“You oinkers got a warrant for this guy’s arrest? I mean, you can’t put anything over on anybody here. We know what the score is. We all watch the tube.”
For the second time the men eyed each other. Then the one on Seeth’s right finally spoke.
“Go—away.” It was a deep voice and it came rumbling up from somewhere far below, like bubbles in oil seeping to the surface. While hardly an elaborate response, it appeared to require a considerable effort on hulk number two’s part to produce it.
“Away? Okay, where would you like me to go away to?” He glanced sharply at the bowler, who’d remained silent. “Look, man, if you’re having problems here, I know a good lawyer. Bailed me out a couple of times. He’s got a twenty-four hour phone, he’s fast, and he doesn’t ask a lot of awkward questions. Want me to give him a call for you?”
“I—I...,” the bowler stuttered. He was more than frightened: he was terrified. More than anyone who’d simply been placed under arrest had any reason to be.
“Look, it’s pretty obvious you guys are in violation of New Mexico municipal code statutes twenty-four and twenty-five, paragraphs six through ten. So unless you can show me a warrant or a badge or a letter from your mommies right now I think you’d better let this guy go.”
Over on alley thirty-two, Kerwin was staring dumbfounded at his diminutive acquaintance. His jaw dropped as Seeth undipped a long chrome chain and began swinging it casually from his right fist. Attached to the chain were a handful of keys, a battered Mercedes symbol, two handles scavenged from a pair of junked toilets and an ancient beer can opener. The chain was a good two feet long.
Seeth spoke as he twirled the chain in slow, lazy circles. “No badges? No warrants? Then let him go.” He grinned over at Kerwin. “Hey, check this out, man! Showdown at the OK Corral.”
Kerwin turned away and tried to bury himself in his seat.
“Go away,” the first cop said again, “or you will get—hurt.”
“What’s this?” Seeth’s eyes went wide with mock fear. “Threats of physical violence from a member of the department of public safety? Here in a public place, in front of witnesses? Oh my, oh horror, whatever shall we do? You’re going to beat up on poor innocent little me? What if I told you I like it?”
The second cop extended a hand that looked big enough to pinch off Seeth’s head as if it were a pimple. “Go—now.”
Seeth skipped back out of reach and the mischief drained from his expression. “Hey, what the hell’s going on here? You guys aren’t cops, are you? You don’t have any badges to show.” He looked at the bowler. “What’s the deal, Jack? What’s this all about?”
“I...” The man tried to speak anew, then slumped as if he was going to faint. The first cop reached down and grabbed him by the neck, lifting him straight up until his feet were barely skimming the floor.
Seeth’s expression tightened. “Right, bozo. That’s enough. Leave him alone.” The other cop grabbed for him again. Serious now. Seeth ducked to one side and swung the twirling chain. It made a whistling sound as it screamed through the air to strike his massive opponent on the left side of his face. Kerwin moaned.
Seeth expected the man to flinch, or at least blink reflexively. He did neither. A chunk of flesh and skin went flying, but that wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was that there was no blood. Not a drop. Even more surprising was that, instead of bloody flesh, the inch-square gash revealed something that looked like greenish-black sheet metal. But it wasn’t metal, because as Seeth stared at it, it twitched.
“Oh wow.” He took a step backward. “Trippy.” The expression on the cop’s face, if cop he was, changed as he let go of his prisoner and lunged at Seeth. The younger man ran backward up the stairs faster than the man could move forward. Reclipping his chain as he darted around the edge of the rack, Seeth grabbed the first bowling ball he could reach and heaved it with both hands at his lumbering pursuer. The ball made a distinct thunk as it bounced off the man’s forehead and fell to the floor. It didn’t appear to affect him in the least. It certainly didn’t slow him down.
Nor did his expression change. Seeth was starting to wonder if it could. The man kept coming and Seeth kept throwing bowling balls. Despite the first glimmerings of panic, he was thoroughly enjoying the excitement. His blood was racing, the adrenaline flowing for the first time in over a week.
Bowling balls slammed into the man’s mouth, his chest, his knees. For all the good they did, Seeth might as well have dumped them on the floor. By this time, Kerwin had managed to shove his notes into his small briefcase. He was trying to dodge around Seeth and his determined pursuer to reach the upper concourse. Having finally noticed what was going on, the night manager was yelling frantically at the combatants while the remaining six bowlers had stopped to stare stupidly at the unequal fight.
Meanwhile, the other cop clung loosely to his prisoner while watching his companion track the nimble Seeth. He failed to notice that the bowler had switched from holding the ball with both hands to one. Now the man brought the ball up and around in a sweeping arc to smash it against his captor’s nose. Hard.
Unlike Seeth’s wild efforts, this produced some results. His captor let go of him, clutched wildly at the damaged spot and staggered backward until he reached the first step. He promptly went over backward while the bowler sprinted for the exit.
“All right!” Seeth yelled delightedly at the top of his lungs. He was jumping back and forth, taunting his pursuer. The man’s chest appeared slightly indented where he’d caught a good dozen bowling balls, but it didn’t slow him down. He lunged again.
Laughing, Seeth sprang to his right, cleared two seats, and climbed on top of the four-foot high bowling ball rack. He gestured past the cop.
“C’mon, man! What are you waiting for? Let’s get out of here!”
Kerwin was almost to the concourse. Now he gaped at Seeth. “Me? But I don’t...”
The battered cop hesitated, then turned and started toward Kerwin.
“Hey, look.” Kerwin backed away fearfully. “I don’t know this guy. I’m just standing here. I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t want to know what’s going on. I—oh hell.”
The cop lunged at him and Kerwin barely managed to dodge those huge hands. An arm like iron just brushed his side as he stumbled clear. It still had enough force to spin him around. His briefcase went flying, slammed into the ball rack and sprung, sending his notes and pens and blank paper flying all over the floor. Automatically he bent to pick them up.
There was a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, man!” Seeth started dragging him toward the exit. The cop the bowler had slugged was climbing back to his feet. Any normal individual would have suffered massive contusions, a fractured skull and severe haematoma from the blow he’d taken, but repeated head-bashing just seemed to put these guys slightly off stride.
“My notes.” The cop was coming for him again, staggering from side to side. His companion was slowly mounting the far stairs. “Dammit!” Leaving notes, briefcase, and everything else behind, he turned with Seeth as the two of them bolted for the door.
“Save your head, use your legs.” Seeth was covering their retreat, twirling his chain like a gladiator’s mace.
“What’ve you got me into?” No athlete, Kerwin was already panting as they plunged out into the cool night air. “What am I going to do if they take me down to a station for questioning? We don’t even know what that guy they were holding is guilty of.”
“Hey, I’m not sure he’s guilty of anything. I don’t think these guys came from no station. Twilight Zone, maybe. I cut one of ‘em and you know what he’s wearing under his skin?”
“More skin?”
“I wish. It was all green and black and shiny. I know a chick uses makeup that color, but on the outside. It moved, man. It moved like real flesh. But it wasn’t. It was something else. Listen to me, Jack. Tweedledum and Tweedledee back there, they ain’t meat.” He was jumping up an
d down like a berserk pogo stick, trying to see over the tops of parked cars. There was an all-night Denny’s next to the Bowlarama and the mutual lot was pretty full.
“There he is.” He pointed, then started running. Kerwin had no choice but to follow, since his brain was still numbed by the events of the past ten minutes.
Sure enough, they found the bowler huddled behind a low-rider Riviera. As he saw them approach, he rose and turned as if to run. He was still holding onto the ball, Kerwin noticed. Maybe it was an expensive custom job.
“Hey, hang on, man! We’re the guys who helped you, remember? We just want to know what’s going on.”
The man took a couple of steps, then stopped, cradling the ball protectively in both arms. Some of the fear left him.
“Yes, right, sure; I remember now.”
Funny sort of voice, Kerwin thought. Smooth, but with the emphasis on all the wrong syllables, and spit out fast, like a DJ on amphetamines.
“I should thank you. I do thank you. Thank you both. I don’t know how they found me.” He hunkered back down behind the Riviera, peering nervously over the long trunk. “I was careful, so careful, but you know, they’ll find you no matter where you ever go. Just when you think maybe you’ve finally lost them, just when you think you’ve put yourself in an away-place so obscure nobody’s ever heard of it, they find you. Damn them. They never give up. Never give up ‘til they get you.”
“Yeah, I’ve known cops like that.” Seeth stared at the double glass doors that formed the Bowlarama’s exit. “The thing now is to get you away from here.”
“Look, you don’t have to thank me,” Kerwin told the man. “I had nothing to do with this. It’s all a mistake. I was just taking some notes, getting ready for a class, minding my own business. My being here now’s a mistake.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got two exams tomorrow, both of them weeklies, and while I’d like to know what’s going on here I really can’t hang around.”
“We need a car,” Seeth muttered. “We’ve gotta get out of here.” He glanced over at Kerwin. “I don’t suppose...?”
The taller man shook his head. “I took the bus from the dorm.”
“Yeah, you would. How you plan on getting back?”
“There’s a bus every hour.”
“We can’t hang around waiting on it.” He looked at the bowler. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a car.”
The man shook his head. “I have no personal transporation in this area. I have...”
Kerwin ducked and pointed. “Here they come!”
As they emerged, the two men blotted out almost all the light pouring from the bowling alley. Thus silhouetted from behind, their inhuman aspect was enhanced. They’d straightened their clothing and looked none the worse for wear, including the one who’d taken a bowling ball flush on the nose.
“Hey, the guy on the left, the one I cut?” Seeth was staring. “He doesn’t look hurt. What happened to the gash?”
“Band-Aid,” Kerwin suggested.
“Yeah, or a quick welding job. Come on.” Bent over, he started making his way toward the restaurant. The bowler seemed to hesitate, then followed. So did Kerwin, until realization struck home.
“Hey, wait a minute. I don’t have anything to worry about. I didn’t do anything.” He straightened despite the bowler’s insistent tugs on his arm. “Lay off.” He turned to look back toward the Bowlarama. “They can’t do anything to me. I’m going into Denny’s and I’m going to call my friend Jerry and have him come out and pick me up. I don’t know what you two are going to do and right now I don’t—“
The air was filled with the sharp tang of ozone and burnt caramel. Something that looked like a wayward lightning bolt crackled close to the left side of his face. A moment later the first odors were replaced by the stink of singed hair. His own.
Turning, he stared blankly toward the bowling alley. The cops had seen him and were lumbering toward him. Each carried a gun. At least, they looked like guns. Toy guns. Narrow, thin chrome tubes with sleeves at the back large enough to accommodate a pair of hands. As he gaped, one of them fired again. Fortunately, the weapons were difficult to aim when running. The bolt or whatever it was passed through three car windows and the bed of a pickup truck on its way to Kerwin’s face. This time it missed slightly to the right.
Next time it might not miss.
He stared not at the onrushing pair but at the molten steel that was running in rivulets down the side of the pickup truck, at the slag glass that was dripping from windows.
“How’d they do that? They can’t do that.”
“Yeah, you tell ‘em.” Seeth reached up, grabbed Kerwin’s belt and jerked him back down. “Come on, Miss Muffet. Move your tuffet or it’s going to get shot off. This way.” He turned and started moving. Kerwin and the bowler followed, keeping low as Seeth led them through the maze of parked vehicles.
“Who are those guys, anyway? Bullets, okay, but what’s with the light show?”
“It’s all right.” The bowler whispered as rapidly as he talked. “They don’t want to harm me, they don’t. It’ll go bad for them if they harm me.”
“Won’t do me any good either. Bring ‘em back alive, huh?” Seeth voiced his crude Jimmy Cagney imitation. “The dirty rats.”
“You two, however, I’m afraid they will not hesitate to kill. If they can, they will melt your heads.”
“Hey, no big deal. I got my head melted years ago. Kerwin, now, he’d be a loss. He’s original issue, a real antique.”
“Just shut up and keep moving.” Kerwin stuck his head up for a quick look, ducked back down. “They’re still coming, but back toward the buildings. I think we’re losing them.”
“They will not ever give up,” said the bowler. “They will keep following until they have us.”
“This duck-walking sucks.” Seeth raised his head slightly. “We need wheels.”
As he hunted for possible transportation, Kerwin took the opportunity to question the man they’d rescued. “Look, what’s going on here? Who are you? What’s this all about?”
“They want to take me and to kill you. Isn’t that obvious, man?”
Seeth spoke without looking over at them, still inspecting cars. “Be gentle with him, Jack. He’s a little slow.” He chuckled to himself. “Kong and Dong are talking. Can’t figure out where the mice got to. Hey, where’d they get those guns? Those are slick.”
“They carry standard police weapons.”
“Then they are cops.” Kerwin was more puzzled than ever. “Seeth said, he said he hit one of them and when the skin came off there was something else underneath. They wouldn’t be some kind of robots, would they?”
“Oh heavens no, man, no. Robots I could deal with. No matter how well designed and determined a machine, if one is fast enough and clever enough and skilled enough—and I am—you can usually convolute their logic circuits and leave them standing arguing with themselves. Robots I could handle. But these are Oomemians.”
3
“Say what?”
“Oomemians. Lots of Oomemians go into police work. They’re big and strong and dedicated and not too bright.”
Seeth nodded agreeably. “Sounds just like the cops here in Albuquerque.”
“My name, by the way, is Arthwit Rail. I am sorry I didn’t introduce myself earlier but the circumstances were not sanguine.”
“No kidding,” said Seeth.
“I’m Kerwin. This is,” he hesitated, knowing what his friend’s real first name was and knowing how he’d react if it was mentioned. This wasn’t the time to provoke internal dissension. “His name’s Seeth.”
“Oomemian cops, huh?” Seeth continued to study the ranked automobiles. “They like Nicaraguans or something?” His expression lit up. “Hey, you wouldn’t be a dope smuggler, would you?”
Rail looked confused. “Why would anyone wish to smuggle stupidity when there is so much of it readily available?”
“He means drugs,” Kerwi
n muttered. “You must be a foreigner to miss that one.”
“Yes, true, I am from not around here.”
“Like the cops?” Seeth glanced over at the man they’d rescued. “This is really getting interesting. You an illegal alien or something?’*’
“Something like that, yes, true.”
Kerwin had to admire the single-mindedness with which the man clung to the bowling ball. In times of crisis familiar objects could be soothing to the psyche. Or so his profs claimed.
“Not that I’m real big on anthropology,” Seeth was saying, “but I kind of thought Central Americans were like kind of brown, not black and green.”
“That’s Oomemians for you.” The more time passed without their discovery, the more Rail’s confidence appeared to be returning. “Nobody thinks they’re good-looking. Their pigmentation’s about as nasty as their dispositions.”
“I can go with that. You sure you’re not carrying drugs?”
“Absolutely not. I do not indulge in artificial stimulants nor do I approve of their use by others.”
“Skip it.” Seeth didn’t try to hide his disappointment. Suddenly he grinned. “Hey, I got it! You’re smuggling bowling balls, right?” He glanced toward Kerwin. “See, there’s this multimillion dollar market in illegal bowling balls. The great thing is you don’t have to pack ‘em in. You just stand on the Mexican side and roll ‘em across.”
“Funny.” Kerwin didn’t smile. “For someone with a destroyed brain you’re a real wit.”
“At least I’ve still got a brain and not a lump of saltwater taffy any retardo can stretch and pull at his will.”
“That so? Lemme tell you that—“
“Gentlemen, please,” said Rail anxiously. “Save the philosophy of cognition for when we have assured our mutual continued existence.”
“Potato brain,” Seeth muttered under his breath.
“Anarchistic twit,” Kerwin hissed by way of reply.
Glory Lane Page 4