David Robbins - Atlanta Run

“Let go of me!” Glisson snapped, thrashing.

“Calm down,” Blade urged.

“Let go, damn you! I want to get out of here!”

“You don’t stand a chance by yourself,” Blade noted. “I can help you.”

“Why should you help me?” Glisson demanded doubtfully.

“I don’t want to see an innocent person die,” Blade said.

Glisson quit resisting. “Maybe we can help each other.”

Blade released his grip. He noticed the woman on the sidewalk, gawking at them in amazement. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Let me help you,” Blade offered, extending his right hand.

She shook her head and stood, backpedaling before he could touch her.

“No! I’m fine! Really!” She spun and fled into the crowd.

“The people here are sheep,” Glisson remarked distastefully.

Blade took the old-timer’s left arm and propelled him forward. “We must get out of Atlanta,” he said.

Glisson snorted. “Tell me about it.”

“You know the city much better than I do,” Blade commented. “How can we escape? Over the wall?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Glisson responded. “The outer wall is twenty feet high and manned by armed guards.”

“How else then?”

“We could bluff our way through one of the gates,” Glisson proposed.

“Sounds risky to me,” Blade said.

“And staying here isn’t?” Glisson countered. “They’re going to gas me in a Sleeper Chamber if I don’t think of a way out.”

Blade stared at the crowd, thinking. The police would be expecting them to try such a gambit, and the number of gate guards would likely be increased. Perhaps a wiser course would be to do something completely unforeseen, an act so off the wall that the authorities would never anticipate it. What would be the very last thing the police would expect?

“Do you have a better idea?” Glisson asked.

“Yes,” Blade answered as inspiration dawned.

“What?”

“We go to the Civil Directorate.”

Glisson halted so quickly, he almost tripped over his own feet. “What?”

“We were heading for the Civil Directorate, right?” Blade said. “Let’s go there.”

The old-timer’s lips twitched as he studied the giant from head to toe.

“Funny. You don’t look like a congenital moron.”

“I’m serious,” Blade stressed.

“That’s what scares me,” Glisson said. “I’m trapped in Atlanta with an imbecile.”

“Listen to me. Where is the last place they would expect us to go?”

“To the nearest Storm Police station to give ourselves up,” Glisson replied.

“They would never expect us to go to the Civil Directorate,” Blade stated. “They’ll be on our trail, and they’ll be searching everywhere except there.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Would you expect us to go to the Civil Directorate if you were them?”

Blade inquired.

“No,” Glisson admitted. “I’d credit us with more intelligence than that.”

“Let me ask you a question,” Blade said. “You’ve been here many times.

When the police took you to the Visitors Bureau at the Civil Directorate, did they take you inside?”

“No,” Glisson answered. “They always took me right up to the door, then took off. So what?”

“So if we show up at the Civil Directorate, requesting the services of an Escort, we won’t be arousing any suspicion,” Blade said.

“What if we’re spotted by a patrol?”

“We could be spotted any time,” Blade noted. “It’s a risk we’ll have to take.”

“And why bother to ask for an Escort?” Glisson queried.

“I still need to find someone.”

“Even with the Storm Police on our tail?”

Blade nodded. “So what do you say? Are you with me?”

“What choice do I have?” Glisson retorted.

“Can you get us to the Civil Directorate without using the main streets?” Blade asked.

Glisson grinned. “I know this part of the city well. I can do it.”

“Then let’s go,” Blade announced.

The old-timer resumed walking. “I knew I shouldn’t have come back here,” he mumbled.

“Then why did you?”

“I haven’t eaten a square meal in a week,” Glisson said. “I’m too old for the life on the road. Scrounging up food and other necessities is harder every year.” He paused. “In the past, I could count on two days of squares and a new set of threads if I came to Atlanta. I didn’t know the damn Peers had changed their indigent policy.”

“Why do you live on the road? Why don’t you settle down?” Blade suggested.

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” Glisson responded with a smile. “I’ve lived on the road since I was knee high to a grasshopper.”

“Isn’t it dangerous, what with all the mutants and scavengers?”

“Yeah, it’s dangerous,” Glisson replied. “But the danger is part of the allure. When you’re on the road, you never know what’s over the next hill or around the next curve. Every day brings something new, something different.” He paused and chuckled. “And my elephant gun does an excellent job of dissuading the mutants and scavengers.”

“You have an elephant gun?”

“An old Marlin 45-70. Ammo is scarce, but when it comes to stopping power, there isn’t a gun like it,” Glisson said with pride.

“Where is your 45-70?” Blade asked.

“I hid it in a waterproof sack near the road about three-quarters of a mile from the city wall,” Glisson detailed. “I don’t want these pricks to confiscate it on some pretext.”

Blade followed the old-timer into an alley. Glisson conducted him on a circuitous route down little-used streets. “We should find jumpsuits to wear,” the Warrior mentioned after ten minutes.

Glisson glanced at the giant. “I can rustle one up for me, but they don’t make jumpsuits your size. King Kong doesn’t live here.”

“King Kong?”

“I’ll explain later.”

They approached the third monolith from the west, emerging from an alley onto a street swarming with pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

“This was once called Spring Street,” Glisson remarked. “Now it’s known as Civil Street.” He pointed to the southeast. “The road we came into Atlanta on was Constitution Boulevard.” He nodded at the stretch of land occupied by the seven monoliths. “This was the State Capitol area before the war. Do you see that expressway on the far side of the Directorates?”

Blade nodded.

“Well, just beyond it a great American was buried,” Glisson revealed.

“He was a black man who tried to improve the social conditions for his race. Martin Luther King, Jr. Do you know what his gravesite is now?”

“No,” Blade said.

“A city dump.” Glisson sighed sadly. “All the old ways are gone with the wind. The Peers don’t want the people of Atlanta to be aware of prewar conditions, to realize the freedom Americans once enjoyed. Hell. They’ve even altered the textbooks the kids study in school. I saw one once. It was pitiful. This one went on and on about the official doctrine of the Peers, something called humanism.”

“It figures,” Blade commented.

“We can cross there,” Glisson said, indicating a nearby intersection.

They walked to the corner and waited with about ten others for a traffic light to change.

“Look,” Glisson whispered, staring at the curb on the opposite side of the street.

Blade gazed in that direction and discovered a Storm Policeman who was also waiting to cross. They would pass each other on the crosswalk.

“He’ll spot us for sure,” Glisson said nervously.

“We can’t turn back now,” Blade responded.

“He’ll blow the whistle on us.”