Mercury Man Page 18

  “You mean you’ve seen Mercury Man? They’ve caught him?”

  “Take it easy, son, they haven’t caught anyone — except you. I heard those mugs mention the costumes. And who the hell’s Mercury Man?”

  “You mean he got away? Paul got away?”

  “What are you talking about? You two were trying to rip the place off, is that it?”

  “I can’t believe it! Paul got away!”

  “Were you trying to steal computer stuff? The two of you? That’s what Tarn told me.”

  Tom sat up straight. “Tarn is a liar. He framed Paul because Paul found out he’s making a super computer out of DNA material! And computer programs based on genetics. If he can get these on the market, there’s no telling what might happen. Tarn thinks people are just fodder. You don’t know him, Dad.”

  “You’re not telling me you broke in here to foil a mad scientist?”

  “That’s exactly what we did, Dad!”

  Joe Blake laughed tartly. “C’mon … who’s full of crap now?”

  Tom sprang across the room; he stopped abruptly before the big desk and stood gazing down at his father. Joe Blake returned his glance. That was more like it: close up, remembering.

  “Dad! Get me out of here. This is serious! Help me. I wouldn’t lie to you. You understand that?”

  His father looked at him for a long time. His eyes seemed to grow heavy with recollection. He pressed his lips together and cleared his throat.

  “You were always a pretty straight kid.”

  Tom turned away. He couldn’t bear that his father should see his weakness. If his dad said another word he might just bawl. At that moment Tarn and all his tricks seemed to dwindle in importance.

  “If I get you the hell out of here,” Joe Blake said, “you’ll tell me everything that happened?”

  “If you swear not to tell Tarn.”

  “Why should I tell Tarn? Can’t you trust me?”

  “If you trust me.”

  His father paced across the room, not looking at him.

  “What the hell!” he said, and slapped his son lightly on the arm. “You’re getting to be a big son-of-bitch.” He looked at Tom, smiled crookedly, and nodded.

  Tom thought of the bulky guards outside the door. He pointed in their direction and made a gesture.

  “I’ll take care of them,” his father said.

  He waved Tom back, knocked on the door, and called out.

  “Here, open this up, will you?”

  Voices sounded outside. The door swung open.

  Joe Blake pushed it back and stepped into the corridor, beckoning Tom to follow.

  The guards eyed them, waiting for some explanation.

  “I’m taking my son to the police station,” Joe said. “That’s what Dr. Tarn asked me to do.”

  Tom clenched his fists. Was his father playing it straight? Was this some kind of trick? He still wasn’t sure he could trust him.

  “I’m sorry, sir. We have orders to hold this boy. The company is going to charge him with breaking and entering.”

  “Let me speak to Dr. Tarn, then.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Tarn has left the building.”

  Tom exchanged a glance with his father.

  “Now just a minute,” Joe Blake went on. “You have no right to hold this boy here. Dr. Tarn designated me to take him to the station. If you won’t let us go, I intend to call the police and then you’ll have to take the consequences. The police chief is a very good friend of mine.”

  The guards shook their heads, but their faces were full of doubt. They withdrew a few steps down the corridor and began a whispered conversation. After a few minutes, one of them disappeared into a nearby room.

  “He’s going to phone,” the other said.

  Tom waited. His father was fingering an unlit cigarette. Then the first man came back, shrugging his shoulders. “All right,” he said. “Take the kid away. He’s in your hands, though, just remember that.”

  Tom couldn’t believe his ears. They were letting him out of Fabricon!

  His father led the way down the corridor. Neither of them looked back. A few doors opened as they passed by. Faces peered at them; Tom heard the low drone of conversations. An air of crisis seemed to have enveloped the building.

  They emerged in the parking lot, and his father led the way to a shiny new red van, sitting by itself close to the entrance gate. Tom climbed into the front seat. In a few minutes they were out on Harbour Street.

  “Where to?” his father asked.

  “Just a few blocks,” Tom explained. “So you’re really not taking me to the station?”

  “Of course not, not if I like your explanation.”

  “Pull over here and I’ll try to fill you in.”

  They were directly opposite Mercury House. It looked shabby, hot, and blistered in the late afternoon sunlight. Tom thought with a thrill, If all goes well I’ll be seeing them all. But not there. We’re supposed to meet in the tunnel.

  He took in the house and next to it the small dilapidated garage, which few would suspect was the entrance to a magical underworld. Down below, in a nuclear bunker that Zak Daniel had built in the fifties and later refurbished, they would be waiting for him.

  He turned to his father and started to tell his story, leaving out a lot of things, most especially Miranda.

  When he had finished, Joe Blake said excitedly, “Hell! I can’t believe such a thing is going on in our city. There has to be a mistake in here somewhere.”

  “There’s no mistake. You’ll see! Paul has the evidence! I saw plenty myself!”

  “Then, son, you’ve been playing with fire.” His father sighed and shook his head. He seemed about to speak, then made a helpless gesture. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

  Tom waited for more. He felt uncomfortable with his father and wanted to get away. He could have jumped out of the van, but he resolved not to move. After everything, that would have been some kind of failure.

  “I’m letting you go, Tom,” his father announced at last. His stern tone seemed dutiful and not sincere. “That’s because I believe you. And, after all, you’re my kid. But if I find out you’re lying, you’ll be in trouble with me — I don’t care what your mother says. I just hope you haven’t chosen the wrong side.”

  Tom looked at the long, half-dilapidated porch of the old house. Was that a Siamese cat sitting on the cushionless swing beneath the bare twisted vines?

  He turned suddenly to his father and asked, “Why did you leave us, Dad?”

  His father didn’t move or look at him. The question hung awhile in the silence. Finally, Joe Blake patted his son on the shoulder and said in a quiet voice, “Well, Tom, you’re almost a grownup now. I believe you can take it. You see, there was this woman I met back then —”

  A few minutes later, Tom stood alone on the street.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Ad Astra

  Tom walked along the ramp they had shown him the night before. Here the tunnel curved and the tracks wound away into the darkness. It hardly bothered him that the space was narrow, the lights dim, and the walls so close that he could touch the damp splotches on the bare rock and plaster. He had escaped from Fabricon, from the Pavlov Room with its horrors; he had seen his own father: tremendous events that caused him to stop more than once and contemplate everything afresh. It was as if he had walked into a new world.

  The meeting with his father had shocked him. For years, he had thought of Joe Blake as remote and indifferent, but now he knew better. His father was friendly, blustering in his manner, and yet somehow unreachable. Tom felt guilty because he didn’t like him better. Guilty about his own father! Yet his dad had talked about the past so casually — he seemed to expect Tom to forgive him the neglect of all those years after a handshake and a few jokes.

  “Let’s keep in touch, son,” his father had said to him, leaning out of the van window. His smile seemed genuine, but also a little mechanical. Then he’d looked
away quickly, as if Tom had read too much in his glance.

  But Tom didn’t want to keep in touch. It was all far too complicated! His father had been an absentee so long that Tom didn’t know how to fit him into his life.

  The sound of voices in the tunnel ahead broke in on his thoughts. His pulse quickened and he ran forward.

  Now more than ever he needed to see them all, his new family.

  There was light ahead, gigantic moving shadows: someone playing the beam of a flashlight against the tunnel walls.

  And voices — her voice in particular.

  “It’s me!” he shouted and ran toward the light.

  He sprinted around a corner. Miranda and his mother stood framed in a lighted passageway. When they saw him they jumped up and down and waved. They were almost the same height; he hadn’t noticed that before.

  “It’s Tom!” his mother cried, and Miranda’s voice sounded with hers, clear and beautiful.

  The girl put down her light and ran toward him.

  They hugged and held each other. Her body felt warm; he trembled with joy, feeling her so close.

  “You’ve come back — and I can talk to you,” she said.

  “Miranda! Your voice is wonderful — just like I imagined it.”

  “Dad explained what happened. A reverse trauma, or something like that. You know after Fabricon’s horrible programming I couldn’t speak. Then, when I thought you’d been captured by Tarn, I just had to! I had so many ideas — of how we could rescue you.”

  “But, Miranda — your dad? He made it out?”

  “Yes he did, thank God! And we’ve all been worried sick about you.”

  They walked arm in arm toward the bunker door. His mother watched them, then Paul came out and stood beside her.

  Karen reached out, instinctively it seemed, and took Paul’s arm. It was strange seeing his mother so comfortable with a man she’d just met. It didn’t seem at all like her.

  Zak Daniel appeared at the door, his wheelchair carefully poised at the top of a short ramp. He too was smiling.

  Tom thought they were giving him quite a welcome, considering what a mess he’d made of things!

  He and Miranda laughed together. Paul, subdued as usual, approached them.

  “I’m surprised you want to stand so close to him,” Paul said to his daughter. “He looks like something the cat dragged in.”

  Everyone laughed and Tom felt suddenly crushed — then Paul threw his arms around him and said in a quiet voice, “Good work, kid. Thanks to you I got the files out of there. How in hell did you get away?”

  Tom gaped at him. “I was lucky,” he mumbled. “I saw everything. You’re right — there’s a room, with images of all the kids! And diagrams of the brain … I’m in there too!”

  Tom felt Paul’s arms around him. “Take it easy. It’s over now. We’re going to knock them for a loop.” And after a pause, he added, “We were waiting for Jack. He’s supposed to be bargaining for you right now. C’mon inside and relax. Then we can fill each other in.”

  “I’m proud of you, son,” his mother told him. She hugged him and walked along holding his hand. Miranda ran ahead.

  “I didn’t do anything, Mom.”

  “You’re here, aren’t you? And you saved Paul, too — he says you did!”

  They walked up the ramp and into the bunker. Despite the grim exterior, it seemed a cozy place. The ceilings were high, outfitted with fans and track lighting, and the walls were cleanly whitewashed. A few oriental rugs were scattered on the painted concrete floor. On one side were bookcases and two long tables covered with newspapers and magazines. On the other side Tom noticed a large sofa and armchairs. Coloured photographs brightened the walls, and there was a battery of equipment, including a television and a computer monitor, both turned on.

  “We’ve been trying to get news of Fabricon,” Zak explained. “But now you’re here!”

  Tom shook the old man’s hand and crashed down on the sofa.

  “Looks like the hero needs a drink,” Zak said, flipping off the TV. Miranda disappeared through a door at the rear and returned with a small Coke and a bag of potato chips.

  “We lack for nothing,” Zak said. “Except news. How in blazes did you get away from Tarn?”

  Tom took a drink, wiped his mouth, and looked doubtfully from face to face. The bunker was strange despite its homey touches; everything seemed too vivid, almost hallucinatory.

  He turned quickly to Paul and said, “You got all the files — that’s just great!”

  “I got the files, all right,” Paul said.

  He walked over to the long table on which the TV sat and lifted a small black tubular object from a shoe-box. He turned it around in his left hand, then connected it to the monitor on the table. Paul touched a keyboard and within seconds a set of complicated diagrams appeared on the screen.

  These looked innocent enough, but other pages were more sinister: profiles of Tom and his friends, photographs, diagrams of their bodies, psychological information, lists of their friends and relations, and medical histories, as well as links to a world pool of information on DNA, mind control, and special programming.

  “Wow! Lucky they didn’t code this,” Tom said.

  “They did. What’s lucky is they never changed the code! When I remembered that Tarn is one of those people who makes a copy of everything, and that he’s a freak for storing things on Fabricon’s new micro vault cylinders, I rummaged around and found this! I recognized the code at once — it would have meant nothing to an outsider. If we hadn’t arrived in time the cylinders would have been tossed in the river.”

  “Tell Tom how you got out, Paul,” his mother said.

  Paul grinned. “It wasn’t easy. The alarm went off and they had me trapped in the main lounge. Three guys appeared and I had no chance against them. Then two of them took off in a hurry. I guess you stirred up so much trouble they figured they were being invaded! That made the odds a little better and I managed to get out. I hopped the truck as planned and we came here. I wanted to go back for you, but then I remembered that if I had the files I could get anything I wanted from Tarn, including you!”

  As Paul explained all this, Karen Blake was pacing up and down. She seemed to be reliving her worst fears. “Your grandfather went straight from Fabricon to his house,” she said. “He’s supposed to call the company. We thought he’d get you out of there. We haven’t heard from him, though. We’ve been waiting.”

  “Matter of security,” Zak explained. “He won’t call us here — they might trace it.”

  “You escaped, that’s the main thing,” his mother continued. “What a clever guy!”

  “I didn’t exactly escape,” Tom said. There was a pause. He felt them all looking at him. “I don’t exactly know how to tell you …”

  “Just tell us,” Zak urged.

  “My father got me out of Fabricon.”

  They looked at him. There was a moment’s silence and then his mother burst out, “Your father! What does he have to do with it?”

  “I didn’t think you’d seen your father for years,” Paul put in, looking from Tom to Karen Blake.

  At the mention of Joe Blake, Karen seemed to lose her poise. “That pig! I should have known he’d turn up at the wrong moment!”

  “If he rescued Tom, it was the right moment,” Zak said quietly.

  Tom took a deep breath. He’d been afraid of this. “I don’t know exactly what happened …” He looked at his mother, who was pressing Paul’s hand, still trembling with anger. “All I know is that Tarn said he was going to charge me, have me thrown in jail. Then he took me to a room where Dad was waiting. We talked for a while and Dad got me out of there. He told the guards he was going to take me to the police. Tarn was gone by then.”

  Paul Daniel whistled softly.

  “Didn’t the creep explain why he was there?” Karen asked.

  “He said Tarn got in touch with him. I think he was telling the truth, Mom. It’s just what
Tarn would do. He wanted to neutralize us, to get us out of the picture. He knew that we were working with Paul and Zak and he wanted to mess things up. He thought that if he brought Dad in he would throw me off the rails. He’d already started the process with the film he showed me yesterday.”

  “And of course your dad just breezed in, as Tarn knew he would. He must have checked up on him, too. But why did the jerk let you go?”

  “He’s my father, after all!” Tom paused; he was suddenly furious. They all looked at him. “I asked him to help and he did. Once Paul got the files they had to let me go. Mom, I didn’t like Dad very much, but he helped me. He played it fair.”

  Zak nodded. “As you say, he’s your father.”

  Tom pressed his lips together. It was no use talking about it. They wouldn’t understand his feelings. But his mother put her arms around him.

  “I know. Joe Blake is a great one for twisting things. I suppose he was full of sorrow, full of excuses …”

  Tom couldn’t speak. He managed a nod and stared at the slowly turning ceiling fan.

  Zak Daniel cleared his throat, spun his wheelchair around, and cackled like a mother hen. “By golly, who cares what he was full of? He helped get young Tom back here, didn’t he?”

  “So Binkley wasn’t lying!” A voice from the doorway made them jump.

  Paul sprang to his feet; Karen turned. Zak threw up his arms.

  Tom got up and ran to embrace the smiling rotund figure who had walked into the bunker while they were talking.

  “Grandpa! I got away! Everything’s all right.”

  Jack nodded. “So I see! That’s good news and I’ve got more of it! Luckily for you guys I wasn’t the police. Didn’t even close the door, eh? That’s confidence!”

  “The gang’s all here! Thank goodness!” Zak called out.

  “I’ve got plenty of news, but a glass of beer would make it flow better,” Jack told them.

  Tom sensed his excitement — they were all caught up in it.

  Miranda fetched a beer. Jack swallowed a few mouthfuls, took a deep breath, and smiled. He flopped down on the sofa next to Tom. The others crowded around him.

  Then Jack began to laugh. He opened his mouth as if to speak but seemed suddenly overwhelmed by the humour of everything. “Sorry …” He apologized through his tears, wiped his face, sniffed, and told them, “Well, I just talked to the CEO Martin Binkley …”