Cybernetic Controller Read online

  It centred around Victor. His origins were mysterious. Some alleged that he was a Second or Third renegade; but whatever he had been, he showed tremendous powers of leadership, uniting the discontented elements of the city-block. He had worked with poor material; the lazy ones, sneak-thieves, incompetent workers, any who had transgressed through accident or design the rigid social laws of the city.

  “All from the Fifth Level?” asked Lin. He was sitting with Wray in their room, the questioning over and accepted as a recruit to the group.

  Wray shook his head.

  “Most, but not all. I’m Fourth, or should say, was Fourth.” He nodded at Lin's surprise. “I was in Group Psychology B Area office. We dealt in the interaction of various groups of Fifths in work and leisure. A group reflects the inner feelings of its various members, you know, and the mass support given to it will enable it to do things that a single member would not dare do alone.”

  “That’s the mob instinct?”

  “It’s not quite the same thing. Call it the product of conscious, directed will on a higher plane as opposed to a blind instinct. We dealt in facts at Area office.”

  Wray’s eyes were pale and empty. Lin knew he was aching to be back at the work he loved.

  “We correlated data, made up emotional index charts and sent them on to higher levels, where they were probably fed into Sissy. It was a small job, for the levelling effects of the CC Rules should keep the index level.”

  “And it doesn’t?” guessed Lin.

  “Something is going wrong. I did some unauthorised research, found an increasing number of variants from the normal over the last score of years. It shows in the group reactions and individually.”

  He grinned boyishly. “I guess I’m a variant myself. I took my findings to the chief clerk, a Third. All he could see was that I was stepping outside my job, and wanted to discipline me. 1 lost my temper and—” he waved a hand at the bare walls of their room. “I landed up here.”

  “You say that something’s wrong with the CC. What could it be?” Lin’s face was taut with interest.

  “Victor thinks that Sissy is being directed by some of the First or Second Level leaders to divert goods and power to their own well-being, leaving the lower-level workers worse off. He’s all for blood-red revolution.”

  “And you?”

  Wray shrugged. “You know as well as I that the Fifths are getting a raw deal, their standard of living is far below what it should be—what it was designed to be —if Sissy was in full control. Something’s wrong, somewhere.”

  “That means you’d fight in any revolution?”

  “Things are tense. Troubles are accumulating and some day soon, very soon, the whole mess will bubble over. Victor has the power of leadership, and if he lives he’ll come out on top.”

  “He’ll come out on top all right!” The unexpected voice jerked them around.

  Standing straight and tall in the doorway, Brush, Victor's bearded lieutenants was scowling at them. He nodded savagely at Lin and put one hand lightly on his gun butt.

  His voice was a soft, menacing purr. “You. Come with me. I’ve got a little job for you.”

  Chapter Four

  In the city-block, where association with the Outside was not only avoided, but dreaded, the periods of “day” and “night” had little significance; but the ancient terms were still used for the sake of convenience and to mark work, leisure and sleeping periods. It was during the middle of the leisure period, “evening,” that Lin mingled with pleasure-seeking crowds of Fifths, losing his identity in the mob, but slowly making towards the apartment that until so recently he had called home.

  He had hardly expected to be let out of Victor’s HQ so soon after being recruited, but he had told them of the books he kept secreted under a floorboard in his room. The mission to which Brush had called him away from his discussion with Wray was to retrieve his books.

  Books, technical books, ancient books, were a rarity, and were worth the risks taken in their recovery. He would have been missed on his normal shift but in the excitement of the tunnel fall it might be some time before his absence was checked. He could just as easily have been killed—Fifth labourers were cheap enough. Alone, and as normally as possible, he was to go to his room, secure the books and return.

  He was nearing his old area now, crossing the last wide-open space between corridor mouths. On one side the ceiling tubes had been extinguished, and the area was lit with coloured beams of light and an illuminated sign; RED PLEASURE ROOMS—GAMES—GIRLS:

  The sight made him think of Grota, of his mangled body under the train, and how he had always preferred the Red Rooms.

  Brilliant light streamed through the open doors beneath the sign, and parties of Fifths, seizing their few hours of relaxation, strolled across the plaza to join the crowds within. Lin kept his head down, afraid that he might be recognised in the shifting, multi-coloured glow that lit his path, trying to appear a casual stroller who had decided not to spend his few work credits at this particular pleasure room.

  “Look out!”

  “Sorry.”

  He had nearly collided with a trio making for the pleasure room. Two men and a girl. He mumbled a further apology and walked on, keeping his face turned away from the light, and was another fifty feet before his heart seemed abruptly to leap into his throat.

  “Merryl! ”

  He spun on one heel, searching frantically for sight of that small trio among the groups on the plaza. He was sure it was Merryl who had spoken, in that authoritative tone he had first heard from her. Merryl! She had escaped the guards then. But what was she doing here?

  They were just entering the Red Pleasure Rooms when he found them, and for a moment Lin was torn between desires. He had to retrieve those books, he could picture Victors anger if he returned empty handed; but he knew that Merryl would not come across his path again so easily. In the crowd inside, who would pay particular attention to him? Working cap pulled down over his forehead, he pushed a five credit note at the attendant, entered between two laughing groups, promising himself that he would leave as soon as he had spoken to her.

  He eyed the interior of the pleasure room analytically, feeling apart from these merry-makers. He had not often patronised the Red Rooms, its reputation was not good, usually persuading Grota to join him in the Blue. Here the tunnellers and miners forgot their aching muscles, roared bawdy songs, staked their hard won credits on simple games of chance, relaxed in the company of Fifth Level girls frequenting this type of room.

  Lin pushed his way past a semi-drunken group, found his path blocked by a solid jam of heaving, gyrating, sweating dancers. He allowed himself to be pushed along the fringes of the floor by the throng for a moment whilst he looked around.

  It was almost impossible to find anyone here. He remembered his fears of recognition and twitched his lips. Probably safer in this mob than in the corridors. He lifted his cap born and wiped a sweating forehead. Wait at the entrance? Too conspicuous, and anyway Merryl might be here some time.

  There was a balcony around the room, and with sudden hope he wormed his way through the crowd in the general direction of the short stairs leading up to it. There were only a few couples leaning over the balustrade and sitting at small tables. Most visitors preferred to sink their identity in the crowd.

  If he could watch for Merryl and her companions, note when they were near the foot of the stairs, hurry down and intercept them—

  He hurried up the threadbare carpet onto the balcony. A brawny dull-featured Fifth and his companion, a woman whose heavy make-up failed to conceal the loose, vacuous droop of her mouth, glared at him and moved further along. Disregarding them, he grasped the balustrade handrail and gazed eagerly at the heads below.

  They danced together, drank together, formed into groups, played at the gaming tables, circulated and huddled and parted and came together again. The din was overpowering, and overworked ventilation fans hummed frenziedly in the ceiling. Li
n shook his head dazedly. The thing to do was to inspect every' section of the hall in turn, hoping that Merryl would not move from one section to another whilst he did so.

  He was certain he would recognise that midnight black hair if he saw it.

  Of course, she might be on this very balcony. He looked along it, in both directions, and down the steps and the man who tried to dodge from sight there was late by half a second.

  “Wray!” Lin took an impulsive step towards him, then halted, for the other was already mounting the stairs.

  ‘‘Hello, Lin. Find many books here?”

  Lin flushed.

  “What are you doing? Correlating some more group reactions?”

  The other smiled, his pale eyes colourless in the lights, and looked down at the milling crowds.

  “Curiously enough, this is a fairly good place for observation, though the figures we obtained were those showing amounts spent on drink and gaming. No. I was following you. Victor thought you might run into trouble.”

  “Also—I might betray him.”

  “That was a possibility, of course,” agreed Wray, gravely. Lin nodded. He was glad that Wray had been detailed to watch him, rather than any other, of Victor’s gang. He felt there was a bond of friendship between them, something quite outside his normal experience, some quite definite, yet inexplicable, force that told him this man was a friend. *

  In a few brief words he told Wray of the meeting with Merryl and her two companions.

  “I’ll help you look for her,” agreed Wray. “But we can’t spend too much time here. She sounds very interesting.”

  “She is—that is, her group seems to be,” said Lin, hastily, and turned to scan the crowds again.

  In that second he saw her. She was not where he had intended to look, but her hair drew his eyes. No one else, surely, ever had such lustrous black hair. Sitting at a small round table with the two men Lin had seen her with earlier, there were glasses on the table, untouched, the trio were surveying the circulating crowd with little interest in anything else.

  “Look, there they are!” gasped Lin, seizing Wray’s arm and pointing. “The second table on the right.”

  “You go on down, and I’ll keep watch here,” suggested the other. “If they move away I’ll watch them.”

  “All right,” agreed Lin and slipped rapidly away.

  It was easier to make a way through the jostling throng with a definite object in view. In a few minutes he had reached the group of tables set in front of a long, shining bar, and was pushing his way through the seated and standing drinkers.

  He grimaced with distaste as fumes of alcohol rolled upwards. It was little wonder that Firsts regarded Fifths as no better than animals if they witnessed such scenes as these. He side-stepped a drunken couple, who reeled across his path, and came to a table set squarely in his way.

  Before he could round it and push on to Merryl sitting beyond, he saw a huge, hairy-chested Fifth, work shirt tom open at the throat, rise and stand unsteadily, waving a bottle in one red fist.

  “Don’ care! This is Fifth. Don’ wan’ any dirty Firsts here.” The man stood swaying unsteadily, face twisted with rage. Then he smashed the bottle down on the table edge, sending liquor spurting over his companions, and waved the jagged edged weapon threateningly.

  “There they are! Filthy Firsts. Recognise ’im from inspection. Throw ’em out.”

  Lin saw with mounting apprehension that the drunken giant was stumbling unsteadily towards Merryl’s table. He had evidently recognised one of the men as a First and quite rightly resented the intrusion.

  One of his mates sprang after him, broken bottle clenched in dirty paw.

  “Throw ’em out! Come here to gloat over us. Animals, that’s what they call us.”

  Others in the crowds began to gather round, dancers swayed into the melee, and the men thrust through to seize bottles and join in shouting insults.

  The two men with Merryl, one young, the other middle-aged, rose hastily, and stood protectively before Merryl.

  The hairy giant shouted again, savagely, “Dirty Firsts! Shpying on us. Get ’em.” He flung the bottle full at the youth, and followed it with a bull-like rush.

  The crowd yelled and swept over the three Firsts in one tumultuous uproar. Lin saw the middle-aged man strike futilely at the giant. Then the shouting and screaming rose in a crescendo, in which all individual sounds and sights were lost.

  Tables crashed over and lay splintered and broken. A hurtling chair smashed into a bottle display behind the bar, brought them down in an avalanche of shattered glass. Then Lin was boring into the mob, fighting desperately to get to Merryl’s side.

  In a second he was surrounded by angry faces and struggling, heaving bodies. His fist jarred against a grimacing face, its owner went down somewhere beneath pounding feet-. Something sent sharp stabs of pain across the back of his head, the bright lights overhead blurred and ran together.

  Then gasping, he levered his way into the centre of the struggle, twisting through packed backs of men facing the bar. He stumbled out into a semi-circle of floor, cleared of tables and chairs, littered with the bodies of Fifths.

  The younger First was huddled on a chaotic jumble of bodies, broken tables and splintered glass. The front of his tunic was dripping crimson, his eyes wide and unseeing. Lin did not look twice.

  The older man and Merryl were backed against the bar, warding off their attackers with viciously swinging chairs. The man had a sword stick, dyed red, which he used with a dexterity of aim that had struck respect into the mob. But it was obvious they couldn’t hold out much longer.

  Lin grabbed the nearest assailant by the shoulder, swung him round, sent him stumbling against another with a savage right hook. He stooped, grasped a bottle by the neck and brought it up and down, smashing it over the head of the hairy giant.

  Without waiting to see the mob’s leader fall, Lin thrust the broken bottle before him and charged through. Then he was shoulder to shoulder with the Firsts, chest heaving, bottle still dripping liquor stained with blood, watching the snarling faces and waiting for the final rush.

  Blood lust was in the mob; the tenseness that Wray had spoken of was snapped in a surge of hatred against the privileged Firsts, hatred that had overcome all the conditioning of their education and environment.

  “Get ’em! Get ’em and that dirty traitor, too!”

  With a frantic sweep of bulging arms, a great bull of a man charged at the group backed against the bar, roaring with hate. Lin dropped to one knee, came up under the man’s clumsy guard, crashed the broken bottle into his snarling face.

  Shockingly, the lights went out.

  Lin’s first thought was of blindness. Then the sudden silence that had dropped with the darkness lifted, and the crowd shouted in baulked fury.

  “Lights! Lights!” The cry went up from the centre of the hall and was taken up and echoed by dozens of voices.

  For a few instants their attention had been diverted from the battle round the bar, for a few brief, valuable instants. Lin knew that he had almost no time at all in which to act. He groped frantically back amongst broken furniture, glass crackling under his feet, reaching for Merry 1.

  If he could get her and the other man away from the battle area under cover of this welcome darkness, slide around the walls, hide somewhere—

  Crack!

  For a moment too short for seeing the hall was lit with white light. A shot echoed hollowly.

  “Guards! The City Guards!”

  A stentorian voice rang out over the heads of the crowd, seeming to come from all directions as echoes bounced from wall to wall. It shouted again.

  “Look out! The Guards!”

  Then the panic broke.

  Lin was knocked off his feet, sent staggering against the bar. jostled whilst he was on all fours. The mad rush of the mob passed over him like an angry tide breaking on a beach. They had no thought of attack now. only escape. Torches flashing in the midst shone
on fear stricken faces, bellowing mouths whose cries were lost in the uproar.

  Panting, Lin hauled himself up and leaned against the bar, dizzy with reaction. With part of his will power he wanted to run with the rest to the exit, to get away from the Guards with their electric stunners and the prospect of recapture. Somewhere inside his brain, though, something whispered to him to wait.

  Let this crazy panic die, there was something wrong somewhere. They were running from—what? A shout. An idea. He strained his eyes through the gloom.

  There were no signs of the City Guards yet. Nothing but the last remnants of the fleeing mob, dimly seen forms crowding the exit. Still bodies littering the floor, tumbled amidst upturned chairs, smashed tables, somewhere in a corner blue sparks showered from a deserted gambling machine.

  Merryl and her companion had disappeared.

  If the City Guards had made a raid they would have had the building surrounded, stunners ready and the mob rounded up and under arrest. Lin shook his head.

  He must find Merryl. He couldn’t lose her again, now. So soon after finding her in this rabbit warren. Lin pushed himself away from the bar, feeling his muscles beginning to stiffen, and crunching over glass and broken furniture, set off for the door.

  “Lin? Is that you, Lin?”

  A torch beam shone dazzlingly on his face, switched off. Wray, a bulky black outline in the dusk, loomed at his shoulder.

  “Come on, we haven’t much time. Hold the torch.”

  With damp fingers Lin grasped the metal cylinder, pressed the stud. The beam showed Wray crouching by the body of the young First, distorted by the mob’s trampling feet. His hands were exploring the dead man's pockets.

  “Wray,” Lin felt fascinated by the absorption shown in this gruesome task. “The City Guards—”

  Wray flashed a glance over his shoulder, amusement glittering in his pale eyes.

  “We’ve got more time than that. I knew where the main switch was. I pulled it, shouted ‘Guards! ’ ” He stood up. grimacing at the red stickiness on a wad of papers. “I was ready for trouble. The Guards will be on their way by now, though. These papers will prove useful to Victor, I imagine. Let’s get out of here, fast!”