Tomorrow’s World

Chapter 14

All traffic had been stopped on the street levels. The robot policemen had their hands full as small cars piled up one behind the other, their horns blaring shrilly. Everyone seemed to be in the streets. There was swearing and shouting and cursing and singing and drunken revelry. The Rees commanded the night, and they reeled about everywhere, proclaiming their major victory to the neon skies. Every Vike he passed stared at Brant dejectedly, sharing silently the blow of their defeat.

He started for the sub garage, and then realized the folly of even attempting to use his own car. He fought his way to the curb, set the electronic hailing system and waited for a pneumotube car. He glanced at the box after waiting several moments, and saw the blue light that indicated the cars were not running.

But then, how could they possibly hope to run the system efficiently in all this confusion? He thought of Liz, stranded downtown at the legit, and he wondered how she’d ever get home. He was heading back for the apartment when a wave of Rees swept him along the sidewalk.

“Hey,” he shouted, “what the hell...”

The Rees didn’t hear him. They sang and they shouted, and they roared and bellowed to the night. They wore masks and costumes; they waved flags and banners; they threw confetti and blew horns and shook rattles. He tried to fight his way free of them, was carried halfway down the street until he broke loose.

“We’ll hang the Vikes

“As high as kites

“And teach the tykes

“The way that’s right!”

He was hemmed in on all sides, and the singing rang in his ears, loud, raucous, triumphant. He used his shoulders and his elbows, and he tried to push free of the jostling crowd.

“We’ll holler Ree

“And foller Ree

“And toler-ate

“No one but

“REE!”

He jabbed his elbow into a man’s side, and the man whirled, his eyes bloodshot, his mouth slack.

“Who the hell...”

“Get out of my way, you pig,” Van shouted.

“REE, REE, REE, REE!

“Free the Ree,

“And spike the Vike!

“REE, REE, REE, REE!’”

“You looking for trouble, you goddamn nudist?”

“Get out of my way!”

He pushed rudely, and the Ree stumbled backward, colliding with a Ree woman. The two embraced briefly, shouted at each other, and then began laughing. Van pushed another Ree aside and broke into a clearing on the sidewalk. He’d taken three steps when another group of Rees swept down the street. He felt himself spinning around, and then someone thrust a bottle at him.

“Here, you bastard, have a drink!”

He lashed out viciously in a back-handed sweep, knocking the bottle out of the Ree’s fist. Whiskey splashed into the air, soaking both himself and the Ree. The Ree began swearing, and the crowd swept past, carrying Van with it.

They screamed, and they laughed; the noise deafened Brant, and put a razor-sharp edge on his nerves. He felt like a man in a nightmare, a man striking out at inflated balloons that broke free of their strings and floated upward whenever he struck. There was no escape. The streets were thronged with Rees; they swept along like a fast-moving hurricane, victory in their beaming faces, and in their whiskey-slurred voices, and in their boisterous songs.

“Stop the Vike

“And mop the Vike

“And slap the map of the

“Goddamned Vike!”

These were the old songs, the songs that were in vogue when the Vike Movement first reached out for a tentative grip, the songs that were confident of victory then — the songs that Van Brant thought he’d never hear again. And with the words, a vibrant undercurrent — a dangerous undercurrent of tension, like a powderkeg with a short fuse. He heard the words, and he listened to the voices; he was shoved and pushed and jostled, and steered down the street to an open oval park squatting in the center of the city like a green frog. The revelers poured into the park, spilled onto the green lawns, climbed the rocks and the trees and overturned benches. They broke lamp post fixtures, kissed, and embraced, and danced, and jigged; they did handstands, and tore off their shirts. He watched all this, carried along in the tide of jubilant faces, and his mind groped for some familiar thing to which he could anchor his reeling reactions. There was none. The other Vikes were as bewildered as he; they floundered hopelessly, helplessly, in the Ree current. The park was overflowing with Rees now, crowded to capacity, threatening to burst its boundaries and spill over onto the concrete of the city.

The tide paused for a moment near the old band platform. Banners fluttered in the autumn breeze; pennants caught the wind and danced on the air, shouting colorfully from the platform railing. The crowd surrounded the platform, and a speaker there clenched his fists and opened his throat to the night, his hair blowing freely in the wind.

“This is the beginning!” he shouted. “This is only the beginning! The chains of bondage have been broken. The glorious golden age of the Ree is at our doorstep!”

The crowd shouted its approval, and the air rocked with the dissonant cries. The speaker tossed his head, opened his mouth, lifted his hands, and the crowd fell silent.

“We have crushed the insidious serpent of addiction, trampled it into the Vike-inspired mire! The golden bird of the Realist will spread its wings and soar, higher and higher into an unblemished sky!”

Again the cries of approval, the shouted encouragement, while the whiskey bottles were tipped, and breasts were cupped, and hips were fondled, and eyes kindled with almost fanatic enthusiasm. The spindly arms were raised, the thin fingers spread, the shaggy mane tossed back, and the crowd grew hushed in expectant waiting.

“We will move onward!” the speaker shouted. “Forever onward, and upward, to crush the Vikes, to crush the Vikes, to crush the Vikes!”

And the crowd took up the chant.

“Crush the Vikes!” they bellowed, and Van Brant knew fear for the first time that night.

“Crush the Vikes!” they screamed, and he tried desperately to break free of the circle that hemmed him in.

A Vike closer to the platform turned and wheeled, and the blood cry went up from a thousand Ree throats. Van saw the hands reaching for the Vike, saw him lifted high, saw his body passed along like a bottle, out to the fringes of the circle. The crowd enjoyed the sport. They had a Vike now, and they followed the body, like vultures following a weakened man on a desert, and Van broke away and ran in the opposite direction. Behind him, he could still hear the speaker shouting, his voice high and strident, caught on the wind, snatches of words torn from his lips.

He took a narrow, unlighted path; he ran with the sweat clinging to his body, soaking him, a cold, clammy, clinging sweat that chilled him. He ran, and he heard the cries behind him as the sport with the Vike increased. The path was dimly lit, most of the fixtures having been destroyed by the Rees. He saw dim outlines of forms sprawled out on the grass flanking the path. He did not slacken his pace. The park was still a nightmare world, a world of torches and banners and confetti and screams. Rockets sped into the blackness of night, scattered their molten drippings, burst in star-shell brilliance. Far off from the river, he could hear the mournful blast of the river boats, incessantly bleating their horns, joining in the celebration.

He rounded a bend, and four Ree women stood there, blocking the road. A blowsy blonde, her breasts billowing in a tight maroon sweater shouted, “Here’s one!”

They moved forward, and he wheeled like a trapped rabbit, started back up the path. The other Ree women poured from the bushes, and they stood around him in a tight circle now, ten strong. He shoved at the circle and was shoved back. He fell to his knees, and he looked up at long skirts, stiff with the girdles beneath them, up to throat-constricting sweaters, breasts held high and tight in brassieres. A bottle made the rounds of the circle, passing from unpainted lip to unpainted lip. Long hair fell shoulder length, lifted by the wind. The circle tightened, and the blonde stepped forward, yanked him to his feet, pulled his head against her bosom. It was hard and unyielding, and he felt the wire of the bra beneath the sweater. It pressed against his cheek, and her arms tightened around him. He kicked out, and she dropped him, and the circle grew tighter and tighter, and then the hands reached for him, pulling at his breeches.

“You dirty bitches!” he shouted.

He felt the breeches loosen about his waist, felt the rush of cold air against his thighs as the breeches were pulled lower. He kicked out, trying to tangle the cloth, but the breeches were pulled free, and he felt his boots leave his feet at the same time.

“Come on, Vike,” one of the women shouted. “Come on, Vike, we’ll show you what it’s like!”

He felt his head rudely jerked back, a hand cupping his chin, another grasping his forehead. The circle was growing now, with Ree spectators laughing and shouting, screaming their delight. He felt hands on his chest, his thighs, his groin. He felt himself taken rudely, felt his mouth being forced open. The liquor spilled into his throat, gagging him so that he almost spit it all up. He tried to jerk his head away, but there was more whiskey and more hands; the whiskey ate at his stomach like acid, and the hands claimed his body, working in a rude massage. He was sick and he wanted to retch; still the whiskey came, searing its way down his throat, smoother then, the fumes consuming his brain. He smelled women, women all around him, women with flashing legs and strong thighs. They straddled him and they climbed and clambered and they fought and shrieked. Their lips covered his body; he shouted, and they shouted him down, and when he opened his mouth, the bottle was always waiting, and when the bottle was removed, the lips found his, strong, urgent, brutally smothering his mouth. He fought and they held him; he was sick with embarrassment, and the laughter rang in his ears.

There were lips everywhere, and hands, and lifted skirts, and darkness, all shadowy and warm and crinkly.

And then the blonde stood over him, one leg planted on either side of his body, her skirt flapping above his face.

“This Vike’s no good!” she shouted thickly. “Where’s a good Ree for me?”

Hoarse laughter answered her, as the cry was taken up; the circle broke, and he heard the shouting of men as they trampled over him. The women giggled and laughed, and the men roared. Van crept along the ground, away from the exhibition that made him sick a moment later.

He lay in his own sickness, the smell making him sicker, and then he crawled away, aware of his nudity, desperately ashamed. He got to his knees and then his feet, and he began running down the twisting path, keeping to the shadow, dodging into the trees whenever he heard voices or saw the gleam of torchlight. He could still not think clearly. His brain was consumed with alcohol and it raced through his veins, clouded his eyes, increased the nightmare illusion of the night. He found his way out of the park, snatched up a Ree overcoat from the sidewalk and draped it around his middle. He ran, the alcohol somehow sharpening his sense of danger, leading him in wide circles around the Rees.

He tried to pick his own apartment building from the similar ones standing beside it, finally dodged into the sub garage. The garage was cool, and the cars were lined up in rows of metallic neatness. He ran through the garage, stopping once when he heard sounds on his right. He glanced into the cool dimness, saw a tangle of naked Ree arms and legs. He ignored them and ran to the lift, falling against the door when it slammed shut behind him. He punched the button for his floor, trembling when the car began its ascent. When the door opened, he rushed into the corridor, ran to his apartment, stabbed his thumb onto the Identilock. He heard the electronic computer whir as his thumb print was identified. The door slid open, and he pushed into the apartment. The door slid shut behind him, and he stood there uncertainly, his drunken brain trying to recognize the place as his own.

A fix, he thought. I need a fix.

He reeled to the home bar, shoved open the lid. He fumbled for a vial, annoyed when he missed. He tried again, lifting the vial. It fell from his fingers, clattering onto the top of the bar. He swore and grasped it again, and he tried to locate a vein, but he could not read the gauge, and his finger trembled on the trigger.

He whirled suddenly, flung the vial at the far wall. It hit a stereopic, shattered the glass and the illusion of depth. He whirled and tried to gain his footing. He stumbled to the thick carpet, and the Ree coat tangled about his legs. He kicked it free, and then got to his knees and lifted his head.

She was standing in the bedroom doorway. She wore a diaphanous gown that clung to the lines of her body. The neon lights flicked on and off through the window, limning her body. The Ree shouts in the street assailed the open window, crowded into the room.

Liz, he thought. Liz.

“Where the hell have you been, you slut?” he shouted. He got to his feet, fell down again. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Van...”

“Shut up!” he screamed. “Shut up!” He found himself crying. The tears streamed down his face, and he tried to get to his feet again, toppled to his knees. “At a goddamn Ree show, you bitch! That’s where you were!”

He crawled toward her on the thick rug, falling onto his face. The alcohol burned inside him, and he looked at her unpainted breasts, at the wide ivory of her hips, the flatness of her stomach. A strong wind caught the gown, flapped it open. His eyes traveled the length of her long legs. “You bitch!” he blurted. He crawled forward, a single purpose in his mind now. She stood fixed in the doorway, her eyes wide, her breasts heaving.

“I’ll show you; I’ll show you! You and all the goddamn Rees. You and all of them!”

He reached her, and his hands grasped her ankles. Her skin was cool to his touch. He pulled, and she toppled to the floor, and the gown brushed away under his hands.

He shouted again. He was sick inside; his body trembled, and he was no better than the rest of them, no better than all the Rees — no better than the drunken pigs mating in alleys, no better than any of them. The tears streamed down his face when he tore the gown from her. He choked on a sob, and his hands fumbled for her breasts. She trembled beneath him, and then tried to roll away from him, but he pinned her tight.

“I’ll show you,” he blubbered. “I’ll show you. I’ll show you.”