by Ben Bova
THX gunned the jetcar onto the expressway, howling down the huge tunnel to… where? Upward. Up to the first level, where the powerplants rumbled and the radioactivity level was high enough to be lethal if you stayed for more than a few hours.
And beyond that?
The traffic monitor grimaced and shook his head as he watched the huge electronic map spread out on the wall display in front of him. One yellow blip—THX’s car—was the center of his attention.
“Expressway 291,” he said into his lip mike. “Clear all traffic. Mercicontrol police request full clearance in apprehension procedure. Divert all traffic to link 4833—cross to web 2.”
THX heard the monitor’s commands. His radar screen chimed. Glancing down at it, he saw two blips far to the rear of him.
“Electrocycles 1048 and 1050 dispatched to apprehend fugitive 1138 prefix THX.”
“Predicted route of flight will be transferred to web 3 at 3:47.”
“Proceed. Execute.”
Electrocycles couldn’t catch a turbine-driven jetcar, THX knew. But as if in answer to his thought, the car began to make strange noises. The engine was thumping, clunking. Indicators on the control panel began flashing red. The engine’s overheating. Automatically, the car slowed down.
THX frantically scanned the panel. There must be some way…
“Radar fix on stolen Samos 327115. Range, five kilometers.”
He tried every knob and switch on the control panel, but the overheat indicator stayed stubbornly red. The engine whined down. The car glided to a stop.
“Subject vehicle appears to have stopped in expressway 291. Subject has ceased flight. Report when fugitive is in custody.”
The two yellow blips on the radar screen were drawing steadily closer. It would only be a matter of minutes before they were on top of him.
There was a switch marked Cool, but whenever THX hit it, freezing air swirled around him and the engine temperature indicator stayed firmly in the danger zone, glaring balefully at him. His hand touched the switch marked Fuel Recirc, and the red lights on the panel suddenly began winking off. The engine growled again, then steadied to a sweet purring. The last red light turned green, and THX hit the throttle. The car leaped forward.
“Subject jetcar Samos 327115 appears to be moving again. Range increasing.”
The radar dots fell behind him again as he zoomed through the express tunnel and up the rampway that led to the first level. A warning sounded in his earphones.
“You are approaching a restricted area. Danger of radioactivity extreme. Turn back at the next interloop.”
THX ignored the warning. He glanced at the radar screen. The electrocycles stayed firmly behind him. Robots didn’t fear radioactivity. Or did they?
Where to? Where to? THX asked himself. There’s nothing left for me in this world. Nothing at all. Can’t stay on Level One. Can’t live in the superstructure. Can’t return below.
“Subject vehicle is entering construction area 36J. Passage through this expressway section is closed. Contact operator at once.”
“Alert construction personnel. Samos 327115 approaching. Evacuate area.”
“Attention Samos 327115. Stop your vehicle. Warning! Warning! Stop your vehicle. You are approaching a work area. Do you read? Respond.”
Is it a trick?
Suddenly there was a barrier up ahead with construction equipment strewn across the roadway behind it. OMM’s voice broke in.
“Everything will be all right. You are in my hands. You have nowhere to go. I am here to protect you. You have nowhere to go. Nowhere…”
The radar bonged emergency, red lights flashed on the control panel, and the car’s collision avoidance system automatically cut the engine and fired the retrobrakes.
The jetcar skidded sideways, bounced off one wall of the tunnel and screeched to a stop against the barrier.
Before THX stopped rattling in his seat harness, the first police cycle hummed around the slight curve of the tunnel, tried to stop, and slid sideways into the wall. The robot went over backwards with the cycle on top of him. The second cycle came an instant later, it the wreckage of the first. The robot went flying through the air and slammed into the side of THX’s car.
Control was absolutely livid.
“Morons!” he spat. “Absolute idiots! To let one frightened man consistently wriggle out of your grasp… the cost of apprehending one man… and it’s still not accomplished…” He became incoherent.
On the giant wall screen, he watched—speechlessly—as THX emerged from the ruined jetcar, looked around shakily. One of the robots, the one that had been on the first bike, was getting to its feet. It looked dusty and crumpled, but it was still functioning.
THX hopped over the barrier and sprinted past the abandoned construction equipment. Another camera, farther down the expressway tunnel, picked him up running toward it. Control dialed for a close-up of the fugitive’s face, and the camera obediently zoomed in on THX. He looked weary, out of breath, close to exhaustion. But not afraid. No longer afraid. Determined.
Control shook his head and reached for the sedatives lined up in gaudy plastic vials behind his desk. Why can’t men with that much strength work for us?
The robot was trailing him. Looking over his shoulder, THX could see that now both robots were hobbling after him. One of them was limping noticeably and clanking with a grating, grinding noise; the other was missing an arm. But both of them doggedly pursued him like some inevitable fate.
“We only want to help you. You have nothing to be afraid of. Please come back. We won’t harm you.” There was a ladder up ahead, steel rungs projecting from the metal wall. It stretched up so far that THX couldn’t tell where it ended. But it went up. With another glance at his pursuers, he grabbed the rungs and started climbing.
So did the robots.
“You cannot survive in the superstructure. You will destroy yourself if you continue. Come back with us.”
THX kept climbing.
“Monetary unit total: 25,000 and rising, please place a priority transfer of assessment.”
“Surrender to the authorities. You have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
“Attention. All operations on fugitive 1138 prefix THX are cancelled. Subject operations have been declared economically inefficient. Unlimited liability. All annuities are to be written off. The account on 1138 prefix THX is closed. Transfer officers to operation 327.”
THX hearing the command voice from the robots themselves, stopped climbing and hung on the ladder, panting and sweat-drenched. He looked down and saw that the robots had stopped, too.
“We have to go back. This is your last chance to return with us. You have nowhere to go.”
“You cannot survive outside the city. Come back with us.”
For an answer, THX resumed climbing. He didn’t even hesitate. He continued upward, rung by painful rung. If he was headed toward death, then so what? Nothing but death awaited him below—even if he should live a thousand years in that inferno below him.
For a long time he heard nothing except his own labored breathing, felt only the gritty metal rungs in his hands, smelled his own sweat. He kept climbing, climbing.
Toward self-destruction.
Chapter 22
It was dirty up in the superstructure. Dirty, hot and muggy. There were no corridors, only a vast open area crisscrossed with structural beams and low overhangs of metal or stone. Dust and grime covered everything.
THX stumbled over something half-buried in filth. Bones… a human ribcage. He backed away.
The light up here was strange. Shafts of weird, concentrated light seemed to slant through the superstructure here and there, filled with dust motes that danced and nickered. In between there were pools of shadow.
And the light was fading, weakening noticeably. The shadows were getting darker, deeper, encompassing everything.
THX was hungry. And so tired. With a shudder of distaste, he sat down in a dust-covered nook made by the angl
e of a heavy steel I-beam. Despite the heat, he was trembling. He leaned his head back against the grimy beam and was almost instantly asleep.
Scrabbling noises woke him.
It was dark! Absolutely black, no lights at all. THX had never seen such darkness before.
Something was out there. He could hear something moving around, softly, snuffling in the blackness. More than one of them. He stayed absolutely still, listening, wishing his heart wouldn’t pound so hard.
Something touched his outstretched foot. With an involuntary yell, THX yanked his foot back and swung out at the darkness. His hand hit something soft and furry. A throaty yelp and scampering sounds skittering away from him.
Shelldwellers! he realized.
Gradually, as his eyes became accustomed to the dark, he could make out the faintest glints of them. Their eyes watching him.
He pushed himself to a standing position, being careful to remain within the slight protection of the I-beam’s shape. And there he stood, for hours, warily watching the shelldwellers who snuffled and padded around him uncertainly.
Why don’t they do something? he wondered. And then he realized that they were doing something: they were waiting. Wailing for exhaustion or hunger to do their work for them. Why fight a giant when the giant will soon enough collapse?
The darkness seemed to be not so bad now. After a long time, it definitely appeared to be getting brighter all through the superstructure. Not truly light, nothing like the glareless eternal light of the lower levels or even the strong shafts of odd light that had spotted the superstructure hours earlier. It was grayish faint half-light, cold and somehow damp-feeling.
But it was enough to see the shelldwellers. Four of them were squatting, hairy and wild, a dozen meters from THX. They carried no weapons. They were small and gnarled-looking.
“Go away!” THX shouted at them. “Leave me alone.”
They didn’t move.
Only four of them, he thought. If I don’t chase them, they’ll wait for me to fall asleep or collapse from hunger.
With a deep intake of breath, he gathered his strength and rushed at them. They scattered, shrieking.
He laughed and watched them disappear into the distance. Then something fell on his back from above and hot teeth bit into his shoulder. Something else dropped on him and he went down.
They were all over him, biting and tearing at him with their nails. THX roared and pulled one of them off, flailed at the others, fought his way to his knees. The shelldwellers swarmed over him—six, eight, he couldn’t tell how many.
They had tricked him into coming out into the open where they could attack him. The back of his mind raged at his own stupidity, and his fury carried over into his fighting. He bowled them over, got to his feet and picked two of them up, one in each hand, and hurled them away. He kicked and swung and slapped at them. He used one of them as a club to split the skull of another. He roared and snapped and fought like any jungle beast.
They fled. They dragged one of their members with them, leaving two others laying inertly on the filth-strewn floor. THX stood there trembling, feeling trickles of blood on his shoulder, his face, his legs. His hands were bruised and raw.
They’ll be back, he knew.
The light was stronger now, almost the way it was when he had first come up to the superstructure. But the light seemed to be falling in a different way, opposite the direction it had been slanting in before.
THX shook his head. Can’t stay here, he realized, thinking of the shelldwellers. Might as well make an end of it and go Outside.
He walked shakily, still bleeding, toward the nearest shaft of light. Looking up, he saw an access tunnel with a ladder built into its side. Through some sort of grill-work at the top he could see a grayish blue color.
Probably one breath of the poisonous air Outside and it’ll be all over, he thought. But what else is there? Better that than being eaten by the shelldwellers.
He climbed the ladder slowly, though, almost reluctantly. The grillwork was rusted shut and he almost felt relieved. But with grim stubbornness he pushed against it, first with one hand, then both, then with his back wedged against it, straining sweatily against the gritty bars.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-ba876e-18cb-f546-c99f-4512-c0f9-d5be8f
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 13.02.2011
Created using: Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software
Document authors :
Verdi1
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
