Gus tried to scream. But having no lips, tongue, facial muscles, or larynx left, no sound came... plus, he was submerged in a thick blue liquid.
***
The Kansler sat in the House bar, feet reclining over a woman's back, while another woman massaged his tense shoulders, and a third woman held his drink. The Kansler bit his lip; he was getting frustrated, and he hated it. A half-dozen other guests - all men, all fabulously wealthy - sat and sipped their drinks, with vacant, restless expressions on their faces. v "Is Nica ready yet?" he asked out loud, just a hint of menace in his voice.
"As I said," the Madam interjected patiently, "she is still recuperating. "It should take at least another week before she is ready to... entertain you again, sir. Meanwhile, we have surgically altered another of our ladies to resemble Nica perfectly, to keep -"
"That trick won't fool me," the Kansler snapped. "Patch her up. I want Nica in fifteen minutes, or I'll call it quits."
The Madam's facial color turned a brief red, then white. But she smiled professionally.
"I'll see what I can do."
And she left the lounge. Another visitor in the bar, a wellknown arms manufacturer from Earth, waved hello to the Kansler.
"Good evening. How's business?" the middle-aged politician-commander asked, no interest in his voice.
"Couldn't be better!" the other man laughed, drunk with power and stimulants. "And now the people's voted me an official Friend of Mother Earth, too! How I love the adulation of the crowds. I remember in my youth, my elders told me their forefathers were afraid to show off their wealth and power... ha! Say, are you still married to that videostar, what's-her-name?"
The Kansler frowned: "You need a memo-refresh. I divorced her and gave her the kids years ago."
"Oh - sorry. Still, having a good time, eh, Kans-"
The man stopped and turned pale, realizing he had broken a taboo of the establishment. The Kansler slowly rose to face him down.
"You ought to take a sober-up dose now, sir. If you want a safe flight back home to your family."
The Kansler walked away from the trembling arms manufacturer, toward the inner rooms of The House. He would not wait a minute longer to mete out his pent-up frustration - preferably on a defenseless, non-anaesthetized target.
***
Several hours had passed since Boulder Pi's initial command to begin the NP Process. What remained of Gus Thorsen was the core being: his bones, brain, spine, nerve threads, and eyes. The B-Redux colony, a specially designed strain of flesh-eating bacteria, had removed the rest. Boulder Pi and his team took stimulants to stay alert and continued working their consoles, working on their re-design of the human form.
"Careful now with the remotes... if you break off one single nerve ending, we'll waste days on restoring it."
"Holographic body grid?"
"On."
"Adjusting for new proportions."
"Boulder Pi, sir, why did you change the body grid like that?"
"Don't worry about that for now. Stretch out the loose nerve tendrils... gently now..."
"Boulder, sir?"
"Yes?"
"A cluster of threads have floated into a knot over there... should we untie it now, or remove the bones first?"
"Wait... hold everything... let me take over the controls, Linda... I'll untie the threads right now."
The personnel held their collective breath while Boulder Pi connected his console to the remote-controlled robot arms inside the tank, and began to untangle a small knot of loose nerve threads.
Inside the tank, Gus was assaulted by the strange sensation that his legs were wound up together like rubber bands, and someone tried to pry them apart with red-hot pokers. It seemed to last forever, but ended abruptly - and he felt nothing again.
The team continued its work on Gus; his bones, vertebrae and cranium shell were carefully removed and funneled over into an adjacent section, where they were scanned into 3-D models for an entirely new skeleton. All that remained in the central tank were the tiny bones of his inner ear that still functioned. Gus could hear - just barely.
Boulder Pi let out a sigh, and said out loud: "Great work, people! Now for the tricky part... pull out the inner ear system, and insert the new ear system to speed-grow onto the stumps."
"Going... going... gone." With a subjective thud ringing through his mind, Gus lost all sense of natural hearing.
"Ear replacement systems in place."
"Neural welding?"
"I'm on it... this'll just take a few hours." Boulder Pi yawned demonstratively.
"Good... okay, isolate and store the eyeballs. We'll mold the new ones tomorrow. Activate the magnetic field, start Stage Yellow and leave the plastifier running. See you all tomorrow."
"Great progress, eh!"
"Goodnight!"
"See you tomorrow!"
"What a day, huh?"
"Will you stay long, Hube?"
"Naah, this'll just take a moment. Catch you on the next tube. The pub tonight?"
"Sure!"
Two small mechanical arms, with cup-shaped endings, moved from the edges of Gus's field of vision, and closed in. And he lost his eyesight.
A few minutes later, only one scientist was left on watch in the laboratory. Without previous warning, Boulder Pi re-entered the lab on his leg extensions.
"Did you forget something again, sir?" the lab man chuckled.
"I just got nervous, leaving my creation like that. Hube, I can take your shift. No problem. Go join the others at the pub."
"Thank you, sir!"
When the assistant had left, Boulder Pi stopped pretending to look tired. The crew would object, for sure. It would be easier if they were confronted with the truth "after the fact" - and the responsibility would lie squarely on Boulder Pi, who in turn laid the blame on the Kansler.
"Orders are orders," the little man mumbled to the mass of floating nerves and brain tissue in the central tank. "You won't feel, hear or see a thing, though, if that's any comfort... and I'll store away what I cut off, somewhere the Kansler won't find it. One day, if we're lucky, you can get your mojo back... sorry, Colonel. Orders are orders."
And with the flick of a remote-controlled knife, the living nervous system of Gus Thorsen was neutered.
***
The Kansler emerged from the private rooms of The House - showered, tired and red-faced. He had some time to sleep until Boulder Pi's team began their second shift, and he wanted to be there and oversee the process. The Madam, looking sleepy, came to say goodbye.
"You've had a comfortable visit, sir?" she asked formally.
"Yes."
"Sir... the management wish to make you aware, that your rough behavior is starting to breach the house rules. We advise you to show a little restraint next time."
"She'll live."
"If you say so," the Madam replied, with bitterness audible in her voice.
"Your PP are in the bank," he grunted and headed straight for the exit passage. Payment was done through a network of middlemen, never personally.
The Madam's face seemed to sag as the exit door shut, and her years showed behind the youth treatments. Only when the last airlock door had clicked shut, she muttered: "You murdering bastard."
5: The Newborn
Gus became aware that he had eyes again, and his vision returned. And his hearing, too... only too much, too loud.
He tried to open his eyes, but something unexpected happened. His eyelids flickered open-shut, open-shut, much faster than humanly possible. He made a mental effort to keep his eyelids open, and got a clear view of his surroundings. The body tank, now a blurred but frightening memory, stood in another end of the wide, low laboratory in which he sat. Focusing, he noticed that he was sitting in a partitioned section of the lab, surrounded by a panorama of ten-inch glass walls.
Another odd thing occurred when Gus focused his eyesight. He could immediately read a small signpost five feet away, with incredible sharpness. Hadn
't he been thinking about buying contact lenses before the accident? He couldn't even afford a simple cornea transplant.
Several people stood on the other side of the glass walls: lab-coated men and women, staring at him with fascinated eyes, laughing and gesturing as if Gus was some kind of zoo exhibit. In one corner stood a pale, sturdy midget on a set of leg extensions; Gus wondered what a mutant from the Outer Planets was doing among a group of Earthmen.
Then he spotted the Kansler, in his trademark gray uniform and cap - the potato-nosed, confident face that dominated so many newscasts and video images on Earth. All these people seemed to move and talk too slowly, as if their life functions had halted almost to a standstill. Gus felt embarrassed in the famous Kansler's presence; it was the first time he had seen him in person. Was he supposed to salute him? Gus moved to stand up, and...
An alarm went off, when Gus instantly pivoted off his seat like a squash ball off a wall, and crashed into the ceiling. The reinforced concrete cracked like an eggshell. He bounced back down, hit the floor with a heavy thud, spun uncontrollably and smashed into one glass wall. A spider-web of cracks exploded across the surface layer of the glass - but the other three layers held. Gus stood to his feet - and against his will he shot up again, punching a second hole in the ceiling. He hung by his head through the hole for a moment, then fell down and landed his feet. Dust and debris rained down upon his large jet-black shoulders. Gus shook his head, expecting blood and pain.
No blood came, no sweat, no tears. The pain he had felt at the impact faded off in a moment.
"Now wait... just wait a minute... " he told himself, barely noticing that his voice sounded deeper than usual.
He managed to stand absolutely still, and slowly turned his head to take a second look at another puzzling detail. Why were his shoulders so oversized? He seemed to be dressed in some ridiculous tight bodysuit, completely black - except for a single yellow stripe that ran across his chest, and down the front of his left leg. Only his face and forehead remained bare, and seemed unchanged on the surface. A look in a mirror revealed that two large black bulges had replaced his ears.
"What is this?" he asked the onlookers, raising his voice to a shout - it, at least, stayed within normal boundaries.
Through a loudspeaker, the heavily accented voice of the Kansler was carried into the partition where Gus stood. He heard it spoken at normal speed, yet it sounded too slow in a way he could not define...
"This is you, Colonel Clarke. The new you. It took us a month to complete, cost billions, but we made it, like we promised - you are all you could ever be."
An involuntary reflex made Gus look down at himself, and he saw what was missing. It had to be a dream, he told himself. That's it, I bought a dream-vid and fell asleep with it running. Any moment now it'll shut off.
"Come on... shut it off... where's that bloody abort function?" he said, puzzling the assembled scientists and engineers.
"He thinks he's stuck in an ordinary simulation," Boulder Pi remarked. "Why would Clarke deny the reality of what he himself volunteered to? Isn't that odd?"
"It's the shock. I'll talk to him," the Kansler growled. "Everybody out, get out, I need to have a private talk with the Colonel. You too, Boulder - out! Shut off all surveillance!"
Alone, the two men faced each other. Gus kept concentrating on not moving a muscle. It was more than just the low lunar gravity, he understood now - something felt different about him, as if his limbs were stuffed with tightly coiled springs. All sensations were too sharp, too detailed, played too slowly.
"You must be very confused right now, Colonel, but trust me - you're not the first one. Remember what we told you about your predecessor. She lived - and so will you."
"This is all a great mistake, sir. I am not a colonel -"
"Quiet! Listen. Whoever you think you are does not matter, because you are much, much more than you ever were. Stronger, faster - and, if you learn well, smarter too. But such power comes at a cost. You have shouldered a great responsibility. This experiment is our last, best hope for peace, for a safe Solar System for our children. You can do it, with the right training. You can win this war and save the Earth. Mankind will be eternally grateful to you, and you will know it - because in this new form, you can live forever. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"But I'm not Colonel Clarke... you've got the wrong man! You must find -"
" Two men , who perfectly resembled Clarke, were found in the wreckage after the attempt on his life. One was blown to pieces, beyond saving. The other man was you... badly injured, but miraculously alive. It was my decision to seize the moment, and proceed with the planned transformation immediately, before the public started to worry that Clarke was too injured to follow through."
The Kansler's glassy eyes focused on Gus's eyes - which were no longer made of living tissue. The cyborg's irises shrank in a perfectly lifelike manner.
"It doesn't matter who you were, son. What matters now is that the people of Earth thinks that Colonel Clarke, the perfect candidate I chose, is alive and can follow through. Do we understand each other? Do you understand like I do the meaning of duty, of serving our beloved Mother Earth?"
The Kansler's speech had an electrifying effect on Gus. He desperately wanted things to make sense, and he wanted to do what was right.
"I understand," Gus said after a time. "How... how badly injured was I when you picked me up?"
The Kansler looked straight into Gus's eyes and stated, unflinchingly: "Some parts of you we were unable to save. I'm sorry." So am I , thought Gus, so am I.
"Can I talk to my friends back on Earth?"
The Kansler just shook his head.
"No, I guess not. I... I have a dog..."
"We can get you a new one, no problem. Or a synthetic one."
"I mean, my dog. He was with me when... when..." Gus shut his eyes, and waited for tears. His eyes remained completely dry. The Kansler had expressly asked for that design feature. After a minute, Gus looked up, and his face - if it was still his own - was a mask of grief.
"What should I do? All I know is boxing."
"It's a start. I shall supervise your training program here in the lunar complex. Once your training is complete, you will meet the public and visit Earth."
"I feel thirsty. Is there any drink here?"
The Kansler seemed puzzled for a moment, and wished Boulder Pi had been present to explain the technical details. Not one particle of flesh, blood or bone remained inside the hulking black shape that stood before him - only a perfect mold of a brain and nervous system, made directly on the original, which had been dissolved in the process. The result was, and the Kansler believed in it, a continued but altered existence of the original consciousness.
"Your sensations of thirst and hunger are just ghost reflexes. You can eat and drink, but you cannot digest it, or taste it quite the way you once did. Now you feed on pure energy."
"How?"
"The black surface layer of your outer skin contains a receptor membrane, part of a system which converts heat and sunlight into electricity. The energy is stored in superconductor rings inside your chest. You speak without breathing, for you have no lungs."
"I am a... robot?" Gus exclaimed, thinking of the pugilist robot that he had sparred with on the day of the accident. The comparison was absurd; he didn't feel like plastic and metal at all.
"A cyborg. Synthetic man. Whatever. Boulder Pi can explain it better. Do we have an agreement? You accept that you are now serving in the Fleet, and will not voice public doubts about your previous identity?"
"And if I did?"
"Your friends and kin are bound to think you died in the explosion. And even if they should recognize your face, could your life ever return to what it was? What is there to return to, if this war is lost? The enemy threatens all of us, also your friends. You, as I do, have a duty to protect them."
Gus thought about it for what seemed to him half an hour. Yet, when he checked the w
all chronometer, less than a minute had passed. He missed his dog terribly.
"Okay. I'll do what you want, if it's for the good of Earth."
"I knew I could trust you, the moment I saw you. Welcome to the Fleet, Argus-A."
"Say what?" Gus asked, frowning with disbelief.
"A codename the Marketing department came up with. I wanted to call you simply 'Clarke', but... "
Gus shook his head, and it jerked spastically from side to side; this loss of self-control infuriated him.
"We'll start the next day-shift with basic coordination training," the Kansler told him. The whole experiment could still fail, and the thought of public fiasco frightened the potato-nosed man. "Try and get some rest. Goodnight, Colonel."
Gus found himself alone in the glass-walled partition, and spotted the bed in the corner. He reached out with one massive arm to support his balance against the nearest wall - and the palm of his hand struck out with the force of a jackhammer, punching a dent in the white-painted steel surface. He began to breathe more rapidly, only it was a delusion; he no longer had lungs, only the reflexes of his nervous system. Air was sucked into his abdomen, and was blown back out with each breath, but not a single oxygen atom was absorbed.
He clenched his teeth together, fearing he might accidentally bite off his artificial tongue, and attempted a painstakingly cautious step toward the bed - four feet away. One jerky step sent his thick foot smashing against the reinforced floor. Thinking frantically that he must relax, Gus moved his other foot. The floor took another heavy stomp, and he felt his entire frame vibrate as he struggled not to bounce up into the ceiling again. Not since he had first learned to walk 36 years ago, had he felt so awkward. Finally, he reached the bed and let himself fall onto it - too slowly, both due to the low lunar gravity and his sharpened senses. He glanced at the chronometer on the wall.
Four feet. It had taken him 1.5 hours to move that far. Gus shut his eyes and waited for sleep to come. His mind was overwhelmed. Yet he could not fall asleep. Keeping his eyes shut, he lay still and waited for the next dayshift.
Yngve, AR - The Argus Project Page 3