Until that moment, the state of siege in which we all lived had had no reality for me. The Project, after all, was self-sufficient and completely enclosed. No one ever left, no one ever entered. Under our roof, we were a nation, two hundred stories high. The ever-present threat of other projects had never been more for me — or for most other people either, I suspected — than occasional ore-sleds that didn’t return, occasional spies shot down as they tried to sneak into the building, occasional spies of our own leaving the Project in tiny radiation-proof cars, hoping to get safely within another project and bring back news of any immediate threats and dangers that project might be planning for us. Most spies didn’t return; most ore-sleds did. And within the Project life was full, the knowledge of external dangers merely lurking at the backs of our minds. After all, those external dangers had been no more than potential for decades, since what Dr. Kilbillie called the Ungentlemanly Gentleman’s War.
Dr. Kilbillie — Intermediate Project History, when I was fifteen years old — had private names for every major war of the twentieth century. There was the Ignoble Nobleman’s War, the Racial Non-Racial War, and the Ungentlemanly Gentleman’s War, known to the textbooks, of course, as World Wars One, Two, and Three.
The rise of the Projects, according to Dr. Kilbillie, was the result of many many factors, but two of the most important were the population explosion and the Treaty of Oslo. The population explosion, of course, meant that there was continuously more I and more people but never any more space. So that housing, in the historically short time of one century, made a complete transformation from horizontal expansion to vertical. Before 1900, the vast majority of human beings lived in tiny huts of from one to five stories. By 2000, everybody lived in Projects. From the very beginning, small attempts were made to make these Projects more than dwelling places. By mid-century, Projects (also called apartments anti co-ops) already included restaurants, shopping centers, baby-sitting services, dry cleaners and a host of other adjuncts. By the end of the century, the Projects were completely self-sufficient, with food grow n hydroponically in the sub-basements, separate floors set aside for schools and churches and factories, robot ore-sleds capable of seeking out raw materials unavailable within the Projects themselves and so on. And all because of, among other things, the population explosion.
And the Treaty of Oslo.
It seems there was a power struggle between two sets of then-existing nations (they were something like Projects, only horizontal instead of vertical) and both sets were equipped with atomic weapons. The Treaty of Oslo began by stating that atomic war was unthinkable, and added that just in case anyone happened to think of it only tactical atomic weapons could be used. No strategic atomic weapons. (A tactical weapon is something you use on the soldiers, and a strategic weapon is something you use on the folks at home.) Oddly enough, when somebody did think of the war. Both sides adhered to the Treaty of Oslo, which meant that no Projects were bombed.
Of course, they made up for this as best they could by using tactical atomic weapons all over the place. After the war almost the whole world was quite dangerously radioactive. Except for the Projects. Or at least those of them which had in time installed the force screens which had been invented on the very eve of battle, and which deflected radioactive particles.
However, what with all of the other treaties which were broken during the Ungentlemanly Gentleman’s War, by the time it was finished nobody was quite sure anymore who was on w hose side. That project over there on the horizon might be an ally. And then again it might not. Since they weren’t sure either, it was risky to expose yourself in order to ask.
And so life went on, with little to remind us of the dangers lurking outside. The basic policy of Eternal Vigilance and Instant Preparedness was left to the Army. The rest of us simply lived our lives and let it go at that.
But now there was a spy in the elevator.
When I thought of how deeply he had penetrated our defenses, and of how many others there might be, still penetrating. I shuddered. The walls were our safeguards only so long as all potential enemies were on the other side of them.
I sat shaken, digesting this news, until suddenly I remembered Linda.
I leaped to my feet, reading from my watch that it was now ten-fifteen. I dashed once more from the apartment and down the hall to the elevator, proving that the spy had been captured by now and that Linda would agree with me that a spy in the elevator was good and sufficient reason for me to be late.
He was still there. At least, the elevator was still out.
I sagged against the wall, thinking dismal thoughts. Then I noticed the door to the right of the elevator. Through the door was the stairway.
I hadn’t paid any attention to it before. No one ever uses the stairs except for adventurous young boys playing cops and robbers, running up and down from landing to landing. I myself hadn’t set foot on a flight of stairs since I was twelve years old.
Actually, the whole idea of stairs was ridiculous. We had elevators, didn’t we? Usually, I mean, when they didn’t contain spies. So what was the use of stairs?
Well, according to Dr. Kilbillie (a walking library of unnecessary information), the Project had been built when there still had been such things as municipal governments (something to do with dries, which were more or less grouped Projects), and the local municipal government had had on its books a fire ordinance, anachronistic even then, which required a complete set of stairs in every building constructed in the city. Ergo, the Project had stairs, thirty-two hundred of them.
And now, after all these years, the stairs might prove useful after all. It was only thirteen flights to Linda’s floor. At sixteen steps a flight, that meant two hundred and eight steps.
Could I descend two hundred and eight steps for my true love? I could. If the door would open.
It would, though reluctantly. Who knew how many years it had been since last this door had been opened? It squeaked and waited and groaned and finally opened half way. I stepped through to the musty, dusty landing, took a deep breath, and started down. Eight steps and a landing, eight steps and a floor. Eight steps and a landing, eight steps and a floor.
On the landing between one fifty and one forty-nine, there was a smallish door. I paused, looking curiously at it, and saw that at one time letters had been painted on it. The letters had long since flaked away, but they left a lighter residue of dust than that which covered the rest of the door. And so the words could still be read, if with difficulty.
I read them. They said:
EMERGENCY ENTRANCE
ELEVATOR SHAFT
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
KEEP LOCKED
I frowned, wondering immediately why this door wasn’t being firmly guarded by at least a platoon of Army men. Half a dozen possible answers flashed through my mind. The more recent maps might simply have omitted this discarded and unnecessary door. It might be sealed shut on the other side. The Army might have caught the spy already. Somebody in authority might simply have goofed.
As I stood there, pondering these possibilities, the door opened and the spy came out, waving a gun.
III
He couldn’t have been anyone else but the spy. The gun, in the first place. The fact that he looked harried and upset and terribly nervous, in the second place. And, of course, the fact that he came from the elevator shaft.