by McLay, Craig
“Well, you had a pretty good reason.”
“Sorry about your parents, too.”
“Stop apologizing,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Jesus, your lips are blue. Here, let me help you.”
She grabbed the waist of my jeans and pulled them off, turning them inside out in the process, then sat down next to me and helped me pull off my shirt.
“Your skin is freezing!” she said, touching my chest. We need to warm you up or you’ll die of hypothermia.”
Now that I was out of my clothes, my teeth were starting to chatter. “That might be preferable to death by Ida.”
“Oh, shush,” she said, pulling off her shirt and unhooking her bra. “You’re not giving up that easily, are you?”
“Fighting’s not really my thing.”
She pulled off her pants and climbed on top of me. “So what is your thing?”
“You are definitely in contention.”
“Fuck! You’re freezing!” she said, lying down. “You’re like a slab of icy flesh!”
“You certainly are a m-mistress of the s-sweet talk.”
“Sorry, but you’re stealing all my body heat.”
“I thought I t-told you to s-stop apologizing.”
“Since when have I ever listened to you?”
“T-true.”
“It’s good to see you again, Simms.”
“Y-you too, M-Miss Haze.”
-29-
The trip to the Handleer Crevasse would take two days. The weather turned nasty the morning of the first day as we found ourselves in the middle of a north Atlantic storm. The waves were so big that we spent most of our time at a 45-degree angle, which made even simple tasks like eating or standing almost impossible. Violet found a stash of seasickness patches, but Max refused to wear one as he claimed the last time he had tried one, he had blanked out for 72 hours, during which time he apparently tried to eat 40 pounds of uncooked potatoes and steal a helicopter. Since he wanted to be sharp for our arrival in Greenland, he didn’t want to risk the same thing happening again. Unfortunately, that meant he spent a good six hours puking in a bucket in his tiny cabin while the rest of us sat in front of the control panel staring at the readouts and desperately hoping we didn’t sink. Violet assured us that the patrol boat was certified for up to 20-foot waves, but since I didn’t really know what that meant, I just had to take her word for it that we weren’t all going to die.
Fortunately, the storm blew itself out just after lunchtime, by which point everybody except Max was ready for food. The only things on the boat were dry rations and some microwavable packets of pasta and stew that turned out to be surprisingly good. I was in the process of chewing through my second packet of Swiss steak when Max emerged, looking green but not deceased.
“What is there to eat?” he croaked.
“Are you sure?” I said, noticing the dried flecks of vomit on his pants and boots. Other people barfing is guaranteed to set me off as well, and I wasn’t keen to start, as this was the first real food I’d had since I left my apartment.
“I’m fine,” Max said, ripping open a pasta packet and starting to eat it cold. “I think I’m allergic to those neuromotradialmethelene patches. They give me hallucinations. Last time I thought I was wearing a three-piece suit made of goldfish and being attacked by a nurse with jackhammers for arms and a barracuda for a head.”
“I can understand your hesitation,” I said, chewing more slowly. The site of him shovelling in cold noodles was only marginally less nauseating than watching him regurgitate the same. “Feeling better, I take it?”
He nodded. “Miles.”
Violet was sleeping in and Tristan had gone up on deck to look around, so it was just the two of us.
“Shit, man, you should have just told me.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“So you weren’t really assigned to the secret team trying to find Tristan, then.”
Max finished the noodles and grabbed a packet of stew. This, fortunately, he decided to reheat. “My unit was,” he said, punching the buttons on the tiny, wall-mounted microwave. “I made several deliberate mistakes with our mission supply manifests. All of them ended up shipping out on the wrong transport. I, however, knew exactly where to start looking.”
“So Violet was your source on the inside.”
“Yeah,” he said, taking a mouthful. “She kept in touch. Carefully.”
Having been on the receiving end of Violet’s careful communications, I think I know what he’s talking about. “So you went looking for him.”
“Yeah. I went for an unauthorized absence. They said I had PTSD and installed me in that wonderful treatment facility you visited. I escaped, though. Either they forgot that I had been trained to do stuff like that or they thought they’d be able to track me.”
“Or me,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Do you really believe we’re going to find some giant spaceship buried under the ice up there?”
“I have no idea,” Max said, almost spitting out a carrot and pushing it back in with his pinkie. “But there’s gotta be something.”
“Digging up spaceships never turns out well,” I said. “Like The Thing. Or Alien. Or…shit, name an example where everybody doesn’t end up getting eaten.”
“I can’t think of one.”
“And yet here we are.”
We were interrupted by the sound of Tristan returning from his sojourn on deck. “Truly invigorating!” he said, breathing in deeply through both nostrils and making them flap like bat wings. “It has been so long since I’ve seen the ocean that I had quite forgotten what it looks like!”
“How does it look out there?” I asked.
“Misty,” he said. “Although I did see what I believe was an iceberg off to our left.”
“Port,” Max corrected.
“Yes, port, as the nautical amongst us would say. How are you feeling, my boy?”
“He seems to be feeling okay, now,” I said. “But if the wind picks up again, I’d advise you to cut him a wide berth. Watching the stew go in has been unpleasant enough, but watching it make a return would be unendurable.”
Max muttered something unintelligible that I did not ask him to repeat.
“So I see the pirates of the north Atlantic are plundering the food stores,” Violet said, emerging from the cabin in a black GDI T shirt and track pants. She was carrying a tablet in one hand. She sat down at the table next to me and propped the tablet up into viewing position, giving Max a measured look. “Feeling better, I see, Sergeant Yarf.”
“Hur hur,” Max mumbled as he chewed. “Vurr funnn.”
Violet poured herself some cereal and milk and began munching away. “You guys were right about one thing,” she said. “Hudson got himself a C-Mech.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“He got a CM-six-six-six,” she said, activating the tablet. A projected keyboard appeared on the table and she started typing effortlessly with her left hand while she ate with the other. She was faster typing with one hand than I could with both. “Latest experimental model. His new personal assistant filmed the Baraka. They probably wanted to document the return of the great leader.” She snorted a laugh. “If I were them, it wouldn’t be the kind of thing I would want preserved.”
“Baraka?” I asked.
“That’s what they call the procedure when they transfer a consciousness to a C-Mech,” Max said.
“The whole thing was filmed by some idiot named Gotoguy Firmamental,” Violet said. “No idea what his real name is.”
“That is his real name,” I said. “His name used to be Orenthal, but he changed it to boost his chances of promotion.”
Violet considered this. “Orenthal? Okay, maybe the new name is better. Seemed to work, anyway. He’s Hudson’s toady, now. At least he was up until shortly after Hudson became temporarily mecha-corporeal.”
“Did you say the CM- six-six-six?” Max said. “I
had no idea those were even in development. The latest one I heard about was the four-five-one, and they couldn’t make that work because it required way too much power. Even their fusion cores went dead within fifteen minutes.”
“This one they tried something new,” Violet said. “Check this out.”
She flipped the tablet around so that we could all see the screen. It started as a blurry still close-up of a man’s face. It didn’t take long for me to recognize the face as belonging to my (now former, I guessed) supervisor. The image zoomed out wildly as he started talking. He had to be using some sort of cell cam.
“Everything is almost ready,” Oren said breathlessly. “Our great leader and chief executive officer –”
“Dammit all, Tibbs!” thundered a voice in the background. “What the hell are you blathering about?”
The camera whirled around to show the face of Hudson on the giant screen. Next to me, Tristan stiffened.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen that face,” he said softly. “He has changed little.”
“Not much about it is little,” Max observed. “Thing’s big as a fucking drive-in.”
“Sorry, sir!” Oren squeaked, bowing reflexively, causing the camera to drop down to the floor.
“Shit,” Max said, covering his mouth. “I hope he doesn’t keep making all those sudden moves. Otherwise I’ll barf all over the place like I did when I saw that one Bourne movie.”
“Please don’t barf again,” I said.
“As you can see,” Oren continued, panning the camera over a small army of people sitting at computers. “The techs are all busy making sure that our CEO’s return will be as flawless as everything else he has done. Not that he ever left us, of course. He has always been out there, so to speak, watching over us all. I don’t think I’ve overstating in the slightest when I say that this will be the most important Baraka in the company’s history. In fact, this will be one of the most significant events in the history of mankind.”
“Least he’s not overhyping it,” I observed dryly.
Oren appeared to be moving down some sort of catwalk, but the camera was bouncing around so much that it was hard to get a sense of the surroundings. He passed somebody in heavy black body armour about every two seconds. Either he was sprinting, or there was a guard every five feet.
“One of the other reasons for all this excitement is the unveiling of one of this company’s greatest technological achievements, the Cybor-Mechanical Model six-six-six, one of the largest and most powerful devices of its kind ever conceived!”
“It’s not one of, it is the most powerful, you snivelling little douchebag!” thundered the voice again.
“Of course, Dr. Hudson!” Oren twittered. “That is what I intended to say!”
“Stick to the script, shit-for-brains!” said the voice.
“Jesus, it’s worse than working for James Cameron,” I said.
“Kind of hard to call HR on a telepresence, though,” Max said.
“Shhh!” said Tristan.
“—facility momentarily,” Oren said. We had missed the first part, but I got the impression that it wasn’t that important as Violet was not rewinding. “And now…here is the six-six-six!”
The camera swooped around to reveal what looked like a massive humanoid shape in highly specialized armour. Based on the way Oren was angling the camera the figure had to be at least 15 feet tall. The most striking detail, however, was the face.
“It’s Hudson!” Max said.
“I thought you said his body would be a rotting mess!” I said. “That thing looks like the fucking Kraken!”
“It’s not his body,” Tristan said, leaning in so close that he blocked the monitor.
“What?” said Max.
“He’s right,” Violet said. “It’s an enhanced sort of a clone. They re-engineered the flesh from samples taken from the source.”
“He wasn’t that tall in real life, though, right?” I said. “He’s been…stretched.”
“In a manner of speaking,” Violet said.
“If I ever cloned myself like that, I would give myself the biggest dick you’ve ever seen,” Max said.
“You already are the biggest dick I’ve ever seen,” Violet said. “No enhancement necessary.”
Max grinned sourly but said nothing.
Oren was walking around to the side and angling up at the head. We could see that there was some sort of helmet that was waiting to be dropped into place on a hydraulic piston. Under the helmet, where the brain would normally be, was a clear tank containing a glowing blue ball. Attached to the tank were hundreds of coiled wires leading to circuits positioned in the main body.
“There’s your answer to the power source question,” Tristan said.
“He really should have positioned it in the crotch, not the head,” Max commented.
“Nice to see that your mind still runs along the same non-electrified third rail as it always has,” Violet said.
“I’m just saying, the guy’s been a telepresence for a long time,” Max said. “He’s probably spent most of the time he hasn’t been secretly running the world in S&M chat rooms talking to fourteen-year-old girls from Belarus.”
“You think he’s been doing the same thing you’ve been doing for the last five years?” I said.
“I’m just saying that if I were a woman, I wouldn’t want to be in the same room when they download his brain into that…thing.”
“I’m a woman and I think I’d feel safer in a room with him than a room with you,” Violet said.
“I think they’re about to start,” Tristan said.
Out of nowhere appeared two men and one woman in GDI shirts and what I at first thought were skirts but quickly realized were kilts. I realized they were kilts when they started playing the bagpipes that they were carrying. I winced.
“You don’t care for bagpipes?” Tristan said.
“My family is from Scotland,” I said. “So I feel a sense of guilt that my country was responsible for foisting something like that on the international community. It’s the same way most Canadians probably feel about Celine Dion or Bryan Adams.”
“Shut those godawful windbags off!” Hudson yelled.
“But sir,” Oren protested. “Bagpipes are part of all Baraka cere–”
“Shut them off or I will insert all three into your rectum and inflate them simultaneously!”
“Yes, great leader!”
Oren ordered the pipers to retreat. The technicians that had been checking the connections on the enormous body all cleared away in a pack as the readouts started to light up in sequence. The low hum in the background started to get louder, almost drowning out what Oren was saying.
“—all metabolic processes are in the green, so it looks like we’re ready to proceed with the Baraka for our great leader,” Oren said, sounding as excited as a 10-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert just prior to the moment when the headliner removes his pants. “On a personal level, I would just like to say that this is the greatest privilege it has been my honour to witness!”
“Can you witness a privilege?” Violet said. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“You have to cut Oren a certain amount of slack,” I said. “Imagine you were the pope and you were invited to the nativity or the crucifixion. That’s basically what this is for him.”
On screen, the hum became so loud that all other noises were drowned out. The room – or at least Oren – was vibrating so much that the camera image became a blur. After what felt like minutes but was probably only seconds, the noise dropped off and the image stabilized. The camera was zooming in on the C-Mech’s face. You could tell it was Hudson, but it looked like an idealized, plastic version of him. Sort of like the difference between a movie star on screen and a movie star standing in line at the DMV to get their licence renewed.
“We should know any moment,” Oren whispered. “All signs seem to indicate –”
The C-Mech opened its ey
es. They were jet black, shark-like eyes and I admit the first sight of them was so unexpected that I gasped.
“All C-Mechs have those,” Max said, noticing my reaction. “It’s for night vision.”
“Our great leader has opened his eyes!” Oren squeaked. “Our great leader walks among us once again! Oh, what will be his first words to us?”
The C-Mech looked left and then right.
“I CAN’T MOVE MY FUCKING ARMS!” it boomed. It then took one step forward. It tried to raise the second leg, but it didn’t appear to be working. Because it had so much forward momentum, it simply pitched forward and landed face-first on the floor, disconnecting several hundred wires in the process. Although we didn’t actually see the nose hit the floor, the sound was unmistakable. “PIG ME UB, YOU FUGGING IDIOSH!”
“The leader has fallen!” Oren screamed, rushing forward. “We must help him! Quickly!”
About 15 techs surrounded the fallen C-Mech, each grabbing a different body part. None of them were able to budge it.
“It would appear that the great leader has fallen and he can’t get up,” Violet observed.
“If I ever attain god status, that’s exactly how I want to make my entrance,” Max said.
“This part will probably be left out of the official biblical accounts,” I noted.
Onscreen, two forklifts were trying to manoeuvre into position from either side to get the C-Mech back on its feet while the army of technicians frantically swarmed over it trying to reconnect wires and cables.
“Do not despair, great leader!” Oren said, crouching down next to the head.
“WEN I GED UB, I’M GOIG DO RIB YOO FUGGING NUDS OFF, TIBBS!”
“This is the best corporate video I have ever seen in my entire life,” I said. “Even better than the one on sexual harassment.”
“I’M GOIG DO RIB ALL YOO NUDS OFF!”
Finally, the forklifts managed to get the C-Mech off the ground and back on its feet. Blood had curtained under its nose and one of its eyes was already bruised and swollen shut.
“They’ve always had issues with tissue generation for C-Mechs,” Max observed. “Sometimes the stuff just seems to overheat and fall right off. It’s pretty gross.”