“Don’t listen to her,” Orson said. “Norma’s trying to save her own soul and she’s willing to get everyone killed to do it.”
J-1 watched, wide-eyed. What were they talking about?
“It’s too late to save my soul,” Norma replied. “But it’s not too late to make amends for it. I’ll fight those bastards with or without you until my final breath.”
“Prudence, Hob!” Orson growled. “Are you with me?”
“I’m—,” Hob lowered his eyes and rubbed his beard, “—with Norma.”
Prudence said nothing.
“You’re all crazy.” Orson again kneeled by Matilda. He clutched her hand and glanced at Norma. “If we make it back I’m going to see that you’re removed from command.”
Norma motioned for the others to start the burial proceedings.
~~~
J-1 had been ordered away from them. He watched from a distance as they removed two tan sheets from Prudence’s backpack. They wrapped Matilda in one and Phineas in the other. They gathered around the shrouds. Though there was clearly a rift between Orson and Norma, he spoke lovingly of how he and Matilda sat near a cliff one evening watching a sky full of stars, and how it was the best moment of his life when she kissed him, and told him to pick the brightest star he could find because that was going to be how they would live their life together.
Norma told a funny story about Phineas rigging up the officer’s latrine to make grunting sounds when the higher-ups used it. Everyone smiled at both stories. Still, J-1 could tell by the silence that followed that they were all saddened by the tales.
Afterwards, they removed their electro-rods and touched the tips to Matilda’s shroud, where her heart was located. Orson said a brief prayer. He nodded to Norma. She nodded to the others. In unison, current flowed from the rods and engulfed the shroud in a golden haze. A smell that resembled ozone and orange peelings drifted to J-1. A short time later the spears turned off in unison. The shroud had shrink-wrapped around the corpse, which was now no more than desiccated bones. They repeated the ceremony with Phineas. Two holes were dug and the remains were placed inside them. Nearly the entire time they were being covered with soil, Orson kept his eyes, narrowed and unyielding, on J-1.
When they had finished the burials, Norma said, “Collect what scrap material we can and let’s clear out before we get more visitors.” They packed what was left of their tents and supplies, gathered parts from the destroyed robots that would fit in their backpacks or on Coco’s tray and departed.
~~~
They walked long enough for the sun to rise above and fall below the clouds surrounding the top of Mount Kwieetus. Norma and her four remaining squad members stopped at a clump of brush that stood at the base of the mountain.
Because Coco was laden with scrap robot pieces, J-1 had been left to limp alongside the lifter at their ordered distance away from the rest. J-1 watched as the others entered the thicket and disappeared. J-1 raised his eyebrows at Coco. The lifter said, “Command?”
“Follow me.” J-1 approached the coppice and stopped. There was no opening that he could see. It was a mass of leaves and limbs nearly as solid as a wall. Coco drifted around the area. Nothing. J-1 thought, had Orson gotten his way after all? Did they ditch him?
A hand reached out of the brush and motioned with its index finger. “This way.” The hand grabbed J-1’s elbow and pulled him in. J-1 grabbed Coco’s stem and pulled her in with him. The hand belonged to Teague. He walked them through the slightest of openings to a hidden archway covered in undergrowth as dense as bondstone.
The archway led to a large cavern inside the mountain. Norma, Prudence, Hob and Orson were standing inside of it. Hob and Orson clutched torches. Imbedded in the craggy walls and ceiling were thousands of crystals. They shimmered a brilliant blue-purple from the torch flames. Though he had never seen or heard of such a rich vein, J-1 extrapolated what it was—genimetrothiasine. Ameri-Inc. could do a universe of good with it, he thought. A chill ran through his polyflesh. Or a world of bad. He wasn’t sure, anymore.
Norma motioned everyone deeper into the cavern.
As he followed the others, his eyes remained on the sparkling crystals.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Date: 2250
Takáts Prefecture (formerly Haiti)
Takáts Manor: parlor
Jocsun shoved harder. Beneath him, Rebeka stretched her left hand to the end table resting next to the divan they were coupled on. She dipped two fingers into her bowl of G-89 gel. She rubbed one finger in Jocsun’s mouth and the other in hers.
Jocsun picked up speed.
Rebeka moaned. She dug into his bare buttocks with the Bagh Nakh clenched in her right fist. Quadruple blood streams flowed down his butt cheek. He laughed and thrust even harder. Her eyes rolled back. She dropped the ivory-claw weapon, clamped her limbs around him and squeezed with everything she had. Jocsun groaned. They uttered lewd words in each other’s ears as the tsunami of sex and G-89 swallowed them whole and swept them away from the shore.
A discreet time later, after the euphoria that only came with the gel died down, there was a knock on the parlor door. “Madam, your brother will be arriving shortly.”
“Thank you, Toussaint.”
“My pleasure, Madam.”
Jocsun reached for the bowl. Rebeka snatched it and waggled her finger at him.
“Just a splotch, dear. To get me through dinner.”
“Not until Mama says,” Rebeka answered. “And Mama isn’t ready to say.”
Jocsun smiled. “You really are a bitch, you know that?”
Rebeka smiled inwardly. She knew damn well that access to her special stock was the key to controlling him. She tossed Jocsun a towel and his tube of upper management—but lower grade—G-75, which he had laid beside them. He wiped his bleeding buttocks and applied the gel. The lacerations fused together. Rebeka and Jocsun dressed.
~~~
Rebeka was at the head of the dinner table. Her brother, Herb, was sitting to her right and Herb’s husband, Carl, was sitting to Rebeka’s left, across from Herb. Jocsun was seated to Carl’s left.
Toussaint and Elsie-Joyce removed salad plates from in front of the diners and replaced them with bowls of vichyssoise. Like Toussaint, Elsie-Joyce was in her seventies. Unlike the diners—who were older, but looked younger—the servants’ hair was winter white and their skin was the color of oak bark. Both wore eyeglasses. When their task was completed the servants noiselessly left the room.
“Really, Rebeka,” Herb said as he fluttered his soupspoon in his bowl. “You must increase the percentage in poor Toussaint and Elsie-Joyce’s GTS supply. They look positively decrepit.” Herb was muscle-bound and not particularly handsome. He was attired in a platinum-thread three-piece suit. His shirt was a cyan serandite-thread button down. His tie was gold weave and tied in a double Windsor knot. His skin was wrinkleless. Other than his rust-colored eyebrows, he was completely hairless.
“You know how servants behave.” Rebeka wore a scarlet turtleneck pullover and black cigarette slacks. Her neck held an aqua necklace of deep-ocean diamonds. “If I overly reduce their perceived age, with the added energy that comes from it who knows what kind of sexual hijinks would be going on behind our backs.”
“That would be horrendous,” Jocsun said. Maintaining his professionalism, he was dressed in formal business attire: white shirt, black leather pants, harness boots and the requisite black leather motorcycle jacket. His olive Mohawk was tinged gold, the traditional hue for a dinner party.
She glanced at him and smiled.
“One can only imagine what would end up in the vichyssoise.” Carl dipped his pinky-tip in the bowl and licked it. He reached across the table with his other hand and clutched Herb’s wrist. Carl was handsome, slim, and his hair was corn blond. His flesh was smooth and black as onyx. Though he was underdressed in a sky-blue, long-sleeve, v-neck chiffon shirt, Carl didn’t seem to care or notice.
“If it
makes you feel better, Herb. They receive a generous year-end bonus supply,” Rebeka said, “that affords them two weeks of youthful abandonment.” She took a sip of her soup before adding, “Let’s cut the crap, shall we? Who in hell do you think you are trying to take over my company?”
Carl raised a brow slightly. Jocsun raised both brows slightly.
Herb stiffened. “First of all, Rebeka darling, it’s not your company. It’s our company. Secondly, you’re running it into the ground.”
“You’re full of shit.”
Carl glanced at Jocsun and smiled bemusedly. Jocsun kept an even countenance.
“Am I? Word’s gotten out about the mine explosion and that because of it there’ll be a disruption in the GTS flow. And that you’re unable to deal with it.”
“That’s a lie.” Rebeka’s tone was filled with more anger than she wanted to expose to the men.
Herb smiled. “Rumors of a botched attempt to recapture the Humachine have also circulated. Really, a horde of WarBots unable to squash an unruly band of dissidents?”
“That never happened,” Rebeka lied.
“Apparently the president and Congress don’t think so. Senator Critcher is forming a committee to again discuss the breakup of the GTS monopoly. This time the president’s on board. Or didn’t you know?”
“Rest assured my lobbyists will squelch it like they’ve done a hundred times before.”
“That’s good to hear, Sis, because they’re dead serious.” Herb flashed a grin at Carl. “I wouldn’t want the shareholders to think you’re not up to the task.”
“Of course not. That would make it easier for you to convince them to vote me out.”
Herb placed his elbow on the table, flexed his biceps and watched them tighten against his suit sleeve. “Would it? I hadn’t thought of it in those terms.”
Rebeka puffed a bored breath through her nose. “Really, Herb, how many times do we have to go through this? The bottom line is Mother bequeathed me, lo, all those decades ago, forty-five percent of Ameri-Inc., and you thirty-five percent.” She turned to Jocsun, “Counselor, unless I’m mistaken that gives me controlling power.”
Jocsun remained stoic.
Herb turned toward her. The skin between his eyebrows crinkled. “You fucked with her mind. Controlling interest was to go to me. She told me so herself.”
“You had your day in court long ago, Brother, and lost.”
“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s a clause—”
Carl loudly cleared his throat, removed his hand from Herb’s wrist and placed it on his own lap. He smiled a bored, half-smile at Herb.
Herb took a deep breath. “What I meant to say was, there’s a claustrophobic feeling in this room. Don’t you agree, Sister?”
Rebeka narrowed her eyes. “Yes, I suppose there is.”
Herb glanced at Carl, picked up his spoon and dipped it into the creamy, cold soup.
Rebeka arched an eyebrow at Jocsun: What’s that all about?
Jocsun shrugged lightly: I’ve no idea.
Catching their furtive exchange, Carl smiled. He moved his hand from his lap and gripped Jocsun’s inner thigh. Carl squeezed it gently. Jocsun moved his leg ever so closer to the slight man.
~~~
Alone, Rebeka lay in her bed thinking. Tonight’s dinner party was supposed to have been a slap down for Herb, but it turned into a wakeup call. For the first time in over five decades I feel as if Ameri-Inc. is slipping through my fingers. She reached for the 89 proof powder lying on the nightstand and brought it to her lips, but stopped. I need my mind clear. There’s too much at stake.
“First off,” she said to herself, “there’s a rat in the boardroom because the only people who had knowledge of the bungled attack were the members.” She removed a pen and pad from a drawer in the stand. Better to write my ideas out on paper. No digital copies. If the scumbag is hacking into my computers I don’t want him or her to know I’m on to them.
Rebeka wrote the name of each board member on the pad along with reasons why and why not to eliminate them as the rat. The only one she crossed off was Jocsun. He was too unimaginative, too hooked on her G-89 and too addicted to banging her. As for the others, she jotted down the oldest scheme in the book to smoke out turncoats: Separately feed each suspect different—and untruthful—juicy information and see who leaks it.
Second, she didn’t buy Herb’s bullshit about a claustrophobic room. She wrote in her notepad: claustrophobic = claws, closet, clause, Claus (Santa), clausal, claw-foot… She’d have to let it mix around her brain awhile.
Most important, she had to get the GTS back in production and by extension that would solve most of the other problems. The quickest way to do that was to get the Humachine back. The rebuilding of the warehouse was problem enough, but he was the command center behind its operation and without that it would make it even worse. Once the Humachine was in place and the mining was again going full steam she’d have her research team develop other devices to replace it.
Relying on a single unit—especially a robot that might be thinking on its own—proved to be too dangerous, no matter the cost efficiency. She was finding that out the hard way. Because the time element was crucial and because the government was breathing down her back, Rebeka made another decision. She added it to her notes: Fly to Truatta and personally oversee operations.
She made a mental notation to dig up dirt on Senator Critcher, and set up another date with Xia Ruffet. She smiled. Once I get Xia’s shares and permanent control of the company, dear brother Herb, the first thing I’m going to do is cut you off of the 89 proof. She imagined Herb’s bulging muscles sagging with decades of age on them. It caused her to laugh.
Rebeka placed the pencil and pad back in the drawer. Satisfied, she rolled to her side and as the bedroom lights dimmed to black and the sound of the ocean floated through hidden speakers she drifted to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Date: 2051
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Ameri-Inc. Headquarters
Conference Suite: 147th Floor
Following the video presentation of his recovery to the assembled group at Ameri-Inc., Chief Dan Panther lifted his chin slightly. He had read somewhere that it produced an image of confidence. Raised too much it gave the impression of arrogance. He disliked arrogance, but loved confidence.
“Mr. Takáts this is a seminal moment in history. Wouldn’t you agree?” Panther said. He wasn’t back to the tall, bulky man that he had been before his cancer, but he was no longer the bald, jaundiced, wheelchair-bound skeleton he was six months ago.
His body was slim, his face was slim, and his flesh was firm. He no longer needed breathing or transport devices. With his lean look and full, but short, silver mane he could have been the happy male recipient in a commercial for erectile dysfunction. True, his mind got easily fatigued, but he wasn’t going to share that information.
The world famous eighty-one-year-old Hebert Takáts, founder, chairman, and CEO of Ameri-Inc., leaned forward. He rested his elbows on the table and rubbed the top of one hand with the other. He was a pasty man with rheumy, gray eyes, ruddy cheeks, ash-colored bristled hair that grew on the sides only. His thick lips accented a not unpleasant countenance.
Standing to his right was his twenty-five-year-old wife, Malalani, a former Hawaiian model. According to the tabloids, her name meant heavenly garden. With her svelte figure, wavy satin-black hair and seraphic face, Panther had no reason to question that interpretation. He also didn’t doubt, by the way her wary, almond eyes lasered on him, that if push came to shove, she could be a Doberman. The only other person in the suite was the Takáts’ personal assistant, Adrian; an unassuming middle-aged man who stood off to the side.
“Chief Panther, would you mind stepping closer?” Though his parents were Russian, Hebert Takáts was born and raised in Australia. His accent reflected his Australian h
eritage.
Panther had been standing next to the 3D video screen. It was located on the opposite side of the large room from where Takáts was sitting behind a handcrafted walnut desk which was one-of-a-kind.
Takáts rose as Panther approached. Takáts adjusted his eye-glasses, and looked closely into Panther’s eyes.
Looking for jaundice, Panther supposed.
“Would it be too inconvenient, Chief Panther, to ask you to remove your upper clothing and to take two steps back?” Takáts said.
Panther stepped back and quickly shed his yellow and olive zigzag-patterned vest, and his tan shirt. Even though Takáts’ army of doctors had already dissected him, Panther was more than happy to let the boss inspect the goods for himself.
Takáts circled Panther. “May I?” He motioned to Panther’s bare torso. Panther nodded. Takáts pressed his hands along Panther’s flesh. Takáts glanced at Malalani and raised his eyebrow ever so slightly.
Panther smiled.
Before taking his chair, Takáts signaled for Panther to dress. He told Panther to take a seat. “It appears there is, indeed, some progress.”
Panther remained silent. The ball was in his court. He waited for Takáts to fetch it.
“Though no one knows the long term prognosis, and it’s much too early to analyze side effects,” Takáts said.
“Still,” Panther said, “wouldn’t you say it’s miraculous?”
“On you, yes. But what’s the guarantee you aren’t an anomaly?”
“My medical team is finding the same results in their clinical trials.”
“Who is your medical team?”
“The best in the business,” Panther replied.
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