When the River Ran Dry

by Robert Davies

  It was unusual to find such a thing; Ricky understood enough about the Walk to know Chasers always worked in groups of three or four. This one, he thought, had interpreted the signal loss correctly and moved away from the group on his own. Ricky realized with stark, sober clarity the Zorich device would go active the instant the Chaser rounded the corner and clear of the thick wall’s interference; he would have only one chance.

  Ricky slid silently around the end of the building and in a sudden, unexpected explosion of speed, he lurched for the Chaser even as the locator alarm chirped out its first warning. The momentum of Ricky’s movement took the Chaser off his feet and both landed on the ground with a sickening thud, knocking the wind from his pursuer’s lungs. With a single, swift movement, Ricky reached first for the Chaser’s arm, slamming it against the gravel surface in a skillful stroke to obliterate delicate homing equipment. Rolling awkwardly to his feet, Ricky clamped his arm around the Chaser’s neck, pulling in the tightest headlock he could manage. Below, he enveloped the writhing Chaser firmly with his legs, ignoring the pain of constant punches as the struggling man tried desperately to free himself.

  With all his might, Ricky held on, even as the Chaser tried to shout, releasing instead a muffled growl. From years of frustration and anger made worse with each successive disaster in a life that had become a definition of weakness and failure, Ricky held on, intent on choking the life from the Chaser as each second ticked by. With his throat constricting under Ricky’s headlock grip, the Chaser couldn’t cry out and his destroyed locator would never again announce Ricky’s position to the others. For a full minute, the death struggle went on until at last, he felt the Chaser’s body go limp. Still he held on, refusing to believe what he saw before him until slowly, he released his grip and stood.

  There was no moment of reflection—no remorse or regret he had killed a man with his bare hands. The Chaser’s final exhalation simply told Ricky what he needed to know; his escape was possible once more. He rolled the man’s lifeless body to one side, careful to position it facedown in a strange compulsion to avoid seeing his face. In an absurd moment, Ricky realized it had been his first violent act since the days as a raw teenager struggling for relevance in a world of street gangs. The Walk, and demands made from people who were brutal by nature, had pulled him back across the divide between normal and perverse; Ricky Mills rejoined the violent ones in the middle of his desperate fight for life.

  They pushed and prodded him for years, people like Bartel, but he had never shown the fire of resistance that seethed beneath the surface. They looked and saw a timid man—a coward who accepted in silence what he couldn’t change by force of temperament, but his aversion to force and muscle was deliberate. Commerce and trade are rarely conducted by such people to any degree of success, Mister Anthony once told him, and fear is not always as effective as greed, perversions or weakness. At once, Ricky saw Junkyard’s face in his thoughts, smirking and pouring out threats that chewed away at his pride. Now, in the dark outside an abandoned factory, he nodded silently with defiance and a powerful will to live.

  After a moment to catch his breath, a sudden panic took him when Ricky realized the other Chasers could stumble upon him at any moment. Across the grounds to the northwest, another massive building loomed in the dim light; if he could reach it and continue along its far wall, he thought, Dorval Road was only a short walk through the woods that once defined the Zone’s border. When the other Chase teams found their lifeless companion, Ricky knew, their determination to even the score would become all the more intense.

  He searched frantically for the Chaser’s long-barreled machine pistol, slinging it over his shoulder before sprinting toward the next goal, expecting at any moment to hear the shouts of the Chasers before inevitable gunfire that would surely follow. In seconds, he slid neatly along the second building, astonished to find no others from the chase units had discovered his work (and the strangled corpse he left behind).

  Near breathless after the life and death struggle, Ricky made his way along the warehouse’s outer wall, slowing up an incline in knee-high weeds that pulled at his clothing with stiff, saw-like blades. At last, he moved through a narrow stand of ancient oaks paralleling Dorval Road. For ten minutes he walked, looking again at the Chaser’s gun in order to remember how to fire it. It was surprising, but Ricky took another moment to consider again the little cameras fixed to his body by the organizers in his last moments near the fountain at Lafayette Park. The Chasers were cut off from the video feeds to preserve at least a small semblance of fairness, yet millions surely watched the spectacle with fistfuls of crisps and glasses of Topaz, shouting out scorn or encouragement Ricky couldn’t hear. There was little doubt Boris watched—Bartel and Junkyard, too. Were they disappointed with his persistent survival, Ricky wondered? Had the Bosses conspired to alter the betting house transactions, convinced he would ultimately fall to a chase sniper’s bullet?

  At last, Ricky saw the lights of the Broadridge tower once more, bathing the darkness with pulsing washes of red as its warning lights blinked in slow, measured cadence. Gleaming like a lighthouse against the desperation and terror that followed since his flight began, he felt the surge of purpose pushing him onward. One last, determined dash across the divide between the Industrial Zone and the communications complex separated him from deliverance.

  It was maddeningly slow, picking his way through the thick underbrush on the far side of the Zone that paralleled Dorval Road. It seemed to go on forever, knowing the ground units were surely close behind, yet he was hesitant to make for the road too soon and the likelihood a Chaser patrol speeder would catch him out in the open. He continued onward, trying to avoid those heaviest thickets where the noise of his passing would make locating him all the more easy for his pursuers.

  When he paused to wipe the sweat away with his soaked shirt sleeve, Ricky saw a narrow gap where a pathway led up a gentle hill and beyond it, the smooth pavement of Dorval Road. Doubtless worn down by occasional Agros who ventured in through the northern wire, he thought silently, the pathway was a welcome relief to the halting march his escape became through the dense growth.

  The way was trodden down to bare dirt, but each step sent a puff of powdery dry dust into the air, making Ricky frown, knowing it could be seen through a Chaser’s nightscope from a distance. After a moment or two, the path exited thick bushes and out to a broad stretch of high grass, mostly open and clear all the way to the road. Carried onward by a growing sense of excitement, Ricky crossed the distance in minutes until he could see the dark shape of pavement appeared, winding like a great snake beyond a hill that formed the eastern side of the Broadridge compound. As he went, he couldn’t help but gaze upward at the Tower, now looming so close he could count the cross-hatched beams of its structure in the crimson light.

  Nearer to the northern wire, temperatures eased and a gentle breeze brought cool relief as Ricky trotted along the deserted pavement, grateful no one thought to line it with glaring streetlights. He felt a dull, constant fear of exposure, but slowing would only give the Chasers time to intercept and kill him within sight of Broadridge. By this point, he reasoned, they doubtless knew the communications complex was his goal and they would surely aim directly for it. Again and again, he looked desperately over a shoulder, but only the rooftops of factory buildings remained in view. A powerful, instinctive compulsion to run returned, but Ricky resisted and held pace as the last stretch of road drew near.

  Through gentle bends to the left and then right, Dorval Road descended through a heavy forest of tall pines and only the sound of his footfalls broke the eerie silence. He jogged onward, now comfortable with a steady trot until suddenly, he stopped. From the web belt around his waist, a voice called out.

  “Mills, can you hear me?”

  Ricky said nothing as the hair on his neck stood on end.

  “Mills? If you can hear me, say so, damn it!”

  It made no sense—had he suddenly lost co
ntrol, given in to the fear? Again the voice spoke, muted like a cloth held to a comm unit’s microphone.

  “I’ve locked out the transmitter feed and isolated it to a single frequency; they can’t hear this, but it will be noticed if it goes on for too long.”

  Ricky looked again behind him, suspecting perhaps the Chasers were playing a cruel trick in order to satisfy the bloodlust of viewers eager for more than a simple rifle shot at range.

  “I can see you on the video,” the voice continued; “just cough or something, okay? The cameras have microphones and a small speaker, so we can communicate for a short time.”

  Ricky cleared his throat loudly.

  “Good. Now listen very carefully because we don’t have much time.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Never mind that now; they’re waiting a short distance beyond, do you understand?”

  “No, I don’t! Who are you?”

  “If you want to live, follow my instructions, all right?”

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Listen to me, Mills; they’re waiting for you near the gate at Broadridge. The Chasers figured out where you’re going and they sent a team ahead by air to cut you off; they’re waiting to ambush you before you can reach the compound.”

  “I don’t know who you are, but if you think I’m stupid enough to…”

  “Elden sent me.”

  Ricky felt his senses tingle. Like a lifeline thrown suddenly to a drowning swimmer, just the old man’s name held a possibility for survival and Ricky grabbed at it.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Two Chasers are hiding behind a little shed just outside the gate. They’re waiting for you to make the top of the hill.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Elden asked me to keep you alive. Do you want to live?”

  “Yes!”

  Again, Ricky’s head swirled with confusion. Had the organizers made a special arrangement for the audience? Had they set him up to be gunned down within sight of the Broadridge complex, merely to heighten the excitement, or perhaps alter the betting odds in order to realize a higher profit percentage, he wondered?

  “What do you want me to do?”

  The voice guided him back into the trees and beyond them, a ravine fell off sharply toward the secondary canals. A steep angle would be difficult to negotiate, but it could shield Ricky’s movements until he was safely past the gate and gifted with a clear shot. If he went slowly, the voice insisted, the Chasers would have no chance when Ricky opened fire.

  “You have that lone Chaser’s gun now; you can survive, but you have to get them first. You need to kill both of them, understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good luck, Mills,” the voice said, and the connection was restored to the network studios.

  There were no other options; Ricky had to accept or reject the voice’s commands. If the truth was as his hidden benefactor said, and the Chase units had indeed made an ambush from which to cut him down, Ricky would have one last chance to stay alive. If the words were a contrived lie, it would make little difference. He decided to accept the risk.

  Well below the upper edge of the ravine and out of sight, Ricky went carefully through a tangle of bushes that covered the ground beneath the trees. Working his way along, he tried his best not to make a sound and betray his position. The Zorich device could not transmit through the earth between, giving him time to crest the rim before its signal went live again. Above, the spire of the Broadridge comm tower became a silent beacon of hope, calling to him as Ricky crept up the ravine’s incline. When he saw the bright lights bathing the area around the wide gate, two Chasers huddling behind the small outbuilding confirmed the unseen voice’s warning; they watched in the opposite direction, still unable to establish a clean signal.

  Ricky raised the dead Chaser’s gun slowly into position, pulling it tight into his shoulder. Even in the dim light, the safety button was obvious and he thumbed it off the way his uncle taught him when he was only a boy. He remembered shooting at cans and old appliances out near the southern wire long before, never knowing the skill would one day stand between him and death. It had been years, but Ricky remembered.

  Concealed behind an enormous oak, he peeked again, watching for the moment the Zorich device went live, but there was no movement from the Chasers. Ricky looked through the gun scope and found them squatting along one side of the little shed, bathed in the gate’s light. Calming himself first, he took in a deep breath, aimed and fired. Round after round hammered out at the confused Chasers who spun to meet an enemy they couldn’t see. One fell dead almost at once as the bullets slashed through his torso, but the second man stumbled toward the nearby shed before trying a sudden break to the hillside beyond. Ricky’s final volley found its mark and he collapsed at once.

  In the silence, even as the shots echoed through the trees, Ricky felt as if his heart would explode. A ringing in his ears seemed almost painful, yet it was made only by his heightened fear and excitement and not the hot, smoking barrel of his gun. As Ricky approached, the second Chaser writhed on the ground with the pain of gunshots across his legs, screaming out coughs of agony into the dark night. Ricky stopped and aimed once more, silencing the noise with a single shot through the back of the man’s helmet. As he stood and looked at the lifeless bodies—and their blood spreading slowly across the bare dirt—a buzzer sounded from the gate. Behind it, several bright floodlights nearly blinded him and Ricky waited in confusion, shouldering his gun again until he recognized the Walk organizers moving toward him. As the first figure reached him, she smiled and aimed him toward a camera drone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, here is Richard Mills; only the sixth Walk survivor in the event’s thirty-year history!”

  Incredibly, no one seemed to notice the two men he shot to death moments before. Instead, a crowd of mobile video teams swarmed suddenly around him in the glare of camera lights, each offering loud congratulations and vying for his reaction. It had been a long time since a Walk contestant made it through alive, they said. “How do you feel?” one asked. “What will you do next?” questioned another. They gathered around him, wondering with smiles and excited nods how he knew the Chasers waited in ambush for him. Ricky felt numb and spent, unbelieving his nightmare was truly over. A uniformed MPE cop took the machine gun slowly from his hands, but Ricky wanted only to go home to the little flat off Morrissey Square.

  An organizer held him for a moment as a medical technician treated the painful wound on Ricky’s head, but the words sounded strange and distant. He felt himself trembling more in anger than from fear as an air car arrived from the south, settling in a cloud of dust on the wide approach to the gate and Broadridge beyond. There would be plenty of time for interviews, an organizer announced suddenly, but Ricky didn’t notice.

  “Is it finished?” he demanded.

  After a moment of thunderous laughter, the organizing official—younger even than Ricky—held his hand in hers as she turned him once more toward the jostling camera crews.

  “Of course it is.” She smiled. “You’re safe now! When you’re ready, our driver will take you home. Again, our congratulations to you, Mr. Mills!”

  Bandaged and still numb from his ordeal, Ricky went quickly to a waiting air car. When it lifted above the trees and turned gently toward the south, he felt like a different man; a fallen impostor—a criminal—in the shape of Ricky Mills. Compromised and made subject to the whims of others, he had run a gauntlet few ever survived. As they sped across the Zone at treetop level, Ricky Mills looked at his image reflected in the air car’s window and saw a stranger peering back through lifeless, tired eyes. It was over and minutes later, he would walk down the deserted alley off Rademacher Way profoundly lucky, but very much alive.

  From the glass dome that formed the roof of his penthouse where it towered above Novum’s central sector, Victor Jamison blinked a few times as the program went to commercial. They sat for a mom
ent, allowing the images to fade completely as Granville slowly raised the lights. Ross spoke first.

  “Victor, I have to admit, that was one of the best we’ve seen in a long time.”

  Kirtland nodded his agreement.

  “You’ve outdone yourself; this one was truly exceptional!”

  Jamison sat for a moment, nodding at last to his assistant.

  “Thank you, Granville. If you wouldn’t mind, I believe refreshments are in order.”

  “At once, sir,” the attendant replied, turning for the door. Ross stood and rubbed his eyes.

  “I thought he was finished, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Kirtland nodded, “he was dead for sure, the clever bastard!”

  Ross waited while Granville walked quietly through the group with his tray, handing out aged Topaz in shallow, oblong glasses.

  “I wasn’t sure if your description of the new cameras and transmitting gear was mere boasting, Victor, but I can see now you were right; the image and replay fidelity is remarkable. I could actually hear this one’s heartbeat, pounding in his ears. We’ve never enjoyed this level of immersion!”

  Jamison nodded, but when he turned away at once, Ross continued.

  “Well, we spent enough money on them—they ought to be exceptional. The masses get to watch on their little vid screens, of course, but none of them were treated to such a complete show. It was fantastic—really fantastic!”

  “Who is he, Victor?” Kirtland asked, sipping his drink slowly.

  Jamison didn’t hear the question.

  “Victor?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Edward. His name is Mills; Richard Mills. My man Konstantinou tells me he’s an ordinary urchin—a small time street hustler who operates out of Sector 4. It would seem he’s developed an uncontrollable desire for Starlight, so…”