The Running Man(14)
He almost made it.
MINUS 083 AND COUNTING
Richards spent Saturday living through a huge hangover. He was almost over it by Saturday evening, and ordered two more bottles of bourbon with supper. He got through both of them and woke up in the pale early light of Sunday morning seeing large caterpillars with flat, murderous eyes crawling slowly down the far bedroom wall. He decided then it would be against his best interests to wreck his reactions completely before Tuesday, and laid off the booze.
This hangover was slower dissipating. He threw up a good deal, and when there was nothing left to throw up, he had dry heaves. These tapered off around six o'clock Sunday evening, and he ordered soup for dinner. No bourbon. He asked for a dozen neo-rock discers to play on the suite's sound system, and tired of them quickly.
He went to bed early. And slept poorly.
He spent most of Monday on the tiny glassed-in terrace that opened off the bedroom. He was very high above the waterfront now, and the day was a series of sun and showers that was fairly pleasant. He read two novels, went to bed early again, and slept a little better. There was an unpleasant dream: Sheila was dead, and he was at her funeral. Somebody had propped her up in her coffin and stuffed a grotesque corsage of New Dollars in her mouth. He tried to run to her and remove the obscenity; hands grabbed him from behind. He was being held by a dozen cops. One of them was Charlie Grady. He was grinning and saying: "This is what happens to losers, maggot." They were putting their pistols to his head when he woke up.
"Tuesday," he said to no one at all, and rolled out of bed. The fashionable GA sunburst clock on the far wall said it was nine minutes after seven. The live tricast of The Running Man would be going out all over North America in less than eleven hours. He felt a hot drop of fear in his stomach. In twenty-three hours he would be fair game.
He had a long hot shower, dressed in his coverall, ordered ham and eggs for breakfast. He also got the bellboy on duty to send up a carton of Blams.
He spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon reading quietly. It was two o'clock on the nose when a single formal rap came at the door. Three police and Arthur M. Burns, looking potty and more than a bit ridiculous in a Games singlet, walked in. All of the cops were carrying move-alongs.
"It's time for your final briefing, Mr. Richards," Burns said. "Would you-"
"Sure," Richards said. He marked his place in the book he had been reading and put it down on the coffee table. He was suddenly terrified, close to panic, and he was very glad there was no perceptible shake in his fingers.
MINUS 082 AND COUNTING
The tenth floor of the Games Building was a great deal different from the ones below, and Richards knew that he was meant to go no higher. The fiction of upward mobility which started in the grimy street-level lobby ended here on the tenth floor. This was the broadcast facility.
The hallways were wide, white, and stark. Bright yellow go-carts powered by G-A solar-cell motors pottered here and there, carrying loads of Free-Vee technicos to studios and control rooms.
A cart was waiting for them when the elevator stopped, and the five of them-Richards, Burns, and cops-climbed aboard. Necks craned and Richards was pointed out several times as they made the trip. One woman in a yellow Games shorts-and-halter outfit winked and blew Richards a kiss. He gave her the finger.
They seemed to travel miles, through dozens of interconnecting corridors. Richards caught glimpses into at least a dozen studios, one of them containing the infamous treadmill seen on Treadmill to Bucks. A tour group from uptown was trying it out and giggling.
At last they came to a stop before a door which read THE RUNNING MAN: ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE. Bums waved to the guard in the bulletproof booth beside the door and then looked at Richards.
"Put your ID in the slot between the guard booth and the door," Burns said.
Richards did it. His card disappeared into the slot, and a small light went on in the guard booth. The guard pushed a button and the door slid open. Richards got back into the cart and they were trundled into the room beyond.
"Where's my card?" Richards asked.
"You don't need it anymore."
They were in a control room. The console section was empty except for a bald technico who was sitting in front of a blank monitor screen, reading numbers into a microphone.
Across to the left, Dan Killian and two men Richards hadn't met were sitting around a table with frosty glasses. One of them was vaguely familiar, too pretty to be a technico.
"Hello, Mr. Richards. Hello, Arthur. Would you care for a soft drink, Mr. Richards?"
Richards found he was thirsty; it was quite warm on ten in spite of the many airconditioning units he had seen. "I'll have a Rooty-Toot," he said.
Killian rose, went to a cold-cabinet, and snapped the lid from a plastic squeezebottle. Richards sat down and took the bottle with a nod.
"Mr. Richards, this gentleman on my right is Fred Victor, the director of The Running Man. This other fellow, as I'm sure you know, is Bobby Thompson."
Thompson, of course. Host and emcee of The Running Man. He wore a natty green tunic, slightly iridescent, and sported a mane of hair that was silvery-attractive enough to be suspect.
"Do you dye it?" Richards asked.
Thompson's impeccable eyebrows went up. "I beg pardon?"
"Never mind," Richards said.
"You'll have to make allowances for Mr. Richards," Killian said, smiling. "He seems afflicted with an extreme case of the nudes."