Game, Set, Deathmatch

by Edwin H Rydberg

  “We don’t have it; disposed of it through standard organic waste management channels.”

  “I find that difficult to believe. There were no questions?”

  “We told them it was an empty, a false tank trigger. It happens sometimes.”

  “I see.” He looked back at his companions and then, through the windows to the surrounding clone tank room. “Do you mind if we have a look around?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “Thank you for your cooperation,” he replied. Turning, the four of them marched into the tank room, each moving off in a different direction.

  * * *

  “Miss DaemonS, we have discovered two damaged clone tanks.”

  The Genilon technician had returned after a twenty-minute exploration.

  “Yes...”

  “Can you explain?”

  “I thought Genilon knew all.”

  “Please miss.” Clearly jokes, or at least understanding them, weren’t among his strengths.

  She shrugged. “One was from the initial incident. The other was from the failed transfer.”

  “Failed transfer? I don’t have this on record.”

  “The failed transfer? We rigged a system shunt, attempted to restore the P-matrix? It failed.”

  “I see.”

  “But how could you not know? You were looking for the body.”

  “Ah, now I understand the source of the confusion,” he said. “Miss DaemonS, we are here to retrieve the first corpse.”

  “Why would you want that? It’s just a pile of waste. It has mostly dissolved away into a blob of smoking goo.”

  “We have our orders. And you have your contractual obligations.”

  She stared at him for a few seconds before shrugging. “Whatever,” she said, standing. “It’s in the supply room, follow me.”

  They wound their way through the green cylinders toward the corridor when Defcon came running toward them.

  “Daem, the Hal...aintenance team is here,” she said, changing tact at seeing the black suits.

  “That’s great, show them to the broken tanks. I’ll be there shortly,” DaemonS said.

  “We’d rather no one tamper with the tanks,” the black suit said.

  She turned on him suddenly. “Listen, I don’t tell you how to do your job and you don’t tell me how to do mine. You’ll get the body you need but what I need is for those tanks to be fully and reliably operational so I don’t risk the lives of any more of my team. Now, if you have a problem with that, call your superiors and we, and the goo, can sit here and rot while they discuss it in a committee. Or, we can both get on with our business.”

  He thought for a few seconds before answering, “Very well, show us the body.”

  Breathing a quiet sigh of relief, DaemonS lead the Genilon technicians back through the clone tanks, past a silent and motionless Geneslicer, to the corridor entrance. She turned to ensure the quartet was with her, only to see that one of them had remained behind. He was inspecting her synthetic teammate with great interest.

  “Excuse me, Mr...?” He had lifted Geneslicer’s right arm and popped open a small panel she hadn’t even known existed. DaemonS rushed over to the tech.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, restraining herself only with great effort. It was bad enough they barged in throwing around orders, she didn’t have to stand by and watch him tamper with her teammate. Even if it was Geneslicer.

  He continued working, oblivious to her presence. DaemonS cleared her throat loudly and the technician jumped. Only then noticing her.

  “What?”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked again.

  “Admiring your hardware. It’s Genilon, right? Of course it is. Model GN-471B....”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “They’re modeled after Halandri Infiltrators. You know, the same models as the ShadowStrike team. Same exo-skeleton, same cyber-neural wiring, same everything, basically. What’s a little stolen tech among corporate rivals, eh?” he said with a wink and an elbow in the ribs.

  “Yeah, whatever, if you’re finished we can....”

  “This one’s a bit old, I think. Last year’s model. How’s he holding up?”

  “He excels at fragging teammates, if that’s what you mean,” she replied.

  “Really? That’s interesting,” he suddenly looked lost in thought as if she had presented him with a great dilemma. “Target filtering has always been one of the strong points of this model, typically their teamwork rating exceeds that of all organics... “

  “Fascinating,” she said, unconvinced. He ignored her completely. “Now if you’ll just....”

  “Of course, he is a year old. But usually they don’t deteriorate that fast. Another possibility is....”

  “...come this way.”

  He continued to ignore her, lost in his thoughts and ramblings.

  “...human error. If his teammates behave erratically or illogically, that may introduce confusion into his logic circuits.”

  “Mr...!”

  “Mack,” he said, looking up, as if he had just noticed her.

  “Mr. Mack,” DaemonS said. “You cannot possibly be suggesting what I think you’re suggesting. If you believe, even for a moment, that the Apocalypz Cowgirlz, the human ones that is, could somehow be responsible for the psychotic behavior of this hunk of....” How could this blue-necked, safe-zone, desk jockey even consider it was their fault?

  “I was only suggesting that these models may respond poorly to illogical decisions, and....”

  “And?”

  “And, females are known to be less logical than males,” he said, with a casual, almost sympathetic glance at her.

  That was too much. DaemonS shook with barely contained rage. What she wanted was to rip off his balls and stuff them into that smug mouth. But he was Genilon so, for now, she had to resist. Instead, she grabbed him by the front of the shirt, shoving him hard into the wall.

  With her face an inch from his she said, “You’re lucky. Today you’re behind the logo. But you’d better pray we never meet on the street, ‘cause I’ll gladly make you a member of the other side,” she said, grabbing him hard between the legs and squeezing. He gave a pitiful whimper before nodding quickly.

  “Now,” she added, “if you’ll come this way we might be able to conclude our business today!” She grabbed his arm and dragged him away from Geneslicer.

  The five of them, her and the four Genilon techs, exited the room as the Halandri technicians approached. DaemonS stopped a moment.

  “It’s right over there,” she said, pointing in the approximate direction of the destroyed tank. “Turn right, along the wall at the synthoid, then left after three rows. You should find what you need there.” That should give them a new tank to work with and keep them hidden from the prying eyes of Genilon. They nodded in understanding and left as she led her entourage to the supply room.

  Moving to palm the lock, DaemonS realized it had been almost three days since the battle. None of them had thought to return and clean up the remains.

  “It could be a bit... messy in there,” she told them.

  “That’s alright, miss. We’re accustomed to messes.”

  “I hope so,” she said as the door flashed open.

  DaemonS flinched as the memory of the tentacle strike came to her, but it was not repeated this time. All that hit her now was an overpowering stench.

  She wrinkled her nose, trying not breath deeply. “Perhaps we should have cleaned it up.”

  “No, miss. You followed an appropriate course of action. Had you disposed of this earlier, Genilon would have missed a unique opportunity,” he said, back as straight as always and, it seemed, completely unaffected by the smell. Did anything perturb this guy?

  “I’m glad we could be of service,” she muttered under her breath, fingers squeezing her nostrils tight.

  DaemonS
glanced to the other three technicians and noticed they weren’t faring as well as their boss. One of them looked ready to add his own gelatinous blob to the floor. She smiled. Genilon may have strong leaders, but their minions were just as human as everyone else.

  “Do you need anything else?” she asked, desperate to leave not only the odor, but the memories, of this room.

  “Thank you miss, we can take it from here,” he answered, ordering his assistants into the room with several curt hand-signals. They immediately stooped to the floor and began scooping bits of the black goo into recently unsealed cylindrical canisters.

  “I’m sure you can,” she whispered, walking off down the corridor.

  * * *

  ‘Can we meet?’ DaemonS sent from the secure captain’s line. She didn’t know precisely why. The Halandri techs still required the better part of a day but she had felt the need to talk to someone. Someone with a different perspective.

  ‘One hour, the usual place?’ came the quick reply. She smiled, despite herself. He must be addicted to the stew.

  DaemonS sent back her answer, ‘Top side... Sky Square.’

  This time she waited several minutes for the curt reply.

  ‘OK,’ was all it said.

  * * *

  DaemonS leaned over the railing, letting the cold breeze blow through her short, blonde hair. The chill air felt good on her face. She had needed to get out of the base, its duracrete walls and narrow corridors were beginning to close in on her. Instead of bringing their usual comfort, they were now suffocating.

  Air-cabs and sky-trains criss-crossed the atmosphere below, tidy grids of mobile boxes that fled horizontally and vertically into the distance. On the horizon loomed the twelve mile high Halandri Galaxyscraper, an imposing obelisk stretching far above the clouds. A train rose in front of her before sliding over to the docking rail a hundred meters away.

  “Welcome to Global Earth, center of the galaxy,” a voice said from behind, startling her.

  DaemonS turned, seeing the now familiar face. “Not many can do that,” she said.

  “Do what?” Figment moved to stand next to her. He also leaned over the railing to watch the flow of sentient life, human and otherwise.

  “Sneak up on me. Especially when I’m expecting them.”

  He glanced over to her before returning his stare to the traffic. “I’m a man of many talents,” was all he said.

  She let it go and the two of them stayed, watching the traffic for several minutes until Figment spoke again.

  “It’s hypnotic isn’t it? Soothing. Almost therapeutic.”

  “I’ve always found high places to be relaxing,” DaemonS answered. “I grew up in the hills of Ranir,” she said by way of explanation, not knowing why she was trusting him with the information. “I spent my days rock-climbing, high above the jungle caverns.”

  “Father was a miner?”

  “Father and mother both. Indentured,” she said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. You must have had a lonely childhood.”

  “You could say that.” She paused, thinking back to those years. No faces came with her parents’ names. “Life expectancy is quite short for a miner; was even shorter in those days. I was alone by fourteen. Six months later I escaped the orphanage, cut my hair, and caught the first ship that let me on. I worked my way across the Dominion as a deckhand, pretending I was a boy to avoid the wrong kind of attention.” It was a time she hadn’t thought on for a long while and she didn’t know why she was telling him — only that it finally felt good to share it with someone.

  “That couldn’t have been an easy life,” Figment said, turning to her.

  “No, it wasn’t. Working ship to ship, living life always below deck. But I eventually got out of there. I signed up for Matches the first time I reached Earth. Never looked back.”

  “Hard to imagine,” he said. “Especially you pretending to be a boy.” He glanced suggestively at her torso.

  She hit him hard in the shoulder, before seeing his teasing smile.

  “Men! If you must know, it wasn’t, at the time. These,” she said, cradling her breasts, “came with the contract. Enhancements to increase my ‘tele-visual appeal’ the agent said. I figured ‘whatever’, they’re free and completely natural — custom mods; built straight into the clone’s genome.”

  “I’ll have to make sure that agent gets a good bonus,” Figment continued with a comical leer. DaemonS just shook her head in mock exasperation.

  As the moment of joviality passed, they returned their attentions to the hypnotic dance of the air-cars. After several minutes, DaemonS asked, “so, what’s your story? Why are you one of only two people seeking calm amid the chaos?”

  Figment stared straight ahead for a few more minutes, until she was sure he wasn’t going to answer. When he did, it was with quiet longing.

  “It’s been decades since I’ve felt a peace like Aire Centares,” he said, staring out toward the Halandri obelisk. DaemonS was sure it wasn’t the galaxyscraper he was seeing.

  “You’ve been to the Vale of the Hunters?” she asked. It was rare for any humans to be allowed into the sacred grounds.

  “I trained for twelve years with the Xo Hei’tan. The final two years were spent in meditation at the temple there.”

  “What’s it like?” The words spilled out before she could think whether they were appropriate. She had heard the temple was a particular experience that most who had been there didn’t wish to describe to others.

  “Physically, it’s almost exactly like the game-zone replica,” he said. “But that’s where the similarities end. There’s a tranquility about the entire region that just can’t be captured — especially in a match,” he added, laughing. “Seriously, at any time, there are exactly twelve Faru He, masters, and twice that number of Farun Di — literally, ‘enlightened students’. Each is devoted to their inner focus with such a sense of peace and harmony that the area practically resonates with positive energy. I’m sure I’ll never experience such a thing again.”

  DaemonS envied him. She had never known any such feelings of tranquility. Her life had been one battle after another.

  “But why have you called me here?” Figment asked.

  “To help me,” she said.

  “And how can I help you?”

  DaemonS just smiled, staring out over the bustle of sentient life. After a few minutes, she turned back to him and said, “you already have.”

  * * *

  “We’re ready, miss,” the Halandri technician said. DaemonS could hardly wait and yet a part of her didn’t want to go ahead with it, wanted to keep the hope alive without the fear of failure. This was their last chance to bring back Bodybag, if they failed now, they failed forever.

  It had been seven hours since the arrival of the techs and their work had been quick and efficient. Now the four Cowgirlz stood, with bated breath and sweaty palms, holding hands beside the chosen clone tank.

  Three of the Halandri technicians were staring intently at hand-held screens wired into various parts of the clone tank or surrounding building’s circuitry. The fourth was explaining the details to them.

  “Your basic setup was fine, if a little primitive. What we’ve done is used the same principle, but rigged the system with some specialized hardware. More important, undoubtedly, is the P-matrix source. Almost certainly, you failed because the origin matrix was corrupted. We’ve patched a feed through to the Halandri database and will upload from there. It’s sourced directly from the zones — a P-tap, if you will — and is virtually incorruptible barring a major failure of The Death Match subsystems. You must have some seriously powerful friends or we wouldn’t even be contemplating this.”

  “How long until we go live?” DaemonS asked. It was nice to know the failure hadn’t been their fault, but it was no longer that important to any of them. The only thing that mattered now was getting Bodybag back.

  He looked t
o his three colleagues, “Final check status?”

  “All systems are go,” they said in unison.

  “We’re ready when you are,” he said, turning back to her.

  DaemonS looked to each of her teammates: Vorpal, Pincer, and Defcon. In each of their eyes she saw the same anxious hope, a mirror of her own feelings.

  “We’re ready,” she told him.

  He nodded, turned to the clone tank and pressed a corner of the display on his hand-held pad.

  The tank motors initiated and the display lights activated in sequence as the Cowgirlz waited with baited breath.

  * * *

  “What were Genilon covert agents doing in the base?”

  Figment worried that Pre-emptive Strike was going to start foaming at the mouth any second. There were only the two of them at this hastily-called meeting and, while NIGEL could be absent for any number of reasons, he rather hoped it was due to unavoidable business elsewhere.

  “The Cowgirlz are a Genilon team,” he said. “It’s no surprise to find Genilon reps checking in on occasion.”

  “It strikes me as too much of a coincidence. They arrive — in camo-suits no less — the same time as the Halandri techs? I don’t like it.”

  “There’s nothing on the network to suggest they’re in any way suspicious. It appears to have been nothing more than a routine check.” PS seemed unusually agitated about this.

  “I can’t believe that. If they weren’t spying, what were they doing there, maintenance?”

  “Maintenance?”

  “I don’t think so either, but the only action noted by the Halandri team was a maintenance check on their synthoid.”

  “Well, it’s possible, I suppose. He has recorded a surprisingly large amount of friendly-frags; especially for a synthetic.” Still, it seemed unlikely. Would Genilon really send in a covert team to do maintenance for their third-string team? And what type of maintenance could be performed in such a short time, and without proper testing? To diagnose Geneslicer’s ‘teamwork’, one of the four primary attributes, would require running numerous simulations at the very least.

  “I don’t want ‘possible’. I want to know. What were they doing there?” PS yelled. “I’m not paying you for ‘possible’. I’m paying you to find out! I want to know if the Cowgirlz are Genilon agents — before we go in!”