by James Gunn
“Hurt them enough, and they'll hurt you,” Gavin said. “No aimless violence for me. I've got to have a reason.”
“We got a reason,” Gregory said. “Tell him, Jen!”
“It's for the revolution,” Jenny said.
“Right,” Gregory said. “We're gonna hurt ’em so bad they can't hurt back.”
“They're stronger than you think,” Gavin said. “And we're not as strong as we think. Read the history of revolution. We need a bigger base; we've got to win people, not alienate them.”
“Shit!” Gregory said. “Jen's going along with us, ain't you, Jen?”
Jenny nodded slowly.
“You better come, too,” Gregory said to Gavin. The ordinary words seemed heavy with implication.
“No.”
“I gotta take a crap,” Gregory said. He turned to Jenny. “Come along. You can hold my hand—or whatever else you want to hold.”
“Let her stay!” Gavin said. He looked squarely at Gregory, putting it up to him.
Gregory frowned, as if making up his mind whether to take up the challenge.
“I want to talk to her,” Gavin said, giving Gregory an out.
Gregory laughed and stood up. “Sure,” he said. “Talk to her.” He leaned over the table, and Gavin got the full impact of his unwashed masculinity. “But I gotta tell you—I asked her to come live with me for a while.”
Gavin looked at Jenny. His stomach lurched into his throat. “What did she say?”
Gregory laughed confidently. “She didn't say no.”
He walked toward the door, swinging his buttocks as if they were weapons in the sex wars.
“Well?” Gavin asked. “What happened?”
“He caught me,” Jenny said. Her voice was almost too faint to be heard. Gavin leaned forward. “After I left the dispensary. He said he'd been watching me for some time, and he'd decided I'd do. I was afraid, but I didn't think he'd do anything there, not at first, and then he backed me against the wall of the behavioral-sciences building. He pressed himself up against me. I was afraid he was going to rape me, standing there with the sunshine pouring down around us and the birds singing and people walking by.”
“He touched you?” Gavin asked. His mouth was dry, and he had difficulty forming the words.
“Right out in the open there. People walked by, looked at us, but they didn't do anything. I was afraid to ask for help. He had his hands on me as if he owned whatever he touched.” Terror was in Jenny's voice, but something else, too—a kind of horrified fascination with what she was saying or what had happened.
Gavin started to stand up. “I'll get him,” he said.
Jenny put her hand on his arm to stop him. “He'll kill you.”
“I can handle him,” Gavin said, but he stopped and sat down, relieved. “Or if I can't, I can get some friends.” He took a deep breath. “What else?” He really didn't want to hear any more. He couldn't keep himself from thinking about Gregory's hands on Jenny. But he knew he had to hear the rest.
“He said he was going to do me a favor,” Jenny said. “He would let me move in right after the raid. And then he hurt me and let me go.”
“I will kill him,” Gavin said flatly.
“I'm afraid.”
“Don't be afraid,” Gavin said roughly. For the first time he felt as if he had a right to Jenny, a right to tell her what to do.
“Not for you,” Jenny said, and added quickly, “yes, for you. But most of all for me.”
“What of?”
“I'm afraid,” she said, looking down at the table and tracing circles in the moisture on the tabletop. “I'm afraid I'll go to him,” she whispered.
Gavin couldn't control his response. “Well, if you want to go...”
“I don't want to,” she said miserably. “But I'm afraid I'll go anyway. I'm afraid I'll get to like what he does. I'm afraid I'll get hooked on it.” She shuddered.
“Brutality?” She nodded. “Pain?” She nodded again. “Sadism? Male dominance?”
“I don't know,” Jenny said, her eyes downcast. “I feel guilty somehow, as if I ought to be punished.”
Gavin looked startled. “For what? The Professor?”
“I don't think so. For the other. What we did. I'm not sure people were meant to be happy.”
Gavin felt the cold go away and his manliness return. “That's just your childhood religious training” he said lightly. “Your overpunitive superego. You can't shake that all at once.”
“Maybe,” she said, and then the expression of impending doom returned to her face. “Oh, Gavin, don't let me go!”
“I'll tie you to the mast,” he said.
“What?”
“You may hear the sirens’ song, but you can't respond. And me—as far as Gregory's attractions are concerned, my ears are already stuffed with wax.”
“What's stuffed with wax?” Gregory said behind him.
“Your head,” Gavin said.
Gregory smiled down at him. “Come on, Jen,” he said. “Let's go.”
“Leave her here,” Gavin said.
“But, Gav,” Gregory said reasonably, “we got to go get ready for the raid.”
Gavin looked at Jenny. She wouldn't meet his eyes, and he knew she would be unable to stand up to Gregory. She would go, and she would return to Gregory's pad with him, if all went well, and she would be lost to him forever. He made up his mind.
“I'm going with you,” he said. “I'll bring Jenny if I have to, although it's stupid to take her along.”
Gregory thought about it. “Okay,” he said. “Well have a runthrough at midnight. My place. And about Jen—you have to. Else we'll send for her. You see, I value Jen more than you do.” He smiled at Gavin, looked knowingly at Jenny, and walked away, giving them the full benefit of his confident pelvic thrust.
The tunnel was long and dark, but Gregory pushed them through it without pause. At first Jenny and Gavin were able to walk upright, brushing with their hands its crumbling concrete walls and asbestos-covered pipes.
“An old steam tunnel,” Gavin whispered once.
Flashlights lit their way fitfully. Dust rose from their shuffling feet and made them sneeze. Jenny kept a hand on Gavin's arm. Every now and then Gavin felt it quiver.
Finally the large tunnel stopped. Two smaller bricklined tunnels branched at its end. Gregory took the one on the right. From that point they crawled without lights, Jenny and Gavin in the middle of the column, Gavin's hand on her rounded bottom for contact and reassurance.
The bricks hurt his knees, and the tunnel smelled of damp earth and mildew. It grew steadily more moist, until they were sliding as much as crawling. Sometimes something mashed under a hand or scuttled away in the darkness.
Gavin thought about the tons of earth above him. The tunnel was student-dug and -lined, and he had no illusions about student thoroughness or responsibility. Perhaps they got the engineers to do it, he thought, and then he realized, with slumping shoulders, that the engineers would have done a better job, and it was probably the ceramicists.
“What am I doing here?” he thought. It would have been better to have had it out with Gregory and done with, one way or another, but there never had been a good time. And they couldn't just ignore him; Gregory's kind of violence could happen anywhere, anytime; Jenny was weak, and one decision point after another had slid past them, and here they were on a mad raid into the unoffending night.
Gavin thought the tunnel would never end, that they would keep burrowing deeper into the earth, that this was their punishment for allowing Gregory to lead them, to go on crawling forever through this midnight tunnel, but finally the column stopped. One by one they emerged into the basement of a burned-out house. Stars were overhead, but no moon. Gavin looked around, his night vision sharpened by the long darkness. A floor had fallen into the basement. Part of it, covered with charred and fire-stained debris, leaned precariously against the wall. From under that they had come, through an opening at the side which h
ad been concealed by a pile of bricks carefully and artistically mortared together and hinged on one side.
It had been the ceramicists, after all, Gavin thought.
The place smelled of old fire. Gavin brushed the dirt from his hands and knees and took hold of Jenny's hand. It was as cold and limp as a dead frog. The others gathered around them, shadowy in blackened faces and black raid uniforms, pistols at their hips, or carbines, shotguns, or machine guns over their shoulders, grenades dangling on their chests like hard, knobbly breasts. Two had packs of explosives on their backs.
They were a dozen in all, counting Jenny and Gavin, who were without weapons. All but Jenny and a large, hard-bodied phys-ed major named Edna were male. Gavin knew the names of a couple of them. But all of them were a lot like Gregory. Physical types. He wondered if any of them ever went to class, if they were even enrolled.
Silently, imperiously, Gregory motioned for them to follow, and they climbed out one edge of the cellar, Gavin and Jenny still in the middle. Gavin wanted to break away, but he couldn't figure out how to get Jenny away with him.
When they were at ground level, Gavin looked back toward the campus. Between some still-standing houses, a few perhaps still occupied, he could see the wall in the distance, and behind it, shining faintly in the starlight, the hill and the campanile and the white buildings. From here it looked like a kind of fairy world, unreal and uninhabited. Gavin stood there, trying to memorize the location.
Someone pushed him forward, and Gavin stumbled, caught himself against Jenny, and straightened up. Gregory's arm was raised again, and the line of raiders began to trot silently through the night, heading almost directly north. They avoided streets except where they had to cross. Luckily the street lights were out in this sector of town—or perhaps there was no luck to it; Gavin could imagine the straights crouched in the darkness behind their shotguns waiting for who-knows-what to toss a stick of dynamite on their front porch or throw a cocktail through their windows if they were not shuttered and barred, as most of them were.
Occasionally a spotlight blasted a street with brilliance, blinding them if they were too close, and then swiveling away as the armored car moved on.
Once, a spotlight came on and did not move away. Finally Gregory slipped off into the darkness. A few minutes later the light went off. Before their vision fully returned to them, crouching in some bushes near an intersection, Gregory was back, wiping a knife ostentatiously on the leg of his trousers before he slipped it back into his boot scabbard.
“We could have circled the light,” Gavin whispered.
“This is my party,” Gregory said. Gavin could see his teeth glinting in his blackened face. “We'll do it my way.”
Gavin felt Jenny's hand twist in his. He thought he knew why Gregory wanted them both there. He was going to show Jenny how ruthless and reckless he could be, how much more of a man he was than Gavin, and he wondered again what he was doing here in the night on a mission he could not approve under a plan he had heard with unconcealed incredulity.
When Gregory had asked for questions, Gavin had exclaimed, “But that isn't any plan at all! Are you sure it's the barracks you're going to hit?”
“That's what I said,” Gregory had replied.
“But you haven't got responsibilities assigned! You don't know who's going to do what!”
“We'll work it out as we go along,” Gregory had said, grinning.
“The barracks will be well-guarded. How are you going to draw them off long enough to plant the explosives?”
Gregory had shrugged. “We'll think of something.” He had nodded toward the other members of the raiding party lounging casually around the cluttered room. A couple of them were smoking grass, and one of them, Gavin suspected, had mainlined some speed. “These ain't your ordinary students. They're hand-picked for strength, quickness, guts, thinking on their feet. They're all veterans. You give dudes like this too many directions, and things is gonna go wrong, because things may not happen just like that, see? We been out before. We know what to do.”
“It's the most haphazard, ill-conceived plan I've ever heard,” Gavin had said desperately, “and anybody who goes out there with you is insane.” He had looked around the room hopefully, but the others were unmoved.
“Maybe there's parts you ain't heard about,” Gregory had said.
“I'll bet there are,” Gavin had said grimly.
Gavin ran the conversation through his mind again as he trotted in line behind Jenny. Her stride was faltering now, and Gavin himself was feeling the strain on his lungs, but each time they tried to slow down, a shotgun muzzle was shoved into his back.
They were heading almost due north, or maybe angling a little bit west—not toward the police barracks, but north toward the river. Gavin had tried to complain to Gregory, but Gregory was too far away and Gavin was too out-of-breath.
They paused for a moment at an eight-lane street, part of the circumferential network around the small city, and Gavin had a momentary upsurge of hope that they had been stopped. Traffic streamed silently along the street, lighting the night with headlights, even though the overhead street lights were extinguished. But Gregory didn't break stride. He led them through an underpass redolent with the ammonia of old urine, over an old brick schoolyard, and through a small wilderness with a stream running through it that must have been a park.
Gavin thought he could smell the river.
What are you doing here, Gavin?
“What?”
“Quiet!” someone ordered.
What was he doing here? Gavin asked himself. He had tried to back out. “We're not going, Jenny and I,” he had told Gregory.
Gregory had only smiled confidently. “Solidarity,” he had said.
“Good luck,” Gavin had said, and felt that his voice betrayed his insincerity. He had not thought himself capable of wishing something bad for a fellow student, but he had hoped Gregory wouldn't come back.
“We can't leave you behind now,” Gregory had said in a tone of reasonableness. “You know too much.”
“That's all right,” Gavin had said, trying to maintain the discussion on the same plane. “We'll stay here until you get back. You can place a guard here if you don't trust us.”
“We can't afford to do that,” Gregory had said. “Besides, Jenny wants to go. Don't you, Jen?”
Jenny hadn't said anything, nor with any gesture or motion of her head communicated agreement or disagreement. She was not going to help. Or could not. She had said nothing since they had left the Union. In their room he had held her for a while, not trying to make love to her, and she had lain passive in his arms, as if she had surrendered herself to the whirlwind. It had seemed to Gavin that some vital element had gone out of her, and he had loved her and wanted to protect her more than ever.
But all those events, all those alternatives, were past now. They trotted through back yards and side yards and alleys, and finally they broke into fields and open country.
The river was close. Gavin could smell it, wet and muddy and decaying, and he realized he had been smelling it for some time.
Gregory led them down a wooded embankment, as confident as a cat in the darkness—"No lights from here,” he had warned a block back—and they crossed old railroad tracks and went down another wooded slope that gave way slowly to sand and mud.
Gregory led them west along the bank. Jenny and Gavin stumbled along, sinking into soft spots, pulling their feet out of the mud with nasty, sucking noises.
“Here they are,” Gregory said.
Gavin's groping hands felt the rough wooden side or back of a boat. A hand grasped his shoulder. “You,” Gregory said, “Gav, into the first boat with me. You too, Jen. Also Marvin, Erik, Gerard. The rest of you into the other boat. Straight across. No noise.”
Gavin stumbled into the boat, shoved from behind. He fell forward over a seat and found himself up to his wrists in water standing in the bottom of the boat. Others were with him in the dark.
The boat moved, grating on the bank. As it bobbed, other bodies clambered in, and the water in the boat sloshed.
For a moment Gavin was afraid the boat might sink, and then he wished it would. He felt around in the bottom of the boat, but he couldn't find anything like a plug. As they got away from the bank, the current began to pull at the boat. The bow swung east. Then oars were unshipped. After a few splashes, sounding loud in a night owned by bullfrogs, the oars caught, the boat straightened, and they headed north across the river, the oarlocks creaking.
Gavin looked up and picked out the North Star, but he couldn't see the other bank. Gregory pulled him down into the foul water.
“We aren't heading for the barracks!” Gavin protested. “The only thing out this way is the generating plant.”
“Yeah,” Gregory said. “Ain't that something?”
“You're crazy!” Gavin whispered violently. “If you don't succeed, we'll all be killed, and if you do, you could spill radioactivity all over this area.”
“That's their problem. Teach ’em they shouldn't pollute the environment.”
“But—”
“You listen!” Gregory said harshly, grinding his fingers into Gavin's shoulder. “This ain't no time to argue nothing. Something else you didn't know.” He pressed his face close to Gavin's. His breath smelled of garlic and beer. “You're gonna be on point. I'll be right behind you.” His arm slipped familiarly around Gavin's shoulder.
Gavin shrugged the unpleasant arm away. Gregory's hand fell more familiarly on Gavin's hip, squeezing it. “There'll probably be barbed wire,” Gavin said, “and very likely electrified.”
Gregory squeezed harder. “I'll be right behind you with the wire clippers,” he said. His voice was happy and friendly. “Marvin will be right behind me with the plastic explosive, and Erik right behind him with the fuses and timer.”
“You're putting a lot on an untested man,” Gavin said.
Gregory squeezed him again and then patted him on the butt. “I've got faith in you, Gav. Besides, I'll be right behind you, and Jen'll be waiting for us to come back.”
The hateful hand went away, and Gavin felt Gregory's body shift. A moment later he heard cloth rustle, and a gasp told him that Gregory had turned his hands loose on Jenny. Gavin wished he had a knife or some kind of weapon, but there was nothing in the bow of the boat but water. His hands clenched and unclenched helplessly.