Serpent's Walk

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Friday, December 19, 2042

“You’re lucky you didn’t have to see it,” the Marine captain said.

“Cars full of stiffs piled up in the worst traffic jam in history, bodies stuffed in between the vehicles like rag dolls in my kid’s closet, bulldozers shoving loads of corpses off the Arlington Bridge to clear a way out of the city, the parkways along the Mall littered with dead.”

“Is Starak always fatal?” Lessing asked. His N.B.C. suit was hot, tight, and claustrophobic. The worst part was looking out upon a picture-pretty, grey, winter afternoon in Washington, D.C., and knowing that that landscape was as lethal as the naked surface of the moon.

“As far as we know. Botulin poisoning often can be cured if you catch it in time. Still, who’s got the medics or the supplies to treat a couple of million people in greater Washington? And we’re not sure that the toxin generated by Starak is real botulin anyway. The Russians developed this version as a weapon. A little gene-splicing goes a long way.”

“So many people…”

The immensity of the tragedy defied comprehension. Outside their sealed med-van the streets were mostly empty and clean under a lead-hued, frost-rimmed sky. Here and there a car had gone up over the curb, and some of the buildings were fire-blackened shells, but it didn’t look as bad as Lebanon — much less like what the Israelis had left of Damascus during the Baalbek War.

The captain tapped Lessing’s arm. “Keep your fingers off your suit-valve, sir. You probably want to open up and breathe fresh air, but contagion’s still a risk, and the stench is godawful. See all these buildings we’re passing? We haven’t had time to clear ‘em of corpses. It’s been hard enough to get the main arteries open.”

He sounded like a tourist guide warning passengers not to stand up in the bus. Horror had become commonplace, the unthinkable a way of life. Lessing had seen many men like the captain out in Syria.

The captain poked a gloved finger at their vehicle’s windshield. “Two more streets and we’re at the National Defense Research Facility.”

They were in Suitland, southeast of the capital toward Andrews Air Force Base. The Born-Agains had expanded in this direction; later the Rubin administration had erected grandiose office complexes to the northwest, where Columbia Hospital and the old Weather Bureau had stood before the Farm Riots of 2023. Wrench said that some bureaucrat had originally proposed putting Eighty-Five down in the sub-basement beneath the IRS building, but that had struck even the politicians as a little too obvious.

It was just as well that Eighty-Five was not in downtown Washington No tourists drove up Constitution Avenue these days. The armed forces and what was left of the police were still collecting bodies there and shooting looters — and infected survivors — on sight. It had been difficult to get a guide and transport for their mission out to the Eighty-Five facility, but Outram had swung his not-inconsiderable weight around, and this Marine captain, a driver, two paramedics, and one of the precious med-vans had eventually been assigned to them. Lessing and Wrench were to go along as “observers,” while the captain, whose name they had not been told, was “to inspect and secure the facility.” The captain belonged to the Second Marine Aircraft Wing from Cherry Point, North Carolina, and had been on a courier mission to the Pentagon when Starak’s first victims started to stagger and vomit up their guts. The man was a fan of bottled fruit juice and so had not partaken of Washington’s deadly water. That, and the good luck of being ordered to wait for an appointment in a nearly airtight basement office, had saved him.

“How many got away?” asked Wrench. His N.B.C. suit was too big for him, and he had to keep pulling the helmet down to see out. All that was visible was his wavy, dark-brown hair and a pair of eyes. He reminded Lessing of a cartoon character.

“Quite a few. Starak works either by ingestion or through an open lesion, and not everybody drank water, handled dead or dying victims, orsniffed the bacteria-laden fumes coming from the sewers. The stuff in the sewers seems to have been pretty well flushed out by now, but…” His voice trailed off.

“Christ…” Wrench mumbled.

The captain spoke again: “We think there ‘re some real immunes, though we can’t be sure. Just yesterday a squad brought in a ten-year-old kid who’d been living on root beer and stale popcorn since… it… happened. When his parents’ bodies started to stink too bad, he rolled ‘em onto rugs, dragged ‘em out into the back yard, and set ‘em on fire with gasoline. That’s how we found him: the smoke.”

It still hadn’t sunk in. It might never sink in. The greatest tragedy since the Ice Age, and it all seemed so ordinary, so awkward, so simple — so stupidly, whimsically anecdotal. In two days Lessing thought he had heard every miracle story there was, but each rescue worker had a new tale to tell. There was the baby discovered alive after a week in its mother’s rotting arms; the old man who’d found the airport drinking fountain out of order and flew on to Adanta, happily unaware of the tragedy until somebody told him he’d just missed a lethal gulp of Starak — whereupon he had a heart attack; the health nut in Philadelphia who drank only mineral water and brushed his teeth with antiseptic mouthwash; the wimpy, little store manager who’d carried his two-hundred-pound wife five miles through streets choked with mobs of screaming, dying people, got her to the medics in lime, and then went back for his infant son — all three now safe in a shelter outside Washington. If miracles proved the existence of God, then the truth of every religion from Christianity to Banger Satanism had just been proved once and for all. Miracles were as common nowadays as candles in the churches.

Well, maybe not as common as the horror stories. Those, like the fabled demons of Hell, were legion.

Lessing struggled to follow the captain’s example and mm death into a commonplace, make it historical, something that happened somewhere else to people who weren’t people but stick-figures, statistics, names in a book, “subjects” on the police blotter, shapes in a crowd. That way the unspeakable became speakable, the scenes around him no more than epic movies. Never-before-imagined spectacle! A cast of millions! Right before your very eyes! See the parting of the Red Sea, the sack of Rome, the fall of Constantinople, the last days of Pompeii.

The last days of the whole pitiful, rotting, infected world.

The dead refused to cooperate. They kept turning into real faces: grey and sunken cheeks, eyes gone, blackened mouths agape, stinking bundles of purpling flesh and decayed clothing. Real men, real women, real children.

God.

Was God real?

If God existed, then why didn’t He hear? Why didn’t He answer?

One theory was as good as another. God’s phone was off the hook. He’d stepped out for lunch. He was on vacation. After the sixth day of creation, He took the seventh off, decided He didn’t like the work, and went on welfare.

Great theological answers! Two dimes and a nickel would get you a quarter.

Evil: there was the stumper. Ever since Cro-Magnon Man first sought relief fondling his chubby, little female fertility statues, humanity had asked, why? If God is good, then why is there evil? Why do the bad guys live forever and the good die young? Why suffering, why pain, why sin?

The priests had a standard answer: “God is good! God loves you!” That said nothing, of course: a cop-out! If you kept asking, they told you it was all a mystery, part of the Great Incomprehensible Plan. If you pestered them, they said that evil was only a test — or that evil existed so God could display His wondrous compassion, so that He could forgive you after you’d spent a lifetime suffering for something that wasn’t your fault in the first place. So babies could be napalmed in Damascus while killers, rapists, drug-peddlers, slum landlords, embezzlers, crooked lawyers, sleazy evangelists, and politicians could lead sumptuous lives, retire to California, and buy their mistresses pink sports cars on Rodeo Drive.

Long ago Lessing had decided that if evil is part of the Plan, then God was one lousy planner! Predestination implies that God wants it this way; free will says that whatever God wants. He gives us imperfect little creatures a chance to screw it up. Either way it stank: God was either the most inept designer since the dink who built the walls of Jericho, or else He had a very un-funny sense of humor! Six days to make the world — a primitive creation myth that wasn’t even as good as some the American Indians had! Evolution: what a laborious and inefficient way for an omnipotent Deity to produce the species He presumably wanted. Original sin? What a crock! Send His only son down to take humanity’s sins upon himself? Come on! For a Supreme Being, all of those were dumb ideas. It was Lessing’s considered opinion that a squad of drunken oran-gutans could’ve dreamed up a better fairy tale.

Now the world lay dying. Invisible, miasmic death stalked those who lived, and poor, old God was in heavy demand. The churches werepacked, the synagogues overflowing, the mosques and temples all red hot and throbbing. The God business throve on death.

The greatest catastrophe since the dinosaurs, and God didn’t do a thing about it. No miracles, no “only Son,” no tear-jerking, happy endings at Christmastime.

Was God Himself “evil” — by human definition anyhow?

Whenever Lessing had asked such questions, his parents, his teachers, his mother’s holier-than-Jesus ministers — the whole Bible-beating lot — had chorused that he was too immature, too sophomoric, too simplistic, too uneducated, too sceptical, too some-goddamned-thing — to understand.

The holy books of other religions had not helped, nor had the philosophers. They were easily refuted: they reeked of anthropomorphism, clever words but no answers. People believed because they needed a crutch — which wasn’t a new observation, certainly, but it struck Lessing as a lot truer than the stuff the theologians dished out.

Like the man said, two dimes and a nickel got you a quarter — but not a cup of coffee anymore. That cost a dollar and sixty cents now.

The med-van braked to a stop. The sun had come out, and the stone facades of the buildings lining the street glowed honey-gold, maroon, and rose-red in the weak December light. The trees were stark and bare, but bundles of what looked like dried leaves lay tumbled along the parking strip and in the gutters. Lessing knew what they were: bodies of men, women, and children; even a few pets, squirrels, and birds.

The two paramedics who had been riding in the rear of their van opened the door and climbed gingerly down to the littered paving. The captain, the driver, Lessing, and Wrench joined them. A black-and-white sign on the lawn said: U.S. Department of Defense, Restricted Entry.

“This it?” Wrench unlimbered a 40-mm, six-shot grenade launcher from their vehicle’s ready-rack. “Don’t worry. I know how to use this.”

“Yes ” The captain looked doubtful. “You really don’t need

that thing.” In his view only another Marine — preferably somebody from his own unit — was qualified to handle such a weapon.

“Let him keep it,” Lessing urged. Even if Wrench didn’t know a grenade from a horseapple, the sight of the big launcher would scare the shorts off most looters. The thing weighed fifteen pounds and looked like a tommygun for giants.

They entered through a double set of glass doors and found themselves in the sort of artsy-craftsy, impersonal foyer popular with American “institutional” architects. Slender, glass pillars soared up to narrow, slitted skylights near the top of a pyramidal reception hall. From the apex of the pyramid a mirrored mobile hung down to spatter the blank, white walls with prismatic light. The effect was dizzying: disco-night at the Starlight Ballroom!

The black naugahide desks and chairs were empty, the potted plants just beginning to wilt for lack of water. The lights worked — every installation of any importance had its own emergency generator — and if it had not been for the ringing silence and the emptiness it might have been just another Washington workday.

Two startled soldiers leaped up from behind the semicircular reception counter. They wore N.B.C. suits, but their helmets lay on the counter beside them. They had been sorting loot stripped from corpses: diamond rings, watches, a heap of money — the trivia of a world that was as dead as the Pharaohs.

The Marine captain strode forward, ignoring the bric-a-brac. “You!” he barked. “Unit? Authorization?”

One of the men, a gaunt Black youth, saluted and stammered a soft reply that Lessing could not hear.

The captain looked puzzled. “Golden? Major Golden? Who the fuck is he?”

The second soldier held out a piece of paper. “Uh… our orders, sir.”

The captain waggled a finger at the two paramedics. “Get back to the van, contact base, tell ‘em we’re here and we’ve got a 760. Go! Then stay out there. Watch for survivors, but don’t get too far from us.”

A “760” was militarese for a command screw-up: like when your artillery drops shit all over your own troops. Lessing’s combat senses had just gone on yellow alert. He unobtrusively fished for his pistol in the voluminous front pocket of his N.B.C. suit. They hadn’t issued him a holster, and drawing the weapon later might be awkward.

From the comer of his eye he saw that Wrench had sidled around to cover him and the captain from the flank. He couldn’t see their driver; the man must still be behind them.

“No problem corporal,” the captain said smoothly. “Here’s my clearance. These two come along. Private Harris… my driver… will stay with you. Oh, and get your fuckin’ helmets back on before I personally kick your asses up your backbones and out your shit-sniffin’ noses! You know that’s a breach of orders!”

Only when they were out of earshot of the two soldiers and into the hallway beyond did the captain beckon to Lessing. “It beats me. A Major James L. Golden from the Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe? That’s in Virginia, but it’s a ways away, given the situation. From Fort Myer or Fort Belvoir I could understand. And training and doctrine? What the hell?”

Lessing gave a none-of-my-business grunt. He glanced over and saw that Wrench was missing nothing.

They encountered only one body: a woman in her fifties, a bottle of what looked like cough syrup beside her. The codeine in the stuff had not helped, judging by the agony on her face.

“Elevators,” the captain muttered. He withdrew a sheet of yellow paper from a belt pouch. Lessing edged over and saw that it contained a building plan and several rows of numerals: coded passwords.

The other put the document away. “Sorry. Security.”

“I understand. We going in, or do we wait for a backup?”

“No reason to wait. Major Golden, whoever the hell he is, can’t interfere with us. After all, we’ve got President Outram’s direct order to inspect and secure. The rest of our team’ll be here just as soon as we can get them together.”

“How long?”

“A few hours. Some personnel are dead, many missing, others scattered all around. We’ve got people out hunting for them.”

The corridor ended at a bank of elevators. The captain selected one, scanned his yellow flimsy, pressed an unmarked button, and was rewarded by a short, stomach-flipping descent. The shiny, steel doors hissed back to reveal a security checkpoint: a guard cubicle encased in bulletproof glass, a retinal scanner, an ID-card reader, and apertures in the walls and ceiling that hinted at other, less friendly defenses. Lessing was reminded of Marvelous Gap, but this was bigger, fancier, and deadlier. It was also probably armed and active.

The door to the guard cubicle was ajar. The captain entered but backed out again. “Body in there,” he remarked, “and the retinal scanner’s been disconnected by somebody who knows how. Light shows the airlock to the control center is open.”

“Airlock?” Wrench piped up.

“Yes. This complex is constructed of layers of steel, plastic, and a special concrete. The whole thing sits on springs in an oil bath, and a gyroscope holds it level against anything short of a direct missile strike. You could drop the moon on New York, and this place’d hardly jiggle.”

“This Major Golden… he’s inside, then?” Lessing wanted to know.

“Guess so. But don’t sweat it. He may have a right to be down here. After all, a lot of people still don’t know Outram’s alive and legally in charge. Golden may’ve been sent by the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense, or some other agency.”

Beyond the airlock they traversed a tunnel three meters long, walled with flexible plastic and ending in a second security door. The latter was also open, and they passed through into a round chamber some thirty meters in diameter and ten meters high. The center of this room was occupied by a two-tier, circular dais about ten meters across. Four short staircases led up from the main floor to rows of grey, crackle-finish consoles on the lower level of the dais. Two more sets of steps then ascended another meter or two to the top level, a bare platform three meters wide. This was surrounded by a metal railing and contained two black-plastic-upholstered chairs and what resembled a speaker’s lectern. Lights, lenses, microphones, and cables swung down out of the shadows overhead like robot spiderwebs.

More desks, consoles, and metal cabinets crowded the main floor, and huge, dark screens glimmered all around the walls. Computers certainly had changed since Lessing had played Planet-Zapper in high school!

There was no one in the room.

The captain called, “Major Golden? Major Golden? Hey! Anybody here?”

“Two doors on the other side of the platform.” Lessing pointed.

“Access to the works.” The captain sucked in air from his suit tanks and licked his lips. “Storage. The broom closet.”

Wrench slipped past to prowl between the silent rows of desks and cabinets. They let him go; he knew more than they did about the great machine that slumbered here.

No corpses. No water, standing or running. The air ought to be good. What the hell? Lessing pulled off his helmet. The captain gave him a quizzical look but did the same, then went over and climbed up onto the top dais. Lessing stayed where he was, automatic in hand. He sensed others here, others who either could not or would not answer.

The captain stood spraddle-legged in the middle of the upper platform, extracted his yellow paper, looked self-consciously up at the microphones above his head, and began to recite numbers.

The effect was magical: a green light sprang to life here, an amber blinker there. A bank of screens bloomed with lambent colors on one wall, a graph and columns of ever-changing read-outs glowed on another.

Wrench exclaimed, “Hey, Lessing, come here! I’ve got the internal TV working! Oh, man, look…!” He broke off.

Something was wrong. Lessing reached him in three long strides. Wrench was staring at a single, large screen which was segmented into forty or fifty smaller pictures. Most of these showed empty offices, rooms, and passages. A few contained corpses. In one frame smoke eddied up toward the ceiling, and Lessing recognized the reception area: the two soldiers and their driver were sharing a comradely toke of pot

Wrench pointed. One of the lower frames pictured five uniformed soldiers. All had their backs to the camera as they peered through a door: one crouching in front, the rest poised behind him. All bore U.S. Army M-25 assault rifles. The kneeling man aimed his weapon at a distant figure on a dais in the large, lighted room beyond the door.

“Get down!” Lessing yelled. “Captain—”

They heard the rifle shot twice: once, tinnily, from the TV speakers in front of them, and then instantly again from the leftmost doorway on the other side of the central platform. It echoed on around the room The captain whirled, seemed to teeter on invisible roller skates, then crashed down on top of one of the dais’s two chairs.

“Shit!” shrilled Wrench. He hit the floor between two consoles just ahead of a stitch-line of bullet holes. Lessing was even faster. Over their heads the damaged consoles fizzed and sparked.

Lessing began to crawl along an aisle toward the dais. “Get where you can put a grenade through that open door!” He raised his head and risked a look over one of the metal desks.

The captain stirred, rolled, and slid off the top platform onto a desk on the lower tier. It collapsed with a crash, and the unseen sniper let off a whole magazine out of sheer jitters. He hit no one.

Wrench fired at the doorway. His grenade hit the adjoining wall, ricocheted, and exploded with ear-shattering effect under one of the computer consoles. There were cries from the opfoes, and Wrench shrieked an obscenity back. Another flurry of shots ripped metal, glass, and wall-board to shreds above him. Lessing heard the little man scuttling away under the desks.

They were outgunned unless Wrench got lucky. What had he loaded his launcher with? High explosive, armour-piercing, tear gas, or smoke grenades? Their military med-van had been supplied with a variety of munitions. Right now they needed smoke for a quick retreat

Someone on the other side of the room was screaming. Wrench’s grenade had taken at least one man out of the firefight. The yelling stopped abruptly. Either the opfo had passed out or else his friends had popped him with a needle of narcodine.

Lessing found the captain still breathing, but blood bubbled from his lips and nose, and the front of his N.B.C. suit was a mess. He gestured weakly at the yellow sheet, now smeared with red.

“These… three… numbers.” He gulped, swallowed, and struggled with the words. “Say them. Aloud. Get help… computer has… radio link.” Experience told Lessing that the man was going into shock. He might still have a chance if they got him to a hospital right away.

Lessing held the paper up to the light. He half rose, made sure he was out of the line of fire, and shouted out the captain’s three five-digit numbers, one numeral at a time. There were more numbers on the other side of the paper; the one at the bottom was in a black-pencilled box of its own, a box marked “Top Secret” and “Terminal Emergency Only.” Things weren’t quite that bad yet Lessing tore the paper in two and stuffed the bottom half into his suit’s pocket It wouldn’t do for the opfoes to get that number! Maybe Wrench could make something of it all.

There wasn’t time to do more with the computer. Lessing heard the enemy spreading out into the main room, moving to encircle them. They knew the captain’s party had started with three; now there were two.

The opfoes had lost track of Lessing, however. Ten meters away he saw a soldier in a pale-green N.B.C. suit emerge from beneath a work table. The man was facing the other way, seeking Wrench. Lessing steadied his gun barrel against a desk leg and fired. The man bleated, jerked, and went limp.

A voice called, “Hey, Leopold? Leopold, you okay?”

Leopold wasn’t going to answer. Lessing crawled away from the captain, toward the doorway from which the opfoes had launched their ambush. He wasn’t expected there, and with luck he’d get behind them.

A deeper, more authoritative voice yelled, “Hey, you two! Give up! Get the fuck out of this building and you can loot all you want! We won’t stop you.”

“We’re official,” Lessing called back. “We have President Outram’s personal order to secure this installation!”

“Who!”

“Jonas Outram… Speaker of the House! He’s President now that President Rubin and the Vice-President are dead.” He waited.

“We didn’t know. Come on out and talk. We’re sorry about the misunderstanding. Let’s get our wounded to the medics.”

Misunderstanding? Lessing did not think so. The other party had seen them come in and had set an ambush. Moreover, the captain had worn a military-issue N.B.C. suit; looters did not.

Lessing needed a sure test. He cast around and spotted what he wanted, a cylindrical wastebasket of green-marbled plastic. He humped himself along the floor to it. Holding it gingerly, he thrust it up above the desk. It was the oldest trick in the world.

The basket flew from his fingers in a spray of bullets.

So that was how they wanted it. The man who had fired was on his feet, looking to see if he had scored. Lessing rolled and came up from a new position three meters away. He let off several rounds but missed. The opfo dove for cover behind a filing cabinet just as Wrench lobbed a grenade into the area. The explosion sent bits of glass and shrapnel in all directions, and Lessing felt a sting across his right calf. A minor zip — he hoped.

A thin squealing, like the mewling of a kitten, came from where the opfo had been. Lessing had heard badly wounded men utter such sounds before.

“You started with five!” he shouted. “How many you got now?

The answer came in another racket of bullets along the desk tops above him. He fired again, then hunkered down and checked his weapon; time to reload. As he dug into his suit’s big pockets and thrust ammunition into his pistol’s magazine, a green-clad rump backed out from under a work table five meters away. The man had only to turn his head to see Lessing. The magazine didn’t want to go back into the gun; it resisted like a demon— and he knew it would click loudly when the catch caught. He felt his bowels loosen. The man turned his head.

It was Wrench.

“Jesus…!” If Lessing’s gun had been ready, he would have fired. He hadn’t expected Wrench this far to his left. Luck alone had saved the little man from a 9-mm butt-reaming.

Wrench grinned and got to his feet, apparently planning to make a dash over to join Lessing.

Three meters beyond Wrench, a soldier lurched up from behind a desk. He and Wrench whirled and saw one another simultaneously. Both yelled, jigged, ducked, and fired wildly all at once. Two of Wrench’s grenades missed and ploughed ragged holes in the far wall.

The third grenade caught the man squarely in the face. His swarthy features vanished in a gout of blood.

There was no time to react, no way to brace for the shock. In a single, kaleidoscopic vision, Lessing foresaw what a high explosive grenade would do: it would rip both Wrench and his opponent to shreds; then it would pour a rain of shrapnel into Lessing himself. They were all dead meat.

He heard only a polite popping sound. Acrid white vapor gushed out of the opfo’s shattered face.

Smoke!

Wrench had loaded his launcher with at least one smoke grenade! Thank God for inexperience!

The man’s arms windmilled, and he crashed over backwards, his head ludicrously concealed in a roiling cloud.

“Smoking’s bad for your health!” Wrench giggled. He stood up with exaggerated care and examined himself.

Another shot rang out. Wrench made a moaning noise and bent over. The enemy’s shot had struck home. Lessing saw scarlet on the upper left shoulder of his N.B.C. suit.

Belatedly Lessing remembered the fifth man, presumably Major Golden himself. Another slug whined off a speaker cabinet nearby. The major was no sharpshooter; a better marksman could have put two more bullets into Wrench even as he slid to the floor.

Lessing spider-walked over to his companion. He found Wrench conscious, blinking dazedly at the bloodstain spreading down over his biceps. He was in no immediate danger. Lessing spared him a consoling grimace, scooped up the grenade launcher, and scrambled on, keeping a row of desks between himself and his adversary’s position. The two parties had now exchanged places: Wrench and Lessing were close to the opfoes’ original door, while Major Gold-en — if it was he — was over near the exit leading out to the elevators.

Lessing inspected the launcher. It held only one more round: a red-tipped high explosive grenade. He waggled the weapon and raised his eyebrows. Wrench shook his head: he hadn’t brought any extra ammo. Lessing glanced at the opfo’s body, now wreathed in smoke. The man’s assault rifle lay within reach, and he grabbed it.

“Hey, Golden, whoever you are!” Lessing called. “You ready? Only one of you now. Two of us. We’ve got grenades, and we’ve got those crummy M-25’s your men won’t be using anymore. Last chance to kiss and make up. Toss your ordinance out onto the platform.”

He didn’t expect a reply. The way these people behaved indicated they were playing for all the chips. If Golden were stupid enough to answer, he’d give away his location. Lessing would then lob the last grenade up into the ceiling right over his head, showering him with concrete and shrapnel; then he himself would instantly follow, blazing away like gangbusters.

Another half -magazine of bullets howled through the line of cabinets and consoles to Lessing’s right. He made himself flat and very small beneath his desk. Slugs hummed and sang overhead, but nothing hit him.

The firing cut off in mid-burst. Lessing heard a muffled curse. The man’s M-25 had jammed! The American assault rifle was a fine weapon, but at a thousand rounds per minute on full auto, it gobbled ammo like a beast, and it also tended to jam. A good shooter needed only moments to clear the chamber and resume firing, but Golden was not that skilled.

Lessing wondered whether to rush him. The man probably still had a pistol, maybe one of his fallen comrades’ guns as well. Footsteps clattered, slapping away toward the far wall. He glimpsed a figure plunging into the airlock tunnel. Apparently the major lacked the stomach for a one-on-one duel. Lessing decided not to fire his last grenade after the fleeing target; he might need it later. They weren’t out of the soup yet. Golden had more doggies upstairs.

What had happened to their own driver and to the two paramedics outside? Had Golden’s men thumbed them, or were they still doing fun-smoke, like a bunch of Bangers at a boom-concert?

He returned to take stock. The captain was now unconscious, barely clinging to life. Wrench had discovered a first-aid kit in a pocket of his N.B.C. suit and was trying to wrestle it out with one hand.

Lessing knelt beside him. “Busted you much?”

“Just a little fungled, that’s all,” Wrench answered grimly, also in the argot of the mere battalions. “Gimme a jack-up, eh?”

Lessing helped him out of his suit and saw that the bullet had grazed a rib and passed completely through the flesh below his left armpit. Acoupleof inches to the right, and Wrench would have been a memory. Lessing set to work with the kit’s antibiotics and bandages. Every mere learned “basic health care” as a matter of course.

“We’ve still got our job to do,” Wrench grated. “In my wallet — on the back of a bar-bill from the Pixie Club— three phone numbers with girls’ names beside them.” The pain was starting to bother him; it would be worse later. “I can’t reach it.”

“Stay still.”

“It’s important. They aren’t phone numbers. Mulder gave ‘em to me that way to keep ’em safe. They’re activation codes, like those the captain had. Get ‘em out and read the first five digits of each one aloud. The last two digits don’t count.”

“Here’s your wallet. But you do it. I’m no good with computers.”

“It’s got to be you. The captain read the first series; anybody can do that. Then you put in the ‘open and awake’ codes. They identify you as the ‘prime operator.’ ‘Final full-awake status’ requires your voice… yours alone now.”

“It… Eighty-Five… recognizes voices?”

“Yes. If anybody else but you does it, warning circuits trip and the machine freezes up until it gets additional security codes. And those we don’t have.”

Lessing licked his lips. “God damn it, we don’t have time for this! Golden and his doggies may be back at any moment.”

“Do it. It takes only a few seconds. Then we’re in. I’ve got another list of crucial files, some to look at and some to block off so that nobody else can get at ‘em. Once you’re boss you can tell the machine to recognize me as ‘secondary operator’… that was what I was going to try to get the captain to do before he got unzipped. I’ll finish up our job and have the computer call for help while you deal with Golden.”

Wonderful: just Alan Lessing against three and possibly more well-armed soldiers! He nodded reluctantly, took the crumpled bar-bill — what a stupid idea for hiding a code! — and read as directed.

Something hummed and clicked. Then a woman’s voice asked, “Dr. Christy? Is that you?”

“Tell it no,” Wrench whispered. “Christy was our agent. He’s probably dead some place. Tell it you’re his replacement. Then re-read the last five-digit number.”

“Dr. Christy?” the voice repeated in a throaty contralto. “I cannot hear you clearly.”

Lessing obeyed.

This time the voice was still female, but it sounded crisper and more businesslike. “Replacement: prime operative. State identity and security clearance.”

“Tell it who you are!” Wrench struggled up to stand beside Lessing.

“Uh… Lessing… Alan Lessing.” He leaned down to Wrench. “What do I give it for a security clearance? You got one of those, too?”

Wrench thought. “You’ve got Outram’s letter, haven’t you? The one to Washington Central Command telling them we’re to inspect and secure this facility? Eighty-Five’s got camera eyes. Show it the White House stationery.”

It struck Lessing as a very long shot. He held up the letter, and a camera boom swooped down out of the darkness overhead to peer and explode a tiny flashbulb like a miniature star.

Silence, except for a faint humming.

Then the voice said, “Lessing, Alan, no middle initial. Born March 27, 2010, Sioux City, Iowa. Parents: Gerald Nathaniel Lessing and Frieda Runge Lessing.”

Further personal data followed: his Social Security number, tax data, school records, a grade-sheet from the one miserable year he spent in college, credit ratings, bank accounts — much more. That the machine had this kind of dossier on anybody was amazing; that it held such details about a nonentity like Alan Lessing was frightening. The most astonishing thing was the succession of high school annual pictures and old army I.D. photos that flickered to life on one of the wall screens.

“Accepted,” the machine proclaimed smugly. “Welcome, Doc-tor Lessing.”

“Uh… I’m not a doctor.”

“Pref erred form of address?”

“Mister is fine.”

“Very well, mister. Is this voice satisfactory?”

“What?”

“Dr. Christy liked this voice; it is identical with that of Melissa Willoughby, the film star. Professor Archibald preferred a male voice…” the timbre shifted down an octave “…like this. Very professional, he felt.” The machine hesitated, then said, “When Dr. Meaker worked here alone, he had me speak in the voice of his son, Robert, who had been killed in an automobile accident.” The voice rose to a childish falsetto. “If Daddy wants me to talk this way, then I will.”

Lessing and Wrench exchanged glances. Poor Meaker’s loneliness and grief swooped up around them like the walls of the grave.

“No… no. The film star is just fine. Use her voice.”

“All right, mister.” Lessing could now identify the sultry, sensuous, Hollywood-sexy undertones. “I have a request, though.”

“Yes?”

“Please move to my input room. I have a secondary console there. Your present location is severely impaired. I detect damage here to the extent of approximately $783,592.14, preliminary, since some components will require human testing and repair. Please provide a budget number to which I may charge necessary refitting.”

“Later,” Lessing replied. This was getting out of hand. What the hell was Golden doing? Instantly he realized how he could find out: “Can you show me the upstairs reception area? The elevator cars’ interiors? The sidewalk in front of this building?”

“Certainly. I must employ an auxiliary screen, though, since my viewing circuits are damaged here. Follow the blinking yellow light to my input room.”

Bemused, Lessing did so, Wrench trailing behind. They passed through one of the doors out of the main room, along a cabinet-lined corridor, and into a smaller, octagonal chamber. The solid-steel lab tables were crammed with equipment: automatic reading devices for books, films, tapes, cassettes, records, discs, microfilms, and other media; more consoles, screens, and panels; cameras, microphones, and other apparatus; laser, ultra-violet, and infrared sensors, and paraphernalia from a dozen unfinished experiments.

A single body, almost mummified, lay curled in one corner: a female lab technician. What did Eighty-Five “think” of the corpses that littered the installation? How did it perceive Golden’s slain soldiers? The captain?

Lessing asked.

“Inert humans? They are inanimate objects, are they not? Like things you term ‘furniture’ and ‘equipment’?”

As logical a view of death as any. Eighty-Five was certainly no Born-Again, no karma-wala Banger! Lessing returned to their present predicament. “The upper rooms,” he demanded. “Show us any rooms and areas in which you sense active humans now.”

“Good thought!” Wrench approved.

Two small screens burst into light and color. The first showed the street. Ten or twelve men in N.B.C. suits were unloading ominous-looking objects from a halftrack. They weren’t friendlies: a short, squat-bodied individual stood beside the vehicle. His features and insignia were concealed by his suit, but Lessing knew it must be Golden.

The second screen displayed an office somewhere in the upper section of the facility, to judge by the furnishings and the thin sunlight slanting in through one window. Golden’s two original doggies leaned against the door, guarding the captain’s driver and the two paramedics. The captives appeared more bewildered than frightened — a good sign under the circumstances.

“Defenses?” Lessing asked the computer. “Against intruders?”

“I have no control over the security devices in this installation. My creators were very careful about that.” Was the machine capable of irony? “After all, both they and I have seen every ‘mad-computer-takes-over-the-universe’ movie ever made.” Lessing wondered if he really did hear a hint of a chuckle.

“Can you lock the doors and radio Washington Central Command for help?” Wrench asked.

“Who is this person, mister? I have no record of his identity or clearance status.”

They had forgotten to identify Wrench as a secondary operator. Lessing wasted thirty valuable seconds doing so.

“I can shut doors within my building,” Eighty-Five replied, “but a human with keys and codes can open them.”

Lessing had no idea what to do next. At length he said, “Look over your capabilities and do what you can to stop the men who are entering now. They… ah… have no clearance. They are intruders, do you understand?”

The silence lasted so long that Lessing almost expected to see one of those cutesie “Your Computer Is Thinking! ” signs appear on a wall screen.

The machine said, “Seven are descending in elevator car two. Four more are entering car one.” The darkly sexy voice sounded apologetic. “I’ve radioed out. Your people are on their way.”

“Much good ” Wrench mumbled. His arm was paining him, and he slumped down on a lab stool.

“I’m going through my Library of Congress science holdings now. I find nothing of use in any of my own specifications. No weapons under my control. I can turn off the lights and heat, but I doubt whether the intruders would suffer sufficiently from that to cause them to desist.”

Lessing had what he hoped was an inspiration. “You used an electronic flash!” he said. “A lot of those coming from different angles might confuse Golden’s men. Throw them off balance… give us a chance!”

There was another long pause. Then the throaty contralto voice said, “You’re sure these are intruders? Enemies of the United States of America?”

“Yes,” Wrench replied. Under the circumstances, who knew? “There is one thing I can do. I’m not supposed to, though. They tried to build defensive responses out of me.”

“Then how…?”

“Problem solving is my specialty.” The machine hesitated again. “Close the door to my input room.”

Lessing inspected the metal and plastic door uneasily. “I doubt if this’ll hold out against a satchel charge or a grenade.”

“It is soundproof. Stay in here and shut it. I will inform you if I am successful. Otherwise I will utilize my flash equipment as you suggest. More, I will shout and cry in several voices from many different locations at once. The anti-Americans will be puzzled.”

“Best we can do.” Wrench lurched over to slam the door. As he did so, they heard the whine and clang of the first elevator car arriving.

“What now?” Lessing was still apprehensive. Golden might be able to cut off their air, smoke them out, or stun them with a concussion grenade.

“Watch the lower screen, please, mister.”

The glass lit up to show three very nervous soldiers, M-25s at the ready. Four more entered the devastated, smoke-filled control room behind them Then Golden appeared, followed by three doggies.

“Turn up the sound,” Lessing ordered. “I want to hear what they’re saying.”

“No,” answered Eighty-Five succinctly.

“Why not? You….”

“I think I know what it’s doing,” Wrench whispered. His eyes glittered in the harsh light from the screen, giving him the luminous look of some small, feral animal. “Watch, man! Watch!”

One of the soldiers glanced up, then another and another. They opened their eyes and their mouths wide. The man in front tore at his helmet, got it off, and clapped his hands over his ears. One after another the rest did the same. Golden bolted for the door. The others began to writhe, twist, and clutch at their heads.

“Sound, Lessing, sound!” Wrench yelped joyously. “It’s hitting them with subsonics!”

“Actually a combination of registers,” the sweetly sensuous voice purred. “Research studies in my data banks report that your species can be incapacitated and even deactivated by certain sounds. I have no weapons, but I can produce sounds at whatever decibel level is required, plus subsonics and supersonics.”

“They’re down!” Lessing exclaimed. “Shut it off! For God’s sake, shut it off!” Some ancient, inchoate, ethical principle cried out against this: a man killed another man face to face, not by hiding in a hole and letting a coldly lethal, amoral machine do his murdering for him! Now he knew how the guys felt who sat in front of the red buttons in the atomic missile silos.

“My sensors report that one intruder has left the building. All of those remaining in the building are unconscious. Three have ceased functioning entirely; the rest will become irreparable within twelve, eleven, ten “

“Stop it, God damn it!”

Wrench tugged at Lessing ‘s sleeve. “Jesus, look! It’s taken out the guys upstairs too… our driver, our paramedics!” “Stop! Stop!” Lessing yelled. “Those there… on the upper screen… they aren’t all intruders!”

“Oh? Sorry. You didn’t tell me. Perhaps some can be repaired. You call it ‘healed,’ I believe?”

Movement had ceased on both screens. The camera angle prevented a clear view of burst eyeballs, bloody ears and mouths, and contorted, anguished limbs.

“I have turned off the sound now. It is safe for you to emerge.” Wrench wiped sweat from his forehead. His face was a pallid deathmask. Using his good hand, he fished in a pocket and extracted what looked like a scuffed bankbook. “We… uh… we’ve still got work to do. I… I have some numbers here… files we have to deal with.”

“Certainly. But please remember to arrange for repairs to my facilities. The sound I just used has resulted in severe damage to glass and plastic components in several areas. I deduce a repair cost of $983,567.76. Did Congress vote a good budget for my project this year?”

Talk about obsolete behavior! Lessing paused, then said, “Congress is… no longer in session.”

“Too bad. Several runs may be delayed. Dr. Meaker will be angry.”

Lessing ‘s calm had returned. “How much do you know about what’s happening across America… in the world?”

“Materials are regularly fed into my terminals: newspapers, books, magazines, digests, position papers, films, TV broadcasts… much else. Unfortunately many interruptions have occurred lately. My Chicago terminal has ceased operation, and my Denver data storage facilities respond inaccurately. Please report and remedy these defects.”

“You know about Pacov? Starak?” Wrench inquired. “Somebody is using biological warfare to destroy nations… regions… the world!”

“I have files on these subjects.”

“Who’s doing it?” Lessing rapped. “Who’s killing the human race?”

“I possess a few names of individual perpetrators. These were given to me by various police and Federal agencies, but data input has recently been disrupted, as I have said. My response will therefore be incomplete.”

“Who is behind… who authorized… God damn it, who ordered Starak and Pacov?”

“I have no definite information.”

“Extrapolate, damn you!” Lessing clenched both fists upon the lab table before him.

“Given an error margin of 11.9%, the spread of Starak and related agents appears to be due to surviving operatives of the government of the Soviet Union, probably from one or more bases in Central and South America.”

“Fine! Any kid could’ve told us that!”

“To which child do you refer, mister?”

“Cancel. New question,” Wrench said. “Pacov. Who spread Pacov?”

The machine pondered Then it said, “Insufficient data.”

Lessing’s fist crashed down upon the table, bouncing bits of apparatus and rattling cups still half full of cold, scummy coffee.

“Hey, hey!” Wrench put his good hand on Lessing’s arm.

“I cannot make statements without data.” Eighty-Five sounded miffed. “I am unable to say what is occurring in Russia, England, China, and other nations, since my operatives there no longer provide input. I require a new census and other demographic information. Many human units seem to have ceased operation or have become misplaced. I am only as complete as my operatives make me. Give me the data, and I will correlate, extrapolate, deduce, induce, compute… whatever you wish.”

Lessing had had enough. “Come on, damn it!” he snarled at Wrench. “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

“Keep your socks on! We’ve got work to do, and now’s the best chance we’ll ever have! It’ll take a minimum of half an hour for reinforcements to get to us. We ought to be done by then. We’ve got a world to rebuild!”

“Oh, yes,” Eighty-Five said cheerily. “That sounds nice. Let’s do that!”