“But . . . why would they keep working if they don’t get to keep any of the money?” asked Rex.
Dr. LaRue laughed. “Because they don’t know they don’t get to keep it, Rex. And it’s not like they have any choice in the matter. It’s in their conditioning, Rex. Think about it. Why did you gamble everything you had for a spaceship? Why did you then gamble that spaceship to win a planet? Why did you try to bilk the Frente out of a few million credits when you were already in debt for 1.6 billion? There’s no rational explanation for it, Rex. It’s just something you need to do. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. When you win, we take the profits and wipe your memory. When you lose . . .”
“I get thrown in Gulagatraz,” said Rex.
“Exactly,” said Dr. LaRue. “Fortunately for all of us, it hasn’t quite come to that yet. I mean that, Rex. We much prefer having you in the field where you can add to our bottom line. But you see the benefits of our arrangement. It’s all upside for us. There’s no real risk. If you rack up too much debt, we cut you loose. There’s nothing tying you to us.”
“It’s beautiful,” Rex murmured, shaking his head in wonderment. “The perfect scam. How many more of me are there?”
“Of you?” said Dr. LaRue. “None. You’re one of a kind. You were an experimental model, much like Sasha here. After you, we stuck to genetically engineered clones, because it allows us a greater degree of control over the agent’s behavior. You’re a little too unpredictable for some of the higher-ups in the organization, Rex. But when we need an agent who has absolutely no fear of taking absurd risks, you’re the only choice. That’s why we sent you to win Schufnaasik Six from Gavin Larviton.”
“You set me up,” said Rex.
“Of course we did,” replied Dr. LaRue. “That’s what we do.”
“And then you arranged to have my debt wiped out so you could keep me in the field.”
“Actually, that wasn’t part of the plan,” replied Dr. LaRue. “We were frankly planning on you taking the fall for the debt. The Galactic Credit Bureau would throw you in Gulagatraz and auction off Schufnaasik Six for a few million credits. We’d have one of our front companies snap it up, and no one would be the wiser. But things went sideways when Heinous Vlaak boarded the Agave Nectar. We didn’t find you again until you returned to Gulagatraz to break out Wick, and that was an accident. We were looking for Pepper Mélange.”
“Pepper!” exclaimed Rex. “Is she one of your ‘agents’ too?”
Dr. LaRue shook her head. “We took her back here for evaluation. Frankly, we thought she might be a good replacement for you if you ended up dead or in Gulagatraz. When you reappeared after the Battle of the Forest Moon, we took Pepper up on her offer to allow Gavin Larviton to seek sanctuary here in exchange for a substantial payment made to you, the nominal owner of this planet. You’re of more use to us unencumbered with crippling debt. We might still recruit Pepper at some point, but for now the Schufnaasik Six City Council decided to stick with the clones. We erased her memory of this place before she left yesterday.”
“And by ‘recruit,’ you mean ‘brainwash,’” said Rex. “Is that what happened to me? I was just some random guy that you pulled off the street?”
“Not exactly,” said Dr. LaRue. “In any case, I’m not allowed to discuss your history prior to becoming an agent. Even with memory repression, some things are better not brought up.”
“What in Space are the Sp’ossels anyway?” Rex demanded. “I always knew you guys were a pain in the ass, but I thought you were mostly harmless. I didn’t realize you were so diabolical.”
Dr. LaRue smiled. “That’s the idea,” she said. “Everyone thinks the Malarchy is the ultimate power in the galaxy, but they have no idea what real power is. And now that the Malarchy has been crippled . . .”
“What?” said Rex. “You’re plotting to conquer the galaxy too?”
“Conquer is too strong a word,” said Dr. LaRue. “We just want everyone to be happy.”
“I’m not happy,” said Rex. He thought for a moment. “Am I?”
Dr. LaRue shrugged. “You’re doing what you were conditioned to do. And soon, so will everyone else in the galaxy.”
“And you knew about this, Sasha?” Rex asked.
“All this information is stored in Sasha’s memory,” said Dr. LaRue. “We make certain sectors of her memory inaccessible when she’s in the field. We can’t risk anyone finding out what she knows. When Sasha is on an assignment with you, she believes that she’s simply a robot assistant that you acquired as part of a purchase of a lot of assorted machine parts.”
“It would have been nice to have access to some of that information this time around,” I said. “I might have steered Rex away from trying to blow up Schufnaasik Six.”
“There was no way to predict he would do that,” said Dr. LaRue. “And if you’re confident you can repress his memories completely this time, nothing like that will happen again. You can do that, right, Sasha?”
“It’s not an exact science,” I said.
“You’ve got to be sure, Sasha. If you can’t repress his memories of this place completely, we have to retire him. If he’s going to be of any use to us during Operation Universal Bliss, he can’t remember any of this.”
Rex looked terrified. “Just so we’re clear, when you say ‘retire,’ you mean . . .”
“Sp’ossels don’t kill,” said Dr. LaRue.
“Oh, thank Space,” said Rex.
“We’ll lobotomize you and put you to work cleaning the smokestacks of the zontonium refinery.”
Rex gulped.
“I can do it,” I said.
“You’re absolutely certain?” asked Dr. LaRue.
I regarded Rex for a moment. “Yes,” I said.
“OK,” said Dr. LaRue. “Then get to it.”
“So you’re not going to lobotomize me?” asked Rex.
“Nope,” I said.
“But you’re going to do that memory repression thing?”
“Yep.”
“Remind me again, Sasha,” said Rex. “Does it hurt?”
“You won’t remember a thing,” I assured him.
RECORDING END GALACTIC STANDARD DATE 3013.5.11.18:00:00:00
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Kroese’s sense of irony was honed growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan – home of the Amway Corporation and the Gerald R. Ford Museum, and the first city in the United States to fluoridate its water supply. In second grade, he wrote his first novel, the saga of Captain Bill and his spaceship Thee Eagle. This turned out to be the high point of his academic career. After barely graduating from Calvin College in 1992 with a philosophy degree, he was fired from a variety of jobs before moving to California, where he stumbled into software development. As this job required neither punctuality nor a sense of direction, he excelled at it. In 2009, he called upon his extensive knowledge of useless information and love of explosions to write his first novel, Mercury Falls. Since then, he has nine more novels and learned to play the guitar very poorly.
Email Rob at [email protected]
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