“The talk show on 28?” Snick said.
“Yes.”
The subject was the murder of Ananda.
9
The criminologist, a professor from University Tower according to the white subtitles, said, “What I don’t understand, among other things, is how the alleged outlaws managed to get into the World Councillor’s apartment. From the brief reports I’ve seen, there was no sign of forced entry except those made by the organics when they responded to the call from the man calling himself Caird, among other things. And how could only three people, though heavily armed, kill all the armed bodyguards?
“Moreover, how could the alleged outlaws know that the Councillor was in that apartment? According to the news reports and what I’ve been told by the organics, the Councillor’s apartment was not listed in the city directory. No one knew that the Councillor had an apartment there. Also…”
The host said, “Pardon me, Professor Shinn. One question at a time. Major Hafiz, would you care to answer the first question? That is, how did the criminals get into the Councillor’s apartment?”
Major Hafiz said, “I can’t answer that at this moment. But I’m sure…”
Professor Shinn said, “And how were the criminals, the alleged criminals, able to override all electronic safeguards and transmit those TV messages?”
Host: “Please, Professor Shinn. No interruptions.”
Duncan said, “I’m glad that some people are not just swallowing wholemeal everything the authorities tell them. Maybe there’ll be many like that Shinn.”
So far, the government was permitting free speech by citizens about the motives of himself and Snick. But if it did clamp down because too many were asking questions like Shinn’s, then it would cause a storm of protest. Moreover, the outraged citizens would wonder just why the government had deprived them of their constitutional rights.
The government had a sticky mess on its hands, but he did not feel sorry for it.
Dressed in their uniforms, they went out by the way in which they had entered and closed the hatch. The sun was bright; the satellites would be recording their movements until they went into the access house. After that, the monitors on the staircase and in the halls and streets would be filming them. That meant nothing unless organics had been posted to watch all the monitorings made everywhere on the West Coast. He doubted that that had happened. There was not nearly enough personnel to do that, and those available would be going over the films made of the deserts and forests over a very large area.
When the ganks found out that he and Snick had been in the tower, they would probably rerun all the monitor tapes in this area. By then, it would be too late.
As soon as they were in the access house, they changed into wigs, hats, and robes. These were not the ones they had used when leaving the apartment on Thursday. Ananda’s apartment had yielded a variety of costumes and wigs from his closets and those of his male and female servants. Now, dressed quite differently, the two went down the steps until they came to the 10th level. Here they went through the doors and stepped into the flow of afternoon traffic.
Except for the top and bottom floors of the tower, all were laid out in the same pattern inside its mile-diameter. Seen from above, each of 123 levels looked like an archer’s target. The bull’s-eye was the great central plaza. The causeways were the circles. Four straight avenues starting at the perimeter cut through the circles and met at the central plaza. Both the straight and the circular throughways intersected smaller plazas containing stores and shops, gymnasiums, ice-skating rinks, bowling alleys, “live” theaters, neighborhood taverns and townhalls.
Duncan and Snick had emerged from the staircase onto the junction of Eight-Ways Causeway, the outer perimeter thoroughfare, and Blue Moon Street, which cut across the tower on an east-west axis. They walked to the sidewalk, filled with other pedestrians. The street itself was crowded with bicycles, tricycles, and a few electric-driven cars. A gank patrol car passed them, its two occupants scanning the passersby from behind large octagonal dark glasses. Duncan and Snick walked slowly, taking good but not obvious care to shield themselves as much as possible. They stayed near the fronts of the apartments and matched their paces to those walking on the outer side of the sidewalk.
The patrol car drove on, its occupants seemingly unaware that they had passed the two fugitives.
The sky-blue ceiling of the 10th level was flecked with sluggish white clouds. A simulacrum of the sun moved above the clouds; its position matched that of the real sun outside the tower. In all the levels, except the top and bottom, there was a sun in the daytime and a moon at night (if there was a moon in the outside heavens). An optical illusion assured that the sun was in the correct position in the “sky” no matter where you stood, at the east or west end of the street or in the central plaza. The air was always 75°F. and moving at three miles an hour.
Cuts of conversation came to him as the swifter walkers passed him.
“…said Ananda was like Caliph Harun al-Rashid, he’d go among the L. A. citizens like he was just one of us…disguised…wanted to know what your average Jilljoe was thinking… who the hell was Harun al-Rashid?”
“You never saw The Arabian Nights series? Where you been all your life?”
“…ganks’re not answering some questions. They’re ducking them.”
“…if they’re really holding out on us about this ASF, there’ll be hell to pay, and…”
“…so many personae it’s confusing. If he’s nuts, then he’s not to blame.”
“…guy’s lying. Only two billion? What kind of shit is he trying to pull?”
“…got to admire them. Ever heard of anybody else ever get away so long with giving the finger to the gummint?”
“Seven times as long? If it’s true, it must be, all that has to be done is labtest it, then no way the government’s going to hold out on us, the assholes.”
“…slime, real stinking slime. Those two murderers ought to be locked up forever with no TV, and…”
Moving slowly, as if they were innocent citizens out for a stroll, Duncan and Snick kept on until they came to a plaza. Here they entered a large department store and went into a doorway above which flashed: S & S. This was a public restroom which, at the moment, had only a few men and women in it. They entered separate stalls and stripped off their hats, wigs, and robes. After pulling different ones from the handbags, they put these on. The previously worn items stuffed into the handbag, they walked out of the store. A walk of several blocks brought them to a public elevator bank. Duncan pressed the button for the 12th level. The doors opened, and they went into a cage in which they were the only passengers. The citizens of one level seldom went to another.
Emerging on the 12th level, they walked until they found another store. Here they repeated the same procedure as on the 10th level. A few minutes later, they were on the corner of Nine Sages and Wickenford streets. Here they turned right.
The monitors on top of the traffic signal poles on each corner were ten feet high and consisted of two thin gray squares at right angles to each other. So far, they had not matched up their videos of Duncan and Snick with those in HQ computers. If they had, the two would have been surrounded by ganks before now.
Or, Duncan thought, the ganks had orders to follow them for a certain distance hoping that they could scoop up other subversives also.
Not likely. They would be too eager to grab Duncan and Snick as quickly as possible and whisk them away to the precinct station. Or wherever they had orders to take them. The two had been too quicksilvery, slipping through the fingers that should have held them tight.
Four more street corners and four more double-monitors on each. The two walked along the gentle curve of the street and came near their destination. Ordinarily, since this was a residential district, there would have been few people on the sidewalks. But many were out talking excitedly to their neighbors, gesticulating vigorously, some with printouts fluttering in their hands.
Duncan would just as soon that they did not see him and Snick go into the Cloyds’ apartment. However, there was nothing to do but proceed as if they had legitimate business here.
Like almost all apartments, the street front of the Cloyds’ was one great display. Duncan paused long enough to study it. What the tenants put on the outside screens of their homes often revealed their psyches. The many-colored and swiftly moving and changing icons and abstract forms seemed to be basically religious. In the background was a lightning-shot and dark thundercloud beyond which the top edge of the sun shone. The cloud swelled and filled up the wall, rushing at the viewer, dim whirling images in it. Then the lightning bolts became so many and so bright that the figures were clearly illuminated before fading into blackness again.
One was Buddha, the conventional sitting Mongolian Buddha, which, soaring through the air, altered into a young and good-looking Hindu prince, Siddhartha. It collided and merged with an angel, pale-skinned and winged, then became an elongated body, the wings becoming lightning streaks. Out of its mouth spurted a dark-skinned Asiatic Indian-looking woman who shot out of her mouth a Christ-like man, who expelled from his bearded lips an Arab—Mohammed?—who ejected from his wide-open mouth an ancient forest Amerind—Hiawatha?—who vomited a coyote, who spat a creature half-man, half-coyote—Old Man Coyote of Amerind myth?—who urped a huge white rabbit—Owasso of the Ojibway Indians?—whose huge mouth hurled out a giant black spider—Nandi, the trickster spider of Africa?
The metamorphoses seemed to go on and on but eventually became a baby wrapped in flames. Then the cycle started over again with the Buddha.
Snick clutched Duncan’s arm and said, “My God! Buddha’s face! It’s yours!”
It certainly resembled his. But it was gone too quickly for him to be sure.
“They must’ve programmed your face onto that man today,” Snick said. “That means they’re for you; they admire you.”
“Dumb,” he said. “A passing gank might note the resemblance.”
“No, it goes too fast to see unless you’re really looking hard at it.”
He pressed the doorbell with a knuckle.
A man’s voice came from the door-monitor overhead.
“Who is it, please?”
Those within could see him and Snick. Duncan looked up and said, “We need to see you… Citizen Cloyd?”
“We’re engaged at the moment in a rather private business. Who are you?”
Duncan opened his mouth to tell him that he had business, too, and it was most urgent. A woman’s voice cried out, “Barry, it’s him! It’s the woman, too!”
The man said, “Who?” After several seconds, he said, “My God! You’re right! But what…?”
The voice of another woman, loud and shaking, said, “No! Don’t let them in! Send them away until…”
The sound was turned off.
10
The door slid back into the wall recess swiftly. Duncan stepped into the living room, Snick close behind him. The Cloyds were standing by a sofa and staring at them. A woman with long black hair was running down the hall. She lunged through a doorway to her right. That, Duncan knew, would open into the stoner room.
Duncan ran past the Cloyds down the hallway and through the doorway. His fear that she would be using a wallscreen to call the organics was unfounded. Smiling twistedly, she walked toward him.
“I panicked,” she said. “I didn’t want you to know I was here. I’m…”
“…OMC?” Duncan said.
She stopped, her eyes widening slightly. “Yes, though it was OMC and then PUPA and is now something else. How’d you know?”
“Guessed. This damned cell-system the OMC has…never more than one contact at a time, nobody knowing more than one other member.”
He went out into the hall and waited for her to come out and precede him. On returning to the living room, he found that the Cloyds were sitting on the sofa and Snick was standing by the exit-door. Her hand was inside her robe, ready to snatch out her gun. Picking up the woman’s handbag, which she had abandoned in her haste, he dumped the contents out onto the coffee table.
She said, “What do you…?” and closed her mouth.
The pile, except for one item, was what he expected to find in a female citizen’s bag. Certainly, the small spraycan of TM was not. It was illegal for anyone but members of the organic department to have them and even this was under restricted conditions.
Duncan, holding the can, said, “Did you intend to use this on the Cloyds?”
The woman nodded and said, “It’s a security measure we take whenever there’s a possible need for it. With the present situation…”
She waved her hand to indicate that everything was a mess just now.
“What’s your name and ID number?”
“Oh, no, I can’t tell you that!” she said. “It’d be too dangerous!”
Duncan spoke to the Cloyds. “What name does she use when she’s dealing with you? And is she your only contact?”
Donna Cloyd spoke before her husband could get his mouth open. “Codename FOX. And, yes, she’s our only direct contact.”
She hesitated, and Duncan brandished the can of TM. “You might as well tell me the whole truth.”
She shrugged. “Oh, well, you’ll get it out of us anyway. Though you don’t have to be so belligerent about it, you know. We’re on your side. Everybody in this apartment, all the days except Friday, is OMC. We leave messages for each other when we get orders to do so.”
Duncan gestured at Snick. “FOX, give her your ID card.”
The woman wailed, “You’re getting me into deep trouble!”
“Give.”
Very pale, shaking, and slow with reluctance, the woman removed the fake-gold necklace at the end of which her card hung. Snick took the blue-colored oblong and inserted it in a wall slot. The name, Harper Sheppard Jaccoud, and the ID number appeared at the top of the screen. Her icon turned slowly, revealing full-face, quarter-profile, half-profile, and back. Then the icon, still revolving, shrank, and half the screen was filled with her biodata.
She resided on the 14th level and worked full-time, six hours, as a laboratory technician for a biochemistry research department, privately owned but partly government subsidized. She was unmarried and childless. As of ten subweeks ago, she was living with a man, Johnson Chu Goldstein, an airboat mechanic.
“Goldstein?” Duncan said. “He’s OMC, too?”
“I proposed him as a candidate,” Jaccoud said. “But I was told that he drank too much, was too loose-lipped. I don’t think that was the real reason he was rejected. He doesn’t drink that much.”
“Maybe,” Snick said, “he is an OMC, but the higher-ups didn’t want you to know that.”
Jaccoud looked shocked. She sat down on the sofa beside the Cloyds.
“You’ve all seen the news, of course,” Duncan said. “What you don’t know is that World Councillor Ananda was the head of OMC and God only knows how many more underground organizations. He’s dead, but the ganks must’ve TMed him before he died. Unless he was in too deep a coma. I hope so. In any event, someone’s taken his place as head of the OMC—unless that person’s identity was revealed by Ananda. I’m taking a chance that it wasn’t. So, what I’m going to do, I’m going to work my way up the ladder of the hierarchy until I find that person.”
He pointed at Jaccoud. “You’re the second rung.”
“That’s crazy!” she said. “Impossible, too! I don’t know who my upper contact is. Except for just once, I never saw her. I’d get coded messages via TV that would seem to the uninitiated to be harmless conversation.”
“The exception?” Duncan said.
“I was summoned to meet her just once. It was in a warehouse, shortly after I was recruited for the OMC.”
“Recruited by whom?” Duncan said.
Jaccoud turned her head to look at Donna Cloyd, seated next to her. “She did it. She is my first cousin. I’ve known her since we were little
children. She’s the one who talked me into this.”
“Damn!” Donna said. “You weren’t supposed…”
Jaccoud interrupted. “What’s the difference? They’re going to TM me.” She looked at Duncan. “Right?”
He nodded and said, “That’s why you better not lie to us. Now, describe your contact.”
He was not surprised when she had finished talking. His sole experience in a meeting with an upper-echelon OMC person was like hers except that it had taken place in a gymnasium. That mysterious being had been hooded, masked, heavily robed, and speaking through a voice distorter.
There was silence for a moment. Then Jaccoud said, “Oh, hell, you’ll get it out of me anyway when you TM me! I shouldn’t have done it! I knew it was forbidden, and it was dangerous and dumb! Pure stupidity! But I was just too curious! I couldn’t help myself. I followed her after she left the gym!”
Duncan smiled. “That was stupid. It was also dangerous. If she’d found out what you did, you’d be dead now.”
He had suspected that she had shadowed her contact when she referred to the masked person as a woman.
“Oh, God, you’re not going to tell them?” Jaccoud said.
“We’ll keep that secret among ourselves,” Duncan said. He looked at the Cloyds. “Right?”
Barry Cloyd tugged at a corner of his thick black moustache and said, “Double-right. Since we know that, we’re in as much danger from them as FOX… Jaccoud is.”
Harper Jaccoud said, weakly, “I’m very sorry.”
Duncan said, “You followed her. What’s her name and address and ID number? Or don’t you know?”
Jaccoud sighed deeply and said, “I know.” After a pause, she gave the information slowly and painfully, as if she were hauling up each word separately from her throat with ropes made of barbed wire.
Jaccoud had sneaked after the contact and observed her from behind a pile of boxes. In a dark corner, the woman had removed her disguise, stuffed it into a shoulderbag, and walked out of the warehouse. Jaccoud, fearful yet driven with the kind of indiscreet nosiness that killed the cat, had trailed the woman at a distance. She had taken the elevator to the prestigious 125th level. Jaccoud waited until the level indicator showed where the cage had stopped. Then she had taken another cage and gotten off of it just in time to see the back of the woman as she went around a corner at the end of a very long corridor. After Jaccoud had raced to that corner, she had peeked around it. Her heart, she said, was squeezing out buckets of fear. She saw the woman go into a door. After it was closed, Jaccoud had walked up to it and noted the address.
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