Secret of the Legion

by Marshall S. Thomas

  I decided that the authorities approved of the crims activity and encouraged it. I was not sure why. I did not dare tell anyone of these conclusions. It angered me. I was not sure why that was, either. My reactions were wrong—all wrong. The reactions of a Bacteria, a Doubter, a Wrecker, a Thinker, a Braincrim. I had just gotten out of the Oz—how could I have gone so bad, so fast? It was frightening.

  There was a wonderful System proprop poster that one of the politicals had tacked up on the wall overlooking the staff lunch table. It glowed with colors, the brightest thing in our drab, dreary world. It showed a group of Legion soldiers, clad in sinister black armor, in the ruins of some unfortunate city, gathered around a campfire where they were roasting a baby on a spit. It was an absolutely beautiful shot. The hungry Legion troopers were intent on their task, poking at the baby's burning flesh to see if it was done. A dark cloudy sky was rolling overhead.

  We were sitting around the table scarfing down our slop a few days after the poster went up, when big Ando Ord—the goon whose nose I had rearranged—slammed down his bowl in disgust and glared at the poster. We all turned to him in surprise. The old toothless derelict beside me even stopped gumming his soup.

  "Scut!" Ando exclaimed angrily, "They eat better than we do!" We all burst into laughter, then shut down hurriedly. I didn't think anybody was going to turn him in—but it could have been a provocation. You could never tell—the SIS was everywhere. The poster came down a few days later.

  I forced myself to sit through endless hours of System proprop at the library, slumped before a glowing d-screen. It was the only way to get a general idea of what was happening in the galaxy. I suppose it was funny, actually. I was a sub, shuffling along through trash-strewn streets, in a neighborhood that looked like a demilitarized zone. They had made me so slow and stupid I sometimes forgot to put on my jacket when I went outdoors. And I wanted to improve my mind! I wanted to learn what was happening in the galaxy! Well, I learned what they told me. Even then I realized that what they were telling me might not be entirely true, but I figured most of it was probably factual. Remember, I was only a sub.

  According to the proprop, the advance of the Variant horde into System vac had been stopped by the DefCorps. The V were aliens, totally evil, totally merciless. They had been plaguing mankind for hundreds of years, and had exterminated over two billion humans. Until recently they had been irresistible. But now the DefCorps had developed the technology to counter the V—and they were doing it.

  The CrimCon, however, was doing its best to subvert our efforts by attempting to align itself with the V. That was truly frightening. We were at war with the CrimCon as well as the V, and if the CrimCon and the V were able to cooperate successfully against the System, humanity would surely be doomed. The CrimCon were humans, but I guess it would really depend on how you defined humanity. Officially it was the Confederation of Free Worlds, only it wasn't much of a Confederation, and none of the worlds were free. We called it the Criminal Conspiracy—CrimCon for short. It was a horrific totalitarian galactic empire, and until recently it had been expanding relentlessly. The CrimCon's shock troops were known as the Legion. They were high-tech, fanatic, mindless barbarians, and only the DefCorps could stop them. We had recently gotten a big break, however, in the struggle against the CrimCon and the Legion. The CrimCon had split in two, with major Legion forces breaking off from the CrimCon in a military revolt to form the Lost Command. It was indeed fortunate. The enemy camp was divided and weakened. And it couldn't have happened at a better time for the System.

  ***

  I got careless one night, walking home late from the library. Normally the scum didn't bother me. It wasn't because I appeared any bigger or badder than anyone else. It was because when I got to the really bad areas I'd haul out a big steel pipe that I kept stuffed into the front of my jacket. I'd walk through the dark with the pipe on my shoulder, and nobody ever bothered me. There were easier targets, the scum probably thought, and why take a chance with the Pipe Man? The subs didn't have firearms. The System was very strict on that. They didn't want the citizenry getting their hands on firearms.

  That night, I forgot to take the steel pipe out of my jacket. I guess I had lost my sense of danger. I thought the scum had gotten the word. Wrong again.

  He stalked me right into the hostel and I didn't even see him. The power was on that week, the elevator was working, and I didn't feel like walking up eight floors, so I was going to take a chance that the damned elevator would make it up to Eight without dying.

  He leaped into the elevator after me just as I was pressing the floor button, a gigantic, terrifying druggo with wild hair, dark skin oozing with pus and rot, broken bloody teeth and insane red eyes. He whipped a huge razor knife in an erratic arc in my general direction.

  "Donation!" he screamed, "Gimme ya wallet or I'll kill ya, subrat!" And something snapped inside me. My left leg came up in a power kick and the ball of my foot landed right on his chin, snapping his head back. I kicked the right leg up as the left was coming down to land on his right knee, which I used as a foothold as my right foot caught him on the left temple. He bounced off the closing elevator door and the knife went flying. I went after his head with my fists as he was going down, smashing his face with all the power in my body. I punched through him, not at him—I felt the bones breaking. I screamed with each blow, four five six seven eight—he was down and twitching on the floor. I hauled the steel pipe out of my jacket and brought it up, then down, shrieking. His skull cracked and blood spattered wildly as I brought the pipe up, down, up, down, up, down, smashing his skull until it was a bloody jellied pulp and his limbs jerked uncontrollably.

  I stopped, my heart hammering, the bloody pipe poised over the druggo's lifeless corpse. My face was twitching. The elevator walls were splattered with blood and brains—so was I. I felt shock, but there was something else—ecstasy. That was it. I felt wonderful; I was shaking with joy. A fierce, wolfish grin crept over my face and someone was laughing, an evil, guttural laugh. Was that me?

  The elevator door creaked open. We were on the eighth floor. My eyes snapped to the corridor like a cornered rat. Nobody there. I pressed the button for the fifteenth floor and the doors eased closed again. We moved upwards shakily. I would wash the blood off me in the toilets up there, I decided, and walk down to the eighth. I'd leave the body in the elevator, and blow out the hostel's power. That happened all the time, and they wouldn't discover the body until they got the power fixed and the elevator opened. It would take days. They'd never figure out who did it.

  Ecstatic—that's how I felt. It was terrifying. I thought a lot about that. I decided I must have been an exceptionally violent and dangerous criminal in my former life. My reaction when the druggo attacked had been purely instinctive. I hadn't thought about any of it, I had just done it. And those moves—the kicks and punches—they were flawless, powerful, practiced. I hadn't even known I could do that. I must have been a killer, I thought—a professional assassin. But why the special treatment from the System? The System didn't care about killers. There were hundreds of them roaming the streets outside. The System didn't even bother to arrest them, much less psych them. Why was I so special?

  ***

  It must have been a few weeks later when The Slime Bug knocked on the door to my cube in the hostel. The Slime Bug was what we called him in the Oz, but not to his face. To his face we called him "Sir." Doctor Antos Schleiman was the official who determined who was ill and who was cured. I had kind of hoped I would never see him again, but there he was, standing in the doorway grinning, a short, heavy, bald little Orman creep with watery blue eyes, and wearing a shabby dark jacket. He looked strange without his white coat.

  "Doctor Schleiman!" I exclaimed, "It's good to see it, sir!" I suddenly realized how much I hated the man.

  "It's looking fine, William. May we come in?"

  "Of course! Please—come in. We're afraid we don't have a chair," I said nervously, gesturing to t
he bed. The cube was so small the bed took up most of the space. We sat on the edge of the bed, and I activated the hot plate. I had rigged it up myself.

  "Would it care for some hot water?" I asked, setting a cup on the hot plate. I suddenly realized I was terrified of the man. He represented the absolute power of the System over my life.

  "That would be nice," The Slime Bug said. "How has it been, William?" William wasn't my real name, of course. It was the name they had given me at the Oz—William Fifteen.

  "Oh, just fine, sir. We've adjusted well. We are happy. We enjoy the work. It is a new world, just as Super said, but we enjoy it."

  He looked into my eyes, smiling dreamily. He did that a lot. "Well…" he said, "that's good. We thought we'd just drop by. We like to keep an eye on the graduates, see if everything is all right and help if we can."

  "We appreciate that, sir. It's nice to know Super is still thinking of us. We often think about the Clinic as well."

  "Tell us, William…" he paused. He often paused, before saying something important. "Is it facing any problems here? Any difficulties in adjusting to the new situation? Difficulties are quite normal, we assure it. As a matter of fact, if it denied there were any problems, we would not believe it. We want to help, William." He smiled.

  I handed him a cup of warm water.

  "Yes sir," I said. "We understand. Of course there were some problems in facing the new reality. But we did as Super said—we did not question. We adjusted. And our initial problems are over. Of course, we learn more every day. But we use Super's advice, in every new situation." I shut down. I knew it was best to give the man as little ammunition as possible.

  The Slime Bug sipped at his cup, then put it down on the wall table. The table was still a little shaky. "How does it like the job, William?"

  "We are happy, sir."

  "But it did not accept the situation there, did it, William?"

  "Sir?"

  "It instituted a lot of changes in the kitchen, didn't it, William?"

  "Well…yes. Yes, sir."

  "Why was that, William?"

  I squirmed, and took a sip from my own cup. "Well sir—it was dirty in there. We thought it needed a clean-up."

  "How about its co-workers? Did they approve of the changes?"

  "Well…we did not ask, sir."

  "We see. So one of its first acts was to challenge its environment."

  "It's because the Clinic was so clean, sir. We were comparing it to the Clinic. And nobody complained, sir. If anyone had said anything we would have stopped immediately. But nobody did. We realized it at the time—that it could have been interpreted as a challenge, sir. But we didn't mean it that way."

  "We see."

  "Did we do wrong, sir?"

  "Well…it depends on its motivation. Tell us, William…" he paused, again. I listened carefully. "It's been spending a lot of time at the library, hasn't it?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Why is that, William?"

  "Well sir, we are anxious to learn about our new environment. As Super suggested, total immersion. There's nothing to do after work. We remembered what Super said. And so we've been reading, and watching, to become a better citizen."

  "What does it read?"

  "Proprop, sir. Information bulletins. The history of Nimbos. Science updates. Social commentary. Citizen alerts. Whatever is on, sir. We figure—the more we learn, the better we'll be able to fit in. And the info screen at the hostel is dead."

  "We see. How many hours?"

  "Sir?"

  "How many hours per night is it in the library?"

  "Oh…it varies, sir. Two…usually two hours."

  "Is that normal, William? Is that normal behavior?"

  I was silent.

  "Speak up, William. Don't be afraid."

  "Well, no sir. We guess not."

  "Of course it isn't. Why does it do that, William? Why the library?"

  "It's because we're just out of the Clinic, sir. And everything is new. And Super encouraged us to learn from the environment."

  "One doesn't learn about one's environment in a library, William. The real world begins when it steps out of the library's front door."

  "Yes sir."

  "Tell us, William…" he paused again, peered into his cup, took a sip, and then placed it carefully back on the wobbly table. I was watching him like you'd watch a highly poisonous snake. "What would it say if we suggested it return to the Clinic for some more treatment?"

  "Does it think we need more treatment, sir?" My mind was reeling. They wanted me back! Did they know about the killing?

  "We don't know, William. Perhaps. Tell us what it thinks."

  "We think we're adjusting well, sir. But Super knows best. We don't mind returning to the Clinic. If Super believes we could benefit from more treatment, we'll be happy to do so." I dared not resist anything the man said. I knew he hated resistance.

  The Slime Bug looked at me mournfully, and then nodded his head. "Good," he said. "It was always most cooperative, William. That's wise. We don't think it needs to go back yet. But a word of advice—accept your reality. Stop trying to change it. And don't spend so much time in the library. It's not healthy."

  "Yes sir." I felt a great relief. I was not going back, and he didn't know about the killing. I was very happy about that. Almost as happy as when I had made the kill.

  ***

  Winter came, and stayed. It was agony walking to and from work in the cold. Howling winds from the arctic wastes laid siege to the city for months. We wore sleazy, thin jackets to work, and shivered in our drafty cubes at night.

  I had to cut down on the visits to the library. I had been warned. I was starved for information, but there was no information; and I dared not ask any questions of anyone. I shuffled through my new life blindly, at a dead end. It appeared that I would never find out who I had been.

  And then the dreams began.

  At first it was always the same—a raging, violent nightmare, exploding in light and sound. It swirled around in my mind like a gibbering phantom, a hot rush of emotion, suddenly there, overwhelmingly there. A glittering sky full of lights, rushing over me—fireworks, the whole sky erupting, every color in the spectrum, bursts of actinic green, phospho white, elektra blue, shocking pink, a million smoking tracers covering the sky. Hot metal rain and a wild electronic shrieking in my ears—lightning, flashing right in my face, titanic bursts of thunder, striking me blind and deaf.

  I screamed, helpless before my fate, wriggling in the mud like a worm, bathed in icy sweat. The sky burst into flame. A horrific vision, the gates of Hell, spitting flaming fingers of doom—a white-hot, roaring star, falling down to the earth to incinerate us all. I burst into flames, shrieking in horror.

  I would awake gasping and thrashing in the dark, my throat paralyzed, adrenalin racing. It happened a lot.

  ***

  The pawnshops did a lot of business in Agra City, but this time I was the only customer. It was warm and stuffy inside. Snow was falling out in the streets, it was cold as a frigid bitch, and I still had only the one thin jacket the Oz had issued me. I was fingering a thick, glossy nitex coldcoat—a police field jacket. Some starving cop had probably traded it for something to eat, or some crazed druggo had killed a cop and pawned his clothes. I turned away in regret. I had saved up a few credits but I knew there was no way I could afford the jacket.

  They usually had a lot of military and police equipment. It was high quality stuff and much in demand. I hovered over the glass counter as the bald gnome behind the bars concentrated on his sex book. He wasn't worried about shoplifting, I knew. He was more observant than he looked, behind his armored plex, and the door didn't open unless he triggered the release.

  Nightsticks, armored goggles, field spotters, belt pouches, police gloves, a few knives. One of the knives caught my attention. A big, black cenite blade—a massive, coldly functional instrument.

  "Could we see the knife?" I pointed it out. The gnome stirre
d, waddled over to the counter, retrieved the knife, and slid it under the plex in the goods tray. I picked it up.

  It was a single piece of cenite. The finely checkered grip felt as if it were molded to my hand—the balance was perfect. A razor sharp blade, with tough little sawteeth on the false edge. The damned thing was beautiful.

  "Does it have a sheath?"

  "No."

  "How much?"

  "Sixty-five."

  "We're serious. How much?"

  "All right. Fifty-five. Serious."

  "We can't afford that. Nobody can afford that. It doesn't even have a sheath."

  "That's a DefCorps knife. It's worth a lot more than fifty-five."

  "We'll give you fifteen credits."

  "Sorry." The gnome retrieved the knife. I turned wearily and headed for the door.

  "Thirty," he said. My hand was on the push bar but he hadn't triggered the door.

  "We don't have thirty," I said. The door was still locked.

  "Twenty-five," he said. "Bottom price."

  "We can give it twenty," I said. "It's all we have."

  "Twenty! God's ass! Done! Don't show it around—civilians aren't supposed to have these."

  ***

  I awoke in a blind panic, drenched in sweat, my heart hammering. It was cold. I lay there, staring up into the dark. It was the pit of the night. I never knew what time it was at night. The guy in the next cube had an alarm chron that woke me up in the morning, but I had nothing.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and flicked the hotplate on. A battered metal cup of water was already there. It was getting to be a nightly routine—a wild nightmare, get up, have a cup of hot water, ponder the future and wonder about the past, and then drift back to an uneasy sleep.

  I never could really get a grip on the dreams. It was a sky full of sparklers—almost like fireworks. Falling softly, gently, like hot rain. But there was a tremendous, ear-splitting din, all around me, like a battlefield. And I was squirming in the mud, as this horrific sky came right at me. A sky full of lightning and fire—raging white-hot flames, blasting me to a crisp.