Hell's Gate Read Free Page A

wall of the cave. They were made of burnished blue-gray metal, not unlike aluminum in appearance. The lids were fitted with hinges of the same metal. There were no locks, no places for keyholes.
        He crawled back to them and looked them over. There were no initials on them, no shipping tags. He tried the lids without success. For a moment he sat there, feeling the incomprehension creeping back, the doors of doubt opening in his mind. But that strange, iron part of him clamped down on those sensations and returned him to cool reason. He went to the rucksack, opened it, and looked for clues there. He found the coin that had disintegrated the glass, the medkit, and three separately wrapped packages: brown paper held shut with rubber bands. He laid the coin and medkit aside and opened the first of these parcels. Inside was a bundle of crackling, green fifty dollar bills.
        Suddenly, the iron part of him unwrapped all three packages and began counting. Two of the packages contained fifties, the other contained hundreds. Thirty thousand dollars in all. For a time, he sat, contemplating the money, smiling. But because there was nothing for the programmed part of him to do, the doubts and emotions began surfacing again. Had he been paid thirty thousand to kill the stranger? Was he a hired gun, an assassin? No, he could not very well be a professional killer, for he did not have the stomach for it. He could remember having been ill two weeks ago after killing the stranger. He had vomited just before going to sleep.
        Sleep…
        Had he really slept two weeks? He remembered something, scrambled back to the mouth of the cave. The willow trees had bright, green tender leaves. When he had gone to sleep, they were merely studded with buds.
        But in two weeks he should have starved, or died of thirst! And what about the leg? Did the average man heal that swiftly, without complications? Of course not. The more he allowed his mind to ramble through this disorder, the more frightening the mysteries became. And the more plentiful. He realized now that he was being used, that the programmed part of him was operating on some sort of quasi-hypnotic orders. But who was using him? And why? And who was he?
        “Victor Salsbury,” a crisp, even voice said from somewhere close by in the cave. “It is time for your first briefing.”
        Then, in an instant, there was no question of overcoming the iron program. It slapped down on him, squeezed the aware part of his mind back into the far reaches of his brain. He turned, positioned himself before the middle of the three trunks where, he somehow knew, an 810-40.04 computer was housed.
        “Victor Salsbury,” the computer said. “Remember.”
        And he did. He was Victor Salsbury. Twenty-eight years old. Both parents dead, killed in car crash when he was in sixth grade. Hometown: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was an artist-commercial trying to make it as creative. He was moving to Oak Grove to find a place to rent and make a studio. Thousands of major and minor memories poured into his consciousness. Memories of childhood, of life in the orphanage, of his art schooling, his association with a Harrisburg agency. Now, he had an identity. Somehow, the aware part of him felt, it was not genuine. As if he had been told his past, rather than having experienced it himself.
        “Do not fight the programming,” the computer said to the tiny part of his mind that held emotions.
         But I have killed a man!
        “He would have died a month later anyway,” the computer explained in its authoritative tones. “And his death would have been much more horrible than anything you could possibly have done to him two weeks ago.”
         How do you know that?
        But the 810-40.04 ignored the second question. On the top of the trunk, two squares of the burnished metal began to glow softly, a sweet yellow. Without understanding how he knew to do this,