Nara

by M. L. Buchman

  “Look, Bryce. I dragged your sorry ass off the beach because I felt sorry for it being attached to such a hopeless case. Took pity on you because you looked somehow familiar.”

  Bryce had heard that too many times to react any longer. His parent’s low profile during the James Wirden years had helped him pass unrecognized. But something was nudging at Perry’s memory, even though it still refused to surface.

  “If you don’t get your shit together, I’m gonna throw that sorry ass right back out along with all the crap it’s attached to. Things are rough enough as it is and I don’t need this kind of shit from you or anyone else.”

  “Yeah, sure Perry. We all know how rough you had it.”

  Suddenly the massive hand was around his throat and his feet were having trouble finding the floor. He attempted a breath with no success. Perry’s piston-strong arm was going to drive him straight through the metal freezer door and into a frozen hell.

  “You little shit. You have no idea what it was like out there in the jungle. Fuckin’ exterminatin’ the human race. And you! You!”

  Perry’s fist started to close as Bryce’s vision tunneled. The kitchen, so full moments before was suddenly empty except for his feeble croaking, the soft bubbling of a tureen of soup, conch chowder by the smell, and Perry’s eyes boring holes into his.

  “Shit!”

  Suddenly the pressure was gone and Bryce slid down into a crumpled heap like an old, damp dishtowel thrown at the wall.

  “Dammit! I swore I wasn’t going to do that shit ever again.” Perry walked to the soup, gave it an absent-minded stir and strode. “Get up, goddamn it.”

  Bryce tried. He really did, but someone had removed his knees, perhaps his femurs as well and replaced them with a low grade of gelatin.

  Perry’s massive paw grabbed the front of his floral print shirt and dragged him back upward, but he stopped when Bryce’s feet were flat on the floor. Perry let go and he almost fell again, but the cool metal behind him supported him once he got his Jello knees locked.

  “Sorry, Perry.” His voice was little more than a croak. “I didn’t know.”

  Perry returned to his soup.

  “I’m sorry,” he told the broad back.

  The stirring spoon hesitated for a moment, “Me too, kid. Me too.”

  Bryce lay back, experimenting with how badly it hurt to swallow. A door creaked open from the main room of the restaurant. Jimmi peeked her head in for a moment. Her wide eyes revealed her surprise at Bryce’s continued presence. Or perhaps it was his continued existence that so startled her. Deciding the coast was clear, she signaled those behind her to follow her in. The kitchen slowly returned to its dinner prep activity, though it was certainly more subdued.

  Perry was going to stir that soup to death if Bryce didn’t do something. He crossed over to the sink and ran a glass of water.

  “I think you found a cure for the common hangover. Though I can’t say that I recommend it much.” He swallowed the water and it stung sharply as it worked its way down his damaged throat.

  “Heh!” Perry grunted before taking a taste of the soup from the broad wooden spoon. “Just needs a bit more aging.”

  He slapped a hand on Perry’s shoulder, but it wasn’t his gesture. It was his parent’s. But it was the right thing for Perry. He nodded slowly as he dropped the spoon into the sink and turned to slap him back. If the sink edge hadn’t been there, Perry would have knocked him right down the drain.

  “Got a job for you tonight.” It was his back to business voice but his eyes were still looking off to one side. “Weirdest damn order I’ve ever taken. They reserved the whole back deck and requested you by name as the chef. Then they only ordered three meals, all just steak and lobster. The steaks are medium well, rare, and chef’s choice. How’s that for strange?”

  “The whole deck and orders for three? Yep, that’s weird, but I got it covered.” He turned for the fridge to pull out the main ingredients.

  “Now if they wanted a good cook, I’d’ve sent Jimmi here. She’d show ‘em a thing or two.”

  Did Perry know she used to make her living as a stripper? He didn’t think so, but you never knew. Bryce had learned a lot about her while their fling lasted. But she reminded Bryce Sr. too much of his second mistress, and it just wasn’t a good combo. She also couldn’t cook her way out of a potato sack.

  Perry winked at him and turned back to check on the two prep chefs. Jimmi glanced at Bryce and then turned back to her pots with a renewed fervor as her ears lit up bright pink. And he’d bet it was anger not a blush. She’d assumed Bryce had revealed her past to her boss, even if he hadn’t.

  Thanks a bunch, Perry. Thanks a whole bunch.

  He chose the best steaks, fresh in from New Zealand, one of the only places they still grazed beef rather than raising it in a vat, and the three largest Aussie lobsters. He kicked the fridge shut as he balanced them all on a broad platter. A couple of mangos completed his tray and he headed out to the deck kitchen.

  Ludicrous to let one party reserve the whole broad palmwood expanse. There were going to be a lot of pissed tourists tonight. Folks jetsetted to Bikini Atoll to dive the wrecks, dare each other to swim Shark Alley, and eat at Perry’s. He’d made the place one of the planet’s hottest tourist destinations. Damn. Must have cost a bloody fortune to reserve the whole deck.

  Good for Perry. Didn’t affect Bryce one way or the other. He was happy just to be out here cooking. He dumped a scoop of ice over the meat platter and set it aside before lighting off the grill. While it came up to temperature, he ferreted a head of garlic out of the long braid that hung from one of the canopy supports.

  As his hands slipped into chef’s mode and began prepping the food, he looked about. The back of his blue-and-white striped canopy blocked the view of the ocean where he’d lost Connie, which was just fine with him. Across the atoll a scattering of palm trees and the iridescent blue lagoon rippled in the near-evening heat. The view was barely blocked by the glass-paneled rail. He was floating in the air thirty feet above the central lagoon.

  It’d been a year since Connie had been blown out of his life. He hadn’t dived since. Even though the lagoon held nearly a dozen wrecks sunk as a part of the nuclear testing after the second world war. The Cobalt test at the height of the third world war had removed half the islands, but it also had cowed the rest of the world to submit to that final flair of a corrupt and blasted United States. Parvati’s United World Front had slid into the resulting power vacuum and formed the first effective world government: a government usurped by James Wirden and Bryce Randall Stevens Sr.

  Bryce Jr. tossed the minced garlic into a small puddle of oil and pushed the pan to the coolest part of the grill, just letting it bubble along ever so slowly bringing out all that hidden sweetness. A waiter came up. Bryce studied the broad deck for a moment. He could play games as well as any rich tourist. He directed the boy to only set the best table at the far point of the deck. Leave all the other tables unset.

  The pasta was bubbling nicely when he heard the party arrive. He focused on the steaks, the outsides were just about perfectly seared. He afforded them a glance as they moved toward the table. He’d called it right. It was a very small party, with Perry himself escorting them. Odd, Perry didn’t like coming out of his kitchen much.

  And the woman, damn. Bryce had certainly entertained his fair share of splendidly shaped women, but this one was something special. If her front paid off nearly as well as the rear view, she’d rate spectacular.

  He sent three cups of Perry’s soup over with an extra garnish of fresh-sliced scallion floating on the creamy fragrant surface of the conch chowder. He finished off the fruit, slid a bed of garlic pasta into place, and dropped the steaks and lobster onto the plates.

  For another look at the lady, he’d deliver this himself. He made sure the grill was off except for a low flame un
der the crème brulée and balanced the platters along one arm.

  Her long white-blond hair was swept to one side revealing perfectly tanned shoulders. The fine straps of the sundress and the broad expanse of bare back showed that clothes were never a part of her sunbathing.

  “Medium-well, for the lady I presume.” He slid the plate into place and appreciated the view her low-cut attire offered. Too bad she was spoken for. Her skin was perfect. Maybe her escort wasn’t overly attentive.

  He moved around to the man’s left. There was something familiar about her profile. His mouth kept working on automatic as something surged about below the surface of his mind.

  “Rare for the gentleman. Should I put the last plate under the warmer for your final guest?” The memory surged to the surface just as the man spoke.

  “Just set it down and eat, boy.” The man sliced into the steak, and the red juices, just barely past being blood, flowed from the wound.

  Bryce nearly dropped the third plate as he fell into the vacant seat across from his parent and James Wirden’s widow. He’d been too busy watching the woman to focus on the man.

  The Old Bastard stuffed a piece of steak into his mouth and chewed the barely cooked meat with delight.

  “Splendid, boy. Just splendid. You got it dead on.”

  Bryce looked down at his own plate. His piece of dead cow lay in the midst of his plate. A single cut and his own life’s blood would pour out across the table. Without thinking, he’d cooked it exactly the same way, Chicago rare, though he only ate meat well done. He’d never be able to eat this.

  “Hello, Bryce.” Celia Wirden’s gentle voice was more jolting in this impossible setting than a lasgun blast in a children’s choir practice.

  Perry. That’s what he needed. Perry would slap him and he’d wake from this nightmare. A broad ring of henchmen encircled the deck. By the restaurant doors, Perry sat on a lone chair. If he’d looked angry before, he was now a cross between a rabid dog and a viper sent from hell. But the brute squad that surrounded him meant that Perry would have to kill Bryce later rather than immediately.

  He took a glass of water and gagged it down to try and buy time to calm his nerves. Before he could set the glass back down, he knew his mistake. The Old Bastard had dropped his fork and was grinning from ear to ear. Celia offered him a worried, wavering expression. It took her powerful slap of beauty and blurred it with a layer of sadness.

  Bryce managed to make it to the rail before puking his guts out, but his knees failed him and half of his stomach’s contents spewed down the glass panels. And Perry was gonna kill him? Stupid, Bryce. Perry wasn’t going to have the chance.

  He lay in his own vomit until two of the goon-squad hauled his limp body into the air. Decking. All he could see was decking. And the Old Bastard’s shoes.

  “Bring him along. You finish your meal, dear. We have some business to catch up on.” The Old Bastard’s shoes walked out of his field of vision, and then the palmwood decking began passing by. He wanted to sleep, so that he could wake up somewhere else, but the drug wasn’t helping. His body was numb and if his heart were still responding it would be breaking the two-minute mile rather than thudding lethargically away like slow surf on a quiet day.

  Maybe it would be easier to die. He watched the long flight of stairs he’d ascended just an hour ago without a glance, now pass by. The thumping sound might be his feet, might be his knees banging on each step. If he was dead, at least he wouldn’t have any more battles with the memories in his head. That part of it might be nice.

  But he’d miss the other parts. He’d miss Connie. He’d miss Perry. He’d miss all the pretty ladies who had graced his body with theirs. He’d miss cooking out on the main deck. And he’d like to see his mother one more time. Tears burned his eyes and dripped off the end of his nose leaving little drops of saltwater on the sand.

  The next tears fell on a steel ramp, and the next on the plush interior of his father’s personal flitter. The deep red rugs gave way to marble walls as he was tossed back into a chair. Marble in a flitter, now there was an experiment in the absurd. But the Old Bastard’s flying office exuded strength and power. He’d designed it that way. Bryce remembered doing it.

  Straps were laid across his legs, arms, and chest. He wanted to ask why they felt it necessary to pin his numb body into place, but he couldn’t. In his enforced silence, Bryce then decided that he didn’t want to know. There were some things he definitely didn’t want to know.

  A skullcap was slid onto his head, and, out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Old Bastard. Similarly strapped. Similarly helmeted. A nest of cables came out of his headpiece, and ran off to outside of his field of vision.

  His body surged against the straps. Despite the drug, he was being thrown about like a tissue in a hurricane. One leg smashed back as another kicked forward against the straps. A fingernail ripped off as he tried to clench the chair arm. He saw the blood, but felt none of the pain.

  It couldn’t begin to match the agony that was inside his head. James Wirden’s death. Melissa Chang, torn asunder under his own hands, and his pleasure, hard, erotic pleasure, as cameras observed Celia finishing the job for him. Even the old man was disgusted by his own reaction. A reaction that hadn’t abated until he’d pumped it into Celia later that same night.

  His control of the WEC through threats, very personal, inescapable threats. And his use of the WEC troops for his genetic cleansing. Hundreds of millions of crimes, soon a billion, no less heinous. No less personal. And his belief that humanity would arise better for shedding off its genetically flawed individuals in rivers of blood.

  And the crimes ranged back in time. Back to when he and a few others were struggling their way upward through the WEC troops’ ranks. He and Perry.

  Bryce finally managed to fling himself against something hard enough to knock himself out so that he didn’t have to watch what the Old Bastard and Perry did. So that he didn’t have to watch the Old Man sated from Melissa Chang’s body then Celia’s, begin to twist and warp her. Or feel such deep satisfaction and a redoubled powerful surge of a second arousal as she wept, and he took her again as the tears fell.

  No, he’d face all that later.

  # # #

  Bryce came to as they dropped him back in his chair. He was only vaguely aware of a silken hand brushing his cheek briefly and then he was alone.

  Perry thudded into the chair across from him. Three platters were arranged, one untouched, one rearranged but uneaten, and one cleaned of steak and lobster. Fresh memories shuddered below the surface, but if he remained numb, if he didn’t move, or think, perhaps the sickness in his mind would stay below the lagoon-placid surface.

  “Shit, kid! If I’d known who the bastard was, I’d have killed him with my bare hands, but haven’t seen him in near half a century. Didn’t know him. At least now I know who you remind me of. Shit!”

  Again a young Bryce Sr. and a younger Perry came to his mind’s eye and again he cast it aside. He just didn’t want to know.

  Perry’s large hand shoved a damp bar towel in his face.

  “Maybe you do have it worse than I did, all I was doing was slogging through the swamps with a genetic test kit and a lasgun. I still can’t believe he let me go.”

  Sergeant Major Perry Wolverton had been at the heart of the Old Bastard’s first death squad. The one responsible for the death of 200 million and an entire island nation in a single stroke. That much slipped through Bryce’s mental barricades.

  And the World Premier had not let Perry go. There were trigger phrases buried deep in Perry’s brain, ones that would bring one of the world’s most successful killers back to duty if needed. And Bryce now knew all those codes but it didn’t matter. He was becoming his parent. And soon his father’s pet scientists would be able to totally suppress any personality traits and memories that didn’t belong to the Old B
astard. He could see in his memories that they were close.

  What an odd way to die.

  He would simply forget himself.

  Chapter 7

  Suz leaned over the parapet and gazed down at the breakers beating on the reef below. Pounding this Bahamian island as it had for thousands of years and would do for as many more until it won. Until the exact spot where the World Premier’s life had been taken was ground back into sand beneath the Atlantic’s surface.

  Meek Suzie would have shuffled back inside.

  Suz continued to watch the waves. She always felt unclean after researching her father’s past. There was a thickness and texture to it, like a diseased wool had been used for the warp of the loom and all the other wool must touch it and be tainted by it.

  She located researchers who had lost whole families, similar to the unregistered woman in the jungle. Suz made sure that their careers became easier. One landed a job she’d applied for three times, to study Arctic habitats. Another specialized in fruit trees. Another was a wildlife biologist fascinated with birds of prey.

  It wasn’t until she stumbled onto a daughter of one of Bryce’s first death squad mates, that Suz began to see the bigger picture. The woman should have made Captain of something more important than a lunar shuttle with her record and seniority. Perhaps she, just as Suz, didn’t have the sense of self-worth that was needed. Suz managed to get her slated for the Mars run.

  Bryce’s pogroms weren’t just cleansing the genetic profile of the human race. They were doing something more insidious, they were poisoning the spirit of all that they touched, and by now that number was vast. If Brycie hadn’t placed the word “free” in her mind and left it there to nest, Suzie might still be the cowed little girl merely trying to survive.

  She curled her toes in her slippers, those same old, worn duck-slippers that he’d bought for her with his first allowance. They were part of a disguise now. Part of the cloak she wore in the house, but no longer in her heart.