Atlanta Run

Chapter Ten

Blade’s plan, formulated on the spur of the moment, was elementary and direct: overpower the patrol, grab Glisson, and head for the hills or some semblance thereof. By taking the initiative when they were 35 yards from the Euthanasia Directorate, out in the open and not hemmed in, he maximized the advantage of his superior size and reach. His attack was totally unexpected. Captain Yost and two of the troopers were flattened by roundhouse haymakers before the trio still standing awoke to the fact they were under assault. The shortest of the three grabbed for the blackjack in its holster on his right hip, only to find himself toppling over after the giant delivered an excruciating kick to his testicles.

“Get him!” hissed the heaviest of the two patrolmen left. He whipped his blackjack from its holster and swung at the giant’s chin, but failed to connect. The standard police blackjack was seven inches in length, consisting of a circular metal knob attached to a flexible handle, encased in brown leather. In the hands of an expert, the weapon could incapacitate or kill, and the trooper was adept at its use. He closed in, aiming another blow at the Warrior, foolishly expecting to end the fray quickly.

The second trooper drew his blackjack and waited for an opening.

With pantherish speed and grace, Blade side stepped the policeman and used the edge of his right hand to crush his foe’s throat. The man gagged and stumbled, his knees buckling, his arms waving wildly. Blade wrenched the blackjack free and turned to confront the final trooper.

Voicing an inarticulate cry of rage, the last policeman lunged.

Blade used his left forearm to block a descending swipe of the trooper’s blackjack, then countered with a brutal smash to the man’s nose. The cartilage crushed and blood spurted, and with a whine of despair the man threw himself backwards. Blade brought the blackjack up from his right knee, the metal ball smacking into the trooper’s chin and crunching his teeth together.

The policeman tottered and went down.

Every pedestrian within 50 yards was immobile, watching the tableau in horrified astonishment.

Time to hit the road.

Blade glanced to the right and the left, and it was his turn to feel astonished as he saw that Glisson was gone. He glimpsed the tattered tramp hastening away to the east, weaving through the throng, and he sprinted in pursuit.

The transfixed citizens galvanized into frightened activity, scurrying from the giant’s path.

Annoyed at Glisson’s departure. Blade quickened his pace behind the hobo. From the direction of Glisson’s travel, Blade deduced that the old-timer was heading for the gate they’d entered, possibly hoping to get out of Atlanta before being apprehended by another police patrol. Blade increased his pace again as he spotted Glisson’s head and shoulders.

The oldster was moving at a spry clip. He looked over his left shoulder once, his face a mask of fear as he saw the giant. At the next intersection he took a left into a narrow street, sticking to the sidewalk.

Blade was gaining. The farther they went, the fewer people they encountered who had witnessed the fight with the police. Many of the amblers stared at him as he passed, but not one tried to interfere. He saw Glisson take a right and pounded after him. The old-timer was moving faster than Blade would have thought Glisson was capable of.

The pedestrians on the packed sidewalk were inadvertently slowing the Warrior, compelling him to proceed prudently to avoid a collision.

Glisson wasn’t so careful.

The hobo looked back once more, and that act proved his undoing. He crashed into a woman in a brown jumpsuit and they both took a tumble.

Blade reached them before either could rise. He grabbed Glisson by the scruff of the collar and hauled the man erect.

“Let go of me!” Glisson snapped, thrashing.

“Calm down,” Blade urged.

“Let go, damn you! I want to get out of here!”

“You don’t stand a chance by yourself,” Blade noted. “I can help you.”

“Why should you help me?” Glisson demanded doubtfully.

“I don’t want to see an innocent person die,” Blade said.

Glisson quit resisting. “Maybe we can help each other.”

Blade released his grip. He noticed the woman on the sidewalk, gawking at them in amazement. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Let me help you,” Blade offered, extending his right hand.

She shook her head and stood, backpedaling before he could touch her.

“No! I’m fine! Really!” She spun and fled into the crowd.

“The people here are sheep,” Glisson remarked distastefully.

Blade took the old-timer’s left arm and propelled him forward. “We must get out of Atlanta,” he said.

Glisson snorted. “Tell me about it.”

“You know the city much better than I do,” Blade commented. “How can we escape? Over the wall?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Glisson responded. “The outer wall is twenty feet high and manned by armed guards.”

“How else then?”

“We could bluff our way through one of the gates,” Glisson proposed.

“Sounds risky to me,” Blade said.

“And staying here isn’t?” Glisson countered. “They’re going to gas me in a Sleeper Chamber if I don’t think of a way out.”

Blade stared at the crowd, thinking. The police would be expecting them to try such a gambit, and the number of gate guards would likely be increased. Perhaps a wiser course would be to do something completely unforeseen, an act so off the wall that the authorities would never anticipate it. What would be the very last thing the police would expect?

“Do you have a better idea?” Glisson asked.

“Yes,” Blade answered as inspiration dawned.

“What?”

“We go to the Civil Directorate.”

Glisson halted so quickly, he almost tripped over his own feet. “What?”

“We were heading for the Civil Directorate, right?” Blade said. “Let’s go there.”

The old-timer’s lips twitched as he studied the giant from head to toe.

“Funny. You don’t look like a congenital moron.”

“I’m serious,” Blade stressed.

“That’s what scares me,” Glisson said. “I’m trapped in Atlanta with an imbecile.”

“Listen to me. Where is the last place they would expect us to go?”

“To the nearest Storm Police station to give ourselves up,” Glisson replied.

“They would never expect us to go to the Civil Directorate,” Blade stated. “They’ll be on our trail, and they’ll be searching everywhere except there.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Would you expect us to go to the Civil Directorate if you were them?”

Blade inquired.

“No,” Glisson admitted. “I’d credit us with more intelligence than that.”

“Let me ask you a question,” Blade said. “You’ve been here many times.

When the police took you to the Visitors Bureau at the Civil Directorate, did they take you inside?”

“No,” Glisson answered. “They always took me right up to the door, then took off. So what?”

“So if we show up at the Civil Directorate, requesting the services of an Escort, we won’t be arousing any suspicion,” Blade said.

“What if we’re spotted by a patrol?”

“We could be spotted any time,” Blade noted. “It’s a risk we’ll have to take.”

“And why bother to ask for an Escort?” Glisson queried.

“I still need to find someone.”

“Even with the Storm Police on our tail?”

Blade nodded. “So what do you say? Are you with me?”

“What choice do I have?” Glisson retorted.

“Can you get us to the Civil Directorate without using the main streets?” Blade asked.

Glisson grinned. “I know this part of the city well. I can do it.”

“Then let’s go,” Blade announced.

The old-timer resumed walking. “I knew I shouldn’t have come back here,” he mumbled.

“Then why did you?”

“I haven’t eaten a square meal in a week,” Glisson said. “I’m too old for the life on the road. Scrounging up food and other necessities is harder every year.” He paused. “In the past, I could count on two days of squares and a new set of threads if I came to Atlanta. I didn’t know the damn Peers had changed their indigent policy.”

“Why do you live on the road? Why don’t you settle down?” Blade suggested.

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” Glisson responded with a smile. “I’ve lived on the road since I was knee high to a grasshopper.”

“Isn’t it dangerous, what with all the mutants and scavengers?”

“Yeah, it’s dangerous,” Glisson replied. “But the danger is part of the allure. When you’re on the road, you never know what’s over the next hill or around the next curve. Every day brings something new, something different.” He paused and chuckled. “And my elephant gun does an excellent job of dissuading the mutants and scavengers.”

“You have an elephant gun?”

“An old Marlin 45-70. Ammo is scarce, but when it comes to stopping power, there isn’t a gun like it,” Glisson said with pride.

“Where is your 45-70?” Blade asked.

“I hid it in a waterproof sack near the road about three-quarters of a mile from the city wall,” Glisson detailed. “I don’t want these pricks to confiscate it on some pretext.”

Blade followed the old-timer into an alley. Glisson conducted him on a circuitous route down little-used streets. “We should find jumpsuits to wear,” the Warrior mentioned after ten minutes.

Glisson glanced at the giant. “I can rustle one up for me, but they don’t make jumpsuits your size. King Kong doesn’t live here.”

“King Kong?”

“I’ll explain later.”

They approached the third monolith from the west, emerging from an alley onto a street swarming with pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

“This was once called Spring Street,” Glisson remarked. “Now it’s known as Civil Street.” He pointed to the southeast. “The road we came into Atlanta on was Constitution Boulevard.” He nodded at the stretch of land occupied by the seven monoliths. “This was the State Capitol area before the war. Do you see that expressway on the far side of the Directorates?”

Blade nodded.

“Well, just beyond it a great American was buried,” Glisson revealed.

“He was a black man who tried to improve the social conditions for his race. Martin Luther King, Jr. Do you know what his gravesite is now?”

“No,” Blade said.

“A city dump.” Glisson sighed sadly. “All the old ways are gone with the wind. The Peers don’t want the people of Atlanta to be aware of prewar conditions, to realize the freedom Americans once enjoyed. Hell. They’ve even altered the textbooks the kids study in school. I saw one once. It was pitiful. This one went on and on about the official doctrine of the Peers, something called humanism.”

“It figures,” Blade commented.

“We can cross there,” Glisson said, indicating a nearby intersection.

They walked to the corner and waited with about ten others for a traffic light to change.

“Look,” Glisson whispered, staring at the curb on the opposite side of the street.

Blade gazed in that direction and discovered a Storm Policeman who was also waiting to cross. They would pass each other on the crosswalk.

“He’ll spot us for sure,” Glisson said nervously.

“We can’t turn back now,” Blade responded.

“He’ll blow the whistle on us.”

The light had not changed yet.

“It’s only been twenty minutes or so since we made our break,” Blade noted. “I doubt they’ve had the time to spread our descriptions to every trooper in the city.”

“I hope you’re right,” Glisson said.

The light changed and a WALK sign lit up.

“Let’s go,” Blade stated. “And try not to act jittery.”

“Tell that to my bladder.”

The groups of pedestrians on the curbs started across the street.

Blade stepped from the curb, his head held high, projecting a carefree air, purposely refraining from staring at the Storm Policeman. He held the blackjack in his right hand, tucked against his fatigue pants.

The trooper was coming straight at them.

Blade pretended to scan the far sidewalk, his eyes flicking over the Storm Policeman and assessing the man’s disposition. The trooper appeared to be wrapped up in his own thoughts, oblivious to those around him.

They were ten feet apart.

Glisson bumped into the Warrior’s left arm. He had scooted to Blade’s left side to partially screen himself with the giant’s body, and he was walking as close to Blade as he could get.

They were seven feet apart.

The Storm Policeman looked up and noticed the Warrior. His brown eyes narrowed as he examined Blade’s features, and then he shifted his gaze to Glisson.

Five feet apart.

If the pores on Blade’s skin had been large enough, Glisson would have crawled inside. He saw the trooper halt, and he gripped Blade’s arm in desperation.

Blade felt the tramp’s fingernails digging into his skin. He disregarded the pain and looked at the trooper.

Just as the Storm Policeman motioned with his right arm. “Hey, you!”