Alan E. Nourse - The Bladerunner

by Alan E Nourse

  Even at the time, Billy was aware that these were fever-thoughts, paranoid nightmares his mind was conjuring up to torment him. In the morning when he could think more clearly, he'd probably laugh at himself for such fears. Yet the very fact that the fears were there, so close to the surface, seemed slightly ominous. He wished desperately that Molly was there to talk to for a while. She, at least, could see things straight, and she had always treated him as an equal, a teammate rather than a flunky. Molly would be loyal, in a pinch, she would help if she could, but he couldn't call her out of bed at 4:00 in the morning. He got up, took more aspirin, trying to get his mind to quiet down. For now, there was nothing to do, nothing was going to happen before morning and that would be time enough to talk to Molly, if he still wanted to. Back in bed he closed his eyes again, forced his mind to relax, and finally slept for a while in spite of the recurring nightmares.

  He woke to a grim winter day, almost 11:00 and the sky a threatening gray. Groaning, he dragged himself to his feet and started to dress. The headache and fever were back, and his body felt as if he had been pounded all night with sledge hammers. Groggily he looked for the envelope of capsules Doc had left for him—or had he dreamed that, too? Maybe he'd knocked them off onto the floor. He debated for a moment getting down on his hands and knees to look under the bed, but the very thought of that much exertion exhausted him and brought sweat out on his forehead. He found some more aspirin in the closet over the sink, swallowed two of them and then took two more for good measure. Maybe Doc would call and he could ask him about the capsules. He had no appetite, but he fished some rolls and butter and a half-finished milkshake from the refrigerator and forced himself to eat some. His eye caught the phony transmitter lying on his dresser, and he glanced down at the muffled instrument on his wrist. He was free to go out, move around if he wanted. He thought of this for a while, climbed into his coat, then lay back down on the bed in a fit of shivering. Maybe later he could go out, get some air, get away from the stifling atmosphere of this place for a while, but first he had to muster some strength. Doc probably wouldn't be calling until later in the day anyway, somewhere near his usual time if he had a case lined up for evening.

  The telephone jangled loud in the room. It rang three or four times before he could get across the room to stop it. "Billy here," he said.

  "This is Doc," the familiar voice said. "How are you doing?"

  "Okay, I guess. I dunno, I just got up."

  "All right, listen, Billy. I've got to talk to you. Something's come up that requires some fast action."

  "Doc, if you've got a case tonight, I dunno, I don't feel very good."

  "This isn't a case the way you mean," Doc said, "and it's really urgent Billy, I want you to grab a cab and get over here to my office as quickly as you can."

  "To your office? You crazy or something? If they make a fix on this phony transponder you could have them right in your lap."

  "You let me worry about that, okay? We've got to talk right away, and we can't do it on the phone. Get a cab and come on over just as fast as you can."

  Before Billy could protest further, the receiver went dead. Billy sat staring stupidly at the phone for a few moments, still not certain that he had heard right. Suddenly an immense weariness seized him; more that anything else, he wanted to collapse into bed again, but instead he slowly buttoned up his coat, wrapped a scarf around his neck and checked his pockets for cab fare. A few moments later he took a last feverish look around his room and then stumbled down the stairs to the street.

  The trip was a living nightmare as his mind slid in and out of waking fever-dreams. The snow was piled in drifts along the sidewalk and street, and he had to struggle up, over or through them, sometimes plunging down hip-deep into the soft stuff and filling his shoes with snow as he extricated himself. No shovel-trucks had yet made it to this tenement area of the Lower City, and there were no cabs until he finally reached one of the Upper City arterials. Even then they wouldn't stop, whizzing by as he waited, cringing in the face of an icy wind. Finally he stepped out in the street, waving his arms directly in the path of a cab and brought it to a skidding halt. He had to pay in advance, but a moment later he was huddling in the back seat, chilling as the cab moved up into the more open streets of the Upper City. He dozed as he rode; at one point it occurred to him to check to see if he was being followed, but even the effort of turning around and peering out the back window seemed more than he could manage. He finally gave up and sat back to rest as the cab made its way up the thoroughfares and finally pulled in at the main lobby entrance to Hospital No. 7. A moment later Billy was making his way through the crowds of people in the lobby to the first bank of elevators. At the twenty-eighth floor he turned right and finally stopped in front of an office door marked JOHN H. LONG, M.D. Wearily, he pushed his way in without knocking.

  Doc and Molly were both there, and Doc stood up to take Billy's overcoat "Good boy," he said, "that was a fast trip."

  "Yeah, well, I hope you know what you're doing. The more I think about this phony bracelet setup, the less I like it, and I should think you'd be a little bit worried too, if they find out about it."

  "It doesn't matter, Billy. They know all about the phony bracelet, and they're not going to bother us about it, at least not right now."

  Billy looked up suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that Health Control knows all about our little operation. They've known about it for years, and there's no question of identifying you or me or Molly here. They already know—right down to the present moment"

  Billy looked from one to the other, bewildered. "Wait a minute, man, what are you saying? Who told you that?"

  "The District Director of the Department of Health Control, right from the top. I spent two hours with him just this morning, and he has a file on our underground activities that would make your eyes pop."

  "Then I don't get it. How come you're walking around loose?"

  "Because Health Control wants me walking around loose. What's more, they want you walking around loose, too. In fact, right now Health Control very badly needs you out and around as a free and functioning bladerunner. They need some help that only a bladerunner can provide."

  Quickly, then, Doc briefed Billy on his earlier meeting with the Health Control man. He covered everything —his own suspicions of the nature of the epidemic going on, the computer analysis of Hospital No. 7's experience, the magnitude and threat of the epidemic as Health Control saw it, even Mason Turnbull's contention that Health Control purposely allowed underground medicine to flourish as a means of decompressing public criticism of the controversial Eugenics Control program. Then, as even-handedly as he could, Doc sketched out Health Control's fear of widespread panic and rioting if they tried to deal directly with the spreading epidemic, and their plea to the forces of underground medicine to help them control it by extralegal means. "Word has got to get to people—all kinds of unqualified people, from the Naturists on down to the ordinary citizen who is putting off Health Control's qualification for as long as possible—that this illness is treacherous, potentially fatal, and that they've got to come in for treatment, or get underground treatment, while there's still time. The underground doctors will be doing everything they can; I'm going to be recruiting other docs, and Molly will be tracking down and contacting our own patients, but this won't reach nearly enough people fast enough. We've got to get word to hundreds of thousands of people in a matter of days from sources they'll trust and listen to— in other words, not through official Health Control sources. And that means spreading the word through every underground channel possible, especially by way of bladerunners and suppliers who have contacts they can make, so that we have a pyramiding rumor going, a chain-letter effect."

  "But, Doc, we aren't some kind of social club," Billy protested. "I mean, we don't get together at meetings and talk things over."

  "But you know other bladerunners, don't you?"

  "Well, sure, mayb
e a dozen or so, if I had time to track them down."

  "Okay, then that's a start. Each one of them knows some that you don't know, right? And then there's Parrot; he must supply twenty or thirty bladerunners, and know a dozen other suppliers as well, and they've all got contacts with people. Each one could spread the word out further. The point is, I can't go to Parrot and get him to listen. Parrot wouldn't give me the time of day, and certainly Health Control can't go to him. Only one like you would stand a chance of selling him, and others, and getting the word spreading fast enough."

  Billy sat listening, his bewildered expression slowly changing to a frown. "And Health Control came to you with this scheme?" he said slowly.

  "That's right. They came to me."

  "And you're supposed to sell me on the idea, and I'm supposed to go out and start beating the drum, is that right?"

  "That's the idea," Doc said. "Molly and I will be working on our end, and—"

  "And all they want me to do is go down into that jungle and lay my neck out on the block in order to help bail them out of a mess that their own Eugenics Control program has gotten them into, is that right?"

  "Well—" Doc looked at Molly doubtfully. "I guess that's one way of looking at it."

  "Yes, well, maybe this clown you talked to at Health Control thinks I've gone out of my mind or something," Billy retorted hotly, "but I haven't, not by a long way, and as far as I'm concerned, Health Control can go choke. Why should I help them, after what they've done to me? They've bugged me and harassed me, and staked me out until I couldn't move." He held up the transponder on his wrist and shook it under Doc's nose. "Where do you think this came from? It's on me because they wanted it on me, and if they find out I've jumped it, they'll throw me in the tank without a second thought. They want me locked up, they've always wanted me locked up."

  "You make it sound like some kind of a personal feud," Molly said, "and that's silly. There's nothing personal about it, it's just part of their policy."

  "Well, it may not be personal to them, but it's plenty personal to me. What about my life? It's been Health Control and their precious policies that have kept me running blades all these years, like a common thief. Do you think I like that? If it weren't for Health Control and their policies I could be a Med-Ex right now, a legitimate doctor's assistant, maybe even a lay anesthetist or a medical student, but what chance have I ever had? And what help do I get from them when I need medical care? I've had this crooked foot to limp around on all my lousy life; it wasn't my fault, I was just born with it, and I'll have it till I die, as far as they're concerned. They don't care about people. All they care about is trimming down budgets and cutting down the population and playing around with people's genes and never mind what people think or how people feel. Well, now they're in trouble, and I think that's just great. They're not going to get any help from me."

  "But it isn't really Health Control you'd be helping," Doc said quietly. "There are people, hundreds of thousands of people who are going to be sick and dying if this epidemic isn't stopped before it turns into a major national crisis."

  "So maybe that's what we need to break their Health Control system apart," Billy retorted. "A crisis they can't handle."

  "And you think this is the kind of crisis you want for that? Believe me, you don't. Nobody does. Sure, once this is under control, if Health Control can squeeze through this somehow, they're going to face another kind of crisis—a crisis of confidence like nothing they've faced before. And they're going to have to make changes, modify their programs. They can't take a risk like this again. But the changes are going to have to come slowly, not convulsively. And in the meantime, thousands of people are in deadly danger now"

  "Well, I didn't put them in danger," Billy said. "Why should I have to be responsible?"

  Doc sighed. "Maybe for the same reason that I have to be responsible for all the people you and I and Molly have treated on the underground. It's just part of what we bargained for when we started work together, Billy. There's been a real, consuming need for what we've been doing, a need that the Health Control system was simply ignoring. Well, we picked up the ball—you just as much as me. I went underground because there wasn't anything else I could do as a doctor. People needed underground doctors. But in a way we're to blame that a lot of the people we treated never qualified for Health Control. We kept them away, and we're responsible.

  And now those people and a lot of others need help from you to help head off a real disaster."

  Billy stared at him, shaking his head in confusion. "Doc, you can't say that I'm to blame. All I ever did was what you wanted done, what you told me to do."

  "Okay, then say this is one more thing I want you to do. Say it's just another one of my cases, a tough case and just incredibly important. I'm into it up to my ears, but I can't handle it alone. I need your help."

  For a long time Billy sat there, staring first at Doc, then at Molly, and then back. His head was pounding fiercely, and the room seemed so stifling he could hardly breathe. On the wall above Doc's head the lights on the page board blinked in an ever-changing random pattern as he tried to fix his attention, express the suspicions and misgivings that were screaming through his mind. "Suppose it's all phony," he said finally. "Suppose this is all just a dodge that Health Control has set up to bring people into the Clinics so they can nail down their names and ID numbers and scare them or force them into qualifying whether they want to or not. How do you know they're not just sucking you in too?"

  "I don't think so, Billy," Doc said. "If I didn't think this was dead serious I wouldn't be sticking my neck out. It's too big to be phony; there are too many parts that I know are true."

  "What about you, Molly? Are you in on it too?"

  "I think I have to be. If it's phony, Health Control is making a terrible mistake—but I don't think it's phony. I've been watching the lines of sick people coming in here. They're very real. And very sick."

  Billy clenched his jaw, suddenly shivering. "I don't like it," he said miserably. "I don't understand it, and I don't trust it, and I don't get anything out of it, and if there's something wrong with it, it's going to be my neck that gets broken, not yours. I don't like any part of it,

  and I don't feel good. My head's not even on straight, and you want me to go out and try to sell a bunch of very rough people on a story they're not going to believe in a million years."

  Doc looked at him sharply. "Haven't you been taking those capsules I left you last night?"

  "Capsules? Well, maybe some of them, I guess. What were they for? Seems like I went to look for them and couldn't find them or something."

  "Oh, lord." Doc dug in his bag, brought out a temp-clip and snapped it to Billy's ear. "Well, there's no fever right now," he said a moment later. "But, Billy, you've got to take this medicine, do you hear me? I'll give you some more by injection, and some more capsules, but you've got to take them. Your neck isn't sore, is it?"

  "No more than anything else. Everything's sore right now."

  "Billy, if you're going to do this, you've got to stay on your feet"

  "Well, I still don't like it. I need some time to think."

  "There isn't time now. If you can't move with us now, we'll just have to go back to Health Control and start looking for somebody else. Billy, can't you just trust me this once? Work with me like you always have. If we can help get this thing slowed down, I swear I'll get anything for you that you want, if there's any possible way, with Molly as my witness."

  Billy looked up at him. "You mean even my foot?"

  "Your foot? Yes, certainly your foot, if that's what you want. Anything."

  "In this Hospital? Without having to meet any qualifications?"

  "Yes, I'll guarantee it. If I have to take Health Control apart with my bare hands, I'll see that it's done."

  Billy sat up slowly. "You heard him, Molly? You heard what he said?"

  "I heard," the girl said. "And I'll hold him to it."

  "Oka
y, then. He's got a deal." Billy struggled to his feet, started to climb into his coat again. "Better get me that medicine, Doc. And some aspirin too, maybe. I may not have a fever, but my head's swimming."

  "Do you want Molly to go along with you?"

  "No, no, that wouldn't be safe. What you're talking about is going to be very tricky. I'll go alone, and I'll either make out all right or I won't." He winced as Doc's injection pierced his arm, rubbed the spot as he pulled his sleeve down. "I think I'll be okay if I can get this head to stand still."

  "Well, don't take silly chances, and check back here by phone this evening, do you understand? Leave a message if I'm not here. Molly and I will be contacting all the patients I have records on, but I'll keep one phone line open with a tape on it all the time. If you run into trouble, let me know, and call sooner if you need to."

  "Okay." Billy opened the door, started out, then turned back. "Okay. But Doc—you'd better not forget what you said."

  "Don't fret about it," Doc said quietly. "This time I won't forget."

  II

  In spite of his aching muscles and his aching head and the lingering feverish distrust of the whole impossible project, Billy Gimp moved swiftly after leaving Doc and Molly behind. He had understood the scope of their talk perfectly well, for all his apparent bewilderment, and he recognized from the start that the people he would have to contact and—somehow—convince of the urgency of the crisis and the necessary steps to be taken could not be reached by telephone. They would have to be sought out one by one in their nests and warrens throughout the Lower City—those that were willing to be sought out at all—and Billy knew the search would not be easy. And since cabs would be the fastest way to move through the labyrinthine regions of the city that he was going to have to travel, Billy chose cabs, using the handful of currency that Doc had shoved into his hand for the purpose as he was departing.