Demolition Man Read online

  "And what permutation leads you to this curious conclusion," Raymond Cocteau asked. "Do you expect him to be homesick for the old days?" The Mayor-Gov chuckled quietly, enjoying his own wit immensely.

  Chief Earle shook his head. "No. No, sir. Are you not aware of the armory exhibit at that facility? We surmise that he will attempt to arm himself in the Hall of Violence."

  Cocteau's face fell. "No, I hadn't considered that. Not for a moment..."

  The Armory Room in the Hall of Violence was nothing if not comprehensive. The glass display cases lining the walls were crammed with weapons that told the whole history of man's ingenuity when it came to injuring, maiming, lacerating, mangling, dismembering, or slaughtering his fellow man. The exhibit went back to the beginning of time, displaying the crude weapons of the cavemen- clubs, stone axes, and arrowheads. Then it moved up through history, showing the horrified citizenry of San Angeles how their ancestors had chopped each other up in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

  Simon Phoenix found any number of guns, but nothing he really approved of. There were antiquated Colt pistols from the Old West, tommy guns from the Roaring Twenties, and a big Civil War cannon that sat in the middle of the room, flanked by a pyramid of iron cannon balls.

  "If this is the future," yelled Simon Phoenix, "where are the fucking phaser guns?"

  He kept moving down the line, through the First World War and the Second World War, Korea, and Vietnam. He skipped the eighties and the nineties until he came to a weapon he didn't recognize at all. A little card identified the mammoth weapon as the Smith & Wesson Magnetic Accelerator Gun. AcMag for short.

  "I like it," said Phoenix with a grin. "Wrap it up. I'll take it." He reared back and punched the glass as hard as he could. His fist bounced off the glass.

  "Ow!" He buried his bruised hand under his armpit. "That smarts!"

  He launched a kick at the glass and succeeded in cracking it, but he still couldn't get to the weapon.

  "Son of a bitch!" yelled Phoenix. He hated being thwarted in anything.

  A museum guard attracted by the commotion came into the Hall of Violence, smiling pleasantly at Phoenix.

  "Mellow greetings," said the guard. "What seems to be your boggle?"

  Phoenix gazed at the guard steadily. "My boggle ... Ah yes, my boggle. My boggle is this: I am at the top of the food chain, and I would prefer to use tools, not bruise my hands and feet."

  "Your hands and feet?" said the guard, mystified.

  "That's right. I need a rock or a crowbar, but I can't seem to find any heavy object in this place. Tell me, what do you weigh?"

  The guard was completely confused. "What do I weigh?"

  "Let's find out," said Phoenix. He picked up the guard and shot-put the hapless man into the display. There was an impressive shower of broken glass. "You weigh enough," said Phoenix.

  The shattering of the glass set off an alarm. It wasn't a strident siren or clanging bells, instead, in keeping with the mellow times, the alarm was nothing more than a serene voice chanting, "Please exit . . . Please exit. . . Please exit. . . Please exit..."

  Simon Phoenix paid no attention to the alarm as he busily sorted through the weapons. He loaded a shotgun and tested it by blasting both barrels into another display case.

  The alarm changed, the voice sounding a little more frantic. "Please exit rapidly . . . Please exit rapidly . . . Please exit rapidly . . . Please exit rapidly..."

  The alarm was beginning to annoy him. Phoenix slapped two more cartridges into the shotgun and took aim at the alarm loudspeaker box.

  He grabbed a bandolier of shotgun shells and slung them crisscross over his chest. The shotgun would come in handy, but what he really wanted was to use the cool gun of the future, the Magnetic Accelerator Gun. He grabbed the weapon and examined it. There weren't any bullets and no way to load them either. About the only thing Phoenix recognized was the trigger. He aimed and pulled- and nothing happened.

  "Son of a bitch!" Then he spotted one of the CompuKiosk information booths on the far side of the room, and Phoenix strode over to it. He couldn't help himself-yet again, he pressed the ego boost button.

  "That's a great-looking shirt," said the computer voice.

  "Thanks," said Phoenix with a chuckle, "It's my favorite."

  "You look great in that color," agreed the computer.

  "Yeah. Okay. Enough. I hate ass kissers." He hit the information button.

  Another voice came up. "Yes, museum patron. Have you a query?"

  "Yeah," said Phoenix. "What's the matter with the Magnetic Accelerator Gun?"

  Graphics flashed on the screen. Phoenix scanned them closely, as if committing the amazing flow of information to memory.

  The computer droned out a series of facts. "The Magnetic Accelerator Gun, the last produced handheld weapon of this millennium displaced the flow of neutrons through a nonlinear cycloid supercooled electromagnetic force."

  "So . . . what?" demanded Phoenix. "It needs new batteries? What size? Who sells batteries in the future? Is there a battery store I can go to?"

  But before the machine-generated voice could respond, a real, human voice spoke to him. "Excuse me, museum patron, may I help you?"

  Phoenix turned. Two museum security guards had come into the room and were standing between him and the exit. Phoenix didn't bother to banter with them. He leveled the shotgun and blasted. The force of the explosion cut down the two guards, blood and tissue splattering all over the place.

  Sensing the blood and sudden violence, the museum security system changed the alarm tone again. "Run! Run! Run! Run!" it said urgently. Steel doors dropped from the ceiling sealing the room.

  The information computer had solved Simon Phoenix's problems with the AcMag weapon. "The Magnetic Accelerator now activated," it reported efficiently. "It will concurrently supercool and achieve fusion in two point six minutes."

  Phoenix glanced at the steel doors. "Yeah, well I was considering leaving quickly and patience is not one of my virtues." Phoenix shook his head. "Who am I kidding? I don't have any virtues."

  He chuckled at his own wit, then raced around the room, grabbing weapons and ammunition, gleefully scooping up firearms like a kid in a candy store.

  One of the dummies was of a Vietnam-era GI, dressed in jungle fatigues and carrying a gunny sack. Phoenix grabbed the bag and stuffed his goodies into it.

  "You don't mind if I borrow this, do ya, Rambo?"

  * * *

  Lenina Huxley's SAPD cruiser screeched to a halt in front of the Museum of Art and History, and the three police officers jumped out. People were streaming out of the museum building, and Huxley, Garcia, and Spartan had to fight against the flow of panicked people. A knot of spooked museum security guards were waiting for them at the main entrance.

  "We have three murder-death-kills!" screeched one of them in disbelief. "Three!"

  There was so much confusion that only Spartan noticed the makeshift periscope that popped out of the ground just ahead of them. The instant Spartan spotted it, the periscope zipped back down the hole.

  "You see that?" Spartan asked.

  "See what?" asked Garcia.

  "Never mind," said Spartan. "I give up trying to figure this place out."

  Garcia activated his Strategic Apprehension Computer. "Procedure?"

  "Establish communication with the maniac intruder," advised the computer.

  "Wrong," said Spartan. He grabbed the SAC from Alfredo Garcia and threw it to the ground, smashing it. "Hey, Luke Skywalker. Use the Force."

  "You deliberately destroyed San Angeles police property," said Alfredo Garcia, his eyes bugging out.

  "It slipped," said Spartan.

  "You should be armed, John Spartan," said Huxley, handing him a stun baton.

  He looked at without enthusiasm. "What the hell is this?"

  "It's a glow rod," said Garcia. "It's what we use in violent sit
uations."

  "Does it work?" asked Spartan. He poked a nearby security guard who dropped like a dead weight. "Guess so."

  "They have Phoenix trapped in section eight," said Huxley. She was anxious to get the operation underway.

  "I wouldn't be so sure of that," said Spartan. "Phoenix has a way of getting around traps. Just make sure there's no one else in the building."

  Huxley nodded. "Done." She turned to the security guards. "I want a visual. Now. Every corridor in the museum. I want full sensors routed to me. And I want it ninety seconds ago. Understand?"

  The guards understood, and they jumped to carry out her orders. John Spartan looked at Lenina Huxley with something approaching respect. In the old days she probably would have made a pretty fair police officer.

  "Okay," he said, moving into the building. "Let's go pay a call on Mr. Simon Phoenix." He swung his baton as he walked, wishing he had something a little more substantial than an electronic bat.

  1 2

  Spartan approached section eight, the Hall of Violence, and saw that the steel security doors were controlled by an emergency release, a red handle next to the entrance. He checked his baton and reached for the control, but before he could bull the lever, the steel doors exploded in a great gout of smoke and hot metal.

  Spartan dove for the floor as a battered cannon ball bounced down the marble hall. Then he jumped to his feet and hurled himself through the twisted doors, rolled once and took cover behind one of the shattered exhibits.

  Phoenix crouched behind the Civil War cannon, draped in guns and ammunition. He looked like a mad bandito. He surveyed his handiwork with pride. "What can I say? I'm a blast from the past!"

  Spartan's voice rose out of the smoke. "You should have stayed there."

  Phoenix squinted into the haze. "Who is that? That voice sounds familiar . . . Mom?" Simon unleashed a murderous round of machine gun fire from the Heckler and Koch 91 draped around his neck like a piece of black steel jewelry.

  The murderous rate of fire shattered the remaining display cases. Glass and wood chips cascaded to the floor as the bullets chewed up the exhibits.

  A rusty old Beretta tumbled out of one of the cases and landed right in front of John Spartan. He grabbed the ancient weapon, loaded it, and came up.

  "Stop or I'll shoot! Phoenix! Do you hear me?" Spartan came up firing, getting off three shots before Phoenix began strafing the area with his machine gun again. Then he stopped firing as a jolt of recognition pulsed through him.

  "Spartan! John Spartan!" Simon Phoenix almost sounded glad to see his old nemesis. "Well, finally somebody who knows how to party! Shit, they'll let anyone into this century. What are you doing here?"

  "I pounded your ass once before, Phoenix," shouted Spartan. "I guess this is the sequel."

  "Oh, really," Phoenix spat back. "When do the thirty innocent bystanders get greased? Right now, Simon says bleed!"

  Phoenix started blazing away again, bullets ricocheting all around the shattered room. Then he stopped and picked up the AcMag and pulled the trigger. The high-tech weapon still refused to respond.

  "Come on, you space age piece o' shit," Phoenix mumbled. He stuck the AcMag back in his belt. "Okay, well I guess we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way ..."

  He dumped a load of black powder into the canon. Then he lowered the HK 91 machine gun and strafed the room, just to make Spartan keep his head down. Then he tamped down the powder with the ram-and paused to strafe the room again.

  Spartan was flat on the floor, taking cover as best he could. A few yards away, tantalizingly close, Spartan could see a twelve-gauge auto loader shotgun and a full box of shells. That powerful weapon would certainly come in handy. Gingerly, John Spartan started crawling toward it.

  Phoenix was still busy loading the cannon. "So lemme get this straight," he shouted. "These guys defrosted you just to lasso my piddly ass?" Like punctuation, he let off a rip of machine-gun shells, emptying the magazine.

  Calculating the odds, Spartan dove, rolling across the aisle, grabbing the gun, and then ducking for cover.

  Phoenix had loaded one of the iron cannon balls into the muzzle of the ancient weapon, and he lit the fuse.

  "I've been dreaming about killing you for forty years, Spartan."

  "Keep dreaming," said John Spartan, jumping to his feet. He blasted away-there's a lot of fire power in a twelve-gauge used at close range. Phoenix answered with a pair of six-shooters, like an old-fashioned gun stinger.

  The cannon was pointed straight at Spartan, too, but a display case collapsed under the withering fire and hit the field piece, deflecting the muzzle until it was pointing straight down at the floor.

  The cannon detonated, blowing straight into the floor, the whole support structure giving way, throwing both men through the floor and into the display on the level below. Smoke and fire erupted everywhere, and it took Spartan and Phoenix a few seconds to figure out what happened.

  "Nice shooting," yelled Phoenix. "Really nice shooting, Spartan. You killed the building."

  Then they saw where they were. Both men had fallen into the late twentieth-century display of the bad old Los Angeles. Spartan shook off the shock and realized that somewhere in the fall he had lost his gun.

  No such luck with Phoenix. He still had his sack full of goodies, and he let fly with a skein of hot lead from a powerful MAC-10 machine pistol.

  "Past is over, Spartan," yelled Phoenix. "No more bullets. It is time for something new and improved. Like me. Now die!" Phoenix yanked out the AcMag and fired. The weapon was completely silent, but the first object that intersected his aim simply exploded in a massive sheet of fire.

  "Whoa!" Phoenix looked at his gun and cackled hysterically. "I love this thing!" He fired again, and a fire hydrant erupted, showering water down on the exhibit like a monsoon.

  Water sprayed everywhere, and Phoenix stood in a puddle in a pothole in the middle of the dummy street. Spartan had an idea. He pulled out his stun baton, activated it, and jammed it into the stream of water.

  "You forgot to say Simon says." The electricity gushed through the water, and suddenly Phoenix felt real pain as the power jolted through him. He used all his strength to pull himself out of the puddle.

  "What a brave new world we live in now, Spartan," he screamed. "It's really a shame you have to leave." He raised the AcMag and fired. Everywhere he pointed his weapon, buildings and cars exploded in blinding balls of flame. Spartan was darting and weaving through the wreckage, a cloud of fire all around him. In the middle of the inferno he found the old Beretta again and managed to squeeze off a few shots, but they were like popgun shots compared to the murderous destruction of the AcMag.

  Spartan knew he had to do something. He jumped out from cover and fired. But Phoenix was gone . ..

  Given his exalted rank as Mayor-Gov, Dr. Raymond Cocteau was accorded the distinction of a long, large limousine, a vehicle three times bigger than any other car on the road. Cocteau and Associate Bob got to the museum just in time to see a column of thick dark smoke rising into the sky from the very center of the museum complex.

  Associate Bob gulped nervously. "Sir, the Stress Breeder is inside being demobilized as we speak."

  A bullet whizzed by his ear, barely missing the nervous man and he dropped face first into the dirt. Cocteau was a picture of calm. He turned and smiled at Phoenix, who was advancing on him, the AcMag stuffed into his belt. He had an old Luger in his hand. Phoenix liked the new weapon, but sometimes he wanted to do things the old-fashioned way.

  "Damn," said Phoenix. "I guess being frozen has thrown off my aim. Don't worry, I'll kill you with my next shot."

  Cocteau shook his head. "I don't think so."

  Phoenix sneered. "Yeah? Watch me." He raised the weapon and aimed it squarely at Cocteau's head. But then something seemed to snap inside of him, and his smile turned to a grimace. Phoenix's gun hand quivered as he tried to pull the trigger- he wanted to kill, but he couldn't.

  "
Damn. That's never happened before."

  Dr. Cocteau folded his arms. "Ah, no kiss kiss. No bang bang," he said. "And you were doing so well. Now don't you have a job to do? Don't you hear a thought repeating in that barbaric brain of yours-the name Friendly, Edgar Friendly. Don't you have someone to kill?"

  Phoenix looked at the older man, surprised and puzzled at his words. His brow creased. "Yeah . . . Yeah, I do . . ."

  Cocteau beamed. "Excellent! Then go and do your job. Civic responsibility is not to be avoided, you know."

  "Right, man!" Phoenix took off, running for all he was worth, just as Spartan came racing out of the wreckage. Phoenix vaulted a wall and vanished.

  Spartan took aim with the Beretta, but he had no shot. He lowered his gun. He turned to Cocteau and Associate Bob. "You don't know how lucky you are that maniac didn't whack you."

  Cocteau smiled thinly. "No doubt 'whacking', whatever it is, would be most disagreeable. You scared him away, and I do not know how to thank you. You saved my life."

  Spartan looked in the direction Phoenix had gone, then back to Cocteau. Something strange was going on here-Phoenix killed anything that got in his way. And he didn't scare easily.

  Garcia and Huxley, along with Chief Earle came racing up, Lenina was elated.

  "Not bad for a seventy-four-year-old, John Spartan," she said. "Now Simon Phoenix knows he has some competition! He's finally matched his meat and you really licked his ass."

  "Uh," said Spartan, "that's met his match. And it's kicked. Kicked his ass."

  Cocteau took his police chief by the arm and walked him out of earshot of the rest. "Who is this man?" he asked coolly.

  "It is Detective John Spartan," said Earle. "He is temporarily reinstated to the San Angeles Police Department to pursue this madman, Simon Phoenix." Chief Earle was so distraught by all the mayhem that he was on the verge of tears. "You instructed us to do everything in our power to capture this madman."

  Cocteau nodded. "That is correct. Yes. Yes, I did. I do recall the exploits of John Spartan. Didn't they call him ... I think it was . . ." He glanced toward the burning building. "Ah yes, he was the Demolition Man."