Sewer, Gas and Electric

by Matt Ruff

  Something bounded onto the Checker’s back trunk and scrabbled up onto the roof with a telltale V-6 growl. Joan cursed and slammed on the brakes; the Mechanical Hound came sailing over the front hood and tumbled onto the pavement. Before it could get up Joan hit the gas again and felt a metallic crunch beneath the taxi’s wheels. She braked, backed up, felt another crunch; drove forward, felt a crunch, braked, reversed. On her fourth pass the Hound’s gas tank burst into flame. Joan shifted into drive one more time and, skirting the fire, swung out onto 42nd Street, heading west.

  “Still with me, Ayn?” Joan repeated. Ayn was slower to answer this time.

  “This is the kind of thing . . . I left Russia . . . to get away from,” she finally said.

  “Maybe you should have gone to Canada,” Joan suggested.

  Patterns in the Fabric of Circumstance

  The Ferraris took up outrider positions in the convoy, forming a protective box around the tank, jeep, and armored car as they rolled north on First Avenue. Motley Nimitz and the Stone Monk rode in the back of the armored car; Kite and Clayton hunkered down inside the tank, which was roomy enough (barely) to accommodate two observers. Maxwell introduced them to the rest of the crew, all of whom were maimed veterans of the ’07 War in Africa: Stouffer Aimes, the driver, who’d had his jaw and both legs torn off by Afrikaner friendly fire in the mountains of Kenya; Siobhan Yip, the gunner, who’d lost an arm to a Zairean booby-trap; and Curtis Dooley, the loader, who’d been trapped downwind of the Port Harcourt refinery fire. Dooley had artificial skin grafts over seventy-two percent of his body, a baboon’s liver, and a VISION Rig.

  “Meetcha,” Dooley said, shaking hands with Clayton and Kite.

  The other Marines in the convoy had all suffered similar injuries. The Eye of Africa had chosen them on the basis of their post-war psychological profiles; Maxwell had collected most of them from the new V.A. shelter on Houston Street, and the Eye had spoken to them.

  “What’s this Eye of Africa?” Kite wanted to know.

  “It sees things,” Maxwell explained, not too coherently. “It makes connections. That’s its nature: it reads patterns in the fabric of circumstance, spies out truth, brings meaning into focus . . .”

  “Stop talking like a fortune cookie, Maxwell. What is the Eye of Africa? Some kind of computer program?”

  “Everything’s much clearer now,” he replied. “The Eye lifted me up, and we rode up and down the wires all night, looking for answers . . . and it wasn’t easy, but we found them. It all makes sense now: the war, the plague, this. . . .” He patted his Leg. “I understand it now; I understand why.”

  “Is this how you knew we needed help at the Sanctuary?” Kite asked, not sure she liked this new understanding of Maxwell’s, or the glint in his eye as he spoke of it. “You say the plague makes sense to you; does that mean you know about G.A.S.?”

  “The Enemy,” Maxwell intoned. “What it calls itself isn’t important.”

  “Hmm . . . and what did the Eye of Africa tell you to do about the Enemy, Maxwell? Not to sound ungrateful for the rescue, but what’s with the tank?”

  “We’re storming Babel tonight,” he said. “Straight to the top.”

  “What for?”

  Maxwell shook his head. “The Eye sees patterns, but a lot of the details are still unclear. Something big is happening at Babel tonight, that’s all we know for sure. Something bad. And the U.S. Marine Corps is going to put a stop to it.”

  “Is it, now. . . . Well the Army of the Potomac would love to help the U.S. Marine Corps, but—”

  “Not you,” Maxwell said. “You’re going to the Phoenix. Something’s happening there, too, but it’s not as urgent as Babel, and I can’t spare any of my troops. That’s why we came to get you.”

  “Ah,” said Kite.

  The tank rumbled to a halt. “Thirty-fourth Street,” Stouffer Aimes said, his replacement jaw clicking. “Do we detour?”

  Maxwell pressed a hand to the side of his helmet, listening to the latest report on police radio traffic from the communications jeep. “No,” he said. “The Enemy’s on to us, or will be soon. We’ve got to get to Harlem before the opposition gets organized.” He turned to Kite. “You’ll have to walk from here.”

  “I’ll manage,” Kite told him. “Mr. Bryce, do you want to come with me, or stay—”

  But Clayton, curled up in a corner of the tank, was asleep.

  “I don’t suppose it’s much of a choice either way,” Kite said. “Take care of him, would you, Maxwell? And take care of yourself. Remember, whatever ’truth’ you think this Eye of Africa has laid open to you, you’re not obligated to it. Not if it wants more blood.”

  Maxwell made no response to that. “Do you want a rifle?” he asked her, unbuttoning the turret hatch.

  “Thank you, but no.” Kite could see there would be no arguing with him, so she hoisted herself up towards the opening. “I expect I’ll draw enough notice as it is, walking crosstown with this saber on my hip. Do you suppose you could arrange a diversion, something to draw the attention of any police who—”

  Somewhere close outside the tank there was an explosion, followed by an answering rattle of machine gun fire from one of the Ferraris.

  “Never mind,” Kite said, climbing out.

  A Rough Evening

  The taxi drove into the front of the Department of Sewers building just as Fatima Sigorski was getting ready to leave. Crouched behind the registration desk with a drop box full of dog tags, Fatima heard a crash and jumped up to see a yellow Checker come hurtling through the lobby doors. A delivery van with two Automatic Servants in the cab was right on the Checker’s tail and tried to follow it in, but got hung up on the low clearance. Both vehicles jerked to a halt, the taxi with a squeal of brakes and tires, the van with a grinding of metal on brick. The Checker’s driver’s door flew open and Joan Fine leapt out, holding a shotgun. She ran back to the delivery van and pumped five shells through the front windshield.

  “What the Christ—” Fatima Sigorski said.

  “A boat,” said Joan, when she was sure the androids weren’t getting out of the van. “I need a boat, Fatima. And a key to the weapons stores.”

  “Oh, is that what you need. . . . Have you gone off your nut, Fine?”

  Joan looked at her. “I’m having a rough evening, Fatima,” she said. “Don’t fuck with me.”

  Fatima looked at the shotgun, now pointed in her direction. It was an Ithaca shotgun, a Model 87 Bear Stopper Elite, twelve-gauge, pump-action, with an eight-shot capacity. Five shots into the van meant as many as three left in the magazine.

  “All right,” said Fatima. “I won’t fuck with you.”

  Like Ulysses

  “Shotgun shells.”

  “Right.”

  “Automatic pistol, .50 caliber, with holster.”

  “Right.”

  “Extra clips.”

  “Right.”

  “What’s that?” Joan asked, pointing to an unfamiliar object at the end of the weapons rack.

  “Grenade launcher,” Fatima Sigorski said. “M-79.”

  The M-79 grenade launcher: what Abbie Hoffman had once recommended as the greatest self-defense weapon of all time. “I’ll take it,” Joan said.

  “It was sent to us by mistake, Fine,” Fatima said. “It’s not meant to be used in—”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “Right.”

  All of the Zoological Bureau’s Automatic Servants were missing; Joan checked the Servant storage area and found nothing but broken Kryptonite locks. The lock on the weapons storeroom had been broken too, and Fatima noted that two cases of M-16 rifles had disappeared.

  “You want to tell me what the hell is going on, Fine?” Fatima asked, as they rode the cargo elevator to the underground dock. All but one of the barges had been taken.

  “How long ago did you close up down here?” Joan said.

  “Half an hour,” said Fatima. “And I finished inventorying weapons mayb
e ten minutes before you showed up. The rifles were still there.”

  “The Servants can’t have gone far, then. Must be waiting for me out in the shit.” Joan stepped onto the remaining barge and stowed her gear. “Part of what’s going on is, I’m being hunted.”

  “By androids? You really have gone off your nut.”

  “I wish.” Joan zipped up the front of her body suit. “But if I’m crazy, where are they?”

  “Exactly,” said Fatima. “If they’re hunting you, why would they go into the tunnels? Why not ambush you here, or upstairs? We’ve got sixteen Negroes in the pool, Fine. You really think you could take down all of them before they got you?”

  “No,” Joan said. “Which is probably why they didn’t do it—I don’t believe I’m invulnerable, so being ambushed and killed outright wouldn’t surprise me. Although,” she added reflectively, “the moment I start assuming they can’t just kill me, they can.”

  “Fine, what—”

  “Let me ask you, Fatima. If you were going to arrange an ironic death for me, what would it be?”

  “Ironic?”

  “Ironic given my philosophy of life.”

  “Oh,” said Fatima, “that. Well, you’re a crusader, right? I mean, you came to work here, and not because you needed the money.”

  The choice of words got Joan’s attention. “And how would you kill a crusader?”

  “Don’t have to. Crusaders get themselves killed, isn’t that how it goes? All you do is set them up with a mission, some impossible goal they think they have to try for, and they do the rest.” She shrugged. “I’m sure it’s not hard to inject some irony into the situation.”

  “Hmm,” said Joan. “And if you were a crusader who didn’t want to get killed?”

  “I’d make like Ulysses. Refuse the assignment.”

  Joan slowly shook her head. “Too many lives at stake. Even if it is an impossible mission, refusing’s not one of my options.”

  “Yeah, well, it wasn’t really an option in Ulysses’s case, either, was it? So I guess you’d better be as lucky as Ulysses.” Fatima nodded at the rosary. “Favored by the gods. . . . Listen, Fine, you want to let me in on what this crusade of yours is about, so I have something to tell the cops?”

  “It’s probably safer for you if you don’t know,” Joan said. “Do me a favor, though? Ring my house?”

  “What’s the message?”

  “Ask for Kite. Tell her Joan says, ‘They’re coming, and they’re after Harry, too.’ Actually that’s another thing you could do, have the cops send a hostage rescue team over to the Gant Industries offices at the Phoenix. There’s probably a kidnapping in progress.”

  “You’re right,” said Fatima. “I don’t want to know about this.” But then she thought, What the hell, and pulled a rabbit’s foot keychain from her back pocket. “Here, Fine,” she said, tossing the charm. “In case your rosary jams.”

  “Thanks,” Joan said, surprised. She held up a fluted silver tube that was also attached to the chain. “What’s this?”

  “Rape whistle,” said Fatima. “Don’t suppose you’ll need that, what with the grenade launcher. . . . Now get the hell out of here. I’ll give you fifteen minutes’ head start and then you’re an outlaw.”

  “Fair enough,” Joan said. Setting the Lamp beside the Electric Mercator, she started up the barge’s engine and cast off the lines. “Thanks for the help, Fatima.”

  “Fuck you, Fine. Just don’t call me as a character witness at your trial.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Joan said, smiling. Giving a last wave she pulled away from the dock and steered a course deep into the shit, with Ayn Rand lighting the way.

  Maxwell Shrugged

  Near U.N. Plaza the rush hour traffic started to get thick (though still respectful of the tank’s personal space), so Maxwell had the communications jeep broadcast a warning on all AM and FM frequencies that snipers were turning First Avenue into a shooting gallery—a bit of propaganda no doubt helped by the fact that it was true. Within moments the civilian traffic had cleared out, creating enough gridlock on the adjoining cross streets to thwart the approach of hostile vehicles, at least for a little while.

  The Electric Negro snipers—summoned hastily by an Enemy still uncertain what it was dealing with here—were in most cases too lightly armed to pose a threat. The Ferrari Marchesas all had bulletproof bodywork as standard equipment, and the communications jeep was similarly protected. The Brink’s truck, of course, was armored, and the spaced composite armor on the Buchanan tank was invulnerable even to light artillery.

  Not that there was any artillery. But as the convoy rolled north through the Fifties, furniture began to drop from windows and rooftops. The Ferraris took evasive action, weaving to avoid the bombardment. The tank, clumsier to maneuver, suffered a direct hit from a grand piano hurled from the penthouse of the Sheraton East; this damaged the turret mount and put an abrupt end to Clayton Bryce’s nap. The piano’s last chord was still echoing up the street when a pair of Automatic Servants levered a cement mixer off the access ramp of the Queensboro Bridge; it struck the communications jeep square on, crushing it. The Brink’s truck swerved to avoid the wreck and formed up close behind the tank.

  Above 59th Street the buildings got shorter, and there were no more bridges to drive under. The next challenge came in Yorkville, near the mayor’s house, where a line of police cars tried to cut the convoy off at the 86th Street intersection. Maxwell fired a warning burst from the Buchanan’s coaxial machine gun; the cop cars scattered left and right, and as the convoy tore up the middle, the rearguard Ferraris sowed a trail of oil and caltrops—another anti-terrorist feature standard in the ’23 Marchesa—that left the road behind them undriveable. The police stubbornly tried to drive it anyway and were soon spinning out of control on multiple flats.

  In the lower Hundreds a hook-and-ladder rig cut onto First Avenue. A Mechanical Dalmation yapped ferociously inside the cab; three Servants in fire fighter’s suits lobbed Molotov cocktails from atop the ladder bed. Maxwell ordered the tank’s main gun swung around for a salvo, but the damaged turret wouldn’t traverse. A gasoline bomb burst on the hood of one of the Ferraris; the Marchesa was fireproof, naturally, but the driver panicked, having already been immolated once before in Somalia, and the car skidded up onto the sidewalk and crashed into a brick wall. Then the Stone Monk stuck a thump gun out one of the Brink’s truck’s side ports and shot a grenade at the yapping Dalmation; the cab blew up and the ladder rig tumbled sideways for four blocks before coming to rest.

  The convoy turned left on 116th Street, passing west through Fifth Avenue to Malcolm X Boulevard. As the Marines steered north again for the last sprint to Babel, a tanker truck darted from an alleyway and took another of the Ferraris in a head-on collision. Burning fuel from the ruptured tanker drained into the gutters; manhole covers popped like saucers called to the mother ship.

  Thus reduced, the convoy came at last to the open plaza below the ziggurat. Maxwell ordered a final burst of speed; as the tank led the charge to the Mother Tongue Gate, a single steel girder was loosed from Babel’s crown. It was difficult to aim from half a mile in the sky; the I-beam missed by fifty yards, and the convoy came safe through the Gate into the roofed canyon lobby.

  The lobby was empty of humans. There had been a shootout between Automatic Servants and Babel security just moments before, and the surviving guards, along with all tourists and other bystanders, had either run away or buried themselves in the foliage lining the canyon floor; now android sharpshooters commanded the balcony-cliffs and a company of Electric Negroes were assembled in defensive formation around the base of the Atlas statue. Their uniforms were a motley collection of army surplus, but they all wore tasseled red berets with the black cobra symbol of the SubSaharan Liberation Army. Their leader, whose personalized flak jacket identified him as Cinque, gave the order to open fire.

  “Infantry, twelve o’clock,” Maxwell said, as AK-47 rounds began plink
ing off the tank’s armor. Siobhan Yip launched a high-explosive shell from the tank’s main gun. The gun’s laser sights were off, and the shell went high, bursting near the ceiling of the domed central chamber. Masonry fell like rain, and the chain supporting the great copper sphere was severed. The weight of the world crashed down on Atlas’s shoulders; the statue bowed beneath its burden.

  Then Atlas shrugged. The most immediate result of this was the annihilation of those few Negroes not already brought low by the fall of the ceiling. The descending ball mashed them into gears and silicon; rebounding off the curved bank of elevators, it flattened Cinque, then rolled for the tank.

  “Target, twelve o’clock!” Maxwell shouted. “Reload!”

  “Reloading!” Curtis Dooley cried, slamming another shell into the breech. “Ready!”

  “Fire!”

  Ignoring the unreliable laser crosshairs, Siobhan Yip aimed the tank’s muzzle straight and level and depressed the firing switch. The copper sphere flew apart; its pieces, blown back with the force of a whirlwind, cut Atlas off at the knees. The statue toppled and its head snapped off and bounced away, features still fixed in an expression of lunatic joy.

  Inside the domed chamber, the tank tracked back around to face the way it had come. Two more high-explosive shells and some bursts from the co-ax gun cleared the snipers from the canyon walls. A three-shell salvo collapsed the arch of the Mother Tongue Gate and piled ten feet of rubble in the entranceway. Out on the plaza police sirens wailed, and from above came the whup-whup-whup of an F.B.I. helicopter: Special Agent Ernest G. Vogelsang, responding to reports of African terrorists in the Tower of Babel.

  And there were African terrorists in the Tower of Babel: more than one kind, now.

  “Everybody out!” ordered Maxwell, unbuttoning the top hatch. As he stood on the turret an Electric Hummingbird flitted down and lighted on the back of his fist. An immense sadness filled him at the sight of it, and he stroked it delicately with his finger, saying: “It’s all right. We can’t put it back together, but it’ll be all right.”