Alan E. Nourse - The Bladerunner

by Alan E Nourse

  CONTENTS

  part one Billy's Story 1

  part two

  Doc's Story 55

  part three The Bladerunner 165

  I

  It was well past four in the afternoon when Billy Gimp finally woke up, and he knew in an instant that something was wrong with his room.

  He sat straight up in bed and peered around him at the squalid little apartment. Dirty clothes lay heaped on every flat surface in the room. The sink was overflowing with unwashed dishes, and the stove, an ancient microwave model, was encrusted, onionlike, with successive layers of baked-on food. None of this, however, bothered Billy; it was purely par for the course, no more nor less upheaval than greeted him on awakening any afternoon of the week. Equally familiar were the streaked and mildewed wallpaper and the bare light bulb hanging from its yard-long cord and swinging slightly in the draf-ty room. These things all looked as they always looked; it was something else that was wrong, and his awareness of it had been there even before he awoke, just beneath the surface of consciousness.

  He rolled out of bed and hobbled across to the room's single window. Pulling back the blind an inch or so, he peered out into the gray light On the street below, winter shadows were darkening on the light late-afternoon traffic. A few people scurried up the Lower City street as though eager to get in before dark, and a police chopper skimmed past over the tenement rooftops like a vulture searching for carrion. Instinctively, Billy drew back until the copter had passed on and did not circle back— merely a routine patrol. Then he searched the street more closely, but found nothing suspicious. Shaking his head, Billy released the curtain. It was nothing outside that was wrong, it was something inside, something very close.

  Standing there, now fully alert, he tried to recapture his exact mental state at the moment he awoke. He had been dreaming, as usual, and the dream had been unpleasant, as usual. Someone had been chasing him through a strange and unfamiliar wooded countryside, relentlessly closing the gap on him as he had limped down brush-filled gullies and scrambled over windfallen logs, dragging his bad foot painfully as he went. He remembered vividly climbing up a ridge and down into a logging camp where chain saws had just fallen silent and piles of fragrant pine sawdust were lying about. ...

  Sawdust.

  Billy sniffed, and sniffed again. Doc was always saying he had a nose like a hound, and maybe he did, because the smell was there: a faint but unmistakable odor of sawdust in the room. Snapping on the light, Billy dropped to his hands and knees and began searching foot by foot along the baseboards, methodically, certain now of what he would find. A moment later he was rewarded. It was there near the wall between the window and the sink, with an unobstructed view of the entire room: a short metallic stalk emerging like a periscope from the floorboards, with a tiny pile of sawdust beside it. At the end of the stalk, like the head on a kitchen match, there was a glistening crystal bead.

  It was a bug, tiny but powerful, with its delicate audio pickups and its wide-angle micro-lens. Quite enough to pick up every whisper, every motion in the room. Billy's first impulse was to crush it with his heel, but he held back. Destruction of government property was a felony even if it was being used illegally, and with Billy's arrest record this bug was probably as legal as breathing, backed up by seventeen warrants and an airtight court order. He couldn't destroy it. Of course, he could always appeal it. Fifty cents in the corner computer-court might conceivably bring him a privacy injunction—but from Billy's past experience with courts of law, that didn't seem very likely. Even worse, a computer-court hearing might just precipitate a confrontation that could be highly embarrassing for all concerned, and Doc would not like that a bit. Doc never liked embarrassing questions.

  Billy sat down on a chair, suddenly aware that he was shaking. The bug meant snoopers, legal or illegal, and either way that meant trouble. The question was: why? Was this a random check-scan that could turn up at almost any time in any Lower City flat, or was someone specifically interested in him? And if so, why him? There were no recent problems, nothing to draw special attention, he was sure of that. He'd been running blades for half his seventeen years, and he was good at keeping clean, especially since working for Doc. Of course others, less skillful, could have crossed his trail—but who? And even more urgently, what should he do right now, this minute? Doc could be calling him at any moment, and if the phone was also tapped, then the fat would really be in the fire.

  The first step, of course, was almost instinctive. He couldn't destroy the bug, but he could certainly foul it From the dresser he pulled out a dirty black sweater, crossed the room, and dropped it directly on top of the bug. Next he fished a cardboard box out from under his bed and extracted a small transistor radio. With a change of batteries it blared forth with a nerve-jarring screech. He twiddled the dial to find the loudest, most discordant music on the band, tuned the volume up full and set the radio down by the sweater, the speaker just inches from the bug's ear. It wasn't perfect, by any means; a careful tape analysis could split other sounds away from the jangle of the music, but at least they'd have to work for their data. Next he pulled the phone jack from the wall, rendering the telephone inoperative, and then, more reluctantly, disconnected the computer console. Finally he flopped back in a chair and wiped sweat from his forehead.

  It cut his room off from all contact, but now, at least, he had a minute to think. Doc would get a disconnect signal on the phone before he had a chance to be voice-printed. Failing phone contact he might, just possibly, try to patch in a contact on the computer—and that, too *would be blocked. Two fails in a row would alert Doc that something was wrong, and he'd quit trying, at least for a while. Meanwhile, Billy would have to reach him. But how? According to Doc's standing orders, in case of trouble Billy was to page Doc's personal bellboy unit from a public phone, leave a coded number, and wait for Doc to call back. But if somebody were really snooping Billy in earnest, that could be far too dangerous. Once again Billy wracked his brain trying to think of something that might have put Health Control on his trail. There had been that gall bladder case a week ago, but there was no problem with that, everything had gone fine even though Doc was at his most tense and the anesthetist had been three sheets to the wind all evening. The appendectomy two nights earlier had also gone smoothly, and as for the node biopsy last night, the people had been so happy at the result, and so grateful to Doc for doing it all,-that a grievance report seemed unlikely.

  Yet the fact remained (hat the bug was there. Obviously the snoopers had gotten a blanket order to get into the flat below him, and gone to a lot of trouble to drill a hole in his floor. And while it was true that random snooping was becoming more commonplace every day, the idea that Billy Gimp, of all people, might get caught on an ordinary, routine fishing expedition was too big a coincidence to swallow. Health Control had plenty of reason to snoop Billy, with his record of arrests and narrow squeaks. They knew he was running blades, even though they'd never actually nailed him. And of course it was always possible that Parrot or one of the others had thrown him to the wolves for reasons of their own. Even Doc himself might have blown the whistle, unlikely as that seemed. In Billy's world, even the,unlikely had to be considered.

  For the moment, obviously, he had to assume the worst: that someone was snooping him for some specific reason. That meant that direct contact with Doc was out, for now. But if Doc had a case lined up for that night, he would have to be reached somehow. Slowly Billy fished clothes from a pile and began dressing, putting on the usual denim trousers and dark long-sleeved shirt he always used for work. He slipped his left shoe on and tied it, then worked his clubfoot into the twisted rig
ht shoe with the built-up sole. Crossing to the refrigerator, he found a leftover chicken leg and began munching it as he checked the half-dozen phony credit cards in his wallet. Finally ready, he donned a heavy windbreaker, threw a muffler around his neck and limped across the room to the door.

  The stairway and the street, like the hall, were empty. It was almost dark now, and a cold wind filtered down from the Upper City, sending scraps of discarded newspaper dancing along the deserted sidewalk. Billy headed for the nearest public lift. All Lower City phone consoles were bugged, and always required complete identification and cfredit checks before a call would be put through. In the Upper City sheer volume of use alone prevented such careful authentication; he knew he could get a trouble-call through to Molly with a return number before his fake ID could be traced and the call cut off.

  At the lift station he took the slow but generally empty freight elevator up the seventeen stories to the Upper City walkways, then stepped out and made his way northward to the nearest heli-cab station.

  As usual, the Upper City was bustling with evening traffic, and the heli-cab station was crowded. Most phones were in use, but two were free to the rear of the station, out of the main traffic flow and near the loading ramps. Billy checked the number of the adjacent phone, memorized it, then stepped into the next booth and shoved a credit card into a slot. When the dial tone sounded, he dialed a number, then waited impatiently as the ringing signal whispered in his ear. An instant later the viewscreen lit up and a girl's face appeared. Her eyes widened as she recognized him. "Billy!" she said.

  "Don't talk," Billy said. "There's trouble. Take this number and ring me right back. It's coded." He ran through the code for the adjacent phone's number and then quickly rang off. Somewhere a phone-snooper would be picking up the false charge and filing a complaint, complete with call source and voice-print, but he would be long gone before anybody could get the false data untangled and issue an alert on the misused phone. He stepped into the adjacent booth, rubbing his hands together for warmth as he waited. Finally, after several minutes, the phone buzzed. The screen lighted as he lifted the receiver, and the girl's face reappeared.

  "Billy, why are you calling me here? You know that Doc doesn't want any calls to the Hospital."

  "I had no choice," Billy said. "Anyway, I used a clean ID."

  "Clean my eye," the girl said. "The phone-snooper was right there the minute I hung up. I said it was a wrong number and then had to change lines to call you back. Now what is the trouble?"

  "I've picked up a bug," Billy said. "Sometime today while I was sleeping."

  The girl's irritation gave way to concern. She was young, in her early twenties, with short dark hair and very blue eyes. She was still wearing her nurse's cap and tunic, though Billy knew she was off duty. "Billy, are you sure?"

  "I'm sure, all right, it was sticking right up through my floor." He told her briefly about his discovery. "Whether it's me they want, or just a routine screening sweep, I don't know, but I couldn't take a chance. I had to cut off my phone and computer."

  "Yes, of course. And that means Doc can't reach you."

  "Not with a snooper on my back." Billy regarded the girl on the screen. "Molly, do you know any reason someone might be onto me?"

  "No. We haven't had a problem case in months, and you know how careful Doc is." The girl frowned. "Do you know about tonight?"

  "I know he has a case lined up, but I don't know what it is or what he needs for it."

  "He told me last night," Molly said. "He has two T&As."

  Billy groaned. "More tonsils?"

  "Well, the patients can't help it," the girl said. "These children have been sick all winter with infections and tonsillitis. Doc saw them on his way home from last night's case, and set up the surgery for tonight."

  "He didn't waste much time, did he?" Billy said.

  "They're both infection-free right now, so Doc decided to jump while he could. Anyway, he'll need two complete tonsil setups, with loops, curettes, ether—the works."

  Billy nodded. "Okay," he said. "Tell Doc I'm bugged, but I'll get the setups from Parrot and meet you both at the usual place, okay? If I don't show for some reason, it'll mean I've got an agent on me, or some other trouble, and Doc will just have to cancel out."

  "Billy, Doc wouldn't like that at all."

  "Well, he'd like a run-in with Health Control a whole lot less," Billy retorted. "This isn't exactly legal surgery, you know."

  "I know," the girl sighed. "Well, do the best you can, and we'll just hope we see you tonight. And Billy—be careful, whatever you do. Doc may hate to cancel cases, but he'd hate even more to have you in trouble. After all, without you functioning there couldn't be any cases."

  II

  Outside the station the wind was getting colder, and Billy Gimp pulled his coat and muffler up tight around his neck. A cream-colored ground-cab was just discharging passengers, but he passed it by and started back on foot toward the lift down to the Lower City. Ordinarily Billy would never have dreamed of going to Parrot's any way but by private ground-cab—but this, he decided, was no ordinary evening.

  The customary cab tide was not just a matter of Billy's crippled foot, although any extended walking was slow and painful for him. Far more, the cab was a matter of image and status. A bladerunner with a topflight, busy doctor was making money, and people with money never walked, not in the city. What was more, Parrot himself would begin to get edgy if a bladerunner walked to his establishment too often. After all, Parrot too had certain standards to uphold.

  In fact, it had been Parrot's extraordinary reputation that had brought Billy there in the first place. In every underworld there is a hierachy, and Parrot was tops in his branch of the world of underground medicine. Parrot was far more than merely a supplier of stolen surgical goods, although he was that too. A former army medic, Parrot knew surgical procedures, and he knew what supplies were needed for each kind of case. Unlike many suppliers, Parrot never believed the labels on the surgical packs that came into his hands, stolen from hospital supply rooms all over the city, and he had no faith in their supposed sterility. Each pack he personally opened and inspected, adding extra blades to this one, additional forceps to that one, more sponges for one, double gloves for yet another. Always he allowed for a margin of error, and prepared his packs accordingly before autoclaving them himself for certain sterility. There was no pressing need for a margin of error in the government Hospital surgeries; if a surgeon found something missing at any time, a second pack could always be opened on the spot. But kitchen-table surgery was a different matter. Some docs carried their own extra supplies and some did not, but when the chips were down in the middle of a difficult underground case, that was no time to have to send a bladerunner out for additional supplies.

  For Parrot, the care he expended was no labor of love; it, too, was a matter of status. Parrot's clientele was elite, and no one knew it better than Billy Gimp. He had dealt with plenty who weren't, in the course of his seventeen years. His first job as a bladerunner had taught him the difference between good medicine and bad. His doc at that time had been a greenhorn, dreadfully inexperienced and scared to death of detection; his work had been both overswift and oversloppy. Small wonder that his bladerunner had been equally careless. Cheap suppliers provided dirty dressings and contaminated instruments; the doc had tried to cover by using some of his own supplies stolen from Central Supply at his Hospital, but there were still far too many postsurgical infections, unnecessary complications, even operative and postoperative deaths in those days, and Billy found himself nervously moving from doc to doc, always afraid that some spectacular surgical disaster would drop the axe on his neck as well as the doc's.

  And then, three years ago, he had found Doc, and things were suddenly different. Doc could spot contaminated surgical packs from a mile away, and either did his own boiling or turned them back, with short shrift for Billy and the supplier. "Tabletop surgery is bad enough without making it
any worse than necessary," Doc had said angrily. "The patients are paying me for sterile packs, and that's what I'm going to get them, or your supplier can go whistle."

  It had been a novel attitude, in Billy's experience, almost an amusing attitude until it finally dawned on him that Doc was no greenhorn in underground medicine, and really meant what he said: that he wouldn't take or use inferior supplies; from that point on it became a matter of pride for Billy to find him good supplies, and his search for a reliable supplier had become a major quest. Money wasn't the issue; Doc didn't mind paying premium coin if the supplies were good. Doc never argued a price hike with Billy, and soon, to his own surprise, Billy was no longer overpricing the goods to Doc so badly. And then he had heard of Parrot, who allowed no gouging whatever, and who was fussy which doctors he supplied and which bladerunners he dealt with. After long negotiations Parrot had finally, reluctantly, agreed to supply Billy and Doc, on the strength of Doc's legitimate reputation as a topflight Hospital surgeon, and Billy's reputation as a runner who kept his nose clean. There were certain conditions, however. The first was that no one except Parrot did any price gouging, and the second, even more stringent, was that no one dragged a dead fish across Parrot's trail for anything.

  All of which explained why, on this particular evening and under these particular circumstances, Billy Gimp turned his back on the ground-cabs lingering outside the heli-cab station and proceeded on foot to find Parrot, to arrange for two T&A packs for the evening's work and to find out what, if anything, Parrot might have to say about the bug in Billy's room. Billy worked his way through the light foot traffic, picking down-ramps and elevators that carried him down from the Upper City of high-rise apartments, green-belt parks and swift monorails and heli-cabs crisscrossing the sky to the Lower City of darkened streets and alleys, tenements and cheap storefronts. Ground-cabs whispered by him on the ragged, pot-holed Lower City streets; in some places he was the sole pedestrian. And as he walked he kept a close watch to be as sure as possible he was not being followed.