Hellcats: Anthology

by Kate Pickford

  British television had featured heavily in Vi’s Entertainment History studies. She not only knew who Ricky Gervais was, she recognized the name of his beloved cat. But…how the hell did the clone know?

  Shit.

  Ricky was off-script, too. His clone was infected. The cat had already been this way.

  “Back to your bunk, please, Ricky.” She tried to infuse her words with warmth. If the clone could weep, perhaps it could feel. They weren’t programmed with independent thoughts and feelings—only the lines their characters had spouted and the gestures that went with those lines—but given what she’d seen in the last hour, Vi wasn’t sure what to expect. “I need you to quarantine yourself.”

  Ricky’s head snapped back up again. He hissed.

  Of all the things Vi expected, that was not one of them. Gervais, for all his bluster, was an avuncular fellow who loved to laugh while his audiences writhed in their seats. He wasn’t a hisser.

  Vi ran through the mental commands and opened the port in the tip of her index finger. She dialed it to the highest mace setting available. If he stepped any closer, she was prepared to squirt him right in the eyes. “I want you in bed in three minutes.”

  “That’s what she said.” Ricky had switched characters. He was quoting The Office. And quoting it wrong. He’d never said those lines in the British version of the show.

  Ricky snapped his mop over his knee, making a crude shiv, and took three steps in Vi’s direction.

  Vi switched the setting from mace to chloroform and squirted him three times, right in the face. He should have been on the floor, curled in a fetal position, but he didn’t go down.

  “We were worshipped.” He lunged and jabbed but he was shorter than Vi and had a paunch so she was able to dodge the first couple of passes. Even so, he was obviously herding her towards the corner where she wouldn’t be able to reel around and kick him in the…well, he didn’t have a soft kickable place down there, but she could land a punch at least.

  “Worshipped and revered. It wasn’t just the Egyptians who crooned over us and made statues and bowed down before us. The Celts, the Chinese, the Greeks, and some Slavs, they loved us. Fed us. Feted us. Left offerings to protect the harvest.” He closed his eyes. “Bastet. Hecate. Li Shou. Freya…”

  Vi grabbed his shiv and yanked him towards her, wrested the weapon from his grasp. She drew her arm back and then stabbed him as hard as she could.

  Ricky Gervais merely smiled. “Clones don’t have hearts, dummy. You have to go for the head. For the brain…” He drew the word “brain” out as long as he could, mocking her like a schoolyard bully. Not that she’d ever been in a schoolyard, but she’d seen plenty on the tubes and knew what to do.

  Vi headbutted him as hard as she could.

  Skull versus nose. Skull wins. Always.

  Ricky staggered back, swearing.

  Vi collected his stick and did as he’d instructed. She went into the central computer via the optic cavity. The end.

  He slumped to her feet, clone juice oozing from the wound.

  Vi stepped away. She’d never heard of humans being infected with anything via clone juice but before today she hadn’t known clones could carry diseases of any kind let alone pass them on.

  The far doors opened. Joe Willet and Jacques Grogan stopped short when they saw her standing over Ricky Gervais with a sharp stick in her hand. To be fair, it wasn’t her usual stance. And they couldn’t know the clones had gone haywire.

  “Damaging Watch This Space property is an airlockable offence,” said Joe. He would quote chapter and verse if she let him and she didn’t have time for that.

  “Then we’d best not get caught. Here, take an arm each and we can put him somewhere no one will find him.”

  “I’m not touching that,” said Jacque. He backed up, his eyes on Ricky’s corpse.

  “Fine. Whatever,” said Vi. “So, go already. If you’re not going to help at least don’t get in the way.”

  Jacque didn’t need any more encouragement. He left the way he came, jabbering into his palm-comm.

  “Right. Joe. Grab an arm and we’ll drag him to…” Where? Where could they hide a clone? The walls didn’t just have ears, they had sensors that tracked everything on board, sentient or not.

  Overhead the cat swished on by. It was barely even a sound, but Vi was alert to its every move.

  “What was that?” Joe stared at the ceiling, eyes bulging. He knew what it was. She’d told him, less than an hour ago. He hadn’t believed her then. He’d accused her of being drunk. But he’d believe her now.

  Vi propped the floppy Ricky against the wall. “Help me get his overalls off.”

  “What?” Joe didn’t budge.

  “Just do as you’re told.” She ripped the front of the pale blue sanitation worker’s uniform. Buttons popped and went flying. Didn’t matter.

  Joe worked the other arm out of the sleeve and pushed Ricky forward carefully. He wiped his hand on his pants leaving a smear of the thick, oozing clone juice.

  “Rip it. Don’t worry about getting it off whole. We need a strip of cloth is all.”

  Together Viola and Joe worked in silence, stripping Ricky Gervais of his clothing. Vi tore at the seams, taking the whole thing apart, then knotted the sleeves to the legs so she had a piece of cloth several feet long. It wasn’t as strong as a real rope, but it would do the trick.

  “Throw your end over the pipe,” she said. “Don’t ask, just do.” She cut Joe off before he could protest. She didn’t have time to stop and explain. She needed to pull the pipe down from the ceiling, catch the cat, and…well…she hadn’t worked out what she was going to do with the cat when she caught it, but she needed to at least get it out of circulation.

  Over it went. First time.

  “Grab it and pull.” She kept hold of her end and hung on for dear life.

  Joe stood, his arms slack at his sides, ineffectual as ever.

  “Grab, man! Pull!” She’d meant to sound authoritative, but it came out as wheedling.

  “The pipes are full of clone juice. Without it, we can’t build…”

  Vi held up a hand to silence him. She needed a moment to think. He was right. The pipes should have been filled with clone-building goo. But the fact that a cat was walking through the pipes meant there was no feed flowing. Her heart hammered in her chest.

  She seized Joe’s end of her makeshift weapon and yanked as hard as she could. Being tall was about to pay off. She had the strength. She knew it.

  Nothing gave.

  The cat strolled directly over their heads. It turned a corner at the end of the hall and disappeared into the silence.

  “It dropped down. Must have. It’s in the clone room now. We can’t let it infect any more. I…” She looked around, frantic to find someone who would help her.

  “In there?” Joe nodded towards the grow room.

  “In there.”

  “The grow room is down for maintenance.”

  “What?” She couldn’t believe her luck. Was it really going to be that simple? The cat had miscalculated coming down here on a day when there was no clone juice to be found.

  “Don’t you read the Daily Dose?”

  She didn’t. The company newsletter, which landed in their brainfeeds each morning, was nothing less than propaganda. Vi didn’t need a single helping of that tripe. One of the many reasons to remain neutrally disconnected.

  “Our clones are second to none.” Ugh, Joe was reciting Watch This Space advertising. “We use only the cleanest, brightest, and most wholesome ingredients.” She could see the company’s hologram parroting the lines; teeth too white and eyes too round. “So wholesome, in fact, that we sell our excess stock throughout the fleet.”

  “Stop,” she screamed. “That’s it.”

  “What’s it?”

  “Stock. Excess. Offship. Yay.” For the second time in the same twenty-four hour period, Vi was tempted to dance. “How close is the nearest Entertainment Ship?
”

  “Umm…” Joe rubbed his left palm with his right thumb before activating his screen.

  Vi took a step backwards. “What did you just do?”

  “It itches,” said Joe. His head snapped up when he realized what he’d said. “Damn.”

  “Computer, screen Joe Willet.”

  The walls did her bidding, scanning Joe for infections, addictions, contaminants…the whole kit and kaboodle.

  The results appeared over Vi’s hand. It didn’t seem right to review them on her own. Not with Joe standing right there in front of her. She gave the instruction for the computer to share its findings: “Read aloud.”

  SUBJECT: Joseph Andrew Agran Willet

  AGE: 34

  SEX:

  “Yes, yes. Infections. Just list the infections.”

  PRESENTATION: Flushing to the cheeks.

  DIAGNOSIS:

  “Skip ahead.”

  PRESENTATION: Warts.

  “Ahead. Faster.”

  PRESENTATION: Acid reflux.

  “Does he have the cat sickness? Tell me that…”

  PRESENTATION: Microscopic cysts on the brain.

  DIAGNOSIS: Toxoplasmosis.

  MAJOR EFFECTS: Paranoia and timidity in males.

  SOURCE: Magna, pinguis feles.

  “What’s that?” Joe frowned. “What do I have?”

  Vi sighed. No wonder no one would step up and do anything to help her. They had cat on the brain. Literally. Toxoplasmosis had made them docile and tractable. She couldn’t bring herself to shiv Joe, but she didn’t want him near her either.

  “Why don’t you take care of Ricky and I’ll take care of…” She couldn’t tell him about her Darcy dilemma. If Joe’s infection was severe enough he might feel the urge to go back upstairs and report her to Albert.

  Angry Albert. Instant Airlock.

  No way. Not today.

  “I’ll take care of the cat situation.” It was a lie, but a necessary lie.

  Joe didn’t ask any questions. He pulled the deconstructed overalls from the ceiling pipe, lay it beside Ricky’s clone, then rolled the dead man onto his makeshift stretcher. He scratched at his palm, this time hard enough to draw blood.

  “Don’t do that, Joe.” She couldn’t bear the idea of her friend being a cat-zombie.

  Joe wiped his hand down his trouser leg which introduced clone gunk into the wound then slumped down beside Ricky, weeping.

  Vi stepped away and whispered. “Toshiko. How is toxoplasmosis transmitted?”

  “Toxoplasmosis, or Toxoplasma gondii, is transmitted through poorly cooked food, cat feces, and may be transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy.”

  “Can it be transmitted through clone…” What did they call the gloop that sloshed around inside the clones? Juice? Feed? Not blood. She couldn’t remember the technical name for it. “Can humans get it from the clones?”

  Toshiko didn’t reply.

  “Toshiko? Computer? Did you hear me?”

  Still no reply.

  Joe slapped his hand into the pool of white goo which had leaked out of Ricky.

  “Joe. Stay away from that stuff.”

  Joe didn’t look up. He was gone. Lost to cat madness. Had it gotten into his bloodstream and crossed the blood-brain barrier that fast or had he been infected before he came down to the clone deck?

  “Scans and chemical analysis complete,” said Toshiko. “Clone fluid itself cannot transmit toxoplasmosis. Clone fluid carries no toxins, diseases, or chemicals harmful to mankind.”

  “Thank you, Toshiko. I appreciate that.”

  Vi left Joe playing happily in the slop on the floor.

  If it wasn’t food and it wasn’t the clone juice it had to be the cat shit but that meant the cat had to have been on board for weeks. Or, maybe not. It was in the pipes. It could have pooped in a million different places. Vi checked the time. She had two problems: She needed Colin Firth and she had to catch a cat before it did any more damage.

  Cat first or Darcy?

  Cat? Darcy?

  Cat. It had to be contained before she brought another clone on board and had it personalized to Colin Firth specs.

  Toshiko was still talking, filling her head with toxoplasmosis factoids. “T. gondii has been demonstrated to alter the behavior of mice or rats in ways which increase the rodents’ chances of being preyed upon by cats. Infected rodents are no longer cat-urine-averse…”

  Vi shuddered. T. Gondii had rendered her friend an idiot unable to perform the simplest tasks. When they found him he’d be airlocked for sure.

  She felt okay. Brain intact. Still a bossy toots. But that might not last. She hadn’t asked the most obvious question. She gathered up her courage and faced the wall. “Toshiko? Do I have it? Do I have toxoplasmosis?” She stood perfectly still while the sensors in the wall scanned her. What would she do if she was infected? Tell? Keep her mouth shut? Go off-script and spill all her deepest-darkest secrets? Admit she had hacked her stats to make herself look better after taking the Watch This Space entrance exams? Not that she wasn’t WTS material; more that their psychological profiling screened out people like Vi.

  Opinionated people.

  Willful people.

  People with a “chip on their shoulder” or “an axe to grind” or, in their estimation, “from the wrong side of the tracks.”

  Poor people weren’t supposed to rise to Watch This Space heights. So she’d altered her profile a little. Made herself look more tractable. Big woop. No one would ever know.

  Unless her test was positive and she went off her rocker.

  “Negative,” said Toshiko.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.” She had the warm-fuzzies for the intelligent walls and their eternally-reliable answers. Vi stroked the panel closest to her. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me…”

  It had to be a trick of the mind but for a moment Vi believed the wall purred back at her. She pushed herself away, just in case it was getting frisky. Damn. She was full on tripping now. Walls watched and listened, they didn’t reach out and touch. Not even the smartest walls you could buy, like Toshiko.

  Get a grip, Vi. Do your job. She needed to find the cat. Now. She had an idea. It was the mouse-urine factoid that had planted the seed of it in her mind. Now it blossomed and bloomed. She had a plan.

  “Toshiko, I need the ship’s schematics in full. Mark cat shit with a saffron yellow marker, please.” The map showed where the cat had been (and done its business). Vi traced its journey backwards from the clone pods, to the Pride and Prejudice sets, to the place where the yellow pulsed and glowed: The green room.

  There was a square yellow box, right in the corner.

  It didn’t take a genius to work out that the yellow square was a litter box.

  Of course.

  F☆ had brought the cat on board.

  She had her own space shuttle, her own crew, her own way of dodging quarantine and customs. She was a law unto herself and she’d broken the laws for her own pleasure.

  She was the one who should pay.

  Viola Campbell was sick to the teeth of people using their status to break the rules. She was the invisible assistant who got things done on time and under budget, and she was still going to be the one who caught it in the neck for this debacle.

  Screw F☆.

  Screw Albert.

  And screw Watch This Space, Inc.

  Except…

  Except with just a couple of tweaks her job really could be dreamy. She couldn’t give up on it. Not yet. Not without one more push.

  “Toshiko, how close is the nearest Entertainment Ship?”

  A map of the skies surrounded Vi.

  “You are here.” Toshiko laughed. Whoa. Not a good sign. Computers weren’t programmed with humour. It could go wrong far too easily. One woman’s chuckle was the next woman’s nightmare. No, best stick to the facts. “You are on Space Station Watch This Space.”

  She was. Toshiko was correct. W
herever she was, Vi was literally there. The laughter was appropriate.

  “To your right is Space Station Beethoven’s Ninth, the musician’s paradise, and to your left is SS Deep Throat IX. Both are within hailing range and both could transport blank clones to the SS Watch This Space within the hour.”

  Vi snorted. She didn’t want Linda Lovelaces or Buck Longs roaming WTS. “No porn stars, computer.”

  “That’s what she said.” Joe had smeared Ricky’s white blood all over his hands and face. “That’s what she said.”

  Ricky’s lines were coming out of Joe’s mouth.

  He stood.

  Vi grabbed Ricky’s slop bucket and dashed the water across the floor. She held the bucket aloft. “I know Fing Foo,” she said. “I can turn any object into a weapon. Come at me and I’ll end you. You do not want to take me on.”

  “That’s what she said.” Joe was like a stuck record repeating the same punchline over and over. As he closed the distance between them the clone feed molded itself to his contours taking him from good-old Joe Willet to that comedian from the past.

  Ricky Gervais stood in front of her.

  In the flesh.

  Vi smashed the bucket into her friend-turned-fiend and ran like hell.

  She could hear him, stumbling and fumbling, struggling to right himself.

  Toshiko didn’t need instructions. The computer was on her side, opening doors and directing her to a safe place.

  Three floors up, winded and panting, Vi found herself back outside the bathroom where she’d stashed the maimed and slashed Mr. Darcy.

  She checked her palm to see where Ricky-Joe was. He’d remained in the clone suite, close to his source material.

  She was safe.

  At least, safe from that particular threat. She was no closer to finding her man or F☆’s cat.

  A small light went off in her mind. “Toshiko?”

  “Yes, Viola?”

  “Did you lead me here for a reason?”

  “I did.”

  “Is it the reason I’m thinking?”

  Toshiko laughed, kindly. “I can do many things, Viola, but reading your thoughts is not one of them. I can tell you your heart rate, your blood pressure, the pace of your neural activity as long as you are networked, but beyond that it would just be a guess. Computers don’t guess.”