The Nervous System (7 page)

Did I mention this?

Shoulder everything relevant to the good senator. Down a couple aisles I deposit this pile amongst upward of seventy-five editions of Dante's
Inferno
, of various vintages, languages, and bindings.

From here, I move to the area I affectionately call “the 600,” which is Melvil's class code for “Technology and Applied Science.” Have to count aisles but I'm almost at the point where I can find it on feel alone.

Enclosed by wire shelving, the mess in this fortysquare-foot cubicle disturbs my sensibilities, but these pockets are bound to form when one is engaged in ambitious projects like mine.

See, as I come across material that meets specific classification criteria, I've begun simply dumping it in the appropriate area like the 600 here. It makes for temporary unsightliness, but allows me to kill two birds without losing focus on the work I'm doing when I come across volumes that obviously belong somewhere else.

In the midst of this chaos, two steamer trunks. One contains a generous amount of heavy-duty explosives. To be frank, I don't know where this cache came from or what use I could ever possibly put it to.

No, ignoring the accumulations of books and drifts of loose papers, as this mess is already making me sweat, I crack open the other box, a big blackened Louis Vuitton, and have a gander inside. Dig: two extra bottles of pills, twelve-pack of Purell
^TM
, army blanket, yet more jerky.

Without knowing exactly why, I grab an old CD. Call it nostalgia.
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
… used to listen to this record before going out on an assignment, made a boy feel bulletproof.

More of a talisman than anything else. Like I'm gonna run into a CD player, dead tech as it is. I assume they once had them here but I arrived after the major looting had played itself out.

And now the items I'm actually looking for: an ankle holster containing an ultracompact Sig Sauer P290, this pulled off yet another deceased Serb; what the hell, I strap it on, and whilst doing so I peep some items that give me a new idea with respect to the current weather …

A pair of miniaturized Maindeka limpet mines.

These I snaked off a digger up at the Bryant Park site on the surface above my head, and I take them now, anticipating the same construction firm I borrowed these from will have (again) sealed the exit for which I'm bound.

They seal it; I blow it up using their own shit. Rinse and repeat.

What I don't appreciate is that this exit is not part of the original library's fabric—so I have absolutely no qualms about destroying a nonoriginal door.

My horde disorder and enhanced paranoia paying off large, people. I'm geared up.

Feeling a touch on the smug side, I pop a pill. Make for the tunnel, due northwest. Beyond the seemingly infinite shelving.

Thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers, the passage I'm headed into now is going to provide me with a way out that the Cyna-corp fucks will not be privy to. Hopefully.

Just after 2/14, public buildings were prepped for use as mass shelters. Alternate in-and-out routes were essential. Hence the newish underground traverse beneath the length of Bryant Park, likely forgotten by the few who were aware of it in the first place.

This will deposit me at West 41st Street and Sixth Avenue. At which point my plan is take a mellow stroll downtown.

And hope against hope I don't get myself dead en route.

_______________

Dirt walls packed tight, reinforced by heavy plastic and wood, the penlight trained on the ground so I might avoid organic things and areas of wet. Focus focus focus, cause I don't like tight spaces, plus too jacked to get neurotic—hey now, I've got my wing tips moving and I'm feeling myself in a big way. Color me jaunty. I'm mentally whistling a little tuneless something, and I come around a final soft curve prior to the exit.

Yonder, I clock the slotted metal gate that will allow me access to the Avenue of the Americas, watery daylight weak as '80s bodega coffee, illuminating no more than the last six feet of the hole I'm in.

And not for the first time in my raggedy life, I marvel at my breathtakingly stupid ability to overvalue my own acumen. For, unsurprisingly, a pair of bodies are parked at the head of the egress, just outside the gateway, sporting the future-ninja signature dress of Cyna-corp soldiers.

Always in twos. I sigh and click the penlight off.

The Maker would perhaps at this juncture have me hearken back to the last such situation, the similarities too glaring to sidestep, a desperate Dewey Decimal on the run with a gun, careening into a duo of soldiers standing point, blocking passage, at least from Dewey's altered perspective, between the darkness and the light.

Perhaps we have here a cosmic test of sorts. To see if a less messy solution is achievable. Or indeed desirable.

But fuck the theology. I bring my good knee down on the clay to stay out of sight and give myself a moment, part of my brain veering immediately into concern for my pants—yeah, but this is vanity and vanity is weakness. Scope the two bruisers for possible nonfatal target points.

Hmm.

What makes these cats so freaking intimidating is primarily their vastly superior kit. Featherweight, powered exoskeletons (brought to you by General Electric), sexy custom A-15 machine pistols, drool-inducing smart headgear, 360-degree selectable view, built-in GPS, etc. And most relevant: voice-activated com systems, making it virtually impossible to disable the wearer quietly without a high-impact headshot. And even then the helmet sends an alarm to a central location.

So what's a simple fella of modest means like me to do? I wash down a pill with some bottled water. Look at the hands: steady as she goes.

In sharp contrast to the cyborgy cock-extensions in which these prim donnas swish around is the soggy cardboard crapola Uncle Sam issues its own in the field. Hell. I conjure up another (mind you: possibly implanted) memory of trying to keep sand out of my mouth, as my entire patrol and I struggle to bang corrugated scrap metal into a shape that might conceivably protect us from antitank fire.

Slapstick stuff. Physical comedy.

I pause at the notion of kicking this motherfucker off. There will be nasty and hasty blowback. To the extent that a man can, I know my own murky heart. I am foresworn to protect this building and its contents. But the ignoble truth breaks down like this: I'd rather risk watching everything implode than be confronted with my own name.

Dig me, I think I got this, with some help from the System. Think I can get over. And what's more, somebody's gotta get these fuckers away from my library, even if it means burning a few books.

Now here I squat, a mini–limpet mine burning a hole in each jacket pocket about the size of a late-twentieth-century nine-volt battery. I finger them, leave my gun in place.

Remember this well, people: unless you employ maximum violence with these psychos from the jump, they will kill your ass faster than you can spit.

So let's opt for the head-on approach. Rising with a grunt, I send up a prayer to Shiva that we can do this with a minimum of mayhem.

They're talking quietly, two beetles on their hind legs, perhaps chatting with each other (or perhaps not, given the headwear), one of them with his/her back to me, leaning against the sealed gate, the other idly rubbing a polymer forearm.

Slacking. I shake my head at this, for shame. Snap to it, earn that pricey gear.

Call to them now: “Hey, yo! Letting you know, I'm unarmed!” My voice thick. Thirsty.

Lowering my surgical mask, I limp their way, overdoing my legit handicap, gloved hands in the air.

The soldiers jerk around, one steps awkwardly and stumbles slightly, laser sights swing my way, the other saying, “Hands! Let's see 'em!”

Jiggle my hands like, duh, Al Jolson, jazz hands. “Already got 'em up, my brother, got nothing on me.”

I'm about ten feet away, other guy calls out: “Stop where you are, pal.”

I keep coming like I haven't heard.

“Just an appeal … Look, I'm stuck down in here, I understand that …”

Dudes have their fancy A-15 machine pistols trained on me. Red lights up in my grill, feel them on my forehead.

“Subject at my location, flight attempt, please advise, over,” mumbles one into the headgear.

Holding up my right hand, slow down, I'm saying, “Hey, I'm in here with absolutely no fucking food supply whatsoever, okay, you people got me on lockdown, I dig that …” My left hand goes to my jacket pocket and I withdraw a limpet. “Just requesting some rations, whatever you all feel like you have on you …”

Reach the gate, “Back the fuck up!” calls one of them.

I get ahold of a thick metal slat on the gate, put my palms to it, press the limpet on there good, press hard now to engage the explosive, twenty seconds, count 'em down, saying, “Honestly, y'all, this isn't a hostile—”

“Back the fuck up!” repeats the beetle. So I do it.

“All right. Easy now. Just hoping to appeal to your …”

Backing up, fifteen seconds, guy muttering, “Subject moving northbound through tunnel A, permission to pursue and detain …”

Me saying, “I get it. I get it.” Spin left (as per the System … more later), hobbling forth, twelve seconds.

“Down on your knees!” calls a beetle. “Down on your knees now, hold it right there!” Ten seconds.

I take off running. When I say this I mean I limp faster, the verb
run
is perhaps too strong. I speed-gimp from whence I came. Seven seconds.

Hear a beetle raising his voice, “Subject rabbiting, permission to engage, over.”

The beetles hopping up and down, excited, pressed up against the gate, shoving their fancy guns between the slats. Four seconds.

Stiffen my back and maintain the fifty-yard stagger. A dirt clod next to my right foot erupts, in this way I know they're shooting at me and shooting low. Must've gotten the thumbs-up over the com. Start to zig and zag, another bullet zings past my calf, giving off heat, I'm thinking less than two seconds, for serious hoping I've thrown up enough distance, grind my teeth and really try to give it some mustard, and whomp there it is, the force of the blast popping my eardrums like a sudden loss of altitude on a jumbo jet. Hurl myself flat against a wall, anticipating shrapnel.

None is forthcoming. Gingerly now, I hazard a glance behind me. A heavy cloud of reddish dust obscures my escape route.

Begin to stand and my fake knee goes wonky, weeblewobbles, but I don't fall down, thinking daaaammn if I'm not on life number eight and a half.

Pull up my mask. Get the gloves off, reapply the sweet P
^TM
, new pair of gloves, another pill.

Seem a bit much? It's like I said: gotta use broad strokes with these people.

Cautious now. Oddly quiet save a muffled groaning and far-off helicopter.

I hobble forward, the air clearing, and am pleased to see the ordnance took off the gate completely … I note one beetle on his/her face, that's the one moaning. Momentarily dismayed to observe beetle number two has gotten a metal rod though his/her shoulder/armpit, unfortunately the most vulnerable area when one is togged out in such armor; this unlucky bug is lying sideways and if not dead already must be in considerable shock.

The skewered bug's matte black Smith & Wesson A-15 is sitting loosely in its extended right hand, too sexy to bypass … I step though the hole carefully, eyes on the prone groaner, lest it be a ruse, and relieve the goner bug of its weapon. Heft the gun, a nice polymer, sleek and light. I loop the nylon strap around my shoulder. Prod at the survivor with my left foot.

“Don't say a fucking word into that radio. You hear me? Or I take you out quick fast.”

Thing tenses up. It's drawn a pistol but it just dangles from its paw.

“If you hear me and wanna comply, set it down slow.”

“Hit this position …” comes a weary female voice from inside the helmet. I gather she's called in an air strike or what-have-you, see what I'm fucking saying with these kids? Wanna hurt her but my Code won't let me. Let her bleed out slow.

Even less time than I had reckoned. I mount the steps double quick, squatting so I might peek around the corner …

Due north a couple Cyna-folk to the rescue, moving along the wall, I hit the soldier in front, pop pop pop, and he's down, guy behind him raises his weapon and I aim for his chest second and head first, boom boom, and he's deflating on his buddy.

Listen. I hate to play it like this. I really do. But trust me here, subtlety will only bring you sorrow.

Plaster and stone pop-rock in front of my face, peppering me with little pebbles, ouch, and I reckon I'm being engaged by the black (natch) Joint Light Tactical Vehicle parked at the curb only slightly south of my position, duck back for a second, then boogie straight on out into the open, scurry across the sidewalk and behind the vehicle.

Me thinking left, left, left. The System. Even in a firefight, gotta work it proper.

Whereupon my attention is drawn skyward and I dig an MD-530F helicopter as it comes floating out over the top of the library like a big charcoal tuna, and boy am I dismayed to observe several Hellfire missiles mounted on its underbelly, as well as the expected M60 machine gun which is already spitting bullets. I hug the south side of the JLTV, hearing the ping-pong as fire is deflected off the other side of the vehicle, head south toward the driver, passenger door comes open and a Cyna is halfway out before I shoot him, trying to be sparing as I understand these mags to be thirty capacity at most, kicking the body out of the way as I swing into the vehicle, just flowing now, lean across the seat and push the gun into the driver's ear, as he/she is in the midst of turning back toward me, 9mm in hand.

“Shit. Take it easy.” A male voice, he's lifting his hands, I pull the door shut, reach over, and force his headgear off, this is a sandy-complected white kid, all-American, thick linebacker's neck, blushing and blotchy, wincing as some of his hair comes away with the fancy hardhat. Despite the slight chill he's sweating. As he should be.