Mercury Man (21 page)

“Hey, buddy, they got you working for a living?”

“I hope you've made things right with Dr. Tarn,” Estella said. “We were going to give you a call.”

“Yeah, we were afraid you'd be serving time by now,” Pete added. He lifted a fat joint from the ashtray and gulped some smoke.

Tom, who had rested one hand briefly on the car door, was horrified to see that Estella had noticed his ring. He pulled his hand away quickly, but the girl giggled and said, “No, let me see it!”

“He's too shy!” Pete nudged her. “Doesn't want us to ask about his trinkets. Come on and smoke a joint with us, Tommy Buck. Then you can tell us about your secret life.”

“It's a magic ring,” Tom assured them. “I got it for a box top and a quarter.”

They both laughed.

“That's a good one, Tom. We've got a magic ring, too — a smoke ring,” Pete confided, and they laughed. “If you'd have gone with Fabricon in the first place, you wouldn't have to haul those parcels.”

“I'm just doing something for my mom,” Tom explained.

“Yeah? I guess she's the one who gave you the ring — is that it?”

Pete Halloran shook with laughter at his own wit. Estella put her hands to her eyes and giggled. Tom bent over and began to tug at the boxes.

“
Yo ho hee ho
!” Pete sang.

“Oh, shut up!” Tom muttered.

“See you later, Thomas,” Pete called to him. To Tom's great relief the car window rolled up. He could
see the two of them inside, talking and pointing at him.
My friends,
he thought bitterly,
my good friends.
Then the engine roared and the car disappeared down the dusty street.

As it roared past the black pickup, Paul reappeared behind the wheel. He had ducked out of sight in the cab, it seemed. Now he started the truck, and it rolled slowly in Tom's direction.

Tom stood there, frustrated and seething with anger. The kids had no idea what a threat was hanging over them. And to save them, he and Paul would have to take on Fabricon.

Two hours later Tom stood in the tiny park opposite Fabricon. It was late afternoon but as hot as ever, and all the windows in the company tower seemed to be melting in the sunlight. Liquid gold, a fiery transformation, the terrifying moment before the irrevocable act. Tom looked down and touched his ring. He thought of Miranda, who was with her grandfather in Mercury House, a place very close to where he stood, yet just out of sight. He thought of his mother and grandfather, waiting around the corner in Paul Daniel's pickup.

Paul himself paced like a restless animal between the phone booth and the water fountain, juggling a few coins nervously in his right hand. The park was empty and Harbour Street seemed desolate on this lazy Sunday afternoon. Once again Paul glanced at his watch, but this time he stopped in his tracks, patted Tom gently on the shoulder, and announced firmly, “I guess it's now or never.”

He slipped into the phone booth and quickly dialled a number. After a pause, and a few clearings of his throat, he said, “That you, Mac? This is Bob Allan, Special Events. Yeah, they've got me working today. I'm calling from downtown. About the kids' party. You haven't heard? For some city bigwigs and their brats. What'll they think of next, huh? Send up the costumed ones and the balloon man right away, OK? You can't miss them. I'll be over in a flash. Thanks!”

Tom marvelled at how easily Paul had changed his voice and tone. It was a masterpiece of impersonation.

“Let's move!” Paul said.

Together they ducked into the old stone public washroom, opened the bags they had hauled from the truck earlier, and began to change.

The lavatory was small and stank of bleach and urine. Its walls were scrawled over with filthy graffiti, yet the fixtures were shiny and ancient, almost elegant in aspect. When Tom peeled off his clothes, he dropped them on a white tiled floor that looked something like a grimy game board.

“Hope to God no one appears,” Paul muttered. “We'll be arrested before we start.”

Within minutes, however, they folded up their outer clothes and stuffed them into the bags. Out of the same bags had come the costumes, carefully pressed and stitched here and there by Miranda.

Within minutes Mercury Man and his sidekick Tom Strong stood together in front of the washroom mirror.

“Awesome,” Tom pronounced, but his insides were
churning with anxious expectations. This was the craziest thing he had ever done — and the most dangerous.

“Let's go!”

Mercury Man dashed across the little park; Tom Strong followed. A bus was just pulling away from the Harbour Street stop and an elderly man, happening to look out the window, stared open-mouthed at the pair of them. They raced across Harbour Street. A few cars honked; drivers laughed and waved. Tom saw Paul Daniel's pickup pull into the Fabricon driveway.

“Right on time,” Paul shouted.

He flung open the back door of the pickup and they tossed in the bags containing their clothes. At the same moment the passenger door opened and Jack Sandalls hopped out. He was carrying a string of brightly coloured balloons in one hand and a pink shopping bag covered with blue teddy bear decorations in the other.

“Well, if it isn't Mercury Man and his sidekick Tom Strong! Welcome to West Hope, guys!”

“Shut up and get moving,” Paul growled at him. “Or we'll be entertaining in the State Pen.”

Jack laughed and headed for the entrance. Tom waved to his mother, who had twisted around from her place in the driver's seat. She blew him a kiss and pulled the truck out of the driveway, spinning away down Harbour Street as Paul and Tom followed Jack through the Fabricon doors.

A lazy Sunday afternoon, and, as they had calculated, the front hall was nearly empty. On the left, near the company visual displays, a worker was mopping the
floor. Mac the guard sat behind the desk reading a newspaper. He looked up as they approached, did a small double take, and laughed.

“The Bob Allan party bunch, I guess. Kids aren't here yet. You can go right up. Reception room on floor six. Take the elevator.”

Tom breathed a sigh of relief.

“Here's a balloon for you,” Jack said. The man chuckled, mumbled his thanks, and started to tie it to his chair.

They left him fumbling with the string and pushed into the inner corridor.

Mercury Man spoke in a fierce whisper.

“The elevator's for you, Jack. Leave the toys in the reception room and go out the back way. Remember, walk straight through the parking lot and look for the candy store. Karen will pick you up there. If all goes well, we'll meet you at the front entrance in twenty-five minutes. Good luck!”

“Same to you!”

The elevator came; it was empty. Jack stepped in. The doors closed, and the light went on.

Tom followed Mercury Man along the corridor, through a door marked “Private,” and down a flight of stairs.

The storage rooms are in the basement,
Paul had told them.
And I've still got my key.

They pushed through the door at the bottom and came into another corridor. A man strolled out of a recessed area. He stopped beside a large poster of some
Swiss-like scenery, gaped at them, smiled, and started to say something.

Mercury Man slammed into him at top speed. The man crashed back through the doorway. The poster rattled and fell to the floor. Tom ran to help, but Mercury Man was up in a flash. He swung a hard right; the man toppled and lay still.

Tom said, “Wow!”

Now they saw that the room was full of tables, on which sat a few small monitors, some of them flashing with diagrams and data. Boxes of old floppy disks had been stacked in one corner. In the other was a cart carrying few old slide projectors. Printers were in evidence, and piles of documents tied with ribbon.

Together they dragged the dazed man to a narrow cupboard, rolled him in quickly, and locked the door.

Footsteps and voices in the corridor. Mercury Man waved a warning at Tom, tiptoed to the door, and pulled it shut.

“This stuff is nothing. I've got to get to the special files,” he whispered. “I'll count three, you break out and go left. That should draw them off. Remember the diagram I showed you? I'll meet you at the main lounge in ten minutes.”

Tom waited. The count took forever.

One … two … three!

He burst into the corridor and headed left. Two men stood in his way, one dressed in blue overalls, the other in a white lab jacket. They gave him startled looks, hesitated a second, then stepped aside as he dived past them.

He sprawled on the floor and was up again.

“Hey!”

“Who in hell's that?”

He heard their cries but wasn't stopping. The white walls flashed past. Paul had briefed him on the layout here. He cut to the left again and ran down a ramp and along a straight corridor. A man sat on a bench drinking coffee. As Tom ran past, the man did a double take, glanced suspiciously at his cup, and jumped up. He shouted something incomprehensible.

Tom ran on, sprinting by some metal stands, a row of bicycles, and a couple of drink machines. He was looking for the exit sign that led to the main underground parking. When he found it, he knew he could cut through the garage and come out near the main hall.

By now he was almost used to the Tom Strong uniform. It was terribly hot inside it and the mask cut off his vision, but the effect on those he met seemed stupendous.

Tom clenched his fists.
Would he really have the courage to attack someone, the way Mercury Man had done?
His yellow boots thumped on the hard floor, and his breath came short. He slowed down.

Suddenly, an alarm sounded all around him, a low-level but very nasty banshee scream, as if all the cars in the parking lot were being rifled at once.
Bad news
. He prayed that they hadn't caught Paul.

Still no exit sign. Had he made a wrong turn?

A man appeared from nowhere — he was four or five doors away — a big man, taking up most of the corridor, carrying something like a police nightstick.
He had a red face and massive shoulders. He didn't blink at Tom's uniform. Security cop, no question about it.

Tom hit the brakes and turned. No way to take on that guy. He wasn't Mercury Man yet.

More trouble. As he turned Tom saw the coffee drinker, now wide awake and pretty riled up, coming straight at him. Two or three others followed. A dog barked somewhere.

An old poem came into Tom's mind. “Cannon to the right of them! Cannon to the left of them! Into the valley of death, rode the six hundred.”

“Not yet!” he cried. He flung open a door on his right and bounded up a short stairway, taking two steps at a time.

“We've got him now!” someone shouted.

Like hell you have
, Tom thought, but they were right. At the top of the stairs there was only one way to go. Straight into a lab, a small room full of blank screens, a place that seemed to have no other exit.

Tom hesitated, pulled the door shut behind him, and locked it.

His heart pounded, all his senses were nervously alert, and the alarm's insane screeching drilled through his head like a spike. Yet he felt he might hold them at bay, do something, anything, to confound them — until he heard a voice outside in the corridor announcing, “We've got him! He's trapped in the Pavlov Room!”

Tom looked around, eyeing the blank walls, the multiple screens, with fearful apprehension. The Pavlov
Room! The very place he had wanted to avoid — Tarn's conditioning centre. He sprang for the door — no good. They would nab him at once.

He took a step back, his costume suddenly drenched in sweat. He was in for it now. Trapped in the heart of Fabricon, locked in the notorious Pavlov Room.

Did they have Paul, too?
He didn't know.

Tom pounded on the door, kicked at it in sheer frustration, ran frantically from side to side.

No way out. The room was clean, almost antiseptic, and somehow more frightening for that. What were all the screens and monitors for? That white table? It was like an operating room where someone could take apart your brain.

There are three stages to the Pavlov Program
, Paul had told them.
Mind control, the DNA probe, and the construction of the Mind Computer.

And some of it was happening here
, he thought.

All of a sudden the siren's clamour stopped. Maybe now he could think, get hold of himself. Tom closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and counted to ten. He looked around again. In two corners of the room, close to the ceiling, he saw cameras, small metal boxes rotating as he moved. Instruments that could track him, follow his panic dance. Who would be watching him?

It was impossible — they had him now. Desperately, he tried to think.
What would Tom Strong do?

The first thing was to cut their advantages. He might neutralize the cameras.

Tom looked around, estimating the height of the lab table. If he could pile up a couple of boxes …

Eagerly, he set to work. He pushed the lab table into one corner, then fumbled in several drawers and cabinets, looking for an object with which he could strike at the cameras. In one drawer he turned up an old spike bar. It wasn't very heavy, but there seemed to be nothing else.

He piled up a couple of boxes and climbed until he could grasp the metal support that anchored the camera. Hanging on tight to keep his balance, he struck the thing blow after vicious blow, aiming as best he could for the lens. The spike bar bent and twisted, bits of metal rained down, and finally the camera itself hung askew and, as he hoped, useless.

Painstakingly, he pulled the table across the room and repeated the assault on the other camera. Just when it appeared he was achieving a similar result, all the lights in the room went out.