Comes a Horseman

by Robert Liparulo

  This is better than the first time, he told himself, because he had to and because it was true. He wasn’t going in blind. He had a guide, lots of guides—the footprints of everyone who had entered the labyrinth in the last day or so and went directly to the occupied area. He peered into the tunnel, first the way he had gone before, then the direction everyone else had headed. The CSD display revealed greater lengths of tunnel than he could see before. Tall shadows marked the branching passages that had loomed so suddenly and mysteriously on his first foray.

  He examined the controls on his forearm and used his pinky to push a button etched with an icon of an audio speaker. A menu appeared, superimposed over his faceplate view:

  TRANSCRIPTION PLAYBACK VOLUME—INTERNAL SPEAKERS

  TRANSCRIPTION PLAYBACK VOLUME—EXTERNAL SPEAKERS

  EXTERIOR SPEAKER—VOLUME

  EXTERIOR MICROPHONE—VOLUME

  EXTERIOR MICROPHONE—SQUELCH

  He tickled a nub the size of a pencil eraser on the control panel, and a cursor appeared, scrolling in response to his finger’s movement. He selected EXTERIOR MICROPHONE—VOLUME. A slide control appeared. He increased the volume, only to have a high-pitched hum pierce his ears. He returned the volume to its previous low level. He played with the squelch control but soon realized it did nothing. He edged the volume up slightly, until he could hear himself stomp his foot. The humming was barely noticeable, but the CSD’s audio problems presented a problem. A person with any level of stealth at all would have no trouble sneaking up on him. He played with various menus and discovered a way to display the image captured by the rear-facing camera in a small square low on the heads-up display. Not perfect, but it did compensate a little for having poor hearing.

  He trudged on.

  Scuff marks and an occasional handprint in glowing orange marred the walls. A vague sense of frustration hovered at the edge of his consciousness. Then he realized it was in response to the ease of finding his way through the tunnels this time versus the utter confusion and helplessness that had plagued him a few hours before. He had to remind himself that the snail track on the floor was invisible to the unaided eye. Perhaps he should have thought to use the CSD before, but how could he have fathomed the complexity of the maze he would encounter? And he had never used the CSD—he had only analyzed the walk-throughs it produced—so it was not a resource he readily considered.

  He had it now, and it was working. That’s all that mattered.

  After a few minutes, he realized the maze was trickier than he’d imagined. The majority of the footprints meandered through the most unlikely passages—two-foot-wide openings that resembled mere cracks in the earth; long corridors of ankle-deep water; sharp turns into what must have appeared to the naked eye to be shadow-filled recesses. He wondered how Scaramuzzi’s people successfully navigated the tunnels. He watched for clues, surface markings, a pattern to the turns . . . nothing was apparent. He suspected Scaramuzzi made some of his cohorts memorize the route through the labyrinth and that the others required one of these guides. That would limit exposure, even among those he allowed into his lair. Maybe guides traveled back and forth from the entrance to the occupied area as regularly as a bus schedule, leading anyone coming or going. Perhaps the room with the catwalk was the staging area for the uninitiated.

  The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Not just anyone could lead a hostile party through the maze, even under duress. And chances were good that a guide would always have companions—maybe by design or simply because people constantly required passage through the maze. Brady realized he had to prepare for a direct confrontation. He put his index finger on the trigger of the Kimber—against Bureau policy, which specified trigger-touching only to fire. The pistol’s extraordinarily long barrel reminded him it was silenced; shooting in the tunnels would not announce his presence to everyone inside. He crossed his wrists in front of him, giving him quick access to the CSD’s controls.

  It occurred to him that he was speculating about trivialities, and he understood why: it kept him from thinking about what he would do upon finding Alicia. For all he knew, she was in a cage hanging high in a mess hall full of bad guys—if she were not already . . .

  No!

  He squeezed his eyes closed. He’d rather not consider the possibilities. This was a case in which action depended on a good measure of ignorance.

  Just do it. Fine for sneakers. Fine for him.

  80

  The wolf-dogs parted for the Viking’s passage. They stepped aside without taking their eyes off Alicia.

  Halfway to her cell, the Viking pulled the ax from behind him. Its head scraped against some metal, grating and ominous. He let it drop into his other hand so it crossed in front of him horizontally at the navel.

  A glint of gold caught her eyes. A ring on his finger. She squinted at it and felt her stomach tighten. Rising out of the gold was a small sun symbol—she was looking at the very device used to brand the Pelletier victims.

  Alicia backed up until she felt the cool stone wall behind her.

  He centered himself in front of her cell, eyed her without emotion.

  Had he been sent to kill her? Her eyes darted around, desperate to find a means of defense, then settled again on the ax. It was double-headed. Each blade flared out to an eight- or nine-inch span at its business end.

  And she knew its business, the flesh and sinew and bone it had cleaved . . .

  “Here you are,” he said. His voice was smooth, deep, quiet. American-English with no accent.

  “Yes . . . ?”

  “I was told you were a danger to Mr. Scaramuzzi. You don’t look dangerous to me.”

  “Let me out of here and maybe I’ll change your mind.”

  The whiskers around his mouth rippled into a smile. He nodded and said, “That’s better. But I thought you’d be roaming the tunnels. That is, after all, why they called me in, me and my trackers.” He reached down and patted the side of the first dog she’d seen. It raised its head to look appreciatively at its master, then returned to its menacing posture.

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “My presence is not a complete waste. I understand Brady is here.”

  She was stunned to hear him use Brady’s first name. As though he knew him.

  She wondered if he had tried to converse with all victims. There had been no evidence of that. Only of swift and terrifying destruction.

  “Is that what you do, kill for Scaramuzzi, guard him?”

  “Whatever he requires.”

  “Why did he require you to go after my partner? Why his son? Why the five people you beheaded?”

  The Viking considered her words. His face revealed nothing, but she caught something in his eyes that might have been sadness or melancholy.

  “They stood in the way of Ivaktar, the Great Cleansing.” He saw her puzzlement and continued. “The return of the way it was before.”

  “Before . . . ?”

  “Before Christianity. Before all the bloodshed because of that single religion.”

  “Christianity is not a religion of death,” she snapped. She may not know a lot about Christ or His followers, but she knew that much.

  “The Crusades. The early explorers who tortured indigenous people not willing to convert. My own ancestors became hungry for blood in the name of Christ.”

  “People make mistakes. It’s people, not religion.”

  “Religion is people,” he said. “The European nations are steeped in Christian heritage. Christians founded America. Is your country peace-loving? Is this world the way you would like it to be?”

  Of course it’s not, she thought. In fact, she of all people held a skeptical view of human nature. She saw so much evil, it was difficult to conceive of a world without it. But was Christianity to blame? Or were the people who read Jesus’ words and believed in Him responsible—at least partially—for keeping even greater evil at bay? Even as an agnostic, she was convinced the world was a better pl
ace because of peace-loving religions like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism . . .

  He seemed to find affirmation in her silence. He nodded once and turned away. A dog whined, and all three of them formed in a group behind their master.

  “Wait!” she said. “Even if you’re right, why do you think Scaramuzzi can set things right?”

  “The Watchers believe,” he said simply.

  “They could be wrong.”

  “I believe.”

  She recognized the tone: a stubbornness based on a faith that could not be wholly articulated or explained. It was a conversation stopper every time.

  “You said Brady was here. In the tunnels?”

  “He was. If he still is, I will find him.”

  She smiled thinly. “Did you think he got past you and rescued me? Is that why you came?”

  “I came because there are eighteen miles of tunnels to patrol.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “My animals now have your scent. If you escape, they will find you.”

  He disappeared into the corridor. The dogs followed, claws clicking . . . clicking . . . until silence eased back into the cell and pressed against her like an insincere friend. She slid her back down the wall and sat. Her arm throbbed. It felt wet and gross. But all she could think about were those dogs and the Viking and the tunnels they were winding through, searching for Brady.

  81

  He had been walking for fifteen minutes when he noticed the limacine trail thinning into individual footprints, as others broke off to head down tributary passageways. He had expected to find a central room where the labyrinth terminated, a sort of lobby for Scaramuzzi’s subterranean headquarters. Instead, it appeared that divergent passages led to different areas of his lair. How would he know which way they had taken Alicia? As anxious as he was to find her, he forced himself to move more slowly. He studied each footprint, looking for ones that might be hers—smallish, untreaded. At a junction, where an equal number of prints went in each direction, his heart leaped. Evidence of Alicia’s passing: two inch-and-a-half lines, a foot apart, running along the center of the floor. He pictured two people carrying her, one on each side, hefting her unconscious body by the armpits, the toes of her shod feet dragging behind, leaving these twin tracks.

  Excited, he followed the tracks and stepped into an intersection without his usual caution. A bright beam flared in his faceplate’s monitor. The CSD instantly compensated for the glare, and he saw three men huddled together, one aiming a flashlight at him. It was shaking like a paint mixer. Their faces expressed sheer terror at encountering I, Robot in these tunnels.

  The man on the left, a dark-skinned, muscular type in dirty coveralls, recovered first. His eyes narrowed in suspicion, then anger. He stepped forward.

  Brady clicked on the halogens, blasting fierce white light into the men’s pupils. They staggered back. He raised his pistol. One of the men stumbled, went down. The other two turned, tripped over their comrade, kept their feet, and ran. The downed man scrambled up and followed the others, bolting cockroach-quick. Brady held the pistol’s grooved sight on his back.

  Shoot, he told himself. The automatically adjusting optics of the CSD kept the men visible as they fled out of the reach of the halogens and deeper into the tunnel.

  Shoot them all, or they’ll bring reinforcements.

  His trigger-finger tightened. Three pounds on a four-pound pull.

  With a grunt of frustration he dropped his arm, took his finger off the trigger.

  What he should do. What he could do. Two different things.

  He switched off the halogens and hurried over the ground marked by two glowing-orange lines.

  ROOMS BEGAN opening up, first on the right, then the left. Most were dimly lighted; all were empty. The drag marks continued past each one. The helmet began picking up voices and vague noises, footsteps maybe, or equipment being moved around. Static clung to every sound like lint, making individual words impossible to discern. Then two voices rose quickly in volume, emanating from an arched threshold twenty feet ahead on the right. An electrical charge buzzed through the words, but Brady could make them out:

  A woman’s voice, shrill and hued by an accent Brady could not place: “makes me nervous.”

  Man’s voice, different accent: “Play your best and you’ll be fine. Grab that, will you?”

  Woman: “But the whole Council will be there. Doesn’t that—”

  Man: “Look, we’re here for the One, that’s all. Put your mind on playing your best for him and don’t worry about anything else.”

  Woman: “Easier to say than do.”

  The man grunted. Footsteps. Brady turned and shuffled a few paces away, then realized the sounds were receding. He returned and peered into the room. No one. The man and woman must have left through one of the other exits. The floor was cluttered with cardboard boxes, wooden crates, music stands, and folding chairs. He darted past the opening.

  He left the rooms behind. The corridor continued, long and straight, no lights. Alicia’s drag marks were clearer than ever, marred by only half a dozen sets of footprints. He stopped cold. Paw prints, lots of them, and big boot prints. They streamed out of an intersecting passage, moved in the direction Brady was headed, and appeared to stream back the way they had come. He stepped past the passage, catching a glimpse of the empty alley and a far-off bend. His heart knocked against his chest wall. If she were dead, he would carry her out of this hellhole.

  He tried to swallow and found he could not. A lump had lodged in his throat.

  For crying out loud! he chided himself. Get a grip! Get Alicia, get out of here, get home, and then fall apart. But not now. This moment has been reserved in time for me to rescue Alicia. Nothing else can happen. Nothing.

  Light . . . far ahead, a dot in the blackness—showing on the faceplate display as a yellow glow on the whiteness of the CSD’s night-vision optics. As he approached, the dot grew into a room at the end of the corridor. He slowed his pace, stopped. Inching forward, he took in the room: stone walls . . . bars . . . a cell! He stepped fully into the room, and there was Alicia, at the rear of the cell, sitting on the floor. Her knees were up, her arms draped over them. Her head was lowered, letting her hair spill off it, hiding her face.

  The posture, which conveyed defeat, was so alien to the Alicia he knew, Brady hesitated. Then she looked up, her eyes resigned to whatever new assault her captives had devised. The sad eyes instantly changed, becoming saucers of surprise. A grin transformed her face into something brilliant to behold. She bounced up but did not approach the bars.

  “Brady?” she asked, hopeful but unsure. Her eyes narrowed. “Is Morgan there?”

  “This is Morgan,” he replied, stepping close.

  The smile returned, twice as bright. She rushed to the bars, reached through, and grabbed his arms.

  He let the pistol fall from his hand and dangle on its tether of tape.

  She surveyed him up and down.

  “The CSD! Brady, you’re brilliant!”

  “Let’s get you out of there,” he said. “This thing is amazing.”

  He sidestepped to the keypad, keeping his vision directed at her. He wanted to remember her like this—full of life and ecstatic.

  “It’s good to see you,” he whispered, not caring if the helmet transmitted his words or not; saying them felt right.

  “You too,” she said. “What of you I can see.”

  It took less than two seconds for him to register the shift in her eyes. They flicked up to something over his shoulder, then became saucers again.

  In the picture-in-picture view from the rear-mounted camera, he caught a blur of motion.

  “Brady!” she screamed. It came though the helmet’s internal speakers as a crackling squawk that crescendoed in a deafening BOOM!

  HE CRUMPLED like an abandoned marionette. The helmet slammed against the stone floor. The left halogen light shattered; the top laser-guide snapped off and rattled away.

 
“Brady!” Alicia repeated.

  A dent crushed one side of the helmet, too deep for him to have avoided injury.

  Scaramuzzi stood over him, thumping a wooden baseball bat into the palm of one hand.

  “When I heard there was a mechanical monster afoot in my tunnels, I was afraid my Louisville couldn’t handle it.” He chuckled once, as if to say, Silly me. “That’s what you call this, right? A Louisville?”

  “Brady?”

  He didn’t move.

  Scaramuzzi said, “Osservilo sopra.”

  Two men who had been waiting behind him stepped around and squatted on each side of Brady. One patted him down. The other produced a knife and cut the tape Brady had used to tether the pistol to his wrist. The man appraised the gun approvingly. Alicia saw it bore a silencer, a real one, not the toilet-paper-roll variety she had used to scare John Gilbreath. The man slipped it into his waistband at the small of his back.

  “Niente,” he said to Scaramuzzi.

  Smiling charmingly, Scaramuzzi rotated on a heel. He disappeared into the left corridor, swinging the bat at his side as if he were an English gentleman and it was an unopened umbrella. The two men tugged at the helmet. One of Brady’s arms and a leg flopped over.

  “Brady?” she said quietly. Then, louder, to the men: “Turn it. Counterclockwise.”

  They stared at her, uncomprehending.

  She pantomimed the instructions, and they pulled off the helmet. Brady’s head rose with it and dropped to the floor with a sickening thud.

  One of the men snapped a word at Alicia and pointed toward the back wall. She stepped back, scrutinizing Brady’s slack body. The man punched a code into the keypad and opened the cell door. The other man lifted Brady’s legs and dragged him in. His charge duly deposited, the man scurried out. The door slammed shut.

  Before they were out of sight, Alicia was kneeling beside her partner, rubbing his cheek, looking for a wound. His face was black and blue in spots; there were scabbed-over lacerations, but these obviously had been inflicted earlier. His left cheekbone was discoloring into a yellowish tinge. Blood clumped on his left earlobe. When she wiped it away with her fingers, she saw the cut was round and about the same size as one of the helmet’s internal speakers.