In front of the monitors, the technician lol ed in his chair, his head thrown back bonelessly. The paperback lay under the swivel chair's wheels, where it had fallen. Its cover was bent.
Terminus night was as hot as Terminus day, with the added pleasure of mosquitoes. Crouched on the wide lawn outside the DRC complex, Dixon was trying to keep his swearing to whispers as he slapped at bugs.
"When do we go?" he asked the fourth time, like a smal child impatient to set out One of the lighted windows in the big building went dark for a moment, then lit again. "Now," Melody said at last "Good luck to all of us." people rose and ran forward, their feet scuffling softly on the grass. Automatic doors hissed open, leading into a passage that bent sharply. Out of sight from outside was a guard station. A guard slept in the chair; a cup of coffee d spil ed on the desk in front of him.
The fluorescent lights overhead made Stephen's teeth gleam whitely as he grinned. "Food services," he said. Also grinning, Dixon nodded and gave him a thumbs-up.
"We split here," Melody declared, refusing to be distracted even for a moment. "Stephen, your group goes that way, toward elevator B.
Bring back as much HIVI and syringes and needles as you can get your hands on."
Right." He and two other young men dashed away."
"Out of here in fifteen minutes, or you get left behind," Melody called after them. Then she turned to Dixon and the young woman with him, whom they knew only as Deli "Now we head up ourselves and get Matt."
The elevators right across from the guard station went to the sim ward. Dixon thumbed the UP button. A door whooshed open. The three raiders, no, liberators, Dixon thought, crowded in.
He hit 4 a moment before Melody got it on the of panel. The door closed. Acceleration pressed against the soles of his shoes.
The door opened again. "How convenient," Melody said as they tumbled out; the bank of monitor screens was in the same position on floor as the guard station on ground floor. The man in the chair in front of them was solidly out as the guard down below.
"Good, the screens have room numbers on them. The the one thing I wasn't sure of," Dixon said. "Is that Matt "Let's see," Melody said, coming up beside him following his pointing finger. "Yes, that's him.
Room I42 is it? Let's go."
NO ENTRY WITHOUT AUTHORIZED ACCOMPANIST : read a large sign above closed double doors. Dixon tried them. They were locked. "Figured as much,"
he said.
He stepped aside. "Al yours, Dee."
She didn't speak; she never said much, as far as Dixon could tell.
she was a locksmith by trade, though, and carried a set of picks on her belt. Her motions were quick and sure. In less than a minute, she had the doors open "Come on," she said.
They went quietly, not wanting to disturb any of the sleeping sims but Matt. "I42.B," Melody said, stoped Dee took a step toward the door, but Melody was therer trying it. Melody raised a hand in triumph, like a cricket player after a century.
Matt woke to the sound of the opening door. His mouth fell open in surprise when he saw three strange humans coming in. Who? he signed.
What?
"Henry Quick was my great-great-grandfather," said a voice hardly above a whisper. Her fingers echoed the words. depressed or interested.
Dixon shook his head in wonder; he had lost track of how many times he had seen that reaction when Melody said
who she was. Somehow all sims everywhere knew that Henry Quick had been the first man to worked to give them justice.
That? Matt signed again. Why you here? , "To make you free," Dixon said. As Melody had, as the did who communicated with sims, he repeated his in words with sign-talk. "Come with us. Do you want to spend the rest of your life cooped up in here?"
Matt shrugged. Food good. Females here. Feel good now.
Not sick.
Nixon scowled. That wasn't the answer he was looking Melody asked quietly, "Do you want to be sick again?
you probably will, if you stay here. Do you remember what is like when you were sick?" the question was not quite theoretical; like very young children, sims often let the past recede quickly. But Dixon thought that what Matt had undergone was not something he would easily forget. The sims nostrils flared in alarm his brow-ridges, his eyes went wide. No! he signed vermhemently shook his head. He climbed off the bed. i with you.
Good," Dee said. she turned and started down the hal . Ly and Matt followed. Dixon came with them later, after leaving a souvenir on the bed to give Dr. Howard something to think about .
They hurried out through the double doors. Dee locked it again. This time, riding the elevator made Dixon feel light.
It!" Matt said again when they were in the lobby. He lot the unconscious guard there, signed, Not to be at's what he thought," Dixon said. Matt looked at I confusion. "Never mind. Come on." dadled out of the DRC and ran toward one of the horselesses parked on the roadway close to the edge. It was not, strictly speaking, a legal place to park, but traffic regulations were not likely to be enforced in the wee small hours. One of the horselesses sped off. As it passed under a street lamp, Dixon saw it was crowded with people.
Triumph-flared in him. "They must have got the HIVI! And Welt got Matt!" The driver of the remaining horseless threw open the door across from him. In, Melody signed to Matt. She, Dixon, and Dee came piling after the sim. No sooner had Dee slammed the door than the driver roared away from the Dixon started to say something to the sim, but before he could, Melody leaned over and kissed him for a long time.
When she finally let Dixon go, by some miracle he remembered what he had been about to tell Matt: "free! You're free at last!" , That got him kissed again, which was, he though dizzily, a long way from bad. I "
'Free,' " Dr. Peter Howard read. It was the last word of the pamphlet on Matt's bed, printed twice as big and black as any of the others. In Howard's mouth, it sounded obscene Normal y among the most self-controlled of men, he savagely crumpled the pamphlet and flung it to the floor. The security officer who picked it up gave him a reproachful look.
"There might have been useful evidence there, doctor."
"Oh, shut up," Howard snarled. "Where the hell were you people when this sim was stolen? Asleep on the job, that's where "The guards were drugged, Dr. Howard," the securitying man corrected stiffly.
"Our investigation into that part the affair is just beginning."
"Wonderful." Howard turned away. Slowly, clumsily, he made his way down the hal . Getting out of the way of other people seemed more trouble than it was worth. It's as if I were one of the walking wounded, he thought then realized, a moment later, I am.
He used the flat broad expanse of walnut as a fortress wall to hold the outside world outside. In a bigger sense, he had used the whole DRC the same way. Well, the outside world had Unfaded with a vengeance.
And with such stupidity, he thought, filled with rage that was al the more consuming for having no outlet. He had only skimmed the pamphlet the thieves left behind to explain their handiwork, but he had seen and heard the phrases there often enough over the years.
His fists clenched till nails bit into flesh. At the pain, he opened them again; no matter how furious he was, he stayed careful about his hands. But it was not, was not, was not his fault that sims were as they were. In earlier days, he knew, people had thought other races of people to be inferior breeds. Sims did that much, at least, to stop man's inhumanity to man, by showing what an inferior breed was like. A security man stuck his head into the office, breaking Howard's chain of thought. "Outside greencoats are here to l see you, sir," he said.