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to her about Greg. In the back of his mind, he was hoping he would get to see
her. This didn't seem likely.
The anarchists had spotted him and knew he was watching; they gave the
occasional suspicious glance, eyes betraying subdued hostility. This was not
the way they usually reacted to people, it was like they suddenly had
something to hide, like they had an enemy. You're not supposed to act like
this, Dodd thought.
Anarchists are friendly people who are disillusioned. You're out to save the
world. Why are you paranoid now?
The slogan ran through his mind: BEWARE THE ANTICHRIST AI! Is it this Second
Coming? he wondered. Has that got them all upset?
Well, it sure has knocked my world around.
The two groups lingered together, talking, then the off-shift abruptly walked
away, heading west. Why am I waiting? Dodd thought. You're not afraid of them,
are you? Dodd got up from the bench he'd been sitting at and crossed the
street, wearing what he hoped was a friendly expression. He walked right up to
the group standing in front of the Euthanasia Center and to his surprise they
immediately surrounded him.
"Hey," he said, "easy, don't look at me like this. My name is
Dodd Corely, I'm a friend of Danny Marauder."
"Who?" a tall blond kid around 22 - 23 years old asked him.
He had a five o'clock shadow and his hair was thick and long, and a bit
tangled. "We don't know any Danny Marauder."
"He looks like a Narco," said one from behind Dodd.
"I'm not a policeman," Dodd said. "I'm a war vet, I drive a forklift. I'm just
looking for a friend of mine who was here the other day."
"You mean he went in there?" the blond kid said, pointing toward the Center's
doors. "I don't think you'll be seeing him again."
"No, he was out here. He's an anarchist. Come on, you guys know Danny
Marauder."
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"I'm afraid we don't, Narco."
"I just need to get a message to him."
"Can't help you."
Dodd turned around, trying to look in all their eyes. They really had him
surrounded. "Come on, one of you has to know him.
He helped a girl named Savina to get away from here Tuesday last week. I need
Danny or someone to pass a message through to
Savina."
"Do we look like mailmen?" one of them said.
"Yeah, Narco," said another. "Go use a terminal."
"Look, her parents are pressing charges against her boyfriend for rape, and if
she can't at least call to convince her parents that he's innocent he's going
to remain in jail."
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"The Narco thinks he's clever," said the blond kid.
"I told you, I'm not a----"
"Nobody but a Narco comes out to a Euthanasia Center to ask an anarchist a
favor!" the kid shouted at him. He placed an odd emphasis on the word
anarchist. Dodd cursed himself, he was using the wrong word.
"I'm sorry," he said. "My mistake. I'm not asking any anarchist for any
favors. I am asking a Mutualist a favor . . .
please, get this message through." He looked the blond kid straight in the
eyes, pleading with him. The kid's expression of aloof hostility didn't
waiver. He flexed his long muscles and made his shirt change shapes.
"Goodbye, Narco," the blond said.
"Listen, come on now----" Dodd was cut off as they rushed him.
He swung out in reflex but hit nothing. Two dozen hands had him, holding him
tight, pulling him and pushing him along, his feet several inches off the
ground. It was a nightmare sensation, paralysed by strong grips and moving
along without walking, caught in an irresistible force. They twisted one arm
to near breaking to stop his struggling. "Over here," he heard one of them
say. They were taking him around the building, down the same alley where he'd
found Savina. He saw the black lid to the black dumpster swing up and down,
and he was propelled up and down into reams of shredded paper. A lid slammed
over his head. There was the slide-clunk sound of a bolt being thrown. With a
sense of unbelieving horror Dodd realized they had locked him in the same
trash dumpster Savina had been hiding in over a week before.
Locked in! He yelled in panic, pushing up on the lid and yelling, but the lid
would only lift about an inch. "Hey! Hey wait! Goddamn you, listen to me! Come
back here! Hey!" His yelling became more frantic and his language deteriorated
to the vilest curses he knew.
He stopped, regaining control of himself. All was silent. The group was gone.
I'm in here for the night, he realized. Angry again he began pounding on the
side with his fists and kicking with his feet, banging it like a drum. After
30 minutes still no one had heard him. He propped the lid open with wadded
shreddings so that he could get some fresh air, and then twisted about to make
himself comfortable, thinking he might as well relax. All this, he thought,
just because I'm trying to do some kid I don't even know a favor. So much for
bleeding hearts, he thought. So much for the brotherhood of man.
#
Using a faked Idex Danny had showed up at the United States
Food and Materials Corporation Annex in the heart of Sacramento and had
checked out a delivery truck. He was surprised by how easy it had been; he had
thought this would be the hard part. Security was lax, depending too much upon
software to detect things out of the ordinary. If I worked here things would
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be different, Danny thought, driving out of the Annex yard with a big grin on
his face.
He drove to an old warehouse and backed the truck up to a loading dock. No one
had paid any attention, not even thinking that the warehouse was abandoned and
that the people loading the truck were "anarchists" --- they were in costume,
normal clean clothes --- and no one even suspected that the large
technical-looking piece of equipment they were loading was a hand-wrapped
superconducting EMP cannon. It weighed about a ton,
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20the%20Beast.txt and looked like an anonymous piece of factory equipment.
Danny grinned.
He drove around all day, aimlessly wandering, then around quitting time for
the boys and girls at the Annex he returned to check in the truck. He sweated
here, praying they didn't check in back. No, they didn't even think of it.
They will from now on, Danny thought happily as he parked the truck in a space
where the tail end more or less pointed toward the 50 story USFMC building
across the street. Hello JTV, he thought. I've got a surprise for you.
There was no one in sight as he climbed out of the truck and hooked the
recharge cable up. Not even the security AI would be able to see that the
recharge connection had been rewired to send the current to the device inside.
Regardless, Danny's heart was beating like a mad drummer, a beat-feet musician
who'd had too much Mataphin. For a moment it felt like his heart beats were
ringing like pistol shots, KaPow KaPow KaPow! He opened the back of the truck
just wide enough so that he could crawl in, and this for sure would cause a
security AI to flash a indicator to some guard . . . if, of course, a security [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]