Wild Cards V (74 page)

“Oh, god.”

There was another long pause. The android noticed that the pedestrians on the street seemed to be giving one another a lot of space. One of them wore a gauze mask over his mouth and nose. Cars were few.

“Can I see you?” he asked.

“You were important for me, you know.”

“I'm glad, Alice.” The android sensed impending disappointment in his demotion to the past tense.

“I mean, every man I'd ever been involved with was so demanding. Wanting this, wanting that. I never had any time to find out what
Alice
wanted. And then I meet this guy who's willing to give me all the space I need, who didn't want anything from me because he
can't
want anything, because he's a
machine
, you know, and because he can get me seated at the good tables at Aces High and because we can
fly
and dance with the moon…” There was a brief silence. “You were really important to me, Mod Man. But I can't see you. I'm married now.”

A palpable sense of loss drifted like scuttering snow across the android's macroatomic switches. “I'm happy for you, Alice.” A National Guard jeep cruised past, with four Guardsmen in combat gear. Modular Man, who had established good relations with the Guard during the Swarm attack, gave them a wave. The jeep slowed, its passengers looking at him without changing expression. Then they speeded up and moved on.

“I thought you were
dead.
You know?”

“I understand.” He sensed an irresolution in her. “Can I call you later?”

“Only at work.” Her voice was fast. “If you call me at home, Ralph might start asking questions. He knows about a lot of my past, but he might find an affair with a machine a little weird. I mean,
I
know it was okay, and
you
know, but I imagine it's a little strange explaining it to people.”

“I understand.”

“He's tolerant of alternate lifestyles, but I'm not sure how tolerant he'd be of
me
having one. Particularly one he'd never heard of or thought about.”

“I'll call you, Alice.”

“Good-bye.”

She thought I didn't want anything for myself
, the android thought as he hung up the phone. Somehow that made him sadder than anything.

His finger jabbed the coin slot again and dialed a California number. The phone rang twice before a recording announced the number had been disconnected. Cyndi had moved somewhere. Maybe, he thought, he'd call her agent later.

He dialed a New Haven number. “Hi, Kate,” he said.

“Oh.” He heard someone inhaling a cigarette. When the voice came back, it was cheerful. “I always thought someone would put you back together.”

Relief poured into him. “Someone did. For good this time, I hope.”

A low chuckle. “It's hard to keep a good man down.”

The android thought about that for a moment. “Maybe I can see you,” he said.

“I'm not coming to Manhattan. The bridges are closed anyway.”

“Bridges closed?”

“Bridges closed. Martial law. Panic in the streets. You
have
been out of touch, haven't you?”

Modular Man looked up and down the street again. “I guess so.”

“There's a wild card outbreak, mostly in lower Manhattan. Hundreds of people have drawn the Black Queen. It's a mutant form. Supposedly it's spread by a carrier named Croyd Crenson.”

“The Sleeper? I've heard the name.”

Kate sucked on the cigarette again. “They've closed the bridges and tunnels to keep him from getting out. There's martial law.”

Which explained the Guard on the streets again. “Things
had
seemed a little slow,” Modular Man said. “But nobody told me.”

“Amazing.”

“I guess if you're dead”—hollowly—“you don't get to watch the news.” He thought about this for a moment, then tried to cheer himself up. “I could visit
you.
I can
fly.
Roadblocks can't stop me.”

“You might—” She cleared her throat. “You might be a carrier, Mod Man.” She tried to laugh. “Becoming a joker would really wreck my burgeoning academic career.”

“I can't be a carrier. I'm a machine.”

“Oh.” A surprised pause. “Sometimes I forget.”

“Shall I come?”

“Um…” That cigarette sound again. “I'd better not. Not till after comps.”

“Comps?”

“Three days locked in a very small and cramped hell with the dullest of the Roman poets, which come to think of it is really saying something. I'm studying like mad. I really can't afford a social life till after I get my degree.”

“Oh. I'll call you then, okay?”

“I'll be looking forward.”

“Bye.”

Modular Man hung up the phone. Other phone numbers rolled through his mind; but the first three had been sufficiently discouraging that he didn't really want to try again.

He looked up the near-vacant street. He could go to Aces High and maybe meet somebody, he thought.

Aces High. Where he'd died.

A coldness touched his mind at the thought. Quite suddenly he didn't want to go to Aces High at all.

Then he decided he needed to know.

Radar dish spinning, he rose silently into the air.

The android landed on the observation deck and stepped into the bar. Hiram Worchester, standing alone in the middle of the room, swung around suddenly, holding up a fist.… His eyes were dark holes in his doughy face. He looked at Modular Man for a long moment as if he didn't recognize him, then swallowed hard, lowered his hand, and almost visibly drew a smile onto his face.

“I thought you'd be rebuilt,” he said.

The android smiled. “Takes a licking,” he said. “Keeps on ticking.”

“That's very good to hear.” Hiram gave a grating chuckle that sounded as if it were coming from the tin horn of a gramophone. “Still, it's not every day a regular customer comes back from the dead. Your drinks and your next meal, Modular Man, are on Aces High.”

Aside from Hiram the place was nearly deserted: only Wall Walker and two others were present.

“Thank you, Hiram.” The android stepped to the bar and put his foot on the rail. The gesture felt familiar, warmly pleasant and homelike. He smiled at the bartender, whom he hadn't seen before, and said, “Zombie.” Behind him, Hiram made a choking sound. He turned back to the fat man.

“A problem, Hiram?”

Hiram gave a nervous smile. “Not at all.” He adjusted his bow tie, wiped imaginary sweat from his forehead. His pleasant tone was forced. It sounded as if it took great effort to talk. “I kept parts of you here for months,” he said. “Your head came through more or less intact, though it wouldn't talk. I kept hoping your creator would appear and know how to reassemble them.”

“He's secretive and wouldn't appear in public. But I'm sure he'd like the parts back.”

Hiram looked at him with his deep, dead eyes. “Sorry. Someone stole them. A souvenir freak, I imagine.”

“Oh. My creator will be disappointed.”

“Your zombie, sir,” said the bartender.

“Thank you.” The android noticed that an autographed picture of Senator Hartmann had been moved from a corner of the bar to a prominent place above the bar.

“You must pardon me, Modular Man,” Hiram said, “but I really ought to get back to the kitchens. Time and
rognons sautés au champagne
wait for no man.”

“Sounds delectable,” said the android. “Perhaps I'll have your
rognons
for dinner. Whatever they are.” He watched as Hiram maneuvered his bulk toward the kitchen. There was something wrong with Hiram, he thought, something off-key in the way he reacted to things. The word
zombie
, the weird comment about the head. He seemed hollow, somehow. As if something was consuming his vast body from the inside. He was completely different from the way Modular Man remembered him.

So was Travnicek. So was everyone.

A chill eddied through his mind. Perhaps his earlier perceptions had been faulty in some way, his recorded memories subject to some unintended cybernetic bias. But it was just as likely that it was his current perceptions that were at fault. Maybe Travnicek's work was faulty.

Maybe he'd blow up again.

He left the bar and walked toward Wall Walker. Wall Walker was a fixture at Aces High, a thirtyish black man of no apparent occupation whose wild card enabled him to walk on the walls and ceiling. He wore a cloth domino mask that didn't go very far toward concealing his appearance, seemed to have plenty of money, and was, the android gathered, pleasant company. No one knew his real name. He looked up and smiled.

“Hi, Mod Man. You're looking good.”

“May I join you?”

“I'm waiting for someone.” His voice had what Modular Man thought to be a light West Indian accent. “But I don't mind company in the meantime.”

Modular Man sat. Wall Walker regarded him from over the rim of a Sierra Porter. “I haven't seen you since you … exploded.” He shook his head. “What a mess, mon.”

Modular Man sipped his zombie. Taste receptors made a cataclysmic null sound in his mind. “I was wondering if you might be able to tell me about what happened that night.”

The android's radar painted him the unmistakable image of Hiram stepping into the bar, glancing left and right in what seemed to be an anxious way, then stepping away.

“Oh. Yes. I daresay you would not remember, would you?” He frowned. “It was an accident, I think. You were trying to rescue Jane from the Astronomer, and you got in Croyd's way.”

“Croyd? The same Croyd that's…”

“Spreading the virus? Yes. Same gentleman. He had the power to … make metal go limp, or some other such nonsense. He was trying to use it on the Astronomer and he couldn't control it and he hit you. You melted like the India-rubber man, and you started firing off tear gas and smoke, mon, and a few seconds later you exploded.”

Modular Man was still for a few seconds while his circuits explored this possibility. “The Astronomer was made of metal?” he asked.

“No. Just an old fella, kinda frail.”

“So Croyd's power wouldn't have worked anyway. Not on the Astronomer.”

Wall Walker raised his hands. “People were shootin' off everything they had, mon. We had a full-grown
elephant
in here. The lights were out, the place was full of tear gas…”

“And Croyd fired off a wild card talent that could only work against
me.
”

Wall Walker shrugged. The two other customers rose and left the bar. Modular Man thought for a moment.

“Who's Jane? The woman I was trying to rescue.”

Wall Walker looked at him. “You don't remember her, either?”

“I don't think so.”

“You were supposed to be guarding her. They call her Water Lily, mon.”

“Oh.” A qualified relief entered the android's mind. Here, at least, was something he could remember. “I met her briefly. During the Great Cloisters Raid. I thought her name was actually Lily, though.”
Didn't I see you at the ape-escape?
he'd asked. Never saw her again. Maybe she'd have some answers.

“Seems to prefer that people call her Jane, mon. Was the name she used when she worked here.”

I don't have a name
, the android thought suddenly.
I've got this label, Modular Man, but it's a trademark, not a real name, not Bob or Simon or Michael. Sometimes people call me Mod Man, but that's just to make it easy on themselves. I don't really have a name.

Sadness wafted through his mind.

“Do you know how to get ahold of this Jane person?” he asked. “I'd like to ask her some questions.”

Wall Walker chuckled. “You and half the city, mon. She has disappeared and is probably running for her life. Word is she can heal Croyd's victims.”

“Yes?”

“By fucking them.”

“Oh.”

Facts whirled hopelessly in the eddies of the android's mind. None of this made any sense at all. Croyd had blown him up and was now spreading death thoughout the city; the woman who could heal the harm Croyd was doing had fled from sight; Hiram and Travnicek were behaving oddly; and Alice had got married.

The android looked at Wall Walker carefully. “If this is all part of some strange joke,” he said, “tell me now. Otherwise”—quite seriously—“I'll hurt you badly.”

Wall Walker's eyes dilated. The android had the feeling he was not terribly intimidated. “I am not making it up, mon.” His voice was emphatic, matter-of-fact. “This is not a fantasy, Mod Man. Croyd is spreading the Black Queen, Water Lily is on the run, there's martial law.”

Suddenly there was shouting from the kitchen.