Black Phoenix

by B. V. Larson

  “That final death curse?”

  “Yeah.”

  Scarn thought about what he’d seen. The intensity of the heavenly sensations and emotions he’d experienced in just a few minutes… happiness of that level wasn’t easy to come by aboard Tarassis. In fact, it was unknown.

  He nodded to Turtle. “I think it could be for real. There have been drones around all over the place. What if the Singularity comes after us for this?”

  “How can it? It’s just software.”

  “Yeah, sure. It’s software that controls Tarassis. The servers, the data core… everything.”

  “They say it got smart,” Loid said, and they both looked at him. “Some people say, it’s why we lost our way. It’s why we can’t find a good world. Think about it, right now the AI running this ship is king. It’s a god to these fools. If we ever find our destination, we’ll dismantle it. It won’t rule any longer then, and it knows this.”

  Scarn shook his head. “All the more reason we have to keep moving. Come on… keep up if you can, Loid.”

  They headed out the back and ran down the next two empty alleys till they heard Loid gasping behind them.

  When they looked back, he wheezed and waved them off. “You can... leave me... like... I said.”

  The younger men walked back and each took one of his arms.

  “Why you helping me?” Loid almost pulled away from them.

  “Who knows,” Turtle said, “we might find a floater, and neither of us can drive.”

  “You find a floater,” Loid said with his wheezes, “and I’m your man. Anyplace you want to go… no charge.”

  They jogged another ten minutes, making their way into the outer passageways. Most of the houses were burned, but one, next to a crater, had its front half still standing.

  Once inside, Scarn leaned against a sofa where he could see out the front window; Turtle sprawled on the floor facing the rear; and Loid dropped on his back on the sofa, like he might have in the old days, taking a late afternoon nap.

  “Thanks... guys,” he said. At last, in the dusty silence, his breathing slowed. “So, the idea is to go up to one-forty, to that Iris lady?”

  “That’s the plan,” Scarn said. “Walking a dozen levels up has its hazards. We probably won’t make it. On your bot, did you hear of anyplace militias aren’t killing everyone?”

  “Above one hundred.”

  They all laughed. Above level one hundred, that’s where the important people lived. The crew, the guests—everyone who counted.

  “Well,” Turtle said, “we’ll be leaving just after twilight, in about an hour.”

  “Okay.” Loid was ready to rest. “Okay.”

  During their break, Turtle listened to the talking bot for any hints of future unpleasantness, and Scarn prowled through a few drawers. He exchanged pieces of his blood-stiff clothing for what remnants he found.

  “Loid, where’d you find this bot? It’s a good one.”

  “A woman gave it to me.”

  “Why?”

  Loid rolled uncomfortably on the sofa and began uhhing and mmming.

  “For what, Loid? Food? Sex?”

  “Food.”

  Turtle shrugged and continued asking the bot question after question. It seemed to even pick up news from the upper decks. It made him feel a pang of homesickness for his teen years.

  Later, with flickering roof panels indicating the simulated twilight was all but gone, they gathered up their few things. Before leaving, Scarn discreetly circled the house one last time to see that they were clear. His ultra-silent reentry to the house alerted Turtle that all was not well.

  Scarn quietly racked a round into his Sepp 40 and thumbed-off the safety. To keep the lower levels weakened and in constant turmoil, the upper decks always made sure they had enough ammo. Food, pure water… not always. But bullets and charging magazines were everywhere.

  Without asking any questions, Turtle readied his weapon and Loid rolled off the sofa onto the floor. The old man moaned like a creaking board.

  Turtle and Scarn eased in positions where they could see down the street.

  “Shit, there she is,” Scarn muttered. “I thought we lost her.”

  The synth-looking woman approached them from the south, strolling casually, her shoes tapping on the pavement.

  “Every time she shows up, people kill each other,” Turtle whispered. “I’m getting a bad feeling about her.”

  Behind them, Loid rasped his words. “Is that the same crazy bitch again? I thought they doodled her back there in the street. Maybe she came back from the dead.”

  “Fat chance.” Scarn stood up and gave a soft shout: “Hey!”

  The woman looked up slowly and gave him a little wave. “Brothers,” she called back.

  “Stay back!” Scarn called to her. “You’ll get us killed! Turn around and go away!”

  “I am the way. I am the journey made short.”

  “No kidding,” Loid muttered.

  “Wear your goggles and gain the world,” the woman said back to them, still strolling closer, her tapping shoes muffled by the ashes.

  “Why are they so crazy about those things?” Loid whispered in a hiss. “Last time I gamed out, I shit myself and almost died.”

  Turtle kept watch but also patted Loid’s arm to quiet him. “Scarn, movement fifty meters behind her, left side.”

  “You need to leave,” Scarn called out to the woman just loud enough for her to hear. “Go someplace else. Go away.”

  “Through my love,” the woman said, drawing closer, “I will show you the way.”

  “Your way will get us all killed,” Scarn said. “Leave us alone.”

  The woman strolled forward, her arms out and a beatific smile on her face.

  Scarn had his cheek against the stock of the Sepp. He aimed the rifle at the approaching woman.

  But he hesitated and glanced across at Turtle. “I don’t like killing her. She’s not armed.”

  “At least it won’t be in the back,” Turtle observed.

  “She’s going to get us killed!” Loid said. He made urgent squeezing motions with his remaining fingers. “She’s doing this on purpose. Those guys back there were with her!”

  The Sepp made a deep cough. The woman in the robe stopped in her tracks. Dirt sprayed out of a dark crater at her feet. She finally stopped walking toward them, having apparently gotten the message at last.

  “You gave away our position again,” Turtle complained.

  “Time to haul it,” Scarn said, slinging the Sepp over his shoulder.

  “Guys,” Loid said. “Guys, I got a confession to make.”

  “Do it fast.”

  “The woman who gave me the bot? She was real pretty and clean, not like she was from around here… Since you’ve saved my butt several times, I thought I should tell you—”

  “Get to it,” Scarn said. They were ready to run.

  “The woman that gave me the bot said I should stay with you guys.”

  Silence.

  “Stay with us? Why?”

  “That’s all I know! That’s all I know! You can have it, the bot!”

  Scarn and Turtle looked at each other. Then Turtle threw the bot on the floor and Scarn stomped it.

  “Let’s go.”

  Chapter FOUR

  There were two major ways to move between levels and decks aboard Tarassis. The more sophisticated decks used a slip-space lift system. It was essentially an elevator, but one that allowed people to move through solid rock in a different state of being while they traveled.

  In many places, especially in the lower levels, the lifts were inoperable. In such regions people used drop-shafts. These shafts were low-gravity tunnels that allowed one to gently fall in the direction one wished to travel.

  The three men walked out the back, through another row of ruined housing modules, and into an undeveloped area. In the gloom of the skylight in night-mode, they could see the slow-rolling landscape began to elevate int
o the arid peaks of junk.

  “How we gonna get across that pile of crap to the drop-shaft?” Loid asked.

  “We’ll go around,” Scarn said, and he began to walk.

  “Well, okay… The rest of your life always begins with the first step, right?”

  They had got a hundred meters from the last backyard fence. At that point a strip of dry flatland reached the foothills of garbage. They were just starting to settle into a rhythmic march when the lights came on.

  All the lights came on. Dirty panels that hadn’t glowed so brightly in years blazed into glory. Six overhead drones put spots on them, too.

  They went into a defensive crouch, weapons ready, eyes pained and blinking. Loid cowered between them.

  Behind the blazing brilliance, they heard people moving and orders being given like, “Slide that over here,” “Turn it sideways.” And because these sounded nothing like cultists, Scarn and Turtle held their fire.

  Other lights came on and they saw dozens of people lifting and moving wide panels and setting them upright. Something like sections of flooring were being laid out. On them, people were arranging little tables, chairs, etc. In the background, portable fusion engines burbled and hummed as more lights came on.

  In less than a minute, the activity stopped, and the workers stood back to look over their work: Over the trashpile, they had constructed a well-lit stage stood on floating pillars. A desk, three comfortable chairs and several casual clusters of background foliage were center-stage.

  “Scarn?” Turtle whispered. “Do you know what’s happening?”

  “I seen this! I seen it before!” Loid said and stood up. He was tickled. “A year ago, I seen this! It’s a true-life show! They’re going to make us famous and give us stuff!”

  In the background a small voice spoke: “Hit it!”

  Above the instant set, fifty meters wide, words flared in explosive colors:

  TRASHLIFE NOVA!

  TRASHLIFE NOVA!

  TRASHLIFE NOVA!

  “Welcome!” a thunderous voice said loudly enough to have an echo. In the middle of the set, a stylishly dressed man in his early thirties stood with his arms spread wide. “Welcome, Mr. Scarn, Mr. Tuttle, and Mr. Loid Urman! My name is Lance Graff! And welcome to... ‘Trashliiife Novaaa!’”

  Thunderous applause and cheers erupted around them, although they saw no one but the set crew.

  Where the three of them stood, it was brighter than a day without shadows.

  “I guess we should hold off shooting our way out,” Turtle said.

  “No, no, don’t shoot anything,” Loid said. “They picked us! Now they’re going to put us on their show and give us prizes or something.”

  Three very small, young synth women in identical short skirts and brilliant glitter-tops came out of nowhere. Each took one of the men by his arm.

  “Just come right up here, gentlemen,” Lance Graff announced, “because tonight is the beginning of the rest of your life!”

  “What night isn’t?” Scarn muttered as he went along with the little synth woman who’d grabbed him.

  Their escorts left them at the foot of three steps. Scarn couldn’t help but let his eyes linger on his escort’s lithe form. He’d never made it with a synth, but everyone who had said it was the best—some even saying they were superior to real women.

  He found himself at the bottom of the stage steps with the manicured and excited Lance Graff at the top.

  “Come up! Come up and have a seat, gentlemen.”

  Turtle went first, but he was hesitant. Once Loid decided to move, he went for the nearest chair and dropped in it and grinned like an excited child. Turtle moved cautiously and Scarn held back.

  Lance Graff cocked his head a little to the side and spoke in a sly voice. “Gentlemen, when was the last time you had a meal that someone else hadn’t thrown away?”

  Turtle looked over at Scarn. “Tuesday?”

  “How about...” Lance Graff gestured toward the wings and then said grandly, “...a little snack?”

  The three sparkling little women instantly reappeared, each carrying a side table topped with a dish of steaming food. They placed one by each chair.

  Loid instantly had his face over the food to breathe in the smells.

  Over the growing applause, Lance Graff grinned. “How about a little something to drink with that?”

  The three synth women had scurried away, but they now scurried back with half-liter glasses of beer which they personally handed to the three men.

  “If you’re hungry, dig in!” Graff said.

  Loid was already eating.

  Scarn sat next to Turtle, and both eyed their food.

  “Scarn?” Turtle said from the side of his mouth. “You think they’d poison us for entertainment purposes?”

  “In a second.”

  Turtle looked closer at what he had been served. “Oh god, Scarn! Look at it.”

  It was actual fresh food with a golden-seared piece of meat, slathered with a glistening sauce. There was a green vegetable that didn’t have dirt on it, and a dozen grapes circled by a handful of fat strawberries. But next to that....

  Turtle hesitated as he reached for it... next to the sumptuous meal was a tall glass of beer with fine lines of bubbles rising up the inside.

  Turtle caught his breath in little gasps as he held the glass.

  “Scarn... it’s cold.”

  Scarn’s face went through subtle shifts of attitude as he looked at the food, and he reached toward his fork with numb fingers.

  They both knew they’d been seduced. They couldn’t help it. Even VR had limits—but real food had a magic of its own.

  Lance Graff explained to them and to his broadcast audience that the pilot show of Trashlife Nova had many planned surprises for randomly selected lower-level breathers such as themselves. This was only the introductory show, and the best was yet to come. While artificial applause deafened them, drones swooped and buzzed, taking countless shots of the stunned inductees.

  For his show, Lance Graff had planned a variety, an infinite variety of treats and rewards for his contestants. For example, the chosen might be given an exotic excursion, such as a walk on the surface of the asteroid ship, outside in the eternal night.

  But for the pilot episode, they had bigger, longer term plans.

  “We’ve been following you gentlemen for ten days, and, good gosh, what we’ve seen! Your resourcefulness and your toughness and all you’ve been through qualify you as two of our most exciting contestants.”

  Graff’s voice rose. “Tonight,” he announced, “due to the generosity of United Tarassis, we will be following our selectees—as they are given psychonaut training! That’s right, these rugged individuals will psychically explore alien beings and alien worlds throughout our galaxy!”

  Extended applause, hoots and cheering rang across the set—even though there was no one there within the reach of the floodlights.

  Turtle and Scarn looked at each other.

  “After their training...” Lance began, gesturing into the air like a magician, “...they will be assigned to the United Tarassis Probe Lab Alpha. From there, they’ll explore alien worlds in the great search for a lush planet for us to land upon.”

  After his grand gestures, Lance Graff leaned a little toward Scarn, and spoke with faux-confidentiality. “How are you feeling about all this, Mr. Scarn?”

  “Less hungry.” He continued eating.

  Lance Graff grinned tightly at that response, and then turned to Turtle. Graff was so clean-smelling Scarn’s nose felt like it was being scoured.

  “And you, Mr. Tuttle, how does it feel to know that in a week you’ll be in the United Tarassis probe lab, looking out on millions of stars and billions of worlds? You’ll be a personality known to every crewman and proud guest. How does that make you feel?”

  Turtle chewed slower and looked less sure as the question had gone on.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I guess.”

/>   The old man almost came out of his chair when Lance Graff took a breath for his next question.

  “I don’t want to be a psychonaut.” The old man said, speaking up. He waved his hands as though he were circled by insects. “I don’t want to do that, nuh-uh. The eats here are great, but I’m too creeped out by people to have to get into aliens.”

  “Mr. Urman, fear not! We have made special arrangements for you.”

  The old man’s face went from alarmed to hopeful… then to suspicious.

  “Mr. Urman,” Lance Graff said in his biggest here-it-comes voice, “welcome to your new life as—” He held the moment for a count of four. “—a debonair, man-about-town puh-layboy!”

  “What?” Loid asked. He was without a clue.

  “Mr. Urman, here is your new stateroom!”

  The artificial audience gasped and oooed at the image that formed over the stage. It was a grand apartment module and it was clean. It was almost a castle, with three spacious rooms, a bar, glass walls opening on a private bath and decorative holograms of a dense jungle trained to move with the birds and animals in the undergrowth.

  Loid looked at the image as though it wasn’t making sense.

  “That’s right, sir,” Lance said in a near-whisper. “You’re now… a guest.”

  Loid’s mouth worked. He looked like he might be having a heart attack.

  Graff continued, showing him the delicate female synth that came with the place to serve him. She was dressed in the skimpiest clothes which changed with each projected scene they were shown. All were cutely designed to reflect the synth’s duties around the mansion—one with a tiny chef’s hat and a crotch-hugging apron, another wearing only a tool belt and a smile.

  Loid looked quickly from Turtle to Scarn and back. “No one would give an old breather like me—”

  Lance Graff rolled on. “Where we’re syndicated, Mr. Loid Urman, twenty decks and counting, we’re the top-rated show as of tonight’s opening. We’ll watch how you enjoy female company again, we’ll see how you fare on the arm of a beautiful woman at those oh-so-special soirees with those oh-so-special celebrities! Twenty-four-seven, ladies and gentlemen, public and private, I give you: ‘The Life Of Mr. Loid Urman, Trashlife Puh-layboy!”