Jericho Iteration

by Allen Steele

  But there was no sense in asking Joker if it was mistaken; my little Toshiba didn’t make errors like that. “Okay, Joker,” I said, “read it to me.”

  “IM received 6:12 P.M. as follows,” Joker recited. “‘I got your message. Need to talk at once. Please meet me near the rear entrance of the Muny at eight o’clock.’ End of message. The sender did not leave a logon or a number.”

  I felt a cold chill when I heard this message. I believe in coincidence as much as the next superstitious person, but this was a bit too much.

  An IM intended for John had been sent to me instead, requesting a meeting at the Muny … and, as synchronicity would have it, where would I happen to be when I received it? At the Muny.

  I took a deep breath. “Okay, Joker,” I said, “what’s the gag?”

  “What gag, Gerry?”

  “C’mon. Who really sent the message? Was it John?” I grinned. “Or was it Jah?”

  “Negative. The message did not originate from either of those individuals. The person sending the IM did not leave a logon or a return number, but I can assure you that it was not received from any PT with which I regularly interface.”

  This was flat-out impossible. E-mail could not be sent anonymously; Joker’s modem always logged the originating modem number. Joker must have contracted a virus of some sort. “Please run a self-diagnostic test,” I said.

  “Running test.” There was a long pause while Joker’s disk doctor pushed, prodded, asked embarrassing questions, and slipped a rectal thermometer up its cybernetic asshole. “Test complete,” Joker said at last. “All sectors are clean. There is no evidence of tampering with my architecture.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I, Gerry. Nonetheless, I do not have a return number for this IM.”

  I mulled it over for a second, then Joker spoke up again. “I have opened a file, slugged ‘park,’ suffix numeral one. Are you ready to dictate, Gerry?”

  I shook my head, watching rain running down from the slate roof onto the awning. Squatters wandered back and forth around me, ignoring the guy leaning against a column with a hand clasped to his ear, apparently talking to himself. Down on the stage, a neogrunge band had replaced the killer yuppie; discordant guitar riffs and high-pitched feedback threatened to overwhelm the stolen PA system they had set up behind them. Black-market vendors were circulating through the aisles, hustling everything from wet popcorn to expired pharmaceuticals. Off in the far distance, beyond the trees, were the lights of the city’s central west end: clean, brilliant apartment towers, easily seen by thousands of people who were on prolonged camp-out in old U.S. Army tents, eating cold MREs by firelight and crapping in overflowing Port-O-Johnnies. Your tax dollars at work.

  “No,” I said. “Close and delete file. I’m going off-line now, okay?”

  “I understand,” Joker said. “Signing off.”

  So. The self-diagnostic check had come up clean, and the IM wasn’t a prank. I pondered these mysteries while I wadded up the earphone and tucked it back into my jacket pocket. Why had a message obviously intended for John reached me instead, even though I was in the right place at the right time?

  I had no recourse except to go to the meeting place. Walking around the column, I bumped my way through the wet, hopeless crowd, heading for the amphitheater’s rear entrance gate.

  That was how it all began.

  2

  (Wednesday, 8:10 P.M.)

  PEOPLE WERE STILL SHUFFLING through the back entrance by the time I got there. According to the message Joker had received, I was ten minutes late for my appointment … or rather, for John’s appointment. I hung around for a couple of minutes, leaning against the fence near the gate and watching people go by, and was about to chalk off the message as some sort of neural-net glitch when a short figure in a hooded rain jacket approached me.

  “Are you Tiernan?” she asked softly.

  I gave myself a moment to size her up: a middle-aged black woman, her face only half seen beneath the soaked plastic hood, her hands hidden in the pockets of her jacket. She could have been anyone in the crowd except that her raingear looked a little too new and well made to be government issue. Whoever she was, she wasn’t a squatter.

  “No,” I said. She murmured an apology and started to turn away. “But I’m a friend of his,” I quickly added. “I work for the same paper. Big Muddy Inquirer.”

  She stopped, looked me over, then turned back around. “What’s your name?” she asked, still speaking in a low voice.

  “Gerry Rosen.” She gazed silently at me, waiting for me to continue. “I got an IM on my PT to meet someone here,” I went on. “I mean, it was intended for John, but—”

  “Why isn’t John here?” she demanded. “C’mon, let me see some ID.”

  “Sure, if you insist.” I shrugged, unzipped my jacket, and started to reach inside.

  “Hold it right there,” she snapped as her right hand darted out of her rain jacket. I felt something press against my ribs. I froze and looked down to see a tiny stun gun, shaped like a pistol except with two short metal prongs where the barrel should be, nestled against my chest. Her index finger was curled around the trigger button; I hoped she didn’t twitch easily.

  “Whoa, hey,” I said. “Easy with the zapper, lady.”

  She said nothing, only waited for me to make the wrong move. I wasn’t eager to get my nervous system racked by 65,000 volts, so I held my breath and very carefully felt around my shirt pocket until I located my press ID.

  I gradually pulled out the laminated card and held it up for her to see. She looked carefully at the card, her eyes darting back and forth between the holo and my face, until she nodded her head slightly. The stun gun moved away from my chest and returned to the pocket of her jacket.

  “You ought to be careful with that thing,” I said. “They’re kinda dangerous when it’s raining like this. Conductivity and all that—”

  “Okay, you’re another reporter for the Big Muddy,” she said, ignoring my sage advice. “Now tell me why you’re here and not Tiernan.”

  “That’s a good question,” I replied, “but let’s hear your side of it first. How come you tried to IM something to John but got me instead?”

  She blinked a few times, not quite comprehending. “Sorry? I don’t understand what you’re—”

  “Look,” I said, letting out my breath, “let’s try to get things straight. My PT told me about ten minutes ago that I had a message. It was addressed to John but somehow got sent to me instead, and it told me … or him, whatever … to meet somebody right here at eight o’clock. Now, since you’re obviously that somebody—”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” she interrupted. “You got this message just ten minutes ago?”

  “Yeah, just about that—”

  “Ten minutes ago?” she insisted.

  I was beginning to get fed up with this. “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Who’s counting? The point is—”

  A couple of teenagers, ripped to the tits on something they had bought off the street, staggered through the gate and jostled me aside. I nearly fell against the woman; she stepped out of my way, then grabbed my jacket and pushed me behind a column.

  “The point is, Mr. Rosen,” she said quietly, staring me straight in the eye, “I didn’t send any IMs today, but I received e-mail from John Tiernan this afternoon, telling me to meet him here at eight. Now I’m here, but I instead find you. Now you tell me: where’s your buddy?”

  The conversation was getting nowhere very quickly. “Look,” I said, taking off my cap for a moment to wipe soaked hair out of my eyes, “you’re just going to have trust me on this, okay? John ain’t here. If he was, I’d know it. And if you didn’t send that IM to me—”

  “If John didn’t send e-mail to me …” Her voice trailed off, and in that instant I caught a glimpse of fear in her dark eyes.

  No, not just fear: absolute horror, the blank, slack-jawed expression of someone who has just gazed over t
he edge of the abyss and seen monsters lurking in its depths.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “It’s started …”

  It was then that I heard the helicopters.

  At first, there was nothing except the background rumble of the crowd in the amphitheater below us, mixing with the subtle hiss of the rain and the not-so-subtle screech of electric guitars from the stage … and then there came a low droning from the dark sky above us, quickly rising in volume, and I looked up just in time to see the first chopper as it came in.

  The helicopter was an MH-6 Night Hawk, a fast-moving little gunship designed for hit-and-run night missions over the Mediterranean. Something of an antique, really, but still good enough for ass-kicking in the U.S.A.; with its silenced engine and rotors, it wasn’t noticed by anyone in the Muny until it was right over the amphitheater, coming in low over the walls like a bat.

  I caught a fleeting glimpse of the two men seated within its bubble canopy, the letters ERA stenciled across its matte black fuselage; then light flashed from its outrigger nacelles as two slender canisters were launched over the crowd toward the stage. The rock band dropped their instruments and pretended to be paint as the RPGs smashed through the heavy wood backdrops behind them, breaking open to spew dense pale smoke across the platform.

  The Night Hawk banked sharply to the right, its slender tail fishtailing around as the chopper braked to hover above the amphitheater, its prop wash forcing the milky white fog off the stage and across the orchestra pit into the front rows. I caught the unmistakable pepper scent of tear gas, but many of the squatters, thinking they were only smoke bombs, didn’t flee immediately, even when the first few who had been caught by the gas began to choke and gag.

  That’s the mistake everyone makes about tear gas; its innocuous name makes it sound like something that will only make you a little weepy. Few people are aware of the painful blindness it causes when the hellish stuff gets in your eyes, how much you choke when you inhale it. Then, it’s pure evil.

  The fog was billowing toward us even as the squatters, now realizing the danger, began to stampede toward the rear entrance. People all around us clawed at one another, trying to get out of the amphitheater, as they were caught in the throes of gas-attack panic.

  “Get out of here!” I grabbed the woman’s hand and dragged her toward the gate. “Move it! Move it!”

  We shoved and hauled our way through the mob until we managed to squeeze through the jammed gate. Still clutching her hand, I turned to make a getaway through the parking lot, only to find that we were far from being out of danger.

  There was more rotor noise from above, much louder than the MH-6, as gale-force winds abruptly whipped through the parking lot, tearing at the tents and plastic tarps, sending garbage flying in every direction, overturning stolen shopping carts, causing the flames of the trash-can fires to dance crazily. I skidded to a stop and looked up to see a giant shape descending upon us, red and blue lights flashing against the darkness, searchlights lancing through the rain like a UFO coming in for a touchdown.

  Flying saucer, no; V-22 Osprey, yes. The big, twin-prop VTOL was landing right outside the Muny, and if that was Elvis I spotted through one of its oval portholes, wearing riot gear and slapping a magazine into his Hecker & Koch assault rifle, then the King and I needed to have a serious discussion about his new career.

  It was a full-blown ERA raid, and I felt like an idiot for not having seen it coming. Members of the city council had been squawking lately about “taking Forest Park back from the squatters,” and never mind that it had been their idea in the first place to relocate nearly seventy-five thousand homeless people to a tent city in the park. A crackdown had been threatened for several weeks now, and squatters trespassing on the Muny had been the last straw. Steve Estes, the council member whose political ambitions were only slightly outweighed by his ego, was making good on his rhetoric.

  No time to ponder local politics now. More Ospreys were arriving. The first one was already on the ground, its rear door cranking down to let out a squad of ERA troopers. The air stank of tear gas; people were rushing around on either side of us, threatening to trample us as they fled from the soldiers. Already I could hear screams from the area closest to the landing site of the first Osprey and the hollow ka-chunng! of Mace canisters being fired into the mob.

  Escape through the parking lot was out of the question; already I could hear the engine roar of LAV-25 Piranhas approaching from the roadway on the other side of the hill, their multiple tires mowing down the makeshift barricades squatters had thrown up around the Muny. In a few minutes we’d be nailed by tear gas, water cannons, webs, or rubber bullets.

  A steep, wooded embankment lay to the right of the amphitheater. “That way!” I yelled to the woman. “Down the hill!”

  “No!” she shouted, yanking her hand free from mine. “I gotta go somewhere!”

  “You’ll—”

  “Shaddup! Listen to me!” She grabbed my shoulders and shouted in my face. “Tell Tiernan—”

  Full-auto gunfire from behind us. More screams. I couldn’t tell whether the troopers were firing live rounds, and I wasn’t in the mood for sticking around to find out. The woman glanced over her shoulder, then her eyes snapped back to me again.

  “Tell Tiernan to meet me at Clancy’s on Geyer Street!” she yelled. “Tomorrow at eight! Tell him not to trust any other messages he gets! You got that?”

  “Who are you?” I shouted back at her. “What the hell’s going on?”

  For the briefest moment she seemed uncertain, as if wanting to tell me everything in the middle of a full-scale riot and yet unable to trust her own instincts. Then she pulled me closer until her lips touched my ear.

  “Ruby fulcrum,” she whispered.

  “Ruby what?”

  “Ruby fulcrum!” she repeated, louder and more urgently now. “Tiernan will know what I mean. Remember, Clancy’s at eight.” She shoved me away. “Now get out of here!”

  Then she was gone, turning around to dash into the panic-stricken mob, disappearing into the night as suddenly as she had appeared. I caught a final glimpse of the woman as her jacket hood fell back, exposing a few hints of gray in her short-cropped hair.

  Then she was gone.

  I ran in the opposite direction, battering my way through the crowd until I was out of the parking lot. I dashed across the sidewalk and down the embankment beside the high concrete walls of the Muny. Few people followed me; most of the squatters had stayed behind to wage futile battle against the ERA troopers, protecting what little they could still call home.

  I slipped and skittered and fell down the muddy slope, blinded by smoke and darkness, deafened by the sound of helicopters, my face lashed by low tree branches as I tripped over fallen limbs. As I neared the bottom of the hill I heard the gurgle of a rain-swollen drainage ditch and veered away from it; I didn’t need to get more wet than I already was.

  I can barely recall how I escaped from the riot; my flight from the Muny comes to me only in snatches. Falling on my face several times. Grabbing my jacket pocket to make sure that I hadn’t lost Joker, feeling vague reassurance when I felt its small mass. Jogging down Government Road around the lake, passing the old 1904 World’s Fair Pavilion, slowing down to catch my breath and then, in the next instant, spotting the headlights of more armored cars approaching from the opposite direction and ducking off the road into the woods. Hearing monkeys howling in the treetops above me. Crashing through a tent village erected on the fairway of what used to be the municipal golf course, hearing babies screaming, having a clod of mud thrown at me by an old man …

  Then I was in the woods again, climbing another steep slope on all fours, my breath coming in animal like gasps as I clutched at roots and decaying leaves, all in an atavistic impulse to flee from danger.

  Not the best night I’ve ever had at the opera. Lots of singing and dancing, but in terms of artistic merit the show kinda sucked.

  The next thing I knew,
I was halfway across the park, my breath coming in wet, ragged gasps as I lay against the base of the statue of Louis XIV, the French monarch after whom the city had been named. His bronze skin dully reflected the light from the distant flames of the tent village that had once existed around the Muny.

  From my lonely hilltop perch, I could see the searchlights of helicopters as they circled the amphitheater, hear the occasional echoing report of semiauto gunfire. Up here, though, all was supernaturally quiet and uncrowded, as if I was removed in time and space from the chaos that reigned not far away. The rain had finally ceased. Night birds and crickets made nocturnal harmony in the hilltop woods, undeterred by the paramilitary action not far away.

  Somehow, in my mad rush for safety, I had made it to the summit of Art Hill, the highest point in Forest Park. The Sun King sat on his stallion above me, larger than life, his broadsword raised in defiance to the empty sky. The statue had been the symbol of the city long before the Arch had been erected; by miracle, he had not been toppled by the quake, and his eternal courage made me all the more ashamed of my own cowardice.

  On the other hand, I had become accustomed to being a coward. It wasn’t anything new to me. Call it an instinct for self-preservation; all us chickenshit types use that term. Just ask my wife. Or my son …

  Turning my head to look behind me, my eyes found the half-collapsed stone edifice of the St. Louis Art Museum. Despite being reinforced during the nineties against quakes, the museum had suffered extensive damage. Now its doors were chained shut, its windows sealed with pine boards, its treasures long since moved to Chicago. Inscribed above the bas-relief classical portico, held aloft by five Corinthian columns, were seven words:

  DEDICATED TO ART AND FREE TO ALL

  “No shit,” I mumbled. “Where do I sign up?”

  I caught my breath, then I slowly rose to my feet and began to stagger across the driveway and down Art Hill, following the sidewalk toward the Forest Park Boulevard entrance on the north side of the park.