by neetha Napew
His capsule bulleted away, almost out of sight before the computer shut down the air suction in the tunnel, and directed all Bubbles to stop-position through remote control shut-off in their propulsion systems.
“Please stay where you are. If you have been involved in an accident within the tubeways, please remain stationary.” The computer’s voice was heavy, even, reassuring. “Assistance is already on the way to the point of the accident. Remain where you are.”
Disregarding the computer, I grabbed my suitcase and started back along the tunnel, away from His capsule. The going was not easy, for the floor, as well as the walls and ceiling, projected thousands of soft wires which were usually used to monitor the Bubble capsules. I walked carefully, pressing the flat of my foot against the sides of them, and forcing them down before me. As I walked, the ones I had trod down sprang erect again behind. Now and then, one of them would slip out from under my foot, and slide painfully up my pants leg, gouging my shins and calves. I could feel my socks getting damp with blood.
Behind, I heard His Bubble capsule shattering. He had probably formed His hands into mallets. I tried to hurry.
“Someone,” the computer said, its voice echoing through the tubeways, “is moving through the tubeways without a capsule. I can pinpoint your location through my sensor cilia. Please sit and wait for the ambulance. It will be there momentarily.”
I turned into a branching tubeway that was blocked by a capsule at rest. I moved up beside it, pressed my body sideways against the wires projecting from the wall. I did not do that maneuver smoothly enough, and some of the cilia punched painfully into my back. I tried again, pressed them flat, and slid around the shell of the Bubble. The man inside looked out at me, wide-eyed, and said something that I couldn’t hear through the plastic Bubble. I did not ask him to repeat it, but moved in front of his capsule, and hurried, as well as I could, down the tunnel toward the bulk of another car, a hundred feet ahead.
“I detect,” the computer said, perhaps a bit more loudly than before, “two distinct movements within the tubeways. There are two individuals moving without benefit of Bubbles. I direct both to cease and desist, and await the arrival of the ambulance.”
I stumbled and fell, managed to throw the suitcase up in front of my chest and groin. I wire-punctured my shoulder, and sent a hot pain through my flesh, but I was otherwise unscathed. I stood, blessing my suitcase, and continued toward the next vehicle blocking the tunnel.
“Hey!”
I pretended I did not hear.
“Jacob!”
I could not stop myself. I looked over my shoulder. He was a hundred feet behind, back at the last capsule. He was waving at me. I turned, squeezed against the wires, and moved between the tube wall and the shell of the Bubble. On the other side, I moved more quickly than before, oblivious to what the stray wires were doing to my ankles and calves.
“This is a command to stop,” the computer said.
I kept moving, almost a slow run now, and I was certain He had not stopped following me.
“Halt!” the computer boomed. “From preliminary scan of my sensory cilia, neither of you seemed to be wounded. From that same information scan, it is apparent the second of you is in pursuit of the first.”
I ran.
“You are both guilty of sabotaging the public transportation system, a crime which is punishable by not less than one and not more than five years in prison.”
This was not going to help my case on the other charges I had sustained in my flight with Him to Cant-well. Here was Jacob Kennelmen, probably the most timid, law-abiding citizen in North America, and he was involved in his seventh crime in less than two weeks. Leonard Fenner would have one helluva time explaining to the judge and jury just how basically good a man I was. Even if I did escape Him and this entire mess were settled somehow, I would end up spending some seventy-odd years in a WA prison.
Three hundred feet beyond the second capsule, there was a third blocking the way. As I was squeezing around it, trying to smile at the matronly woman inside who cringed against the far wall, He shouted to me from the other car a hundred yards back. “Jacob!”
“Go to Hell,” I said.
“Look what I can do, Jacob.”
As I squeezed, I looked back through the wires that partially cut off my vision. He had taken off His shoes, and had formed His feet into large, gray blocks. He trod the wires down without care. His feet were iron-hard, and He could walk almost as fast here as He could on a concrete corridor floor. He moved quickly after me.
I tore around the car, slashing shallow grooves in my left cheek. Ahead, there was a crossways, I moved to it, plunged into the tunnel to my right. Ahead, seven or eight feet, there was another motionless Bubble waiting for the system to become operational again. I slid by it, snagging my clothes on the wires, my hands bleeding now. On the other side, I found another Bubble car only a dozen feet ahead of the last. I moved around it. There was a kid inside, maybe ten or eleven-years-old. He watched me with obvious fascination until I had reached the front of his Bubble.
“Hey!” he called loudly through the plastic. “You crazy?”
“No!” I said, nodding my head. “Being chased.”
He looked absolutely elated.
I stood there, panting, and realized I did not have very much more strength in me—not nearly enough to keep up this pace more than another five minutes. As soon as I slowed down, He would gain, and gain fast, if He was hot already gaining now on His hard, reformed feet. Ahead lay another Bubble car, only nine feet away. I was not even sure I could make that. The thought of squeezing around yet another Bubble with the wires gouging me was not at all pleasant. Then I had the idea. It came to me from sheer desperation.
“The authorities have been alerted and will arrive with the ambulance,” the computer said. “You are urged to stop and make things easier on yourself. The sentence for sabotaging the public transportation system is no less than one year and—“
I paid no attention to the machine-mind’s ramblings. I moved around to the opposite side of the kid’s Bubble and dropped to the floor, hunched at the corner next to the tube wall, nestled back in among the wires. Hopefully, when He squeezed by on the other side, He would not see me through the plastic. I should be shielded by the kid’s body. Then, when He went on, I could double-back and be rid of Him.
“What are you doing?” the kid asked.
“It’s a trick,” I said. “Will you help me?”
“Who’s the good guy?” he asked.
“The one coming wants to kill me. He is not a policeman.”
The kid nodded.
Just then, I heard him coming up behind the kid’s capsule, the wires singing as he leaped through them. I tried to huddle even deeper into the wires, did not mind that they prodded me mercilessly. On the other side of the Bubble, He pressed between the plastic and the wall. I could see His dark form.
“Hey!” the kid said, “you chasing a fellow with a suitcase?”
“That’s right,” He said.
My heart came up into my throat. That rotten kid, I thought.
Then the kid said, “He went up past that Bubble.”
He nodded, kept going, did not look back. I slipped past the kid’s Bubble, looked in at him and mouthed, “Thanks.”
I think he blushed.
I moved back to the crossways and started to turn back to my smashed vehicle when I remembered the police and the ambulance would be there, or soon arriving. They would take me into custody, and I would never get out. I would not be able to go to Cantwell. Even the slim chance I had against Him would be destroyed. I walked into another side passage instead, and plodded along it, moving more slowly than I had when He had been hot on my tail. Now that I could relax a little, I was aware of the pain in my ankles, hands and face. I would have to get out of the system and find someplace to buy bandages and antiseptics.
“You are approaching an exit foyer,” the computer said. “D
o not proceed further, or I will have to initiate a deterrent until police can arrive at the same foyer.”
I kept moving. It was good to know that a foyer lay ahead and that I would reach it before any police could be there. Indeed, I could see the circular-membrane hatch at the end of the tubeway. I walked faster. A few more cuts would not bother me.
Then the computer’s deterrent was thrown at me. The wires in that area made perfect conductors for a localized shock. The electricity bounced through me, standing my hair on-end, then flushed away. I had gone down, ramming a wire into my hand. I plucked it free and stood.
“Sabotaging the public transportation system is punishable by no less than one year and no more than—“ the computer began.
I ran now, the wires whining and waving about me, gouging me, hurting me. Twenty feet from the diaphragm, another shock hit me. I managed to keep on my feet, but I could barely see. My eyes were watering and stinging, and I was certain I had burst a small vessel on my right eyeball. I felt cold inside my stomach, cold down through my intestines. My bones ached and spurted fire through my body. I put my head down, hugged my suitcase against my chest with both hands in the event I fell forward, and plunged on.
The damned computer shocked me again.
“Halt!” it demanded. “You will not be bothered if you come to a full stop.”
I had not fallen this time either. Indeed, the electricity had seemed to shoot up through me and keep me erect. Another shock came, but none of the wires were touching me anywhere except on the bottoms of my feet. I could feel the power humming beneath my shoes, but it did not reach me. Then I was through the membrane, into the exit foyer.
“You are directed to halt,” the computer said. It began repeating the sentence for sabotaging the public transportation system.
I moved out of the foyer and into the station platform. There was an open corridor beyond, lined with shops on both sides, a great number of people on the pedways. But no police. I walked out, trying to look as natural as possible, but not succeeding too well, considering my slashed face, torn clothes and limp (my feet felt as if something wicked and sharp-toothed had been chewing on them). I was on the first pedway, the slowest outer one, half a block from the Bubble Drop station and trying to get into the innermost pedway, the other slow-moving belt, when the WA police siren wailed out ahead of me . . .
XIII
Coming along the emergency belt on the other side of the street, half a dozen WA police searched the belts for anyone who looked suspicious. They must also be looking for anyone bleeding and in torn clothes, for they would certainly know what a stroll through the tubeways would do to a man. They kept their hands on their black holsters, ready to draw and use their narcodart weapons if they spotted their quarry. Everyone around me began chattering about the excitement and trying to see what the police were after. It would only be a few seconds before the cops were even with me—and would see me—and even if they overlooked me, the people on the pedwalks would notice my blood and ripped clothes.
I stopped waiting for an opening, and shoved off the slow belt, onto the next one, almost knocking a dignified gray-haired man on his behind. The next belt was relatively clear, being the fastest one. I crossed to it, felt the jolt of a few extra miles an hour, then made the last crossing to the slower, innermost belt that passed the fronts of the stores. When I came to a drugstore, I got off and went through the swinging glass door.
The clerk was highly solicitous when I told him that some fool had changed pedways without looking, and had knocked me off into the narrow paved sections between opposing rows of belts. He helped me gather what I needed, and showed me the rest room where I could perform first aid on myself. I locked the door of the bathroom, put the lid down on the commode, and sat down to take stock of my injuries. I took off my shoes and socks, winced at the cuts on my legs. None of them were particularly deep, though they all trickled a little blood. I took a gauze pad from the large box I had bought and swabbed away the blood with alcohol from the (also large) bottle I had purchased. Then I coated them with a clotting and antiseptic agent, put my shoes back on. The socks were a loss. I treated my palm wound and the scratches on my hand, cleaned and swabbed my face. When I was finished, I did not look so bad at all, except for my clothes. And the pain was considerably lessened by the antiseptics and the clotting agents.
I deposited all my medicinal purchases in the toilet waste can and went back outside on the pedways. I remained on the slowest of the belts until I found a clothing store, where I purchased a new outfit and changed in their dressing room.
After that, there was only one more stop. I found a sporting-goods center and purchased another arctic suit. I emptied everything else out of my suitcase into a public trash receptacle, and packed in the insulated clothing.
Thirty minutes later, I was aboard a high-altitude rocket that would take me over Anchorage, Alaska. The journey might have been nostalgic, this heading to Alaska in the dead of night, this feeling of being chased permeating everything about me, everything I thought and did. But all I had to do was think of Him in the cellar of Harry’s cabin, think of the warped grin on the face of the android who had tried to kill me and had chased me through the tubeways. Then all nostalgia drained swiftly away. And was replaced with anger. And fear . . .
I went down into Anchorage in a drop capsule, rented a car, and drove up the familiar freeway to Cantwell. At the Port, I found a concession area where I could rent a magnetic sled. In the small shopping plaza underground, I bought a pair of heavy-duty wire clippers in a variety store. I loaded the sled and clippers in the car and drove out to the park. The gate was closed, of course, but I had never allowed that to stop me before. Parking the car along the fence near post number 878, I changed into my arctic clothes and boots, then unloaded the sled and struggled with it to the fence. I clipped at the thick wire for perhaps twenty minutes, finally made a hole wide enough, and shoved the sled through. I clambered after it, turned on its magnetic field, and boarded it, strapping myself in. In half an hour, forty minutes at the most, I would be at the cabin. I trembled, thought about turning back, then pressed down on the accelerator and shot forward toward the trees.
I handled the sled like a veteran now. That wild, careening trip with the wounded Justice Parnel had broken my fear into pieces, smashed those pieces to powder, and blew them away. I was reckless, but in a calculating way. Once, I almost missed a rise that came on me suddenly, almost tipped the sled over, but I pulled back on the wheel at the last possible second, and we glided up and over it without catastrophe.
I was a mile from Harry’s cabin, passing some cabins on the first level, when it happened. As I was coming up a long slope, the unlighted cabin off to my right, a white-tailed deer pranced over the brow of the hill and stood looking around. He had not spotted me, but I was certain he would in seconds. Instead, he died in an instant while I watched. Out of the ground, on all sides of him, a shimmering pink-tan sheath of jelly-like substance rose into the air like tentacles of some sea beast, The deer jumped, squealed, and tried to run. The tentacles collapsed on him, dragging him down into the snow. He thumped about for a few moments, trying to shake this hoary sheath, and was still at last.
Not tentacles, I thought—pseudopods. Like the extensions of His new form that anchored Him to the walls in Harry’s basement.
I stopped the sled twenty feet from the dead deer. I could see the amoeba-like flesh wriggling over the animal, breaking it down and devouring it. Could He have grown this large? Could He have extended Himself out of the cellar to the distance of a mile and more? And if He had extended Himself through the earth of this part of the park, wouldn’t He be certain to know that I was on my way?
Again, I wanted to turn around. I had no weapons but a pin gun and a heavy projectile rifle, both purchased at that sporting-goods store. They were pitiful weapons indeed, when you thought of facing something like Him with them. Before I could give in to the part
of me that wished to run, I slammed down on the accelerator and moved forward, around the deer that was all but dissolved by now. Five minutes later. I stopped in front of the cabin and looked at the dark windows and wondered what was behind them, watching me . . .
I took the two guns out of the sled, prepared them both for firing, and went up the front porch steps. There was no use being quiet, I decided. I pushed open the door, which had never been relocked after our capture, and went into the dark livingroom.
“You can put the guns down, Jacob,” He said from the cellar. “I badly need your help.”
XIV
I stood still, wondering whether I should try charging into the cellar. But for what purpose? I dropped the guns and walked to the cellar steps. “What help?” I asked.
“There have been complications.”
I looked down into the darkness, into the cold, ice-walled hole which was His home, and I tried to keep from thinking about the shapeless thing that rested down there. “What complications?” I asked.
“Come down. We have much to talk about, the two of us. Come down here where we can do it more easily.”
“No,” I said.
“What?” He sounded perplexed, as if He did not know what I was talking about, could not fathom why I would refuse Him.
“Why did you try to kill me?” I asked.
“It was not me.”
“I saw you,” I said. “You knew me by name. You even read my mind.”
“That is what I want to talk to you about. Come down.”
“You’ll kill me.”