Philip E. High - The Mad Metropolis

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The Mad Metropolis by
Philip E. High
Chapter One
THEY DISPOSED OF Cook by the simple expedient of crowding him
against the emergency door of the bar, sliding it open behind his back and
pushing him into the street. They then shut the door in his face and
re-sealed it from the inside so that he could not get back. The entire
operation took only eleven seconds and no one noticed. The operators were
pleased with their success, not to say a little smug. They had been paid a
Purple each for the job and it had been child's play. Too often they had
been paid a couple of Reds for a nasty one which had to be undertaken
under the noses of the Nonpol or virtually in the regular patrols of the
legal police, and those sort of jobs were risky indeed.
This one, however, had been so easy and so casually committed they felt
almost innocent. After all, they hadn't actually killed the man, not directly,
anyway. All they had done was to maneuver him into a position where his
chances of survival for more than an hour were unlikely in the extreme.
As he had at least nine hours before he could hope for any help, his
demise was a foregone conclusion.
Perhaps, fortunately, the four executioners were not thinking men. It
never occurred to them to ask why they should have been paid so much to
dispose of a ninety I.Q. Prole who was exactly the same as the seven
hundred other Proles employed by the Combine.
Cook didn't know either and was in no position to think about it. For
several seconds he was mentally and physically paralyzed with terror. He
thought of beating on the door and shouting that he was outside, but he
knew that before anyone heard him the noise would attract attention—the
wrong kind of attention.
His only hope was to stand absolutely still and pray for a miracle—only
he didn't believe in miracles. All Cook believed in were facts, and the facts
were that he was out in the street at night. No one went out at night
unless in an armor-taxi or, if rich, in a fast hypnad flyer.
Cook, himself, had never left the Combine since first being employed
there at the edge of eighteen—why should he? The giant block contained
his place of employment, nine hundred cramped living cubicles, and all
the recreation facilities that science could provide. There were
gymnasiums, parks and, with hypnad techniques, a blazing summer beach
complete with swaying palms, dreamy lagoons and Atlantic rollers.
Generally speaking, a Prole lived, mated, procreated and died in the
block. An intelligence quota of only ninety seldom asked or desired more.
This was a pleasant, secure and gently regulated life, and few had the
ambition to step beyond it.
In these pleasantly familiar surroundings Cook had left his cubicle and
descended by the gravity shaft to his favorite bar for the customary
evening drink. There, for no comprehensible reason, he had been crowded
against a door which should have been sealed and pushed into the street.
Now, persons unknown, perhaps quite unaware of his predicament, had
re-sealed the door with him on the outside.
Cook rated his chances of receiving grievous bodily harm at a
conservative one hundred and fifty percent, his chances of survival at an
optimistic two. If he survived, hospitalization would be painful and
protracted.
He didn't move, apart from his eyes and an uncontrollable twitch at the
corner of his mouth; he stood perfectly still against the section of the
building which was now an undistinguishable emergency door. Sweat
trickled slowly down his face, but he had enough self-control to confine his
breathing to near silence.
One never knew what was out there or what kind of devices were alert
for such minor signals as the respiration of the lungs, the beat of the
human heart or the chemical processes of sweat.
Above him the building which he had just left soared upwards until it
was lost in shadow, and before him stretched the street.
It was a brilliantly lit thoroughfare—a mile-wide river of non-reflecting
blackness, yet somehow dwarfed by the soaring buildings on either side.
A street where one stood as naked and as visible as a black fly on a sheet
of white paper—Oh God, Oh God, what am I going to do?
From the opposite side of the street, a red light flashed on and off like a
beckoning, be-ringed finger.
A woman? Perhaps he could make her apartment and stay there until
dawn? Hope died within him almost as soon as he had thought of it. In the
first place he'd never get across the street, and, in the second, a woman
who could afford a call-light would regard his meager supply of green
exchange with the contempt it deserved. She was after bigger game, the
wealthy wolves, the prowlers and the psychos, who could afford to risk the
night in hypnad flyers.
Police caller? No. The nearest one was just visible nearly a mile away at
the beginning of the next block; he'd never make it.
Cook stood there, trying to reason his way out of an impossible
situation and knowing he couldn't. Worse, this was not new; from all
accounts it happened quite frequently. A man offended an overseer or an
exec or fell down on his work quota and was summarily tried and expelled.
Then there were those rare young ones—usually hopped up with
lift-pills—who, out of bravado or stupidity, thought they could break the
block and survive in the city at night.
His own case was, of course, unique, but the result was the same. The
psychos knew, they knew that perhaps eight or nine times a night
someone was thrown out and they patrolled the streets, waiting.
No one worried about a Prole. They were the outcasts of the new
feudalism, the nightmare of the politician, the barrier to economic
recovery, the burden of the privileged classes. It had not come to pogroms
or mass extermination yet, but it had been talked about and was getting
very close indeed.
The Proles! Six billion labor-class entities who, with an average I.Q. of
only ninety, could not be fitted into the structure of society, who had to be
carried by a sagging, groaning economic structure already on the verge of
collapse. What the hell could you do with them? Anything they could do
the machines could do six times as fast and twenty times more efficiently.
No wonder, despite government subsidies, the Combines often lost
patience and tossed some of the burden into the street.
Anyone found dead at dawn was immediately written off as an
accidental death without further enquiry.
Cook thought of these things as he fought off a mounting hysteria. The
desire to move, to tear himself away from the closed door, was almost
overwhelming. He wanted to run and keep running; he wanted to scream
and keep screaming. Oh God, I've got to hold on!
What for? What good would it do? He would never hold out until dawn,
and, even if he could stand still for nine solid hours, something would find
him long before that.
Nonetheless, he continued to stand there. A shadow against the wall, an
outline of a human being in the standard, ill-fitting one-piece proletarian
suit with its round black collar and indicative yellow arm bands.
He was a target, a specimen, a butterfly to be pinned down and made to
twitch by the first psycho who spotted him. That was the trouble with
psychos, although they lived in a world of fantasy, when it came to
exercising their particular perversion they wanted the real thing, and
hypnad variants wouldn't do.
Cook never knew what made him look up—perhaps his terror had
awakened new perceptions—but suddenly he raised his eyes and, almost at
the same moment, the voice came whispering down at him.
"Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?"
The voice came from a bat, a black bat circling and spinning between
the great buildings high above him.
"O what can ail thee, little Prole,
So haggard and so woe-begone?"
The voice was soft, gentle, the voice of a young girl and deceptively
compassionate.
Cook was not deceived either by the sex or the compassion; both served
to increase his terror, and so did the bat—it had a sixty-foot wingspread.
He made to step forward then changed his mind—what good would it
do?
"I met a lady in the street—"
Cook put his hands over his ears. Why didn't she shut up? Must she toy
with him, must she play cat and mouse? Dimly, behind his abject terror,
was a vague resentment that she should parody Keats, of whom he was
particularly fond. The title of the poem, however, was appropriate: La
Belle Dame Sans Merci. Mercy was a word which, he was quite sure, was
not included in this psycho's vocabulary.
A red-hot needle seemed suddenly to pierce the calf of his leg and he
nearly fell. Oh, God, it had started!
He was not burned, of course; the lady was using a psychosomatic
weapon which stimulated his brain into feeling a burn, but it made little
difference. She could still burn him to death without leaving a mark on his
body. He thought, despairingly, that she probably would before she had
finished with him.
The bat began to descend in slow spirals, drawing closer. He could see
the leathery membranes of the beating wings, the hungry, blind,
mouse-face. Oh God, Oh God!
It was then he heard the sound, a thin wailing moan and, far in the
distance where perspective drew the great buildings together, three yellow
lights appeared which rushed towards them.
Apparently the lady saw them, too. "God blast your luck, little Prole, but
maybe I would have been kinder."
Then, apparently, she panicked, for the bat suddenly turned into a giant
wasp, which became in turn a burnished projectile and a hawk with
outstretched claws before she finally touched the right button and
vanished completely.
The yellow lights rushed towards him, the wailing rising to a shriek
which filled his ears and numbed his mind before topping abruptly.
Silence seemed to surge back leaving him breathless and then he was
staring at three black vessels poised silently some ten feet above the black
surface of the street.
They were—save that they lacked tail feathers—exactly like darts. The
kind of darts, he understood, once used centuries ago in some curious and
long forgotten game. These darts, however, were thirty feet long and their
barbed snouts Deemed to point at him with the blind impaling hunger of
swordfish.
A voice said: "Who are you?"
And he answered, shakily: "My name is Cook—Stephen Cook."
"What are you doing out at night?"
"I was shut out."
"Why?"
"I do not know."
"You are evasive. You must accompany us to headquarters."
Chapter Two
ONE OF THE black darts descended to the level of the roadway and an
opening appeared in its side.
He stepped towards it, legs feeling rubbery and unreal. Out of the frying
pan and into the fire—from a female psycho to the doubtful mercies of the
Nonpol. What had he done to deserve this?
There was no one inside the vessel, but a seat was briefly outlined as he
stepped in. He sat down and the door through which he had entered
closed silently behind him.
The vessel did not seem to be moving but he knew it must be. He knew
the Nonpol would convey him to one of their interrogation centers, and
then—Cook tried to stop thinking about it.
In the darkness he sat perfectly still, but he guessed he was being
scrutinized, checked and folder-filed in readiness for the coming
interrogation.
His guess was correct. The unseen watchers saw a slim man of thirty
with pale but youthful features. They took the routine particulars. Height
5 feet 10, hair brown, eyes brown, chin firm, clefted but not aggressive,
nose straight, mouth sensitive—they were already a little bored; damn
Prole, sheer waste of time.
The Nonpol, however, made thoroughness and efficiency their
watchwords, so they went deeper.
Intelligence Quota (curious), 110, well above Prole level; better try the
potential. They tried and whistled softly. They then re-ran their findings to
make sure. Intelligence Quota, conscious mind,. 110; Intelligence Quota,
potential, 612— good God! They looked at each other meaningfully and
called in experts.
The experts confirmed the figures and dug up further facts. Cook's
mind was "rigged"; someone had psyched him shortly after birth and
deliberately blocked in certain sections of his brain. The blocked-in area
was "triggered" so that only certain stimuli, physical, visual, mental or
hypnotic, would awaken it.
The experts didn't know what the stimuli were; they said it would take
years of careful testing, and an error would probably prove fatal. It was,
they said, like opening an ancient safe with a numeric combination. It was
all right if you knew the combination in advance, but if you didn't you
could fumble around forever trying to find it.
The Nonpol officers shrugged. Well, since they couldn't open the safe,
maybe they could trade it to someone who could, or else find someone
sufficiently disturbed by the information to pay good money to dispose of
it. Through a variety of agents they began a series of discreetly veiled
inquiries, and Cook's folder file began to increase in size. By the time he
arrived at the interrogation center, the information it contained was
considerable.
Cook realized suddenly that a door had opened at his side and that he
was staring into a bleak white-walled room containing a white-topped
table and three chairs.
Three men sat in the chairs, blank-faced but youthful-looking men in
black tight-fitting uniforms.
"Stand in front of the table."
He left the vessel and stood there and the opening through which he
had passed closed silently behind him, leaving a bare white wall.
"Your name is Cook?"
"Yes."
"Do you know where you are?"
He hesitated, choosing his words Carefully. "I conclude I am in an office
of the Civil and Voluntary Police Organization."
One of the men looked up. He had a thin, youthful and almost friendly
freckled face. His words, however, were anything but friendly.
"So you're smart enough to play it smooth, you Prole bastard, but we
are not deceived. You are shivering in your shoes, so you dare not tell us
what you think, but I will tell you what you think. You are thinking 'I must
be polite or these Nonpol thugs will beat me up.' " He half rose. "Perhaps
you are less polite, eh? Perhaps you are numbered among our enemies and
think of us as the Gestap scum."
"No—no—I—"
"Save it, my friend; you, too, could be misinformed. Therefore, it is time
you knew the truth. Modern society is so devious, the law so corrupt, that
much injustice and cruelty takes place against which the average citizen
has no redress under the present system. The C.V.P.O. was created to
protect the average citizen from non-indictable crime—you understand?"
Cook said: "Yes, sir, I understand," and tried to look both surprised and
suitably impressed, but he was not deceived. The Nonpol was an illegal
quasi-military organization which sold itself to the highest bidder. A
descendant of the once respected private security organizations, it had
degenerated into what was virtually a terrorist society, which, it was
rumored, was amassing funds for a political coup and a military
autocracy. In the thirty years since its inception the organization had
acquired a reputation for brutality which had earned it the title of Gestap.
The organization was, however, extremely clever, and the law had been
unable to prove either the brutality charges or the political aspirations of
the party's ruling caste. It was, in consequence and as far as the law was
concerned, still a security organization with an outwardly respectable, if
suspect, 'front.'
The freckled man said: "How did you get outside at night?"
"I was pushed out."
"Deliberately?"
"I do not know."
"But you suspect?"
"It could have been an accident."
No one moved, but something slapped his face brutally and he
staggered. The Nonpol, needless to say, were specialists in psychosomatic
weapons.
They looked at him coldly. "Did something disturb you?"
You appeared to stagger. Is it because you are evading the issue? That
is unwise; we cannot help you unless you cooperate. We know you are not
cooperating because we have little telltale instruments which tell us if you
are not speaking the truth. Suppose we begin again: you suspected the
incident was deliberate?"
"Well, yes, I did."
"That is better. Have you any suspects?"
"None."
"And you can suggest no reason for this incident?"
"No."
"We can suggest some of the reasons. We were in touch with your place
of employment prior to your arrival. We understand that you made things
with your hands, model ships and things like that. Also that you read and
collected printed books, particularly books of verse."
"My work—"
"Your resident psychiatrist was not concerned with your work but your
leisure, and your use of it was regarded as abnormal. Your work's overseer
was disturbed by it—would you care to speak to him?"
Before he could answer, the wall vanished and a projected image of Ran
Kilburn, his work's overseer, appeared seated in a chair.
"So you have yourself in trouble, Cook?" Kilburn's eyes looked through
him and beyond him. "What is this ridiculous story of someone pushing
you outside? There was no trial and no expulsion order."
"You think I'm stupid enough to go outside at night on my own?" Cook
was suddenly angry.
"I think you're curious; I think you're too curious. I think you could have
opened the door to see where it led." Kilburn was still looking through him
and refusing to meet his eyes, but Cook sensed he was uneasy.
Furthermore Kilburn's words seemed too pat, too assured, as if he had
been carefully rehearsed in what he had to say.
"It's not true, I was having a drink and minding my own business."
"So you say."
"Consult the bar records when I return; they'll prove I'm speaking the
truth."
"Well—" Kilburn's small round eyes were suddenly blank —"well, I'm
afraid that will be a little difficult. When I found—when you were reported
missing, I filled your post. Naturally, I thought you were dead."
"But I'm not dead."
"I can see that, but you are as far as we are concerned. Rules are rules;
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