The Running Man

MINUS 010 AND COUNTING

“Jesus,” Richards said. He was standing in the doorway to the pilot’s country.

Holloway turned around. “Hi.” He had been speaking to something called Detroit VOR. Duninger was drinking coffee.

The twin control consoles were untended. Yet they swerved, tipped, and fumed as if in response to ghost hands and feet. Dials swung. Lights flashed. There seemed to be a huge and constant input and output going on… to no one at all.

“Who’s driving the bus?” Richards asked, fascinated.

“Otto,” Duninger said.

“Otto?”

“Otto the automatic pilot. Get it? Shitty pun.” Duninger suddenly smiled. “Glad to have you on the team, fella. You may not believe this, but some of us guys were rooting for you pretty hard.”

Richards nodded noncommittally.

Holloway stepped into the slightly awkward breach by saying: “Otto freaks me out, too. Even after twenty years of this. But he’s dead safe. Sophisticated as hell. It would make one of the old ones look like a… well, like an orange crate beside a Chippendale bureau.”

“Is that right?” Richards was staring out into the darkness.

“Yes. You lock on P.O.D.-point of destination-and Otto takes over, aided by Voice-Radar all the way. Makes the pilot pretty superfluous, except for takeoffs and landings. And in case of trouble.”

“Is there much you can do if there’s trouble?” Richards asked.

“We can pray,” Holloway said. Perhaps it was meant to sound jocular, but it came out with a strange sincerity that hung in the cabin.

“Do those wheels actually steer the plane?” Richards asked.

“Only up and down,” Duninger said. “The pedals control sideside motion.

“Sounds like a kid’s soapbox racer.”

“A little more complicated.” Holloway said. “Let’s just say there are a few more buttons to push.”

“What happens if Otto goes off his chump?”

“Never happens,” Duninger said with a grin. “If it did, you’d just override him. But the computer is never wrong, pal.”

Richards wanted to leave, but the sight of the turning wheels, the minute, mindless adjustments of the pedals and switches, held him. Holloway and Duninger went back to their business-obscure numbers and communications filled with static.

Holloway looked back once, seemed surprised to see him still there. He grinned and pointed into the darkness. “You’ll see Harding coming up there soon.”

“How long?”

“You’ll be able to see the horizon glow in five to six minutes.”

When Holloway turned around next, Richards was gone. He said to Duninger: “I’ll be glad when we set that guy down. He’s a spook”

Duninger looked down morosely, his face bathed in the green, luminescent glow of the controls. “He didn’t like Otto. You know that?”

“I know it,” Holloway said.