The Invisible City

by Brian K. Lowe

  Their emotions made me sick. I spun again and found myself up against a door. I pushed it open and went inside.

  The lobby I found myself in was high and cool. Lights filled out every shadow, but where they were coming from I couldn't see. The crowd outside had already moved on, and those coming behind didn't even know I was here. I took a deep breath, feeling more relaxed in my oasis, even though I knew it was only temporary: I had to go back outside to meet Bantos Han so that he could give me a tour of the city. Moreover, whoever worked in this building would arrive soon, and I would have to leave before I attracted more attention.

  Still, it was another opportunity to learn. Directly ahead of me was a tall interior shaft, constructed of the same shiny material as the walls—although I noticed now that under the indoor light, they did not shine but gleamed quietly, like soft wood.

  To my right as I entered was a tall lighted screen. I couldn't read the script, but from the order of the lines I guessed it must be a building directory. Each line had a circle next to it, where a summoning bell might go, but when I felt the screen it was flat, without a button or bell of any kind that I could see. Curiously, I touched one of the circles. Immediately a door silently opened in the shaft ahead of me, revealing a small room. I almost laughed—an elevator! It chimed to me softly, but before I could decide to take it up on its invitation I was startled to hear a small noise on the other side of the screen.

  I froze. The noise did not recur, nor did anyone peek around the screen to see who was there. It could be a watchman, stationed in the lobby during the night—but then why didn't he present himself, asking my business?

  When I was very small, I picked up a sharp stick in a field and used it to poke inside a tree trunk, just because I wanted to know what was inside. I found out very quickly—a beehive—and if not for a handy pond nearby I would have paid dearly for my intrusion. As it was I had to bury myself in the muddy water for a long time before they went away, and when my parents, frantic with worry, found me at last, wet and filthy, my father gave me a treatment that even the bees would have been proud of.

  That incident taught me about bees, but it did nothing to cure my damnable streak of curiosity. Before my rational mind could overrule the little boy inside, I peeked around the screen.

  There was a desk back there, with a man hunched over it. The elevator was invisible from where he sat, and he must have thought I had boarded it and gone, because he was speaking softly at the desk, as I had seen Bantos Han and his family do at home. Bantos Han had tried to explain a "computer" to me, but I had no idea what he was talking about. It was one of those things that we had decided was best left for later.

  What this man was doing on a computer in a deserted building at sunrise was a mystery to me, but then again it was none of my business, either. I should have left him alone and slipped away, but I couldn't stop staring. I stared for so long it was inevitable he would notice me, and at last he jerked his head about and looked straight into my face.

  He was one of the Silver Men.

  Thinking me a Nuum who had caught him at his mischief, naturally his first thought was to murder me.

  7. I Give Chase

  The pale red beam flicked out at my head. Having learned from my previous experience with the Silver Men, my head wasn't there when it arrived. The ray only bored a smoking hole in the wall behind me.

  Instantly, a siren began to wail, activated by the smoke or perhaps the firing of the weapon itself. I crouched alongside the desk waiting for the Silver Man to poke his gun around the corner, but he never did. I stuck my head up in time to see the elevator door close behind him.

  Over the door an indicator read off the floors as the car whizzed by. He stopped at the top floor. I ran into the next car in line. There was no operator and no lever. Jumping up and down in my impatience as the door slid closed I was nearly frightened out of my skin when the elevator said:

  "Please do not rock the car. What floor, please?"

  I said, "Top," and when the doors opened I found myself in a small penthouse hallway, framed in the elevator like a man in a shooting gallery.

  The corridor was short, with only a door at the other end and one door halfway down its length. There was no knob in evidence on the nearer door, and a small light off to the side only blinked at me when I passed my hand over it. As near as I could tell, it was locked. Unless my quarry had a key, he was somewhere on the other side of the other door, which probably lead out to the roof.

  The siren was still shrieking, quieter on this floor but still much in evidence. I had no time to wonder what it meant, but I was sure it had something to do with me—and that someone was coming to answer it.

  I passed my hand over the light next to the second door, and it obediently slipped aside. The early morning sun struck me full in the face and saved my life—as I involuntarily stepped back a murderous beam missed me by inches.

  The corridor behind me was a trap, with no cover. I ducked and ran forward even as my eyes were watering from the sun and I couldn't see my attacker. More by instinct than design I found a sheltering vent and huddled behind it, blinking my eyes to clear them.

  Even after I could see again, I stayed motionless and listened. The vent I crouched behind was about five feet tall, with an inclined top that angled downward away from me, and the same smooth finish as the rest of the building. Under my feet, the roof was flat, and years of dust, rain, and birds had worn the surface of even this fantastic material. I had felt the fine grit under my shoes as I ran, and I knew that no one could walk up here without making a noise.

  My nerves tightened until I could hear the wind scraping my clothing against my skin. The unending siren seemed miles away. The breeze played with my hair, waving it before my eyes, and rasped across my ears. I turned my head into the wind and twisted at a sudden noise behind me—but it was only a large black bird, watching me with an unnaturally intelligent stare, as though he wanted a ringside seat to the drama that had unfolded beneath his wings.

  I'll bet you know where he is, I thought bitterly, but the bird only cawed at me and took wing—eliciting a startled grunt from the other side of the vent.

  He had to know where I was; what he didn't know was whether or not I was armed. I was the only one who knew the answer to that, but I knew it was the wrong answer. I couldn't attack him without a weapon; he couldn't attack me without me hearing him. Sooner or later, though, he would have to risk it, and I was stuck here, unless…

  I scraped up a handful of tiny pebbles from the area around my feet, slipped them into my pocket, and stood up slowly. Peeking over the top of the vent, I saw what I had hoped to see: The angle of the top of the vent had kept it relatively clear of debris. Carefully I lifted myself to the top of the vent. I had to bend my knees to keep my shoes from scraping, and all my weight was supported by my arms for what seemed like several minutes. I breathed only through my nose lest I make a noise.

  Finally I gained the top and gathered my feet underneath me, crouching on the vent. I couldn't see him; fortunately, the morning sun was still in front of me, or my shadow would have stood out across the roof and I would have been cut down in an instant. I reached into my pocket and flung the pebbles across the roof. I heard the scraping of feet below me, and I jumped.

  I landed behind him, wrapping an arm around his throat before he could react. He grabbed my arm and twisted from the waist, but instead of throwing me off he only slammed me into the side of the vent. With my free hand I clutched for his arm. He was wearing a long, flapping coat which kept getting in the way, but it hindered him as much as me.

  He tangled his leg with mine and I went down hard, but I wouldn't let go and he fell on top of me. He tried to twist away and I turned his trick on him, tangling his own leg between mine. Growing up, I had often been forced to defend myself from my three older brothers, and those lessons were coming back now.

  I tried to turn us over, but it was no use; he was twisting like a snake and writhing
like a maddened tiger, and it was all I could do to hold on. I was bigger and heavier, but we were trapped, neither able to gain the upper hand. Were we both unarmed, I might have overwhelmed him, but the minute I let him go he was going to shoot me. Then he got a hand free and grabbed my ear.

  What he did I don't know, but I screamed and jerked away. This time he let me go, scrambling to his feet. He raised his weapon and fired—directly over my head. For a moment I thought he was stunned, but then he ducked behind the vent housing which suddenly burst into flame!

  Not knowing what was behind me I rolled away from the flames as fast as I could. When I dared I rolled to my feet and looked up. The siren had been answered. The sky was full of men.

  There were at least a dozen round platforms floating in the air above the street before me. Each one held a Nuum. They buzzed about like bees attacking a bear, gouts of orange light spouting from their cumbersome rifles to split into flame against the roof and walls of the building.

  Though I couldn't see him, I knew how my foe was responding from the way they would suddenly dart and weave, avoiding a death that I could not distinguish against the pale morning sky. Suddenly a flier failed to move fast enough, and platform and rider plunged earthward in one sodden mass.

  It came to me in a flash that none of the combatants had any time to worry about me. I could gain the elevator in seconds and be on the ground before they knew I was gone. Yet I stood planted in my place. This could be my only chance to talk to one of the Silver Men. Left to his own devices he would be dead within a few minutes, and my opportunity to find out what had happened to me might be gone. On the other hand, if I interfered, I could be dead in a few minutes, and it wouldn't matter a damn.

  But for now it did. It mattered a whole lot.

  I ran for my former shelter, still bubbling and smoking from that first hit. But now it was out of the line of fire, and unless the Nuum were terrible marksmen, it was as safe as anywhere else. I stood poised for a few seconds, catching my breath, wracking my brain for a way to get the Nuum to stop firing long enough to keep from shooting me while I subdued the Silver Man. Again, Fate took my choice away.

  The Silver Man whipped around the corner, running straight for the penthouse. Without a thought, I shot out of concealment after him, doubtless the stupidest stunt of my short and reckless life. But somehow the Nuum held their fire, and with my outstretched hand I clutched at the other's flapping coat. He pulled up short. I fell into him and he pushed me away. I could hear the low humming of the platforms as they dropped toward us. The Silver Man spun, sprinted for the edge of the building, and leaped into space.

  Surpassing the briefly-held "stupidest stunt" record, I jumped after him.

  8. The People Rise

  The God who protects fools surely protected me. I slammed immediately into the man's body and held on for dear life as we both plummeted to the ground. How I knew that we were not about to die is a mystery to me to this day.

  He battered me about the head and shoulders while the wind snatched at his frantic shouts and swept them away.

  "Let go, you idiot!" I wouldn't; why would I? "You'll get us both killed! You're fouling the outlet jets!"

  I could feel something encircling his body where I clutched it close to me. I took a chance, releasing my grip ever so slightly so that I was holding his coat. He had only to shuck out of it to be rid of me forever, but now that I had freed him, he was too busy to worry about me.

  He fumbled with something around his waist—I couldn't see because my eyes were tightly shut, but I could feel his movements.

  "We're going to hit!" he shouted, but I could feel our descent slowing. I opened my eyes in time to look down and unlock my knees. We hit the ground and rolled: battered but alive. In the impact I tore the Silver Man's coat clean off his shoulders.

  We both lay there panting as a stunned crowd gathered. I tried to catalogue the pains in my legs, shoulders, and back. Far above me I could see the Nuum, descending far more slowly than we had. Suddenly the Silver Man scrambled to his feet and shoved through the crowd.

  I was a second behind him, throwing aside creatures that until now I had never imagined existed, and would never have touched in a dream. But each of them reacted as any human being would, scattering before us with a rising cry of bewilderment and fear.

  I ran full bore down the avenue, still holding the man's coat in one clenched hand, aches and pains and coat forgotten in my desperation. I had risked death by fire and by falling to catch this man, and I wasn't going to lose him now. Up ahead I spotted him bouncing off startled pedestrians. For me, they parted like the Red Sea. They thought I was a Nuum, and at that moment, I was perversely glad. The feeling did not last.

  A shadow passed me by, skimming the crowd until it overtook my quarry. The Nuum hovered overhead and in front of him, cutting off his escape. The Silver Man raised his weapon, but the Nuum fired first, aiming hastily from his unstable floating platform. The shot went wide into the crowded sidewalk—striking a pedestrian who flew backward through the air, dead before he hit the ground.

  A woman grazed by the same shot screamed and kept on screaming—but her hoarse shouts met with a vacuum. The entire street was frozen in horror. Even the fugitive and I had stopped dead in our tracks. Suddenly the tableau was broken by the swooping arrival of the other Nuum. Guns drawn, engines roaring, they landed their craft on the sidewalk and the street heedless of the people underfoot. They had almost reached the Silver Man when the first rock flew.

  The whole block went up like wildfire. Office workers and passersby and people of all walks of life suddenly became a hysterical mob armed with fists, lunch boxes, and carryalls. They descended on the Nuum like a wave, and the few shots that the conquerors got off only incited them further. Three hundred years of untold degradation and mistreatment erupted on a quiet city street all about me—until a frothing young woman clubbed me with her briefcase and I remembered too late that to these people, I was also a Nuum…

  I hardly remember how I survived that day. The mob surrounded me like an ocean wave; it beat mainly upon the Nuum, but I was battered and kicked and slapped. I have vague recollections of being knocked to the ground and realizing that I still held the coat, I threw it over my head and red coverall as best I could, concealing the color that to the mob was as a red flag to a bull.

  I was stepped on and kicked still, but it was the mindless movement of the crowd, and not any deliberate abuse. I curled into a defensive ball and prayed my bones would hold. In a few minutes, the noise died away and I risked raising the coat far enough to see.

  It was No-Man's-Land all over again. I saw the civilian dead first, most lay on their stomachs, facing the Nuum's last position, those who had died storming against the foe. But others lay facing opposite, black scorch marks on their backs, arms, necks and heads. The air was obscenely perfumed with stench of burnt flesh. In their panic, the Nuum had fired on everyone and everything. It had done them no good.

  At first I could pick the soldiers out solely by the dead that surrounded them. It was difficult to make out the bits of red cloth, among all the blood. Of the bodies, little remained; even the flying platforms had been torn to bits, or perhaps set upon with the Nuum's own weapons. There was evidence that the mob had torn them from the soldiers' hands and turned them on their owners. Even now, as I listened in the eerie silence, I could hear the sounds of superheated air sizzling not far away.

  I was the sole man standing in that graveyard avenue, the sole survivor of the slaughter I had helped to cause.

  Suddenly my eye was attracted by a silvery glint on the ground. Stepping forward, I gingerly moved a dead man out of the way—and found my quarry unconscious, but still breathing. My boot slipped in fresh blood as I freed him. His face was bleeding, but his metallic suit must have saved him from more serious injury. Now I had him; what was I to do with him?

  All at once I found myself in shadow. I looked up to see two large floaters above me, their decks
crowded with men and guns. Many of the latter were pointed in my direction.

  "Ay, there!" a man called from above. "Stand slowly."

  I obeyed, and realizing that I was still partially covered by the now-ruined coat, I let it slide away from me. Immediately the man's face changed and the guns were moved away.

  "Hold on," the man called again. "We'll pick you up."

  "I have a wounded man here."

  "Leave him."

  "I can't," I answered, shaking my head. "He's a prisoner. We were chasing him when the riot started."

  By this time the floater had descended to only a few inches above the ground. Its commander grimaced, plainly nervous to be here. With my officer's eye, I could see his men's eyes were rolling, their attention diverted and their concentration weak. This was not what they had been trained for.

  "Bring him, then, but hurry up,” the commander said, but when he did not offer any assistance, I was obliged to pick the Silver Man up myself and haul him aboard.

  There was a small cabin in the center of the flying disc, and by the time I had dumped my unconscious burden there with whatever gentleness I could muster, we were again airborne, heading by my guess toward the ongoing fighting. I had never flown before, and I admit that the experience would have been unnerving even without the grisly events of the past hour.

  As it was, the buildings betwixt which we flew caused updrafts and cross-winds that kept the little craft bobbing like a sailboat on a rough sea, and when, on approaching the disturbance, a random flash of weapons-fire prompted the commander to order immediate evasive maneuvers, I was thrown from side to side of the cabin and hard-pressed not to spread my breakfast all over its floor. At that I was lucky; had I been standing on deck, unprepared, I would surely have been thrown overboard to my death.