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                              THE RECRUIT

                            BY BRYCE WALTON

                    It was dirty work, but it would
                    make him a man. And kids had a
                    right to grow up--some of them!

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
               Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Wayne, unseen, sneered down from the head of the stairs.

The old man with his thick neck, thick cigar, evening highball, potgut
and bald head without a brain in it. His slim mother with nervously
polite smiles and voice fluttering, assuring the old man by her frailty
that he was big in the world. They were squareheads one and all,
marking moron time in a gray dream. Man, was he glad to break out.

The old man said, "He'll be okay. Let him alone."

"But he won't eat. Just lies there all the time."

"Hell," the old man said. "Sixteen's a bad time. School over, waiting
for the draft and all. He's in between. It's rough."

Mother clasped her forearms and shook her head once slowly.

"We got to let him go, Eva. It's a dangerous time. You got to remember
about all these dangerous repressed impulses piling up with nowhere to
go, like they say. You read the books."

"But he's unhappy."

"Are we specialists? That's the Youth Board's headache, ain't it? What
do we know about adolescent trauma and like that? Now get dressed or
we'll be late."

Wayne watched the ritual, grinning. He listened to their purposeless
noises, their blabbing and yakking as if they had something to say.
Blab-blab about the same old bones, and end up chewing them in the
same old ways. Then they begin all over again. A freak sideshow all the
way to nowhere. Squareheads going around either unconscious or with
eyes looking dead from the millennium in the office waiting to retire
into limbo.

How come he'd been stuck with parental images like that? One
thing--when he was jockeying a rocket to Mars or maybe firing the pants
off Asiatic reds in some steamy gone jungle paradise, he'd forget his
punkie origins in teeveeland.

But the old man was right on for once about the dangerous repressed
impulses. Wayne had heard about it often enough. Anyway there was no
doubt about it when every move he made was a restrained explosion.
So he'd waited in his room, and it wasn't easy sweating it out alone
waiting for the breakout call from HQ.

"Well, dear, if you say so," Mother said, with the old resigned sigh
that must make the old man feel like Superman with a beerbelly.

They heard Wayne slouching loosely down the stairs and looked up.

"Relax," Wayne said. "You're not going anywhere tonight."

"What, son?" his old man said uneasily. "Sure we are. We're going to
the movies."

He could feel them watching him, waiting; and yet still he didn't
answer. Somewhere out in suburban grayness a dog barked, then was
silent.

"Okay, go," Wayne said. "If you wanta walk. I'm taking the family
boltbucket."

"But we promised the Clemons, dear," his mother said.

"Hell," Wayne said, grinning straight into the old man. "I just got my
draft call."

He saw the old man's Adam's apple move. "Oh, my dear boy," Mother cried
out.

"So gimme the keys," Wayne said. The old man handed the keys over. His
understanding smile was strained, and fear flicked in his sagging eyes.

"Do be careful, dear," his mother said. She ran toward him as he
laughed and shut the door on her. He was still laughing as he whoomed
the Olds between the pale dead glow of houses and roared up the ramp
onto the Freeway. Ahead was the promising glitter of adventure-calling
neon, and he looked up at the high skies of night and his eyes sailed
the glaring wonders of escape.

       *       *       *       *       *

He burned off some rubber finding a slot in the park-lot. He strode
under a sign reading _Public Youth Center No. 947_ and walked casually
to the reception desk, where a thin man with sergeant's stripes and a
pansy haircut looked out of a pile of paperwork.

"Where you think you're going, my pretty lad?"

Wayne grinned down. "Higher I hope than a typewriter jockey."

"Well," the sergeant said. "How tough we are this evening. You have a
pass, killer?"

"Wayne Seton. Draft call."

"Oh." The sergeant checked his name off a roster and nodded. He wrote
on a slip of paper, handed the pass to Wayne. "Go to the Armory and
check out whatever your lusting little heart desires. Then report to
Captain Jack, room 307."

"Thanks, sarge dear," Wayne said and took the elevator up to the Armory.

A tired fat corporal with a naked head blinked up at tall Wayne.
Finally he said, "So make up your mind, bud. Think you're the only kid
breaking out tonight?"

"Hold your teeth, pop," Wayne said, coolly and slowly lighting a
cigarette. "I've decided."

The corporal's little eyes studied Wayne with malicious amusement.
"Take it from a vet, bud. Sooner you go the better. It's a big city and
you're starting late. You can get a cat, not a mouse, and some babes
are clever hellcats in a dark alley."

"You must be a genius," Wayne said. "A corporal with no hair and still
a counterboy. I'm impressed. I'm all ears, Dad."

The corporal sighed wearily. "You can get that balloon head
ventilated, bud, and good."

Wayne's mouth twitched. He leaned across the counter toward the
shelves and racks of weapons. "I'll remember that crack when I get
my commission." He blew smoke in the corporal's face. "Bring me a
Smith and Wesson .38, shoulder holster with spring-clip. And throw in
a Skelly switchblade for kicks--the six-inch disguised job with the
double springs."

The corporal waddled back with the revolver and the switchblade
disguised in a leather comb case. He checked them on a receipt ledger,
while Wayne examined the weapons, broke open the revolver, twirled the
cylinder and pushed cartridges into the waiting chamber. He slipped
the knife from the comb case, flicked open the blade and stared at its
gleam in the buttery light as his mouth went dry and the refracted
incandescence of it trickled on his brain like melted ice, exciting and
scary.

He removed his leather jacket. He slung the holster under his left
armpit and tested the spring clip release several times, feeling the
way the serrated butt dropped into his wet palm. He put his jacket
back on and the switchblade case in his pocket. He walked toward the
elevator and didn't look back as the corporal said, "Good luck, tiger."

Captain Jack moved massively. The big stone-walled office, alive with
stuffed lion and tiger and gunracks, seemed to grow smaller. Captain
Jack crossed black-booted legs and whacked a cane at the floor. It had
a head shaped like a grinning bear.

Wayne felt the assured smile die on his face. Something seemed to
shrink him. If he didn't watch himself he'd begin feeling like a pea
among bowling balls.

Contemptuously amused little eyes glittered at Wayne from a shaggy
head. Shoulders hunched like stuffed sea-bags.

"Wayne Seton," said Captain Jack as if he were discussing something
in a bug collection. "Well, well, you're really fired up aren't you?
Really going out to eat 'em. Right, punk?"

"Yes, sir," Wayne said. He ran wet hands down the sides of his chinos.
His legs seemed sheathed in lead as he bit inwardly at shrinking fear
the way a dog snaps at a wound. You big overblown son, he thought, I'll
show you but good who is a punk. They made a guy wait and sweat until
he screamed. They kept a guy on the fire until desire leaped in him,
ran and billowed and roared until his brain was filled with it. But
that wasn't enough. If this muscle-bound creep was such a big boy,
what was he doing holding down a desk?

"Well, this is it, punk. You go the distance or start a butterfly
collection."

The cane darted up. A blade snicked from the end and stopped an inch
from Wayne's nose. He jerked up a shaky hand involuntarily and clamped
a knuckle-ridged gag to his gasping mouth.

Captain Jack chuckled. "All right, superboy." He handed Wayne his
passcard. "Curfew's off, punk, for 6 hours. You got 6 hours to make
out."

"Yes, sir."

"Your beast is primed and waiting at the Four Aces Club on the West
Side. Know where that is, punk?"

"No, sir, but I'll find it fast."

"Sure you will, punk," smiled Captain Jack. "She'll be wearing yellow
slacks and a red shirt. Black hair, a cute trick. She's with a hefty
psycho who eats punks for breakfast. He's butchered five people.
They're both on top of the Undesirable list, Seton. They got to go and
they're your key to the stars."

"Yes, sir," Wayne said.

"So run along and make out, punk," grinned Captain Jack.

       *       *       *       *       *

A copcar stopped Wayne as he started over the bridge, out of bright
respectable neon into the murky westside slum over the river.

Wayne waved the pass card, signed by Captain Jack, under the cop's
quivering nose. The cop shivered and stepped back and waved him on. The
Olds roared over the bridge as the night's rain blew away.

The air through the open window was chill and damp coming from
Slumville, but Wayne felt a cold that wasn't of the night or the wind.
He turned off into a rat's warren of the inferiors. Lights turned pale,
secretive and sparse, the uncared-for streets became rough with pitted
potholes, narrow and winding and humid with wet unpleasant smells.
Wayne's fearful exhilaration increased as he cruised with bated breath
through the dark mazes of streets and rickety tenements crawling with
the shadows of mysterious promise.

He found the alley, dark, a gloom-dripping tunnel. He drove cautiously
into it and rolled along, watching. His belly ached with expectancy as
he spotted the sick-looking dab of neon wanly sparkling.

                           _FOUR ACES CLUB_

He parked across the alley. He got out and stood in shadows, digging
the sultry beat of a combo, the wild pulse of drums and spinning brass
filtering through windows painted black.

He breathed deep, started over, ducked back. A stewbum weaved out of
a bank of garbage cans, humming to himself, pulling at a rainsoaked
shirt clinging to a pale stick body. He reminded Wayne of a slim grub
balanced on one end.

The stewbum stumbled. His bearded face in dim breaking moonlight had
a dirty, greenish tinge as he sensed Wayne there. He turned in a
grotesque uncoordinated jiggling and his eyes were wide with terror and
doom.

"I gotta hide, kid. They're on me."

Wayne's chest rose and his hands curled.

The bum's fingers drew at the air like white talons.

"Help me, kid."

He turned with a scratchy cry and retreated before the sudden blast
of headlights from a Cad bulleting into the alley. The Cad rushed
past Wayne and he felt the engine-hot fumes against his legs. Tires
squealed. The Cad stopped and a teener in black jacket jumped out and
crouched as he began stalking the old rummy.

"This is him! This is him all right," the teener yelled, and one hand
came up swinging a baseball bat.

A head bobbed out of the Cad window and giggled.

The fumble-footed rummy tried to run and plopped on wet pavement. The
teener moved in, while a faint odor of burnt rubber hovered in the air
as the Cad cruised in a slow follow-up.

Wayne's breath quickened as he watched, feeling somehow blank wonder
at finding himself there, free and breaking out at last with no curfew
and no law but his own. He felt as though he couldn't stop anything.
Living seemed directionless, but he still would go with it regardless,
until something dropped off or blew to hell like a hot light-bulb. He
held his breath, waiting. His body was tensed and rigid as he moved in
spirit with the hunting teener, an omniscient shadow with a hunting
license and a ghetto jungle twenty miles deep.

The crawling stewbum screamed as the baseball bat whacked. The teener
laughed. Wayne wanted to shout. He opened his mouth, but the yell
clogged up somewhere, so that he remained soundless yet with his mouth
still open as he heard the payoff thuds where the useless wino curled
up with stick arms over his rheumy face.

The teener laughed, tossed the bat away and began jumping up and down
with his hobnailed, mail-order air force boots. Then he ran into the
Cad. A hootch bottle soared out, made a brittle tink-tink of falling
glass.

"Go, man!"

The Cad wooshed by. It made a sort of hollow sucking noise as it
bounced over the old man twice. Then the finlights diminished like
bright wind-blown sparks.

Wayne walked over and sneered down at the human garbage lying in
scummed rain pools. The smell of raw violence, the scent of blood, made
his heart thump like a trapped rubber ball in a cage.

He hurried into the Four Aces, drawn by an exhilarating vision ... and
pursued by the hollow haunting fears of his own desires.

       *       *       *       *       *

He walked through the wavering haze of smoke and liquored dizziness and
stood until his eyes learned the dark. He spotted her red shirt and
yellow legs over in the corner above a murky lighted table.

He walked toward her, watching her little subhuman pixie face lift.
The eyes widened with exciting terror, turned even paler behind a red
slash of sensuous mouth. Briefed and waiting, primed and eager for
running, she recognized her pursuer at once. He sat at a table near
her, watching and grinning and seeing her squirm.

She sat in that slightly baffled, fearful and uncomprehending attitude
of being motionless, as though they were all actors performing in a
weirdo drama being staged in that smoky thick-aired dive.

Wayne smiled with wry superiority at the redheaded psycho in a dirty
T-shirt, a big bruiser with a gorilla face. He was tussling his mouse
heavy.

"What's yours, teener?" the slug-faced waiter asked.

"Bring me a Crusher, buddyroo," Wayne said, and flashed his pass card.

"Sure, teener."

Red nuzzled the mouse's neck and made drooly noises. Wayne watched and
fed on the promising terror and helplessness of her hunted face. She
sat rigid, eyes fixed on Wayne like balls of frozen glass.

Red looked up and stared straight at Wayne with eyes like black buttons
imbedded in the waxlike skin of his face. Then he grinned all on one
side. One huge hand scratched across the wet table top like a furious
cat's.

Wayne returned the challenging move but felt a nervous twitch jerk at
his lips. A numbness covered his brain like a film as he concentrated
on staring down Red the psycho. But Red kept looking, his eyes bright
but dead. Then he began struggling it up again with the scared little
mouse.

The waiter sat the Crusher down. Wayne signed a chit; tonight he was in
the pay of the state.

"What else, teener?"

"One thing. Fade."

"Sure, teener," the waiter said, his breathy words dripping like syrup.

Wayne drank. Liquored heat dripped into his stomach. Fire tickled his
veins, became hot wire twisting in his head.

He drank again and forced out a shaky breath. The jazz beat thumped
fast and muted brass moaned. Drumpulse, stabbing trumpet raped the
air. Tension mounted as Wayne watched her pale throat convulsing, the
white eyelids fluttering. Red fingered at her legs and salivated at her
throat, glancing now and then at Wayne, baiting him good.

"Okay, you creep," Wayne said.

He stood up and started through the haze. The psycho leaped and a table
crashed. Wayne's .38 dropped from its spring-clip holster and the blast
filled the room. The psycho screamed and stumbled toward the door
holding something in. The mouse darted by, eluded Wayne's grasp and was
out the door.

Wayne went out after her in a laughing frenzy of release. He felt the
cold strange breath of moist air on his sweating skin as he sprinted
down the alley into a wind full of blowing wet.

He ran laughing under the crazy starlight and glimpsed her now and
then, fading in and out of shadows, jumping, crawling, running with the
life-or-death animation of a wild deer.

Up and down alleys, a rat's maze. A rabbit run. Across vacant lots.
Through shattered tenement ruins. Over a fence. There she was, falling,
sliding down a brick shute.

He gained. He moved up. His labored breath pumped more fire. And her
scream was a rejuvenation hypo in his blood.

       *       *       *       *       *

She quivered above him on the stoop, panting, her eyes afire with
terror.

"You, baby," Wayne gasped. "I gotcha."

She backed into darkness, up there against the sagging tenement wall,
her arms out and poised like crippled wings. Wayne crept up. She gave
a squeaking sob, turned, ran. Wayne leaped into gloom. Wood cracked.
He clambered over rotten lumber. The doorway sagged and he hesitated
in the musty dark. A few feet away was the sound of loose trickling
plaster, a whimpering whine.

"No use running," Wayne said. "Go loose. Give, baby. Give now."

She scurried up sagging stairs. Wayne laughed and dug up after her,
feeling his way through debris. Dim moonlight filtered through a
sagging stairway from a shattered skylight three floors up. The mouse's
shadow floated ahead.

He started up. The entire stair structure canted sickeningly. A railing
ripped and he nearly went with it back down to the first floor. He
heard a scream as rotten boards crumbled and dust exploded from
cracks. A rat ran past Wayne and fell into space. He burst into the
third-floor hallway and saw her half-falling through a door under the
jagged skylight.

Wayne took his time. He knew how she felt waiting in there, listening
to his creeping, implacable footfalls.

Then he yelled and slammed open the door.

Dust and stench, filth so awful it made nothing of the dust. In
the corner he saw something hardly to be called a bed. More like
a nest. A dirty, lumpy pile of torn mattress, felt, excelsior,
shredded newspapers and rags. It seemed to crawl a little under the
moon-streaming skylight.

She crouched in the corner panting. He took his time moving in. He
snickered as he flashed the switchblade and circled it like a serpent's
tongue. He watched what was left of her nerves go to pieces like rotten
cloth.

"Do it quick, hunter," she whispered. "Please do it quick."

"What's that, baby?"

"I'm tired running. Kill me first. Beat me after. They won't know the
difference."

"I'm gonna bruise and beat you," he said.

"Kill me first," she begged. "I don't want--" She began to cry. She
cried right up in his face, her wide eyes unblinking, and her mouth
open.

"You got bad blood, baby," he snarled. He laughed but it didn't sound
like him and something was wrong with his belly. It was knotting up.

"Bad, I know! So get it over with, please. Hurry, hurry."

She was small and white and quivering. She moaned but kept staring up
at him.

He ripped off his rivet-studded belt and swung once, then groaned and
shuffled away from her.

He kept backing toward the door. She crawled after him, begging and
clutching with both arms as she wriggled forward on her knees.

"Don't run. Please. Kill me! It'll be someone else if you don't. Oh,
God, I'm so tired waiting and running!"

"I can't," he said, and sickness soured in his throat.

"Please."

"I can't, I can't!"

He turned and ran blindly, half-fell down the cracking stairs.

       *       *       *       *       *

Doctor Burns, head of the readjustment staff at the Youth Center,
studied Wayne with abstract interest.

"You enjoyed the hunt, Seton? You got your kicks?"

"Yes, sir."

"But you couldn't execute them?"

"No, sir."

"They're undesirables. Incurables. You know that, Seton?"

"Yes, sir."

"The psycho you only wounded. He's a five-times murderer. And that girl
killed her father when she was twelve. You realize there's nothing can
be done for them? That they have to be executed?"

"I know."

"Too bad," the doctor said. "We all have aggressive impulses, primitive
needs that must be expressed early, purged. There's murder in all
of us, Seton. The impulse shouldn't be denied or suppressed, but
_educated_. The state used to kill them. Isn't it better all around,
Seton, for us to do it, as part of growing up? What was the matter,
Seton?"

"I--felt sorry for her."

"Is that all you can say about it?"

"Yes, sir."

The doctor pressed a buzzer. Two men in white coats entered.

"You should have got it out of your system, Seton, but now it's still
in there. I can't turn you out and have it erupt later--and maybe shed
clean innocent blood, can I?"

"No, sir," Wayne mumbled. He didn't look up. "I'm sorry I punked out."

"Give him the treatment," the doctor said wearily. "And send him back
to his mother."

Wayne nodded and they led him away. His mind screamed still to split
open some prison of bone and lay bare and breathing wide. But there
was no way out for the trapped. Now he knew about the old man and his
poker-playing pals.

They had all punked out.

Like him.