Descending Road - A LONG DOUBLE LINE by Dana W. Paxson

A LONG DOUBLE LINE

2411 CE

The Russian guards took their time to count and check, moving and darting here and there in their long-coated gray uniforms; Doug‘s bladder agony grew, and he tried to think of home.

Edinburgh. What a long way off it was now. The years had gone by like a flood, as if Doug had been absorbed into a tide of living garbage that washed at random onto empty jagged shores. Janet: he remembered her name. Some time ago he had lost what her name meant to him; maybe it was in Dannemora prison, maybe in Auburn. In those places EmpCo stuck drugs in you any time they liked, and your mind and memory would begin shuffling things around, and you’d lose the grip on what you knew and who you were and what you felt about anything.

Janet had loved him, and he had loved her. Those were the words Doug would use to try to find the thread of memory of feeling, of the times they had made love, the one time on the mattress ticking in his flat in Edinburgh while his machine sang its way through the Web-wide searches for the hidden messages he wanted. But these weren’t memories any more, they had shriveled down to be just words, sounds and no more, and nothing was in them, no blood or juice or jism or joy. He squeezed his eyes tight shut.

The group he’d worked for had been caught, of course. He was accused in Ecuador as a subversive agent, and tried in Singapore, and thrown in prison in New York State at twenty-five years of age, all for passing along the names of prisoners of conscience through the Web. Now he was nearing forty, and his name was in all likelihood circulating through the Web too, in some clandestine steganographic festooning of a digitized landscape photograph.

The World Court of Justice had tried to intervene on his behalf, but they were overwhelmed with thousands of cases just like his; the multinationals still ran things their own way, dribbling out just enough money to keep the Court solvent and working, but not enough to let it be fully effective. More money for EmpCo.

“Let’s go!” The ramp rattled back up into position on the last shuttle car where Doug had sat. A few toots on a whistle, and the shuttle train moved away from them down the track, back towards a city with a name Doug had already forgotten. Another whistle, this time from one of the Russians, and the long double line of prisoners began to walk, their chains clanking and rattling, in the wake of a pair of guards leading them off across the Russian void.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	A LONG DOUBLE LINE 2411 CE The Russian guards took their time to count and check, moving and darting here and there in their long-coated gray uniforms; Doug‘s bladder agony grew, and he tried to think of home. Edinburgh. What a long way off it was now. The years had gone by like a flood, as if Doug had been absorbed into a tide of living garbage that washed at random onto empty jagged shores. Janet: he remembered her name. Some time ago he had lost what her name meant to him; maybe it was in Dannemora prison, maybe in Auburn. In those places EmpCo stuck drugs in you any time they liked, and your mind and memory would begin shuffling things around, and you’d lose the grip on what you knew and who you were and what you felt about anything. Janet had loved him, and he had loved her. Those were the words Doug would use to try to find the thread of memory of feeling, of the times they had made love, the one time on the mattress ticking in his flat in Edinburgh while his machine sang its way through the Web-wide searches for the hidden messages he wanted. But these weren’t memories any more, they had shriveled down to be just words, sounds and no more, and nothing was in them, no blood or juice or jism or joy. He squeezed his eyes tight shut. The group he’d worked for had been caught, of course. He was accused in Ecuador as a subversive agent, and tried in Singapore, and thrown in prison in New York State at twenty-five years of age, all for passing along the names of prisoners of conscience through the Web. Now he was nearing forty, and his name was in all likelihood circulating through the Web too, in some clandestine steganographic festooning of a digitized landscape photograph. The World Court of Justice had tried to intervene on his behalf, but they were overwhelmed with thousands of cases just like his; the multinationals still ran things their own way, dribbling out just enough money to keep the Court solvent and working, but not enough to let it be fully effective. More money for EmpCo. “Let’s go!” The ramp rattled back up into position on the last shuttle car where Doug had sat. A few toots on a whistle, and the shuttle train moved away from them down the track, back towards a city with a name Doug had already forgotten. Another whistle, this time from one of the Russians, and the long double line of prisoners began to walk, their chains clanking and rattling, in the wake of a pair of guards leading them off across the Russian void.