Logan: A Trilogy Read online

  Synthetic bliss.

  “LF,” Logan told the man in white.

  “Dosage?” “Standard.”

  “Follow me, please.”

  Logan was taken to the blueroom: a small, padded chamber with a table, a chair and a blue floor. And nothing else.

  A woman was coming out of the room. Her face was papery, her eyes still partially glazed.

  Logan took the drug flask handed him, swallowed the contents. “Have a good lift,” the man in white said as he closed the door.

  Logan sat down in the chair, keeping his eyes closed for a full minute, allowing the LF to work itself into his blood. Then he relaxed, opened his eyes.

  A terrible illumination fired the room, and Logan knew it was going to be a bad lift.

  Window, he thought, got to reach the window. It was open when he reached it and he fell out of the window, dropping down rapidly into the heart of the threemile complex.

  A short, squat man caught him.

  “You were running,” the man said “That’s fine.”

  “No, I was falling. There’s a big difference.” It was important that he be understood. “I fell from a window. Fell.”

  Logan twisted away, began to run.

  He ran through hissing fire galleries. The world smelled of dream dust, and a million voices were dirging the coda to “Black Flower.”

  The short, squat man dropped him with a blow.

  “Again,” said the man, crouched.

  But Logan had the Gun. He didn’t need to take any more of this damned punishment! He pulled the trigger. And the world exploded

  On the way out the attendant grinned at Logan. “You were really lifted. Like another?” “No, thanks,” said Logan, and left the building. He didn’t feel any better.

  On the upper level he slowed. A group of youngsters approached him, their palms glowing like blue fireflies in the soft dark. As they passed, Logan heard snatches of heated argument.

  “The Reddies don’t remember we’ve got rights, too.”

  “They just better begin to—”

  Echoes of the Little War.

  Logan moved on, toward the play of colored lights on the glasshouse ahead.

  The big dome was frosted in white, and interior images were indistinct. A contortion of naked, massed bodies formed a high, arched entrance, and the steps leading inside were illumined from below.

  PLEASURE gleamed a step.

  SATISFACTION gleamed another.

  RARE DELIGHTS gleamed a third.

  Logan entered.

  “Your pleasure is our pleasure, sir,” a flax-haired girl said to him mechanically. She was seated at a flow desk and wore red satin transpants.

  Logan placed his right palm flat to the desk. An inaudible click: the desk would bill him for the visit. He walked into the stagroom.

  It was awash in sexuality. Here were beach girls from Mexico and California, Japanese maidens with shy eyes, Italian girls with mooned bodies, pert Irish lads, slim exotics from Calcutta, cool Englishwomen and full-figured French girls. All here because they were lonely or bored or oversexed; because they were looking for someone new or escaping from someone old—or for no reason at all except that the glasshouse was here to be used and it was a time for mingling and touching in a shadow search for love. You never find the people that you go to meet in dreams…

  A girl with a blue palm swayed toward Logan; she was Eurasian and, at thirteen, a year away from womanhood. “I’m adept,” she said. “You’ll find me skilled beyond any others.”

  Logan ignored her, gesturing to an older girl with red hair flowing along her back. She was swan-white with deep-lashed eyes of coral. “You,” he said.

  The girl glided in his direction, the thin silk of her gown clouding behind her. “Not me,” she laughed, linking arms with a blue-gold blonde.

  Logan was irritated. Ordinarily he would have been excited, flushed with anticipation. Tonight he felt dulled by what he saw.

  He waved another female to him, a lithe girl with Slavic features and full hips. She smiled, took his hand.

  They caught a riser up, passing tier on tier, stepped into a glass hall, moved in darkness to a glass room.

  The girl told him that her name was Karenya 3. “I’m a three also,” Logan told her.

  “Don’t talk,” she said feverishly. “Why do men always want to talk?”

  Logan sat down on the bed and began to unbutton his shirt. The girl was already nude, having cast aside a thin garment of spun gauze.

  How many times have I come to a place like this? he asked himself. To a lonely, empty house of glass.

  Glass all around them. Glass walls and ceilings and floors. The bed, glass fiber. The chairs and tables, glass. The building was one vast transparent globe, shot periodically with colored lights.

  Each room was equipped to illumine itself at irregular intervals, but it was impossible to determine just when a room would flare into brightness. Caught in the act of lovemaking, a couple would suddenly find themselves tangled in a wash of silver, or gold, or red, yellow or green. Other couples, around, above and below, would be able to watch them from glass floors, walls, ceilings. Then the light would die—to spring on in another chamber.

  “Here,” said the girl. “Lie here.”

  Logan eased into the glassfoam bedding. She guided his hand, and he gave himself over to this woman, holding and stroking her body in the darkness.

  “Look!” she cried.

  In the tier above them, bathed in hot gold, a man and a woman writhed in a love heat. Then darkness. The night deepened

  Logan and Karenya were frozen in silver, arms and legs twined. They were conscious of the eyes around them in the dome, watching hungrily.

  Darkness again.

  Light bloomed, died, flared and died in the love depths of the structure. Until dawn sketched the glasshouse. The loving was over and done.

  “Please visit us again,” said the flax-haired girl in transpants. Logan exited, saying nothing.

  Time for duty. No time to sleep. Logan went home to his unit, took a Detoxic, flushing his system, but this didn’t seem to help. His eyes felt grainy; his muscles ached. He suited up and went down to headquarters.

  Francis was there when he walked in.

  The tall man grinned at him. “You look ripped,” he said. “Bad night?”

  Francis never looked ripped. No lifts or glasshouses for him. Not before a job anyway. Francis was cool and clearheaded and sure of himself. Why couldn’t he be like that?

  Actually there were few DS men who possessed the skill and drive of this friendless, loveless man with the mantis-thin body and the black eyes of a hunting cat. Precise, deadly, ruthless. Only the Thinker knew how many runners Francis had Gunned.

  And what does he think of me? Logan asked himself. Always the casual grin, the light remark, telling you nothing. But judging every move.

  The hallway was wide and gray and cold, yet Logan felt the warm sweat gathering under his tunic and along his hands as he walked.

  He’d be all right once he had the Gun. He’d be fine; he always was. Soon he’d be hunting, man-tracking a runner somewhere in the city, doing his job as he had done it for years.

  He’d be all right then.

  The hallway ended. The two men faced a smooth section of wallmetal. “Identities,” said a metallic voice.

  Each man pressed the palm of his right hand against the wall.

  A panel slid back, revealing an alcove lined with worn black velvet. Gleaming in the velvet, long-barreled and waiting, were the Guns.

  Only a DS man could carry a Gun. Each weapon was coded to the operative’s hand pattern, set to detonate on any other human contact.

  Logan reached in and closed his fingers around the big pearl-handled revolver, drawing it free of its snug velvet nest. He checked it; full load, six charges: tangler, ripper, needler, nitro, vapor—and homer.

  Already the sense of power was building in him as he held the Gun, weighing it in
his hand, letting the light slide along the chased-silver barrel. Weapons shaped like these had kept the peace in towns named Abilene and Dodge and Fargo. Called “sixguns” then, their chambers held lead bullets. Now, centuries later, their cargo was far deadlier.

  “Identities,” demanded the wall again.

  The two men ignored the malfunction.

  “Identities, please.”

  The report room hummed.

  The room clicked and flashed, metallically coding, decoding, indexing, weighing, processing, filing, tracking—rendering its impersonal machine data to the DS operatives who moved before its faceted wall of insect lights.

  A dispatcher looked up, saw them. His face was dry and chafed, his expression harried. He picked out a scan record and bustled toward them.

  “We’ve been jammed here,” he said irritably. “Stanhope’s in the field and I can’t locate Webster 16. We’ve got a runner in Pavilion, moving east.”

  The room was a cross-mixture of voices.

  “Come in Kelly 4. DS at Morningside seven twelve.”

  “Come in Stanhope. Your man is in the maze.”

  “Evans 9. Confirm. Runner’s destination recorded seven-o-four as Phoenix. Mazecar waiting at Palisades. Confirm.”

  Logan swept the alert board. A light went on at the third level, east sector. “Who takes him?” he asked.

  “You do,” said the dispatcher. “Francis is on backup.” “All right,” said Logan. “Give me a scan.”

  “Name: Doyle 10—14302. His flower blacked at five thirty-nine. That would be”—he checked a wallchron—”eighteen minutes ago. He’s heading east, up through the complex. So far he’s avoided the maze. I make it he knows about the platform scanners. He’s going for Arcade. Cagy. He must know the fire galleries interfere with a DS scope. The rest is on the board. Good hunting.”

  Logan began to plot the alarm trail as it came in over the circuits. A light went on at fourth level east. Citizen alarm. Logan noted it. Ordinary citizens are your best allies when a runner is loose. Another light at level five. Logan waited for the third light before he left the alert room.

  In Central Files he punched Doyle 10—14302. The slot instantly produced the physical file on the runner: a TD photo, vital statistics, pore patterns, names of known friends and associates.

  Logan checked Doyle’s flower history: YELLOW: Childhood. Birth to seven years: machine-reared in a Missouri nursery. No unusual traits noted. BLUE: Boyhood. Seven to fourteen. The usual pattern. Lived in a dozen states, roamed Europe. No arrests. RED: Manhood. Fourteen to twenty-one. Rebel. Arrested at sixteen for blocking a DS man on a hunt. Pair-ups with three women, one of whom suspected of aiding runners. Has a twin sister, Jessica 6, whose record is clear.

  Logan studied Doyle’s photo.

  The runner was a big man, his own size, dark hair, strong memorable face with a wide jaw, straight nose. Slight scar above the right eye. Logan would know Doyle when he found him.

  He unclipped the small black Follower scope from his belt and tuned in to Doyle’s flower pattern. Then he returned to the alert room.

  A new light on the board: the upper concourse of the complex.

  Francis was at Logan’s elbow. “This is no ordinary runner,” he said. “I’ve been tracking him on the board. He’s got a destination—and he’s not making any mistakes. Call me if you need me. That’s what backup’s for.”

  Logan nodded tightly. He snugged his Gun into its tunic holster, checked the scope on his Follower and left the room.

  The hunt began.

  Logan got off the belt at the main concourse as his quarry emerged from a public riser. Doyle saw the black tunic and dipped into a crowd. Logan stuck with him as the crowd thinned. He was still heading east—toward Arcade.

  He’d be hard to track in the vast pleasure center. Logan moved to head him off, but the runner reversed direction and caught a slide. Good. The man was moving downward again. Let him run.

  Logan watched Doyle’s progress on the Follower, represented by a tiny alarm trail of flashing light dots.

  Time to give him another nudge.

  At Morningside Heights and Pavilion he picked up Doyle again. The man must know about the maze scanners, Logan thought; the dispatcher was correct in this. Doyle had passed up a dozen chances to go underground. He was swinging east again making another bid for Arcade.

  Logan showed himself in the crowd-surge. There’s nothing to equal the flash of a black tunic to instill panic in a runner. And panic would kill him. Panic and a homer. Logan moved up a level, to place himself between the runner and Arcade.

  Doyle didn’t panic.

  He was smart. This was no frightened psychotic who’d come unhinged the moment his hand blacked. He’d dodged and shifted like a chess player, calculating each move. He stayed in crowds; he didn’t let himself get locked in on a single level, but stayed close to the main lifts which offered him mobility.

  Logan felt a reluctant admiration for this man. Doyle could have made a fine DS operative. He had the instincts and grace of a hunter. He seemed aware of the DS limitations and exploited the knowledge.

  Enough of this, Logan warned himself. Let’s get on with the job. Fill up with coldness and hate. Build the image of a jackal, a warped coward running from justice. Weak, spineless, selfish. Living beyond his time.

  Chase, capture and kill.

  Logan watched the Follower as one of the tiny light dots neared his position. Doyle should come out of the lift—now.

  The man stepped into view.

  Logan brought up the Gun. He caught a white, shocked face in the sights. It would be an easy shot, a clean kill. In that moment Doyle saw his danger. He tried to back into the lift.

  Logan had him. Before Doyle could take cover the heat-sensing element in the homer would seek him out and destroy him. Logan’s finger curled on the trigger. He hesitated.

  That brief hesitation cost him the shot. Doyle was in the lift, headed down.

  Logan swore tensely. What had gone wrong? Why hadn’t he Gunned the man?

  On the scope he watched the dot descend two levels and head south. Once again Logan moved to cut the runner off. He dropped three levels, circled to the foot of the slope ramp, waiting. This time he would not miss.

  When Doyle appeared he was holding a human shield. A girl, ten or eleven. Struggling in Doyle’s arms, she reacted in terror as she saw the DS man.

  Logan flipped the chamber to tangler and fired the charge. Doyle flung the girl forward into it. The blast of silver threads enveloped her, clouding over her upper body in a tight webbing. Already Doyle was running again.

  A paravane was cruising the area and Logan alerted it. The police would bring the delicate equipment needed to soften and dissolve the threads without harming the girl. Logan put her out of his mind.

  The dot was ahead.

  The main thoroughfare was thick with citizens. Among them, moving away, was Doyle. No good trying to fire a homer in this press of bodies. Too dangerous. There was always the chance that an onlooker would step in front of the charge and divert its course. To a homer, seeking a normal 98.6( in body temperature, one man was like another. Logan would have to be certain of his shot. The only sure way to take out a runner in a packed crowd was to walk directly up to him, jam the Gun in his stomach and fire. But Doyle was too fast to allow this.

  The hunt continued.

  Doyle was veering east again. Making another try for Arcade. Logan moved quickly to intercept him, riding an express belt to the east edge of the concourse. This should do it; Doyle would walk right into his Gun.

  But he didn’t. Something was wrong. It had been a feint. The dot was going down through the complex —heading west. Toward Cathedral.

  Bad. In Cathedral he could lose Doyle forever, and that wasn’t going to happen. Logan put in a call to backup.

  “He tricked me, and I went for it,” he told Francis. “It’s up to you to cut him off at the stone bridge into Cathedral. I’ll meet you the
re.”

  Francis didn’t waste time with a reply.

  He clicked off.

  Cathedral: a festering sore in the side of Greater Los Angeles, an area of rubble and dust and burned-out buildings, a place of shadow and pollution, of stealth and sudden death. Cubscout territory. If Doyle cleared the bridge the cubs would take him. The kill would be theirs—and that was bad for the record.

  Logan was well aware of Cathedral’s blood history. Of the runners who never came out. Of the muggings. Of the unchecked violence. Even the police avoided Cathedral. With good reason. They’d sent in a cleanup squad the previous summer to tame the cubs. Logan had known some of the men in that squad: Sanson and Bradley and Wilson 9, all good officers. They’d walked into the jaws of the crocodile and the jaws had closed. None of the squad survived.

  You didn’t take chances in Cathedral.

  The express belt broke down at River Level, and Logan was forced to take a walkway to Sutton and use the out ramp. These transit breaks had been occuring more and more frequently of late. And since the Thinker was self-repairing, or supposed to be, there was nothing anyone could do about the situation.

  When Logan reached the east side of the long stone bridge which fed into Cathedral he found Francis slumped against the spillwall.

  “Chopped me from behind,” he said, rubbing his head. “Your runner’s tough.”

  Logan scanned the area. The scope indicated that Doyle was very near. A shadow on the bridge. Logan raised his Gun for a shot, but couldn’t get a clear view of the man.

  Doyle kept under the stone parapet, scuttling crab like across the span, keeping the thick masonry between himself and the Gun.

  “He’s over,” said Francis.

  The runner had cleared the end of the bridge and ducked behind the tumbled ruins of a warehouse. But within seconds he reappeared, retreating from a tide of moving colors, quick shapes.

  “Cubs!” breathed Logan.

  He studied the cubscouts. There was something odd and fragmented about their movements as they converged on Doyle. Then he realized what he was seeing. He heard Francis swear softly. “They’re on Muscle.”