to the work. All at once, Duggan was right there. Plissken had turned his head just enough to see the steel-toed boot curling toward his exposed side.
The kick was well-intentioned; it had authority. It caught him just below the rib cage, and his whole side exploded. He jerked up with it, crashing back into the instrument table, all his work gone, clattering back to the floor. He hit the wall hard, then slid and doubled over to the floor.
Duggan was on top of him, gasping putrid breath, his automatic buried deep in the flesh of Plissken’s neck, cutting off his air.
“Ohhh, Snakey,” he rasped. “What we’re gonna do to you.”
He was jostling his hips against Plissken’s side. “We’re gonna fix you so that there won’t be no more little snakes slithering around. Yesss.”
Somewhere between the pain and the nausea, Plissken found the length of chain and got hold of it. He looped it once around his hands, and itched for Duggan’s neck.
Then, a voice. “What the hell…”
Duggan jumped to his feet, still shaking, trying to get himself under control. Plissken looked up from his sideways view on the floor. The fat duty sergeant from in-processing had come into the room.
“He was… trying to escape,” Duggan said, while smoothing his disheveled hair. “That’s it. I subdued the prisoner during an escape attempt.”
The Sergeant looked at Duggan, then let his eyes drift down to the Snake. He never changed expression. “Something may be up,” he said. “Cronenberg said to stop his processing until further notice.”
“What for?”
Plissken got himself into a sitting position, leaning his back against the wall. His side was badly bruised, but he didn’t think there was any permanent damage.
“I just do what I’m told,” the Sergeant answered, and looked at Plissken again. “You okay?”
“Never better,” he answered, and got slowly to his feet.
The Sergeant walked up to Duggan. “Just leave him right here, understand? Don’t hit him, don’t hurt him, don’t shoot him. Just leave him alone until you hear from me. Got it?”
“Sure, Sarge,” Duggan said, holstering his gun. “You know you can count on me.”
The Sergeant looked at him, sighed deeply, then stalked from the room.
Duggan flared around to Plissken, the fire in his eyes again. “Look what you did to me,” he said through clenched teeth. “Try to treat you assholes with a little kindness and you throw it back in my face. Well, no more Mister Nice Guy. You get back in your seat and don’t move.”
Plissken went back to the bench and sat down heavily. Something was up; he couldn’t imagine what. His immediate problem, though, was staying alive long enough to find out what it was. He watched Duggan carefully, watched for the madness to fog his brain again.
The man pulled a package of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. He put one in his mouth, then looked up at Plissken. He smiled. “Like a ciggy?” he asked.
No answer.
“C’mon, Snake. We’ll bury the hatchet.” Duggan leaned down close, holding the pack out to him. He reached tentatively for one. Duggan snatched the pack away from him at the last second.
“You don’t want one of these,” he said. “They taste like shit.”
“They are shit,” Plissken replied.
Duggan lit his anyway and took a deep, satisfied drag. “Just wait ’til they strap you to that table, Snakey boy. Whooee! They just whack those suckers off, just whack ’em off. No anesthetic, no nothing. Yes, sir. I’ve heard them scream for hours afterwards.”
“I ain’t there yet,” Plissken said.
Duggan laughed, holding the burning cigarette up in front of Plissken’s face. “Just think. No more hot peter, Snakey. No more jazzin’ up the girlies. I’ll tell you. I think I’d rather blow out my fuckin’ brains than go around without no balls.”
“What brains?” Plissken said, and regretted it immediately.
Duggan’s eyes got wide again, and he was fumbling with the holster for his gun.
“Remember what your chum said,” Plissken told him.
The man frowned deeply, trembling, then backed away, taking quick pulls on the smoker to calm himself down. “Oh, I’m going to like it when they put you on that table. I’m going to get up real close and whisper in your ear while they’re doing the job on you. Yes, sir.”
He just stared for several seconds, then smiled that frightening smile again. He walked over to the table and climbed up on it, pretending that he was strapped down. Then he started acting like the box was strapped on him. He was shaking and screaming, yelling for mercy. That’s what he was doing when the duty Sergeant came back in.
“Aw jeez, get off that table,” the man said in disgust.
Duggan jumped down. “Aw, Sarge. I was just…”
“I know what you were doing,” the man responded. “And I hate to disappoint you, but there ain’t gonna be no show today.”
“What?”
“Hauk wants him upstairs,”
“B-but, Sarge. This here is Snake Plissken.”
The man half smiled. “And it looks like he’s slithered out again. Let’s go, Plissken.”
The Snake smiled and stood up. “Enjoyed the show, Duggan,” he said. “You’ll have to do it for real sometime.”
That brought Duggan up close, fists balled. Just what Plissken wanted. He half turned away from the man, then came back around hard, burying manacled hands in Duggan’s groin.
The man made a sound in his throat like a whistling tea kettle, then doubled over at the waist. Plissken grabbed the back of his head, then came up hard with his knee. He heard Duggan’s nose go with an audible crack, then watched as he crumpled to the floor.
“Gaaa!”
“I’m ready,” he told the Sergeant.
The man sighed again and led him into the hall. There was a contingent of armed guards waiting for him outside the door.
“Just stay calm,” the Sergeant said, settling his big belly farther over the edge of his belt. “Don’t make any quick moves, and everything will be all right”
“Docile as a puppy,” Plissken replied. And he was.
They led him out of the hootch, into the rain. It wasn’t coming down hard, but by habit he held his breath when he got out in it, not wanting to ingest any more of the gas than he had to.
The landing field that had been empty when they brought him in was now lousy with copters. He turned to look at them, but they just pushed him along. He was taken into another bunker near the Statue.
They went in, up a couple of flights, then down a dark hallway. They stopped in front of a doorway marked: COMMISSIONER. The Sergeant knocked on the door.
A muffled voice grunted on the other side of the door, and the Sergeant turned the knob. “Mind your manners,” he whispered to Plissken before swinging the thing open.
The Snake went in first, the guards right behind him. It was an office that looked like it was never used. The walls were bare: no pictures, no diplomas, no citations. The desk was empty. In and out baskets, empty. No pictures, not even a blotter. Just a telephone.
A man sat behind the desk. A hard man gone soft He squinted with powerful eyes. His face was set, strained. There may have been character in that face if Plissken had cared to look for it. He didn’t. All Snake Plissken was doing was looking for a way out.
“Take off the leg irons,” the man behind the desk said.
The Sergeant knotted up his eyebrows, but did as he was told, Plissken smiled with the unexpected good fortune. He immediately went over and sat down in a chair, crossing his legs.
The man behind the desk nearly smiled. He nodded to the guards. “All right,” he said.
The Sergeant took a waddling step toward the desk. “He’s dangerous, sir.”
