Dean Koontz: Anti-Man

I crawled into it, strapped the belt around my waist and made certain it was secure. When you are going anywhere on a magnetic sled and you are in a hurry, your life can easily depend on that strap of nylon cloth. As comfortable as possible, I switched on the ignition in the steering column. The sled hummed to life, purring quietly like a contented cat being stroked beneath the chin. Giving the controls another once-over, I put the sled in gear and pressed down ever so gently on the accelerator that tapped the battery. The sled moved forward, off the wooden platform and bumped onto the carpet of snow.

The magnetic sled is the only end product of what, at one time, promised to be a revolution in transportation. Dr. Kesey and his associates, working under Ford auspices, had cracked the wall blocking Man from the use of magnetic forces in transportation. The Kesey people developed a sled that could move across a body of water — or at least across their testing lake — on a magnetic cushion. It was very simple, as Kesey explained it, though, of course, he pared the details down to a layman's level of understanding. The bottom of the sled was plated with a magnetized layer of iron. Suspended from the bottom of the sled by four steel arms (one at each corner of the rectangular craft) was an electrified wire mesh that produced another magnetic field exactly like the first. The pattern of the field waves were constructed so that the two fields pushed against each other. The weight of the sled and its driver was, in effect, nullified. The wire mesh was bottomed with a thin layer of non-magnetic aluminum, which skimmed across the water. A set of propellers, driven by an electric battery, spun at the rear, pushing the — in effect, again — weightless craft across the surface of the lake.

Ford thought they had come up with something that was going to do away with the wheel. Then the hitches began to develop. The sled worked well on a lake, on any small body of water. But in a large lake or on the ocean, it was useless. The waves swamped it, for it rode on the water, not above it like a flivver. Ocean travel was out. Secondly, and far worse, further testing proved that the magnetic sled would not function on land. It required a surface with a high degree of give and resilience, such as water — or snow. When driven on the ground or a pavement, the aluminum was shredded away in seconds, the wire grid torn loose immediately afterward, and the sled came to a slamming, banging halt. Finally, Kesey discovered that there was a limitation to the size of the magnetic sled. A one-man sled worked exceedingly well. A two-man sled was slightly more difficult to handle. A three-man sled required a competent and experienced driver. A four-man sled required two men and two separate wheels to control the bucking. A five-man sled was too erratic for use. The Kesey-Ford dream of revolutionizing the world suffered a severe setback.

The sleds went into production as pleasure craft. It wasn't long before they had replaced the small boat as the favorite middle-class luxury item. The snowmobile, so popular for thirty years, died overnight. The magnetic sled could never get stuck, could never break a tread, and moved faster. It could also go places the snowmobile could never reach. Ford made money. Kesey was kept on at his research lab. But the revolution never came.

Now I rested outside the cabin on the snow, drifting slightly forward. I accelerated a bit more, brought the craft smoothly ahead, and took it around the cabin, under the trees. I pointed the front end down the white stretch of the long slope below the cabin and stepped up the propeller speed. They whined behind me. I surged forward, the trees and mounds of snow flashing past. I kept the machine at twenty, not daring to go much faster. There was just enough light reflected off the snow from the pale moon to see by, and I kept a sharp lookout for sharp rises in the landscape. If the land dropped abruptly, the sled would fall gently back to the surface without disaster. But if there was a rise that I did not pull back on the wheel to compensate for, the sled would glide into it, smash nose-first and tip over. Even if I didn't get hurt, such an accident would damage the sled so that I would be forced to walk the rest of the way. And that was not a pleasant prospect.

When I came to the first section of woods, I decided to circle it rather than hunt a wide enough path through. Even if I did find a deer trail, I would have to slow up, for the woods were very treacherous for a sled. I soared past, curving in a wide arc around the trees. It would be an extra couple of miles around the stand of pine, but the increased speed would more than compensate for it. I moved sharply in the last moments of the high point of the arc, sending a spray of snow in a long geyser behind. The ride was exhilarating. For the first time in a long time, I felt like laughing.

I crossed more open fields beyond the wood, bringing the speed up to thirty, now that I was more sure of myself. Five minutes like that brought me to another section of forest. As I approached, I saw that it stretched to both sides, far out of sight. It looked as if I would be forced to go through the trees here. I slowed to fifteen and cruised along the edge of the woods, looking for a path. I disregarded the first two because they were windy and narrow, but the third showed regular use by elk or deer and had been beaten into a fairly well-traveled and wide thoroughfare. I turned into it, dropped my speed to eight miles an hour, and proceeded with care.

The trees went by at a steady clip. It was slightly over two miles before I saw the opening at the end of the woods and the fields beyond. With a hundred feet to go through the tunnel of wood, I tramped down on the accelerater. The sled leaped ahead. I could see that the remainder of the path was wide and free of branches. The only thing I did not see was the white-tailed deer to the left of the hole leading into the field. He moved in front of my exit just as I reached it.

I hit the brakes almost instantly, but it was too late to avoid him completely. Startled, he tried some evasive action of his own, turning and leaping back. The sled smacked into his brown rump, leaped into the air, came down on its magnetic field, slapping the surface hard, tilted onto its side, and careened along the field for fifty feet, nosing into the snow until the propellers became clogged and the motor stalled.

I had not been able to get free, for I was strapped tight. Perhaps it was fortunate that I rode out the wreck. Otherwise, I might have been thrown off and had my neck broken. As it was, my goggles had been rammed down onto my nose with such force that the old proboscis had started bleeding. My back had been wrenched, and the stiffness reached up into my neck. A little bit of a whiplash and a bloody nose, I thought. Not too bad. Not considering.

Then I remembered the sled. And the long walk without it.

And I was suddenly much more concerned about it than I was about anything that might have happened to my body.

I unfastened the belt and crawled away from the sled. The snow had blown off this field and had packed in among the trees, so there was not more than two and a half feet on the surface. Halfway up my thigh. Which made for tough walking, but which, at least, could not gulp me down and smother me. I turned around and moved carefully to the sled. It was lodged in the snow, only a few inches of the side sticking out. I set to work scooping the snow away from it, wishing my hands could reform themselves as His had. Ten minutes later, I was able to pull it free and turn it right side up in the hole it had made. The underside looked amazingly intact. The drive box had not been breached. I thumbed the ignition, and was delighted beyond words when the propeller fluttered and the motor hummed.