Free The Sopaths by Piers Anthony Page B

vicious fight, completely unnecessary. Because sopaths didn’t share.
    Abner drew his pistol again, aimed carefully, and shot the surviving boy through the head. This was not an execution so much as a mercy killing.
    “I thought I could handle it, but I can’t,” Gomez said. “I’ll finish my shift tonight, but you’ll need someone else tomorrow.”
    “I understand,” Abner said. “I don’t like it much myself.” Bile was rising in his throat.
    They made sure both boys were dead, then hauled them to the sewer pipe and shoved them in.
    The second night a solid red-haired Pariah woman joined Abner. She was Maxine, Gomez’s ad hoc wife, evidently the tougher of the pair. She accompanied him as they checked the honey traps. They were of different types; some pits, some closed cages, some merely candy that was securely anchored so that a child would have to let it go in order to flee. Like monkeys, sopaths had difficulty ever letting go.
    The signal brought them to one with a sopath girl who glared menacingly at them from the closed metal cage. She was unkempt and dirty, with wild brown hair, like a feral cat. “Leave me alone!” she said.
    “Are you hungry, honey?” Maxine inquired. “We’re going to take you to a prison cell with a good meal.”
    “Don’t touch me, bitch!”
    “Or you can stay here,” Maxine concluded. She and Abner made ready to leave.
    “I’ll go,” the girl said quickly.
    “Then we’ll have to cuff you for the trip. Put out your hands.”
    The sopath hesitated, then slowly put them out. Maxine applied the soft plastic handcuffs. Then Abner opened the cage and released the girl.
    She tried to bolt for freedom, but Maxine still had hold of the cuffs and restrained her. Maxine had evidently thought this process through, and was doing an excellent job.
    They drove the girl to the Heller Cellar, as a Pariah wag had put it, and locked her in, alone. “We’ll fetch the food,” Maxine said. “Meanwhile catch yourself a nap.”
    They checked the other traps, and found another girl, this one a filthy blonde. They took her in, pausing along the way at Maxine’s house, where she fetched a package of sandwiches and chocolate milk. The sopath eyed them, drooling.
    “The gamines tend to be hungry,” Maxine remarked. “Homeless because they’re runaways, having to scour garbage cans and try to steal from stores.” She glanced at the girl. “You’d be better off reforming and going home, honey.”
    “Go fuck yourself in the asshole, bitch.”
    They came to the cellar. The first sopath was lying on the back bunk, evidently asleep. Abner unlocked the gate while Maxine released the cuffs and pushed the girl through. Then she put in the food package. “There’s enough here for the both of you,” she said per the formula. “Just be nice and share.”
    The blonde drew her knife and quietly stalked the sleeping girl, not about to give her the slightest chance to wake and compete for the food. She stabbed down viciously. But at that moment the other moved, striking with her own knife. Neither wound seemed to be lethal, but now they were in combat, stabbing each other repeatedly.
    It was over within a minute. Both girls collapsed. Now their wounds looked mortal, and in any event both would soon bleed to death. The food was untouched. All because sopaths wouldn’t share, again.
    They gave it time, to be sure. “I’ll dispose of the bodies,” Abner said at last.
    “I’ll clean up the mess,” Maxine said, fetching bucket, mop, and scrub-brush.
    “We make a good team,” Abner said grimly.
    “We do,” Maxine agreed. She smiled in a manner that hinted she would be amenable to more than a work relationship, were he interested. He ignored it.
    The third night they caught another boy.
    As luck would have it, another neighbor was bringing in another sopath, a girl, a screaming hellion. “One of each,” Maxine remarked. “This should be interesting.”
    That gave Abner another twinge, but