Coils

by Roger Zelazny

  She rose to her feet and folded her arms. Her lip curled. I had never seen her angry before.

  "Look around you," she said. "The country is going to hell in a handcart. The whole world is. Why? We have an energy crisis on our hands, that's why. It can be beaten. How? The technology is there—only pieces of it are tied up by dozens of different concerns. This one has a good lead in one sort of thing, that one in another. This one has an almost-good patent pending on something else, that one has a brilliant concept but no hardware yet. They're falling all over each other, blocking each other, getting in each other's ways. Supposing one company cut through all the crap, got its hands on everything good in the area right away and then pushed it into reality? Cheap, clean energy, and lots of it, that's what. No more crisis. A lot of toes would be stepped on. There would be a lot of lawsuits and maybe an antitrust action later. But so what? A company as big as Angra can roll with all that—stall, settle, compromise. And the results? We will solve the energy crisis. We can do it within ten years. You want to watch them falling all over each other until we're on the brink of disaster, or are you willing to help do something about it? That's what Angra wants you for, that's why Angra wants your special talent. Are you going to help?"

  I drank my coffee. I was glad that I finally had a straight story as to what I'd be doing, and that I still had a month in which to think about it.

  In June I went to work for Angra, and Ann and I remained friendly. It was not until much later that we began to drift apart, as I felt increasingly that I was just an assignment for her. Circumstances sometimes seemed to indicate it, but I lacked her ability to know how someone really felt. This could have been a mistake on my part. She behaved coolly the first time that I went out with another woman, and later she presented me with a copy of Colette's Cheri. This was somewhere near the end of my tenure with Angra, but before the difficulties had arisen. I could not tell by reading that story of the young man who did not appreciate the older woman until it was too late whether it meant that she really liked me and was hurt by my behavior, or whether she was bothered by the fact that she was older than me. That's the trouble with literature. Ambiguity.

  I could look about me now and see that, true to Ann's prediction, Angra had broken the energy crisis. Only, somewhere along the line, something had gone wrong…

  "Damn!"

  I stuffed my napkin and papers into the empty cup and tossed them into a nearby waste bin. I began walking about the campus then. There were several parking lots. Should I try stealing a car?

  "Dr. Porter. About my grade…"

  I turned suddenly. I hadn't heard him approach—a thin boy with a bad complexion and long brown hair. His mouth opened.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I thought you were my professor…"

  "And you want your grade?"

  "Yes, sir. Ill be leaving in a little while, and I thought—"

  "Give me your name and section," I said. "Maybe I can help."

  "James Martin Brown," he answered. "Political Science 106."

  Tick. Tick. Terick.

  "You were carrying a B," I told him. "You pulled a B on your final. Your grade should be a B."

  His eyes widened. I smiled.

  "I work in the office," I said. "Computer. Some of the stuff sticks."

  He grinned.

  "Thanks. I can sleep easy on the train home."

  He turned and hurried off.

  Train? I'd almost forgotten the tracks nearby. Some trains carried passengers, most carried freight and some were mixed. Most were fully automated now—those hauling freight exclusively so—though, unlike the trucks, they still had a few human trouble-shooters aboard. The railroad union had held out longer than the Teamsters on this point…

  I turned my attention once more toward the distant tracks.

  I coiled… In, and back… Through, along…

  There was a train due by in a little less than an hour. But it carried passengers. Tick. There was another in about three hours. Mixed. Tickter. One in about five hours. Freight. These last two were headed for Memphis. Terick.

  I turned and began walking toward the tracks. There was a stand of trees farther to the west. I shifted my course in that direction. It seemed a good place to wait.

  I had not hunted up the boy's grade out of pure altruism. If he were questioned later about strangers on campus, I wanted him thinking of me as someone who belonged, someone who had even done him a favor. No stranger.

  I crossed the tracks and hiked on over to the trees. I located a sheltered place and sat down. Waiting there, amid shade and mosquitoes, I ran back through the system and studied the manifest for that third run. There was to be a human crew of three aboard—engine, freight and caboose. Usually, I understood, they got together in a comfortable place and played cards. The trains were as safe as the trucks. This one was scheduled to haul twenty-two filled freight cars and three empty passenger cars for delivery in Memphis.

  Where should I try to board? It depended on where the crew had located itself, a thing I hoped to discern when the unscheduled stop occurred. It would be nice to ride in one of the passenger cars, though.

  It was too soon to program in the stop. Some overzealous employee could theoretically spot it if I fooled with the train's computer too far in advance. I sat listening to the birds and watching a few clouds rise in the east. I thought of possible courses of action I might take further along the line. I thought about Cora…

  I felt the vibrations of the first train a long way off. I watched it when it finally roared by, and I listened to its rumbling fade again in the distance. I checked back and found that the others were still scheduled as they had been. For a second—just a bare second—as I did this, it seemed that I felt that shadowy presence once again, regarding me. I withdrew quickly and continued to brood upon the future.

  After a time, I dozed. I was awakened by the approach of the second train. The sun had moved farther into the west. There was a certain stiffness in my knees and shoulders. My mouth had grown dry.

  I stretched and cracked my joints and watched the other train pass. I checked once more after the freighter. On its way now, still on schedule, no changes. I programmed in the stop, using the nearest electrical mileage-marker as a guide. I wished that I had had the foresight to buy a few candy bars and a can of soda at the place back on campus. I chewed a blade of grass and tried to recall the last time I had ridden on a train.

  When it did finally arrive it began to slow on schedule. There came a squealing noise as brakes were applied, and the ground shuddered. The engine drifted past me, slowing, slowing. Several cars went on by, still slowing, and finally the entire procession ground to a halt. It stood there in the long shadows, shuddering, while I readied myself for a dash.

  I heard voices to my left. A man was climbing down from the caboose. Another followed him. The second one turned to shout something to a third person who remained aboard. The two on the ground conferred for a time, then split up and moved forward, passing along both sides of the train.

  I coiled into the computer. Someone was querying it concerning the stop at the moment I entered into it. The one who remained behind, I decided, was checking the systems while the others looked for some external cause for the halt.

  The man on my side of the train peered between the cars and looked beneath each one as he passed, apparently determined to eyeball the situation all the way up to the engine. I caused the doors of the nearest passenger car to open, dashed across, entered and released them immediately.

  There followed a long wait, as I wondered whether I had been seen. My car was dark inside, as were the other two. I crouched low in one of the seats and stared out of the window. After a number of minutes had passed, I breathed a little more easily. Still, it was another good ten minutes before I heard the crunch of gravel along the side to my right. I crouched even lower and waited for it to pass. I continued to wait. Shortly, the other passed on my left.

  I sighed, and some of the ten
sion went out of me. I checked the computer again. I did not relax completely until a "Hold" order was removed and the train gave a lurch. Slowly, we ground forward. The motion grew more even, we began to pick up speed. I sat up straight again.

  When our speed grew uniform, I rose and inspected all three cars. I decided to locate myself in the most forward one, so that I might hear the sounds of anyone approaching from the rear. I was not sure that I would be able to, over all of the other noises, but it made me feel a little safer.

  Then I settled myself and clicked, ticked and dericked my way back into the central computer for the region, where I removed all memory of the train's unscheduled halt and replaced it with the simple fact that we were running late. I watched the correction order formulated and transmitted. I felt the train pick up speed as the adjustment was made. If no human observer had spotted the situation before I'd cleaned it up, I was relatively safe. I felt that I was learning to mask myself properly.

  I watched the countryside roll past me. This far, this far now I had made it. I began to feel that I had a small chance.

  "Cora, I'm coming," I said.

  The wheels chuckled mechanically. The sun plunged toward another extinction, above my goal.

  Chapter 12

  The telegraphic ragtime of the clicking wheels lulled me. I was not sleepy, having rested sufficiently while I awaited the train. But a kind of mental numbness came over me and my limbs felt heavy. It was a reaction, I suppose, to the furious pace of the past several days. Too many events, crowded too closely together. I had burned a lot of adrenalin, lived and relived a lot of trauma. I knew that there was more to come, but my mind rebelled at considering it I just wanted to sit there, thinking of nothing, watching the dark countryside pass. For a long while, this is exactly what I did.

  I had my hands clasped behind my head and my feet stretched out before me.

  As to how much time had passed since I'd boarded, I was uncertain. I was for a time simply enjoying the great Taoist principle of wu wei—doing nothing—when suddenly I was in a garden. It seemed an awkward time for Enlightenment to have been thrust suddenly upon me, and so I was immediately wary.

  There were vivid images of flowers all about me and a mixture of their fragrances came strongly to me. Despite my wariness I was, for several moments, overwhelmed. It was a senses-assaulting floral chaos.

  "Ann?" I said, seeking stability. "What is it this time?"

  But there was nothing more—only the maddening riot of colors and aromas, changing now as if a bizarre kaleidoscope were being slowly turned.

  Then a voiceless note of fear burst forth, filling my brain. I felt Ann's presence behind it, though it seemed as if only a part of her attention were turned in my direction.

  "Ann?"

  "Yes. Troubles," I seemed to hear her say, and then there was a vague sensation of pain.

  Abruptly, the flowers began to fade, the aromas grew more delicate…

  "… Hurts. There! Stopped him!"

  "Ann! What the hell's going on?"

  "He's here… Willy Boy's come for me."

  And then there was a rearrangement of my senses. I was with her, in a way we had shared only a few times in the past. I found myself a guest within her mind, looking out through her eyes, listening with her ears, feeling her physical distress…

  We were in an apartment, a fairly large one. I had no idea where it was located. Peripheral vision showed me that it was elegantly furnished, but our gaze was fixed upon Willy Boy, who leaned against the wall in an entranceway, a wide living room away from us. He was slightly hunched and breathing heavily. A half-wall separated us from what seemed to be a small kitchen area. To the right, a large window looked out upon a brightly lit skyline I could not identify—though I felt it was somewhere in the East. Off in the distance was her computer-cum-telephone-etcetera, or "home unit" as almost everyone called them these days. We stood before a light brown leather sofa, leaning upon a Moroccan table. There was a pain in our chest, but we were giving as well as receiving.

  "Sister, I can see your point," Willy Boy was saying, "but you're only delayin' things, that's all."

  Ann threw more force into the hallucination she was creating for him. She was causing him to experience violent chest pains, apparently as real-seeming to him as the actual ones he had commenced within her. He seemed to find it very distracting. He had just let up on his own efforts, giving her a few moments to go looking for me, to bring me to her.

  "A weapon, Ann! That heavy ashtray, the lamp—anything! Brain him!" I said. "Switch to the physical. Knock him out. It'll stop him. Push your advantage!"

  "I—can't," she told me. "It's taking everything I've got to hold him…"

  "Then go kick him in the balls! Jab those long fingernails into his eyes! He'll kill you if you don't take him out!"

  "I know," she said. "But if I get any nearer the advantage will be his. The closer you get, the greater his strength."

  "Do you have a gun?"

  "No."

  "Can you get to the kitchen and get a knife?"

  "He's closer to the kitchen than I am. It's no good."

  I had distracted her. I felt a burning within her chest, a pain in the arm—similar to that which I had experienced at the terminal. She projected a full-scale image of it back upon him, and he raised his hand to press his palm against his own chest.

  "I think he has a real heart condition," she said. "I can play on his fear and muddy his mind."

  "For how long?"

  "I don't know."

  I searched frantically for a way to help her. In a sudden rush I remembered how much I had once cared for her.

  "Your phone number—what is it?"

  As it occurred within her mind, Willy Boy pushed himself away from the wall and took several steps toward her. She hit him again and he sagged.

  "You can't save me," she said. "That is not why I reached for you."

  "We have to fight," I told her. "I'm going to try."

  "I know that. But he is too strong. It is only a matter of time. I want something you showed me earlier. Something stronger than my flowers—a world that is cold and metal and filled with electricity and logic. I want to embrace the machines, and only you can take me to them."

  "Follow me," I said, even as Matthews began to straighten once more.

  Derick. Tick. Cantaterclick.

  For a moment, the Coil Effect seemed to merge with the rhythms of the train, and I was dimly aware of a new-risen moon touching the fields beyond the glass to a pearly texture as I wound my way into the train's computer and plunged through the linkages that followed the track, back, back to the regional control center, back…

  Clack.

  I raced through a spreading map of the territory, looking for incoming and outgoing routes…

  Telephone line hookups were what I was after. I just had to find the right one, had to get into the telephone system itself…

  Ann was with me, too dazed to protest, if she wished to, at the blinding speed, the bewildering sensations, as I sped through a number of false starts, up blind alleys and back, moving at a pace I had never before essayed, until I located what I was looking for.

  Even as I did this, I became aware of the recurrence of her chest pains. Willy Boy wasn't losing any time at all.

  … An infinity of bright bees burned all about me, analogue to all the dial tones. They winked into and out of existence—virtual bees—and within the clacking and buzzing my mind supplied the ringing, the chiming, of multitudes of bells…

  I located and activated the mechanism for placing a call. Her number, I learned as I tripped the relay, was in Ridgewood, New Jersey. In the instant between my activation of the circuit and the actual ringing of her unit, between her pain, the swaying train and the image of Willy Boy advancing, I became aware of the observer. That silent, dark presence I had sensed in the past was with us again, drawing nearer, watching…

  The unit rang. It distracted the lumbering ex-preacher. Ma
tthews stopped and glanced at it, looked back at Ann. She was breathing heavily and perspiring now, bent forward, one hand still upon the table, supporting herself, the other pressed against her chest. The ache and the tightness had begun to ebb by the fourth ring, though she was too occupied with the pain and the present focus of her attention to reassert her earlier illusion.

  It rang again. How many had she set the damned thing for, anyway?

  On the sixth ring her computer answered it with a recording and offered to take a message. As soon as that occurred, I was able to find my way into the computer and to take stock of the things it controlled.

  Willy Boy turned suddenly at a noise from the kitchen. It was only the automatic toaster setting itself, breadless, to work. He strode back in that direction and looked around the corner.

  "Run, Ann!" I told her. "Try to get out the door!"

  "Too weak, Steve," she said. "I'd fall on my face."

  "Try!"

  She let go the table and swayed. I felt her dizziness. She collapsed upon the sofa.

  "Take a deep breath and try again."

  She began to comply, but Matthews was already turning back.

  "Why is he doing this to you?" I asked.

  The buzzer on the microwave stove filled the air with a nasty, insistent sound.

  Willy Boy turned again, apparently unable to concentrate, and entered the kitchen.

  "I didn't tell The Boss that you were still alive," she said. "But he found out from the wreck, decided he couldn't trust me any more. I could see in his mind that he was afraid I might—take your side. Decided not to give me the chance… God! what a beautiful world the network is! I'd rather read machines than people. I wish I'd been born with your power instead—"

  The buzzing stopped.

  "Sister, I don't know how you managed that," Matthews said, entering from the kitchen. "But you're only prolongin'—"

  I turned off all the lights. I heard him curse.

  "Try to pull yourself together enough to make a run for it," I said.

  The lights were on dimmers. I began cycling them on and off rapidly, producing a strobe effect. Matthews' movements seemed almost comically jerky as he threw up an arm, covered his eyes, then tried shading them. He took a step forward and halted.