ghosts in the darkness.
The little electric car was slowing for the lodge’s double steel gate when Blake’s heat sink went critical. The unit started to whistle.
“What the hell’s that?”
“I need to get out of the car right now,” Blake said, groping for the door handle.
“Watch it!” yelled the boy in the back seat. “Hands on the wheel.”
In seconds the whistle was a shriek.
“Let him out,” said the girl in the back. “Let me out too.”
Too late. A high-pressure column of blue flame erupted from the unit between Blake’s shoulders; from the back it must have seemed that his head was a volcano. The plastic upholstery burst into flame, releasing acrid black fumes. A hole opened in the thin sheet metal roof of the car.
Spouting a spectacular plume of flame, Blake stumbled and staggered out of the car, a man burning alive. His terrified captors scrambled out of the vehicle behind him, staring at him in horror.
Reeling from the awful heat, dying before their eyes, Blake stumbled back toward the smoking vehicle and collapsed into the driver’s seat. With a last agonized spasm, an unconscious reflex of escape, he threw the pots into reverse high. The burning car jerked away and spun around, throwing flaming bits across the wet roadway, careening crazily off into the forest.
But somehow the car stayed on the road. Blake hadn’t watched all those action-adventure holoviddies, with stuntmen lunging around cloaked in flame, without getting the technique down pat.
IX
Blake tugged the knot of his silk tie and smoothed it to lie flat against his white cotton shirt. He snugged his suit jacket neatly around his shoulders and, a moment later, rose as the magneplane slowed for the Brooklyn Bridge station. Someone looking closely might have noticed the red welt across the back of his neck, but a quick glance around reassured him that no one was watching.
He stepped off the plane, briefcase in hand, and briskly marched to the escalator. Minutes later he was on his way back uptown on a restored antique subway train. A century ago it would have been rush hour, but the bright, clean subways were never crowded these days. He got off at a midtown station. As he emerged from underground, the rising sun was touching the tops of the glittering towers around him with pale yellow light.
The physical exhilaration of the attack and narrow escape had drained away, and he experienced a moment’s dejection. He wasn’t even sure who or what he’d been fighting—or why, now that Ellen had rejected him, except for some vague sense of his own injured pride. Simple fatigue is a great discourager of pride. With self-hypnotic effort, he regained at least a temporary feeling of confidence. He was on the way to another job interview, and this was for a job he wanted.
The offices of the Vox Populi Institute occupied a three-story brick building in the east 40s, within walking distance of the Council of Worlds complex on the East River. Plain as it was, the building was worth a fortune.
Inside, the decor was even plainer—steel desks, steel chairs, steel filing cabinets, crumbling bulletin boards, crumbling paint (institutional green to shoulder height, institutional cream above), and aggressively plain and surly office help, one of whom finally agreed to show Blake the general direction of Arista Plowman’s office. Dexter was not in today.
Arista, it was said, was less tolerant of human foibles than Dexter—theirs was a prickly partnership— she being as far out on one end of the political spectrum as he was on the other. Arista championed humanity at large, Dexter championed the individual human with an actionable grudge. Their differences hardly made a difference to anyone but them, since Dexter’s favored weapon in defense of the individual was the class-action suit, and Arista’s tactic in defense of the People was to take up the cause of a single, symbolic Wronged Innocent.
She glanced up when Blake
The little electric car was slowing for the lodge’s double steel gate when Blake’s heat sink went critical. The unit started to whistle.
“What the hell’s that?”
“I need to get out of the car right now,” Blake said, groping for the door handle.
“Watch it!” yelled the boy in the back seat. “Hands on the wheel.”
In seconds the whistle was a shriek.
“Let him out,” said the girl in the back. “Let me out too.”
Too late. A high-pressure column of blue flame erupted from the unit between Blake’s shoulders; from the back it must have seemed that his head was a volcano. The plastic upholstery burst into flame, releasing acrid black fumes. A hole opened in the thin sheet metal roof of the car.
Spouting a spectacular plume of flame, Blake stumbled and staggered out of the car, a man burning alive. His terrified captors scrambled out of the vehicle behind him, staring at him in horror.
Reeling from the awful heat, dying before their eyes, Blake stumbled back toward the smoking vehicle and collapsed into the driver’s seat. With a last agonized spasm, an unconscious reflex of escape, he threw the pots into reverse high. The burning car jerked away and spun around, throwing flaming bits across the wet roadway, careening crazily off into the forest.
But somehow the car stayed on the road. Blake hadn’t watched all those action-adventure holoviddies, with stuntmen lunging around cloaked in flame, without getting the technique down pat.
IX
Blake tugged the knot of his silk tie and smoothed it to lie flat against his white cotton shirt. He snugged his suit jacket neatly around his shoulders and, a moment later, rose as the magneplane slowed for the Brooklyn Bridge station. Someone looking closely might have noticed the red welt across the back of his neck, but a quick glance around reassured him that no one was watching.
He stepped off the plane, briefcase in hand, and briskly marched to the escalator. Minutes later he was on his way back uptown on a restored antique subway train. A century ago it would have been rush hour, but the bright, clean subways were never crowded these days. He got off at a midtown station. As he emerged from underground, the rising sun was touching the tops of the glittering towers around him with pale yellow light.
The physical exhilaration of the attack and narrow escape had drained away, and he experienced a moment’s dejection. He wasn’t even sure who or what he’d been fighting—or why, now that Ellen had rejected him, except for some vague sense of his own injured pride. Simple fatigue is a great discourager of pride. With self-hypnotic effort, he regained at least a temporary feeling of confidence. He was on the way to another job interview, and this was for a job he wanted.
The offices of the Vox Populi Institute occupied a three-story brick building in the east 40s, within walking distance of the Council of Worlds complex on the East River. Plain as it was, the building was worth a fortune.
Inside, the decor was even plainer—steel desks, steel chairs, steel filing cabinets, crumbling bulletin boards, crumbling paint (institutional green to shoulder height, institutional cream above), and aggressively plain and surly office help, one of whom finally agreed to show Blake the general direction of Arista Plowman’s office. Dexter was not in today.
Arista, it was said, was less tolerant of human foibles than Dexter—theirs was a prickly partnership— she being as far out on one end of the political spectrum as he was on the other. Arista championed humanity at large, Dexter championed the individual human with an actionable grudge. Their differences hardly made a difference to anyone but them, since Dexter’s favored weapon in defense of the individual was the class-action suit, and Arista’s tactic in defense of the People was to take up the cause of a single, symbolic Wronged Innocent.
She glanced up when Blake
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