George Martin - Down And Dirty

Modular Man stepped back from the building. Apparently Croyd's companion was heading for a safety deposit box. The android, to the audible gasps of a pair of pedestrians, dropped through the pavement.

Though his vision was dark, his internal navigation systems kept him aligned perfectly. He moved down, then forward. His upper head, containing eyes and radar, moved tentatively through a wall: the android perceived an enormous vault with a clerk behind a desk, her back to him. Stacks of fresh bills, each with a neat paper wrapper, stood on the desk.

Wrong vault. The android moved back, then to the side, then forward again, then pushed through a row of safety deposit boxes.

Right vault. Remaining insubstantial was draining his power reserves: he couldn't do this much longer.

Croyd's companion was marching with another guard to one large box. He and the guard inserted their keys, and the young man withdrew the box. The android memorized its location, then made note of the position of all the cameras and other security monitors.

His energy was running low. He moved back, rose up through the sidewalk, turned substantial, flew to the roof across the street, and lighted. It probably didn't matter what was in the deposit box, although if it proved relevant, he could always return.

Croyd's companion was in the bank for another ten minutes, allowing the android's energy to return fully. When the man emerged, he began retracing his steps south, turning west on Fiftieth Street to avoid the ambulances and military police setting up checkpoints on Forty-seventh, then hastened to Lexington Avenue, where he turned south again. The android followed, flitting from roof to roof. His quarry walked south to Forty-fourth, then headed west to enter one of the side entrances to Grand Central Station.

The android turned insubstantial and flew through the wall onto the second level of the station. He lighted on the polished marble balcony and watched his quarry move across the floor below.

The station was almost deserted. The entrances to the platforms were guarded by regular army Rangers in black berets. They were in full biological warfare rig, hoods and gas masks off but ready. Croyd's companion walked to a stairway leading down to the arcade level and descended.

The android followed, moving carefully, turning insubstantial when necessary in order to peer around corners. The young man moved lower, through a utility door with a smashed lock, then down into the train tunnels that stretched north from the station. Rusting iron supports held up what seemed to be half of Manhattan. Occasional bulbs provided dim light. The place smelled of damp and metal. The android, keeping his target in sight with radar, followed without difficulty.

He found a corpse, a man in several layers of shabby clothing whose body seemed to have calcified, leaving the derelict a huddled figure with his face permanently carved in a look of horror and pain. Croyd had been here all right. There was another body a hundred yards farther on, an elderly woman with her bags clutched around her. The android looked closer.

It wasn't the bag lady he had once known. The android was relieved.

"D'ja get it? D ja get it?" The albino's eager voice rapped out of the darkness.

"Yeah."

"Lemme see."

"Bunch of keys. Envelope of cash."

"Gimme the deposit key."

The android crept nearer. An approaching train was rumbling closer, coming from the north.

"Here you go. You shouldn't have risked going out." The albino's rapid-fire voice crackled with suspicion. "Didn't know if I could trust you. And your signature wasn't on the card."

"The guard barely looked at it. I think he was drunk."

"Gimme the gun."

"This thing's heavy. What is it?"

"Forty-four Automag. The most powerful handgun ever made." Croyd strapped a giant shoulder holster under his arm. "If the robot comes after us again,"he said, "I wanna be able to dent him. This thing fires cut-down NATO rifle rounds."

"Jesus."

The albino said something then, but Modular Man couldn't hear it. The train was getting closer. Its headlight outlined iron stanchions. Croyd and his companion began moving toward Modular Man. The android silently flew upward to the dirty ceiling, hovering in the shadow of a girder.

Yellow light burned steadily on the iron pillars as the train ground steadily southward. The noise echoed in the cavernous room. Croyd and his bodyguard passed beneath the android.

Croyd looked up, warned somehow-maybe he'd seen the hovering android in his peripheral vision. The albino yelled something obscured by the sound of the train and clawed for his pistol with incredible speed. His companion began to turn.

Modular Man dropped from the ceiling, his arms going around the albino from behind. The train bathed the scene in garish cinema light. Croyd shouted, tried to throw himself from side to side. His strength was considerably more than that of a normal human, but not equal to that of the android. Modular Man rose into the air, his legs wrapping around Croyd's, and he began to fly south. Wind from the train pushed him on.

"Hey…!" The companion was running after, waving an arm. "Bring him back!" The huge gun, still jammed in Croyd's armpit, fired out and down through Croyd's coat. A ricochet struck bright sparks from an iron stanchion.

Croyd's guardian swerved. He leaped directly into the path of the train.

There was a burst of light, a crackling sound. The train stopped dead. The young man was hurled fifty feet farther down the track. When he hit the ground, a smaller burst of electricity jumped between him and the nearest rail.

The man jumped to his feet. In the bright light of the train's headlight the android could see his grin.

Modular Man made a brief calculation of the amount of kinetic energy possessed by a fully loaded train moving at fifteen or so miles per hour. Although Croyd's guardian hadn't absorbed all of it, and the excess had bled off in a burst of lightning-there were some limits on his power, fortunatelythe total of what he had absorbed was appalling. The android's laser whined as it tracked toward the man standing on the tracks.

The man crouched, bracing his feet against the track, then jumped. His leap was aimed ahead of the android, to cut him off. The man tumbled in air-evidently he wasn't used to traveling this way-then hit a stanchion and fell to the ground. No electricity this time. He picked himself up and looked at the approaching android with clenched teeth. His clothing smoldered.

Swift calculations passed through macroatomic circuits, followed by lightspeed regret. Modular Man hadn't ever shot a real person before. He didn't want to now. But Croyd was killing people even in hiding, even in the tunnels deep under Grand Central. And if Croyd's guardian got his hands on the android, he could tear his alloy skeleton to bits.

The android fired. Then suddenly he was falling, his arms limp. Croyd tumbled to the ground. The android crashed to the ground at the young mans feet. The young man reached, seized him by the shoulders. The android tried to move, failed.

Modular Man realized that Croyd's protector didn't just absorb kinetic energy. He absorbed any kind of energy and could return it instantly.

Bad mistake, he thought.

Suddenly he was flying again. He crashed through the side of the commuter train, sprawled across several seats in a spill of glass and torn aluminum. Someone's briefcase tumbled to the aisle, papers flying. The android heard a scream. His sensors registered the smell of burning.

The few people on board-executives whose work forced them into the quarantined city-rushed to his aid. Lifting him from his ungainly sprawl across the seats, they laid him carefully in the aisle. "What's that on his head?" asked a white-haired man with a mustache.