Always am.
Be more so now.
Decoy?
Y.
Hillel tramped out the sand-writing and Queenie sashayed off to be hit on the head by a live skate dropped by Twink. “You — You thing!” Queenie cried. He didn’t know how right he was. The beach was littered with Twink’s catches.
I felt it was my turn to promote some silent transport. I got into my tutta and took off inland. When I returned two hours later they were all up, dried out, dressed, and having a ball chattering with each other on the sand. I made suivez-moi gestures and they followed me to a dilapidated airport where a huge sign in seven languages read: SEE THE SIGHTS SLOW AND COMFY IN A IZVOZCHIK GLIGER. N GUARANTEE. N LIABILITY. N REFUNDS.
We got into the sailplane, the pilot followed, counted heads, nodded, and sat down at the controls. A decrepit World War II jet hooked onto us with a hundred-yard cable, took off, and dragged the gliger after it. At two thousand feet it unhooked and went home and we were free to see the sights slow and comfy. I nodded to M’bantu, who yanked the pilot out of his seat and dragged him aft while I replaced the pilot at the controls.
This was old hat for me. Fact, not boasting, I’d won a dozen glider rallyes when I was a kid of seventy. I rode the thermal updrafts and the southwest wind north while the pilot raged and the Zulu soothed him with a fist. Although the sailplane was mute none of us spoke. It had become a habit.
Damn if I didn’t land in the same TV dump where I’d taken two girls home ages ago. It was a messy putdown but no one was hurt except the gliger. We left the pilot burning for satisfaction and took off, but I did see the Red toss a packet of bills onto his chest before he left the plane. We slud out of the dump and through streets to the tepee where the three wolves were still on guard. M’bantu spoke to them and they let us enter. I expected to find Sequoya there. N. Was he up or down?
Now I accelerated. I left in silence, went and bought a multiburner, a cc of Codeine-Curarine, a jolter, and a utilities map, still in silence. I returned to the tepee, jolted myself with a massive shot, and memorized the map. I had half an hour before the Codeine-Curarine would hit me. When I had the map by heart I gave my perplexed companions a smile of confidence, which I did not feel, motioned to Hic to follow me, and left.
I was able to get Hic to the sewer manhole before the drug hit me. He was still carrying Twink on him but I didn’t object. I wasn’t going to break up a beautiful friendship. We went down into the sewer and started crawling toward Union Carbide when the Codeine-Curarine bombed me.
What it does is splinter the psyche. I was fifteen, twenty, fifty people with their memories and hang-ups; dreaming, angry, thrusting, frightened. I was a population. If the Extro network was aware of me it would have as much trouble sorting out who I was and what I was up to as it would have with Hic-Haec-Hoc. Codeine-Curarine is deadly fatal, but not for a Moleman. However, a lot of Shorties shoot it for that one last kick.
The one percent of the realsie me led us through the sewer, counting yardage until we came to the approx. spot. Out the burner and cut hatch through top. Not bad. Plastic conduit N far off. Ear to. Rushing wind. Exhaust from Extro complex air-con. Burn. In. Crawl. La mia mamma mi vuol bene. Einen zum Ritter schlagen. Oh, Daddy, I want to die. L’enlevement des Sabines. Shtoh nah stolyeh? Hold on thar, stranger. Una historia insipida. Your son will never walk again. How do you feel about that? Merde. Agooga, agooga, agooga. Like sing out dulce Spangland.
Knock/oh jazz/head/oh jazz/against grille/this is the consequence/look/of ill-advised asperity/computer complex below/arte magistra/empy W?/Vrroom/grille must go/give me liberty/too strong for me/or give me/out burner/burn/or give me W?/pull grille back/slide out and drop ten feet to floor followed by gorill who probably/sholem aleichem/wants to mug me/look around look around nothing in complex W? H?
Look at gorill. Look familiar. Punch-drunk fighter. One percent me now becoming ten percent. Very nice edge, Capo Rip always said. Who? Rings a bell. I’m dying, Egypt. N, can’t kill a brother. A what? But going to kill one now. N. The Extro. Kill the Extro. Si. Oui. Ja. Kill the Extro. Hic, kill the Extro. Why we’re here. Hic, with your bare hands; rip, tear, break, smash. Hic, kill the Extro. That’s it over there, center. And Sequoya came out from beyond the Extro. Suddenly I was all me.
“Hi, Guig,” he said pleasantly. The three cryos came out and joined him, emitting their radar music. They were wearing maladroit homemade coveralls.
“Hi, Geronimo,” I said, trying to match his genialdom. “You knew I was coming?”
“Hell, no! We picked something up from the conduit through cable crosstalk but it sounded like a hundred bods. You?”
“Y. Then you can read our minds?”
“Y. How’d you turn yourself into a mob?”
“Codeine-Curarine.”
“Brilliant! Listen, Guig, I’ve been plagued by lunacy from the Extro ever since I came up. You?”
“N.”
“Who’s that with you?”
“Oldest member of the Group. Hic-Haec-Hoc.”
“Ah, yes. The Neanderthaler. What’s that cape-thing on his back?”
“A creature we brought back from space.”
“No! You don’t mean to tell me—”
“I do. Highly advanced exobiology for you to research, if you can persuade Tycho to let you keep it.”
At this moment the broadcasts began their regular carousel of commercials, and the complex filled with men, women, girls, children, doctors, lawyers, cartoon characters, all selling something. It was bedlam and it drove Twink mad with curiosity. It took off to examine the host, but since they were only three-dimensional illusions Twink kept flapping through them.
“I’ve been waiting for you for ages, Guig.”
“Didn’t you know where I was?”
“Not after Mexas City.” He hesitated. “How is she?”
“Fine. Still angry with our naughty brother.”
“She has a temper.”
“Why wait for me here, Chief?”
“I had a lot of work, weeks of it, debugging a program for the production of hermos here on Earth. And I knew you’d show up, sooner or later.”
“D’you know why?”
“To make a deal with me and the Extro.”
“Including the Rajah?”
“Who?”
“Ah! Then you don’t know his identity yet. The renegade killer who’s joined forces with the Extro to use you. He’s murdered Poulos. He nearly got Hillel. I’m probably next.” I turned to Hic and made forceful signs and grunts. He got the idea again, at last, and headed for the Extro. The Injun was perplexed.
“What’s all this, Guig?”
“Not a deal, a hit. We’re going to take the monkey off your back. We’re going to kill the Extro.”
He let out a yell that scattered the frightened cryos and made a dive at Hic, who was attacking the panels and fascia of the damned machine with his powerful hands. I made a dive at Guess, tackled him knee-high, and pulled him down.
There was no need for Sequoya to defend the computer; it had heard everything I said and was defending itself. Lights were shattering, with the fragments aimed downward; the air-cond blew up, more shrapnel; electronic locks on doors and software files burst and barraged us, circuits shorted and high-tension cables came sizzling down. Then the satellite computers were sacrificed. They began to blow up, and it seemed that the Extro would sacrifice every human in the complex, too.
An animal howl from Hic cut through the darkness and dementia. Guess and I froze and stared. One panel had been ripped from the Extro and we saw a lion within, glaring at us. The commercial carousel cast a confusing kaleidoscopic light on it. After a moment I saw that the lion was standing on its hind legs. After another I saw that it was a man wearing a lion mask. And then I realized it wasn’t a mask. It was a deformed face.