A Talent For The Invisible (v1.1) (13 page)

“I voted for the guy in two elections,” said Vic, still up in the truck. “It’s like I know him.”

Conger dropped silently to the floor of the storeroom.

“Get your fanny down here, peckerwood,” ordered Big Mac.

“Everything else went smoothly.” Ting came to the rear of the truck, climbed up and opened the doors. “Not one of the cops or NSO agents watching the Forest Lawn #3 All-Faith Drive-In Fly-In Mortuary tumbled to our being there. Those mind-dimming vapors of Sandman’s really work well.”

Vic, a large redheaded man of thirty, reluctantly followed Ting up into the truck. “It’s very beautiful out there, that mortuary and cemetery,” he said. “They got a water fountain which plays both the national and state anthem and a replica of the Last Supper made completely out of …”

“You’ll be on view there, crumbum, if you don’t get going.” Big Mac waved his laser pistol.

“I told you he’d fall on the floor if you didn’t pack those rugs tight around him, Vic.”

“Gee, Jerry, you guys are always chewing me out. What difference does it make? A little plop onto the floor from a tabletop isn’t going to do him all that much harm. He’s already dead.”

Conger explored the storeroom. Near the wide doorway they’d entered sat a compact black landcar. This would be the vehicle Big Mac was going to use to take the body of McSherry the final distance to Sandman.

Stacked high round the buff color walls were cases of canned sandwiches and party snacks. Near the door which led to the betting club stood a dozen broken down betting machines.

He heard a faint creak in the shadows near the machines. Angelica was there, ducked behind a low wall of cartons. Conger made a silencing motion, knowing she could see him, and went back toward the rear of the truck.

“He’s what you’d call portly.” Vic came backwards out of the truck, holding the feet end of the sacked body of the state senator. “Oh, gee!” The big redheaded man’s foot slipped on the loading step. He fell to the floor, letting go of McSherry.

Ting came bicycling out of the truck. He still clutched the other end of the body. When it dropped he came dropping with it.

Big Mac took time to cuff Vic with his left hand. “Clutchbutt,” he said.

He bent to gather up the body. “Get away, I’ll tote the mothering thing myself.”

Conger walked over to stand near the car.

Halfway there Big Mac stopped, blinked, threw the body of McSherry aside. “You again!” He aimed his gun.

“Why it’s the invisible man,” said Ting.

Conger ran, diving behind a row of cartons. He’d lost control of the invisibility trick again.

Big Mac’s pistol sizzled and five feet above Conger’s head a carton of teabiscuits jumped and began to burn. “Come on out and surrender yourself, asswipe.”

“Okay, Big Mac, that’s enough shooting,” said Angelica.

Conger couldn’t see her from where he was.

“We got all kinds of mothering spies tonight.”

“Put the gun down on the floor,” ordered Angelica. “You too, Jerry, or . . . oh.”

Big Mac’s blaster crackled again. “You got to watch where you’re stepping, honey, lest you trip.” After a few seconds Ting said, “Why’d you go and do that, Mac? She’s dead.”

“These motherjumps are all over,” remarked Big Mac. “Let’s get going.”

The engine in the car hummed on.

The doors to the street opened.

Ting and Vic ran across the storeroom floor, hefting the body of State Senator McSherry.

The car went away.

Conger heard it all from behind the wall of boxes. He stood in shadows, hunched, swallowing hard.

“Deus!”
said Canguru’s voice.
“Sinto muito.”

Taking in air through his open mouth, Conger stepped out into the open. He stopped three feet short of Angelica. He didn’t kneel, didn’t try to touch her.

The slender dark girl lay, all knees and elbows, on her back. There was a dark hole, small, the size of a dime, just above her left breast.

Conger realized he was shivering, stopped himself. “Do you know where they’re going from here?”

“No, senhor,” said the little blond spy. “I had assumed there was some entry way to Sandman’s lair concealed here at … ha!” He bent. Beside the dead Angelica on the floor were her gun and a palm-size square black metal box. “A cartrace monitor. She must have planted a tracebug on the car they took off in. I know she was here in this room long before Big Mac returned.” He held the small box out to Conger.

Conger hesitated, then took it. It gave off faintly the smell of the scent the dark girl had used. Swallowing again, he said, “Stay here, Canguru. Watch her, don’t let anybody move her. I’ll be back.”

The little spy said, “You’re sure you can continue?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” answered Conger. “Look at me now. Can you see me?”

“
Sim,
yes.”

Fists clenched, Conger concentrated on becoming invisible once again, “Now?”

“I still see you, although you seem a little less substantial.”

“And now?”

“Muito bem,”
Canguru told him. “You are completely invisible. I can not even see the cartrace monitor in your hand.”

“I should have been able to stay invisible before,” said Conger. “Damn it.” He looked once more at the dead girl, then left the place.

The clicking monitor box led Conger, invisible, to the outskirts of Level Four. The flare of lights, the slamming music was all dim and far behind him. Here there were unfinished buildings, twisting passways of raw earth, dusty mounds of unused grey construction blocks. The ceilings high above were incomplete, consisting partly of unfinished wood beams. The support pillars were unpainted, rusted over in jagged crusty orange streaks. Gobs of black puffy mildew grew on the walls of the blank buildings.

Lean dogs prowled, sniffing at the ruined men who slept on the incomplete stretches of sidewalk. On the last corner of the last chunk of pavement two men crouched, sharing a pouch of sweet white wine, laughing together. The one who laughed the loudest had no nose.

Conger passed by them, following the trail of Big Mac’s car.

Out beyond everything stretched muddy fields. Here and there bonfires, made from building siding and smashed up cartons, burned. One fire, burning a thin pale yellow, illuminated a huddle of squatting old men.

Another fire, further along, had been built by a cluster of mud-colored young people. Just outside the glare of the fire a young girl cried out, “Jesus, don’t let these guys do this. Please!”

Conger continued on his way.

Finally he came to a house-size pile of junked landcars. A single derelict sat on a fat life-time tire, holding his hands to a small cook fire. As the man shifted his position the fire flashed on the blaster hanging under bis raggedy coat.

Conger pushed a truthbug against the man’s dirty neck. The monitor box indicated Big Mac’s car had gone further underground at this spot.

“Yes, buddy,” said the fake derelict when the truthbug took him over.

“How can I oblige you?”

“I want to go down below.”

“I’m only supposed to let authorized personnel do that,” explained the dazed guard. “Anyone else I send on their merry way. The scum who live around here, they’re no trouble to keep away. More persistent people I shoot.” He moved a convincingly filthy hand to tap at his gun. “Should the law approach, which, thank your lucky stars, they haven’t to date, I push the alarm button.” He pointed an ancient shoe in the direction of a partially concealed silver button.

“That’s a nice job resume,” said Conger. “Now how do you open the passage down, without setting off any alarms?”

“Easy as pie. Throw the switch beneath the bluebell blue fender right over there. After first inserting all your fingers in the whorl pattern indentifier under the portion of tractor right next to it.”

Conger clutched the guard up, dragged him to the tractor. “I’ll need your fingers. Stick them in where they’re supposed to go.”

The guard reached under the tipped over tractor. “Only to happy to be of service. Anything else I can do to please you? Do you have time for a bowl of slumgullion? I was about to brew …”

Conger dropped him beside the fender concealing the switch. The guard began sleeping. Conger located the switch, threw it.

The pile of metallic junk groaned. A stack of six mangled cars swung out toward him. A hood ornament, liberty holding two torches, snapped free and banged against his shoulder. After the doors of cars opened, he saw a ramp heading downward.

When Conger stepped onto the ramp the junk closed tight behind him.

Everything was clean. The pale green walls, the soft-lit floors of the corridors. The air was cool, smelling of mild soap.

The tracks of Big Mac’s car showed plainly, a chalky brown, on the otherwise spotless corridor floor.

Around the next bend a guard, dressed in a one-piece uniform which matched the walls, sat in a realwood chair. He didn’t notice Conger.

Big Mac’s black landcar was parked in an alcove further along the corridor. The cool green hallway slanted downward beyond the alcove. A ramp forked into three new corridors.

From the middle corridor drifted the sound of voices and the sharp odor of antiseptics. Conger took that route.

Soon on his left he came to a large operating room with two-way see-through walls. The body of State Senator McSherry was on a white table under hanging lamps. He’s been stripped and a Chinese girl in a white jumper and mask was going over the body with a small-nozzle air hose. Two other men stood by. Neither fit the description of Sandman.

Across the hall a door swung open to let Big Mac out. “Make sure you don’t bump the price no higher,” he warned back into the room. “China II is pretty close to solving the resurrection problem on their own, doc.”

Someone inside the room laughed.

Conger knew the laugh. He waited until Big Mac went by, then stepped through the doorway.

“Something more to bitch about, my boy?”

Conger had his pistol out. He became visible, saying, “Hello, Vince.”

Vincent X. Worth, the former Wild Talent Division scientist, grinned up from the copper chair he was lounging in. He’d grown a dropping moustache since Conger’d seen him last, his face was more tanned. He was long and lean, wearing a dark two-piece suit. “Hello, Jake.”

“You son of a bitch,” said Conger. “I sent flowers to your memorial service.”

“Sit down, my boy,” suggested Worth. “I’ll tell you something about the resurrection trade. You don’t meet too many people you feel like having an intelligent talk with.” He kept on grinning. “You’re one of the few people I could confide in while I was with WTD.”

“You didn’t confide much about your plans to fake your death so you could start playing Sandman.”

“No, I didn’t, my boy.” Worth reach a boney hand toward a low table beside his chair.

“Keep your hands in your lap.”

“I’m only getting this bottle of rose hip tablets, Jake. See?” He picked up the container. “Have you tried these? I’ve been taking a dozen each day and they …”

“You really are Sandman, huh?”

“Of course, my boy,” said Worth, taking three tablets.

“I thought you might be another decoy, like Sir Thomas Anstey-Guthrie.”

“Not very likely. I quit, made it look like I was lost in an accident, because I hate to work under anyone. Sit down, won’t you, my boy? We haven’t had a get-together in … how long has it been?”

“Since before you died.”

Worth laughed. “Jake, suppose I’d told you what I was planning to do. You’re too honest and upright to have kept quiet. You would have told Geer, who in turn would have told Sinkovec or Tiefenbacher or whatever buffoon he has to report to. Eventually the President of the United States would even have known about it. My process would be one more property of the American stockpile. I’d have spent the rest of my days bringing self-indulgent senators back to life, with possibly now and then, to avoid criticism, a Pulitzer prize winning playwright or two.”

“Can’t you do it on a large scale?”

“You mean keep everybody alive forever?” Worth chewed up a few more rose hip tablets. “Not very likely, my boy. It’s much too expensive. Which is one reason why I decided to deal with clients like China II. They spend much more profusely than the US does. Besides which, Jake, for most of the buffoons in the world one life time is too much. I’ll tell you something. I originally got onto the Sandman process while I was trying to work out something to thin out the world population a little.”

Keeping his pistol leveled at Worth, Conger sat down and then pushed his chair back against the door.

Worth continued, “Of course I’d been fooling around with cryptobiosis for over a year before that, figuring I could switch it somehow to use for storing WTD agents when they weren’t in use. You know about cryptobiosis, it’s that death like state certain primitive animals, the tardigrade for example, can bring off. It’s a sort of suspended animation. My god, van Leeunwenhuek was messing with this kind of thing back in the 18th Century. He was handicapped, however, in that he didn’t know anything about prostaglandins. See, Jake, in general all prostaglandins are variants of a basic 20-carbon carboxylic fatty acid incorporating a five member cyclopentane … but you probably aren’t following this. What you have to remember, my boy, is that I, working all by myself in that second-rate Wild Talent Division lab, came up with a way to revive the dead.”

“A real first for you,” said Conger. “And you’ve put it to splendid use. I’ve met a few of the guys you lifted up from the grave.”

“Real buffoons most of them, aren’t they?” grinned the lean Worth.

“Though I got a favorable impression of … what was his name? Yeah, old Avo Enzerto down in Urbania. He has the kind of quirky mind I admire.”

“Enzerto is dead again.”

“Oh? I hadn’t heard,” said Worth. “Someone must have killed him all over again, because my process doesn’t fail. It’s not like those brain transplants that were all the rage ten years ago. Only about 25% of those poor buffoons survived.”

“Big Mac killed him.”

Shrugging, Worth said, “He’s a mean bastard. He was in here trying to talk me down to $250,000 for the senator out there. I told him if he wants McSherry alive and kicking the price is $350,000. As a matter of fact, I think AngloRussia is going to agree to $400,000 per job. Think about that, Jake. Think of what I was making at WTD, my boy. I’ve done twenty-one of these resurrections so far. Multiply 21 …”