The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

The men in the alley did not have guns. If they’d had guns, they would have used them by now. They weren’t going to mow down anyone who got in their way. It was one thing not to make a martyr of yourself, but how many people could these two grunting slobs fend off with sticks?

I unstrapped my backpack and put it on the ground. Absurdly, that made me feel more vulnerable; I was always worried about losing my textbooks. Think about this. You don’t know what you’re doing. I hadn’t been in so much as a fist fight since I was 13. I glanced at the strangers around me, wondering if anyone would join in if I implored them to rush forward together. But that wasn’t going to happen. I was a willowy, unimposing 18-year-old, wearing a T-shirt adorned with Maxwell’s Equations. I had no presence, no authority. No one would follow me into the fray.

Alone, I’d be as helpless as the guy on the ground. These men would crack my skull open in an instant. There were half a dozen solid-looking office workers in their 20s in the crowd; if these weekend rugby players hadn’t felt competent to intervene, what chance did I have?

I reached down for my backpack. If I wasn’t going to help, there was no point being here at all. I’d find out what had happened on the evening news.

I started to retrace my steps, sick with self-loathing. This wasn’t kristallnacht. There’d be no embarrassing questions from my grandchildren. No one would ever reproach me.

As if that were the measure of everything.

“Fuck it.” I dropped my backpack and ran down the alley.

I was close enough to smell the three sweating bodies over the stench of rotting garbage before I was even noticed. The nearest of the attackers glanced over his shoulder, affronted, then amused. He didn’t bother redeploying his weapon in mid-stroke; as I hooked an arm around his neck in the hope of overbalancing him, he thrust his elbow into my chest, winding me. I clung on desperately, maintaining the hold even though I couldn’t tighten it. As he tried to prise himself loose, I managed to kick his feet out from under him. We both went down onto the asphalt; I ended up beneath him.

The man untangled himself and clambered to his feet. As I struggled to right myself, picturing a metal hook swinging into my face, someone whistled. I looked up to see the second man gesturing to his companion, and I followed his gaze. A dozen men and women were coming down the alley, advancing together at a brisk walk. It was not a particularly menacing sight-I’d seen angrier crowds with peace signs painted on their faces-but the sheer numbers were enough to guarantee some inconvenience. The first man hung back long enough to kick me in the ribs. Then the two of them fled.

I brought my knees up, then raised my head and got into a crouch. I was still winded, but for some reason it seemed vital not to remain flat on my back. One of the office workers grinned down at me, “You fuckwit. You could have got killed.”

The kitchen hand shuddered, and snorted bloody mucus. His eyes were swollen shut, and when he laid his hands down beside him, I could see the bones of his knuckles through the torn skin. My own skin turned icy, at this vision of the fate I’d courted for myself. But if it was a shock to realize how I might have ended up, it was just as sobering to think that I’d almost walked away and let them finish him off, when the intervention had actually cost me nothing.

I rose to my feet. People milled around the kitchen hand, asking each other about first aid. I remembered the basics from a course I’d done in high school, but the man was still breathing, and he wasn’t losing vast amounts of blood, so I couldn’t think of anything helpful that an amateur could do in the circumstances. I squeezed my way out of the gathering and walked back to the street. My backpack was exactly where I’d left it; no one had stolen my books. I heard sirens approaching; the police and the ambulance would be there soon.

My ribs were tender, but I wasn’t in agony. I’d cracked a rib falling off a trail bike on the farm when I was twelve, and I was fairly sure that this was just bruising. For a while I walked bent over, but by the time I reached the station I found I could adopt a normal gait. I had some grazed skin on my arms, but I couldn’t have appeared too battered, because no one on the train looked at me twice.

That night, I watched the news. The kitchen hand was described as being in a stable condition. I pictured him stepping out into the alley to empty a bucket offish-heads into the garbage, to find the two of them waiting for him. I’d probably never learn what the attack had been about unless the case went to trial, and as yet the police hadn’t even named any suspects. If the man had been in a fit state to talk in the alley, I might have asked him then, but any sense that I was entitled to an explanation was rapidly fading.