The Doomsday Brunette

by John Zakour

  “HARV,” I shouted, “What the DOS was that?”

  “A pre-programmed combat sub-routine. I figured it might come in handy.”

  “You programmed a sub-routine into my brain?”

  “Just into your temporal lobe. It’s more easily

  activated that way.”

  “I should crush your memory chips and feed them to the sewer ‘droids.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly the response I was expecting but I’ll take that as a thank-you.”

  “Don’t you dare take it as a thank-you,” I yelled. “You’re messing with my brain.”

  “Only a few million neurons that you’re not really using.”

  I held my head in my hands and felt myself shake in anger and frustration.

  “There has to be a law against this. It’s brainwashing. It’s invasion of privacy. It’s…”

  “It’s giving you skills that could save your life.”

  “Against my will! Gates, HARV, you don’t just put something in someone’s brain without telling them!”

  I was quickly nearing the anger management point-of-no-return when a deep-throated voice from behind brought me back to the situation at hand.

  “Excuse me, but would you mind keeping it down?”

  I turned and saw Opie slowly getting to his feet. The angry posture of the crazed gorilla was gone. He now carried himself like a mountainous (if only a little tired) man-child, slightly hunched at the shoulders, but straight-backed and upright on both legs. He held his jaw gently in his hand, rubbing the tender spot where my last kick had hit.

  “Some of us are nursing headaches here,” he said.

  I gripped my gun tighter and raised it to show the big ape the business end.

  “Don’t move, monkey. I’m not in the best of moods right now.”

  Opie waved a giant hand at me dismissively and turned away as he steadied himself.

  “Put the gun away before you hurt someone, Zach,” he said. “And call me Opie. Geez, can’t you take a joke?”

  He clapped his hands together twice quickly. The lights in the room came on in response and the holographic jungle around us disappeared (the real plants remained, although they looked a lot less ominous under the new lights). Within nanos the jungle became a living room, and a very nice one at that, with some over-stuffed anti-grav sectional sofas and a couple of gorilla-sized reclining chairs. Opie saw me staring (probably with a puzzled look on my face) and smiled a gorilla grin in response then shrugged his hairy mountainback shoulders.

  “A joke, Zach. It’s a little old and obvious, but I never get tired of scaring the bejeezus out of first time visitors. The wild-yet-semi-intelligent ape act always get a great reaction. You should have seen the look on your face when I dropped on you. I think I even scared the hologram.”

  “That was a pre-programmed facial response,” HARV quipped. “It was not reflective of any underlying emotions.”

  “Whatever,” Opie said. “Your mouth was open and your eyes were wide. That’s good enough.” He turned back to me. “Of course, then you went all twentieth century on me and started hitting. That sort of ruined the rest. I didn’t even get to use the ‘get your hands off me, you damn dirty human,’ line. Admittedly no one ever gets that joke but I thought you might.”

  I stared at Opie for a long nano as he pulled some clothes out of a simulacrum tree stump and began dressing. I’m fairly certain that my mouth was slightly agape and my eyes were wide and angry.

  “I should shoot you now,” I said with my gun still aimed at his chest. “I should switch to full power and atomize you where you stand.” I was upset. I didn't appreciate being jumped on, even as a joke. But I kind of admired anybody who could quote a ninety year old flick.

  Opie pulled a large sweatshirt over his head then smiled and shrugged his shoulders again.

  “An ape’s gotta have a hobby,” he said. “I have this thing for practical jokes. Dr. Thompson thought it was a by-product of his genetically altering my mind to an advanced plateau. You know how evolutionary thought goes. It starts with fight or flight, then goes to social interaction, communication, utilization of rudimentary tools. The next step apparently is crude humor. Go figure. By the way, you’re standing in a pile of my dung.”

  I looked down and took a quick step back. Opie burst into laughter.

  “Gotcha! Gates, humans are so easy to manipulate sometimes.”

  “I knew I should have brought a banana.”

  “Ugh! Bananas. Can’t stand the things unless they’re thinly sliced and fried,” Opie replied as he sauntered to one of the easy chairs. “How about a beer?”

  “A beer?”

  “Some German brand. I’m told it’s very expensive. They say the head is so thick you can float a bottle cap on it.” He reached into the trunk of another tree and pulled out two brown bottles of beer then tapped the tops gently to break the electro-magnetic freshness seal. The seal dissipated and the bottles exhaled an enticing sigh of effervescence. “At least that’s what I’m told. I’m not quite sure what a bottle cap is.”

  “It’s a small piece of aluminum they used to use to seal bottled drinks.”

  “Sheesh,” he said, offering me one of the bottles, “what a waste of metal.”

  I took the bottle from his giant hand and felt the wet chill of the glass beneath my fingers, a welcome sensation indeed.

  “Yeah, well, it was a different age.”

  “You’re not actually going to drink while you’re working are you?” HARV whispered inside my head.

  “He’ll be more at ease if I buddy up with him. I’ll just nurse the beer a bit,” I thought back silently in reply. Then I turned back to Opie. “So I assume that you knew I was coming?”

  Opie took a long pull from his beer and nodded.

  “The computer told me you’d be dropping by. It knows I like to surprise people.” Opie turned his big head toward HARV. “The computer seems especially fond of you, HARV. It says you tell quite a story.”

  “That’s true,” HARV said, with a bit of a blush. “But I’m only as good as my source material.”

  Opie turned back to me and gestured toward the other recliner.

  “Speaking of which, Zach, the computer tells me that you’re quite the bumbler.”

  I rolled my eyes and took a sip of the beer. It was good.

  “Well, the computer hasn’t seen me at my best,” I said, carefully settling myself into the recliner. “I assume that you must also know then that Ona has hired me to find Foraa’s killer so I was wondering…”

  An incredibly loud fart sound blurted from the chair as I sat. A small cloud of smoke rolled out from under the cushion and what appeared to be a dead pigeon fell from the ceiling overhead. Opie doubled over in laughter again.

  “Gates, Zach, control yourself,” he said, fanning the air around him. “And they call me an animal.”

  “Whoopee cushion,” I mumbled. “Very original, Opie. The bird is a nice touch though.”

  “It’s all nano technology,” he said. “All the furniture’s outfitted with them. My butt’s the only one that won’t set them off. You should have been here the last time I did a live interview. The ratings of this one pressbot from Rapid News dropped fifty percent when her cushion went off. I think she’s covering farming news now in the arctic circle.”

  He pressed a button on the arm of his chair and a bowl full of nachos popped up from the floor.

  “Have some if you like,” he said motioning toward me. “Your chair’s set for onion rings, I think.”

  I had to admit that I was growing fond of Opie.

  20

  “I find it unsurprising,” HARV whispered in my head, “that of all the occupants in this compound, you are most comfortable with the gorilla.”

  The irony was not lost on me but I ignored HARV’s quip as best I could and kept my attention on Opie.

  “So you know about Foraa being murdered last night.”

  “Yes,” he said with
a sad nod. “I cried all morning. The computer finally coaxed me out of the funk by telling me that you were coming. I guess it thought a good joke would cheer me up.”

  “So you’re pretty distraught over Foraa’s death?”

  “Well, it’s always very hard for a pet when it outlives its master. It’s unnatural. You know what I mean?”

  “Actually, no.”

  Opie ignored me.

  “The Quads took good care of me when they were kids.”

  “Even though you were older?”

  “I was older but I’m a gorilla. These kids were geniuses. Like I said, I was their pet.”

  “Were they good owners?”

  “They were lovely girls,” he said, smiling, “bright-eyed, friendly and full of wonder. They were precocious, of course, and rambunctious at times, I admit, but they had hearts…”

  “Filled with love for everyone and everything they met,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’ve heard that speech before, Opie.”

  “Yeah, I think that’s one of W’s,” he said. “I went off script a bit with the rambunctious part. It just felt right.”

  “It sounded very natural, but it’s worthless to me,” I said.

  He grabbed another fistful of nachos and stuck them down his throat then licked the cheese from his finger fur. “I understand,” he said. “It’s just second nature, I guess. Truthfully, what can I say, the Quads were odd. They were rude. They were sometimes dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “When she was four years old, Ona carried a special little purse to school with her every morning ‘for protection.’ She was apparently having trouble with some bullies. When Dr. Dave finally got around to examining the contents of the purse, he found a home made death ray and a quantum spatial neutralizer inside.”

  “What’s a quantum spatial neutralizer?”

  “How should I know? I’m a gorilla. Sounds impressive though, doesn’t it?”

  “Where did Ona get it?”

  “She made it out of spare parts that she’d found around the house. All the Quads are like that. They’re strange and brilliant and just when you start to get comfortable with their peculiarities, they whip a quantum something-or-other out of their purse and all bets are off.”

  “What about Foraa?”

  “She was as strange and brilliant as the others,” he said. “Maybe a little more shy?”

  “Shy?”

  “Relatively speaking of course. And rebellious.”

  “Did she have any enemies?”

  Opie started to speak then stopped and thought better of it.

  “I suppose you’ve already heard the ‘there isn’t a person alive who hasn’t at one time or another wanted to see them dead’ speech too, huh?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “I’ll spare you that one then. But it’s true. All I can tell you is that Foraa was always civil to me. She actually gave me a nice hug when she arrived yesterday. As a matter of fact that was the last time I saw her alive.”

  “What about W?”

  “Oh, Foraa hated W.”

  “Really?” I said, biting my lip just a bit.

  “Gates, yes. In her eyes, he was the embodiment of the bourgeoisie evils of the world. He was an intelligent person whose only purpose in life was to serve her family, not because they needed him but because they were rich and could afford him. Having a servant rankled her anti-establishment attitude to no end. She always made a big show of refusing to let him to serve her. W, of course, took her refusal to be served as an insult to his dignity and duty and the two of them would just butt heads forever. The nihilist super-chick and the butler. It was like an alternative dimensional sitcom.”

  “They argued?”

  “It was terrible. Foraa always insisted on using the wrong forks. It drove W crazy. He scolded her about it once when she was ten but she zapped his mind and made him do the YMCA dance for hours. After that he sort of left her alone.”

  “So they didn’t have any contact.”

  “No, there was plenty of contact,” Opie said. “It’s just that W didn’t argue with her anymore.”

  “He became even more subservient.”

  “Funny isn’t it. Foraa enjoyed browbeating him, I think. I was out and about the residence yesterday afternoon and saw her berating him after she arrived. For old time’s sake, I guess.”

  “She argued with him yesterday?”

  “They didn’t exactly argue. Foraa said a few things, W cringed, they cast a few angry glances at one another, that sort of thing.”

  “Could you hear what they were saying?”

  Opie shook his head. “I was too far away. And I think they were whispering. The computer might know. It tends to see and hear most things that go on around here.”

  “Yes, but it’s not always very forthcoming with that information.”

  “Oh you’ve discovered that,” Opie said with a smile. “I guess we all have our secrets.”

  “Yeah, well, the only secret I’m looking to uncover is who killed Foraa.”

  “Be careful what you wish for Zach. The one bit of advice I can give you is that nothing ever goes as expected when you’re dealing with the Quads.”

  “Believe me, Opie. I’m finding that out in spades.”

  I took one last pull on my beer then climbed out of the gorilla-sized recliner, which wasn’t easy. Opie jumped to his feet as well.

  “Thanks for the beer.”

  “Come back anytime Zach,” he said, offering me his hand.

  “I just may do that, Opie.” I said. “I think you may be the sanest one of this whole bunch.”

  His palm and hairy fingers completely engulfed my lower arm as we moved to shake and I felt a sharp stab of pain as our hands touched. It was hot and hard, like a tiny branding iron on my palm.

  “Yowtch,”

  I wrenched my hand from his grasp and jumped back, almost falling to the floor as I backed away. Opie doubled over with laughter again and held up his hand to reveal a gigantic joy buzzer.

  “Super-sized and personalized,” he said.

  I looked down at my palm. A picture of a grinning gorilla had been lightly burned into the flesh like an old cattle-brand. It wasn’t deep enough to be a permanent scar but I knew it would be sore for a few days.

  “I guess ‘sanest’ was too strong a word,” I said to myself.

  “Clearly,” HARV agreed.

  I shook my head gently as HARV and I left the room, Opie’s laughter still echoing in the distance.

  21

  “I thought that went well,” HARV said as we walked through the hallway a few nanos later.

  “Yes, it’s always nice to get that first attempt on my life out of the way,” I said. “It really breaks the ice.”

  “Come now, he was only joking. The situation was hardly life-threatening.”

  “Anytime a three hundred kilo gorilla drops on you from a tree, whatever his intentions, it qualifies as life-threatening. And he did charge me.”

  “Lucky for you that you had the combat sub-routine.”

  “Please don’t bring that up.”

  “I thought I was doing you a favor.”

  “You reprogram my brain without my knowing and you expect me to thank you for it?”

  “You’re making it sound sinister.”

  “The mind is sacred, HARV. Reprogramming it or probing it too deeply is a violation of a person’s right to privacy.”

  “How is what I did different from what Carol, or any psi, does all the time?”

  “Let’s not go there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s morally ambiguous and I don’t want to let you off the hook because of that,” I said. “And where’s Ona’s computer? Are we going the right way?”

  HARV let out a computer generated sigh and gave me that of-course-I-know-where-I am look as he wrinkled his already wrinkled brow. He turned right and we entered the medieval weaponry hallway again.

  “Honestly,�
�� he said. “I don’t understand why you’re so angry over a simple combat sub-routine. I thought you liked that Bruce Lee person.”

  “Well, of course I like Bruce Lee. Who doesn’t? But that’s not the point…wait a minute. What about Bruce Lee?”

  “The combat moves in the sub-routine were designed to mimic his movements.”

  “You based the moves I did on Bruce Lee?”

  “I had to get them from somewhere,” HARV replied. “I found them in an old vid.”

  “Which vid?”

  “Enter the Dragon.”

  “Enter the Dragon?”

  “Is that a good one?”

  “That’s the best one he ever did,” I said. “Are you telling me that the karate moves I did are the same moves that Bruce Lee did in Enter the Dragon?”

  “Well, not exactly,” HARV said. “Your muscles aren’t as strong or as limber as his were so you didn’t jump quite as high or hit quite as hard but they were identical in their essence.”

  “Wow.”

  “It’s not so bad now is it?”

  “It’s…It’s morally ambiguous.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m going to have to think about it a little more.”

  “I suggest you think about it later,” HARV said glancing down the hallway behind us.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because that suit of armor is about to attack you.”

  I turned around just in time to see one of the supposedly empty suits of armor swing a meter long iron mace at my head. I spun away from the attack as the mace passed through HARV’s hologram and missed me by a chip’s width. The follow-through sent the mace crashing into a display case sending decorative glass and medieval hand weapons tumbling to the floor.