And closed it even more swiftly. Coming down the corridor towards me were two of the gray men carrying a sinister looking object between them. I had not seen enough of it to capture any details, though what I had seen had given me a definitely crawling sensation. The next step in the diGriz pacification program? This seemed highly probable when the door handle started to turn.
There was a surprise in store for this pair and I wanted to keep it from them as long as I could. As the door opened I stepped behind it and waited while they struggled with the bulky torture machine. Only when I heard one of them gasp in alarm did I put my shoulder to the door and ram it into them with all my weight and strength. As soon as they crunched and howled I jumped around the door, the metal control box swinging at the end of its cable.
One of them was bent over, more interested in the weight of the machine on his foot than in anything else and I let my weapon bounce off the top of his skull. While it rebounded the second man tried for his gun and actually had it halfway out of its holster before my knee caught him low in the stomach and he folded on top of his associate. I plucked the gun from his limp fingers as he went down and now I was armed.
During most of my stay in the building I had been conscious and I thought I knew my way out. Back through the main entrance which was sure to be guarded. It was one flight down and in the opposite direction from Kraj ’ s chambers. The gausspistol had a full charge of power and a filled magazine as well. There was no time to check what kind of ammunition it was loaded with, but it was surely something lethal which was fine by me. I was in a lethal mood. I wrapped the cable up close to the box so it wouldn’t swing and get in my way, took a deep breath—and dived out the door.
The hallway was empty, a good beginning. I trotted to the stairs without seeing anyone, then went down them two at a time. The next floor would be the ground floor since they had only taken me up one story. This memory was opposed by the reality that there was a large stairwell beside me that did not end at the next floor. When this fact finally registered on my tardy synapses I skidded to a stop and looked carefully over the edge of the railing.
There were at least eight more stories below this one.
They had been running through my cerebral cortex with their little leaden boots. This certainly proved my theoretical stance that a good deal of what had happened to me was illusion or false memory. What had been real? Was this ‘escape’ real at the present moment? This was a chilling thought; everything that was happening could be a generated series of unreal events to prove to me that I could not escape. I could keep going down these stairs forever or wake up at any moment back in my room still attached to my pendent box. Well, if this were true, there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I had to treat this illusion like reality until it proved otherwise. Unless this was an endless dream building these stairs had to end somewhere, and I was going to find out.
Four floors down, just when I was beginning to get dizzy from the constant circling, I met another man coming up. A gray man with a rifle and a very surprised look. Since I had been expecting this encounter and he hadn’t I got in the first shot.
Quite a shot. The gausspistol was loaded with explosive slugs. They blasted a gaping hole in the staircase and buried the gray man against the wall where he slumped, crumpled and unconscious. The echoes were still booming and the dust unsettled when I leaped the gaping hole and buried myself down the stairs at a suicidal pace. It would be more certain suicide to wait around.
The stairs ended, I was at the bottom, and I slammed into the wall I was going so fast. There was much shouting from above me and the hammer of running feet. My gun at the ready I pushed open the door and walked into blackness.
It was a bit of a shock and I almost fired off a couple of rounds on general principle but, as my eyes adjusted, I saw a dim light in the distance. There were rough walls and dust and other indications that I had bypassed the ground floor and ended up in a cellar. Which was all right too since there was undoubtedly a warm reception waiting for me a flight above. If I could get out of the basement I was still one jump ahead of the competition. Gun ready, metal box swinging, shins bruised by unseen obstacles, I stumbled towards the far off light. I was not enthused when I reached it after running the invisible obstacle course. It was a window.
But a small window, high on the wall, coated with insect corpses and dirt. And heavily barred.
Behind me in the darkness there were shouts, running feet, crashing noises and healthy curses. What to do?
Obvious. Get out. I stepped back, raised the gun, shielded my face, and blew the window out. And part of the wall around it and some of the street outside until my gun clicked empty. I dropped it, slung my box over my shoulder and used my free hand to help me scrabble up the slope of rubble and out into the street.
To start running again. Someone saw me and shouted but I did not shout back. I ran harder even though I was getting winded and more than a little fatigued by the effort. It is one thing to escape, it is another thing altogether to stay free once out. Barefooted, dressed in totally transparent clothes with a collar and some meters of wire about my neck, not to mention the control box, I must have presented a rather unusual and unmistakable sight. I needed to hide, hole up, change, get rid of the collar, a lot of things. And I was getting very tired.
I went around a corner as fast as I could and slammed into someone coming in the opposite direction. We both went down and I rolled on my back like a bug, near exhaustion, gasping for air. Then I saw the face of the man I had run into and had a last little burst of hope.
“Otrov.” I gasped. “0ld friend, old roommate, old copilot. I am in trouble and need your help. The locals, you see…”
I saw Otrov, a mild man at the worst of times, turn into a very angry animal. Twisted face, bulging eyes, the works. He dived on me and pinned me to the cold ground.
“Locals nothing,” he shouted. “Kraj has been asking after you, Kraj wants you. What have you done?”
Chapter 15
I struggled a bit, but it did me no good. My heart wasn’t in it and I was close to exhaustion. Though I did manage to catch my ex-friend Otrov a good one on the side of the head with my torture box. His eyes crossed but he didn’t let go and by that time a small squad of gray men were upon us, peeling him off and plodding me to my feet with their rifle barrels. I prodded slowly. Sunk in dark despair and limp with fatigue I was certainly in no hurry.
There were six of them and Otrov, who had a look on his face of wishing to be elsewhere.
“Kraj talked to me, you see. About Vaska here, said he wanted him …“ His voice ran down and expired when the stony faced men completely ignored him. I didn’t.
“What did you expect—gratitude? You rat. Starting your own bomb-your-buddy week, aren’t you?” I tried to sneer but it turned to a gurgle when one of my captors jerked on my cable. One of my five captors. I blinked and looked again because I could swear there had been six there a moment ago.
While I was still counting a pair of hands reached up and closed around the neck of number five. His eyeballs bulged and his mouth gaped and I worked to keep my expression calm and not to bulge my own eyes in the same manner. The hands scrunched, the eyes closed, and number five vanished from sight. I struggled a bit so the survivors would keep their attention on me, even lashing out a foot and getting Otrov in the ankle to keep him occupied as well.