Lesser Gods

by Duncan Long

  The computer spoke, “I’ll monitor your vital signs and call the medics if you should happen to —”

  “Good plan. Just be sure I’m really slipping into the sweet by and by before you call the cavalry. I don’t want a bunch of paperwork to do unless I’m about to kick off.”

  “Understood.”

  “Permit transfers to other SupeR-Gs from the first site in case I have to chase this guy. But make me wait twenty minutes before jumping again — no matter how much I beg you to let me. I don’t want to get locked into a false personality loop.”

  “I’ll wait at least twenty minutes between jumps.”

  Already I was trying to figure out a way to override my last command so I could get maximum use of my jet jolt.

  Once a jethead always a jethead.

  I just hoped my new self that came back wouldn’t outfox the old one now departing at Gate Six for parts unknown.

  I put the VG onto my head and settled into my chair, wiggling a little to be sure I was comfortable and double-checking to be sure I had left my legs uncrossed so I didn’t return to a body with gangrene in one foot.

  I opened the vial and got a whiff of the chemical’s acrid odor. Then I placed a drop of the white liquid on my forefinger and touched it to my tongue. Resealing the container, I carefully laid it to one side before the drug started to take effect.

  “Connect me to the first SupeR-G on the list.” I ordered, lowering the view screen on my VG.

  “Connection established.”

  My world exploded.

  Chapter 6

  Louis Berlioz

  I watched helplessly as the hatch to my compartment swung open. Stale air hissed in, with an unpleasant odor I associated with reptiles or something dead. I knew smelling was impossible in my artificial body — I was totally confused. I looked at my hand — it was still mechanical. I was still in my mechanical self. Yet how could I explain the smell. The new Jet perhaps?

  Then I saw it. A nearly transparent tentacle snaked into the compartment and blindly searched the space, tapping here and there as if groping for me.

  I plastered myself against the far wall of my tiny prison, side-stepping to avoid the appendage hunting me. After a few more random attempts, the intruder brushed against my arm, fastening itself to my skin before I could pull away. Its suction cups gripped so tightly I knew they must be damaging my plastic skin.

  The tentacle dragged me, screaming, out of the familiar setting into twilight where my eyes no longer seemed to function properly. I found it impossible to focus on the shapes and forms that shifted around me like ghosts in a high wind, barely visible and even then only from the corner of my eye and vanishing when I looked directly at them.

  The tentacle was real enough, however. And the bat-like creature it belonged to lifted me effortlessly into the thick air. I was dangling below as it dodged and soared through the finger-like crystalline tree branches that appeared without warning ahead of us. Abruptly the stems vanished into the gloom after we passed.

  For what seemed an eternity, my bat-like captor carried me through the night, bringing me to an island of dim light. The creature circled the three glowing obelisks standing beacon-like atop the cliff and then swooped downward, settling onto the ground in front of the objects.

  Its tentacle released me; I landed on the hard rock with a jarring thud. Scrambling to my feet, I stepped away from the bat as it furiously beat its leathery wings, lifting itself into the air, hissing as it vanished. I stared after it for a moment and then turned toward the nearest obelisk, extending my hand to touch its frosty surface.

  The monolith was almost transparent, a shadowy form trapped inside it. Almost afraid of what I’d find, I reached out and scraped the frost away from the surface first with my hand and then, when that became too cold, my forearm. I continued to work frantically as the shape became almost distinguishable beneath the frost.

  With a gasp I recognized who I was looking at. I stopped and stepped back, gulping air like a fish out of water. There, below the surface was Sam, an impossible grimace of torment frozen on his plastic face. A face that could never have had such an expression on its countenance.

  My scream, my impossible scream rattled through the darkness, echoing back.

  “Your time has come,” a voice behind me whispered.

  I turned to see an impossible monstrosity in front of me, one huge eye surrounded with clawed tentacles, standing on grasshopper legs. It reached a slime-covered appendage toward me.

  My blood thundered in my ears. I dropped to the ground and clutched my chest where a heart seemed to be bursting. My vision darkened and the tentacles gripped my throat, tightening, tightening.

  Ralph Crocker

  I have been shot at by, but never shot from, a gun.

  Yet, like most jet users, I have a good notion of what that circus act must be like because abusing this drug makes a guy feel ballistic. My whole body seemed to pour into my view goggles, zip along fiber optical lines, and flow directly into the SupeR-G site. I left my body at the speed of light and entered a world that seemed real, more real, than the day-to-day one in which I lived.

  The sideband code of a skilled programmer flowed into my mind via the VG. Once in my brain, it produced colors brighter and more intense than reality; I could hear sounds too high and too low to physically detect in real life; I could smell things I could never smell in the living world; my body became invincible and tireless — whatever the coder put into that sideband I became.

  That jet can be habit forming is an understatement. Jet’s more real than life. That’s why there are so few ex-jet heads and so many dead jetters. The drug was habit forming to the unth, and most ex-users were ex-users only because they were dead.

  A voice floated from nowhere, echoing in my head with the coder’s prologue. “You are in Vietnam, 1970. You are the pilot of a Bell Model 209, Single-engine, AH-1 Huey Cobra helicopter gunship.

  You have just received word that a squad is under attack and you are to provide air assistance for it. There is heavy ground fire from the Viet Cong. Your chances for success are low. Good luck.”

  Abruptly I was in the pilot’s seat of the chopper, sitting above and behind the gunner who manned the lead cockpit slightly below me. The air was hot and smelled of the new plastic interior of the aircraft whose blades thumped above my head.

  Artificial memories flooded my mind and took residence in my synapses. I “remembered” everything from the synthetic past of my new life role, from time spent in basic training to the period that I had learned how to fly the Cobra gunship that thundered around me.

  Now, according to my new memories, I was in the middle of a flight that I had trained hard for, battling to keep the people of South Vietnam free — though as of late I was beginning to have doubts about this later point, wondering if it was more propaganda than fact, drilled into us by our commanders and an American culture still reeling from Korea.

  I pushed those thoughts from my mind, guiding my gunship northward, hugging the muddy river below us so the rumble of our rotors was masked by the heavy jungle foliage hurtling by below. As we approached the bend in the river, I strained at the control column to keep the aircraft on its winding course over the water. Black clouds to the west silently flashed lightning, hinting at the fast-approaching monsoon season.

  “We’re nearing the target,” my gunner, “Stan the Man” announced over the comm. “About one click away. You take the rockets and I’ll keep the gun?”

  “Sounds good,” I replied, keying in the rockets on the green control panel in front of me. “I’ve armed our weapons systems. You have the 20 mill. I’ll keep the rockets. Ready to rock and roll?”

  “Roger that.”

  I switched from intercom to radio to warn the grunts that had called for air support. “Little Red, we’re about on top of you. We’re coming in from the north. Please advise on position of the enemy. Over.”

  My earphones crackled from the distant lightn
ing and then the voice of the green lieutenant on the ground came through. “We’re reading you, Big Bad. We’re in the valley, gooks on our southeast side along the tree row.”

  “You far enough back we won’t crisp you? Over.”

  “Roger that, Little Red. We won’t be among the crispy critters. Hit anything in the grove, it’s up to its eyeballs in gooks right now.”

  “Can and will, Little Red.” I switched to intercom. “Stan, you got the position of the Cong?”

  “Roger,” my gunner replied. “In my sights.”

  I pulled upward on the collective pitch lever, lifting us over the palms along the bank of the river to head for the squad that was pinned down. I couldn’t see the Cong, but could hear the pings of small arms bullets glancing from the armor on the chopper’s underbelly.

  The armor offered some protection, but I knew it wasn’t complete and had seen one pilot fly back to base with a neat but serious hole in his butt from an AK bullet that had made it through the armor. Any one of the projectiles might easily do some serious damage if we didn’t suppress the fire. I strained my eyes, trying to spot a muzzle flash.

  “There’s the squad at six o’clock,” Stan yelled over the intercom as we careened toward the valley. “Right on the money.”

  “Rake the tree row while we descend,” I told Stan. “Let’s see if we can scare some suckers into the open.”

  “Got ‘em.” Bullets thumped from the 20 mm cannon mounted to the underside of the nose and the deck vibrated under my boots. Stan directed the bursts, tracers from the shells streaking through the hot air before pounding the ground below.

  I shoved the column forward, continuing our mad charge earthward.

  “There!” Stan yelled over the intercom. “There’s a group heading out the back of the row.”

  “Got ‘em,” I said, kicking the right rudder pedal to bring us around. I waited until we were lined up, then thumbed the button on my control stick, sending a rocket hissing out its tube. The projectile rode its plume of fire, leaving a white cloud in its wake before exploding into a cloud of shrapnel that tore three Vietcong into ribbons before they fell to the earth.

  “There’s another knot at three o’clock,” Stan warned.

  “See ‘em,” I answered, kicking the chopper around again through a giddy turn that made my stomach lurch.

  The muzzle flashes of the rifles indicated they were firing at us. The faint pinging of bullets off our armor warned a few were actually hitting their mark. So far we’d lucked out. No red warning lights on my board.

  Stan turned his automatic weapon toward the group, blasting them with a string of thumping discharges. The shells smashed into the earth in front of the four, ripping holes and throwing clods that gyrated into the air. Then the shells connected with two of the guerrillas, exploding them into a mist of flesh and bone, casting body parts in every direction.

  “Hold your fire a minute so we don’t hit our guys,” I yelled, bringing the chopper back around for another run at the tree row. “I’m going in low so we won’t take so much ground fire.” I kicked his left rudder pedal and climbed above the other trees, then descended on the other side. I got a glimpse of US soldiers firing at the tree row, with several in the squad having fallen.

  There was a renewed clang of bullets snapping against the underside of our chopper.

  “More ground fire,” Stan yelled needlessly. “From the east end of the tree row. I can take them if you bring us around.”

  I threw the Cobra toward the end of the tree row, going in low. When we were nearly there, I shoved the control column forward so we rushed the area where the muzzle flashes came from.

  “Look out!” Stan yelled. “Pull up, pull up. It’s a trap.”

  His warning came too late. We plowed into the thick steel cable the Cong had strung between the trees. I cursed myself for allowing us to be lured into their trap.

  The rotor blades whipped into the cable and wire that had been invisible to us just a moment before. The strands quickly wound around the main blades, causing us to lose lift.

  As the slack of the cable vanished, the line slashed along the nose of our aircraft before slashing into the cabin ahead of me, decapitating Stan before snagging on the frame and then glancing upward just inches above my canopy as the cable was reeled in, strangling the main rotor.

  A blade hacked like a giant machete through a treetop on my right, sending shuddering vibrations through the hull as the chopper wobbled through the air. I slapped down the collective pitch lever to slow the speed of the rotors, hoping they wouldn’t come apart.

  After that I fought the nightmare of twisting blades and groaning metal, trying to bring the chopper to earth in one piece, even though it was an impossible task. The ground rushed toward us. We crashed with a scream of steel, snapping tree limbs slowing the last 20 feet of our descent.

  I was unconscious for a few moments. I awakened to see Stan trying to pull me out of my cockpit. “Come on buddy,” he said. “The Cong are comin’ and this thing’s about to blow.”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. “I thought you were… dead.”

  “The cable only knocked my helmet off — gave me a shiner. Lucky I hadn’t buckled the strap on my helmet or I’d for sure have lost my second most important appendage. Now get up. Can’t lift you out on my own, big guy.”

  I released my harness and pushed with my legs. In a moment I tumbled clear of the wreckage and was back on my feet. Then we were scrambling toward the American line, bullets cracking above our heads. We stumbled down a narrow path, racing toward the American patrol — or so I hoped. I wasn’t too sure about my directions anymore.

  Without warning two Cong, dressed in black pajamas and armed with SKS rifles, jumped from the brush ahead of us.

  Stan and I drew our revolvers as we dived into the underbrush; the same instant the semiauto fire erupted ahead of us, kicking up plumes of damp earth in the path where we’d been.

  We crashed through the foliage, heads low, as our opponents fired blindly into the scrub.

  “Buddy, if we stay here we’ll be dead meat,” Stan told me as we dropped down to avoid the heavy fire now erupting from both directions. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “What’s the plan?” I asked.

  “You ready to call an end to this game?”

  For a moment I was confused. “Game?”

  “Don’t fade out now. We’re in the middle of a SupeR-G game, remember? If we keep playing, I know we’re going to be deader than dead.”

  The humid smells, heat, and noise of the environment argued this was real. I had memories clear back to my childhood in Alabama. Then I vaguely remembered another life, a goggled, motionless body sitting in a chair, his head full of jet, somewhere far in the future in a drab world not nearly as alive as the one I was in now.

  I became conscious of where I was. And I had a hunch. “The only person I know of that could get out of the middle of a jet game would be Huntington. You’re Huntington, right?”

  “Do you want out or do you want to die.”

  The Vietcong were closer now. I was getting desperate. “Yeah, sure, I want out,” I yelled. “Get us out of here.” Dying in the middle of a jet game wasn’t my idea of fun. I was ready to grasp at any straw no matter how far-fetched. When I can see the white in the eyes of guys with SKSs, I’ll snatch at straws.

  “I don’t know how you know my name’s Huntington,” he said. “But I plan on finding out.”

  I didn’t tell him it was more a lucky guess than deductive reasoning on my part. Now I wondered if my mistake would cost me my life. Would he get suspicious and just leave me here to die?

  As if he’d read my mind, he said, “If I were smart I’d leave you behind with the Cong to die. Or maybe just plug you myself. Any reason I should trust you?”

  “Would I tell you the truth if I wanted you dead?”

  Huntington replied with a grin. “Hang on, I’ll get you out with me.”

  Abruptly ev
erything went black and I felt myself falling.

  For what seemed a lifetime, my brain raced without any constraints like an engine being revved to full RPM while its gear train sat in neutral. And while in this state, I recalled the strange news article I’d seen earlier in the day about people at the mall who had thought they’d been chased by a helicopter gunship.

  Was there — could there — be any connection to what I’d just experienced? Had we just caused another stampede somewhere?

  I dismissed it from my mind, instead wondering how Huntington had been able to initiate my jump from the SupeR-G. Because leaving a game in progress was supposed to be impossible when a person was on jet.

  Yet, I was obviously out of the Vietnam SupeR-G, headed for Huntington-only-knew where.

  Helicopter attack may be mass hysteria

  Hanoi, New China - Hanoi police officials are at a loss to explain reports of an antique helicopter that circled a downtown parking lot, spraying the area with machine gun fire and rockets. Despite hundreds of witnesses to the event, there were no casualties or damage, according to official sources.

  “At first we thought perhaps it was a gang war,” said Comdr. John Wang, head of special investigations. “However now we’re leaning toward a classic case of mass hysteria. Our police psychologists believe this may have been triggered by the recent release of the surround-D remake of Apocalypse Now.

  Although no one was hurt by actual rocket or gunfire, one elderly man died of heart failure, according to officials. Makers of the new version of the movie classic were unavailable for comment.

  Click here for full story

  Click here for 3-D/hardwired version

  See exciting scenes from the all-new, surround view version of Apocalypse Now staring Michael Kaine II (Impress Files) and Harnold Shwarzen Kegger IV (remakes of Terminator, Terminator II, Terminator III, Terminator IV, Terminator V, Mary Has Two Dandy Daddies, etc., Etc.)