The Running Man

MINUS 034 AND COUNTING

“LISTEN TO ME CAREFULLY!” His voice boomed and rolled across the flat jetport acres. Police waited tensely. The crowd shuffled. “I AM CARRYING TWELVE POUNDS OF DYNACORE HI-IMPACT PLASTIC EXPLOSIVE IN MY COAT POCKET-THE VARIETY THEY CALL BLACK IRISH. TWELVE POUNDS IS ENOUGH TO TAKE OUT EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE WITHIN A THIRD OF A MILE AND PROBABLY ENOUGH TO EXPLODE THE JETPORT FUEL STORAGE TANKS. IF YOU DON’T FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS TO THE LETTER, I’ll BLOW YOU ALL TO HELL. A GENERAL ATOMICS IMPLODER RING IS SET INTO THE EXPLOSIVE. I HAVE IT PULLED OUT TO HALF-COCK. ONE JIGGLE AND YOU CAN ALL PUT YOUR HEADS BETWEEN YOUR LEGS AND KISS YOUR ASSES GOODBYE.”

There were screams from the crowd followed by sudden tidelike movement. The police found they had no one to hold back. Men and women were tearing across roads and fields, streaming out the gates and scaling the cyclone fence around the jetport. Their faces were blank and avid with panic.

The police shuffled uneasily. On no face did Amelia Williams see disbelief.

“RICHARDS?” The huge voice boomed. “THAT’s A LIE. COME OUT.”

“I AM COMING OUT,” he boomed back. “BUT BEFORE I DO, LET ME GIVE YOU YOUR MARCHING ORDERS. I WANT A JET FULLY FUELED AND READY TO FLY WITH A SKELETON CREW. THIS JET WILL BE A LOCKHEED/GA OR A DELTA SUPERSONIC. THE RANGE MUST BE AT LEAST TWO THOUSAND MILES. THIS WILL BE READY IN NINETY MINUTES.”

Cameras reeling and cranking away. Flashbulbs popping. The press looked uneasy too. But, of course, there was the psychic pressure of those five hundred million watchers to be considered. They were real. The job was real. And Richards’s twelve pounds of Black Irish might be just a figment of his admirable criminal mentality.

“RICHARDS?” A man dressed only in dark slacks and a white shirt rolled up to the elbows in spite of the fall chill strolled out from behind a gaggle of unmarked cars fifty yards beyond Lot 16. He was carrying a bullhorn larger than Richards’s. From this distance, Amelia could see only that he was wearing small spectacles; they flashed in the dying sunlight.

“I AM EVAN McCONE.”

He knew the name, of course. It was supposed to strike fear into his heart. He was not surprised to find that it did strike fear into his heart. Evan McCone was the Chief Hunter. A direct descendent of J. Edgar Hoover and Heinrich Himmler, he thought. The personification of the steel inside the Network’s cathode glove. A boogeyman. A name to frighten bad children with. If you don’t stop playing with matches, Johnny, I’ll let Evan McCone out of your closet.

Fleetingly, in the eye of memory, he recalled a dream-voice. Are you the man, little brother?

“YOU'RE LYING, RICHARDS. WE KNOW IT. A MAN WITHOUT A GA RATING HAS NO WAY OF GETTING DYNACORE. LET THE WOMAN GO AND COME OUT. WE DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO KILL HER, TOO.”

Amelia made a weak, wretched hissing noise.

Richards boomed: “THAT MAY GO OVER IN SHAKER HEIGHTS, LITTLE MAN. IN THE STREETS YOU CAN BUY DYNACORE EVERY TWO BLOCKS IF YOU'VE GOT CASH ON THE LINE. AND I DID. GAMES FEDERATION MONEY. YOU HAVE EIGHTY-SIX MINUTES.”

“NO DEAL.”

“McCONE?”

“YES.”

“I'M SENDING THE WOMAN OUT NOW. SHE’s SEEN THE IRISH.” Amelia was looking at him with stunned horror. “MEANWHILE, YOU BETTER GET IT IN GEAR. EIGHTY-FIVE MINUTES. I'M NOT BLUFFING, ASSHOLE. ONE BULLET AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO THE MOON.”

“No,” she whispered. Her face was an unbelieving rictus. “You can’t believe I’m going to lie for you.”

“If you don’t, I’m dead. I’m shot and broken and hardly conscious enough to know what I’m saying, but I know this is the best way, one way or the other. Now listen: Dynacore is white and solid, slightly greasy to the touch. It-”

“No, no! No!” She clapped her hands over her ears.

“It looks like a bar of Ivory soap. Very dense, though. Now I’m going to describe the imploder ring. It looks-”

She began to weep. “I can’t, don’t you know that? I have my duty as a citizen. My conscience. I have my-”

“Yeah, and they might find out you lied,” he added dryly. “Except they won’t. Because if you back me, they’ll cave in. I’ll be off like a bigass bird.”

“I can’t!”

“RICHARDS! SEND THE WOMAN OUT!”

“The imploder ring is gold,” he continued. “About two inches in diameter. It looks like a keyring with no keys in it. Attached to it is a slim rod like a mechanical pencil with a G-A trigger device attached to it. The trigger device looks like the eraser on the pencil.”

She was rocking back and forth, moaning a little. She had a cheek in either hand and was twisting her flesh as if it were dough.

“I told them I had pulled out to half-cock. That means you would be able to see a single small notch just above the surface of the Irish. Got it?”

No answer; she wept and moaned and rocked.

“Sure you do,” he said softly. “You’re a bright girl, aren’t you?”

“I’m not going to lie,” she said.

“If they ask you anything else, you don’t know from Rooty-Toot. You didn’t see. You were too scared. Except for one thing: I’ve been holding the ring ever since that first roadblock. You didn’t know what it was, but I had it in my hand.”

“Better kill me now.”

“Go on,” he said. “Get out.”

She stared at him convulsively, her mouth working, her eyes dark holes. The pretty, self-assured woman with the wraparound shades was all gone. Richards wondered if that woman would ever reappear. He did not think so. Not wholly.

“Go,” he said. “Go. Go.”

“I-I-Ah, God-”

She lunged against the door and half sprang, half fell out. She was on her feet instantly and running. Her hair streamed out behind her and she seemed very beautiful, almost goddesslike, and she ran into the lukewarm starburst of a million flashbulbs.

Carbines flashed up, ready, and were lowered as the crowd ate her. Richards risked cocking an eyebrow over the driver’s side window but could see nothing.

He slouched back down, glanced at his watch, and waited for dissolution.