Slant

by Eikeltje

  on local and Federal coordination. You've changed since."

  "Going back on a transform," Mary says tersely. His comment seems at best

  an impertinence. Mary senses they're going to sound her out before fully in-

  ttegrating

  her into this

  Nussbaum's recommendation

  team,

  or

  no.

  "What about those spots on your hand?" Hench says, leaning over in his

  seat as the old jet banks.

  Mary stares down at the back of her left hand and notices, for the first time,

  a set of four pallid lesions. She covers them with her other hand, surprised and

  embarrassed.

  Hench regards at her intently. "The Aristos oppose transform treatments,

  too," he says.

  "My God," Martin says. "What is going on in this country?"

  As if to loosen the sudden tension, Daniels says, "You don't want to be in

  Green Idaho on the Fourth of July. These folks go nuts for fireworks. Three or

  four hundred people are hurt here every year in fireworks accidents. They sell

  sticks of old construction dynamite at roadside stands."

  Mary cuts through the buzz in her head, forces herself to relax and not to

  look at the lesions. The plane continues a steep turn, and through her window,

  Mary catches sight of grasslands, ruined forests, abandoned strip mines like

  great brown cankers. Snow suddenly falls in stretched ribbon flurries around

  / SLANT 279

  "This place is just one big tumor," Torres says in an undertone. "We should

  drop a big rock and wipe it off the map."

  Daniels grins. "They love you, too, Federico."

  Jack Giffey is on the edge of simply shooting the old man. But Marcus Reilly's

  bravado is something to behold, like watching a weaving snake. Giffey knows

  what the old man says is true--tells himself all this is just a waste of time,

  and it would be best if they removed themselves from Omphalos and vanished

  into the wilderness.

  But Giffey knows he will stay; he did not come here for treasure. He pities

  the others if they find this disappointing. Hale in particular is building up a

  head of steam, though so far he has taken the news with deceptive calm.

  Jenner and Pickwenn don't seem to be getting any worse, for the time being.

  Giffey thinks Hale is their real weak point. Hale might shoot Reilly before

  Giffey does. And that would be unfortunate.

  Reilly is about to justify Giffey's being here.

  Beyond the glass wall, Marcus asks for the central hatch to open. Pickwenn

  and Jenner stay behind on Hale's orders.

  "Voila," Marcus says. Giffey, Hale, and Jonathan stand back as a puff of

  cool air blows from the edge of the hatch. Beyond the heavy steel and fiexfuller,

  a dim and chilly mint-green light barely illuminates walls perforated with

  rows of elliptical holes. Hale walks up to the first hole and peers in. "Empty!

  Jesus!"

  "Every single one," Marcus confirms. "They'll be filled in about five years,

  I imagine, maybe sooner now that the process has begun."

  "I don't understand about this process," Jonathan says carefully, precisely.

  "The whole modern world is supported by crutches," Marcus says. He draws

  himself up, levels his chin, thrusts it out, pure old rooster arrogance. "We're

  kicking away all the crutches. Crude, but necessary. When the world falls,

  those of us who don't need crutches will pick up the pieces and right the

  balance."

  "Crutches--mental therapy?" Jonathan asks.

  Marcus smiles like an old cat, his face lurid in the ghoulish light. He pats

  the edge of the nearest cavity. "While the world's natural decay works itself

  through, we sleep here. Cadey described some of it to you. This is a more

  awkward way of finding it out, but... We're strong enough to take them as

  280

  GREG BEAR

  "They won't kill us," Marcus concludes, "because Roddy will kill them if

  they do."

  Giffey orders Baker to step through the hatchway. "You can't sleep here if

  the building is a hollow ruin." He addresses the fiexer/controller directly.

  "We'll begin by placing charges in all of these cells."

  The giant hatch begins to close. The Hammer intervenes, spraying small

  spots of explosive along the joints.

  "Down," Giffey tells Hale and, coincidentally, the others. Outside, at almost

  the same moment, Jonathan hears Jenner yell the same warning.

  They drop. Jonathan and Marcus are a little slower than the others, and the

  oddly muffled blast knocks them back. Jonathan feels his cheek slam against

  the floor.

  The hatch falls from its melted hinges and rolls like a giant coin on the

  floor beyond the openings. The noise is deafening, louder than the blast itself.

  It seems to take forever to stop. Jonathan rolls to one side and stares at the

  hind end of the fiexer/controller, which has already begun following Giffey's

  orders.

  Charlie enters the chamber and coordinates with Baker. Before they are on

  their feet, charges are being placed in every fourth cell.

  Marcus murmurs to Jonathan, "The hell with this little game. Roddy isn't

  doing a damned thing."

  Jonathan can hardly hear Marcus. He touches his ears. They ache.

  "Let's move," Giffey tells them. To Marcus he adds, "We're going below.

  Under the ground level. Let's finish your tour."

  He seizes Marcus's hand, twists his arm behind him, and puts Jenner's pistol

  to his temple.

  I Jonathan

  helpless. Marcus,

  Aristos, they are responsible

  stands

  the

  for

  Chloe's fallback, for the chaos in his home and the misery he feels.

  Without that impetus he would have quietly backed away from Marcus's

  offer.

  Giffey passes him, pushing Marcus ahead like a crude doll, and says to

  Jonathan, in an aside, "If you stay here, you'll be dead in about ten minutes."

  Jonathan jerks to attention and follows. But as the men and machines cram

  themselves back into the elevator, his growing stack of excuses collapses. He

  is in a state of physical and ethical shock.

  The lift door closes. "Very brave," Giffey says. Baker coils around their legs

  like an affectionate snake, and the Hammer smells of sweet rubber. The explosives

  it has extruded leave their odoriferous traces on its shell.

  They begin their descent to the ground floor lobby.

  "Their warbeiter in the elevator shaft has connected itself to a secondary power

  supply that it does not control," Roddy tells Jill. "They are coming down to

  my mother's area. They are coming into my area."

  Jill sees the shaft from above; below, she sees the segments of dark warbeiter

  connected to the elevator's mechanisms and controls. Roddy highlights for her

  the unwitting join with the power supply. Then, he pumps a huge current

  through the wiring. Purple arcs cut through the shaft, knocking the segments

  of warbeiter about like scattered Frisbees, melting them.

  "I know what I must do," Roddy says. "The other greens are expendable; I

  can't save them. But I must not harm Marcus Reilly."

  Jill tries to communicate, but Roddy is not listening. He has cut her out

  of his decis
ion loops; her suggestions did not take.

  The only courtesy he affords her is a glimpse of clumps of shapeless paper,

  wax, and mud. The image is brief but clear--insects, bees and wasps. Seefa

  Schnee has harnessed the neural qualities of hive insects.

  They are part of Roddy's mind.

  Jonathan smells smoke--not just the sweet-rubber odor of explosive, but something

  burning, and hot metal. There is a sharp ting on the roof of the lift, then

  a heavy clunk and a patter of lesser impacts.

  Giffby squeezes Marcus into a corner and tells Jenner, "I'm switching to

  line-of-sight." He touches his pad to Charlie's shiny flank, presses a few quick

  buttons, relays the change of control to the warbeiter's receiver and data port.

  He does the same with the fiexer/controller coiled on the floor.

  The elevator makes a grating sound and they all stare at each other with

  comic alertness, like dogs hearing a whistle.

  Pickwenn glances up. A mass of red-hot metal pushes through the plastic

  roof and drops directly onto his face. He writhes and drops, does not even have

  time to scream. His legs kick, connect with Jonathan's shin. Jonathan grimaces

  in pain but he can't move, the lift is too crowded.

  The elevator screeches to a halt. The doors refuse to open, though the display

  282

  GREG BEAR

  Jonathan and Giffey has taken refuge under the Hammer's rear overhang, vying

  for the space with Jenner.

  More slams and tings on the roof.

  The elevator air is opaque with smoke and the smell of seared flesh. Jenner

  curses loudly and continuously, incomprehensible and awful sounds, like animals

  throwing up. Jonathan can't breathe. Marcus is climbing over him.

  "Open the doors!" Marcus cries. "Open the doors!"

  Jenner squeezes from behind the Hammer with a grunt. He and Hale try

  to pry the doors open with their hands. The air in the elevator is clearing, a

  fan has come on, they can breathe, but the enclosed space is terrifying. Jenner

  slams himself against the doors, but they refuse to part.

  Outside, deep, barely audible, a sound: droning.

  Giffey lifts his head. "What in hell is that?"

  "Sounds like a motor," Hale says.

  Jenner tries to wedge his fingers between the doors. No success. Sweat drips

  from his face. He shoves Marcus aside roughly and tries again. Hale places his

  palms flat against the left door. They make squeaking noises; he can't get a

  grip. Giffey stands back, considering.

  Jonathan sees that Marcus has no idea what the droning means. He can't

  hear himself think; Jenner is loudly repeating shattered obscenities, his head

  pumping back and forth on his neck with each outburst.

  On the floor, Pickwenn moans, not dead yet, but at least he has stopped

  kicking.

  Outside, they hear screams. The buzz-saw hum grows louder. Fists pound

  on the door from the outside, trying to get in.

  Giffey claps his hand over Jenner's mouth. The screams outside blend into

  ene dissolving acid wail of

  pain.

  Jonathan pushes himself back as far from the door as he can.

  The screams fade, decline in number and volume. The last voice, high-

  pitched, calls out to Allah, to Mother.

  Jamal Cadey.

  They have been in the elevator for ten minutes. None of them has the

  courage to say a word, or make a move; sweat drips on the floor.

  The smoke builds again. The blowers can't dissipate it fast enough.

  "Shit," Giffey says. From a crouch, hand over his mouth and nose, he pushes

  Pickwenn into a corner. Giffey urges the Hammer forward and tells it what to do.

  With its two sharp-nosed grips, it wedges into the crack between the doors.

  Its fiber sinews and cables snap and twang, and with a shudder throughout its

  body, it pries the doors apart, snapping metal safety bars and warping the inner

  facing.

  The lift has stopped two feet above the ground floor. Molten metal sizzles

  in flaming drips between the lift cabin and the shaft wall.

  Marcus kicks at Pickwenn's still body and it rolls out of the lift. A shapeless

  / s L A N T 283

  The Hammer braces itself, reaches up, and shoves at the upper edge of the

  lift frame, pushing them lower by another foot.

  Jonathan somehow manages to squeeze over the Hammer's thick leg and

  jumps through the smoke, tiny flecks of molten aluminum burning his neck

  and arm. He lands beside Marcus. Baker slithers past with a scrabble of multiple

  legs.

  The elevator snarls and ratchets down several more inches and the Hammer

  jumps free, Gif pounds y and Jenner clinging to it like rag dolls.

  Jonathan rolls to one side. Marcus is not so quick or agile. The Hammer's

  right ped comes down on his leg. Marcus makes a large silent O with his

  mouth, eyes blank with surprise and anticipation of pain.

  Smoke curls in the lobby, hiding and then lifting, revealing. The floor in

  front of the lift door is littered with more blackened, misshapen segments of

  the flexer Giffey had assigned to the shaft. Another, less damaged segment

  crawls out of the shaft and shivers, then stalls on the shining stone floor. The

  intact Baker examines this pitiful portion of its brother with quick, jerking

  pokes of its head.

  Other than a liquid ratcheting sound from within the Hammer, the ground

  floor lobby is eerily quiet.

  Marcus begins to moan, his voice getting higher. Jonathan tries to pull him

  free. Like a horse, the Hammer lifts its ped and sets it down again, away from

  the old man.

  Jonathan straightens and stands, looks up from Marcus. Through the smoke

  he sees bodies on the lobby floor: Cadey, the man called Pent. Cadey has his

  arm flung over Pent, whose face is as round and swollen as a sausage, and about

  the same color. They do not move.

  A dying bee crawls over Pent's face. More insects, bees and wasps, crawl on

  the floor, and a few buzz through the air disconsolately. Giffey swats at a wasp

  as it circles his face. He knocks it to the floor and steps on it.

  Hale steps out of the lift and swipes his hand at the smoke. He stares in

  slack-jawed surprise at the bodies, then backs up as if he would crawl into the

  lift again. "Giffey! You said there would be something here! There's nothing

  for us, NOTHING!"

  Giffey for a moment seems lost, confused, then he grins like a devil and

  looks up and spins on the balls of his feet. "Where are you, Bell-ringer?" He

  leans down beside Marcus and grabs his collar. Marcus grimaces in pain. "You

  old, cruel sonofabitch. Your Quasimodo isn't up in the heights, is he? He's

  down in the dungeon. He's still hard at work. Let's go find him, before he gets

  up his courage and kills us, too."

  2O

  Mary steps down from the passenger ramp onto the cracked asphalt and faces

  stinging snow and a bitter, toothy wind. The time is sixteen and the weather

  is bearing down, the sky is dark blue-gray and the clouds' bellies are twisted

  like loose coils of yarn.

  Four county sheriff's deputies and someone tall and heavy in a thick gray

  jacket await them a few yards from the ramp. The agents and Martin Burke

  descended before her and are me
eting with the deputies now. Mary blinks and

  clears snow grains from her lashes; the big guy is the county sheriff himself.

  Some arms are being waved, but everybody is cold and anxious to get inside,

  so the argument moves across the field.

  Mary follows, feeling like an afterthought. Then she realizes a thin young

  man with prominent teeth and a nervous officiousness is her own assigned

  deputy. He gestures, and she follows.

  She stares through the wind-streaked thatch of snow grains to the terminal.

  It's vintage 2020, pre-revolt, archaic cheerful curves and ambitious walls of

  glass paid for by resolute hunters and small-time mining engineers and migrant

  tree cutters.

  In the lee of the terminal, the deputy sheriff records their names and ranks

  i

  on a sheet of paper. Daniels tries to explain that the sheriff's office has no

  jurisdiction, that they are traveling under federal treaty permit, but the sheriff

  pointedly ignores her.

  Burke stands to one side, out of the way, while the formalities are attended

  to.

  "Mrs. Kemper is here," the sheriff announces as the paperwork is completed.

  He tucks his chin into his chest, eyes staring from under bushy brows. "She's

  the president. She's here, and she's madder than a hot clip." He lifts his brows