by Frank Rich
I stood next to him and followed his finger to the streets below. "Look at them," he said. "They're just like ants. There's so many of them, as individuals they're so meaningless. They can't even comprehend all I've done for them!"
I looked down at the humanity marching up and down the street. From the top of the tower they looked tiny, insignificant. "Not all of them feel you're doing such a hot job."
He looked surprised. "What do you mean?"
"It seems to me you're sacrificing a lot of freedom for these advances."
"Ha! Freedom! What is freedom compared to a full stomach, safe streets, a roof over your head and modern conveniences at your fingertips? Man has always sacrificed freedom for security. Freedom is just an outlet for human mischievousness, anyway. As for the gripers, there are always those who would flee Utopia."
Lazarus beeped again.
"Got another one!" Remi chortled. "Stay indoors, you fools!" He slid me a sly smile. "But I can see I'm upsetting you. Lazarus, delete last order. Enter."
"Order deleted," Lazarus said.
"How many fewer John Thomases are there in the world?" I asked.
"Who cares? The point I was trying to make is Lazarus is completely flexible! I could have told him to kill everyone with A-negative blood, or a middle name with seven digits, or registered for a firearm. The possibilities are limitless — Lazarus is a modern marvel!" His face suddenly brightened. "Look, I'll make it up to you." He rushed to a chair facing what looked like a huge TV camera and sat down. "Lazarus, camera setting. I want a waist-up shot with a cemetery background, fluttering flag, tombstones, grass, the works. I want this broadcast on all channels with the usual opening address. Go to fade when I say 'thank you,' and give me a twenty-five percent vertical elongation." He looked shyly at me. "It makes me look taller."
"I see."
"Lazarus, begin."
"Interrupting all channels for this important announcement from your magnificent leader, Remi Jonson," Lazarus said in a deep, authoritative voice. A red light atop the camera went on, and Remi cleared his throat and took on a serious face. "Citizens of Denver," he said in a low, solemn voice. "I, Remi Jonson, hereby declare today, September, uh, September whatever, John Thomas Memorial Day. Workers may take an extra five minutes for lunch in tribute to this great citizen's contribution to better living through technology. Thank you."
The red light went out, and Lazarus said, "This has been an important announcement from your illustrious leader, Remi…"
"There," Remi said, springing up from the chair. "Price paid in full. From this chair I sent that message to every radio, television, modem and fax in Denver. When has anyone ever had such efficient control over the media?"
"And that makes up for killing them."
"Are you kidding? Of course it does, they're famous now! I've done them a tremendous favor. If I'd let them live, they would have toiled out their miserable little lives and died in obscurity, vanished from the face of the planet without a trace. But I made them instant celebrities. I've lifted them from meaningless obscurity to the pinnacle of popularity. In death they've discovered greatness. What do you think?"
"I think you're a very disturbed man."
"Really?" he said quietly, sliding me a funny look. "Is that what you'll tell them in your report? Overlook my vision and genius just for having a little fun?"
I walked over to Lazarus and stared into the blinking face of the executioner. "We might be able to arrange a deal."
He smiled. "What kind of deal?"
I looked pointedly at the guards. "Can we talk in private?"
Remi put his hands behind his back and strolled to the window. He stared down at the ants below. "You may leave now, Karlis."
Karlis and the other guards looked at each other, then at me. They hesitated.
"Go on, all of you. I'm perfectly safe here with Mr. Strait. Aren't I, Mr. Strait?"
"Perfectly so."
The guards shrugged and went into the lobby. The door closed on their worried stares, and Remi and I were alone.
Remi remained at the window, his back to me. "Do you ever think about death, Mr. Strait?"
"As much as any man." I faced Remi's back.
"Yes. I guess everyone thinks about it from time to time. But I mean in a deeper sense."
I began moving toward him. "Tell me what you mean."
"Well, some look at death as an end, others as a transition. I see death as the noblest of wagers, the bravest of stakes. I mean, a man can extol all day the greatness of his vision, but what do all those words mean if he's not willing to put his theories on the line? I'll tell you what — nothing. There are dreamers and there are prophets."
"And which are you?" I asked, creeping closer, my tread noiseless on the thick shag, my eyes focused on the back of Remi's neck.
"A prophet, of course! A man wilting to put it all on the line to prove his dreams real. A man willing to face even terrible death to prove to the world he is right."
"I couldn't agree with you more," I said, taking another step.
"I know why you're here," he said.
I paused. Another three steps and I'd have him. "Do you?"
"I do. You've been sent here by those who want to put an end to my grand dream. Oh, but I've been expecting you, waiting, anticipating this fine moment!" In the reflection of the glass I could see his cherubic smile, his sparkling eyes watching me.
"Have you?"
"Oh, yes. They must have a lot of faith in you, the Party."
"They must."
"Yes." He turned around, grinning like a Devil. "I can see you're a large, fit man, probably some sort of trained killer. Probably spent all your life squeezing the life out of people. A master of your trade, a dealer in death."
I stepped toward him again, trying to appear casual.
Remi sidestepped to his right. "A man who relies upon animal strength and killer instinct, your entire mind and body honed for one supreme purpose — to kill!"
I circled him into the corner behind the tables. "You got me all wrong."
"Even now you move in stealthily, like a wolf you stalk me, fangs bared, poised for the kill."
"I don't want to hurt you," I said, and lunged over the table.
"Technology!" Remi cried, and shoved the snout of the sonic disrupter in my face. The pounding force of a fire hose hit me and drove me to the floor. I rolled around in agony, pain blurring all thought.
"Technology is man's defense!" Remi shouted triumphantly. "His only weapon against the wolves that would snap up his frail body!"
The sonic energy beat on me in physical waves as I crawled on the floor toward the wall. Remi jumped behind me, keeping it mercilessly trained on the back of my neck.
"Look at you! Without technology to help you, you have reverted to your natural state, crawling on your belly like a snake. Ha!"
I reached the outlet and jerked the disrupter's plug out. The pounding sonic weight lifted from my neck, and I sprang to my feet. "Laugh now, Techmaster!" I roared, bounding toward him.
"Not so fast, Snaky!" he cried, dodging back to the table with ferretlike speed. He picked up the phaser and pointed it at me. "Ah-ha!" he said, and pulled the trigger.
"Oh-ho!" I replied, putting on my sunglasses. The phaser whirred and flashed, and I smiled. "UV blockers."
He threw the phaser to the ground and stomped it. "Cheap crap!"
I started toward him slowly.
He noticed and jumped into a crouch. "You'll not catch me, Snaky!"
I lunged at him, and he squeaked and scurried to his desk, his back hunched like a hunted rat. "Lazarus, up screen!"
He enjoyed a long, spiteful laugh from behind the humming force field. "So you see, my dear brute, technology has won out at last."
I sighed in defeat and moved over to the steno desk. "Yeah, I guess you beat me, all right."
"Not just you! The entire scheme!" He patted Lazarus. "Inside Lazarus's data banks is the scan data of all your outside hire
d guns that would disrupt my fair city, information gathered by my excellent electronic eavesdropping network and a few spies. With a single command I can unleash the poppers and begin the destruction of the whole ugly plot!"
"I stand in awe."
"As you rightfully should. I pray you learned a lesson from all this."
"I certainly did." I leaned over the steno and whispered, "Steno, back two hundred and fifty sentences."
"Look at this dazer!" the steno said in Remi's voice.
"It's a shame you'll take this magnificent lesson to your grave," Remi said.
"Forward twenty," I said.
"A force field!" the steno said in Remi's voice.
"What are you doing?" Remi asked.
"Forward ten!" I exhorted, picking up the sonic disrupter.
"Stop that!" Remi shouted.
"See?" the steno said.
"No!" Remi wailed.
"Back one!" I shouted and rushed the force field. "Lazarus, down screen," the steno said. The screen faded, and I dived over the desk as Remi brought out a huge old pistol from a drawer. I hit him with a flying tackle, knocking the antique out of his hand.
"You don't want to use that," I said. "It's too old." I pinned him to the floor, wrapped the disrupter around his neck and strangled him with the cord of his technology.
I checked the outside cameras from the monitor on Remi's desk. The guards hadn't moved. I dragged Remi to his broadcast chair and sat him in it. After searching Remi's desk, I found a red felt marker and an index card. I wrote The King Is Dead on the card and propped it on his chest. I used the marker to perk up his smile, adjusted the tilt of his head and took a step back.
"Beautiful," I said. "Lazarus, let's hear your most elated tone of voice."
"How's this?" Lazarus said in a voice that spoke of carnivals, birthday parties and lottery winners.
"Perfect. When we go on air I want you to repeat 'the king is dead' at three-second intervals in that tone. But I don't want to hear it in here. Okay?"
"Okay," Lazarus agreed elatedly.
"All right. Waist up, cemetery background, funeral dirge, usual intro, no elongation, all channels, 'the king is dead'… begin."
I ripped a bottle of rum out of the guts of Abby, walked it to Lazarus's console and went to work.
21
I was making fine progress with the bottle when the good guys showed up on the outside cameras. The guards had gone into a panic an hour before, when the word got around that their master was dead. They'd wailed to the cameras and futilely blasted the sealed doors with their lasers until mercenaries swarmed in from the rooftop. Knowing they protected a dead man, the guards fled, all but Karlis, who stayed by the door like a faithful dog. He was able to kill three of Rob's mercenaries before they cut him down.
Presently a squad of Rob's gang stared up at the cameras. "Lazarus, open the door," I said, putting my feet up on Remi's desk.
They came in warily, pointing their weapons.
"Ah, the calvary," I said, beginning my count.
"What are you doing here?" the Butcher asked. His left shoulder was seared with laser burn.
"Having a drink."
"You were supposed to be…"
"Dead?" I laughed drunkenly. "Only the good die this young."
"Turn that goddamn camera off!" Rob cried, rushing into the room, surrounded by frantic bodyguards. Several of the mercs squared off with the camera but couldn't figure out how to turn it off.
"Can't find the off switch," the Butcher reported.
"I don't give a damn! Turn that thing off before we have a real revolution on our hands!"
The Butcher barked an order, and the mercs began beating the camera with the butts of their rifles.
"I'm working with idiots!" Rob wailed. "Stop that! I'll need that for my broadcasts."
"Lazarus, off camera," I said. The broadcast light went out.
Rob looked over at me. "What are you still doing here?"
I shrugged. "I felt like hanging around."
He went to Remi's body and frowned importantly at it. "The king is dead. That was real cute."
I shrugged modestly. "It seemed so at the time."
Rob began bustling about the room, barking orders, inspecting the strange devices, peering out the windows. I noticed he was moving around me in steadily decreasing circles, like a hesitant moth circling a flame. He ended up beside me.
"So," he sniffed, "this is where the tyrant sat."
"The seat of power."
He touched the high back of the chair. "Real eelskin." He sniffed again. "That bourgeois bastard."
I dropped my boots from the desk and stood up. "Have a seat, Rob. See how it feels."
He stared at the chair. "Well, uh…" a goofy smile took control of his face "…don't mind if I do." He sat down slowly, as if savoring the moment. He leaned back stiffly into the padded eelskin.
I sat on the desk and lit a vitacig. "Do you find it comfortable, Rob?"
"Actually, yes, I do. Quite."
"I thought you would." I inspected my fingertips. "Answer a question, Rob. If you were going to attack the tower anyway, why'd you send me in to kill Remi?"
He leaned back and steepled his fingers. "Simple. If we attacked while Remi was alive, he would have crushed us. At the first sign of an assault, he would have organized his forces, called in reinforcements and set his poppers upon our strike force. With his highly centralized computer command network he would have had us beaten moments after the first shot. Even if, by some miracle, we did succeed in penetrating his defenses, he would have sabotaged his machine, and half the objective of my plan was to capture his control apparatus intact. But his centralized command was also his greatest weakness. Only Remi could give the orders to repel the attack. Once he was removed from the equation, the operation amounted to stomping on a headless snake. Rather brilliant, don't you think?"
I yawned. "Where's my money?"
"Oh, yes. Your money. A half million, wasn't it?" He laughed a mad laugh, power corrupting him already. "Isn't that what we shook on?" His eyes were wild, shining. "A half million?"
"A whole million," I corrected.
"Yes, that's right! You needed more. A whole million." Rob waved over the Butcher. "Mr. Baker, bring in Mr. Strait's reward."
The Butcher went to the door and gestured. A squad of storm troopers marched into the room. Bruce, geared up in the uniform of an SPF sergeant, led the pack. "I bet you didn't expect to see me again," he snarled.
"I was hoping I wouldn't." The mystery man with the mirror eye patch and a large black man flanked Bruce. They pointed guns at me as Bruce stepped onto the chrome tile and doubled me over with a straight arm to the solar plexus. I took in as much air as I could and croaked, "Steno, back four hundred twenty-four!"
"Lazarus, up…"
The jumpy mercs whirled on the voice, and their subguns rattled, obliterating the rest of the message along with the steno.
"You trigger-happy idiots," Rob screamed. "You've destroyed more valuable equipment!"
To my dismay they had also destroyed my insurance policy and any chance of working over Bruce and Rob at my leisure.
"What did you say?" Bruce snapped at me.
"Nothing," I said. "The phrase has lost meaning."
Bruce pulled Remi's pistol from the back of my waistband. "You won't be needing this."
"You honestly don't think so?"
Rob giggled. "So, the bogeyman declawed. How does it feel?"
"To be honest, it's no big thrill."
"You didn't really expect me to pay you, did you?"
I shrugged. "You said you were an honorable man."
"Honor?" Rob cackled. "What does a bogeyman know of honor? We had to stoop to hiring you. You're an idiot breed, you bogeymen. So amoral and violent, but that's also your weakness. All it would take to wipe out the whole lot of you would be the putting of a bounty on each of your heads. You'd self-destruct like a snake swallowing his tail."
I shrugged and surveyed the SPF uniforms. "So you were working for the Party the whole time."
"I am the Party!"
"So was Remi."
Rob laughed. "Remi was a loose cannon, running Denver like his own private fief, a man more dangerous than any amount of revolutionaries. His total disregard for World Party directives was setting a bad example for independent-minded city directors the world over. They had even formed a loose coalition of sorts, for mutual protection."
"And that's why you didn't just send in the SPF," I surmised. "So as not to alarm those mavericks into action."
"Who knows what they would do? But since Remi was overthrown, the Party has every right to send in loyal troops to restore order. Our little revolution also has the added benefit of drawing out Denver's subversive elements. After we mop them up, I'll be in complete control."
"And what's your reward, Rob?"
Rob laughed. "I'm the new city director. This is my chair now, my desk, my office. Did you think I would do it for less?"
"But I thought you were an idealist."
"Sarcastic right to the end, eh? God, the beauty of the whole operation, the perfect deceit. I orchestrated it all so beautifully, I had the whole lot of you dangling like puppets, I'd raise a finger and you'd jump. I'm an incredible genius!"
"No, you're a dead man," I told him.
"What?"
"Everybody get back!" I shouted, throwing my arms out.
The mercs jumped and jerked their weapons at me, eyes wild.
"What are you doing?" Rob shouted nervously.
"You didn't think I would let you come in here without having an insurance policy, did you?" I laughed insanely.
Rob began clawing at his ulcer. "What the hell are you talking about?" he wheezed.
"There's a bomb in my belly, targeted off my heartbeat, and if I die, everybody dies!"
The room went completely silent, nobody moved. Then Bruce practically leapt across the room to sink a fist into my belly. I went down this time.
"You used that line too many times already, shitface," Bruce growled.
Rob sat back down, his face ashen. "Get that bastard out of here."
One-Eye and the black man grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet. Rob pressed his shaking hands onto the desk. "Any last words, hero?"