Ghost in the Machine td-90 Page 7

  Chapter 8

  Up close, the Rumpp Tower looked more charcoal than bronze. Dying sunlight made it smolder, as if fires lurked beneath its opaque surface.

  Remo looked around. Fifth Avenue was deserted in both directions for several blocks. It was a strange sight. But it enabled them to work unchallenged.

  "He stepped into the lobby and just fell out of sight," Cheeta was explaining.

  "Ridiculous," snorted Remo.

  "Supernatural," said Delpha.

  "I saw it all," added Chiun. "From my place of vantage. Before him, a lowly fireman was pulled down to a like fate."

  Cheeta Ching looked startled. "You were here before, Grandfather?"

  "In my secret capacity, I was studying the fate that has befallen this mighty but hideous structure."

  "Was there nothing you could have done?" Cheeta asked, to Remo's relief. She hadn't seemed to pick up on Chiun's broad hint that he worked for someone important.

  "Alas, no," said Chiun. "For when confronted with the unknown, the first rule of Sinanju is to observe, lest one become ensnared along with lesser mortals."

  "Very wise," said Delpha.

  "That's why I made my cameraman go in ahead of me," Cheeta said.

  "You sent your cameraman in to his death?" Remo blurted.

  "He is not dead," Delpha intoned, snatching the hand of glory from Remo. "He has merely gone to another realm."

  "Bull! There's gotta be a scientific explanation for what's happening here."

  "Self-blind science cannot explain all," Delpha insisted.

  "Sure it can."

  "Then why do men have nipples?"

  That stumped Remo. While he was pondering the imponderable mystery, Cheeta snapped her fingers and offered a theory of her own.

  "I know! It's a dimensional rift opening up."

  "Huh?"

  "Our planet is intersecting with a parallel dimension, causing an exchange of realities."

  "Bull!" Remo exploded.

  Chiun cut in. "Silence! Speak, child. Tell us more."

  "It's just a theory," Cheeta said slowly, "but I think the tower is slowly entering the Fifth Dimension, or a parallel reality."

  "Why?"

  "Maybe it's a cultural exchange."

  "With who?" Remo snorted. "Rod Serling?"

  "Remo!"

  Remo subsided. Cheeta went on.

  "With any luck," Cheeta said smugly, "we'll get a skyscraper of theirs in exchange."

  "What if they don't have skyscrapers in Dimension X?" Remo asked dryly.

  "Then we'll probably get a pyramid, or something just as cosmic," Cheeta said flatly.

  "This is not what my inmost eye tells me," Delpha warned.

  "My ass," Remo said.

  A crowd was collecting behind the ground-floor display windows of the skyscraper, where the boutiques and highpriced antique stores were. Others milled about the atrium lobby aimlessly.

  Remo had never seen such forlorn faces. Some were calling out, but Remo couldn't hear the words.

  He walked up to the glass of a window display.

  "Remo," Chiun admonished. "Be careful. . . ."

  "Relax, I'm just going to check this out."

  Approaching, Remo lifted both hands to the glass. He set himself in case his highly attuned nervous system encountered something it could not handle, and he had to retreat fast.

  His fingers were reflected in the glass. They approached one another's mirror image. At the point when they should have touched, both sets kept going. His fingers seemed to be swallowing each other.

  Despite himself, Remo felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift and stiffen.

  More incredibly, a part of the crowd inside, seeing how easily Remo's hand had passed through the seemingly solid glass, began beating their fists against the inner glass walls.

  Their hands did not go through. In fact, the glass clearly wobbled in its frame from the strong blows.

  "This is weird," Remo said, withdrawing his hands. They looked okay. He returned to the others.

  "Do you still doubt that dark forces are at work?" Delpha inquired coolly.

  "There's a scientific explanation," Remo insisted, frowning at the tower.

  "No science of man can account for this."

  "It's like a two-way mirror," Remo decided aloud. "You know, where the light goes through one way but not the other, so it's a mirror on one side and clear glass on the other."

  "That makes no sense whatsoever," Cheeta Ching said snippily.

  Remo frowned. "It's just a working theory. The light bulb wasn't invented in a day, you know."

  Delpha lifted her hand of glory to the sky and waved it back and forth, getting oily smoke into their nostrils.

  "Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath!" she howled. "Oh, All-Mother, we wish to communicate with the cameraman who disappeared into your nurturing earth."

  "What is this crap?" Remo demanded.

  "Shh, Remo!" Chiun hissed. "It is a kut."

  Remo understood kut. It was Korean for "seance."

  "This is loopy," he growled.

  Chiun whispered, "Some matters must be dealt with in the traditional manner. Let the mudang work her white magic. It may not be Korean, but there may be some usefulness in it."

  "How do you know it's not black magic, Little Father?"

  Chiun shrugged. "She is white. What other kind of magic can she work?"

  Delpha closed her eyes. Her face began to contort.

  "She's in touch with higher forces," Cheeta said breathlessly.

  "Looks like she's having a standing orgasm to me," Remo muttered.

  Delpha's next words were incomprehensible. They weren't English or Korean. Remo decided they were probably witch, and therefore not important.

  Delpha swayed like a palm tree that had been dipped in tar. Her face warped and twitched as her mouth chanted inarticulate phrases.

  Then her eyes jumped open.

  "I have seen! I have communed with the greater wisdom."

  "What? What?" Cheeta demanded.

  Delpha turned to Cheeta. "I have seen inside your womb."

  "No!"

  "Yes! It is a boy!"

  Hearing this, Chiun turned to Remo, smiling happily. "Did you hear, Remo? A boy! A strapping Korean boy. I have always wanted a male child."

  "The skyscraper!" Remo snapped. "Remember the skyscraper? We're here to figure out what the dingdong hell is going on with this stupid skyscraper."

  Joyous faces collected themselves, sobered, and the three celebrants reluctantly returned to the matter at hand.

  "Did you communicate with anyone about the mystery?" Cheeta wanted to know.

  "I have heard a name spoken by the winds that whistle through this Tower of Babel."

  "What name?"

  "It begins with an R."

  "The second name begins with an R," Delpha added.

  "R . . . R . . ." Cheeta repeated, frowning. "A name that begins with an R . . ." Her smooth brow furrowed. "It's on the tip of my tongue."

  "Try Randal Rumpp," Remo offered acidly.

  "That's it!" Cheeta howled. "Randal Rumpp! Of course. Randal Rumpp. Is he responsible for this?" she asked Delpha.

  "So the Great Goddess whispers in my third ear."

  "Oh, brother," Remo groaned.

  Chiun tugged on Remo's T-shirt and drew him aside. "Remo, what is wrong with you this night? Respect the powers that reveal hidden knowledge to that woman."

  " 'Hidden knowledge'? She didn't exactly pull the name Randal Rumpp out of a hat, now did she?"

  "I do not know if her white demons wear hats," Chiun said vaguely.

  Remo pointed out the bronze lintel over the main entrance. It read: RUMPP TOWER.

  "Maybe she got a major clue from that," he snapped.

  Chiun looked, sniffed delicately, and said, "Coincidence."

  Remo threw up his hands and groaned, "Oh, I give up!"

  "Look!" Cheeta screeched. "There he is!"

  "Who?" Remo said, turn
ing.

  "There he is! Randal Rumpp himself!"

  "It is just as the All-Mother told me," Delpha called.

  Chiun squeaked, "There, Remo! Proof!"

  "Oh, blow it out your backside. Of course that's Randal Rumpp. It's his building, isn't it?"

  In the main doorway of the Rumpp Tower Randal Rumpp had appeared, his hair slicked down with sweat and obviously breathing hard from exertion.

  He was holding up a sign. It said: HALF PRICE.

  "Don't tell me this is a cheap retail promotion," Remo growled.

  Under the HALF PRICE were words scrawled by a blue felt pen: Wanna interview me about this?

  Cheeta Ching read those words. Their full meaning hit her like an anvil dropped on her head from the thirteenth floor. She shouldered her camcorder and without another thought-or any thought in the first place-she sprinted for the main door.

  Remo and Chiun were caught by surprise. Never in their wildest dreams would they have imagined that Cheeta Ching would go plunging into the building, knowing what she did.

  But an unbroadcast story was like blood in the water to the Korean Shark, and she plunged in. Through the immovable door, through the unresisting glass, through the startled figure of Randal Rumpp.

  And promptly began sinking into the floor.

  "Cheeta!" Chiun shrieked. He started in.

  Remo got in front of him. "Wait, Little Father. You can't go in there!"

  "Cheeta!" he squeaked. "She must be saved!"

  "Forget her," Remo said, moving to block the Master of Sinanju. "She's gone."

  "But the baby!"

  "I'm sorry, Chiun, I don't care what you do or say, I can't let you go there. It's crazy."

  The wispy head of the Master of Sinanju darted this way and that, attempting to see around Remo. His eye were frantic, his mouth a round hole of anguish.

  "Look!" he shrieked.

  Remo turned. And the instant he did so, his legs seemed to turn to water.

  For a wild moment, Remo thought he was sinking into the pavement under his feet. No such thing. The Master of Sinanju had, with a sandaled toe, separated his ankles with such speed that Remo never felt the twin blows.

  He went down on his knees, his stricken eyes following the blue-and-golden specter that was Chiun.

  The Master of Sinanju bounded through the glass doors.

  "No, Little Father!"

  And before Remo's horrified eyes, he too began sinking into the lobby floor.

  Chapter 9

  Remo tried to get up. His legs refused to obey him. He was on his knees and helpless.

  "Chiun! Chiun!"

  "O Shub-Niggurath, hear our plea," moaned Delpha. "Smite the clutching hands of the Great Horned One, who pulls your children down into his fiery domain."

  "If there's anything constructive you can do," Remo said, strugging to get his legs to work, "do it now."

  Delpha closed her eyes. Her green eye shadow made it seem like they had been replaced by dull glass orbs. "It is in the lap of the All-Mother," she murmured.

  His face twisting with fear and anger, Remo watched as Cheeta and then Chiun sank into the seemingly solid lobby floor. Randal Rumpp stuck around only long enough to acquire a dark stain in the crotch of his sharply creased pants. Then he fled in the direction of a fire door. He was followed by a knot of people shaking their fists at him.

  Remo closed his eyes. He couldn't bear to watch. He willed the blood to return to his legs. He got the pins-and-needles sensation that told of returning function. Still, his legs were slow to respond. Whatever it was Chiun had done, it certainly had been effective. Remo was almost an invalid.

  He blocked out Cheeta's frantic cries of, "This can't happen to me! I'm the perfect anchorperson! Somebody do something!"

  There was no sound from the Master of Sinanju. Of course, Remo realized, Cheeta's screechy caterwauling may have been drowning him out.

  Finally, when his circulation was again flowing normally, Remo regained control over his lower body. He ignored the tingling residual pain and found his feet.

  Remo ran to the main entrance. There he found a yellow hump on the pink marble floor that looked like half a grapefruit fringed with cotton. As he watched helplessly it sank from sight, silently, soundlessly, and completely.

  "Chiun!"

  Remo was swatting at the glass door. It might as well have been a hologram.

  Carefully, he put one leg in. It went through without sensation. He let the toe of his Italian leather loafer touch the lobby floor. It dropped down and out of sight. He felt nothing. Not warm, not cold. Simply . . . not there.

  Remo withdrew the leg. He moved back and looked around frantically. The biggest thing in sight was a light pole. He went to it and began kicking the concrete base with controlled fury.

  The pole shattered and began to tip. Remo raced to meet the descending light housings. There were two. The streetlights along this stretch of Fifth Avenue resembled two-headed serpents. He caught one, laid it down on the ground. Going to the base, he chopped away at the cables and copper wiring until they came loose.

  Then, using both hands, he levered the base of the pole in a line with the main entrance and began to shove it in.

  Remo kept pushing until he felt the other end beginning to tip. He pulled back about a foot of the pole and, certain of its balance, jumped on.

  Hands held out to his sides, Remo began to walk the pole like a log bridge. He passed through the glass entrance and found himself balanced over what looked like solid marble flooring, although he knew it wasn't.

  His dark eyes said it was solid. His other senses told him otherwise. If he fell, he knew he would be in deep trouble.

  While people gathered around, shouting with their mouths but emitting no audible sounds, Remo got down on his knees. He dropped a hand into the flooring.

  His hand vanished up to his thick wrist. He felt around experimentally. Nothing.

  Remo shouted, "Little Father! Chiun! Can you hear me?"

  No sound came back.

  He brought his hand back and cupped it over his mouth.

  "Chiun!"

  Then he heard something. Faint. A voice. Thin. He couldn't make out the words.

  "What?"

  A single word was repeated. It sounded like "fetch." "Fetch?"

  A "no" came back. It was clear enough. The faraway voice was saying "no."

  "Not 'fetch'?" Remo called down.

  The word that sounded like "fetch" was repeated.

  "Louder!" Remo yelled at the marble. "I can't make it out!"

  Then, something jumped out of the floor.

  It happened so fast and was so unexpected that Remo's reflexes barely warned him to get out of the way in time.

  A man came sailing up in a long arc. The parabola of the arc carried him through the second-level atrium floor and out into the street.

  He began to fall.

  Remo moved then. He flashed along the fallen lamp pole and out onto Fifth Avenue. Getting under the man, he raised his arms.

  Remo had no idea if he could catch him. There was no question he'd be in the right place at the right time, but there was no way of knowing if the man would land in the upraised cushion of his arms . . . or fall through them and into the unforgiving pavement.

  Remo set himself for the worst.

  The man struck his hands like a bony sack of potatoes. Remo felt the impact bring him to his knees. It knocked the breath out of the man, but Remo's arm bones survived without shattering. He laid the man out.

  "Who are you, pal?" Remo asked.

  The man who had been ejected from the phantom skyscraper seemed to be staring through Remo, as if he had beheld sights that had dazzled his senses. "Never mind me," he gasped. "The others."

  "Others?"

  "Catch."

  " 'Catch'? Was that the word? 'Catch,' not 'fetch'?"

  "Hurry," the man gasped.

  Remo moved back, his arms lifted. There was no time to figure out what was hap
pening. He had to be ready.

  Cheeta Ching came next. Remo heard her shriek of fright seconds before she popped-literally popped-out from the golden facade of the Rumpp Tower in a shallow arc.

  Remo called up. "Don't worry! I'll catch you."

  Like an infielder, Remo positioned himself for the catch.

  Cheeta Ching, still shrieking, landed across his arms. Her arms flung out and took hold of his neck, her nails gouging red streaks in the vicinity of his jugular. She buried her sticky-haired head in Remo's shoulder.

  "You can let go now," Remo said. "It's me. Rocco."

  Cheeta Ching looked up dazedly.

  Her voice sounding surprised, Cheeta said, "I'm alive."

  "And clawing," Remo pointed out. "I'd like my neck back. If you don't mind."

  Cheeta's manicured talons disengaged, like a gross of hypodermics withdrawing from flesh.

  Remo set her on her feet.

  "Thank you, Renko," she said. This time, her voice sounded subdued.

  "That's-" Remo caught himself. "Never mind. Did you see Chiun?"

  "No."

  "No? Then how'd you get out of there?"

  "I have no idea. It was all dark. I thought I was dead. I was caught in traffic. But the cars weren't moving. They weren't there. I mean, they were there, but they weren't. It was just like a 'Far Side' cartoon. 'Traffic Jam of the Damned.' I think one of them struck me. Because I was flying through space."

  Cheeta Ching squeezed her almond eyes shut and her whole body shuddered so violently that matte finish, like old paint, flaked off her smooth features.

  "Never mind." Remo moved back into position. With any luck Chiun would be along any second now. But several seconds passed. Then a minute. And the minute became three.

  Delpha had gone to Cheeta's side to offer comfort. She called to Remo.

  "I sense great conflict below. The wise old one has joined in mortal battle with Baphomet. He has made the Great Horned One vomit up his victims. Now he must become demon vomit himself if he is to live."

  "Crap and double-crap," Remo muttered.

  Delpha's deep voice rose. "Beware! The fiends below grow in power. They will demand payment for your blaspheming them."

  Disgust on his face, Remo returned to the fallen light pole and walked along it back into the lobby.

  He called down, "Chiun!"

  There was no answer. His eyes were hot and dry, as if the tears of remorse had evaporated before they could escape his tear ducts.