Terraplane

by Jack Womack

  "Eyes alight," Jake murmured. The father haggled details with the cashier; as each computer transaction was required in retail to be doublechecked by abacus, a certain confusion always resulted during the delay. Our voyeurs shelved toys recently fumbled, slowly starting in, holding respectable distance still. "They're readying. "

  "Certain product is quite impressive," Skuratov said, gesturing towards a wallcased rack as if to sell me. "Miss," he said to a clerk scuttling near, holding up his Krasnaya ID so as to be seen, "pass over Turgenev item there for my examination." Unlocking the case, she handed it across; a half-scale dupe of the Turgenev B95 rocket launcher. "Made for us in Yugoslavia from lightweight polymer. Fires genuine explosive shell. No more harmful than cap pistol, certainly-"

  "My change," said the father. "Give to me." The overhead whirr's tone descended a half note in the scale; I looked upward.

  "I have no coins," said the cashier. "Why do you harass me so?" All ceiling cameras rotated, focusing our way. Our troupe moved in for the finale.

  "Thirty kopecks," the father shouted. Other customers-there were many-grew testy. The man's toddler, recovering from his mourn, bored by his father's pleas, looked at us. Skuratov, the plastic armament nestled in his arms, smiled at the child.

  "No coins," the cashier screamed in reply. "Take delicious candy bar I offer you as suitable change equivalent." Jake unclicked something within his coat's cover. My stomach dropped as I felt the nausea of the about-to-be caught. "Be happy, citizen."

  "Small boy," Skuratov said, grinning, bending down, handing the boy the toy. "Aim that way away from people like brave army man. Press trigger underneath for big fun."

  "Da," the gleeful tot rumbled, needing no further prod. Laying paws on tight, he fired with sharpshooter touch. The fauxTurgenev's sun yellow projectile shot across the floor, with deafening boom shattering a carefully stacked pyramid of plastic grenades molded from sky blue resin. Tumbling floorways they flashed and banged and threw smokeclouds of evil scent. The father struck the boy; the cashier struck the father for having struck.

  "Shall we move briskly to down elevator?" Skuratov said, linking arms with us, leading us from the smoggy melee. "I am conveniently parked outside in free zone. Let us attend important meeting. "

  Untrailed by any, we heaved our way through the crowd. The cries of mothers, the shouted threats of the store's in-house police and the yaps of a thousand children drowned the icerink music playing over the store's hundred hidden speakers.

  "They fold so easily," I remarked as we twisted through the exit doors.

  "True," Skuratov sighed. "Dream Team always formulate perfectly conceived program of action. Slightest unforeseen circumstance leaves them groping to find their own backsides. They are never trained in spontaneity, for security reasons. Here is my fine machine."

  Skuratov's car was a navy Mercedes with black mirrored windows. He opened the trunk, retrieving the detachables: wipers, hubcaps, the hood ornament, the sideviewers and the aerial, all favored barterables on the Black Market. We climbed in as he reattached all. Jake settled into the back seat. It took Skuratov one or two minutes to close the trunklid, I noticed; a frozen lock, mayhap, or a need to reshuffle still-trunked accessories. As we bug ran he climbed in; our sensors showed no ears within, and at last we were almost secure.

  "Impressive, Mal," I said. "How'd you obtain?"

  "Suitable reward for many good works," he said. "Note handworked details and stylish instrument panel design. Gently rub butter-soft leather upholstery." The car's skin was filthy, but every Russian car needed a scrub. For its two million autos Moscow was provisioned by Krasnaya with ten carwashes. "Leave windows slightly open, please, to disrupt easily read glass vibrations. Engine, drive us to destination one."

  "Done," replied the dash's voice; the motor ignited and revved. Skuratov took hold of the wheel and we entered traffic, passing red streetcars rolling down the side lanes.

  "What's the ETA?" I asked.

  "Half hour. You are familiar with our friend's neighborhood?" he asked as we rolled down the Sedovoye Koltes, or Garden Ring, which supported fourteen lanes of fullbumper traffic. Glasseyed towers lined the road, some nothing but Potemkin facades cloaking defensive missile-launching sites.

  "No," I said.

  "Novy Marina Roshcha is a trushchoba," Skuratov continued. "Slum of most terrible kind. Their look is quite American. Krasnaya reactionaries have long insisted that their existence is necessary evil, so that nonconsumers and ex-soldiers with problems adapting to nonarmy life might be suitably housed. Social order is thus preserved by keeping together all bad people holding much hurtful resentment. Many carry dangerous contagion. Be careful the podonki do not touch you after we leave car."

  "Podonki?" Jake inquired, wiring his ears to his pocket-player's phones; the long thin yellow cords impressioned that he was being intravenously fed.

  "Scum," Skuratov translated. "That is official term only, meaning no disrespect."

  "Why would she hide in such a place?" I asked.

  "Is self-evident. From such slums individuals come and go as pleased," he said. "Choice places for those unwilling to perform responsibilities. Favorite hideouts as well for vicious criminal element. Provides area from which suspects may always be plucked. Krasnaya lives with drawbacks."

  "Do many scientists fall into criminal element's heading?" I asked.

  "Depends on their science," he said, smiling. "Miss Osipova takes chance of losing life, living among uncivilized trash, but is chance she evidently wishes to take-"

  "Where's her choice?"

  "With Alekhine," he laughed. "No matter. Her new residence will be free from fear of random hooliganism." He pressed on the radio; the scherzo from Shostakovich's Tenth played. Only a few bars passed before he switched to a station playing songs rich with twang and blurp.

  "We've addressed her precisely?"

  "Her street is Raisa Row. With handy implement of mine we locate with ease exact address." From underdash he extracted two thin barlike devices no larger than TV remotes; he handed one to me. A liqrystal screen made up all of one side; on the other were a number of minute buttons and unlit lights.

  "Only the Dream Team has trackers so advanced," I said, examining his face for reaction, but none showed. Our side had obtained one, by accident, only months before, but I'd had no opportunity to employ it. "How's it work?"

  "One of my many confidential sources was very accomplished," he said. "Turn it on with red switch. Then touch button marked M. "

  Moscow's street grid imaged on the screen; innumerable glowing dots winked in unpatterned formation, each white but for a single blue spot.

  "Blue one is myself. Press V, which is tuned to her coordinates." As I did, only two dots remained, his and hers. A light flashed green. "That signals her continued viability."

  "She's implanted?"

  We pulled from the Ring onto Gorgoko. "Certainly. Standard microtransmitter in thick muscle at back of neck, inserted without pain or knowledge. Transmits thereafter over two-hundred kilometer range. The Dream Team always knows where to send party invitations. Keep that one, please. Within one hundred meters beeping will begin. We will close in."

  It long puzzled certain of those in our organization why Skuratov, suffering from no political disaffiliation, unneedful of clandestine finance, should have chosen treason as his hobby, but nothing suspicious ever showed; his files, triplechecked twice, even cleared Alice's approval. Political motivations are no more explicable than sexual fetishes, and not nearly so employable in quotidian life; thus my mind remained untroubled by idle speculation. Skuratov, eyeing the rearview, noticed Jake sunk seatways, lost in his tunes.

  "Jake is great music lover?"

  "Some music," I said. "Mostly the blues."

  Jake's tape bore no music other than that of Robert Johnson, by historical agreement the past century's greatest blues singer. A single photo remained to give his voice form. Murdered before he was thirty, he left but fort
y-odd songs recorded under the most primitive conditions; Jake knew each by heart. So many Caucasians enjoy the blues, even when they'd have trod across the blues singer were he lying cold before them in the street. Jake knew a more elemental kinship whose nature remained a mystery to me; I could only infer that whenever he felt himself touched by unearned peace he would dive beneath phones to scar himself anew with long-lost sound. Mister O'Malley mentioned occasions when Jake picked up an old guitar in his office and strummed chords as if to play, but I could never viz it. In Jake's hands musical instruments seemed correct only if he might use them to transpose others into death's chorale.

  "How much info of results exists?" I asked. "There's no weapons potential seen?"

  "Not as such. Their findings appear to involve nonaggressive device of unspecified purpose."

  We entered neighborhoods built up with workers' palaces: uniform rows of concrete shoeboxes dropped down in sidewalked morasses. In front of each complex-unit stood sculptures recognizing the abilities of those who designed and developed; those not graffitied were usually decapped. Beneath the modern overgrowth showed old Russia's spoor: huddled wooden houses top-heavy with intricately carved gables and eaves, Orthodox churches bearing five crumbling domes, sprays of birch and evergreen sprouting amidst the billboards. Jake began vocalizing along with Johnson's tunes as they flowed from player to ear.

  "Gonna get deep down in this connection-keep on tangling with your wires-"

  To hear Jake sing ached bones and cooled blood; his warble held neither tune nor tone.

  "-when I mash down on your little starter your spark gonna give me fire-"

  "What use has a nonaggressive," I asked, "considering what Krasnaya must have intended?"

  "Enormous use depending on nature of nonaggressive," said Skuratov. `Alekhine tested and developed as he saw fit. Basic essentials of prime discovery were known but to evershrinking circle as success approached. Every time Krasnaya inquired he made general remarks, refrained from telling specifics, at all stages promised complete report upon project's finish. Three weeks ago, he disappears. We find out three days ago that Miss Osipova prepared her own departure."

  "Why weren't we advanced?"

  "Makes no difference from whom information is obtained, correct?"

  "Alekhine was surely implanted," I said; Skuratov nodded. "So where has he gone? Where's he showing?"

  "He isn't showing," said Skuratov. "Our friend is nowhere found. "

  "In Russia?"

  "In world. We have thorough coverage in all locales, as you know Nowhere do we find evidence of his presence. Alekhine's implant is like mine, in brain instead of neck, and impossible to remove without-" He paused. "Terrible mess. Either he has discovered way to jam signal, which no one else has ever done, or he has gone somewhere beyond our range, which is to say, no place."

  "Inferences must have been possible," I said. "What lines were followed?"

  "From Dream Team reports we ascertain that device as perfected must involve paraphysics rather than parapsychologics."

  "What's meant?"

  "After long years of study we find no truth in so-called para- psychologics in traditional sense. Forecasting future, calling up spirit of dead mother, reading thoughts of strangers; such foolish things are as dreams. Minds are thick as Kremlin walls unless Dream Team methods are employed, and then only generalities may be inferred. Employing such methods we know that paraphysics are involved, that major experiment succeeded. Otherwise, no more.

  Dream Team methods involved modified implants, so that those so adapted might not only be at all times located but, in some as- yet-obsure way, have thoughts' track mapped without derailing the train. "What falls under paraphysics' heading?"

  "Inexpressibles," he said as we entered a bleak avenue carrying four rutted, scarred lanes. Putty-colored ten-story towers were stuck like arrows along each side. Cars' shells lined curbs, covered sidewalks, piled high upon yards as if left by guests at a technological clambake. Rats raced streetways, daring us to strike. "Poltergeists and telekinetic effects. Sonar showing large animals in lakes where limited food supply prohibits such from existing. Wild cougars in London suburbs where no one has lost cougar, and grown alligators in Canadian ponds in dead of winter. Why frogs fall from cloud-free sky." He pressed a button, shifting to slower drive as we rounded a turn. "Plane crashes and little girl's body found, unburned; no little girl on board or on ground reported. A silver coin in a chunk of granite. The look of a sinner on the face of a saint. Growth of hair on a mummy's head." He flashed his steel. "Why one sock of pair always vanishes in dryer."

  "What's meant by transferral device?" I asked. "Transferral where?"

  "Over rainbow, perhaps," he said, his eyes glistening, as if flashfrozen. "Soon we discover. Novy Marina Roshcha, gentlemen."

  Eight-wheel crowd compromisers, steel skins gleaming, guns and gas jets shining, guarded each end of a twenty-man soldierline blockading the avenue. On either side of their wall, the worlds appeared similar in look. The formation broke to allow our passage; none cared that we didn't slow, none halted us to check ID, none questioned our intent or purpose or plan.

  "Residents come and go freely, you said," I reminded Skuratov. "Hasn't the army more immediate situations?"

  "Individuals come and go free, I said. Army is here to prevent attempts at simultaneous escape of many. Krasnaya prefers to certify safety of even these citizens, for great loss of life would be unavoidable if such problematic situation occurred."

  "Krasnaya prefers this?" I asked, seeing Russians of decidedly unpropagandistic value.

  "As also mentioned, Luther," he said. "Not everyone prefers fitting into fine-running system just as not everyone rises to appropriate level during lifetime. These neighborhoods offer suitable surroundings for-how is it put-"

  "Casualties of the system," I said. Their great-grandparents suffered under the nobles, their grandparents under the Big Boy, their parents under the nomenklatura and so they suffered under the supervision of the great Krasnaya multinationale. Inheritance they provided forever grew, no matter who borrowed against the trust.

  "They prefer to live in such way, after all," he said. "It is hard to remember at times." The street sparkled with broken glass as if diamond paved. Cardboard blocked wind blowing through broken windows; newsprint curtained those yet unshattered. Dunes accumulated at building corners where concrete devolved into sand. There'd once been trees; rotting stumps remained, the rest recycled into cold night's fuel. We rolled downstreet sans sound within or without, past residents' dead stares. Children at play scrambled over those rust red cars, yanked rodents' tails to hear the squeak; women indistinguishable from potato sacks squatted beside building entrances. Groups of men huddled over trash fires. All but the children were drunk. Russians, no matter the prohibitions, drank alcohol as they breathed air. As those of Skuratov's class guzzed beverages suited to their status, so these citizens surely poured down their raw throats formaldehyde, eau de cologne, varnish and liquid heat. Jake slipped his phones from his head, his attention seized. I supposed that he suddenly felt more at home.

  "How close?"

  "We are on Raisa now," said Skuratov, eyeing his own tracker, "and she is but a short ways further. " The beep began, a steady pulse. Jake readied. Between two eight-story hulks I robbed a glimpse of the center's faraway spires and pastel domes, hazed soft in morningshade.

  "Locals' interaction expected?" fake asked.

  "None should harangue," said Skuratov. "Fine car such as mine can belong only to high Krasnaya member, or so they will fear. Therefore they understand not to give hands-on treatment in untoward manner." From undercoat he drew a slim black Shrogin machine pistol, an item impossible to procure at any level. "But if podonki approach my crowdtickler will hush them. Jake, be fully prepared. These people very temperamental around those they unavoidably see as their betters."

  Raisa Row's two-story structures held separate entrances for each flat. Littered mud served a
s yard, parking lot and playground. "Destination reached," said the car; he cut the motor. People faded into the buildings' dark. Skuratov's fears, as suspected, overblew; I'd sized all surrounding as too nubworn to offer threat.

  "She is on ground floor rear of right-hand unit. Proceed without rush around side yard. Keep weapons always visible. Pause at corner to await signal. Once signaled, approach door. Wait. Count three." He unclicked his gun's safety. "Hop in, showing big smiles."

  When we decarred we were all nearly muckered flat by the smell, an inescapable blend of bathroom and grave that not even frozen air subdued. The locals, eyeing our ordnance, scattered like roaches in sudden light. Skuratov led, moving as if twotoned feet barely scraped the ground. Midway across I stepped wrong, squashing a teddy bear lying unburied amidst debris. The neighborhood children were rich with imagination beyond their years; the bear's eye sockets stared blindly towards the sky, its tummy was slashed open and degutted in amateur's autopsy. America's touch showed in every land.

  "Her windows," Skuratov whispered, motioning at cornerside to a pair of draped eyes. Gray clouds drew across the sky as a front neared; we threw no shadows over the terrain. He pointed us ahead, and we edged over, skirting the building's wall, Jake now heading our line.

  "One," Skuratov murmured, "two-"

  Before the last number came, before my next breath passed, I noticed the door's ajarness as a scream rang within. Jake-no bullet flew faster.

  "CAREFUL.," I SAID, AS IF'1'O OFFER ADVICE, BUT JAKE WAS DONE before we'd crossed the threshold. Skuratov bore the vision better than I'd have guessed, seeing Jake slash away, tearing the man's flesh as his burlap and polymer clothes were already torn; Jake doublelooped his chain within his hand to attain double result.

  "Jake!" I said. "Enough's enough. Step away"

  Airborne, he came down heels-first upon the interloper's head, completing his task; stepping off of his leavings, he began his descent into calm. I sensed adrenaline's vibrations pulsing through his slim frame. Sucking down a long breath, he stood silent, letting temper fade, shaking his head as if awakening and still finding himself within his dream. His voice returned before he did.