Wildcards - Down and Dirty Part 58

He staggered to the locker and began looking for a new gyroscope.

The BARNETT FOR PRESIDENT poster had been defaced. Someone had drawn a knife or fingernail file through the candidate's picture several times, then written JOKER DEATH over it in thick red letters. Next to it was a freehand drawing of an animal head-a black dog?--executed in thick felt tip. "Hi. I need to talk."

Kate blew cigarette smoke. "Okay. For a little while."

"How are the Roman poets coming along?"

"If Latin weren't already a dead language, Statius would have killed it."

Modular Man was hunched over the public phone again. His gyroscope had been replaced and he could walk and fly. Except for the heavy presence of the National Guard and Army, the streets were nearly deserted. Half the restaurants and cabarets in jokertown were shut down.

"Kate," the android said, " I think I'm going to die." There was a moment of startled silence. Then, "Tell me."

"My creator got infected by the wild card. He's turning into a joker and forgetting how to repair me. And he's sending me after the plague carrier, hoping the man can make it stop."

"Okay. Cautiously. "I'm following.

"He seems to think the man's deliberately doing this to him. But must people think the guy is just a carrier, and if that's true, and I bring him to my creator, the chances are nine to one that if my creator's reinfected, he'll draw the Black Queen and die."

"Yes."

"And the man I'm after-his name is Croyd-is the man who killed me the first time. And this time Croyd has a protector who is more powerful than he is. We're already fought twice, and they've beaten me both times. The last time I could easily have died. And my creator can't put me together again. He's losing his abilities. He may not be able to repair the damage from the last attack."

Kate drew on her cigarette, exhaled. "Mod Man," she said, "you need help."

"Yes. That's why I'm calling you."

"I mean other wild cards. You can't face these two alone."

"If I went to SCARE or someone, and we captured Croyd together, then I'd have to fight the SCARE aces to get him away. I'd be an outlaw."

"Maybe you could make some kind of deal with them."

"I'll think about it. I'll try." Despair wailed through him. "I'm going to die,"

he said.

"I'm sorry. Can't you just leave?"

"I'm programmed to obey him. I can't refuse a direct order. And I'm programmed to battle the enemies of society. I don't have a choice in any of that. People like the Turtle, or Cyclone-it's their decision to do what they do. It was never mine. I'm not human that way."

"I see. "

"Sooner or later I'm going to lose a fight. I don't heal like people, someone has to repair me. Any parts that get broken wont get fixed. If I don't die, I'll be a cripple, pieces falling off." Like Travnicek, he thought, and a cold shudder ran through his mind. "And even if I'm crippled," he went on, "I'll still have to fight. I still won't have any choice."

There was a long silence. " I don't know what to tell you." Her voice was choked.

"I was sort of immortal before," Modular Man said. "My creator was going to ma.s.s-produce me and sell me to the military. If any single unit was destroyed, the others would go on. They'd have identical programming; they'd still be me, at least mostly me. Now that's not going to happen."

"I'm sorry."

"What happens to machines when they die? I've been wondering that."

"I-".

"Your ancient philosophers never thought about that, right?"

"I suppose they didn't. But they had a lot to say about mortality in general.

'Must not all things be swallowed in death'-Plato, quoting Socrates."

"Thank you. That's really comforting."

"There's not a lot of comforting things to say about death. I'm sorry."

"I never really worried about it before. I'd never died before."

"Most of us don't get to come back even once. None of the others killed on Wild Card Day came back."

"This may be a temporary aberration. Normality may resume at any point."

The android realized he was shouting. The words echoed on the empty street. He swiftly wrote himself a piece of programming to keep his voice level.

Kate thought for a long moment. "Most of us have a lifetime to get used to the idea that we have to die. You've just had a few hours."

"I have a hard time getting my mind around it. There are all these feedback loops in my brain, and my thoughts keep going round and round. They're taking up more and more s.p.a.ce."

"In other words, you're panicking."

"Am I?" He thought about this for a moment. "I suppose I am."

"The prospect of death, to misquote Samuel Johnson, is supposed to concentrate the mind wonderfully."

"I'll work at it." He suited action to words, swiftly putting an end to the runamuck computer logic that was smas.h.i.+ng up against too many unknowns and infinities to do anything other than fill up his logic systems with macroatomic hash. A cooler and more systematic approach to the problem seemed indicated.

"Okay. That's done."

"That was fast."

"One point six six six seconds." She laughed. "Not bad."

"I'm glad you recognized what was happening. I'm not really wired to deal with abstracts. I'd never got hung up that way before."

"You're still superhuman. No human could do that." She thought for a moment. "Do you know Millay? 'My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-It gives a lovely light."'

The android considered this. "I suppose that, aesthetically, I might have produced an objectively lovely light when I blew up. The thought seems a bit barren of comfort, mainly I suppose because I wasn't there to see it."

"I think you missed my point." Patiently. "You are incredibly fast at both action and cognition. Your means of apprehending your surroundings are more complete and acute than those of a human. You have the capacity to experience your existence more thoroughly and intensely than anyone on the planet. Might this not compensate for any shortness of duration?" The notion was encoded, spun into the maelstrom of the android's electronic mind, whirled like a leaf into a cold electronic torrent.

"I'll have to think about it," he said.

"You seemed to have crammed a lot of existence into the months you were on the planet. You had many of the experiences that people say lead to wisdom. War, comrades.h.i.+p, love, responsibility--even death."

The android gazed into the mutilated face of Barnett, the presidential candidate, and wondered who the man in the picture was. " I guess I kept busy,"he said.

"There are a lot of people who would envy that existence."

"I'll try to bear that in mind."

"You burn very bright. Cherish that."

"I'll try."

"And you may not burn out. You fought the Swarm without taking serious injury, and there were hundreds of thousands of them. These are just a couple of guys."

"A couple of guys."

"You'll deal with it. I have confidence in you."

"Thank you." JOKER DEATH, the poster read. "I think you've given me something to consider."

"I hope I could help. Call me if you need to talk again."

"Thanks. You've really been of great a.s.sistance."

"Anytime."

Modular Man put the phone on the hook and rose silently into the sky. He rose into the darkness, drifted the several blocks to Travnicek's apartment, went in through the skylight. Joker Death, he thought.

Travnicek was lying on his bed, apparently asleep. The camp bed was surrounded by empty tins of food: apparently he'd been eating the stuff right from the cans. Some of the organs around Travnicek's neck had blossomed a bit, were making ultrasonic chirping sounds, the period of which decreased as the android dropped into the apartment. Sonar, the android thought. Travnicek opened the eyes around his neck.

"You," he said. "Yes, sir."

"The module's rebuilt. I think. Some of my memories were kind of hazy."

Fear filled the android. A fly buzzed past and he chased it away with a flap of his arm. "I'll try it." He opened his jumpsuit and his chest, reached for the module that waited on the workbench.

"My brain seems to be evolving," Travnicek said. His voice was dreamy. "I think what's happening is that the virus is enlarging the brain sections concerned with sensory input. I'm perceiving things in every possible way now, very intensely. I've never experienced anything as intensely as I can just lying here, watching things." He gave a hollow laugh. "My G.o.d! I never knew that eating creamed corn from the can could be such a sensual experience!"

Modular Man inserted the module, ran test patterns. Relief flooded him. The monitor worked.

"Very good, sir," he said. "Hang on."

"You're so interesting this way," Travnicek said. The fly was wandering near the empty food cans.

There was sudden movement. One of the organs around Travnicek's neck uncoiled with lightning rapidity and caught the fly. The extrusion snapped back and stuffed the fly into Travnicek's mouth.

The android couldn't believe what he'd just seen. "Wonderful," said Travnicek.

Smacking his lips.

"Hang on, sir," Modular Man said again. His flux field crackled around him. He flew through the roof and into the blackness.

Arriving at the bank, the android turned insubstantial, burned every vault sensor with bursts from his microwave laser so that any guards couldn't see what happened next, then stepped into the vault, solidified himself, and ripped the deposit box from its resting place.

Suddenly he stopped. A yellow warning light glowed in his mind, flickered, turned red.

He tried to go insubstantial again. He rotated ninety degrees from the real for a fraction of a second, then he felt something go and he was solid again, standing in the bank vault. He could smell something burning.

The flux monitor was gone again. Travnicek's repairs hadn't been permanent. A chill eddy of fear rippled through the android's mind at the thought that it might have happened when he was in the steel-and-concrete wall of the vault. He looked around, examined the door and the lock. If he were found here in the morning, he thought, his reputation as a do-gooder would definitely suffer.

It proved fortunate that vaults are made to prevent people breaking in, not out.

Forty-five minutes' patient work with the microwave laser burned a hole in the laminated interior of the door, gaining him access to the lock apparatus. He reached through, touched the mechanism, felt an awareness of its function. He glitched the electronics--easy as getting a free telephone call-and the heavy bolts slid back.

He took the emergency stairs out, burning cameras as he went. Once out he flew to the roof of a nearby building, tore the box open, and examined the contents.

Long-term leases, he found, to several small apartments in the New York area.

Keys. Stacks of currency. Jewelry, gold coins. Bottles containing hundreds of pills. A pair of pistols and boxes of ammunition. Croyd's secret stash of money, weapons, drugs, and the keys to his hideouts.

He thought for a long moment. Travnicek was deteriorating swiftly. The android was going to have to move fast, and he was going to have to get some help.

"I don't want to have to do the scouting," Modular Man said. "If they see me again, they'll run. And they'll spread the plague while they do it."

"Very well." Tachyon's violet eyes glittered as his hands played with the velvet lapels of his lavender jacket. His .357 and holster sat on the desk before him.

On his office wall, next to a set of honorary degrees, was a sign with red, white, and blue lettering: THE MAN: HARTMANN. THE TIME: 1988. TIIE PLAN: OUR CHILDREN S FUTURE.

"My joker squad can be of use. Some of them should prove capable of covert reconnaissance."

"Good. I should stay here with your most powerful people. Then we can move out together."

The contents of Croyd's deposit box were spread out on Tachyon's desk and he looked at them. "There are only three addresses actually in Manhattan," Tachyon said. "I suspect he'd try for one of those first before trying the tunnels and bridges. Blind Sophie can use her acute hearing to listen in on what's going on behind a closed window, using the vibrations of the window gla.s.s as a diaphragm.

Squish is a taxi driver, hence un.o.btrusive ... he might be able to make inquiries that might seem suspicious from anyone else." Tachyon frowned.

"Croyd's companion, however... that handsome young gentleman is going to prove difficult to deal with."

"I've fought him twice. But I think I know how his power works."

Tachyon stared. He leaned forward over the desk, pus.h.i.+ng aside the pistol in its holster, his expression intent. "Tell me, sir."

"He absorbs energy, then returns it. He can only attack after he's already been hit. He absorbs all sorts of energykinetic, radiation. . ."

"Psionic," Tachyon murmured.

"But if you don't hit him first, he doesn't have any more strength than a normal person. So whatever we do, we can't attack him. Just ignore him, no matter how tempting a target he makes himself."