The Running Man - Stephen King [7]
The qualifying examinations began promptly at noon, and when Ben Richards stepped behind the last man in line, he was almost in the umbra of the Games Building. But the building was still nine blocks and over a mile away. The line stretched before him like an eternal snake. Soon others joined it behind him. The police watched them, hands on either gun butts or move-alongs. They smiled anonymous, contemptuous smiles.
—That one look like a half-wit to you, Frank? Looks like one to me.
—Guy down there ast me if there was a place where he could go to the bathroom. Canya magine it?
—Sons of bitches ain’t—
—Kill their own mothers for a—
—Smelled like he didn’t have a bath for—
—Ain’t nothin like a freak show I always—
Heads down against the rain, they shuffled aimlessly, and after a while the line began to move.
…Minus 098 and COUNTING…
It was after four when Ben Richards got to the main desk and was routed to Desk 9 (Q-R). The woman sitting at the rumbling plastipunch looked tired and cruel and impersonal. She looked at him and saw no one.
“Name, last-first-middle.”
“Richards, Benjamin Stuart.”
Her fingers raced over the keys. Clitter-clitter-clitter went the machine.
“Age-height-weight.”
“Twenty-eight, six-two, one-sixty-five.”
Clitter-clitter-clitter
The huge lobby was an echoing, rebounding tomb of sound. Questions being asked and answered. People were being led out weeping. People were being thrown out. Hoarse voices were raised in protest. A scream or two. Questions. Always questions.
“Last school attended?”
“Manual Trades.”
“Did you graduate?”
“No.”
“How many years, and at what age did you leave?”
“Two years. Sixteen years old.”
“Reasons for leaving?”
“I got married.”
Clitter-clitter-clitter
“Name and age of spouse if any.”
“Sheila Catherine Richards, twenty-six.”
“Names and ages of children, if any.”
“Catherine Sarah Richards, eighteen months.”
Clitter-clitter-clitter
“Last question, mister. Don’t bother lying; they’ll pick it up during the physical and disqualify you there. Have you ever used heroin or the synthetic-amphetamine hallucinogen called San Francisco Push?”
“No.”
Clitter.
A plastic card popped out and she handed it to him. “Don’t lose this, big fella. If you do, you have to start back at go next week.” She was looking at him now, seeing his face, the angry eyes, lanky body. Not bad looking. At least some intelligence. Good stats.
She took his card back abruptly and punched off the upper right-hand corner, giving it an odd milled appearance.
“What was that for?”
“Never mind. Somebody will tell you later. Maybe.” She pointed over his shoulder at a long hall which led toward a bank of elevators. Dozens of men fresh from the desks were being stopped, showing their plastic I.D.s and moving on. As Richards watched, a trembling, sallow-faced Push freak was stopped by a cop and shown the door. The freak began to cry. But he went.
“Tough old world, big fella,” the woman behind the desk said without sympathy. “Move along.”
Richards moved along. Behind him, the litany was already beginning again.
…Minus 097 and COUNTING…
A hard, callused hand slapped his shoulder at the head of the hall beyond the desks. “Card, buddy.”
Richards showed it. The cop relaxed, his face subtle and Chinese with disappointment.
“You like turning them back, don’t you?” Richards asked. “It really gives you a charge, doesn’t it?”
“You want to go downtown, maggot?”
Richards walked past him, and the cop made no move.
He stopped halfway to the bank of elevators and looked back. “Hey. Cop.”
The cop looked at him truculently.
“Got a family? It could be you next week.”
“Move on!” the cop shouted furiously.
With a smile, Richards moved on.
There was a line of perhaps twenty applicants waiting at the elevators. Richards showed one of the cops