by Ted White
“Yeah, but things have changed. Look, you gotta get outta here, Big Fella. There’s lots of people after you, you know that?”
I kept my mouth shut and tried to stir my brains into action.
“You didn’t tell me the heat was on, Fella,” he whined. “Uncle Sam, he found out, and he figures on a piece of the action, you know?”
“What—?”
“He figures on waitin’ till things are dead up here, I guess. Then he’ll come for you. He can wait; no hurry. He got you shut up, up here.”
I started to stand up, but Joey pushed me back down again. His hand on my shoulder was stronger than I’d have thought.
“Listen,” he said. “You need a safer place, right? And you need some people who can help you? Really help you?”
I nodded.
“Chambers Street,” he whispered furtively. “You take the subway downtown to Chambers Street—you know where that is?—on the East Side? The BMT station, that’s what you want. The downtown platform, downtown end, get that? You just keep on walking, into the tunnel.”
“And who—?”
“The Technocrats; they’re scientists. They need you. They’ll help you.”
I tried to sort this information out; visualize the station he had in mind. My brain was still fuzzy. It was receptive, but without any initiative.
“An ID,” Joey said. “We gonna get you an ID.”
“How?”
“Gent with the DT’s over there says he don’t need his any more.”
I became aware that the distant whimpering had stopped. It hadn’t been so distant, either. The man was lying face down on a bunk in our cubicle. He’d pulled a pillow over his face and was still clutching it tightly.
“His luck’s got him,” Joey said. “Deader ’n hell.”
I shook my head. “The yellowjackets,” I mumbled. “Won’t they find his ID gone?”
Joey chuckled quietly. “Hasn’t been a stiff been found in Uncle Sam’s in twenty years.”
I let Joey herd me along. He fished in the dead drunk’s fetid-smelling clothes and came up with a ragged wallet. When he opened it, a cockroach scuttled out. He didn’t flinch. The roach fell to the floor and his foot came down on it automatically, even as he pulled out the faintly glowing square green ID card.
He handed the card to me, and I tried to focus my eyes upon its soft glow.
“It’s all microface writing except for your name and like that. Most yellow jackets’ll settle just to see you flash the green.”
I took out my wallet and pushed the ID into it. Then I stood. “It’s stuffy in here,” I said. I tried to draw a deep breath. The room stank of whiskey, vomit, and a strange sweetish smell which clogged my nostrils. I wanted to clear it out of my system. It was difficult to keep my eyes open. I climbed up onto my feet and lumbered to the window.
“Hey, hey, whatcha—?”
The window was fastened closed; probably nailed. I raised my foot and kicked the glass out.
The sharp crash of the breaking glass cleared the cobwebs from my skull as fast as the fresh air did. Then I was standing upright, the cool night air billowing over me, and for the first time in hours I felt completely myself.
I’d made one hell of a racket; there were complaining grumbles from nearby although no one seemed in a mood to investigate.
“Jeesus,” I said, drawing in my head from the open window. “I hadn’t realized the air in here was so foul until I smelled the real stuff.” I turned to Joey. “What the hell did you prime me with that happy crap for?”
He Shrank back, suddenly only a sunken, hollow derelict as he’d first been on that park bench. I reached out a paw and caught him up. I shook him a couple times. “Open up, Joey. What’s going on around here?”
He gave a couple muffled whines, and I was about to shake him again when I heard feet pounding up the stairs. “Unc—Unca Sam!” he whispered, his eyes wide and white. “The subway—Chambers Street—you ’member?”
I dropped him. Holding my coatsleeved arms in front of me for protection against the ragged splinters of glass still rimming the window, I threw myself out.
I wasn’t being all that foolhardy. I’d seen before when I’d first stuck my head out that there was a roof perhaps ten feet below the window and across a four-foot alley. Now I hit with my shoulder, skidded a couple feet on the gravel, and then, my head still tucked in, rolled, somersaulted, and was on my feet and running.
I dodged behind a chimney, and looked back. For a moment the building face was dark, the window I’d come through invisible against its black face. Then a light snapped on inside, and I saw the frame stark and empty. A yellow patch of light cut across my roof, reaching almost to the chimney. I turned the other way. An iron railing looped up over the far side of the roof, evidence of a ladder leading down to the fire escape. I ran across the roof for it, my shoes making an impossibly loud noise on the gravel.
The railings were flaking with rust, and I felt it cutting into my hands as I threw myself over the raised side of the roof and found rungs with my feet.
“Halt!” came a shout from the window across the way, and I saw a figure silhouetted there. It was impossible to make out his uniform. There was a bright flash from his hand, and a hollow phutt, and then the angry whine of a ricochet somewhere close by. I didn’t wait to see how close. I dropped down the ladder as quickly as I could, until I was standing on an open platform of metal strips.
The fire escape took me down to an alleyway in the center of the block. Actually, it wasn’t an open alleyway, but a maze, made up of a fantastic conglomeration of sheet metal sheds, old wooden fences, and—at one point— a meager vegetable garden. I knew of at least one way out to the street—the alley between Uncle Sam’s and the building I’d jumped to—but that didn’t seem like the safest place to try right now.
I threw my leg up and over a low board fence, and, as I was straddling it, the thing collapsed, going over the same direction I was, with the muffled sound of splintering rotten wood. As I came off the fence, I kicked over an empty trash barrel, and the clatter and din lent additional speed to my passage.
Back up on the roof there were low-pitched shouts, and then a powerful beam of light began probing its finger down into my alley-maze. I looked back over my shoulder, but all I could see was the light, sweeping back and forth, and sometimes a momentary flash as one of them fired his silenced gun, or whatever it was.
I felt like a fish in a barrel. Unless there was another way out, they were going to get me—and it didn’t seem to matter to them what condition they took me in. I had to get out fast, too, or they were going to have the whole block sewed up anyway.
The beam of the light shot over my head and began picking out the clutter and refuse of the back yard I was in, throwing everything into sharp relief. It lingered on the back of the building next to me, and then passed on.
I stared at the place where the light had paused, dumbstruck.
An idiot!—I was an idiot. That drug must still be in my system. What had I been searching for? Another alleyway? Every one of these buildings opened upon this area. Of course, the doors might be locked. . . .
I tried the door the light had picked out. Not merely locked; the knob was frozen by rust. But . . . the window next to it . . .
I threw my weight against the sash, and suddenly there was a snapping sound, and the sash slid up. I boosted myself up and over the sill, and dropped the sash back down just as the light returned.
For a moment the beam hit me full on, blinding me. I was standing directly behind the lowered window. The light caught me, and picked out every detail of my features. My ripped and dirty coat, a shirt which no amount of laundering would ever make white again—and then it had passed, was gone, and I was plunged into blinding darkness.
I’d been standing behind the window, in a dark room. They’d seen nothing, nothing but the reflection of their light. I let my breath out slowly.
When my eyes had readjusted, I looked around me. I was
in a bare, concrete-walled room. At one wall was a shadowy bench, with bits and pieces of things on it: a workbench, it seemed. Beyond was a door. I crossed over to it, stubbing my toe on something big and heavy in the middle of the floor. The door opened on a dingy hall, lit by an unshaded bulb at the other end. The hall was empty, and I followed it to another door. Standing under the light, I took fast stock of my appearance.
I was pretty thoroughly scuffed up. I made a few futile gestures at brushing myself off, and managed only to transfer the grime from my hands to my clothing. Then I pushed through the door.
I was in an old and once expensive lobby. The floor was a mosaic so long begrimed that no sign of the original color peeked through. The walls had false columns, which arched into the ceiling. Once there had been bas-relief on the columns, but now it was clogged by alternate layers of paint and dirt.
.. The front door was still kept locked, however, which said something for the building. Once on the street, I paused to get my bearings.
The Chambers Street station was an anachronism even in my own world. Built on what became the Nassau Loop, it was originally intended to serve as the terminus for a never-constructed Second Avenue subway. I noticed that the Angels hadn’t gotten around to building one either.
The station is huge and cavernous. In my world the outer platforms and central platform had been blocked off; the anticipated traffic had never arrived. Here all platforms were still, nominally, in use. This was one of the rare stations where one could exit a train from either side. In practice, one exited on one side, while others boarded from the opposite side. This neat system did not dissuade, I noticed, a few mavericks from bucking the current and entering or leaving against the crowd.
There was a surprising crowd for a train heading downtown at nearly midnight, I thought. It was not till later that I was told of the midnight curfew, after which trains did not run. I stepped out onto a central platform between local and express tracks, following the crowd, and then turned away from the stairs which led into the upper levels of the station, and walked forward, towards the front of the platform.
I’d picked up a few stares from my fellow passengers, but not as many as I’d thought. The odor of the flophouse in my clothing and my dishevelled appearance were more effective than a disguise. Now I fitted in; I conformed to a stereotype.
As I left the crowd behind me, I paused to wonder, to take stock of myself. I’d been on the run practically ever since I’d arrived in this world, and I’d been running away. Now I was about to approach a group. Was this wise?
I still knew far too little. I had the rough outlines now—I knew the sort of place I was in, I knew the game. But I didn’t know the players—nor the table stakes. Put it simpler: What was I up against? Who could I expect help from? And what sort of help?
More basic: How had I gotten here? And what, if anything, could I do about it?
I was on my way to rendezvous with the Technocrats. It seemed to me I’d heard the name ... a movement, m the 1930’s . . . devoted to the benign rule of the world by scientists, on scientific principles. It was a crackpot notion, and it hadn’t survived. But, in my world, it hadn’t been suppressed. There’s nothing like being driven underground to help a group flourish.
The downtown end of the station was curious. To my right, the downtown local tracks rose and curved off to the right, while the express tracks, on my left, climbed a lower incline, and the uptown express and local tracks,
further left, each found a gentler grade. The effect was terraced, and the platform I was on split, the part to the right sloping up, while the part to the left, divided from it now by a rail, followed a lower course and ended up a good four feet lower at the extreme end, where I now found myself. I’d taken the left side on a hunch, and now I strained to see off into the darkness of the tunnel. There were a few faint, widely spaced lights, and I got the impression of tangles of shiny steel ribbons disappearing around curves in the distance.
I glanced behind me; no one seemed to be paying me any attention. It’s difficult for a man my size to slink— and ludicrous to attempt furtiveness.
Then I stepped off the platform and onto the catwalk beyond.
The catwalk followed the tracks for a short distance, then made an abrupt turn to the right, forcing me to stoop, and I $aw that I was now under the local tracks.
“The door to your right,” said a hard thin voice behind my ear. “No nonsense; I’m right behind you.”
A metal door fit snugly into the concrete wall, and looked untouched for the last forty years. When I touched the handle it sank soundlessly inwards, and then slid to one side.
“Inside."
Inside was a small bare-concrete chamber with some electrical connections on the wall dimly stencilled “NYCTA E. Dept. Live” and a metal stairway leading down. The ubiquitous bare lightbulb provided the illumination. The door clunked closed behind me and I started for the stairs.
“That’ll be far enough. Identify yourself.”
I started to turn, and felt something poke me in my back.
He shouldn’t have done that. It’s very poor policy to go poking guns in people’s backs. I leaned my weight back against him and swivelled, swinging out with my elbow as I did. His gun clattered on the floor, and then I had my hands on him.
He was a shrimp, maybe five-five, and when I grabbed his coat-front, I lifted him clean off the floor. Then I slammed him back down again. His jaws snapped together and his head whipped back. Then I pulled his coat down around his waist, pinning his arms to his sides. I cuffed him lightly.
“Well, Junior,” I said. “Playtime’s over.”
He shook himself. “You move pretty fast for a big guy.”
“I do for a fact,” I agreed.
“Well?” he said,
“ ‘Well?’ yourself,” I replied. “You a Technocrat?”
His eyes got a devious look to them.
“Cut it out,” I said, cuffing him again. “I was told to come here—told you guys could help me. All I’ve had since this whole thing started is aggravation. I’m tired of it. Any minute now I’m going to start getting mad. You know what I mean?”
“Downstairs,” Junior said with a resigned voice.
“First things first. Are you a Technocrat?”
“Yes.”
“What’re you—a guard?”
“We were, warned to expect someone; I didn’t know who.”
“Well, I’m who. Is this the way you always greet your guests?”
“Look, let’s go downstairs and straighten things out, okay?”
I bent down and picked up his gun. There was absolutely nothing unusual about the thing. It could’ve been any model Colt revolver since 1901 and I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. “Here,” I said, giving it to him. “Lead the way.”
“My apologies for Gurley’s hastiness,” Henry Dupree said to me. “We’ve been pretty much in a tizzy all day long, and Gurley’s short on patience.”
I nodded. “That’s fair enough. And I suppose I should apologize for my handling him—my day’s been a little rough too.”
We were sitting in a room which might at first be mistaken for an ordinary apartment. There was a carpet on the floor, and I’d let my bulk sprawl out on a big, comfortable sofa. Dupree was facing me across the back of a straight chair.
Henry Dupree was a bluff, hearty-looking man. I’d place him in his early sixties, and he sure didn’t look as though he’d spent much of that time underground.
The Technocrats were an underground—literally. When bans had been put on many areas of scientific research, the Technocrats had moved underground, under the city. This room was located somewhere under lower Manhattan, part of a huge complex of rooms which rather resembled a rabbit warren, and had been reached by a devious route through subway service tunnels, dry sewers, and, at one point, the old and all-but-forgotten Beech Tube, where Eli Beech had built the first experimental subway in the 1860’s. There is a lot o
f history buried under the streets in New York City.
Here in their underground hideaway—one of several, I was told—the Technocrats had set up shop again. Some of them lived here on a permanent basis; others led double lives and shuttled back between the upper and lower levels. The wall behind Dupree had been painted many times, but a dark water stain still managed to break through and spread like a flat icicle from the ceiling halfway down the wall. A picture made a vain attempt to hide part of it.
“I could use some straight answers,” I said. “Let’s clear one thing away at the beginning. Joey—the bum— he’s one of your men?”
Dupree nodded. “As soon as we realized what we had done, we put out men all over the city. It was our good fortune Joey contacted you so quickly, and managed to get you out of sight for as long as he did.”
“What was the tipoff? The money?”
“Yes. We had very little to go by—just the vaguest of general descriptions. The yellowjackets have no better.” He smiled a sad, almost wistful smile. “The degree of interpenetration between our groups is sometimes difficult to assess.”
“Meaning that as soon as they know anything, you know it?”
“And—vice versa, I’m afraid. We hoped to keep you away from here for as long as we could, to keep from drawing attention to you. I hope Gurley was successful. You met few of us?”
“Coming down here? Damned few. And considering the way Gurley brought me, I’m not surprised. What did he give me? The grand tour of the underground alley route?”
“Just about. It is important that now, with all that is at stake, we do not jeopardize ourselves. Of course, this is not our most important location, but now that you are here . .
“Speaking of which,” I said as nonchalantly as I could make it, “just how is it that I am here?”
“Ahh? It was necessary that once the rather unscrupulous character who runs the flophouse where Joey had taken you—once this ‘Uncle Sam’ became aware of your importance, your potential value to him—”
“That wasn’t my question,” I said, cutting off his wheezy explanation. I had the feeling we were beating around the bush.