V 15 - Below the Threshold

by Allen L Wold (UC) (epub)

  Abbot said. “It’s traffic going the other way that they’re really interested in.”

  The Visitor post, on the other side of the island, was different. Here the red-uniformed Visitor guards stopped the car and made them get out while it was searched. Then they asked for identification, and before Jack, suddenly panic-struck, could reach for his wallet, Abbot handed the Visitor in charge two driver’s licenses.

  “What’s your business in Northampton, Mr. Kennedy?” the Visitor asked, still holding the licenses.

  “Television electronics,” Abbot said, “cameras, control boards, and like that. 1 understand that you recently installed a TV station and studio up here, and—”

  “How did you find out about that?”

  “Hell, it’s common knowledge. WCTY helped build it. A market’s a market.”

  “Mr. Schoenfeld?” the Visitor said, looking at Jack. “What’s your business here?”

  “Learning the ropes,” Jack said, off the top of his head. “What ropes?”

  “Selling television electronics. I'm new to the business, and Mr. Kennedy is showing me how it’s done.”

  “All right,” the guard said, handing back the license. Abbot handed one to Jack, and sure enough, it had his picture but was made out in the name of Jon Schoenfeld.

  They got back in the car and started across the second bridge. “What do you know about TV equipment?” Jack asked.

  “That’s how I made my living, before the Visitors came.”

  “I won’t ask you about the license,” Jack said, putting it back in his wallet in front of his real one. “What I’m curious about right now is how Northampton Visitors get back and forth to Freeport. They’d be spotted by our guardpost as soon as they had to give their names.” “They obviously don’t go that way,” Abbot said. “There’s another bridge about fifteen miles upriver. And another one twenty-three miles west of that. I’d guess that they cross over at that bridge, and then come east to Freeport on US 47.”

  Northampton, like Freeport, was industrial, right on the bay. Northampton was a smaller city, only about 150,000 people, according to the last census, and not counting Visitors. At US 18, the industrial section was only a block deep, and- then they were in the heart of the high-rise commercial district.

  The city was a strange contradiction. There were cars in the street, pedestrians on the sidewalks, but there was far less traffic than there was in Freeport. The city was clean, but as they drove north on US 81 they could see, up the side streets, that many buildings were in disrepair, the roads potholed.

  “There’s practically no crime here, you know,” Abbot said.

  “At least reported crime.”

  “No, any crime at all. It’s like Vlad Tepes’s time, people don’t dare commit crimes or they’ll be impaled. Not literally, but it comes to the same thing.”

  “You used to hear people talking about law and order. Well, there’s a terrible price to pay to achieve it.”

  “I agree,” Abbot said. “Of course, Freeport is a bit extreme in the other direction, and we’re beginning to discover why. But I’ve heard people in Freeport talk about the lack of crime up here, in a very envious way. And I don’t like it. Too many of them seem to be willing to trade their freedom for it. And it didn’t used to be like that.”

  They turned left up Holbum, right in the middle of downtown. Holburn was the main road west, and paralleled the river which fed the bay. Five blocks later and they were into a built-up residential area, where they turned right onto Kingsley. Jack, like Emily, had not been here in over three years.

  Kingsley was a main thoroughfare north. As they drove along, Jack realized that he’d seen no hookers, no dope dealers, no vagrants so far. Those twilight-world people were such a regular part of Freeport, had been since—since the Visitors had come, he realized—that he almost took them for granted now.

  They were stopped when they came to the intersection with O’Banion. Big, white, armored Visitor vehicles stood at the curb, and armed, red-uniformed guards questioned them. Abbot told the same story, showed the same licenses. But this time the guards called in the license numbers to some central office.

  Jack sweated. But at last the licenses were handed back and they were told to go on their way. As they drove off, Abbot flashed Jack a big grin. “We do the job right,” he said.

  The Fairfield Mall was at the northern edge of the city, on the comer of Kingsley and Fairfield. Beyond were only second growth forests and abandoned farms.

  Though it was early afternoon, a prime shopping time, the parking lot was half empty. They were able to find a space right near the main entrance.

  Just inside was a directory showing a plan of both floors keyed to a list of the businesses. Half the entries were blank. “Northampton Visitor TV,” however, was plainly marked, and on the second floor.

  The mall was eerie. The shoppers—half as many as Jack would have expected in Freeport—moved with a lack of enthusiasm that was painfully obvious. Jack and Abbot went to the central escalators and up to the second floor, noting all the shops with white paper pasted to the inside of their windows. Clothing stores, shoe stores, even a drug store were still in business. But there were no toy stores, office supplies, video centers.

  Two uniformed Visitors stood at the top of the escalator, casually watching the shoppers. Jack and Abbot feigned the studied indifference of the other shoppers as they went up. The guards glanced at them, but nothing more.

  The studio entrance was halfway from the escalator to the Belk’s store at the end of the mall. Several adjacent shops had been incorporated into the operation, their display windows now filled in with wood or plastic. A discreet sign over the door bore both alien and English words, in English it read “Northampton Public Service Television.”

  The large room beyond the door looked just like an insurance office. There were five or six desks, stacked high with papers, with men and women working at each. A central desk had an intercom panel and several phones. With Jack staying just a little behind, Abbot walked up to the woman seated there.

  “Hi,” he said, “I’m Tim Kennedy from Freeport. Am I correct in assuming that this is the studio that was recently built with the help of WCTY-TV?”

  “Yes, sir,” the woman said. She was polite, but not enthusiastic.

  “It’s not been easy to find you,” Abbot went on. “My firm specalizes in TV studio equipment. We service WCTY in Freeport, and other local stations further north. I’d heard through our industrial grapevine that you were new here, and I thought I’d come by to see if I could be of any service, to you.”

  “You’ll want to talk to Debra Walston,” the receptionist said. “Will you wait just a moment please?” She touched a button on her intercom panel, and spoke softly into it. It was secondhand equipment. “Miss Walston will be with you shortly,” the receptionist said.

  There were no chairs for visitors, so Jack and Abbot stood, a few feet from the desk, waiting. After a moment a very small black woman dressed in a casual business suit came over to the desk. She was energetic, in her thirties, with a light complexion. “Mr. Kennedy?” she said, looking at Abbot.

  “Miss Walston. This is my associate, Mr. Schoenfeld.” He went on into his spiel again, this time with more detail. “It seemed to me,” he finished, “that a studio here in Northampton might have difficulty in finding reliable suppliers of TV equipment, and I thought I’d take this opportunity of making your acquaintance, hopefully to our mutual benefit.”

  “It hasn’t been easy,” Miss Walston agreed. “Of course, we’re strictly a local station, and have little need for state-of-the-art equipment.”

  “I understand. And, you have been in operation now for only a very short time. But I would like to become familiar with your facility, and make known to you the kind of equipment we can make available to you. In six months or a year, when you have shaken down, and have a better idea of your needs, I’d like to be the first person you’ll think of.” “I’ll
be happy to show you around,” Walston said. They followed her from the reception area into a hallway, and from there into a small studio. Jack was interested, as he had never been behind the scenes in a TV station before, but while Abbot and Walston talked shop, discussed various equipment, and chatted about TV in general, he directed his attention instead to the layout of the place, watched the other staff and crew, noted the locations of doors, and read the signs on them.

  They went from that studio to a larger one that could seat an audience of about a hundred, and from there to a processing lab, a sound stage, and to other rooms and labs the function of which Jack just barely comprehended. In his mind he was constructing a map, orienting it within the mall, and gauging the other people present. Most of these people were human. The uniformed Visitors seemed mostly to be supervisory.

  During the next half hour or so, Abbot kept up a continuing conversation about the equipment he saw, suggesting new models, praising a classic old device or two, condemning others. It sounded, to Jack, like a careful preparation for later sales. If Jack had been in Walston’s place, he would certainly have called on Abbot again.

  “You’re making me wish,” Walston said at one point, “that I had something of a freer hand. It’s been a struggle making do with this old equipment, and the problem hasn’t always been money. Sometimes it’s simply because what we want isn’t available. But you have to understand that we really are quite a small station here. I’m very interested in almost everything you’ve told me about, but we couldn’t find a use for most of it.”

  “That would be true of any studio,” Abbot told her.

  “Perhaps, but more so with us. This studio, Mr. Kennedy, has special limitations. We could broadcast to a wider area, but instead we serve only Northampton. People in south Freeport, for example, probably can’t even pick us up. And all our programming is aimed at the non-administrative Visitor workforce. Our station serves purely as a supplement to the other stations we get here. You might almost call us a private channel.”

  “It would seem, then,” Abbot said, “that what you really want to do is provide a cable service instead of a broadcast medium. This would free you of certain government regulations and restrictions that are in force, even this far south. With cable—”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Kennedy, that just isn’t possible. The cost of cable is far too high, and there are too few ‘customers’ to warrant the expense. As for government restrictions, since we have such a limited broadcast range, we have no difficulty with any interspecies regulations that might apply to us.”

  “Even with Freeport so nearby?” Abbot asked. “You must, at least, reach the entire bay-side part of the city.” “Channel adapters, Mr. Kennedy. Some of the programming is not for human consumption. I can’t tell you what it is because I don’t know.”

  “I see,” Abbot said with a sigh. It seemed to Jack that he was truly disappointed. “And yet, quite a number of humans work here.”

  “Most of us are human,” Walston said. “Of course, all our executives are Visitors, at least those with any policy responsibilities. I’m about the highest placed human in the station.”

  “But you’re still a very new station,” Abbot said. “What possibility is there of your increasing your coverage or operations?”

  “That’s not something that 1 would have any say in. All decisions of that sort are made by somebody else.”

  “I see,” Abbot said. “Would it be possible,” Abbot went on, “for me to speak with the station director?”

  “Why, yes, it would, but unfortunately Dwight left the studio suddenly late yesterday afternoon and hasn’t yet returned.”

  “Do you have any idea when he will be back?” Abbot asked.

  “He should be here right now,” Walston said, “but he left no word where he could be reached. It’s most irregular. If you like, I can introduce you to our assistant director.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Abbot said.

  This was what the whole ploy had been building up to, Jack realized. Dwight’s mysterious absence was a setback, but maybe this assistant would do just as well. He paid special attention to where they were going.

  But he was not prepared, when they were shown into a small but well-furnished executive office, to see Hickory seated behind the large, electronics-filled desk. The Visitor, in his red and black officer’s uniform, greeted them calmly, and listened with polite interest as Debra Walston explained who Jack and Abbot were and why they had come here.

  “Won’t you sit down, gentlemen,” Hickory invited when Walston left. Jack and Abbot took comfortable chairs in front of the desk. Hickory sat back, folded his hands across his belt buckle, and stared at Jack.

  “How have you been doing, Dr. Page?” Hickory asked. Jack couldn’t answer, indeed, he couldn’t even breathe.

  “I guess,” Abbot said slowly, “there’s no use in carrying on with this charade.”

  “None at all, Mr. Abbot. Well, you’ve seen our operation here, what do you think?”

  “That it’s a very expensive cover-up. I’m sure you do exactly what I’ve been lead to believe you do. I’m also sure that that hardly matters to you, except as it conceals something else.”

  “You are free to believe what you wish,” Hickory said.

  “What about the Regency Theater?” Abbot asked.

  Hickory smiled. “The facts,” he said, “of our interest in the Regency are a matter of public record.”

  “Even your most recent visit?” Abbot started to say when the door behind them opened and two guards came into the room, guns drawn.

  Abbot’s response, as usual, was instantaneous. In one fluid movement, remarkable in a person as solidly built as he, he was out of his chair, turned around, down on his knee with the chair as a cover. His gun was out and the shot came even as he dropped into place. The guard nearest him kicked backward and went down.

  The other guard, aiming at Jack, didn’t shoot for fear of hitting Hickory, immediately behind him. Too bad, Jack thought, as he pulled his own gun, fired, and watched the guard fall.

  Alarm bells started going off. Jack turned back to Hickory just in time to see him slipping through a door panel behind his desk. Abbot’s gun cracked, the panel dimpled, and the bullet ricochetted into the ceiling.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Abbot said. He and Jack stepped over the bodies of the two guards and left the office. Out in the corridor, people were standing frozen in alarm, staring at them.

  “This way,” Jack said, turning to the left even as more guards appeared at the other end of the corridor to their right. Jack and Abbot got off two quick shots each, but didn’t pause to see their effect. They sprinted past the now panicked civilians, to a double door near the end of the hall.

  “Back way,” Jack said as they went through. Laser blasts crackled behind them. They were in what looked like a mail room, with a door at the far side. As they reached it, Abbot turned and fired three times. Jack, looking over his shoulder as he opened the door, saw two guards fall and others ducking back out of range. Then they were through.

  They were in another hallway, at the far end of which Jack could see the receptionist at her desk, staring at him with horrified eyes. Doors on either side of the hallway were open, people looking out in alarm. They ducked back in as Jack and Abbot ran toward the front.

  There were shouts, now, as well as alarm bells. People ran through the reception area and, even as Jack and Abbot emerged from the hallway, more guards came from across the way. Abbot stopped dead and fired three times, methodically. Jack just squeezed the trigger. Then they both broke and dashed out the door into the mall.

  The people on the mezannine, while aroused by the alarms and shots, were going about their business, with no idea what was happening. Jack dropped his gun into his pocket, while Abbot put in a fresh clip.

  “Just walk,” Abbot said, holstering his gun, They went toward the escalators, trying to pretend they had nothing to tun from.

  The
escalator guards were coming toward them. Jack looked over his shoulder and saw other red uniforms coming from the Belk’s store. Beyond the escalators were other guards. Only the presence of human shoppers kept them from firing.

  The guards emerging from the TV studio were not so fastidious. Heedless of the danger to the bystanders, they shot, and Jack felt the scorch of a near miss. He grabbed Abbot’s shoulder and turned him toward a County Seat jeans store, just a few paces away.

  They ran past frightened customers, knocking over racks of jeans, shirts, jackets, toward the back of the store.

  Behind them, Visitor guards opened fire, and screams told of innocent bystanders being hit. Jack and Abbot slammed through a doorway into a stock room, where Abbot stopped, turned, and squeezed off three careful shots. Jack, meanwhile, pushed aside an off-duty clerk, looking for the service exit.

  “This way,” he shouted over his shoulder when he found it. He lunged against the latch bar and pushed through, Abbot right on his heels.

  They were on the second level parking deck, but on the wrong side of the mall. The stairs to the lower level were a long way off, and the ramp down even farther. Jack and Abbot turned toward the Belk’s end of the building and started running.

  They made it halfway around the end of the mall before guards started emerging from service exits. Jack was barely able to avoid being shot down by ducking behind a parked car. Abbot, a few cars behind him, was running at a crouch toward another set of stairs.

  Jack, too, kept low as he ran, between cars, changing aisles, heading in a wild, zig-zag course toward the stairs, once rolling under a truck. The red-uniformed guards were quick in pursuit, shooting for effect. More than one car exploded as its gas tank was struck.

  Jack made the stairs just a step or two behind Abbot, who ran halfway down to the landing, then jumped over the rail to the stairs below. Jack, unable to master that feat with his false arm, just skimmed the edges of the concrete stair treads as he descended, moving so fast that he crashed into the rail at the landing. He pushed himself off and down the rest of the stairs even as Visitor guards appeared at the top. Halfway down he turned and fired through the gaps in the treads, hitting one guard who knocked another down as he fell.