Chicago Run

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Warriors of Alpha Triad and their captive had covered five miles by eight in the morning. Hickok took point, strolling along as if he didn’t have a care in the world, ten yards ahead of Blade and Geronimo, who were walking side by side and discussing the fate of Isabel Kauler.

“Why don’t we just let her go?” Geronimo suggested, keeping his voice down so she couldn’t hear him.

Blade glanced over his right shoulder at the woman, who trailed ten feet behind. Let her go? He’d like to, but he felt oddly responsible for her welfare. Her dejected posture hadn’t improved any since the night before; if anything, it had worsened. She hadn’t made any attempt to escape, which puzzled him. Perhaps it was because she had to squint against the light and tears were constantly in her eyes. “Hickok thinks we should kill her,” Blade’ mentioned. “He’s even volunteered to do the job.”

“Nice guy.”

“I can see his point,” Blade said. “She’s too dangerous to let go. She might kill someone, might eat them, and we would indirectly be responsible because we had the chance to eliminate her and didn’t.”

“Eliminate her,” Geronimo repeated distastefully. “You make it sound so clinical, like you’re performing a surgical operation.”

“In a sense it is.”

“Maybe so, but there is something else we could try.”

“What?” Blade asked.

“We could try to change her,” Geronimo proposed in all earnestness.

“Rehabilitate a cannibal?” Blade said skeptically. “I don’t know if it’s ever been done.”

“Is that any reason not to try? We could take her to the Home, let the Elders decide,” Geronimo said. He added wistfully, “If they vote for execution, then Hickok or Ares or Lynx will be more than willing to handle the chore and not have a qualm doing it.”

“You sound jealous.”

“I am,” Geronimo freely admitted. “Nathan and a few of the others can terminate anyone without a twinge of conscience. Me, I’m different. I’ll kill in the line of duty, but there are times when I’m lying in bed at night that I’ll see the faces of those I’ve slain in my mind’s eye. It bothers me a little.”

“We all go through the same thing at one time or another,” Blade said.

He pondered his friend’s idea. At first thought it was patently ridiculous, but the more he debated the pros and cons the more it appealed to him.

He had reservations, though, about taking Isabel to the Home. What if she harmed a Family member? There were dozens of young children there, including his own son Gabe.

Perhaps the issue boiled down to one thing: Did the woman deserve a second chance? The answer had to be yes, but only if she wanted to change. And as far as the Family was concerned, they’d shown a remarkable, commendable adaptability to admitting new members, even when those seeking permission to live at the Home were potentially dangerous. After all, Lynx had been a genetically engineered assassin created by the vile Doktor, a man who’d tried to destroy the Home and wipe out the Family, yet the cat-man had been welcomed and accepted with open arms.

“How do you deal with it?” Geronimo inquired.

Engrossed in reflection, Blade barely heard the question. He blinked and looked at him. “What?”

“How do you deal with the ghosts of those you’ve slain?” Geronimo elaborated.

“I try not to dwell on them,” Blade replied. “We’re Warriors. Killing is just part of our job, a grisly part that has often meant the difference between life and death for each of us and the Family. You have to put it behind you, file it in a part of your brain where it’ll remain buried, or the memories will eat at you and ruin your ability to get the job done right.”

“Easier said then done.”

Blade saw Hickok suddenly glance at them, wheel, and hurry back. “Did you see something?” he asked.

“I sure did, pard,” the gunfighter responded, and smirked.

“What’s so funny?” Geronimo wondered.

“You two clowns.”

“Meaning what?”

Hickok chuckled. “Meaning that while the two of you were gabbin’ like hens the cannibal flew the coop.”

Startled, Blade spun.

Sure enough, Isabel Kauler was gone.

At eight a.m. the first explosions rocked Technic City.

Four barracks housing several hundred soldiers were destroyed simultaneously, followed seconds later by ten strategic police stations that were scattered about the city.

The Technic Broadcasting Station, situated in a seven-story skyscraper a mile north of the Central Core, was going about its daily routine when dozens of blue-garbed rebels poured into the lobby, overwhelming the meager force of security guards without firing a shot.

Falcone led this detachment personally. While fifteen rebels remained downstairs, the rest took control of one floor after another. The stunned broadcasters and journalists offered no resistance.

Beaming out over the metropolis from Studio Five was the popular Exercise with Marsha show. Seductive, rapier-thin Marsha and her four leotard-clad assistants were demonstrating how to do tummy tucks when in burst the Resistance Movement. They froze in the act of tucking.

Falcone marched over to the camera, pointed his Dakon II at the operator, and declared, “Keep it on me or else.”

“Yes, sir,” the shocked cameraman said.

“People of Technic City,” Falcone began, having memorized every word of the speech the night before, “I’m the leader of the Resistance Movement. At this very moment the revolt against tyranny for which you have long waited is in full swing. We now control the television station.

The army and police forces are in disarray. There will never be another chance like this again.

“If you have longed to know true freedom, if you’re fed up with the government, with the Technic elite dictating every aspect of our lives, then you should join us. We desperately need your support. With your help we can establish a new, democratic government in our fair city. With your help we can create a brand new future.

“Listen out the window of your home or business. Listen wherever you are. Those explosions and the gunfire you hear are the chimes of liberty for all of us. Join us in overthrowing the dictators who oppress us at every turn.

“Those who want freedom must fight for it. If you, like I, value freedom as the most precious gift our Creator has bestowed on us, then prove your devotion by joining our cause.

“Our government has become a model of tyranny because we have let it. We are taxed to the breaking point, our property subject to confiscation without due process, our children taken from us and raised by unfeeling government drones. The government presumes to tell us how we must live, to dictate every aspect of our lives from the food we eat to the clothes we wear. They even go so far as to tell us how we must think.

“Enough is enough! It is time to throw off the yoke of civil slavery! Rally around us! Flock to your banner, and by this time tomorrow Technic City will belong to the people again. We can form a new government, a government of the people, for the people, and by the people.”

Falcone stopped, flushed with enthusiasm, and held his right fist aloft in a symbolic gesture of hopeful victory. “Stay tuned for more details,” he added, and turned toward the host of Exercise with Marsha. “You may continue for the time being.”

“Thank you.”

Several rebels had already taken over the control booth, and Falcone now hurried up a short flight of stairs and joined them. “Has there been any reaction from the Central Core?”

A woman pointed at a special red telephone on the wall. “No, sir. Not a peep. I doubt they know we’ve taken over the building yet.”

“Good. Yama was right. The government made a blunder when it put all of its eggs in one basket. Permitting only a single TV station to exist will prove their undoing.”

A man came running in. “Falcone, we’ve started broadcasting on all radio channels. Roy is using the tapes he made.”

“Okay. Tell him to stay there until further notice.”

“Yes, sir.” The man whirled and dashed off.

Falcone smiled encouragement at the rebels in the booth. “So far, so good. If the rest of the units do their job equally as well, we’ll prevail.”

One of the freedom fighters stepped to a window and opened it. The sharp sounds of automatic weapon fire mingled with louder detonations.

There were screams and shouts and terrified wails.

“It sounds like the end of the world,” commented an awed rebel.

“Yes, doesn’t it?” Falcone said, and beamed.

The switchboard operators at the Central Core were doing the best they could, but the madhouse within and the bedlam without made their job impossible. Scores of calls came in from frantic police, military officers, and politicians requesting assistance or instructions. But the operators were unable to connect the calling parties with their administrative heads or superior officers because none were in their offices.

The majority of workers in the Central Core, from secretaries to high-ranking commanders, had joined the general exodus from the building after the alarm was sounded and a rumor spread that a rebel suicide squad had attacked the Core and planned to blow it up.

One man, however, adamantly refused to leave. He stood at a window, observing the dozens of columns of gray and black smoke arising from his city, seeing crowds of rampaging citizens in the streets far below, and listening to the muffled popping of firearms. A powerful explosion not two blocks away shook the pane as another police station went up in flames.

Ramis ran up and said crisply, “Except for your personal guard, everyone else on the ninth floor has gone down in the elevators, sir.”

The Minister turned. “You weren’t able to stop them?”

“No, sir. General Schonfeld gave the order several minutes ago. I was too late.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” the Minister stated. “Where is that incompetent Schonfeld now?”

“Still on the ninth floor. As I was talking to him there was a blast in the background and the line went dead.”

“Go inform him in person that I want to see him.”

“And if he won’t come?”

The Minister’s features hardened darkly. “Then he’ll face a court-martial after we’ve taught the rebels the folly of opposing their betters. Now go.”

“Yes, sir,” Ramis said dutifully, and hastened away.

Scowling, the Minister gazed out the window again. To the west a small group of soldiers were advancing in formation toward the Core. Suddenly, from out of every alley and side street in their vicinity poured a hoard of screeching citizens armed with baseball bats, rolling pins, kitchen knives, and anything else that had been handy. The soldiers halted and brought their Dakon II’s to bear with practiced precision, mowing down the foremost ranks of the howling mob. But the human wave couldn’t be halted by a few lead pebbles; it crashed into the troopers and engulfed them in a savage swirl of bloody fighting. Half a minute later not a soldier remained alive.

Pivoting, the Minister walked to a console on the left-hand wall and pressed a button. Instantly a television screen came to life above him, but instead of an approved program he saw an unfamiliar man in a blue rebel uniform exhorting the populace to rush from their homes and join the growing revolution.

Furious, the Minister smashed his fist down on the button and the screen went blank.

Behind him someone nervously cleared his throat.

Pivoting, the Minister regarded the four scientists in their white smocks and the pair of Cy-Hounds held on a tight leash by two of them.

He walked over, his face a tingle of crimson. “Did you see? Did you hear? Those rabble think they can defeat me! I’ll have every one of them tortured before they die.”

“Yes, sir,” the senior biochemical engineer replied. “They certainly deserve such a punishment.”

“They deserve far worse,” the Minister hissed, and focused on the Cy-Hounds. “Why hasn’t the third one returned yet?”

“I don’t know,” said the senior scientist.

“You assured me that it would find the intruders and terminate them. Yet it’s been five minutes since you sent it out the door.”

The man swallowed. “Begging your pardon, Excellency, but the Central Core is an enormous structure. There’s no telling on which floor the rebels might be. But you can rest assured that the Cy-Hound will find them. Its brain is actually a marvelous computer enabling it to identify criminal types not only by their behavior, but by their clothing, scent, heart rate, and other programmed factors. The Cy-Hound reacts to the composite total.”

“Elaborate.”

“Let’s say the Cy-Hound comes across a civilian holding a weapon. Since it’s programmed to know that only men and women dressed in proper police or military uniforms are permitted to carry a firearm, it will automatically attack.”

“Let’s hope these beasts are all you claim they are,” the Minister said gruffly. “If not, we might very well have rebels coming in that door.”

“Not to worry, sir,” the scientist stated confidently. “We still have this pair. If rebels come through that door, the Cy-Hounds will tear them to pieces.”