Futile Efforts

by Piccirilli, Tom

  Clearly the Tybok was interested only in individual targets, otherwise it could've discharged into the floor and left behind a crater where the entire estate now stood. So, that was pretty good, except that I was one of the targets.

  Tybok turned those eyes on me. Eerie automaton eyes, black and vacuous, and yet, hidden deeply within them, I could almost see a hint of recognition. They converged and cross-hairs glowed in their centers.

  It couldn't be Carla. I refused to believe that.

  The barrel of the jammer began to swing my way.

  The window. My only chance.

  But they make it look so easy in the movies—you cover your face, jump, all the glass shatters and you fall like a feather. When you hit the ground you duck and roll and run away and hide behind a bush. But real glass shreds and slashes, and it only takes a quarter inch shard to snip your carotid or femoral arteries while you're going over the sill. I could just see myself diving forward and the window frame holding against my weight and bouncing me back into the room.

  Tybok took aim on me, the fire-arc rounding down until it was right between my eyes. I felt incredibly stupid. I tightened up about to spring.

  My cousin Dante burst into the room carrying a BE-PB-2 plasma rail rifle, with Barabbas barking at his heels. I'd never fired one and had no idea who brought it into the house or when, but he appeared to be damn proficient with it. There was a precision SIGINT targeting system but he hadn't even bothered to engage it. The smoke sent Barabbas into a sneezing fit.

  The Tybok assassin spun and the jammer locked on Dante a millisecond too slow. Dante fired three shots in rapid succession, perfectly placed midpoint over the Tybok's primary extent program hidden within its protected torso. Shrapnel burst and tore into the ceiling. A plasma leak commenced to melt the Tybok's weaponry. It retreated a step and let off two wild shots. The sinuous antennae lashed back and forth like miniature whips. Those eyes gave me a sidelong glance again. It wanted me.

  I had a weird feeling and shouted, "Dante, its head. Nail the antennae!"

  Dante got old school and walked straight up to the thing, aimed the rifle point-blank into its face and pulled the trigger at least a half dozen times. Barabbas barked happily. There was less damage than I expected but it was enough. The Tybok shuddered and started tossing pieces of itself loose around the room, the gyros fragged. Those antennae were ruined but still threw an occasional spark.

  So much for turning the other cheek.

  "Thanks, man," I said.

  He blessed me, tossed the railgun over his shoulder and wafted out, Barabbas sneezing beside him.

  My grandfather never quit painting or acknowledged us in any way. He composed his art, the oils swirling against one another, colors fusing, separating, moving sinuously against one another like sentient beings.

  "Grandpa, can you find some kind of government signature on this?"

  Ganooch's presence asserted itself in my skull. Activities within advanced integrated photonic systems concentrating on the technologies needed for very high stamina, tenacity, resolution and photonic subsystems, optical elements HOE.

  "Yeah, but how about a sig—"

  Applications are numerous. For example: microscopic imaging, satellite processing, telecommunications, aeronautics, avionics and medical imaging.

  "And assassination?"

  Fourier & Fresnel Synthesis, Self Processing Photopolymers, Authentication & Infiltration, Intelligence High Operative & Extraterrestrial Study of Indicative Human Situation & Factors.

  "Terrific."

  Joey Fresco kicked in the door, wearing an overcoat and pajamas, with an extinguisher in hand, panting and sweaty. He put out the burning sheets, looked around and, though nobody else would ever be able to see it, I could tell he was furious, alarmed, and even embarrassed. The hit had been attempted on his watch. I told him what had happened.

  He wanted to say he was sorry but didn't know how. It didn't matter anyway. In the old days, the soldier who came in right after the disaster was the traitor. He met my eyes, each of us sort of second-guessing the other, wondering how much of the past meant anything anymore but unable to leave the history behind.

  "That's a Tybok, ain't it? Why's it got a tail? That's frickin' stupid. Some kind of rewired probe. Must've been programmed with a derivative kill-order."

  "Its movements were too human. I could swear I felt the thing hating me. Some kind of cyborg?"

  He dug around in the scrap pieces. "No, it's not biological, but there's been a lot of enhancements made on this one. An android with a neural pathway interface, piloted by a tele-intelligence." He didn't like talking smart but he made due. "Somebody was in cybernetic charge of this."

  "Did we kill the pilot when we clipped the android?"

  "I doubt it. Probably just ejected his intelligence and self-destructed the unit. Them Rossi's are playing for keeps."

  "This isn't Carla's doing."

  "How do you know?"

  "Trust me, I can tell."

  Carla didn't believe in being coy, subtle or sly, not even when it was to her advantage in life or business. She didn't have the personality for it. My girl had enough on her mind without having to play at delicacy. She might kill me but not like this. A chuckle worked itself loose from my throat. We'd been meant for each other all our lives, and the only reason we weren't married was because her relentless drive and energy reminded me too much of my grandfather in his prime.

  Explosion on the north side of the property nearly rocked us off our feet. The house shuddered and a hairline crack appeared in the window I'd imagined plunging through. Flames lit up the garden and illuminated the trees, but there didn't seem to be much serious destruction from what I could see. Columns of cinder loomed into the night sky.

  "Jesus, they're using artillery!" Joey shouted.

  "Now that's Carla," I said. "Making a point."

  If he'd had a neck, he would've cocked his head. As it was, his eyes narrowed and he stepped in close. "What the hell did you do?"

  "She's a little angry, that's all."

  "What'd you do, Tommy?"

  "She found a gray hair."

  "What?"

  "She wants me to marry her. See, she found a gray hair, and—"

  He set his back teeth so firmly that it sounded like he was crunching a rack of ribs. For a second I thought he was going to slug me. "Well, get over there and propose! The frig's the matter with you? What, you waiting until she takes us out with a thermonuclear device or some nerve toxins? They got stuff that'll liquefy your skeletal system in four hours but still leave you alive. You want that?"

  "She's just a little hot at the moment."

  "You gotta be the dumbest guy I ever met when it comes to broads. If you push the buttons on your average woman you're still playing with dynamite. With Carla Rossi you're talking about someone who's got political sources in her pocket who can send a stealth bomber over here in ten minutes."

  "Not to be quarrelsome, Joey, but don't you think that's a good reason to keep as far away from her as possible?"

  "Yeah? And where you gonna go? What, you gonna marry one of them home and garden broads and play house out Long Island? There's nobody else for you, Tommy, but Carla Rossi."

  "I know."

  "Then go do the right thing."

  "I don't like to be pressured."

  "She's blowing up the estate, Tommy, and this ain't even pressure yet. When it comes, it'll squeeze your heart bad. And maybe irradiate the Hudson Valley for about twenty thousand years. Mutate us into giant bugs or something"

  "When I was talking about dropping bombs, Joe, I was speaking in metaphor."

  "Yeah, but I ain't."

  My grandfather spoke in my ear.

  "What's he saying?" Joey asked. "I know he's reaching out but I can't quite hear him."

  "He's triangulated on where the tele-intelligence came from. Vatican City."

  "Hmmm." Joey rubbed his colossal hands together and cracked knuckles the size of
walnuts. "I knew that guy had something hidden in his funny hat."

  I ran it around for a minute trying to make everything fit. "A cybernetic skull-cap web so he could send off androids like this? Why's he taking a run at us?"

  "He might be mad you turned him down when he asked you to off Emperor Mitsomosho."

  "I thought he was half-kidding."

  "Maybe it's the other half that's got him pissed."

  Mama Ganucci's shrieks drew us into the hallway. Dante had fallen halfway up the stairwell. I ran to his side and couldn't spot anything wrong except for a small burn spot on his robes. The plasma shot had gone through his chest right below his heart, instantly cauterizing his flesh. One of the Tybok's two wild shots must've hit him. There wasn't so much as a drop of blood, but he was dying. He smiled up at me and said something in Latin again that I almost recognized from catechism. It was a psalm, but I couldn't tell which one.

  Mama kept screaming until my cousin Antonia led her away, both of them shrieking and hugging each other. I heard a noise like an animal's growl. I looked at Barabbas and he stared back at me. The sound got louder and louder and finally I realized that I was making it and stopped.

  Joey Fresco leaned down beside me. Bone stood at the bottom of the stairs playing with his knife.

  "Medical team will be here in ninety seconds," Bone said.

  I grabbed a fistful of Joe's coat and said, "Get him to the family doctors."

  "They might not be able to do anything."

  "We pay them enough. Let 'em try."

  "How…ah…drastic should their measures be?"

  "He saved my life. Go all the way."

  "Even if it makes him like the boss?" Joe's hesitancy didn't escape me. "You sure you want that?"

  I thought about it for only a second. Dante was nuts but he had more spirit and grit than me. I wasn't sure any of that would come through if he was left with only a rewired brain. But I couldn't be certain it wouldn't either.

  "Yeah."

  "Okay."

  Mama's wails rattled the windows and made the back of my head seethe even more. The medical team arrived via chopper in the next minute. They ran in and loaded Dante onto a gurney with such cold and expert efficiency that he was gone before I could even say a word to anybody.

  I hooked my laptop into one of the Tybok's intracom dockets to see if I could figure out what syntax and morphology the pilot's signals had been transmitting. Maybe the directions were readable, and I could see exactly what the pilot had been thinking during the hit.

  But the character encoding wasn't what I'd been expecting. At first I thought the syntax had been encrypted because of all the protocols and crypto link farms. But then I realized the android had actually been translating language, and not only idiom but characters and meaning in multiple sets.

  Ganooch sat in his chair, the floor around him covered with debris. The bay window was open and ash from the burning trees wafted in and stuck to the oils. He brushed it right in. His style wasn't quite as fervent as before. Now it suggested something more blue and calming, as the limbs and faces on the canvas took on more shape, grew manifest and almost distinct for an instant, and then subsided once again. I wondered if he knew what he was doing anymore, or why.

  Perhaps this was a confession, by way of defacement. He couldn't finish until whatever he felt inside himself was finished as well.

  My grandfather was already in my mind and answering my question before I had even formed it.

  Based on 32-bit technology, giving sentence-by-sentence translation from idiomatic databases. Unlike the English language, Japanese is written with three related sets of characters. These character sets are called hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana is the set of 46 phonetic symbols that represent the syllables in Japanese, used for verb endings and personal names. Katakana is a mirror phonetic representation, a more block-like version. Kanji are the 2000 "pictograph" characters that represent meaning as opposed to phonetic sound.

  Well, I thought, isn't that goddamn cute.

  I called Joey Fresco and Bone in and three of us stood staring indifferently at one another without moving. There was a time just a few years back when we would've relaxed together playing poker and drinking a few beers. There wasn't much of a crew left since my father had died, but I tried to keep the center holding. I'd done a bad job of it. I could trace most of the family's recent failings directly to my unwillingness to do what needed to be done.

  "The Japanese sent it," I said.

  "You sure it wasn't our Holy Father?" Joey asked.

  "No, it was the Emperor, but he did it from the Vatican."

  "Maybe there's a mole." Joe pawed his chin, grappling with the pieces. "Japan makes it look like the Pope put the whack out on you for failing to accept the contract on Emperor Mitsomosho. The Vatican responds by wiping out the Ganucci family. Nice and clean, and the Emperor doesn't have to worry about anybody but the New Buddhists and the Yakuza. That's enough trouble for anyone."

  "Somebody's been telling lies about me," I said. "If they've got a mole in the Vatican then there's one here too."

  Joey gave me a sidelong glance that nearly brushed me over. He knew there were family bosses who got paranoid along the way and started clipping their own soldiers. He grew rigid and got ready to punch my head off my shoulders if he had to.

  It's why I'd always liked Joey—his resolute devotion didn't overshadow his instinct or intelligence. He didn't take shit off of anybody, not even a Ganucci.

  I stared into the icy eyes of Bone and didn't have to wait more than a couple of seconds before he gave me that little smirk again. It was a tell that I remembered from playing poker with him. The grin gave him away every time, but he never realized that anybody could actually see it.

  Sometimes you got it in the back from where you were least expecting it, and sometimes you got it up front from the contemptible mutt you always knew was going to go for your throat.

  "Any particular reason why?" I asked.

  Bone's deathly white face almost turned pink with overwhelming joy. He drew the blade and said, "You should've gotten out of the game a while ago. You've been rotting for years." I almost agreed with him but kept it to myself. "Mitsomosho is streamlining the Yakuza. They're hard and fit and coming back into their own, not burning out like the crime families here. In a few years they'll take over the American economy from the bottom up. You won't be able to buy a whore or a slice of pizza without paying tax to them."

  I couldn't help wondering just how much like a lizard he might really be with that cold blood in his veins. If I threw him in a meat locker would he go into suspended animation? Did the bastard eat flies? I thought about nabbing the half-depleted fire extinguisher off the floor just to give myself an edge, but it seemed soft to try something like that, and I wanted Bone to know I didn't pull any tricks.

  I moved in to meet him. Joey Fresco shoved me aside and I let out a bark of frustration and fear because Joe was perfect for most fighting but not for this. He tried to go for his sawed-off shotgun under the coat but there wasn't enough time or room to pull it. I shouted and tried to get back into the mix but Joey shoved me away again, leaving himself wide open.

  The wide arc of Bone's knife came slashing over and downwards and I knew Joe was too wide and slow to slip left and escape the blade. He brought up his massive hands and tried to throw a punch that would've broken Bone's neck if it had connected.

  But he was already toppling over as his cut throat threw arterial spray all over the room.

  I caught him in my arms and felt the warm blood leaking against my chest. I was weak. I didn't have what it took to lead the family. I was overly sentimental and I cared only for aesthetics without substance. His mouth worked silently much the same way my father's had on his deathbed, trying to tell me something important that I'd never listen to anyway.

  "Joey!"

  He gripped my wrists and forced me to let him drop to the floor because Bone was coming at me again and
I needed my hands free.

  Waggling the knife back and forth, Bone slithered closer, the gleaming metal weaving through the air as he snapped here and there trying to fake me out. The knife moved like a cobra but he didn't appear to be in any rush. He was toying with me and his small leer barely grew at all, but was still somehow broad and insane. I knew this was him laughing loud and heartily.

  The thought didn't thrill me.

  I elbowed him hard under the heart and hoped to feel his ribs snap, but it hardly made him even grunt and he didn't back off an inch. The blade came down for my neck but I could sense it was too forward a move for him and knew he was really aiming for somewhere else. Probably my belly, so he could watch me die slowly.

  I elbowed Bone again in the same place and this time it hurt him. I stomped his inner heel and got a thrill when he gasped. I let out a chuckle, spun and came in low, drawing him closer as he slid the knife up towards my neck and started to flex for a nice stab and slash. I rolled my shoulder and ducked and drove the thick part of my palm into his mouth. The viscous fluid that passed for his blood spurted over his lips. He took a step back and raised the blade again, belly high. He was going to go low and bring the knife up under my ribs into my heart.

  I'd had enough. I dropped my arms leaving my stomach and chest defenseless, and watched as a gleam of profound happiness filled his eyes. He really was stupid and never should have been on the payroll.

  Bone surged forward and let out a hiss of laughter. It wheezed from him and grew louder and louder as the blade touched my shirt. It went no further because I grabbed hold of his wrist and started to twist it. Bone's tongue unfurled in his mouth and now he made a new inhuman noise of pain.