Altered Humans

by Darrell Bain

  “Just about.” He snapped his fingers. “Damn, if I had thought to salvage those passengers’ body computers, we could have used them to fool the master log. The FedRats never check to see if the bodies match the specs; they just look to see if the right computer has logged in again."

  “How about if you had some of them? Could we three pose as the government guys?"

  Jake bellowed with laughter. “Sure—so long as they didn't get a good look at you!"

  “Well, what if we tried that? You're going to have to tell some sort of story about what happened out here, aren't you?"

  “Well, yeah—but I still don't have their computers."

  Lea reached into the big thigh pocket of her jump suit and brought out four rounded disks; three attached to neck chains and one posing as a bracelet. All of the disks were ornately decorated with gold and silver inlay so that they resembled jewelry. “I thought they might come in handy, so I salvaged a few of them. Pretty, aren't they?"

  * * *

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Gary held his breath and Maria's hand as Jake maneuvered the recharged floater into the air. He had seen them take off before, and while seeing one take flight and being in one when it did were bound to be much different experiences, he knew Jake's craft was sluggish. It barely cleared the next big growth of forest, but then slowly gained height. He tilted the solar panels into position to catch the most of the morning sun and synchronized the setting with their time and speed. As the morning progressed, they would keep the maximum surface absorbing sunlight and converting it to power. Within a few minutes he picked up the interstate and began following it north.

  The view was magnificent from the truncated height that a floater usually traveled at. Forests and open bodies of water sparkled in the sunlight. Occasional coils of smoke rose from small towns along the main interstate highway still holding out against the ravages of enhanced animals. Trucks such as Lea had driven were frequent, but there were few private vehicles on the road. Twice they flew over small towns that looked to be abandoned. Both of them were surrounded by rings of dead vegetation where poison or herbicides had been used to try to keep enhanced animals at bay. At one of them, Gary examined the place through Jake's field glasses and could see winding columns of rats with high domed heads going into and out of abandoned buildings. There were thousands of them, more than he could possibly count. The whole ecology of earth was mixed up now, with sudden explosions or depletions in the population of animals, which in turn affected other parts of the mix. He knew it would be many more years yet before it stabilized.

  At last they neared the huge Dallas/Fort Worth metropolis. Even from a long way off, he could see dust rising from construction equipment working furiously in a great circular arc around Dallas, trying to get a barricade completed that would isolate it from enhanced animals. He had read that the northern part of the barricade was already nearing completion and that like Houston, steps were being taken to get manufacturing going again and to limit the number of refuges from blighted areas of the country. Dallas only had one nuclear plant to depend on for energy. It was supplemented by the importation of coal through long pipelines and tunnels kept open and guarded as were the mines, by remnants of the country's armed forces.

  “Get your bandages on kids; we're getting close,” Jake ordered.

  Gary, Lea and Maria began applying the bogus bandages to their faces and other parts of their bodies as a disguise and to back up Gary's story. It wasn't certain that they would be needed but Jake wanted to take no chances and they had all agreed that it offered the best chance of the three of them getting off the craft and away from the airport without being hindered or held for questioning. Three of the computers Lea had stolen from the bodies had already been tapped into his console. As soon as he landed, that information would be relayed to the airport computer—which would immediately send up a flag, requesting an explanation about the passengers he had started with but were no longer aboard. That was when he would have to tell his tale—and send his “wounded” charges off for treatment. He had already given them the address and house code for his residence. Gary and Lea in turn, had passed him enough gold for a substantial bribe if the FedRats were insistent on nosing about too closely.

  Jake used all his skills to make his aircraft wobble in the air as he came close to the airport tower, signaling that he had no communication and was in trouble. He wasn't worried about faking that part of their plan. He was having problems and had to override computer control to keep it from grounding his craft immediately. The floater had used more power than he had thought it would getting it there. He juggled current flow from the remaining superconducting coils to provide magnetic lift to the section left without, robbing Peter to pay Paul. More than one gauge was blinking red when he finally set the craft down with a very hard bump that jarred their teeth.

  “Whew! Folks, that was closer than I wanted it to be. I should have picked a spot on the interstate and got a tow the rest of the way—except I couldn't be sure there were still any tow trucks left.” His lips split in his crinkled-eyed grin. “As the old saying goes, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. Now get into your acting shoes kids, and let's hope the FedRats or SecRats aren't very bright today."

  Jake was also hoping that not too many questions would be asked, but the importance of the passengers he had been carrying suggested that there would be. Only the fact that he came down at the southern, smaller airport was cause for optimism. They might not be so security conscious there. Aircraft with mechanical trouble routinely landed at the smaller field, as well as unscheduled craft from other areas, usually manned by refugees or paid for by refugees. Before long, he doubted that such craft would be allowed inside the barricades in order to keep the population down to manageable levels. At any rate, he had his story ready.

  Checking to see that the others were properly bandaged up, he stood and got ready to open the floater. He looked back at them. “Don't forget to moan and groan a bit. And try to act like it's all my fault. Remember, Gary will do the talking if they ask you anything.” He pressed his thumb to the door latch and was confronted immediately by a uniformed man waiting outside.

  “I need to send these folks to a treatment center right away. They're hurt, and they're the only ones left alive,” Jake said immediately to the Federal Officer who stood ready. He was thankful that he was a low ranking functionary. “Here. Take this and get them to my car. It's in parking area C. It will be the only one with an eagle painted on the trunk. They'll take it from there.” He passed the man a large denomination gold coin and his spare lock card without giving him time to ask questions.

  The uniformed officer took the coin and slipped it into a pocket of his uniform as if taking a bribe was an old habit, but still he peered into the craft, purposely left darkened by Jake. Seeing the bandages on the three passengers, he keyed his computer and spoke to the holo projection in front of him. “Raymond? I'm going to use the baggage cart to take the passengers to the parking lot, then come back for their luggage later. They need to get to a treatment center right away and I don't want to wait for an ambulance.” He waited on an answer then spoke again. “No, the pilot will stay here to report. No problem about that. Yeah, he said these three are the only ones alive. Must be quite a story. Be sure to tell me about it when I get loose."

  Having done his part to earn the coin, the officer waited, knowing that the situation was unusual enough to ask for more money. Taking the cue, Jake surreptitiously passed him another gold piece of the same denomination and let himself be pointed toward where two other higher ranking officers were waiting to take him to a briefing room. He recoiled inside, but then relaxed. He had rehearsed his story enough to make it believable—and horrible enough to capture their attention while his friends drove away in his car. If he got away with the scheme, he would follow later. If not—well, he still had his gun at his hip and another concealed under the legging of his jump suit.

  Groa
ning for effect, Gary pretended to help Maria along, being careful not to bump Booger Bear, concealed in an improvised shoulder bag. Maria's whole head was bandaged, as well as her hands. She kept up a soft keening sound, interspersed with saying, “It hurts, oh God, it hurts.” Even the man who had just taken Jake's money looked away as they made their way to the baggage cart and sat down on the plastic pallets. The officer drove the electric cart silently away as soon as they were settled.

  Jake's vehicle indeed was easy to spot. The bald eagle, now extinct, was painted in brilliant colors and covered the whole rear section of his sedan.

  “Are you sure you can make it from here?” The officer asked after Gary had gotten Maria seated in the back.

  Gary took the hint. He dug out another gold piece and the man walked away whistling a happy tune. With that much gold in his pocket he didn't mind walking back to the terminal at all, especially since the federal paychecks had been delayed for some reason this month.

  The lock card also keyed in directions once Gary figured out that they were voice activated and gave the car the right words, already standardized from years of use by drivers. He sped away without looking back.

  Behind them, Jake was singing his song of woe to a rapt audience. “I did my best to keep them inside once we went down, but the fools insisted,” he kept repeating. “What was I supposed to do? They were high enough in government to have my job in a minute if I hadn't done like they asked. Say, where is everyone? Usually I see a whole gang of people out in the corridors."

  “We haven't gotten paid yet this month. I think Bradshaw must have already made a deal with the Cities First crowd before the election."

  “Damn politicians,” the other added for emphasis.

  The way that government worked now was well understood by the two doing the questioning. It had become like non-material merchandise, for sale or trade by the highest bidders. Jake proved this after an hour of questioning by using the last of the gold that Gary had given him to thank the men for their courtesy and to have them conveniently forget to take his computer code to contact him if they had more questions. They thanked him profusely. He left to find transportation and noticed as he rode the slidewalk through the terminal that many of the desks were unmanned and that where they did have officials behind them, they seemed to be paying more attention to their holosets than passengers coming and going. As he left the airport in a rented car, he was thankful that no one had spotted the most glaring deficiency in his story. Two females had left his craft, but he had started the trip with only one. He had hoped that they would look at names rather than gender and sure enough, it went the way he hoped. He was whistling as cheerfully as a young boy just out of school when he drove off.

  * * * *

  Jake's rented home was inside an upscale gated community, but semi-isolated from its neighbors by a high growth of shrubs. Gary parked Jake's car in the garage, where the door had slid aside as soon as he turned into the driveway. When the car stopped, lights went on and the garage door closed. He hoped no inquisitive neighbors had seen them drive in and came over to ask questions—at least until Jake arrived.

  The door into the interior of the house responded to the same lock card as the car had. It opened directly into a small mud room that held the converters for the solar panels and a place for raingear and work clothes to be stored. From there another door led them out into a spacious, recessed den containing two large loungers and two smaller seats, a central table and a kitchen and bar. Three of the walls were decorated; the fourth was left a neutral color as a background for holoprojections. Maria and Lea began removing her bandages as soon as they were inside.

  “So far, so good,” Lea said. “Nice place, this. Pilots do pretty well by themselves. The cross-country ones anyway. Too bad truck drivers don't make the same kind of money."

  “Yup, but then you would probably have been deprived of all these great adventures,” Gary said. “I wonder which bedroom he wanted us to use?"

  “Let's go look. I can tell where Jake sleeps.” She led the way into the back of the house. “And here it is; the master bedroom. Wow! I'm going to enjoy resting my carcass in here,” she said, with no hint of embarrassment. “Now let's see where you two are going to park."

  The guest bedroom was only slightly less luxurious than the master. Maria took it all in with wide-eyed wonder. Her background had not included any such luxuries as a memory mattress or a sauna in the bathroom. Gary was less interested in those items than some of the other amenities, like tooth care equipment and shampoo. He saw Maria staring at the bed.

  “Beats our last one, huh?"

  “Oh, yes! I can't wait!"

  “Well, I think it would be polite to wait until our host arrives before we go to bed. Tell you what, I'll just bet he has something better to drink than recycled water in that bar in the den. Let's go look."

  Lea was already making herself at home. She had the holovision going and had plundered Jake's bar. She finished adding ice to the large pitcher of alcoholic beverage she had concocted and brought it back to the big center table. Gary rummaged around and found glasses for them. He sat down with Maria on one of the big loungers and let Lea pour.

  While they waited to see if Jake's story was believed they turned their attention to the holovision. What they saw was disheartening—or perhaps encouraging if viewed from the other side of the street.

  Under the revised constitution, Bradshaw had taken office immediately after winning the election, and as Jake had already discovered, he had his agenda ready. They caught only the tail end of the report, then had to wait until the top of the hour for the whole thing.

  It began with the animated news anchor, depicted as a near-beautiful young woman nude from the waist up except for sparkles of glitter adorning her breasts. She got right into the meat of the main news of the day, and perhaps the main news for a long time to come. The federal government would immediately begin concentrating such resources as were available into the big cities of the nation, helping them build barricades and get factories to manufacture necessities operating. Only the most essential highways would be kept open and even that would become secondary to upping the production of freight hauling floaters. The Dallas spaceport would be closed in the very near future and essential imports from the satellite complexes and Moon City would be ferried into and out of the east and west coast spaceports.

  None of those policies had been unexpected; many of them had already begun. It was the draconian measures outlined in next section of the new president's mandate that got their attention.

  * * *

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Gary listened with growing horror as the animation continued in her simulated bright young voice, just as if millions of altered humans and friendly enhanced animal pets were not being given what was essentially a death sentence.

  Altered human beings, as defined by government geneticists, will no longer be allowed inside cities once the barricades are complete. They will be given a grace period, depending on the construction schedule of individual population centers, to find other habitats. After the grace period, all altered humans and all enhanced animals, other than those defined as “useful” by government geneticists, will be evicted whenever found inside the barricades. Those resisting will be moved by force, using whatever means are necessary.

  Essential occupations, such as agricultural geneticists, structural engineers, superconduction specialists and such others as may be defined by individual cities, will be drafted into the work force and paid by each metropolitan authority. The federal government will give help and advice in all the situations mentioned. Given the increasing difficulty of transportation, the country is to be divided into areas of semi-autonomous authority and all remaining armed forces will be deployed to those areas needing them the most.

  Sacramento is designated as the new seat of the federal government since Philadelphia has become untenable. President Bradshaw will issue directives in accordance with such
laws as the new congress shall pass and...

  Lea switched the holo off with a curse. “And you just know who's going to tell congress what laws to pass, don't you? Damn it all to hell, I can understand making war on the animals in the countryside, but why altered humans and pets like Booger?"

  “They're being made scapegoats for everything else that's wrong,” Gary said resignedly. “Even with all the enhanced rats and mice in Houston, I couldn't let Booger out to help keep them under control. Someone would have killed him for sure."

  “Bad men,” his pet agreed.

  He gazed fondly at the cat purring in Maria's lap and enjoyed the scene with a certain amount of amusement. He was beginning to wonder just whose pet Booger Bear was. Since meeting Maria, he had spent more time in her lap than his, and they were beginning to talk together in the animal patois that he could understand only slightly.

  “Bad men for sure,” Jake said, coming into the room. He wore a grim expression on his face.

  “Which ones?” Lea asked.

  “You should have been listening to the latest news,” he said, eyeing the pitcher but heading to the bar where he poured a hefty shot of whiskey.

  “We were,” Gary said. “Until Lea turned it off when they started talking about drafting workers."

  “You should have left it on—or did you hear the part about the wanted list?"

  “Wanted list?"

  “Yeah. A long list of, and I quote, ‘notorious and avaricious genetic engineers who have changed the very fabric of the animal kingdom, and experimented without conscience on human beings'. You're on the list. Hell, even old Hector Cross is on it and he's so old he's bedridden."

  Hector Cross was one of the pioneers of species-mixing genetics. He had once been deported from the country, then allowed back in when enhanced pets had become wildly popular.