Daniel Hatch - Last Stop on the Green Line

Harry breathed cautiously. It occurred to him that he might have it within himself to resist whatever pressure the elder Dickinson was going to bring to bear on him. He managed to do that with Victoria, why not her father?

“I don’t mean to be,” he said. Dickinson motioned to his men, who moved quickly up beside him. They grabbed him by the arms. A flood of adrenaline pumped through him. He prepared himself for violence—remembering a fistfight he’d been in at an ecology camp in Montana years ago. If this was going to be anything like that, it would be sharp and brief.

But there was no violence. They simply relieved him of his rik-sack and deposited it on the desk in front of Dickinson.

“So this is it?” he asked. “You put me through a lot of trouble over this. It would have been a lot easier if you’d just brought it straight to us like you were told to.”

“I don’t always do what I’m told to do,” Harry said. “I’m funny that way.” He wasn’t sure what he was doing, baiting the powerful man behind the desk, but he had to play for time. The plan had not called for him to be in the place for several hours yet.

“I guess not,” he said. “I’m funny that way, too. But that doesn’t mean I’ll put up with it from someone else.”

“Oh Daddy, he wasn’t doing it to be personal,” Victoria said, cooing and fawning. But Dickinson glared at her and she turned stiff and cold, pouting at her father silently.

“I guess they told you all about me,” Dickinson said. Since no one had told Harry all about him—not even Victoria—Harry was surprised by the comment, but he kept the surprise hidden. “You can believe most of it, too. I’m as bad as they say I am. I always have been, I guess. At least that’s what I’ve been told all my life.”

Victoria’s father pushed his chair back and walked over to a cabinet in the corner. He pulled out a square bottle of dark liquid and poured himself a drink.

“But good or bad, the one thing they can’t deny is that I’m a success,” he said. “Look at this office. Look at how high up we are. It’s a long way up from the street. I built this building and the business inside it. Whether they like it or not, it’s mine. And so is this toy you’ve been playing with.”

He returned to the desk and slid the transit device out of the rik-sack. He stroked the violet casing and poked at the electronic jacks. “You really gave it a workout today, didn’t you? Quincy Market, Kenmore Square, the Charles, MIT, Harvard.”

Harry felt a sudden surge of fear. How did he know? He realized a second later that he must have given himself away.

“You’re wondering how I know that,” Dickinson said. “Who do you think makes the think-man, Simpson? I own the mainframe that you plug into every time you go on-line. I am MRI. We can record everything you do with the system. And we can break in and block or change the commands you enter to activate the machine. That’s how we brought you here.”

Harry sighed. The momentary sense of powerlessness passed. It bothered him that Dickinson knew his every move, but that knowledge was worth little now.

And he was sure that Dickinson didn’t know what else he’d been up to—or what the others were up to now that he had failed to check in from Copley Square. And that was all the more reason to keep him talking—to give them the time they needed.

“What do you think—will it make the customers happy?” Dickinson asked abruptly.

Harry was taken aback by the question, but answered it haltingly. “It works well enough,” he said. “No dizziness or vertigo. It’s a lot quieter than the T.”

Dickinson let a smile crack through his grim face. “The T is going to be a museum when we’re through,” he said.

“That’s the only problem I can see with it,” Harry said. “I like the T.”

“Forget it, Simpson. That world is gone already. It died the day the Riks landed at the Grand Canyon. The only question is who is going to die with it. I don’t intend to be one who does.”

i’d rather not be one either,” Harry said.

“Then you’d better decide which team you’re on. Those cowards in the government are only going to make things worse. The longer they delay letting in Rik technology, the weaker we will be. And the Rik don’t like weakness. They’ll take over in a minute if they think they can get away with it.”

Harry wondered why they would bother if they could get people like Dickinson to do it for them. He did not voice the thought aloud.

“Believe me, Simpson, we’ve only got one chance, and that is to get our hands on as much of the stuff as the Rik will give us. Don’t let those government bureaucrats tell you any different.”

“As a matter of fact,” Harry said, “that’s exactly what they were telling me when your goons showed up.”

“That’s what I figured. Did you swallow any of it?”

“I prefer to think for myself,” Harry said.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Dickinson said.

Harry was about to speak when someone yelled from behind him. “Hey! Look at that!”

Everyone looked at once as the transit device on the desk gave off an iridescent purple light.

It disappeared from sight, then reappeared a few inches to the right. Harry felt his heart sink. That wasn’t what he expected to happen.

Then it vanished, leaving only a brief draft as the air rushed in to fill the space where it had been.

“Goddamn it!” Dickinson roared, as he reached for the empty space on his desk. He looked up at Harry with hate-filled eyes. “What did you do with it, Simpson?”

Harry mustered all his will to hold back the smile that was struggling to the surface. Arleigh had done his job. The moment of fear when Harry went to retrieve the device from the basement of the Science Center had been the inspiration for the disappearing trick. But to hide his complicity, Harry shrugged his shoulders, opened his eyes wide, and let his jaw drop.

“Never mind. You won’t get away with it.” He grabbed the phone and punched the buttons angrily. “Hello? Were you monitoring Simpson’s link? What about the control menus for the transit machine? Then tell me what just happened.”

There was a long pause as the unfortunate technician at the other end of the line replied, then Dickinson turned visibly red. “What do you mean you don’t know? Are you all sleeping down there?”

There was another silence, then: “All right, go through the traces. Figure out what happened and call me back the minute you know what happened.”

He turned back to Harry.

“I don’t know your game, Simpson, but whatever you’ve cooked up, I’m going to get that machine back. Nothing you can do will stop me.”

Harry shook his head and looked at Victoria. She glared at him, then looked at her father. “I’m not going to forget that you told me we could trust this bastard,” Dickinson told her.

The look of desperate fear that seized her face made Harry’s heart ache. He realized now why he had been drawn to Victoria in the first place. Deep behind that mask of dominance and will was a tortured victim. But it was too late to do anything for her now. It had been too late all along.

“All right,” Dickinson said, motioning to his henchmen. “Take him next door and find out what they did with the machine.”

Harry felt his knees weaken as one of the goons grabbed his left arm and another took the right. For a moment, he felt much like what Victoria must be feeling—weak and powerless. He hoped that Arleigh completed his tasks quickly.

They were halfway to the door when he did.

All three of them turned their heads at the sound of Victoria’s gasp and Dickinson’s voice, choked off in mid-oath.