Anti-man

my suitcase against my chest with both hands in the event I fell forward, and plunged on.
        The damned computer shocked me again.
        "Halt!" it demanded. "You will not be bothered if you come to a full stop."
        I had not fallen this time either. Indeed, the electricity had seemed to shoot up through me and keep me erect. Another shock came, but none of the wires were touching me anywhere except on the bottoms of my feet. I could feel the power humming beneath my shoes, but it did not reach me. Then I was through the membrane, into the exit foyer.
        "You are directed to halt," the computer said. It began repeating the sentence for sabotaging the public transportation system.
        I moved out of the foyer and into the station platform. There was an open corridor beyond, lined with shops on both sides, a great number of people on the pedways. But no police. I walked out, trying to look as natural as possible, but not succeeding too well, considering my slashed face, torn clothes and limp (my feet felt as if something wicked and sharp-toothed had been chewing on them). I was on the first pedway, the slowest outer one, half a block from the Bubble Drop station and trying to get into the innermost pedway, the other slow-moving belt, when the WA police siren wailed out ahead of me…

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    XIII
        
        Coming along the emergency belt on the other side of the street, half a dozen WA police searched the belts for anyone who looked suspicious. They must also be looking for anyone bleeding and in torn clothes, for they would certainly know what a stroll through the tubeways would do to a man. They kept their hands on their black holsters, ready to draw and use their narcodart weapons if they spotted their quarry. Everyone around me began chattering about the excitement and trying to see what the police were after. It would only be a few seconds before the cops were even with me-and would see me-and even if they overlooked me, the people on the pedwalks would notice my blood and ripped clothes.
        I stopped waiting for an opening, and shoved off the slow belt, onto the next one, almost knocking a dignified gray-haired man on his behind. The next belt was relatively clear, being the fastest one. I crossed to it, felt the jolt of a few extra miles an hour, then made the last crossing to the slower, innermost belt that passed the fronts of the stores. When I came to a drugstore, I got off and went through the swinging glass door.
        The clerk was highly solicitous when I told him that some fool had changed pedways without looking, and had knocked me off into the narrow paved sections between opposing rows of belts. He helped me gather what I needed, and showed me the rest room where I could perform first aid on myself. I locked the door of the bathroom, put the lid down on the commode, and sat down to take stock of my injuries. I took off my shoes and socks, winced at the cuts on my legs. None of them were particularly deep, though they all trickled a little blood. I took a gauze pad from the large box I had bought and swabbed away the blood with alcohol from the (also large) bottle I had purchased. Then I coated them with a clotting and antiseptic agent, put my shoes back on. The socks were a loss. I treated my palm wound and the scratches on my hand, cleaned and swabbed my face. When I was finished, I did not look so bad at all, except for my clothes. And the pain was considerably lessened by the antiseptics and the clotting agents.
        I deposited all my medicinal purchases in the toilet waste can and went back outside on the pedways. I remained on the slowest of the belts until I found a clothing store, where I purchased a new outfit and changed in their dressing room.
        After that, there was only one more stop. I found a sporting-goods center and purchased another arctic suit. I emptied everything else out of my suitcase into a public trash receptacle, and packed in the insulated clothing.
        Thirty minutes later, I was aboard a high-altitude rocket that would take me over Anchorage, Alaska. The journey might have been nostalgic, this heading to Alaska in the dead of night, this feeling of being chased permeating everything about me, everything I thought and did. But all I had to do was think of Him in the cellar of Harry's cabin, think of the warped grin on the face of the android who had tried to kill me and had chased me through the tubeways. Then all