Red Tide by G. M. Ford Read Free Book Online

and barriers that formed the downhill edge of the enclosure. As if to step inside and lose himself in the crowd.
    Another shout split the air. The sound of boots was nearly upon him when, instead of ducking under the barriers, he lay down in the gutter and forced himself backward on his belly, sliding between the front tires of the ambulance, inching toward the rear of the vehicle, his head half an inch beneath the oil pan by the time the boots arrived. Four of them. He lay still, his breathing short and silent.
    “You see him?” he heard somebody shout.
    Another pair of boots, shinier than the others, arrived at the front of the aid car. “See who?” a voice demanded. “Somebody get out?”
    “Looked to me more like he got in,” a third voice offered.
    “Guy was just standin’ there on the sidewalk.”
    “We looked up and there he was.”
    “Tryin’ to get inside?”
    “He lifted the tape. I saw him.” The other cop agreed.
    “Sure it was a him?”
    “Too tall for a woman.”
    Corso rested his chin on the street and watched as the new pair of boots turned uphill toward the crowd. In the momentary silence, he could hear a jumble of voices raised in protest and the rustle of bodies in motion. “Musta been trying to get out when you guys spotted him. Musta changed his mind and got back where he belonged.”
    “You’d think they’d understand,” a voice complained, “it’s for their own damn good. You’d think—”
    “We need more containment.”
    Corso heard a sigh. “I already made three requests. Brass don’t want to hear about it. They’re sayin’ they want to send the robot inside before they decide what to do next. All I’m getting is a bunch of crap about minimum personnel exposure.”
    The feet turned to the left. One toe tapped the pavement.
    “Exposure to what?” The voice was now half an octave higher.
    The toe stopped tapping. “Nobody’s saying,” came the answer. “Just that we got a couple of missing buses and some dead citizens down inside the station.”
    The boots began to shuffle. Corso could sense their mutual uneasiness.
    “You two better get back to your posts.”
    They didn’t have to be asked twice. From the corner of his eye, Corso watched the pair start down the hill toward the foot of Yesler Street. The third cop hesitated for a moment, then shouted something Corso couldn’t make out before moving uphill at a lope.
    Corso used the heels of his hands to move himself backward. Out from under the engine, to a place in the middle of the undercarriage where he had room to lever himself up onto his side. The pitch of the hill gave him an unobstructed view of the firemen as they fiddled with the robot’s control panel.
    He watched as the men spoke to one another and as the taller of the two then began to walk his way. As the feet approached, Corso shrank deeper into the darkness beneath the ambulance, lying still until the feet disappeared.
    Corso waited a moment and then crawled over to the edge of the chassis and looked up. The guy had stepped up into the haz-mat van. He had his back to the street as he pushed a leg into one of the orange biohazard suits. And then the other. Then up over the shoulders with a wiggle. And the zipper and the Velcro. Until finally he pulled the orange hood over his head just before disappearing inside the truck.
    When the fireman stepped back into the street his entire face was covered with a black rubber mask. Corso watched as the guy adjusted the straps, satisfied himself that the filter was working and headed back toward his buddy.
    He rolled over and watched between the rear wheels as the pair exchanged a much practiced collection of nods and hand gestures. Watched as the orange apparition started across the street toward the robot and the mouth of the bus tunnel. Watched as his partner picked up what looked like one of those virtual reality helmets and fitted it over his close-cropped head.
    Corso was cursing the fact that the huge