Manhattan Transfer

by John E. Stith

  Abby shivered in the cool air and forced her thoughts back to the mission.

  She stopped suddenly, wondering again why there was no sign of the residents. She had wondered if they were hiding inside. That could still be true. She realized she had stopped, and she started moving again.

  They finally reached the dome covering an escalifter.

  "Is everyone ready?" Matt asked. She hadn't seen that faraway look on him once since they had entered this dome. She wasn't sure whether the strangeness of this place kept him from dwelling on his wife, or if being in a "combat" role was enough to make him ignore everything else until his team was safely out.

  Matt stood at the edge of the cutout in the roof and grabbed one of the rods as it swung past him, and he was on his way. Abby took a breath, and grabbed the next one.

  She floated for a second as the rod pushed her down through the weak gravity field even faster than she would have fallen the first meter or two. Then her body was moving down at the same rate as the rod, and she felt the weak pull of gravity and the outward force as she spun around the central pole.

  They went past several floors that looked exactly like the ones they had already seen. She was starting to assume they'd go all the way to the ground when Matt released his grip and shouted, "Let's get off here!"

  Moments later the four of them stood in the deserted hallway next to the escalifter.

  Matt looked down the hall. "This building just can't be nothing more than hallways and those few circular rooms, whatever they are. There's too much wasted space. I think we need to do a little more exploring."

  They walked about twenty meters before Rudy said, "Wait a minute." He ran his finger down the wall. "What's this?"

  When Abby looked closer and moved her head to just the right place, she could see a hairline crack running floor to ceiling, a seam narrower than the ones between adjacent wall panels in her parents' house.

  Matt walked down the corridor about twenty meters and then came back. "There seem to be pairs of them. About a meter apart, a pair every couple of meters. Are you thinking they might be doors? Or just some construction artifact."

  Rudy looked at the floor, then at the ceiling. "Well, right about here, doors would make a lot of sense."

  Abby pressed on the wall. She moved down the hallway, pushing on the wall every second or so, looking to see if the wall showed any other features. Aside from the thin seams, the wall was just like the sandpaper surface on the ground floor, apparently unbroken.

  Matt said, "If these lines define the edges of doorways, I wonder if the doors are anything like what we came through on the way in." He put his palms against the surface and pushed upward.

  A meter–wide section of the wall from floor to ceiling slid upward. Abby drew in her breath.

  Through the gap she could see interior blue lights, smaller versions of the ones in the hall.

  No sound came from within. Matt stepped cautiously through the doorway. Abby followed, her heart beating much harder than before.

  A corridor ran straight back from the doorway. About ten meters farther along the corridor, it widened, but Abby couldn't see what was around the corner. Matt stopped and turned back. "Bobby Joe, I want you to stay here, under the door. We don't want to take a chance on getting sealed in here."

  Bobby Joe looked grateful not to have to go in. "Yes, sir."

  As Matt, Abby, and Rudy went forward, Abby smelled a strong unpleasant odor, reminiscent of a refrigerator left unplugged and closed. The corridor opened onto what seemed to be living quarters.

  This section was wider than the spacing between doors. If every door led to quarters, they must be jigsawed into place, some with the quarters closer to the main hallway than others. On a low pedestal was a one–meter–by–two–meter cushion. About a meter above it was a platform holding what could have been a chair and a desk. The chair was a cushion about as thick as Abby's wrist. Near it was a U–shaped desk mounted about a quarter meter off the platform. Against the wall was a column of small drawers. On the wall was a design with a big square beside a big circle. Inside the large square was a smaller circle, and inside the large circle was a smaller square.

  "I'm going to get pictures of what's in the drawers, if anything," Abby said. She hopped up to the platform and reached forward to open the lowest drawer.

  Inside it was a disk like a compact with buttons on the front. She pulled it out and set it on the desk. "Could be a remote control unit? Or a communicator?"

  Abby made sure it was in the field of view of her minivid for a second, then tried the next drawer. It contained a red ball that felt rubbery. She showed it to Matt and Rudy, then put it back. As she checked the last drawer and found it empty, Rudy said, "I think you folks should see this."

  Abby followed Matt into an adjoining room. In the center of the room was a circular stand covered with an uneven layer of solid brown fur. The unpleasant odor was stronger here.

  "What do you think—" Rudy was saying as he moved around to the far side of the room. "Uh oh."

  "What?" Matt asked.

  Rudy pointed at the floor. Abby squeezed closer and saw that Rudy pointed to an oddly shaped knife, its blade almost covered with green foam.

  "Oh, God," Matt said. "That's not just some covering of fur, is it?"

  Abby's throat was raw, and she felt lightheaded. "You mean—"

  Matt used one foot to prod at the fur atop the circular base. Abby felt she was going to vomit when Matt's toe moved a layer of the brown fur enough to reveal the glassy green eyes, mottled snout, and rictus of a creature with a head shaped vaguely like a badger's. The skin and fur were liquefying.

  "God," Rudy said faintly.

  "I've got to get out of here," Abby managed to say.

  "Let's all get out of here," Matt said.

  Matt quietly told Bobby Joe what they'd seen. About five seconds after Bobby Joe had moved from his position on the door, it slowly and silently lowered into the closed position.

  In six more tries, Matt and Rudy encountered two more dead aliens, both positioned similarly to the first.

  "Let's get out of here," Matt said.

  As they started back toward the escalifter, Bobby Joe said, "Do you think they were murdered or they committed suicide?"

  Matt looked at Abby and said, "Theories?"

  Abby said, "I don't think I've really got any more than you have to guess with. If they were all murdered in the same place and the same way, that could indicate an incredibly busy murderer, or an organized approach, conducted by a team of murderers. You'd think at least a few of the victims might have struggled more or have been caught in some other location. And that would mean that maybe the murderer or murderers are likely the only ones we'll find alive.

  "Suicide makes a lot more sense to me, but I'm really just wildly guessing. The fact that they each had their own weapon nearby, the fact that they all died in the same location, in the same way, suggests suicide."

  Bobby Joe said, "Makes sense. But why? I mean we're not really happy to be here, but we're doing the best we can."

  "Could be lots of reasons. Could be their religion predicted something close enough to what happened that they're doing what's expected of them in that situation. Could be they just couldn't handle captivity, being shut in. That one in particular is questionable, because a building like this would generate the feeling of being shut in all the time. I don't know why. I'd just guess that it was suicide."

  Talking about it had helped Abby relax. By the time they reached the escalifter, she felt ready to descend. She followed Matt, and seconds later her body rotated smoothly around the central shaft as the device carried her deeper into the heart of the complex.

  They passed more corridors on the way down, but when they were about halfway down to the ground level, she started to smell that horrible smell from before, and they came through the top of an enormous circular room, perhaps as wide as a football field. As Abby turned she saw a section of the wall covered
with a large 2–D photo of what looked to be two buildings. They came closer to the floor, and she saw a sea of brown fur.

  Her arms felt weak. She tightened her grip on the rod, suddenly afraid she'd fall. Dead bodies were everywhere. Hundreds of them, thousands.

  Matt shouted up, "Abby and Bobby Joe stay on and don't get off until the next floor. Rudy, get off with me."

  "No," Abby heard herself shout. "I can handle it."

  By then Matt had let go and hit the surface of the floor. The pole spun another revolution, and Abby let go. She skidded out of the way, and Bobby Joe got off, then Rudy.

  She turned to Matt. "It's okay. I think I can handle it—"

  Matt looked furious.

  "Oh, come on," Abby said. "You don't have to protect—"

  "That's not the issue." Matt's voice was harsh, cutting harder than she'd ever heard it. "We're operating on military rules. I gave you two an order." His gaze widened to include Bobby Joe.

  "But I really don't—" Abby stopped suddenly, realized what he was talking about. She suddenly felt small.

  Matt took a deep breath. Abby could see him willing himself to relax. He said, "Listen to me very carefully. This is not about power. This is not about protection. This is not about men versus women. What it is about is safety and surviving. When we're out here and I give an order, I want to know you'll obey it. When we get back to base, you can question it all you want, and you can quit, but out here I have to know you'll do exactly what I say. For all you know, I had just seen an armed enemy or something equally hazardous. If I don't phrase it as a command, you can ask questions. If it's a command, you've got to act on it. Right then. Any questions?"

  Abby swallowed and shook her head. "None. You're exactly right."

  Bobby Joe said, "Understood."

  Matt visibly relaxed.

  Abby said, "I really do understand. I realize why it's necessary, and I'm ready to cooperate. I guess it's taking me a little time to adjust to a military style, but I'm ready. Really."

  Matt nodded. "Okay." He took a deep breath. "All right, as long as we're all here, anyone got any theories?"

  Abby swallowed and forced herself to look at their surroundings. None of the furry bodies were closer than ten meters, but beyond that perimeter, there must have been thousands. The four humans walked in a small circle around the escalator as Abby tried to ignore the nauseating smell.

  Each body rested on one of those little couch things. This room could have been a huge meeting hall. Near many of the bodies she could see small cups on the floor where they had apparently fallen. Blue drops of some liquid showed near several of the cups.

  "What do you think?" asked Matt after a long silence.

  "I really don't know enough to explain this. But it looks like some horrible Jonestown or Tekafganton," she said softly.

  Matt said, "You mean a mass suicide?"

  Abby came around to where the huge picture covered part of the wall. It showed two huge buildings, judging from the relative size of the buildings and the two groups of small creatures standing in the foreground. One of the buildings was a very large cube, the other a big cylinder. As Abby stared at the picture for a moment, at the creatures in the foreground, she recalled the picture in the room several floors above, and suddenly felt very cold. "Oh, no. Oh, God."

  "What?" Matt asked. "What is it?"

  Abby hesitated. "I had a flash. I don't know I'm right, but it's one way of explaining what's happened. I might be just looking at it with a human point of view, but—"

  "Go on."

  "Look at the picture. That square building on the right. That's this one—the one we're in. Those creatures in front of the building. They all have solid brown fur, and that ruffling along the forehead, like the creatures here. Now look closely at the creatures in front of the cylindrical building."

  "They look the same."

  "No. Look closer. Look at their mouths, their snouts, whatever. Look very closely."

  Matt was silent for a moment. "You mean it looks like there's some gray in the fur there? The ones in front of the cylindrical building have touches of gray fur the others don't? And none of them have those ridges along the forehead?"

  "Yes." Abby's body shook as she said the word.

  "I still don't get it," Matt said finally.

  "You remember that picture up above? The one with the large square and the large circle?"

  "Yeah."

  "This is still just a guess, all right? There could be lots of other explanations. This is just one possibility."

  "Yeah."

  "It's possible that the gray fur around the snout and those forehead ridges distinguish one sex from the other. I think it's possible that the square and circle might represent something that distinguishes their sexes. Those are big ifs, but if I'm right, it could be this entire building housed only one sex, and that the circular building left behind housed the other sex. If that's right, those Goddamned aliens who took us—who took them—took all of one sex and left the other sex behind."

  Chapter 7

  A Tree Grows

  Surrounded by death and silence, Matt stared at the picture of the pair of buildings. The churning in his stomach said Abby's theory was probably right. The idea that members of one sex would kill themselves when stranded without the opposite sex was extreme, but it somehow fit with the idea that the sexes would live in separate buildings. Whether Abby's theory was right or not, the fact was the residents here were dead, and that probably wouldn't be true if they had been left alone.

  In the stunned silence, Rudy said, "I bet you're right. Whoever captured us could lift one of those buildings, but taking both, separated by that much distance, would have been too much. I wonder if they know what they've done."

  "Or if they care," Abby said. "The transmission we saw earlier made it look like they go in fast and remove all their targets just as fast as they took Manhattan."

  "If they moved slowly, no one would be left in the city when they took it," Rudy said. "Except maybe a few crazies."

  Finally Matt said, "Let's get out of here."

  They lined up in their original order, and Matt grabbed an escalifter rod, letting it take him downward into the complex. He spun through floor after floor, almost numb with shock at the idea that their captors had taken citizens of only one sex. Either they had moved so quickly that they had no time to determine the magnitude of the mistake they were making, or they had known what they were doing and didn't care.

  Matt spun through floor after deserted floor, the feeling of horror growing inside him. At last he reached the ground floor and released the rod. Seconds later the foursome stood together quietly. Matt no longer worried that the still building held a possible ambush, but he wished he could trade that former feeling for the bitter gnawing in his stomach that he now felt.

  As they reached the corridor leading to the outside and Matt saw how long it looked, he sighed, staring into the distance. He wondered if being separated from Nadine would be any less painful if she had still wanted to be together. They'd been walking for a few minutes when Matt became aware of the feeling of being watched. He glanced left and saw Abby's gaze on him.

  "Are you doing all right?" she asked softly.

  "Sure. I'm tough." Matt said the words with a light tone, bordering on self–mocking. He didn't feel very tough right then, and he knew Abby knew it.

  #

  Stuart Lund came down from the second floor just two minutes before the service was supposed to begin, and he found that once again they had outgrown the number of chairs. People stood in the back of the large room, leaning against the walls, and every chair was occupied.

  The clamor of conversations died as Stuart walked from the back of the room, up the narrow aisle toward the spray–painted microwave packing box that was now his lectern. He took pride in recognizing it as a lectern when most people incorrectly called it a podium.

  Stuart had a member of his congregation to thank for the space for the chu
rch. Warehouses had been gradually getting less and less useful at the same time Stuart's folk kept growing. Between services, Stuart still took to the streets, but now he took with him each time a different handful of people to act as a crowd seed.

  Stuart had realized early that few people liked to be the very first to stop and listen, but if they could pause near the back of a small throng, they felt secure enough that they might stay ten or fifteen minutes, and by that time many of them were hooked. By having some of his congregation start the "crowd," the new arrivals assembled that much sooner.

  Stuart reached the front of the large room and turned to look into the eyes of the closest people. The people here were excited, as excited as he was that in this time of need they had a chance to be a part of what God wanted them to do.

  Today he would talk to them about the expedition outside the city, and he knew they would be as upset about it as he was, as soon as they understood that trying to get closer to God was no more acceptable now than it had been when the Tower of Babel was attempted.

  #

  By the time they left the large building, Abby's thoughts had cleared a little.

  The horror she had felt earlier remained, but she now felt a little additional emotional distance from what she was more and more sure was the terrible fate of the residents here.

  As they'd walked, she'd noticed Matt's faraway expression return several times, and she wondered if the division of the sexes was a particularly painful reminder of his wife being left back on Earth. Abby was irritated with herself because she couldn't deny that she was attracted to the man. Maybe it was because he seemed to be a mix of strength and vulnerability much like she saw in herself. Maybe it was something as stupid as the warmth she felt when he gave her that floodlight smile.