Dean Koontz: Anti-Man

Outside, it was snowing. The wind howled across the broad promenade and echoed like hungry wolves in the thrusting beams of the porch roof. It carried puffs of snow with it that clogged in the window ledges and drifted against the walls. The drop officer aboard the high-altitude rocket had been right. Cantwell was a place of cold and snow and, most of all, wind. Still in all, the place has an undeniable charm, especially if you were addicted to Jack London Yukon stories when you were a boy.

We went down a set of stairs into the auto-taxi docking area and found a four-seater in the line. The taxis were fairly busy with arrivals, and I realized we had been unlucky enough to arrive just before a scheduled rocket landing and pickup. I opened the back door of the taxi and put my box in, turned to take His. Just then, a taxi bulleted into the stall next to us and flung open its doors.

"Quick!" I said to Him, grabbing his box of gear and sliding it onto the back seat alongside my own.

A tall, elegantly dressed man got out of the other car and pushed past us toward the stairs without even an "excuse me" or a "pardon." I didn't really care, just so he kept going and left us alone. But that was not to be the way of things. He went up two steps and stopped as if he had just been knifed. He whirled, his mouth open, his hand fumbling for a weapon beneath his bulky coat.

He must have been employed by World Authority in some capacity, for he could not otherwise have possessed a weapon. But I had worked for World Authority too. I drew my narcodart pistol and sprayed him with six low-velocity pins in the legs where the bulky coat could not deflect them. He staggered, went down on his knees. He plucked at the darts, then realized it was too late for that; the drugs they contain, chiefly Sodium Pentothal, react much too fast to be torn free. He was a big man, and he was fighting the drowsiness as best he could, though it was just a matter of time until he would be out of action. I fired again, fast, but before he passed out, he managed to get in a weak but audible call for help. It echoed through the Alaskan night.

I opened the front door of the taxi and grabbed Him by the elbow to usher Him in. A spatter of pins broke across the roof, inches from my face, ricocheting away like little slivers of light. The gunman had been trying for the back of my neck but had misjudged and fired slightly to the left. I whirled, searched the taxi stalls for the gunman.

Ping, ping, ping… Another burst rattled over the roof of the car, nowhere near us this time.

"I saw movement to the right," He said, crouching with me. "Back there by that blue and yellow two-seater." He had drawn His own dart pistol, one He had "procured" in that sports shop where we had gotten the arctic gear, lifting it and an ammunition clip from the shelf while I distracted the clerk with our big order. "Do you see which one I mean?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps I should — "

"Wait here," I said, lying on my stomach and slithering along the retaining wall, keeping under the cars parked there, working my way toward the vehicle He had pointed out. There was a hard-packed layer of snow on the lot and my front side nearly froze as I slithered over it. Now and then, the snow was melted into slush where a warm taxi engine had rested near it. I felt absurd, like some cheap movie actor, but I was also afraid, which blotted out any embarrassment I might otherwise have felt. Fear can work miracles. I had hitched my star to His. If they caught us now, before He had finished His revolutionary evolution, I had no idea what they might do to me.

Behind me, He stood and fired a barrage toward our enemy, drew an answering hail for His trouble. That helped me pinpoint the location of our gunman. I moved cautiously, trying to make as little noise as possible. Still, my shoes dragged on the snow and the pavement and gave off little scraping noises that carried well in the cold air.

I circled around him, always beneath taxis except for the short spaces between them when I had to wriggle across three or four feet of exposed territory. When I had gone a row beyond him, I came out in the open and moved in on his rear. I slid along behind a limousine taxi for large parties until I felt I was directly behind his position. Raising my head carefully-narcodarts could blister and scar delicate facial tissues, puncture an eye and sink into the vulnerable brain — I looked around. Our target was a Port guard in World Authority uniform. I could not tell whether he had recognized us as the first man had or whether he was shooting just because he had seen me take out the other fellow. Either way, I had to stop him. I stepped out into the open and aimed at his buttocks.

I must have made some noise, for he turned in the last second, almost lost his balance on the slippery surface.

I struck him with a dozen pins, and he toppled to the left, grasping at the taxi. For a moment, it appeared that he was going to make a valiant effort to rise and return my fire. Then he slid noisily to the pavement and laid still, breathing softly.

For a moment, I felt good.

Then bad luck returned.

The watchman patrolling the taxi lot via closed-circuit television must have spotted some of the action. It was pure bad luck, for if he had been occupied with any of the other dozen cameras that scanned other portions of the port, he would not have found anything until we were long gone. Overhead, the big arc lights came on so that filming could proceed. If there was to be a court case, the film, taken by sealed cameras, would be admissible. I dropped behind the taxis and laid panting, trying to think. In minutes, that watchman would have sent someone out to investigate, someone with weapons, and we would have to handle them too if we expected to get out of here as free men. But our luck could not continue forever, not as it had through all the narrow escapes of the last week. So what was I mad about? Why not just give up? I could say to Him, in way of explanation: "Well, you know how luck changes. You can't expect luck to stay good for long." And He would smile, and that would be that. Like hell! I didn't fancy going back with World Authority guards to some trial where my chances were, simply put, miserable. Still, I wasn't a fighting man. I would make a mistake when I came up against the professionals. Several mistakes. One mistake too many. Then it would be all over. Perhaps forever.

"Jacob!" He called in a loud whisper.

Staying behind cars and away from the line of sight of the two mounted cameras, I hurried back to Him where He crouched at our taxi. We would have to move damned fast now. The watchman might know who had been causing the trouble, but the stranger in the greatcoat would most definitely have an alarm out for Dr. Jacob Kennelmen and His Fearsome Android within five minutes of his revival.

Rotten luck, rotten luck, rotten luck, I cursed to myself. If we could have left that lot unnoticed, we would have been perfectly in the clear — at least for a few months, long enough for Him to develop into a complete creature. Now World Authority would have police and soldiers swarming over Cantwell by morning. Yes, I could have killed the elegant stranger lying there on the steps, pressed the barrel of the narcodart pistol against his eyeballs and shot pins into his brain. But that was not the purpose of kidnapping Him and giving Him a chance to develop. The purpose was to eventually save lives. There was no sense in starting out by destroying a few with the excuse that He could make up for it later. We climbed into our taxi and were about to scoot out of there when I thought of something.

"Wait here," I said, slipping out of the car.

"Where are you going, Jacob?"

I didn't take time to answer. There were police on their way, perhaps only a minute or two until they would be on us. I moved quickly among the three nearest taxis, opening their doors, slipping five cred bills into their pay slots and punching out random destinations on their keyboards. When they started to purr and pull away, I ran back to our car, jumped in, slammed the door before the automatic closing device could do the job for me, and punched the keyboard for Mount McKinley National Park — and held my breath until we were out of the parking area.