you down from there about a week ago. You want another try? You know what this building is?"
"Hospital," Ramon said.
The nurse turned to look at him more directly. It was as if he'd said something interesting.
"You know why you're here?"
"I got fucked up," Ramon said. "I was on a raft. I was prospecting up north. Things went bad on me."
"That's pretty good. Up to now you've been saying that you were swimming under water, hiding from baby killers. You keep this up, I'm telling the doctors that you're oriented."
"Diegotown. I'm in Diegotown?"
"Have been for days," the nurse said. Ramon shook his head, vaguely surprised to find an oxygen tube stuck under his nose and hissing softly. He reached up and started to pull it off.
"Se?or Espejo, don't ... you shouldn't take that off, sir."
"I gotta get out of here," Ramon said. "I can't stay in here."
The man took his wrist, his grip at the friction point between reassuring and painful. His gaze locked with Ramon's. He was beautiful, just for being a real person and not some kind of alien, he was beautiful.
"There's no point, Se?or Espejo. The constabulary's already been by here twice. If you try to go, I have to call security. And you can't outrun them."
"You don't know that," Ramon said. "I'm a tough sonofabitch." The man smiled, maybe a little sadly.
"We got a catheter running up your cock, Se?or Espejo. It's what you've been peeing out of. I've seen men try to pull it out. You'd wind up with a piss tube about as wide as your little finger. You know, until it scars over."
Ramon looked down. The nurse nodded.
"You're gonna be here awhile, Ramon. Try to relax and heal up. I'll bring you some fruit gel. You should try to eat a little. Okay?"
Ramon rubbed a hand over his face. His beard was thick and wiry, the way it had always been.
"Yeah," he said. "Okay."
The nurse patted his leg sympathetically. He'd probably known a lot of men in his care who had been visited by the constabulary. He might know what was coming better than Ramon did.
Ramon lay back against the thin hospital pillow, prepared for a long, anxious night, and fell asleep again before he knew he was fading. He woke to the cool light of morning pressing at the windows. He tried to watch a newsfeed, but the cheerful nattering voice of the anchor annoyed him. He made do with the quiet hum of the machines, the distant chiming alarms. He cataloged the aches in his body and wondered what he was going to do.
At the start, it had been simple - get out of town until the Enye came and went and the whole thing with the European had blown over. And then get free, get back, and raise hell over Maneck and its hive in the north. Then get back and remake himself, maybe leave his twin to figure out the whole problem with the police. And now here he was, back in Diegotown, tied down by his penis, and waiting for the constabulary to arrive. Made the sahael seem dignified.
Outside, the city was alive with morning traffic. Vans and transport flyers filled the air, catching the light of the rising sun and reflecting it back into Ramon's eyes like waves flashing on water. The low throb of a shuttle's lift drive announced some traffic sliding up through the thin air to the ships hovering above. Ramon couldn't see the spaceport from his window, but he knew the sound the way men in ages past had known the wail of trains.
The knock on his doorframe was soft and polite. It said I don't have to intimidate you. I don't give a shit if you're scared of me or not. That's how much I own your sad ass. Ramon looked over. The man wore the dark uniform of the governor's constabulary. Ramon lifted a hand in greeting, trailing the IV tube like seaweed.
The man who came in was young and strong. Wide through the shoulders, strong jaw freshly shaved, with still just a shadow of stubble. He was the man Ramon had imagined chasing him up in the north before he'd known about his twin, the man Ramon had pretended to be when he was on the river. He was a convenient fiction made flesh.
"You look a lot better, Se?or Espejo," the constable said. "Do you remember speaking with me before?"
Ramon plucked at the plastic weave of his hospital gown. Whatever he'd