City Wars (6 page)

8

Meyerson’s leg always hurt worse at night, when the wind could wrap around it and shake it like the near-useless thing it was. And he figured he’d stood around long enough, watching as Media screens replayed scenes of the destruction of E Sector, and detailed biographies of those slain there flashed in holography against the sky.

Meyerson was not a wise man, but he knew about the world, about the ending of things. And he knew that for the Urbans—frustrated with rhetoric, filled up with memories of the Great War—for them, the waiting had finally ended.

He tried to feel their excitement, standing in the middle of the dark street, amid people running to gather in halls and offices, running to Government Access Centers to press for action, to volunteer.

But it was not his time. Not Meyerson, with his drawn face and steely beard and withered leg. He’d grown fat and sloppy, and too easily warmed by a few beers and a casual smile. He was old.

Not old for a man. Old for a soldier.

A bright bright soldier.

Meyerson started humming that song Clemmie had sung in the diner only a short time before and remembered that she hadn’t followed him out to the streets. She’d probably be long gone by now, he thought.

He decided to find her.

He tried to think. Scholars moved around a lot.
Maybe they took sectors. He couldn’t remember, Clemmie could conceivably be anywhere. Some bar, an arcade, even a residence, if the citizen had enough clout.

Maybe she’d just gone home. He recalled having taken her home one night a year or two back. Her Government residence was near the Loop. Nice, if you didn’t mind the hanging algae pods.

Meyerson decided he could find the place again.

He searched his pockets for a few bills. Nothing. Just some change. He’d blown the rest on dinner for himself and Clemmie, and on the half-finished flask in his jacket pocket. Certainly not enough left for a cab.

A soreness came over him. What if he walked a third of the way across town for nothing? What if Clemmie weren’t home anyway?

Screw it, he thought.

Meyerson started to walk.

He’d gone a few blocks, his good leg already feeling the strain, when a movement in the shadows at the end of a deep cleft in the buildings to his right caught his eye. He heard some kind of scuffling sound.

Crouching, Meyerson moved along the side of the black building until he was most of the way down the alley. Up ahead, in the uncertain light, he saw queerly shaped shadows springing along the walls.

Getting in closer, unmindful of the thumping in his leg, Meyerson peered into the darkness. He saw two men—no, bigger, gangling—they were lunks. They were hoisting some kind of sack from the trunk of an old sedan into a large mobile trash dumpster. Another lunk was with them, gesturing. The sedan was sagging at an angle in the rear, looked to have a flat.

The lunks had finished stuffing the sack into the dumpster and were sealing the lid. Meyerson took another couple steps toward the open area. His bad leg struck a hanging section of drain pipe. The pipe clanged loudly against the side of the building.

The lunk giving the orders looked up, shouted. The other two came lumbering toward Meyerson.

He pushed away from the wall, forearms up.

The lunks lowered their heads and caught him with
their shoulders. He went up and back, was slammed hard against the wall. The air was pushed from his lungs.

Meyerson cried out, kicking with his good leg. He found a target. The lunk yelped and hobbled back a step.

Meyerson grappled with the second lunk, trying to get inside the huge arms. He felt himself hoisted in the air again.

His mouth filled with blood. He spat at his assailant in the darkness and rolled to the pavement. He was winded, and his leg ached, but he was thinking hard, and he knew he had to get out of this corner they had him in.

He was up on one knee, well behind the second lunk, when the one he took to be their leader came out of the shadows.

Something glinted in this lunk’s hands. He stopped, raised his arms.

Meyerson’s jaw tightened. A good soldier, he could tell the stance of a man who was aiming a weapon.

The lunk’s snub-rifle flamed.

Meyerson took it full in the face, his beard igniting in the blackness. He crumpled then, falling forward.

His good leg jerked once. Again.

Giles stepped over him and sheathed the rifle in his shoulder holster. He looked questioningly from one of his confederates to the other. They nodded.

He turned and led them back to where the dumpster stood in the shadows. Each taking a corner of the old metallic tub, they put their shoulders to the cold steel and soon the dumpster was rolling back along the alley, back into the concrete silence of night.

Bowman swiveled in his chair and rested his fingers on the keys. He punched two of them and waited for the module lights to change hue.

Confirmation.

He took a last bite of his sandwich, then balled up the waxed paper and tossed it into a corner.

He leaned back, hands clasped behind his head.
Christ, would he welcome a nice half-tilt right about now. But he knew he had to stay straight. He was always straight when working. It was one of his rules.

Bowman smiled at himself in the darkness. Okay, so it was his only rule.

The chamber was cool and black. At the far end, just above eye level, the sphere projector slowly rotated. Multicolored images moved like phantoms about the chamber in alignment with the sphere’s rotation.

Bowman studied each diagram carefully. Since the War, even great areas of land mass had been altered. Ridges had been created where flatland had been. Valleys gorged out of solid rock splintered mountain ranges. Some scientists even theorized a radical continental shift.

And that’s all they could do, Bowman thought grimly. Theorize. There just wasn’t the hardware, the technology of pre-War times to collect and categorize data.

He went over in his mind what little information he had, flipping pages of the recently filed lab report from E Sector.

Topographical extrapolation had projected a course back along that from which the gamma stream had probably come. Known atmospheric and meteorological data had also been correlated. Given the intensity of the gamma radiation, the extent of the destruction at E Sector, and the scanner-projected path along which the stream must have traveled, analysis had arrived at only one conclusion.

E Sector had been destroyed by a gamma shower whose origin was New York City. It could further be supposed that the cobalt cones fired into the heart of Chicago the day before were also from New York.

Bowman scowled. Hadrian had been right all along. And worse, everyone in that Tactics Room had known it. Including Gilcrest.

What no one knew for sure was New York’s gamma potential. Given the extraordinary amount of energy necessary to project a gamma stream of sufficient intensity to level an area the size of E Sector, who could say how long New York need wait to strike again? If indeed
they weren’t setting new strike coordinates at this very moment.

Jesus! Bowman shook his head; remembered that paranoia was the most common post-tilt symptom.

He deactivated the sphere projector and turned on the lights. Cassandra was sitting three seats away.

He stood up and stretched. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I move rather quietly when I want to.” She sounded tired.

Bowman came over and sat beside her. “Where’s Gilcrest? Aren’t you supposed to be with him?”

“He was feeling ill, so he retired to his quarters. His nurse is with him. He’ll be all right.” She put her hands on her lap. Bowman was surprised at how small they were.

“Jake, he looked terrible.”

“Yeah,” Bowman said. “It was close back there. I think he knows he’s losing power every day.”

Cassandra nodded. “It’s funny. I never cared one way or the other about him. It was just a job. Guarding him, attending the meetings. But now—I don’t know. Today—seeing him on the defensive in that room …” She looked down at her hands. “I guess I realize what he’s trying to do. Or what he’s trying to preserve.”

“Yeah. Preserve is exactly right. This city, Cass. The whole concept of it …” He smiled. “I know how he can get sometimes. I had a fill of it when I came over to Tactics during the War. I would be trying to locate a lost air cruiser over Lake Erie, and Gilcrest’d be right beside me, chewing on that damn pipe and recalling some quaint piece of history from Chicago’s past.” He gave her a sidelong look. “Hey, did he ever tell you about these tribal warlords, used to run the city?”

“Tribes? In Chicago? No …”

“He said they used to have boundary disputes right on the streets. Shot at each other from moving cars.”

Cassandra laughed. “Now you’re making fun of me … or him.”

“No, no. Not him. I always figured, at least the old guy had something, you know? To care about. There
was something at stake for him. I understand people with something at stake.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Let’s just say I know how the old man’s mind works. The thought of another war has got to be killing him.”

Her glance was searching.

“And may I ask … what do you feel? About war, I mean?”

He smiled narrowly. “Oh. You want the career man’s viewpoint?”

“I was hoping for Jake Bowman’s.”

“I don’t know if he has one. Other than that war is something that’s bound to happen. Maybe not now, maybe not next time. So the time after that—”

He looked at her. She seemed to be waiting. She always seemed to be waiting for him to go on, to say more, to reveal parts of himself. Bowman tried to gauge how he felt about that, came up with nothing …

He said, “What I’m saying is, a certain amount of tension builds up … each city gathering its strength, and then …”

Cassandra said, “I suppose that’s the way it’s always been.”

He smiled then at the worldly tone of her voice, appreciating the warmth he now knew lay behind it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he found himself hoping she’d survive the holocaust he knew was coming.

“I saw the preliminary report on my way here,” Cassandra was saying. She gestured toward the semicircle of instruments now humming quietly. “It’s confirmed then? New York?”

He stirred. “Looks that way. Government will have to go for retaliation. I can’t see any alternative.”

They fell silent for what seemed a long while.

“I have quarters here,” Cassandra said. “And we still have two hours until the vote.”

Bowman looked down at her hands, still clasped on her lap.

“All right,” he said.

9

They lay together, entwined.

Cassandra stared at the ceiling, and at the shimmer of lights playing there.

“The wildness was good, Jake,” she said. “I can always tell when it’s good. It took me away from myself.”

Bowman lifted his head from the pillow.

She said, “Your body is an instrument you use very well. In that way, we are much alike.”

He got up on an elbow, grinned.

“At the risk of ruining the moment, Cass … do you get like this every time you screw?”

Cassandra laughed softly. “I’m sorry, Jake. Sometimes I … well, I like to examine how I feel.” Her hand caressed his bicep. “Would you tell me how you feel?”

“The truth?”

“Of course.”

“Like I was put through a wringer.”

She smiled, gave him something good to look at in her eyes. “We Guardians have a myth to uphold.”

“Consider it upheld for at least another decade or two.” He bent and kissed her lips. Her arms came up, he felt the swell of her breasts as she moved beneath him.

“I don’t think so, Cass. Not so soon.”

“We’ll see,” she said. “Unlike a Guardian, you may not be aware of all you’re capable of.”

He was grinning as she reached for him.

And for the second time, he knew of her graceful strength, and how good it was sliding into her, finding with her the slow, tortuous rhythm. Near the end he would gasp at what her taut muscles could do when he thought he was spent, when he thought— Then he felt her deep deep shudder and her small adroit hands touching him in places his mind had not known and he exploded within her.

And he had no thought of time, or the night, or the want of dreams.

Bowman turned his head.

“Away from the warring,” Cassandra said, “you are a beautiful man.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The war,” she said. “The struggle. You believe you need it.”

“I’ve never said that.” He wondered where she was going.

“You don’t have to say anything. After I’m with a man a certain amount of time … in a certain way … I can trust my instincts.”

He said, “I accept war. And the consequences of war. It’s the way of the cities.”

She considered this.

“As Guardians, we are conditioned to accept only what nature has structured for us. Laws of physics, the cycle of regeneration. What humankind decrees is not subject to this acceptance.”

Bowman grew annoyed suddenly, and therefore careless.

“I wasn’t aware that the Order included philosophy in its curriculum,” he said easily.

Cassandra turned to him, suddenly cold in her nakedness. “Perhaps my instincts were wrong. Perhaps you’re like the others, Jake. I’m sorry.”

“Cass, what are you—”

“You think of us as death-dealers, killing machines … and in bed, whoring machines.” Her smile was
without humor. “Yes, I know the myth and all its specifics.”

Bowman said, “Not you, Cass.”

She held him with her frank eyes.

“Ours is a way of life, Jake. An avenue of commitment. To guard, to serve as a Guardian, is to make the rational choice to protect those who function as leaders in society.”

He spoke hurriedly. “I know that, Cass. You don’t have to recite from the manual.” He touched her breast. “Look, maybe I—”

He hesitated. It had been a mistake. He felt hot suddenly; exposed.

“Jake …?”

Bowman pulled himself up and sat on the bed. His words were slow and deliberate.

“During the War,” he said, “two men in my command were killed by a Guardian. I know that doesn’t mean anything now … or shouldn’t … but—”

Cassandra drew her knees up under the sheets, touched them with her forehead. He saw her as a different woman then, small and fragile.

“You see how it was, Cass. Why I feel … felt—”

“There were mercenaries, yes,” she said. “We knew of them. They shamed all of us in the Order. The fact that a Guardian could renounce his—”

“Cassandra …” His voice was low. “That was a long time ago. Like the War.”

“They were all caught, you know. At least, we think so …”

Bowman took her head in his hands, drew her to him.

“Come on, Cass. We’re screwing this up. That’s crazy—now.”

Even as he said the words, he was afraid to think they might be true. That he— “It’s okay, Jake,” she was saying. “It’s as much my fault.” She kissed him softly, then again. “I tend to explain a lot.”

“I noticed.”

He got up after a while and padded across the
room, returning to the bed with a tray. He poured two glasses of wine.

“It looks like the real thing,” he said.

She lifted her glass. “It is. Welcome back to Government.”

He thought that last remark over as he drank his wine.

The young girl stood before the Instructors and lowered her head. She was afraid, and wanted to cry, but did not cry.

The Instructors spoke in quiet tones. They used many words she did not understand.

After a while, they asked her if she knew her age.

Eleven, she said.

Would you like to know faith, they asked.

I would like to know faith, she said.

Would you like to know strength, they asked.

I would like to know strength, she said.

Would you like to know being, they asked.

I would like to know being, she said.

They smiled at her and bowed their heads.

The young girl did not know why they bowed, nor why they dressed as they did, nor why the room seemed to have no walls and go on forever.

Nor did she know why she’d replied to their questions as she had. She’d merely answered the way she’d been told to that first time she came here.

Later she would come to know all these things.

Later she would understand that she’d been selected at this young age for her intelligence, genetic strain, and assertive psychological profile. She’d understand that a series of tests had determined her body to be physiologically and mentally compatible with a complex biochemical implant that would be prepared for her.

For now, the young girl knew only that the Instructors were bowing to her, and smiling, and she felt good in this room.

It was an honor to come here. Everyone had told her so. It meant you were special. It meant you were
allowed to live and play within the great spheres outside the city, the great spheres all the children marveled at and made up stories about.

And now she was here, and they were going to let her stay and learn with them.

That’s what they’d said. She was going to learn with them. And teach them.

She did not understand. She couldn’t see how a little girl like herself could teach anything to such wise old ones.

That is, she assumed they were wise. Why, they spoke so softly and well. And they bowed!

Yes, they were wise, she decided as they led her out of the room. But she must be wise too, else they’d never have let her come live with them.

Whether she knew it or not, she’d learned her first wise thing.

Her formal education was elliptical in the following ten years, always bringing her back to her purpose among the Instructors. She learned the rudiments of math and science, and the rules of nature, and the rules of self.

And the rules of the Order.

The First Rule was that to Guard was to know being.

The Second Rule was that to Guard was to make the rational choice to protect those who functioned as leaders in society.

The young girl was taught a specific form of meditation, what the Instructors called the “being search.” It was a search to be conducted daily, and one which was never to end.

At the age of thirteen, she was introduced to the studies of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry. She was told by her Instructors that learned opinion considered the human body’s muscles to be divided into two categories: voluntary and involuntary. She was told that such distinctions did not exist for those in the Order.

This same year she joined her fellow students in an intensive program of physical conditioning. Her lithe body was made to stretch, to test itself, to find limits.

She began at the same time her schooling in the martial skills.

At fourteen, she accepted her physicality and mortality in a small ceremony before all the Instructors. She was allowed to ask every question that entered her mind. The ceremony lasted for two and a half days, and it became more important to her that the Instructors answered her than that the answers themselves satisfied her.

The Instructors were very pleased.

In the middle of her fourteenth year, she received her first chemo-structural injections. She was also taught the history of the city, an appreciation of the chromatic scale and its effect on the unconscious, and the ability to deaden nerve centers in her body and thus erase pain.

The injections continued well into her fifteenth year. So gradual was their effect that she was almost unaware of her increased endurance, muscular tone, lung capacity and sense of balance. Her martial training had progressed as well by this point. In a controlled exercise, she demonstrated that she was able to kill with her hands, feet, elbows, knees, forehead.

At sixteen, the girl was submersed naked in a pod of milky liquid, from which many wires and tubes protruded, and where she would sleep without dreaming for one year.

The Instructors worked over her.

The skills she had learned, the prowess she had developed, the knowledge she had gained of every facet of the body and its functions were cleansed from her conscious mind and imbued instead into her unconscious. By processes both chemical and intuitive, both neurosurgical and psychosurgical, the Instructors took from her the gift of knowledge and gave in return the gift of being.

She would know her body as few ever could. Know
its mechanisms, feel its turbulence, understand its needs. She would control these things.

She would come from this new womb reborn, her body not merely trained but an instrument of her will—and that will not conscious but unconscious.

She would be able to answer truthfully the last of the questions asked her a few short years before.

She would know being.

The girl came out of the liquid and was greeted with honor by her Instructors. They bowed, and thanked her for teaching them.

She returned their bow then, and spread her hands, and begged their forgiveness.

I know nothing but myself, she said.

The Instructors were pleased.

From which point, her training was in the practical knowledge of Government and its internal workings. She was taught the rigors of Government duty, the mechanics of Government operations, the imperatives of office Guardians had been created to serve.

When the girl was nineteen, she was placed in the center of a rotating dais. Six of her fellow students were given hand weapons of various design and then set upon her. She disarmed each in his turn, and caused no injury.

The girl had become a young woman, and had taken as a lover a thick-shouldered man who was not in training for the Order. The Instructors allowed such things because the being must know all things of the body.

But there was yet one thing for the being to know.

And so, one calm night in her twentieth year, as she was bringing something quite near to madness to her lover’s eyes, the Instructors put a voice into her head.

The voice told her to kill him.

She reached up and snapped his neck with her hands. She lowered him down onto her breasts and held him to her.

Tears rolled from her cheeks to the thick tangle of his hair.

The Cancellation
.

The absolving of any moral consideration of an act
.

The Instructors found her in her room and took her away with them to another room. She was laid gently on heavy sheets and a hand came on her brow and a voice asked that she close her eyes.

Devices were brought to the table where she lay, and the memory of this first kill was removed from Cassandra Ingram’s mind.

The effects of the experience itself were all that were necessary for the completion of her training. They would sleep deep within her, buried like dormant seeds.

Soon after, she left the great spheres and the care of the Instructors and took her position in Government.

Cassandra would never remember the taking of her first lover, and then the taking of his life. But whenever her duty as Guardian forced her to act, that same sleeping instinct would awaken in her, guide the deadly instrument of her body, make her the killing thing that was a Guardian …

“Jake, I want you to touch me.”

He came down beside her on the bed. She took his hand and drew it along the inside of her thigh.

Before he could speak, she said, “Press down with your fingers. Right there.”

He felt it. An indentation, a design. It was hardly visible. As though embossed on her skin.

“It’s the mark of the Guardian,” she said. “The mark of all in the Order. We were each of us designated a life-point, and so marked.”

He asked her with his eyes.

“I wanted you to know all of me, Jake. All that I am.”

His hand lingered on her thigh, then traveled the length of her taut stomach to the fullness of her
breasts. He wanted her again. He wanted her desire, and he wanted it to consume him.

It was a revelation to him, the joyous intensity of their lovemaking. Her adroitness and control, the product of Guardian training; his abandon, unknown to him for longer than he could remember—a gift returned. A feeling he’d once thought only his duty to Service and its attendant horrors could supply.

And it was only later, in the deepness of shared silence, that his thoughts turned again to the war.