Free The Sopaths by Piers Anthony Page A

weren’t looking, snatch the candy, and run. But now more sopaths were armed, mostly with knives, some with guns, and they were getting better at using them. They had to be handled carefully.
    “It would be easier simply to shoot them,” Abner said morosely.
    “We go to extraordinary lengths to salvage a portion of our conscience,” Bunty said. “Is it worth it?”
    “Maybe not. But for me, at this point, this is the way it has to be.”
    An alarm went off. A nearby trap had been sprung. Abner hurried to the site in time to see the child running from it, carrying the bucket of candy. The sopath could have escaped, had he dropped the bucket, but he was emotionally incapable of doing that. Abner caught him, using thickly padded gloves. “Fight me, and I’ll bash you into a tree,” he warned.
    The sopath decided not to fight. He was a black-haired urchin about six. Abner carried him to the cellar and locked him in, not bothering to check for weapons. He felt a twinge of guilt for that; he was enabling the inevitable. “I will bring food,” he said.
    “Fuck you,” the sopath said.
    When he returned, another Pariah, Gomez, had brought in a second boy, a towhead, and was holding him outside the cellar. They needed two people to work it: one to back off the first sopath and open the gate, on guard, the other to shove the second sopath in.
    Abner set down the meal, then drew his pistol. “You know what this is,” he told the black-haired sopath.
    “It’s a gun, shithead,” the boy said disdainfully. “I want it.”
    “Stay on the far side of the cell,” Abner said. “If you move, I will shoot you.”
    The boy stayed on the far side, not calling his bluff, which was just as well. Abner unlocked the gate and opened the door with his left hand, never letting the pistol wander from its target. Gomez shoved the towhead in, then lifted the tray of food and set it in too, on the floor.
    Abner closed and locked the gate. He holstered the pistol. “Now you may eat,” he told the boys. “There is enough for both of you, so you can share.”
    Both started toward the food, then paused, eying each other. “Mine,” the black-haired boy said. He was the larger of the two.
    “Yeah?” the towhead asked disdainfully. He drew a small knife.
    But the towhead had misjudged the proximity of the black-haired boy. The first boy lunged into him, grabbing for the knife. He dislodged it, and it went skittering across the floor.
    The black haired boy had similarly misjudged the tenacity of the tow. The smaller boy, evidently an experienced fighter, rammed into him with a head-butt that knocked the wind out of him. He fell back, gasping, with the tow on top. There was no hesitation; the tow reached for his face and poked a stiffened finger into his right eye, hooking it gruesomely out.
    The black hair screamed in pain and shock, but did not give up the fight. He reached up, caught the tow by the hair, and hauled his face roughly down to his own. The black hair opened his mouth and bit the tow’s nose. It was no token effort; blood spurted as the black hair wrenched his face from side to side, ripping off the nose. It was the tow’s turn to scream in pain.
    In the moment the tow’s concentration faltered, the black hair heaved him over and rolled on top of him. He grabbed the tow by the hair on both sides and lifted his head, then smashed it down against the floor. He lifted and smashed again, and again, as hard as he could, until finally the tow stopped struggling. He was unconscious or dead.
    The black hair got off him, his right eyeball dangling by the nerve cord. He found the lost knife. He picked it up, returned to the tow, and stabbed him repeatedly in the face and neck. Now there was no question: he was dead.
    Only then did the black hair seem to feel the full impact of his pain. He fell down against the wall and screamed.
    Abner looked at Gomez. The other turned his face aside and vomited. It had been such an absolutely