The dispatcher shivered. “Yessir.”
With SRT leading them, they got to an exit door at the far end of the vast computer area. A speaker over the metal door blared:
“Stand where you are. This is a restricted area. This exit is for emergency use only. Stay calm and await instructions. Help is on the way.”
Grinning, SRT said, “If this isn’t an emergency, what is?”
THX looked back down the aisle they had come through. A pair of chrome police robots were lumbering their way.
“Let’s go!”
SRT put his shoulder to the door and it popped open, with a gust of air blowing in their faces from the corridor outside. The passageway looked deserted.
Overhead, OMM’s reassuring voice said:
“Everything will be all right. You are in my hands. You have nowhere to go. I am here to protect you. Cooperate with the authorities, they only want to help you. You have nowhere to go.”
“Which way?” SRT asked.
“Up to the third level,” THX said unhesitatingly. “To the Reproclinic.”
They pounded down the corridor, looking for a lift tube. Behind them, they heard a robot’s voice calling:
“We only want to help you. You have nothing to be afraid of. Please come back. We won’t harm you.”
But THX and SRT ran on, ignoring the taped voice of the robot, outdistancing the machines with their human, fear-driven legs.
“Monetary unit totaclass="underline" 1240 and rising.”
“Visual contact with felon 5241 prefix SEN. Habot 25, Con H DS 947.”
“Proceed to pickup.”
“Felon 1138 prefix THX. Visual contact, level four, area CCF-N-228. Apprehension pending.”
They found a lift tube, but THX suddenly pushed SRT away from its entrance hatch.
“No! We can’t use it.”
“You wanted to go up to the next level. We can’t go back the way we came. The robots—”
“But they’re watching for us now. They can trap us in the lift tube. Stop the cell… or drop it down to the bottom…”
“Hey, yeah. But where do we go now?”
Looking around at the bare metal walls of the passageway, THX said, “There must be an access stairway somewhere along here. For mantenance on the tube.”
“Okay. You go that way and I’ll go this. If you find something, yell out.”
Chapter 19
SEN wandered through the crowded corridors, lost in the ever-stampeding masses of people who made the shopping levels a chaos of frenzied bodies rushing, rushing in response to the goadings from overhead:
“Today only, red dendrites are only fifty credits. Buy now.”
“The consumer has the factor of advantage.”
“Did you repent today?”
SEN let the torrent of rushing bodies carry him along wherever it wanted to. He had no place to go. Once in a while he would see the shining white helmet of a police robot standing well above the heads of the masses. But the robots never came after him. In these pell-mell mobs, the robots couldn’t even see him, SEN knew.
At Mercicontrol, another dispatcher—different from the one who was following THX and SRT and yet very much the same—received an analysis on his main viewscreen. “On the monk found dead in Cathedral 090. Statistical analysis shows the only known felon observed within reasonable range of that location/time complex is 5241 prefix SEN. Presume guilty unless otherwise proven.”
The dispatcher nodded agreement and tapped out a bulletin on his keyboard that would add the murder to SEN’s record.
“What are the latest reports on 5241 prefix SEN?”
“Visual contact at Habot 25, Con H DS 947. Contact broken at 1438.”
“Tracking information doesn’t match Harris profile of 5241 prefix SEN. Are you sure you’re following the right man?”
“Computer correlation to point eight.”
“Okay, okay. Keep all observers looking for him. Mark him dangerous.”
The dispatcher nodded again and resumed working his keyboard.
SEN drifted aimlessly in the busy roaring crowd. If only there were time… time to think… to rest… When he thought his head would split from the noise and bruisings of the crowd, he tried to edge his way out of the main flow of the pedestrian thoroughfare, toward a prayer booth or a rest area—anything, as long as there was some quiet and rest.
He found an open corridor entrance along the edge of the main thoroughfare wall and, pushing himself free of the rushing crowd, staggered out into the empty corridor. It led to a school plaza—a restful little plaza with space to spare, a bench to sit on, and no taped announce- ments or glitter-eyed shoppers.
The school itself was half a level above, connected to the plaza by moving stairways. Children were scattered all around the plaza, playing intensely at quiet, ordered, meaningful games. No teacher or supervisor was in sight, but still the children didn’t raise thek voices or run or get themselves dirty.
Taped to each child’s arm was a plastic vial filled with a yellowish fluid. A connector tube fed the fluid into the main vein of the forearm.
SEN sat, exhausted, on a bench off to one side of the plaza. He watched the children playing their solemn little games, his mind a blank. When there is too much to think on, too much to remember, it feels good to blank it all out, to pretend none of it exists. For a while, at least.
His body began to relax. Cramped tense muscles were easing, the fluttering in his stomach was fading away. SEN almost felt as if he wanted to smile.
One of the children approached him, his face very grave.
“My inducer fell off.”
SEN blinked at him. “What?”
The boy held out his left arm. The plastic vial was gone. SEN could see the outlines of where the tape had held it on.
“Oh, I see…”
The boy had the vial in his other hand. The tape was still connected to it, but torn raggedly along one edge.
“OPA 3114 knocked it off,” the boy said.
“Really?”
“He didn’t mean to.”
SEN took the vial from the boy’s hand. It was marked Advanced Primary Economics 5867H. A drop of the yellow liquid trickled out of the dangling connector tube.
“Look out!” the boy snapped, and reached for the tube to pinch it shut.
“Oh… I’m sorry… here, let me get it back on for you.”
He taped the vial onto the boy’s arm and plugged the connector into the acceptor tube that poked out from the skin of his forearm.
“There, that should do it. You’ll have the whole course digested by sleep time.” SEN smiled at the boy like an indulgent uncle.
A bigger, older boy came trotting over. “Come on, we’re going to play stochastics…” He eyed SEN. “What are you doing here? Where’s your badge?”
SEN shrugged. “I’m… I’m an escaped felon.”
The two boys’ eyes bugged wide.
“You’re not! Why aren’t you arrested?”
Another shrug. “I will be… sooner or later.”
They didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but they were plainly fascinated.
“What did you do? How did you escape?”
SEN chuckled at them. “Now, now… it’s nothing for your tender ears to listen to.” He tapped the vial on the first boy’s arm. “When I was in school it was all different. We had to lie in bed all the time. Advanced primary economics was a bottle about this big—” He spread his hands about the width of his shoulders. “It took a week to digest it!”
“Wow!”
An observer, making a routine scan of the school plaza, spotted him. In his earphones he was hearing a police dispatcher saying:
“Lost contact with 1138. An unidentified felon is traveling with him. Will transfer further information when available.”