Spacetime Donuts (18 page)

For an instant he hung some five feet in the air, but that instant was long enough. The taxis, who had perhaps been counting on his body to cushion the blow, smashed into each other at the point where he'd just been. He landed on the hood of one and was thrown off as it spun away from the collision point.

It was quiet. Vernor picked himself up, suddenly feeling the pain in his leg again as the adrenalin faded. Limping badly, he retrieved his staff from the taxi's wreckage. "Thanks, Alice," he said softly.

One more small street and he'd be in Dreamtown. He could even see a person two blocks ahead. But there was bound to be a fucking robot patrolling that one small street in between. His leg was hurting badly and he was tired. Better not rest, there'd be more taxis coming, or maybe even a van. He shuffled forward, leaning heavily on his length of guard-rail.

There was indeed a repair robot patrolling the last street he had to cross. Vernor hugged a wall and peered around the corner, watching the robot's movements. When it seemed to be as far away as it was likely to get, he set off across the intersection with an uneven trot.

Quickly the machine spotted him came after him. Vernor felt tired and dizzy, but he beat the repair robot across the narrow street. He went into the next block and leaned, panting, against a building, unable to run further just now.

To his right Vernor could see Dreamtown. He recognized a few buildings and now he could actually see several people, although the closest was over a block away. To his left was the corner around which the repair robot would inevitably come. He raised his crutch and poised himself to smash the machine when it appeared.

With a sudden blast of noise it was upon him. This one was bigger than the first one, and had a nasty-looking set of tools projecting from its shell. Vernor connected with the machine's prismed photo-cells, breaking one.

Using a pincer-like appendage, the robot plucked the staff from Vernor's grasp before he could raise it to strike again. The staff clattered into the street and the robot backed up, then charged. Vernor was ready, and did a bull-fight number, sidestepping the machine at the last instant.

But now the only option was flight. He started running at top speed for Dreamtown. Suddenly his left leg gave out and he fell. The robot caught up rapidly and stopped next to Vernor's head.

A wicked metal cutting edge struck at his throat, but he managed to catch and hold the mechanical arm. Another arm, bearing a screw-driver end, appeared and began hacking away. He fended it off as well as he could, but it was making deep cuts in both his arms. Finally the robot wrenched the cutting blade free of Vernor's grasp.

He sank back with a sigh. This was it. The blade came angling towards his neck and . . .

Stopped. There was a sizzling sound from a bright hole which had appeared in the robot's shell. A laser beam. Someone had shot the robot.

Strong hands helped Vernor to his feet. "You must want to get to Dreamtown pretty bad," said a woman's voice. Vernor turned to see her.

"Oily Allie!" he exclaimed.

"Vernor! We've been waiting for you." Allie pulled him to his feet and patted him on the back. As always, her dark, greasy hair was a tangle of spikes. "Wait till Mick sees you!"

They started towards Dreamtown, Vernor leaning heavily on Oily Allie. "Yeah, we got a sort of border patrol here," Allie explained. "Otherwise Phizwhiz'd be chipping away at our territory. Usually we don't rescue people, but after I saw the job you did on the taxis it seemed like a shame to let that one little robot finish you off. I hadn't even recognized you. Good thing I saved you. You're a hero, Vernor."

"For what?" Vernor asked weakly. His arms were bleeding badly and his leg seemed to be completely broken again.

"For what?" Allie repeated. "For what? For making Phizwhiz go nuts! Sure some people miss the old life, watching Hollows all day long, but I love it like this." To demonstrate, Oily Allie spun around and blasted the lifeless robot again with the heavy laser she cradled with her right arm. "Ftoom!" said Allie.

For an instant Vernor's weight was on his broken leg. An explosion went off behind his eyeballs and he fainted.

When he awoke he was on a bed. It was dark, and a young woman was sitting near him. His wounds had been dressed and his leg was in a casing of rigid plastic foam. He felt pretty good.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"Hi," said the young woman. "You're about two blocks from where you collapsed. Allie brought you and we fixed you up. Do you want some food?" She offered him a tube of Dreamfood. Green. Aaaahh.

After eating Vernor sat up. "What time is it?"

"About nine. You've been out since noon." She was pretty. He tried to get up, but she pushed him back. "Stay here. Allie will come for you in the morning. You need more rest."

"O.K." he said, relaxing back towards sleep. His last thought was a sense of gratitude that he felt well enough to want to fuck his nurse.

That night Vernor dreamed of swimming in a phosphorescent sea. There was a group of fish chasing each other in a circle. Each fish was bigger than the next. Each fish had its mouth open to swallow the one in front of it, and each was swimming rapidly away from the open mouth snapping at its tail.

The speed of the Circular Scale increased. Finally there was an articulated gulp as each of the fish was swallowed by the one behind it. And then silence.

Vernor was alone, drifting amorphous in the peaceful sea.

In the morning, the nurse cut the cast off Vernor's leg. Yesterday she'd injected some glue into the break; the cast had been to hold his leg still while the glue set. His arm wounds had been coated with plastic skin, and he'd been shot full of vitamins and antibiotics. He felt like a new man.

Oily Allie showed up late in the morning to take him to Waxy's. It was a distance of several miles, and what with stopping to rest and greet old friends it was afternoon before they made it to the Angels' headquarters.

Mick Turner met them at the door. "Vernor Max!" he shouted happily, embracing him. "Man, everything is gonna be great! Come on, let's smoke some shit!"

They sat down at a table. The place was crowded with Angels. They welcomed Vernor like a hero. "How did you all get out of jail?" Vernor asked.

"You ought to know, dad, you're the one that got Phizwhiz to open all the doors," answered an Angel named Leroy.

Open the jail's doors? Sure, it stood to reason that when Phizwhiz started his war against the humans he would release what he still thought of as the most destructive members of society. He had been too naive, however, to realize that exactly those people who'd been destructive to the old society might be the new society's most valuable asset in the War.

"So all the Angels are here?" Vernor asked Mick, looking around the room.

"Most of 'em," Mick answered. "Some are out on patrol. Some are dead. Moto-O got it yesterday trying to bomb the EM building . . . I'm sorry I couldn't come get you with Oily this morning. I had to get today's fighting organized."

"General Mick?" Vernor smiled. There were a large number of weapons about . . . battery operated lasers with the governors replaced by amplifiers, antimatter bombs of Oily Allie's design, spray-guns loaded with a solvent to dissolve the robots' shells . . . and even a few antique bazookas and flame-throwers looted from the museum.

The Angels were crowding around Vernor shouting questions. How had he done it? What should they do next? Where was the Professor? Could he make Phizwhiz start the factories up again? It was too much at once, and he just grinned.

"He's half-dead," Mick yelled. "Go out on your patrols. Vernor and me'll get the act together and tonight we'll lay it down."

Singly and in groups the Angels left, and soon the bar had quieted. Mick lit a stick of seeweed, inhaled, passed it to Vernor. "So what happened?"

"What happened? You know. It's hard to say. Alice is dead." Vernor stopped and drew on the joint.

"Alice? That's terrible. She was with you?"

"Yeah, I got Burke to bring the scale-ship over to the EM building and he let Alice come to live with me. We hooked Phizwhiz into some sensors on the ship and then we took the big trip. Circular Scale."

"So it really is circular? Wait till you tell Kurtowski."

"Yeah. We gotta find him. Do you know where he is for sure, Mick?"

"Naw. We haven't been able to get over there. To the Eastside. But he's probably still in that hide-out. Waiting for the Revolution." Mick shook his head. "We got it all. And more. But—the robots killed Alice?"

"Yeah," muttered Vernor. "My fault."

Mick pulled on his reefer, studying the smoke. "But there was no problem getting back to Earth?"

"Are you kidding? I have no idea why it worked. It wasn't just the machine. It was something we did with our heads, our bodies . . . Alice and me—" He broke off, filled by the memory of that last star-fuck with Alice. "Didn't you see us?"

"See you? How . . . wait, you mean that was you and Alice in the sky? Just before the War? Lot of people saw that, but nobody's sure they did. You know. I'd thought it was a Hollow that Phizwhiz sent out just before . . . " Turner stopped. "I didn't see it myself. I know a girl who did. Ramona. She liked your prong." The callous Mick chuckled, forgetting about Alice. "Go on."

"Well, my idea had been that putting this scale loop into Phizwhiz would provide a nexus for paradox—a soul. And I figured once he had a soul he'd want to be friends with the first person he talked to."

"Which was going to be you."

"Which
was
me. Only just because he had a soul didn't mean he was going to be a regular guy . . . which was something that hadn't occurred to me."

"What'd he say?" Mick asked.

"I don't know. It was like this mystical stuff and then he started in on how I couldn't understand, though actually I
was
following him . . . but then he got real snotty and said he wasn't going to work for people anymore. And that was about it."

"So he started playing a chaos soundtrack and stomping us," Mick finished. "It must have been a pretty bad scene up by the EM building. Lot of machines up there. You're the only guy I've met who made it out, actually."

"Yeah, it was bad," Vernor said slowly. "I threw Alice into a taxi and climbed in. It took off and crashed near the waterfront. And that's when she died." He inhaled some more smoke. "I feel bad about what I started. I mean, seeing all those people get killed and then Alice . . . like most of the time I wish I was dead." He smiled, embarrassed.

"From what Oily Allie told me about yesterday, you don't act like a man who wishes he was dead." Mick leaned across the table. "You're a killer, Vernor. So am I. We can
live
with the world like this. I'm not talking about Alice here, but most of those people that got it that first day didn't even know they were alive . . . watching Hollows, taking tranks, doing what Us said . . . fuck. It's
our
turn now."

Vernor remembered how the man by the lamppost had looked just before the robot ripped out his throat. "I understand what you're saying, Mick. I understand it, but seeing it happen is something different." He was quiet for awhile. It was comfortable here in Waxy's with the death and fighting far away. There was a pleasant yellow thickness to the air. He felt like he was outside himself. He could see all his feelings and emotions at once, like a landscape. No secrets. There he was. So? Sure, sure he'd keep living. It was sad . . . but there it was. "What happens next?" he said finally.

"Right now the problem is survival," Mick answered. "Phizwhiz did everything we'd hoped to do with the Revolution . . . everyone's out of jail, all the big Users and loaches uptown are dead, there's no public safety by a long shot. People don't expect the machines to live their lives anymore. The Revolution is here . . . all we have to do is live long enough to enjoy it. First thing is to get the basic stuff going again. Food, water, electricity, sewers. We'll need organization. Everyone working together."

Vernor smiled. "You sound like the Governor himself, Mick."

"But this is
real
, man. Before, there wasn't anybody had to do anything. As long as we have real jobs to do, we can groove."

"What happens when you get all the factories running again?" probed Vernor. "What's there going to be to do then?"

"For one thing we're not going back to everything being run automatic. For another . . . we're going to the stars." Mick looked as inspirational as Vernor had ever seen him. "The stars, Vernor. That's what was missing before—a frontier. There's bound to be some way to use the VFG to get us anywhere we want to go."

Mick was right. Space exploration had been dead for years. They'd sent a few squares out to the planets and back . . . and that was it. People lost interest in it. One of these astronaut types would come back from Mars . . . "How was it, Colonel?" "Well, Mr. Straight, it was unpleasant. We forgot to bring steak with us and the lighting was poor. I wasn't able to shave for two weeks. My principal feeling when I stepped onto that planet was one of gratitude to the Us government for making this possible. We saluted the flag there, although the dust storms made it difficult. On the whole I'd say that it was worthwhile sending me, since I've gotten so much pussy ever since my return." "Thank you, Colonel."

The promise of the stars had seemed permanently out of mankind's reach. The technology may have been there, but the government was not willing to take the risks. But now the government was gone . . . with the VFG, all you'd need was to be knocked off course a little and you could come back anywhere. Anywhere you dreamed. "I'm with you, Mick," said Vernor.

Mick grinned. "The gang is trying to cut Phizwhiz's cables to the Eastside today. Maybe it'll be safe to go over and see the Professor tomorrow."

Most of the Angels returned around supper time. Waxy's was a sort of co-ed officer's club now . . . the Angels being the leaders of Mick's army. The day's actions had been successful. Phizwhiz's main cable to the Eastside ran under the moving sidewalk in the walktube. The Angels and their collaborators had fought their way down to the sidewalk. There had been massed attacks by the many repair robots in the walktube, but the machines had, after all, not been designed for fighting, and they'd soon been knocked out.