Read Zelazny, Roger - Novel 05 Online
Authors: Today We Choose Faces
I mounted the main beltway and a few minutes
later a whistle blew and waves of humanity came toward me from every direction.
I rode the middle lane, which was soon filled to capacity, and I was jostled,
crushed, immobilized and borne helplessly along. I was squeezed into anonymity,
however, which I kept telling myself made it all worthwhile.
Turning my head, I could see the seeming
endless rows of desks from which these people fled, arrangements of phones,
blotters, papers softening in the already dimming light. Soon the
cleaner-uppers would begin their rounds among them. I speculated as to the work
performed there each cycle, then quickly closed my mind. Better not to think
about it.
I resolved to follow the path of least
resistance, and the press of the crowd bore me from belt to belt for perhaps
ten minutes before it eased, died down, left me to make choices on my own once
more. Then I followed my previous inclinations and worked my way toward a
hinterland.
Soon I was riding feeder-belts and moving near
to a completely dimmed area of the Office. I tentatively set my objective as
another down-jackpole, this one on the far side of the darkened space.
As I zigged and zagged my way in that
direction, I became aware of a possible pursuer. I was not certain, but it
seemed that one of the several figures far to my rear had changed belts with me
several times. But my nervousness had subsided considerably, as though I only
had a limited supply and had already used most of it. I changed again and
waited. Eventually, one figure followed. According to my watch and my estimates
as to beltspeed and the distance between us, he was in the proper position to
be the same individual.
All right, that much resolved, I decided on a
course of action: I would make a final attempt to lose him. If that failed, I
would wait in ambush.
I headed into the darkness and he followed.
Then I changed until I came to a short one and began running. I reached the
next intersection and switched before he appeared. I ran again. This belt was
longer, and I was feeling all of my forty-six years by the time I came to
another intersection. But he was not behind me when I turned then either.
I stood still for a moment, breathing heavily.
I could hear no unusual sounds. It was quite quiet, and sufficiently dark for
my purposes.
I stepped down from the left side of the belt.
Acres of desks lay before me, vanishing beyond the dark frontier of my vision
as though extending into infinity. I moved toward them.
The jackpole was still a good distance away. I
did not head directly for it, but moved off at a tangent, passing along an
endless-seeming aisle through the work area. I ran by desk after shadowy,
identical desk, until I was well back into the darkness.
Slowing to a walk when I was unable to run any
longer, I found myself taken by an eerie treadmill illusion. The relentlessly
recurrent sameness on either hand—small swivel chair, gray desk, green blotter,
phone, in-basket, out-basket—all worked to create a sensation of nonmove-ment. There
came a feeling of inescapability, accompanied by that odd intimation of
eternity which sometimes occurs along with a monotonous stimulation of the
senses, and for that timeless instant it seemed that I always had been and
always would be running in place at the center of a universe of desks.
I stopped and leaned against one, to
demonstrate its substantiality as well as to catch a moment's rest. Checking
back toward the lighted belt trail, I saw no one. If anyone had been following
me. I seemed to have given him the slip. There was no movement that I could
detect among the dark hundreds of desks that I had passed.
Then, but inches away from my hand, the phone
rang.
I screamed and began running. Everything that
had been pent up, suppressed, pushed aside, ignored, forgotten, emerged in that
awful instant.
I fled, a mindless bundle of perceptions and
reactions; and pushing, hammering, driving even these apart, the ringing
followed me.
... Pursued me, seemed to keep abreast of
me—dying behind and breaking out afresh on each desk that I passed—my
black-clad gorgons, wreathed by electric snakes. And this moment, too, seemed
timeless and eternal.
I ran—wildly, madly—bumping into things,
stumbling, cursing, no longer a man, but a frightened movement in a forest of
menace. Some part of me seemed as if it might be aware of what was happening,
but that did not benefit me in the least.
It—everything—was too much for me: the deaths,
the menace, the pursuit, this assault by the unknown. I was afraid to look
back. I might see something. Or, worse yet, see nothing. This was my breaking
point, each ringing of the bells a fresh stab at the wound.
My breath came hard and hot into my chest,
depositing a bit more of pain on each visit. My eyes and face felt moist; but
then, I think my trousers were, too.
Through the wet kaleidoscope of my vision, far
ahead, I seemed to see a light, a small, yellow halo—and perhaps that was a man
bending within it.
Sobbing, I strove to reach it, whatever it
might be-probably because it was warm and bright, so unlike everything else.
Then came the explosion that tore all sound
from my ears, the flash of light that ripped the seeing from my eyes and the
burning, body-rending shock that tore me to pieces, almost before the desperate
words appeared on the screen of my mind: Pull pin seven!
Then everything ended.
Bone by weary bone, I came together again. I
was uncertain as to where I was, what had happened or how long it had taken. I
wanted to return to oblivion, rather than face whatever damage had occurred.
But consciousness was a persistent thing. It
grew, rather than going away. I was just beginning to realize that I was still
me and that I did not seem to hurt anywhere, when my eyes opened without any
special planning on my part and began to focus.
"Are you all right?" said the voice
from the fuzzy image less than a foot from my face, at once the most asinine
and pleasant thing I had heard in a long while.
"I don't know," I said. "I just
arrived. Give me a minute."
A great tidal wave of thought passed through
my mind. I remembered everything that had happened, and I understood the last
of it. Davis and Serafis were dead. Serafis had gone to Wing 18, as planned,
and met there with
Davis
. Together, in the Library, they had entered cubicle 17641, Hinkley's
residence. They tripped something that caused an explosion, killing them. I
experienced their deaths.
I was surprised that I was still rational. I
would not have believed that I could have remained so after going through the
dying business four times in one day with extreme prejudice. Either I had grown
emotionally numb, or I possessed greater resiliency than I had realized.
Whichever it was, I was grateful that I was considerably less upset this time than
I had been on the previous two occasions. Disturbed, naturally; concerned, of
course. And very irritated.
I was lying on the floor, an arm about my head
and shoulders, raising them. I was staring into a face that was near to my own,
a girl's—and she looked more frightened than I felt, actually. I would not have
called her pretty, although she had possibilities along that line—of the
dark-haired, pale-eyed, high-cheekboned variety—but she was a doubly welcome
sight when I considered the possible alternative. Her glasses were thick,
colorless ovals and she wore no makeup. Whether it was concern or the glasses
that so enlarged her eyes, I was uncertain.
"How are you feeling?" she said.
I nodded my head several times and struggled
into a sitting position. I massaged my eyes, ran my hands through my hair and
took a couple of deep breaths.
"All right now, thanks," I said.
"It's all right."
She was kneeling beside me in the aisle. She
had on Hack trousers and a gray shirt. She did not release her hold on my
shoulders.
"What happened?" she said.
"I was just going to ask you that,"
I said. "What did you see?"
"You came running up the aisle. You
screamed and fell."
"Did you see anyone else? Behind me? Near
me? In the distance?"
"No." She shook her head slowly.
"Was there someone with you?"
"No," I said, "I guess not. I
thought I heard someone. It must have been you."
"Why were you running?"
"The telephones," I said. "It
startled me when they all began ringing. Do you know why they acted that
way?"
"No. They stopped about the same time I
saw you fall. Some sort of electrical mixup, I guess."
I climbed to my feet, leaned against a desk.
"Would you care for a drink of
water?"
I did not, but it would give me a chance to
make up some lies, so, "Yes," I said, "that would be good."
"Sit down. Ill be right back."
She indicated the chair at the lighted desk. I
went and sat in it while she hurried off somewhere to my left. I glanced down
at the work spread out on the blotter. Pages of statistics and a pad full of
longhand notes, which she seemed to be turning into some sort of report.
I searched in my pockets until I located a
tiny pillbox containing some capsules I sometimes used to keep me bright, alert
and cheerful when playing a late stand. One could not hurt any and might do me
some good, though I really wanted it as a prop.
When she returned with a cup of water, I said,
"Thanks, I should have taken this earlier," and tossed off the
capsule.
"How serious is it?" she said.
"I can call—"
I shook my head and finished swallowing,
satisfied that I had established my condition as fitting into some neat medical
category.
"It is not as bad as it looked," I
said. "I have these spells sometimes. I forgot to take my medication
earlier. That's all."
"You're sure it's all over?"
"Yes. Everything is fine now. I guess 111
be moving along."
I started to rise.
"No," she said, placing her hands on
my shoulders and pressing firmly downward. "You wait. Rest awhile."
"All right," I said, sinking back.
'Tell me, why are you working here all alone?"
She glanced at the materials on the desk,
blushed and looked away.
"I got behind," she said softly.
"Oh. Overtime, huh?"
"No, I'm doing it on my own."
"Sounds like real dedication."
Her lips tightened, her eyes narrowed.
"No," she said, "just the
opposite." Then, "You don't work around here, do you?"
I shook my head.
"Well," she said, sighing, "I
don't like what I do at all, and I am not very good at it. I got all confused,
and I am way behind on everything. I came in on my own to see if I could get
caught up."
"Oh. Sorry I interrupted you."
She shrugged.
"It's all right," she said. "I
was just getting ready to quit when you came along."
"All finished?"
She smiled, faintly.
"You might put it that way."
"Ohr
"Yes," she said. "In a few days
they will find out, and my employment here will be terminated."
"I'm sorry."
She shrugged again.
"Don't be. I will go back to the
unemployed labor pool, and maybe I will like the next job they find me
better."
"How many have you had?"
"I forget. A couple dozen, I guess."
I studied her more closely. She only looked to
be about twenty.
"Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it?" she
said. "I'm not very good at anything. I'm accident-prone, too."
"Perhaps there is an error in your
aptitude-profile," I said. "Maybe you should be doing a different
sort of work altogether."
"Oh, they've tried me at damn near
everything," she said. "They just sort of shake their heads now when
they see me coming back." She chuckled. "What do you do?"
"I'm a musician."
"That is something Tve never tried. Maybe
I will sometime. What is your name?"
"Engel. Mark Engel. What's yours?"
"Glenda. Glenda Glynn. Mind if I ask you
why you were walking through the Office in the dark?"
"Just felt like taking a walk," I
said
"You are in some sort of trouble."
I felt it strange that she had not at least
put it as a question.
"What makes you say that?" I asked.
"I don't know," she said. "It
is just a feeling that I have. Are you?"
"If I said yes, what would you do?"
"Try to help you if I could."
"Why?"
"I don't like to see people in trouble. I
seem to be in it all the time myself and I don't like it. I'm a sympathetic
person."
I could not tell whether she was joking or
being serious, so I smiled.
"Sorry to disappoint you," I said,
"but I am not in any trouble."
She frowned.
"Then you will be," she said.
"Pretty soon, I'd say."
I was a trifle irritated by the amount of
certainty she put into the pronouncement. Since I was just about to depart and
doubtless never see her again, it should not have mattered. Somehow, though, it
did.
"Just for curiosity's sake," I said,
"would you mind telling me how you know this?"
"My mother told me it is because I am
Welsh."
'That's crazy!"