The Visible Man and Other Stories

by Gardner Dozois

  Guessing at the direction of Hamilton, he turned onto the larger road. It was flat and straight, and Rowan made even better time. Dust boiled up from the pavement as he passed, and hung in the still air behind him in long wavering lines. Thank God for the guideways, Rowan thought—traffic was light even on the larger manual roads. He only encountered one car, going in the opposite direction, its steering wheel apparently turning by itself. He had to caution himself not to stare at it as it passed. Then he was alone on the road again, with only the squeak and rattle of the bicycle for company. After a while, houses began to appear more frequently by the side of the road, and there were cross-streets every so often, with overhead traffic lights at the intersections. He was barreling across one such intersection at full tilt when he crashed into something unseen but very solid.

  The impact hurled Rowan from the bicycle head over heels. He hit the street, rolled, skidded along on his side and jarred to a stop against the curb. By the time he understood what was happening, he was resting on his elbows in the road and staring up at the sky, dazed and shaken. He was badly scraped along his arms and legs, and bits of gravel had been embedded under his skin by the force of the fall. Rubber-legged, he got up. There was a groan of pain from the unseen something he’d hit, and then it said a pithy word. A man, then. Some pedestrian had been crossing the road and he’d smashed into him. The bicycle was shoved clatteringly aside, and Rowan assumed that the man was getting to his feet.

  “What are you, blind?” the man raged. “You sorry son-of-a-bitch!”

  “I’m sorry, but you stepped right out—”

  “You had plenty of room! You had miles of room!” The voice wavered slightly as it climbed in register: an elderly man, then. “What’s a’matter, you ain’t got eyes in your head? You could’ve turned! I swear I’ll sue you, you hear that? Knock me down, almost break my back—”

  “Don’t frazzle off, old friend,” Rowan said nastily. Soft-talk wouldn’t work. He had to be truculent and menacing or he’d be arguing with this guy for hours. Play it like a young tough, a weep maybe. “It was just an accident, right? You scan that? Only an accident. So don’t give me the rest of this fargo, because I don’t want to hear it.”

  “I’ve got a mind to have you run in, you son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Shove it. You know, you could get hurt a lot worse, jobbie.”

  There had been an edge in Rowan’s voice—the man sputtered, but remained silent. Rowan swaggered over to the bicycle, feeling self-conscious but playing it up. The bicycle didn’t seem to be significantly damaged, although the frame was a little bent and the handlebars had been knocked out of alignment. He twisted them back into true, climbed onto the bicycle and shoved off. When Rowan was a safe distance away, the man shouted after him, “Goddamn idiot! I hope somebody cuts your balls off!”

  Wobbling more than before, Rowan peddled down the road. He had to think of something else soon. He was entering the outskirts of a town, and the chances of hitting another invisible pedestrian increased with every revolution of the bicycle wheels. And now he thought he could hear the thin keening of sirens high in the sky behind him, an eerie sound that might have been made by demons of the upper air. They were coming after him, and he was much too conspicuous bicycling down this traffic-free road. Just as he was about to ditch the bicycle, he topped a rise and came upon a truck waiting on a red light at an intersection, one of the moderate-sized vans still used for hauling freight between small cities not serviced by guideways. Rowan’s eyes narrowed in instant calculation. Carefully, he coasted to a stop squarely behind the truck, where he would be out of range of the driver’s mirror. He dismounted, picked up the bicycle and threw it into a tangle of high weeds and bushes by the roadside. Then, as the light changed and the truck started to accelerate, he leaped up and grabbed the edge of the latched tailgate.

  The truck’s van was protected only by a hanging tarpaulin. Rowan brushed it back, pulled himself over the tailgate and tumbled inside. He landed on something with hard edges, squirmed aside, and came to rest on the vibrating metal floor. They continued to gather speed, gears growling—evidently the driver had not seen him come aboard. Rowan sank back on his haunches, and then stretched out as well as he could among the sealed boxes and crates, pillowing his head with his arms. He had never been so tired. The hard metal floor felt as soft as thistledown. He felt himself sinking into it, sinking down luxuriantly. Grimly, he forced his eyelids wide again and made a great effort to stay awake. He had been given an opportunity to think things through without the pressure of split-second decisions; he should be trying to formulate long-range plans, plot out a plan of action instead of just running aimlessly away. But his brain had turned to ash, and he could not think. Besides, where was there to go? Who was there who could help him? His friends were all back in Newburyport, and that old life seemed even more distanced and inconsequential than it had this morning, his old acquaintances only hazy figures from an almost-forgotten dream. Dream-men, phantasms, they could not help him. The floor was spinning, slowly and restfully. He knew it was a terrible mistake to doze, but he could no longer fight it. He fell asleep.

  He was awakened by a harsh, frightening sound: the rattle and clank of the tailgate being unlatched.

  Rowan pulled himself up out of evil, smothering dreams. When his eyes unblurred, he saw only a rectangular green thing with glowing edges, and it took him a moment to realize that it was the tarpaulin, with light leaking in around the sides. At first, he didn’t realize that the truck had stopped. Then he heard the tailgate thump as it was swung down. He sat up, terrified and floundering, still only half-understanding where he was. The tarpaulin was yanked aside. Blinking around the sudden influx of light, Rowan was astonished to see that no one was there. Then he remembered, in an intense, sickening flash, and had to adjust himself to it all over again, as he would have to every morning for whatever remained of his life.

  “You floorsucker!” a voice said.

  Before Rowan could move, he was seized by hard invisible hands, hauled from the truck—getting a brief dizzy glimpse of concrete, a high metal ceiling, arc lights—and set on his feet. The hands released him.

  “I—” Rowan started to say. His vision exploded into shooting white sparks, pain lanced through his head. He reeled back against the truck and almost fell. His mouth filled with blood.

  “Whatta y’think y’doin?” the voice said, harsh with rage. “You scupping thief!”

  Pain had jolted Rowan fully awake. Instantly, he lashed out with his fist, aiming at the spot from which the voice had seemed to emanate. He missed completely, his arm scything the air, and took a hard punch to the stomach from his unseen adversary. It knocked the wind out of him and drove him back against the edge of the lowered tailgate. It was hopeless, he realized through a wave of nausea. He couldn’t win.

  The next blow laid Rowan’s cheek open and threw him sideways to the concrete floor. He went along with the fall, augmented it, and rolled over twice very quickly. Then he scrambled to his feet and ran.

  Someone shouted hoarsely behind him. Rowan kept running, heading for the far side of what was apparently an underground garage. Halfway across, he slammed into something solid but yielding; another invisible person. There was a gasp of surprise and pain, and the clatter of dropped tools. Probably he’d bowled the man over. Rowan himself staggered and nearly fell, but recovered his balance and kept on. He was sprinting with his head down now, dodging and weaving like a broken-field runner. More shouts behind him. Invisible hands clutched at him for a moment, but he broke free. A door seemed to spring up in front of him. He clawed it open and sprang through.

  He found himself in a long, fluorescent corridor, the cold white light coming evenly from ceiling, walls and floor. He sprinted away to the left, followed the corridor to a fork, picked a branch at random and kept running. Then another fork, and another corridor. He found a door marked Employees Only, went down a small service stairway, through another network of corridor
s, and down another stairway to the bottom.

  The corridor he emerged into this time was dingier than the others, faded tile and green-painted stone, lit by hanging overhead bulbs. There was a smell of damp in the air, and the stone walls sweated like toads. Rowan paused to rest, gasping and leaning against the doorframe. When his breathing evened enough to let him hear again, he listened for sounds of pursuit. Nothing. He’d lost them. And this was a basement corridor, few people would be traveling it. And now, he knew where he was. Even in flight, he had had time to recognize the trademark insignia embossed into the walls of the upper corridors—he was in one of the big shopping plaza complexes near Danvers. But how was he going to get out of here? There were sure to be thousands of people about in the complex; as soon as he came up out of the deserted basement corridors he would inevitably run into some of them. The faded denim pants and blue work-shirt he wore were not damning in themselves, but would certainly be a giveaway to anyone actively searching for an escaped prisoner. Somehow, he had to get a change of clothes.

  Rowan started walking again, cautiously threading his way through a warren of basement corridors that seemed endless. Occasionally there were doors set in either wall, always locked and bolted. Storerooms, probably. From behind a few of the locked doors came the solemn, deep-throated chuffing of massive machinery, or, more rarely, a vibrant unwavering hum. Eventually, he passed into what seemed to be an older section of the complex. Here huge ceramic-covered pipes ran along the ceiling close overhead, the floor was rutted, and there were patches of mold on the walls. Some of the overhead lights were broken, and Rowan walked on through semi-darkness until he came to a door marked Maintenance at the junction of two shabby corridors. From behind this door came an unmistakable sound: someone snoring.

  Quivering with tension, Rowan put his ear to the thin plastic door-panel. The only sound he could hear was the rhythmical snoring. He’d have to chance it. Carefully, he tried the door. It wasn’t locked. He inched it open until a hinge gave a loud rusty squawk, then he pulled the door wide and stepped briskly into the room.

  It was a small chamber with faded opalescent walls, smelling of sweat and old clothes and bozuk. Two walls were covered with dials, meters, readouts and tell-me-twices. A dusty computer terminal and a slave board stood in that corner. Most of the room was taken up by a dilapidated sink-cooker combination and a scarred folding table heaped with filthy biodegradable plates that had been re-used instead of catalyzed. In another corner was a much-patched waterbed. Flies drummed noisily against the walls, seeking a way out.

  As Rowan entered the room, the snoring cut abruptly off. A man-shaped dent in the waterbed began to work itself back to level. Someone was getting up. “What?” said a cracked, quavery voice: another old man. “Whatta’y’want? Who—” The dent disappeared; the man must be on his feet now. “Inspection, jobbie,” Rowan said slyly, “special orders from the manager,” using the custodian’s resultant hesitation to get a few steps nearer. Then he leaped.

  The custodian screamed. Rowan ended up with a double-handful of cloth—a shirt?—which immediately tore away in his grasp, lunged again and felt his hand close around a bony wrist. He twisted it. The custodian screamed again. Rowan felt the custodian’s free hand pound against the side of his head, and then they were wrestling each other in a drunken circle across the floor. The table went over with a great smash and clatter of plates. The custodian was still screaming. What a racket they were making! “Shut up, you!” Rowan shouted inanely, then managed to get a hand around the custodian’s invisible throat. Ignoring a rain of wild windmill blows, Rowan throttled him into submission.

  When the custodian went limp, Rowan let him slide to the floor. Suddenly everything was amazingly quiet. Swaying and gasping for breath, Rowan was washed over by a prickly wave of shame. He was pretty good at beating up old men, wasn’t he? Suppose he’d killed the old guy? Apprehensively, Rowan crouched and felt about until he located the custodian, touching long invisible hair the texture of matted straw, and a scraggly beard—some ancient hippie given a makework job by the complex then, a bozuk addict probably. Rowan felt for a heartbeat. It was there—papery and labored, but there.

  Relieved, Rowan began to search the custodian. Nothing—he was wearing some kind of frilly smock or dress without pockets. But on a night-stand near the waterbed Rowan found an odd leather object, and realized after a moment’s thought that it must be a “wallet.” Inside the old wallet were several unusual photographs, an identification card—with an embossed picture of the old man on it, unfortunately—a credit strip, and a nearly exhausted monthly commuter ticket. Rowan examined the credit strip and bit his lip in frustration. The custodian didn’t have much of a debit margin, not nearly as much as Rowan had hoped for. Not enough to buy a ticket out of the country or even out of the state, not enough to rent a car, or get an identity-scramble or an apartment to hole up in, so that was the end of those particular fantasies. And there wasn’t enough left of the commuter ticket even to get him to Boston.

  The custodian began to moan. Rowan paced over, located him again, and lifted his fist to clip him. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it—the old man was so frail, it might kill him. Swearing at his squeamishness, Rowan dragged the feebly-struggling custodian to a closet, muscled him into it, and braced a chair against the door to keep it closed. “Hey!” the custodian shouted, and began to rattle the doorknob furiously. “Shut up,” Rowan growled in self-conscious toughness, “or I’ll come in there and tear your head off.” The custodian shut up.

  Rowan returned to the computer terminal. He’d have to do the best he could with what he had. He thought for a minute, then activated the terminal and dialed for the catalog of one of the big stores overhead. He computed sums in his head. Just enough. He inserted the coded credit slip into the slot and carefully punched out an order on the keyboard. The computer winked an acknowledgment light at him, and printed Five Minutes across the readout in green phosphorescent letters.

  Sighing, Rowan leaned back in the chair to wait. Now that the immediate pressure was off, he realized how exhausted he was, how sore and battered and torn. His split lip ached fiercely, as did his lacerated cheek and his scraped arms. But most of all, he was tired. The room seemed to blur in and out of existence, and Rowan pulled up out of the nod just in time to keep his head from cracking against the terminal board. He’d almost fallen asleep. Stiffly, he got up. He was still rubber-legged, and very weak. Hunger was part of it. He literally could not remember the last time he’d eaten—sometime during his stay at the Newburyport jail, he supposed, but his memories of that ordeal were murky and confused. It could have been days. And he was intolerably thirsty.

  He rummaged through the cubicle in search of food, but found nothing except a bar of VitaGel and a half-empty bottle of Joy. Grimacing with distaste, he ate the gluey bar, and then cautiously tried a sip of Joy. The euphoric effect hit him instantly, making him lightheaded and giddy. Reluctantly, he put the bottle aside—he couldn’t afford to get frazzled. There didn’t seem to be any cups at all in the place, but he polished a small plate as well as he could with his sleeve and used it to get a drink of rusty water from the tap. The Joy was making his head buzz. He had an odd feeling of unreality and déjà vu, and a sudden strong intuition that the old custodian was about to speak. Just at that moment, the custodian said “Hey, man, you’re never going to get away with this, you know that?” and Rowan subvocalized the last few words along with him, the feeling of déjà vu returning ten-fold. “Shut up, jobbie,” Rowan growled, still with the feeling that he was reading something from a prepared script, “I really shouldn’t be keeping you alive at all, scan?” The old man quieted again, but Rowan’s head remained full of odd echoes, as if everything were doubled or tripled, crowding the room with ghosts and reflections. He never should have touched that goddamned Joy.

  The terminal flashed its mauve warning light while Rowan was washing his face in the sink basin. His order thumped down the pneu
matic shute into the hopper. Rowan quickly dried his face with his shirt. The water had cleared his head a little, and he looked much more presentable with the dirt and dried blood washed away. Feeling almost jaunty, he stripped off the rest of his clothes and padded over to pick up the package.

  The package contained a nondescript shirt, some cloth pants, an overcoat, a hat, a pair of dark glasses, and a cane. If he must cope with being “blind,” then let him be a “blind man.” One of the hard-core blind, too low-caste to qualify for a TVSS. He would attract much less suspicion that way—the pose would explain why he was continually bumping into people, and he hoped that the Purloined Letter syndrome would also work to his advantage. At the least, he would be more difficult to spot.

  Rowan dressed hurriedly and left the room. He wouldn’t have much time to get clear of the complex before an alarm was raised. The chair he’d braced under the doorknob was only made of hard plastic, and already, as Rowan hesitated in the corridor, he could hear the custodian attempting to break out of the closet. He really should have killed the old man—later he would probably have cause to regret that he had not. He set out through the warren of basement corridors.

  He’d decided that it would be best to try to retrace his steps, but within a few moments he was hopelessly lost. A series of locked doors and blocked-off corridors gradually herded him in an entirely different direction, and he wandered through the old stone maze for what seemed like hours. Finally, just as he was beginning to despair, he located an unlocked service stairway.

  At the top of the stairway, he stepped through a door and found himself in another of the fluorescent upper corridors. He struck out along it, remembering to tap the floor in front of him with his cane, and bumped into someone almost immediately.

  “Oh, excuse me!” a voice said; a woman this time. “I guess I wasn’t looking where I was going.”