The Way of All Flesh: Illusions Can Be Real

by Corey Furman

  The first thing Breylin had checked was the vehicle mounted tracker, but they quickly discovered that the rogue simulants had been smart enough to find and disable it. He had the Marines conduct a search of the surrounding area for ten clicks, but neither their eyes nor their sensors found anything. Unsure how to proceed, they returned empty-handed to Twilight City. Since they were trained as light infantry and not as true police, they didn’t know the investigative procedures that might have helped them better. Even so, Azul took it as a personal challenge to get the situation resolved. It just made Breylin angry.

  Twilight City wasn’t large by Earth standards, but it was big enough to make it unlikely that if they had returned there that they would make it easy for the grunts to find them.

  Of the five simulants, four were simple laborers of fairly normal intelligence. It was likely that the fifth, a technician’s assistant named Tomas Ridder, was doing the thinking for the group. Even though they now had very limited resources, they would still be motivated by a sense of self-preservation. They wouldn’t be much of a threat in a face to face confrontation, but they wanted their freedom and had demonstrated that they were willing to kill in its pursuit.

  Many of Twilight’s row home neighborhoods stood empty and rundown, or nearly so. Instead of wasting their efforts on a futile building by building search they sent a broadcast message over the global nets to be on the lookout for the bastards. It was the only way to reach everyone on world, including those few remaining settlements. After that, they then settled into a semi-constant pattern of patrols in the city’s narrow streets. If they were there, then they would have to show themselves eventually. The grunts anger smoldered for a week while they waited for the gabachos to make the next move.

  It came in the form of a comm from the last family still at Amity Canyon, a tiny remote settlement about an hour north and near the mountains. The settler claimed that his wife had seen a brief, intermittent light from within one of the abandoned houses down in the valley. He wasn’t sure what she had seen, but he believed she had seen something. It wasn’t much to go on in Breylin’s way of thinking, but Azul pointed out that even if it was a false alarm, it was a good exercise for the squads. Breylin agreed, so they geared up and were on their way within the hour. Giving them something to do took the nervous energy off of his people and helped them keep a deadly edge.

  When they arrived, they went directly to the settler’s home overlooking the canyon. Oddly, there was no answer at the door, nor to hails from the tactical transport. They scanned with the movement trackers and looked for heat signatures, but found that the residence had been unoccupied for a little while. The whole thing was suspicious, and Breylin and Azul grew more pessimistic about the safety of the human family each time they came up with nothing. They would have no choice but to check the five or six houses down in the canyon.

  The first two they approached were empty, but Nakamura picked up a large heat signature in the third. He ordered the squad cover the domicile from several points, and one of them found the cargo lorry sitting behind the flat, the turbine ticking as it cooled in the shade. Nakamura radioed Gunny, and since it was impossible to conceal their presence, Azul brought the transport forward.

  There was no point in delaying the inevitable. Sitting at his tiny, utilitarian desk inside, Breylin had gotten the long unused comm codes from the global directory for the house and called. It buzzed a half a dozen times and the channel was opened, but whoever was on the other end refused to speak.

  “Who am I talking to?”

  No answer.

  “Can you tell me what you want?”

  No answer.

  “Do you have hostages? What will you trade for them?”

  Silence.

  “How do you see this ending?”

  The channel was silent at first, but after a few seconds, a voice came through: “with death, and I don’t think either one of us can stop it…” The line was closed.

  “We must act now, sir,” said Gunny, “if those people are to have any chance.”

  “Send ‘em in, Gunny.”

  He had Nakamura’s squad enter from the rear and one of the other squads from the front. The stutter of automatic weapons lit up the shuttered windows, then silence. More gun fire, then nothing. Styers came running out. “Medic! It’s Nakamura!”

  Azul and their medic, LCpl. Headly, were running towards the house before Styers was done yelling. As Breylin followed them in, one of the privates carried a crying child outside.

  Nakamura was gasping and turning blue as he thrashed on the floor of the kitchen in a pool of blood. Headly had Styers and one of the others hold him down while he set to work on him. “His windpipe is crushed! I’ll have to do a tracheotomy!”

  Joss was stunned; he’d seen the training videos, went through the simulations, practiced all of the maneuvers, but none of it prepared him for this room, for standing in the blood of a man for whom he was responsible. A good man at that – Nakamura was one of the strongest personalities in their unit. He was tough on everyone around, always demanding better performance, hammering away at the fact that lives depended on automatic actions. Even so, he was also usually at the center of their sports, chow, and whatever made them laugh. Breylin sweated as he begged the silent points of distant light above that Nakamura would still be those things after he left this house.

  Headly dug in one of his packs with the speed of someone with moves so practiced he was able to take his eyes off his hands. He shredded a slim pack and withdrew a scalpel from its tatters as Nakamura’s struggling was slowing down, his face turning purple. A slash, some blood, and he was shoving a tube in. He attached an Ambu bag and started pumping it furiously. Nakamura’s chest was rising, but his eyes were closed and he was quiet. Headly held the tips of two fingers on his carotid. He readjusted once, twice. “Not good, he’s got no pulse. Styers, pump the bag!” He moved a little closer and started chest compressions. “Somebody dig the oxygen tank out of my bag and hook it up while I work!”

  Headly huffed and counted as he did everything he could to force Nakamura’s heart to pump, pausing only to let Styers flood his lungs with precious O2. As the activity continued and the tense moments ticked by, Breylin began to doubt Nakamura would make it.

  Nakamura’s eyes fluttered open, and Headly sat back on his heels. “You scared the hell out of me, Sergeant,” said Headly as he wiped his face. “Don’t do that again. LT, he’ll probably be okay.”

  Breylin nodded. “Good job.”

  With tears in her eyes, Styers leaned in and said, “You got your blood on my uniform, Marine. I expect you to clean it.” He was still pretty out of it, but he feebly grasped her arm as Headly gave him a shot.

  Breylin looked around for the first time, and it was then that he noticed the dead simulant lying on his side nearby. Nakamura’s Kabar was buried hilt deep in its throat. It must have been his blood all over the floor. Somehow it seemed odd to him that its blood should be red.

  The little girl had been the only human survivor, though they had managed to capture the technician’s assistant. Sergeant Pellegrino, the squad leader for first squad, had capitalized on the initial confusion and managed to stun the simulant with a hard butt stroke from her rifle. Judging by his misshapen appearance, Pellegrino must have broken the simulant’s nose. The blood that had gushed down his face was already dried and black around the edges. It still hadn’t been enough to knock him out, but it was sufficient to get the child out of his arms. The rest of the room was chaos and carnage.

  As one of the privates was binding his hands behind him, Breylin said “You brought us here, gabacho. Why?”

  The simulant merely looked up at Breylin.

  After a few uptight seconds, Pellegrino said, “I speak his language, sir,” and she slammed the butt of her rifle into his jaw.

  “As you were, Sgt…” Breylin grabbed her arm before she could hit him again. He could tell that Pellegrino’
s blood was on fire from the angry look she shot the LT., but her muscles under Breylin’s hand relaxed, so he let her go.

  The simulant spit out a broken tooth and a wad of blood, then said, “I didn’t bring us here – humanity did.” He thought for a moment, then added, “You hate us – we get it. What we don’t get is why you hate us.”

  “You bastard,” Breylin said. “Look around you. We do hate you – for these deaths! These people never harmed you, yet they died by your hands!”

  “You hated me and everyone like me before you even knew I existed,” he breathed out.

  Is he off his rocker, or do I just not understand what he’s saying? he asked of himself. When he couldn’t make sense of his words he said, “what the hell are you talking about?!”

  “The only deaths here that matter to you are the humans.”

  “I heard enough of this bullshit,” Azul said. “May I stow him, LT?”

  “Go ahead, Gunny – this isn’t accomplishing anything, and I’m not sure it makes a difference, anyway. Get him out of here.”

  After three of the privates dragged Ridder out, Mathias said, “LT?”

  Breylin looked around at the bodies. The mother’s and an older boy’s neck had been broken. The father’s throat had been torn out, the edges ragged as if he’d been savaged by one of the military dogs Breylin had seen on Mars. He wasn’t sure if it was his blood sprayed on the wall or if it was the simulant’s with the bloody hands. One of the grunts had stitched five or six shots across his chest. “What is it, Staff?”

  Gesturing with his chin at door to the outside he said, “that one was different.” SSgt. Mathias, the assistant platoon sergeant, was a tall man, and he had the darkest skin Breylin had ever seen. He was also quiet and observant, so if he had something to say it was worth listening to. He pointed to the simulants at their feet and continued, “these ones were ready to kill the family as soon as we rushed in. I don’t think that tech assistant was.”

  Pellegrino bristled. “You saw him – he had her in his arms!”

  “Relax, Sergeant. Getting the kid out alive was what was important and you did what you had to. If I’d been closer I probably would’ve killed him outright.” He turned back to Breylin. “LT, he might have been shielding the girl. I thought you should know.”

  After his words sunk in, Joss stood up to leave the house. He paused in the doorway, and turned back to Mathias and Pellegrino. “You should have killed him.”

  They bagged all of the bodies – humans and simulants equal in death – and loaded them in the transport. When they mounted up, the child was still clinging to Pvt. Coohill, but thankfully she was quiet – probably in shock. The only sounds the whole way back to the city were intermittent static from comms and the whine of the transport’s drives.

  That night Breylin made his report coldly factual and sterile and sent it off to his superiors. He laid awake most of the night wrestling with the sight of blood and bodies etched into his memory, but it was the loneliness he felt created by Riss’ absence most bitter and real.

  The next morning, he had the simulant brought to his office and his hands restrained behind his back. Breylin locked eyes with him and clicked a pen in and out, in and out, letting the time stretch.

  Eventually he said, “I have just received my orders from Command. Tomas Ridder, my priority one mission is to terminate you ASAP and do my best to secure the hatch on what happened out there as best I can.”

  Another quiet filled the room, broken only by the rhythmic ticking of his pen.

  The gabacho shook his head, but spoke quietly. “Do you believe in God, human? Heaven and Hell?”

  Breylin tossed the pen on his desk. It was the last thing he expected the bastard to say, and he had to think about it before it really sunk in. He sat back in his chair and pushed out a lungful in one long, exhausted rush. “Yes… I think so,” he said guilelessly, in an effort to defuse his own tension. “I guess I don’t like the idea of this being all there is. What’s that got to do with anything?”

  Tears started to flow. After a few moments Ridder lowered his eyes to the floor as said, “do you think He will let me in one of them?”

  Breylin was again taken aback, surprised at the ability of this creature to feel, but he replied before he could think it through. “God didn’t make you. We did,” he said more flippantly than he had intended. He wasn’t sure he understood why, but he began to hate him.

  He laughed as he looked up at Breylin and said sardonically, “and where would you send me, O Creator?”

  Breylin’s animosity flourished, and he nearly lunged across the desk at the snotty little shit. He managed to restrain himself, though it was only by a narrow margin. “I’d send you straight to hell, you murderer,” he said nastily. “But God will have to sort out your final destination. He only lets me book your passage.”

  Ridder laughed incredulously. “You’re some piece of work, military man…”

  Breylin snorted, languidly stood and walked past the restrained man, but he turned – whip crack fast. He grabbed Ridder by the throat, hauled him to his feet and drove him into the wall. His skull rebounded and the partitions shuddered with the impact. Official notices and the thumbtacks that had been holding them to the partition scattered around them unseen while a light dust sifted down from the darkness-shrouded rafters above.

  “What’s the matter, gabacho?” he said dangerously with his nose a couple of centimeters from Ridder’s. “Can’t you take me like you took that family?”

  “You won’t believe this, human,” he replied in a croak. Spittle was collecting on his lips. “But that wasn’t supposed – cough – to happen. We damn sure meant – cough, cough – kill that bitch Ainsworth, but not them. I – cough – just couldn’t control the others anymore.”

  He began to get redder with each hack, but Breylin tightened his grip, closing his windpipe and putting an end to his weak expulsions. Ridder began to turn purple as his hands scrabbled over Joss’ shoulders trying to push him off. “I should kill you right here, you satchel of fake cold cuts, but you know what stops me?”

  Eye to eye, Ridder shook his head No, but only what Breylin’s hands would allow.

  “I’m not going to kill you now because I can’t fucking wait to see your expression when you’re staring down the business end of Marine carbines. You won’t be quite so tough then, will you?” Breylin jerked him away from the wall and slammed him back into it, and more dust sifted down on their heads unnoticed. “I hope your hot piss runs down your legs before those triggers are pulled, too, but if you don’t, you will once they drill you and you’re dead. It’s a shame we can’t kill you twice.”

  After a few more seconds Joss let him go. His knees unhinged and he slid down the wall as he hacked hard and swallowed air as fast as he could. Looking down on the rasping mess, Joss let himself feel a thread of the black pleasure nearly squeezing the life out of Ridder had given him.

  “You nearly killed me… didn’t you?” he graveled out as he sat among the detritus of military notices their clash had torn off the wall. “Your capacity for hate… astounds me.”

  He was seized with a burning desire to shut him up by kicking his ribs in, but he turned, slammed his door open and stormed out of the office before he lost control. Two grunts who had been waiting outside came in, snatched Ridder to his feet by his arms and dragged him back to the seldom used holding cell.

  Later that day, Ridder was executed by firing squad in the Marines’ compound. He had refused any further attempts at conversation and walked to his own death with his eyes cast skyward.

  Seven

  There was a short series of unpleasant tones. “183 Alpha and 370 Bravo, first call. Please report for duty in seventy five minutes,” chimed LabSys.

  Luna opened her eyes and looked at Maré, and for a few seconds she marveled at their wonderful new relationship. My Chroma… She stroked her face and said, “good morning, Maré.”

/>   Maré came to disoriented and half startled at the tones, but then she realized where she was. She laid her head back down on Luna’s bosom. “I’m scared to face this day, Luna.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know…” She paused.” I know so little about what I am, what I’m doing. It’s all happened so fast, and I have so little to begin with. Even our relationship has moved faster than I would have thought safe… but if not for you, I don’t know where I’d be now. Maybe nowhere. I’m lost, Luna.”

  Luna could feel the tension in muscles under the skin of her back, so she continued to caress Maré‘s face. Delicately using her fingertips to trace its outlines, she gave herself a minute to enjoy their intimacy. Then she brought her hair near Maré‘s face as she whispered, “give me two minutes, Maré. I want you to forget last night and ignore what today might bring. Just breathe in the scent of me, your Chroma.”

  “Chroma. It’s kind of a funny word,” she said, but she inhaled deeply with the tips of her hair tickling her nose. She could faintly smell the antiseptics she had used the last time she had cleaned herself, and she could distinctly smell her night sweat. Stronger than both put together though, she could smell the musk, the natural smell that could only be Luna. The scent was so strong that she wasn’t sure how she had been able to sleep. Somehow, it made her feel… something. Something almost familiar. She took the strands from her, brought them closer, and inhaled deeply again.

  “Can you smell me, Maré?”

  “Yes…”

  “No other Alpha will smell quite like me. Every Alpha ever created was grown from the same genetic blueprint, but only I am yours.”