A Plague of Demons

2

Bailey took the walkaway to the nearest downshaft, rode the crowded car to Threevee Mall. No one paid any visible attention to him as he walked briskly along past the glare-lit store fronts through the streaming crowd that bumped and jostled him in a perfectly normal fashion. He passed the barred entry to a service ramp, continued another thirty feet past the green-uniformed Peaceman lounging near it; then he flattened himself against the rippling faзade of a popshop. A stout man with an angry expression bellied past, trampling his foot. Bailey stepped out behind him, delivered a sharp kick to the calf of the fat man's left leg, instantly faded back against the wall as the victim whirled with a yell. One windmilling arm caught another pedestrian across the chest. The latter dealt the fat man a return blow to the paunch. In an instant, a churning maelstrom of shouting, kicking, punching humanity had developed. Bailey watched until the Greenback arrived, cutting a swatch through the crowd with his prod; then he moved quickly along to the gate, jumped to catch its top edge, pulled himself up. There were a few shouts, one ineffective grab at his leg by a zealous citizen who staggered back with a bruised chin for his efforts. Then Bailey was over, dropping on a wide landing. Without hesitation, he started down the dark stairs toward outlaw territory.

3

The odor of Four Quarters was the most difficult aspect of that twilit half-world for Bailey to accommodate to. The shops were shabby antiques, badly lit by primitive fluorescents and garish neon, relics of an age that had by-passed and buried the original city under the looming towers of progress. The Prekes-the lawless ones, without life permits, work papers, or census numbers-seemed not much different than their catalogued and routinized brethren on the levels above, except for the variety of their costumes and a certain look of animal alertness. Bailey moved along the wide street, breathing through his mouth. He strolled for an hour, unmolested, before a tiny, spider-like man with sharp brown eyes materialized from a shadowy doorway ahead.

"New on the turf, hey?" he murmured, falling in beside Bailey. "Papers to move? Top price for a clean ID, Frosh."

"Where can I take a lay on the Vistats?" Bailey asked his new acquaintance.

"Oh, a string man, hah? You're lucky, zek. I'll fence it for you. Just name your lines and give me your card-"

Bailey smiled at the little man. "Do you really get any takers on that one?"

The pinched brown face flickered through several trial expressions, settled on rueful camaraderie. "You never know. Worth a try. But I see you're edged. No hard feelings, zek. What size lay you have in mind? An M? Five M's?"

Bailey slipped the Three-issue watch from his finger, handed it over. "Take me to the place," he said. "If you con me, I'll find you sooner or later."

The little man hung back, eyeing the offering. "How do I know you're on the flat?"

"If I'm not, you'll find me later."

A hand like a monkey's darted out and scooped the ring from Bailey's palm. "That's the rax, zek. This way."

Bailey followed his guide along a devious route, skirting the massive piers that supported the city above, into streets even meaner and dirtier than the first, wan in the light that filtered down through the grimy plastic skylights spanning the avenues. In a narrow, canyon-like alley, supplementally lit by a lone polyarc at the corner, the guide pointed with his chin and disappeared.

Bailey stood in a unswept doorway and watched the traffic. A man in a shabby woven-fiber coat passed, giving him a single, furtive glance. A hollow-cheeked woman looked him up and down, snorted, moved on. Across the street, a man loitered by a dark window, glancing both ways, then pushed through the unmarked door beside it. A fat woman in shapeless garments emerged, shuffled away. Bailey waited another five minutes until the man had gone, then crossed the street.

The door was locked. He tapped. Silence. He tapped harder. A voice growled: "Beat it. I'm sleeping."

Bailey kept tapping. The door opened abruptly; a swarthy, pockmarked face poked out. The expression on the unshaven features was not friendly. The man looked past Bailey, under him, around him, cursed, started to close the door. Bailey jammed it with his foot.

"I want a job," he said quickly. "You need runners, don't you?"

The swarthy man's foot paused an inch from grinding into Bailey's ankle. His blunt features settled into wariness.

"You're on a bum pitch, Clyde. What I need a runner for?"

"This is a drop shop. You can use me. How about letting me in off the street before somebody gets eyes?"

Reluctantly, the door eased back; Bailey slipped through into an odor of nesting mice. By the light coming through from a back hall he saw a clutter of ancient furniture, a battered computer console. Then a meaty hand had caught his tunic-front, slammed him back against the wall. A six-inch knife blade glinted in the fist held under his nose.

"I could cut your heart out," a garlic-laden voice growled in his face.

"Sure you could," Bailey said impatiently. "But why take a wipe for nothing?"

"Who told you about me?"

"Look, I just arrived an hour ago. The first drifter I met led me here. Everybody must know this place."

"Bugs send you here?" The hand shook him, rattling his head against the wall.

"For what? The Greenies know all about you. You must have paid bite money, otherwise you wouldn't be operating."

The knife touched Bailey's throat. "You take some chances, Clyde."

"Put the knife away. You need me-and I need money."

"I need you why?"

"Your biggest problem is transmitting bets and pay-off information. You can't use Pubcom or two-way. I've got a good memory and I like to walk. For a hundred a week in hard tokens I'll cover all of Mat'n for you."

The silence lengthened. The knife moved away; the grip on Bailey's blouse slackened slightly.

"Bugs got something on you?"

"Not that I know of."

"Why you need money?"

"To buy new papers-and other things."

"You got no cards?"

"Not even an ID."

"How do I know you're not dogging for the Bugs?"

"Get some sense. What would I get out of that?"

The man made a guttural noise and stepped back. "Tell it, Clyde. All of it."

Bailey told. When he finished, the swarthy man rubbed his chin with a sound like a wood rasp cutting pine.

"How'd you do it? Bust out, I mean?"

"I don't know. The girl found me in an alley mumbling about a pain in my chest. My wrists were a little raw, as if I'd forced the straps. After all, it isn't as if they expected anybody to try to leave."

The dark man grunted. "You're scrambled," he said. "But there could be something in it at that. OK, you're on, Jack. Fifty a week-and you sleep in the back."

"Seventy-five-and I eat here, too."

"Push your luck, don't you? All right. But don't expect no lux rations."

"Just so I eat," Bailey said. "I'll need my strength for what I've got to do."