The Running Man

MINUS 080 AND COUNTING

Killian was in the wings, and convulsed with amusement. “Fine performance, Mr. Richards. Fine! God, I wish I could give you a bonus. Those fingers… superb!”

“We aim to please,” Richards said. The monitors were dissolving to a promo. “Give me the goddam camera and go fuck yourself.”

“That’s generically impossible,” Killian said, still grinning, “but here’s the camera.” He took it from the technico who had been cradling it. “Fully loaded and ready to go. And here are the clips.” He handed Richards a small, surprisingly heavy oblong box wrapped in oilcloth.

Richards dropped the camera into one coat pocket, the clips into the other. “Okay. Where’s the elevator?”

“Not so fast,” Killian said. “You’ve got a minute… twelve of them, actually. Your twelve hours’ leeway doesn’t start officially until six-thirty.”

The screams of rage had begun again. Looking over his shoulder, Richards saw that Laughlin was on. His heart went out to him.

“I like you, Richards, and I think you’ll do well,” Killian said. “You have a certain crude style that I enjoy immensely. I’m a collector, you know. Cave art and Egyptian artifacts are my areas of specialization. You are more analogous to the cave art than to my Egyptian urns, but no matter. I wish you could be preserved-collected, if you please just as my Asian cave paintings have been collected and preserved.”

“Grab a recording of my brain waves, you bastard. They’re on record.”

“So I’d like to give you a piece of advice,” Killian said, ignoring him. “You don’t really have a chance; nobody does with a whole nation in on the manhunt and with the incredibly sophisticated equipment and training that the Hunters have. But if you stay low, you’ll last longer. Use your legs instead of any weapons you happen to pick up. And stay close to your own people.” He leveled a finger at Richards in emphasis. “Not these good middle-class folks out there; they hate your guts. You symbolize all the fears of this dark and broken time. It wasn’t all show and audience-packing out there, Richards. They hate your guts. Could you feel it?”

“Yes,” Richards said. “I felt it. I hate them, too.”

Killian smiled. “That’s why they’re killing you.” He took Richards’s arm; his grip was surprisingly strong. “This way.”

Behind them, Laughlin was being ragged by Bobby Thompson to the audience’s satisfaction.

Down a white corridor, their footfalls echoing hollowly-alone. All alone. One elevator at the end.

“This is where you and I part company,” Killian said. “Express to the street. Nine seconds.”

He offered his hand for the fourth time, and Richards refused it again. Yet he lingered a moment.

“What if I could go up?” he asked, and gestured with his head toward the ceiling and the eighty stories above the ceiling. “Who could I kill up there? Who could I kill if I went right to the top?”

Killian laughed softly and punched the button beside the elevator; the doors popped open. “That’s what I like about you, Richards. You think big.”

Richards stepped into the elevator. The doors slid toward each other.

“Stay low,” Killian repeated, and then Richards was alone.

The bottom dropped out of his stomach as the elevator sank toward the street.