H M Hoover Read online

The man gave no indication of hearing her, then said, “Watcher want him?”

  “What do you think?” Her question wasn’t a lie. Another little pause and then the man turned to the terminal next to their stools. “What’s the number?”

  “Axel 32281.”

  He repeated the number to the terminal speaker. “Axel 32281 is in-house,” the computer immediately answered, its voice markedly polite compared to the human’s.

  “He ain’t gone out, kid,” the guard said.

  “Is he sick?”

  “How should I know?”

  “Well, can I go see him?”

  The guard looked at his cohort. “She wants to see a kid here.”

  The other guard shrugged. “Why not? No skin off my neck. Let her in.”

  She slipped through the open crack in the door. “Where—”

  “Bunk has his number on it.” The second guard nodded at a passage behind him. “Down there.”

  She had not imagined there were so many homeless children and suddenly knew she was fortunate by comparison. The shelter was a maze of passages. Above the entrance to each were numbers starting with 100-00 to 200 and continuing as far as one could see in the distance. Inside each numbered dormitory, row on row of three-tired bunks filled the space from floor to ceiling. Walls, floors, bunks, and blankets were all pale green and grimy with use and age. The place smelled of urine and despair, all masked with disinfectant.

  Amy stood at the door to the 300 room, not wanting to enter. The place was almost empty. Only a few bunks were occupied, one by a small boy who lay whimpering and thrashing restlessly. Across from him an older boy lay watching the child, his face impassive. Two girls came running down the aisle and brushed past her out the door. She guessed they were late for class. There was no way to avoid it; she went in.

  The bunk with Axel’s number appeared to have been made with him in it. A ragged green blanket covered the mattress from head to foot. Axel was the fetal-shaped lump beneath the blanket.

  After calling his name and getting no answer, she gingerly lifted the blanket from the bulge she thought was his head. He peered up at her, his expression changing from fear at not knowing who his visitor was to a frown of surprise. There were circles and puffs around his eyes as if he’d been crying a long time.

  “You sick?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why aren't you in class?”

  He shrugged.

  She reached over and felt his forehead; he had no fever but he flinched away from her touch.

  “Let me alone! Get out of here!

  She pulled her hand back and held it as if she had been burned.

  “If you aren’t sick, why are you acting like this?” she asked. “I thought you said ... we were going to start looking today . . . I got all ready to go . . .”

  He put on his new earguards and pulled the blanket over his head again, shutting her out, and started to rock. She watched for a moment, feeling disappointed and sorry for herself because no one seemed to want her around, even this boy who had nothing else. And then she considered him.

  “O.K.,” she said, and yanked the blanket off him, and pushed up his earguard so he could hear her. “You can stay here forever if that’s what you want. And if this is how you’re going to live, crying and sleeping all the time, it won’t make much difference to you when you die. But I’m going. Goodbye, Axel.”

  She was halfway down the aisle when she heard him yell, “That’s not my real name!” The boy minding the sick child looked around at the shout. She stopped and turned but could not see Axel for bunks. She walked back, slowly, not eager for more rejection. He had rolled onto his stomach and was peering through the dimness. “That’s not my real name,” he said again when he caught sight of her.

  “It will be so long as you’re here.” She stood by the end of his bunk.

  He stared at her with his puffy eyes. “Are you really going to try?” She nodded. “Now? Today?” She nodded again. “What if you can’t find a way out? What if people try to catch you? What if . . .” His fears rolled him over on his back and made his legs writhe. “I did try, you know! And if I fail again, then I’m trapped here for always.” His whisper subsided into a whimper.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “So am I.”

  “But you’re used to it. You don’t know anything better.”

  Amy frowned. There was something wrong with his logic where she was concerned, but she was in no mood to analyze that now. “Are you coming or not?”

  “You’re going now?”

  “I already wasted half a day because of you.” She waited for his response. When he continued to stare at her she took a deep breath and turned to go. '

  “Wait! I’m coming.”

  A buzzer signaled the end of lunch break. Cameras scanned the aisles as the children straggled back to the solitary confinement of their terminals.

  The watcher’s mouth twitched with irritation as he noted two empty seats. Now the girl was absent as well as the boy. Was that coincidence?

  “Profile Axel 32281,” he told the computer. The boy’s file was brief; the first entry, made less than a year before, was a level four medix report.

  “Unidentified pre-adolescent male patient admitted in comatose condition suffering from concussion, severe lacerations, contusions, abrasions, and four broken ribs. Severely depressed. No print ID on file. Assumed illegal birth in service levels.”

  The file noted the assignment of a temporary ID and the subject's transfer to the shelter on twelve and the learning center.

  The watcher dialed the level twelve shelter on a routine check and was told Axel 32281 had left the area, “with the girl you sent to get him.” The security film was replayed, and as Amy's face appeared, the watcher felt a warning twinge of unease. Their joint absence was not coincidental; two abnormal were truant together. Why?

  Because the watcher had higher ambitions within the select world of authority, he was more thorough and resourceful than most of his ilk. He noted the ID number of the medic who had first treated 32281 and called him. The medic remembered the patient only vaguely.

  “Very disturbed—traumatized by some sort of sexual assault—his reality parameter was shaken.”

  “In what way?”

  “He believed he lived outside.”

  “When?”

  “Before he was admitted.”

  “Had he?”

  The medic's face closed. The question was close to treason.

  “I want to know,” the watcher insisted, “was he physically different in any way? Any evidence of solar radiation?”

  “The patient was psychotic,” the medic insisted. “It's in the record.”

  “You never considered he was telling the truth?”

  “Don't be—the patient was disturbed.”

  The medic's indignant face disappeared as the watcher flipped to another channel. Perhaps, the watcher thought, Fm overreacting to a case of simple truancy. Still, it would be smart to alert the hall monitors.

  6

  “I was thinking,” Axel said as they walked down the hall together, “it might be a good idea to go up to the eightieth level first. If there are windows there, it’d be so high that it would be like looking down at a map.” When she didn't say anything, he added, less confidently, “Maybe we would see the ground and see if there are any people outside. And where they got out.”

  What is a map? Amy wondered. This was the trouble doing things with other people. They always had ideas of their own. Not wrong ideas, but different, so that a thing that seemed simple and direct got all muddled and difficult. Maybe it would be better if she went her way and let him go his. But if she said that, he'd probably just look at her and then turn around and go back to his bed and curl up in a ball.

  “What if there is no place like level eighty and we just waste time?”

  “Then we'll know anyhow.” His voice was almost pleading.

  “What good—” She saw a familiar face across the ha
ll and forgot what she was going to say.

  “What's wrong? You don't like my idea?”

  She shrugged, not sure. ‘That was the crazy—from my apartment block. What’s he doing up here?”

  Axel turned to look, but the man was lost in the crowd. “Probably just wandering around/’ he said. “They go all over. You want to go up to eighty?”

  “O.K.” She really didn’t want to, but if that man had overheard them talking about finding a surface door and had been told to watch her, he would expect them to go down, not up. But if he was a watcher, why didn’t he just stop them?

  The up-ramp entrance was on corridor A. Most traffic was local, from one level to the next. To avoid the congestion around the exits, Axel and Amy stayed in the through lane against the outer wall.

  While the ramps weren’t steep, the grade was constant. By exit 16, Axel said, “It’s funny. Usually I feel so tired I hate to get out of bed, but today I feel like I could walk forever and not get tired. I guess it’s because I have someplace to go and somebody I like to go with.” Amy trudged on until exit 20. “Do your legs burn inside?” Axel was puffing.

  She nodded, too breathless to talk. She’d never climbed more than two ramps at a time in her whole life.

  “Can we rest?” he asked. She nodded again, more emphatically.

  “Why didn’t you say you were tired?” he asked.

  “Because four levels down you said you weren’t so I wasn’t going to say I was.”

  “Oh. That’s stupid.”

  “No it’s not. Let’s find someplace to sit down.”

  They found space on one of the benches in the center of a traffic island near the ramps. The benches were full of old people talking with friends or just sitting, watching the crowds go by. A crazy lay on the floor; people stepped over

  her. Another wild-eyed woman marched around, arguing with someone who wasn’t there, poking the air with stiff jabs. Axel eyed them uneasily; Amy ignored them.

  She reached into a pocket and pulled out a chunk of protomush, handed it to him, and got a second, smaller piece for herself. “Hide it in your hand,” she warned. “If the crazies see it, they’ll try to take it from you. They’re worse than rats.” With the back of her hand she brushed away the hair that clung to her damp forehead.

  “Why are there so many?”

  “Rats?”

  “Crazies.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know—there didn’t used to be—not when I was little. It’s getting worse. But the city is old.” “What does that have to do with crazies? The city being old.”

  “I don’t know.” She had never questioned that pat answer to all problems. “That’s what the authorities say when people complain—What do you expect? The city is old.”

  “That’s stupid.” Axel took a bite of the mush and chewed thoughtfully. “Or, as they would say here, ‘normal.’ They call everything stupid ‘normal.’ I’d sure hate to be normal here.”

  Amy was too polite to tell him there was little chance of that. But he did seem different now, more alive. Maybe it was because his cheeks were flushed from walking that his eyes looked bright.

  “That crazy’s coming over here—he’s seen us eating.” “Cram the rest in your mouth!” said Amy, following her own advice. Axel did the same, and the two of them got up and moved out into the crowd again.

  By mutual agreement they rested every fifth level after that. Aside from the numbers painted on the wall at each

  exit, it was impossible to tell one level from the next. All looked and smelled the same. All the people looked the same. Slowly, without realizing it, they both became discouraged, and exhausted from breathing too much foul air.

  At level forty-eight the ramp went off at an odd angle and ended. Just like that, with no notice and no explanation. Where the next up ramp should be was an area that gradually curved into the down ramp.

  “Garbage!” Amy swore. “There’s no eightieth floor! It was all a dumb story to tell kids. We came all the way up here for nothing!” She felt like kicking something or crying or both. They stood looking one way, then another, bewildered.

  “Maybe the next ramp goes up.”

  “Then why not here, tool ”

  He shrugged. “It was just an idea. We could go see? Or ask somebody?”

  “We could go back down too. It’s just about the same distance.”

  “You sure quit easy,” he said.

  “I don’t!”

  “You do! The first time something goes wrong, you’re ready to quit. You could at least come with me and look.”

  “O.K.,” she agreed grudgingly. “But I think it’s a waste of time. We could’ve been outside by now maybe if we’d gone down instead of up.”

  “Or we could be running around in tunnels, not knowing which way to go—like I did every time before.”

  That caught her attention. “How many times have you tried to find your way out?”

  Six.

  “Six? They caught you and brought you back every time?” „

  He nodded, shamefaced. “When I used my ID card to get food or asked someone questions, a guard would always get

  me right afterward and take me back to twelve.”

  “Why didn’t they take you to Rehabilitation?”

  “Because they . . . they think I’m crazy and Rehab wouldn’t help. That’s what I heard one say—it would just make one more crazy.”

  Amy thought that over and wondered if they’d be so lenient in her case. Still, if Axel knew he wouldn’t be punished . . .

  “Why didn’t you ever come up here by yourself to look?” “I didn’t know there was supposed to be any place you could see out. Besides, I probably would have been scared to come alone.”

  “Oh.” There was a pause. “I always was,” she admitted, “and I always wanted to see eighty.” She started toward the corridor. “Let’s find a public sanit before we decide anything else.”

  The boy made a face. “Do we have to?”

  “I have to.”

  “Oh ... me too, if we’re being honest.”

  The sanit was marked by its blue and white sign of dancing water, a sign far more inviting than the interior. Public sanits were dangerous places, and children were encouraged to avoid them. There was supposed to be a guard assigned to each room, but the guards were never there. A security camera scanned the area, but the camera was usually broken.

  “Don’t look at anybody and move fast,” advised the city-wise Amy as she eyed the disreputable-looking adults who lounged inside the door. “Pretend you have to throw up. That keeps ’em away. Do what I do.” She put her hand over her mouth and began to run, making retching noises in her throat. Axel ran after her, noting how Amy deliberately bumped into people and gagged. Instinctively the adults jumped back or shoved the children toward the toilets until

  Amy and Axel found two vacant cubicles and slammed the doors behind them.

  “That was really smart,” Axel said admiringly when they were back in the corridor again en route to the far ramp. “Where'd you learn that?”

  “Anita—the big girl who sits across from me.”

  “Oh. I don't like her much.”

  “Don't worry about it.” Amy suddenly grinned. “If we're lucky, we'll never see her again.” Axel started to grin back at the thought, and then, to her surprise, his face twisted as if he were going to cry. “What's wrong?” she asked. He turned away so she couldn't see.

  It took him a little while before he could answer. “Nothing ... I just thought what it would mean—if we had to see her again. It would mean we're still trapped.”

  “If we have to go back, we'll just try again.” She spoke more bravely than she felt.

  A siren went off down a side hall. Amy's stomach cramped at the sound. Maybe they'd been seen? To clear the right-of-way, the traffic crushed together and came to a near halt until the bright yellow car passed. People craned their necks to see who or what was in the vehicle. All Amy and Axel could see we
re the backs and shoulders ahead of them. Both children mouth-breathed to lessen the stench of body odor. Axel stood with his hands over his earguards, his eyes squeezed shut. Amy waited in controlled panic and wondered if it was true that she was “trapped”—for. if she was, then so was everyone else. Didn't they mind?

  When the crowd started to move again, she tugged the boy's arm to wake him up and they continued on their way. Perhaps because they were tired now, the corridor seemed endless. After a time Amy thought to look at the hall numbers. The school tapes lied—every level was not the same.

  There were seventy-two halls in her sector of level nine, and a ramp every twenty halls. The hall they were passing here was number ninety-six, and no ramp was in sight.

  Axel hadn’t noticed and she didn’t say anything, wanting to figure out for herself how this could be. But she couldn’t. And there was no one to ask without revealing her strangeness to the area and the fact that she didn’t belong here. She would wait and see. Maybe this was the top level?

  After hall 121 came the ramps. They were narrower and much steeper, and the pavement was lined with traction bars. There were wheel marks on the pavement, as if a lot of emergency vehicles went up and down here. The children, already tired, trudged upward, eyes on the ground, seeing little around them, earguards on, shut into their own determined little world.

  Up one slope, around the curve, up the next slope, dodge around people, around the curve. Rest. The time for their evening meal came and went without their knowing it. Ramp traffic thinned as time and levels passed. From level sixty-five on up there were gates and turnstiles. ID cards were needed to leave the ramp. They did not want to use their ID cards and betray their presence so far from home, so they leaned against the wall to rest and then went on. There was almost no traffic now. Both were so tired they could hardly lift their feet. When they reached the exit to level seventy, they found no turnstiles there.

  “We’d feel better if we could rest and eat,’7 Amy said, and Axel nodded agreement, too tired to talk. They left the ramp and stopped in exhausted bewilderment.

  7

  There was no corridor here. There was nothing familiar. The off ramp led to a long hallway that turned sharply to the right. Before the turn, a sign on the rough gray wall read: No Unauthorized Personnel Beyond This Point in red letters. No one else had exited with them. They were alone in this place.