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Page 22.
15. Olympia House
 Inside Olympia House, Jared stood in darkness. Where to? He seemed to remember there being a way out near here. But how could he find it in this darkness?
Too late, he caught sight of the door closing and locking behind him. Then he was blinded by an intense light. A loudspeaker boomed out:
“Do not move. Raise your hands. You are being searched for weapons. The door is presently an electrical conductor; you will die if you touch it. Stand and wait to be apprehended.”
Before he could turn to run, before the metallic voice had reverberated away down the corridor, he was pinioned by some invisible force.
The light softened. Jared turned toward the tramp of heavy feet, and shook with fear. Robots, hard and cruel, accompanied by two guards. The two robots locked Jared between them. One of the guards slapped Jared across the mouth. “What are you doing here?” Jared remonstrated, but the guard cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it.”
They took Jared to a lift. Glowing platforms of energy passes perpetually down through floor after floor, coming out of the ceiling, going down through the floor. While sinking out of sight, Jared caught a last glimpse of the blind, circular little hallway he’d been captured in, which was mystifying because both its beginning and its end circled around out of sight. A group of robots were passing: Battered metal hulks, smoking, burning frames, moving along with a clank of heavy feet and a clatter of mangled limbs. A large robot, with a tower and hose, was spraying a robot that had begun to smoke. The smell of scorched rubber and torn brain cases faded as they passed floors going down.
They took him to a small office where a man in a sergeant’s uniform sat behind a desk, cleaning his fingernails. A corporal was just entering a door marked Men. A youth in a colorful kimono, Dubhean style, held the detached arm of an automaton who sat silent and unmoving in a corner. The boy said, “Come, fool,” and the automaton rose to let him screw the arm back on.
The sergeant pointed his nail file at Jared. “Who’s this?”
“We caught a TP,” the guard growled. Trespasser.
The sergeant’s face darkened. He grunted, throwing the file in a steel drawer. It clattered jarringly. “So.” He sat back, tipping his chair against the wall. “So, a tp.”
“Give him hell, Sarge,” the boy said.
The sergeant didn’t answer. Looking off into space he sighed, “Can’t you people read signs? I don’t know why you were in there, but they’ll never believe anything but sabotage. Well…” He turned toward the man who had accompanied Jared down: “Get his papers.”
The guard easily fished Jared’s wallet from his pocket. “It better be good,” the sergeant said, taking out his nail file again.
“Sergeant, I am an officer in the star fleets, assigned to duty with the President’s staff.”
Several men laughed. One said: “Yeah really, and I’m the Queen of Vega.”
The irony of this heckling had best remain discreetly not pointed out to these fools, Jared thought.
“You here to hurt the robots?” one man asked.
It dawned on Jared that a former athlete might be a very likely person to want to destroy robots.
“I’ll tell you—what’s your name? Jared—If I lose one robot, the entire Galaxy would start war. And in any case, I’d be dead. Malean, what did you find? Malean!!”
“I’m right here,” the guard growled, and Jared was astounded at this insubordination. Malean shook his head. “Jared Fallon. He was once an Olympic runner—I remember him: The last year a human ran.”
“Where’s he work?”
“He’s an officer in the star fleets.”
The sergeant’s face was clouded by a funny look. “You know,” he said softly, “none of that sounds like it’s going to get you off the hook too well here.” Nevertheless, he looked somehow impressed.
The boy’s voice called out again from somewhere: “Give him hell!”
A muffled voice came out of the room marked Men. There was the sound of water rushing, and the door sprang open, and the corporal popped out. “Fix him, Sarge.” The corporal stood by, watching eagerly.
The sergeant glared. Time passed.
“You’re—how old?”
Jared told him; probably far too young to be believable.
“You’re with the UGO?”
“Yes,” Jared said, surprised.
“Get out of here,” Sonlo whispered. Just get out. Don’t even look back…” He looked as though he would say more, but seemed to choke on the words. And Jared sprinted past the silent, grasping figure in the doorway, back to freedom’s agony.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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