All the Hometowns You Can't Stay Away From by Izzy Wasserstein

Author:Izzy Wasserstein [Wasserstein, Izzy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781952086434
Publisher: Neon Hemlock Press

I get maybe an hour of dream-haunted sleep before they come to collect me. With no windows, I’m not supposed to know what time it is, but my optics, still connected to the local network, tell me it’s ten before eight. They’re in a fucking hurry to get me to court, and I’m sweating and thinking about what I’m gonna do if things don’t come together.

Angry Eyebrows is loving this, telling me I’m going down for it, taunting me about what they’ll do to me in prison, and it’s clear he’s already been bragging about this collar. I’m desperately hoping I’ll be able to ruin his day.

But when they take me to a truck and load me in the back, and I’m pretty well fucked. I’m just about to start screaming about how they’ve got the wrong person, how if they just run my biometrics again I can prove it, which won’t work, and would put every Hopper at risk. Somehow I keep my nerve, or at least keep my mouth shut, and outside I can barely hear raised voices. I’m hoping I’m the subject of debate, and sure enough a minute later they open the truck back up.

“What’s going on?” I ask, trying to sound genuinely confused, and get pushed along roughly for my trouble. They take me to an intake room and give me another retinal scan. So 13 managed it after all. Eyebrows wants to take me back to the truck, but his sergeant tells him to wait. Seems they have a hot tip that my retinals will turn up additional outstanding warrants.

Still a million ways this can go wrong, but when the sergeant gets the results to her eye optics, it’s easy to see it’s gone right. She frowns, blinks, and her frown deepens. She pulls my cop aside.

“Run it again,” I hear him say. And they do. Then they do two more biometric scans and another cross-check. They’re fucking pissed, and I should win an Oscar for my portrayal of “confused inmate #1.”

In the end they’ve got no choice but to apologize to me, or rather “Mr. Cory Cadigan,” for the confusion. Seems Cadigan had an unpaid parking ticket and a warrant he didn’t know about. I’m gracious, because I care more about getting clear of this than scoring points, and offer to pay the fine immediately. They’re eager to get me out of there and try to figure out how their system pegged me as a serial killer.

Outside the station the ads are for vat-grown meat and child care and a helluva lot of prescription medications. Cadigan is more my type than Pai ever was. For about fifteen seconds, I think I’m in the clear. Then the other detective from the interrogation, Severe Haircut, is walking along side me.

“I know how you did it,” she says, and I keep my head down and keep walking, my heart jittering. “I know you’ve been moving between identities, stealing them.”

It’s a one-sided conversation because of my “don’t

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