Aces High wc-2

by George R. R. Martin

  More people, the android knew, were going to die.

  "Hey," Cyndi said. "How about we take a break?"

  "If you like."

  Cyndi raised her hands, cupped the android's head between them. "All that exertion," she said. "Don't you even sweat a little bit?"

  "No. I just turn on my cooling units."

  "Amazing." The android slid off her. "Doing it with a machine," she said thoughtfully. "You know, I would have thought it would be at least a little kinky. But it's not."

  "Nice of you to say so. I think."

  Modular Man had been looking for the bag lady for fortyeight hours, and had concluded he needed a few hours to himself. He justified this stop as being necessary for his morale. He was planning to move the body of the evening's memory from its sequential place to somewhere else, and fill the empty space with a boring rerun of the previous night's patrol for the bag lady. With any luck, Travnicek would just speed through the patrol and wouldn't go looking for memory porn.

  She sat up in the bed, reaching for the night table. "Want some coke?"

  "It's wasted on me. Go ahead." She set the mirror carefully in front of her and began chopping white powder. The android watched as she snorted a pair of lines and leaned back against the pillows with a smile. She looked at him and took his hand.

  "You really don't have to be so hung up on performance, you know," she said. "I mean, you could have finished if you'd wanted."

  "I don't finish."

  Her look was a little glassy. "What?" she said.

  " I don't finish. Orgasm is a complex random firing of neurons. I don't have neurons, and nothing I do is truly random. It wouldn't work."

  "Holy fuck." Cyndi blinked at him. "So what does it feel like?"

  "Pleasant. In a very complicated way."

  She cocked her head and thought about this for a moment. "That's about right," she concluded. She snorted another pair of lines and looked at him brightly.

  "I got a job," she said. "That's how I was able to afford the coke. A Christmas present for myself." He smiled. "Congratulations."

  "It's in California. A commercial. I'm in the hand of this giant ape, see, and I'm rescued by Bud Man. You know, the guy in the beer ads. And then at the end-" She rolled her eyes. "At the end we're all happily drunk, Bud Man, the ape, and me, and I ask the ape how he's doing, and the ape belches." She frowned. "It's kind of gross."

  "I was about to say."

  "But then there's a chance for a guest shot on TwentyDollar Hotel. I get to have an affair with a mobster or something. My agent wasn't too clear about it." She giggled.

  "At least there aren't any giant apes in that one. I mean, one was enough."

  "I'll miss you," the android said. He wasn't at all sure how he felt about this. Or, for that matter, if what he felt could in any way be described as feeling. Cyndi sensed his thoughts. "You'll get to rescue other nice ladies."

  "I suppose. None nicer than you, though."

  She laughed some more. "You have a way with a compliment," she said.

  "Thank you," he said.

  She patted him on his dome. "It'll be a week or so before I have to leave. We can spend some time together."

  "I'd like that." The android was considering his yearning for experience, the strange fashion his career had of providing it, the way it seemed to him that the experience provided was not enough, would never prove enough.

  Infrared detectors snapped on and off in the android's plastic eyes as he floated over the street. Gusts of wind tried to lash him into buildings. Except for the few hours he'd spent with Cyndi, he'd been doing this nonstop for four days. Below in the street, someone tossed a styrofoam cup out the window of a blue Dodge. Modular Man wondered where he'd seen that particular action before.

  Macroatomic switches performed a silent superliminal sifting of data. And the android realized he'd been seeing that blue Dodge a lot, and in many of the same places Modular Man had been in the last few days-refugee centers, shelters, a ceaseless midnight patrolling of the streets. Whoever was in the Dodge was looking for someone. The android wondered if the Dodge was looking for the bag lady. Modular Man decided to keep the Dodge under observation.

  The car's search was slower than the androids-so Modular Man began scissoring, searching streets left and right of the car while returning to the Dodge every so often. At the Jokertown Salvation Army center he got a good look at the Dodge's occupant-a middle-aged white man, his crooked face drawn and harried. He memorized the car's license plate and rose into the sky again.

  And then, hours later, there she was-dead ahead of the Dodge, huddled beside someone's front stoop with her bags piled on top of her. The android settled onto a rooftop and waited. The Dodge was slowing down.

  "And Shaun says to me, he says, I want you to see this doctor.."

  Hubbard hunched into his overcoat. It felt as if the wind were blowing through his body, traveling right through flesh and bone. His teeth were chattering. He had been driving for what seemed years before, once again, getting that awful, nauseating feeling of deja vu. He'd found her again, crouched behind someone's stoop behind a rampart of shopping bags.

  "There ain't nothing wrong with your mother that a shot of the Irish couldn't fix.. "

  Black. I have found her again. Lower West Side. Black's answer was sardonic. Are you certain nothing's going to go wrong this time?

  The robot isn't here. I will stay out of sight. Ten minutes.

  Bring food, Hubbard said. We'll try to catch her unawares.

  "Fuck you, Shaun, I says. Fuck you." The bag lady had jumped to her feet, was shaking her fist at the sky. Hubbard looked at her. "I'm with you, lady," he mumbled. And then he looked up. "Oh, shit," he said.

  Modular Man floated off the rooftop. He couldn't tell whether the bag lady was screaming at him or at the sky in general. The occupant of the Dodge was several houses away, sheltered behind another front stoop. It didn't look as if the man intended any action.

  He thought about the way she had twisted his components, of the obliteration of existence that would happen if she ripped into his generators or brain. Memories rose to his mind; the snap of single-malt in his nose, the fat man with his rifle, Cyndi moaning softly in his arms, the ape's foaming snarl… He didn't want to lose any of it.

  "Oh, shit," Hubbard said, staring up in horror. The android was floating forty feet over the bag lady. She was screaming at him, reaching into her bag. The thing in the bag hadn't been able to snatch him last time.

  In sudden fury, Hubbard reached out with his mind. He would take command of the android, smash him into the pavement over and over until he was nothing but shattered components…

  His mind touched the android's cold macroatomic brain. Fire blossomed in Hubbard's consciousness. He began to scream.

  There was something black in the bag lady's shopping bag. It was growing.

  The android dove straight for it. His arms were thrown out wide. If the woman moved her bag at the last minute, things would get very messy.

  The blackness grew. The wind was tugging at him, trying to spin him off course, but the android corrected.

  As he struck the blackness of the portal, he felt again the obliterating nullity overcome him. But before he lost track of himself, he felt his hands closing on the edges of the shopping bag, clamping on them, not letting go.

  For a small fraction of a second he felt satisfaction. Then, as expected, he felt nothing at all.

  The Siberian winds had not chilled the warm air over the municipal landfill near St. Petersburg, Florida. The place smelled awful. Modular Man had lost almost four hours this time. His checks showed no internal damage. He was lucky. He stood amid the reeking garbage and rummaged through the shopping bag. Rags, bits of clothing, bits of food, and then the thing, whatever it was. A black sphere about two kilos in weight, the size of a bowling ball. There were no obvious switches or means of controlling it.

  It was warm to the touch. Clasping it to his chest, the and
roid rose into the balmy sky.

  "Nice," Travnicek said. "You did good, toaster. I pat myself on the back for a great job of programming."

  The android brought him a cup of coffee. Travnicek grinned, sipped, and turned to contemplate the alien orb sitting on his workbench. He'd been trying to manipulate it with various kinds of remotes but had been unable to achieve anything.

  Travnicek moved toward the workbench and studied the sphere from a respectful distance.

  "Perhaps it requires proximity to work it," the android suggested. "Maybe you should touch it."

  "Maybe you should mind your own fucking business. I'm not getting near that goddamn thing."

  "Yes, sir." The android was silent for a moment. Travnicek sipped his coffee. Then he shook his head and turned away from the workbench.

  "You can fly off to Peru tomorrow to join your Army friends. And make contact with the South American governments while you're at it. Maybe they'll pay more than the Pentagon."

  "Yes, sir."

  Travnicek rubbed his hands. "I feel like celebrating, blender. Go to the store and get me a bottle of cold duck and some jelly doughnuts."

  "Yes, sir." The android, his face expressionless, turned insubstantial and rocketed up through the ceiling. Travnicek went into the small heated room he slept in, turned on the television, and sat in a worn-out easy chair. Amid last-minute Christmas Eve hype for last-minute shoppers, the tube was featuring a Japanese cartoon about a giant android that fought fire-breathing lizards. Travnicek loved it. He settled back to watch.

  When the android returned, he found Travnicek asleep. Reginald Owen was playing Scrooge on the screen. Modular Man put the bag down quietly and withdrew.

  Maybe Cyndi was home.

  Coleman Hubbard sat in institutional clothing in his ward at Bellevue. Brain-damaged people walked, argued, played cards. A little plastic tree winked at the nurses' station. Unseen to anyone except Detective John F X. Black, Amun floated in regal majesty above Hubbard's head, listening to Hubbard as he spoke.

  "One one nought one nought nought nought one one nought one one one.."

  "Twenty-four hours," Black said. "We can't get anything out of him but this."

  "One nought nought nought one nought…"

  The image of Amun seemed to fade for a moment, and Hubbard caught a glimpse of the figure of a thin old man with eyes like broken shadows. Then Amun was back.

  I can't contact him. Not even to cause him pain. It's as if his mind has been in touch with… some kind of machine. His hands clenched into fists. What happened to him? What did he make contact with out there?

  Black raised an eyebrow. TIAMAT?

  No. TIAMAT isn't like that-TIAMAT is more alive than anything you'll ever know.

  ".. nought one one nought nought nought one nought…"

  When I found him, I saw the bag lady, put her to sleep, and found nothing in her bags. Whatever is was, someone else has it now.

  ".. one nought nought one nought."

  The ram's eyes turned to fire, and then his body twisted, becoming a lean greyhound shape with a curved snout and bared fangs, a giant forked tail towering over his back. Fear touched Black's neck. Amun had become Setekh the destroyer. The astral illusion was terrifyingly real. Black expected to see blood dripping from the animal's snout, but it wasn't there. Not yet, anyway.

  He used you on an unauthorized mission, Setekh said. As part of a plot that was probably aimed against me. Now, he is a danger to us all. If he snaps out of this, he may say something he shouldn't.

  Destroy him, Master, Black said.

  Foam dribbled from the thing's snout, smoked on the floor. The other patients paid no attention. The great hound hesitated.

  If I get into his head I might get… whatever he's got. Black shrugged. Want me to handle it?

  Yes. I think that would be best.

  I already planted the will in his apartment. The one that leaves everything to our organization.

  The beast's tongue lolled. The look in its eyes softened. You're thinking ahead. I like that. Maybe we can work you a promotion.

  Millions of miles from Earth, almost eclipsed by the sun, the Swarm Mother contemplated her scattered, surviving budlings. Observers on Earth would have been surprised to know that the Swarm did not consider its attack a failure. The assault had been launched more as a probe than as a serious attempt at conquest, and the Swarm, analyzing the data received from its creatures, developed a number of hypotheses.

  The Thracian Swarm had been confronted by three responses that utterly failed to cooperate with one another. It was possible, the Swarm considered, that the Earth. was divided between several entities, Swarm Mother-equivalents, who did not assist one another in their endeavors.

  Large numbers of the Siberian Swarm had been destroyed at once, broadcasting their telepathic agony to their parent. It was obvious that the Earth mothers possessed some manner of devastating weapon, which, however, they were reluctant to use except in uninhabited areas. Perhaps the environmental effects were distressing.

  Possibly, the Swarm reasoned, if the Earth mothers were divided and all possessed such weapons, they could be turned against one another. If Earth was thereby rendered uninhabitable, the Swarm was willing to wait the thousands of years necessary for Earth to become useful again. The span of time would be nothing compared to the years the Swarm had already waited.

  The Swarm, as it was eclipsed by the sun, decided to concentrate its monitoring activities on confirming these hypotheses.

  It sensed possibilities here.

  "So I says to Maxine, I says, When are you gonna do something about that condition of yours? I says, It's time to let a doctor see it…"

  The bag lady, one shopping bag hanging from her arm while she clutched a second bag to her chest, walked slowly down the alley, fighting the Siberian wind.

  Cyndi's blond hair flailed in the breeze as she shivered in a calfskin jacket. She watched as Modular Man tried to talk to the woman, give her a take-out bag filled with Chinese food, but she continued mumbling to herself and plodding up the alley. Finally the android stuffed the take-out bag into her shopping bag and returned to where Cyndi waited.

  "Surrender, Mod Man. There isn't anything you can do for her. "

  He took her in his arms and spiraled into the sky. "I keep thinking there's something."

  "Superhuman powers aren't an answer to everything, Mod Man. You have to learn to come to terms with your limitations."

  The android said nothing.

  "The thing you need to understand, if this business isn't going to drive you crazy, is that no one's invented a wild card power that can do a goddamn thing for old ladies who are out of their heads and who carry their whole world with them in shopping bags and live in garbage cans. I don't have any powers, and even I know that." She paused. "You listening, Mod Man?"

  "Yes. I hear you. You know, you're awfully hard-bitten for a girl just arrived from Minnesota."

  "Hey. Hibbing is a tough town during a recession." They floated up toward Aces High. Cyndi reached into her jacket pocket and produced a small package wrapped in red ribbon. "I got you a present," she said. "Seeing as it's our last night together. Merry Christmas."

  The android seemed embarrassed. "I didn't think to get you anything," he said.

  "That's all right. You've had things on your mind." Modular Man opened the package. The wind caught the bright ribbon and spiraled it down into the darkness. Inside was a gold pin in the shape of a playing card, the ace of hearts, with the words MY HERO engraved.

  " I figured you could use cheering up. You can wear it on your jockey shorts."

  "Thank you. It's a nice thought."

  "You're welcome." Cyndi hugged him.

  The Empire State threw a spear of colored spotlights into the night. The pair landed on Hiram's terrace. The busy sounds of the bar could be heard even over the gusting wind.

  A Christmas Eve crowd was celebrating. Cyndi and Modular Man gazed for a long moment
through the windows. "Hey," she said. "I'm tired of rich food."

  The android thought a moment. "Me, too."

  "How about that Chinese place? Then we can go to my apartment. "

  Warmth filled him, even, here in the Siberian jet stream. He was airborne in a fraction of a second.

  Down the alley, something bright caught the eye of the bag lady. She bent and picked up a strand of red ribbon. She stuffed it into a bag and walked on.

  JUBE: THREE

  "The holidays are the cruelest time," Croyd had told him one New Year's Eve, years ago. Times Square was full of drunks waiting for the ball to come down. Jube had come to observe, and Croyd had hailed him from a doorway. He hadn't recognized the Sleeper, but then he seldom did. That time, Croyd had been a head shorter than Jube, his loose, baggy skin covered with fine pink down. He'd had webbed feet and a hip flask of dark rum, and had wanted to talk about his family, about lost friends, about algebra. "The holidays are the cruelest time," he'd repeated, over and over, until the ball fell and Croyd had puffed himself up like a balloon from the Macys Thanksgiving Day parade and drifted off into the sky. "The cruelest time!" he'd shouted down once more, just before he vanished from sight.

  It wasn't till now that Jube had understood what he'd meant. He had always enjoyed the human holidays, which afforded such colorful pageants, such lavish displays of greed and generosity, such fascinating customs for study and analysis. This year, as he stood in his newsstand on the morning of the last day of December, he found that the day had lost its savor.

  The irony was too cruel. All around the city, people were preparing to celebrate the start of what could be the last year of their lives, their civilization, and their species. The newspapers were full of retrospectives on the year just ending, and every one of them had pegged the Swarm War as the year's top story, and every one of them had written it up as if it were all over, except for some mopping up in the third world. Jhubben knew better.

  He shuffled some newspapers, sold a Playboy, and looked up glumly into a crisp morning sky. Nothing to be seen but a few cirrus clouds, high up and moving fast. Yet she was still there, he knew. Far from Earth, moving through the darkness of space, as black and massive as an asteroid. She would blot out the stars as she drifted across them, silent and chill, to all outward appearances cold and dead. How many worlds and races had died believing that lie? Inside she lived, evolving, her intelligence and sophistication growing daily, her tactics honing themselves with each setback.