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was more an accusation than
a statement. “Why are you doing it to yourself?”
    “It’s
already killed me,” Jacob replied. “I’m too far
gone and I can’t get anymore. You know what happens to
addicts?”
    She
swallowed. “What are you going to do?”
    “Hang
on,” he said, heading for his own desk, his own seat of
authority. “For as long as I can. Help you two as much as I
can. Michael isn’t going to like his nephew being tried for
murder. He’ll do something.”
    “It’s
already started,” Jon said. “Tell him Roe.”
    “He’s
coming here, Jake,” she said. “Tomorrow, he’s
coming here to talk to you.”
    “Well,”
Jacob said. “I’m a little surprised. I haven’t seen
him in Argon for years. But, you’ve got it wrong Roe. He isn’t
coming here to talk to me. He’s coming to talk to us.”

    *

    Jacob
let Roe return to her father’s farm out of town. He wondered at
the wisdom in such an action, but he couldn’t stand the
accusation in her eyes anymore. She would be safer there than at the
jail. An attack could happen anytime. Jon, on the other hand, had
nowhere else to go and had set up home in one of the empty cells. He
told the boy to get some sleep and used his console to set the
security alarm to sound loudly if the Jailhouse was breached. In
truth he expected a quiet night, Michael was coming, and he was sure
the Threshian would want to attempt to resolve the situation
peacefully before resorting to a more risky plan of action. Michael
had always been a pragmatic creature.
    Hours
passed, and he sat at his desk, staring at the wall, thinking of the
past and the stupidity in ever becoming addicted to Jopo H in the
first place. He didn’t feel tired, a side-effect of the Jopo
and the other drugs coursing through his system. So he removed a
spare concussion pistol from the weapons cabinet and held it in his
unfamiliar left hand. It didn’t feel right. Getting up he
headed for the staircase and descended to the lowest level in the
Jailhouse, lower even the Threshian cells. The shooting range
awaited, and he might as well get his left hand up to par. He might
still need to use a gun before the end. After half an hour of
problematic shooting he was satisfied that he was progressing to an
average but poor shot with his left hand. But there was no denying
how awkward it felt, his brain was simply not trained to use the
wrong hand, nevertheless he felt there was at least a modicum of
improvement.
    Putting
the gun to one side his eyes lingered on the transparent door to The
Regeneration Chamber on the other side of the sub-basement.
Thankfully there had never been a reason to use it, but the machinery
was there, waiting, and involuntarily his hand wandered to the coin
sized disc that hung on a chain around his neck. Not yet, he thought,
but soon. He trudged over to the stairs and heard a loud vocoder
shout echoing from the level above.
    “Keep
that racket down!”
    Jacob holstered his gun and marched up the stairs to the basement
where Paul was imprisoned. The Threshian was lying on his bunk, his
lips turned into a sneer and his hands over his ears. Jacob turned up
the light globe, causing the Threshian to quickly move his hands from
his ears to his eyes.
    “Hello
Paul,” Jacob said.
    Paul
removed his hands. “You.”
    “What’s
the problem?”
    “Where
do I start?” Paul replied. “All that shooting, at this
hour, the floor isn’t exactly soundproof.”
    “Sorry
to inconvenience you,” Jacob said holding up his gel packed
hand.
    “I
didn’t shoot off your finger, Hassan did. Why isn’t he
locked up?”
    “He
didn’t murder my old deputy.”
    Paul
sprang to his feet, his hands curled around the bars of his cell.
“That farmer? He shouldn’t have interfered. Anyway, he’d
still be alive if not for you.”
    Jacob
blinked. Paul’s statement was true, but twisted.
    “Your
uncle is coming to visit tomorrow.”
    “Good,”
Paul said. “Then he can see the barbaric way