Coils

Chapter 12

The telegraphic ragtime of the clicking wheels lulled me. I was not sleepy, having rested sufficiently while I awaited the train. But a kind of mental numbness came over me and my limbs felt heavy. It was a reaction, I suppose, to the furious pace of the past several days. Too many events, crowded too closely together. I had burned a lot of adrenalin, lived and relived a lot of trauma. I knew that there was more to come, but my mind rebelled at considering it I just wanted to sit there, thinking of nothing, watching the dark countryside pass. For a long while, this is exactly what I did.

I had my hands clasped behind my head and my feet stretched out before me.

As to how much time had passed since I’d boarded, I was uncertain. I was for a time simply enjoying the great Taoist principle of wu wei—doing nothing—when suddenly I was in a garden. It seemed an awkward time for Enlightenment to have been thrust suddenly upon me, and so I was immediately wary.

There were vivid images of flowers all about me and a mixture of their fragrances came strongly to me. Despite my wariness I was, for several moments, overwhelmed. It was a senses-assaulting floral chaos.

“Ann?” I said, seeking stability. “What is it this time?”

But there was nothing more—only the maddening riot of colors and aromas, changing now as if a bizarre kaleidoscope were being slowly turned.

Then a voiceless note of fear burst forth, filling my brain. I felt Ann’s presence behind it, though it seemed as if only a part of her attention were turned in my direction.

“Ann?”

“Yes. Troubles,” I seemed to hear her say, and then there was a vague sensation of pain.

Abruptly, the flowers began to fade, the aromas grew more delicate…

“…Hurts. There! Stopped him!”

“Ann! What the hell’s going on?”

“He’s here… Willy Boy’s come for me.”

And then there was a rearrangement of my senses. I was with her, in a way we had shared only a few times in the past. I found myself a guest within her mind, looking out through her eyes, listening with her ears, feeling her physical distress…

We were in an apartment, a fairly large one. I had no idea where it was located. Peripheral vision showed me that it was elegantly furnished, but our gaze was fixed upon Willy Boy, who leaned against the wall in an entranceway, a wide living room away from us. He was slightly hunched and breathing heavily. A half-wall separated us from what seemed to be a small kitchen area. To the right, a large window looked out upon a brightly lit skyline I could not identify—though I felt it was somewhere in the East. Off in the distance was her computer-cum-telephone-etcetera, or “home unit” as almost everyone called them these days. We stood before a light brown leather sofa, leaning upon a Moroccan table. There was a pain in our chest, but we were giving as well as receiving.

“Sister, I can see your point,” Willy Boy was saying, “but you’re only delayin’ things, that’s all.”

Ann threw more force into the hallucination she was creating for him. She was causing him to experience violent chest pains, apparently as real-seeming to him as the actual ones he had commenced within her. He seemed to find it very distracting. He had just let up on his own efforts, giving her a few moments to go looking for me, to bring me to her.

“A weapon, Ann! That heavy ashtray, the lamp—anything! Brain him!” I said. “Switch to the physical. Knock him out. It’ll stop him. Push your advantage!”

“I—can’t,” she told me. “It’s taking everything I’ve got to hold him…”

“Then go kick him in the balls! Jab those long fingernails into his eyes! He’ll kill you if you don’t take him out!”

“I know,” she said. “But if I get any nearer the advantage will be his. The closer you get, the greater his strength.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“No.”

“Can you get to the kitchen and get a knife?”

“He’s closer to the kitchen than I am. It’s no good.”

I had distracted her. I felt a burning within her chest, a pain in the arm—similar to that which I had experienced at the terminal. She projected a full-scale image of it back upon him, and he raised his hand to press his palm against his own chest.

“I think he has a real heart condition,” she said. “I can play on his fear and muddy his mind.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

I searched frantically for a way to help her. In a sudden rush I remembered how much I had once cared for her.

“Your phone number—what is it?”

As it occurred within her mind, Willy Boy pushed himself away from the wall and took several steps toward her. She hit him again and he sagged.

“You can’t save me,” she said. “That is not why I reached for you.”

“We have to fight,” I told her. “I’m going to try.”

“I know that. But he is too strong. It is only a matter of time. I want something you showed me earlier. Something stronger than my flowers—a world that is cold and metal and filled with electricity and logic. I want to embrace the machines, and only you can take me to them.”

“Follow me,” I said, even as Matthews began to straighten once more.

Derick. Tick. Cantaterclick.

For a moment, the Coil Effect seemed to merge with the rhythms of the train, and I was dimly aware of a new-risen moon touching the fields beyond the glass to a pearly texture as I wound my way into the train’s computer and plunged through the linkages that followed the track, back, back to the regional control center, back…

Clack.

I raced through a spreading map of the territory, looking for incoming and outgoing routes…

Telephone line hookups were what I was after. I just had to find the right one, had to get into the telephone system itself…

Ann was with me, too dazed to protest, if she wished to, at the blinding speed, the bewildering sensations, as I sped through a number of false starts, up blind alleys and back, moving at a pace I had never before essayed, until I located what I was looking for.

Even as I did this, I became aware of the recurrence of her chest pains. Willy Boy wasn’t losing any time at all.

… An infinity of bright bees burned all about me, analogue to all the dial tones. They winked into and out of existence—virtual bees—and within the clacking and buzzing my mind supplied the ringing, the chiming, of multitudes of bells…

I located and activated the mechanism for placing a call. Her number, I learned as I tripped the relay, was in Ridgewood, New Jersey. In the instant between my activation of the circuit and the actual ringing of her unit, between her pain, the swaying train and the image of Willy Boy advancing, I became aware of the observer. That silent, dark presence I had sensed in the past was with us again, drawing nearer, watching…

The unit rang. It distracted the lumbering ex-preacher. Matthews stopped and glanced at it, looked back at Ann. She was breathing heavily and perspiring now, bent forward, one hand still upon the table, supporting herself, the other pressed against her chest. The ache and the tightness had begun to ebb by the fourth ring, though she was too occupied with the pain and the present focus of her attention to reassert her earlier illusion.

It rang again. How many had she set the damned thing for, anyway?

On the sixth ring her computer answered it with a recording and offered to take a message. As soon as that occurred, I was able to find my way into the computer and to take stock of the things it controlled.

Willy Boy turned suddenly at a noise from the kitchen. It was only the automatic toaster setting itself, breadless, to work. He strode back in that direction and looked around the corner.

“Run, Ann!” I told her. “Try to get out the door!”

“Too weak, Steve,” she said. “I’d fall on my face.”

“Try!”

She let go the table and swayed. I felt her dizziness. She collapsed upon the sofa.

“Take a deep breath and try again.”

She began to comply, but Matthews was already turning back.

“Why is he doing this to you?” I asked.

The buzzer on the microwave stove filled the air with a nasty, insistent sound.

Willy Boy turned again, apparently unable to concentrate, and entered the kitchen.

“I didn’t tell The Boss that you were still alive,” she said. “But he found out from the wreck, decided he couldn’t trust me any more. I could see in his mind that he was afraid I might—take your side. Decided not to give me the chance… God! what a beautiful world the network is! I’d rather read machines than people. I wish I’d been born with your power instead—”

The buzzing stopped.

“Sister, I don’t know how you managed that,” Matthews said, entering from the kitchen. “But you’re only prolongin’—”

I turned off all the lights. I heard him curse.

“Try to pull yourself together enough to make a run for it,” I said.

The lights were on dimmers. I began cycling them on and off rapidly, producing a strobe effect. Matthews’ movements seemed almost comically jerky as he threw up an arm, covered his eyes, then tried shading them. He took a step forward and halted.

Then his expression changed. He placed the heels of his hands over his eyes, blocking out all light. I felt the sharp, terrible pain which ran through Ann’s body. She uttered a short cry. For a moment, we almost lost touch.

… And somewhere, still near, I felt the half-familiar presence of the silent one.

Willy Boy took another step forward, another, his power growing as the distance narrowed.

The television set came to life as I activated the control.

Willy Boy kept coming. The pain grew, spread…

I increased the volume and began flipping from channel to channel. In some areas they have an around-the-clock—

Yes!

“—glorious day!”

Matthews froze. He lowered his hands. I let the lighting return to normal.

“—in Jesus’ words, ‘Blessed be the…’ ”

Willy Boy turned bright red. His eyes grew very wide. Again the pain was eased. He stared at the impeccably garbed man with the upraised hand and the ingratiating smile.

“Son of a bitch!” he said. He looked wildly at Ann, speaking suddenly as if she were not his victim of the moment. “The damned reporters crucified me! They should get him! I trained that oily Bible-thumper! Kicked him out, too! When his hand wasn’t in the collection basket it was in some choirboy’s pants! Worthless little whelp!” He gestured toward the set. “Did they ever go after him, though? No. I could have had him up on charges. Did a Christian thing and let him go. I was already in trouble myself. Didn’t make that much difference then. Figured they’d get him sooner or later, anyhow. Look at him now, though! Listen to him! They never did. There’s no justice. Hunger and thirst after righteousness and you’ll wind up on Maalox!”

He rushed up to the set and slammed the button which turned it off. He began to rub his forehead then.

I turned the set back on again, full blast.

“Let us pray—”

“Damn it!” he cried, turning it off again.

I turned it back on.

“…Thy kingdom come—”

He hit the button, and I did it again.

“…on earth as it is in heaven…”

He tried holding it in the Off position then. I overrode him.

“…and forgive us our trespasses…”

He made a loud, bleating, animal noise and dropped to his knees. He crawled forward, reaching, located the plug and pulled at it “…not into temptation…”

He was shaking when he rose, breathing heavily. I began strobing the lights again. I set the stove to buzzing once more. I kicked on the computer’s taped greeting. None of these seemed to reach him this time, though. He rushed forward, set his teeth and glared down at Ann.

The pain became excruciating, and then a wave of blackness seemed to roll up through her. I drew her to me and held her as tightly as possible, as if I could somehow keep her alive within my own consciousness.

I knew that her body had died. But she seemed still to be with me.

“Ann?” I said, as I moved back through telephone exchanges.

“Yes?”

I linked with the regional unit, found an area where the traffic was slow.

“We lost,” I said.

“I knew that we would. I told you.”

… The prospect swirled, racing beads on an infinite abacus…

I’m sorry. I tried.”

“I know, Steve. Thank you. If I’d met you sooner… I was always weak. I wish—”

The strange presence was suddenly nearer than it had ever been before, almost palpable, something I seemed just about ready to identify…

“Of course,” she said, and I did not understand. She was weak, growing weaker. She had no right to exist at all now, except by this kind of symbiosis. I did not know what I was going to do with her. “Let me go now, Steve.”

The presence grew stronger. It was almost intimidating. I held her more tightly, trying to share my strength with her.

“It’s all right,” she said.

In that moment, I felt that it was, as if she had just been granted some special vision I did not share.

“Really. I must go.”

She began disengaging herself from my mental grip.

“It is the big Angra research facility—Number Four—just outside Carlsbad. That’s what you want. She’s there,” she said. “Good luck.”

“Ann…”

The sensation, whatever it was, was like a parting kiss. Then she moved toward the stranger, who welcomed her.

I had a vision of them, passing across a sheet-metal plain where roses of aluminum, copper, brass and tin swayed in an ozone breeze beneath a sky lit by an arc of blue sparklight. The figure whose hand she took wore a metal mask, unless of course that was its face…

… I followed the track, back, back, to the clackety-clack, to the ragtime rhythms, quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit un gula campum, as we rocked, racing, westward, under the Southern moon full-risen, moonlight, night flight, seeming dreaming, track away. Steve, did she say?

Clack.