Yngve, AR - The Argus Project

by The Argus Project (lit)

  Argus was the only person in the room who could actually see the bullet move. His intuition, or what passed for intuition, told him the safety distance he needed to catch a bullet in mid-air.

  But he wasn't quite sure what would happen if he tried to stop the bullet with just his bare hands. He consulted his internal display and searched for anything about "stress tests" .

  The cyborg's built-in databank came up with a list of basic recommendations. His titanium-and-steel skeleton could resist so-and-so-much pressure for X seconds; the arm and leg joint motors could press Y number of tons; the outer skin would melt at Z degrees with the internal coolant still working; a sharp object could tear open the skin at such-and-such speed and pressure...

  All those data couldn't account for Argus in a moving state; catching bullets was not part of his training. He spent a whole half minute pondering the problem; the crew began to look confused, for he stood absolutely still like a statue. Argus faced the engineer and enthusiastically pointed at his own body.

  "Aim at my chest... no wait, I got a better idea. Give me that apple over there!"

  A woman in Engineering took an apple from a bowl in a food dispenser, and handed it to him. Argus placed himself in front of the sandbag, dented the bottom of the apple slightly, and put it firmly on the top of his hairless, ink-black head.

  He spread his feet a few inches, put his hands in front of his head, facing the gun, and made an urging gesture with his index finger.

  "Shoot the apple off my head. You get one try."

  Every onlooker stood very still and quiet, as the engineer with the control-headset aimed the mini-turret at the apple on the cyborg's head.

  He counted to three, and fired. The second bullet flew out from the gun-barrel, pushed by an expanding cloud of gas and smoke. Argus saw the bullet hurtle toward him very fast - he would only get one chance to try his trick.

  The BANG of the gunfire slouched after the bullet, and Argus heard the bang only after his hands had reached the apple and moved it. To the bystanders, it seemed as if Argus's hands disappeared when the bang sounded, and instantly re-appeared just above his head.

  The bullet impacted into the sandbag behind Argus's head - the apple on his head appeared to vanish in the same instant.

  "Hey," one crewman objected to the woman who had given Argus his apple, "that wasn't a real apple. Just a hologram?"

  Argus grinned with his set of white artificial teeth, and held up the apple for everyone to see. It was halfway squashed, but recognizable - and it had no bullet-hole. The off-duty crew applauded enthusiastically. He was having fun, yet couldn't help thinking that Marketing was staging the event.

  But if he pushed the limits...

  "Again, but this time aim at my forehead," Argus told the turret controller.

  He remained standing in front of the sandbag, this time with his hands behind his back, and switched to infrared sight.

  "One. Two. Three."

  H e

  w a t c h e d

  t h e

  b u l l e t

  a p p r o a c h

  o n

  t h e

  w a v e f r o n t

  o f

  h o t

  g a s

  t r a i l i n g

  b e h i n d

  i t . . .

  And he head-butted the bullet, with a force just about exceeding its impact. He felt its metal tip pierce the skin of his head, just above where the human-looking face ended, then bounce back from his steel-and-titanium skull.

  The stunned crew saw the deformed bullet bounce back three feet, before it dropped to the floor. Argus rubbed his sore forehead, and got a message from his internal display that the skin damage was being repaired.

  He looked up and saw the faces of the crewmembers: wide-eyed... and not as enthusiastic as after the "apple trick".

  He watched the colors of the heat spectrum play on their faces and in their brains. But the looks on their faces told him enough: they were all afraid of him now, not as an officer, or a walking shadow, but as the thing-to-be-feared.

  He walked past the livid, silent crew, out of the Recreation section, and headed for his own ship. Duty not merely called, it offered an escape. His next mission, though still secret to him, couldn't be more than a week away.

  ***

  The Kansler watched the surveillance records of the scene from his private quarters. He quickly ordered the Surveillance section to send a copy of the filmed event back to the Fleet's Marketing department on the Moon, then erase all records of it happening.

  This was not how he had intended the staged demonstration to end... eerily close to a suicide attempt. A trickle of sweat worked its way down the side of his head.

  The Kansler could not quite put his finger on why, but the event with the bullet was a bad omen. Still, other matters pressed for his attention.

  Admiral York's holo-presence asked him what to do about Argus's request to visit Jupiter. The Kansler seemed, for once, uncertain.

  "It could be done," he admitted to York, "but the outcome propaganda-wise... all bets are off. It could be a boon, putting a mixture of fear, respect and even - I mean it - security in the hearts of those Jovian miners who are queasy about upholding the export route to Earth. They are a funny bunch, Jovians. Could never quite figure them out. So fiercely opposing Terran authority, yet willing to do business with us. Boulder Pi is one -"

  The Kansler hesitated there, and a moment's anxiety passed across his middle-aged face like a flash of white over the ruddy skin.

  "Sir?" asked the admiral's holo-presence, waiting for him to finish the sentence.

  "This is what we do. Islington! Boulder Pi is to be shipped over to the flagship immediately. Have Control send our fastest long-distance ship to lunar orbit and pick him up."

  "But the E.S.S. Ford 's just been docked at the Ceres Station for extensive repairs, Kansler. It would take at least three months to -"

  The Kansler's face turned a shade redder, as he addressed his deputy directly.

  "I did not invite discussion! Strip the Ford of all weaponry and personnel except a skeleton crew, and send it off at top speed to get Boulder Pi. That is a Chancellor's executive order."

  "Yes, Kansler. At once."

  "As soon as we have that Jovian here, under direct supervision, we can send Argus off to Jupiter. You see what I mean, admiral? 'Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.'"

  "Do we have evidence of Boulder Pi being a security risk, Kansler? Without him, our new weapon would never have been."

  "That's not important, admiral. What matters is that Boulder seems a traitor in the eyes of the gas miners, when they see him by my side... and Argus seems to be their friend when he walks among them. Argus has a knack for mingling with the rabble, so let's make use of it."

  "Now I understand, Kansler. It's brilliant." He had learned when to grease his superior's ego. "Play the Jovians against their own, while strengthening their ties to our side. The Marketing department couldn't have come up with a better tactic."

  "I am all the tactics Marketing's got."

  20: Gone Surfin'

  Venix and Keaton, both in spacesuits, stood in the midsection of the packed cargo bay.

  Captain Foss opened one of the shuttle's cargo hatches; they saw a square of outer space fold out above their heads. They locked their boots into the sky-surfboard, and Keaton gave the captain a go-ahead signal.

  Moravia took control of the cargo-section's robotic arm; it slowly lifted the surfboard above the cargo containers, and twenty meters outside. The sun glared like a bright spotlight at the shuttle's left-hand rear. The reddish-brown disc of Mars beckoned in the distance to the right of the ship's nose, brighter but only slightly larger than the surrounding spray of point-like stars in different colors.

  This was the first trip to Mars that Venix - or Venice, in her previous existence - had experienced.

  "Is everything all right out there?" Foss asked over the com-lin
k. "I can only hear one of you breathing."

  "She's plastic, Cap," Keaton cut in. "She forgets to fake it sometimes. Bet it's her first time in a suit. At least she can't puke in it... I hate it when beginners do that."

  Venix tried to ignore Keaton's sullen hostility. She concentrated on keeping a sense of balance when the surfboard automatically folded itself out - not an easy thing, since her internal gyroscope didn't work in weightless free-fall.

  The center platform they stood on - three feet wide and fitted with control-handles on thin metal-wire rods - was dwarfed by the canopy of kevlar foil. The foil now unfurled into a curving bird-shape, eight meters wide and thirty-five meters long. This was the actual "board", on which a skysurfer could "ride" and glide through the upper atmospheric layer in the most dangerous sport ever invented.

  The mortality rate in the annual Grand Prix had risen to 10% - for every year, the "surfers" took greater risks to perform death-defying stunts and break new speed-records.

  "I've seen skysurfing contests on the screen since I was a kid," Venix told Keaton, who stood in front of her on the board, "but I can't recall ever seeing you in the top league. What's your best ranking ever?"

  Keaton did not answer for six seconds.

  "Seventy-eighth in the tryouts. Three years ago. Just fifty-seven places from the chosen Grand Prix twenty!"

  "Oh my God," she said, "I'm going to die."

  "Now, wouldn't that be a shame," he replied. "You told us you're a dancer. That's a good start, actually. Skysurfing is a lot like dancing. Your partner... is the atmosphere. It has its own style and flow, and you gotta go with that partner, go with the flow or be fried. Feed us a basic jetstream and rub the right way, Moravia."

  Moravia punched in the program for the robotic arm that held the board and simulated the uppermost atmosphere of Mars.

  Immediately, the entire board began to bob and vibrate. The simplistic gauge-plate in front of Keaton signaled their simulated atmospheric entry, gave wind velocity and their own relative speed.

  "This is what we call 'rubbing the right way' or 'going downstream'," Keaton explained, while working the control-handles. "I'm skimming the stratosphere, in the same direction as a jetstream - which, by the way, is visible when you use a surfer's special goggles. But this is a perfect vacuum, so fark that for now."

  "So 'rubbing the wrong way' means going the opposite of 'downstream'?"

  " No. Pay attention. Going downstream is the beginner's path, but it doesn't score bigtime in the Grand Prix, because your board tends to be carried by the jetstream and then takes a longer time coming down to the goal-zone. The pros have to play hard and fast, so they generally surf against the jetstream and try to... cut through it with the tip of the board. That's called 'making flames' or just 'cut' ."

  He made the canopy and the platform dip by ten degrees. The simulated temperature gauge jumped into the danger area. A small laser at Keaton's feet produced a simulated glow of heat along the curved edges of the canopy. Now the whole vehicle vibrated intensely.

  "The faster the cut, the lower the risk of burning up the board against the friction. Some sponsors have better heat-shields. A Barton board broke the cut-time record last year, by three seconds, but the rider got a few second-degree burns himself. The heat reached around the board and hit his suit. How much heat can that plastic bod of yours take, inside a surf-suit?"

  Unlike Argus, Venix lacked access to internal data on her stamina and heat resistance; whatever she knew, came from experience and instinct. Once, in her cyborg state, she had stepped into a flaming forest-grove to pick up a trapped animal. The temperature readings on her internal display had read 600 degrees at most, but she had gone virtually unscathed, with her hair wrapped in wet blankets.

  Boulder Pi had told her the synthetic hair would grow back slowly to make up for wear and tear, but she had never dared to test that promise...

  "800 degrees Centigrade outside the body, maybe more, but I don't know for how many seconds. My thermostatic system is many times more efficient than a... than organic tissue."

  "Do you lose consciousness at lower temperatures?"

  "I don't lose consciousness, ever. What about static charges? I have a bit of a problem with that. They can build up in my hair when I pass through a strong magnetic field, and short-circuit stuff that brush against it."

  "She's electrifying! " Keaton exclaimed in mock astonishment. "The board itself protects you, no farking problem. But this ain't a brand-name board. I built it from parts. It's customized by me and a few secret collaborators in the industry, to fit the Martian atmosphere. Terran manufacturers are too fixated on the Terran market, they don't care Mars has a much thinner atmosphere. My secret backers and I are convinced that our board can break into the new colonial market, if we prove that thinner boards are better for Mars."

  "So you've had it tested and approved there for the big tryouts?"

  "Not over Mars, not yet. We're gate-crashing the Martian tryouts. Sometimes it works. The penalty fee is purely symbolic anyway, so I was going to gate-crash and secure a place among the twenty contestants."

  Venix thought about it for a subjectively long second. She bore no personal grudge against Keaton; this was his big chance to break out of the unhealthy low-class smuggling trade. It wasn't right of her to ruin his life.

  But... she could see right through the thin, inflatable helmet of his semi-transparent training-suit, see the way his brain-hemispheres pulsated with heat, with conviction and passion. There was no doubt in there, no chaotic patterns of self-delusion or madness, no darkness in the frontal lobes. He deserved a chance. If it failed, she would simply have to go in the cargo shipments that were dropped over Mars.

  Only his heart worried her. She couldn't quite make it out through all the layers of fat around it, but it seemed swollen and out of shape. And its rhythm... she could hear it beating over the helmet radio with her acute synthetic ear membranes... sounded out of sync.

  The man in front of her might not know or admit it, but Venix knew now: this might be his very last chance to be in the contest.

  "Keaton - I could change my plan. You do the tryouts, not me, and show them that your board works. Then I take your place in the big race, and do the fake crash-and-burn to cover my escape. Once they find out you had a replacement, pretend you were injured or something, and claim the replacement was anonymous. "In any case, you were acting under protest, so you go free. You may not win the Grand Prix, but you'll make a name for yourself, make a good amount of hits. I think your backers and crew would agree it's a fair enough offer." Keaton turned about and glowered at her perfectly formed face, sharply outlined in the airless sunlight.

  "You're taking a big risk, 'cybor-girl'. I could still fail the tryouts, burn the board and go splat. Then you have no cover. No place in the big race."

  "I can read your mind. You seem to know what you're doing. Now show me how to make a fast cut."

  The rotund, bearded man turned grave, measuring her sincerity, then nodded. "Typical Venusian, like the captain said. Moravia! Wake up. Let's run the expert simulation."

  "We've got plenty of time, man. Why the hurry?" the crewman asked from inside the shuttle.

  "Because me and this sulfur-breathing surfer chick, we're going for the gold. We'll show those Barton farkers how to cut a thin stream. Play that tune, stickman!"

  Moravia let out a holler - the robotic arm began to twist and shake the skysurfing-board - and he switched on some loud, archaic rock music over the radio. Venix winced at the raw, rapid chords that exploded into her space-helmet; she thought she heard someone trying to play a staccato drum-solo on the wrong instrument.

  "What's that noise?" she asked, grasping a pair of handle-rods to stay upright.

  Keaton laughed. " Dick Dale and the Del-Tones , cybor-girl! Classic surfer music from the twentieth century, yeah!"

  Venix let out her arms and let go of the handles, and let her lean body follow the bucking, vibrating movements
of the board as they fell through space. She was beginning to enjoy surfing; it wasn't so different from dance, once she got into it.

  "Show me how to spin the board!"

  21: Second Bomb Run

  Elara is the twelfth of Jupiter's natural satellites, discovered in 1905.

  Distance from Jupiter: 11,737 kilometers

  Diameter: 76 kilometers

  Mass: 7.77e17 kilograms

  The group of celestial bodies Leda, Himalia, Lysithea and Elara are all fragments of a parent planetoid, now destroyed.

  Though unsuitable for permanent habitation, these asteroids are used as key defense points in the supply-routes of deuterium from Jupiter to its larger colonized moons: Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa .

  After Io, the next target on the Fleet's course is Elara and its manned defense-station with a crew of some twenty Jovians. Since prolonged exposure to cosmic radiation and the extremely low gravity is dangerous even by Jovian standards, the crew is changed every month.

  It is virtually impossible to make a surprise attack on the outpost, given its minute size and excellent surveillance range. Every side of the craggy, irregular asteroid is fitted with particle cannons and lasers, dug down deep below the surface.

  Its strongest defense measure is to emit clouds of reflective aluminum barrage-bubbles, which can deflect the impact of any laser or radiation attack.

  The crews of Elara have beaten back two attacks from the Terran Fleet, and have inflicted damage on the flagship once. No single DF charge had yet scored a direct hit.

  Now, as the Elara crew has just been relieved, 23 newly arrived Jovians prepare to encounter the returning Terran Fleet. The flagship's stealth measures make it difficult to detect with precision, but there is little doubt about its approximate bearing and orbit.

  The enemy will fly by close, closer than they have ever dared before, with a new type of attack craft... easily recognizable from many public propaganda and news broadcasts.

  And the pilot will be the dreaded "indestructible" Argus-A.