Duncan told Snick what he thought was happening. She said, “Let’s take the bastards on the first level.”
He looked down over the banister. The ganks, a man and a woman, were sitting down on the lowest step. They must be tired—like everyone else in this tower, including me and Snick, Duncan thought. They were resting for a moment, secure in the faith that the monitors would detect the criminals if they came down the steps. They would have plenty of warning if that happened. Which they perhaps did not think was a probable event.
When Duncan and Snick were halfway down the stairs, the woman rose from the steps, stretched, and yawned, then turned toward her companion. Her mouth opened just as Duncan’s beam touched her chest. The man toppled over when Snick’s beam hit him, his shoulder against the banister rail. Then he slumped forward.
They reset the dials on MAX BURN and looked through the big windows. The layout of the first level was essentially the same as the other levels. The perimeter avenue was very broad, and a relatively narrow residential street ended in it. There were people out in front of their apartments, no doubt talking about their ordeal. So far, no explanation of the blackout other than a malfunction had been given. There were no ganks in sight, and the vehicles of the unconscious officers were parked nearby.
Duncan and Snick activated the doors to slide back into the recesses just far enough for them to pass through singly. Then they closed the doors. They mounted upon the tricycle seats and prepared to drive away. At that moment, they heard the wailings of organic sirens. Before they could decide what to do, a patrol car with lights flashing, followed by four officers on tricycles, came out of a street to their left. Duncan said, “Wait! Just maybe they’re not after us!”
He was glad he had decided not to make a run for it. The group sped on around the curve of the avenue. He said, “Let’s go!” and their tricycles followed in the wake of the group. He turned on his vehicle’s siren and lights; Snick, hers. When the group turned down a street, he and Snick continued on their way until they neared an exit, which was their planned destination.
They parked the tricycles outside a large cubicle, entered it, and went down a flight of steps. At the bottom, they took a hallway that led to the elite yachting club they had entered the night they had fled the rooftop. No one was around, though the monitors were surely active. Unless, he thought, their unknown benefactor was still closing down monitors for them. There had to be such a person. Otherwise, the shooting of the two ganks on the first level would have brought a host down on them.
When they came out of the archway leading to the docks, the same archway they had used before, they stepped into night. The clear sky was starfull, and the other towers and the spanning bridges blazed with bright light. The air was cool. Water slapped against the side of the tower under the docks. The boats in the slips bobbed. The scene had changed considerably, however. Parked between the base of the tower and the docks were over fifty organic airboats.
The officers who had flown them in from other towers had been summoned to help in the criminal hunt and the exodus of the citizens.
He had planned to dive down after the airboat he had submerged and bring it up. That was a cold, wet, and difficult task he had not looked forward to. Now, he did not have to do it, thanks to the ganks.
First, though, even though it would take much time, he and Snick would have to voice-set the programs of all the craft. They worked furiously, but in an hour had programmed only thirty.
Duncan, sweating, said, “That’s enough. Some ganks might be going back to their HQ’s earlier than others.”
“Why not destroy the others?” Snick said.
“I’d like to. But if a patrol boat happened to see all those cannon beams, it might come over to investigate.”
He jerked a thumb to indicate the lights of a surface craft about half a mile away.
Now and then, an airboat had also flown over the basin though none was in sight just now.
“I’ll watch,” she said. “If a patrol boat shows up, I’ll tell you to quit firing.”
He hesitated. An airboat or waterboat could come around the curve of the tower and see the violet beams. But, what the hell, he meant to do a deed far more chancy and dangerous than this. He was burning with a rage that demanded more and more fuel. He said, “O.K.” and he climbed into the cockpit of the four-seater he had selected to take them away from the tower. Its cannon-batteries had a full charge. After lifting it, he took it to the most distant point of the parking area. Then he turned it around, and he brought it to ground level. After setting the MAX PWR dial, he moved the boat forward until the bulbous nose of the cannon was a few inches from the craft first destined for destruction. The beam spat out and cut the boat in half. He thrust his boat forward, its sharp edge knocking the two parts of the parked boat apart. One after the other, while he listened for Snick’s voice over the radio, he severed nineteen boats. The work was done in two minutes.
Snick came running and clambered into the seat next to his. She was laughing softly. After closing the canopy, she said, “Man, that was fun!”
Duncan, not smiling, nodded his head. He lifted the airboat out over the water just beyond the docks. “Here goes,” he said. He spoke the codeword, Eris, to transmit the radio signal to the programs in the thirty boats. They rose from the ground and turned toward the directions set for them. Their navigation lights began flashing.
His boat lowered into the water until the surface was level with his chin. Just as it began moving toward the west, the thirty programmed boats took off, accelerating at full power. Ten went northward, headed toward the Hollywood Hills against which they would smash. Ten sped westward and would keep going across the Basin and out into the Pacific Ocean until their fuel gave out—unless they rammed into the freighters anchored beyond the Basin. The remaining ten shot eastward, their flight to end when they struck the mountains.
He enjoyed his vision of the consternation and bewilderment the sudden appearance of the thirty boats on the organic tower radars would cause. No air or surface craft was to move in the L.A. area unless the traffic operators on top of the hills were notified. They would be even more upset when the boats crashed.
Having observed that the vessels had a common point of origin, the La Brea Tower, the operators would notify the organics. Those within the tower would hasten down to the docks, and others would be dispatched in airboats to the docks. Here came some now, their lights arcing from the rooftops of the towers and the middle ports of several other towers. They zipped overhead, not seeing his boat, its lights out, most of its hull under the water.
“If I cannot overthrow the gods on high, I will at least make an uproar in Acheron,” Duncan muttered.
“What?” Snick said.
“Nothing.”
He did not know where that thought, surely a quotation from ancient literature, came. Certainly, he had not learned the phrase since he had escaped from the Manhattan rehabilitation institution.
Another leak from one of his former personae.
Ahead was the Baldwin Hills central power-distribution tower. Lights blazed from its rooftop reflecting from a gigantic silvery dirigible and several enormous airboats. He was too far away to see the cables stretched beneath the aircraft, but he was sure that they were there. The news channels had mentioned several times that an auxiliary converter/distributor was to be installed in the building. If the power should ever be interrupted again, the auxiliary would take over. The newsheads had assured the viewers that this was extremely unlikely to happen. The security measures now used would prevent Duncan’s and Snick’s exploit from ever being repeated.
The archway through which he and Snick had plunged to destroy the CD (converter/distributor) was closed. But Duncan did not intend to try to use that entrance.
Instead, he brought the boat up alongside the side of the tower, its hull almost touching the hard black metal. By now the canopy had slid into the hull, and the wind of his ascent struck his face. Just
before he reached the rooftop, he moved the boat out and then turned it to face the tower. He came over the edge, still rising, and then shot the boat sidewise along the dirigible, his cannon piercing the craft’s skin and severing rings and girders and the gas cells within the hull. The magnificent vessel fell nose first, the enormously heavy converter at the end of the cables below it pulling it irresistibly into the opening. There it stuck, its body pointing straight upward. By that time, Duncan had sliced the three Titan airboats in half, and the parts attached to the cables plummeted down into the opening, which was one-third of the rooftop.
The workers on the rooftop had scattered when the dirigible fell. There were ganks among them, but they were too busy getting out of the way to shoot their handguns.
Down into the opening, Duncan took the boat. Galleries in the great shaft shot by dizzyingly. The workers in them stared open-mouthed at him. Then he was by the CD, a Brobdingnagian cylinder that had half-fallen onto its side and smashed many of the lower galleries. The energy indicator of his instrument panel flared bright red as he stopped the boat. He was pressed downward into the seat as the Gernhardt motor strove to decelerate quickly enough before the boat crashed into the floor.
The bottom of the hull struck and bounced. His neck made little snapping noises, and his head seemed to be driven into his shoulders. The energy indicator became a pale red again, and its displayed digits decreased to 12. Ahead was a large hallway down which two ganks, guns in hand, were running toward him. His cannon beam shot between them, and they dived into the nearest doorways. He launched the boat down the hallway, turning its nose quickly to the right, then to the left several times as it moved on a line straight ahead. The violet beam burned through the walls, and the ganks in the doorways were no longer there when he passed them.
The boat sped down the hall, turned to the left, and zipped down another hall. Another turn, another hall. A woman coming down it screamed and hugged the wall. A beam from Snick’s gun stunned the woman as they hurtled past her. Another turn, and they were in the hall that led to the entrance through which he and Snick had come only obweeks ago. This time, they were attacking from the opposite direction.
As before, he stopped the boat at the lofty doorway to the towering chamber wherein had sat the converter he had destroyed with his cannon. The boat turned, its nose pointing toward the new converter. The violet beams melted the shell and the equipment inside it while the engineers, workers, and ganks ran. Before he was done, the ganks on the galleries above were firing at him. But they were too high up for their beams to angle near him. They struck the floor and drilled smoking holes in it.
Duncan did not know how long it took him to destroy the converter. Perhaps thirty or forty seconds. But he knew when he had accomplished his task. The lights were out. He wheeled the boat around and flew it a foot above the floor. Before he got to where he thought the hall junction should be, he turned on the headlights. They shone against the smoke but penetrated far enough for him to see about twenty feet ahead. In a short time, he was near the great shaft in which lay the wreckage of the auxiliary converter and the Titan boats. He doused the lights and activated the radar. Guided by this but moving slowly, he went into the shaft. Even more slowly, he rose until he was near the nose of the dirigible. Hidden by its bulk, his craft slid upward between the vast crumpled wreck and the shaft wall. Flashlights stabbed here and there on the galleries, some fastening on his boat but losing track as it swiftly accelerated. Light filtered down from above from the portable lights the work crew had been using in addition to the tower rooftop lights. When the boat was near the top of the shaft, Duncan slowed it. Still concealed by the upper part of the dirigible, it slipped over the edge and descended close to the wall.
Snick closed the canopy when the boat was halfway down the side of the tower. A minute later, the boat was submerged to its canopy. There were many craft in the air and the water now, lights flashing and, of course, their radar and infrared detectors scanning everywhere. Duncan slowed the boat to a crawl and lowered it two inches or so more. The journey back to the La Brea Tower was a sloth’s progress, but they got to its base without incident. He waited until there were no gank vessels close on the western side. Then, the canopy open, the boat rose close to the wall.
No illumination seemed to be coming from the rooftop. If there were any gank craft there, they did not have their lights on. He stopped the boat partly below the top of the wall. After he and Snick had made sure that no one was there, he piloted the boat onto the rooftop. Snick turned her flashlight off and on to guide him. They landed near the hatchway lid and got out. Within a few seconds they had slid the hangar door back and flown down into the room, her flashlight showing the way. It was just as they had left it, a partially repaired airboat in a corner of the enormous chamber.
After Snick had put the ladder up against the edge of the hatchway, Duncan climbed it and pulled the lid shut. Flashlights showing the way, they went into all the rooms to make sure that they were unoccupied. Then they looked into the numerous pantries and refrigerators for food. There were more than enough canned goods, including fruit juices, and slow-decay supplies to last them for days. Not that they planned to stay here any longer than necessary.
They ate and drank by the flashlight beams while they talked merrily of their exploits. Then they went to the huge bedroom in which his grandfather slept during his infrequent visits to Los Angeles. If the power had been on, they could have depolarized the windows, but these were as black as the night outside. There was an advantage to the opaqueness. If they could not see out, those outside could not see in.
Duncan yawned mightily and stretched. “The fire’s gone out. I’m going to sleep now. I’m not even going to wash my face.”
“Which you couldn’t do, anyway,” she said. “The pumps won’t be working. The toilet’s going to be a hell of a stinking mess until power’s restored.”
“We’ll keep the door closed,” he said. “Anyway, there are a lot of toilets here.”
He started to take off his jacket.
The next he knew, he was looking up from the floor. Bright flashlights blinded him.
A man’s voice—it seemed familiar—said, “We finally found you.”
19
Extracts from a secret report to the World Council by Gunther Geronimo Zagak, Field Marshal, Organics Department, North American Ministering Organ (governmental unit comprising what once was Canada and the U.S.A.): “…thus making it mandatory to declare martial law in the South California subprovince.”
“…intense investigation revealed that the suspected treasonous organization was on higher levels than the computized probabilities. It was learned that Diszno, Tuesday, General of the Organics Department of Los Angeles State, ID No. TLA-x/4529Y, was the chief of the subversive group calling itself OMC, PUPA, and other frequently changing titles. We suspect organic participation by various personnel, some probably highly placed, in other days, too. The officers sent to the general’s apartment to destone him discovered that he was absent. He was, however, found in an airboat, preparing to flee. Ordered to surrender, he fired upon the officers, wounding one and killing one. The return fire killed him immediately, though we would have preferred that he be taken alive for interrogation.”
“…would have detected Diszno and the others in the apartment where Duncan and Snick took refuge if the power failures had not delayed the tracing of various illegal circuits.”
“…apparent that General Diszno, or perhaps others not yet identified, aided Caird and Snick during their operations in the La Brea Tower Complex. The failure of the tower monitors to identify the two outlaws was caused, we firmly believe, by one or more organic officers who criminally and treasonably operated the monitors in such a way that detector-alarms were not activated. An intensive investigation re this matter is being conducted, and we are certain that the culprits will not escape the organic net this time.”
“…regrettably admit that…no idea where th
e criminals Caird and Snick are at this moment. Their continual elusiveness and successful attacks point out the weaknesses in our security systems. But part of their success can be attributed to the extraordinary audacity and wiliness of Caird-Duncan and Snick-Chandler. It is, if you will permit a rather nonfactual item in this report, as if Robin Hood and William Tell had teamed up against society. Or as if Stenka Razin and Lu K’uei had become partners. A previous report-analysis of the situation (erasure ordered) compared Caird-Duncan to certain figures of ancient mythology. These included the American Indian trickster-heroes, Old Man Coyote and Wabasso, The Great White Hare. Despite the exaggerations inherent in this comparison, or perhaps because of them, Caird-Duncan and Snick-Chandler are becoming folk-heroes among the less law-abiding and more thoughtless citizens.”
“…the major factor in their ability to hide and to venture forth to attack is due to the weaknesses in our system. For a thousand obyears, discontent and crime have been very minor elements in society. The New Era has come as close to Utopia as is possible for a society composed of human beings. From infancy on, the citizens have been conditioned against violence and rebellion, and their freedom from poverty and the cornucopia of good housing, plenty of food, free education and mental and medical care, and their access to democratic principles and procedures has made the dayworld system a heaven as compared to the hells in which pre-New Era citizens lived. Though a minority of citizens have complained about the close monitoring by the government, the majority have seemed to accept it. They understand that a society cannot achieve New Era desiderata unless it is being monitored.”
“…complacency. The organics department expects immediate obedience by the citizens to the laws and to the commands of its officers. A violent rebellion is not expected because there is no logical reason or cause for it. However, I suggest you review the MIND AND SPIRIT OF HOMO SAPIENS tape-series by the famous psychicist, Doctor Bella Jinrick Fordswanter. She stresses what she idiomatically terms ‘the inborn orneriness of humankind,’ the irrational inclination to ‘kick against the pricks.’ Just as a validated ten percent of the population consists of ‘born leaders,’ an estimated three percent consists of ‘born rebels.’ Of the latter, half have criminal tendencies. Scientists have conducted a genetic analysis of a certain percentage of born leaders and born rebels but have failed to identify any genetic complex or any environmental factors whatsoever as responsible for these character features.”
Dayworld Breakup Page 15
