Transmaniacon (2 page)

Across from the door, a desk of black mahogany half hid a man sitting with hands folded on its polished top. The man's face was in darkness except for a portion of his left cheek, pitted like the moon. On that cheek, as on Fuller's, was the Sign.

Ben swallowed. He was one of the few men remaining who knew the derivation of that sign.

Behind the man at the desk, a quarter moon slashed the planetarium's concavity, giving off a silvery sheen. The moon hung like a sickle over the shrouded figure.

“The bargain is made?” The croaking voice came through a device that deliberately distorted its tones.

“Anything you say.” Ben replied.

“I don't care for equivocal answers.”

“I need to know more about the project. What you want from me might be something I'm not equipped for. Also…why should 1 do it?”

“Haven't my associates already explained—?”

“Fuller gave me threats and offered impressive money.” Suddenly Ben felt trapped. He could feel Fuller stirring behind him. “But I don't need money and I don't believe you could kill me as easily as you assume.”

“You are a resourceful individual, notoriously bent on survival. I do not believe, however, that you could betray me and live for more than twenty-four hours. But--life redundantly instructs us to expect the unexpected. Anything is possible. So I have taken steps to insure that other compulsions are brought to bear. For example…”

One of the stars in the projected sky over the speaker's head dilated into a vidscreen image.

It showed Ben Rackey at work, extracting sealed documents from a wall safe. Rackey's face was clearly visible. He seemed casual but alert, and he seemed to be humming to himself.

The image changed. Rackey again, speaking effusively, emotionally, as he cajoled a group of glum-faced men and women. He was prompting them to take some action. The action defined itself an instant later as the picture changed to show the same group setting fire to a city-state chieftain's mansion. The picture switched. Now Rackey was speaking to a crowd of tight-lipped young men; here were several of the same men, later, by turns orating to a crowd of many more such hard-faced men in a Guild hall.

“I have film records of every instant leading up to those decisive moments when you convinced the Copthugs' Guild to go on strike in New York, Rackey.” His voice was almost affectionate, even through the distorter. “It should not be difficult to demonstrate that it was your influence which generated this disruption, though you were not a member of the union. Certain reprehensible elements paid you to spur the police to this action. The strike permitted your employers to ravage without police interference. Acting in your role as a trained Irritant, here you are inciting a riot when you had no political sentiments motivating your involvement. Your motivation was money. You were hired by the government of an inimical city-state to undermine Denver's economy, forcing this city to make certain concessions to the other city-states to insure its survival. Here we see you at a party given by the archduke of Chicago…” The image flickered, a distressingly lucid picture of Rackey speaking to an old woman, and the anger in her eyes.

The camera follows Rackey as he moves across the room, dropping strategic comments here and there, as a turbulence in the body-language of those he has passed becomes apparent. “Should I turn on the sound, Rackey, so that we can hear you drop corrosive hints and cast doubts as you discredit the host of the party and break up a marriage? ”

“No.” Ben sighed. “That is plenty, plenty and more than enough, thanks. I get the idea. You've got the goods on me.”

The image dwindled, vanished, and the silhouette spoke: “I will not hesitate to turn this evidence in to the security center of every city-state within the Barrier. If it becomes necessary. They've long known that there was a Professional Irritant at work; an undesignated one. It's remarkable that in acting both as a burglar and an Inciter, you have never been apprehended. Never. You covered your tracks well. Your disguising fronts were perfect. And that is why I need you, and only you, for this…assignment. I made a study of your activities; had you watched by a holodrone. I know nearly everything there is to be known about you, Rackey. I know about your study of the Barrier, your desire to destroy it. You cannot hope to retire. Because I'll see to it you're hounded by the authorities and given not a moment of peace.”

Suddenly, Ben felt tired and heavy. He had counted himself a free man, retired and without cares. And so he had been—for two weeks. “You've made your point. What do I steal and when do I start?”

“Your skill, so I understand, is sufficient to overcome even the universally pacifying influence of penetrative muzak?”

“The euphonium? Yes. If other conditions are favorable, I can incite even in a muzak zone. So?”

“You will be required to exercise this ability in the Chaldin Palace. You will have to create a diversion that will keep the security drones at bay while you break into Chaldin's sanctum and obtain for me an object. You will bring back the object and you will be given your freedom. Until I need you again.”

Until I need you again.
Ben could almost hear the axe falling.

“Well, what
is
the fucking thing?” Ben asked, tensing.

The dark outline paused, shifted in its seat. Ben wished his eyes would adjust to the light so he could see the man's face. But the glare from the quarter moon was too bright.

“I have pondered this matter,” the distorted voice croaked. “
Should I tell Rackey what it is?
I have decided that your curiosity will not be stilled till you have the answer, and doubtless you would pry at its container to learn its secrets. This could have disastrous results. The object is dangerous and fragile. So I'll tell you now. It is a device for the augmentation of the telepathic transfer of mania. The Transmaniacon--that is my term for it. Properly…mounted…it seeks out strong, hostile human emotions, amplifies them. It can turn a street-brawl into a raging mob and a border skirmish into a full-scale war. I have a variety of uses for it. I warn you, when you set hands on it, do not attempt to utilize it. You will have your opportunity under controlled conditions at a future date. For now, regard it as lethal and do not attempt to investigate its workings.”

“Suppose I do obtain it. How do I know you won't kill me anyway? I need some insurance.”

“No. You have only my word for now. But consider: Why should a canny chess player deprive himself of useful pieces? If I can make use of you once, I can use you again. I would be reluctant to kill a man in possession of such finely honed skills. You are invaluable. I would wish to have you alive; I would wish your good will and cooperation so that you do my work cheerfully and efficiently. Therefore, you can be assured of full remuneration for your efforts.”

Ben hesitated, glanced up at the startlingly realistic constellations slowly wheeling overhead, then back at the man-shadow blotting out a sizeable portion of the celestial fields. “When do we start?” he asked, attempting cheeriness.

“I have already secured for you, and your new companions, an invitation to Chaldin's forever-revel. You'll go this very evening, once you have been outfitted with whatever equipment you require. Fuller and friends will accompany you—they should not seem out of place amid the costumed party-goers in the palace. Fuller has already memorized the escape procedure. Only your initiative is needed.”

The discussion continued for an hour, the bikers stirring restlessly, shifting from foot to foot, the man with the skull-face yawning. When Ben knew enough, Fuller and the others followed him out of Room Zero. They took the elevator to the storeroom, where Ben found the necessary accoutrements laid out for him. When they were suitably garbed, they ascended to the roof.

Ben was a little surprised when he saw the nulgrav vehicle on the roof, but not much. Only select city-states possessed nulgrav. The formula was no longer a secret, but the manufacture of nulgrav plates was incredibly expensive, and the raw materials required could be had only by mining outside the womblike walls of the city-states—a perilous procedure at best: There was no law outside the cities.

Ben was not at all surprised to see the nulgrav car molded in the scaled-up macrocosmic model of a common house-fly. He dubbed it the fly-car. The forty-foot fly was complete in almost every detail, its decorative thirty-foot wingspread constructed from transparent plastic and veined with gold and platinum wires, shimmering like real insect wings in the sullen lights surrendered by the tense city night about them. The fly was so complete, so well proportioned, the bikers seemed reluctant to approach it. It crouched on barbed, hairy legs, sense-wires fanning from its thorax, overlapping spiracle scales forming its abdomen, antennae sprouting from its enormous gargoyle-ugly head; its compound eyes—translucent enough so Ben could make out the car's control panel behind them—glittered in the half-light. Ben ducked under its mandibles and climbed after Fuller up a rung ladder and into the fly-car's belly. It was cramped inside but fairly comfortable, fully decked out with cushions and a bar. Ben immediately dialed a straight gin. He slugged it down, shuddering, then joined Fuller in the forward cabin. The other three reclined in the cushioned hold aft, the fly's abdomen.

“How long you been awake?” Ben asked, settling into the starboard of the two seats and strapping himself in.

“A month. Maybe a month and a half. Don't understand the big picture much, but he promises to teach me more with hypnotic induction. He had a drone cyber show me how to operate this thing.” His fingers played over the knobs, and lights winked on, dials came into view. They rose. The concave windshield was adjusted to give an unbroken view, and Ben watched the city dwindle beneath them. The lights' baleful glares became coy twinkles, then bright avenues and sweeping concourses, contiguous with the brocading glow-fluid pipes. As always with nulgrav, there was no sense of acceleration, no evidence of inertia.

Ben glanced over his shoulder, and in the dim red cabin light he saw the woman watching him. She had taken off her dark glasses and her brown eyes were anomalously soft. What was her relationship to the others? Why had his employer awakened all four of the frozen Transmaniacs—did each of them have some special skill? Or was it out of loyalty to the Order, to whom Transmaniacon members were divine martyrs?

Fuller asked, “What's this Barrier I keep hearing about?”

Ben glanced at Fuller. His eyes were in shadow, like two black holes sucking in light.

Ben leaned back and sighed, looking out over the desert, the wilderness outside the city-states. The stars were sharp, the mountains loomed black. “The Barrier went up shortly after you went down,” he began. “Five years after they froze you, they started activating the Barrier projection installations. The good old US government, may it rest in peace, put it up… The Barrier was conceived as the perfect defense against nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare. It's a screen of densely flowing ions held in place by a magnetic field generated by the rotation of the planet itself. It's said that as long as the earth continues to turn the Barrier will stand. The Barrier is usually invisible, except around the edges near the ground. It will not permit certain toxic combinations of gases, certain forms of bacteria, or any solid object to penetrate it. Not even birds. It entirely encloses the continental zone once called the United States.”

Fuller shook his head in stunned silence. Ben was pleased to see Fuller rattled. “The whole goddamn US? Inside this Barrier? Like a fucking terrarium in a bottle?” He snorted in disbelief.

Ben shrugged. “That's the way it is. If you don't believe me, just take this insect up for about a half-mile, at which point I'm going to bail out. Because if you keep going you'll get swatted by the Barrier. Wind passes through it, of course, and clouds of pure H
₂
0. Light up to certain frequencies—but heavy laser won't penetrate it. The Barrier was set up a half an hour before the third world war ignited. Russia, China, Israel, Britain, Germany, India, Japan, and Saudi Arabia fried one another. The only nuclear power that stayed out of it was Brazil, but as far as we know they died in the fallout. What remained of civilization outside the Barrier collapsed into barbarity or slowly died from radiation poisoning. We aren't sure what it's like out there now ... We can't get there to find out. The Barrier cages us in…”

Now Fuller was laughing. “Israel? Russia? Britain? Japan? Gone?
Excellent
/” Then he frowned and his affability faded. “What do you mean, we can't get out? Wasn't the Barrier taken down after the radiation dropped?”

“It took a long time for the radiation to fade to fairly safe levels. Meantime, there was an upheaval here. Revolution, civil war, ecological collapse . . . birds, insects, and certain other creatures in the eco-food chain couldn't get inside the Barrier. And pollution couldn't get out. The ecology went insane for a while. The air got foul and the temperament of the country got fouler. The country fragmented and a lot of things died. What remained formed into small clusters, the city-states, and a few nomadic tribes. The city-states became independent from one another, developed their own food and power sources.

“The men who knew the Barrier's secrets died in Washington during the civil war--when some stoned-out Air Force lunatics decided to make the capital a crater. This is the clincher: No one knows where the controls for the Barrier are stored.”

“No clue?”

“Some figure it's in the Adirondacks...down in a bunker. But no one knows exactly where. No one even knows how the damn thing is maintained. You'd have thought it would have broken down by now. Sooner or later, whatever is holding it there will wear out and the outer world will bust in to what used to be the USA and then the city-states might have to stop being such whiny pussies and band together again...”