City Wars (4 page)

5

There were five or six of them, Bowman figured, though with the condition his head was in he couldn’t be sure. They looked like lunks, at least from the size of them. But that didn’t always mean anything.

Two of them took Bowman from behind, and he went down hard, but not before connecting with a wildly thrown punch. He heard a yelp, and as he hit the pavement he saw the smudge of blood on his knuckles.

Another man joined the fight, but Bowman was on his back, booted foot up to meet the charge. The next moment, his attacker was sailing overhead, hands clutching the air.

Bowman rolled over and threw up.

He turned away, head thundering, and struggled to rise. He only made it to his haunches.

It was from this position that he saw Cassandra, though what he witnessed seemed unconnected to reality, dreamlike.

A veil came over his eyes. Pain pulsed in his temples. He tried to make out images.

He saw Cassandra.

He saw their assailants.

And then it was over.

In less than seven seconds.

Later, he would recall that it had looked like nothing so much as a dance.

There had been a flurry of arms and legs, the repeated sound of flesh in contact with flesh.

And there were cries, some soft and hopeless and tinged with disbelief, some outraged and filled with terror.

Seven seconds.

Less time than it took Bowman to survey the damage.

Less time than it took to count the bodies.

Bowman leaned back against the building face, panting, his mouth dry.

Cassandra walked up to him.

On the bloodied pavement behind her lay the broken bodies of the men who’d assaulted them.

She brushed the hair back from his eyes.

“Are you all right?” she said.

Bowman could only look at her. Could only watch the steady rise and fall of her breasts beneath the thin tunic; could detect only the merest trace of white under the color of her cheeks. He was aware at the same time of the coolness of her hand on his forehead.

He’d known from personal experience what Guardians could do. Yet he’d never actually seen— He tried to speak. Her fingers went to his lips.

“It’s instinctive, Jake,” she said softly. “Part of what I am. As natural as walking, as involuntary as breathing. The need arises, I respond. That is all.” She smiled. “Now, please. We must go. Quickly.”

“But—”

She tugged at his torn sleeve.

“Please, Jake. I have to get away from here. Away from … the debris. And the death. If I think about it, I go a little crazy, you know?”

He searched her face and found her.

“Let’s go,” he said at last.

A hundred miles away, the group of buildings that had comprised the outer boundary of Chicago on the east, E Sector, lay in rabble. The twisted and charred bodies of men and machines lay strewn atop the ash. Only recently had the air finally been stilled, when the last of the screams had faded.

Just an hour before, the children of those assigned to scanner duty had gone swimming in the domed pool.
They wore brief swimsuits and the bright, knowing smiles of the specially favored. They splashed in the water, bathed in the bowl of warmth the dome provided. They laughed and cried out when dunked beneath the surface by the lanky arms of their friends. They thought of nothing, but instead reveled in the unconscious exhilaration that was the child’s gift to himself.

Their parents looked up from their scanners in the main buildings and were pleased. The sounds from the pool made them happy. E Sector was surrounded by a vast expanse of nothingness, and the parents had worried about their children’s welfare and happiness upon learning of their assignments. It was good that they’d made the alterations, added the playdome, selected the tutors with care.

Perhaps they would join the children later, when they were relieved by the second shift. They could use the break, the luxury of lounging by a pool of heated water. Men and women could shed their Service uniforms, be as children for just a little while, not thinking about why they were here, the reason their machines scanned the sky.

Yet still they were Urbans, with Urban sensibilities. They knew the necessity of their vigil. They valued the wisdom of preparedness above all others.

So they sat at their scanners, eyes affixed, while the monotony of duty played out about them. The signal was transmitted at its designated hour. E Sector was secure.

Until suddenly, without warning, the clouds spread as before great parting hands and it began to rain fire.

Scanner captains leaped to their consoles. Gamma indicators pulsed, went black. Someone hit a transmit key, tried to signal back to— Buildings dissolved in the storm.

The playdome collapsed into the pool. Steam billowed, scalded.

Parents clutched their children’s hands. Fell together.

The rain continued for many minutes, until the clouds had rolled back and hidden the sky once more.

He’d needed the shower to wash away the last vestiges of dirt and blood and fatigue from his body, to douse the final effects of the booze and the crazydust from his brain.

He stood now, basking in ultraviolet, and felt his energy returning. The face and body he saw in the full-length mirror held no disappointments for him. He was lean and hard, a byproduct of the War, and his eyes cast a look that would never go away.

Cassandra stood in the doorway, arms folded. Her gaze traveled the length of his naked body.

“I’m impressed,” she said, smiling. She wore only a floor-length robe, translucent and pale. Her nipples were dark.

Bowman wrapped a towel around his waist and followed Cassandra into her study. He watched with mounting interest the strong, subtle grace of her body as she walked. He wondered what it was going to be like to fuck a Guardian.

She sat on one end of a wide couch, her bare feet drawn up under her. Her hand rested on an inlaid module in the arm of the couch.

Across the room, a floor-to-ceiling screen flickered on. The image crystallized to reveal scenes of a funeral, attended by hundreds of grim-faced citizens. A few people held up signs and placards, calling for retaliation.

The commentator’s voice was reasonable and well-modulated.

“—bringing the total of deaths to five. Government sources indicate that all five victims met their deaths in the same manner. While spokesmen assure us that—”

Bowman stood over Cassandra. “I thought you said three people were killed?”

She switched off the volume. “I did.”

“Then that means …” Bowman began to pace. “Cass, you better get a line to Gilcrest.”

“I already signaled. He should be transmitting any minute now.”

“Media will call for action now, Cass. You can be goddam sure of that.”

Cassandra looked into space. “Hadrian will be happy, I suppose.” Then, after a pause: “Jake, what do you make of the attack on us?”

“I don’t know. At first, I thought they might have been lunks. They were sure as hell big enough.”

“They weren’t, though. Just men.” She bit her lip. “I didn’t know you could pay someone enough to attack a Guardian.”

Bowman stopped pacing. From where he stood he could see out her wide study window. He looked out on the blackened roofs of old multidwelling buildings that crouched in the long shadows of afternoon. He realized obliquely that he hadn’t really looked at his city for a long time, hadn’t considered his feelings for it. Maybe, soon, he would do just that. Soon …

“Cassandra,” he said suddenly, “are you thinking what I am? That we were followed?”

“That you were,” she replied. “That someone wanted to prevent you from carrying out Minister Gilcrest’s orders.”

Bowman looked across at the thoughtful, womanly Guardian, the lines of her body so soft and warm under the translucent robe. Then he remembered the carnage she’d left behind her on the street just an hour before.

She seemed to sense his thoughts. “Whoever it was, they should have sent more men. Even drunk and tired, you looked like a tough man to bring down.”

He turned back toward the window, toward the expanse of cityscape beyond.

“Me? I’m just a brawler, Cass. But I guess it’s gotten me this far.”

Cassandra’s appraisal was silent, as was her custom.

The transmission signal came while Bowman was dressing. Gilcrest’s weathered face, paler than he’d remembered it, even against the purple hue of the Minister’s cloak, appeared on the screen.

“Jake? Thank God she found you.”

“We saw the report on Media, sir,” Bowman said. “Two more deaths.”

“I wish that were all,” Gilcrest said. “We’ve just received
a transmission from E Sector. Media hasn’t picked up on it yet, but—Jake, I want you and Cassandra down here immediately.”

Bowman and the Guardian exchanged looks.

“What about E Sector, sir?” Bowman asked.

“Not over transmission,” the Senior Minister replied with a tired smile. “Just get down here. Out.”

The screen went black.

Bowman took a step toward the screen, as though to speak, then motioned to Cassandra. She got up from the couch and reached for the light blue tunic.

6

There were perhaps thirty in all, gathered now, their heads bent, arms dangling at their sides. Not one among them spoke above a whisper.

There was no light in this room, and the wind pushing the chill down the street just outside moaned through the rough timbers. Occasionally, the old building would shake, and scurrying rats would show their coats to the dim light, then disappear into the dark places once more.

Giles would come soon, one of the lunks said. To this place, to this old place.

In times long past this building had stood with others like it, pale vaults where the poor and the dull were stored. It had been part of an old neighborhood, a ghetto, an urban wound.

Now it lay abandoned, dead, a place where small creatures huddled and spawned anew.

Now also it was a place of hiding.

Two more lunks came into the dim room, lowering their heads as they passed through the doorway.

Giles was coming, one of them said.

The lunks moved slowly in the shadows, forming a half circle. Dust clung to their worn shoes, to the cuffs of their trousers.

Their arms swung wide as they moved into position. The dullness left their blinking eyes; they lifted their voices.

Whispers came together in the gloom, and found cadence.

They began to chant.

The chanting grew louder, and with each chorus the lunks found their bodies swaying to the cadence, found their long arms swinging, and the fists at the ends of those long arms were clenched.

And the whole room quivered, as though a living thing chilled by the wind. But it was not the wind.

Giles stood now in their midst and the chanting ceased. Dust swirled, settled. The room was still.

Giles raised his great lunk arms. His coat was long, woolen, many-colored: a marvel. He stood in high black boots.

“Lunks will no more welcome death!” he cried, turning his head to look at each of them squarely.

The lunks stared, transfixed.

Giles lowered his arms, relaxed his stance. His eyes held the room.

“Only fools pray for death, brothers and sisters,” he said. “And we are not fools. Except when we are the fools of fools.”

They watched him, watched his lips as he formed words. As always, the ease with which he spoke filled them with awe.

Giles was a young man, and his skin flushed pink under the lunk-gray of his cheeks. He was different from his brothers. They’d known it at once. From the very first, when Giles had come to them, angry and unafraid.

Giles had been unafraid, and so became their leader.

“We are but the first,” he was saying. “The first to challenge the tormentors in this new age of torment. For make no mistake. Every age has its tormentors, and its challengers, with only time distinguishing one from the other.”

The young lunk made his hands come together in front of him. With effort, they might touch.

“What shall we be called? Rebels? Revolutionaries? Usurpers? I can’t speak for other men and women. I can’t speak for the voice of history itself. And I don’t presume to speak for you, my brothers and sisters.”

Speak for us, came a whisper.

Yes! Yes! Speak for us!

Giles tilted his head. His thick hair brushed the collar of his coat.

A thunder of whispers.

SPEAK FOR US! SPEAK FOR US! SPEAK FOR US!

Giles stood before them and waited.

The rasp of their voices, like some great gust, settled.

Giles spoke. And wondered, as he did so, how much of what he’d said and would say they really understood. How much they actually comprehended of their own destiny.

“Brothers and sisters,” he began quietly, easily, “it is for a very good reason that we gather today. This is more than merely a celebration of our strength and solidarity. For I have news. I bring you news of a friend.”

A few lunks stirred. Hushed murmurs.

“Yes,” Giles went on. “A friend to the lunks. A friend who is himself not one of us, but who shares our anguish and our pain.”

Their whispers formed a chain.

A friend to the lunks
.

“He came to me as a sympathizer to our cause,” Giles said. “He shares our pain. He recognizes the injustice of our lives. And he wishes to help us.”

Their voices held wonder.

A friend to the lunks
.

“He wishes to atone, for himself and others of his kind. He wishes to see us take our rightful places as citizens of Chicago!”

Giles rocked on the heels of his boots.

“And we will use the friendship he offers us—and use it soon. Yes, my brothers and sisters … soon we will leave this place of hiding and do what must be done to force Government to heed us, to listen to our demands. Soon!”

Pale eyes blinked in the cool dimness.

Soon!

Giles turned away from them, away from the questions slowly forming on their lips. He strode purposefully to the doorway. As always, they would let him leave first.

The doorway framed him. He seemed to tower.

“Lunks,” he said softly, “will no more welcome death.”

Giles dipped his head beneath the arch and was gone.

The lunks stood together as before.

The knoll was gray and dead, black grass matted in wiry tufts across its face. There were few clouds now, little wind. Dark smoke wafted up and tinged the heavy blueness of sky.

Bowman brought the ’copter around again and swung it in a low arc over the knoll.

“This is the last post,” he shouted over the roar. Beside him, his face the color of dried clay, sat Minister Gilcrest. He’d insisted on coming along, on seeing that which he was afraid to let his mind imagine. He clung now to the straps of his seat-pod, hands white and without feeling. The destruction of E Sector had robbed his eyes of their life; he was huddled now against the noise, lost in the folds of his cloak.

The Guardian behind him was pointing out the side pane.

“Do you see it?” Cassandra cried. She reached across and tapped Bowman’s shoulder. “Down and to the left. Do you see it?”

Bowman nodded and eased down, circling the knoll. The ’copter blades hummed as he swept across the tall grass that parted in waves beneath them.

They passed over hulks of twisted metal, whole sections of buildings shorn and smoldering; and here and there, the almost unrecognizable forms that had once been the bodies of men and women.

Cassandra pointed again, and Gilcrest saw it too. A hovercraft, its hull scorched and pitted, and distended like a bovine belly. Inside, its two occupants were still seated at the controls, buckled in, manikinlike in death.

“It’s a miracle they made it to the hovercraft,” the old man said. “For all the good it did them.”

“Can we go down?” Cassandra poked Bowman again.

He shook his head. “No. The gamma count is too high. Minister, I wouldn’t send a party in for at least twenty-four hours.”

Gilcrest said nothing.

Bowman took another sweep around E Sector, the cameras in the ’copter ports recording the extent and nature of the damage for analysis in Government labs.

No one spoke for what seemed like a long while. Once, Bowman turned and saw Cassandra gently rubbing the back of Minister Gilcrest’s neck. He made a point of not catching her eye.

Below, the darkness had come to blanket the remains of E Sector.

Bowman said, “Seen enough, sir?”

“Yes. Enough to last me.”

Bowman pulled back on the stick.

Meyerson swallowed the last of his beansteak and patted his now-doughy paunch and decided abruptly that he’d never get used to the idea of Scholars.

He said so.

Clemmie Della Sala was surprised. “An old turd like you, Meyerson? I’d think we’re your last link to the past. You know … nostalgia.”

The Scholar was grinning at him.

Meyerson shifted uneasily in the booth. The diner was half empty, serving late suppers to hurrying Urbans and stragglers. Meyerson counted himself among the latter.

“I don’t know, Clemmie.” He warmed his coffee mug with two thick hands. “Seems to me there’s gotta be a better way to make a living. I mean, it ain’t like the old times—”

The woman shrugged.

“Not the old times, no … just different times.” She rubbed her lyre carefully with a cloth. “We sing different songs.”

“Don’t see why we need ’em anyway.”

“Cities need people. People need heroes. Heroes need Scholars to remember their deeds, and sing of them. And make them legends.”

Meyerson laughed shortly. “They sure trained you good and proper, Clemmie. But I don’t buy it. Time was, a man could—”

“Pre-War man,” Clemmie said. “Almost as extinct as grain alcohol.” She plucked a few clear notes on the lyre. A few people at other tables glanced over in their direction.

“Face it, Meyerson,” she said brightly. “You’re a page out of a book. An old book.”

Meyerson frowned. “How long we known each other, lady?”

“We go back about a dozen years, I think. I don’t keep records.”

“Well, it’s just a good thing I love ya, or I’d strangle that perfumed neck of yours.”

Clemmie strummed a chord and began to hum softly. Her voice was clear, resonant. Meyerson knew she’d been singing a long time, even though she hadn’t left her forties. Her robes were many-layered, a myriad of colors. She wore fire jewels, turquoise, baubles that caught the light.

There was much tradition in her, and in her song.

She lifted her fingers from the strings, looked up.

“Why’d ya stop, Clemmie?” he asked.

“Not in the mood.” She glanced around the small diner. People were hunched over their meals. Voices were low. “This is not the place for me, Phil. The feel is wrong.”

“Shit. Who figured you for artistic temperament?”

“Scholars are not artists.” She put aside the lyre. “We’re in service to Government, just as you are.”

“
Were
, Clemmie. Not anymore.” He drained his mug of coffee.

Clemmie studied his drawn features, thinking at the same time of the dozens of songs that told of old soldiers and being away from the fighting and what that could mean.

“Have you been all right, Phil?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been okay.”

“That’s fine. That’s fine.”

“Clemmie?”

“Yes?”

“Sing one.”

“I thought you didn’t approve.”

“That was before. I seen the light. Scholars are terrific. Now sing one.”

“Not now. Not here. The feel is wrong.”

“C’mon, Clemmie. You know the rules.”

“For Christ’s sake, Phil, you of all people—”

Meyerson raised his forefinger. “If a citizen requests it, the Scholar’s gotta sing. Ain’t that right?”

“That’s right.” Sighing.

“Then sing me one.” He leaned back, and looked away. “Sing me a good one.”

Clemmie looked at him for a long moment. As much as she cared for him, she wished she were home with William. She and Meyerson had shared a lot of rough times since she’d met him at a Service Center just after the death of her husband. The War had taken something from both of them. Soon they’d learned to comfort one another; the right words, the right silences, the right touching when there’d been a need. They’d grown apart in recent years, she to the raising of her son, he to the tending of his more significant wounds. She’d come to feel he was no longer within reach.

She could read nothing in his face now but expectation. Dutifully, she picked up her instrument, lay her fingers on the fine strings. And began to sing.

A few of the diner’s patrons stood to listen, respecting an old custom. The rest merely looked up from their food, their chairs squeaking on the tile floor as they turned to watch.

Clemmie’s voice filled the room.

Clemmie put down the lyre.

“The song is old,” she said. “And childish.” She reached across, took Meyerson’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

He smiled at her. “I liked it fine, Clemmie. Just fine.”

Suddenly, the familiar sound of dual chimes filled the small room. Clemmie and Meyerson turned away from each other, their attention drawn to the front of the diner.

Everyone was looking up. The screen flickered. Media was transmitting.

A cool voice echoed throughout the diner, announcing that Media had information regarding an attack on E Sector.

“Holy Jesus,” Meyerson said, craning his neck to see.

The others crowded around the screen. People began muttering, cursing.