by John Shirley
An amplified voice boomed out from below: “THIS IS YOUR TRADITIONALIST PATRIARCH DELEGATE AT WORK! MARK THE FACE OF DELEGATE LADD AND KNOW IT FOR THE ENEMY!” The words echoed from the surrounding canyon walls of steel and glass. The crowd below, watching the huge holo image on the sky, roared like wounded bear.
Ben had lost the battle. They could follow him everywhere with the mobile camera, and actions unfitting a delegate would be exposed to the public, ruining his cover. But he resolved not to lose the war.
He looked toward the closed double doors shutting the balcony from the apartments. Through a pane he glimpsed the lonely face of Carleton Fuller.
Fuller was laughing.
Wracked with frustration, Ben swung back into the car. “Take it back home. I’ll work from there.”
Two hours later, after the Brothers of Proteus had accomplished considerable mayhem (forty deaths by explosion and three by sniping) in the name of Progressivism, Ben felt he might have produced enough fresh anti-Progressivist sympathies to use in the manipulation of the gathering crowd. He had arranged to protect himself from the cameras with a scrambler field, a small metal box attached to his belt to resemble a buckle. But he could not attack Chaldin’s stronghold directly; he had lost the element of surprise.
Walking the earth, he stepped onto the front steps of the tower and addressed the demonstrators. He spoke through a micro-amplifier attached to the lapel of his conservative gray suit, and he activated the exciter, attuning it to full output.
“The Progressivist terrorists have maimed innocents for the last time!” The crowd turned to size him up. Its interest quickened as it recognized the face of the holo image who’d dominated the sky hours before. “These atrocities cannot be permitted to continue! Note that the Security Patrol sympathizes with the Progressivists! The police-thug-tools of the monarchical oppressor are themselves Progressivists…”
Less than half an hour later he had them whipped into a vengeful mood. He would have liked to have believed it was his own eloquence, personal presence, and sheer charisma which compelled them to shed their prudence. But he knew that it was largely the exciter.
He played on their sympathies and their fear of terrorists and on their universal dislike of cops. These approaches were only lubrication for the real mechanism of control: the release of repressed hostilities, magnified by their numbers, focused and intensified by his practiced use of the exciter.
And he got them moving toward the Tower of Lenses.
It was a mile across level ground. He enjoyed the walk. He stretched his legs, breathed deep of the warm afternoon air. He had them chanting: PULL THEM DOWN! PULL THEM DOWN! PROGRESSIVISTS DOWN! PULL THEM DOWN! He listened to them like a pleased primary school instructor nodding as his pupils rang out the alphabet.
Like an aboriginal battle drum the chant resounded and echoed. They seemed hardly aware that Ben was there, behind them, directing, though they must have known, somewhere inside, that another personality was driving them. Their eyes were staring, glassy, their pupils pinpoints, their mouths open. Ben thought, A persuadable bunch. He wondered why Detroit’s pedestrians were so eminently gullible. It could probably be traced to their enforced lack of family life. The frustrated hearth instincts found easy outlet in mob activity—the mob was the closest thing they had to a family.
Listening to the throb of their chant and the throb of the exciter driving them before him, Ben envisioned the plexiform of emotional electricity connecting them in a mesh pattern which had its nexus in him, afferently passing to him the energies of their freed anger. This he received, amplified, and returned to them. He fed the mob. The growing mob. For it grew by the seconds as their personal magnetisms attracted bystanders and snowballed the mob into a crushing horde.
Everywhere, the invisible but inescapable unconscious diatribes. He picked up, as background noise, the crowd’s telepathic invectives against all those who had offended over the years. “Damn them … make them eat … walk on them … make them know what pedestrian means as a street knows … kiss my ... lot of them to … bury alive … make them … force them … hang them from the neck or better from their …”
Chaldin’s tower was in sight. Kibo had reported that Chaldin had rented the entire building. A brace of gray Security wagons settled to the ground on the street ahead. Ben smiled. Good! The police would provoke the mob for him, and save him energy.
Ben realized that his plan was sadly vague. He was not sure what he intended to do. It is the great improviser who is always triumphant, Old Thorn had said. Generally, he planned to drive the mob directly into Chaldin’s jaws. He would have them looting the building, crushing anyone defending it. And when they had frightened off the sentries, Ben would go in, from below, take advantage of the confusion. And find Gloria. And maybe, maybe she would be alive.
The Security crew got one good look at the faces of the mob—and got back inside their vans. The vans spewed a yellow, eye-stinging smoke from their outvents. Ben shouted, “Past them! Charge!”
Holding its collective breath, he crowd charged through the thin smoke blanket, past the gray nulgrav vans, across the intersection and onto the walk leading to the Tower of Lenses. Ben glimpsed a man in a wheelchair wheeling it back into the building. The crowd below the speaker’s stand there turned to face the onrushing horde from Ben’s quarter.
From forty feet away, Ben gazed suddenly into the eyes of the man on the dais and knew him for an Irritant. It was the only other man who might have the savvy to control an exciter. It was Teude Regis.
Regis!
Regis and Ben regarded one another. Once, they had worked together. But now, Regis’ bearded face was hard, his saturnine, sunken eyes glowed with anticipation of the kill. He wore shapeless black robes with a Progressivist symbol sewn on the chest in red. How many false banners have you and I uncaringly waved, Regis? thought Ben. Regis raised his arms and seemed to be concentrating. So Regis had been implanted with an exciter, too. Professional Irritant against Professional Irritant, exciter versus exciter, turmoil and Transmaniacon.
Ben’s mob and Regis’ came to a halt, facing off. They could have been mirror-images. They were the same people, dressed in the same somber clothes—but now divided against one another. Livid faces, dark clothing, red and shouting mouths.
Ben weighed the odds. The sun was behind him. It would possibly be a distraction to Regis, shining in his eyes. But Regis commanded a larger mob, almost twice as big. He’d had all morning to gather it. Ben looked up at the glistening tower and his mouth formed the name Gloria. But aloud he said, “Get them before they get you! Before they call their friends the police!”
The crowd charged, and Regis stiffened.
For an instant, there was a rapport between the two professionals. Ben’s exciter, like a god’s scepter, and the exciter of Regis, like a wizard’s wand, exchanged electronic signals, and Ben caught a wavering mental image of the energy patterns and the distribution of will-force over the crowd from Regis’ viewpoint. Ben nodded with satisfaction. Regis had little experience with the exciter…which would count mightily against him. Ben glanced behind. The Security wagons were held down by sniper fire from nearby rooftops. Kibo was earning his pay. As the mob fought, tooth and nail, strangling and slugging, flailing and kicking, Ben picked out those individuals with greater reserves of unvented hostility and concentrated on them. They became the spearheads of his force.
Regis made the mistake of trying to encompass the entire crowd, treating it as a single entity, a multi-limbed monster he would bend to his will. It was true that the mob was a single creature in many ways, a multi-celled organism, but there were levels and currents and cross-currents in crowds, as with any fluid medium, and these must be taken into account. The exciter could not be used to swing a mob as simply as one would swing a bludgeon.
Regis and Ben radiated pure provocation and the air steamed and stank with rage.
In the aura of sudden release of long-repressed energies, in t
he continuous, untiring explosion of transparent furies, the world was transformed. The sun seemed to burn more fiercely in the sky, the electric lights and neon signs on the patriarch levels overhead glowed three times brighter than usual and the windows of the buildings seemed ominously bright. The patriarchs had been warned away from the area; the sky was clear of them. For now, the world was just a setting for pedestrian rage.
The noise of the crowd rose to cacophony; it generated a tumultuous roar, as Ben’s forces shivered Regis’ over-consolidated crowd from within. Regis’ crowd splintered and Ben’s people charged. It was then Regis made his last mistake. He allowed himself to experience fear. Only his sense of authority, his faith in his own indomitability sustained him as master over the crowds. Fear attracted hostility.
Regis feared.
The crowd turned against him.
Ben looked away. Regis had been a worthy peer, once. He was crushed in seconds.
Ben shut off the exciter; it wasn’t needed now, and it could endanger him.
A shadow fell over him. Ben looked up.
The sky was filled with ships. Huge black Security carriers were bringing their troops down to the street. He had to move fast.
He directed the crowd into the tower, and he followed at a discreet distance. He didn’t care to see them tear the sentries apart. He ran up the steps, into the building, and pushed past the looters, sliding inobtrusively in and out of the crowd, trying hard not to jostle. The air was alive with shouts of glee, crackling, breaking glass. It was an old building, and still used fire extinguishers in wall-niches rather than built-in snuffers. He hoped he could get in and out before it caught fire. He found a servants’ elevator and ducked into it, pressed the button, and waited impatiently, pacing back and forth, checking and rechecking his needler, cursing the delay. It took forty seconds to get to the top.
He was so keyed up when he reached the top floor that he fired wildly as the door opened, without looking first to see who was there. He squeezed off three spasmodic shots, splintering a fire extinguisher— scraps of metal and C02 foam flew. Then he lowered the gun and took five deep breaths, concentrating to slow his heartbeat. When he felt in control, he looked out into the hall. No one there. Two halves of a fire extinguisher still gushed froth on the floor.
Gun at ready, he sidled down the hall, periodically looking over his shoulder. He approached the apartment where he expected to find Chaldin. It occurred to him, as he reached that door, that Chaldin might very well have gone. With the mob out of control and his Professional Irritant dead, Chaldin would be wise to take to the sky.
And Gloria?
“Who the hell’s been attacking fire extinguishers?” said someone behind him.
He whirled, finger trembling on the trigger. Then he lowered the gun, smiling sheepishly. “You okay, Gloria?”
“Sure—what you think, I can’t take care of myself? I’m some dumb fairy princess to rescue from the dragon? Christ. Those assholes don’t even have the sense to tie me up good. First time he turned his back I slipped out my boot knife and stuck it in the guard.”
“I see. And then you hid on the premises and they thought you’d gone. Where is he?”
“From what I could gather, they’re headed for the Fist.”
Ben groaned. “Well, they forced our hand and now we’ve forced theirs. So be it.” He was tired, nearly exhausted. Almost disgusted. He slumped against the wall, looking at Gloria. She had just killed a man, but, pale and slight with eyes mocking, she looked like an adolescent girl. “You still angry with me?”
She sighed and shrugged. “No. Because when I got mad, started playing games with Fuller, he almost did me in. He would have killed me, eventually, if I hadn’t gotten away. I guess I forgot that, for a while. You’re no white knight, but you’d never do what he did. Slug me when I was trying to deal with him and then do me while I was out—”
Ben swallowed. “He raped you?”
She nodded, very slightly, her face was paler then usual. “Didn’t hurt me, much.” She turned to Ben violently, and spat out, “And don’t give me that manly-sympathy crap! I don’t want to hear it. I’ll kill him, that’s all.”
Ben opened his mouth to retort, then snapped it shut. He nodded. Don’t make things worse.
They were silent for a time. Then Gloria said, “I saw—from the window. Your contest with Regis, the other exciter. You did—”
“Don’t," said Ben, raising a hand for quiet. “You have something you don’t want to talk about. That’s something I don’t want to discuss.” He squeezed his eyes shut. But the suppressed pictures were coming now. No getting rid of them. He saw the crowd, the mobs, saw the scene subjectively this time, no longer watching it from cinematic impartiality, recognizing himself for the catalyst. He saw women clawing the eyes out of young men, and a boy no more than seventeen writhing as three men jumped up and down on his chest. And blood. Blood, flowing and eager like the liquid incarnation of once-repressed hostilities. And Ben Rackey saw Ben Rackey standing there in the midst of it, calmly orchestrating.
He felt he was going to be sick. For the first time, he realized that the exciter took something out of him physically. It gradually drained him, and now he was feeling it.
The door to the left opened. Gloria grabbed for Ben’s needler. She fired it wildly at the opening door, and the shot went into a wall. Kibo stepped out, unharmed. He holstered his gun, seeing Ben and Gloria, and shrugged as she apologized.
Kibo turned to Ben. “We’re anchored outside. We’ve got to leave by nulgrav car, the Securities are arresting everyone on the street except each other. Anyone resists, they shoot. We saw the owl-car leave—headed in the general direction of the Fist. You want to follow?”
Ben didn’t want to follow. He wanted to go home to bed, take a trank, and sleep for a long time. But he murmured, “Yes.”
Kibo helped him through Chaldin’s deserted apartments—stripped nearly clean, and what equipment remained was smashed—and out onto the balcony, into the nulgrav car.
Ben leaned back in his seat.
Without looking at him, Gloria took his hand. “Christ. We’re stupid. But you’re stuck with this thing and I’m stuck with you. And don’t try to tell me I’m not.” She kissed his hand. “Hm. Your hand’s all sweaty. You’re going to make yourself sick if you keep this nonsense up. Why don’t you have that thing pulled out of your chest? It’s like a sore tooth, Ben. It spoils everything.”
“I’m already sick. I keep seeing things…down there on the steps.” He shook his head. “This is it. After today, my cover’s not operative. It’s now or never.” The car clicked, whirred, automatically un-hooked its anchor, and rose, swished north, for the Fist-site.
“Okay then, if this is it, we’d better be ready. Take some of this,” Gloria said. She handed him a small plastic vial filled with white powder. “It’s a stimulant. Chaldin provided us with it. My brother was addicted. Takes a long, long time, lots of use, to get addicted. You don’t have to worry. It’s either that, or give in now.”
Ben stared at the vial doubtfully.
“Uh—you’ve been taking this stuff all along?”
“Nope! Been saving it. It’s hard to get. I don’t like to get stoned much, anyway. Makes me paranoid. But the way you’re feeling now…”
“Okay. How? Do I swallow it?”
She shook her head. “You sniff it. Better take lots. Good for about six hours if you do enough. It’s real pure stuff. Here, open it up, I’ll show you . . .”
Twenty minutes later, Ben felt immensely better. “You’re a witch, Gloria! With magic potions. Hmm. Sorta like the Snap-ups they. sell in vending machines in New York. And sorta like methcools. But more so. And there’s a magical quality. Powdered confidence. Ah-hard to get, you say?”
She laughed. “Yeah. And it’s a bad idea to get too attached. But have one more sniff, to nail it down good.”
“Okay.” Yes, he felt considerably better.
He reached for
the microphone and punched Bolton’s number. The young man’s face appeared on the screen set into the console under the windshield. Ben nodded to him shortly and said, “Remm told you to be ready to test the Fist this week?”
“Yes, but now? Have you seen what’s been, going on? Why, it isn’t safe to venture out! The pedestrians are all in an uproar, people killed, and no offense, Ladd, but I understand that you had some—”
“Never mind!” Ben snapped. “Time presses. The opposition is on its way to sabotage the Fist and they’ve got a lead over us. These are the times that try men’s souls! When the going gets tough the tough get going!” He ran out of slogans. “I expect to get to the Fist in time, but I’m not sure. The damn thing is ready and I’m not interested in testing it, I’m interested in using it and right now. Before anything else can happen to stop me. The Barrier falls today. All I need is you and the other two. You are to act as focusing units. Be there in ten minutes and be prepared.”
Ben shut off the screen, blanking out Bolton’s protest.
“I hope he shows.” Gloria said.
“I think he will. He’s in this too far to desert me now. Ahh—there’s the Fist.”
Gloria craned to peer out the window for her first look at the monumental transmitter.
“Looks like one of those terraced Mayan pyramids,” she said. “But bigger and shiny and smooth and with a metal bowl on top. It fires the beam through that bowl thing?”
“Yes. The Fist itself functions almost exactly as does the Barrier. It produces an impenetrable field of densely flowing ions…but, unlike the Barrier, the charged particles travel in an electromagnetic funnel which forces them into a single shaft, a thrusting tractor of sheer force. Like a fist. It drives straight upward and meets the Barrier and penetrates it.” The drug made him feel expansive and he continued, lecturing on one of his favorite topics: “Now, the Barrier could be compared with a balloon. Its shape depends on the equal distribution of pressure over its whole surface. So if it can be penetrated completely, the field disrupted by a large enough shaft at any one point, the rest of it will, uh, unravel. It will pop like a huge balloon, and disintegrate. Of course, the transmitter for the Barrier could rebuild the field again, but if we leave the shaft of force there, at the point of contact, the Barrier will only shatter once more when it comes in contact with—”