Silhouette

by Dave Swavely

  The thought of Lynette caused the anger to flare again, and once again it distracted me from the other feelings that were flowing. I reached down to pull Tara’s hands off me, but when I lifted them, she managed to clasp them together with mine. I didn’t want to jerk them apart, so now, despite my best efforts, we were holding hands in public.

  “Don’t you have another man, after all this time?” I asked, not knowing where else to go.

  “I’ve had many, actually,” she answered. “But they’re not you.” She squeezed my hands and leaned closer. “I know you can never forget me.”

  “That may be, but—” A tech walked by near us, holding his head rigidly straight in a rather conspicuous manner. “Could I have my hands back, Tara?” She bristled again, but let go.

  You cannot have my hands because they don’t belong to you, I should have said. You will never have my hand or any part of me again. It’s over. Forever. If you have to get another job, get another job. Maybe I will. But I didn’t say that, gutless fool that I am. Instead, I tried to take the sting out of it for her, and added, “This isn’t the place for that, right?”

  She sat back in her chair and assumed a more professional demeanor.

  “I relive that night last year over and over again,” she said. “It was great, even though it was missing one important thing.”

  We had gone out to dinner and caught half a concert at Golden Gate Park, spending most of the time talking on the steps of one of the nearby museums. She had asked me out many times before, and I always had an excuse to say no, but for some reason that night I had agreed to go with her. When she wanted to drive me to her place rather than back to the castle, however, I told her it was too late, and she said if I kept telling her no, then someday it might be too late. I had to actually open the door and step out of the car a couple of blocks from the castle and walk the rest of the way, because she seemed unable to bring herself to drop me off there.

  “Tara,” I said, leaning forward and pushing my chair back a little. It’s over. It’s over. That means it’s over. O-V-E-R. Don’t talk to me again, don’t wait for me. I love my wife.… “I have so much on my mind right now,” was what I actually said. “We need to talk sometime. But now is not the time.” I pushed myself up and out of the chair before she could intervene, and took a step away.

  “Okay, let’s talk,” she said hopefully.

  I cleared my throat, nodded, and walked away, determined not to look back.

  I hit the nearest elevator and headed for the Confinement Center. On my way, I made a few calls to put the finishing touches on the Red Tunnel assault plan, priming a veritable army of bugs, falcons, mirrored tanks, and armored peacers who were now either on call or already in position.

  As I rode the underground walkway connecting the castle to its neighboring building, I looked up at the cathedral through the transteel ceiling, which was reflective on the other side, providing more light at night for the courtyard on the surface. The charcoal-gray towers and reliefs of the old Gothic building were even more impressive from this far down—the view serving as a reminder to BASS employees about how lucky they were, and where they could end up if they ever crossed their employer … like I was planning to do.

  * * *

  The private conference room where I met Korcz was well inside the cathedral, but not as far as the cells themselves, which were in the very center, stretching down about ten stories below the ground. The husky, pockmarked man looked sober and worried, but I could tell he was glad to be free of the isolation of his cubicle, even though he’d only been in for less than a day. Saul Rabin’s philosophy of incarceration differed significantly from the conventional wisdom that had developed during the last century, where inmates were allowed to live together in increasingly comfortable environments. The Mayor, on the other hand, thought that jail should be a place where one did not want to go, or stay. This retro-historical approach had caught on with a few of the new prisons here in the West, to which we happily sent the criminals who dared to defy any of our rules or simply needed a longer lesson.

  “No one has told me anything.” Korcz spoke first, his Euro-Russian accent muffled just slightly by the porous transteel wall between us. He wore a big bandage behind his ear, where my stopper had hit him. “I do not know why I am here. I do not know when I am leafing.”

  “Shouldn’t you say ‘if’ you are leaving?” I said. “You did resist arrest. Under city law, as you well know, we could have killed you when you drew your guns.”

  “If I am leafing, then,” he said. “Am I leafing?”

  “If you answer a few questions, yes.”

  “I will try,” he said warily, and my wheels started turning, wondering if I could get the information I wanted without tipping my hand to Big Brother. There were more cameras here in the cathedral than in the castle, most of them hidden. The old man could be watching me now, I thought; or come across anything I say in his voyeuristic tape reviews. Fortunately, I could act like I was investigating D’s murder, which to any observer would reinforce the impression that I was still in the dark about it.

  “Darien Anthony died two nights ago,” I said. “Did you know that?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “But only on the plane here. I saw on the news.”

  “Did you think that had something to do with your arrest, when it was happening?”

  “Indirectly,” he said. “I never would have thought that I was a suspect, but I did fear that without him my past was … ah, how do you say it … catching up on me.”

  “Your crime had been forgiven,” I reminded him.

  “Perhaps by Darien … ah, Mr. Anthony. But not everyone at BASS is so merciful.”

  “Mr. Anthony’s decision was official,” I said.

  “Perhaps, but an official decision is not necessarily a final one, danyet?” He looked up. “That can only come from the top.”

  “Why would you think our executive officers would be that capricious?” I included Paul in the question to obscure the fact that I wanted Korcz’s opinion of his father. The bandaged man shrugged.

  “I heard too many things when I was here, and saw a few, too. There is something rotten on this hill.” He looked around and then looked back at me. “Maybe you are the one who stinks, ah? I thought it was higher than Anthony—but now you are higher than Anthony. Heh.”

  “I ask this because I’m still having trouble buying your supposed motives for running,” I said, not really for Korcz but for any possible observers. “But tell me further about why you’re so paranoid about the leaders here.”

  “I heard rumors, some from good sources, about plans that were made”—he pressed on the bandage, as if he was afraid it might fall off—“to do something to us that only devils would do.”

  I felt the tingling sensation in my spine that happened only once in a while, when an interrogation was about to become something other than a total waste of time.

  “What on earth could that possibly be?” I said, trying to sound incredulous and condescending.

  “Some wetware shadow op with the smocks here in the church,” he said, “so they could torque with our brains.”

  “Oh really,” I said with a sarcastic tone and a slight smile. “I suppose this conspiracy had a secret name.”

  “I am not sure,” he answered, irritated at my indifference. “But I heard it was called ROM 717.” This was curious: Paul had said it was called Mind Lift. But I was glad for anything that might lead me to more information than I had been able to get so far.

  “ROM seven one seven? Like read-only memory?”

  “Maybe,” Korcz said. “But from what I heard, I think it’s from, ah … we call it ‘beebliyah’?”

  “The Bible?” I asked, and he nodded. Not again, I thought initially, but then realized that this information was probably legit, because it seemed to fit with what I had heard from Kim and D’s Twotter file about the religious undercurrent in the “first family.”

  “So then ROM 717
would mean … what?” I asked, careful to seem bored and amused rather than genuinely interested.

  “Do I look like someone who reads books like that?” he asked, and I thought, I don’t know what you would look like. Saul Rabin doesn’t look like that kind of person. “But I would like to go now, please, before something like that happens to me.”

  “Korcz, listen to me,” I said, leaning forward. “I don’t believe this bloody fairy tale for one minute. And you shouldn’t, either. I know the Rabins, and I know me, and we have nothing but the best in mind for our personnel.” I sat back up, admiring my next move. “Just to show you how harmless and gracious we are, you can leave right now with your record wiped clean.”

  He stared at me, then glanced to the left and right briefly.

  “Go on,” I concluded, standing up to leave. “Tell your parents we’re sorry for what happened. And have a nice vacation.”

  * * *

  I wore the glasses through the security checks on the way out, issuing the final mobilization orders for the assault forces. Twitch was on duty again, excited about another chance to exercise his new falcon command, but also eager to be the first to employ the prototype bugs in an actual combat situation. His enthusiasm was contagious—I found myself forgetting all about Lynette, Lynn, Tara, and the old man as I high-stepped through the elevators to the staging sight, looking forward to releasing some of the aggression pent up inside me.

  “Just between me and you, sir,” the young falconer said to me, though we both knew that other agents were on the line. “The Red Tunnel should have been cleaned out a long time ago.”

  “Just between me and you, Twitch,” I said, “I hope they resist arrest.”

  10

  It felt good to be involved in a military operation again, for the first time in many years, and I found the preparations for battle especially cathartic. Sitting a hundred feet under Divisadero Street in the part of the Red Tunnel that the squatters hadn’t taken, watching the men and machines deploy at various locations on the bank of screens in front of me, I remembered Taiwan. The adrenaline now was just a trickle compared to the rush back then, but it felt good anyway. There is less excitement when you know you’re going to win a fight, but on the other hand, the absence of any real fear heightens the pleasure considerably.

  On the way to the tunnel, I had stopped at a net room, where I offered several major media outlets the first rights to information going what was going to happen, in exchange for their promise to air something I gave to them as a part of their reports. I changed into clothes that were semibulletproof (but looked basically the same), and moved the boas to the front and switched them so that the killer was now ready for my right hand. This was only in case something went desperately wrong, which was highly unlikely. The squatters were severe underdogs, if they even resisted us, but sometimes the worst odds could be beaten.

  Twitch’s leg was shaking feverishly again as he put the finishing touches on the bug prep. The tiny flying cameras were our latest innovation in the Sabon antigravity technology, and this was their first serious real-life test, which was one reason why I didn’t have them loaded with explosives, though I would have liked to. I also needed Harris and his home intact so that I could get rid of the evidence in my datafold in the way I had planned. Gassing the whole place had been ruled out for the same reason, plus the fact that I was concerned about a negative reaction from the public. This way would be much better for PR, especially if they put up a fight.

  “Okay, we’re ready,” Twitch said finally, and looked at me, his leg still vibrating. I nodded, and he touched his handpad, diving into cyberspace. His leg and the rest of his body became still, as did the other members of his team, and some of the screens came alive with swirling sample images from the bugs. I couldn’t make out their locations by looking at the screens, because the images shook so violently, but I knew that more than five hundred of them were entering the tunnel’s delta through five different air ducts. They separated and swept through the entire delta in a matter of minutes, transmitting everything they scanned back to the mainframe, which collated the data and organized it into a “report” that soon appeared on the screen bank and in the glasses of the many agents waiting at various points around the squatters.

  “How did we do?” I asked a tech near me as Twitch transitioned slowly back into reality.

  “Forty-three percent redundancy, and about fifty of them died before full reel, so we’re far from optimal. But the composite picture is good. We know what it looks like in there, and we know where their weapons are.”

  I told him to show me, and soon a screen in front of me displayed a depiction of the big central room of the delta, as if I were walking through it. The new residents had left the thick red lines on the floor and walls (hence “Red Tunnel”) and surrounded them with bizarre graffiti. They had also added makeshift rooms on the outside, the walls of which could be identified because they had graffiti but no red lines. Each squatter figure that came into view in my virtual stroll was frozen motionless, but some were adorned with flashing red lights, superimposed by the software, which announced that they were armed. There was also a big clump of red spots on the wall of one of the makeshift rooms I passed, indicating that a stash of weapons was stored somewhere inside of it.

  “Show me Harris’s lair,” I said, and the view began to fast-forward through the big room, until it came to gaze upon one wall, which was completely transparent, making it the best feat of engineering the squatters had accomplished. On the other side of the transteel was Harris, sitting in the middle of what looked like a computer junkyard. Screens were all around him, but lower in the front and on the left so that he could see out through the wall and greet visitors who came through the door to the room, which was on the left. The red blips told me that he had at least two guns in there with him.

  I left the virtual image on the screen, imagining Harris in his room, and had the tech dial him.

  “My precious!” said the freak, he and his tattoos appearing live on another screen. “What in Mary’s Armpit was that?”

  “That was our newest toy,” I answered. “A swarm of plasteel insects that scanned your entire hideout before you could blink. As I’m sure you know, the Eye is not as effective as usual because you’re underground. But thanks to the bugs, we now know every inch of this potential battleground better than you do, and the exact quantity and nature of your ordnance, so I’d like to suggest—one time only—that you surrender immediately to the BASS forces gathered outside your cityside entrance.”

  Please say no, I thought.

  “You want me to say no, I can tell,” Harris said, appearing thoughtful for a moment, until he showed me his dental artwork again in an exaggerated smile. “You gave me a not-so-Distant Early Warning, so let me return the favor. If you huff and puff and blow our doors down, I guarantee you will regret it. We will broadcast the whole Shebang, and you will have some casualties. And if you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Better just let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be…” He went on singing, but I could tell that underneath the bravado, he was afraid, like a bill he couldn’t pay had finally come due. But his comment about casualties did make me wonder how he was planning to accomplish that. He was just crazy and smart enough to have something up his sleeve.

  “Well, in that case, maybe we should talk some more,” I said and went on to ask him a question. But as I did, I showed Twitch and the nearby commander two fingers, which had the effect of moving the team of puppeteers into cyberspace and the rest of our forces into their final positions. All the screens around the image of Harris lit up with a menagerie of views from birds and men, and when I saw the commander hold out three of his fingers, I met them with four of my own, and suddenly the screens went from motionless to manic. Some flashed brightly as a number of closed-off passages around the perimeter of the delta were blasted open, including the blocked part of the main tunnel that led into it. T
he noise of that big blast drowned out the smaller ones, especially since we were closest to it, and the earth shook hard for a few seconds.

  Harris immediately clicked off when he heard it, so I was able to watch the screens as I slipped my glasses on and imported the three or four that I thought would give me the best overview of the action.

  Through each of the five new holes in the outer walls of the delta shot a falcon and then two peacers, camouflaged by the clouds of smoke and dust caused by the blasts. These squads moved through the tributary hallways, following directions predetermined by the bug data, firing stopper rounds at anything that moved, and throwing “bore bombs” at every closed door. These were golf-ball-size grenades that attached to whatever surface they hit, then burned through to the other side and sprayed that room with a knockout gas that was undaunted by most masks known to man.

  Through the section of the tunnel that had been cleared, and into the big central room, rolled a small fleet of custom “tunnel tanks,” as we had called them during the preparations for the op. Each of the minivan-size vehicles held four gunmen and a pilot, completely surrounded by an armored shell that was transparent from the inside but mirrored on the outside. Their guns poked through flexible patches of the mirrored armor, so that they could easily see and shoot anyone on their side of the tank, while their opponents were being disoriented by the reflections of themselves and other parts of their environment. When the squatters who were armed did manage to fire at the tanks, their low-tech bullets and shells were easily repelled by the armor. The mirrored surfaces also prevented the use of lasers.

  The feed I was watching most during the battle was one from inside a tank, looking over the shoulder of a gunman. I found the lopsided turkey shoot quite satisfying, especially when a long stream of stoppers from his big rifle laid waste to a hastily erected barricade, and then reached the squatters who had been shooting from behind it. It was unlikely that they would survive the hail, because so many of the rubbery Xs had hit them before the gunman moved on to his next target. Looking beyond the immediate scene, I briefly made out one of the other tanks, which looked like a shimmering blur as it raced along the outside of the big room, firing more bore bombs at the doors of the rooms the squatters had built there.