“I don't like it here,” he told LaNague.
“I told you you wouldn't.”
“I don't mean that. There's something wrong here. I can feel it.”
“It's just the crowds. Ignore it.”
“Something is wrong!” he said, grabbing LaNague's arm and spinning him around.
LaNague looked at him carefully, searchingly. “What's bothering you?”
“I can't explain it,” Broohnin said, rubbing his damp palms in fearful frustration. There was sweat clinging to his armpits, his mouth felt dry, and the skin at the back of his neck was tight. “Something's going to happen here. These people are building toward something.”
LaNague gave him another long look, then nodded abruptly. “All right. I know better than to ignore the instincts of a former street urchin. We'll make this quick, then we'll get out of here.” He looked down at the locus indicator disk in his palm, and pointed to the right. “This way.”
They had returned to the tip of the South American continent and dropped off their flitter at the Cape Town Spaceport. From there a stratospheric rammer had shot them north to the Bosyorkington Spaceport, which occupied the far end of Long Island, formerly called the Hamptons. Three hundred kilometers west northwest from there by flitter brought them to the putrescent trickle that was still called the Delaware River, but only after carrying them over an endless, unbroken grid of clogged streets with apartments stretching skyward from the interstices. Everything looked so carefully planned, so well thought-out and laid out…why then had Broohnin felt as if he were descending into the first ring of Hell when their flitter lowered toward the roof of one of the municipal garages?
LaNague had purchased a locus indicator at the spaceport. They were big sellers to tourists and people trying to find their roots. It was a fad on Earth to locate the exact spot where a relative had lived or a famous man had been born or had died, or a historical event had occurred. One could either pay homage, or relive that moment of history with the aid of holograms or a sensory-cognitive button for those who were wired.
“What are we looking for if not your rich man?” Broohnin asked impatiently. The tension in the air was making it difficult to breathe.
LaNague did not look up from his locus indicator. “An ancient ancestor of mine-man named Gurney-used to live in this area in the pre-stellar days. He was a rebel of sorts, the earliest one on record in my family. A lipidlegger. He defied his government-and there were many governments then, not just one for all Earth as there is now-out of sheer stubbornness and belligerence.” He smiled at a private thought. “Quite a character.”
They walked a short distance further to the north. There seemed to be fewer people about, but no less tension. LaNague didn't seem to notice.
“Here we are,” he said, his smile turning to dismay as he looked around, faced with the same monotonous façades of people-choked apartments that had oppressed them since leaving the municipal garage.
“Good. You found it. Let's go,” Broohnin said, glancing about anxiously.
“This used to be a beautiful rural area,” LaNague was saying, “with trees and wildlife and mist and rain. Now look at it: solid synthestone. According to my coordinates, Gurney's general store used to be right here in the middle of the street. This whole area used to be the Delaware Water Gap. How-”
A sound stopped him. It was a human sound, made by human voices, but so garbled by the overlapping of so many voices that no words were distinguishable. Its source was untraceable…it came from everywhere, seamlessly enveloping them. But the emotion behind the sound came through with unmistakable clarity: rage.
All around them, people began to flee for their homes. Children were pulled off the street and into apartment complex doorways that slid shut behind them. LaNague dove for the door of a clothing store to their left but it zipped closed before he could reach it and would not open despite his insistent pounding. As Broohnin watched, the storefront disappeared, fading rapidly to a blank surface identical to the synthestone of the apartment walls around it. LaNague appeared to be trying to gain entry to a solid wall.
“What's going on?” Broohnin yelled as the din of human voices grew progressively louder. He could not localize the source to the north of them, approaching rapidly.
“Food riot,” LaNague said, returning to Broohnin's side. “Sounds like a big one. We've got to get out of here.” He pulled a reference tablet the size of a playing card from his vest pocket and tapped in a code. “The garage is too far, but there's a Kyfhon neighborhood near here, I believe.” The surface of the tablet lit with the information he had requested. “Yes! We can make it if we run.”
“Why there?”
“Because nobody else will be able to help us.”
They ran south, stopping at every intersection while LaNague checked his locus indicator. The bustling stores they had passed only moments before had disappeared, glazed over with holograms of blank synthestone walls to hide them from the approaching mob. Only a rioter intimately familiar with this particular neighborhood would be able to locate them now.
“They're gaining!” Broohnin said breathlessly as they stopped again for LaNague to check their coordinates. After nearly two decades of living on Throne, his muscles had become acclimated to a gravitational pull approximately 5 per cent less than Earth's. The difference had been inconsequential until now because his activity had been limited to sitting, dozing, and strolling. Now he had to run. And he felt it.
LaNague, who weighed about seven kilos less on Earth than he did on Tolive, found the going easy. “Not much further. We should be-”
The mob rounded the corner behind them then and rushed forward with a roar. An empty, hapless g-e vehicle parked at the side of the street slowed their momentum for a moment as a number of rioters paused to tear it to pieces. The strips of metal pulled from the vehicle were used to assault any store windows they could find behind their holographic camouflage. The windows were tough, rubbery, and shatterproof. They had to be pierced and torn before entry could be gained.
LaNague and Broohnin stood transfixed with fascination as they watched a clutch of rioters attack what seemed to be a synthestone wall, their makeshift battering rams and pikes disappearing into it as if no wall existed. And none did. With a sudden shout, those in the forefront pushed their way into the wall image and disappeared. They must have found the hologram projector controls immediately because the camouflage evaporated and the crowd cheered as the wall became a storefront again…a furniture outlet. Its contents were passed out to the street bucket-brigade style and smashed with roars of approval.
“That's not food!” Broohnin said. “I thought you called this a food riot.”
“Just a generic term. Nobody riots for food any more. They just riot. Theories have it that the crowding makes a certain type of person go temporarily berserk every so often.”
And then the crowds began to move again. Blind, voracious, swift, deadly.
Broohnin found his fear gone, replaced by a strange exhilaration. “Let's join them!” The carnage, the howling ferocity of the scene had excited him. He wanted a chance to break something, too. He always felt better when he did.
“They'll tear you to pieces!” LaNague said, shoving him into motion away from the mob.
“No, they won't! I'll be one of them!”
“You're an out-worlder, you fool! They'll see that immediately. And when they're through with you, nobody'll be able to put you back together again. Now run!”