“I wouldn’t lie to save him. And he’s already pissed at me, so losing the job is probably a done deal. Sure, I guess I’d testify. Theo’s a fanatic, but he’s right—Kemp’s reckless, he hurts people, and he ought to be stopped.”
The tunnel was busy with City operatives rushing back and forth, some riding on electrical carts, some laden with boxes or luggage. Large-scale goods too valuable to be abandoned would have been taken to the Mirror by way of the enormous freight elevators at ground level, while City personnel and any remaining civilians lined up for the less gargantuan staff elevators here. It looked as if the City’s twenty-first-century employees had all been moved to Tower One to wait their turn to leave, while local hires were segregated in Tower Two to wait for something else—the inevitable entry of federal forces, to whom they could surrender, presumably, and plead innocence.
Kemp’s people arrived at a doorway that marked the border between Tower One and Tower Two, where a pair of security men had been stationed to scrutinize everyone who passed through. The men doing the scrutinizing, Jesse realized with dismay, were his old enemies from Tower One, Dekker and Castro, two men who done as much as anyone to convince him that the future had not abolished vindictiveness or petty jealousy.
August Kemp stood next to Dekker as his party began to pass through. Phoebe on her gurney, pushed by the medics, then Elizabeth, Mercy Kemp, Theo Stromberg, then Dr. Talbot—but Kemp stepped forward and put a hand on Talbot’s chest and said, “Your phone, please, Doctor.”
“My phone?”
“For security reasons. You’ll get it back once we’re home.”
He would get it back with all the dangerous images purged from it, Jesse thought. Talbot looked like he might object, then sighed. “If you insist,” he said, handing the phone to Kemp, who passed it into the meaty hand of Dekker, who pocketed it, grinning. Talbot was allowed to pass. Then it was Jesse’s turn.
Except that it was not. “Hold on, chief,” Dekker said.
Kemp took Jesse’s arm and steered him aside. “I’m afraid we can’t allow locals beyond this point.”
“My sister’s a local,” Jesse said, “and she’s already beyond this point.”
“Phoebe’s your sister? Mercy didn’t mention that. It looks like Phoebe got caught in the crossfire when you were doing whatever it was you were doing in that Nob Hill house. That was personal business, wasn’t it? No connection to the job you were hired to do.”
Jesse didn’t venture an answer. Beyond the doorway, Elizabeth turned to look back but was hustled away by the press of people.
“I promised Mercy we’d take care of the girl, and we will. And as soon as she’s patched up, we’ll deliver her to you at Tower One. I’m a man of my word. And I promised you something else, didn’t I? This.” Kemp reached into his jacket and extracted a bag of jingling coins. Gold eagles, Jesse assumed, maybe the same bag Kemp had shown him back in Oakland. “Severance pay. I’m not sure you’ve earned it. You put my daughter in danger, and I’d be justified in cutting you off without a penny more than you’ve already been paid. But I’m not vindictive and I don’t hold a grudge. Take it. Go on. Take it, Jesse.”
Elizabeth and Dr. Talbot had already disappeared. So had Phoebe. Jesse considered his options. He continued to meet Kemp’s cynical stare.
But he took the money.
“Some advice,” Kemp said. “That arm looks pretty ugly. Have someone take care of it before it gets infected. And if you’re afraid of how the army might treat you, as a City employee? Don’t be. You’re the man who saved the life of U. S. Grant. A fucking hero! Tell them that. Tell everyone! Talk to the press, play it up. A book, a lecture series—you could make yourself a rich man.”
* * *
Kemp pushed through the doorway and was gone. Jesse hung back, watching the passage. Dekker and Castro stood on each side of the door, eyeing him in return.
Jesse waited.
After a few minutes the crowd began to thin. These were the last of the City people, Jesse thought, abandoning Tower Two to the local employees. Soon the crowd was scant enough that the mechanical doors slid shut from time to time, so that stragglers had to use a pass card to open them. Jesse chose one of these empty moments to approach the door again.
Dekker’s grin expanded. He clearly relished the prospect of a fight … perhaps particularly because of the wound to Jesse’s right arm, blood from which had stained the sleeve of his shirt and was leaking through the bandage even now. “Need some help, chief? You’re headed in the wrong direction.”
“I ought to be with my sister.”
“Well, but that’s not possible.”
Castro kept quiet and looked uneasy. Jesse narrowed his attention to Dekker and only Dekker. “I mean to pass through, so you might as well get out of my way.”
“Not happening, bro. As an alternative, I suggest you go fuck yourself.”
Jesse charged him. These twenty-first-century security men were unnaturally tall and densely muscled, but Jesse was a big man for his time and his skills were brutally practical. It gave him a grim pleasure to step inside the radius of Dekker’s beefy arms and deliver a blow that rocked Dekker’s head back and sent a spurt of blood from his nose.
But Dekker wasn’t on his heels for long. He recovered quickly enough to close Jesse in a grip that trapped his injured right arm. And as Jesse struggled, flailing with his free left hand, Dekker began to squeeze. The man’s strength was astonishing. The pressure ignited a furious pain, as if the flesh itself were screaming. Jesse endured it until a new freshet of blood flowed down his forearm to the wrist and began to spatter the tiled floor. Dekker put his mouth to Jesse’s ear and said, “Had enough, chief?”
Jesse refused to speak.
“I can do this forever, asshole. Had enough?”
Jesse managed to nod his head, once.
“Say it. Seriously. Say it.”
“Enough,” Jesse gasped.
Dekker relaxed his grip, but followed with an open-palm blow that rocked Jesse’s head and sent him reeling. “Just head on back to Tower Two,” Dekker said. “They’ll send you your sister when they’re done with her. Chief.”
Jesse gave himself credit for staying upright. The damage to his arm was significant. An ominous numbness, almost worse than the pain, propagated through his right hand. Some of the fingers were reluctant to obey him. He turned and walked away. The sound of Dekker’s laughter followed him as he stumbled down the tunnel.
Dekker was savoring his victory. He would probably continue to savor it, Jesse thought, right up until the moment he realized that in the course of the struggle Jesse had taken from him both his pass card and Talbot’s phone.
* * *
Local employees of the City of Futurity had been herded into the commissary in the basement level of Tower Two, where they could surrender en masse to federal forces once the evacuation was complete and the Mirror shut down. None of these people was responsible for August Kemp’s crimes, and in principle none of them had anything to fear from the troops. But guns had been fired in earnest, and City employees were understandably nervous about the consequences of that. The crowd consisted of a hundred people or so, and some of them must have recognized Jesse, but apart from a few startled exclamations they left him alone. Limping slightly, bleeding from his arm, his clothes ragged and bloodstained, he guessed he looked as if he might be followed by an undertaker or a flock of carrion crows.
He spotted Dorothy, the war widow who used to sell him muffins from the Starbucks booth, seated on an upturned trash bin. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, but she was brave enough not to flinch. “Jesse Cullum, is that you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I was away, but I got back this morning.”
“How is that possible—did you fly over the wall?”
She meant it facetiously, but he nodded. “In fact I did.”
“I’m tempted to believe you. You’re hurt!”
“Not fatally. Tell me, have you seen Doris Vanderkamp today?”
“Do you see how few of us are still here? Most of the local hires left as soon as the evacuation was announced. The rest of us took cash bonuses to stay behind and help, for better or worse. If Doris had been prudent she’d be long gone. But when was Doris ever prudent? I saw her heading for the dormitory section a few minutes ago, probably packing up what’s left of her possessions. Jesse, do you know what’s going on? We haven’t heard from management for hours. Has the wall been breached?”