“Ah, well, in that case, make like a tree. By the way, I’m going to take you out of the tank and put you in my pocket. Can I do that without triggering the bomb?”
“I don’t know. I suppose we could try it and see.”
“Hmm, maybe not. I guess I’ll just have to hold you. Will that work?”
“As long as I can see some part of you.”
“They sure didn’t make it easy, did they?”
“Marlowe,” bubbled Tray morosely, “I don’t want to die in this place.”
“Neither do I, so we’re not going to. You’ll see the sun once more before everything is said and done.”
“And then I’ll become a sun, briefly.”
Marlowe thought he saw some shaky laugh bubbles erupt from Tray’s blower. “That’s right. Keep your sense of humor about this.”
“Marlowe,” called Nina, “there’s room for us now.”
“On my way.”
Marlowe pried the lid off the tank and reached in, carefully avoiding the syringe and gingerly removing the harness holding Tray down. The soapy green liquid mildly burned his skin, but the nano probes quickly neutralized the caustic agent and repaired its deleterious effects. He wrapped his hand too tightly around the softer, soapy portion of Tray, who slipped out in a spurt of suds, landing on the floor half a meter in front of Marlowe. The nano probes had to apply a jolt of electricity across Marlowe’s heart to start it up again, and after that Marlowe held Tray by the unreconstituted half of his exoskeleton.
“Watch it, butterfingers!” bubbled Tray. His blower had automatically adjusted for the change from a liquid to air environment. The bubbles had the slightly green tint of the reconstitution fluid that was being supplied by a small ballast tank nestled inside Tray’s frame. The hammer of the hydraulic switch gave off faint, staccato clicks as Tray spoke.
“Marlowe, what’s keeping you? Hurry up!”
“Sorry, just thought I’d do a little washing up. You expect me to fit through that?” Marlowe had reached Nina and the narrow crack of space she had declared an exit.
“Suck in your gut and you’ll do fine. I could make it wider, but we’ll lose time. I gather time is something of the essence?”
Marlowe grunted. “You can stay here. If I succeed, the fire department will have you out of here in an hour or so.”
“Excuse me? I don’t think so. I may not have been in this world very long, but I know what will happen if they recover me from the site of an explosion, my legal escort missing. You may dislike it as much as I do, but there’s no escaping the fact that my fate is intertwined with yours.” And then she dropped down, slipped through the opening, and called back to Marlowe to get a move on.
Marlowe got down on his belly, and grunted again as he squeezed and wriggled his way through the narrow gap. The grimy dirt, sand, and bits of StyroCrete got in his nose, mouth, and eyes. The nasal filters fought a valiant battle, holding the dust at bay there, but his eyes burned and his mouth puckered at the dry, bitter taste. Even worse, the sandy mix was getting into his shirt and pants, rubbing his skin raw and making him itch all over.
Midway through, Marlowe stopped. “Nina, I’m stuck. I told you this was too small! I’ll wriggle back and we can widen it from both- Aaah!”
Nina had grabbed both his arms by the wrist and yanked, hard. Twin sensations of agony burned through Marlowe as each arm popped out of its socket. Adding to this was the intense scraping discomfort of being dragged through the tight opening. The nano probes set to work immediately, buzzing joyously at the opportunity to again ply their trade, and wistfully wondering just what Marlowe had done to incur yet more damage in such a short span of time. Before tapping into his optic nerve to survey the situation, they started a pool. The odds were on a visit to the Governor’s office, and a lot of probes returned to the sac grumbling when the truth was revealed.
“There, you see,” said Nina, wiping her hands together to brush off the dust. “You fit no problem.”
Marlowe didn’t dawdle with pointless yelping. The nano probes had managed to dull the pain after the initial shock, and he wasn’t sure, with all the dirt and grime getting into everything, how Tray was doing with his attempts to resist itching. The emergency lighting was brighter on the third floor, despite being the epicenter of the explosion. Those self-repairing tungsten bulbs were tough as nails. Marlowe made a mental note to start replacing the bulbs at home with tungsten ones, and then began climbing. Climbing, because the floor consisted of steep hills and deep valleys of dirt, jagged chunks of smoldering StyroCrete with twisted protrusions of rebar, and horribly splintered timber. The fumes burned his eyes, and because the dirt had clogged his nasal filters, his throat and lungs as well as he breathed through his mouth.
Nina had taken point, searching for a way up. “So what are we looking for now?”
“Exterior wall,” gasped Marlowe. “A window. House, where’s the Studebaker?”
“The car started looking for another way to the building the moment you entered it. With some success. Even more now that it’s ignoring some of the more urbane rules of road etiquette. What did you have in mind? A jump from the third floor, while unpleasant, would be survivable.”
“Getting out of the building doesn’t completely solve the problem. Tray’s still wired up.”
Nina blazed forward, guiding Marlowe around debris. Finding a window wasn’t the problem; they could see all the exterior windows from where they stood. Getting to a window was proving more problematic. They trudged past a now-defunct SpringStep escalator along the remnants of a former interior wall, its spring-loaded stairs useless without power.
“House, does this building have electromagnetic reinforcement?”
“Yes.”
Nina wiped a sludge of dust and sweat from off her brow. “Electromagnetic reinforcement?”
Marlowe pointed with Tray towards the nearest window. “Window first, then I’ll explain. House, are you still able to track us?”
“Of course.”
“Query the car. Does it think it can meet us at the window we’re heading towards?”
“Hmm, one moment.” Marlowe slipped, raking his forearm and elbow against the jagged edge of a piece of StyroCrete. Bits of tiny white chunks stuck to his arm as he righted himself, and no amount of wiping could shake all of them loose. “The car isn’t thrilled. It’ll have to amp up its gauss field well beyond spec. You’ll have a hell of a maintenance bill afterwards if you survive.”
More StyroCrete crumbled under Marlowe’s feet as he crossed the last few meters to Nina and the window. The awning was two meters tall and one meter wide. The blast-proof plastic window, like all the others, had been blown out, leaving just a gaping hole in the aluminum frame. Marlowe leaned out, searching for the Studebaker, but all he saw was the intact rectangles of blast-proof windows lying at various angles and orientations on the ground below.
“Now what?”
“We’re waiting for my car. House, where is it?”
“Clearing a path through the emergency vehicles. The new powers your brother vested in you are actually helping, though don’t expect a rapid response from the fire department if I ever catch fire. Apparently your Studebaker is throwing its weight around and really lording it over the fire trucks. Ah, it’s approaching the east-facing wall, to your right.”
“Waiting for your car?” Nina looked impressed. “It can fly? Wow.”
“No, it can’t fly.” Marlowe watched as the Studebaker nosed up to the building and started popping its front end up and down. He could actually hear the generator whining as the car started gaussing up its magnetic field. With each octave increase in pitch, the front bumper popped up half a meter higher.
“It can’t fly? Then how are we going to get to it? Jump? Does it have some sort of exterior car-top airbag or something?”
“No, it’s going to drive up here, if it can get itself oriented.” Down below, the Studebaker paused for a moment, as if considering the situat
ion. Marlowe could almost visualize the chrome front of the car furrowing in thought. A decision reached, its generator jumped in pitch two octaves, causing all the blast-proof windows littering the blast radius to shatter. Then the car popped up, lurching forward against the wall as the front bumper pointed skywards. It seemed to waver for a moment, swaying backwards slightly, and then clamped down against the building exterior.
“That’s the stuff. Car’s on the way.”
“How is the car getting here?”
Before Marlowe could answer, the Studebaker arrived just under their window, the driver’s side door swinging wide open. “Pearls before swine,” said Marlowe as he helped Nina jump down into the car. “Try and belt yourself in so I can fit; it’s all a bit awkward at this angle.”
Marlowe slipped in a moment later as Nina shifted her way into the passenger seat. The car started back down. “No, to the roof.”
The Studebaker honked questioningly but complied.
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“How did the car drive up here? Cars use magnetic fields now for moving around. My car is one of the few that actually still has tires. That’s because it’s a retrofit of an old-style internal combustion vehicle. Well, it turns out that when they started building skyscrapers with StyroCrete, they had this problem with them falling down. So they attached zeppelins to the roofs to hold them up. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. And you didn’t always know right away if it would work. A lot of people and furniture in a building can add significantly to the stress load. So after a few tragedies, someone came up with the bright idea of using magnetized rebar in the StyroCrete and a magnetic field to hold the rebar, and thus the building, together. In concert with the zeppelins, they hit on an affordable combination that worked.
“Doing something like this is terribly hard on the car’s generator, but because of the magnetized rebar, it can stick to the wall. It amps up its gauss field, aligns the field with the building’s, and presto, automotive fly on the wall. Of course, if I didn’t have tires on my car, that’s all it would do – stick. Tires allow my car to move on vertical surfaces. Modern tireless cars will just clamp themselves to the wall and sit there, wondering how to get down without falling over. Actually, that’ll probably be a problem for us too. Cross that building when we come to it.”
“We didn’t have this problem with buildings in my day. Isn’t society supposed to advance technologically over time? Why don’t you build structures the old fashioned way?”
“Greed. Good building materials are hard to come by these days, and the electricity suppliers like the added revenue of maintaining magnetic fields. The builders save money on materials, the power company makes money. Everybody wins, supposedly.”
Marlowe placed Tray on his chest, and then fished out the bottle of bubbles. “You hanging in there, Tray?”
“So itchy,” Tray blew back. “If you’re gonna do something, you better hurry.”
Marlowe wondered grimly if he’d even know what hit him when Tray succumbed. The reaction was supposed to be very, very fast. There were definitely worse ways to die. At the Ministry of Policing, at least forty slow deaths came immediately to mind. And probably twice that number that Marlowe didn’t feel like coaxing to the forefront of his awareness. Let them hide in the dark corners and try to come out in his nightmares. The nano probes had a drug for that too.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if you put the soap in your pocket?”
“He has to be able to see me, or he detonates.”
“Oh.”
The Studebaker halted at the lip of the roof. Marlowe climbed out first, placing Tray on the edge before clutching and clawing his way over. After flopping onto the roof, he picked up Tray and forced his head over the barrier, hoping to stop Nina before she followed him. Naturally, he was too late. She landed with a thud next to him.
“Nice view.”
“I wanted you to stay in the car.” He noted idly that the surface of the building had tire tracks running up its length, leading to the back of the Studebaker. Such was the structural integrity of StyroCrete.
The roof had a tar and gravel surface that crunched with each step. It formed a perfect rectangle, or would, if the building wasn’t sagging. An air handling unit, a polished steel box two meters by two meters by three with vent grilles on all four sides, interrupted the undulating surface of the roof like a square boulder dropped dead center into the middle of it. Actually, with current installation methods, that probably did explain the wavy surface. Marlowe was leaning against a solid concrete barrier, about a meter high, that ringed the perimeter of the roof. At two meter intervals, thick multi-strand beryllium cables stretched up, converging fifteen meters overhead at the base of a zeppelin. The zeppelin bobbed gently, almost rhythmically in the wind, a giant silvery melon. Where the cables converged on it, a small platform could be seen.
Nina looked around the roof. “So this was your plan. Move the bomb up here, where it wouldn’t do as much damage. Very noble, saving lives that way. We can leave the bomb here and maybe survive ourselves, you know. Back down there.”
Marlowe shook his head. “No. This was a one way ticket for me. You can go back down, but like I said in the car, if Tray can’t see me, he blows up. Besides, I’m not quite done ascending yet.”
Realization broke on Nina’s face. “You’re going to climb up to that blimp, aren’t you?” She laughed. Actual, doubled over, face red laughter. It made Marlowe more than a little angry, having his act of self-sacrifice ridiculed.
Nina’s face was purple with the exertion of her laughing. “How are you going to climb? Hand over hand?”
“I’ll manage,” Marlowe said stiffly. “I have to.”
“While holding a bar of soap? Even if you put him down, your hands must be incredibly slippery right now.”
Marlowe ignored Nina and bubbled encouragement to Tray. “Just a little bit longer, Tray. Can you manage that?”
“It’s soooo itchy, Marlowe. I just want to scratch a little.”
“Try thinking about something else. Imagine you’re in the shower with a beautiful woman, and she’s just started soaping up her breasts with you.”
“Don’t have to imagine that. I’ve lived it.”
“Well, then remember it.”
“Marlowe,” bubbled Tray with intense concentration, “if you should somehow survive all this, tell my family I loved them, that I went out thinking about them. Especially my kids. I want them to know I was thinking about all of them. Promise me that.”
“I promise,” said Marlowe.
“Just don’t tell my wives about each other. They might not understand that.”
Marlowe raised an eyebrow, but wasn’t terribly surprised. Tray struck him as the type. “I won’t tell them.”
A small window popped into Marlowe’s field of view, asking if he’d accept a message from Tray.
“What’s this, Tray?”
“Addresses of my wives and kids. I didn’t exactly use my real name with most of them.”
Marlowe blinked his assent and accepted the file.
“Marlowe,” interrupted Nina, “I’m serious. How can you climb if you’re holding him?”
Marlowe brushed some of the grime off of Tray and popped the smooth, soapy end into his mouth. Almost immediately, he spat the partially reconstituted bar back out. “Bleech!” He winced as the nano probes struggled to neutralize his taste buds. “Damn, that’s nasty soap!”
“Listen to me,” said Nina. “Even if you could keep that in your mouth, you aren’t fit enough to climb up there. I am. Give me the bomb, I’ll carry it up.”
“That’s very noble of you, but as I said, he’ll blow up as soon as he loses sight of me.”
“Hmm. Can you hold onto me?”
“What?”
“Can you hold onto my waist while I climb these cables?”
“You need to get back in the car,” shouted Marlowe, pointing back the way they came, “and
ride this out. I’m transmitting all of this in real-time to House, as evidence. You’ll be safe.”
Nina’s mirth had faded, and she looked deathly serious. Appropriate, thought Marlowe, given the circumstances. “No arguing with me, Marlowe. Let me help. Let me help increase the odds of successfully reaching that blimp up there. I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you kicking and screaming if I have to, but I will help. I have nothing to lose here. My world disappeared a long time ago.”
Marlowe studied Nina, her determination rising up like a tsunami against his will. The lingering, bitter taste of soap served as the last nail in his resolve’s coffin. He shrugged, and put on his best face. “Well, I have to admit, compared to climbing the cables myself, hugging you and holding on will be a piece of cake.”
“Then lets do it.”
Marlowe explained their plan to Tray, and then he and Nina walked over to the cable that had the least number of frayed and snapped tendrils. Nina reached up and grabbed the beryllium line. Marlowe stood in front of her and wrapped his arms around her chest just under her arms, clasping his hands tightly behind her back, Tray nestled between his fingers. At the same time, he hooked his chin over her shoulder, resting his cheek against hers and ensuring Tray could see him.
“Ready?” asked Nina.
“Go.”
Nina began the ascent, cords of muscles in her neck bulging as taut and tight as the cable she traversed. Marlowe felt the lean hardness of her body against his, like stone. Warm, sweet smelling stone. Her face flushed with the exertion, beet red and pouring out heat. Marlowe allowed his attention to dwell on the pleasant sensation of her cheek against his. He closed his eyes and tried to take in every aspect of what would be the last nice moment of his life. Her chest heaved against his with every warm breath that fell across his ear and neck, and he found the weightless sensation of nothing under his feet strangely soothing.
In an effort to prevent any slippage, he instructed the nano probes to secrete a localized paralyzing agent into his arms, locking the embrace. It had been awhile since he’d let a woman get this close to him. The last time had led to yet another bout of resurrection, once the nano probes had worked the blade out of his back. Yeah, Stella had definitely been a mistake. Pretty, but still a mistake. Now, pressed up against Nina’s body, feeling her move against him, he remembered the wonderful sensation of just being with a woman.
Marlowe and the Spacewoman Page 11