James Gunn - The Immortals

Two minutes later he flushed an ugly, black mass of hair down the toilet, buried a hat under a heap of paper towels, and grinned at his reflection in the mirror. “Greetings, Mister Sibert,” he said gaily. “What was it Locke said to you?”

“You were an actor, weren’t you, Sibert?”

“Once. Not a very good one, I’m afraid.”

“What made you quit?”

“It couldn’t give me what I want.”

“What’s that?”

“If your psychologists didn’t find out, I won’t tell them. That would make your job too easy.”

“Your mistake, Sibert. A live actor—even a poor one—is better than a dead adventurer. That’s what you’ll be if you try to set up something on your own. We’ve got you, Sibert—trapped in plastic, like that solidograph, and in measurements and film and ink. Wherever you try to hide, we’ll dig you out…”

“If you can find me, Locke,” Sibert said to the mirror. “And you’ve lost me for the moment.”

He raced down the firestairs to the Main Street entrance, went through the used-clothing stores, up the escalators, down the stairs, and out a side entrance onto Twelfth Street. As an eastbound bus elevated itself on its pads and pulled away from the stop, Sibert slid between the closing doors. A mile past City Hall he got off, ran through two alleys, and swung into a cruising taxi.

“Head west. I’ll tell you when to stop,” he said, a bit breathlessly.

The cabby gave him a quick, sharp glance in the rearview screen, swung the creaky ’44 Mercedes around on a forward wheel, and started west. In that glance Sibert compared the man’s features with the picture in the rear seat’s holographic projection. For whatever assurance it brought, they matched.

When he dismissed the taxi, he waited until it rolled out of sight before he turned north. The street was deserted; the sky was clear. He walked the five blocks briskly, feeling a sick excitement grow as the apartment buildings of Quality Towers grew tall in front of him. He couldn’t see the Y where the Kansas River flowed into the Missouri. Smoke from the industrialized Bottoms veiled the valley.

In the early days of the city, the bluff of Quality Hill had been a neighborhood of fine homes, but it had made the cycle of birth and death twice. As the city had grown out, the homes here had degenerated into slums. They had been razed to provide space for Quality Towers, but fifty years of neglect and declining revenues and irresponsible tenants had done their work. It was time to begin again, but there would be no new beginning. A wave of smog drifted up over the bluff and sent Sibert into a fit of coughing.

Money was leaving the city. Those who could afford it were seeking a cleaner, healthier air and the better life in the suburbs, leaving the city to those who could not escape. They could die together.

Sibert turned in the doorway and looked back the way he had come. There was no one behind him, no one visible for blocks. His eyes lifted to the hill rising beyond the trafficway. The only new construction in all the city was there; it had been that way for years.

Hospital Hill was becoming a great complex. In the midst of the general decay, it was shiny and new. It reached out and out to engulf the gray slums and convert them into fine, bright magnesium-and-glass walls, markets of health and life.

It would never stop until all the city was hospital. Life was all. Without it, everything was meaningless. The people would never stint medicine and the hospitals, no matter what else was lost. And yet, in spite of the money contributed and the great advances of the science of health and life in the last century, it was becoming increasingly more expensive to stay as healthy as a man thought he ought to be.

Perhaps some day it would take more than a man could earn. That was why men wanted Cartwright’s children. That—and the unquenchable thirst for life, the unbearable fear of death—was why men hunted those fabulous creatures.

Men are like children, Sibert thought, afraid of the long dark. All of us.

He shivered and pushed quickly through the doorway.

The elevator was out of order as usual. Sibert climbed the stairs quickly. He stopped at the fifth floor for breath, thankful that he had to go no higher. Stair-climbing was dangerous, heart-straining work, even for a young man.

But what made his heart turn in his chest was the sight of the woman standing in front of a nearby door and the long, white envelope she held in her hands.

A moment later Sibert leaned past her and gently detached the envelope from her fingers. “This wasn’t to be delivered until six, Missus Gentry,” he chided softly, “and it’s only five.”

“I got a whole building to take care of,” she complained in an offended whine. “I got more to do than run up and down stairs all day delivering messages. I was up here, so I was delivering it, like you said.”

“If it hadn’t been important, I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Well”—the thin, old face grudgingly yielded a smile—”I’m sorry. No harm done.”

“None. Good night, Missus Gentry.”

As the landlady’s footsteps faded down the uncarpeted, odorous hallway, lighted only by a single bulb over the stairwell, he turned to study the name printed on the door: Barbara McFarland.

He added a mental classification: Immortal.

The quick, sharp footsteps came toward the door and stopped. Fingers fumbled with locks. Sibert considered retreat and discarded the notion. The door opened.

“Eddy!” The young woman’s voice was soft, surprised, and pleased. “I didn’t know you were back.”

She was not beautiful, Sibert thought analytically. Her features were ordinary, her coloring neutral. With her mouse-brown hair and her light brown eyes, the kindest description was “attractive.” And yet she looked healthy, glowing. Even radiant. That was the word. Or was that only a subjective reflection of his new knowledge?

“Bobs,” he said fondly, and took her in his arms. “Just got in. Couldn’t wait to see if you were all right.”

“Silly,” she said tremulously, seeming to enjoy the attention but showing a self-conscious necessity to minimize it. “What could happen to me?” She drew back a little, smiling up into his eyes.

His gaze dropped momentarily, then locked with hers. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. Pack as much as you can get in one bag. We’re leaving.”

“I can’t just pick up and walk out,” she said quickly, her eyes puzzled. “What’s the—”

“If you love me, Bobs,” he said in a low, tight voice, “you’ll do as I ask, and no questions. I’ll be back in half an hour at the latest. I want you to be packed and ready. I’ll explain everything then.”

“All right, Eddy.”

He rewarded her submission with a tender smile. “Get busy, then. Lock your door. Don’t open it for anybody but me.” He pushed her gently through the doorway and pulled the door shut between them and waited until he heard a bolt shot home.

His room was at the end of the hall. Inside, a tidal wave of weariness crashed over him. He let himself slump into a chair, relaxing completely. Five minutes later he pulled himself upright and ripped open the letter he had retrieved from Mrs. Gentry. It began:

Dear Bobs:

If I am right—and you will not receive this letter unless I am—you are the object of the greatest manhunt ever undertaken in the history of the world…

He glanced through it hastily, ripped it to shreds, and burned them in the ashtray. He crushed the ashes into irretrievable flecks, and sat down in front of the desk and a portable computer. His fingers danced over the keys and a series of words formed on the screen: