Ten Directions

by Samuel Winburn

  No one advanced another question, perhaps out of fear that August would continue speaking to the truth of Mirtopik’s financial vulnerability. August ducked down to sit with the rest of the Directors on the neuroview stage.

  August, his performance finished, distractedly watched the conclusion of the meeting of ghosts, his neurovisor focused more on the perilous reality of the Apollo Room around him. August’s allies on the Board were, for the most part, re-elected and the resolution for his dismissal failed. Even Gudanko seemed resigned to his loss. The shareholders, in general, made it known they weren’t happy but, in the, end the Board reaffirmed their commitment to stay the course. August rose to acknowledge the vote of confidence in his leadership. It was a bad way to win by rubbing people’s noses in their own desperation. Chances were this would be his last victory. But it was still a win. He still had what it took. His hair nodded presidentially to the slowly dissolving audience.

  An arm brushed against his. August’s attention winked back to the room. It was the moment he had feared, Helen Rodriguez squeezing in between him and Dmitri, in complete breach of protocol, as the Board stood to thank the shareholders.

  "What are you doing?" August hissed at his attacker.

  "Sir. I."

  "Get away from me!" August vanished out of the neuroview and strode quickly toward the causeway that suspended the Apollo Room above the main Luna City complex. He still had time, he reasoned. The nanoids would take time to get through his skin. They may have a timer, something to create a natural appearing physiological breakdown over time that would be difficult to link to an attack. He hoped. They hadn't given Illya that same consideration.

  The causeway was covered with a curved transparent roof, visible only where sections joined on the steeply angled descent. The architecture infused a feeling of space flight into each hugely elongated step as August fled for his life. A shrill voice, at first ignored, pursued him down the corridor.

  "It’s the panels!" shouted Helen Rodriguez as she ran after him. "He’s put something on the causeway panels. For God’s sake, just stop."

  The honest concern in the voice brought August to a tentative halt. As he turned, a sharp hiss of escaping gas brought his attention back to the base of the causeway.

  "Hurry August. Run."

  August spun and began to beat his way back up the ramp. The hissing sound became a crack and then a roar, as time dilated and a frantic wind gnawed at his progress. Helen stood bravely in the doorway, temporarily delaying the airlock from snapping shut until the computer resolved the equation that balanced the risk to the life of one person against the risk to many. August’s breath was sucked from his lungs and they shrivelled around his heart and heaviness clutched at his heels. The skin on his face began to freeze. His feet went suddenly numb and this affected his balance. He tripped forward into the blue skinned arms of his savioress as they fell backward into sudden safety behind the slamming doors of the airlock.

  In the weeks that followed, August’s mind obsessed over the images that followed this narrow escape. The approach by Dmitri to resuscitate a semi-conscious Helen, and her sudden, terrified retreat from his approach. The accusation. The security camera neuroscript downloaded from the moment of August’s exit, from her unidentified source. The mneme showing a circumspect Dmitri puffing on the clear panel at the base of the causeway and rubbing it with his handkerchief as if remove some blemish from the view. The results of the ComSec analysis, a fragment of panel covered with the residue of a powerful nanoidic acid remotely activated by radio frequencies. Dmitri, his comrade and friend, the one person to stand by him through everything, crying out at him as the ComSec officers hustled him away.

  August rolled over in bed and ran his finger down Linda’s naked back. She turned too quickly and smiled eagerly. She would have to go. A wave of nausea rose rapidly from the pit of his stomach. A minute later he was hunched over the toilet, throwing up, his body shivering in complete revolt to his will.

  "You okay, Sir?"

  Sir? August wondered why he kept repeating this mistake. After his near brush with death, a strong sexual attraction had manifested toward the woman who would have given her life for his. Helen was a strongly built woman and, like August, determined and self-possessed. He visited her several times in the medical unit, and laughed at her jokes, before she had shuttled out with the others. The delicate web of political alliances at Mirtopik effectively cocooned him from making an approach.

  So, he had ended up in bed with Linda. Power made some things far too easy. Now he felt more isolated than usual.

  "I'm fine Linda. I need to be alone now, okay."

  August heard the door slide shut as he cleaned his face. ComSec would have her on the next shuttle Earthward and out of his life. His mind turned back to Dmitri.

  "Why?" August had asked.

  The memory that most disturbed August’s mind, Dmitri’s tired voice repeating in his conscience, "I looked back August, and I couldn’t look forward anymore. I tried to save you man, to change your mind. But you didn’t listen - you didn’t leave us any other choice, did you? Stubborn ass just like always.”

  What in hell was that supposed to mean? What had happened to turn his most trusted ally into his enemy?

  Look back? Look back when it was all he could do to keep the future clear in front of him? Look back when the promise of tomorrow was so grand and so near to his grasp? Look back? For what? Looking back only ended with Illya. Dmitri and the great man had never been close anyway. And that sad tale explained nothing.

  It was Illya who had introduced August to his mother’s country, the beautiful and tragically scarred Urals. The effects of the insidious stain of radioactivity on the land had left its mark on the brave Cossack men and women and their children. Yet, despite the tragedy that defiled their generations, they maintained an admirable if unsustainable, in some ways perversely fatalistic, idealism. Illya, had shown them how to harness their own power - how to believe in themselves rather than drown in self-sacrifice. August had brought to the table his American entrepreneurial flare and sense of the possible. With his ambition and Illya's leadership they had built MirtopikNet into a great economic force, linking thousands of Hubs across Russia into an efficient and mutually beneficial Net with the great industrial ecologies of Europe, Central Asia, China, and Japan.

  It was there, in Tokyo, that August had seen his chance. The Nets had locked down the markets and were on the ascendancy, the old world-order in disarray. The great Japanese Coms had spent their wealth on the Moon, but the return no longer justified the risk. They needed customers for their new clean helium-3 fusion energy, but their developments threatened the economic exclusivity of the Nets.

  Illya had not seen the opportunity to take the stars. Illya had died, not because August had killed him, but because the fool had gone to the Revs. Mirtopik’s new investors had ignored August and had dealt with the problem in their customary fashion.

  The memory of the day still haunted him.

  Illya Mikkalovich did not fit in as he ducked into the cafe at Narita. His two meters tall lanky frame and great promontory of a beard - he was even more of a giant when walking amongst the Lilliputian Japanese. His growled complaint regarding the awkwardly small seats set the table vibrating.

  This was the first time August had seen him in over a year since the fateful vote that gave birth to Mirtopik Com. Illya did not waste time on pleasantries.

  "What do you want August?"

  "I want for you to stay alive."

  "Oh August, my son," August winced. Genuine love still lingered somewhere behind the man’s hard eyes. "you want me to stay alive. I am very touched. Such a kind sentiment. How do you propose that I do this, staying alive? With my honor intact?"

  "Look Illya, we don't want a war. These people are very predictable, you taught me that."

  "Yes, this is right, only I thought that you were not. Although to give you credit, I didn’t predict this."

  "
Look, you're not going to accomplish anything with a direct confrontation."

  "August, it is our souls I am fighting for."

  "Illya, just back off for a while, I'm asking you as a friend."

  "And I'm asking you as friend," the sarcasm was thick in Illya’s voice. "What do you want? To have people who share no love waiting on you like dogs, as eager to eat what you toss them as to gnaw your bones when you fall. It is lonely at the top Augustus Mishen’ka, very, very lonely." Illya drained his glass of sake, poured another from the pitcher and drained it again, keeping August pinned down with his furious gaze. "What do you need August?"

  "Illya, they'll kill you."

  The table groaned as the giant pulled himself from his seat to tower above him.

  "If they do, it won't be on my conscience."

  He slammed the empty glass on the table and walked out. One waiter looked to another who looked at someone out of sight and behind a corner. August stood to follow Illya only to watch the great man crumple in the doorway. An autopsy pronounced the cause of death as an aneurysm, the spontaneous rupture of a weak blood vessel in the brain. Natural causes. August knew better. There were ways men had invented for killing men that left no mark. As Illya fell, his eyes fastened on August's. Their tears reflected in each other’s.

  Dmitri was full of crap. All looking back brought was pain, not insight. Something else was at work here, some gradual realignment of the political heavens that had gone unnoticed during his exile. Some monster that had grown up behind his back while he had been preoccupied with surviving the AGM. Something that Calvin30 should have told him about.

  Where the hell was that little pissant?

  Chapter 10 - Calvin30

  It came as no surprise that news of August Bridges’ demise had been extravagantly exaggerated. Calvin30 felt almost guilty to have sat on the inside track when he could have had August’s back, but every season had its reasons and he had his. With the plot foiled his attentions could return to lesser mortals - such as that chick from ComSec checking his tracks. Why had he handed her a key to a lock she wasn’t even trying to crack?

  Certainly, Calvin30 hadn’t anticipated someone sniffing so close to the core. It was an unanticipated intrusion, but then a quick sounding of the sniffer suggested that she’d stop if the scent she was sensing led too close to the top. So, he’d fronted up to her with nothing to hide, a warning disguised as a friendly aside. It bugged him for this to be so out of the bag, but the risk in these things was also the rush.

  And it was not regrettable that someone must pay for unsettling his day. Calvin30 padded back to the Mirtopik Needle to check on a certain wolf pup he kept as a pet. On his way he peaked down from the ceiling paint to see how the pest was persevering through his punishment.

  Calvin30 spied a Wolfie who had survived on powdered donuts, squeeze cheese, and jolt java for several weeks. His body oil saturated tee-shirt was molded to the shape of his cheap office chair. His defiant mohawk lay limp and defeated across his forehead. His hands twitched while his eyes flicked following the invisible screed in his neuroview. A temple massage unit designed to prevent vision tunnel syndrome gummed away ineffectually, as the rotary mechanisms became ever looser in their housings.

  Good to see that the naughty Wolfgang was still in the Hell he’d brought on himself by giving that jezebel those secret transmissions. A tremor rode up the back of his twitching. Oh Wolfie. Not the shakes again? Two months in rehab to beat them last time - java withdrawal could be such a wild ride.

  Calvin30 walked in, as if on cue, with a tray of steaming java for the program crew. Wolfie nearly jumped out of his seat in gratitude. In one second more would his head have exploded? And soon as the last drop passed his lips, that’s when the regret began. What of his son, his wife? He really needed to cut this shit for good – but when the job was over, and he had back his life.

  Wolfie cast an appreciative smile to his rescuer. That C30 was one hell of a nice guy, Wolfie’s eyes all but sighed. Not like the others of his kind.

  "Hey Wolf, what lifts?"

  "Not my ass for one C30, damn it’s sore. Thanks for the java man."

  "They work you guys too hard, I’m concerned about your health, nobody seems to listen to me anymore. Oh, here you are Christine. I didn’t bring donuts this time; you kids need something more nutritious, so I brought some fruit. Have an apple."

  "Thanks, C30."

  Thanks, C30. The comment touched Calvin30 so much. Thanks, C30. That’s what they say in that patronizing way, while he was the friend who stuck by them to the bitter end. August was different. So genteel using the full clone appellate of Calvin30. No need to discredit those who were not a threat. A terribly bad underestimate for the big man to make.

  Such sublime dysfunction it was where those above, as befits their presumption, prejudge those beneath, who in turn preserve upper-class ignorance by obscuring the truth. In this information vacuum Calvin30 bloomed.

  Calvin30 smiled beatifically at his young acolytes. A friend who is freed is a friend indeed.

  The current kerfuffle, a complete overhaul of the Deep Space Network, was an idea whose time had come from a chummy confabulation over a hot rum with the once unflappable Ralph Kingsbury, Deep Space Director. Calvin30 had bolstered Ralph through a deplorable divorce whilst diverting payments to his wife’s lawyer from another body’s bank account.

  Calvin30 grinned for Wolfie. His expression was a perverse balance of wizened subservience and benign informality.

  "No problemo Wolf. Gotta prop the people who perform. They should pay you more though."

  "Tell me about it."

  "How’re Monica and the little tyke surviving all this?"

  Wolfgang looked up at his friend, tears welling in the corner of his eyes, "I'm worried C30."

  Calvin30 nodded sympathetically whilst noting the java shakes approvingly.

  "Don’t worry Wolf. Monica’s not a fly by night sort of girl. She’ll stick by you. She reminds me of, you know Angie? You know the one. Roger, from Stellar Navigation’s first wife. Angela, that’s it. Oh shit Wolf. Hey, I didn’t mean anything by that. I’m such an idiot."

  "It’s all right C30,” Wolfie reassured him nervously, "Chris and me we are going to get through this one."

  Pretty Christine smiled, which made Calvin30 smile at her. Her psychological profile, her history of obsessive and self-destructive relationships with married co-workers, was hand-picked forbidden fruit - a present for his friend Wolf. Calvin30 wondered if her qualifications would rise to the occasion.

  To be honest, the situation didn’t interest him one way or the other. Calvin30 yawned. What previously might seem a fun scene was becoming tedious and routine. He really couldn’t give a rat’s ass whether Wolfie’s marriage busted, or whether Christine would fall on her back off the wagon. There was no purpose in this proposition. This was still finger painting with the same old shit while he should be immersed in the process of producing his masterpiece.

  "You know, I could care less about all this crap.”

  Wolfie and Christine looked at him quizzically. Calvin30 scowled and brusquely left the room.

  As he stalked off he overheard Wolf shrug, "I wonder what’s bugging him?"

  "I dunno, want another apple?"

  A few hours later, riding the whisper train line gliding out to sea, Calvin30 watched LA become a line on the horizon. The SpaceX terminal would arrive in an hour, so he let his mind linger on the notes resonating in his brain as his pipe responded to his fingering.

  If the time had come for him to be his destiny then it was time to give up these childish things. Calvin30 deleted the recorded mnemes of Christine’s psychiatric sessions, setting her free.

  “Self ACT-U-AL-I-SATION”

  It was all there in those files, the ghosts in everyone’s machines, and the cipher to Calvin30’s success.

  “Self ACT-U-AL-I-SATION”

  And so, it all began.

  Flipping into the
past he found his own file and flicked it up on his neuroview.

  There he sat, new-born and gleaming, delivered.

  “Self ACT-U-AL-I-SATION.”

  “What does that mean to you?” It was the voice of her. Even after years had erased the woman, her voice still stirred something. Helen Van Driel.

  Looking out of her eyes he could only glimpse bits of the whole world she had presented in their sessions. That ruby birthmark dripping down her confidently fat arms. The conspiratorial friendship offered through her laughing smoker’s cough. After the Clones were freed, the Com had assigned her to help him try to fly. It was mostly wasted effort since the rest of the clones had clung terrified to the nest.

  But not C30.

  A lithe twenty something, same age as C70 now, studied her question.

  This was the opening scene.

  “It’s upside down.”

  “What is?”

  “Maslow is.”

  “We were talking about Maslow and his pyramid of needs. Did that mean something to you? What do you mean by saying that it’s upside down?” Cough.

  The boy frowned.

  “Maslow says that needs come first. We need food love and everything to be, to be self-actualised.”

  “And why isn’t that true? Everyone needs love.”

  “Who loves clones?”

  “I see.” Cough. “How is your music going?”

  The music. His salvation. At that age he could hardly blow a scale, but even then he had known it was the Truth that would set him free.

  “Jazz. Jazz, that’s what I’m trying to say.”

  “Say what?” cough laugh, “you are losing me Calvin.”

  And so he had, but he had found himself.