Matrix Man (15 page)

Corvan wondered who Mel Ryback and Val were, but decided those questions could wait. He had something more urgent in mind. "Did you use your calling card?"

"What?" Corvan's question caught Kim by surprise.

He grabbed her shoulders. "Answer me! Did you use your calling card?"

Kim shook herself loose. "Sure . . . but I don't see why . . ."

Corvan grabbed her arm and began to run. They were only a hundred feet away from the com booth and just turning into the rear entrance of a sex arcade when two patrol cars converged from opposite ends of the street.

These weren't the glorified golf carts the SFPD used for traffic duty. These were full-blown combat cars, specially rigged for urban warfare and armed to the teeth.

Corvan peeked around a life-sized neon nude and saw two dozen combat-equipped cops jump down and fan out. Within two or three minutes the police would realize there weren't any one-eyed reops in the crowd and expand the search.

"Come on." Corvan grabbed Kim's arm and pulled her toward the front of the arcade. She jerked her arm free and took a step backward. "Screw you, Corvan. I'm through being used."

Corvan stepped up, started to touch her shoulder, and lowered his hand. His eye cam whirred softly as he zoomed in on her face. "Listen," he said gentry. "People have been murdered to protect someone or something evil. In a minute, two at the most, those cops will come and get us. That's what you're telling me, right? Your friend, Mel what's-his-name, they killed him."

She shrugged. "Ryback, and he was no friend of mine."

"All right," Corvan said patiently. "But think about it. They killed Ryback, they killed Frank, they destroyed the disk. Why? To protect the video matrix generator, that's why. Someone's using it and they don't want us to find out. Now, I'm sorry you're angry with me, and I'd like to talk about it, but this isn't the time or the place. Come or stay. It's up to you."

Corvan turned and walked back through the arcade, praying that she'd follow. Auto-eroto booths lined both sides of the passageway. Corvan could hear electronic voices whispering words of encouragement as customers, men mostly, were brought to orgasm through direct neural stimulation.

A few seconds later he passed through the arcade's lobby. It was filled with the usual racks of sexual paraphernalia and the same old customers searching for something new. As Corvan left the arcade he hoped Kim was right behind him. He turned and found that she was.

"I still hate your guts," she said defiandy, her eyes burning with anger.

"Understood," Corvan replied. "But let's talk about it somewhere else."

They hadn't taken more than two steps when a cone of bright light popped into existence around them. It pinned them to the street like specimens to a slide. They felt a down draft and heard an amplified voice:

"Freeze! This is the San Francisco Police Department. Stay where you are! I repeat, stay where you are!"

Corvan swore. A chopper. Damn. Now what? The crowd scattered and Corvan looked right and left. There was no way out.

A car screeched to a stop in front of them. It was huge, one of the slab-sided behemoths Americans had loved seventy or eighty years before. The driver tapped the accelerator and the internal-combustion engine roared in response. A middle-aged woman sat behind the wheel, and although Corvan couldn't place her, she seemed vaguely familiar. The woman smiled. ''Care for a lift? I'm not a cop."

The situation was so weird that Corvan believed her. Besides, the chopper was lower now, and he could see cops coming from every direction. "Yes, a lift would be welcome."

The woman nodded. "I thought so. Hop in the back."

Corvan opened the rear door, waited for Kim to scramble inside, and jumped in after her. The car took off with a screech, throwing the door closed and nearly catching his left ankle.

There was a gentle thump as a cop bounced off the right front fender and a volley of shots as his companions opened fire. Two bullets whipped through a side window and out the other side. Safety glass shattered and cascaded to the floor like a thousand tiny diamonds. If this bothered the driver, she didn't show it.

"This baby has lots of pickup," the woman observed as she glanced over her right shoulder. "Some of my friends stole it last night. They don't make 'em like this anymore."

As if to prove her point, the woman put her foot down, and the car swerved around a corner, tires screeching and horn blasting as a hundred people scrambled to get out of the way.

Corvan looked out through the rear window and saw the bright disk of a searchlight right behind them. The chopper was hot on their trail. The woman noticed his movement in the rearview mirror and spoke from the side of her mouth:

"Yeah, we gotta lose the bird, but that's not as hard as you might think."

So saying, the driver took another screeching turn, straightened the wheel, and stomped on the gas. The sedan seemed to drop down onto its haunches like a beast preparing to attack. Then it roared a challenge through its twin exhausts and charged down the street. Corvan saw that a thin line of wooden barricades barred the way and braced himself for the impact.

The sign over the hole said "Cross To n Tunnel" in big, lighted letters, and a smaller sign just below it read "CLOSED FOR REPAIR."

Undaunted, the woman aimed the car at the mouth of the tunnel and plunged inside. The barricades shattered, splinters of wood flew in every direction, and the car rolled through. The impact was barely discernable.

Behind them a frustrated helicopter pilot pulled up and away, swearing into her throat mike and heading for the other end of the tunnel. In response to her orders five combat cars and a host of lesser vehicles hurried to take up positions at the other end as well. When the car emerged, they'd nail it with massed gunfire and wire-guided missiles.

The inside of the tunnel was huge. A six-lane throughway built at enormous expense and designed to relieve some of the city's considerable surface congestion. And for the last five or six years the underground passageway had been a big help. The only problem was that the substandard concrete used by a greedy construction company had already started to give way. As a result, construction crews worked on die tunnel during the day and a collection of youth gangs used it at night.

At first the police had tried to stop it, worried that the gangs would steal or damage the contractor's heavy equipment, but had eventually given up. The truth was that they were too shorthanded to do much else.

And it seemed as if the gangs had some sort of unspoken agreement to keep theft and vandalism to a minimum, because when the construction workers arrived each morning, their equipment was undamaged. Only a scattering of burned-out bonfires and empty booze bags indicated that the kids had even been there. Having no where else to go, the gangs seemed to value the tunnel and did nothing to attract unwanted attention.

Looking out through a shattered side window, Corvan saw heavy equipment, piles of rusty steel, corrugated pipe, and the big metal storage units which protected smaller items from thieves.

Up ahead a row of bonfires blocked their way, and the driver applied her brakes. As the car slowed, Corvan saw hundreds of kids appear out of the shadows, their ceremonial makeup indicating which gang they belonged to, with a variety of weapons in their hands.

"Don't worry," the woman said, as if sensing his thoughts. "Just play along."

As the car came to a stop, a big white boy wearing makeup which identified him as a Corpse Rider stepped up to the driver's window. He was about six two, two hundred and twenty-five pounds, and subject to occasional episodes of steroid-induced rage. His favorite weapon was a policeman's femur. He held it clutched in his huge right hand and used it to tap on the door.

The woman smiled pleasantly. "Good evening, young man, could you tell me how to reach the Golden Gate Bridge?"

If the Corpse Rider heard or understood her words, he gave no sign. "I want the car."

The woman nodded understandingly. "Then you shall have it. Out, everyone."

Somewhat surprised by the easy victory, the Corpse Rider watched them get out of the car and stand to one side. With a grunt of approval he slipped behind the wheel, waited while six of his friends did likewise, and put his foot on the gas. The engine roared but nothing happened.

Shaking her head in amazement, the woman stepped over to the car, reached through the window, and put the transmission in drive. Her arm was just barely clear of the door when the kid stepped on the accelerator and screeched down the tunnel. He hadn't gone more than two hundred feet when he sideswiped a dozer, nicked a generator, and piled into a huge cable reel. A moment passed while he figured out how to put it in reverse, backed up, and roared off toward the other end of the tunnel.

"They'll be waiting for him," Kim said as the red taillights disappeared around a curve.

"Yeah," the woman agreed. "Ain't it wonderful? Come on."

As they made their way across the width of the tunnel toward an emergency stairway, Corvan felt hundreds of eyes watching him out of the darkness. It sent a chill down his spine. Dark silhouettes were outlined by the bonfires, sitting, standing or dancing to the mishmash of music which throbbed all around them.

It seemed logical to think that they'd be jumped, robbed, or even killed. But no one made a move in their direction. It was as if their willingness to hand over the car somehow immunized them from attack.

But whatever it was felt extremely fragile, and Corvan heaved a sigh of relief as they reached the stairs. They were about halfway up when they heard the rattle of distant gunfire and a double thump as two shoulder-launched missiles hit the car.

Corvan knew he should feel guilty about the dead Corpse Riders, but found it hard to do. Maybe it was the way they looked, or the human bone their leader had used as a baton, but he didn't think they'd be missed. After all, there were plenty more where they came from.

They ran the rest of the way to the surface and emerged onto a busy street. About six blocks away Corvan saw a group of skyscrapers which were backlit by an orange-red glow. A couple of helicopters circled the area and sirens whooped from every direction.

The woman shook her head in mock concern. "Kids these days. You tell 'em crime doesn't pay, but do they listen? No way. Some things never change."

As usual there were people everywhere, walking, talking, oblivious to three more members of the endless human horde. Corvan saw that the woman was prettier than he'd thought, with ash blonde hair quickly turning gray and laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. She wore a short leather jacket, khaki slacks, and the latest in expensive running shoes. The woman held out her hand to Kim.

"Hi, Kim, my name's Edith. Edith Townsend. Well, that's not my real name, but it's the one I'm using right now."

She turned to Corvan. "And here he is, the famous man cam. I love those ads. 'News Network 56, the man cam can.' Glad to meet you, Rex."

Corvan frowned as he shook her hand. "It's a pleasure, Edith. Thanks for the help. I don't want to be rude, but how come you know so much about us?"

Edith pulled a small black box out of her jacket pocket and pressed a button. "Well, I've been following you, for one thing, and I'm a member of the Exodus Underground, for another."

Corvan flashed to a memory of a woman with two shopping bags climbing on the train. "You were on the train?"

Edith nodded. "I was behind you when Luther tried to scatter those stickies." She laughed. "You went around them like an old pro."

Kim's eyes were full of silent fury as she looked Corvan's way. She didn't know what stickies were, but Edith's comments confirmed her suspicions and fueled her anger as well. Corvan had known something was going on and kept it from her.

Corvan knew there was nothing he could do or say which would heal the rift between them, at least not at the moment, so he turned his attention to Edith.

"Why would the Exodus Underground want to follow us? Or help us, for that matter?"

Edith shook her head. "Sorry, Rex. You're asking the wrong person. A delivery truck will arrive in about two minutes. It'll take you to the folks in charge of questions."

"And if we don't want to go?" Kim asked suspiciously.

"Then you don't have to," Edith answered easily. "We won't force you. But it's my guess that you're gonna need some help."

Distant sirens seemed to echo her words, and when the truck pulled up, Kim got in first. Following, Corvan found that outside of some plumbing supplies, they were all alone. A single bulb lit the truck's interior. There was no way to see out or communicate with the driver. Wherever the truck was going, it involved a lot of twists and turns, because lacking any sort of seats, they were frequently thrown from one side of the vehicle to the other.

After five or ten minutes of this Kim began to worry and tried the door. Much to her relief she found that it was unlocked. A quick peek outside revealed that they were in the financial district and weaving their way between massive high-rise towers. Closing the door, she answered Corvan's questioning look with a shrug and retreated to her own side of the truck.

A few minutes later the floor tilted as the vehicle went down a steep grade and then it leveled off. "You can get out now." The voice was muffled and came from the driver's compartment.

Corvan opened the door and they both jumped down. The second they were clear, the truck made a wide turn and whined its way up a steep ramp. As the vehicle rolled by, Corvan tried to see through the darkened windshield but failed. Whoever the driver was, he or she valued their privacy.

Looking around, they found themselves in a large garage, empty except for a small fleet of identical Dodge Solar Vans. Their photo-sensitive paint seemed to shimmer under the bright lights.

Something chimed behind him and Corvan turned to find an open elevator. "Welcome," it said. "You are expected. Please step inside."

There seemed to be little point in doing anything else. After all, no one had forced them to come, and they certainly needed some help. In addition, there was the larger question of who was using the video matrix generator and why. And since Neely had been a member of the Exodus Underground, a.k.a. the Exodus Society, it occurred to Corvan that they might have at least part of the answer.