Armor (50 page)

I tripped on something and slid down on my butt. It hurt like hell. I reached back around and pulled out the culprit. I had landed on the comvid.

I was rearing back to throw it against the side of a shack when it spoke to me in Lya’s voice.

“. . . oh please. Darling,” she was saying, “it can’t do anybody any good if you get killed.”

She sounded awful. Her voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. Despair and worry and fear, and exhaustion from them all, trembled within it. Then the screen flickered to life with her face and I saw it was even worse than it sounded. I hit a key. “Lya? This is Jack.”

She perked up. “Jack? Jack, where are you?”

“Outside the City.”

Her eyes got wide. “The City? But. . . Oh, Jack. You’ve got to help Holly. He’s in the Dome all alone and he won’t come out and they’re going to blow it up in just a few minutes. And he won’t answer me.”

“I’m going there now. Is he really in there alone?” “Yes,” she sobbed. “He’s locked himself in and. Jack, the defense screens are down. He’ll be killed.”

I waited for her sobs to pass. “What happened? How did all this happen?”

She gathered herself together with effort, brushing back the tears and her hair and sitting up straight. Then she told me.

Most of it I knew, who Borglyn was and the like. And what he wanted. Other parts I had assumed. The ultimatum, the landing of the troops, the guarantees of safety for cooperative types. No one had believed Borglyn when he had first claimed to have “arranged” to sabotage the screens. The boards showed green.

Then had come the blast to match the hole Borglyn had already shown me. Shortly afterward, Holly had ordered everyone out. It wasn’t until all were gathered in the valley at the Crew Quarters, that Lya had noticed he was missing.

“I called him at the Dome. And he said he wasn’t coming and that he wouldn’t let anyone else in and. . . and he hasn’t spoken to me since. Jack, you’ve got to do something.”

“I will. But why, Lya? Why did he stay? Did he tell you?”

She frowned and shook her head. “Just that he couldn’t give in to that man, to Borglyn. Not after what happened to the Cityfolk.”

I sighed. “What happened?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you that. I was so worried about. . . Well, they had guns. Jack! I don’t know where they got them. And they attacked Borglyn’s people.”

“And got killed?”

“No! Well, yes, some of them. I guess a lot of them. God, Jack, those monsters have everything!”

“I know. What about the City?”

“Oh, well they all ran back there to hide. But Borglyn called them and told them to bring him all their guns.” “Did they?”

“Some did, I think. But most of them didn’t. Then Borglyn said he was going to teach them a lesson and he started bombing them or. . . whatever he did to us.”

“Mortars.”

“Yes, mortars. He shot them all over the City. Said he was teaching them a lesson.”

I frowned, looked up at the looming slums. Still ugly, but standing.

“Anyway,” she went on. “Then they all came out with the guns and they took them, Borglyn’s people did. But when they got back to the City, he started the mortars again.”

“After they’d given in?”

She nodded. “He said the lesson wasn’t over.”

I looked again at the stacks. It didn’t make sense. Then I reached the end of the perimeter and made the turn inward toward the main square.”

“Goddamn!”

“What, Jack?”

I explained to her that I had just found the lesson. There was no main square. The land was there. Even some of the puddle. But what made it a square, the buildings which surrounded and enclosed it, were gone. Gone. So was most of the far side of the Maze. A square kilometer at least. The only section still intact was the perimeter I had been following. And nothing, nothing at all, was moving. No one.

“Did he kill everybody?” I muttered.

“Jack?” called Lya.

I ignored her, still staring. Then I laughed.

“Jack?” she called again. “Are you laughing?”

“No,” I lied, though I soon stopped. It wasn’t funny, but . . . I had slept through it. It was too terrifying to be anything but funny. Damn, I thought next, I must have been in a coma. I felt the back of my head again. The lump felt bigger to my trembling fingers.

“Of course!” I cried, seeing what must have happened.

“Holly decided to defend the Dome after this.”

She nodded glumly. “That’s right. Jack, can you. . . is there anything you can do?”

“I have a way to get in,” I assured her. If Holly hadn’t closed it, I amended to myself.

I started my trotting again. The small bridge across the creeksewer was just ahead and intact.

“You’ve got to get in and stop him. You’ve got to make him listen.”

“I’ll try,” I puffed, tromping loudly across the small span and on to the river.

“You’ve got to. He won’t listen to me or anyone else from the Project. Lewis was the only one he talked to, and that was hours ago.”

I snorted. “Lewis! Great!”

“Oh, no. Lewis is very concerned.”

I had to stop. I leaned over and braced my hands on my legs. “I’m sure,” I managed to reply.

“He is. Jack. You don’t know. He’s very worried. He said he’d rather give the planet away then have Holly Killed.” “Then why doesn’t he?”

“He tried. Borglyn wants the Dome. But Lewis did say he could have ithe didn’t care.”

I smiled. Now that I could buy.

I looked at the sky. Dawn was coming fast. How many minutes left? I forced myself to stumble ahead, clutching my stomach tightly with a forearm to keep it where it should be. I stopped when I heard the river. I lifted the Comvid and whispered into it. “I’m turning you off, Lya.”

“What’s the matter?” she all but shrieked.

I slammed the volume control. “I’m at the river. Guards will hear you. I’ll talk to you again when I get across.”

She probably said okay. I keyed off and dropped the unit to the ground. Then I crept slowly forward until I could just make out the outlines of the bridge. I didn’t bother to locate the guards I knew must be there. Instead I cut off at a diagonal to the riverbank. The water was still warm. It seemed to clear my head.

Less than a minute later, I was sliding the hatch open. It was very dark inside, much darker than the false dawn outside. I felt my way along slowly, my arms stretched out in front like a sleepwalker, until I found a wall to follow. I had gone maybe ten meters when lights, blaring and blinding, flashed into life overhead. I groaned, covered my eyes with my hands.

“What do you want?” said a stem voice from close by, Holly’s.

I moved my hands and squinted enough to see the blazer pointing my way.

“Holly,” I said as calmly as I could.

“What do you want. Jack?” he repeated.

“I want to know what you’re doing in here.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

He stared awhile, determined to be firm and hard and angry. But he hated it and had to fight himself to do it.

He took a deep breath. “Get out,” he said harshly, waving the barrel back toward the hatch.

“No.”

His eyes widened. “I’ll shoot you.”

“Okay.”

A beat. Another. The gun slumped with his arms. Tears pooled in his eyes.

“Jack, how could you?”

My own eyes began to sting. “I don’t know,” I said at last. And I didn’t.

He looked at the floor. His chest shook. I thought I would die.

Something. Not “sorry.” Not enough. Something. . . . “Holly, one thing.” He looked up at me as though he expected more bad news. I swallowed. “Holly, it was before. I couldn’t have afterwards.”

He understood at once. “Before?” he echoed uncertainly. I nodded. He made a half smile. He waved me down the corridor. I followed behind him, wondering if from now on the rest of our lives would be divided the same way before and after Felix.

VI

Holly had no plan. He did have an arrangement of sorts. He started my tour with the Master Ground Control room, the safest room in the Dome, located in its exact center. Holly had managed to get some of each essential packed into this tiny chamber surrounded by consoles and screens.

He had blazer rifles, of course. Two new cases were stacked in one comer between equally new cases of blazebombs on the left and concussion grenades on the right. Against one wall he had a long hospital table and lamp, complete with all the medikits and medipacks on a shelf above. Cases of food were littered everywhere, enough for a couple of months at least.

I found his confidence alarming.

Other nooks had other things, books, changes of clothing, every coil from both his and Lya’s files.

“You’ve got everything in here but the suit,” I commented. He blushed. “The wheelchair wouldn’t fit through the doorway.”

I grinned. “You mean you actually tried it?”

“Sort of. Caught myself trying to jam it through without

remembering going to get it. Unconscious, I guess. Or driven mad from the pressure.”

I laughed. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t want it lost either.”

Holly smiled his gratitude. “Where is it?”

He led us out of the control room into a large rectangular room easily as big as my suite. It had an extremely high ceiling with beams running out of the wall behind us, down the length of the ceiling, and into the next wall. There were more supplies stacked about. More weapons, more food, more medical things. Against one comer was a desk. Holly’s desk. In the far corner, sitting in the powered wheelchair, was the suit. It looked like an alert pupil, head up, back straight, arms folded in its lap.

I shuddered. “Every time I see it again. ...”

Holly smiled. “Yeah. Not like before though, you know?” I nodded. I knew. We had always thought of the suit as Felix’s killer.

“It wasn’t a murderer after all,” I mused.

Holly became thoughtful. “Wasn’t it, though? I mean, what if Felix were still alive? Knowing what we do, knowing what it would do to him to wear it again, wouldn’t we think of it as a murderer once more?”

I saw what he meant. “It is a murderer. Even Felix’s murderer, given another shot. But it didn’t do it!”

“You know, it feels benevolent. But only because it’s powerless and we don’t fear it. A killer with only one victim.” “And he got away,” I finished.

“I don’t know why we ever feared it so?”

I smiled sadly. “Probably the same reason he did. It worked too goddamn well.”

Holly looked at me. “Or he worked it too well.”

“Yeah. That, too.” I pointed at the ceiling. “Where are we, exactly? I don’t think I’ve ever been in here.”

“This is the Complex central core. It bisects the width of the rectangle.”

“Okay,” I said uncertainly.

He laughed. “This structure is a rectangle. Those eaves that jut out at the four corners are attachments.”

“Those big curved wings are just plugged on?”

“Yes. And they’re very unstable. Which is good for me.”

“Why is it good to be in an unstable building?”

“I’m not. I’m set up here in the core. It’s entirely separate from the rest of the surrounding rooms. It’s built that way for

. . well, for situations like this one. Or in case of earthquakes.

The core shields the Cangren Cell.”

“All right, but why is it good to have everything else shaky?”

“Because they can’t attack me from the long ends without creating a barrier of nibble six stories heavy. They have to come right down this line.” He pointed along the overhead beams. “And they have to come from only one direction, the riverfront.”

“Because of the hillside in back?”

“Right. And when they try to come through here, they’ll find three walls in their way. Come on.”

We went into the next room, even larger than the last. At the far end, it grew alcoves from each side, making a “T.” Along the wall of the “T” were several consoles.

“That’s the outer wall,” explained Holly. “Those are stations for the blazer cannon. Now, back the other way.”

We retreated into the second room. Holly closed and sealed the door behind us and pointed to a small console on the wall.

“If they should manage to penetrate the outer wall into the room we just left. ...”

“Which they damn sure will,” I pointed out.

“Well. . . if they do, I can come in here and hit these keys and seal off so thoroughly that that other room’s ceiling could collapse and I wouldn’t feel it.”

“And then they’d have to start all over again?”

“Right.”

“Minus the cannon.”

“True. But their field of attack would be severely limited.

They would be crowding into my killing area.”

“You planning to open the door and shoot?”

He blushed. “There are other things. That room, both of these rooms and the control room alcove, are mined like crazy.”

“They’re in big trouble, all right.”

He frowned. “I know they’ll probably get through anyway. ...”

“Surely get through anyway,” I corrected.

He frowned again. “What else can I do?”

“Are you kidding? Almost anything. Run away, for a start.”

“I can’t do that,” he replied miserably.

I examined his face. “Holly, you’re not scared enough.” “Ha!” he cried, a wry sad smile curling on his lips. He leaned against a wall and slid down it to the floor. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. I didn’t know you could get this scared!”

“All right! Let’s get moving.”

“I can’t!”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because this is the only chance of stopping him.” I blinked, stared, sat down abruptly in front of him. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Why else?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Principle of some sort. Desire for hero role. Or martyr’s.”

“No. This is just the best way.”

“This is no way.”

Holly leaned his head back and stared into space. “He must have killed a thousand people in the City this morning.” “They’re dead. Gone.”

“But others live here. And more are coming.”

“And?”

“He’ll have to be brutal, won’t he? After what he did?” “After the mortars, yes. He’ll have to maintain. Fear over the hate.”

“So it will get worse and worse and on and on. I’ve got to stop him.”