by Ryder Stacy
The red-robed bishops came in with candle-carrying altar boys. Like an old church service, Rockson thought. Not like the twenty-first-century religion of no sects. In the future it was all united—Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Moslem: all meditated in the simple chapel at Century City.
There were at least a dozen priests, wearing black and clerical collars, on the wide altar. A half dozen or more preteen boys—acolytes—went around assisting them in the manipulation of religious articles. The boys chanted up a storm of Latin, while the priests handed the articles and received them back from one tall red-robed man—the bishop, judging by his peaked hat. The priests and acolytes finished up their mystic business and left. The bishop climbed steps to a high, ornate pulpit with horrible wooden carvings—gargoyles. He put his figure into the light. He was narrow-faced, middle-aged, and wore thick horn-rimmed glasses. He cleared his throat and adjusted the microphone.
He began his sermon: “I am Bishop Pohsib. All ye gathered here know that it is not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. My talk tonight will dwell on that simple truth.” He smiled, adjusted the microphone closer to his mouth, and continued. “My flock, know ye that it doesn’t matter what square you occupy in the game of life, it is how you occupy that square . . .”
Applause.
“Ye are thanked . . . my flock, know ye that it doesn’t matter if you are driven off the board, if the view is good on the way down . . .”
Rockson only half listened after that point—it seemed to be drivel. Finally, after ten minutes of it, the topic became more interesting to him. After the bishop made the sign of the square and blessed all, he said: “It is with sadness that I report to you that His Holiness, Mayor Chessman, moved to City Hall Tower yesterday. He will spend the next few weeks working there while his suite upstairs is modernized.”
A sigh of disappointment rolled through the gathered consultants and other solid citizens.
Shit, Rock thought, I’ve sneaked in here for nothing, risked all to penetrate the Tabernacle when Chessman isn’t even here!
The lights came up. It was over. People got up and started to file out. Rockson decided to hide, and when all the audience had left, to still perform the second half of his mission. If he couldn’t find and checkmate the Chessman tonight, he could still destroy the radio tower at the peak of the roof, and stop the mind-bending hypno-music.
He remembered Barrelman’s advice that the marble crypts—heavy white coffins of stone carved with the same hideous gargoyles as the pulpit—demons with wings, hunch-backed twisted-faced dwarves with tridents—were advantageous places to hide. There were a half dozen along the left side of the vast room.
Rockson crouched and ran along the aisle until he could dash the ten feet to the nearest crypt, and with all his mutant strength pushed the heavy cover aside. Inside it was dark and cool and about four feet deep. Barrelman better be right, he thought as he jumped in, I sure hope to God these are empty. I don’t want to get cozy with a bunch of bones right now.
Barrelman wasn’t right. He landed in a crunchy pile of powdery bones, judging from the white dust. He was sure, when he struck a match for a brief instant to see. Only the skull seemed to be intact. The rest of the skeleton had completely disintegrated. Stifling a sneeze, he bent lower.
Oh, well, I’ve been in worse places, he thought. Bending into a push-ups position over the corpse, he slid the cover back so that only a crack of light showed. Then he put his eyes to the opening. He could see the activity at the high altar. The bishop that had given the sermon, Bishop Pohsib, was dousing the thousands of candles with a long snuffer. A group of acolytes were helping him. If the six boys left, Rockson was determined to rush the high bishop, capture him, and wring some information from his lips. Information such as how to reach the radio tower, or maybe how to penetrate the City Hall Tower and get at Chessman. But for now, until the rigmarole upon the stage was completed, he would bide his time . . .
If this was like any of the ancient churches he’d read about, the bishop would perhaps have a go at a prayer alone before he left.
What the hell, it was a plan. And any plan was better than none. The compound gun was by his side; he’d soon make a move.
But the best-laid plans of church-mice and men sometimes go astray. Rockson heard what sounded like drums—no, not drums—footfalls in rhythm. A whole squad of synchro-stepping rookies, perhaps. Maybe they had counted the people who went into the church. Maybe they counted as everyone left, too and were one short!
Twelve
Rockson was desperate. Instead of catching the bishop, he himself was in risk of being caught, he realized. The crypt might become his tomb. The old marble coffin with carved gargoyles on the lid could become his coffin, if those tramping footsteps were what he suspected. But he’d take some with him!
Peering out from his crack, Rockson saw that the Tabernacle was crawling with armed rookies and thought police with trank-wands. Most of them wore helmets with mirrored visors that covered their faces. They were scurrying everywhere, as if they had caught his scent and were closing in for the kill. He had to get out. He reached in the darkness for the compound gun.
Suddenly the crack was filled with darkness, and Rock’s vision was cut off. Someone was standing in front of the crack. Rockson drew back, diving for the darkness of the crypt—but it was too late. The lid was inching up, the view above filled with mirror-faced rookies.
Rockson reached for the compound gun, but before he could bring it up to fire, the long steel rod of a consultant slipped into the sarcophagus. Rockson felt its cold red tip touch his right sleeve. Instantly he was thrown into confusion. He was sprayed with a tranquilizer fluid from the long trank-wand.
He didn’t know who he was, where he was. A rush of confused, disjointed thoughts rushed through his mind. And upon that wave of confusion was a powerful pleasant sensation, like sinking into mud while being sprayed with perfume—contradictory sensations. A smile broke out on his lips, and as the lid was fully removed, Rockson sat up.
“Hi, fellas,” he said to the gathering of rookies and the consultant who now withdrew his weapon. “Wonderful, wonderful night, isn’t it?”
The rookies were told to lower their weapons by the consultant. “He got a good dose,” the consultant told them. “No need for guns now.”
Rockson was asked to come out of the crypt. He did, dusting off the bone dust with his hands, still smiling. “It’s fun in there—you should really try it sometime.”
“Perhaps I will,” said the consultant. “Now, you want to come with us, don’t you?” No one looked into the dark reaches of the crypt. The compound gun was forgotten by Rockson also.
One of the rookies said, “Say, you don’t suppose this is the freak that shot up half the town, do you?”
The consultant shook his head. “He doesn’t fit the description—and he has no machine gun. He’s just one of those church-break-in guys; some people adore Bishop Pohsib so much, they’ve got to see him in person.”
Rockson was no longer smiling; instead his face twitched. He realized he had been captured. “Some sort of drug in that—metal rod,” he mumbled. “Where are you taking me?” The consultant sneered. In his icy, dead eyes, Rockson saw his own distorted reflection, moving up and down with the man’s snapped-out words. “You have a great ability to withstand the drug. Pawns like you require treatment. You will get it.”
“Treatment? What treatment?”
“You’ll find out soon enough!” An officer grabbed Rockson’s arms and pulled them behind his back, snapping on handcuffs. Then he shoved Rock toward the huge open door. “Move it!”
Rockson now understood that somehow he was thought of as a petty criminal. That was a break. Unless they found the gun, this might not be so bad. Kim would hear of his detention. And cute little Kim had bailed him out of trouble once before—perhaps she could do it again.
“My wife!” he exclaimed. “You must let me contact my wife. I have a right!�
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“You have no rights under the law set forth by the Chessman.”
“But you can vouch for me. I came to hear the bishop’s talk—”
“She can’t help you. Free thought is a serious offense. If the Chessman decides to release you, then you’ll see her again. If He doesn’t, you won’t. You should have thought of that before you broke the law, mister. You’re just lucky you’re not carrying a weapon.”
Rockson was about to protest further, but he was abruptly tranquilized. The consultant had again directed the trank-wand at him. It overpowered his own will and immobilized him. He felt as docile as a kitten.
He gave them a silly grin. “Whatever you say, fellas.”
The watchful men led him out of the Tabernacle to their armored van waiting near Temple Square. They opened the rear door and threw him in. Three rookies followed him in and sat down on the benches on the sides of the van. They kept their weapons ready in case their prisoner, declared a “dangerous free-thoughter” by their superior, should make the slightest move.
Rockson was not about to test their trigger fingers.
He shook his head and tried to sit up on the floor. A wave of hypno-music from inside the van covered him like a cool blanket, lulling him into a lethargic fog. It was the second-strongest music he’d heard since the time-tornado had dropped him in this bizarre place.
I must resist the music, he thought, but the free thought required too much effort. It was much easier to lie down and float into a color-filled, weightless void.
The soft, comforting hypno-music ended like a needle pulled from a record. Rockson was pulled from the van. Light-headed and feeling somewhat goofy, he blinked in the sunlight. To his left and in the distance, puffy little clouds drifted serenely over a heavy fog bank.
Before him rose an ominous, Gothic building made out of huge blocks of granite, CITY CONSULTANTS REHABILITATION CENTER was chiseled in the stone above the wide double doors. To the right of the doors was a brass plaque that read, Dedicated to His Holy Highness, the Chessman.
Rockson was taken through the doors. Inside, the building was dark with long, high-ceilinged halls that made every footstep and rustle echo loudly. The rookies ushered him to an elevator, which descended, Rockson thought, into the very bowels of the earth.
The elevator opened into a narrow hall marked by small, blank doors. The doors had no handles, but were opened by handprint. Ahead of him, Rockson saw a guard place his right hand on a sensor, then wait a few seconds while a computer scanned the print and matched it for authorization. The door opened and the guard stepped through. The door shut immediately behind him.
Rockson and his escorts walked on through the seemingly endless hall. Judging from the size of the facility, the Chessman was doing a lot of rehabilitating. His daze was wearing off—the muzik inside the building was much milder than in the van, and the trank-wand’s effect was wearing off.
At the end of the hall, the guards halted in front of a door built for midgets. An adult would have to stoop to go into and out of the room on the other side. One of the men activated the handprint lock. The door slid open and Rockson was shoved head first into an antiseptic cubicle.
The door shut behind him; he was alone. The room had no windows and a ceiling too high for him to reach. Even if he could have managed a jump—and he decidedly lacked the energy—there was nothing on the ceiling to grab onto, not even a light fixture. The ceiling itself seemed to glow, filling the cell with a harsh light that made Rockson squint. There was loud muzik—from a hidden speaker.
In one corner was a small toilet cemented into the floor. It was real, functioning plumbing, the kind Rockson had only seen in the quarters belonging to the privileged and rich in the condo areas. He realized he might be in this detention cell a long time. He checked everything—even the toilet. There was no lever or handle on it; Rockson guessed it flushed automatically. He tested his theory by pissing into it. The toilet flushed as soon as he was done.
There was no bed; he wondered why, and soon found out. As soon as he thought about bed and sleep, one wall started to ripple and open. A cot appeared and unfolded from the wail.
Rockson whistled. Slick. Was this illusion or what?
He felt the cot. It was real—or at least it felt real. He sat on it. It held his weight. He got up and dismissed thoughts of sleep. The cot dissolved into the wall.
He whistled again and ran his hands over the wall. There were no seams, no cracks. How in the hell did they do it?
There was only one explanation Rockson could accept—the hypno-music that filled his ears, seeming to come from everywhere. Reality was whatever you believed, and the lulling muzik was creating a new reality for him. It was programming him. He had to stop it!
He put his hands to his ears. He hummed. He talked out loud. Nothing blocked the insidious muzik.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Anybody out there? I know you’re listening!”
There was no response but the flowing, mesmerizing hypno-music. Rockson knew his brain would have the equivalent of a lobotomy if he did not stop the muzik from penetrating his consciousness.
Then he remembered the Glowers—his teachers. Those strangely beautiful beings with their insides on the outside, organs pumping and throbbing away for the eye to see, their minds linked in telepathic thought. The Glowers generally kept to themselves, but had allowed Rockson to join their circle as a “learner,” once, long ago—or rather a long time from now.
The Glowers had taught him many a survival technique for the mutated post-nuclear-war world. Perhaps, he thought, those same techniques would work in this world.
Rockson sat down on the cold cement floor and crossed his legs in a lotus position for meditation. It required supreme mental effort, as the hypno-music was steadily eroding his ability to think freely. Part of him wanted badly to surrender to the muzik, to let his mind go blank, to be meek and filled with a stupid happiness.
He knew that, in a way, he would have to let submission happen—or at least make it appear to happen. Any strong or continued free thinking would prevent his release. He would have to fool his captors into thinking he was under the spell of the subliminal messages, while his real self remained free. There was only one way to do this.
He would have to literally divide his mind in two. He had done it once before, but he didn’t know if he could do it again. He’d give it a try. The alternative was death, because Rockson would never allow himself to be complacent Theodore Rockman, living the same controlled life as the other inhabitants of this mad city.
Rockson took a deep breath and focussed on what the Glowers called KA, the inner power that resides within every being, the fount of unlimited psychic energy. He surrounded his inner being with the KA like a plate of iridescent, impervious armor. He projected superficial, conscious thoughts beyond the protection of the KA, out to where the thought police could monitor and the hypno-music could influence.
But his real self would be deep, hidden and protected.
Rockson meditated that way for hours, unaware of the passage of time, concentrating until the presence of the KA force would remain in place subconsciously. He hoped.
He came out of his trance ravenous for food. God! When was the last time he had eaten? His hunger threatened to consume him. His rumbling stomach was so empty it practically pressed against his spine.
Rockson had no idea what time it was, whether it was day or night, or how long he had been in the cell. The white glow remained steady from the ceiling. The muzik swirled in lulling waves—but he was immune to the messages within it.
At the conscious thought of food, a slot in the bottom of the cell door opened and a tray slid in. The slot hissed shut.
Rockson couldn’t believe his eyes. The tray was heaped with food, all of which smelled and looked exquisitely delicious. There was a huge slab of animal meat, cooked well-done and glistening with marbled fat, and a tuber that looked just like a potato, only it was brown instead of blue. The tuber
was split open and covered with a melted yellow substance.
Some of the items he had never seen before—little, wrinkled green pellets sitting in a pile, and a ball of orange-colored fruit that appeared to have a tough, thick skin.
Rockson salivated. He had never been so hungry in his life. The hypno-music invited him to eat, enjoy himself, taste the delicious food. Impulsively he reached out to grab the meat.
Stop! The KA Force commanded within him. You cannot touch the food! You cannot eat!
Rockson stopped his hand in midair, then slowly withdrew it from the tray. With overwhelming sadness, he knew he could not eat the food, for it was tainted with tranquilizers and mind-altering drugs—just like most other food he had discovered in the city. Didn’t he remember?
Rockson ached. He was nearly faint from hunger, yet he could not touch a single green pellet, or even lick the fat from the meat.
“Damn!” he exclaimed.
The hypno-music changed. Instead of inviting him to eat, the subliminal messages commanded him to eat. The desire for the drugged food was stronger, more irresistible than ever.
Rockson countered by retreating to meditation. He was supposed to be docile, and a docile man would eat. He called forth an image in his mind of himself eating the food on the tray. He imagined himself wolfing down the meat, devouring every last morsel, licking the plate and then his fingers.
While he thought about it, he took the plate and shoved its contents into the toilet. The toilet flushed erratically struggling with the meat, but some sort of suction device eventually pulled it in.