Urbis

Josie took the view that life was short, and that it should be enjoyed to the full. She took pleasure in good food and drink, music and the company of friends. There had been more than a few men in her life, some simple one night stands, and some deeper relationships, but she was still looking for the one man to whom she could give her all. She sensed immediately that Crispin was unusual. He was so different from other men with whom she came into contact - predatory animals who would circle her with lust on their faces, men with whom she felt the need to be ever on her guard.

She felt pangs of guilt about seducing him when he was clearly desperately in love with his missing wife, but a more cynical side of her reasoned that he would never find her, and that when he realised that, as he surely must sooner or later, he would look around for another woman to fill the gap. She was merely hastening the process, she told herself.

Crispin, for his part, was trying to quell the growing turmoil in his mind. He was trying to resist the enchantment of the woman beside him, and yet every time he heard her bell-like peals of laughter he felt the blood coursing through him in a surge tide. He determined that his head would rule his heart. He had been parted from Tana for so short a time, and had come all this way to rescue her. He was not going to be led astray by another woman. But Josie was being so kind to him, taking so much time and trouble to initiate him into the ways of the city. It occurred to him, and not for the first time, that if he could help the Underground people to do what it was that they were trying to do, they might put a bit more effort into finding Tana. But he had no idea what he could do for them.

Crispin and Josie spent their days together for a fortnight or more. Crispin noted with disquiet that he had actually lost track of the days, and Tana’s trail was growing colder. But the relationship of student and teacher brought pleasure to both. It gave Josie the sense that she was doing something really positive for the Underground, and Crispin grew in self-confidence as the workings of the metropolis became more familiar to him. He laughed in triumph the first time he used a doctored train card by himself, and even got used to the Breathaid, the filter device Urbians wore on their faces on days of high pollution.

Another positive day had ended, and both were feeling quite good. So they were totally unprepared for the scene they encountered when they returned to the warehouse.

They walked in to find a heated discussion going on, with everyone gathered around the long table. Everyone except Bernard.

Josie and Crispin drew up chairs behind the ring of hunched backs. Josie tapped Mina on the shoulder. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

“The Security thugs’ve got Bernard,” Mina hissed. “They picked him up earlier this evening on some trumped up charge. They’re obviously going to get what they can out of him. Looks like another round of purges, boys and girls.”

“So what’s the plan?” said Josie.

“Well,” said Mina, hesitantly, “We know where he is, pretty much. Charlie’s managed to get some climbing equipment and a couple of chutes from who knows where. Someon’s got to climb up the outside of the Security building and get Bernard out before they manage to get anything out of him. The only question is: who’s got the balls to do it?”

In an instant, Crispin saw his opportunity. “I’ll do it,” he announced loudly. The raised voices were hushed, and all eyes turned to him. “I’ll get Bernard back.” Then he added: “But I want you to help me find Tana.”

Charlie was the first to speak. “Crispin, we appreciate the offer, but it’s bloody dangerous work we’re talking about. Bernard’s being held on the ninety-first floor of the Security building. Even with these limpet clamps we’ve got, that’s a long, hard climb under the noses of the filth. And you don’t even know how to operate a communicator.”

“This would be the ideal time to learn,” Mina muttered audibly.

Crispin smiled. “I think I probably have more experience of climbing than any of you.”

There was a murmur of assent. “You’ve got a point there,” said Lyall. “But as for finding Tana...”

“We’ll do everything we can,” Charlie interjected. “But we can’t make any promises.”

“That’s all I’m asking for,” said Crispin.

“Well,” said Charlie, “if you’re really game. It has to be said that you would be the best person if you get caught, because no matter what they do to you, you really can’t tell them anything.”

“Charlie!” Josie protested.

“It’s true,” Mina concurred, ever the pragmatist.

“Sorry, Josie,” said Charlie, not sounding apologetic in the least, “but that’s the fact of the matter. Remember last year? Sector Eight lost its whole organisation. They’re just rebuilding from scratch now.”

There was a mumbling from round the table as those present recalled the near annihilation of Sector Eight’s Underground.

“Well, if it’s decided,” said Lyall, “we’d better get moving. Crispin, if you’d like to step into the store room over here, we’ll get you kitted out.”

“I’m coming with you,” Josie said loudly, her voice charged with emotions she hadn’t given names to.

“We don’t need anyone else,” Charlie answered. “No sense putting more of us at risk.”

Lyall swiftly summed up the situation. He raised a restraining hand. “We could probably do with an extra lookout.”

As he brushed past her, Josie breathed her thanks. “I owe you one.”

Crispin followed Lyall and Charlie. A number of the others crowded into the doorway of the store room to watch. Lyall and Charlie strapped strange devices to Crispin’s ankles and wrists. Charlie briefed the fledgling commando about the “built-in scramblers” in his communications link, clipped to his shirt collar. Such gadgetry was still largely foreign to Crispin, but there was one tool he did understand: Charlie slapped his hunting knife into his hand, and he gratefully slipped it into his belt.

“These are your clamps,” said Lyall. “They work by ionic bonding with the materials of the building, concrete, glass, whatever, but don’t worry about that. All you need to know is that they’ll hold you safe. They’re strong, but it’s best not to release more than one at a time.”

“One other thing you’ll need,” said Lyall, picking up a small object from the floor, “is this. It’s a carbon fibre glass cutter.” He slipped it into a pocket on Crispin’s left forearm. “Ready? Okay, let’s go.”

Minutes later a battered matt black van was speeding out of a gate at the rear of the warehouse. Lyall was at the controls, Crispin and Charlie next to him.

“Watch your speed,” said Charlie. “We don’t want to attract attention.”

Lyall eased back slightly on the throttle. “Are those maintenance guys going to get to the rendezvous okay?”

“I sure hope so,” said Charlie, tight lipped with anxiety.

For twenty minutes the van weaved through traffic, then, on Charlie’s instructions, swerved into a narrow side street. Ahead of it, occupying virtually the whole width of the street, was a vehicle used for inspecting and maintaining overhead lights. It had a telescopic arm with a pivoting cage on the end. A light flashed once from the cage. Lyall flashed his lights once. The other vehicle moved off slowly and emerged into a larger street at the far end of the alley.

Charlie said: “They’re going to black out the TV cameras. When they come back, we are going to have to move quickly. Crispin, you’ll have to get onto the roof.”

He gave Crispin a last reminder about the parachutes: the one on the back was his, the one on the front was for Bernard. He gave a last anxious tug at the webbing and clapped Crispin on the shoulder.

As they were about to get out of the van, Josie rose up in front of Crispin and pressed her lips firmly against his. “Good luck,” she murmured. Her eyes appeared glassy.

The two men got out of the van. Charlie cupped his hands into a step, and gave Crispin a leg up onto the roof. Then Charlie got back into the van.

“Crispin, is the communicator okay?” he asked.

“It’s okay,” Crispin hissed into his own communicator.

“Let’s try to use it as little as possible,” said Charlie.

The van moved to the end of the street. A couple of minutes later, the lighting maintenance van swung round the corner, flashed its lights once, and sped away into the darkness.

The black van crept into the deserted street and mounted the footpath on the opposite side, stopping hard against the wall of an enormous building. There was a faint scuffling sound from the roof. Then silence.

“He’s on his way,” said Charlie. “Let us be on ours.” And the black van melted away into the night.

It cruised the area in a random pattern for half an hour, the two men watching for unusual Security activity and listening for any cries of alarm from Crispin. Then they parked a few blocks from the Security building and waited.

Crispin made his way up the side of the building like a human fly, edging up the massive edifice slowly and steadily, stopping below every window to check if the coast was clear, then shinning hastily across the glass. He came to an entire floor that was illuminated and stopped, hardly daring to peer over the window sill. If there were people about on the whole floor, he could go no further. Tentatively he raised his head. There appeared to be only one man on the whole floor, slumped in front of a terminal. By his side there was a tumbler and a bottle, two thirds empty. Crispin continued his ascent. His arms and legs began to protest, with nothing to lean on and take a rest. He hastened upwards, ignoring the aches and pains.

At another floor he looked through the window to see a man with his elbow almost touching the other side of the glass. He had what appeared to be a weapon, which he placed in a box with wires attached. Crispin edged sideways cautiously, until he had put one empty room between himself and the man, then carried on climbing, his body almost overdosing on adrenalin.

Several floors higher, he was surprised to hear sounds coming from a darkened room, bestial grunts that could only be... He raised his head. Two men, their trousers down round their ankles, the one bent over a desk, the other ramming into him from behind. Crispin moved sideways again, so that an intervening partition wall hid him from their view. Not that they were paying any attention anyway.

With his nerves and sinews crying ever more insistently for surcease, he pushed on. Other floors, other activities. Many floors simply with drawn blinds. He was getting closer to his goal. There were floors now, three in all, where the windows had been blocked off. From behind blank panels came muffled cries, moaning, whimpering, sobs, and once, distantly, a full-blooded scream. Shuddering, and needing every ounce of his concentration and strength simply to remain stuck to the masonry, Crispin climbed further.

And suddenly he was there. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he had been keeping the tally. He was outside the windows of the 91st floor.

“Charlie.”

“Crispin!” Charlie’s voice came to him loud and clear. “How’s it going?”

“I’m outside the 91st floor. All is quiet. I’m going in.”

“Great stuff,” said Charlie. “We’ll be around to pick you up when you get out.”

Crispin took out the glass cutter and slowly, methodically cut a rectangle out of the window in front of him down to the level of the frame. He pressed his fingers against it and pushed, hoping it wouldn’t smash when it hit the floor. It did.

He scrambled through the hole into a darkened room and pulled out his hunting knife. Already, approaching footsteps could be heard on the other side of the door. He secreted himself in a corner, hoping to be concealed by the door when it opened. It opened the wrong way, and he was looking at the back of a Security man, who would surely see him and raise the alarm as soon as he turned round.

The man went to the window and stuck his head and shoulders through the hole in the pane, propping his hands on his knees. Crispin estimated that a good kick in the behind would catapult him out to his death. He stepped forward. Shards of glass crunched underfoot and the man spun round in alarm. Before the man could react - before Crispin himself really knew what he had done - he had stabbed the man between the ribs with his blade, and was watching him collapse in a heap at his feet, staring up in stunned surprise.

Crispin ran into the corridor outside. There was a row of identical doors, identical except that the one at the far end was ajar. He ran to it. Inside the room, Bernard was sitting bound to a chair by his wrists and ankles, with a forther rope around his middle. He was stripped to his underpants, and was looking worn and pathetic. Both eyes were puffy and swollen, and his right cheek was grazed.

“Crispin!” he gasped.

Crispin slashed at his bonds with his bloodstained knife and pulled him to his feet. He moved groggily.

“Come along, Bernard,” Crispin urged. “We don’t have much time before we’re discovered.”

He led Bernard back along the passage to the room with the broken window. While Bernard stared at the corpse on the floor, Crispin assisted him in strapping on his parachute.

“Bernard, listen. You must pull this cord as soon as you jump. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Bernard. “Yes, I understand.” He had an odd, far away look in his eyes, peering up at Crispin through the swollen lids. “But you go first.”

“Are you sure?” said Crispin.

“Yes,” said Bernard dreamily. “Quite sure. Off you go.”

Crispin sensed that the man was barely aware of his surroundings. He had not even noticed that the broken glass on the floor had cut his feet. But there was no time to be lost. Crispin merely hoped Bernard had taken in the instructions about the ripcord.

He climbed onto the window ledge, gave a single backward glance at Bernard standing behind him, sucked the cold night air into his lungs, jumped, and pulled the ripcord. As the parachute swelled and bellied upwards, the pack on his back threatened to jerk his arms out of their sockets and snap his spine. He was falling, deliriously fast, swirling through the air out of control.

He did not see Bernard follow him to the window, hovering on the brink. He launched himself into space, and with a cry of “Oliiiiive!” plunged like a stone.

Crispin heard the scream, and, subliminally, the thump which followed it. Then the ground was racing to meet him. He landed awkwardly and knew no more.

Lyall brought the van to a halt beside him. Josie was first out, followed by Charlie, with Lyall bringing up the rear. Together they bundled Crispin into the back. Then they drove the few hundred metres to where Bernard lay. The twisted, bloodied wreck of the man they had both revered as a father figure. Trembling, they scraped up the remains, gathered them together and laid them in the back of the van next to Crispin’s lifeless form.

The van accelerated sharply away, heeling over as it took a corner and was gone from the scene of the crime. Inside, Charlie was leaning over Bernard’s mangled corpse. He examined the blood soaked parachute pack, its silken contents still intact.

“Bernard’s ’chute didn’t open,” he said slowly, looking up into Josie’s horror-stricken features, “because he never pulled the frigging cord.”