"... But the wife, see? She's down in Portal Waiting. Been there for three nights now. I don't want her to witness this. I don't want her to look into that Master Screen down there and see it. That's all I'm asking, guy, and it ain't much. Just a flick of a switch is all I'm asking. It ain't much. It ain't, is it?"
It ain't, hey? By God!
"When the hood comes down, she'll see it. She's bound to," the thin man went on fast. "She'll see the flash in the Screen and she'll know it's me, and she's never done anything to deserve that. That's all I'm asking, guy. That's all I'm asking."
The silence in the cell was a thick thing. Tony could feel the sweat rolling down his back again. But a different kind of a sweat now—not a sweat for himself, a sweat for somebody else. Just one finger touch on that visi-lok matswitch would do it. Just one finger, and the small woman downstairs in Portal Waiting wouldn't know, would have one more instant of waiting, of hoping against hope. Of suspense. Of breathing in the air we all breathe in, of being alive, sentient; and knowing that her man, the thin fellow with the tousled, curly hair, was still sentient, too.
"Well, guy?"
Tony wet his lips. "Sorry, Haley. Petition refused." The hood came down. The Master Screen up on the wall blazed into life.
Tony sat at his black desk with his hands folded, fingers laced. That's Executions for you. And this is war. There's a war on. Don't forget that. He looked down at his hands, sighed. Then he reached out and touched the Supplies and Control button.
"Hell-hips!" he growled.
He looked at the screen. It wasn't hell-hips. It was a blonde. Not a young blonde, a scarecrow blonde. An old wretched piece of living mechanism like himself.