Burstein, Michael A - Gadget Man

VIP免费

2024-12-18 0 0 156.41KB 49 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt

CHAPTER 1

The mad girl flashed angrily across the bright tower room and interfered with the view of the

riot. Two plainclothes therapists dived into the big circular room on her trail, apologetic, and

hunkered so as to leave the tinted windows clear for watching. The girl, thin and fair, shrugged

out of reach of the lead therapist and ran straight at Sergeant James Xavier Hecker. He was

already up out of his vinyl wing chair, reaching one calming hand to her. "Just be easy now," he

said.

In the chair next to his, Therapist-in-Chief Weeman said, "Halt, Mrs. Gibbons." He stretched over

and slapped the slim girl with his clip-on stunrod. She stiffened just short of touching Hecker.

"Why that?" asked Hecker, steadying the girl's now paralyzed body.

"We strive to give our more hopeful patients a semblance of autonomy and free motion," said

Weeman. He breast-pocketed the stunrod in his lime-green tunic. "Incidents can't be encouraged,

but on the other side of the token, neither should they be subdued with too drastic means."

The two therapists hesitated, hands extending, unobtrusively, for the caught patient. Hecker said,

"It'll take her two hours to come out of that." He let the two wide men carry the girl away and

out of the top tower of the Rehab Center.

Weeman tugged at his blond beard, as though he suddenly suspected it was false. "I find your

concern for a disturbed suburban housewife, a girl you don't even know, to be almost fascinating."

"Why don't you turn those Kendry files over, and I'll take off." Hecker was a lean man, tall and

slightly bent, with a bony face and too big hands. The Social Wing of the Police Corps had allowed

him to grow a shaggy mustache, but would probably not promote him much beyond sergeant.

Therapist-in-Chief Weeman's small, tidy lap was filled with carded microfilm.. He let some of the

fingers of his left hand dance on the film and nodded at the view windows. "I wish you shared my

fascination with these riots, though your reasons for not doing so are best known to yourself.

That one occurring down there in Citrus Knolls right now seems rich in fascination. I've monitored

all the recent suburban riots in the area, but this is the first one to take place in, as you

might say, my own back yard."

Far below and across an artificial river, a troop of cub scouts had just put torches to the

community recreation center, and to the immediate left of that a mob of graying matrons were

lobbing plastic bombs into the main building of the tennis club. The majority of the members of

the Veterans of the Chinese Invasion were chucking surplus grenades into patios and rock gardens

all along Citrus Knolls's wide and neatly pastoral streets and lanes. Over two thousand of the

residents of the planned suburb, a good third of its population, were involved in the rioting and

looting. "Here come the troops," said Hecker, turning his back on the windows.

Weeman toggled a switch on his chair arm, and television screens on the blind wall of the

rehabilitation center tower snapped alive. "I want a better look at all this. These initial

confrontations between the dazed citizens and the Army of the Republic of Southern California are

little less than fascinating."

Hecker glanced up at the images of the lime-and-lemon uniformed Republic of Southern California

soldiers marching with locked arms down the main esplanade of Citrus Knolls. "The Kendry files,"

he repeated.

"What do you, as a representative of the Social Wing, a division of our Southern California

government I can't help believing is more liberal than necessary, think causes these outbreaks in

our best suburbs, Sergeant?" Weeman twisted new curls into his full beard, ticked his head

forward. The army was apparently using stun gas, and the screen showed people slowing and

freezing, still clutching torches and bombs and bright new rifles.

"The riots are the Junta's business," said Hecker. "They govern the Republic of Southern

California."

"You seem reluctant to express an opinion that is solidly yours, Sergeant Hecker."

"I just work here."

"Look at that," said Weeman. "That little old lady sniped one of the cameramen off the roof of the

United Methodist." He studied then the microfilm between his legs, watched Hecker for several long

seconds. "Some people, a small but vocal minority, consider the cause of the riots to be the

recent tightening of law enforcement and the additional troops being garrisoned in some of our

larger secured towns and cities. What do you, Sergeant Hecker, feel about the notion that the

Junta has ruled the Republic with undue strictness in recent years?"

"Since my branch of the Police Corps is under the jurisdiction of the Junta, you don't have to

ask," Hecker told him. He paced away from the seated therapist, watching, briefly, the smoke

columns fuse into a thick black smear in the bright afternoon sky.

"Younger people," said Weeman, "forget how things were back in nineteen eighty-one and those

years. Before the Chinese Commandos were defeated in the Battle of Glendale, there were many, not

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt (1 of 49) [2/14/2004 12:31:43 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt

deluded but calm and rational people, who felt Red China would successfully carry off its land

invasion of Southern California."

"If Southern California hadn't seceded from the Union in nineteen-eighty, things wouldn't have

happened as they did."

"The President of the United States, even though his country was falling apart, should have

supported us," said Weeman. "Had the Junta not been formed, merging our best Southern California

military and industrial brainpower into one dedicated and loyal ruling think tank, there would

have been black days for the Republic. You, a man in his middle or late twenties, don't remember

those bad times."

"Probably not." Hecker returned and sat next to the Therapist-in-Chief. "I have a contact point to

be at by tonight."

"This has been, thanks to younger residents of the Republic such as yourself, Sergeant Hecker,

rightly christened the `Age of Anxiety'." Weeman twined his stubby fingers in the swatch of beard

beneath his chin. "Myself, Sergeant Hecker, I favor the conspiracy theory to explain the riots.

These most recent suburban riots-- there's a strange and fascinating quality to them." He freed

his fingers from his facial hair and indicated the burning and fighting below. "Social

repressions, supposed injustices and unlawful restraints, don't invoke the kind of mania we're

witnessing at this moment, Sergeant Hecker. A thoughtful examination of the sweeping panorama of

riot history tells us that citizens in comfortable one-hundred-thousand-dollar homes in landscaped

and secured areas should not loot and burn. They're not blacks, are they, most of them?" He

bundled the microfilm cards and tossed them across to Hecker. "The classic riots in the United

States and, especially because of our near-tropic climate, in Southern California, have

traditionally been the work of militant black men, Sergeant Hecker. And sometimes the fiery

Mexican-American. Though you may not be aware, at this remote place in time, of that."

"We studied those riots in school," said Hecker. He thumbed through the cards, holding them next

up to the overhead lights in turn. "Most of this information on the Kendry family we have in our

Social Wing files. I thought you had some extra stuff that couldn't be trusted to transmission."

Weeman drew a last card from beneath his narrow thigh. "Some background material on Jane Kendry.

Tests and projections done during the brief period when she was a ward of the Rehab system. What

exactly is your mission for S.W., Sergeant?"

Hecker took the new card in one big-knuckled hand, walked to a wall microfilm reader and inserted

the card. "You were told that when the Social Wing requested this interview."

"That story wasn't a cover then? Somebody in the Kendry clan has sent the Social Wing word that

they have information on the cause of the riots?"

"The nature of the information sent and the procedures suggested tend to indicate the Kendry

family or some of their followers may be involved," Hecker said. The-young face of a lean, intense

girl rolled into view on the screen of the reader. She had smooth, tan skin, hair of a red-gold

color, long. "Jane Kendry," muttered Hecker to himself.

"Seven years ago," said Weeman. "She was fifteen then, coltish. Her wild father and a bunch of the

clan broke her out of a minimum-security Rehab Center down near the Laguna Sector. Lovely marine

view there. She's a quirky girl, and I believe that it is Jane Kendry who runs that band of

guerrillas, that growing band of guerrillas. Her father, old Jess, is in his middle sixties now,

ridden with addictions and badly healed wounds. At first the guerrillas were all Kendry family,

but in recent years the ranks have been swollen with other types of dissidents and anarchists.

Jane is a tough girl, Sergeant Hecker, and you won't find that hopeful look the picture there

shows us. Not any more with Jane Kendry. Is she your contact?"

"I don't know," said Hecker. "Our information isn't that specific. We have a contact point fairly

close to one of the unsecured towns the Kendrys are thought to sometimes operate in. There's a

safe-conduct pass of sorts. I came here to fill myself in on the Kendrys more thoroughly."

Therapist-in-Chief Weeman rose up behind Hecker. "You look quite unlike a policeman, even a Social

Wing one, in your civilian clothes." He flickered a sequence of toggles and the view windows

blanked, the monitor screens died. "Listen to me now, Sergeant Hecker. I worked on the Kendry

girl's case down there in Laguna Sector seven years ago. I liked her and felt I was reaching her.

We could work together on her problems and conflicts. Then those wild men came in and smashed

things and wrenched her away."

Hecker stopped reading the micro file. "So?"

"I have authority to bring her in for rehabilitation," he said, moving closer to the Social Wing

sergeant. "If she wishes, we can help her. Fit her back into the legitimate processes of the

Republic of Southern California. She's a girl with fascinating potential."

"She may not want back in. Her exile is probably voluntary."

"We often think that, Sergeant, and we are often wrong," said the therapist. "If you see Jane

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt (2 of 49) [2/14/2004 12:31:43 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt

Kendry, offer. Tell her Therapist-in-Chief-- No, she knew me as Associate Therapist and without

the beard, younger-- tell her Dr. Weeman can get her safe conduct here to the Pasadena Rehab

Center. It could be her only chance."

Hecker frowned. "Wait now. Why her only chance?"

"You may, Sergeant Hecker, have some competition in your quest for Jane Kendry."

"And I may not even see her," he said. "But who else is searching for her?"

"Are you familiar with Second Lieutenant Same?"

"Norman Same? He's with the Manipulation Council. Why do they want Jane Kendry?"

"Why does Manipulation usually want people?" said the therapist. "The Junta must have locked her

away or - forgive the dark thought - simply killed her. The guerrillas are trouble, and Second

Lieutenant Same, who has been here too, seeking background material, believes Jane Kendry leads

the guerrillas."

"Maybe there's been a leak in the Social Wing, if Same has been here already." Hecker clicked his

bony thumb against his teeth. "We'll see, then."

"You get to her and tell her to be careful," said Weeman. "Once she's here in Rehab I can

guarantee they won't touch her. Believe me, Sergeant Hecker, when I tell you I can really help

Jane Kendry."

"I'll tell her," said Hecker. "Now I'll retrieve my hopper from your roof port and get on."

On the highest roof of the five-towered Rehab Center, Hecker could see Citrus Knolls burning away,

blackening the day. His unmarked Social Wing hopper was not in the reserved slot of the rooftop

landing area. Two orange-uniformed soldiers of the R.S.C. Army were squatting where the small

heliplane had been.

"Looking for your machine?" asked one of the soldiers, bouncing inquisitively and making his

buttocks smack the topping lightly.

"Yes, indeed," said Hecker. He, being in civilian clothes, had his blaster pistol cupped under his

arm and not quickly accessible. "You boys take it?"

"Sorry, Sarge," said the other soldier. They were both young privates. "We needed extra wings, and

the order went out. Your Social Wing reported an unmarked hopper parked here, signed out to

Sergeant James Xavier Hecker, and it was picked up. They got your hopper over to Citrus Knolls,

using it to dust stun powder on the folks trying to dismantle the shopping plaza."

Hecker surveyed the roof. There was a pitted old surplus hopper, with the A.R.S.C. insignia still

vaguely visible on its side, parked nearby. "Who does that one belong to?"

"That's for you if you want to use it," said the bouncing private. "Corporal Bozes said you could

use it. That's why we hung around - to be helpful. That clunk isn't much for altitude, and there's

not enough armor on its belly. Those humping snipers can set your tail on fire easy enough as it

is, without flying over in a thing like that."

"I hope it'll do for me," said Hecker. "I have an appointment."

"Plenty good for Social Wing purposes," said the private and bounced again.

In five minutes Hecker was in the air. He had to be in San Emanuel Sector, a beach town beyond the

Laguna Sector, by nightfall. The town was not one the military rated as secured, and he could

expect no help from any officials of the R.S.C. or the Police Corps once he got there. The old

army hopper, which he'd have to ditch before he got in sight of San Emanuel, chugged through the

sky. It strained for altitude, whining, for nearly a half hour, then began making rumpling,

pocking sounds and dropped from the sky toward a stretch of scrubby beach. Hecker's safety straps

snapped as he tried to right the ship. When the crash came, he was slammed hard into the control

panel.

CHAPTER 2

The hopper was moving away from him in pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle dissolving. There were

weathered, gritty hands all around him and raw smells of the sea and strong spices. Gray clothes

and close-cropped hair. Hecker caught at himself and sat back. Hands were sliding through his

clothes, and one hand snapped out his packet of identification material, another got his pistol.

Since he'd passed into Rehab Center on retinal and voice prints, the packet contained only the

faked papers he was to use on his trip into the unsecured towns. Plus the dog-eared business card

with the drawing of a gull on it, the one which had come into Social Wing headquarters with the

message from the possible Kendry contact.

Hands had found the card and someone said, "Kendry pass. Leave him safe and alive."

Hecker's pistol was returned, tucked back into its pouch and patted. "Scavengers," he said, seeing

a little better. "Beach people." The old army hopper was dismantled completely, and its pilot

seat, still holding Hecker, was tipped in a clump of beach scrub. The sky had thinned and the wind

had grown warm. It was late in the afternoon now, and when Hecker touched at his head he found a

swelling spreading across the left side of his face, a smear of dry blood in its center.

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt (3 of 49) [2/14/2004 12:31:43 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt

The man with his hands still on Hecker was old, sixty-five or more, and dry with age and sun.

"Want to talk, you can talk. Want to eat you can eat. Want to hide, you can hide. I'm Rius." He

seemed to have too many ribs. They lined his thin body in places where there shouldn't be ribs.

"The military won't venture into this stretch. You find yourself in the Manhattan Beach Sector,

south of Venice."

"I've got to," said Hecker, letting Rius help him to stand, "get to San Emanuel by tonight."

"He does know the Kendrys," said a tall, blonde girl. She was wearing a pair of thin gray shorts

and mismatched souvenir moccasins.

"We're free and easy here," Rius told him. He had a plastic bag of green chili peppers in the

pocket of his shorts. "He doesn't have to talk. Or share."

"I seem to have already shared my hopper with you," said Hecker. He found he could walk and took

himself clear of the grasp of the old man.

"Rights of salvage," said Rius. "An ancient law of the sea." He bit a pepper in half and pointed

with the uneaten portion at the Pacific Ocean.

The glare of the sun on the water made Hecker turn away. Along the beach were scattered fifty

people, most of them dressed as simply as Rius and the blonde. Hecker stretched out a long, lanky

arm and took his identification folder from Rius, along with Kendry card. "Much obliged."

"Would you," asked the blonde, "like to talk about your problems? Are you thinking of quitting the

formal culture up there in the Republic?"

"He's free to talk or not to talk," reminded Rius, starting another chili pepper. "That's the way

we are here."

"If you'd like to talk about what business you have with the Kendrys," said the tall blonde, who

had small breasts, "you can do that, too."

A plump, pale man with his hair recently cropped padded over the sand and squinted at Hecker.

"They didn't mention you till now. I'm Dr. Jay V. Leavitt. What happened? Oh, no, that's right...

you don't have to tell me. That's how it is here."

"My hopper crashed, and then you guys dismantled it for scrap," said Hecker. "I'll talk freely

about that. My head hit the instrument panel in the crash because the safety belts snapped."

"I bet nobody even asked you how you came by that old army hopper," said the doctor.

"I borrowed it."

The doctor smiled. and shrugged. "My wife lets me spend a month down here each spring. May I feel

your head?"

"Sure."

"We live in a condominium in Pacific Palisades. It's our second condominium. The first one we

owned fell into the ocean. But I don't have to worry about things like that here." He poked his

sandy fingers at Hecker's swollen face. "I'm not even sterile. I hope it won't cause an

infection."

"Don't worry yourself."

"No brain damage, I guess." The doctor thumbed down Hecker's lower eyelids. Then rapped his head.

"And no sign of a fracture. I bet you don't even have much of a concussion. You could rest up here

on the beach a couple of days if you like, though I'm not prescribing. The nights get cold but we

build fires."

"I'm en route to San Emanuel."

"You should talk of Marsloff and Percher," Dr. Leavitt told him. He screwed his forefinger around

in the pocket of his new gray shorts. "I had some Band-Aids in here. No, all used up."

"Who are Marsloff and Percher?"

"Drive one of the land trucks," said the blonde girl. "They're going to try to get down to the San

Diego Sector tonight with a load of salvage. Dr. Leavitt is probably suggesting you could catch a

ride as far as San Emanuel with them. If he doesn't mind you speaking for him."

"Not at all," replied the doctor. "You're a very bright girl. Were you possibly a receptionist or

dental-hygiene nurse up in the Republic?"

"Only a housewife," said the blonde. "I could never have any satisfactory conversations with my

husband. He's in riot control research and used to bring new equipment home to try out." To Hecker

she said, "You have to be a little careful of Percher. He's a gadget freak."

"Oh," said Hecker. He'd worked with gadget cases in the Social Wing.

"A gadget freak is a person," explained Dr. Leavitt, "who uses machines and appliances in

unnatural ways to produce electric brain stimulation and other potentially dangerous, though

momentarily pleasurable, effects. Unlicensed electric brain stimulation was outlawed well over two

years ago by the Junta."

"Where's his partner, this Marsloff?" asked Hecker.

"They're both of them off down there." The blonde indicated the location with a turn of her head.

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt (4 of 49) [2/14/2004 12:31:43 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt

"See the old fallen-down beach restaurant that says POOR BOY on its side. Their truck is hidden in

there. Marsloff is the big and dark-haired man leaning on the rail. Percher's a little blond

fellow. He's in their truck probably."

"He rewired an electric mixer to stimulate himself with last night," said the doctor sadly. "A

bright young man otherwise, when he's not comatose."

"You should have been here when he got inside a rebuilt soft-drinks machine," said the blonde.

"Want me to walk over with you?"

"Sure," said Hecker. She started down the sand, and he moved in beside her. "Been out here long?"

"A year, I guess. My name's Hildy. You don't have to tell me yours. We don't care here."

"James Xavier Hecker." His fake papers had used his real name.

"I read your I.D. packet. `Jim' do they call you?"

" `Hecker' usually," said Hecker.

"Hey, Marsloff. Rius says it's okay if you help this guy." She stopped a few yards from the big

man. "He knows the Kendrys. He wants a lift south."

Marsloff strode over. He had gray-black hair, short on his head and long and swirling on most of

his body. "Can you drive a truck?"

"Yes."

"My partner, Percher, is a gadget freak. He found half a dozen old-fashioned electric toothbrushes

this morning, and he's knocked himself blooey again in the cab of our truck. Has his own portable

generator back in what used to be the pantry of the cafe. He's in a coma right this minute."

"Shouldn't you get Leavitt to look at him?"

"This isn't the Republic," said Marsloff. "He always comes out of it. He doesn't favor anybody

tinkering with him when he's having one of his comas. I'll leave him here in the shack, under a

quilt, for this haul. You watch him a little, Hildy?"

"If you like."

Marsloff studied the westering sun. "We'll leave in a half hour. How far south?"

"San Emanuel," said Hecker. The sunlight wasn't bothering him as much now.

"You know the Kendrys, then." Marsloff grinned. "Percher smuggled in some beer from the Tijuana

Enclave, real Mexican beer. It's warm because he's been using the ice machine on himself. Wait

here and I'll get us a couple bottles. We can cool them off in the ocean." He patted Hecker and

the girl on their backs and climbed over fallen wood and plaster into the remnants of the seashore

cafe.

CHAPTER 3

The hanging sign that caught the night wind said GIACOMO OF SAN EMANUEL on it. The sign flapped

over the doorway of a building that was gone. There were only traces of a collapsed wharf out this

close to the ocean now, fragments of restaurants and shops. It was his contact point, and Hecker

stood there on a firm section of wharf, hearing nothing except the dark water moving across the

cluttered sand below the pilings. There were mounds of seashells dotting this section of San

Emanuel beach, twists of dead seaweed. The wind carried what looked like a tatter of red-checkered

tablecloth up above Hecker's head, and the cloth fought and twisted, fluttering free and fading

into the darkness among the fallen timbers and planking. He thought of the girl who had tried to

reach him in the Rehabilitation Tower.

"See the card. Let's see the card," said a boy's voice.

Hecker carefully turned. "What card?"

The boy was too small for his age. He seemed to be about fifteen and was barely five feet tall.

His legs were thin and subtly twisted, and his arms were thin, too, and bent in wrong ways. He was

holding a big shaggy cat in his arms, close to his bare chest. "I'm a younger brother," he told

Hecker. "An adopted brother, actually. I'm Kendry, though." The cat was limp but awake. It lolled

comfortably, watching Hecker with its round yellow-green eyes.

"Tell me the cat's name," said Hecker.

"Burrwick," the boy said, "if you have to have the countersign crap. Now let's see the card. Fetch

it out slowly or you'll feel some steel in your fat ribs."

"I look fat to you?" Hecker drew out the I.D. packet located the card with a gull drawn on it in

pale-blue writing fluid.

The boy took the card, held it near his face. "Everybody seems fat. I hid from the soldiers too

long, missed out on too many meals. They call that malnutrition, you know, all that business with

vitamins and minerals. I read up on it all but haven't been able to change myself much so far."

"Don't be discouraged," said Hecker. "It takes patience. Can you tell me who sent you to meet me?"

"Not allowed to." The cat mewed once, tapped on the boy's narrow chest. "I'm to guide you to a

conclave. A family gathering mostly, a Kendry thing. Be hundreds there, Kendrys and other of the

guerrillas. Though some of the real good underground fighters don't go for these kind of

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt (5 of 49) [2/14/2004 12:31:43 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt

festivities. Guerrillas grew out of the Kendry clan. Kendrys been pouring into this part of

California since long time before everything fell apart. You're to palm yourself off as a cousin

by marriage to old Mace Kendry. Use your real name, or whatever name you're traveling under. You

married Mace's second oldest daughter, Reesie. They were both ridden down by the R.S.C. Army, are

dead now. You been in a solitary cell down in San Pedro Sector since shortly after you got married

two years ago. You were let out on the Junta's last birthday amnesty two years ago. You got this

card - here, take it back- from Mace one time, and you heard about tonight's gathering in a bar in

Venice named Uncle Avram's. Can you remember all this crap?"

"Most of it."

"Better get it all straight. Mace, in case somebody asks, had his left arm missing from just below

the elbow due to a Police Corps blaster. Reesie was a tall girl, big-boned with bad front teeth.

Okay-looking, but too meaty." The boy rubbed the cat's stomach. "With a couple hundred at least

Kendrys together, there's likely to be some want to kill you for the sport. If you give them the

added inspiration of lying and stumbling in your yarn, you'll surely feel steel from several

directions."

"Thanks," said Hecker. "What's your name?"

"It isn't part of the password crap." The boy beckoned Hecker to follow him.

Walking away from the fallen wharf, Hecker said, "I wanted to know just for myself."

"Jack," said the boy.

"Jack."

"Know where I got that name?"

"No." They turned onto a street that wound between still-standing but long-vacant shops and

hotels. The municipal trees had grown wild, and there was a thick tangle of branches and leaves

overhead.

"Off that sign back there. Giacomo. That's Jack, more or less, in Italian. I like it down there,

down by the water. Especially at night. Have you ever heard of people like that?"

"Sure, Jack. Many."

"Most Kendrys don't figure so."

"But you do," said Hecker. "Can you tell me, by the way, who's going to contact me at this family

gathering?"

"Not that either. It will happen, don't fret." They walked two blocks higher, and then the cat

yowled, its hair stood up, and its tail went thick and erect. "Getting close."

The cat yowled again, twisted and jumped to Jack's shoulders and then off into the night. "He

doesn't much like Kendrys?" remarked Hecker.

"They're good people, but not much given to gentleness." The thin boy pointed at a rusted and

twisted hurricane fence across the street. They were at the rear of a defunct public school

complex, and the school gymnasium was bright with light and noise. "Gate's fallen in. Go on

through and down to the gym. Tell your story. Luck to you. I'm no partygoer."

"Okay. Thanks, Jack."

"You have a name?"

"James Xavier Hecker."

Gadget Man

"Xavier part is good. I might assimilate that sometime. Good-by." He drifted back and away into

the dark beneath the trees, and Hecker headed for the loud, shining gymnasium.

***

A big woman in a sleeveless leather dress handed Hecker a second piece of fried chicken. "Look at

the way she carries herself," she shouted. "Smug, provocative."

"A constant worry to her father," shouted the graying woman on Hecker's left. "Guerrilla warfare

is hard enough without trying to keep tags on a snooty daughter with a mind of her own." She

grabbed an avocado off the abundant banquet table, split it with a knife sheathed on her dappled

thigh. She popped out the big egglike seed and passed half the avocado to Hecker. "Eat this,

Cousin Jim. You're mighty underweight."

"Just look at her," shouted the big woman. "Straight as a rail and no flesh to speak of. Are they

partial to skinny women in your neck of the Republic, Cousin Jimmy?"

Before Hecker could reply, one of the Kendry boys grabbed him away from the food corner of the

ramshackle gymnasium and pulled him through half of the several hundred people jammed together on

the yellow flooring. "Game, Cousin Jim," he shouted. A six-foot-tall man, a shade over thirty, in

cut-down noga suit, his hair long in ringlets. "We're going to play pumpkin ball."

"Okay by me," Hecker said.

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt (6 of 49) [2/14/2004 12:31:43 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt

"Bet your ass," shouted the Kendry boy. "I'm Rollo."

"Good to know you, Cousin Rollo."

"Second Cousin," said Rollo. "Eat up that avocado and hunk of chicken and we'll get going. See the

basket up there?"

Hecker tilted his head back. Up high in the smoke and haze the old gymnasium basketball goal still

hung. "That I do, Second Cousin Rollo."

"The object of this game is to kick the pumpkin up through there. Fun for all concerned." He

whacked Hecker and sent him into a circle of eight Kendry boys. Three fat orange pumpkins were

huddled in the circle center. "Cousin Jim gets first kick."

"I already have been promised it," said Milo Kendry, who'd introduced himself earlier.

"Bullshit," said Rollo. "Cousin James is our guest, you lout."

"Don't bullshit me," replied Milo. He grabbed up the biggest pumpkin and smashed it on Rollo's

head.

"Don't go spoiling the game," said another Kendry. He backed and kicked one of the remaining

pumpkins. It rose up toward the metal-raftered ceiling, spun awkwardly, fell toward the musicians'

stand.

A dozen Kendrys were on the narrow makeshift platform, playing amplified fiddles and banjos. The

Kendry with the hand microphone had been singing a song whose lyrics consisted of the word "stomp"

reiterated. The pumpkin dropped on the end of the mike and was impaled there. The singer went on

singing.

Rollo snatched a coil of rusty barbed wire out of his jacket pocket, wrapped it around his fist

and swung on Milo. He roared, shook pumpkin seeds from his locks, and slashed again.

"You like to give me tetanus, you dummy," shouted Milo. "Lockjaw or something, you dumb bunny." He

kicked Rollo in the stomach.

Another Kendry pulled Hecker away from the thwarted game. "Hello, Cousin Jim. I'm your Uncle Fred.

What do you think about Jess's last will and testament?"

"You mean Jane's father?"

"Jess left all his possessions to her, he says. I don't think he's been quite right since Jane's

mother passed on. Army got her with a new gas they introduced that year," said Uncle Fred. He was

broad and tall, but gone to fat. "Insurgents shouldn't have a girl up front. Women are for

homebody stuff. You feel like punching somebody around. A woman is handy for that, too. I used to

like to stump them, but I'm aging beyond that. Women are okay for stumping but not to lead a band

of guerrillas. You getting enough to eat?"

"Yes, fine," said Hecker.

"See these teeth," said Uncle Fred, grinning. "My third set this month. Stole them in a raid on

the Santa Monica Sector. These younger kids, their idea of fun is to kick an old man in the face.

I don't mind their funning some, but it costs me a set of teeth every damn time. You get old and

you get sentimental about your teeth. That will of Jess's, though, is a bad thing. Isn't that the

way you see it?"

"I figure Jess knows what he's doing," Hecker ducked a flying fragment of pumpkin.

"This conclave isn't like the ones we used to have," shouted Uncle Fred.

A man with feathery white hair stepped up and tapped Uncle Fred on the bicep. He was a straight-

standing man, tall and leathery. "Complaining about something?"

"Just the food, Jess. Food's not like it used to be. Chicken isn't like it used to be. Potatoes

aren't like they used to be. Even the lettuce is different."

"You aren't like you used to be either," said Jess Kendry the leader of the clan and of the

guerrillas. He smiled at Hecker. "You're supposed to be Cousin Jim?"

"Good to see you," said Jess, holding out his hand. "Be sure you get to say hello to Jane." He

narrowed his left eye, said to Uncle Fred, "Jane's a bright girl, a born leader. Fred'll tell you

that."

"I already have, Jess."

A grinning Kendry jumped on Jess's back, and Jess, without looking around, bent and airplane-spun

the grinning Kendry off and into the nearest wall. "There's my daughter Jane over there. Trot over

and pay your respects, Cousin Jim."

Hecker had noticed the girl before, had her pointed out by relatives in the crowd. She was tall,

nearly five feet eight slender. Her hair was darker now than in the days of the Rehab pictures. It

was long and straight. She was wearing a pair of boy's tapered khaki trousers and a sleeveless

white pullover. Her tan face was slightly flushed. Hecker edged toward her. On the way, someone

put a chicken wing in his hand, and someone else punched him in the kidneys. "Thought I'd

introduce myself, Cousin Jane," said Hecker.

She had been standing silent, not looking at anything. She blinked her gray eyes, and a slight

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt (7 of 49) [2/14/2004 12:31:43 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt

smile touched her lips. "You're Jim. I had something to discuss with you."

"Oh?"

"Problem of a lost cat."

"His name is?"

"Burrwick," she said. "He spends much of his time down at the waterfront."

"Around Giacomo's?"

"That's him." Her hand touched his arm. "Walk with me over near that exit, and I can talk to you."

"Fine," said Hecker.

She studied his face as they moved toward the arched doorway. "You didn't get hurt here, did you?"

"No, earlier." Hecker had forgotten the traces of the hopper crash on his face.

Jane stopped, back to the wall. "You know," she said quietly, "something about what we're up to."

"You want to topple the Junta."

"And you work for them."

"The Social Wing isn't always obliged to agree with the Junta."

"Perhaps," said the girl. "I took a chance on that. The Kendrys and those who've joined us are

getting blamed for these riots. That kind of rebellion, burning and looting, I'm not opposed to.

If the motives behind it could be used by us. From what I've picked up, these riots won't do us

any good. They really are prompted by someone on the outside. Someone who wants to use them

against the Junta."

"You sure?"

"I've gathered enough fragments of information to put together a picture," said Jane. "There are

people in the Republic of Southern California who think the Junta is much too mild. I'm afraid

they're the ones behind the riots in the suburbs. Should they take over, which is a possibility,

conditions will grow even worse. Our attempts to get a good government for the Republic will be

set back. It's difficult enough now."

"Who," asked Hecker, "do you think is behind these riots and how do they do it?"

"The "how" I don't know," Jane said. "As to "who", the only name I have is not really a name. I

keep hearing about somebody called Gadget Man."

"Gadget Man?"

The girl said, "I know where you can start looking for a more definite lead. There's some link

between this Gadget Man and Nathan E. Westlake, though I haven't been able to investigate that

yet. I feel it's time to bring in someone official on this."

"Nathan E. Westlake, the former Vice-president of the United States?"

"That Westlake, yes. Get to him and investigate. You should find out something."

"He's running that dance pavilion up in the Santa Monica Sector now . . . " began Hecker. He

stopped, frowned at the bandstand.

Jane's glance followed his. "What is it?"

"There, by the music," he said carefully. "That's Second Lieutenant Same."

The girl caught his knobby hand. "The Manipulation Council man. You didn't tell him to come here?"

"No," said Hecker. "I haven't called in a report since I left Social Wing headquarters. They

already knew, of course, that I had a contact to make someplace in San Emanuel. There must be a

leak in S.W. somewhere, Same must have had spotters around town waiting for me to show up. Then I

was followed here." He looked straight at her. "I didn't set you up, Jane. It is you Same wants,

though."

The girl watched his face again. "Yes, okay, you aren't lying. He must have men surrounding us."

"Maybe," said Hecker. "Same usually likes to work alone or with a small complement of men. Tactics

he prefers to numbers."

Jane turned, her cheeks hollowing and her eyes narrowing. She caught her father's attention in the

crowd and gave him a series of unobtrusive hand signals. "We worked this sign language out when I

was a kid. Okay, come this way. There's an emergency exit through that locker room. I doubt he'll

try to round up the whole clan. Dad and the boys can fight out of here should they have to." She

walked casually toward an archway marked BOYS' LOCKER ROOMS.

Hecker came with her, and in five minutes they were outside in the night. On a wooded hillside.

Suddenly below them a Police Corps hopper, bright-lit and lemon-yellow, came dropping down out of

the dark above the gym. Hand torches popped on in the weedy playing fields surrounding the gym.

Two dozen at least, illuminating -orange tunic sleeves and lime-green trouser legs.

"A raid," said Jane. She hesitated, then pulled Hecker away with her. "Dad can handle this. We'll

go wait in our camp."

From behind a white pine a few yards in front of them, a glow of light appeared, flickering on an

aluminum pistol. "No one to leave this area now," spoke a Police Corps man.

"It's okay," said Hecker, stepping in the direction of the bobbing hand light. "I'm with the..."

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt (8 of 49) [2/14/2004 12:31:43 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt

The blaster crackled before he finished, and his trouser leg caught fire.

Another blaster sizzled from behind him. The P.C. man's hand flamed in the dark, went black. The

aluminum pistol pinwheeled and was lost in the brush. Jane was next to the man as he tottered

toward falling. She struck him twice at the base of the skull, and he fell fast and was still.

"How are you?" asked Jane. She looked not at Hecker but at the woods, listening. "No more P.C. men

around here, it seems."

Hecker had slapped the flames out and found beneath the fresh-burnt hole in his pants that his leg

was barely scorched. "Nothing. I'm fine. You?"

"Yes."

"He didn't give me time to identify myself."

"Often happens. Come on."

"Where?"

"I told you. To our camp. You can hide out with us for a little."

"I don't have to hide out."

"No, but I suggest we get the hell away from here. Now and fast."

Hecker reflected a second. Then agreed.

CHAPTER 4

Out in center field Hecker paced in a small half-circle, sideways, his big knurly hands on his

knees. The sun was straight above, and the rolling field glared green. Hecker watched the big

Kendry up at bat and also scanned the area for some sight of Jane. The girl had slipped out of

this temporary camp sometime after breakfast. While searching for her, wanting more information on

Gadget Man, Hecker had been recruited by Milo and Rollo Kendry to play softball.

The batter hit. The ball came spinning out toward, Hecker, but continued on over his head. Hecker

trotted after the ball. Beyond this overgrown picnic ground was a wide path and then a synthetic

moat. On the other side of the moat rose a stucco mountain, two stories high. A nearly obliterated

wooden sign was hanging tentatively to the wrought-iron fence guarding the moat. WELLES PARK

ZOO/MONKEY ISLAND. The softball smacked the sign, dislodging it, and then bounced over the moat

and came to rest on the island.

Hecker pulled up short of the low rusty ironwork. He knuckled at his shaggy mustache, squinted one

eye at the ball. A naked fat girl came out of one of the monkey caves and waved at him with

wiggling fingers. "Woowee," she inquired, "isn't it too hot for baseball, cousin?"

"Not for the real aficionado," replied Hecker. "Can you toss me the ball?"

"I'm clumsy in athletics," said the plump girl. She jabbed a thumb in the direction of the game.

"Indoor sports for me, if you get my drift." She bent, jiggling, and grabbed up the softball. "We,

me and some of my distant boy relatives, are in here having a gang-bang. Keeps you out of the sun

on these woowee kind of sultry days."

She was about to toss the ball when a large Kendry boy, clad in the lower half of a suit of

thermal underwear, popped out of the murky cave. He whacked the naked girl on her freckled

buttocks, and she and the ball rolled down the side of the monkey island and into the moat. Muddy

water and dry leaves splashed high. "Woowee," said the Kendry boy, his shoulder-length hair

waving. "Now that's humor." He grinned across at Hecker. "There are a lot of humorless bastards in

the Republic, cousin."

Hecker said, "No wonder you're hot. That's winter underwear."

The giant boy inserted a thumb under the waistband of the buff-colored underwear. "No, it's a

fetish. I can't do nothing without I wear these."

A chubby middle-aged man, bald and blackbeared, came from the cave bent low. "You dumb, creepy

bastard," he said. "You go and start playing jokes before I even took my second turn."

"Woowee," said the underwear-clad Kendry. He clutched the complaining man by the beard and

pinwheeled him into the murky water. "Oh, that's funnier than the first."

Hecker nodded at the scummy moat water where the bearded man was dog-paddling. "She hasn't come up

yet."

"Alice likes to swim underwater. See, this here moat connects with the alligator house over there.

Whenever we camp here, Alice does this. Swims underwater over into there and surfaces on the

alligator promenade."

"You've thrown her in the moat before?"

"A good joke bears repeating, cousin" He shook his head. "I'm afraid, though, you're not going to

find that baseball."

Hecker agreed and jogged back to the field of play. The game had not resumed. Instead, Milo and

Rollo were on the pitcher's mound together, battling with baseball bats.

"Tell me I don't know a spit ball, you poor ninny," Milo was growling when Hecker came into

hearing range. "I'll smash your unsportsmanlike coco in."

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt (9 of 49) [2/14/2004 12:31:43 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt

"I'm no ninny, you fat-ass rube," said Rollo, his ringlets tossing. Their bats met with a

tremendous clack, and both men quivered. "I've read up on all the major sports. Read in books, you

ill-read horsebutt."

Hecker walked on by and across the field and off. There were nearly a hundred guerrillas camped

here in this abandoned and unsecured public zoo. Hecker crossed a weathered wood bridge, searching

again for Jane. As he was passing a partially collapsed merry-go-round, a long, lean man hailed

him: "Hey, Hecker."

Hecker joined the man in the fragments of shade that fell from the merry-go-round's glass-and-iron

roof. He'd been introduced to him at breakfast. "Hello. You're Hash Sontag. No relation to the

Kendrys."

"Right," said Hash. He put two fingers in the breast pocket of his chambray tunic and drew out a

little plyo sack. "You're looking for Jane."

"Yes. Seen her?"

"She's worried about Jack, the kid. He was supposed to join us here." Hash shook some flakes out

of the sack and into a cigarette paper he'd fished from the back pocket of his tan trousers. "She

cut back to see if she could find him. Might be he got picked up in that raid last night. About

six others missing, but we don't have word yet on whether they're captured."

"By herself, she went?"

Hash's slate-gray eyes flicked up from their concentration on rolling his cigarette. "Jane needs

to be by herself sometimes." Licking the cigarette to seal it, he said, "This is some of that

synthetic marijuana they're turning out in the Canal Zone kibbutz. Sort of mild. I know who you

are, so you can relax."

Hecker took a back step. "Oh?"

"As was mentioned, I'm not a Kendry," said Hash. He had his back against a poled wooden horse.

"Less of them and more people like yourself is what we need. Otherwise, it's always going to be

horseplay and the Junta. Not a new government."

"I'm not a recruit."

Hash lit his cigarette and inhaled. He grinned. "You're Sergeant James Xavier Hecker with the

Social Wing of the Police Corps. But you're still more on our side than you are on the Junta's."

Hecker said, "Don't expect too much. I'm on an assignment, and it means cooperating. At the end of

it I'll go back." He gestured with one rough hand at the tree-thick hills surrounding this small

valley. "I'm part of out there."

"At the moment," said Hash. "When Jane suggested getting help from somebody in the Social Wing, I

agreed with her. This Gadget Man business will probably need the Police Corps to stop it. We don't

have the equipment and facilities. So I figure it's okay to let you help us investigate."

Hecker rubbed at one of the healing cuts on his face. "What do you know about Gadget Man?"

"Only what Jane does." Hash's gray eyes flicked up again. "She's coming down through the trees

now. Alone, not with Jack." He inhaled, grinned, drifted away around the far side of the broken-

down merry-go-round.

***

A grass-stained baseball came plummeting from above, accompanied by shards and flakes of dusty

glass. Hecker hopped through the wild columbine, yarrow, and monkshood and caught the ball. "The

game's resumed," he said.

Jane Kendry was yards away, near one blurred glass-panel wall of the overgrown park greenhouse.

"Don't be so patronizing," she said.

Opening the brass grillwork and stained-glass door of the greenhouse, Hecker threw the ball out

toward the picnic-ground playing field. "Here you go, Milo."

Jane was wearing tan shorts, a pale-blue pullover, and tan moccasins. She kept dragging one

slightly hooked finger down through her auburn hair, giving an angry twist at the end. "Second

Lieutenant Same may have Jack."

Hecker made his way over a plank parkway, through wild primroses, zinnias, and milkweed. "I could

check in with Social Wing headquarters. See if they know anything. But I'm fairly sure Same must

have some way of tapping S.W.'s communications. Since I can refrain from reporting in while I'm on

field assignments, I think I will. It's safer at the moment." He got ten feet closer to Jane, and

she moved ten feet further away.

"Jack probably got away and went someplace by himself," said Jane. "He's a loner. He's like me.

Freer, since he's still really a boy." She hugged herself, her breasts moving closer together. Her

shoulders hunched slightly. "I think I may go

I with you. To check out Westlake. I haven't quite decided."

Hecker said. "Okay. When?"

Jane picked a yellow daisy. "We'll be organizing a raid, planning it today. The actual sortie

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txt (10 of 49) [2/14/2004 12:31:43 AM]

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

file:///G|/rah/Michael%20A.%20Burstyn%20-%20Gadget%20Man.txtCHAPTER1Themadgirlflashedangrilyacrossthebrighttowerroomandinterferedwiththeviewoftheriot.Twoplainclothestherapistsdivedintothebigcircularroomonhe trail,apologetic,andhunkeredsoastoleavethetintedwindowsclearforwatching.Thegirl, hinandfai...

展开>> 收起<<

Burstein, Michael A - Gadget Man.pdf

共49页,预览10页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Burstein, Michael A - Gadget Man

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: