Dark Benediction

“There’s a cop at the intersection.”

He seemed not to hear her. He opened the door. “Let’s go inside. I want to look around. Bring the gun.”

They strolled slowly up the walkway toward the damaged and deserted house. The wind was breathing in the oaks, and the porch creaked loudly beneath their feet. The door was still locked. Mitch kicked the glass out of a window, and they slipped into an immense living room. He found the light.

“The cop’ll hear that noise,” she muttered, glancing at the broken glass.

The noisy clatter of the steel-wheeled skater answered her. The cop was coming to investigate. Mitch ignored the sound and began prowling through the house. The phone was still ringing, but he could not answer it without knowing Sarquist’s personal identifying code.

The girl called suddenly from the library. “What’s this thing, Mitch?”

“What thing?” he yelled.

“Typewriter keyboard, but no type. Just a bunch of wires and a screen.”

His jaw fell agape. He trotted quickly toward the library.

“A direct channel to the data tanks!” he gasped, staring at the metal wall panel with its encoders and the keyboard. “What’s it doing here?”

He thought about it briefly. “Must be…I remember: just before the exodus, they gave Sarquist emergency powers in the defense setup. He could requisition whatever was needed for civil defense—draft workers for first aid, traffic direction, and so on. He had the power to draft anybody or anything during an air raid.”

Mitch approached the keyboard slowly. He closed the main power switch, and the tubes came alive. He sat down and typed: Central from Sarquist: You will completely clear the ordinance section of your data tanks and await revised ordinances. The entire city code is hereby repealed.

He waited. Nothing happened. There was no acknowledgment. The typed letters had not even appeared on the screen. “Broken?” asked the girl.

“Maybe,” Mitch grunted. “Maybe not. I think I know.”

The mechanical cop had lowered his retractable sprockets, climbed the porch steps, and was hammering at the door. “Mayor Sarquist, please!” he was calling. “Mayor Sarquist, please!”

There was a mahogany desk, several easy chairs, a solid wall of books, and a large safe in another wall. The safe—

“Sarquist should have some rather vital papers in there,” he murmured.

“What do you want with papers?” the girl snapped. “Why don’t we get out of the city while we can?”

He glanced at her coldly. “Like to go the rest of the way alone?”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and frowned. She was holding the tommy gun, and he saw it twitch slightly in her hand, as if reminding him that she didn’t have to go alone.

He walked to the safe and idly spun the dial. “Locked,” he muttered. “It’d take a good charge of T.N.T…. or—”

“Or what?”

“Central.” He chuckled dryly. “Maybe she’ll do it for us.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Sure. Go unlock the door. Let the policeman in.”

“No!” she barked.

Mitch snorted impatiently. “All right, then, I’ll do it. Pitch me the gun.”

“No!” She pointed it at him and backed away.

“Give me the gun!”

“No!”

She had laid the baby on the sofa, where it was now sleeping peacefully. Mitch sat down beside it.

“Trust your aim?”

She caught her breath. Mitch lifted the child gently into his lap.

“Give me the gun.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I’ll give the kid back to the cops.”

She whitened and handed the weapon to him quickly. Mitch saw that the safety was on, laid the baby aside, and stood up. “Don’t look at me like that!” she said nervously.

He walked slowly toward her.

“Don’t you dare touch me!”

He picked up a ruler from Sarquist’s desk, then dived for her. A moment later she was stretched out across his lap, clawing at his legs and shrieking while he applied the ruler resoundingly. Then he dumped her on the rug, caught up the gun, and went to admit the insistent cop.

Man and machine stared at each other across the threshold. The cop radioed a visual image of Mitch to Central and got an immediate answer.

“Request you surrender immediately sir.”

“Am I now charged with breaking and entering?” he asked acidly.

“Affirmative.”

“You planning to arrest me?”

Again the cop consulted Central. “If you will leave the city at once, you will be granted safe passage.”

Mitch lifted his brows. Here was a new twist. Central was doing some interpretation, some slight modification of ordinance. He grinned at the cop and shook his head.

“I locked Mayor Sarquist in the safe,” he stated evenly. The robot consulted Central. There was a long twittering of computer code. Then it said, “This is false information.”

“Suit yourself, tin boy. I don’t care whether you believe it or not.”

Again there was a twittering of code. Then: “Stand aside, please.”