“It’ll take a while; I’ll need the phone companies, the satel—”
“Move!”
“Right, sir.” He thrust through the assembly and was gone.
Uppie woman said, “But the towers—”
“They fend for themselves. Nalor, take what men you need, reinforcements are on their way. Search every office tower, floor by floor. Start in midtown.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Colonel, new orders to troops. The streets are closed. If anything moves, shoot to kill.”
“What about him?” Fizer, indicating me.
I stood. “Ya don’ wanna negotiate, okay okay, I go back ta my trannies.”
“Sir, he heard everything you said!”
“I know.” General’s eyes swivel to me. Now, they like ice. “Go with these men.”
I swell. “Came here under flagga truce. Take me down ta street so—”
“Your trannies rebelled against the Government of Lord God. You’re under arrest for treason. Take him away. Hold him incommunicado.” As arms lifted me rough from chair and propelled me to door, Ruben swung back to waiting soldiers.
“Prepare a gas attack—knockout, not lethal—on the subway tunnels starting at Forty Second. Go! You, lieutenant, get on the horn to Trenton. They’re to put the Eighteenth Cavalry Division on our streets in six hours. Loaded weapons, full battle gear. Don’t stand gawping, move! Hawkins, you’ll take the Thirteenth north. At every corner ...”
As soldiers shoved, half dragged me down hall, Ruben’s voice faded. I walked fast as I could, not wantin’ to fall an’ lose dignity on behalf my trannies. Wasn’ easy. They moved me fas’.
Chapter 51
PHILIP
RAULIE SCUTTLED TO THE corner, crouched low, beckoned me close. “Be safe, Peetee, if ya hug wall an’ run.”
I asked, “How will I get in?”
“Secon’ alley door be open. Only looks shut.”
I took a deep breath, but paused before my sprint. “Raulie ...”
“No time, Uppie. Unies see ya, dey shoot.”
I faced him, looked up to his strained and haggard face. “About your people ... I’m sorry.”
“Yah, well.” His hand flicked out to my shoulder, touched it the barest instant. “Ya couldn’ stop it.”
I cried, “I should have!” If he knew the truth, he’d despise me as I did myself. I pounded my leg, fought not to rev yet again. I was reeling with exhaustion, miserable with frustration and the bitter tang of guilt. And I was starving; it had been uncounted hours since the soldiers had brought me food in Mr. Chang’s cubicle.
“Well ...” Halber said ta leave ya an’ run home; got work ta do.” He scuffed his feet, blurted, “For an Uppie, ya ain’ so bad.” He looked past me to the looming tower. “Tell Jared, Halber wants him unner where it safe. He c’n go back ta putahs afta.”
“If he doesn’t go home with me.”
On the next block, treads rumbled. “Outaheah,” Raulie said, and was gone.
I watched until he disappeared into a ruined storefront, then turned to my task.
A few moments later, I waited in the deserted office tower for the elevator, hoping Jared hadn’t turned it off.
He had.
Raulie said the puter center was on the ninth floor. Laboriously, I climbed the fireproof stairwell, thinking of Mom, Fath, our skytel in flames. How many weeks had it been? Days? Hours? I’d lost track.
Doggedly, I trudged up endless steps, while outside the world staggered to an end.
In the sub, our ride south from a Hundred Tenth had been in grim silence. Halber disappeared into the tiny driver’s compartment, with a look that dared us to speak.
I sat dazed from my episode of panic, Pook’s arm across my shoulder, while the undercar lurched through darkened stations back to the Subs’ main lair.
Two hours later, Halber left the enraged Easters, Broads, Chinas, and other tribesmen demanding revenge, long enough to give me his grudging consent to see Jared.
Raulie and I had trod crowded Sub tunnels to Thirty-eighth, where he’d poked his head out a manhole and decided we could risk the streets.
A pall of smoke hung over the city, obscuring the upper floors of the gleaming alloy towers.
More than towers burned. Unie troops were torching any building where they found resistance. And resistance was everywhere. Word of the bloodbath had spread like wildfire, in part through the Subs’ network of stolen callers. I didn’t know what Halber planned next. I focused on persuading Jared to come home.
Then, I would turn myself in for prosecution.
I was to blame for the bloody death of thousands of streeters. For Adam Tenere, lying still on the station floor, finally released from his agony.
I had caused a holocaust.
If I hadn’t provoked Jared, he wouldn’t have left the compound. If I hadn’t followed, Mom would be at home, Father in his beloved monastery. It was my fault they’d called out the troops, my fault Jared’s dad was dead, my fault the city burned.
My life was over. I wasn’t sure I could face a penal colony; instead, I might opt for suicide. I’d have to get a message to Father, to tell him I was sorry. It was the least I could do, and it would leave him with something. Time to think about that later. For now, there was Jared; it was my job to bring him to safety.
I faced the ninth floor stairwell door, braced myself, opened the door, and strode through.
The puter center was deep within the honeycomb of tower halls and offices, but helpful signs marked the way.
To my surprise, the door was open.
Jared’s back was to me. He wore a ragged shirt and pants, sandals that didn’t fit. A caller was clipped to his belt. “Schuss with me, you bastard.” He stabbed at the console. On his screen, program instructions scrolled.
He snapped to me over his shoulder, “What do you frazzing joeys want? I just broke into Earthport Station, I have codes, frequencies—”
I said, “I came to take you home.”
“Tell Raulie I’m too—” He spun. His mouth worked, but no words came. A sheaf of notes slid from his lap to the tiled floor.
“Hi, Jar.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“You?” His swollen eye flicked to the door, back to the screen, to me. “What—how did you—P.T.?” Slowly, as in a dream, he got to his feet. “I saw you on the security screen, you looked like a trannie, I thought ... what in Christ’s name are you doing here?”
“Don’t blaspheme,” I said automatically. Then, “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Why?”
“To bring you home.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“I may be.” My voice was unsteady. “The things I had to do ...”
“How did you find me?”
“I traced you to the Sheraton through the Terrex card. The manager told me you went to the streets.”
“The grodes chased me out.”
“I followed, and picked up your trail. When Halber took you from Pook’s lair, Swee and I were in the next room.”
His tone was astonished. “You know Pook?”
“We had a ... quarrel. I persuaded him to take me to the Sub. They were going to let me see you, but Halber turned on me and I ran out, and there was Chaco ...” I felt my voice rising, and forced it under control. If I counted in base eleven ... “Jared, it’s time to go home.”
“Goofjuice. Look what I’ve got here!” His hands shot out to encompass the console, the machines humming quietly as they communed with their brethren. His mouth grew ugly. “Should I trade my CLIP for a bedroom in your frigging Washington compound? Where Dad treats me like a joeykit and sucks up to the Old Man?”
I blurted, “He’s dead.”
“That fucking asshole takes away my nets whenever—who’s dead?”
I said gently, “Your father. I’m sorry, Jar. Really.”
He wrinkled his brow, as if puzzling out a particularly difficult riddle. “He can’t
be. He’s home with the Old Man.”
“They’re in New York, searching for us. Were, I mean. Fath’s still here, but Mr. Tenere ...” For the first time I could remember, my thoughts and words were a jumble. “He’s dead. Unies killed him this morning in a gas attack on the Sub.”
“No. Why would he go there?”
“He was trying to warn them.”
Jared Tenere blinked. Slowly, he settled into his chair. His vacant stare was fixed on the console.
I wanted to touch him, didn’t dare.
“It’s a lie.”
“Jar, I saw him. It was—”
“It’s a trick to make me go home!”
“No, I swear—”
“He put you up to this!”
I shouted, “Listen to me!” His eyes were wild, but I rushed on. “From a Hundred Ten to Ninety-sixth, they’re all dead. The gas threw them into convulsions; they fell on the tracks, in the stations ... I found him lying—God, what am I saying? You have to believe me, he’s—you can’t imagine what it was like, they ... Christ Jesus, son of Lord God!” My voice had risen to a keen.
Stubbornly he shook his head.
Desperate, I pulled at my hair, trying not to rev. “I don’t want to remember it! He’s dead, Jar! They killed him!”
“Shut up!” He pounded the console. “Hear me? Shut up, or I’ll—”
“Dead!”
He covered his ears, spun away.
I sagged into a chair, hugging myself.
Minutes passed. He sniffled.
When he spoke it was almost a whisper. “How?”
“The Subs had a battle with the Parkas, and somehow Father was involved. Mr. Tene—your dad was with him. I found them at the park wall. Fath and Mom took me home, and he stayed to look for you.” It was like an accusation, stupid and cruel, and I didn’t realize until I heard Jared groan. “The U.N.A.F. officer at a Hundred Tenth wanted to use knockout gas in the tunnels to find you. I guess the plan changed when the fighting got worse. I heard a Sub tell Halber that your dad tried to stop the attack.”
“What did he look—I mean ... you saw him?”
Lying was a sin, but I knew with absolute certainty I couldn’t tell the truth. “It looked quick and peaceful. I’m sure he—”
“Liar! Convulsions, you said.”
I wished I could sail back in time and bite off my tongue. “Maybe small ones, I don’t—” I rocked, hugged myself. “Oh, God, Jared. I’m sorry. It wasn’t pretty. He died hard. But he sacrificed himself, Jared. It was ...” I searched for a word. “Noble. You should be proud of him.”
He stared through me with reddened eyes.
I said softly, “Come home, Jar. There’s no point anymore. No need to run—”
“Idiot!” He aimed a savage kick at my chair, but I slid out of the way. “At least I can get even with the Unies for killing Dad!”
“Pook said he held you captive and cut you, that he traded to Halber—”
“And I talked my way free! The trannies need me, P.T. Do you know how hard I hit the nets?”
“You hacked your way into U.N. Treasury. That’s a terrible thing to do, objectively spea—”
“Oh, prong yourself. We’re schussing with the London CLIP, and downhilling through the stock markets ...Our Arfie broke into the Unie base construction office upstairs, and look!” He keyed his console through a series of screens, switched on a wall speaker. A constant stream of military traffic, interspersed with static. He lowered the volume.
“So?”
He didn’t answer. He keyed up a city map, fiddled with magnification, drew in on a Hundred Tenth Street, marked the coordinates.
Apprehensive, I drew closer. He switched screens, entered another program.
“Jar, what are you—”
“Wait. See if this works.” He held up a hand to forestall my questions.
Numbers flashed, requests for passwords. Then: “Target coordinates?”
His fingers flying, Jared clipped the coordinates from his map, entered them.
“Confirm firing coordinates?”
“Jared, no!” I lunged for the keyboard.
He shoved me hard, and I fell.
“Burn, you fuckers!” He stabbed at the keys.
I swarmed onto his back, got an arm around his neck. “Don’t make it worse!”
He struggled to throw me off. He staggered to the wall, drove himself backward. My spine slammed into the door-jamb. I lost my grip. He whirled and clubbed me in the temple. He hit me again, then grabbed my shirt, hauled me forward, rammed me again into the wall. I slid down, dazed. He ran to the console.
“No!”
He didn’t seem to hear. He typed, checked his figures. Then, “Yes!” He spun away. “Yes! Oh, yes!”
I struggled to my feet. “What did you do?”
“I’ll teach those bastards to mess with us! We’ll pay them for the trannies in the tunnels, for my frazzing school, for ...” His voice quavered. “For Dad.” He spun the building’s cameras north in a dizzying arc. “I wonder if we can see.”
I shook him. “See what?”
“I coded in a strike on the Unies!” He danced from foot to foot in a sort of ecstasy.
“Where? How?”
“The Naval base at Earthport Station has lasers trained on us groundies. I heard that old fraz Boland telling Robbie, the night the Old Man—” His lip curled, at some unpleasant memory. “I fed Earthport’s lasers the coordinates for the Unie positions on a Hundred Tenth. They think I’m New York U.N.A.F. Command.”
Oh Lord God, no. “Don’t, Jar. There’s been enough killing.”
“It’ll never be enough! They murdered Dad!”
“I thought you hated him.”
Jared raised his fist, slowly brought it down, opened his hand. “I can say that; I’m his joeykid. You think I’ll let them gas him like—like a piece of garbage? Like an animal?” His voice grated. “Oh, they’ll pay. I’m just starting.” He stalked to the console. “Out of my way; I’ve got to program laser strikes before they change the codes.”
Should I launch myself at him in a desperate attack? I had more confidence in Mom’s training, now that I saw its results, but a few moments ago he’d easily thrown me off. “Wait.”
“No way.” He screened through target lists. “Get out of here! Go!”
“Where?” I spoke softly, and he didn’t hear.
His voice changed. “Don’t you understand? Without our help, the Unies crush the trannies, and nothing will change.”
I leaned over the console, waited until he looked up. “Jar ... is this about the tribes, or you?”
“What are you, my psych?”
My palm struck the console with a sharp crack. “I’ve been through hell for you! All that time I thought you were scared, desperate for help. If it weren’t for me, there’d be no trannie war! I’ve got to know why. Answer, or I’ll—I’ll ...”
His eyes met mine, mocking. Slowly, as he gauged the expression I held, his sneer faded. “It’s for them. For me. Christ, I don’t know; why does it matter? I get my revenge, and they’ll lose without me.”
“Try to stop the war, not make it worse.”
“Why?”
“Have you ever killed someone?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question; if he hadn’t, I would have to tell him about Chaco. Until he understood the loathing it engendered, he’d—
“Yeah, I smashed the skull of a fucking trannie who ...” After a moment of silence his face reddened. “Drop it.”
I stared into the eyes of a joey who’d been a sort of friend, companion at least, for as long as I could remember, and saw nothing I could recognize.
Jared’s caller buzzed.
He frowned, keyed it on. “Yeah?”
I heard the gravelly voice through the tinny speaker. “Halber.”
“Why’d you send P.T. here, you frazzing loonie?”
From the other end, a roar. Words I couldn’t distinguish.
“Yeah, after what I
’m doing for you? Bullshit.” Jared covered the mouthpiece, stuck his tongue out.
Halber rumbled. From Jared, a sigh. “What do you want? I’m busy.”
The voice snarled, “Ya goin’ wid him, Uppie?”
Jared snorted in derision. “Fat chance.”
A pause. “Lissen ... don’ think south tunnels safe much longer. Thinkin’ a havin’ Subs try fo’ the Hud.”
“Why? Gonna swim across?” On the console, Jared keyed his map.
“Don’ fun wid me, Uppie.” Halber’s voice was like a knife. “Still time ta send Raulie ta diss ya.”
“Cool jets; maybe I can help. Where are the Unies strongest?”
“Everywhere!”
“Halber, for Christ’s sake!”
“Three Six, by Broad. Seven Two an’ Columb. Fourteen Square.” Halber sounded ragged. “Easters an’ Mids pushed ’em back some on Lex, but helis all over the place! What we spose ta do?”
“Pull back. Lemme try something.” Jared fingered the touchscreen at the locations Halber had called off.
“How long, Uppie?”
“Shit, how do I know? An hour, probably. Two. Less, if you let me be.” Jared ported to the screenful of codes, began making assignments.
“How we know if it work?”
“You’ll know.” He keyed the caller, slipped it back on his belt.
I swallowed. Father, you taught me to do right. But what if I don’t know where right lies?
“Jared ...”
He faced me. “Do you want me to help them or not?”
I hesitated. Jared ported back and forth between screens, setting up coordinates.
A screen filled with new orders, and frantic queries.
With a curse, Jared closed his datafile, set the program to execute. “There. Now, even if they change the codes ...”
“I’m leaving.” I wasn’t sure where I might go. My quest had failed, and I’d brought a city to ruin.
“Listen!” Abruptly he turned up the speaker.
“This is Wirtz at Seventy-fifth Regiment HQ calling clear on all channels, Earthport or Lunapolis stop the laser attack, repeat halt the laser attack for God’s sake, you’re firing on the wrong—oh my God!—”
Static.
“We got ’em!” Jared pounded the console. “Now let’s knock some helis out of the air!”
Voices of Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 5) Page 43
