‘Immaterial, immaterial,’ 126 said in flawless English. ‘There is no parole from here, no pardon, no escape. I am one twenty-six. I will be one twenty—six for eternity. You are one twenty-seven.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Since God created cockroaches.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘A lie for the convenience of the state.’
‘And I, too,’ said Hatcher.
‘To give such a lie relevance is to perpetuate it. Why I am here, why you are here, that is no longer material. By now even the courts have forgotten us. And if nobody else cares, what matter is it to ourselves? It is, quite simply, a lie.’
‘It helps me to think about it. It gives me a sticking place.’
‘There is no vindication in hatred. Besides, we are all products of our own devils.’
‘I’m not sure I agree with that. My devil had a silver tongue.’
‘Ah yes,’ answered 126. ‘Show me a devil who doesn’t. Forget hatred, it will drive you mad.’
‘If something else doesn’t first.’
And so in the ensuing months and years, Hatcher had decided that if he ever saw Sloan again, perhaps he could forgive him. Forgive but never trust him again. He knew Sloan very well, well enough to know that Sloan would betray him again if he thought it was expedient.
‘Did you kill?’ 126 asked one day -
‘Yes, but it was my duty.’
‘Many crimes are committed in the name of duty.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Hatcher said.
‘Listen, when one shares the secret of murder, then one is guilty of murder.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Sometimes we can excuse anything in the name of patriotism and so an outcast can only find redemption by claiming to be a patriot. Are you a patriot, one twenty- seven?’
‘I don’t remember. Yes. I think I was.’
‘Well, you are certainly an outcast.’
‘Yes, that’s a fact.’
‘Then it stands to reason that you are probably
‘I can understand that,’ Hatcher replied.
‘Then you have had the experience.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, of course. You see what I mean. Righteous indignation comes much easier to the patriot than it does to the felon.’
Hatcher’s lessons came hard. He forgot that in the hell of Los Boxes the rules never changed. One day, he had been working at the edge of the jungle, preparing one of the endless vegetable gardens that surrounded the citadel, when a wild boar had suddenly lunged from the underbrush and charged him. It was enormous, a hulking, stinking beast with curved tusks and insane eyes, snorting and hooking as it ran toward Hatcher.
Hatcher took its first charge with the hoe, smacking it on the snout, but the beast merely backed off a few yards and charged again. Hatcher screamed for the guards as he parried tusk with hoe. The large tusks could easily have torn out his stomach, opened up a leg, ripped away his throat.
A guard appeared nearby but made no attempt to shoot the beast. He stood fifty feet away, laughing.
‘Shoot it,’ Hatcher screamed, and the guard instantly reacted.
The boar attacked again. This time Hatcher swung the hoe in a wide arc and buried the blade in the boar’s thick neck. The hoe handle splintered and broke. The boar, roaring in pain, backed off, and began to circle.
‘For Christ’s sake, shoot the son of a bitch!’ Hatcher screamed as he backed away.
The boar wheeled, snorting crazily, pawed the ground and came at him again. Hatcher was defenseless. He scrambled to his feet and started to run. Then he heard a shot and the boar’s scream of pain. Another guard across the field lowered his rifle.
Hatcher turned and saw the boar lying on its side ten feet away, its short legs pawing the air, its head jerking back and forth in the spasms of death.
Hatcher’s sigh of relief was shattered by the first guard’s gun butt as it smashed into his throat. He reeled back, clutching his neck, feeling the mangled veins and muscles as blood surged into his mouth. He fell to his knees gagging.
The guard leaned over him.
