The Price of Her Pride

by Mark Eller

conclusion

A low rumble sounded in the distance. The rumble grew louder as a vehicle drew near. Jane tore her aching eyes from Sydney’s. She followed the noise and saw a fossil-fueled cycle cruising down the nearly empty street, hugging close to the curb.

One of the watching workmen let out a short curse and threw something that had been in his pocket. He missed, and Jane saw that the thrown object was a rock. The rock sailed across the road, struck the red brick side of a building, bounced back into the now empty street.

“...foulin’ our air,” the man cursed while the cycle grew smaller with distance. “Show him what we think of his kind.”

“He doesn’t care,” Sydney said. “That was a Hydrostar Sixteen. Only the richest of the rich can afford one of those.”

The workman cursed again, glaring after the retreating cycle. His friend quieted him. The young bint, Jane saw, stood back from them all, watching their antics with amusement, her overlarge purse slung casually over the top of one shoulder. The boy was gone. Everyone was gone. Except for them, the sidewalk was empty.

The taller workman eyed Sydney. “You look like you’ve more’n a little money. People don’t dress like the two of you if they’re struggling to put food on the table.”

“We both work,” Sydney explained.

Jane shuddered and clutched tighter to his arm. Sydney had always been too friendly to be wary. She cast a glance at the two security camera’s, gladdened, for once, by the sight of them. She tried to take a step, tried to move Sydney along, but he remained obstinately still.

“I think a family with two jobs could afford to help a struggling man,” Duane said reflectively. “Why don’t you open up your wallet and let me see what’s in there?”

Jane’s heart beat faster and her breath grew short. The two workmen drew closer, only now she could see that their clothes were too old and too worn to belong to anyone serving an honest trade.

“I think not,” Sydney answered. He pointed to one of the two camera’s that had sovereignty over this section of the street. “The authorities will be here at the first sign of trouble.”

The tall man released a small chuckle. “I broke both them cameras two days ago. Be a week or more before the city gets around to replacing them.”

“But interfering with mandatory surveillance is a one-year felony.” Sydney’s voice was shocked, surprised. Jane felt a tremble run through him and knew that he finally recognized the danger they were in. Sydney, Jane knew, had never been a brave man. She looked toward the bint.

“Run.”

“Nah,” the woman answered. “This is too interesting.”

Snake-swift, the tall man’s hand shot out to grab Jane by her hair. He jerked and Jane shrieked. His hold and his pull forced her to release her husband’s arm. Thick fingers locked onto her throat.

Sydney!”

“Hold still. Be quiet,” the man whispered in her ear. Her back was pressed firmly against him. His breath stank of rotting teeth.

“Leave my wife alone!”

Sydney lunged toward them. Duane laughed and stepped into Sydney’s path. Jane closed her eyes because Sydney was a coward who had never owned a warrior‘s soul.

She heard a scuffle. A fist struck flesh and Jane winced. She opened her eyes to see Sydney lying on the ground. Blood streamed from his nose and blood smeared his lips. Fear clamped fingers around Jane‘s heart when she realized that Sydney‘s filter mask was knocked askew. Her fear relaxed slightly when she saw that Sydney had remembered not to breathe.

The fingers against her throat pressed tighter. “This should be fun,” her captor said.

“I’m enjoying it,” the bint added from behind them. “Things get so exciting when the camera’s ain’t working.” Her voice was a cat‘s rumble.

“Best stay back if you know what’s good for you.”

“Staying,” she purred.

Sydney adjusted his mask and slowly rose to his feet. Heart caught in her throat, Jane saw Sydney glance at Duane, and then he looked longer at her. Jane shrivelled inside. He was going to do it. He was going to play the hero.

“Sydney. Don’t,” she gasped. The fingers at her throat tightened, squeezed. She tried to breathe, to gag, to struggle, but she did not have the strength. Sydney leaped, and then Duane held Sydney against the building’s wall, stomach-punching him once, and then again. Vision fading, Jane saw Sydney gag and fold to the walkway. She saw Duane bend to deliberately remove Sydney’s air mask. The theatre tickets lay upon the hard cement.

“You really should have given me your wallet,” Duane observed while Sydney drew the first breath of thick air into his lungs.

“Well now,” the bint said. “that does it.”

Two gunshots rang out.

Her captor’s body shuddered, shook. His grip loosened, and Jane found herself pulled to the hard sidewalk with his fall. Gasping, crying, she scrambled and pushed away while other gunshots sounded.

Three gunshots beat against her ears. A weak hand caught at her, pulled on her leg, and then she was free, her cement-torn knee bleeding, staining the ripped material of her blue dress. She crawled toward the husband she loved, crawled toward his shaking body, crawled toward Duane with his bloody back and his bloody head.

Sydney uncurled as she reached him, his mouth open in an unthinking attempt to draw in breathable air. Her trembling fingers pulled Sydney‘s mask from Duane’s dead hand. She lay her husband’s head upon her lap and pressed the mask to his face. Jane held him while he gasped and shuddered and fought to make his seared lungs work for a short while longer. In the distance, sirens sounded.

Movement. A brush of footsteps upon the cement. The bint knelt beside her, a revolver clenched tight in her hand. The sparkle in her eyes, the amusement, the cockiness, were missing, subsumed by a gaze that was business-hard.

“You have the right to remain dead,” the bint told Duane’s body. “If you need a lawyer, I will personally dig one up for you.”

She turned her gaze toward Jane. “New York’s finest, honey. Been watching this dead zone all day.” She patted Jane’s arm. “Don’t worry, an ambulance is coming.”

Jane clung tighter to Sydney, rocking him in her arms while she fought to draw air through her bruised throat. Her cheeks were cold, wet with tears.

“I wish — I wish you could have acted sooner. Then he — he wouldn’t...”

“Nah, that wouldn’t do,” the policewoman said, “Didn’t have legal cause to kill them until your husband’s mask was tore off.”

“But...”

“Now don’t you go griping and complaining about this. I could have waited until you were both dead. Your fellow will be all right, and the city is rid of two predators. You should be proud. You’ve done your citizen’s duty this day.”

The siren silenced. Ambulance doors sprang open and men poured out. An EMT reached her side.

“Hey lovey,” the policewoman asked, “are these theatre tickets yours? Well no matter. You won’t be using them. I won’t be off shift in time to make the show but I know somebody who loves Hamlet.”

* * *

Nothing much ever happened at Jack Koval’s place. The Anderson’s kid had discovered the joys of taking a bath without supervision, and Cheryl Adamson was the same dull and boring person she had always been.

Jane sat beside Sydney while he voyeured. Her head rested upon his shoulder while scene after scene of everyday life flickered past her eyes.

The changing scenes stopped, reversed, and then Voyeur Cam presented them with Helen Key’s living room. Helen entertained several of her friends.

“Jeeze,” Sydney breathed. “Will you look at that. I didn’t know people could do that many things together.“

Jane winced. Sydney’s exposure to the outdoor air had done him permanent harm. More than a quarter of one lung had been removed. His voice would be forever harsh.

“Wow,” Sydney whispered.

Jane nervously chewed on the inside of her cheek and built her courage to carry through with a decision reached months earlier. Hesitantly, she reached forward and turned the console off.

“Hey! What do you think...”

Sydney shut up when she pressed her mouth down on his. Jane kissed him, and then she took his hand in hers. She stood, pulling him toward the bedroom and the bed. She sat him down, stood before him, already smelling fresh armpit stink. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Nervous sweat trickled down her back.

She leaned forward, seeing hope, desire, and uncertainty reflected in his expression. She ignored the moisture dripping off her chin and the salt water stinging her eyes. She kissed him, allowing him to fumble with the buttons of her blouse. She kissed him again, seeing his open eyes looking into hers; seeing his eyes and other eyes, seeing hundreds of eyes peering...

Jane gasped. She gasped and jerked herself back, pulled herself away until she sat on the floor, her back to a wall, knees pulled to her chin, arms wrapped tightly around her legs.

“I — I can’t — oh Sydney, I’m sorry but — I just can’t.”

Sydney closed his eyes in silent pain. He opened them again, slowly, his feet on the floor and his folded hands in his lap. He opened his mouth, closed it again, opened it once more.

“Why?” he asked. For the first time in all these years, Jane heard him ask, “why?”

Afraid to speak, Jane silently pointed straight over her head.

Sydney’s sad eyes followed the gesture of her hand, fastened on the permanently mounted camera looking over their bedroom, a camera that was the same exact model that graced every other room in their home, the same model that existed in every room of every legal residence New York owned.

Face pale, the husband she had thought a coward rose. He removed his shirt with stiff, almost mechanical movements, and he put that shirt over the camera’s body, covering its unblinking lens. He reached down, pulled her up, pulled her into his arms, asked with his eyes, and then he took her to their bed. Together, they were alone. For the first time in all their adult lives, they were alone. Their lovemaking was not grand. It was not long. It just was, and it was only theirs.

They finished, dressed, and then Jane stood in her living room, stood beside the husband she adored, holding his hand. Waiting.

The police broke down their door.

The bint was the first one through the opening. Gun drawn, she looked at them over the barrel, and she shook her head while other police poured into Jane’s home.

“You damn fools,” the bint said. “You poor damn fools.”

Jane looked into the black bore of the leveled gun and smiled while her hand was ripped from Sydney’s possessive grasp. She smiled while her arms were pulled behind her, while cuffs were cruelly set about her wrists. Jane smiled while she was roughly shoved to her knees. A policeman exited their bedroom, Sidney’s shirt clenched in his fist.

She smiled and the policewoman, eyes wary, eyes questioning, lowered her revolver.

“I have no regrets,” Jane said. Kneeling beside her, Sydney knelt beside her. Appearing small and insignificant, she now knew her husband had the courage of a lion.

He looked at her, eyes large, face firm, a gentle smile playing about his lips. He looked at her and his face reflected pride.