Dean Koontz - Anti-Man

We dipped through the clouds as a huge airliner roared into our traffic lane. The helicar bumped about in the turbulence of the other craft's jets, then came up out of the clouds once more and leveled off, running out to sea.

So what could I do? Contact World Authority? Bring in the nukes and blast Cantwell and Harry's cabin to hell-and-gone? At first, that seemed like the most intelligent thing to do. Then the longer I thought about it, the more stupid it appeared. How many android selves would He have circulating by this time? Enough, surely, to keep track of things to the extent that He would notice any sudden troop maneuvers, and be able to extrapolate their meaning. I reminded myself that each of His android selves had a rubber face that could be restructured in seconds. He could impersonate anyone. If He were out for world domination, He could have already moved His plastic-faded androids into WA positions of authority. He very likely had. And He would know of any proposed bombing strike. And even if the mother body were destroyed, any one of the android selves could metamorphose into another mother body. The only chance of working against Him, then, was to work in total secrecy. And that ruled out the WA.

I would have to go after the mother body itself. Maybe I could get into the cellar and talk with Him. He might let me in before killing me, just to please whatever sadistic streaks there were in Him. I could, at least, find out how many android selves there were, how many other facets of Him we would have to hunt down.

Problem: He can read my mind. So He knows when I come in the cellar that I have a means of destroying Him. And He will not let me do it. And even if I manage to kill Him, I will very likely kill myself without being able to transmit information about the other android selves. In effect, I would not hurt Him at all.

"I must make a turn," the dash computer said. "If we continue out to sea, we will enter another traffic pattern not controlled by the New York central."

"Okay," I said.

We turned, gracefully, easily, moving back.

"Could we go under the clouds now?" I asked.

"Certainly."

We went down. Below the cover, the snow had picked up as I thought it might have. The wipers came back on, though I would have preferred to let the snow cover the glass, and there was no driver to require a clear view.

I had reached a dead end. There was no way to stop Him. All that was left was to wait for Him to kill me, or give up trying and launch His attack on civilization with, perhaps, a hundred mother bodies producing warriors.

I had never been so depressed in my life. Not only was the situation hopeless, but I had helped to make it so. And, to make my position worse, I could not share the problem with anyone else without making them as paranoid and depressed as I. There was no help anywhere.

"Take me to the Manhattan Colossus," I said to the computer. The Colossus was the best hotel in the city, but I felt as if I wanted to splurge tonight.

"Destination acknowledged," the computer said.

The snow beat at us, swept by the car, whirled and eddied around the corners of the windscreen.

We settled on the roof of the Colossus, and I fumbled my credit card out of my wallet, slipped it in the payment slot. When the central computer checked with the main banking computer for the city and discovered my card was good, it popped it back out to me and opened the doors so I could get out. I stepped onto the tarmac, carrying my overnight case, and had to fend off three human bellboys who wanted to heft it for me. I don't mind giving tips, but I despise being treated like a cripple, or a weakling who can't manage a single case without assistance. I went to the elevator, dropped down to the first reception desk on the 109th floor, and checked in under my own name.

In my room, I stripped, showered, and fell into bed. I did not know whether I could sleep or not. How does a man sleep when he knows the world may crash down around him at any moment? Somehow, I drifted to the very edge of awareness, ready to slip away into darkness, when the room phone rang. I reached out and picked it up.

"Yes?" I said sleepily.

"Jacob…"

It was His voice. I hung up.

A moment later, the phone rang again. I could not help myself. I answered it.

"Jacob, I know where you are," He said. "I know just exactly where you are."

His face glared up at me from the screen of the phone. He was grinning. It was not the warm, winning grin that I had seen so many times before, but a twisted, unnatural thing that made me feel cold and afraid. He winked at me, then reached out to a panel below His screen and dropped His receiver into the cradle. The picture blinked off. The call was completed. Numb, I hung up too.

I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and the patterns of holes in the acoustical tile. It was possible, if you thought hard enough, to see all sorts of things in those patterns. I could make out the face of an ape in one square. Another, tilted at a slightly different angle, revealed a pair of eyes, staring wide, with a subtle look of uncertainty. Suddenly, I shoved to the edge of the bed and got up. He knew where I was, dammit. He would be coming for me. There was nothing to do but get out of there. Sure, I could not run from Him forever. He would find me sooner or later. But no man likes to die. And, I thought, if I could just gain some time, I might think of something, something to do to get to Him. Maybe it was a false hope, a dream, but it was one I would have to hold on to if I were to keep my sanity.

I dressed quickly, threw everything back into my suitcase, and stopped before the door into the corridor, trying to outline a course of action before I plunged on. He had evidently followed my helicar and had known I checked into the Colossus. How He found my room number was a mystery, but it could be worked out by someone determined enough. To lose Him, I would have to change vehicles again and again, move like the pea in that old walnut-shell con-game, move and move until He had no idea where I was.

And then what? I thought. Sit in some sleazy hotel, waiting for the world to end. Watching the streets through my windows, trying to see if the battles between men and androids had begun — yet? That did not particularly excite me. Running was necessary if I were to stay alive to think. But, in the end, what good would thinking do? I had already thought it out, and I had already decided He was unreachable. All right, then. I would lose the android self that now tailed me, then take a trip to Cantwell, go back up to Harry's cabin. I might not be able to do a thing, but it was my only chance.

I stepped into the hallway, expecting a spatter of bullets, hurried to the elevator, dropped. Too fast. By the time we were down ninety floors, my internal parts were frantically trying to crawl back to their proper locations.

Next, I went to the Bubble Drop station on that floor, punched out a midtown destination, and stepped forward, sat down on the chair, and was moving into the departure foyer where a Bubble would be sprayed up around me by the automatic equipment. Another capsule was just leaving the foyer and entering the tube-ways. I slipped in behind it, and barreled after it. A quarter of a mile later, I became aware of the fact that the rider of the other Bubble had turned around in the seat and was looking back. He waved at me. It was the android.

He must have been waiting outside my room when I was planning what to do. Or perhaps He had been near me at some other point on my trip to the Bubble Drop station. Somewhere along the line, He had been close enough to read my mind, to pick out my plans. But why hadn't He killed me when He was close? Why wait until now and do it this way? But if He was a sadist, if He was a deranged, antagonistic creature rather than God, He would act just like this. He would be enjoying my terror as we barreled down the tubeways, both of us going for the same departure point. He would know that I would realize He would be waiting for me when I came out of the exit foyer. Waiting to kill me.