by G M Steenrod
Samuel arrived from down the hall while Cassie posed. She had long accepted his uncanny ability to materialize when an adventure—that he enjoyed—was afoot.
“What do you think, Samuel? Good for today's adventure?” she asked him.
Samuel gave her a quizzical turn of his pug head. Cassie raised an eyebrow at him and then quickly clipped him to the leash. It would take 25 minutes to reach the rise at the river bank. That would give her time to set up and run a trial before Mike showed.
The walk itself was unbearably hot—easily 43 degrees Celsius. Cassie had let Samuel off of his leash, but had to pick him up as he wilted under the sun. The dress was designed to wick heat to the hem. It was a design feature that reduced the impact of the temperature by 12 degrees. The dress also pulled some of the excess heat from Samuel. She had momentarily considered vintage pumps for her outfit, but instead had chosen fitted booties to reduce her temperature. At times fashion was worth suffering a great deal for, but it wasn't worth heatstroke.
With the heat, and a slower resulting pace, it took her 30 minutes to arrive at the river bank. It felt slightly cooler there, but the wind was still. Across the river, waves of heat rose off of the old mill.
Cassie set Samuel down to let him snort through the grass of the river bank--the mud and water would be a welcome respite.
“Drones, form!” Cassie said to the air. The drones moved from the side of her head out in front of her. They filled a plane parallel to her eyes.
“Image One,” she said. A bird materialized before her. It was slightly translucent, but otherwise sharp.
“Run the test pattern, please.” The drones moved in unison, giving the bird the appearance of flight. When Cassie moved her head, the drones would compensate, creating an ideal viewing angle. At sharp angles, one drone would lag, creating a slight but discernible ripple in the image.
It was a project that Ada had been working on in the last year of her life. It was primitive compared to the scene development of screens, but all of the fundamentals were present.
“Image Two,” she said. A hawk and dove emerged and simulated a hunt, with the hawk chasing the dove. The lag with one of the drones was more noticeable as the image rippled more often. The lack of on board cpu power in the wrist band and drone combo was also evident. The tech was straining to keep up—a problem that Cassie had anticipated. The test had taken about 20 minutes. In the cpu chamber, Cassie had rigged up a set of pipes to her Quantums to compensate, and probably had just enough time to test the implementation. With a finger swipe on her wristband she linked the drones to her cpus.
The drones hovered and fell.
Cassie looked at them, her brow tensed with disbelief. She swiped the wristband. It appeared to have also become non-responsive.
To the north, along the river bank, the trees and the undergrowth around them shuddered. There was no breeze. Cassie wondered if it was a bear. They had been spotted in the area. An object, blurred by motion and the foliage, broke from the underbrush, erupting in cloud of dirt and leaves, and charged her. Cassie watched it cover the ground to her. She grew calm. Based on the speed that it traveled it would be on her in seconds. Without looking, she thumbed the security icon on her wristband. As she did so, she realized that the security app wasn't on this wristband.
With its next stride, she could tell that it was a man traversing the ground. He was wearing a screen suit designed to mimic the environment—pulling in images of the surrounding plants and terrain around his body. A standard dark glyph had been integrated into its scene—likely to induce panic and loathing. It was a very good, very expensive kit. Also illegal in most governments of the world outside of the military. Two strides out, another blur came from the river bank.
It went airborne, and intercepted the man by colliding with his head.
“Samuel!” Cassie recognized the blur as it flew by. Samuel latched onto the face covering of the suit with his teeth, his pug eyes bulging with added determination, and lips curled back. Fury and his love for Cassie had filled him. The man stumbled in his charge, and shifted slightly westward. Off course for his collision with Cassie.
Cassie wondered momentarily if the suit's glyph had caused her to hesitate, or his size. He was bear-sized. A large bear of a man.
She stepped once toward him and leaped.
The bear of a man shook his head. Samuel flew free and arced toward the river. As he left the man’s face, Cassie landed a jumping front kick in the spot where Samuel had been. The momentum of his charge combined with the kick was devastating; it momentarily stunned him. Cassie rebounded backward through the air and landed on the ground, roughly in a bridge-like position.
“He's big. Very big. I have to find Samuel,” she thought.
This wasn't opportunistic. It was an ambush. A suit like that required surveillance in the area, relaying information to it, and a standalone processor. Even without an alert, the security drones should have moved to protect her. She was always monitored.
It was an ambush.
Cassie righted herself. Her body was upright and poised like a Greek marble of Athena. She joined the battle in earnest.
Mike had gotten the message from Alfie to meet Cassie at the river for a surprise. She was a collection of surprises in the short time he had known her. Most people lived with greater predictability, and closer to an accepted average of behavior. He wasn't surprised. Both he and Mary had cut a radically different path in life. As he came to understand Ada's action, it was obvious that she had revolutionized the social fabric of humanity. Cassie was the youngest branch of a twisted tree.
Mike had left the house and taken a leisurely route down through the park he had appeared in on the Solstice. He had a great deal to process, and small bits of his memory, closer to the time of his disappearance were starting to return. Meals. A lecture. A walk. Wisps of thought.
Mike could see the bench he had appeared on in the distance. With that as a landmark, Mike turned into a wooded area to take a shortcut to the river. He had been dallying.
He came to the top of small rise that overlooked the river. It was about 100 meters from the intended meet up with Cassie. He could see it clearly, while distant.
His legs ran automatically, while he processed the scene. He could make out Cassie's figure clearly. He also recognized a man-shaped shimmer—almost ghost-like, and Cassie was embroiled in battle with it.
It would take 20 to 25 seconds across the rough terrain to reach her. He absorbed what he could of the actions he saw unfolding, processing quickly across his decades of combat in the resistance.
At 50 meters, he could make out the figure of the man fully. He seemed to be made of glass covered with dust and smears of dirt. It had to be some new form of technology.
His moves were basic, but experienced. He was monstrously strong and resistant to pain. Cassie was well-practiced. She moved almost like a hummingbird about a flower. Beautiful, determined, self-assured. She was tiring though. She made missteps and missed opportunities, flaws that would disappear with experience, if she lived.
At 25 meters, Mike watched her deliver a solid kick that skittered off his guard. It would have blasted through the defense of a smaller man, but not him. He was waiting for the recovery from the kick. In the fraction of a second Cassie took to snap her leg to the ground, the man took a single step and blasted her with a full swing from his right. His error was that it was too powerful and over-zealous, knocking her 7 meters back, onto the water's edge. She was out of the range of a follow up.
Mike wouldn't make it in time. He could not cover the distance to Cassie before the man did. She was brave. So very, very brave.
Cassie was prostrate. She could feel the bear-man move toward her. Groggy and struggling for clarity, she thumbed an icon on her wristband. Cassie turned enough to visually direct her eyes at the man moving across the ground, now slowed by the blows from Cassie. The drones shot up from the ground, interceding between Cassie and the man. During the cont
est between the two, the wristband and drones had signal shifted and recoded until they were able to effectively communicate—a standard operating procedure Ada had coded in. With another touch, the glyph—a surprise for Gramps—flashed up as a hologram between the drones.
The man glanced at it and came to a stop, frozen. His mind was drawn inward to the experience stored in the glyph--a variation of the beach blacksmith.
Cassie, spent, collapsed back, her face in the river grass.
It was the delay that Mike needed. He came at the man at a full sprint, almost to his rear. Mike launched a single strike at his rib cage, transferring the force of run into the strike. Mike could feel the power of the strike flow along the bottom of the man's rib cage on the right. The ribs buckled once, then twice, breaking a they did.
The man collapsed to ground, his mind fogged by the glyph, and the pain surging through his ribs. Mike had no idea of what the impact of glyph was, but he did know the man wouldn't be springing off the ground with those ribs.
Mike went to Cassie's prostrate form. She breathed, and her head was clear of the water. Her little dress had torn at the hem during the fight. It was pulled up to reveal the curvature of her left glut, covered with delicate, black-lace panties. With the slight rise of her hips caused by the uneven ground, Cassie had managed to pass out in a seductive pose.
Mike sighed. “This line,” he muttered to himself. He tugged Cassie's hem down to cover her.
Cassie roused and turned over, mud spattered on her face, and her hair in an organized disarray. It only enhanced her sexual nature.
“Are you alright, Cassie?” he asked. Samuel paddled in from the river as he spoke, and ran vigorously through the grass toward Cassie. His tongue dangled from the side of his mouth.
Cassie pushed off the ground and hugged Mike. She kissed him on the cheek, lingering.
“Cass, grab Samuel and take him home. Contact your security company, and brief them to get their drones active. There could be others. No police though. It's one of Patrido's men. Tell them I live and they need to keep it quiet.”
“But...” she said as she looked in the direction of downed man.
“I'll take care of him. I still have some friends in this time.”
Cassie got off the ground, while scooping up an exuberant Samuel. Her sexual desire was surging—a confusing post-fight consequence. The reality of another lurking attacker was settling into her mind. She walked swiftly toward the house, her drones, now become a new-found weapon, followed dutifully behind her.
Mike went to the attacker, and pulled the screen mask off of him, revealing his face. The man was groggy.
Mike dragged him two meters into the shallows of the river.
He slapped the man lightly.
“Can you hear me?” The man nodded, his eyes showing increasing awareness of his situation. His face tensed with pain as he became more aware of his ribs.
“Good,” Mike said. He pushed the man's head under the water's surface. The man reached up feebly to peel Mike's hands off. Ignoring the tugs, Mike kept him under the water. Moments passed. The man thrashed weakly and then relaxed. As he did so, Mike pulled his head up out of the river and dragged his large frame to the bank.
“That should clear your head. I want you to understand me,” said Mike. He pulled the man a bit further and rested his back against a large rock.
“You look familiar to me. You're with the Ecus?” Mike asked.
The man looked at Mike. There was a sense of familiarity to this stranger that plunged him into the water. Slowly, the familiarity turned to recognition.
“You can't be,” the man said. He struggled through the math in his head. It head been more than 20 years ago. More like 25 years. The person crouched next to him, holding his fate, would be much older if it were true.
“It is true,” Mike said, “I saw you at a Council meeting when the Council was fracturing.” To be at the meeting, he had to have been a loyal lieutenant to one of the players or a player.
The man nodded, “The quality of mercy is not strained...”
“It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,” Mike continued the statement.
“Sir, you have been an echo in me since that day,” the man said. Mike had made a final push to reorient the Council toward its humanitarian purpose. It had, at that point, already re-oriented toward a grab for political power. Mike's speech had been among the best efforts of his life. Shakespeare had figured prominently in it. Mike had felt the speech as an obligation, a gesture, toward what had started as the best of humanity's action during a dark time.
The Ecu's campaign of killing, extortion, and espionage would start 4 weeks later.
Mike nodded solemnly.
“Your name is Fillmore, right?”
“Yes,” said Fillmore, nodding. Fillmore had left the Ecumenical shortly after the schism. Mike was aware of that fact since all members and staff had been tracked following the schism. It had been a desperate time of rapidly formed and broken alliances. Knowing the sides became necessary for survival. Fillmore's skills had gone onto the free market with the primary buyers still being Ecu. Fillmore had “freed” himself but only by a degree.
Mike pulled the black metal tube of quantum poison from his hip satchel. He held it up for Fillmore to see. Fillmore looked at it, and his eyes cast down with resignation.
“You know what this is, Bud?” asked Mike, matter-of-factly.
Mike tapped the harmless base on Fillmore's knee twice. Fillmore flinched.
“Yes, Sir. I ask you to not use it,” said Fillmore.
“I'm trying to find a reason to not use it, Bud. It seems the most expedient course of action.”
It was the most expedient course of action. Fillmore could see it clearly. It would send a message to the Ecu and remove a potential future threat. More than that, Fillmore felt that his life and his time with the Ecu had earned him this death. His death felt just.
“I wasn't going to hurt her,” Fillmore said.
Fillmore hadn't been armed. Mike had noticed it immediately. Despite her skill, Cassie would have been killed had Fillmore used a blade or bludgeon. It was clearly a snatch and run mission. A search nearby would likely reveal a concealed transport.
“Hurt is a relative term in our work, isn't it, Bud?” Mike asked.
“Yes, it is, Sir.”
“Were the credits worth the risk?” asked Mike.
Fillmore chuckled and shook his head.
“The gear was provided, but I'm not paid. I owed them for a mission that I flamed. Once they found out I was on Earth, they called it due. Originally, it was just intelligence,” Fillmore explained.
Mike nodded, noticeably surprised.
“Do you have someone you love, Fillmore?” Mike asked.
“Yes, Sir. I think I do,” answered Fillmore.
Mike held the poison tube up theatrically, framing it against the harsh light of the sun, considering it for a moment. After, he smiled and tucked it into his hip satchel.
Without warning and with snake-like precision, Mike's hand flew out. He gave Fillmore a light slap on the cheek.
Fillmore gasped deeply, strangely shaken by the blow.
“I give you your life, Fill. Use it well,” Mike said, standing and brushing some of the dirt from his legs.
Fillmore, his eyes tearing slightly, replied, “I will. I am changed. I am. I am.”
“Sometimes you don't know that until you are at the moment. Tell them...tell them that I have returned. That if I suspect them of actions against my family again, I will kill all of them. It will be open war.”
Fillmore nodded. This man before him was widely believed to have been killed 20 years ago by a Council action. This returned being, having defied decades of time, stood above Fillmore, and his words resonated into Fillmore's mind. It would be war and slaughter. Fillmore resolved to deliver the message, but he felt himself sicken at the thought of a war.
Mike turned without further comment and star
ted up the path.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Venus
Samuel stretched his hind leg, and shook it, knocking a few droplets from his toes onto the absorbent flooring. He was freshly quaffed. The dog care station, a box-like grooming machine, more bot than appliance, had washed him, provided a massage, and combed him. It was a welcome respite after his heroic trip into the river.
The machine was capable of trimming his nails and his hair, but there was no need. Samuel visited it of his own volition several times a week. It was one of his pleasures.