The Fracas Factor (8 page)

“Oh, wizard!” Holland looked over at Nadine. “What do you think he thinks about our relationship?” he asked cynically.

“He thinks you’re courting me. He’s made snide remarks to that effect from time to time.”

“But I’m a Middle.”

“Yes, but he realizes perfectly well that if you went to the trouble of pulling a few strings, you could bounce yourself up as high as you wanted to go, even to Upper-Upper. I suspect he’s mystified that you haven’t.”

“Couldn’t be bothered,” Holland chuckled.

Joe leaned forward. “Just one thing about that Mexican romp. I’ve reported my car stolen. They’ve found it bombed and with five dead men in the vicinity. It won’t be long before somebody comes around to question me.”

The other nodded. “Frank Hodgson, in his position in the Bureau of Investigation, can handle it. It’s not a local matter and comes under his jurisdiction.”

Joe said, “Wizard. One other thing. Jesus Zavala pointed out something that was interesting. His own outfit had come to the same conclusions as we have. He claims that the closer we come to our socioeconomic change the more groups will spontaneously evolve in the same direction. Some smalls, some large. They’ll mushroom up all over the place.”

Phil Holland thought about it. “He’s probably right. And it’s an idea. We’re going to have to start looking for such groups. We’ve got to increase our speed of recruitment.”

Nadine said, “The Sons of Liberty.”

The two men looked at her.

She said, “I’ve heard of them several times. An organization that wants to make basic changes.”

He looked over at the younger man and wound it up. “So that’s how we got into the current rut, Max. We’ve become a nation of cloddies.”

Max, looking very unhappy, got up and went over to the autobar for another beer. “What another one?” he said.

“No. I’ve got to keep a clear head.”

Max came back, still disgruntled. He said, “Well, maybe most of us are in a rut, but what can you do? With, like you said, all this here automation, there just aren’t no jobs.”

Joe explained to him that work connected with production and distribution of necessities wasn’t the only kinq. There was education and the sciences, such things as the space program, ecology and the environment, and the arts. How much of it Max assimilated, Joe didn’t know.

The identity screen on the door buzzed. He looked over and it was Nadine, as expected. Joe got up and hurried over.

Nadine smiled brightly as she entered, “Hello, Max,” she said. “Hello darling.”

Max shot to his feet. “Hi, Doctor Haer,” he said. “Gosh, you look all shiny.”

“Thanks, Max,” she said. She looked at Joe in amusement from the side of her eyes. “I feel all shiny.”

“So do I,” Joe said, “but I didn’t know it showed. How about a drink, darling?”

“I’ll have a Cooler,” she said.

Max excused himself and went on into his own room, probably thinking that they wanted to be alone. He knew that they were engaged, but thus far Joe hadn’t told him the wedding had been put off indefinitely. Max would have welcomed the news. He didn’t like the idea of giving up his shared apartment with his friend.

Joe brought her the drink and one for himself and sat on the couch next to her.

He shook his head in despair and said, “I’ve just been talking to Max about the organization. Frank Hodgson is of the opinion that we’re going to have to start recruiting Lowers. They number some ninety percent of the population. It’s hard for them to identify with even a Middle, not to speak of an Upper. Max was born a Low-Lower and he’s now a Middle-Lower, so he’s right on their level.”

“Frank is undoubtedly right,” Nadine said. “How did Max respond?”

“I’m not really sure, but I got the feeling that he was shocked to find that I was speaking against the government.”

“Zen!” she said. “Do you mean to tell me that after all this time, after our trip to Budapest, after your expedition down into Mexico, Max didn’t even know about our organization and what it stands for?”

“Evidently not. He finds the words and the concepts a little hard. After about the third sentence that he can’t understand, he turns off listening.”

She stared at him, frustration in her face.

“Max is above average as Low-Lowers go. But he probably had no more school than the minimum to teach him how to read and write a little, and how to add and subtract. I don’t know. Possibly he can even divide—at least short division. As a kid he undoubtedly cut school as often as possible to watch the fracases on telly. And from what he’s said about his home life, his parents couldn’t have cared less. I doubt if he’s ever read a book in his life.”

She took a sip of her Cooler. “And it’s your belief that he’s more than average?” she asked.

Joe shook his head. “I’m in a better position than you are to know the workings of the Lower mind. I was born a Lower myself. I’m one of the few I’ve ever heard about that had any push, any ambition. On top of that, as a member of the Category Military, I had Lowers under me, after I’d achieved noncom and then officer rank. In short, I’ve associated with Lowers all of my adult life. I know them.”

“Ninety percent of our population,” she said in continued despair.

“Yes.”

Nadine took a deep breath and finished her drink. “How did your morning’s work turn out otherwise?”

“I think I’ve made a good contact. I don’t know if you’ve met Freddy Soligen. I guess not. He was the telly reporter who tried to build up my image in the eyes of the fracas buffs. At any rate, he’s had the dream of bettering his condition under People’s Capitalism as long as I have. And he’s a fighter. Ambitious. He’s also one of the most experienced reporters in the Category Communications. He wants to get out of reporting the fracases. I suggested to him that possibly we could swing him into a job as a Rank Commentator, if he joined our team.”

Nadine considered it, and said finally, “I don’t see why not. Both Frank Hodgson and Phil Holland have close personal friends, school chums and that sort of thing, in Communications.”

“Organization members?”

“No, I don’t think so. Just friends, but the kind of friends you can twist an arm on, when it comes to a favor.”

Joe grimaced and said, “You know, it occurs to me that in all of these months the only members of the organization I’ve ever met were you, Frank Hodgson, Phil Holland and General George Armstrong in Budapest, and you’re all in the upper echelons of the organization. I haven’t met a single other member, except those new two hundred headed by Zavala down in Mexico.”

She shook her head, laughed, and said, “Haven’t you figured that out, Joe? We don’t want anybody else to know about you. You’ve become our ace trouble-shooter. If you’re not known, you can’t be betrayed. And any subversive organization is rotten ripe for betrayal. If any Category Security or Nathan Hale Society members have infiltrated our ranks at a lower level, our plans will be ruined.”

“I suppose so,” he said and switching subjects. “How’d you make out today?”

“As I told you, we have an appointment with Doctor Lawrence Mitfield, the head of the Sons of Liberty. Happily, he’s right here in the area. Over in the Richmond section of Greater Washington.”

“I’ve just vaguely heard of this Sons of Liberty group. What do they stand for?”

“I don’t really know. I understand that they’ve put out various pamphlets and that they have an underground newspaper. They’re on the Category Security list as a subversive organization. But that doesn’t mean much. You can be listed as a subversive if you prefer vanilla ice cream instead of the chocolate that Wallace Pepper, the head of the North American Bureau of Investigation, likes.”

“Yeah,” Joe said in resignation. “When do we go see this Doctor Mitfield?”

“Now.”

Phil Holland nodded and said, “It seems to me I’ve heard of them myself. Have you any idea at all of how to make contact?”

She said, “As I recall, A Doctor Lawrence Mitfield is the Greater Washington head. They have various branches throughout the country.”

Holland stood, having finished his drink. “All right. You two look him up and sound him out. Meanwhile, my dear, I think that I should refrain from seeing too much of you, much though I hate to say it. Your brother may get ideas as a result of our association, much as he has seemingly done with Joe, here.” He looked at Joe. “As I said, we’ve got to speed up our recruiting, especially among those who have connections with publicity, news reporting, that sort of thing. When our day of action comes, we’ve got to be able to contact people wholesale. If you have any ideas, utilize them.”

‘I’ll work on it,’ Joe said. “Only remember that I have damn little background or experience except in the world of the fracases.”

“Okay,” Holland said. “I’ve got to get back to the office.” He smiled cynically. “And do the work of the Upper who is supposedly our Minister of Foreign Affairs.”

When he was gone, Nadine stood and came over to Joe. She took his hand and said impishly, “Come along.”

She seemed a different Nadine than the one he had known. Mystified, he came to his feet and let her lead him. She led him upstairs to what was obviously her bedroom. She closed the door behind her and faced him.

At this time of day? he thought. But then, who was he to argue? This was the woman he loved.

She said, demurely, “I told you that I wasn’t promiscuous, and not very experienced. But I’ve found out one thing that men seem to like.”

“So have I,” he told her, reaching for her.

“Not that, silly,” she said. “Something preliminary to that.”

And then she did something that couldn’t have surprised him more. She put her hand down to his trousers and, looking him full in the eyes, unzippered them and put her hand inside.

“Lets get to bed,” he said.

Still holding onto his penis, which was rapidly welling to full erection, she led him to the bed and sat him down.

“I know another preliminary trick,” she said.

“What?”

“Men like a bit of a show,” she told him. “You watch while I undress.”

He sat there, still exposed, his erection complete now, while she undressed. She undressed slowly, walking up and down the room a bit, gracefully, languidly, as she removed garment after garment. Finally, she was down to silk briefs and her fairly high-heeled Etruscan-revival shoes.

She turned her back and stepped out of her undergarment. He saw the pink roundness of her magnificent buttocks, the tapered wonder of her perfect legs. She turned around, her arms relaxed along her sides, her palms toward him, as though offering herself. She smiled simply. Her pubic hair was softly red, and she was well endowed with it. Her belly was only slighdy rounded, femininely so. Her breasts, as he knew from having seen her in a bathing suit, were full and set a bit wider apart than usual. The coral pink tips of the nipples had already begun to harden in anticipation of the mating to come.

“She said softly, “Do you still want me?”

He began to tear out of his own clothes, working around the hardened shaft which still protruded from his pants.

She laughed softly, stretched out on the bed. She looked absolutely wanton.

When he was as nude as she, he hurried to her side.

She smiled at him mischievously—this was most certainly a different creature from the intense, dedicated Nadine Haer he thought he knew.

She laughed and said, “Let me get on top the first time. I’m as excited as you are. Besides, I’m of the belief that early in a relationship between man and woman, the woman should assert her dominance.”

In this position, he could do little of the motion, but she performed enough for both of them. She came to her first orgasm almost immediately, rolled her eyes upward, and moaned in the ecstacy. Seeing her so almost brought him to his own climax, but he held it. In a moment, she increased her pace again.

Nadine came twice again. Then he could no longer hold it and began to writhe in his own agony of pleasure.

Chapter Seven

In the morning, they reluctantly separated temporarily to go about the tasks Philip Holland had set them. Nadine was going to locate Doctor Lawrence Mitfield of the Sons of Liberty, but Joe Mauser had someone else immediately in prospect. She took one of the Haer hoverlimousines into town, but Joe chose to utilize a vacuum-tube transport capsule and dial directly through to the apartment which was his destination.

He had dialed for the capsule at the terminal in Nadine’s living room, and when the small light had flickered on the door of the closet-like terminal, he opened it and wedged himself into the small two-seated vehicle. He pulled the canopy over him, buckled the belt, and then dropped the pressure lever. He dialed his destination after putting his universal credit card in the payment slot.

He could feel the sinking, elevator sensation that meant his capsule was dropping to tube level to be caught up by the computerized controls and shuttled back and forth through the mazes of a vacuum-tube transport labyrinth, before being shot to his basic destination. In a few moments the capsule came to a halt, and Joe closed his eyes in anticipation. He might be an old hand in combat but he hated that initial thrust in the vacuum-tube as much as the next man. He wondered if anybody ever got used to it.

He sank back into the pressure seat, then slowly forward again, straining against the safety belt. He was headed for the section of Greater Washington that had formerly been known as Baltimore. He arrived in minutes. The shuttling began again and he had to go through a few small traversing shots, which meant nothing so far as strain was concerned. Finally, he felt the capsule rising, and shortly a green light flashed on the dash. He undid the belt, killed the pressurizer, slid the canopy back, and said into the terminal’s identity screen, “Joe Mauser, calling on Freddy Soligen.”

The door opened almost immediately and Joe Mauser walked into the living room of the telly cameraman.

Freddy was heading for him, his usually cynical news broadcasters face twisted in pleasure. He was a small man, as small and as feisty as Max Mainz. He was a Low-Middle, Category Communications, Subdivision Telly, Branch Fracas News, Rank Senior Reporter. It had been through Joe that he had gotten his bounce up from Upper-Lower to Low-Middle. He had been with Joe in the glider, covering the fracas which had led to Joe’s court martial. As a reporter, not a combatant, he had won kudos while Joe had been clobbered.