Hell's Gate

CHAPTER 2

Two weeks later, he rose out of deepest blackness through blending shades of purple and blue. As he ascended like a diver from the ocean bottom, he kept searching for something that had been lost, though the loss was indefinable, illusive. As the blue became nearly white, he remembered that there should be a Fourth of July rocket sparking in his leg, sending pinwheel bursts of color shooting upwards into his head. Someone had stolen the rocket, or perhaps it had burned out. He was trying to think what should be done about it when the soft whiteness in his skull turned into little, busy fingers that pried open his eyelids.

He looked up at a jumble of rocks and earth and was seized with panic that he had been prematurely interred. He came quickly to his feet, bashed his head solidly against the low ceiling, and sat down again… A cave… Then it all came back: the Victorian house, breaking in, killing… It was two weeks later, and he was ready for the next step of the plan. Very good.

He examined his leg. There was a faint blue-brown discoloration where a gaping, pulsing hole should have been. Nothing more. He flexed his thigh muscles, expecting an eruption of agony. There was none. Everything checked out perfectly. Except

Except that he had killed a man he did not even know. Except that he did not know who he was. Or where he was from. Or what he might do next. For a moment, he felt depressed, confused. But that same measured, computer-like efficiency that had guided him that night two weeks earlier seemed to rise and beat back anything resembling human emotions. He began to lose the depression, confusion, fear.

Then he remembered the three trunks. He turned, looked behind where they rested against the real wall of the cave. They were made of burnished blue-gray metal, not unlike aluminum in appearance. The lids were fitted with hinges of the same metal. There were no locks, no places for keyholes.

He crawled back to them and looked them over. There were no initials on them, no shipping tags. He tried the lids without success. For a moment he sat there, feeling the incomprehension creeping back, the doors of doubt opening in his mind. But that strange, iron part of him clamped down on those sensations and returned him to cool reason. He went to the rucksack, opened it, and looked for clues there. He found the coin that had disintegrated the glass, the medkit, and three separately wrapped packages: brown paper held shut with rubber bands. He laid the coin and medkit aside and opened the first of these parcels. Inside was a bundle of crackling, green fifty dollar bills.

Suddenly, the iron part of him unwrapped all three packages and began counting. Two of the packages contained fifties, the other contained hundreds. Thirty thousand dollars in all. For a time, he sat, contemplating the money, smiling. But because there was nothing for the programmed part of him to do, the doubts and emotions began surfacing again. Had he been paid thirty thousand to kill the stranger? Was he a hired gun, an assassin? No, he could not very well be a professional killer, for he did not have the stomach for it. He could remember having been ill two weeks ago after killing the stranger. He had vomited just before going to sleep.

Sleep

Had he really slept two weeks? He remembered something, scrambled back to the mouth of the cave. The willow trees had bright, green tender leaves. When he had gone to sleep, they were merely studded with buds.

But in two weeks he should have starved, or died of thirst! And what about the leg? Did the average man heal that swiftly, without complications? Of course not. The more he allowed his mind to ramble through this disorder, the more frightening the mysteries became. And the more plentiful. He realized now that he was being used, that the programmed part of him was operating on some sort of quasi-hypnotic orders. But who was using him? And why? And who was he?

“Victor Salsbury,” a crisp, even voice said from somewhere close by in the cave. “It is time for your first briefing.”

Then, in an instant, there was no question of overcoming the iron program. It slapped down on him, squeezed the aware part of his mind back into the far reaches of his brain. He turned, positioned himself before the middle of the three trunks where, he somehow knew, an 810-40.04 computer was housed.

“Victor Salsbury,” the computer said. “Remember.”

And he did. He was Victor Salsbury. Twenty-eight years old. Both parents dead, killed in car crash when he was in sixth grade. Hometown: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was an artist-commercial trying to make it as creative. He was moving to Oak Grove to find a place to rent and make a studio. Thousands of major and minor memories poured into his consciousness. Memories of childhood, of life in the orphanage, of his art schooling, his association with a Harrisburg agency. Now, he had an identity. Somehow, the aware part of him felt, it was not genuine. As if he had been told his past, rather than having experienced it himself.

“Do not fight the programming,” the computer said to the tiny part of his mind that held emotions.

But I have killed a man!

“He would have died a month later anyway,” the computer explained in its authoritative tones. “And his death would have been much more horrible than anything you could possibly have done to him two weeks ago.”

How do you know that?

But the 810-40.04 ignored the second question. On the top of the trunk, two squares of the burnished metal began to glow softly, a sweet yellow. Without understanding how he knew to do this, Victor Salsbury reached out and placed one palm flat one each of the glowing spots. Instantly, the next step of the operation was flashed into his brain and printed there for eternity. When the squares ceased to shine, he rose, went to the farthest trunk just as it popped open at a command from the computer. He took out a suit of conventional clothes, dressed, and left the cave. He had orders to follow.