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information from objects simply by handling them or to detect the traces of a person in a room long after he or she had left it. Last but not least, he was using the meditation to strengthen his abilities in telekinesis — moving objects from afar — so, all in all, the meditation was important and could not be
ignored.
'All right,' his father finally said, breaking the lengthy silence, 'I'll accept that the meditation is important and that you may indeed be suffering from frustration and have other valid reasons for going out there all alone. So, despite the personal fears of myself and your mother, I'll support Dr Brandenberg if he gives you permission to go out there again.'
'I'll go and see him right now,' Michael said.
'You do that, son.'
'He gets away with murder,' Chloe said.
'Keep talking and I'll murder you,' Michael retorted as he pushed his chair back and stood up. I'll see you all later.'
Leaving the apartment, he made his way back along the same curving corridor until he came to the elevator. As the elevator carried him up to the very summit of the mountain, where Dr Brandenberg's office, formerly Wilson's office, was located, he thought of the conversation that he'd just had with his family and wondered if family life was as civilized out there in the World. He had thought about this often because he knew that Freedom Bay was something unique, a relatively small (pop. 587), self-sustaining scientific community isolated from the World and, so far as he knew, the only community on Earth that did not come under the rule of the cyborgs. For this very reason, Freedom Bay had been compelled to develop into an unusually disciplined society in which everyone played their part and certain rules of behaviour had to be strictly adhered to. Given the colony's isolation from the World, close family relationships were more important here than they were in the World and trust between the members of the community was
equally vital. Thus, while Michael often felt frustrated, wanting to do more than Dr Brandenberg would presently let him, he felt secure here, at home, relaxed with his friends and family, and understood that not too many people out there in the World, particularly those his own age, could feel the same way about themselves. Their sense of community had been destroyed with the coming of the cyborgs and, according to what Dr Brandenberg had told him, they roved their cities in packs that preyed on one another. Having been born and bred in Freedom Bay, Michael could hardly conceive of such a society.
But he still wanted to see it.
When the doors of the elevator opened, he stepped into a rectangular hallway, painted white and featureless except for the bay windows that offered a dizzying view of the various levels of the colony, hacked out of the interior of the mountain by Wilson's slave workers a long time ago. Glancing down, he saw the inner edges of the various floors that encircled the central well, one on top of the other, each linked to the others with catwalks and elevators, the various levels containing the workshops where the flying saucers and other forms of transport were constructed, as well as a wide variety of research laboratories, supply depots, administration buildings, a hospital, a school, a canteen, and everything else required for the maintenance of the colony. The central well itself, roughly hewn from the rocks, a good fifty metres wide and dropping all the way to the ground hundreds of metres below, would have been a black pit had it not been for the lights beaming out from the various floors to illuminate the darkness with an eerie, constantly flickering glow.
Looking down, Michael tried to imagine that great colony being built, the hundreds of slave workers starting at ground level and gradually making their way upwards over the years until the very summit had been reached. If anyone could have stood at the top of the mountain and somehow peered down through its untold millions of tons of frozen earth and rock as the slaves began their terrible task, the toiling figures would have looked
like ants in an anthill down there, or like termites in a tree trunk. But they would have suffered like human beings, with blood, sweat and tears, many dying and being replaced by others as the work progressed. Michael thought of the ancient Egyptians, of the building of the pyramids, and realized that Wilson's achievement here was of a similar grandeur . . . and every bit as ruthless. Like the Pharaohs, Wilson had treated his labour force like pack animals, indifferent to their suffering, not counting the human cost; but now, a good seventy-five years later, his great bees' nest of a colony was still here and, more remarkably, still operating, though thankfully for a less obscene cause. This was a startling thought.
Turning away from the bay windows, Michael pressed the bell on the intercom fixed to the door facing the elevator.
'Yes?' a man replied, his voice trembling and electronically distorted by the intercom system.
'It's Michael Kimbrell. Can I come in?'
'Please do,' the voice said.
Hearing the lock click, Michael pushed the door open and stepped into what had once been Wilson's office and was now used by the present head of the colony . . . Dr Lee Brandenberg.
Chapter Six
Roaring out of the MCI Arena on his silver-tanked Yamaha 400 motorcycle, just minutes before the midnight curfew imposed by the cyborgs, Gumshoe felt the hot rush of the amphetamine and was raised up high on a wave of druggy exhilaration. Hot on the tail of Snake Eyes's rainbow-coloured, souped-up Mazda sedan, he could see his crazy friend in the moonlit darkness and, seated beside him, bare arm thrown across his shoulders, the green-and-pink head of the short-haired Long Hair, Bonnie Packard.
Feeling a spasm of jealousy, which was not a familiar emotion and so left him confused, Gumshoe glanced back over his shoulder and saw the rest of the Speed Freaks coming up behind him, trying to overtake one another, dodging and weaving dangerously, engines roaring, horns honking, on their powerful motorcycles and souped-up, vividly painted automobiles. Meeting no resistance in Chinatown which was, given the midnight curfew, absolutely empty, Snake Eyes led them north, heading for Mount Vernon Square. Gumshoe knew just what Snake Eyes was doing. He was out for a long trip.
Following in the wake of Snake Eyes's Mazda, holding his position between it and the Speed Freaks coming up behind him, Gumshoe went with the amphetamine, letting it take him where it would, and saw the stars as enormous, glittering diamonds in
the velvet sheet of the sky. The stars seemed to be alive, blinking on and off, pulsating, and Gumshoe longed to be out there in a spaceship, traversing the cosmos.
As he followed Snake Eye around Mount Vernon Square and into Massachusetts Avenue, as empty as Chinatown had been, he wondered what it would have been like to have lived here in the Old Age, before the coming of the cyborgs, when there was no such thing as a curfew and normal people, not just gangs like the Speed Freaks, stayed out to all hours. Nowadays, given the curfew, Washington DC
was like a ghost town late at night, though other motorcycle and hot-rod gangs, the odd wino or crazy person, occasionally some rich folk from Foggy Bottom taking a chance by coming home late from a social gathering, and, of course, the constantly patrolling Full Metal Jackets, could produce a few surprises, good and bad, if you kept on the move. Feeling the wind beating noisily at his face, Gumshoe, boosted by the amphetamine, was certainly on the move.
Having seen nothing so far, the Speed Freaks behind him had started to amuse themselves by playing dangerous games. Gunning the engines of their vehicles, honking their horns, bawling obscene comments and grinning in drugged, beatific amusement, they were trying to overtake one another by weaving rapidly, driving along the sidewalks, forcing other drivers off the road by bouncing lightly against their cars, and even kicking out at other motorcyclists to make them careen and go into potentially dangerous skids.
Two came abreast of Gumshoe, a Skyline on one side, a Kawasaki 250cc on the other, both their Speed Freak riders grinning crazily. They tried forcing him off the road by cutting across in front of him, between him and Snake Eyes's Mazda, which was still out front. Gumshoe gunned his engine and roared ahead, spewing exhaust fumes over those left behind, and came abreast of Snake Eyes in seconds. He saw Snake Eyes's mad grin. Pretty nifty move, pal!' Snake Eyes shouted with Bonnie grinning sardonically beside him.
'Those dumb assholes,' Gumshoe bawled back. 'They're more dangerous than the Full Metal Jackets.'
'Fuckin' A!' Snake Eyes shouted.
Passing the National Postal Museum, approaching Union Station, they saw a BMW up ahead, coming towards them at a stately pace. Knowing that the driver could only be a government worker with special permission from the cyborgs to work late at night (his licence-plate number would be recognized by any remote-controlled SARGE, Prowler, or flying sensing device — a 'football' — sent out by the cyborgs), the Speed Freaks behind Gumshoe let out whoops of joy, like Indian war whoops, jerked the front wheels of their motorcycles up into the air like cowboys riding broncos, went into rapid 360-degree spins and came out of them again, still in the saddle, then spread out across the road and accelerated rapidly to block the path of the oncoming vehicle. Obviously shocked to see them, the driver of the BMW swung desperately to the side, bouncing up onto the sidewalk and coming to a grinding halt. But some of the Speed Freaks cut loose from the others to circle the stalled car on their motorcycles and smash its windows with bricks that they swung above their heads in silk-stocking slings.
Glancing back over his shoulder as he continued along Massachusetts Avenue, Gumshoe saw the driver of the BMW, a portly man in a grey suit, stumbling out of his beat-up vehicle and attempting desperately to make a run for it. He had only taken a few steps, however, when one of the motorcyclists raced up beside him, leaned expertly to one side, and struck him on the back of the head with the brick in his sling. The man was plunging face first to the sidewalk as Gumshoe, feeling as high as a kite, looked to the front again.
In his urge to see what was going on behind him, he had slipped slightly behind and now a lot of the other Speed Freaks, still led by Snake Eyes, were spread out in front of him, their motorcycles and souped-up jalopies making a hell of a din. Reaching Union Station, which, though closed right now because of the curfew, was still more or less in operation with the consent of the cyborgs (since you couldn't import, export or leave the country by train), the Speed Freaks spread out even more to sweep across the plaza at the front of the building and circle the fountain a few times. The statue of Columbus and the Freedom Bell, once respected but now neglected, were badly chipped and covered in graffiti.
Following them on his motorcycle, observing everything with a drug-enhanced, vividly heightened perception, as hallucinatory as a dream, Gumshoe saw a couple of dishevelled winos raising their sleepy heads where they were sleeping under the triple-arched colonnaded entrance to the huge granite building. Seeing the Speed Freaks now roaring around the fountain, they jumped up with a surprising display of energy, fear being a strong incentive, and hurried into the main railway terminal, wanting to keep out of sight.
Holding his lead position, with Bonnie Packard still beside him, her bare arm around his unwashed neck, Snake Eyes led his bikers and hot-rodders south along First Street, which was empty, between the old Senate Office buildings, now being used by the cyborgs as some kind of workshops, and then past the Capitol, still dominated by the Rotunda, reportedly once illuminated every night but now completely dark.
Glancing up, Gumshoe was reminded by the many ugly cracks criss-crossing the ornate 180-feet-high dome that it, as well as other important buildings in the area, had been badly damaged by the infrasounds of the immense flying saucers that had descended vertically over the city on the first day of
#1. That the occasional light still burned in the vast complex was nothing mysterious, since the cyborgs had made no attempt to interfere with the general running of the city's administration and, though abducting (along with the President) all of the leading senators, none of whom were ever seen again, they had let the less influential House of Representatives remain to run the country as best they could in the cyborg-dominated New Age. As the
cyborgs, since abducting the President, had not permitted a new President to be elected, what was left of 'free' America was run from the Capitol with an ever-changing rota of representatives, both Democratic and Republican, approved by the cyborgs. It was widely believed that no representative received approval until he or she had been brainwashed by the cyborgs into being absolutely obedient.
Certainly, since they slavishly toed the cyborg line, this could have been true.
A large flying saucer, rotating and glowing eerily, was hovering above the Rotunda as the motorcycles and souped-up cars roared past. When the Speed Freaks kept going, passing between the south wing of the Capitol and the Library of Congress, the flying saucer, which was there as a sentinel, did not descend to harass them.
Turning into Independence Avenue, a commercial corridor during the day but now dark and empty, the Speed Freaks accelerated, motorcyclists and car drivers alike, to take advantage of the long, straight road that ran west all the way along the Mall to the Washington Monument. Now racing each other with a reckless disregard for personal safety, they passed what had been, in the Old Age, some of the most famous tourist sights of the city. Formerly illuminated at nights to form a spectacular son et lumiere display, they were now sadly neglected and, like most of the other buildings of the city, plunged into uninviting darkness. While lonely lights glowed from offices here and there, these were few and far between.
As they passed the overgrown lawns of the Smithsonian Quadrangle, its entrance pavilions in a shocking state of disrepair, the iron gates covered in rust, Gumshoe accelerated to catch up with Snake Eyes, though he deliberately came up on the side where Bonnie Packard was seated. Noting that she still had her bare arm around Snake Eyes's unwashed neck, he came in close to the speeding Mazda, leaned sideways at a dangerous angle, the rushing wind beating at him, exhilarating him, and threw the short-cropped Long Hair a big grin.
'What are you doing with that fucking deadbeat,' he bawled, 'in that beat-up old jalopy? Why not transfer to the back of my bike and check out real life?'
Bonnie turned her head to give him a measuring stare. Her hazel eyes, brightened by amphetamine, looked unreal without eyebrows, in the painted stripes across her face, and the fake blood trickling from her blue lips made her seem even stranger.
'Real life?' she replied, shouting against the wind. "That's what I'd find on your clapped-out motorcycle?'
'Better believe it, Long Hair.'
'You wouldn't know real life if it was shoved up your ass with a pitchfork.'
'That's it, babe! Shove it to him!'
Snake Eyes broke out in deranged laughter and slapped one hand on his steering wheel as Gumshoe, still grinning, straightened up and then shot on ahead of them. Still trying to impress the Long Hair, he leaned the bike hard to the right, sweeping around into 14th, catching a glimpse of the soaring obelisk of the Washington Monument as he headed deliberately for the most dangerous place you could be after the curfew . . . the cyborg-protected White House area. But this was exactly what they had come out for. This was the buzz.
Even before he had reached the area east of the Ellipse, Gumshoe saw that a dome-shaped flying saucer, over a hundred feet in diameter, its whitish-metallic body, not rotating yet, giving off an eerie, pulsating glow, was hovering directly above the White House and that a Prowler and a couple of SARGEs were patrolling the road straight ahead. The SARGEs were scout telerobots with thermal imaging and zoom surveillance equipment contained in four-wheeled, all-terrain frames resembling, and no larger than, the average dune buggy. The Prowler, however, was something else again.
Originally built, like the SARGE, for the US Army and Marine Corps, it was a completely automated Programmable Robot Observer with Logical Enemy Response. The size and shape of a medium tank, a steel monolith on steel treads, it had sensors that enabled it to detect body or engine heat and movement, decide for itself whether the observed object — or person — was friendly or hostile, and act accordingly. If it attacked, its target didn't stand a chance, as the Prowler's former 105mm cannons and M60 machine-guns had been replaced by the cyborgs with powerful laser weapons.
Aware of this, Gumshoe deliberately raced straight at the approaching Prowler, as if about to ram it.
Then, when he saw the snouts of the laser weapons turning towards him, which gave him a thrill, he grinned and made a sharp left, leaning the bike way over, turning into a deserted stretch of Constitution Avenue just as the lasers split the darkness behind him, hissing and crackling, their phosphorescent beams filled with millions of sparks. Whether or not the beams had struck anyone coming up behind Gumshoe he didn't know. But he certainly heard explosions behind him, indicating that the lasers had, at least, hit something solid — perhaps the road or a wall.
Exhilarated by the danger, burning up in the amphetamine rush, he glanced back over his shoulder and saw Snake Eyes's rainbow-coloured Mazda emerging from clouds of dust, obviously billowing up from pulverized concrete. As Snake Eyes, with Bonnie still beside him, raced towards Gumshoe, the rest of the Speed Freaks turned the corner behind him, also emerging from the swirling dust created by the explosions, weaving expertly left and right to make themselves difficult targets for the Prowler that had fired upon Gumshoe. Stoned out of their heads and therefore fearless, they were whooping and hollering.
Feeling like a kid, Gumshoe turned left again, into 14th Street, racing between the Department of Commerce and the Reagan Building. Then he circled back around the National Aquarium, deliberately heading for the White House Visitor Center. In his souped-up Mazda, Snake Eyes soon caught up with him. As they approached the junction at the eastern perimeter of the White House area, the Prowler that they
