The Dead Slam: A Tale of Benevolent Assasination (35 page)

R
epresentative Al Thomka
pried one bloodshot eye open and rotated it toward the irritating buzz that had been haunting him all night. He didn’t want to wake up, and he surely wasn’t going to answer the phone. He regretted not having turned it off. It stopped ringing. He snuggled back into his blankets, hoping to return to the dream he had been so rudely torn from. But he couldn’t remember what dream that was. He’d been dead to the world. For how long, he could neither imagine nor care. For the first time in a very long time, he was rested. He didn’t have anything to do! He was free. And most importantly, his conscience was clear. Sort of clear. Clearer than it had been.

He stretched and flexed. It felt so good to feel his body again. The contradictions and evasions of a life under Petey Hendrix’s thumb were soul-numbing. But he was done with that now. Slowly, he opened both eyes and remembered he was in a strange bed. But where was he? He fluffed his pillow and put both hands behind his head. The small, windowless room was extraordinarily tall and built for utility. The only light came from a very large cut-out, a sort of balcony, overlooking a space he couldn’t see from his bed, which was tucked into a corner under a set of steel stairs. The entrance must be way up there, he thought. An assortment of aluminum tube-rails leaned against the walls, and electrical things with dangling wires and huge glass bulbs were stacked on shelves. Every other inch of the room was filled with laptop computers, mobile devices and touch-pads. Thousands of them.

His phone chimed a voice mail notification. Let it go, he thought, and promised himself he’d turn it off, or throw it away. He was done with all that.

He dropped his feet over the side of the bed, but thought twice about getting up. He stood once, tried to smooth the wrinkles out of his starched white shirt with both palms, then quickly sat back down. He felt a little odd now that he’d slept. His head felt somewhat vacant. It felt good. From now on, he was just going to — be. He spotted his shoes on the floor near where his suit was neatly draped over some contraption. All right. Get up.

The specter of the young girl he’d met last night hung in the room, her face not entirely clear, but her presence palpable. And there were others, too. Other women. An older version of herself. Her mom? Yeah. An older version of herself. His recollections were muddied by exhaustion, but he remembered drinking heavily at some fashion bar with Murthy. That was probably Murthy on the phone. He’d ditched his Towne Car near Hanover Square. His missing friend! The statue of what’s-his-name? He laughed out loud. What was his name? There was a cab. It was all so murky, but he didn’t care.

I must have had some kind of breakdown
, he thought.
But I’m OK now.
He pulled on his black cashmere socks, slipped on his tassle and kiltie loafers, then staggered on his two hairy legs over to the brightly lit balcony, his silk paisley boxers flapping under the tails of his wrinkled shirt.

He looked down from a great height in complete astonishment from high above the lighting-gantry on the main stage at Astoria Studios, in Queens. He’d been here before. Not up here, but down on the stage floor. In the unimaginably huge room where they shot
Trooper Brian Stahl, NPF
.

He stared down on the dozens of fake interiors, none of which had ceilings. It was an amazing perspective and echoed his current state of mind. Something had torn the lid off his pernicious value system, which he was now able to look at from a higher POV.

He’d wasted his entire life accumulating a skyscraper full of junk. But what had he accomplished? He didn’t make anything but phone calls. Politically, he had poisoned the whole landscape to protect the advantages of his small circle of inbred cronies. He had only one friend now . . . what was his name? Mayor Abraham De Peyster! That was it! Old Abe. Who was now a captive of Petey Hendrix.
Someday we’ll both be free,
he promised.

The door atop the metal staircase clanged opened and in came the young girl from last night with coffee and Danish. She set the tray down on a messy work table. He joined her, in his shirttails and shiny boxers.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Last night’s a blur. I think I had some kind of breakdown. I’m OK now. Can’t remember the last time I slept like this. What time is it?”

“You mean what day is it?”

“I slept for a whole day?”

“Almost. It’s Friday night. I’m Schambolla. And you?”

He didn’t know exactly how to answer that. Al? How dull.

She sipped her coffee, grinning at his hesitation. “You were really bombed last night. Between your ranting and falling down, we didn’t exchange names.”

“Oh, of course. Al Thomka. Actually, I’m Representative Albert Thomka. Ridiculous as that may be.”

“Don’t worry, Al,” she said with a glowing smile. “You won’t be ridiculous much longer.”

* * *

T
he Tuke Love Letters
faded from the wind-dome, and to everyone’s delight, far off on the horizon the Twin Spires outlined the most distant edge of the sky. Camille was drawn forward, thinking
this has been here all along, waiting for me, and I had no idea
. She trembled. Lily held her hand tightly as the Peregrine rushed up to and between the stony twins, dropped into the hidden entrance, and taxied down the tunnel to a hangar filled with Peregrines.

Catrina Enders was waiting for them. “Are you Camille?”

“Yes,” she said, noting Catrina’s deconstructed suit.

“He’s been asking for you. Follow me, please.”

Camille reeled. Her name on his lips. In this place.

Lily put her arm around Camille and nudged her forward. Camille regained her senses with an odd revelation: “My dad was right,” she said sadly. “He was looking for Tuke, and he was looking in the right place.”

The immensity of these caverns was overwhelming. They walked along a wide path that wound its way around a central ravine, a crack in the mountain the size of a skyscraper, open to a small sliver of sky. Max touched an outcropping of smooth stone and made a quizzical face.

Catrina Enders said, “Fifty-one, Fahrenheit.” She wiggled her hand. “More or less, year round. The whole ravine is in a thermal plume. It’s cool like this year round.”

Lily elbowed Max with an impatient look, tipping her head toward Camille. He made an I’m-sorry face and they moved on.

Their path ducked in and out of sheltered areas, some manmade, some natural. Open-air offices and workspaces filled these. The path continued into tunnels, then back out into the vast ravine where several suspension bridges crossed at vital intersections.

They turned at a tunnel entrance sculpted into the rock and went deep inside the mountain. In less than a minute it opened onto a modest square with a soaring natural ceiling filled with large whimsical mobiles. Fifty or so storefronts were set into a grid that relieved the organic chaos of the cavern. Max marveled at the two Ferris-wheel-sized vents that cast a gentle breeze throughout this gargantuan space.

Catrina led them past cafés and pushcarts filled with sweets, hearty snacks, and, most intriguingly, several collections of garishly colorful clothing. They turned away from the square, down a corridor filled with people working furiously at computer stations. As they continued, it got a bit dark until they came to a very dusty spot that sat back in a deep cavity.

Max stopped to look at the ongoing construction.

One young woman in Jackson Pollock splatter-painted overalls roamed the area with what looked to him like a bloated game controller strapped to her shoulders and suspended in front of her about hand high. She aimed it at a long, spidery machine that was chewing its way along the rugged walls. It swallowed the rubble and mixed it with a binding agent in its cast-iron stomach, then extruded a wall on the floor behind it. Right where it was needed. No waste. One robot as productive as a hundred men.

Catrina said, “You like that, huh?”

Max made an agreeable face.

“Levi’s great-grandfather built it, a hundred years ago. It’s the biggest 3D printer in the world. We don’t know how to get it out of here, though.”

“It sure does a lot of no-fun work.”

“It’s all accounted for, in our proof-of-work scheme.”

Camille caught the phrase and immediately grew suspicious. “Proof-of-work?”

Catrina realized she’d cracked out of turn and segued to an evasion. “Levi’s an economist. Everything has to be accounted for.” She watched to see if Camille was going to drop her suspicion, but no clues came.

Camille was annoyed at not being able to connect the phrase ‘proof-of-work’, having heard it in connection with something vaguely sinister. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but Catrina’s evasiveness had set her off. “Is all of this part of your proof-of-work scheme, too?”

“Everything here is a product of some kind of work. So yes. Yes it is.”

Camille bristled at being handled so effectively. “Yeah. I’m sure.” But in the back of her mind the term ‘proof-of-work’ festered. She couldn’t remember what it meant, but she thought, maybe, it was associated with some kind of money-laundering scheme.

Catrina continued her evasive course. “Productivity is paramount . . . in our scheme. We produce more than we need by a factor of fifty. We don’t want to cut labor costs, we want to eliminate labor itself.”

“Proof-of-work?” Camille stared.

Catrina swallowed an urge to choke her. “In a fully automated economy, the reason to work — diverges. Aggregate productivity is all that matters. Productivity is everything in a sufficiently abundant global economy. A world with no reason for war. The paradigm has shifted, Camille. You’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Camille had always thought of herself as a big city sophisticate, but now recognized the joke in that. But Catrina seemed amenable, so she said, “I like your hair. That little pompadour is precious.”

Catrina grabbed the lifeline. “Nineteen-forties pin-up is all the rage here. And those hand-painted coveralls. Not for me . . .”

Both laughed.

Hatchet buried.

They suddenly had to share the path with a variety of medical devices that were wheeling about, some on their own, others propelled by folks in crisp new scrubs. Catrina jockeyed them through to a brightly lit room where MacIan lay sprawled across a bed scarcely large enough to contain him, bandaged like a mummy, gates up all round. Wires and tubes ran from his body to a bank of pulsing gauges, meters and monitors.

Camille’s face vacillated from relief to horror.

“He’s in a medically induced coma, for now,” said Catrina.

“Is he going to be OK?”

“Most of his damage was structural. We’re good mechanics. They’re keeping his core temp at around forty-five. He’ll sleep and he’ll heal and won’t feel a thing.”

“For how long?”

“Until we have to wake him.” Catrina pointed to an empty bed. “Why don’t you camp there?”

Camille touched MacIan’s hand and settled onto her bed.

“Come,” said Catrina. “I’ll show you two to your room.”

Camille held back a bemused grin as Lily hooked Max’s arm and towed him away.

T
he young lovers
, alone at last, floated through an enchanted world of celestial ceilings and eternal stone — hearts racing in urgent anticipation. They turned down a tight hallway and walked along a wall of windows set into a rocky overhang that looked north into a cascade of snowcapped mountain tops. Catrina pointed to a door, nodded coolly, and walked away.

Lily dashed to open it, leapt inside, and stood breathless before a magnificent vista of those mountains vanishing into the distance. The room itself was glorious. The modern furniture fine and sturdy. The bathroom picture-perfect. And for all its wild openness, their privacy bordered on the forlorn. No moment had ever been more real to either of them. Never more intense or mysterious.

Max shut the door. Lily wrapped him in her arms. Their soft young lips touched. Max ran his hands down her back, stopping to caress her firmly rounded butt. She did the same and their lips turned to fire. His hands instinctively rose to her breasts, two small mounds of delight. She pulled her top over her head. His knees buckled as he took her into his mouth. She shuddered and . . .

Loud knocks rained heavily upon their door.

Max looked helplessly to Lily. “Go away!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

A boy’s voice came muffled through the door. “Max? Levi is asking for you. It’s an emergency.”

R
eplayAJ rose from her desk
, and said through a yawn, “Let’s wait till midnight.” She looked at her cell phone. “Ten minutes. Ticking clock — always a nice touch.”

“It’s good luck to launch on a Saturday,” said the eternally optimistic Franklyscarlet. “No self-respecting gamer is in bed before midnight, on Saturday.”

They waited, checking the time every few seconds. Then, without ceremony, ReplayAJ launched.

As users logged on, a video featuring Levi Tuke played across their screens: “We have launched
Liberate New York
in response to a global, level five threat. This is the most important operation we have ever engaged in and I beg you to participate. None of you will be players, only war veterans can play, but we need you as field volunteers and monitors. All other activity on The Massive is suspended until this operation is completed. I’m relying on you.”

The technicians on all twenty-three of The Massive’s server farms cranked up the cooling systems, but the sudden explosion of traffic redlined every thermometer they had. Gamers and their friends around the world logged on in droves.

At the Polish Falcons Dance Hall, Turnstyle prepared to launch a complementary social game to assist the veterans. “Ladies of Manhatmazon. I call upon you to step forward and engage in the most momentous game we have ever launched — our first coproduction with The Tuke Massive.”

She handed the microphone to Priyanka. “Ladies, ladies, ladies! You know me. You know what I do, so believe me when I tell you I have the answer to our gender’s eternal question.” She raised her hands, and shouted, “Where have all the good men gone?”

M
ax and Lily
dragged themselves to Tuke’s command post behind their adolescent escort, their frustration magnified by the incredibly romantic location. There were no reference points here, no way to orient themselves, so they drifted along in a scintillating kaleidoscope of emotion, fueled by countless nibbling kisses, delicate but barely restrained.

All that ended when they entered the Strategic Center, where Tuke twisted a joystick and a beam of light started painting the entire ceiling with a satellite image of the local area. Max watched as it zoomed in on his insignificant little village. It pulled back, panned east, then zoomed into the much larger town of Portage. Home of the Chinese Airships.

Tuke looked up as they approached. “Max and Lily?”

The couple nodded.

“I understand that you, Max, can fly a Peregrine. Is that right?”

“Yes, sir. I only just . . .”

“You’ve flown under combat conditions?”

“Well, yes, but . . .”

“I have a mission for you. Will you engage?”

Max looked to Lily. She nodded her head confidently. “Yes, sir,” she said.

Tuke waved them closer.

They came hand in hand.

Tuke grinned at Max, and said jovially, “I hear you know everything there is to know about airships.”