Peter David - PSI-man 2 - Deathscape

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BATTLE OF THE PSIONICS

Suddenly two huge arms wrapped around Chuck from behind. He felt a holstered gun the

other man was wearing. But his arms were pinned too tightly.

Chuck reached out with his mind to pull the gun from the holster. Nothing happened.

It was as if his mind power had been shut down. Chuck gasped, straining more than he

ever had, and still the gun would not come free.

"My God," a voice gasped from the darkness, "you've got one hell of a power, haven't you?"

PSI-MAN: DEATHSCAPE

Peter David

ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK

PSI-MAN: DEATHSCAPE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of

the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living

or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Diamond edition /1991 Ace mass-market edition / March

Cover art by Edwin Herder.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means,

without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of

Penguin Putnam Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

http://www.penguinputnam.com

Check out the ACE Science Fiction & Fantasy newsletter and much more on the Internet at

Club PPI!

ISBN: 0-441-00710-4

ACE®

Ace Books are published by the Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam

Inc.,

Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ACE and the "A" design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Table of Contents

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November 1, 2021

Thru

November 2, 2021

1

^ »

MOST CARS THAT came and went from the large building known throughout Boulder,

Colorado, as the Internet Propulsion Laboratory used the single main road that ran to and from

it. There were small connecting roads off to the side, but they led to high mountainous areas.

No one lived there. People lived in town, or in the suburbs, but the idea of residing up in the

mountainous regions? It was absurd.

As noted, no one lived there.

But hiding out there… that was something else again.

Up one of the steepest, most mountainous of roads drove the van. The sky was overcast

and gray, much as it had been the day before and the day before that, and probably the way

that it would be in all the succeeding days. The sun was setting, although the only way to tell

was that the gray was simply becoming darker gray. There were stories of how, decades earlier,

it was possible to sit on a cliffside and watch a great, glowing orb drop below the horizon line,

the daylight being given over to night, stars appearing in the night sky. Just stories, though.

Fantasies that many living in present days could not even remember.

The van was carefully neutral and nondescript. At the moment it was painted gray. Two

weeks ago it had been blue, and eight weeks before that, white. Rattling around in the rear of

the cargo bay was a small pile of license plates for easy conversion. It rolled up the incline on

tires that were rapidly becoming threadbare, coughing in protest as gears shifted to urge it the

rest of the way up the hill.

The van suddenly made a sharp right turn into a small pathway that no one would have

been able to spot if they hadn't already known it was there. It swayed from side to side, the

rattling becoming even more pronounced, and the man who was riding in the rear of the cargo

bay held on with grim determination, uncomplaining, perhaps even resigned to his difficult lot

in life. Nevertheless, he grunted slightly as if to register token protest.

The driver heard it and took immediate umbrage. "I'm doing the best I can, dammit," he

snarled. There was no passenger seat next to him. They had ripped it out to provide as much

room as possible.

"I know you are, goddammit, just drive," snapped the passenger. "Jesus, Buzz, get your

head out of your butt, okay?" His legendary patience was starting to wear thin, and because of

the abruptness and harshness of his reply, it startled the driver into silence.

The van made a final turn into a final, hard-to-see turnoff, and chugged through the

darkness toward a ramshackle building. An angry barking sounded from up ahead in response

to the ratting of the van, but stopped as the van pulled up and the two men got out.

The driver, Buzz, clapped his hands together briskly, summoning the dog that he had

raised from a pup. He remembered when he'd first seen Mars and judged by the paws that the

dog was going to be large, even for a Doberman. Just how large he could not have imagined as

Mars loomed out of the darkness, pausing slightly to confirm with scent what ears had already

told him.

Mars lumbered forward, the blackness of his fur enabling him to blend with the night. If

he remained still, he would merge with the shadows and no one would know he was there

until he chose to make his presence known—a move that was usually fatal for the unwary.

Buzz rubbed on the back of the Dobie's huge neck, and the dog flattened out his ears.

"Good to see you're keeping an eye on things," said Buzz, and then walked toward the house.

His strides were long, since Buzz was well over six feet tall. He wore faded jeans with holes

in the knees, and an old army surplus jacket. His brown hair was long and straight, hanging

down to around his shoulders but thinning on the top, and his thick moustache was uneven

and needed a trim. His eyes were mostly hidden beneath his bushy eyebrows.

Buzz shoved open the door and was greeted by the sound of a hammer cocking in the

darkness. He paused there and said dryly, "Someday, you asshole, you're going to blow me to

kingdom come before I can open my mouth."

"That'd be an improvement," came floating from the darkness.

"Where's Jupe?" was asked by the other voice, a female.

Buzz chucked a thumb. "Coming."

"How's it scope?"

"Fine, Shai," said Buzz, glancing around. "Can't we have any goddamn light in here?"

"No. Somebody might see us."

"Like who, a raccoon? Gimme a break?" He had put a cigarette in his mouth and was

holding a lighter up, about to light it.

There was an angry hiss, like a snake spit, and the lighter was blasted out of Buzz's hand,

shattering. The bullet smacked into the wall behind.

He stood there a moment, his mouth moving but no sound emerging. "Shai, you—you

asshole!" he managed to get out finally.

"Filthy habit," came Shai's voice.

"You could've killed me!"

"There's that. There's always that. Course if I wanted to kill you, you'd have a bullet in your

brain right now."

There was a soft footfall behind Buzz, and he turned to see Jupiter standing in the doorway.

Jupiter had been the passenger in the van. He should have been right behind Buzz, but as

always, he took his own sweet time getting anywhere. Privately, Buzz figured that it was

because Jupiter was allowing for the possibility of a trap at all times, and figured that it would

be preferable for Buzz to spring it.

Jupiter was a small man, especially in comparison to Buzz, and yet there was something

about him that indisputably marked him as the leader. His body was lean and muscular, his

neck long, and his face foxlike. His hair was close-cropped and blond, almost white. He

surveyed the group, those he could see and those he couldn't.

Buzz pointed into the darkness. "Shai shot my lighter," he complained.

"Filthy habit," said Jupiter.

This drew a low laugh from the darkness, and an angry grimace from Buzz.

There was a slow shifting of feet as someone rose in the darkness, and moments later a tall

man stepped from the dark. The deep blackness of his skin had hidden him well in much the

same way that the darkness enfolded the Doberman on guard outside. His head was shaved

clean, but a thin beard ran along the edges of his lantern jaw. He was cradling a sleek I&L

automatic with nightscope and silencer, his preferred hand weapon and the one that he had

used moments ago to dissuade Buzz from lighting up. In his deep voice he rumbled, "Buzz said

it scopes. Buzz is an asshole, though. What you say, Jupe?"

"It scopes," agreed Jupiter in that smooth way he had. "In fact… we do it tonight."

"Aw, man," came the female voice, and now she stepped out as well into the pale light that

the night sky was providing. "We do it tonight, by morning they'll be combing the area for us."

"No, Luta," replied Jupiter. "They will think we've fled the area. It won't occur to them that

we'd be less than two miles away."

Luta pursed her lips. She looked small and withdrawn, habitually wearing clothes that were

much too large on her. Her sleeves usually covered over her hands. Her red hair was

close-cropped and hidden beneath a kerchief, her body equally hidden beneath the many

layers of clothing. Her eyes were large and smoldering. "Bullshit," she said.

"It's not bullshit," replied Jupiter, but Luta wasn't listening anymore. She had retreated

back into the darkness, there to murmur to herself and occasionally snarl angrily.

"You think we can take it?" said Shai after a moment.

"Yeah, we can take it," replied Jupiter.

"Place is guarded."

"No big deal. It's a quick in and out. We go in, we plant the bomb, we're out. One less place

for our beloved government to be manufacturing poison."

"You sure?" said Shai. "Maybe it's a trap."

"It's no trap," said Jupiter. He leaned against a wall, his arms folded. "Remember, they think

we're in Minnesota."

"We're not the only game in town, man," said Buzz. He automatically reached for a

cigarette, then remembered that the trigger-happy Shai had dispatched his lighter. "Other

groups are around, y'know. Scattered throughout the country. Get with the times, man. This is

the twenty-first century, after all. We're not the only ones fighting for the environment."

"Maybe," agreed Jupiter, "but we're dropping, man. You hear about Porky?"

The others reacted with surprise, including Buzz who had been with Jupiter most of the

day. Jupiter hadn't breathed a word about it. "What about Porky?" he said.

"Nailed him."

"No." Shai didn't want to believe it, and in the corner of the room, Luta gasped. "Shit no.

Porky's a fucking legend, man."

"Yeah, well, now that's all he is," said Jupiter. "He and his people were in Chicago, and the

Complex helped nail him."

"Aw, man." Shai was shaking his head and he walked the length of the room, blending in

with the shadows. "Between the army and the Complex—man, whatever happened to

government of the people and all that shit?"

"Somebody realized just how much shit it was," said Jupiter. "We gotta do this one, people.

Do it big. Between the stuff they're producing in that factory and the waste material they

produce making the stuff…"

"We got it," said Buzz, and shook his head. He shivered slightly. "Man… Porky. Can't

believe it."

"Believe it," said Jupiter. "And believe that if we're not careful, we'll be next."

The comment hung there in the air, unresponded to. No one bothered to point out the

obvious—that perhaps now would be the time for the group to split up. To give up the fight, to

count as blessings that they had gotten away with as much as they did and be satisfied with

that.

It was not suggested because it was not an option.

2

« ^ »

"CHUCK, THERE WAS nothing we could have done."

Dakota was saying the same thing for what seemed the hundredth time. And, as before,

Chuck did not seem to be paying attention, or at least he didn't seem to believe it. Instead he

just sat there opposite her at the table in the diner, rapping his knuckles in irritation on the

stained tabletop.

Dakota shook her head as she studied him. His hair and beard were dark, and she knew by

this point that although the beard was that natural color, the hair most certainly was not. The

beard helped hide a jaw so square you could slice a pizza with it, and the fake color in his hair

hid the blondness. He had a high forehead that made it seem to Dakota as if he had a great deal

on his mind, which—if you counted knowing that you were a hunted man by a forbidding

government agency (not to mention the fact that you were potentially the most powerful

telekinetic on earth)—could certainly be counted as a great deal.

The gaze of his blue eyes hugged the tabletop. He had eaten his side order of spaghetti,

leaving his entire veal cutlet over. He hadn't been in much of a mood to eat, and Dakota really

couldn't blame him. Still… he had to snap out of it.

"Chuck, you hear me?" she said. "Earth to Chuck Simon."

He glanced up at her, "Don't use my name in public," he whispered.

"Finally something that got a response out of you," she said with a small measure of

satisfaction. "Did you hear any of the other words I said?''

"I heard them. I just—"

"Just hated to hear them."

He shrugged his broad shoulders.

They were in a run-down diner in a run-down section of town. Boulder, like most cities

since the start of the twenty-first century, had skidded downhill. The well-to-do lived far out in

large palatial estates with guards and monitors or, even more popular these days, in

underground cooperatives that were exclusive and pricey. The "tunnelers" were people who

were convinced that nuclear holocaust was not too far off, and the cooperatives were designed

for survival of that unfortunate (but probably inevitable) time. The best known was First Strike

Estates, a virtual town unto itself where Mayor H. H. Hunter held sway, and any intruders

were shot on sight.

But the poor and the not-so-well-to-do only had the cities in which to take refuge. Boulder

was one such. Once a nice college town, albeit with a major drug problem. Now drugs were

not a problem—at least, sales weren't. Money never changed hands, because of the Cards.

Instead, everything was done with barter. Snap was the drug of choice, and Snap could get you

anything—food, vehicles, sex—anything.

Chuck Simon was not interested in Snap.

He was interested, rather, in the vehicle they discovered quite by accident off by the side of

the road when they approached Boulder. They got out when Rommel announced to Chuck,

rather forcefully, that they better pull over or otherwise Rommel was going to take a dump in

the back of the rickety pickup truck that served as their transportation. Taking the large

German shepherd at his word, they indeed pulled over, and while Rommel was going about

his business, he picked up the scent of the vehicle.

What a mess the thing was when they discovered it. A twisted heap of metal, the smell of

alcohol permeating it. That the driver was drunk was beyond question. It was fortunate that he

didn't take anyone with him when he dispatched himself.

However, he didn't, Chuck felt, deserve the fate he got. Chuck pried the door open, with a

generous additional push from his mind, and found the poor bastard with his neck broken, the

inflatable cushion in the steering column only partially inflated. Hell of a time for the safety bag

to malfunction. Who knew how long he had been dead.

Get his wallet, Rommel said.

Chuck looked at his companion in surprise. "His wallet?"

"Good idea," Dakota said.

"I can't do that," Chuck said firmly. "It's wrong."

"Wrong to take his wallet? Why? He's not going to need it," Dakota pointed out

matter-of-factly. "Besides, it was your idea."

"No it wasn't. It was Rommel's."

She glanced at the German shepherd, who stared back at her blandly. "Of course," she said

tonelessly. "Foolish of me. Why should I think that a good idea came from you, Chuck? All

right. Turn away so you don't have to watch."

"I can't," was the simple reply. But Chuck knew that she was right. The driver wasn't going

to need it. And these days, you got your hand on a Card wherever and however you could. So

he watched as Dakota rummaged through the corpse's pockets, pulled out his wallet, and

moments later held up a plain white card with a little flourish.

Everyone had a Card. They were issued at birth, and had taken the place of money, of

many important documents. More precisely, everyone had two Cards—the one they carried

with them, and the original that was on permanent file with the Department of Identification,

from which duplicates of lost, damaged, or stolen Cards could be obtained.

Chuck could not use his Card, of course. With the government tracking him, the last thing

he wanted to do was leave a trail they could so easily trace. Instead he obtained black market

fakes wherever he could, and on one occasion—a very early one—had swiped one from a

soldier. But taking one off of a dead man… it gave him chills.

He sat in the diner now, feeling bleak and depressed. Dakota studied him for a moment

and, believing there was an implied criticism of herself, said tightly, "What would you have

preferred, huh? To waste an opportunity?"

He looked up at her and said, "As soon as we're out of Boulder, we contact the authorities

and tell them about the dead man."

She blew air out from between her lips impatiently. "What's the point of that? It won't

make him any less dead. And when they do find him, they close off his file and the Card

becomes inactive. We're wasting an opportunity. As long as we keep the purchases small,

people don't even bother to verify the retina patterns. And when the government finds out the

guy is a stiff, what are they going to do? Come to the cemetery for payment?"

"That's fraud," he said quietly. "Besides, how do you know they won't hound the stiff's next

of kin? And that's another thing. Don't you think his family is entitled to know he's dead?

They're probably worried sick."

It was frustrating for her. On the one hand it was Chuck's high sense of morality and

diligence that she found attractive. On the other hand, it sure could be a pain in the ass

sometimes. "All right," she sighed finally, "all right, already. As soon as we're out of Boulder.

Okay?"

"Okay." He smiled thinly at that. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. I must be nuts. I'm probably nuts just being here with you."

"I warned you that you shouldn't come with me," he told her. He fiddled with the straw

that was sticking out of his half-emptied glass of soda. "But you did what you felt like doing.

You could've stayed with the circus. Maybe you should go back," he added with a sigh.

"Dakota, this is—"

Where's my food?

The brisk and rather sharp question came into Chuck's mind from just outside the window

next to them. He mentally scolded himself. "Sorry."

"Sorry what?" said Dakota.

"Not you. The—"

"The dog, right," Dakota finished for him. "Y'know, you say you and that horse-sized dog of

yours talk telepathically. Part of me thinks you're just jerking me around, but the other

part—the majority, I guess—believes you."

"Why is that?"

"Because every so often you have these flashes of common sense, and I don't think they're

coming from you."

"Uh-huh," said Chuck as he slid open the window next to him. Warm and heavy air

washed over him as he tossed his untouched veal cutlet out the window. It never made it to the

ground as Rommel, unseen below, caught it in his jaws.

That's it? came after a moment.

"That's it," said Chuck in a low voice, facing Dakota. She placed her chin at the base of her

hand and watched the conversation with interest.

I'm still hungry. Get me a few steaks. Raw.

"It's bad enough I'm using a dead man's Card," murmured Chuck. "I don't have to destroy

his credit rating, too."

That's another thing. There was all that meat in the car. You wouldn't let me eat it.

"What meat… oh," and Chuck felt faintly nauseated. "You mean the dead driver."

Yeah.

"That's disgusting."

"What is?" asked Dakota.

"Rommel is annoyed because I didn't let him eat the man in the car."

Dakota's face wrinkled as well.

A waste of perfectly good meat.

"Eating a dead human… it's awful, Rommel," Chuck whispered. "I'm picturing you doing

it, and it makes me sick."

From below came the response, You eat steak.

"So?"

So what do you think a dead cow looks like? A bed of roses? You keep inflicting your morals on

me, and my stomach keeps being empty.

"I thought you said you wouldn't eat humans anyway."

I said I wouldn't like to. They're stringy. But whatever is handy…

"Hold it," Chuck said nervously. "How do you know humans are stringy?"

"We are?" said Dakota, not exactly thrilled with the direction this conversation was taking.

Her own recent meal was starting to turn in her stomach.

"How do you know?" Chuck demanded again.

There was silence at the other end.

"Rommel," he said warningly.

I've heard it around.

"You're lying."

Go neuter yourself.

Chuck was about to press the matter further when sharp footfalls next to him caused him

to look up. And up.

Three very large individuals were standing next to him. Chuck knew their look and type

immediately. Scruffy, unwashed, torn clothes, and a general air of insouciance, even anarchy

about them. And these three, in addition, were extremely bulky, with large rolls of muscle

hanging from their tattooed arms. They were known as "Cutters," and sometimes "Cardless

Wonders."

Once upon a time, a more innocent time, Chuck would have turned his nose up at them as

if they were some lower form of life. They were blatantly disdainful of the government and of

everything the government did that was supposedly in the best interests of the people. The

government had taught all the good citizens, such as Chuck Simon, that Cutters were bad and

the government good. And Chuck, like all the other good citizens, believed it.

Peter David - PSI-man 2 - Deathscape

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