From pyramid!decwrl!purdue!haven!ames!pacbell!att!ihlpa!fish Fri Mar 24 17:57:09 PST 1989 [Synopsis: Spike recounts his thrilling escape from the Detroit salt mines believed to be his tomb. Living as the reclusive Michael Resnick high in the Canadian Rockies, Spike drinks himself into oblivion each night, trying to forget his bloody past. But he learns that a maniac in a mini-van has run down six cyclists near his native Chicago, despite new, severe federal laws protecting bikies. Given a new sense of purpose, Spike forsakes his drinking and boards a plane for Chicago ... --- The plane made its approach to O'Hare over Lake Michigan, giving me a spectacular view of the Loop. I had not seen this city I once called home in well over a year. My thoughts were not, however, of homecoming. Somewhere down there was a killer, the kind of man I'd nearly destroyed myself trying to fight. The plane landed and I disembarked, going through customs without incident. I'd brought only an ordinary suitcase and a few hundred dollars in traveler's checks. I had hoped that what I would need here would be waiting for me in a rented storage shed out on 75th street. With the aid of my shipping records, the old Secret Service had raided several of my caches when they closed in on me, but they couldn't have known about this place. The key-card still opened the gate, and the seal on unit 13-J had not been tampered with. I'd leased this place back in the fall of 1998, paying two years' rent in advance. A musty smell greeted me as I opened the overhead door to reveal the shed's contents: A dining room set, a china cabinet, and a large crate marked HAMMOND ORGAN HANDLE WITH CARE I moved to the rear of the crate and felt under a slat for the small studs which, activated in the proper sequence, would disarm the charges that lined the box. A reassuring chirp from within assured me that I would not be blown to bits, along with everything else inside of fifty yards, when I pried open the crate. All was intact, and appeared to be in good condition: A custom- built, titanium-frame mountain bike, a MAC-10 submachine gun, a .44 magnum, a small-caliber automatic, a case of ammo, another of grenades. A small box in the corner of the crate held ten thousand dollars in American greenbacks. I buttoned down the crate, loaded it and the rest of the junk into my rented panel truck, and drove away. I needed a place to stay. A hotel would not do; there was too little privacy. I finally found a tiny furnished apartment to sublet in Berwyn. A house would have been better, but this would do. Besides, the landlord had been happy to accept my hard cash for the three months which remained on the lease, and didn't ask many questions. There was little danger of being recognized. There had been no close-up photos of Spike Bike, and the few photographs of Spiro Bikopoulis that had been in the news did not resemble my present appearance. I'd grown a short, full beard, which, like my hair, was flecked with gray. The most familiar news photo of me was of a clean- shaven, 22-year-old Marine sergeant without much hair at all. The principal threat would come from a chance meeting with someone I had known well, but the chances were pretty slim. My family no longer lived in the city, and I'd had few close friends during my double life in the Act years. My principal problem was locating my quarry. I'd never had much difficulty finding trouble in the old days, and the few specific individuals I'd gone after, like the infamous E. J. Ross, had been easy to find. But all I could do now was set myself up as bait and hope the killer would take the hook. The police would be looking for him, too, but law enforcement in Post-Corporatist America was, like everything else, in a state of disarray. The economy was slowly recovering, but the country was in a near-depression. Unemployment was at its worst levels in sixty years, civil disorder was widespread, and crime was rampant. The fanatically loyal private security forces of The Twenty had been completely disbanded, and their former employees were barred from public service. State and municipal police departments were staffed with eager but inexperienced young officers and a few old hands who'd been willing to come back to the job. They were a dedicated lot, but they were pretty green. The Federal Government wouldn't be much help, either, with the FBI and Secret Service having undergone the same kind of overhaul. All things considered, it was a wonder things worked as well as they did. President Crisp and his pals had their hands full. Faced with the most staggering agenda since the Second World War, I suppose the Government had more important things to do than to devote scarce resources to protecting a few crazy cyclists. Nevertheless, it made my blood boil. The police were advising cyclists to stay off the streets. While that would make my job easier, it wasn't what I'd been all about for five years of my life. Had I done any good at all? I should have stayed in Alberta. How was I going to find the son of a bitch? * TO BE CONTINUED * -- __ / \ Bob Fishell \__/ att!ihlpa!fish