The fat man came out of the dark quickly. Breathing in ragged sobs, he looked frantically for a place to hide from the woman hunting him. Overhead the hissing amber light of the street lamp was no refuge, and he scurried, hunched over, into the shadows of the nearest building, an ancient brewery. A massive iron gate to his left closed off the front entry to the distillery. Heaving on the gate, the rusted hinges would not turn. The corroded iron bars cut deeply into his palms, and he felt a wrenching pain deep in his gut, which doubled him over and almost sent him crashing to the pavement. Remembering his pursuer, he straightened up and tried to force his bulk between the bars, but they were too closely spaced. He became stuck and pulled himself free with a desperate effort leaving a bloody rusty streak across the folds of his belly.

The building was condemned but not empty. People and rats crowded every floor. Looking upwards he screamed for someone to help him open the gate. Two large windows, uncommonly intact, stared back at him unsympathetically from above the entrance. He screamed again. Then, as if suddenly realizing that his voice would carry through the night to his pursuer, he moaned softly, "Please. Someone, help me," and stumbled into the building's shadows once more.

An emaciated, middle-aged woman with roses tattooed over her naked breasts leaned out of an upper floor window. "Shut up!" she shouted callously. Over her shoulder she called out, "Hey! Come watch this." A nineteen year old boy with a mandala etched into the skin above his right breast shoved his head out beside hers. "There's a bigelow down below," she explained. "It's the start of the season."

The young man scratched at the ever present lice in the hair on his belly and shrugged. "I bet the old fart runs," he said and turned away.

"I'll bet you a day's water ration he's too scared to run."

He turned back and stared at her, weighing what he could barter an extra water ration for. "OK you're on," he said, and hunkered down on the sill to watch with her.

Below them the obese man took a faltering half step toward a garish neon light a block away and stopped, staring across the street where a vast swarm of people loitered around brightly lit store fronts. The crowd and the lights were inviting, but he was too scared to move from his hiding place and pressed back against the building.

A pair of Corridor Cops, their double star tattoos standing out like badges over their left breasts, walked past. The younger one stopped when he saw the man lurking in the shadows of the old brewery. He was about to ask to see the man's UPC implant when his burly partner shook his head. "Don't bother. It's the start of the season," he said pointing at the fat man's chest. The younger one nodded and they kept on going.

The hunted man gingerly fingered the tender, puckered outline of a new, yellow crescent tattoo which now overlaid the lifelong emblem of the Proctor & Gamble Clan. The fat man had been vested in the Proctor and Gamble Company since birth. But at sixty-five he was turned out. At the Senior Center that morning, a young artist had painfully hammered and dyed the new tattoo into him. The yellow crescent design identified him as a bigelow-- a competitor in the season. Its freshness identified him as a raw and untested newbie. When the operation was complete, the workers at the Senior Center gave him his choice of weapons and sent him out onto the street.

The fat man sobbed. His weapon was gone. The pistol bayonet, which the Senior Center had provided him, had been lost three blocks earlier. Defenseless, he turned once more toward the crowd, wondering if he dared try to lose himself within the swarms of people in the Cincy/Pitts Corridor City. Just then his pursuer came around the corner fast and sure. The street light fell full upon her. She was tall and rapier thin with a hooked nose of the Middle East. In her arms she carried an uzi machine pistol. Tattooed on her chest was a faded yellow scar in the form of a crescent. The hunted man sagged against the building, vainly trying to hide himself.

The woman caught this flicker of movement beside the moldering brick facade of the brewery and slid noiselessly back into the shadows. She called out to her prey, "It's all over, bigelow," and moved cautiously toward her victim to be certain of a killing shot.

Above the fat man the young boy leaned perilously out of the window. "Run, ya' ol' fart!" he yelled. "Run!"

The rose tattooed woman pulled him back in. "Shut up!" she cried. "Let the bigelow make up his own mind."

Below them the man they called bigelow simply gave up, falling against the brewery building and sliding down the rough bricks to his knees.

"Hey!" his pursuer cried out truly concerned. "Don't go having a heart attack. That won't help me at all." She moved up quickly and pointed her weapon at the man's gray haired head.

"I'm not having a heart attack," the man said matter-of-factly. He was surprised at his own calmness. He was even a little chagrined that the letting go of his life was to be such a simple affair after all. He smiled at the woman who was hunting him. "There's just no place to go."

Shifting her stance backward a little, the woman glanced warily about her but there was no evidence of any trap. Above her the young man spit in disgust and stomped away from the window. The old woman heard his companion say soothingly, "Look, we'll use your water to bathe with and I'll let you wash me." Mollified, the young man returned to the window once more to watch the sport below.

The pursuer looked back at her victim. "You just turn sixty-five, bigelow?" she asked in perfect System English.

The man nodded. He felt loquacious. "My name isn't Bigelow, you know. It's Hamlin."

"Sure. And I'm Indra Hussein from Yemen. Glad to meet you." The Yemeni woman laughed harshly. "But we're all bigelows during the season. Until you earn a red sash, of course." She relaxed a little but her eyes kept searching the area around the two of them. She hadn't always been so generous. After she had turned sixty-five, twenty-seven years earlier, she had killed quickly and savagely. She relaxed a little more and heard her victim talking to her.

"I wasn't prepared. Somehow I expected it to be more genteel than this. Something like dueling."

The woman eyed him scornfully and said, "You had sixty-five years to prepare. You knew you'd lose your water and credit rights when you retired. And you knew that to regain them you'd have to kill another person over sixty-five. You would have killed me."

"I suppose."

"I suppose," the Yemeni mocked him. "I suppose that shot you fired back there was an accident."

"I was scared and the pistol did fire accidentally. I even dropped it, I was so startled when it went off."

The woman snorted contemptuously.

"Somehow, it doesn't seem real," Hamlin reflected sadly. "I mean, how could the Clans sanction the season. There should be a better way to keep the world's population at 25 billion than having the elderly hunt each other at the beginning of every year."

"Like abortion!" the woman spat out. "At least they give us a chance instead of just lining us up against the wall when we turn sixty-five."

Hamlin didn't bother to argue. He knew the Yemeni was right. Instead, he just looked into the face of the woman he knew was going to take his life. He saw the sweat there, beading up and running down the deep grooves of the old woman's cheeks, and realized he too was sweating in the ever present heat. Looking up into the dark hawk eyes that carried no compassion, he sighed. He whispered to no one in particular, "It's January 1, and the temperature is already ninety degrees. When I was a boy, the Ohio Valley still had winter and there was snow sometimes."

"What's that bigelow?" asked the Yemeni.

Hamlin shook his head as if clearing it of such meaningless trivia so he could concentrate on this last minute of his life. "Nothing," he muttered. He looked up and said to the woman, as a man who is presenting a gift to a friend, "My life is yours." He eased himself against the brick wall and the Yemeni brought the Uzi quickly to bear on him. "I won't try anything," Hamlin said wryly. It was his turn to be contemptuous. "Just make it quick."

"Thanks," was all the woman said. She stood close and pointed the muzzle at Hamlin's temple. Hamlin flinched as he saw the woman's index finger tighten on the trigger; but the Yemeni just toppled forward slowly, as if she had lost the ability to stand, and thudded against the concrete sidewalk at Hamlin's feet. From her back protruded a large knife.

Hamlin reached out diffidently and touched the crudely made throwing knife, sticking between the third and fourth vertebrae of the woman. The iron handle felt cold. Strangely, he was aghast at this violent act against the woman he had just given his life to. His eyes sought the Yemeni's Uzi which had clattered to the ground beside him. Uncertainly his hand shifted toward the well oiled machine pistol. He heard the sound of footsteps. Flustered at being caught groping for her weapon, he hid his hand under his armpit and drew back abashed against the building as an older man and woman pelted down the street from the corner under the light.

"I thought the bigelow had gotten away from us," the woman gasped.

"Not a chance, Harriet," the man said grimly. He had a pencil thin mustache in a hard lined face. Impassively he pulled the knife from between the woman's shoulder blades.

Hamlin was shaking, his sudden reprieve unnerving him. "Th... th... thanks," he stammered hoarsely. "I... I don't know who you are. But thank you for saving my life."

"No need to thank us." The man shook his head, handing the knife to the woman haft first. "I'm Frank. This is Harriet." The woman smiled understandingly at Hamlin. Her hair was white and she was very thin. She was seventy-two years old, but seven years under the season had made her look far older.

"I'm Ben Hamlin," the fat man said, giddy from the elation of life pouring back into him.

"You strong enough to stand?" Frank asked him helpfully.

Hamlin nodded. "I think so."

"Here, let me give you a hand up." Frank grabbed Hamlin's wrists in a surprisingly strong grip and pulled him powerfully up and onto the knife in Harriet's hand. The blade buried itself deep into his chest and twisted.

Hamlin, astonishment like open windows in the house of his face, died without a whimper.

Harriet sighed. "The new bigelows now-a-days are too easy. This one even lost his gun."

"Ah but the Arab was a coup. She must have been ninety. That's a long time to survive the Season," observed Frank.

"True," Harriet answered. "Kind of makes you wish you could mount her head over the fireplace. She should be remembered somehow. If the Center would allow us to keep the scalps that would at least be something wouldn't it? I mean, at least to be remembered in someone's home."

Frank knew Harriet was right. This personal killing became impersonal once the Senior Center tagged their claims and gave them a red sash to wear-- protecting them from those still hunting, and allowing them to receive once more their food and water pensions. Still, it was only the first day of the season and they would be safe for yet another year. No one would shoot a person wearing a sash. He would lose everything. He wouldn't be able to hide. Everywhere people would turn him in for the extra water ration reward. Most of the water in the U.S. had been diverted to the Midwest and Southwest for the farms. How else could the Clans feed three billion people. What was left was pitiful enough to keep a person alive. The Corridor Cities reeked of human waste and desperation.

"Damn!" he exclaimed. Harriet looked at him nonplused. "It would be nice to have the other bigelow's gun. Along with the Uzi we might get enough water to take a shower."

Harriet silently agreed. "Better take these two down to the Center," was all she said.

A passing flitter cab, it's wings folded and ground effect engines idling slowly, halted. The driver, an ancient man with weathered skin, stuck his head out the window. Jutting his chin at the two bodies at their feet, he asked, "Need a lift with those to the Center? Usual fare." From where they stood, Frank and Harriet could see a hint of red across his left shoulder and relaxed.

The driver did not offer to help them. With great difficulty they loaded the bodies in the flitter's carryall and entered the back seat, where they clearly saw the red baldric the cab driver wore across his chest from shoulder to waist. The cab's license said he was Ezra Halloway, 102 years old.

"He's older than the Arab," Harriet whispered to Frank. He nodded.

"Felicitations on your stalk," Frank said politely to the driver.

"Thank you. And on yours too," the cabbie answered just as politely. He turned his swivel seat toward them. "Let's see your UPC's." The two passengers extended their right arms. Implanted at birth under the skin along the wrist were two rows of numbers and lines. On each passenger the driver flashed a comcorder which zigged a red line across the implant. At the end of the night, when the cabbie totaled his receipts, the bank's DNA computer would automatically debit the fares from Frank and Harriet's accounts, which would be unfrozen once they logged their individual tallies for the Season. The implant only functioned while a person lived. Once he or she died the numbers faded and became a dark, unusable smudge.

"OK," the driver said, "Let's get you to the Senior Center." He adjusted the controls from street drive to flight. "Watch the bounce," he warned. There was a violent jerk as the flitter craft shifted power to its takeoff spring and catapulted into the windless night. As the ground effect motors roared alive, everyone was pushed deep into the foam padded seats. Wings unfolded and snapped into place with a skirling crack of crystal steel against crystal steel. The flitter carried them through the canyons of the Corridor City, above the buildings and into the night sky. Frank and Harriet exhaled gratefully.

The cabbie laughed. "I've been driving a flitter for thirty years and the bounce still takes my breath away. If the wings didn't unfold it could be a really hard landing." His passengers said nothing.

"I see you bagged Indra Hussein," the cabbie went on.

"Frank did with a knife throw at thirty-five feet."

"The cabbie shrugged. "She was a good hunter. Who was the other?'

"Some new bigelow," Harriet said disparagingly.

The driver nodded knowingly. "I know what you mean . I bagged a bigelow right where you're sitting this morning." Harriet looked down and squirmed a little. "First hour of the season. He got into my cab at the Senior Center right after he'd registered. Told me he was going uptown to bag a bigelow! Can you believe it!? Haw! Haw!" The old driver swiveled his chair once more and looked gleefully at his passengers. "I just turned around and nailed him. Went into the Center and got my sash. Easiest stalk I ever had." The old cabbie cackled. After a few seconds, he turned around and flew on to the Senior Center.

The cab flitted lazily through the night sky. Below, the tall, angular buildings of the Cincy/Pitts Corridor stretched narrowly along the serpentine banks of the Ohio River and faded into the distant, dimly illuminated horizon. The silence in the flitter deepened. The cabbie concentrated on taking his passengers to the old Cincinnati Senior Center near the abandoned Presbyterian Church on Vine Street. Harriet stared out the flitter's plasglas canopy.

Impulsively Frank reached over and patted Harriet's knee. "Sam would have been proud of you tonight," he said softly.

Harriet looked at him, her eyes sad and filmy. "I suppose," she answered.

They held hands the rest of the way to the Center.