Koontz, Dean - The Fall of the Dream Machine Read online

  "They never saw a trained Performer die. They have nothing to compare this to."

  "But," he protested, "it was obvious! There was no depth!"

  McGivey shifted in his seat. "All right. Perhaps the audience knows. Perhaps they really do know that that was not Mike Jorgova being butchered in the dark alley."

  "But they wouldn't tolerate the deception!"

  "Why not?"

  He fumbled for an answer.

  "Look," McGivey went on, "they tolerate the cruelty of the killing in the first place. They see no real horror in what just took place—at least not enough to feel compelled to protest."

  Mike felt his stomach tremble again.

  "If they get a unique program, if they can experience Death without dying, feel exquisite tortures with no real harm, what do they care whether it is really Mike Jorgova transmitting or some poor idiot who was once a minor cog in the machine, a cog that has missed a turn or become obsolete?"

  "They enjoy this sort of thing?"

  "They must. It gets the highest ratings."

  "I feel thirsty. For a Coolcola," Mike said. "Subliminals?"

  "Yes. Show sells four times as many products with subliminals aired on a program like this. Excites the viewer's libido, which he satisfies through purchasing, purchasing, purchasing."

  Mike whistled.

  "There is one good thing that will come of this," McGivey said.

  "Good?"

  "Yes. You are now legally dead. You can enter the out. side without fear of discovery."

  "Do I go back for Lisa yet?"

  "You're still determined to go back?"

  "Yes."

  "You Performers are a hearty lot. Storm was the same way."

  "Storm? Did he demand front line action too?"

  "Yes. He was using a different name: Fredrick."

  "Oh God!"

  "Exactly. You are still determined on going for Lisa yourself?"

  He thought of Tom Storm/Fredrick sprawling across the seat of the floater, his head gone. And he thought about Lisa and Cockley and held his resolve. "I'm going back for her."

  McGivey sighed. "Very well. You will be taken to a secret training area next. You will learn all manner of self-defense, personal trickery, deceit, so on. You'll be put in the care of Nimmy, our best and number one man."

  "Nimmy?"

  "Roger Nimron. The President."

  PART TWO:

  LESSONS FOR A REVOLUTION

  I

  Mike Jorgova watched the barren fields flash past. Most of the snow had melted since his escape. Gray mounds of ugly slush lay at cliff overhangs where plows had shoved them. Muddy, brown earth showed through most places. Snow was a problem even for floaters, for it did not present a solid enough surface for the blowers. It sent the vehicles in weaving, bobbling flight paths that usually ended in disaster. In many of the newer highways, heating coils were being installed in the roadbeds to vaporize the snow before it could lay. In time, plows would be obsolete.

  The fields, meantime, were barren.

  But the sky was a bright and cheerful blue, and the contrast kept him from sinking into an emotional morass that had been lying stagnant in the rear of his mind all morning. It was a swamp of doubt. Again, he had no idea where he was going, why, or for exactly what purpose. "Further training" was a very vague phrase. He felt the gray smog of unbelonging creep over him again. In the distant comers of his mind, there was a flame named Lisa that burned through the overcast. Perhaps it was that which kept him going. Yet he did not wholly trust that flame. It was a symbol of love to him, yet he was not certain that he loved her. He had never known another woman. He had been conditioned to love Lisa. It was the knowledge of that which made him afraid. He wanted to overthrow Show. He hated Cockley and all the things the man stood for. But he was afraid that once he faced Lisa the flames would prove a false spark. His single purpose would be hollow and meaningless. It was a great fear; and it was black.

  A flock of geese drifted from horizon to horizon.

  He forced his thoughts from the pessimistic and tried to concentrate on a few of the mysteries he had not yet solved. He still did not know where McGivey lived. The house was certainly underwater, for he had felt the pressure as they had left it, heard the turning of screws, felt the breaking free and switching to floater status. They did not remove the blindfold for thirty minutes. When he could see again, the only water was in the form of snow and melting snow in the drainage ditches. Now he was going to an equally mysterious place, one which harbored the President of the United States. McGivey had explained that Cockley's men had tried to kill Nimron, forcing the President to secrete himself while circulating public announcements that he had taken a short working vacation. No one questioned the announcement. Very few people even cared. Only slightly over a quarter of the populace could identify the President by name, the latest poll showed. People generally cared very little about the activities of a minor official.

  "You had best blindfold yourself now, Mr. Jorgova," the driver said, handing him a white cloth.

  "Again?"

  "It's top secret."

  "But I can be trusted."

  "Until you take the Prober test—excuse my bluntness— we can't be sure."

  "Prober test?"

  "You'll find out in time."

  He did not like the sound of it, but he snapped on the magnetic cloth and sat passively as the floater dipped, fluttered onward toward Roger Nimron and "further training." Half an hour later, the car paused. The driver said some nonsense phrase through the comsystem. There was a moment of silence, then a great rumbling. The air blades echoed now, the soft coughing resounding from nearby walls. Then the rumbling sounded again, behind them this time.

  "You can remove your blindfold," the driver said, getting out of the vehicle.

  He did as told and found himself in a great cave whose floor was concrete and whose bats—mechanical—were round, with wheels instead of wings. The dark shapes, carrying men, fluttered through steel scaffolding from one bank of instruments to another. He got out and looked about. The size of the chamber was staggering. It was as large as six football fields. There were two dozen floaters parked in stalls along the far wall. Four jet fighters, two reconnaissance planes, two helicopters, and a tank rested to the left. To the right were shrouded, blunt shapes that suggested missiles.

  "This way," the driver said, leading him to the gray doors of an elevator built into the solid rock.

  Above, the metal bats scurried about. Their riders jumped out now and then to listen to a dial, a gauge, a graph. All the instruments of measurement talked incessantly, stating the temperature, the pressure, a million things. Thousands of ghosts in the ceiling. Their whispers carried to the floor, though indistinct and unreal.

  The elevator doors yawned open, the mouth of a huge leviathian.

  He got in. "Up?" he asked of the driver.

  "Down," the driver answered.

  "How deep are we?"

  "Classified."

  "Where are we?"

  "Classified."

  The fear of not belonging crept up, but the flame still burned.

  The doors hummed open just as the lift jerked to a halt.

  There were two guards.

  One of them leveled a gun at him, shot him in the stomach. . . .

  "Is this really love?" she asked him. "Yes," he said. "I mean, really love?" she asked again. "I mean really yes, you silly pigeon." And he kissed her. "But what is love?" she asked. She tried to register curiosity and innocent inquiry, yet tinge it with lust. She was a new Performer, and she was constantly afraid of muffing it. She had to be on guard not to transmit her own, few secret emotions to the people at home—her fear of failure. She flushed out another wave of curiosity. "What is love?" he asked, repeating her question. "Love, my darling, is the moon when it is full and white." "Is that all love is?" she queried. "No. Love is lilacs. Love is roses. Love is holding hands on the first date and kissing on the second. Love is sha
ring a drink. Love is sentimentality, melancholia, sweetness and light." "Really?" she asked, puckering her full ripe lips. "All that?" she asked, feeling that all that was truly not very much. But the folks at home thought all these things constituted the essence of love. "And of course," he said, "this is love too." He reached for her— She was gone. . . . A black-gray fuzz. Fade Out. Technicians ran everywhichway, but she was back before they had time to discover anything. There was fear stamped boldly across her face, though she could not name the fear that filled her. She could not remember anything from those missing ten seconds. Except a great deal of background noise. Strange voices, strange noises, eerie screams. "And love is also this," he said, attempting to pick up where they had left off. "Love is—"

  Mike was suddenly awake. And alive. His eyes clicked open, and he surveyed the room. There were two men in it—one a thin, dark, alert man in a gray one-piece suit, the other a stocky, heavily muscled man in a black jumper-suit with black boots to match. There was a scar on the second man's face that ran from his left ear to the edge of his lips.

  "You passed," the thin one said.

  "Passed what?" he asked. "The resurrection?" He was surprised his tongue was not slurring the words. It felt very thick.

  "The Prober test. You are not harboring any thoughts of betraying the Revolution."

  "I told them that. I—"

  "We had to be sure."

  He looked down at his stomach. "I was shot," he said, searching for a wound.'

  "With a sedative dart. Nothing more. Simple security precautions."

  He pulled himself up in the chair, out of his slouched position. "And you two?"

  "This is Pierre Fidel. Pierre will teach you every one of the fine arts of self-defense. He will make you a formidable fighter."

  Pierre bowed. He was the one with the scar.

  "And you?" Mike asked.

  "I am Roger Nimron. Your instruction will alternate between physical training with Pierre and education of the mind with me. Your mornings will be spent in the gym, your afternoons in my office, your evenings in the gym again. Welcome to the army."

  He forced himself to stand, though his knees were jelly-filled. "Could you tell me where I am now?"

  Nimron smiled. "Three miles underground, beneath the Appalachian Mountains in what used to be Pennsylvania before the redistricting and renaming. This is a bomb shelter. It was built during the last years of the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear annihilation was greatest. In the first weeks of my Presidency, I destroyed all records of it, wiped all trace of it from the Washington computer and thus from all computers who might draw on Government tapes in the future. Then I began funneling Federal funds to Flaxen so he could secretly refurnish it, get it in working order. This is the last bastion of the Presidency against Cockley. This is where the Media Revolution will begin."

  "Media Revolution."

  "I'll explain it later. You begin your training with Pierre now. He will show you to the gym."

  They shook hands all around, and Pierre led him from the room. He was struck by the thought that he still did not see what Flaxen or any of them stood to gain from a revolution. Were they as power hungry as Cockley, just wanting their slice of a different pie? He made up his mind to ask Nimron during the first of their instructional periods. He had to have an answer.

  "This is the gym," Pierre said as the yellow doors lifted into the stone ceiling before them. It was a thirty foot by thirty foot room full of exercising machines ringing a wrestling mat. "The pool is beyond those doors."

  "Quite a bomb shelter," he said inanely.

  "Not for a President," Pierre said sharply. Very little was obvious about Flaxen and Nimron and their group, but one thing stood out very clearly: they revered the past. The glory of the Presidency was a lost thing, but here it was clung to and nurtured.

  "Of course not," he agreed.

  "Over here," Pierre said, beginning to walk to the center of the mat. The man was all muscle. His arms corded, rippled as he swung them in time with his legs. His back writhed like the back of a jungle cat stalking prey. "How much do you know about self-defense?"

  "Very little, I'm afraid. I always had bodyguards at Show."

  "Naturally. But here you won't. You'll have to learn fast. The Revolution time schedule is constantly revised, updated. Cockley keeps gaining power more rapidly than expected. For instance, we did not expect him to try to kill Nimmy so soon."

  Mike nodded.

  "You'll get to know me well. You will work hard and learn quickly." He extended a hand to be shaken. Mike took it, felt himself thrust suddenly from his feet, twisted across the stocky man's shoulders. Then he was flying— birdlike. Then he was falling—stonelike and with pain. "The first lesson is never to trust anyone, any time, too completely."

  And such was his introduction to Japanese arts of brawling. He saw that there was much to be learned. And much work to be done.

  Four hours later the session ended. He was fed exquisite food that was only bland pap in his mouth, for the tang of his own blood had wiped his palate clean of all tastes save that one. He was put to bed in his room—a cubicle. He worried, still, about his lack of understanding of Flaxen and the others. He worried about Lisa. But none of these things kept him awake. The sheets grazed his skin, rustled beneath him. Even before the echo of their crumpling had died, he was asleep.

  II

  Stick a straw in a milkshake and blow a bubble. The thick liquid rises, forming a dome as the air seeks to escape. Then it bursts with a plop-slush and disappears without even making a wave in the heavy surface of the drink. That is the result of a gas pellet striking its target. Except that the burst dome does not disappear. Fired at seven inches of steel, this happens: the metal expands in a bubble, growing greater and greater, thinner and thinner. Then it pops, only its edges are ragged where the milkshake was smooth, and the edges are permanent.

  "It is a very deadly weapon," Pierre said, holding it up for Mike's inspection.

  "I can see that."

  The gun was small enough to be concealed in the palm of a man's hand. It was dull black, stubby, and with a fattened handle. "There are fifty shots of gas in the handle," Pierre continued. "When you depress the firing stud, one globule is propelled outward at terrific speed and under terrific pressure. It sinks into the target if your aim was good, just like a metal bullet. But here it differs from a bullet. The heat created by the friction as it sinks inward causes it to expand, turn from liquid to gas again. It explodes outward in every direction. The result to a human body is disastrous and distasteful—but nevertheless deadly."

  Mike could imagine the appearance of a victim. He had to tear his mind away from visions of mangled corpses.

  "And this," Pierre went on, putting the gas pistol down and picking up a slim, three inch piece of metal, "is a miniature throwing knife."

  "Isn't that rather primitive when you consider the gas pistol?"

  "A gas pistol makes noise. Very little, but it is not completely silent." He held up the tiny blade, turned it about so that the light caught its fine razor edge, glittered along it to the pinpoint. "This makes no noise. You may find yourself in a position where you must kill silently and yet are not close enough to do so with your hands. This is the time for a knife. Notice that it is double-bladed. There is a reason for that. You grasp it firmly by the middle with your thumb and first finger. When you throw it, you twist your wrist slightly to give it a spinning motion. You increase your chances of killing by one hundred percent."

  "Each blade is only an inch long," Mike protested.

  "It's all in your aim. Aim for the eye or the back of the head. Anywhere on the head, for that matter. Drive it into the brain."

  "But will it penetrate the skull?" He felt like a straight man in some insane comic routine. He was certain it would penetrate the skull.

  "Watch," Pierre said. He turned to the steel plating again, flicked his wrist. There was a faint toing! then silence.

  The
blade had sunk to the hilt in steel.

  "It will drive completely through a skull. Not just to the hilt, but all of it. The blade is very sharp."

  "And that is an understatement."

  "Something to do with the molecules on the edge of the cutting surface. I do not understand the technicalities. Suffice to say that it works."

  Mike shivered. "Hopefully, on someone else."

  Pierre chuckled, throaty and full-mouthed. "But those are things you will learn later. You first must know how to defend yourself with your hands, feet, legs, and head. You must be a complete human fighting machine before you take on artificial aids. You can always lose a weapon or have it taken from you. Your body cannot be taken from you except through death. Your body is your last weapon, and first you must know how to use it completely. The judo we worked on yesterday is but a basic step. But you must know it forward and in reverse before we go on to more sophisticated techniques."

  "It's going to be a pleasure learning from you, Pierre," he said, extending his hand.

  Pierre took it, started to shake. A fraction of a second later, Pierre was flying through the air, crashing onto the mat, groaning to a sitting position. "You learn fast, Mike Jorgova," he said, grinning.

  "I learned the hard way."

  Pierre stood, approached. "And I'll make sure you learn a few more things that way since you seem to catch on best when hardship is attached to the lesson." He grabbed a chair from one of the small card tables, swung it. Mike ducked, swayed with the swing, reached and grabbed one end of the chair. They clutched it between them, grunting like savages for control. Mike felt the chair slipping, slipping. Then it was gone. Pierre brought it down on his side, checking the blow at the last second just enough so the slam was not incapacitating and yet hurt Mike.