by Frank Rich
Apollo walked me to the fire escape.
"Well, if I can offer you some parting advice," I said. "Put a couple guys on that building over there and get them in a cross fire." I pointed to a tall building to the right.
"Can't do that."
"Why not."
"It's out of bounds."
"I should have guessed." We shook hands, and I descended to the street.
When I got back to the Caddy, George was starting to fidget in the back. Monique unlocked the door and I got behind the wheel.
"Did you parlay?" she asked.
"I talked to one side."
"What about the other side?"
I looked back at George. He breathed with shallow gasps, and his smile was no longer idiotic. It was sinister. "We don't have time."
We cruised down the street. Apollo waved from the top of the building. I waved back.
"Who was that?" Monique asked.
"A bunch of kids playing with guns as far as I can tell."
"Where's the other side?"
"Right here." I turned right, and two armor-bloated figures stepped from behind the overturned sedan, blocking our path. They raised their wicked-looking subguns menacingly.
"Look out!" Monique screamed.
I yawned and looked at her. "What?"
"They have guns!"
"Really?" I toed the accelerator and the gunmen dove out of the way, thumping the sides of the Caddy with rubber bullets. A man in bright red armor bounded out from behind a pile of sandbags and waved a fat book at me. I veered toward him, and he lunged back behind the bags.
"Not bad, huh?" I said.
"You maniac! We could be dead."
I laughed maniacally. "Death? What is death to a revolutionary hero? I laugh at death." I laughed.
I stomped on the brake, stopping mere inches short of a group of supercharged cruisers blocking the road.
"Jesus!" I said, stepping out of the car, "don't these swine know how to park?" I heard footsteps on the asphalt behind me. The man in the red armor was followed by three others.
"Foul!" he cried breathlessly, flipping up his visor. Legal Advisor was stenciled across the chest of his gleaming armor.
"You talking to me?" I asked.
"Darn right!" he shrieked, spit flecking from his lips. "By using this vehicle as a weapon you have violated sections thirty-two and thirty-three of…"
I touched his nose with the barrel of my pistol. "Shut up."
His eyes crossed to look at the weapon. "I'd put that away if I were you."
"What if I don't? You gonna shoot me with a rubber bullet?"
"You're not helping your case any."
"Hold on, Morris," said a man in gleaming chrome armor, flipping up his visor. With his clear blue eyes, large sculptured chin and two-inch scar on his left cheek, he resembled Hollywood's version of a Teutonic knight. The helmet and armor added to the effect. "I don't think he's a combatant."
"What?" Morris flustered.
"That's right," I said. "I'm just passing through."
The Teuton nodded and held out a hand. "I'm Cliff."
I holstered the gyra and gripped his gauntlet. "I'm Jake."
"I can tell by your scars you're a warrior," Cliff said, giving me a firm power shake.
"Yeah?"
"Listen," he said, "if you ever need advice on investment options, give me a ring." From somewhere in his armor he produced a 3-D business card.
I pocketed the card. "Thanks, Cliff. Well, we have to get along. My friend is very ill and needs medical attention at once." I gestured to George.
A man in bright magenta armor stepped forward. "I'm a doctor. What is the patient suffering?"
"He accidently ingested three gallons of super-LSD."
"My Lord! You must be joking!"
"I wish I were. It's all part of an experiment gone astray. Can you suggest any sort of treatment?"
"Good heavens, no!"
I sighed. "Well, I have a plan."
"What could that be?"
"Surgery. Once I get my hands on a sharp knife, I'm going to cut out his spleen."
"That's horribly drastic, isn't it?"
"Yes, but I have reason to believe it'll do the trick."
"Have you operated before?"
I shrugged. "No, but how hard can it be?"
He gave me a disturbed look. "Well, you'd better hurry, the patient looks to be on the verge of a seizure. Quickly, gentlemen, let's move these machines!"
"You mean we're not going to press charges?" Morris asked.
"Shut up, Morris," Cliff said. He smiled apologetically to me. "Sorry. Good combat lawyers are hard to find. Don't lose my card. If you need financial help, I'm your man."
"I'll keep that in mind," I said, and got back behind the wheel. The road before me opened, and I drove through.
"Rubber bullets, hero?" Monique said.
I shrugged. "What can I say? Nothing's real anymore, not even danger."
A hoot came from the back seat.
"What'd you say, George?"
"Hoot!"
I looked over my shoulder. George was perched forward on the seat, hands curled beneath his chin. "Hoot!" he said.
Monique laughed nervously. "What's he doing?"
"He's turning into a goddamn hoot owl, that's what."
"Hoot!"
"We got a time bomb in the back seat," I said.
"He doesn't look dangerous."
"He doesn't now. In an hour he'll turn into the hoot owl from Hell. If we don't get a room soon, we'll have to tie him up and sit on him."
"Really?"
"Either that or the trunk. If we don't, he'll maim anyone he can get his gropers on."
"Including us?"
"Especially us."
"George?"
"Are you kidding? Squeeze fiends are the most depraved creatures on earth. They make whack addicts look like old ladies on Valium."
"How can he go from poet to vicious brute?"
"You don't know many poets, do you?"
"I know a safe motel on East Colfax."
I turned on the headlights against the encroaching night. "Just tell me when to turn."
Fifteen minutes later we were cruising down Colorado Boulevard toward Colfax. George was beginning to fidget. I could feel his psyche winding tighter and tighter, straining beneath his flushed skin, ready to explode.
I stopped at a light, and a young hooligan on the crosswalk collapsed against the Caddy's grille and rolled into the gutter. A burly woman wearing canvas overalls went down on the sidewalk next to him. The car behind us jumped forward and tail-ended us.
"What the hell is wrong with these people?" I asked.
"They're getting popped!" Monique shouted. "Get off the road!"
I pulled over in front of a newsstand. Monique got out and searched the night sky. I did likewise. Everyone was either looking at the sky or scrambling for shelter, as if a hard rain were about to fall.
"There's a popper up there somewhere," Monique said.
"What's a popper?"
"There." She pointed at the dark sky.
A fat black spot moved slowly, blotting out stars as it went. It floated quietly down Colorado Boulevard.
"Listen," she said. "Do you hear it?"
Above the sounds of the street I could hear soft, irregular popping sounds. "What the devil is it?"
"A popper. 'Street cleaners,' the spifs call them. It's a silent rotor hunting criminals."
"What's that popping sound?"
"A particle weapon. The displaced air falls back on itself and makes the pop."
"How do they know who to shoot?"
"Each popper has a powerful scanner on board. It can read hand chips a hundred yards below. It runs the chip data against the SPF wanted list, and a split second after IDing a criminal with a death warrant, the particle beam zaps him. They're completely automated, no one's aboard."
"Jesus," I said with admiration. "It's like an angel of death. If they
had those in the City, I'd be out of business in a week."
She stared at me. "You think they're a good thing?"
"Are you kidding? Remi's solved the riddle of enforcement. Since the information boom and the hand-scan system, it's easy to detect guilt. What's hard is punishing the guilty. Remi has apparently bridged that gap — he's discovered the enforcement solution. Jesus, I'd love to send one of them down Hayward."
"Only a bogeyman could admire such a cold, vicious system."
"We need all the help we can get. Besides, it's only killing the bad guys."
"Or anyone else Remi doesn't like. It doesn't take any great effort to earn a death warrant in this town." She looked around the corner. "It's turning onto East Colfax. Now listen."
We held our breaths. The pops increased steadily, like a popcorn machine heating up. Finally the sound became one long, low burp interrupted by screams and the roar and crunch of mindless vehicles piloted by the dead.
"I take it Colfax is frequented by criminal elements," I said. "Jesus, it's a massacre. How often does this happen?"
"Once a month or so. If they do it too often everyone stays inside, and that's bad for the economy."
A convoy of blue trucks passed by, discreetly following the popper.
Monique frowned. "Just like vultures."
"Better than letting them rot in the street."
One of the reclamation trucks peeled off and scooped up the fallen hooligan and burly woman with a front loader. Without ceremony the hydraulic scoop hoisted them into the open top of the truck. Funeral music played on tinny speakers.
I heard a car door slam. Behind me, George stumbled from the Caddy and bolted down the street, shouting gibberish.
"Stay with the car," I told Monique, and sprinted after him.
George cut right into an alley. I followed and saw him turn left onto Colfax.
I reached Colfax and looked left. Under a porno marquee fifty yards away a gleaming head bobbed through the crowd that had gathered to survey what the popper had wrought. I sprinted down the sidewalk, leaping over the dead, colliding with the living. I reached the marquee and looked in every direction. I'd lost him. Following instinct, I continued in the same direction. Then, twenty yards ahead, I saw a bald head staggering down the sidewalk.
I caught up with him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "George."
The skinhead turned around and glared at me drunkenly. Below the swastika tattoo on his forehead was the motto God Sent Me To Kill You. "You looking for trouble?" he slurred.
"I thought you were someone else."
"Everybody says that." He staggered away.
I returned to the Caddy.
"Well?" Monique asked.
"Lost him in the crowd."
She deflated. "What's he going to do?"
"Run amok, I imagine." I looked around uneasily. "Don't worry, he'll turn up. George is very conspicuous, the kind who causes ripples wherever he goes." I rotated in a tight circle, staring in every direction.
"What's wrong?" Monique asked.
"I don't know, I feel like…" I looked west and discovered the source of my apprehension. "Jesus. There it is."
The monstrous outline was blacker than the night, rising above the business towers as a redwood among oaks.
"That fucker is big," I whispered.
"You can see it from anywhere in Denver," Monique said. "It's always there to remind you who's in charge."
"Yeah," I murmured. I wondered if he was up there, watching from a high window, perhaps at that moment staring in my direction. "He is for now," I said, but in the face of the black tower my bravado sounded false even to me. I climbed behind the wheel. "Where'd you say that motel was?"
"Ten blocks west on Colfax."
"Oh, super."
We followed in the wake of the reclamation vans to Dante's Inn. I surveyed the motel from the parking lot. It looked like a ghetto mortuary the owner had let run down. There were more of its ilk in either direction.
"You sure this is the place?" I asked.
"Nobody asks questions here," Monique said.
"I'd imagine not."
I rented the room for only a week in the hope we'd move up to a railroad shack by then. "No gunfire after eleven," the greasy manager warned. I said I'd try.
I carried in the baggage and surveyed our new home. Yellow wallpaper peeled onto gray carpet that extended almost to the bile green tiles of the kitchen alcove. A double bed sagged against one wall. Its mate was in a connecting room.
Monique carried her bag into the other room and closed the door. It sounded as if she'd surprised a family of giant weasels, so I figured she was lying down for a nap. I unpacked my things into a pressboard dresser and changed into sweats. After loosening up with some stretches, I moved into a calisthenic workout. I had worked up a fine sweat when Monique's door opened.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Push-ups."
She stepped into the bathroom and slammed the door. I heard the hiss of the shower. I finished my push-ups and began shadow-boxing.
She laughed when she came out. She wore a towel over her hair, and another wrapped her slim figure. The dust of the road was replaced by a radiance, and I hated to notice how attractive she was.
She said, "It looks like you're trying to knock yourself out."
"Only decent competition I got. Is there any hot water left?"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you. There is no hot water."
"This is a cold-water flat?"
She paused in the doorway of her bedroom. "I'm afraid so."
I regarded her. "You planned it that way."
She smiled and closed the door.
13
I rose at 7:00 a.m. and went for a run. I paced east down Colfax, looking for bloodstains on the sidewalks. The foot traffic was brisk; gray-uniformed workers rushed to work, children skipped to school, businessmen ate hurried breakfasts at small trendy cafés as if there hadn't been a massacre hours before. I cut left on Harrison and followed a trail around City Park. I ran three laps at a comfortable pace, then headed back to Colfax.
There seemed to be a lot of spifs in Denver. Troopers in gleaming white armor and sleek cruisers were everywhere. I also noticed everyone liked to play by the rules. I'd made the mistake of crossing against the light, and a crowd waiting on the other side glared at me as if I'd publicly molested a nun. Yet in their outrage I detected a spiteful envy; beneath their obedient facades lurked a brooding resentment of the rules. I could sense the mob in them. All they needed was a little help bringing it out.
In the motel room I found a note from Monique saying she had gone looking for George. I showered and dressed, selecting an all-black ensemble of baggy jungle shirt and tight stretch pants. Gleaming jump boots, chrome clip-on epaulets and a spiked belt signaled that I was no slave to convention. I gazed in the mirror and marveled at my remarkable good taste.
I spent the next three hours skulking around decaying neighborhoods, looking for the subculture. The closest thing I found was a hunched figure in a gray overcoat furtively pasting fliers to the front of a boarded-up wig shop. I crept up behind him and read the crude handbill over his shoulder.
A Musical Protest
With End Of Story
Friday, Sept. 25
High Noon
Between The Lakes
Washington Park
No Pigs
"That's tomorrow," I said.
The hunched figure spun around, dropping his bucket and brush.
"I didn't do anything!" he squealed.
"Don't worry," I whispered. "I'm a brother of the revolution."
He stared at me. "You're not a spif?"
"Dressed like this?"
His eyes moved down my outfit. He didn't seem entirely convinced.
"Listen," I said, "I'm in town to overthrow the government, and I was wondering if you could introduce me to the counterculture."
He frowned. "There isn't one. It's too dangerous."
"Government subversion is supposed to be dangerous."
"Maybe, but with Remi's machine it's suicidal. There used to be a movement up in Boulder, but it was infiltrated by Remi Youth and wiped out a year ago."
"Remi Youth?"
"They're everywhere." He glanced around. "They look like anybody. They've been programmed by Remi since they were kids."
"So, there's absolutely nothing going on."
"Well, there's End of Story." He handed me a flier. "But no one takes them seriously. Not even Remi, which is lucky for the band." He glanced around, then began shuffling away. "Don't get caught with that flier."
I met Monique at the motel. The sun was out so we walked to the Sixteenth Street pedestrian mall and sat at a plastic table outside a kelp-burger stand in the shadow of towering business buildings. Uniformed workers on their lunch break ate sandwiches on benches and wandered aimlessly between the buildings, peering into shop windows. Pigeons gathered, cooing and pecking at nothing, mocking the humanity around them.
"What's wrong?" Monique asked. "You seem troubled."
"I'm having a hard time finding the pulse of the revolution."
She chewed her kelp and nodded. "I told you. Denver is tame. Just how were you planning on creating a revolution, anyway?"
"I was supposed to have help. Rob and Marlene, these two wealthy idealists, were supposed to have it all set up. I'd simply take my place at the head of the enraged masses, and we'd storm the palace straightaway."
"What happened?"
"Bruce was my connection. Now I have to start up my own revolution from scratch."
She nodded, and we watched the crowd go by.
"Look," I said. "See that man?" I pointed at a slow-moving shifty-eyed man in a black suit.
"Yeah."
"He's a bogeyman."
"How do you know?"
"The way he moves, the way he looks at people. He's gotten into the habit of sizing up everyone he sees as targets. He's got killer written all over him."
"Maybe he's an SPF hitman."
"No, if he was a Party hitter he could afford better shoes. Poor bastard, competing with those poppers must be hell." I pointed at a woman in a conservative suit arguing with a stall keeper. "See her?"