To my left and perhaps thirty meters across the way, beside a big black metal housing surrounded by giant ceramic pots, two people lay sprawled. They both wore headbands and neither was moving. I coiled and turned off their weapons. Then I advanced upon them, my own deadly harmonica at ready.
They were dead, though. I was appalled at the quiet efficiency of the thing that I held. I hadn’t even seen my would-be attackers. If I had, I would have wrecked their weapons. Then I could probably have broken them a leg apiece and at least left them alive. I wanted to throw the thing away, but I was afraid that I might still need it.
I turned back to the dessicated plain, facing in the direction of the testing range.
“…There’s no reason for all of this,” Barbeau’s voice boomed after me. “We solved the energy problem, didn’t we, Steve? When you worked for Angra, you did a great service for your country, for all of Western civilization. There are still great things ahead. We can still deal.”
“Let Cora go now,” I called out, “and you’ll still be alive when we leave here! That’s my deal!”
“Steve! Wait! I can promise you a completely different setup than last time! You’ll like this one!”
“Cora! Now!” I shouted into the next speaker I passed.
“I can’t, Steve!”
“Why not?”
“She’s my only insurance against you!”
“Damn it! I said I’d leave you alone if you give her to me!”
“That’s a frail thing to lean on, boy!”
“My word? I wouldn’t have left Angra if I didn’t have a few principles. My word is good!”
“Now let’s calm down a bit! I still want a deal, too…”
I ignored him and kept going. I passed something that looked like a house of cards, another structure that was all piping with liquids gurgling inside…
The weapon moved in my hand, and something burned in the air to my right. I was left with the outline of a monkey wrench within the afterimage. That, and a puddle of something molten on the ground. Where had it come from? Who could have thrown…
Suddenly, the harmonica was stirring again, and a myriad of bright points filled the air—screwdrivers, pliers, crowbars, hammers… It was as if someone had fired the entire contents of a tool chest in my direction. The damned little thing burned them all.
There was a shed far off to my right, near a funny-smelling chemical-electrical installation.
“Marie!” I called, the picture suddenly coming clear. “Don’t come out! This thing will burn anything that moves!”
“I get the idea!” I heard her shout. “How’s about pointing it the other way?”
“Why should I?”
“ ’Cause you win!” she called back. “I just quit my job with Angra about half a minute ago! Let me walk out of this place and I won’t bother you any more!”
“I wish I could believe you!”
“I wish you would, too! I was dirt poor, Steve! I bet you never were! I didn’t like what I had to do to make all that money, but I did it anyway! Because poor was even worse! I never much liked the rest of you, because it didn’t seem to bother you! Not the way it bothered me! This seems like a good time to quit! Let me go!”
“You waited a long time!” I said.
“Not too long, I hope! Can I come out?”
I switched off the weapon’s computer.
“Okay! Come ahead!”
She stepped out of the shed. She was wearing jeans and a red blouse. Her face was a dark, tense mask. She turned to her left and began walking back toward the front of the compound.
“I left my bicycle by the security shed outside,” I said. “You can take it”
“Thanks.”
“And Barbeau heard every word we said. Don’t get too near that building he’s in. He’s nasty enough to take a shot at you.”
She nodded.
“I think I’m going to open a restaurant,” she said. “You come by one day.
“And watch out for the preacher,” she added. “He’s still around—somewhere.”
I adjusted the weapon to its simpler mode and covered her till she was out of sight. But nothing threatened.
I moved on, searching the area again for abnormal computer activity. Nothing special registered. Just the kapocketing of the various test plants. I reversed my earlier strategy now, staying out in the open, away from nooks and crannies where a fat man with death in his mind could be hiding. I tuned out Barbeau’s monologue for a time. I passed the last of the big installations and before me lay a wasteland, just a few smaller bits of equipment here and there, and a few scattered huts. In the farther distance there were slag heaps.
There were also a few towers with speakers attached…
Well, one more time:
“Listen,” I said. “I just killed three of your men with those fancy guns and Marie is no longer with you. I took out the other three, too, in case you hadn’t noticed. You don’t have that much left. I know where Cora is. Call off Matthews. Patch in Cora’s hut and let’s make this a conference call. I want to make plans for getting out of here with a minimum of fuss. You go your way and we’ll go ours. What do you say?”
“If you mean that, give me back the computer,” he answered.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just gone crazy.”
“Must be a malfunction,” I said. “I’m not doing it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Wait a minute.”
I spun through the Coil Effect. He was right. There was a massive computer malfunction in progress. Readings were skewed, systems were breaking down…
“I see it but I’m not doing it,” I said. “Let me check further.”
I dropped quickly from level to level, coming finally to the most basic place.
“It’s being caused by power surges,” I said. “Your generator’s acting up.”
“What should I do?”
“Go back to New Jersey. We’ll send you a postcard from the Caribbean.”
“Stop it, Steve!”
“Screw you, Barbeau,” I said.
I coiled again, into the systems in the shed ahead. It was a great place to keep a prisoner. Sufficiently isolated that hundreds of employees could go about their business during normal work days without suspecting anything, it had its own plumbing and food supply and airconditioning and limited communications unit. It seemed as if it had actually been designed for occasional use as a cell. Knowing Angra as I now did, I was sure that this was not the first time it had functioned in this capacity.
I froze when I read the latest message Cora had entered into the home unit:
A FAT MAN IS HIDING BEHIND THE SLAG HEAP AT THE WEST SIDE OF THE HOUSE.
That was it then. The killing power of the thing I carried had a greater range than Matthews did. And he was not a fool. I ought to be able to back him down.
“Steve! Steve!” Barbeau began to scream. “The place is on fire!”
“Then get your ass out of there!”
“I can’t! You’ve jammed the door!”
“I didn’t jam anything!”
I coiled again, but the computer was still crazy and was rapidly degenerating even further. I did manage to discover that it was a fancy electronic lock on the control center door, though, and it was indeed jammed.
“There is nothing that I can do!” I said. “You’re too far away! Get hold of a fire extinguisher and try to break out!”
“Stop it, Steve! I’ll let her go! I’ll do it your way!”
“I didn’t start it! I can’t stop it! Smash a window! Jump! Anything!”
“They’re grilled over!”
“I’m sorry!” I said. “I’m helpless!”
“I’ll get you yet!” he cried, just a few seconds before the power failed entirely.
But that few seconds was enough.
A flash like a sudden bolt of lightning blinded me. The hut toward which I was headed collapsed and began to smoulder. I heard a man scream. The public address system went dead. I began to run.