The Distance Beacons (25 page)

I lay there for a moment and then, not surprisingly, I threw up for real.

I looked at my arm. It was still bleeding, and it hurt like hell; every part of me hurt like hell. But I was alive. I could still hear Fenneman shouting in the building, but no one seemed to be coming after me. They'd realize what I'd done soon enough, though; it was time to get out of here.

I took off along the tracks, heading downtown, staying low. Just across the road, it looked like life as usual at the Federal compound. A couple of people were even playing tennis in the sunshine. Ah, leisure! I realized that I had never actually seen anyone playing tennis before; I thought the game had been disinvented. At any rate, the players were too engrossed in their match to notice the bedraggled local skulking along the trolley tracks. The local was grateful.

After a while the tracks dipped down and headed underground. I faced a choice: go underground with them, or take my chances in the streets. Just then a jeep went racing by, not ten feet away from where I skulked, and made up my mind for me. I went into the tunnel.

It got very dark very quickly. I stayed to the right and kept one hand on the cold concrete wall. I moved slowly, in case there was a pit yawning unseen in front of me. I prayed that I wasn't disturbing any mutant creatures that had taken up residence down here. Still, I felt safer with the mutants than I did up above with my fellow humans. I kept walking.

Walking in total darkness is disorienting (as well as frightening). I wished I had my flashlight, but it had disappeared ages ago outside Bolton's house. Soon I didn't know where I was, and a while after that I scarcely knew who I was. All I could feel was pain; all I could think was that I had to get out of here. What if I was heading off into some secondary tunnel that branched endlessly underground without ever reaching a station? What if I was traveling in a circle somehow, and I was doomed to retrace my steps over and over again till I dropped? Logic said these fears were ridiculous. But what if logic stopped working in the dark?

Finally I saw a light in the distance: no, not a light at first, just a change in the quality of the darkness. But eventually it became a light, filtering greyly down from the outside. I was in Haymarket Station, a dilapidated sign informed me. I yearned to leave, but the Haymarket was scarcely any distance at all from where I had entered the tunnel. I kept walking.

I felt a little better now. The darkness was not forever, and I was heading in the right direction. But the next station was not the end of my journey.

Government Center
, the sign said.

I figured I'd better avoid Government Center for a while.

I noticed a lot of strange objects on the platform of the station. I hesitated for a moment, then laboriously climbed out of the tunnel to take a closer look.

A bass drum. A chandelier with all its light bulbs broken. A rocking chair. A computer with its monitor smashed. Several cartons of books, their pages charred. Three teddy bears. A juke box (at least, I thought it was a juke box; I was a little unclear on the concept of juke boxes). A motorcycle lying on its side. Empty cans of food: Geisha, Bird's Eye, Del Monte, Spam. The ashes of a fire.

A man pointing at me in the dim light.

I stepped backwards, my heart knocking against my sore ribs. I blinked rapidly and looked again, wondering just how much damage the darkness had done to my senses.

The man still pointed at me, a long gloved finger stretching out in accusation. He was a muffled figure, seated on the platform and leaning back against a pillar. "Hello?" I whispered, my voice shaking.

He didn't reply.

I noticed that his hand wasn't moving. I approached. A black knit cap was pulled down over the man's head. I reached out and touched the cap. He didn't move. I grabbed the cap and yanked it off.

A skull grinned up at me.

I closed my eyes. I had enough problems. I didn't need this. I opened my eyes. The skull was still there, still grinning, obviously delighted with its joke. I noticed a sheet of paper pinned to the raincoat it was wearing. I hesitated, then picked the paper up. A brief message was scrawled in red crayon on it:

Your gonna die too

I dropped the piece of paper. Well, I knew that. Still, I wasn't happy to be reminded of it. I tried to calm down. I knew what this was all about.

It was a remnant of the Frenzy. Once upon a time people had lived here (if you could call them people; if you could call it living), going out at night to rage and plunder, then returning with their random trophies. A computer, a juke box, a chandelier. What could have been more useless? Perhaps they had chosen the location out of some grim sense of irony—living their savage lives down here beneath the spot where the government had once tried to rule them.

They couldn't have stayed here long—it was not the most comfortable location in the city. But perhaps that didn't matter to them. Comfort was something out of the old days, something that bureaucrats and professors and businessmen cared about. Perhaps they had stayed here until the Feds arrived from Atlanta, smothering the city with their curfews and their laws, and the savages from the subway realized that the times had changed yet again. And so they had disappeared into some other darkness.

But not before they left a message for whoever would come here next.

Too bad for them I had more important things to worry about than my own mortality. I thought for a moment, then left the skeleton where it was; maybe the next passerby would make better use of the
memento mori
. I climbed down from the platform and continued my journey underground.

The next station was Park Street. This one was actually in use on a different track—a solitary train rumbled through it as often as it could, until some precious part gave out and a replacement had to be scrounged up. I decided that this was where I should leave the tunnel; at least I had a chance of being inconspicuous here. The trolley tracks I was following were upstairs from the train tracks. I waited until the train came in, then joined the people as they trudged up the long flight of stairs out of the subway.

Once outside, I blinked against the sun and looked around for soldiers, ready to run once more if challenged. I didn't see any.

"Howdy, Mithter Thandth."

I started, then relaxed. It was only Ground Zero, an old black man who eked out a living by sitting on a milk crate outside the station and singing—badly—while he played the accordion. "Howdy, Ground Zero."

Ground Zero looked up at me from his milk crate. "Been havin' a rough day, Mithter Thandth?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that, Ground Zero."

"How 'bout a thong to make you feel better?"

"Haven't got any money today."

"That'th okay. For you, I'll thing it for free."

"All right," I said. "Sing something that'll chase away the darkness."

Ground Zero smiled. "I know jutht the tune." The accordion wheezed for a few bars, and then he started in on "The Sunny Side of the Street." The song didn't turn out all that well, actually—the lyrics proved to be rather a chore, given Ground Zero's unfortunate speech defect. But he got through it, and I did feel a little better by the time he had finished. And besides, it gave me a chance to come up with an idea about what to do next. "Thanks, Ground Zero," I said. "I owe you."

"No problem. Jutht leave your troubleth on your door thtep."

I smiled. "I'm sure gonna try." I walked up Tremont Street, keeping my eye out for soldiers, and turned onto School Street, where I found the establishment known as Art's Filthy Bookstore. I went inside, and I put myself in the hands of its estimable proprietor.

Chapter 17

My friend Art is a pleasant-looking little old man with a long white beard. He is also a smut-peddler, but everyone's got to eat. His store is filled with books and magazines that let people fantasize about a world they can never experience. He has his own fantasies, but they aren't sexual: he dreams of literary soirées, of long philosophical discussions over a glass of sherry in faculty lounges, of a world where people can contemplate great ideas and meditate on the mysteries of life instead of brooding about the past (like Henry) or struggling just to stay alive. He feels that I am a kindred spirit, and I think he may be right.

"Walter!" he cried out when I staggered inside. "What happened to you?"

"Long story," I mumbled. The prospect of finally getting some relief made me realize how exhausted I was.

He led me through the bookstore and into the back room where he lived. I lay down on his cot and closed my eyes while he bustled about, trying to find something he could use to bandage my arm. "I should tell you that you might get into trouble if the Feds find out I'm here," I said. "They aren't happy with me at the moment."

I'm sure this didn't please Art, but he was brave about it. "Then we'll just have to keep the Feds from finding out," he replied. He sat down next to the cot and began tending my wounds. "Now tell me everything," he said.

I summarized for him the case so far. He shook his head in wonder as I described what I'd been through. "Why don't you write about these things instead of living them?" he asked.

That had been Henry's advice, too. "Maybe I will, if I ever get the chance. But right now I've got to figure out how to find Gwen before sunrise, or else TSAR says they're gonna kill her."

This was the kind of reality that made Art uncomfortable. It didn't make me feel very good either. "But what can you do, Walter?" he asked. "How can you find her?"

I tried to think. I had no more theories. The only thing I could do was to find out what Gwen's theory had been. How had she managed to find TSAR when no one else could? But to find out Gwen's theory I had to somehow get to the
Globe
. "Have you got a bicycle, Art?"

"Well, yes, but—"

I struggled dizzily to my feet. "I've gotta go to Dorchester and talk to Gwen's editor."

"Don't be a fool, Walter. You've got to rest. You won't help Gwen if you collapse on the way—or if the Feds capture you again."

I supposed he was right. "But I can't just stay here," I said.

"Look," Art said. "Why don't I send someone over to Bobby Gallagher's place? Mickey can come pick you up and drive you to Dorchester."

Bobby and Mickey once again. I decided to buy my own car once this was over and learn how to drive. Couldn't I accomplish
anything
without help? "I dunno," I said. I took a step; it wasn't a very steady one. I sighed. "All right."

"Good. Now rest."

I sank back onto the cot and rested.

* * *

Art got a teenage boy who lived next door to make the trip to South Boston for us. His payment was an ancient copy of
Playboy
, which sounded like a pretty good deal to me. While he was gone, Art cooked me some food and tried to keep my spirits up. "Have you thought about a title for your case yet?" he asked.

A title. When I had started on the case, I hadn't thought it deserved one. Now, well—a title couldn't hurt. But I sure was in no mood to come up with one. "Any suggestions?" I asked.

Art brought some scrambled eggs over to me, and I wolfed them down. He sat on a wooden chair next to the cot and considered. This was the sort of thing he enjoyed. "Your case really starts with the president and her dream, right?" he said after a while. "She thinks the referendum is the start of a great new age for America and the world."

"I suppose so."

"Then how about
Locksley Hall
for a title?" He smiled and quoted from the poem. "'For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see,/Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.'"

"That's some serious irony," I said. I quoted from another part of the poem. "'Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew,/From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue.'"

"Irony is good in titles," Art pointed out, and he topped my quote. "'Till the war drum throbbed no longer, and the battle flags were furled,/In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world."'

The Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
The president was having some difficulty with her vision of the world. All we had gotten so far was the ghastly dew.