Free Logan's Run by William F Nolan, George Clayton Johnson Page B
Authors: William F Nolan, George Clayton Johnson
splintering crack. The bar exploded. Logan squeezed through the opening.
He scooped up one of Jessica’s shoes and leaped onto the slideway. Ignoring the poised juggernaut at his back, he attacked the ice shackles that held the girl’s wrists and feet. Four quick hammer blows and she was free.
Jess screamed. A great rumble at the tip of the slide. The block was loosed. Logan pushed her ahead of him, diving from the slideway just as the awesome masses mated in demolition. Ice dust powdered the air.
An angry buzz of metal. Logan swung around to see Box coming at him. “Grab your clothes and get out!” he yelled to Jess — and she obeyed him.
Box hurtled in, his half-face contorted with rage and frustration. Logan ducked under the sweep of his cutting hand, which ripped into the room’s central pillar. The buzzing metal cut deeply into the column before Box could free it.
Logan fell back, calculating. The love statue: he and Jess in a perfect world, forever locked in sweet embrace. He would have to destroy it, destroy himself. Logan wedged his shoulder against his ice thigh and pushed. The statue tilted, rocked, and toppled into the weakened pillar.
A crack fissured the vault.
Logan ran.
Birds showered from a crystal sky. Otters squealed and splintered. The walrus reared. Box died with one maniacal metal cry.
In that single cataclysmic death, the ice creatures cracked and clattered, mirror-smashed in a fractured tumble of shelves and ledges and crystal lace, disintegrated in shimmering waves as the great palace pulled itself down in a blue ruin.
Logan did precisely as Box had instructed. Leading Jess, he was threading the force field labyrinth. Wind chopped and cut at them on the open plain.
To Logan the spot seemed identical with the storm-swept terrain that surrounded it. Ice flurries whipped about them as they moved: two steps forward, a step to the right…It was hopeless; Box had lied.
They took three paces in a weaving pattern Angled right, then left. Three more steps forward, one back.
Magic!
They were out—standing on the warm platform. Hell was gone.
They discarded the filthy pelts. “Can you get a mazecar?” asked Jess.
“The Gun first,” said Logan. He recovered it from a niche in the side of the platform, checked it. Five charges left: tangler, vapor, ripper, needler and homer.
Logan pried open the back of the callbox and began to shift the terminals.
A car came humming.
“Where now?” the girl asked him.
“To the Black Hills of the Dakotas,” he said. “Ballard knows how to control the maze. He directs these cars as he needs them. If we want to find him we go to the source. We go to the Thinker.”
----
Chapter 6
He is a violence, contained. He sits in front of the board. He has not eaten. He has not slept.
Technicians avoid him, say nothing to him.
His eyes suddenly flash to the board. Brightness there. One of the scanners has registered the presence of a runner.
Location: South Dakota, the Black Hills. He feels elation. The hunt resumes.
EARLY MORNING…
When Crazy Horse Mountain was dedicated, the great mass of granite became the site of a monumental project which was to consume half a century. An Indian warrior, 563 feet high and 641 feet long, would ride the land, carved from six million tons of Dakota stone. A mountain would become a man, towering above black-forest wilderness, dwarfing the giant heads of Rushmore.
The sculptor was Korczak Ziolkowski, and under his direction 150,000 tons of rock would be ripped away each year to form his dream. After a decade, more than a million tons of living granite lay in rubble at the foot of the looming mountain—and the feather of the great War Chief of the Ogallala Sioux began to emerge. Obsessed by his vision, Ziolkowski ranged the continents, prying money from the pockets of the rich, the vain, the titled—which he spent on blasting powder, dynamite, cordite, tools, winches and rope.
The work went on. Gradually the
He scooped up one of Jessica’s shoes and leaped onto the slideway. Ignoring the poised juggernaut at his back, he attacked the ice shackles that held the girl’s wrists and feet. Four quick hammer blows and she was free.
Jess screamed. A great rumble at the tip of the slide. The block was loosed. Logan pushed her ahead of him, diving from the slideway just as the awesome masses mated in demolition. Ice dust powdered the air.
An angry buzz of metal. Logan swung around to see Box coming at him. “Grab your clothes and get out!” he yelled to Jess — and she obeyed him.
Box hurtled in, his half-face contorted with rage and frustration. Logan ducked under the sweep of his cutting hand, which ripped into the room’s central pillar. The buzzing metal cut deeply into the column before Box could free it.
Logan fell back, calculating. The love statue: he and Jess in a perfect world, forever locked in sweet embrace. He would have to destroy it, destroy himself. Logan wedged his shoulder against his ice thigh and pushed. The statue tilted, rocked, and toppled into the weakened pillar.
A crack fissured the vault.
Logan ran.
Birds showered from a crystal sky. Otters squealed and splintered. The walrus reared. Box died with one maniacal metal cry.
In that single cataclysmic death, the ice creatures cracked and clattered, mirror-smashed in a fractured tumble of shelves and ledges and crystal lace, disintegrated in shimmering waves as the great palace pulled itself down in a blue ruin.
Logan did precisely as Box had instructed. Leading Jess, he was threading the force field labyrinth. Wind chopped and cut at them on the open plain.
To Logan the spot seemed identical with the storm-swept terrain that surrounded it. Ice flurries whipped about them as they moved: two steps forward, a step to the right…It was hopeless; Box had lied.
They took three paces in a weaving pattern Angled right, then left. Three more steps forward, one back.
Magic!
They were out—standing on the warm platform. Hell was gone.
They discarded the filthy pelts. “Can you get a mazecar?” asked Jess.
“The Gun first,” said Logan. He recovered it from a niche in the side of the platform, checked it. Five charges left: tangler, vapor, ripper, needler and homer.
Logan pried open the back of the callbox and began to shift the terminals.
A car came humming.
“Where now?” the girl asked him.
“To the Black Hills of the Dakotas,” he said. “Ballard knows how to control the maze. He directs these cars as he needs them. If we want to find him we go to the source. We go to the Thinker.”
----
Chapter 6
He is a violence, contained. He sits in front of the board. He has not eaten. He has not slept.
Technicians avoid him, say nothing to him.
His eyes suddenly flash to the board. Brightness there. One of the scanners has registered the presence of a runner.
Location: South Dakota, the Black Hills. He feels elation. The hunt resumes.
EARLY MORNING…
When Crazy Horse Mountain was dedicated, the great mass of granite became the site of a monumental project which was to consume half a century. An Indian warrior, 563 feet high and 641 feet long, would ride the land, carved from six million tons of Dakota stone. A mountain would become a man, towering above black-forest wilderness, dwarfing the giant heads of Rushmore.
The sculptor was Korczak Ziolkowski, and under his direction 150,000 tons of rock would be ripped away each year to form his dream. After a decade, more than a million tons of living granite lay in rubble at the foot of the looming mountain—and the feather of the great War Chief of the Ogallala Sioux began to emerge. Obsessed by his vision, Ziolkowski ranged the continents, prying money from the pockets of the rich, the vain, the titled—which he spent on blasting powder, dynamite, cordite, tools, winches and rope.
The work went on. Gradually the
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