The Dead Slam: A Tale of Benevolent Assasination

by Bright,R. F.

  Under the three arches and up the Grand Staircase they marched, past the little amphitheater and down the incredibly broad expanse of the Literary Mall. Max couldn’t see the far end of it, but he noted sadly that the marble plinths lining the walk that once bore bronze statues of Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, Shakespeare, Schiller, Fitz-Greene Halleck and others had been moved to Petey’s collection.

  By the thousands they poured out onto 59th Street in front of the Plaza Hotel, where liveried doormen scrambled to lock their tipsters in limousines that seemed sure to miss today’s Sunday in America show. Both passengers and doormen grumbled in frustration, poking and shaking their cell phones, trying to erase the acid green screens that had shut them down. The marchers crossed Pulitzer Square and turned down Fifth Avenue at the Trump Tower.

  There was no leader, but someone, most likely a former drill sergeant, began calling cadence, “Boom, chucka lucka, boom chucka luck!” Thousands fell into the foot stomping double-time with a shuffling two-step that would certainly get them to Times Square in half the time. Step step clap . . . step step clap! Some of the more agile fellows grabbed their new plus-ones and fancy-danced in time as they went down Fifth Avenue. Easy as pie. The thundering stomp with a syncopated clap echoed through the architectural canyons.

  “I don’t know but I bin told!”

  The multitude answered, “I don’t know but I bin told!”

  “You can rent me by the hour but I can’t be sold.”

  “You can rent me by the hour but I can’t be sold.”

  Max could feel the determination in these people who’d never thought they could do anything about anything. And having a plus-one to share this moment with multiplied the effect tenfold. They were delivering themselves from despair. Faded hopes transformed by the possibility of endless affection. A reason to fight.

  “I don’t know but I bin told!”

  “I don’t know but I bin told!”

  “Banker’s heart black as a coal!”

  “Banker’s heart black as a coal!”

  The drill sergeant’s call, always sardonic, the throng’s reply always jubilant. The seventeen blocks from Central Park to Times Square melted away in a little more than ten minutes; they were moving quickly and as one.

  And now the crowd grew thick as the city’s perfect grid of streets and avenues met Broadway, midtown’s only diagonal street, which slashes through the grid on a steep angle here — carving out the large triangles that make Times Square.

  Max was dazzled, but had no idea Fred was only a few steps away, separated by a hundred thousand angry citizens.

  The reluctant Representative Al Thomka was lying low, but getting antsy. He put on his suit pants and went exploring. Astoria Studios, once the largest building in America, has dozens of extensions and sprawls into five blocks on the highest point in the borough of Queens, a whopping 182 feet above the rising sea level, looking across the East River at Manhattan, and the UN Complex.

  He strolled through the vast maze and soon found the cheese and other goodies on a craft’s service table. He loaded up a paper plate with bagels, salted cashews, and as many chocolate chip cookies as he could balance on top. He stuffed his face as he strolled past racks of wardrobe, light stands and cables, props and set decorations, and finally wandered into a gargantuan room filled with kids.

  Surprised at how young these children were, and the incredible number of them, he snooped around for an explanation. These were not… Movie People. The kids were working at a clip obviously faster than they were used to, running wire, draping large silver screens, setting up speakers and bickering. Several screen cubes were projecting the pre-broadcast feed of the Sunday in America show. Others featured what he assumed to be out-takes from the Brian Stahl Show: a huge crowd marching into Times Square with raised fists and banners; angry men rushing off ferry boats; a madman in a cave. But these images were not slick enough for Stahl. They were smeary and hand-held and made him a little queasy.

  He jammed the last stub of a bagel into his mouth, and upon finding an empty chair, nodded hello to a sullen teenaged girl fitting herself out with small bits of wearable hardware: metallic finger tips, belt with a glowing buckle, headband with a pinpoint projector. He tossed his empty plate into her trashcan, flashing a belated mother-may-I frown.

  “Be my guest,” she said. A strand of torture ran through her voice. She turned to a silvery screen hanging from a gobo-stand and touched her metallic finger tips together. When she pulled them apart, the screen came on and she began a warm-up routine of machine-relatable gestures. The screen calibrated itself to her moves. She swiped down, and the interface for a spreadsheet app appeared. Thomka studied the app for a second before realizing it did only one thing — delete.

  He chewed his last cookie and tried to estimate how many kids were here, maybe a thousand, all cranking up the same interface and wiggling their wrists and rotating their necks like Olympians. “What’s up?” he asked, sincerely miffed.

  She gawked. “Who are you?”

  “Who am I? Who are you?”

  She looked him up and down. His shoes gave him away. He was the enemy. “You’re just in time,” she said.

  “For what?”

  She bristled, panned a scornful eye at him, and shaped her thumbs and fingers into an M. A 3D map popped up between them. She aimed her right index finger at it and pushed in. The UN Complex filled the space. “For the show.”

  Representative Mahesh Murthy sat squirming in his Sunday seat in the UN Council Chamber, hoping his grumpy friend wouldn’t show up. He was almost certain Thomka wouldn’t, so he had worn a brand spanking new and ridiculously fashionable colonial man-suit. Thomka would’ve despised it. There was time to kill before the show, which he’d planned to use comparing outfits with senatorial rivals. His was hands-down the most extravagant. No thanks to you, Albert Thomka. Fuck you very much. You’re smothering my creativity. No doubt about it! You’re a drag.

  Now that it seemed certain Thomka was a no-show, Murthy whipped out the trump card he’d kept hidden in his briefcase. A big-haired wig with a cascade of curls, just like the old Dutch Mayor Abraham De Peyster wore.

  The lights dipped.

  Good! Thomka isn’t coming.

  Representative Murthy slouched down in his seat, fitted the massive wig to his head and smoothed it back.

  Show time!

  Fred had lost sight of most of the people he’d met along the way and was allowing himself the rare pleasure of being swept along by the crowd. The UN Complex was only seven blocks down 42nd Street from Times Square, toward the East River. They were moving slowly but steadily, cheek by jowl. He was enjoying himself, but wished he could find Max. He wasn’t all that worried about Max anymore, now that he had a woman with him. Leaving a teenaged boy wandering about unattended was never a good idea. Thank god for Lily.

  Fred shuffled forward and steered himself out into the middle of the throng, where he could only see the tops of buildings, old and new, glorious and tedious alike, all amazing in their own way. He took a deep breath and made a quick analysis of the weather: low forties, sunny, chilly, breezy. Nice day.

  He was moving along, but damn if it didn’t feel exactly like waiting. The slow pace was killing him. The surrounding pressure let up a bit and the skyline’s square regularity was interrupted by some triangulation. Fred took a few steps on his tiptoes, squaring up the building’s roof lines. The shape of the street below would mirror those roof lines. It looked like a wide boulevard was cutting across the grid, causing one enormous gap. Must be Times Square?

  He rose up onto his tiptoes for a better look and quickly slipped back down to his heels, took a few rejuvenating flat-footed steps, then got back up onto his toes. Maybe he’d spot Max? But to see over the heads of the crowd he’d have to get higher, so he strained his shoulders and neck. His head barely poked up through the canopy of hats, hairdos, placards, battalion flags, and squadron banners, many GI issue with a sand-blasted pati
na he recognized. But he still couldn’t see over the crowd. No Max! Damn, his calves were starting to burn. Back down to his heels. OK, one last crack, and if I don’t see Max, I’ll live with it.

  He bounced on his toes a couple of times, and slowly hoisted himself like a periscope. He still couldn’t see beyond a few feet, but could hear a massive choir drawing near. Every head turned toward the pure harmony echoing off the skyscrapers on Fifth Avenue. Fred couldn’t make out what they were singing, then it came back all warm and familiar.

  “I don’t know but I bin told!”

  “I don’t know but I bin told!”

  “Road to hell paved with gold!”

  “Road to hell paved with gold!”

  Everyone took up the cadence. Fred had never heard anything so loud or so moving. The earth literally shook. The crowd’s pace quickened, and Fred missed a beat. His left knee buckled, his ankle turned, and he stepped right on the back of the shoe of the man in front of him. The man turned angrily, hopping on one foot and wrestling his shoe back on the other. Fred was mortified. “Oh . . . please, I’m so sorry.”

  The man was around thirty-five and seemed more concerned about Fred, who was wobbling erratically, than himself. “No problem. Let me help you.”

  Fred hobbled a few excruciating steps before the shock numbed the pain. “I thought I might see my son,” said Fred, looking absolutely pitiful. “I know he’s here. I’m really sorry. . .”

  The man smiled at Fred, then tapped the shoulder of the man in front of him, pointed to Fred, and said, “He’s trying to find his son.” Fred watched in amazement as that man, and the man in front of him and the man in front of him, made way. They parted the crowd, with the magic words, ‘looking for his son.’

  Unfortunately, there in the middle of Times Square, Fred was escorted right past Max and Lily, who were only five yards but ten thousand people away. His ankle throbbed like mad. He would’ve stopped, but that might trouble his benefactors. So he soldiered on, humming the cadence.

  “I don’t know and might be wrong!”

  “I don’t know and might be wrong!”

  “Sooner we get there sooner we gone!”

  “Sooner we get there sooner we gone!”

  He could almost hear the call, but the answer shook the entire city. Someone noticed Fred’s limp and two men tossed his arms over their shoulders and carried him along. An older woman, herself leaning on a young man who looked just like her, raised her hand as he passed, and asked, “What’s the boy’s name?”

  Fred winced, and shouted, “Max. Max Burdock.”

  The old woman cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed feebly, “Max! Max Burdock!” It was woefully faint, so the people around her took up her call. “Max. Max Burdock!” came a handful of voices. “Max. Max Burdock!” came a thousand more. “Max. Max Burdock!” rang throughout the crowd.

  Max didn’t recognize his name, and had fully intended to join in as soon as he figured out what they were saying. Lily thought she’d heard right, but it seemed far too unlikely. Then! “Max. Max Burdock!” was everywhere.

  Lily yanked his arm. “That’s you!”

  Max’s eyes bulged. “No way.”

  “Max. Max Burdock!” she sang in chorus, “that’s you!” She jumped up and down, shouting, “This is him! This is Max!”

  Max had been through a lot recently, but this was the most painful. A crew of retired submariners versed in close-quarter movement shouted, “You there! Make a hole,” and they steered Max and Lily through the crowd.

  Someone shouted, “We found him. We found Max.” The word passed over the crowd and to Fred’s ear in a rippling instant.

  The old woman, who’d taken great pains to dress for the occasion, pointed at Fred, smiled, and said, “See.”

  And just like that Max and Lily appeared. They relieved the two men who had been carrying Fred and fell in with the crowd.

  Fred shouted, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”

  “No big deal,” said Max, his voice frosted in relief.

  “How can this be? We meet in the middle of this? It just doesn’t make sense.”

  Lily took Fred’s arm, on the good-ankle side, and slung it over her shoulder. “It makes perfect sense, Mr. Burdock. We’re all going to the same place at the same time. And here we are. Together.”

  Fred heart skipped a beat; he had forgotten how adorable a woman could be.

  They could see the heads in front of them dropping down toward the East River which slowly appeared, and Lily said in an awestruck voice, “There it is.”

  From the rise on 42nd and Park Avenue, the UN Complex stood before them . . . a stone’s throw away, but ringed with heavily armed men in full battle gear.

  General Joe Scaletta sat on the corner of his bed, his hands in his lap, head tilted up, one leg to either side of a perfect hospital corner, chest emblazoned with forty-one ribbons and commendations, studying patterns in the acoustic ceiling: craggy faces, constellations, connect-the-dot landscapes. It helped him bide his time without wrinkling his uniform, which had more superfluous add-ons than a strip-club buffet. It was so classically militaristic it would have been right on trend at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Although communications were down, which was not unusual, he’d been told the Peregrines had left for the UN Complex on time. He was now fairly certain he would soon be far more important than he was right now.

  Knock knock knock.

  “Enter!”

  Corporal Elvgren entered.

  Scaletta spoke without moving a muscle. “Anything?”

  “No, sir. But that’s good, isn’t it? If no one can contact anyone, things should stay the same. As planned.”

  “You think?” He rolled one eyeball at Corporal Elvgren.

  “Admiral Carson is treading water. Dog-paddling out in the Pennsylvania boonies. By the time they get back in the game . . . game’s over.”

  General Scaletta pondered that with a blank stare, then asked a more pressing question. “Maybe I should wear civilian clothes, a regular suit? Don’t want this to look like a military coup.”

  Corporal Elvgren glazed over in embarrassed disbelief, wondering how he’d ended up babysitting this idiot.

  74

  The incalculable volume of space above Tuke’s stage was filling up with 3D projections of multidimensional data plots, globes and maps, CCTV galleries, an endless barrage of measurements, and The Tuke Massive’s many live feeds. Tuke moved like a symphonic conductor, sending these into the air with a set of simple gestures. He tossed them around like so many socks in a drawer. Matching, prioritizing, editing on the fly as he crossed the stage in lyrical arcs, sweeping spreadsheets, logistics tables and currency fractals into the space above the heads of all those assembled in the massive cavern.

  And there were thousands.

  ReplayAJ appeared on Tuke’s tiny personal monitor waving her hands wildly, and when he didn’t acknowledge, yelled, “Did you see this?”

  Tuke did a surprised tap-dance, and answered apologetically, “Sorry! It’s mucho fuego here, my dear.”

  “Yeah, but over here we have this going on.” A satellite image of the eastern coastline near Baltimore projected five small dots flying in formation, below radar altitude, straight for Manhattan.

  “That stupid Joe Scaletta,” Tuke lamented jokingly.

  “What’s the move?”

  “Bad brains . . . And he’s in charge?”

  “Answer the question!”

  “Sorry, what’d you say?”

  She wasn’t going to play. “Peregrines? New York? Fix it!” She blinked off.

  He adjusted his microphone, and said, “OK. Cue the KNim.”

  This was what the Knickerbocker Nimrod had been waiting for. A DEAD SLAM! They would execute the world’s first Dead Slam, with themselves at the head of the line when the world came back online. And then they’d do the one thing they were established to do. They’d introduce a few lines of code that would cause every devi
ce in the financial sector to shutdown and re-index.

  >Re-Index!?

  >Revert to original factory settings. All storage discs empty.

  A DEAD SLAM.

  General Scaletta’s Peregrines banked left under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, crossed the harbor, and lined up over First Avenue. Captain Jack Wunchel was the tip of the spear in a triangular formation. He saw his men’s anguished faces and tried his microphone, but it was all crackles and pops. He rotated his thumbs straight down and vigorously waved them on. They dropped to one hundred feet and slowed. From this height they could see thousands upon thousands of people storming up First Avenue toward the UN Complex. To their great dismay, the crowd was awash in olive drab flak jackets and prosthetic limbs and carrying regimental banners which they proudly waved at the Peregrine pilots.

  The Peregrines cleared the last of the tall buildings before the low-slung UN Complex, where to their further dismay they found a battalion of mercenaries clad in tortoise-black body armor defending the quadrangle separating the UN Complex from First Avenue.

  Captain Wunchel kept his gaze straight ahead, so as not to look into his men’s eyes. He knew what they were thinking, and it was too treasonous to consider. Suddenly, his microphone buzzed back to normal. He snatched it from the dash. “Follow me.” He dropped his Peregrine into the space between the crowd and the mercenaries.

  His wing-man radioed in a panicky voice, “What are we doing?”

  Captain Wunchel barked, “Descend and cover.”

  None did, but it nonetheless appeared to the mercenaries as though the Peregrines had come to back the veterans up and their resolved stiffened.

  Sheer momentum pushed the crowd across First Avenue. Those on the leading edge hurled themselves back as Captain Wunchel’s Peregrine came at them in a jabbing maneuver, then backed off and hovered over the mercenaries. “Where are you?” he shouted into his microphone. “You’ll all be court-martialled for this.”