Down And Dirty

"I hope I could help. Call me if you need to talk again."

"Thanks. You've really been of great assistance."

"Anytime."

Modular Man put the phone on the hook and rose silently into the sky. He rose into the darkness, drifted the several blocks to Travnicek's apartment, went in through the skylight. Joker Death, he thought.

Travnicek was lying on his bed, apparently asleep. The camp bed was surrounded by empty tins of food: apparently he'd been eating the stuff right from the cans. Some of the organs around Travnicek's neck had blossomed a bit, were making ultrasonic chirping sounds, the period of which decreased as the android dropped into the apartment. Sonar, the android thought. Travnicek opened the eyes around his neck.

"You," he said. "Yes, sir."

"The module's rebuilt. I think. Some of my memories were kind of hazy."

Fear filled the android. A fly buzzed past and he chased it away with a flap of his arm. "I'll try it." He opened his jumpsuit and his chest, reached for the module that waited on the workbench.

"My brain seems to be evolving," Travnicek said. His voice was dreamy. "I think what's happening is that the virus is enlarging the brain sections concerned with sensory input. I'm perceiving things in every possible way now, very intensely. I've never experienced anything as intensely as I can just lying here, watching things." He gave a hollow laugh. "My god! I never knew that eating creamed corn from the can could be such a sensual experience!"

Modular Man inserted the module, ran test patterns. Relief flooded him. The monitor worked.

"Very good, sir," he said. "Hang on."

"You're so interesting this way," Travnicek said. The fly was wandering near the empty food cans.

There was sudden movement. One of the organs around Travnicek's neck uncoiled with lightning rapidity and caught the fly. The extrusion snapped back and stuffed the fly into Travnicek's mouth.

The android couldn't believe what he'd just seen. "Wonderful," said Travnicek. Smacking his lips.

"Hang on, sir," Modular Man said again. His flux field crackled around him. He flew through the roof and into the blackness.

Arriving at the bank, the android turned insubstantial, burned every vault sensor with bursts from his microwave laser so that any guards couldn't see what happened next, then stepped into the vault, solidified himself, and ripped the deposit box from its resting place.

Suddenly he stopped. A yellow warning light glowed in his mind, flickered, turned red.

He tried to go insubstantial again. He rotated ninety degrees from the real for a fraction of a second, then he felt something go and he was solid again, standing in the bank vault. He could smell something burning.

The flux monitor was gone again. Travnicek's repairs hadn't been permanent. A chill eddy of fear rippled through the android's mind at the thought that it might have happened when he was in the steel-and-concrete wall of the vault. He looked around, examined the door and the lock. If he were found here in the morning, he thought, his reputation as a do-gooder would definitely suffer.

It proved fortunate that vaults are made to prevent people breaking in, not out. Forty-five minutes' patient work with the microwave laser burned a hole in the laminated interior of the door, gaining him access to the lock apparatus. He reached through, touched the mechanism, felt an awareness of its function. He glitched the electronics-easy as getting a free telephone call-and the heavy bolts slid back.

He took the emergency stairs out, burning cameras as he went. Once out he flew to the roof of a nearby building, tore the box open, and examined the contents.

Long-term leases, he found, to several small apartments in the New York area. Keys. Stacks of currency. Jewelry, gold coins. Bottles containing hundreds of pills. A pair of pistols and boxes of ammunition. Croyd's secret stash of money, weapons, drugs, and the keys to his hideouts.

He thought for a long moment. Travnicek was deteriorating swiftly. The android was going to have to move fast, and he was going to have to get some help.

"I don't want to have to do the scouting," Modular Man said. "If they see me again, they'll run. And they'll spread the plague while they do it."

"Very well." Tachyon's violet eyes glittered as his hands played with the velvet lapels of his lavender jacket. His. 357 and holster sat on the desk before him. On his office wall, next to a set of honorary degrees, was a sign with red, white, and blue lettering: THE

MAN: HARTMANN. THE TIME: 1988. TIIE PLAN: OUR CHILDREN S FUTURE.

"My joker squad can be of use. Some of them should prove capable of covert reco

"Good. I should stay here with your most powerful people. Then we can move out together."

The contents of Croyd's deposit box were spread out on Tachyon's desk and he looked at them. "There are only three addresses actually in Manhattan," Tachyon said. "I suspect he'd try for one of those first before trying the tu

"I've fought him twice. But I think I know how his power works."

Tachyon stared. He leaned forward over the desk, pushing aside the pistol in its holster, his expression intent. "Tell me, sir."

"He absorbs energy, then returns it. He can only attack after he's already been hit. He absorbs all sorts of energykinetic, radiation.. ."

"Psionic," Tachyon murmured.

"But if you don't hit him first, he doesn't have any more strength than a normal person. So whatever we do, we can't attack him. Just ignore him, no matter how tempting a target he makes himself."

"Yes. Very good, Modular Man. You are to be commended." The android looked at Tachyon and apprehension spun through his mind. "I need to get Croyd away as fast as possible. I can't catch the wild card from him, so I think I should deal with him solo-he's got enough strength to tear through your biochemical warfare suits. I'm powerful enough to subdue him if I don't have to worry about anyone else."

"The task is yours." Simply.

Triumph settled in the android. He was going to be able to seize Croyd and get him to Travnicek without interference. Maybe things were looking up at last.

The phone rang on Tachyon's desk. The alien snatched it. "Tachyon here." Modular Man saw Tachyon's violet eyes dilate with interest. "Very good. You are to be commended, Sophie. Stay there until we arrive." He returned the phone to its cradle. "Sophie believes they're in the Perry Street address. She can hear two people, and one of them is talking nonstop as if he was affected by stimulants."

The android jumped to his feet. His emergency pack had already been prepared, and he slung it on his back. Tachyon pressed a button on his telephone.

"Tell the squad to suit up," he said. "And after a decent interval, inform the police."

"I'll fly on ahead," the android said. He flung open the door and almost ran into a slim, erect black man who was standing just outside the door in the secretary's office. He wore a biochem suit and a feathered black-and-white death'shead mask. His smell was appalling, must and rotting flesh. A joker.

"Pardon me, sir," the man said. His voice was an educated, somewhat theatrical baritone. "Could you take me with you?"

Modular Man's software wove swift subroutines to eliminate the man's smell from his sensory input. "I don't believe I know you."