Manhattan Transfer

by John E. Stith

  The tunnel section containing the borer had drifted a little lower in the goo, so Rudy moved it several meters from its old position. As he finished attaching adhesive mounts to the black barrier and to the door they had cut open, Bobby Joe came back from dumping the last load of dirt into the side tunnel, and Matt looked at the faces of the trio. Rudy seemed wary but ready. Abby appeared nervous and determined. Bobby Joe could have been ready to take his winning lottery ticket to claim his check.

  Now that they were about to enter another dome, everyone wore a holstered pistol in addition to the scabbarded knife. In addition, from Abby's belt hung her computer, pre–loaded with communication aids she'd developed during the last week and with several language translation programs. It held only two gigabytes of main memory and a 400–gigabyte solid–wafer outboard memory, and she had complained several times about running out of storage. On her other hip hung her minivid recorder, and on her headband were affixed the minivid optics.

  "Is everyone ready?" Matt asked.

  They all said they were.

  "All right. We've talked about this before, but I want to say it one last time: when we step past this barrier we are a military unit. What I say goes, and it goes instantly without argument. Is that clear?" Matt looked only at Abby and Bobby Joe. He knew Rudy didn't need this.

  Abby nodded. Bobby Joe said, "Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir."

  Matt looked suspiciously at Bobby Joe and decided he was hearing simple, genuine eagerness, nothing more.

  "And if anything happens to me, Rudy is your leader."

  He got more agreement. He had repeated this in hopes that the brief military orientation he'd given them would be enough to let the group function smoothly. If trained military people with the same skills had been available, he would have felt it necessary to use them instead, but adding more military personnel to the team would put that much more strain on the oxygen available through the ventilation pipes, and the larger the party entering the dome, the greater the possibility of them being viewed as a threat.

  Matt used his walkie–talkie to tell guards at the Manhattan airlock they were about to enter the dome, then quickly double–checked the items on his belt. He removed his hardhat.

  "All right. We're ready" he said. In the light gravity, he hopped onto the ledge, then slowly stood upright in the dim blue light. His shoulders came level with the ground, and he looked up at the nearby building. He could hear nothing but the faint rush of moving air, probably coming from the ventilation hoses attached to the dome. The air was comfortably cool but smelled unpleasant, vaguely sulfurous.

  The building was several times wider than the biggest shopping mall Matt had ever seen. From this perspective, it could be as tall as the World Trade Center, but the height was harder to judge. The huge circular windows showed nothing but reflections. "Hello!" Matt yelled.

  No sudden scurrying, no startled rustling. The building seemed as dead and silent as before. High overhead a dim blue light outside the dome shed moonlight. Matt looked around. In the direction the Manhattan dome should have been sat a closer dome obstructing the view.

  Matt waited another ten seconds, then said softly, "All quiet." He jumped straight up. As his feet cleared the surface of the ground, he spread his legs. He landed gently on the surface, straddling the hole, then moved forward.

  Rudy's head appeared in the hole, and Matt gave him a come–ahead signal.

  Abby was next. She landed on the ground and looked around.

  Bobby Joe was last. He didn't spread his feet quite wide enough. He almost fell back in the hole before Matt and Rudy each grabbed one arm and pulled him up.

  Rudy grabbed the end of a cord and pulled on it. The black trap door they had cut through the barrier started to swing closed. As the gap narrowed, Rudy's feet slipped on the uneven ground, but he got trap door completely closed.

  Rudy fixed an adhesive cable holder to the end of the cord and stuck it against the interior wall of the dome. Matt armed the tension alarm, and they were ready. Anyone trying to leave the dome without entering the right combination should sound an alarm heard back at the Manhattan airlock.

  "All right, people," Matt said. "Let's go."

  Matt took the lead. Abby fell in behind him, with Bobby Joe behind her, and Rudy trailing.

  The foursome walked toward the building. In the dim light, they cast dark–blue shadows that made Matt think of old cheap films that shot "night" scenes in daylight with a filter. Not far from them, a ramp lead up to a water–filled bird–feeder.

  They had walked less than five meters when the dirt ended and they stepped onto a smooth surface, a textured plaza surrounding the building. As Matt glanced to his left at a planter filled with the scrawny black growth he'd seen from a distance, a bright light switched on.

  "Whoa!" said Bobby Joe.

  Matt spun nervously, his heart beating faster. He looked for the source of the light, wondering if they'd triggered it or if someone within had spotted them and finally reacted. He relaxed when he realized that neither explanation was right.

  The light came from the blue "sun," which had just switched from "night" to "day."

  As soon as everyone understood what had happened, jittery expressions turned a little less nervous. Matt moved forward.

  Now that Matt's eyes had adjusted to the brighter light, the pattern on the plaza floor no longer looked like random paint splatters. A variety of circle sizes covered the surface, but inside each little circle were markings that looked more like an unfamiliar language than haphazard marks. The surface no longer looked clean, either. Two long irregular cracks ran through the plaza floor from the edge all the way to the building.

  Abby got out her minivid and captured several images. She startled Matt by jumping straight up in the air, more than five meters, but then Matt realized she was recording a large view of the patterns so she could try later to decipher them. She floated gently back to the ground and flicked off the minivid.

  The black vegetation in the planters smelled vaguely like mint and rotten eggs. Matt kept his distance as he thought about Venus flytraps and other strange vegetation on Earth.

  Up close, the building seemed to be finished with a seamless, textured material resembling blue Astroturf except that the individual blades formed regular geometric patterns of boxes within boxes. It took Matt a moment to realize that all the little blades were positioned with their flat surfaces perpendicular to the rays from the "sun."

  They approached the nearest huge entrance, a half–circle wider than a Manhattan block. At ground level was an alternating series of blue and gray vertical stripes, each a meter wide and three meters tall.

  As they came nearer to the wide array of stripes, the closest gray stripe slid upward, a door opening. Matt could see nothing inside.

  Matt walked through the doorway, followed by Abby, Bobby Joe, and Rudy. As Rudy stepped through the door, it slowly lowered into its original position. Matt was suddenly afraid of being trapped. He moved toward the door, and it opened again.

  Inside it was just as quiet as it had been outside. Interior blue–tinged lamps set in rows high on the walls were so numerous that no one had a shadow anymore. Inside the huge building was another building. The "lobby" was a very tall thirty–meter gap between the exterior shell and the interior building, which seemed to be as tall as the outside shell. Ahead, an open corridor lined with blue lights led straight into the interior building and dwindled to a point. Along the wall of the interior building, a stairway with half–meter–wide steps and no guard rails zig–zagged all the way up to the ceiling.

  Halfway to the ceiling, one of the huge circular windows admitted blue light.

  "Maybe there's no one here," Rudy said.

  Bobby Joe said, "Maybe these folks have pretty strong feelings about drop–in company."

  The team followed Matt into the interior, and they moved into a corridor with a ten–meter–high ceiling.

  They walked twice the length of a footba
ll field before they found any break in the walls. A perpendicular corridor stretched into the distance in both directions. At the far ends of each hallway were squares of light no bigger than a fingernail viewed at arm's length.

  "You see that flickering?" Rudy asked.

  "Yes?" Matt said softly.

  They all looked at the light spilling from a door cut into the cross corridor. They moved to the door. Inside, a big barber pole rotated slowly. From the pole extended horizontal one–meter rods, which dropped smoothly as they moved around the pole. At the floor, they disappeared into a slot, one every three or four seconds. A half–moon opening on the ceiling showed the level above, and the turning rods came through the opening above just as fast as they disappeared into the slot below.

  "I don't think we have a word for it," Matt said finally. "My guess is the closest is 'escalator' or 'elevator.' Maybe 'escalifter.'"

  Rudy said, "I'd go along with that. If that's right, this must be the down side. Maybe there's an up somewhere near."

  They found the up on the opposite side of the main corridor. It looked just the same except that the rods rose as they turned around the central pole.

  Abby said, "Maybe everyone is upstairs for some reason."

  "Certainly possible," Matt said. "I think we'd better give it a try. Let's go. Be ready to get off at any time, but I don't plan on stopping until we see some indication of life."

  Abby said, "I'm going to let my minivid run." She quickly snapped on a collar and attached the tiny black minivid optics to the front of it, pointing it straight ahead, its tiny lens looking like a jewel set in a square of onyx.

  Matt said, "All right." He moved to a position where rods periodically passed overhead on their way up. He let the first rod go by, then grabbed at the next one to come along.

  His body lurched into the air, putting pressure on his grip, but a second later the pressure relaxed and he felt nothing but the gentle centrifugal force as the central pole lifted him and the rod higher and higher. Cool air rushed at his face. He moved closer to the central pole and the force diminished.

  The rod carried him through the open semicircle in the roof, and in the next half turn put him in a position where his feet would conveniently hit the floor if he were to let go. The 180–degree turn had showed him nothing but another empty corridor, though, so he held on.

  He looked up and realized the semicircle cut into the next ceiling was oriented 180 degrees from the one he'd just come through, meaning that for someone who lost a grip, the longest possible fall would be only one floor, completely safe, given the light gravity.

  The ride continued. He swung up into another deserted corridor. As the pole carried him upward and through the next semicircular opening, he saw below him that Abby was just being carried into the level he was departing.

  Matt corkscrewed up through another empty corridor, and another. The corridors all looked virtually identical. He passed floor after floor, growing more and more puzzled at the lack of activity.

  When finally his feet cleared the level of the roof, he said, "All off on this level," and released his grip. The corkscrew escalifter motion pushed him up in a gentle arc. He stumbled when his feet hit the floor.

  Matt moved out of the way as Abby let go and windmilled until she had her balance. Bobby Joe fell when he got off, but Rudy managed to avoid stepping on his head.

  They stood under a small pavilion roof, with doorways on four sides. Matt helped Bobby Joe to his feet, and they all watched the top of the escalifter for a moment. As the rods neared the top of the rotating pole, they pivoted downward until they were vertical, at which time they seemed to melt into the rotating column. Matt turned away, and the four of them walked out onto the flat surface of the roof.

  They could see another dome fairly close, probably the down version. In the distance they could see seven other pairs of escalifter domes, and by moving several meters, Matt could see an eighth set, so from above the nine pairs of domes would be centered in each of the squares of a tic–tac–toe grid.

  In the distance was the top of the Manhattan dome, showing only the top half of the World Trade Center towers and the tops of some of the other tall buildings. The Manhattan dome itself seemed to clear the highest points with a margin of no more than ten percent of their height.

  "Where is everybody?" Bobby Joe asked finally.

  "It's spooky," Abby said.

  Matt shook his head. "As long as we've got a clear shot at home, let me give them an update." He took the walkie–talkie off his belt and pressed talk. "Manhattan base, this is Rover."

  He released the switch, and listened. Nothing.

  He tried again, and listened again. Still nothing.

  Matt looked closely at the unit. The battery–charge indicator said it should be fine, and he couldn't see any sign of damage. He turned to Bobby Joe. "Any ideas? It doesn't seem likely they wouldn't be listening."

  Bobby Joe made a quick check and confirmed that Rudy's and Matt's walkie–talkies could talk to each other with no trouble and that the batteries were almost fully charged.

  "So," Matt said. "Are we out of range? We haven't gone that far since we left the tunnel."

  Bobby Joe said, "My guess is that it's not the range. I bet it's the dome. I bet the dome doesn't pass RF in this frequency. We know it passes light, a lot farther up the spectrum, but we don't actually have any proof that we can transmit stuff like this through it. Maybe that's why we haven't picked up any RF signals from other domes. And maybe that's why we haven't gotten any answers to the RF we've been sending."

  "Okay. But that still leaves us with quite a few questions. Like where is everybody?"

  Abby unsnapped her minivid and pointed it at the dome above them. Matt looked up and saw what looked to be an identical copy of the message on the roof of the Manhattan dome.

  Matt let Abby finish taking a few seconds of video before he said, "I think it's time we went back down. But let's take the center shaft." He pointed toward it. "Bobby Joe, how's your black box working? Any chance of us getting lost?"

  Bobby Joe took a unit the size of a slice of bread from his belt and inspected the readings on it. People at Columbia had provided the inertial guidance unit and calibrated it for the lower gravity. "We should be fine. In case you're curious, we're a little over 300 meters up."

  "All right. Let's go."

  #

  Stuart Lund was actually enjoying himself more than he had expected to. God had dealt him a painful blow with the loss of his hand, but Stuart was making progress with his street–corner proselytizing, and that progress made him feel more worthwhile than he had felt in a long time. A couple of acolytes followed him as he walked toward his normal street corner and tried to decide how to start his morning speech.

  When he had wakened this morning, he'd interrupted a dream. In the dream, an old man with long white hair had said to him, "I am. Heed me. Soon all will be right."

  The old man had carried a clipboard held to his chest with one arm, the way school kids in old Norman Rockwell paintings had carried their schoolbooks. Or, now that Stuart thought about it, the way Moses was illustrated carrying the ten commandment tablets.

  Near the end of the dream, the old man had turned the clipboard so Stuart could see the front, which bore a copy of the strange message on top of the dome.

  According to the news reports, the Mayor had dozens of people working on translating the message. Of course they had to be wrong, no matter what they decided in their ignorance. If even one of the team had been receptive, as Stuart was, they would already know what Stuart now knew. I am. Heed me. Soon all will be right.

  Stuart reached the corner of Broadway and 12th Street and found a crowd already assembled, waiting patiently. The crowd was even larger than it had been when he quit the day before—another sign from God that Stuart was doing what was expected of him. In fact the crowd was starting to run out of space.

  Stuart was ready to start making demands of these people.
It wasn't enough for them to merely listen and exclaim agreement when it seemed appropriate. They needed to take actions just as Stuart himself did. He decided on a simple test.

  He raised his arms. Voices rippled through the crowd as some of the regulars caught sight of him. Seconds later many faces had turned toward Stuart. "We are too crowded here," he said. "Follow me up the street to Washington Square Park."

  Stuart began to walk south. He didn't look back, but he kept watching the store window reflections. Within seconds the glimpses he caught of the crowd told him they were in fact following.

  Good. Next he needed to ask them for something larger.

  Maybe the first thing he should ask was that some of them stop operations at the World Trade Center. If the Mayor's people trying to interpret God's word were left to themselves, with all the time in the world, they would eventually decide they had to say something. They wouldn't be able to interpret what the message really meant, because they were going about it all wrong. But they would have to save face. They would have to make up something that seemed plausible to themselves to justify their work.

  This must not be allowed. Stuart would ask his people to disrupt activities there, to remind those people they were really trying to interpret the word of God. This was a good plan, he decided. And if his followers would indeed be willing to take this action on his behalf, that would tell him even more clearly that he was doing the work of God, and that God was helping him do what must be done.

  And if that worked, then he would have to decide what the next step might be.

  #

  As the group approached the pair of escalifters in the middle of the roof of the huge building, Abby realized she was feeling more nervous than she had when they first entered the dome. She tried to figure out why.

  It could be just that something was so very wrong here. If something bad had happened to residents of a city that had been here longer than Manhattan, maybe that meant Manhattan was soon to suffer even more badly than it had already. Or maybe it was her natural empathy making her imagine feelings that whoever lived here might have had. Unless they were hiding for some reason, a whole city of people seemed to have vanished. Had they known what was happening to them? Did they go one at a time, leaving the survivors to dread their turn, at the same time powerless to affect what was happening to their friends?