Up The Tower (16 page)

“It is too bad we are so high up, and that I used my parachute already.”

“Why?”

“Because we could help, Partner-Samson.”

“We'd die down there. We couldn't save them all.”

“Saving them all is never the directive. Just the ones we can.”

This high up in The Tower, the floor plans narrowed as the structure came to a point. There was only one stairwell up, and no elevator. They were near the top floor now, just a floor away. Samson had developed a bit of a limp after the initial shock of the quake, and Partner helped him walk, supporting him with accordion arms. The ceiling and walls continued to sink in on themselves, barely holding up.

Samson had not had much opportunity—any, really—to visit the few floors above his own. Once, he had tried, and Petrov saw him and caned his back for being there without permission. Samson hadn’t been able to stand up straight for a week.

They ascended the stairs of the floor and entered the top floor. There was a powerful door which once blocked the way—thick and metal with complicated circuitry guarding its lock. But the wall around it had crumbled. They stepped through the holes—the door itself supporting the rubble now.

In the room they entered, something like white slime shifted and gathered on the floor, pushing out from an opening in the middle and slipping upward in coils toward the bending, twisting pillars in the room. These coils pushed up wires and attached and re-attached panels of ceiling, repairing them. Long tendrils of quickly-forming cables wrapped around the pillars and straightened them and stayed wrapped, keeping them in place.

“Is this regulation?” asked Partner. “I do not believe this is in my records. We should take several samples. Headquarters will want a report. The database is ever-expanding.”

“No,” said Samson, amazed. “There's nothing like this out there. I did this, I think. I made it.”

“Ah.” Partner clapped its hands together. “Then you can deliver the report yourself. I shall take a sample just in case.”

It leaned down and scooped up some of the goo into one finger.

The pillars of this room seemed to be held in place now, the white mass crystallizing and turning a dark blue color. The remaining mass slithered down to the floor again and slid up underneath Partner and Samson’s feet and under the door back down the stairs.

This repairing mass was not something Samson designed, not truly. It was something he had brainstormed—that he had thought of and theorized in his notebooks complete with diagrams and figures, and then mentioned to Crash—but it was not something he had implemented.

Crash in fact had access to whole notebooks full of Samson’s thoughts and designs. Seven notebooks, in fact, with schematics and ideas of how to make all the tech work. It would be pretty simple for Crash to send someone into Samson’s workshop when Samson wasn’t there and start copying everything.

If Crash could make this work, this self-repairing room, just from what Samson had drawn one Sunday afternoon six months ago...what else could Crash copy?

Was Samson’s true ability in creation or in his conception of creations? All too often they felt intertwined. Most of his best ideas came about from implementing the ideas he had thought of before, and then in implementing those new ideas even more visions of possibilities would flood through his mind. At times in the past, he had become so impressed with his ability to conceptualize that he tried to dedicate whole weeks and months only to that, but these periods quickly expended themselves of ideas. Without regular doing, he became stagnant and morose.

The Tower groaned and leaned. A giant wailing for its children. The escape was not far.

Through the hall, Partner clumping and Samson shuffling. They came across a half-open door, voices inside.

“Where’s the other Bones?”

This was Crash speaking. He was alive! The Faces were alive! He could see little through his angle in the door—Max Bones sitting, leaned back, clearly high. Crash paced around him. Petrov was in one corner, the metal mesh of his face hidden in shadow.

Samson almost rushed in, but Partner grabbed him.

“There are weapons inside,” said the copbot. Its voice was quiet, vibrating down only to Samson.

Samson almost said it was okay, that they could go in anyway.

“I don't care about those Bones bastards.” The gravel of Punchee Wallop was unmistakable. “I want to talk about the girl.”

“To hell with the girl,” this was Storey, now. Samson was surprised. She was a survivor. “I want that little slock's head on a pike, Crash. I don't care what he's made for you.”

Samson stopped. That must have been him. He didn't want to just present himself to Storey's murderous rage, not after surviving this long.

“We'll talk about it in a minute, doll. I want to know where the other Bones is.”

“You mean Harry?”

“That’s the other of you, Max, yes.”

Max shrugged long. “Dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yup.”

“Damn, Max. Don’t tear yourself up about it.”

A chair groaned as Max shifted and shrugged. “What are you gonna do about it? Your fancy suit there raises people from the dead now, after getting crushed from such as a ceiling?”

“I’m just saying. You can show some grief for your brother. We all adults here, baby.”

It was hard to imagine, Harry Bones being dead. He ran entertainment in Junktown, which mean he ran women. Prostitutes. Not anymore. There weren't women in Junktown anymore, probably. There wasn't a Junktown anymore.

Crash put a hand down on Max's shoulder. “You all drugged up, honey?”

Partner tensed up. “Drugs?” he whispered to Samson.

“Stay here a minute,” he said to Partner. “Just wait this out.”

Partner's eyeflaps flattened out, clearly unhappy.

“Leave ‘em alone, Crash,” said Wallop

“He ain’t supposed to be getting high on his stash, baby.”

“We ain’t supposed to be sitting in a tower what’s falling down! Uniqueness abounds! Let’s not get caught up in it, huh? I ain't supposed to have a girl get in The Tower trying to kill me. How about that?”

“I said to table that mess, baby. How long we got before we fall? Petrov?”

“No more than two hours,” said Petrov, voice cold and robotic. “We’ve already sunk in a few times. I wouldn’t say more than one hour, safely.”

“Let’s call it forty-five minutes, then.”

“That's enough time for that bitch to get up here and come at me. How the hell did she get in here?”

“How should I know how she got in, baby? Ask Petrov.”

“There is too much chaos to know.” This was Petrov now. “She is in. She will not make it up here. I would not worry about it.”

“I know you wouldn't, you bastard. She don't want to skin you alive. It's real easy to not get your mind in a tussle when nobody wants you dead.”

“Are you blind?” Petrov stepped toward the table now. “The earth itself wants us dead. She will be no exception. In the lower floors, her situation is more perilous than ours. Do not worry yourself. Even the assassin she was with is dead. If there was anyone to worry over, it was him.”

“How about this.” Wallop leaned forward, dwarfing the table. “How about I worry about my worries, and you worry about fixing the security in this place?”

“Perhaps you would explain to me how to create security for a unique occurrence? Shall I build a wall for asteroids as well?”

“How the hell should I know? You're the security guy. You—”

Something hard and loud thunked against the door—a chair.

“That is enough, goddamn.” Crash's voice was amplified by the suit—he must have had the helmet activated. “We in this ship together. We live and die together, no matter what. Now, the escape pods are working, we know that. So what I want to know is—”

“What I want to know is why the hell are we talking so much about that boy's damn sister when I want him dead and gone.”

“Goddamn, Storey. I'm trying to talk here, doll.”

“I don't give a damn what you say! You’re done. Look outside! There's no Five Faces without Junktown. There is no Jackson Crash, boss of me. There is no Petrov, boss of me. You're as nothing and as dead as I am. Now Petrov tells me Samson is alive. Wallop, you want his sister? Go get her. I'm gonna get Samson. You want to come with me?”

“Partner-Samson,” whispered Partner. “I think they are speaking of you.”

“...Yeah.”

“Baby doll,” Crash's voice returned to its normal frequency, the helmet gone, “you want to go run out into a collapsing building, you go run into a collapsing goddamn building.”

“And if I make it back here? You won't take nothing out on me?”

“What do I care? Have at him.”

Partner was beside itself. “This is conspiracy to murder! What a case!”

“Me, Partner,” said Samson. “They’re talking about me. Listen, you have to—”

Partner ripped out from Samson’s arms, bursting the door open wide. Its fists rotated into themselves, replaced by rotating gun barrels.

“Crime!” Partner cried, turning at each person in the room in turn. “Crime! Crime! Crime! Crime!”

They were all shocked for a moment—even Crash didn’t know how to react, his metallic suit not enveloping him fully. Partner’s armguns whirled up, rotating, ready to fire...and nothing happened.

Samson realized coolly that he had never loaded the copbot’s arms.

Crash stepped around the copbot with a cold stare. Interlocking plates slid over his body, the suit metamorphosing into full armor. A long blade formed from his hand. The blade made a low shunking sound as it ripped through the copbot's middle.

“What the hell, baby.” Crash continued to circle, tilting his head at Samson.

The blade slashed down to the side. Gears and wires bottomed out from Partner. An enormous section of its middle gone and no longer connected to itself. Crash lashed out again and lopped off the lower half of one of Partner’s legs. Another went straight through its thick metal skull.

Partner still tried to fight, seemingly not understanding why its guns weren’t firing. But as soon as that blade shot through its skull, something left it—some spirit, some vibrancy—and all motion in its body went still, sliding headfirst forward onto the blade. Crash retracted the blade and let Partner fall with a thump.

“You sick a copbot on me, baby?”

Samson had to look away from Partner, the stillness of it.

“Where's my sister?”

“What? You mouthing at me now? What I tell you about mouthing at me, baby?”

“Where's my
sister
?”

He rushed at Crash, and Crash smacked him down to the ground. That was everything they had together.

“Don't worry, boy,” said Storey. “You'll find each other soon enough.”

She was covered in blood—maybe the blood of her boy. Maybe her own blood. Maybe the blood of other boys that had died. All the blood she carried, though, was blood for Samson. She advanced, smacking her chain-wrapped club in her palm.

Her face was terror. Every terror. All the premonitions Samson had ever felt about his death carried that image with them, bordering on the consciousness, her presence leaking in, waiting to break his skull apart. Head ringing from Crash's blow, Samson tried to back away, scooting over the floor. It wouldn't be enough.

A curious, hot whine entered the room. Samson thought it was Crash’s suit malfunctioning for a moment. And then there was a flash of blinding light.

Huge metal arms wrapped around Samson, and he was rocketed back. Partner had him now. Billows of smoke poured out from behind Partner’s feet and back, fire and fusion propelling them through a window.

For a few brilliant, crazy moments, they were out of the Tower. The whole of Junktown was beneath them, flooded and broken, an apocalyptic mess of ragged buildings.

Samson really thought he was going to die.

Okay, he thought. Okay. At least there’s a crowd in hell today; at least there’s something I could get lost in.

Partner had other plans. It tilted its torn head and aimed upward with its arm, a grappling hook firing out and latching onto one of the repaired columns of the Tower. They swung catty-cornered out from where they fell and busted through a window, Partner cushioning the fall.

“Samson-Partner!” Partner banged the ground. “Good does not know how to fail!”

For a few seconds they lay there. Samson touched himself, touched Partner over and over. From above them, there was shouting.

Samson crawled over to the side of the Tower, perking his head up—it was Storey’s voice.

“That boy’s as bad as they come, copbot!” Storey yelled after them. “Bad as they come! You arrest him for me! You got every right!”

* * * * *

“A
na?”

Gary could see she wasn’t paying attention—still looking over the edge, still seeing the spray of blood and gore from the dogs and Victor’s fall. Ore was busy on the stairwell, trying to disentangle Victor's backpack from the steel railing. The Tower leaned, and the backpack kept slipping away from her reach as she worked. Gary watched, heart in his throat, the gorgeous curves of Ana’s body as she looked down the corridor, searching for signs of Victor.

The Tower pushed him forward into her as it broke apart; everything in the world pushed Gary toward Ana.

“Victor!” she called down. “Victor! Say something, Victor!”

Some muted, small voice was coming out of Ana—from her hand.

It was really her hips that got to him, he realized. She had lovely breasts, a great behind, terrific hair...but the hips really brought the whole package together. How could she blame him for looking? She was made for looking.

“Ana, your hands...they’re talking. Why are your hands talking?”

Finally he touched her—taking a moment to luxuriate in the sweet, soft feel of her warm skin—and tugged a bit at her forearms.

She pushed him on instinct, and Gary slammed back into the door—where the dogs were still pounding and barking.

“Don’t touch me!”

A voice emitted out from her hands, clear now. “I think I’ve finally gotten through. Hello?”

Ana, confused, finally looked in her hands. There was an ear inside—Victor’s ear. Gary expected her to squeal, maybe, screech and drop it. But instead she just held it up to her face, examining.