"You have," he said, and paused. "But before I tell you, there is more information you need to know. The justice I have planned will not sound… proportional… if you do not know all the facts."
He sighed and crossed his arms. "Most people have not grasped the implications of our ability to modify human physiology so radically. This street-level trade in muscle-building with which you are so familiar is the least of the possibilities, the narrowest potential.
"Perhaps you have noticed the webbing on the back of my neck? It is not some affectation, Mr. Rix." He stood and faced the window, looking out on the small city he had created, the Open Sky empire. The flare from a rocket launching lit the morning like a second sun, spreading a warm glow throughout the office.
"Just as people have taken the recent advances in bio-engineering and transformed themselves into superhumanly strong individuals, so have some of us harnessed the new techniques to enhance our cognitive abilities. I, and a group of like-minded associates, have taken the lead in this area. We have boosted our intelligence to levels previously not seen in human history.
"This net you see under the skin on my neck is an exocortex. In brief, it is a series of processors and memory caches that is linked directly to my brain. The amount of information I can retain and process has tripled thanks to this little bit of cyborg hardware.
"There is more, of course. Just as people such as yourself have benefited from new generations of steroids and blood doping techniques, so have my associates and I benefited from a new generation of nootropics." He turned back toward Rix with the hint of a smile on his face. "Brain steroids, if you will."
The brief smile vanished, and a look of sadness overcame him. "There were eight of us, each of us dedicated to some area of science or technology that would quickly advance the human race and guide it down a constructive path. My own field of specialty you know. It was decided that at least some of us should work on our projects in the open. Since my own passion is spaceflight and developing the resources of our solar system, it was an easy decision. You can hardly launch rockets and mine asteroids in secret.
"My other associates work in other areas. One is developing molecule-sized robots that can break down industrial pollution into harmless component elements. Another is on a grand quest to enhance early childhood nutrition in some of the lost corners of the world, and thus nudge global mean IQ a bit higher."
He fell silent.
"You mentioned there were eight of you," Rix said quietly. "Past tense."
"Yes. My great friend Allen Venway was one of the eight. He was the most brilliant of us all, with the most far-reaching vision. And Vinicius Cunha killed him."
Rix waited for Rohm to continue.
His face hardened into a mask of anguish. "Cunha's crime is almost unspeakably evil. Do you know what Allen's specialty was? What kind of projects he was working on?"
Rohm told him.
Rix was silent for a long moment.
"I had no idea we were that far along."
"We would not have been a fraction this far along without Allen. And his work is unfinished. Even I struggle with the concepts involved. There may not be another human being on Earth who can pick up his work and complete it."
Rohm sat wearily in his chair. "His punishment should be commensurate with his crime. Therefore I have devised a singularly unique punishment."
He slid a large, flat E-Thing across the table. Rix picked it up and started reading. It was a detailed outline of the exotic manner in which Vinicius Cunha was to be executed.
Rix put down the E-Thing and said nothing for several minutes. He slowly got up and walked over to Rohm's side of the desk and stopped by the window, watching the bustling spaceport below. "For all the leading-edge technology involved, for all the resources and brainpower that has gone into this, it's still nothing more than vigilante justice. People would have recognized it as such in this very land 200 years ago," he said, nodding to the dry landscape beyond the glass.
"I have obviously considered this," Rohm said testily. "I see it from another perspective. People are being remade in new ways. We are becoming greater as a species — trans-human was the term in fashion once. Many of the old rules made for more primitive times will not apply. The potential crimes are greater, and the potential punishments should match. And in this matter, I will not wait for trailing societies to catch up."
He eyed Rix, trying to gauge his reaction. "You have had to make a difficult choice before, Mr. Rix, regarding which side to take when a great nation tore itself apart. But the world is not finished changing. It is time once again to choose a side."
Rix looked the strange man in the eye. "Once I agreed to catch Vinicius Cunha and turn him over to you I made my choice. Now I just have to live with it."
21
Vinicius Cunha awoke.
At first he couldn't place the unfamiliar feeling that commanded his body. He attempted to move his arms, then his legs. They barely responded. With great effort, he moved his head to the side, but he still wasn't sure what he was viewing. He closed his eyes, and concentrated.
Weakness. That was what he was feeling. It had been so long since he had felt a lack of physical strength that he had forgotten the sensation. He no longer felt the power of his limbs, the sure power he had taken for granted for so long.
There was more. Besides the debilitating feebleness, he slowly realized he was constrained somehow, not in control of his own movements. But even beyond that, something wasn’t right.
He forced himself to concentrate. This time, he knew, he was truly awake. And he was… floating? Yes, floating against straps of some sort, and as he came to that realization he also became aware of his stomach drifting on its own independent course within his body.
He broke through to full consciousness with a sudden rush, thrashing against his bonds.
His head twitched frantically from side to side. With wide eyes he tried to take in his surroundings. Impressions quickly echoed in his mind, jumbled thoughts.
Small. Trapped.
The nightmare again! I've been here, seen this place before, but when?
It felt to him as if he had been here for a long time, but how was that possible? He had snatched glimpses of this metal room from rare near-waking moments — so few of them, spread out over a long time.
How long have I been here?
Then he saw what looked like a window on the wall to his left. Was it a window? There was nothing but black on the other side...
And then he saw the small lights, twinkling against the infinite blackness. The room he was confined in rotated slowly, and he saw the yellowish arc of an unfamiliar world move across the frame of the window.
His mouth moved wordlessly. A thin sheen of sweat rose to his forehead. Consciousness slipped from his grasp once more.
Some time later he awoke again, this time to the sound of an insistent chime. His eyes dully followed the sound to its source, and when he found it, a flash of light locked onto his gaze. The image of a face fluidly coalesced in front of him. Vinicius almost recognized the man, but could not pull the name from his memory. Someone famous. Someone he should know.
The man spoke.
"And so, Vinicius Cunha, at last you meet your destiny. Do you know me? It occurs to me that you may not, that you may know nothing of the world beyond your own little steroid business. So let me introduce myself. I am the man you have wronged. You have stolen from me, and murdered my friends and employees. I am Alexander Rohm.
"And you? You are aboard the Alamogordo Sunrise on your way to the punishment for your crimes. If this is frightening to you, take solace in this — you are being accorded a singular honor by the method of your execution, an honor you emphatically do not deserve.
"You must be confused — allow me to explain. One of your victims at the Forward Aeronautics facility was Allen Venway, a man you viciously killed without a thought. But Venway was no ordinary man. He was a man of unparalleled genius, a man on th
e cusp of delivering astounding gifts to mankind. He was a man who was about to deliver the stars themselves to us.
"Do you understand how far away it is to even the nearest star? The unfathomable distances that we call light years? And how difficult it would be to travel beyond our solar system? For all of human history it has been, frankly, an impossible dream. But Venway's research was leading him to a breakthrough in faster-than-light technology. We as a species were on the verge of being able to spread to the stars, settle new worlds, break free from our lone little homeworld.
"But he is gone. And there is no one else on earth capable of continuing his research.
"Now do you see it? Can you conceive of the enormity of your crime? You have stolen the stars from mankind."
Vinicius Cunha stared at the man's image, unable to turn away. He could not tell if he was hallucinating or if what he was seeing was really happening. The capsule he was trapped in began vibrating slightly. The large world beyond the window grew larger and filled the view.
"Since you have stolen a great spark of intelligence from the world, your execution shall at least provide a modicum of knowledge in return. Vinicius, you are about to be the first human being to land on the surface of Venus. And by doing so, you will answer some very interesting questions.
"Which will kill you first? Will the intense atmospheric pressure crush you? Standing on the surface will feel like being a kilometer under one of Earth's oceans. Or will the extreme heat be your end? That would be my guess. At the spot where you'll be landing, the temperature is over 800 degrees Fahrenheit. But perhaps the sulfuric acid in the atmosphere will melt the flesh from your bones and bring your life to its fatal conclusion. This should be all the more fascinating given your Modified physique."
Vinicius was lucid enough to realize this was a recording, but still could not shake the feeling that the man was in the capsule with him, conversing in real-time. Rohm's eyes bored in to him, unrelenting.
"I'll be watching."
Vinicius slipped back into unconsciousness, but the increasing vibration of the capsule jostled him awake once more. He looked out and saw flames flying past the window, and the deep night of space give way to the yellow atmosphere of Venus. Gravity pressed in on him.
After some time — he had no idea how much — there was a sharp jolt and the acceleration slowed dramatically. As the capsule swung in the wind, he could see the parachutes above him through the window. He drifted for an interminably long time and then felt a shuddering impact as the capsule reached land.
The bands that held him constrained fell away.
And then the hatch slid open and all of Venus poured inside.
Vinicius Cunha screamed.
The End
Acknowledgments
Heartfelt thanks to my wife Robyn, who supported my writing efforts and made me believe I could actually finish this book, especially during periods when I wasn't so sure it would all come together.
Also due a hearty handshake and a slap on the back is my good friend Rob Reaser. Rob was working on his own debut novel at the same time I was tapping out Rules of Force. His encouragement and advice kept the motivational fires burning, and his editing skills were indispensable to the final product.
Special thanks also go out to Mark Potter, who created the outstanding cover for this book. Few things are as gratifying for a writer as seeing just the right cover teamed with his novel.
Rules of Force is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Steve Statham
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Published in the United States by Statham Communications LLC
http://www.stevestatham.com
Cover design by Mark Potter Studios
http://www.markpotter.com
About the author
Steve Statham began his writing career in the car magazine world, pounding out stories about automobiles with too much horsepower. Steve's youthful interest in fast cars eventually led to a 20-year career in automotive journalism. He is the author and primary photographer of 13 non-fiction books on automotive subjects, and was the editor of Musclecar Enthusiast magazine for many years. He has had hundreds of feature, technical and travel articles published in dozens of magazines.
But always, perched on the nightstand, were battered paperbacks by Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Robert Heinlein, J.R.R. Tolkien, Larry Niven, Robert Silverberg, Dan Simmons, Vernor Vinge and others. Steve vowed to one day join their ranks.
Rules of Force is the first book in Steve's Connor Rix series of science-fiction thrillers.
For more on Steve, visit his website at:
http://www.stevestatham.com
Also by Steve Statham
Available on Kindle
Book 2 of the Connor Rix Chronicles
Levers of Power
Book 3 of the Connor Rix Chronicles
Monsters and Angels
Presidential Muscle Cars
Connor Rix Chronicles 1: Rules of Force Page 18