Aces High wc-2

by George R. R. Martin

  "So," Travnicek said. His breath was frosting in front of his face and condensing on his reading glasses. He took the spectacles off. "You were displaced about fifty city blocks spatially and moved one hour forward timewise, yes?"

  "Apparently. When I came out of the dumpster I found that the fight in Jokertown had been over for almost an hour. Comparison with my internal clock showed a discrepancy of seventy-two minutes, fifteen point three three three seconds." The android had opened his chest and replaced some components. The laser was gone for good, but he had his flight capability back and he'd managed to jury-rig a flux monitor. "Interesting. You say the bag lady seemed not to be working with the blob thing?"

  "Most likely it was a coincidence they were in the same street. Her monologue did not seem to be strickly rational. I don't think she is mentally sound."

  Travnicek turned up the heater control on his jumpsuit. The temperature had dropped twelve degrees in two hours, and frost was forming on the skylights of the loft in midafternoon. Travnicek lit a Russian cigarette, turned on a hot plate to boil some water for coffee, and then put his hands in his warm jumpsuit pockets.

  "I want to look in your memory," he said. "Open up your chest."

  Modular Man obeyed. Travnicek took a pair of cables from a minicomputer stacked under an array of video equipment and jacked them into sockets in the android's chest, near his shielded machine brain. "Back up your memory onto the computer," he said. Flickering effects from the flux generator shone in Travnicek's intent eyes. The computer signaled the task complete. "Button up," Travnicek said. As the android removed the jacks and closed his chest, Travnicek turned on the video, then touched controls. A video picture began racing backward.

  He reached the place where the bag lady appeared, and ran the image several times. He moved to a computer terminal and tapped instructions. The image of the bag lady's face filled the screen. The android looked at the woman's lined, grimy face, the straggling hair, the worn and tattered clothing. He noticed for the first time that she was missing some teeth. Travnicek stood and went back to his one-room living quarters in the back of the loft and came back with a battered Polaroid camera. He used the remaining three pictures and gave one to his creation.

  "There. You can show it to people. Ask if they've seen her."

  "Yes, sir."

  Travnicek took thumbtacks and stuck the other two pictures to the low beams of the ceiling. "I want you to find out where the bag lady is and get what's in her bag. And I want you to find out where she got it." He shook his head, dripping cigarette ash on the floor, and muttered, "I don't think she invented it. I think she's just found this thing somewhere."

  "Sir? The Swarm? We agreed that I would leave for Peru in two days."

  "Fuck the military," Travnicek said. "They haven't paid us a dime for our services. Nothing but a lousy parade, and the military didn't pay for that, the city did. Let them see how easy it is to fight the Swarm without you. Then maybe they'll take us seriously." The truth was that Travnicek wasn't anywhere near being able to reconstruct his work. It would take weeks, perhaps even months. The military was demanding guarantees, plans, knowledge of his identity. The bag-lady problem was more interesting, anyway. He began idly spinning back through the android's memory.

  Modular Man winced deep in his computer mind. He began talking quickly, hoping to distract his inventor from the pictures.

  "As far as the bag lady goes, I could try the refugee centers, but it might take a long time. My files tell me there are normally twenty thousand homeless people in New York, and now there are an uncountable number of refugees from Jersey."

  "Piss in a chalice!" exclaimed Travnicek, in Geiman. The android felt another wince coming on. Travnicek gaped at the television in surprise.

  "You're screwing that actress lady!" he said. "That Cyndi What's-her-name!" The android resigned himself to what was about to come.

  "That's correct;" he said.

  "You're just a goddamn toaster," Travnicek said. "What the hell made you think you could fuck?"

  "You gave me the equipment," the android said. "And you implanted emotions in me. And on top of that, you made me good-looking."

  "Huh." Travnicek turned his eyes from Modular Man to the video and back again. "I gave you the equipment so you could pass as a human if you had to. And I just gave you the emotions so you could understand the enemies of society. I didn't think you'd do anything." He tossed his cigarette butt to the floor. A leer crossed his face. "Was it fun?" he asked. "It was pleasant, yes."

  "Your blond chippie seemed to be having a good time." Travnicek cackled and reached for the controls. " I want to start this party at the beginning."

  "Didn't you want to look at the bag lady again?"

  "First things first. Get me an Urquell." He looked up as a thought occurred to him. "Do we have any popcorn?"

  "No!" The android tossed his abrupt answer over his shoulder.

  Modular Man brought the beer and watched while Travnicek had his first sip. The Czech looked up in annoyance. "I don't like the way you're looking at me," he said. The android considered this. "Would you prefer me to look at you some other way?" he asked.

  Travnicek turned red. "Go stand in the corner, microwave-oven-that-fucks!" he bellowed. "Turn your goddamn head away, video-unit-that-fucks!"

  For the rest of the afternoon, while his creation stood in a corner of the loft, Travnicek watched the video. He enjoyed himself enormously. He watched the best parts several times, cackling at what he saw. Then, slowly, his laughter dimmed. A cold, uncertain feeling crept up the back of his neck. He began casting glances at the stolid figure of the android. He turned off the vid unit, dropped his cigarette butt in the Urquell bottle, then lit another.

  The android was showing a surprising degree of independence. Travnicek reviewed elements of his programming, concentrating on the ETCETERA file. Travnicek's abstract of human emotion had been gleaned from a variety of expert sources ranging from Freud to Dr. Spock. It had been an intellectual challenge for Travnicek to do the programmingtransforming the illogicalities of human behavior into the cold rhetoric of a program. He'd performed the task during his second year at Texas A amp;M, when he'd barely gone out of his quarters the whole year and had known he had to set himself a large task in order to keep from being driven crazy by the lunatic environment of a university that seemed an embodiment of the collective unconscious fantasies of Stonewall Jackson and Albert Speer. He'd barely been at A amp;M for ten minutes before he'd known it was a mistake the crop-haired undergraduates with their uniforms, boots, and sabers reminded him too much of the SS who had left Travnicek barely alive beneath the bodies of his family' at Lidice, not to mention the Soviet and Czech security forces that had followed the Germans. Travnicek knew if he was going to survive in Texas, he had to find something massive to work on lest his memories eat him alive.

  Travnicek had never been particularly interested in human psychology as such-passion, he had long ago decided, was not only foolish but genuinely boring, a waste of time. But putting passion into a program, yes, that was interesting.

  He could barely remember that period now. How many months had he spent in his creative trance, a channel for his own deepest spirit? What had he wrought during that time? What the hell was in ETCETERA?

  For a moment a tremor of fear went through Travnicek. The ghost of Victor Frankenstein's creation loomed for a moment in his mind. Was a rebellion on the part of the android possible? Could he evolve hostile passions against his creator? But no-there were overriding imperatives that Travnicek had hardwired into the system. Modular Man could not evolve away his prime directives as long as his computer consciousness was physically intact, any more than a human could, unassisted, evolve away his genetic makeup in a single lifetime.

  Travnicek began to feel a growing comfort. He looked at the android with a kind of admiration. He felt pride that he'd programmed such a fast learner.

  "You're not bad, toaster," he said finally, tur
ning off the video. "Reminds me of myself in the old days." He raised an admonishing finger. "But no screwing tonight. Go find me the bag lady."

  Modular Man's voice was muffed as he stood with his face to the wall. "Yes, sir," he said.

  Neon cast its glow upon the frosted breath of the nat gang members standing beneath the pastel sign that marked the Run Run Club. Detective Third Grade John F X. Black, driving his unmarked unit and waiting for the light to change so he could make a turn onto Schiff Parkway, automatically ran his eyes over the crowd, registering faces, names, possibilities… He had just gotten of duty, and had signed out an unmarked car because he was due to spend the next day freezing his ass of at a plant, what on TV they'd call a stakeout. Ricky Santillanes, a petty thief out on bond since yesterday, grinned at Black with a mouthful of steel-capped teeth and gave Black the finger. Let him get his rocks of, Black thought. The nat gangs were being trashed by the Demon Princes of Jokertown every time they met.

  Black observed from a poster that the band playing tonight was called the Swarm Mother-no one could say hardcore groups were slow in their perception of the zeitgeist. It was pure chance that Black happened to be looking at the poster at the moment Officer Frank Carroll staggered into the light. Carroll looked wild-he had his cap in his hand, his hair was mussed, and his overcoat was splattered with something that glowed a fluorescent chrome yellow under the glimmering sign. He looked as if he were making for the cop shop a couple blocks away. The nats laughed as they made way for him. Black knew that Carroll's assigned sector was blocks away and didn't take him anywhere near this corner.

  Carroll had been on the force for two years, joining just out of high school. He was a white man with dark red hair, a clipped mustache, medium build beefed slightly by irregular weight training. He seemed serious about police work, was diligent and methodical, and worked a lot of overtime he didn't have to. Black had pegged him as being dedicated but unimaginative. He wasn't the kind to run about wild-eyed at twelve o'clock on a winter night.

  Black opened his door, stood, and called Carroll's name. The officer turned, glaring wildly, and then an expression of relief came onto his face. He ran for Black's car and jerked at the passenger door as Black unlocked it.

  "Jesus Christ!" Carroll said. "I just got thrown in a trash heap by a bag lady!"

  Black smiled inwardly. The traffic light had changed, and Black made his turn. "She catch you by surprise?" he asked. "Damn right. She was down in an alley off Forsyth. She had a book of matches and a bunch of wadded-up paper, and was trying to set a whole dumpster on fire to keep warm. I told her to quit, and I was trying to get her into my unit so I could take her to the shelter down in Rutger Park. And then wham! The bag got me." He looked at Black and gnawed his lip. "You think she could have been some kind of joker, Lou?"

  "Lou" was NYPD for lieutenant.

  "What do you mean? She hit you with the bag, right?"

  "No. I mean the bag-" The wild look was in Carroll's eyes again. "The bag ate me, Lou. Something reached right up out of the bag and swallowed me. It was…" He groped for words. "Definitely paranormal." He glanced down at his uniform. "Look at this, Lou." His shield had been twisted in a strange way, like a timepiece in a Dali print. So had two of his buttons. He touched them in a kind of awe.

  Black pulled into a loading zone and set the parking brake. "Tell me about this."

  Carroll looked confused. He rubbed his forehead. "I felt something grab me, Lou. And then… I got sucked right into the bag. I saw the bag just getting bigger and… and the next thing I knew I was in this trash heap of Ludlow north of Stanton. I was running for the cop shop when you stopped me."

  "You were teleported from Forsyth to Ludlow north of Stanton."

  "Teleported. Yeah. That's the word." Carroll looked relieved. "You believe me, then. Jesus, Lou, I thought I'd get written up for sure."

  "I've been in Jokertown a long time, seen a lot of strange things." Black put the car in gear again. "Let's go find your bag lady," he said. "This was just a few minutes ago, right?"

  "Yeah. And my unit's still up there. Shit. The jokers've probably stripped it by now."

  The glow from the burning dumpster, orange on the brownstone alley walls, was visible from Forsyth. Black pulled into a loading zone. "Let's go on foot."

  "Don't you think we should call the fire department?"

  "Not yet. It might not be safe for them."

  Black in the lead, they walked to the end of the alley. The dumpster was burning bright, the flames shooting up fifteen feet or more amid a cloud of rising ashes. Carroll's unit was magically untouched, even with its rear door open. Standing in front of the dumpster, shifting from one foot to the other, was a small white woman with a full shopping bag in each hand. She wore several layers of shabby clothing. She seemed to be muttering to herself.

  "That's her, Lieutenant!"

  Black contemplated the woman and said nothing. He wondered how to approach her.

  The flames gushed up higher, snapping, and suddenly strange bright flickering lights, like Saint Elmo's fire, played about the woman and her bags. Then something in one bag seemed to rise up, a dark shadow, and the fire bent like a candle flame in a strong wind and was sucked into the bag. In an instant fire and shadow were gone. The strange colored lights played gently about the woman's form. Greasy ashes drifted to the pavement.

  "Holy shit," murmured Carroll. Black reached a decision. He dug into his pocket and got his billfold and the keys to his unmarked unit. He gave Carroll a ten.

  "Take my unit. Go to the Burger King on West Broadway and get two double cheeseburgers, two big fries, and a jumbo cofee to go." Carroll stared at him.

  "Regular or black, Lou?"

  "Move!" Black snapped. Carroll took of.

  It took both burgers, the coffee, and one set of fries to lure the bag lady into Black's unmarked car. Black thought she probably would never have gotten into a blue-and-white like Carroll's. He'd had Carroll lock his uniform coat and weapon in the trunk so as not to alarm the woman, and Carroll was shivering as he got in the passenger seat.

  Behind, the bag lady was mumbling to herself and devouring fries. She smelled terrible.

  "Where to now?" -Carroll asked. "One of the refugee centers? The clinic?"

  Black put the car into gear. "Someplace special. Uptown. There are things about this woman you don't know." Carroll put most of his energy into shivering as Black sped out of Jokertown. The bag lady went to sleep in the back seat. Her snores whistled through missing teeth. Black pulled up in front of a brownstone on East 57th.

  "Wait here," he said. He went down the stairs to a basement apartment entrance and pressed the buzzer. A plastic Christmas wreath was on the front door. Someone looked out through a spyhole in the door. The door opened. "I wasn't expecting you," said Coleman Hubbard.

  "I've got someone with… powers… in the back seat. She's not in her right mind. I thought we could put her in the back bedroom. And there's an officer with me who can't know what's going on."

  Hubbard's eyes flicked to the car. "What did you tell him?"

  "I told him to stay in the car. He's a good boy, and that's what he'll do."

  "Okay. Let me get my coat."

  While Carroll watched curiously, Hubbard and Black coaxed the bag lady into Hubbard's apartment, using the food from Hubbard's refrigerator. Black wondered what Carroll would say if he could see the decor in the special locked apartment next door, the dark soundproofed room with its candles, its altar, the pentagram painted on the floor, the inlaid alloy gutters, the bright chains fixed to staples… It wasn't as elaborate as the temple the Order had downtown before it blew up, but then it was only a temporary headquarters anyway, until the new temple uptown could be finished.

  In Hubbard's apartment there were two rooms ready for guests, and the bag lady was put into one of these.

  _"Put a lock on the door," Black said. "And call the Astronomer."

  "Lord Amun has already been called," Hubbard
said, and tapped his head.

  Black returned to his car and started driving back to Jokertown again. "We'll get your unit," Black said. "Then we'll get you to the cop shop for your report."

  Carroll looked at him. "Who was that guy, Lieutenant?"

  "A specialist in mental cases and jokers."

  "That lady might do him some harm."

  "He'll be safer than either of us."

  Black pulled up behind Carroll's cruiser. He got out and opened the trunk, taking out Carroll's coat and hat. He gave them to the young officer. Then he took out a flute-NYPD for an innocent-looking soda bottle filled with liquor-which he'd been planning on using to keep himself warm during the plant tomorrow. He offered the flute to Carroll. The patrolman took the bottle gratefully. Black reached for Carroll's gunbelt.

  "It was lucky you were around, Lou."

  "Yeah. It sure was."

  Black shot Carroll four times in the chest with his own gun, then, after the officer was on the ground, shot him twice more in the head. He wiped his prints off the gun and tossed it to the ground, then took the Coke bottle and got back in his car. Maybe, with the spilled rum, it would look as if Carroll had stopped to hassle a wino and the drunk had gotten the drop on him.

  The car smelled like cheeseburgers. Black was reminded he hadn't had supper.

  The bag lady had ignored the bed and gone to sleep in a corner of the room. Her bags were piled in front and atop her like a bulwark. Hubbard sat on a stool, watching her intently.

  His crooked smile had frozen into an unpleasant parody of itself. Pain throbbed in his brain. The effort of reading her, mind was costing him.

  No turning back, he thought. He had to see this through. His failure with Captain McPherson had cost him in the Order and in Amun's esteem; and when Black had shown up with the bag lady, Hubbard realized this was the chance to win back his place. Hubbard had lied to Black when he told the detective he had alerted Amun.

  There was power here. Perhaps enough to power the Shakti device. And if the Shakti device were powered by the bag thing, then Amun was no longer necessary.