He decides who to kill first on the roll of the dice.
The six men are packed in the small chamber like sardines. All are resigned to their fate and made no attempt to resist their capture. Azrael watches them through the one-way mirror in the comfort of his black armchair. It seems fairest to start the execution process on chance -- one of the few bastions of justice in a chaotic universe. He numbers the men from one to six from left to right and fiddles in his pocket to find the dice he stole from his son Jimmy’s room that morning. Inspiration for dealing out death always came at home. Just last week he caught Jimmy singing a rhyme that the kid used to select players for Astroball. That night Azrael ended the lives of a dozen unfortunates based on the same principle.
The chains that hold the selected rattle a little as one of them shifts his feet uncomfortably. Otherwise they are being very polite. Azrael can’t imagine doing the same in their place. He would be screaming as loud as he could. Not that it would do anything. The small chamber is sound-proof and impossible to escape from. No, today, he is lucky. No-one resists. He tends to pick the most annoying selectees, the ones who make the most noise, as the first to kick the bucket. Especially if he consumes five black cocktails at Bar Mort the previous night.
Azrael accepts his important role in keeping Outpost X-132 stable. The Colonial Unitary Authority, faced by unstoppable population growth that threatens to overwhelm central resources, took drastic measures. All colonists, of any age, who do not hold down critical posts in the infrastructure of their colony, are entered into a lottery when there are simply too many people to feed and house. Those holding the winning ticket are rewarded with an honourable death and pronounced heroes. Azrael writes the letters to their families and always rolls his eyes at the attempt to tribute the courageous sacrifice of their loved ones. Over time the random factor of institutional execution becomes just another accepted threat in X-132, like cancer, or skyway accidents. Even as families are torn apart by the government, the peoples integrate the death lotteries into their daily lives. They are no doubt convinced of its requirement by the tragedy of Colony D-002. Azrael shudders at the memory of seven thousand men, women and children dying of starvation because there was simply no food left after the famines of 2340 AD, and knows this way is better. After all, to try and make the whole experience a little less horrendous, the authorities allows each of the selected to choose their own manner of execution, within reason.
The door behind him opens with a crack. He picks up the smell of coffee and looks over his shoulder to see Jason bringing in the steaming drinks. “What’s up, Az?” the young assistant says, and hands him the mug. “Who’s boarding the death train this morning?”
“Do you always have to joke about it?” Azrael snaps. He is always irritated when Jason tries to make light of the situation. They aren’t here to enjoy themselves; this isn’t a game. Even if he does bring dice to work.
“Sorry, boss,” Jason says, taking the seat next to him and staring at the selected. “What’s the plan?”
“If you must know,” Azrael mutters, sipping the tea and feeling the hot liquid almost burn his tongue. “I think rolling dice might work today.”
“Excellent. Can we take bets?” he asks, grinning with white teeth.
Azrael sighs. He has been in the job for six months, and lost his enthusiasm within the first two. He knows what Jason tries to do: make light of the terrible duty they are asked to perform, avoid the horrific reality of the situation. But it becomes tiresome. Even Azrael is Jason’s idea of a joke. Apparently Azrael was the name of an Angel of Death in one of the ancient cults on Earth thousands of years ago. His real name is actually Henry, but no-one calls him that anymore. The nickname travelled round the office like fire and he is now only referred to as Azrael, Az, or on the rare occasion, Rael-Gun.
“Here’s the list.” Azrael grabs the papers in front of him and shoves them towards Jason. They have the chosen method of death for each of the selected. No names are revealed, just numbers on the selectees' cloaks; otherwise the executioners might become emotionally conflicted in doing their job.
Jason scans the details. “Two requested lasers to the head ... boring. Beheading? Crazy.
“Probably a religious freak,” Azrael says.
“Lethal Injection. Unusual. Firing squad? Cool, I guess. Oh, wow, here we go. Hung upside down in a barrel of wine. That’s genius.”
“Drowning is the same whether you do it in water or your favourite drink, you idiot,” Azrael says. He really did feel irritable this morning. He was just so sick of talking about death like it was a spectator sport. “He’s just drawing out the discomfort. Getting blasted in the head might seem boring to you, but it’s the quickest.”
“So that’s how you’d go?” Jason says with a hopeful edge to his voice.
“Oh, come on. I’m not stupid,” Azrael replies. It is the hottest topic in the workplace at the moment. They even have collected a prize winnings haul for ever who can find it out first. Azrael is the only person who refuses to reveal what his method of death will be, and this had created a furore. Even though at the Department of Alleviation they are immune from the death lottery, it is still the rage to discuss it. “Quit asking.”
He looks back at the small room at the hooded figures. Their faces are covered to prevent Azrael, or Jason, or anyone else from recognising them. The one third from the right is unnaturally small though and with a twist in his stomach Azrael knows it is a child. It’s the worst part knowing you are about to oversee the death of a kid. But they unfortunately are the ones who will grow up and strain X-132, so the lottery is indiscriminate about age. Besides, the one-child policy is mostly unenforced and ignored. Since the strikes at the Contraception Plants it is difficult to prevent pregnancies. The colonists would rather enjoy undisturbed sex and live with the death lottery, than have the authorities meddle in the bedroom.
“So, should we get this show on the road?” Jason offers. “I got a lot of paperwork to get through by lunch, and I can’t be late, they always run out of donuts if you get to the queue late.” His stomach wobbles with worry.
They are interrupted by the intercom crackling with life opening loudly and a woman’s voice speaking through from behind the door. “Mr. Greene? Your wife is on the phone, she says it’s urgent.”
Azrael is confused. Zoë never rings him at work. She avoids anything to do with his job. But he rises and exits the room, following a diminutive secretary down the well-lit corridor. He finds where the phone is and picks it up.
“Zoë?”
“Hal, where the hell have you been?”
“I was only just told--”
“Jimmy did not turn up at school. Did you remember to take him this morning?”
“I dropped him off at the gates this morning. What’s going on?”
“I accidentally took his project in my briefcase, so I went by there twenty minutes ago to give it to him. But when I got to the school they said they had no record of him ever turning up. You better not be lying to me, Hal. You sure you saw him walk in?”
“Promise.”
“Well, then where the hell is he?”
Azrael feels sick. “Did you ring the police?”
“They told me they’d look into it, but it wasn’t a priority at the moment. I mean, a kid missing? What the heck is a priority?”
The truth rips through his gut like acid. He smashes the phone down and with sweat dripping all over his skin he runs back towards the viewing room, scans his palm and the door opens with a crack.
Jason is rolling a die. It bounces and spins and rattles against the floor. Desperate, Azrael leaps forward and grabs it before it had a chance to rest on a number.
“What the hell are you doing?” The blood burns hot on Azrael’s face.
His assistant shrugs, ignoring the rage emanating from his superior. “Sorry, boss, was just bored. I wasn’t picking for you or anything. Why are you so mad? Was it something your wife said?”
“Take a goddamn break, Jason,” Azrael says, breathless. “Now.”
“Sure thing, Az.” His assistant acquiesces with a suspicious look, but the lure of the break-room biscuits is too strong for him to question the request.
Sheer panic engulfs Azrael as he goes as close to the glass as possible and studies the small, hidden figure in the room. What he was considering was high treason. Interference with the execution meant you are automatically next in line. But what else is there to do? He watched Jimmy enter the school gates. The police fending off Zoë sounds like they already had notice of his death. Even the firing squad choice makes his heart skip a beat – just last night he’d watched a war film with his son where the hero is almost executed in such a manner. Before now, Azrael considered the death lottery unpleasant, but necessary. There are unfortunate casualties but the colony benefits as a group in the end. But then, he was never personally involved in an execution until now. Never asked to oversee murder of someone so close to him.
With radical clarity he knows what he has to do even as the adrenaline rushes through his bloodstream.
The control panel in front of him accepts his pass code and boots up, buzzing and fanning out hot air. Before accepting the job at the Department he worked as a senior systems engineer at the shipping port, and developed a deep knowledge of computers. It isn’t hard to hack the poorly-protected firewalls and access the cameras. They disconnect with a sigh. Azrael estimates it will take them a few minutes to respond to the unusual change. Finally, he breaches into the door control and closes down the alarm before unlocking the holding chamber and overriding the entrance mechanism to the viewing room, so that Jason or anybody else can’t come inside.
He knows he is crazy. The last time someone escaped they were gunned down outside. They didn’t have help from the inside, though. Azrael hopes with his clearance and position he can escort Jimmy out with him on his lunch break. He doesn’t really think it through. The worry cavorts through his innards and blurs his brain patterns.
The viewing room has a mostly unused passage that leads directly into to the holding chamber. It only opens on very special occasions, when Azrael notices a discrepancy or something unusual in the selected. It requires clearance way above Azrael’s level. Luckily their computer defence is lax, and he unlocks it with little effort.
His feet clatter on the metal floor as he moves quickly. With a crack the holding chamber reinforced door slides open and six heads turn to look at Azrael, their eyes filled with confusion. He is sure many of them think of escape, but their arms and legs are chained and hooked to the walls. They can barely move, let alone overpower Azrael and find their way out of the maze that is the Headquarters of the Department of Alleviation.
Azrael doesn’t waste time. He ignores the others, and jogs to the small selectee. “Jimmy?” he says softly, and throws back the hood so he can reveal his son’s face.
Unless in the brief hours since Azrael dropped him off at school Jimmy had mutated into a hairy, grumpy dwarf, with greying hair, it is not his son at all. The dwarf spits and mumbles something incomprehensible beneath his gag.
The semi-dark room bursts into dazzling light. Someone has activated the dangerlights. Azrael throws up his hands to block the blinding rays.
Jason’s voice rings out. “Interference with execution is an express ride to Deathville, boss.” The intercom giggles. “You know, it’s funny, ‘cos they told me about this before I joined. How the executioner always cracks. The average is four months, so you were overdue for some kind of paranoid delusionary episode. They figure this is the best way to find out when it’s time to get a new guy in. You know, lose the perpetual cynicism, drop the disillusionment. At least I try and make this whole business fun.”
Azrael’s head falls into his sweaty hands.
“The best thing is I get the treasure chest now. The whole shebang. Not only will I get your job, but also the money, and maybe your wife too. She’s a hot one.”
The irony of his predicament is not lost on Azrael. Six months ago he was asked to kill his predecessor when the lunatic tried to eliminate everyone in the holding chamber using only his fingernails.
“So, how you gonna go, Azzy boy?”
In his pocket he finds another one of Jimmy’s dice the boy uses to play toy soldiers.
He decides his manner of execution on the roll of the dice.
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