“One-ninety. Let’s just get this over with,” the goon grumbled.
“We’ll do just that, my friend! One hundred and ninety thousand it is! Did I mention my name’s Wade? Wade Winthrop-Worrelly, and I’m very pleased to meet you! Now just come into my office and we’ll get all the paperwork squared away as soon as possible. I’m sure you want to be on your way! – Oh, is that chair too small?”
Thirty minutes later, Wade Winthrop-Worrelly watched as the goon drove the big Grand Safari off his lot and down the street. He smiled widely, hands behind his back and rocking back and forth on his heels. What a day! What a day!
He went back into the office and stared admiringly at the stack of gleaming cashcards on his desk. Oh, yes. This was a day to be remembered, and all thanks to a goon named Otto Shonkwiler.
Funny thing, the goon sure didn’t look like an Otto Shonkwiler. Corporate geneticists weren’t very skilled at coming up with good names for their neohumans.
Wade shrugged and plopped down in his chair, lifting one of the cashcards off the desk and running it under his nose, taking a long deep whiff of the clean, plastic aroma.
“Aaah. Life is good.”
15
Professor Dominick Reasby walked angrily across the campus, his mind consumed by the incessant annoyances he had to deal with almost every day. Why couldn’t those blasted sensory technicians do as he asked? He told them to record from the left side of the hall, thereby providing the viewer with a good profile, as well as better lighting. But, no! They had to do it their own way, despite the fact that it was Reasby, and only Reasby, who was intimately familiar with the intricacies of his own lectures. He had the delivery of each sentence memorized and well choreographed. The whole recording would be greatly improved if only the technicians could take a little direction.
Reasby stormed into the faculty building. He didn’t bother with the elevator to the fourth floor but turned directly for the stairs. He might be getting older, but he was still fit and trim thanks to the stomach filter he had implanted four years ago. Easily the best purchase he’d ever made, it had slimmed him down despite all the junk food he ate. He didn’t need to jog up four flights of stairs for his health, but it would help him burn off his annoyance.
The technicians had so riled him that he had allowed one of his graduate students to collect and store his teaching materials, something that he himself usually supervised. But not today. Today he needed to get back to his office for some relaxation.
He topped the fourth floor step without breaking a sweat, and strode down the wide hall, nodding but not smiling to his fellow faculty that he passed, until he reached his office door. He palmed the scanner, ducked inside, and locked the door. Dropping his briefcase on his desk, he went to the large bookcase and pulled out one of the many copies of his own large textbook, “Unexplained Psyko-Activity in Manufactured Genetics – The Search for the Psyker Gene”. Despite the rest of the world long ago embracing electronic books, academe still clung to the outmoded paper book. Of course, Reasby never read them, but it did look good to have a full bookshelf. Luckily, genetically engineered forests provided as much paper as Earth’s ten billion people wanted.
Inside the thick book, the pages had been cut through, creating a large recess four centimeters deep.
“What?” Reasby’s breath escaped him. Empty! He stumbled back against the desk, staring down at the open book. Only yesterday he had checked the contents, but now they were gone. He looked up at the ceiling, trying to think. Some thieving student! Who would it be? Maybe that insufferable…
Smoke. He smelled cigar smoke. His eyes narrowed and he turned to see a dwarf sitting in the chair next to the door.
“Looking for these?” Noose smiled, holding up several tweakchips. He clamped his smoldering cigar in his thin lips.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Reasby demanded, slamming the book shut and thrusting it back on the shelf.
“Biz,” Noose said simply.
Reasby shook his head. “I told you never to come here. I don’t want anyone to know I deal with someone of your…” Reasby paused.
“Stature?” Noose stood with a smile, and dropped the tweakchips on the leather blotter that graced the top of the mahogany desk. “You really should think about kicking this illegal tweakchip habit. Messing around with your adrenaline, endorphins, and pleasure centers like that can’t be all that good for you.”
Reasby stepped around the desk and sat down, pushing the chips off the desk and into his hand. “Neither is that smelly thing you’ve got in your mouth.”
Noose pulled the cigar from his mouth and looked at it. “You may be right, doc. But we all have our vices, I guess. Luckily for me yours is so expensive.”
Frowning, Dr. Reasby dropped four of the tweakchips into the top desk drawer, but kept the last in his hand, playing with it between his thumb and forefinger. “What do you want?”
Noose held out his hand and dropped the bloody plastic shard on the desk in front of Reasby. “I need this identified.”
“What?” Reasby picked up the shard and looked at it. “It’s a piece of plastic.”
“The dried blood, doc. I need to know who it’s from.”
“How old is it?”
“Last night.”
“Then it shouldn’t prove difficult. Do you have any hints about it?”
“It’s human or genny.”
“Well, that’s real helpful,” Reasby smirked. He placed the shard back on the desk. “Ascertaining the donor genotype should not be a problem. Determining exactly who it is from will be far more demanding.”
“And more expensive,” Noose concluded.
“There may be a problem with finding out exactly whose blood it is. This person may not have his DNA-print on file anywhere, considering the type of people with whom you habitually associate. And the further I have to look, the longer it will take.”
“Yeah, I’ll make it worth your while. Don’t worry about it.”
“But of course you know that, while my forensic abilities are quite good, I am not a psyker. I won’t be able to locate the individual for you.”
“I never understood why you got into pyskic studies when you couldn’t teekay a spoon to save your life.”
“The first person who identifies and replicates the psykic gene will be rich for many lifetimes.”
“Yeah, that’s for sure. Too bad you haven’t found it yet – you wouldn’t need me to get you your tweakers.”
“Would you be quiet. No reason to say such things out loud.”
“You sure are paranoid. What? You think your Global masters got this room monitored? I can check for you if you want.”
“I have the room swept weekly,” Reasby informed the dwarf. “Now, if that’s all you require, you and that reeking cigar can leave.”
“Call me when you’ve got a name to go along with that blood.” Noose rose out of the chair.
“You don’t want me to have a psyker locate the subject?” Reasby asked.
“Nope. I’ve got someone to handle that.”
Reasby nodded. “I’ll call you tomorrow, then.”
The dwarf opened the door. “Thanks, Reasby. Don’t overcharge me.”
Reasby watched the door close, and then walked around to lock it. He returned to his seat and reclined, taking the tweakchip and pushing it into the neuroport behind his ear. He waited impatiently for a few seconds, until it accessed and motivated the pleasure centers of his brain. His mouth opened slowly, gaping wider, and he gripped the arms of his chair. His eyes remained wide open, but whatever he saw in his electronically stimulated, virtual reality fantasy, it wasn’t the interior of his office.
16
“… and for some related background on the terrorist attack that instigated the riots ripping through RAM, we go to Valerie Flynn-Diaz at the Worldwide Detention Services Penal Arcology #108 in the pristine desert wastelands of Arizona Free State. Valerie, are you there?”
“That I
am, Brian.” Valerie Flynn-Diaz appeared, her hair pulled back conservatively, her dark blue suit unbuttoned provocatively. “I’m here at one of WDS’s many self-contained penal arcologies. As our viewers are no doubt aware, thanks to the popular prison drama Canned, which you can watch every Thursday right here on channel 519, the arcology is fully self-sufficient and employs a wide variety of security apparatus and procedures to ensure that the felons don’t escape. WDSPA #108 is home to hundreds of thousands of convicts, but the one we’re interested in today is BangBang Bangster.”
The camera pulled away from the newsbabe to show a balding man sitting in a chair in a room with cushioned walls and bright lights. His illuminated cybernetic eyes stared fixedly at the reporter’s figure, his fingers tapping on the table in front of him. Plastic handcuffs encircled his wrists and tethered him to the floor. A red neon hammer and sickle dominated the left side of his skull, while a black swastika adorned the other. His wrinkled face sported a large nose and mouth full of black plastic teeth.
“He’s the former drummer and last surviving member of the hate rock band Spitting Neurofrogs. He wrote the song that many believe inspired the destruction of Stiltzkin’s Dance Club.”
“Damn straight,” Bangster growled.
“For those of you who may not remember the Spitting Neurofrogs, they became popular back in ‘90s, riding a wave of anti-neohuman racism to international stardom. Their hate songs, such as Never Trust a Neohuman, Freaks Are For Killing, and Walking on Genny Necks, found a surprisingly large audience in that decade.”
“Stomping! Stomping on Genny Necks!” Bangster yelled, interrupting Valerie. “Damn you, you stupid bitch. Reporters still don’t got any brains out there, huh? Well, at least you dress hot.”
Valerie shook her head reprovingly. “The band peaked in 2098 with their most popular single: Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance. Music historians note the song’s infectious rhythm and virtually unintelligible lyrics as the reasons for its popularity. Sociologists, however, believe that the song merely fueled the race hatred simmering around the globe at that time.”
Valerie took a seat across the table from Bangster. “But we aren’t here to discuss theories and history. We’re here to talk to the unimaginatively self-named drummer of the Spitting Neurofrogs, BangBang Bangster.”
“You got a nice rack on you, sister.” The musician leered, pulling thick lips back from his black plastic teeth.
“Now, Mr. Bangster,” Valerie said with a sidelong glance at the camera, “I understand that you were not only the drummer, but also wrote most of the song lyrics. Is this true?”
“Totally true.” Bangster smiled as he stared at her cleavage. “Me and Chico wrote ‘em. Every last one. Righteous, they was.”
“That would be Chico XXX, bassist for the Spitting Neurofrogs?”
“Best strummer this ball’s ever seen, baby. Bastard gennies offed him in ‘99. Threw him in a Global Foods beef vat. Some of you jackspuds probably ate him.”
“Interesting, yet completely irrelevant. Now, I can see by the neon tattoos on your head that you’re a fan of fascist and communist dictatorships. Did your political views prompt you to promote racial hatred and violence in your music?”
“You talk too much. Come over here and promote something else.”
Valerie frowned. “What I mean to say is, was your music an expression of your general feelings of allegiance to historically racist regimes?”
“I just hate drudges, gimlis, goons, and all the others. Freaking genefreaks screwed this planet to death. Ain’t nothing the way it was before they got hatched.”
“Strong language, Mr. Bangster. I guess your personality and socialization injections aren’t working.”
“Course not! Before I got caught, I got me some good blood cleaners to stop them brain serums from screwing me up.” He grabbed his crotch. “I got some other implants that I can show you, too.”
“The arcology personnel told me about the cybernetic enhancements to your internal organs that filter out the pharmaceuticals. However, you’ve also been on a regimen of daily re-education simulations. They don’t seem to be working, either.”
“Ain’t no techy punk and his virtual reality sims gonna change me, honeycheeks.”
“So, you wouldn’t change yourself in any way?”
“Hell, no.”
“If you had another chance you’d still do it all the same?”
“Hell, yes.”
“The songs, the violence?”
“Yes.”
“Your mass murder of a busload of neohumans in 2099?”
“Yup.”
Valerie shivered for the camera. “You are a cold man, Mr. Bangster.”
“But you’re making me hot.”
“Let’s move on to the reason I’m here. As you may have heard, a dance club called Stiltzkin’s in the Regional Atlanta Metroplex was blown up by unknown terrorists. It catered to dwarves.”
“Wizbang!”
“I’m afraid not. At least fifty dwarves were killed in the attack, and numerous others were horribly injured. Many commentators and citizens suggest that it may have been your song, Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance, that inspired the attack.”
“That’d be great. It’s been thirty years since that happened.”
“What do you mean?”
Bangster grimaced. “Don’t you vidbitches do any homework? When DDDD was first released, righteous patriots of humanity went to work. Four or five gimli clubs got torched.”
“And you were pleased about that?”
“Of course! We gotta stop them gene-freaks from taking over any more of the planet. Earth is for humans!” He bashed his cuffed hands on the table. Valerie jumped backward.
“Many citizens are demanding that you be held responsible for the deaths at Stiltzkin’s. What do you have to say about that?”
Bangster shrugged. “I already got life, sweetbuns. What else can they do? Ain’t no death penalty no more, and my lawyer already got me out of a lobotomy.”
“They could take away some of your rights,” Valerie suggested. “Take you off food and put you on vitamins, confine you to solitary, or cancel your conjugal visits.”
Bangster jumped to his feet. “Damn bastards better not do that! It’ll cause a riot! Them pleasers over in the whoreblock ain’t got nothing to look forward to other than my visits. You should go talk to them. Ask them about my skills.” He licked his lips.
“I find it odd, Mr. Bangster, that your hatred and disdain for genetically-engineered humans does not prevent you from taking advantage of the government-sponsored neohumans provided for conjugal visits.”
“You’re right. Maybe you’d like to sign up for the job?”
“Most assuredly not!” Valerie spat.
“Your loss.”
“I think that our listeners have seen and heard enough of you to understand the sort of depravity that spawns racism and hatred. Thank you for your time, and enjoy your stay here.”
“Eat me.”
Valerie turned from the inmate and looked into the camera. “There you have it, Brian. Convicted mass murderer BangBang Bangster, former lead vocalist of the Spitting Neurofrogs, enlightening us on his motivations, aspirations, and depraved principles that led to recording the hate rock single, Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance.”
“Thanks, Valerie, for that riveting interview–”
17
A message blinked on the screen in front of the anchorman’s face: “Incoming call. Line Bravo.”
Ulric rubbed his neck and sat up. “Vid off. Open Bravo line.”
The anchorman disappeared from the five-meter tall screen that dominated one wall of Ulric’s palatial apartment. The newsbiff was replaced by a strong-jawed man with flashing blue eyes and a day’s worth of stubble on his chin. He bore signs of a recent beating: his upper lip was cracked, his left eye slightly bruised; a wide shallow scratch ran across his forehead.
“Yes?” Ulric asked the giant image of the man.
“A mutual acquaintance said that you could help me. I need some skates.”
“Who recommended me to you?”
“Grue.”
Ulric smiled. “Grue has no doubt told you that my skates are of the utmost quality and very, very costly. I do not have time for charity work.”
“I got the creds, old man.” The man held up a handful of cashcards. “Price ain’t an object.”
“In that case, I can see you tomorrow. Please be here–”
“I can’t wait until tomorrow,” the man said hurriedly. “It’s gotta be now.”
“I’m afraid I’m busy.”
“I’ll pay extra for quick work.”
Ulric paused. “I see. You can come right over. How long will it take you to get here?”
“Two minutes.”
“That’s quite quick, young man. I’ll inform the gate to admit you. Disconnect.” The screen dimmed and Ulric rose, striding closer to it. “Gatehouse.” After a few seconds, a uniformed Red Echelon security guard appeared on the screen.
“Yes, Mr. von Vandenberg?”
“I have a guest coming at any moment. Please escort him to my apartment.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ulric von Vandenberg reclined on his custom-built leather Broyhill and touched the thumb pad on the deep brown armrest. The chair hummed to life and its massage rollers coursed up and down the old man’s back. He sighed and closed his eyes, luxuriating in the custom-programmed massage. The Broyhill nearly sucked him into its embrace, soothing his frail and sore muscles with constant comfort.
The sunken living room surrounding Ulric was large and scattered with various traditional pieces of furniture, mostly mahogany, oak, and maple. Rich carpets culled from the markets of now-destroyed Djibouti hid much of the hardwood floor. Wide stairs led to an open second-floor balcony. Along the walls, valuable paintings by long dead artists predominated.
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