“Program running,” agreed Mike.
“Good. Mannie, calm down, son, and stick to your knitting. Let other people do the fighting; you’re needed here, we’re going to have to improvise. Wyoh, cut out and get word to Comrade Cecilia to get all Irregulars out of the corridors. Get those children home and keep them home–and have their mothers urging other mothers to do the same thing. We don’t know where the fighting will spread. But we don’t want children hurt if we can help it.”
“Right away, Prof!”
“Wait. As soon as you’ve told Sidris, get moving on your stilyagi. I want a riot at the Authority’s city office–break in, wreck the place, and noise and shouting and destruction–no one hurt if it can be helped. Mike. Alert-Four-Em. Cut off the Complex except for your own lines.”
“Prof!” I demanded. “What sense in starting riots here?”
“Mannie, Mannie! This is The Day! Mike, has the rape and murder news reached other warrens?”
“Not that I’ve heard. I’m listening here and there with random jumps. Tube stations are quiet except Luna City. Fighting has just started at Tube Station West. Want to hear it?”
“Not now. Mannie, slide over there and watch it. But stay out of it and slick close to a phone. Mike, start trouble in all warrens. Pass the news down the cells and use Finn’s version, not the truth. The Goons are raping and killing all the women in the Complex–I’ll give you details or you can invent them. Uh, can you order the guards at tube stations in other warrens back to their barracks? I want riots but there is no point in sending unarmed people against armed men if we can dodge it.”
“I’ll try.”
I hurried to Tube Station West, slowed as I neared it. Corridors were full of angry people. City roared in way I had never heard before and, as I crossed Causeway, could hear shouts and crowd noise from direction of Authority’s city office although it seemed to me there had not been time for Wyoh to reach her stilyagi–nor had there been; what Prof had tried to start was under way spontaneously.
Station was mobbed and I had to push through to see what I assumed to be certain, that passport guards were either dead or fled. ‘Dead’ it turned out, along with three Loonies. One was a boy not more than thirteen. He had died with his hands on a Dragoon’s throat and his head still sporting a little red cap. I pushed way to a public phone and reported.
“Go back,” said Prof. “and read the I.D. of one of those guards. I want name and rank. Have you seen Finn?”
“No.”
“He’s headed there with three guns. Tell me where the booth you’re in is, get that name and come back to it.”
One body was gone, dragged away; Bog knows what they wanted with it. Other had been badly battered but I managed to crowd in and snatch dog chain from neck before it, too, was taken somewhere. I elbowed back to phone, found a woman at it. “Lady,” I said, “I’ve got to use that phone. Emergency!”
“You’re welcome to it! Pesky thing’s out of order.”
Worked for me; Mike bad saved it. Gave Prof guard’s name. “Good,” he said. “Have you seen Finn? He’ll be looking for you at that booth.”
“Haven’t s– Hold it, just spotted him.”
“Okay, hang onto him. Mike, do you have a voice to fit that Dragoon’s name?”
“Sorry, Prof. No.”
“All right, just make it hoarse and frightened; chances are the C.O. won’t know it that well. Or would the trooper call Alvarez?”
“He would call his C.O. Alvarez gives orders through him.”
“So call the C.O. Report the attack and call for help and die in the middle of it. Riot sounds behind you and maybe a shout of ‘There’s the dirty bastard now!’ just before you die. Can you swing it?”
‘Programmed. No huhu,” Mike said cheerfully.
“Run it. Mannie, put Finn on.”
Prof’s plan was to sucker off-duty guards out of barracks and keep suckering them–with Finn’s men posted to pick them off as they got out of capsules. And it worked, right up to point where Mort the Wart lost his nerve and kept remaining few to protect himself while he sent frantic messages Earthside–none of which got through.