City Wars

by Dennis Palumbo

  The man at the far end of the room spoke over the spire of his fingertips. “As I understand it, Minister, these attacks were in the form of antipersonnel energy cones?”

  “That’s correct,” Gilcrest replied. He took a folder from the table and opened it. “The Chroniclers all concur that the deaths were caused by low-level cobalt cones. Came out of the sky like meteors, from what I heard.” He looked up. “For the purposes of Records, I might mention the names of the citizens who met their deaths in this tragic fashion. Dennis Logun. George Weston. And Mildred Cunningham. Got that, Records?”

  A speaker embedded in the wall just beyond where he stood crackled. The voice was metallic. “Recorded, sir.”

  “Now,” Gilcrest went on, “the problem—”

  The man at the far end spoke again. “The problem, as I see it, is with this Government.”

  Some of the officials turned to stare at the man who’d made this statement.

  Gilcrest blew ash out of his wiry gray mustache. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Hadrian?”

  The man he’d addressed as Hadrian rose, an almost military stiffness in his stance. His features seemed to grow darker still, though he was smiling.

  At which point Cassandra, unnoticed by anyone in the room, bent her knees slightly and tensed the muscles in her calves.

  “I mean no disrespect, of course,” Hadrian said. “However, it seems apparent to me that the only recourse to a deliberate attack from a foreign city-state is direct retaliation.”

  Gilcrest spread his hands. “But against whom, Mr. Hadrian? Or is your department privy to some special intelligence on the matter that has yet to come to the attention of this gathering?”

  Hadrian shook his head. “Nothing that passes through Weapons Division does so without coming under Government scrutiny.”

  “I’m sure that’s a relief to all of us, Mr. Hadrian. Now, about the retaliation you spoke of—”

  “The enemy is New York City, sir. Surely that is obvious.”

  “How so? Both New York and Washington have severed relations with us. If you’re going to point a finger, why not—”

  “But Washington’s move was clearly a matter of self-preservation. They had to align themselves with New York’s position, lest that city destroy them. Merely because it has broken off with us, it’s not valid to assume that Washington has any pact with New York.”

  “There’s no proof to what you’re saying, Hadrian. Even if I’m inclined to agree with you, we can’t act on mere supposition.”

  “Then what do you propose, Minister?”

  Hadrian’s voice held a challenge. It did not go unnoticed by the assembly. Nor, as Cassandra could see, by Gilcrest, who drew himself up and chose his next words carefully.

  “I propose, Mr. Hadrian, to verify to the satisfaction of this Government the origin of these recent attacks, so that we can better prepare ourselves for any which might conceivably follow. I propose to do this by calling upon the services of Captain Jake Bowman, whom you may recall served so capably as Assistant Tactics Coordinator in the last days of the War.”

  Gilcrest glanced at the row of faces at the conference table, gratified at what he saw.

  Cassandra smiled to herself. The old man had scored nicely against this man Hadrian. Jake Bowman had been quite a popular figure during the War.

  But Hadrian had something more to say.

  “While I applaud your course of action, Minister, I am concerned about both the whereabouts and reliability of Captain Bowman. If I may say so, I understand his personal habits have become questionable since the time of his active commission.”

  Minister Weitzel chuckled knowingly behind a small, upraised hand.

  Gilcrest ignored him.

  “You don’t have to tell me about Jake,” he said to Hadrian. “I know him better than most men. When all hell’s broken loose, and bombs and soldiers are flying about like kindling in a storm, Jake can put things in order and make them go. Maybe now, in peacetime …” His voice lowered. “Well, some people handle that sort of thing better than others.”

  Hadrian was nodding, as though considering this last. “All well and good, sir, but—”

  “No buts, goddamn it!” In his sudden anger, the old man seemed to billow with the folds of his cloak. “I’m not going to send the combined might of Chicago Land and Air Services at Manhattan Island on the basis of your considered opinion. Not without getting some solid intelligence on these attacks, as well as a fairly good indication of their next probable occurrence—and for that kind of information, Jake Bowman is the best.”

  The effort seemed to take something out of him. Cassandra was startled to hear his sudden heavy intakes of breath.

  The Minister of Commerce spoke up then. “I feel Minister Gilcrest is right. It is much too early to form any opinions.”

  Gilcrest’s tone was weary but bemused.

  “Thank you for your support, Minister,” he said.

  Minister Weitzel gestured, as though about to say more. Then, abruptly, he settled back in his seat.

  Hadrian nodded in Weiztel’s direction.

  “Very well,” he said softly. “But there is still the problem of Bowman’s whereabouts.”

  Gilcrest stirred. “It might be a problem at that. Though I have every confidence in Cassandra. If anyone can find Bowman, a Guardian can. Isn’t that right, Cass?”

  Cassandra was momentarily startled, but she managed a confident smile. “No great difficulty, sir.”

  Hadrian folded his arms and regarded Cassandra, as though for the first time acknowledging her presence.

  “And where, if I may ask, do you intend to find Captain Bowman? My information is that he hasn’t been to his apartment in days.”

  Cassandra met Hadrian’s gaze. “Bowman is strictly Service. Now inactive, discontented. If he hasn’t been in his rooms, he’s touring the bars. Which, I’ll admit, gives him quite a few hiding places.”

  Hadrian turned to his side. “Well, then, perhaps my assistant can give you a hand. Am I correct, Wilkins?”

  The slight man with the glasses looked up from his notes. His smile was perfunctory, as was his manner.

  “You might try Corrigan’s Bar on Third Street, Guardian,” he said. “Mr. Hadrian anticipated that this assembly would endeavor to locate Captin Bowman, so we’ve had him scouted.”

  Gilcrest leaned forward across the table, his arms startlingly white against the violet of his cloak. He stared at Wilkins but said nothing.

  Wilkins went on: “Prior to coming to this meeting, our information was that Bowman was still at Corrigan’s. Though, of course, he might be anywhere by now.”

  Cassandra nodded, hiding her annoyance behind her eyes. Then, at a gesture from Gilcrest, she bowed slightly to the assembly and walked briskly out of the room.

  Wilkins squinted at her through his glasses, watching her retreating form with what appeared to be an almost professional interest.

  Gilcrest shrugged off his robes and went into the study. Its dark-paneled walls and imitation ceiling timbers were his only concession to personal taste. The rest of his private chambers were like all the rooms in the labyrinth, bathed in luminescence that wasted no energy and cast no shadows.

  He grimaced as he unscrewed the brandy bottle. He was at that time of his life when shadows were more than welcome. Too much direct light gave it all away—the lined face, the heavy step, the sorrow that had burrowed into niches of his life and refused to leave.

  Christ, he felt old. Older than anyone in Government.

  Then he remembered. He was older than Government itself.

  Gilcrest poured some brandy into a glass and swallowed it all. He hefted the bottle in his hand, judged its contents.

  Just enough, he thought. Just enough.

  “Where’s the Guardian?”

  He turned at the sound of his wife’s voice. Estelle was in the doorway to the study, at the top of the ramp. She touched a knob on her chair. It rolled into the room toward him.


  He noticed the blanket thrown across her legs.

  “Are you chilled, dear? I’ll have someone check the unit.”

  “No, no. I’m fine.” Her face turned up, took the light. “I look better in a blanket anyhow, don’t you think? Woman’s got to have a little mystery, right?”

  Gilcrest poured another drink, then one for his wife. She took the glass, sipped, grimaced.

  “I don’t know how you drink this stuff.”

  “It’s old, Estelle. Like me. That’s just old age you’re tasting.”

  She handed him the glass. “No, thanks.”

  He went over to a large stuffed chair, nut-brown and leathery, and sat down.

  Estelle directed her wheelchair across the carpet.

  “I asked where your Guardian was,” she said.

  “On assignment.”

  “For the city?”

  He studied her, and the emptiness of her eyes. He wondered if he’d ever get used to that.

  “We have something of a crisis,” he said. “There was an emergency session today.”

  “That’s what I figured.” She rolled away, brought herself to where the high bookshelves lined one entire wall. She ran her long white fingers along the bindings of the old volumes. “It’s about those three people getting killed.”

  “The news is everywhere by now, I suppose.”

  “Media ran a special.” Her smile was a cameo. “Had holograms, taken just after that Cunningham woman got it.”

  “Pricks.”

  She shrugged, her shoulders like bony points beneath her blouse. Her hair was steel gray, like his, and attractively wrapped in a silk scarf. Her blouse was colorful, and had stitched designs at the cuffs. Gilcrest had bought it for her on their last anniversary. The design was supposed to have been sewn by a human hand, which had meant something to the old man.

  He was looking at his wife thoughtfully. He was looking at her blouse, at the powder she’d applied to cover the few lines on her face; he was looking at her pale hand, resting against the brown timelessness of his beloved books.

  He thought of things lost to him forever.

  “I’m worried, Estelle,” he said finally. “I’m worried about the city.”

  “You’re always worried about the city. God knows, it gets more attention than—”

  “Estelle, please. Try to understand the gravity of the situation. Chicago is—”

  She set the chair in motion, wheeled it over to his side.

  “How many times do I have to say it, Andrew? There is no Chicago.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Estelle—” His voice was weary. From the day’s excitement, he thought, and the brandy starting to work.

  Estelle had gripped the arm of his chair, as though for anchor.

  “No Chicago, Andrew! No great city of cities! You’ve spent your whole life in service to a dream, an illusion …”

  “What are you saying? There are new roads, new buildings—”

  “An illusion, Andrew.” Her tone was low, hard. The bitterness went through him like Chicago wind. “You’re a fool, Andrew. You’re all fools. With your armies and your roads. There is no city. Not really. Not when the erection of a two-storied building is a major event. Not when your machines don’t work, and no one has the knowledge to repair them. Not when a fleet of two thousand airships has been reduced to a half-dozen. There’s nothing here but remnants, scraps … pieces holding the illusion together.”

  “Estelle, you don’t know what the hell you’re saying!”

  “Chicago!” She threw her hands out. The chair wriggled on the carpet. “This city—your city … what madness, Andrew! But a comforting madness. That’s what it is, isn’t it? A very comforting illusion.”

  He got up from the chair, anger rising inside him. His wife stayed right behind him.

  “But I know better, Andrew,” she cried, a shrillness edging her voice. “I can’t have any illusions. Once there were doctors who could have helped me—”

  “We don’t know that, Estelle.”

  “Once there were doctors, Andrew—but no more. The knowledge is incomplete. Media said medicine has been lost to the ages …”

  “Media knows nothing that—”

  “We have machines that don’t work, cars that can’t run—” She clutched at his sleeve. “You can’t even feed the people here—all you can do is lie to them and keep lying to them and keep building new weapons after you junk the old ones that blow up in your faces and—”

  Her voice caught, and she began to cry.

  Gilcrest looked at her and summoned up enough pity to take her hand. His words held little comfort.

  “You don’t make any sense when you talk like that, Estelle. I won’t have you talking like that.”

  “Because I’m right,” she sniffed, pulling her hand away. “Because I make perfect sense, Andrew. And you know it.”

  There was no argument in him. “All right, Estelle.”

  “You—you people …” She wiped her tears on the cuff of her blouse. “All of you … just a bunch of proud and stupid people, with your anger and your broken-down machines. Trying to make yourselves believe you’re part of a city coming alive again, a civilization rebuilding …”

  “Please, Estelle. All you’re doing is—”

  “Proud and stupid people, that’s all you are …”

  Gilcrest pointed to the doorway.

  “Leave me alone for a while,” he said, his manner more brusque than he’d intended.

  Her lips pressed together.

  “Please leave,” he said more softly. “I have to think.”

  She shifted in her chair, smoothed the blanket across her legs.

  Gilcrest looked at his outstretched hand, pointing toward the doorway, and felt suddenly foolish.

  “I know you don’t mean to upset me,” he said. “But this is a hard time for me … for the city. And—”

  “I understand, Andrew,” she said. “I’ve always understood. It’s you that—aw, the hell with it. I’m going.”

  She rolled toward the door. Then, over her shoulder: “Are you going to drink all of that brandy?”

  Gilcrest managed a rueful smile. “Most of it.”

  Estelle considered this. Then, swiveling her neck as though to ease some stiffness, she started the chair up the ramp and out of the room.

  4

  Bowman found an empty booth in the back and settled in, as though considering hibernation.

  He’d run into Meyerson again outside on Third and had mumbled some kind of apology for the night before. Meyerson told him you couldn’t apologize for being an ass-hole and just to forget the whole thing. Then Meyerson hobbled off with some woman who smelled of Seattle and Bowman had come in here.

  Meyerson had always had this thing for foreigners, for getting them into bed and then watching their eyes when he climbed in after them and they saw what the cobalt had done.

  Bowman rubbed the back of his neck, put Meyerson out of his mind. He decided to concentrate on the bottle he’d brought over from the bar. It was a good synthetic; the color was almost right.

  He looked around again. Lots of solitude in here, no matter how crowded. Some bars were like that, and he still didn’t know why. After all this time, Bowman figured he should have been an expert.

  Corrigan ran a clean place; the customers were mostly civilians and ex-Service. Of course, there were a few lunks. You couldn’t go anywhere without bumping into a couple of them.

  It wasn’t that Bowman had anything personal against them. In fact, he felt genuinely sorry for them, though he’d heard you weren’t supposed to say that. Still, it was hard not to pity what the War had done to them.

  Bowman swallowed most of his drink in a single gulp. He remembered what Government had said after the War. We can rebuild the city, we can repave the roads. No doubt we can someday do the same for those unfortunates on whom war leveled its greatest tragedy.

  But no one really believed the scientists would come u
p with anything. The mutations would remain; the drooping faces and distended limbs would be nothing less than family traits, passed from one generation to the next.

  And you couldn’t pity the lunks. They hated that worse than their own suffering. And the more they hated, the more people avoided contact with them.

  So they’d just become fixtures. Part of the backdrop. On street corners, inside the lobbies of buildings. Silent, resentful, self-loathing, servile. And frightening to some, especially when a great number of lunks collected in one area. From which fear had come the rumors of organization, of a select few among them whose intelligence might yet show them ways to channel their despair and self-loathing into action. Not a week went by without some Media spokesman warning of traitorous bands among the lunks, and the seeds of rebellion they were sowing.

  But to most citizens of Chicago, lunks were just those morose, grotesque, pitiable creatures who swept floors and planted vegetables and laid brick and looked down at the ground a lot.

  Lunks were the new niggers.

  Bowman saw one now and called him over. The lunk, wearing a dirty gray apron, handed him a menu and walked away. Bowman’s sudden guilt had balled up inside him, helped along by the drinks, and he’d wanted to say something to the lunk. Anything. Apologize …

  But the lunk had simply handed him the menu and departed. Just as Meyerson had departed.

  Bowman looked at the unwanted menu in his hand and had an oblique thought: Hell is when they won’t let you apologize.

  His head began to throb.

  He threw down the menu and started to slide out of the booth. A hand on his shoulder stopped him.

  “Captain Bowman?” The woman was beautiful, despite the professional friendliness of her voice. But it was her blue tunic that caught him unawares.

  “May I sit down?” she asked.

  “Sure. But I was just leaving.”

  “Please sit with me a few minutes. I have a message for you from Minister Gilcrest.” She extended her hand across the table. “I’m Cassandra Ingram.”