doing the exercises to calm his body down, praying that it would not betray him further, hoping that the sensors would remain quiet. This time he succeeded. There was no red light and the voice stayed away.

She was laughing again. That was what had set him off in the first place—that sneer and the ugly look in her eye. How could he have ever been in love with her?

“You want me to do it, don’t you?” he said, trying to remain calm. “You want to put me back inside again—don’t you?”

She laughed, louder this time, and he took a step towards her but stopped, rooted to the spot, when the red light flashed. He held his breath. The light went out again. He turned and left the room, trying to ignore the laughter which followed him out.

Thirty points. One blow up between him and rehab, and still three weeks of the month to go. He was going to have to stay cool, but he could do it. He would have to—he wouldn’t survive another spell in the clinic.

The last one had nearly killed him—the drugs, the exercise, the constant attempts at brainwashing and, worst of all, the wristband—the brand which forever marked him as a deviant, the leash which kept him in check.

He needed a drink but he couldn’t trust himself. The drink had always been his biggest problem and it had been the cause of his last two spells inside—the first time it was only drunk and disorderly but the second time he’d had a swing at some guy in the bar, broke his jaw and had been in readjustment for two months.

The red light at his wrist started flashing again and he fought to bring himself under control. He could hear Sandra moving around in the kitchen but he knew that being in the same room as her would be a bad idea. Maybe a drink was the lesser of the two evils.

The bar was quiet and dark this early in the evening. In hard times like these less and less people could afford the luxury and he could see that only the real hard drinkers were in. He recognised most of them—in fact he had called most of them his friends—before the wristband had marked him.

He kept his right hand in his pocket as he passed over his card.

“Beer,” he said, “Cold as you like.” The barman wiped the card through the machine then handed it back.

“Sorry, Mark,” he said, showing Mark the readout.

YOU ARE OUT OF CREDIT

He looked at it in disbelief. He’d deposited a thousands pounds, a month’s wages, only yesterday. He handed the card back to the barman.

“Run me off a list of the last ten debits, please.”

He waited patiently, trying for control as the printer behind the bar clattered away. It was usually used to itemise a customer’s bill, but could access your credit history if need be.

The anger rose in him as he looked at the printout. She had done it—cleaned the account, just ten minutes ago, probably just after he left the house. When he took his hand from his pocket he could see that the red light was flashing again. He tore the paper into ever smaller pieces as the monotone voice resumed.

WARNING - TEMPER VIOLATION

YOU HAVE RECEIVED A TEN POINT PENALTY

YOU ARE TWENTY POINTS FROM COMPULSORY READJUSTMENT

“Shit,” he said, and the wristband responded once more.

WARNING - TEMPER VIOLATION

YOU HAVE RECEIVED A TEN POINT PENALTY

YOU ARE TEN POINTS FROM COMPULSORY READJUSTMENT

He picked up a glass from the bar and threw it, hard, against the far wall where it smashed into small pieces.

VIOLENCE VIOLATION

YOU ARE NOW IN CONTRAVENTION OF PAROLE

STAY IN YOUR PRESENT LOCATION

ANY ATTEMPT TO AVOID READJUSTMENT WILL BE PUNISHED

This time the red light stayed on and its flashing was accompanied by a high-pitched whine from the wristband.

The bar was now empty—all the patrons had left when Mark smashed the glass on the wall. The barman was looking at him with an expression which combined pity and anger—pity at the thought of what the enforcers would do, anger at the thought that they would be doing it in his bar.

Mark thought about running, but only for a moment. He had ran the last time, ran until his breath burned in his lungs and his legs gave way beneath him. But all it brought him was two minutes—the wristband led them straight to him.

When they came he fought them, with glass, with fists and with teeth, but their body armour was strong and there were too many of them. He had only taken down two of them before he was bludgeoned to his knees, to the ground, and finally into unconsciousness.

It was only later, after he’d come to in the cell and they’d beat him with their clubs and their feet and their fists that he found out that one of the enforcers he’d hit was dead.

Three weeks later he was in space, on his way to a life sentence on the Martian Colony. No remission, no parole, no way back.

The judge had used the old terms—penal servitude, hard labour, for the length of his natural life, all that happy talk, but at least he was still alive. He’d been given the choice—everyone was these days. Lobotomy, injection or Mars—vegetable, worms or dust, as it was known in the clinics.

He had chosen the dust, judging it best to stay alive and alert. You never knew what life would bring along and at least he had managed to get away from Sandra.

Only an hour after he disembarked he was wondering if he’d made the right choice as they strapped him to the bed for the operation.

He’d heard about the lungy of course. It had been developed at the back end of the twentieth century, when he’d been only a boy. The colony in the South Pacific had been using it for close on twenty years now with no visible side effects, but trusting your breathing to an implanted machine was one thing when you were under a few feet of water—it was quite another when you were going to be on an alien planet at least one hundred million miles from home.

His heart was beating fast as they administered the anaesthetic, but there was no warning flashing at his wrist. He was finally free from one brand, but the operation was going to give him another one, one which could never be erased or removed. He sucked in one final breath as the drug took him under.

Mark awoke to a buzzing in his chest, not a unpleasant feeling. He looked down at the hole, the rubbery pulsing blowhole just in sight at his left shoulder, which opened and closed as his chest rose and fell. He opened his mouth to try to breathe but there was not the usual sensation—they had done something to his muscles.

When he spoke something in the machine would kick in to provide the correct vibration in his vocal chords but he didn’t know how it worked— the technology was beyond him. As long as it kept him alive he didn’t really care.

They put him on the line the next day. Lift the shovel, sift the dust, shovel the dust, lift the shovel. And on, and on as the dust settled in grime between his fingers and under his eyelids and formed a thick red crust around the blowhole. And not once were they told what they were looking for. “You’ll know soon enough if you find it.”

All he had to look at was the dust and the dark unfamiliar sky, his fellow prisoners and the guns which were always pointed in their direction.

For the first couple of days his body rebelled against the work, muscles tightening and back straining, but he soon feel into the routine. It wasn’t too far away from his childhood at the orphanage—dig the potatoes, sift the potatoes, lift the potatoes, bag the potatoes. It had been the same thing then—who ate potatoes in this day and age? He had never known where the potatoes went and he never knew what might be under the dust.

All he knew was the grinding tedium of it all and the wheezing from the old timers on the line as their lungy-induced breathing got thinner and their whistling gasps grew louder and the dust crept everywhere.

When the guards were looking the other way he was given the chance to look up—up into the black sparkling sky. Earth had been pointed out to him and he spent many long moments looking for it in his first days on the line. Sandra was back there.

Sandra who had saved him from rehab in his youth, Sandra who had shown faith in him when he was in the tanks, the same Sandra who had ultimately betrayed him—just like all the rest, a life long procession of do-gooders and right-thinkers determined to make him conform. Sandra of the luscious body and the hot quick tongue.

The fantasies came fast and often then—ramming a knife down her throat, trashing the house, burning her car—red, bloody fiery fantasies of death and destruction. But in the end the dust got through, even to his dreams, and the routine took over and his mind slowed to the pace of the work.

At night he fell exhausted into his bunk and was put to sleep by trank, only to reawaken to the same daily grind. The highlight was the rest day—one a month for each prisoner—a day in which they were allowed some time on their own, to drink, to catch up on Earthside news and to relay messages home.

Mark had no messages to send, no one he wanted to talk to, no desire to know what was happening back there. For the first month he managed to stay away from the bar.

They were only allowed the equivalent of two shots of whisky but he couldn’t trust himself with even that much. But by the second month he needed a drink—anything that would get the dead taste of the dust from his throat.

The bar was basic. One counter, protected by a thick wire mesh with only a small hole for the dispensing of drinks. A dozen battered tables sat in a jumble in the centre of the room but the bulk of the twenty or so prisoners were gathered around the holovid. Some new piece of gossip from home no doubt, he thought as he collected his drink.

He’d noticed that most of the conversation here revolved around what was happening Earthside but he tried to ignore it, knowing that he was never going back. Some of the others didn’t seem able to make that connection and that led to him being shunned as a loner, which was okay by him.

The first drink went down. Not too easily—they would never get away with calling the stuff whisky back Earthside. It did give him a warm glow in the pit of his stomach though, and he could feel the old familiar buzz coming on.

He had just started his second when he felt the pressure of a hand on his shoulder.

He turned and found himself looking into a ravaged face. The left eye had gone completely, only a charred hole rimmed in dust staring at him. The right eye glinted blue and he recognised the look.

Someone was looking for a fight—he’d seen the look too many times for him to be mistaken. He turned back to his drink.

The pressure at his shoulder increased and a finger curled into his blowhole, beginning to pull. As he turned he heard a gravely voice.

“You are drinking my ration. Don’t you know that’s not mannerly?”

The pain at his chest increased as he was pulled out of the seat. From the corner of his eye he could see the bartender hit the panic button but he knew help would arrive too late. He could feel the anger rise in him. He gave himself time for a quick look at his wrist, looking for the warning light, waiting for the fine to be relayed.

His hesitation took just long enough for the man behind him to pull harder at the blowhole bringing a sharp lancing pain to his chest and an answering whine from the lungy. He could see that there was a lot of scurrying activity down by the bar but there was still no sign of help arriving. He took the matter into his own hands.

He drove the hand away from his shoulder with a strong push, feeling something tear in his chest as the other man fell backwards and he lifted himself out of the chair. He turned and found that his opponent was just regaining his balance. Mark kicked out at his legs, at the same time throwing the dregs of his drink into the good eye.

The ravaged face screwed up in a grimace and large hands lifted to wipe at the stinging fluid. Mark laughed, the old red fury dancing in his eyes. The he hit his attacker, hard, right fist punching like a pile-driver just below the breast bone. The one eyed man fell to the ground, pulling over the table as he did so, spilling beer and dust and ashtray down to join him. His good eye looked up at Mark, red-rimmed, pleading, as the whistle from his lungy rose and rose and the choking sounds began.

There were now several guards headed towards them, guns brandished before them, but Mark didn’t feel like waiting. He moved in quickly and drove a heavily booted foot into the fallen man’s face, once to keep him down, a second time to make sure he stayed there. He was drawing his leg back for a third time when something heavy hit him from behind and the last thing he saw before he fell into darkness was the blood and the dust mingled into a paste, coating the black leather of his boots.

There was no jury this time, no defence, not a chance to say his piece. He was in and out of the room in less than five minutes. Prospector duty—the nearest thing to a death sentence apart from a gunshot to the head.

He fought as they put him in the restrainer, he fought as they flew him over the red desert, and he cursed them as they left him alone on the ridge with one months rations, a heater, a tent and a tracker.

He knew the drill—use the tracker, find whatever it was that it tracked, get close enough to it, and they came and got you, allowing you one, and only one, day of rest before sending you out to do it all again.

In the two months since he arrived, three had been sent out. Two had returned in body bags, the third failed to report in at all and he couldn’t be found at the end of the month. He resolved that he’d sit tight for a month and wait it out. They’d come back for him and he’d tell them he hadn’t found anything, and so it would go.

He got the tent up before nightfall. They’d left him on the top of a long mountainous ridge which stretched away into the distance to the south and the view as the sun went down was stunning. He wrapped the foil around him as he sat at the tent opening and watched the sunset. Later he would need the heater, but for now he was content to look at the view.

The hills glowed, first orange then red then purple before they turned black and the full glory of the sky was revealed. He crawled into the tent, got the heater going and wished the ration pack included some cigarettes.

The next morning he rose before the temperature got too high and pulled up camp. He knew how hot it could get out there—he’d seen the educational holos, and he had to get into shade before he got burned.

He found a deep rift in the ridge, a rift which seemed to stretch away for miles to the south and was in deep shade down the eastern side. Before noon he had found the best place for camp—the best place to settle in and wait it out.

It was only after he’d got the tent up and was starting to eat that he noticed that the tracker was flashing. He pushed it to the back of the tent, under the foil. He moved the thin silver material aside to make room and the small white light winked at him.

He had to admit he was intrigued. All those men sifting the dust and not one of them knowing what they were searching for, not one of them ever finding anything. There were rumours of course, plenty of them

“Diamonds. The biggest diamonds you’ve ever seen.”

“Uranium. See how the guards wear armour? That’s not armour—that’s shielding.”

“Artefacts. Ancient Martian artefacts—John Carter of Mars and all that happy shit.”

He’d heard them all and discounted them all—none of them really made sense. The trouble was he didn’t have an alternative hypothesis.

Most of them had thought that it was all just busy work. A ploy to keep them out of trouble. But now he was here and the light was flashing.

He left the tent behind. The briefing had said that the tracker had a range of a kilometre, so he wasn’t about to get lost. He stood outside the tent and turned in a full circle, gauging the strength of the response. Whatever was causing it, it seemed to be located due south down the canyon. The sun was just beginning to broach the walls as he set off.

Fifteen minutes later he was facing a blank wall of rock in a small box canyon off the main valley. The tracker pulsed strongly when facing the wall, but there was no entrance. He had to face the possibility that his destination was over the top of the wall but the cliff was over two hundred feet high here and he wasn’t about to trust his life to the crumbling rocks above him. In frustration he kicked out at the rock.

It responded by opening up before him, a passageway stretching off into the cliff, lit by thin stripes of neon-like lighting. He looked around, wondering if someone had seen him, someone who wanted him to enter. He shouted down the passage but the only sound was his voice echoing away into the distance. He took a step forward.

The tracker in his hand began to get warm and the tone of the buzzing in his chest changed to a deep drone. He moved to step backwards but his body was held, as if in an invisible vice. It was only when he moved forwards that the pressure decreased—something, some force, was leading him into the passage.

The heat became too much and he dropped the tracker to the ground, noticing that the light had stopped flashing, but by then he was primarily concerned with the lungy.

There was no oxygen getting to his system and his mouth gulped helplessly for air as he pushed himself forwards—anything rather than stand still. He could feel himself weakening, grey mist sneaking in around his vision, but he managed one last push, a push which propelled him forward, out of the pressure zone to lie gasping on the cold rock.

At least he knew one thing—no Earthside technology existed which could place such differential pressure on a body—at least none that he knew of. It looked like the artefact theory was about to be proven right. He had about two hours of exploration time before the enforcers turned up and he intended to use it. As he made his way further down the passage, he was unaware of the rock face sliding silently back into place behind him.

The passage, although superficially clean, tasted of dust, the same well known taste as he’d encountered on the line and he had to continually spit to stop his throat becoming clogged. The lungy whined under the pressure on its filters but he wasn’t worried—it had stood up to a lot worse.

He had been walking for five minutes before he hit the first junction, and a further five minutes before he came upon the chamber.

It was vast, seemingly hand sculpted out of the solid rock and reminded Mark of the old ruin he had once visited with the nuns from the orphanage—St. Paul’s Chapel? —something like that anyway. But what caught his eyes were dancing lights some hundred metres above.

High up there a dozen stars were dancing, stars which seemed to be drifting down towards him. As they got closer he could see that they were globes, about a foot in diameter and filled with shimmering sparkling flashes of red and yellow and golden light. They fell, accelerating towards his head then stopped, defying momentum, in a circle two feet above him.

They hummed, each giving out a musical bass drone which oscillated as they moved around, forming chords and arpeggios and swirls of light and music and dance. Mark stood, entranced as the aerobatics went on above him.

Then they came closer, swirling in a complex pattern around his head, only a foot from his nose, then six inches, then merely a hair’s width, the breeze from their passing ruffling his hair until finally they stopped, a circle just above his head.

And then he felt it—the probing, questioning flicker in his mind.

“Who?” they asked, in one voice—a voice like a piece of silk being drawn across a knife blade.

“Why?” they asked.

And again, “Who?”

And his mind responded with a torrent of memories and pictures, pleasure and pain, his life being sucked and digested and, a feeling he knew intimately, judged.

The globes danced as his story was replayed, a seething mass of greys and blacks and reds and golds which lit the chamber in cavorting shadows.

All too soon it was over. The probing withdrew and the dancing stopped. The globes’ inner light dimmed, becoming cold and glaring. The music stopped. In silence they began to ascend once more to the roof. He had been found wanting.

Without thinking, he bent and scooped up a small rock. Just to catch their attention, he thought, I’ll teach them to ignore me. He threw and the rock sailed upwards, straight and true, catching the rear globe full on and shattering it into a myriad glinting sparkling fragments which drifted slowly down to settle on his head, his arms, his body.

Suddenly they were all around him, eleven swirling fiery balls of anger, whirling faster, ever faster until there was only a ring of fire with his cringing body in the centre.

The he felt it again—the probe in his mind. But this time it had the hard metallic ring of iron striking stone as they merged with him and reformed his memories and tied him into their pain.

And he felt the pain of his jaw breaking. And he felt the heavy boot catch him in the face, once, then harder, then he felt death, a spiralling away of his mind, wheeling and spinning as he fell in fragments down into blackness and the pain caused him to scream and he thought he could take no more.

He was vaguely aware of the globes receding, falling away from him towards the roof, and he was aware of what they had done, forcing him, for the first and last time in his life, to fully feel the results of his actions. He heard one last word, a whispering, full of anguish and remorse yet strong and steady.

“Justice.” They said as they ascended out of view and he whimpered, just before he felt the boot hit him beneath his left eye and he screamed into blackness as he died, again, and again, and again.

And down there, at the back of his mind, he could hear the voice of the judge, the terms of his sentence which echoed around in the blackness with him.

“For the rest of your natural life.”

“For the rest of your natural life.”

“For the rest of your natural life.”