Free In Constant Fear by Peter Liney Page B

were a lot more vehicles around, people trying to go about their daily business, doing their best to keep things moving along, though it was soon obvious that notions of “normality” had taken a helluva disturbing turn.
    The first one I saw, I’ll tell ya, my stomach took the express elevator to the basement and hit the bottom with a real jolt. The posters weren’t so much a surprise—Nora Jagger looking out all stern and steely, dressed in quasi-military uniform—nor the many screens showing videos of her performing various duties. What put the damn fear of God into me were the holograms.
    They were everywhere: pedestrian squares, road junctions, cleared blocks where fires had once raged—these huge laser statues of Nora Jagger, probably thirty or forty feet high.
    She looked so damn real, so damn menacing, and what I knew of that woman, some of the things I’d witnessed her do—well, to see her towering over us as if she was about to swallow us in one gulp, was something I could’ve done without.
    “The Bitch is everywhere,” Gigi spat, never one to mince her words.
    Whoever’d been in charge when we were last there was obviously gone, and I wouldn’t want to guess at their fate. In fact, looking back on it, the process of her accession had obviously been well underway even then. We never saw anyone else, just assumed, but whatever Nora Jagger had been then, now she was obviously the very embodiment of Infinity: the public face. And Gigi was right, the Bitch really was all over: open spaces, blank walls, any place where her imagecould be projected or hung, there she was, glaring down at us, daring us to do anything wrong.
    The City was still surprisingly scarred; the after-effects of the fires, blackened and collapsed buildings, were everywhere. In some places it looked like it could’ve happened yesterday—nothing had been touched—but in the wealthier suburbs it was clear someone’d been put to work cleaning up. A little further on we got to see who: a large work-gang had been assembled, a motley group of the unwashed and unwanted, busy toiling away while armed Specials lounged about watching over them like guards surveying a chain-gang.
    “Jesus,” I muttered, partly ’cuz of what was going on, partly ’cuz I couldn’t believe we’d been stupid enough to return. I’d never felt such an overwhelming sense of submission, of a city under siege from within.
    I turned to Gigi. No way was she gonna admit it, but she was looking distinctly frightened.
    “You okay?” I asked.
    “’Course, I am,” she said, as if I’d just insulted her in some way.
    I nodded, doing her the favor of taking her at face value, swinging down Union, ignoring all the beggars at the lights.
    “Where ya going?” she asked.
    “Won’t take long.”
    “I wanna go to the house!” she protested, but nothing was gonna divert me from what I had in mind.
    I hadn’t told anyone, especially not Lena, but I had an ulterior motive for returning to the City. I knew there’d be no chance of seeing Doctor Simon at his home surgery, not with all its many layers of security, but I was hoping there might be a way at St. Joseph’s, presuming he still did his two days a week there. All I needed was somewhere discreet where the two of us could have a cozy little chat.
    Actually, it wasn’t that difficult. I wasn’t gonna risk going to his office or surgery, but I knew somewhere where I could pretty much guarantee he’d show up at some point. Gigi and me managed to bluff our way into the underground parking garage by pretending she wasmy daughter and in excruciating pain, her putting on quite a show, me acting like an over-protective and possibly unstable parent. The guy did give the limo a bit of a look, but in a city where there was so much damage and destruction, it didn’t seem to concern him that much, and yet another blood-curdling scream from Gigi finally prompted him to wave us through.
    It wasn’t hard to pick out the