by John Keeble
"Bring the prisoner," he tells two fighters there to protect him and his mother. If only I could sleep for a few hours.
He rouses himself as the prisoner walks in, contemptuous of the fighters flanking him. Maybe it will be safer to have him killed.
"I am Sandro, commander of defenses at the Center," the prisoner says.
"Then you command nothing. We destroyed your forces and captured the Center."
"How much do you command? Are your mobs disciplined enough to do what you tell them?"
The pain in White Death's brain tightens into burning razor wire. "I command enough to have you killed where you sit," he says.
"The test of command is winning, not murder," sneers Sandro.
White Death glances at his fighters. "Take the prisoner back to his room," he says.
*
Chapter 23
Max bounds out ahead of Alice as Galen releases the drone door from his flight control consul. She tells Jack on paired communicators, "Max has raced ahead. I couldn't stop him. I'm going out now."
"Okay. Be careful. I can't leave Galen unguarded."
She expects the Antarctic air to be a frisky seventy-five degrees, but, like the rest of the planet, the temperature is stiflingly high. She takes the stairs cautiously, watching Max quarter the area with his nose on the ground. Fifty yards away, a rock cliff stretches so far in both directions that she can see no end to it.
"I'll check the cliff first," she tells Jack, knowing he is seeing her and the cliff on the drone's external viewer. "Is Galen still silent?"
"Yes, refusing to say anything. Be careful. Keep Max and the troopers close."
She moves towards the cliff and Max falls in beside her. She reaches down to caress his head.
Firm ground. No sign of any person or animal, despite Max's interest. No breaks in the rock's smooth face. She runs her hand over the rock. It is hot from the sun. A thin moat of greenery edges where the rock disappears into the ground. Water condensed by the cooler nights, maybe, giving life to algae, grass and tiny flowering plants.
"Nothing except rock with a fringe of greenery," she tells Jack. "No sign of numans or humans. Not even any nonhuman animals." She hears an unpleasant laugh from Galen somewhere near Jack's mic. The thought of once having Galen inside her body revolts her. If only I could make him disappear from my life altogether. But that's impossible.
"There's a door to a numan4 refuge," she hears Galen say. He sounds cold and superior. Does he think he can win by setting a price on revealing how to get in?
"Open it," says Jack.
"Do you want a deal?" asks Galen. "My help as a partner in surviving."
Alice can almost hear Jack thinking out the options. She had told him in a whispered discussion that the old Galen could have been trusted a little but the new Galen is unpredictable, violent and manipulative. But they need his knowledge and connections: "We must know what experimental upgrade he gave Aapeli."
"I'll make this deal," she hears Jack say. "You open the door and I will not kill you here and now. We'll try you out: you stay a prisoner but with the chance to convince us that we can trust you."
A rapid rattle of small explosions marks out a vertical oblong as Alice and Max jump back in a fusillade of debris. Max yelps and Alice reels from half a dozen impacts.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes, we're okay, Jack. We both got hit by flying stone but no injuries. Something else to thank Galen for."
She hears Galen do his human laugh as the troopers run up to her, and she can hear Aleksi coming more slowly.
"It might be a door," she tells Jack.
"It is a door," says Galen. "Stand clear."
But before she has time to move, it explodes open, the edge catching her and flinging her to the ground. Even in her stunned state, she hears Galen saying something and registers that it is cut off abruptly. Then strong trooper hands are getting her to her feet and Jack is pounding up to her.
"Galen!" she says. "He'll steal the drone."
"He's unconscious, maybe dead," Jack tells her. "Are you injured?"
"I... I don't think so."
Jack swings on Aleksi. "Can you secure Galen?"
"Yes," says Aleksi, numan calm and sure. But Alice is not fooled: if Galen offers any excuse, Aleksi will kill him for what he did to Aapeli.
Jack helps Alice move forward and, with Max touching the other side of her, they walk through the cliff door. Lights activate instantly. The outside wall is solid rock, two feet thick, with an inside emergency door sensitive to voice command or the touch of a button.
The room is large, twelve meters in diameter, and the roof is shaped like the FedUK Center's domes. The walls look like white marble, without a seam. Side doors near the entrance open onto living spaces for a company of troopers: narrow bunks, food preparation, water supplies and an armory of blasters and smart-bullet rifles. Another four doors are set around the dome.
"I am feeling better now," she tells Jack with her usual determination. "We need to explore this room very carefully. Beware of anything that looks even slightly odd. Dalen told me that spookpolice often booby-trap unused installations."
She goes over the room, holding up a warning hand to stop the troopers entering, until she feels confident enough to tell Jack, "Seems clear. Let's keep the others out until we have checked all the rooms." But what if I'm wrong? What if the booby traps are clever enough to fool us? "I'll take the guard room on the right; you take the left."
She edges warily through the guards' room aware of Jack, with no security training, moving around in the other room. "Jack! Be careful! Don't touch anything!" she calls.
She hears the two troopers disobeying and coming in. Why not? They probably know more about booby traps than us.
Two hours later, after scouring the entire complex, she and Jack relax in an inner domed room equipped with comfortable furniture, subtle lighting, cooking gadgets never seen in FedUK and masses of clothes of varying sizes. Max is at their feet, sleeping soundly.
The troopers are settling into one of the guard rooms; Aleksi and Aapeli are resting in their room; and Galen is locked in a comfortable cell apparently designed as a jail for anyone important enough to be kept alive.
"I don't even know what day it is," says Alice, snuggling her head into Jack's shoulder. She lifts her face as he kisses her hair and he switches his attention to her lips and tongue, twisting his body despite the aches and strains that he picked up somewhere in the past twelve hours. "We shouldn't be doing this. We should be planning our next move."
Max stirs, senses something going on, and gets up to join their embrace. They both put a hand on him and he climbs up to be cuddled.
"Jack," says Alice, peering at his face. "You've gone very quiet. Are you all right? You're very pale." Not another extinction episode! The last one nearly killed him and we have no help here.
"I think I'm okay," says Jack. "I do feel a little..." He cannot finish the sentence. His eyes are wide and unseeing, and his body is rigid.
*
Who am I really? Aini, usually a calm and still-as-death sleeper, is restless in his bed, which still has a fragrance from being fumigated after his animal Mark and the female used it. If only my genetic upgrade had not sacrificed mind control to buy imagination and creativity. His old design would have let him control his mind: an unemotional thinking machine as fast as any living entity on the planet.
He reviews his current predicament and his two masters: the Military High Command and the Group, with its thirty numan4s who control the World Council. He ignores the third responsibility, the World Council. That puppet-organization will not survive the numan2 rebellion.
"Dick, what happens now?" Aini asks the empty room. If only he had Balen or Dalen here to distract him, to help him think too. Even one of his wives would be better than nothing.
The risks in this crisis are titanic but the opportunities make Aini's head spin with dreams. He can help destroy Galen, a sweet revenge for
the theft of his work at university. If he ends the numan2 crisis, he will be given a seat on the edge of the Group. If he fails, he will disappear into obscurity. I shall become what my test animal Mark thinks I am: a backwater food technologist.
Aini jumps from his bed. His mediamat is on – it is never off – and studies the data. His Mark Theory posits that a test animal's controlled and extreme emotional and behavioral readings can be plotted against physical indicators in the animal's body to locate hidden DNA trigger points. Ending numan2 instability will be a small step after that stage. If I am right. Why did I promise so much to the Group? Why couldn't Galen's downfall have come earlier? I would have promised far less if I had known he was no competition.
Aini's original plan, to conduct the experiment over six weeks and then dissect his animal, is already under pressure. The Group is demanding results, and the military is constantly harassing him. The military wants me to fail; it would be an excuse for a coup. He comes to a decision. My time is running out. So is Mark's.
*
Commander Sandro sits on the hard single bed in his "prison" at White Death's house. He stares into space. He has most of the pieces of his plan – his gamble – worked out. His life-status responder, a dot under the skin on his leg, is being interrogated every hour. His headquarters knows he is alive and his location. They could send a troopers to cleanse the area and rescue me, but I'm not holding my breath. They will be busy everywhere.
His best tactic will be to join the rebellion, take control of a sizable area and deliver it to the new military order that will surely succeed the World Council. For that, he needs White Death. Maybe he can even capture Jack Janus and Max for the Military High Command.
Sandro rises, energized by the prospect of action, and hammers on the door. White Death is exhausted, suffering from battle trauma. Now is the time to strike.
He waits for his hammering to be answered by White Death's fighters. But as the door opens, he sees White Death, looking as white as death in his exhaustion.
"What do you have to offer me?" White Death asks him.
*
Mark is depressed and paralyzed by shame. He has saved his own life but at the price of eating slices of human girl – the one with red hair admired so much by Aini. I had to do it. Aini will trust me now. He will think I'm beaten. But I'm not! I'll get away, even if I have to kill Aini and the driver.
He waits in the limousine in the early morning drizzle. He spent the night in a stinking shed and has not been fed. He is empty after throwing up in the night and again this morning. Aini laughed as he recorded the data from Mark's sensor and the driver scrubbed him. He still smells of vomit and the chemical used by the driver.
His ear is sore from the driver twisting it. Why doesn't he just tell me what he wants? I'm trained. I will do it. But he knows the driver cannot speak. If I get free and run, that brute will not be able to shout for help. I can do it. I will do it. I will survive!
"Good boy," says Aini, wrinkling his nose as he gets in and shoving Mark away. "That's right. Settle down."
Mark sits silently, eyes everywhere, apprehensive. What are they going to do with me today? His brain locks on one thought: escape. Something will happen today and then he will run.
"You were a very good boy last night," says Aini. "You did everything I expected, including eating all your meat, and your sensor readings show great promise. I might even enter you in the Meat on the Feet Show next week. That will make you proud, won't it?"
The limousine pulls away soundlessly but Mark does not care. His only choice is to do whatever they want or suffer misery, even death.
Somewhere in his brain he remembers being different, free, going and doing what he wanted. He tries to rekindle his earlier determination to escape, but nothing seems possible.
Aini puts a bowl of feed on his lap. He scoops into it with his hand and rams it into his mouth. It tastes good and fills his belly.
"That is pmeat made from scrag," Aini tells him. "Cheap pmeat made from older animals. Do you remember the human animal eating breakfast with you at the stable where you slept two nights ago? You are eating him."
"No!" Mark cannot manage any other reply. His hunger fuels his disbelief and he carries on eating as he glances fearfully at Aini.
He calms down as Aini monitors his sleeve screen. "What's wrong with you eating that animal? Human animals often fed their farm animals products made from earlier generations of the same animals."
"No!" replies Mark, his jaws slowing.
"Yes, but stay calm, there's a good boy," says Aini, stroking Mark's head and neck behind his ears. Mark knows this is ridiculous but it calms him. He somehow feels safer, unthreatened. Then, just as he relaxes, Aini brutally switches to his razor-sharp vivisector's voice that hurts Mark's mind like the animal tickler hurts his body. "Mark, pay attention! Watch what is happening! Listen to what I am saying!"
The limousine brakes hard, and before Mark realizes, he is being dragged out of the limousine by Aini twisting and pulling his right ear. Is this the moment? Can I escape?
"Look at this!" Aini shouts at him, tugging his head by the ear until he can see a field with a few naked humans among machines and buildings. The grass has been churned to mud and the animals are streaked with farm debris. Some are blinking at the bright sun, others trying to herd together in the shade. They look alarmed, unaccustomed to the open air.
Mark instinctively shies away, slipping painfully out of Aini's grip on his ear. But in a second, the limousine driver has him under control with a noose around his neck. He is yanked back to face the field and he stands, immobile, waiting, obeying, not touching the fence in front of him, not doing anything to cause the driver or Aini to hurt him more.
"You see the animals, Mark? The human animals like you?" Mark recoils as Aini's voice penetrates his brain. No! I will not look. He closes his eyes and, almost instantly, an animal tickler pain ignites below his ribs and consumes his whole body with the speed of a flash flame. He screams, tries to escape, but the driver has the noose so tight that he is being throttled. I must get away!
Aini grabs his ear again and this time Mark does not resist. In the field, brutes are rounding up the humans. He watches them as Aini wants. If I do this, the pain will stop. I must pretend I'm beaten.
"There's a good boy. What do you see? What do you feel? Tell me or you will be slaughtered today."
"I... I can see human women..." No, this is not right; this is not what he wants. Mark starts again. "I can see human animal women... I mean, female human animals. They are in the field. They are naked... they have such huge breasts... I mean, udders... they are... wandering about... they have different colored tags clipped into their ears..." He hears Aini snort and he understands it as something between a laugh and contempt.
"I'm going to tell you what you are seeing and you will answer my questions," cuts in Aini. "Do you understand?"
"Yes," replies Mark, a surge of relief going through him. He understands and he will please Aini. Then I will escape.
"These are female human animals," says Aini, eyes monitoring Mark and the screen on his sleeve. "We tag them to show different research programs. It doesn't hurt them – animals don't feel pain like people."
"Like numan people?" asks Mark, who is an animal like any nonhuman animal and knows he feels pain.
"Quite so," says Aini. "Now pay attention. You see the mass of firm but tender meat? You see the extended udders for our milk producers? You cannot see the modified nutrients in the skin for beauty products. With these animals, the skin is used for cosmetics. From our male human animal development program, the skin is used for tanning and turning into quality personal items like mediamat covers and cases. Do you understand?"
"Yes," he replies, pretending to do what they tell him until he can make a bolt for freedom.
"Good boy."
"What are the machines?" Mark asks, unable to process Aini's praise and still expecting punishment. There are other anima
ls around here. I just need a way to escape.
"The ones on the right are bull servicing stalls," says Aini. "The female animals are strapped over the silver area and then our genetically developed male animals inseminate them." They hear screams and Aini says excitedly, "Look! The second stall from the right. One of the animals is being inseminated. And there's another being led and strapped ready for the bull. How do you feel about this violence against your species?"
"I don't feel anything," says Mark, losing his concentration and confused by the process that has nothing to do with him.
Aini laughs. "That's not what your sensor says," Aini tells him. "Now look at the stalls on the left." Marks eyes track towards them before Aini can tug his ear. "You see they are different?"
"Yes."
"Now watch. I have arranged for this to be done today so you can see it."
Mark watches. He remembers he is an animal – I'm a man! – being used for an experiment to shock and hurt him. A brute emerges from behind the machines. He is dragging a girl, maybe thirteen years old... she has limbs and torso so huge she looks deformed and her huge breasts drag her down. She is terrified. She knows what they are going to do to her. She shrieks as she fights to escape. But she has no chance: the sheer strength of the brute, his noose round her neck, his other hand gripping her ear.
"A very nice animal," says Aini. "We are finding that optimum value is extracted by using this kind of animal for breeding for three years and then selling their meat while it still draws a 'young animal' premium."
The brute quickly forces the animal over the machine, bending it to ninety degrees, its legs splayed, and securing its arms, legs and torso.
Mark, despite his terror, is holding his breath as the animal – he cannot stop himself thinking "girl" – sobs with helplessness. The brute touches a gold button and the whole machine comes alive. The parts under the animal raise its lower end. Mark can hardly make sense of Aini's running description. A machine nozzle closes on the animal and inserts itself. After a few seconds, foaming white liquid spills from around the nozzle and out of the animal, which is screaming in pain or terror. The nozzle withdraws – is that blood on it?