Death Quotient and Other Stories

by John D. MacDonald

  He forced steadiness into his hands, unscrewed the battery frame, put the little battery in place, connected one wire to a terminal, the other to the copper strip.

  They arrived at that moment: Arden Forrester and two of the guards. Forrester swaggered in, his thumbs tucked under his uniform belt.

  “Mr. Lucas, I believe. And what toy do you have there, Mr. Lucas? An automatic toothbrush, no doubt. And where did you get the metal, Mr. Lucas?”

  Peter Lucas grinned foolishly at Forrester. He made his mouth slack, shifted the device into his right hand, the battery case against the heel of his hand.

  “We’d better go see Mr. Evan,” Forrester said. He winked broadly at Lucas. “A shame to take you out of that lab of yours where the decorations are so nice. So very, very nice.”

  Lucas depressed the copper strip so that it made contact with the bare terminal. The tube glowed for a moment in the lead socket.

  Forrester stood spare, firm and erect.

  Lucas knew that the device had failed. And then he saw Forrester’s right hand. Slowly it lost form. It sagged, sluggishly, a pink wax hand held above a flame, the fingers merging.

  Forrester’s eyes bulged and he shouted. He snatched his hand away from the waistband of his trousers. The hand pulled free at the wrist, spun across the room and slapped viscidly against the wall, clinging for a moment, all shape lost, bleeding in a thin line on the plaster, sliding slowly down the pattern of blood.

  A gout of blood came from the wrist and where it struck the focal point of the device, it turned into a pinkish fog. The blouse where the hand had been turned shiny and ran into liquid.

  The beam hit into the spare body underneath, softening it to a thin liquid, exploding it into a pink mist. Forrester screamed once as he fell.

  A guard leveled his automatic and Lucas managed to center the beam on it. The barrel sagged as the man tried to fire it. The unliquified portion exploded violently, and the man, his face torn open, fell and writhed on the floor. The other guard tried to make the door, but Lucas swept the beam across his legs at knee level. The man dropped and at first Lucas thought that he had dropped onto his knees. Then he saw that the man’s legs were out in front of him, toes up. The guard made a mewling sound, fell back, swiveling the gun to fire at Lucas. Lucas swept the beam across his face, saw the face become a pinkish pool in which the eyes were but widening stains.

  He touched the guard whose gun had exploded on the back of the neck and the man was suddenly still.

  Breathing hard, Lucas stood erect. He knew that if he looked at them any more he’d be violently ill.

  He listened. The subdued workers who had heard the shot stayed close to their houses.

  He heard the distant pound of running feet. There was no time to liberate the others. He cut the back wall of the house, finding that at fifteen feet, the area of liquification was about six inches in diameter. He made a sweeping cut, seeing the running plastic explode into gas with a puffing sound.

  The section fell out and he went through. As he went he brushed the moist edge by accident with the back of his hand. For a moment he was in panic for fear the liquid contagion could be transmitted by contact.

  But the back of his hand was uninjured. As fear faded, he noted that the process did not generate heat.

  Floodlights clicked on over the area, and the massive throat of the siren on the roof of the Bureau Building began to pulsate.

  Lucas felt naked, crouching in the glow, fifty feet from the rear of his house. Someone shouted behind him and he ran for the fence.

  There was a soft whisper near his ear and the slug continued on to smash against the wire mesh. With a slow up and down sweep he cut the fence, seeing the dance of blue sparks as the electric current tried to bridge the gap.

  He flattened, turned around and swept the beam across the legs of those who pounded toward him. The hoarse shouts turned to screams as they toppled over. Another slug whispered too close to him, and he sprayed the convulsing bodies until at last they were still. Another splash, and a section of the fence fell away.

  He ran through the gap, turned and aimed the beam at the nearest floodlight. It spat and went dark.

  There was a quarter mile of open ground to cross. He had covered half of it at full run when the headlights bounced toward him. Silhouetted against the distant floodlights he could see the men who clung to the outside of the car.

  He dropped and rolled into a shallow place, propped himself on his elbows.

  “Spread out and nail him!” somebody ordered.

  Lucas yelled, “Go back! Go back or you’ll die!”

  “He’s right over there. Try a few shots with the rifle, Joe.”

  He couldn’t risk rifle fire. He pushed the copper strip against the terminal, sprayed the beam hack and forth across the vehicle like a man watering a lawn. One headlight popped out and a bubbling scream was cut off.

  There were cries of alarm. The other headlight went out and he heard the car creak and sag oddly.

  A man came frighteningly close, leaping toward him. Lucas aimed up at him, threw himself to one side. The man fell across his legs, writhed once and was still. Something warm ran across Lucas’ ankle. There was no more movement. He pulled himself clear, staggered to his feet and began to run again.

  By the time he reached the wide avenue, he heard the rising bleat of sirens all over the city.

  He crossed to parallel streets, crouched behind a hedge and waited there until his breathing was under control. A hundred feet away a man hurried toward his car.

  Lucas ran after him. The man heard the faint sound and turned.

  “Give me your keys,” Lucas demanded.

  The man grunted as he swung. The snap of the beam caught the fist in midair. It hit Lucas along the jaw, a soft and boneless thing. He wiped his face on his sleeve, bent over the man and found the car keys.

  He knew of an automobile only through the drawings he had seen and the descriptions he had read.

  He carefully placed the device on the seat beside him, started the car and drove it jerkily down the street, cutting the first corner too closely so that the rear wheel hit the curbing and he bounced high.

  Five blocks, ten, twenty.

  He abandoned the car, ran down toward the fire lane, the scattered rubble that marked the border of the dead city.

  There were no lights there. He could not risk falling.

  Behind him the sirens moaned and he knew that all of the resources of the New City, even of the country and the world would be directed at finding him and killing him. He was the villain of the melodrama now; he was mad, evil science raising its foul head again, greedy for destruction.

  CHAPTER THREE

  City of Pariahs

  In the dead city ten thousands lived where once there had been four millions. They lived outside the frame of reference of the New City, lived as their remote forebears had lived, in lust and violence and sudden death.

  Some of them were there because to venture outside was to die for some past crime. Others were there because their emotional quotients were dangerous to the orderliness of the New City. And many had been born there, amid the clutter of gray stone, of broken brick, of dust and decay and matted, tangled growth that obscured first-floor windows, split the battered asphalt.

  At night, in an area ten blocks deep bordering on the dead city, doors were double-barred and windows were shuttered. In time that area would become part of the dead city, providing new loot, new hiding places.

  Within the dead city there was a loose society, with the strongest man at the top. Most vagrants who wandered in had a short life. If they managed to survive attack, they would still have no hiding place and would be picked up by the well-armed groups of special police who made periodic patrols through the man-made wilderness.

  The police had learned by listening to the whisp
er of a thrown knife, that it was wise to make the patrols at regular and predictable intervals during daylight, to stay together, to conduct only the most cursory searches of buildings.

  Ellen Morrit crept into the dead city at night.

  She knew the unforgettable extent of her humiliation, the pathetic inadequacy of her revenge against a society which had abused and disillusioned her.

  It would have been simpler to wait for them to come. But to sit and wait meant to think and to remember. It was easier to run away.

  She carried a hand torch and a .22 target pistol. She wore rough tweeds and stout shoes and carried food in a hiking pack.

  She turned and looked back at the New City, at the blare of lights which stopped abruptly at the high mound of rubble which she had crossed.

  Ellen Morrit did not know that the first rule of secret travel by night is never to silhouette oneself against distant lights.

  But her body was young, her reactions quick, and she carried the automatic ready to fire.

  She whirled as one stone clicked against another and she made out the figure running toward her, crouched, knuckles almost touching the littered ground. In alarm rather than through any desire to kill she tugged on the trigger. The weapon made a brittle crackling sound and the figure fell, rolled almost to her feet.

  She stood still for a long time, then risked shining the small flash on it. It was a man with a tangle of dark beard. His open eyes looked up at the distant stars and his mouth was open. She saw, in the hollow of his throat, the pool of blood where the tiny slug had gone in.

  She clicked out the light, backed away, sank to her knees and began to weep.

  In the end she decided to leave the dead city, to try to find a hiding place among less alien people.

  She stood up with resolution, and turned directly into the arms of a man who towered over her.

  He tore the gun out of her hand and when she screamed he clapped a harsh hand over her mouth. Her teeth met in his flesh and he cursed softly. The world exploded around her in darting fire and she was dimly conscious of being lifted off her feet.

  She fought her way up out of untold depths to a consciousness of hard stone against her hips and shoulders. Damp stone. When she opened her eyes the flicker of oil lamps threw needles deep into her throbbing brain.

  It was a long room, damp and windowless, and she knew it was far underground.

  Her eyes slowly adjusted and she saw that there were four men at a crude table, another one on a bench against the far wall. A ragged girl with a white broken face leaned against the wall near the man who sat on the bench. She sang in a low, harsh voice, accompanying herself on a small stringed instrument. She stared at Ellen Morrit and her eyes were vacant and dead.

  A much older woman squatted ten feet away, spooning a dark substance out of a rusty tin, smacking withered lips with each mouthful.

  The men were rough, ragged, bearded and noisy. There was a lamp on the table, and several bottles and a greasy deck of cards.

  One of them looked toward her, threw his cards down, got up and swaggered over. “Awake, eh? Come and meet the people.”

  He grabbed her wrist, pulled her to her feet, steadied her when she would have fallen.

  He held her in his big arm, turned to the others and said loudly, “Now who calls James unlucky? A gun and a girl, all in the same night.”

  The old woman cackled. “When Thomas finds out maybe he’ll let you keep the gun.”

  The man spat on the floor. “Now there’s reason for standing up to Thomas, woman.” He took Ellen roughly by the shoulders and spun her completely around. “Look at her! Meat on her bones. Soft hands. None of your leather-faced women, aye Janey?”

  The dark girl cursed him, without bitterness.

  James chuckled and pinched Ellen’s cheek. “Ah, you’re a great rarity here in the dead city, girl. We get the murderous ones, and the ones that have lived hard. None like you. Not for a long time.”

  “Take me to Thomas,” Ellen said, trying to make her voice strong.

  He scowled. “What would you know of Thomas?”

  She lifted her chin. In this case she would try to forsake the devil she knew for the devil she didn’t. “He expects me.”

  James shook his head dolefully from side to side. “Now just think of that! Thomas just upped and told you to come on in here and find him, did he?”

  He pushed her back toward the corner, walked to the table and pulled a slight man up off his chair. “Bobby, you run along over and see Thomas and tell him that he has a lady friend waiting here for him. Be quick, boy!”

  Bobby gave Ellen a quick, frightened look and left. The old woman threw the tin aside. It rolled across the floor, spewing out the remainder of its contents. She scuttled out into the night.

  Ellen stayed where she was. The rest of them moved, by unspoken consent, down to the far end of the big room. James took from his belt a gun she recognized as her own. He slid out the clip and checked the shells, snapped it back in.

  He then flattened himself against the wall beside the arched doorway. Through the doorway Ellen could see damp stairs leading up.

  * * * *

  Peter Lucas went deeper into the dead city. He knew that before the night was over the patrols would be out. The car would be found. They would be coming in after him. There might not be much time. It was important to locate someone who knew the terrain.

  Coarse growth grew so high as to brush his face. He tried to force his way into it, and had to retrace his steps. His eyes were getting used to the starlight. He could make out the dim outlines of the buildings.

  A stone rattled and someone ran off into the distance. He shouted after the sound, his voice startlingly loud in the silence. There was no answer.

  He started violently as the shot sounded. It was near at hand. Very near. And yet it had an odd, hollow, booming quality.

  He moved in what he thought was the right direction. Ten feet, twenty feet. Another shot came and another. He turned to the right and his outstretched hand touched a rough wall. He moved along the wall and saw a glow of light, a low arched doorway, half filled with rubble. He scrambled in. The light was stronger.

  He went cautiously down the wide flight of stone stairs to a landing. The stairs cut back. He went down the second flight.

  The stairs went through an arched doorway and into a room with a stone floor. He could see the huge stones of the floor, the mortar between them. The light was dim and it flickered. Oil lamps, he thought. Primitive.

  A rough voice spoke words that he didn’t understand. He stood in indecision, the device aimed and ready.

  There was the sound of a heavy blow, a low moan of pain. Lucas decided that whoever was in the room was too busy to notice him. He moved quickly down the rest of the stairs, passed through the arch and moved to one side, his shoulders against the stone wall.

  A dark girl sang and looked at him with dull interest. Bearded men in a far end of the long room turned and stared, wary and taut in their attitudes.

  But a vast, pale, clean-shaven man with hands like hams and a massive belly merely looked up at him and said, “Be with you in a moment, friend.”

  A husky man lay on the floor. His eyes were agonized. A few feet away lay a .22 pistol with a long barrel. As the huge man bent over the figure on the floor, Lucas saw the raw, bloody streak straight across the back of his bull neck.

  The big man pulled the prostrate man to his feet, steadied him and smashed him full in the face with a huge right fist. The man fell heavily and the big man kicked him in the side with all his strength, sliding him several feet along the stone floor.

  Grunting, the big man picked up the automatic, grinned again at Lucas and said, “The fool tried to kill me. Something about a woman.” He giggled, a curiously womanish sound. “He was going to drill me through the head as I came in, but I
came in too fast. Always come into a room fast, boy, or don’t come in at all. Who are you?”

  Lucas noted that though the man held the automatic negligently, the thin barrel was pointed at Lucas’ middle.

  With a small warm sound, Ellen Morrit came from the far corner, ran hard against Lucas’ chest, her body shaking, her eyes panic-stricken.

  “Yours, eh?” the big man said. “I’m boss man around here. I may make you prove you can hang onto her. Who are you?”

  “Lucas. I escaped tonight from the Bureau of Improvement.”

  There was an angry muttering from the men at the end of the room. The girl stopped her drab and monotonous song and merely stared.

  The big man said, “We don’t want jour sort here.”

  Not even here, Peter thought. Not even in the dead city. When they can feel superior to no one else on earth, they still have contempt for us.

  “Move away from him, girl,” the big man said. “No need to hurt you too.”

  But Ellen clung more tightly to Peter Lucas.

  He depressed the copper strip against the terminal.

  The big man was very close to him, reaching for Ellen.

  The beam touched the joint of the massive elbow and the forearm dangled limply. The big man did not cry out. Peter swept the beam across the middle of him. The heavy shirt parted and thick drops hung from the parted edge. The white flesh quivered and slid and puffs of gas made a rancid stench. When the beam touched the other elbow, the gun clattered to the stone floor.

  Where the puffs of pinkish gas had erupted, Peter could see into the man, see a gleam of rib, the veined substance of a lung, see an edge of the strong heart, throbbing steadily.

  The big man’s mouth twisted into a smile. He said, “It looks like you might be the new—”

  His eyes glazed and he went down as suddenly as though his feet had been kicked out from under him.

  Peter turned in time to see the flickering silver of a thrown knife. He moved violently away from it, swept it with the beam and it continued to splash against the inside of the stone arch, to run in silver drops to the damp floor.