by Helix Parker
“Your ship will be safe there,” one of them said. “Captain Keynes has asked to speak with you.”
I followed them down a corridor and then up an elevator to the top floor. We went down another corridor and then got onto a small ship. We sat in the back as the two guards went up front and we rode through the city in silence before docking at another building that was almost as tall as the first.
We were taken up two more elevators and to an office with glass windows looking down upon the city. A man in a synthfiber suit stood with his back to us looking down at the hover-cars as they maneuvered above the cityscape.
He turned around. Captain Keynes’ face was square with facial hair on the chin and his sleek black hair was going gray at the temples.
“Please leave us,” he said.
After the two officers left he motioned for me to sit in a chair across from him. I did so and Monica drifted next to me.
“I didn’t know you would be bringing a Series 8,” he said.
“I didn’t either.”
“Raymond must want this clone more than he let on.”
I shrugged. The man put his hands on his lap and didn’t speak for a long time. He stared at me and I looked back into his steel-gray eyes. They didn’t blink and they looked through me. I could see it from a planet away: he was a hardened soldier.
“That’s interesting,” he finally said. “Most people, when faced with silence, fill the void with chatter or grow angry and frustrated. You did neither.”
“I’m fine with silence.”
“Interesting indeed.” He exhaled and rubbed his temples with his fingers like he had a headache. “I have taken over as Executive Administrator of Icarus Hospital. My predecessor was killed by this clone.”
“I read the reports.”
“The Administrator was a good man. He was also my brother. You can imagine that I am not pleased by his death.”
“I can imagine.”
“I’m going to be frank with you, Marshal Sestus. I don’t want you here. This is an internal matter and should be handled through Helronian field units.”
“You think the clone should be assassinated?”
“Terminated is a better word.”
“I wasn’t told to terminate her. Just to apprehend her.”
“She is more deadly than you would believe. Finding her will mean terminating her, or dying. You’ve seen the holovid?”
“I have.”
“She is a battle clone, Marshal. Something they have not made in a long time. Longer even than your robot over there. I saw one once, during the Great War.”
“You fought in the Great War? How old are you?”
“I am two hundred and seventy three years old, Marshal.”
“How is that possible?”
He chuckled softly. “This planet has very little gravitational force, which I am told is the fountain of youth. But my line was … well, we were designed to live a long time.”
“What line is that?”
“I am an inbreed, Marshal. For generations my ancestors were bred to produce an advanced genetic specimen of human. Much as you are advanced to an Earth monkey, I am advanced to a human.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that. But I’ve read about that inbreed stuff. An early attempt at cloning, wasn’t it?”
He sat silently a long time and then said, “You come to my planet and then hurl insults at me?”
“No insults. It was just an observation.”
He flicked a piece of loose string off his suit. “The Great War was the most incredible experience of my life. You have no idea what it felt like because there are no equivalents. Standing on the edge of a cargo bay door above a planet, your spacesuit fogging up from your breath because your heart is beating so fast you think it might burst in your chest. The exhilaration of jumping and entering the planet’s atmosphere, the heat that scorches the skin as your spacesuit is melted away leaving you only with armor and a parachute … we thought we were invincible. But the battle clones took out entire squadrons of us with nothing more than a handful of sidearms. They are too dangerous to be allowed to live.”
“That’s why I’m going to find her and bring her in.”
“I have a better proposition: when you find her, notify me first and give me twelve SGH’s to finish the job. Then contact Raymond and do whatever you wish. You will, of course, be handsomely rewarded for your work.”
“I’m going to be frank with you, Captain Keynes. I have no sympathy for clones either. But I always give my targets one chance at surrender. If they don’t take it, they are terminated.”
He rubbed at his temples again. “You can’t handle her by yourself. You need us. Let me send some guards with you on your ship.”
“Spies you mean.”
“Call them whatever you like. They will ensure that you stay alive.”
I thought about it and then looked back at Eight and then to Monica. “I won’t turn down help when it’s required. Give me two guards, elite soldiers if possible.”
“Done. I’m glad to see you’re a reasonable man. I can work with reasonable men. When this is finished and she’s dealt with, perhaps we can work together again.”
I rose. “I think I’m retiring after this.”
“A shame, Marshal. I could always use good trackers.”
I glared at him a moment. “How did you know I was a Tracker?”
“I have my sources too, just as Raymond does.”
I nodded to him and left the office. I had been a Set One Fugitive Tracker with the Earth Criminal Investigations Unit. That information, I thought, was classified to ECIU and the Bureau of Clone Affairs.
We took the elevator to the first floor lobby and I stood at the atrium a while and admired the beautiful arrangements of flowers that had no doubt been imported.
“Monica, how do you think he knew that?”
“Information is a commodity. It can be bought or sold like anything else. It is not a harmful fact for him to know. He may have been bluffing however and simply assumed you were a Tracker as Administrator Kooney may not send anyone less to deal with this matter.”
I glanced back to Eight who was staring at a blood-rose, the inner flower a bright glowing yellow as contrasted with the dark crimson of the external petals. Two soldiers stepped off the elevator and walked to us. One of them said they had been sent by Captain Keynes. They appeared to be tough men, one with a long scar running down his cheek and onto his neck. They wore chestplate armor and had compact rifles tucked into utility belts.
“I want to see the landing pad where the holovid was recorded,” I told Monica.
“Of course, we’ll need to retain the services of a hover-bus. It is the only mode of transport in Gamni.”
We walked out to the busy sidewalk. The people here were in a rush and I noticed none of them acknowledged each other. They would bump into you at the shoulder and keep walking as if you didn’t exist. But they made room for Eight and the two soldiers.
The hover-buses were large and whizzed by at great speeds without even slowing down. We were clearly at a marked stop but not a single one slowed.
A hover-bus full of passengers was speeding by and Monica stepped in front of it. It slammed on its front thrusters to stop but ran over her. She glided through it as it twisted sideways from the force of the sudden stop, her body sticking up out of the engine.
“I have secured a hover-bus for us, Nephi.”
I climbed in to a group of shocked passengers and the driver was about to yell at us when he saw Eight climb aboard. The hover-bus dipped to the side from his weight as he sat in one of the seats. The driver turned back around and continued along his route as Monica drifted through the windshield and the seats and the passengers and stood nearby. The two guards sat across from me.
“So, how long have you two been with Helronian security?” I asked.
“That’s classified information, Marshal.”
“Oh, okay. Well, just making conversat
ion.”
“Conversation is not required.”
It was an awkward ride to the port and we stepped out to the massive privately owned spaceport and I was immediately impressed. It was beautifully designed and better maintained than the rest of the city. Monica led the way as we walked to the landing pad the video had been filmed in.
I examined the ground closely and saw the burn marks. There were a few scrapes and fuel stains, but nothing else.
“Is there a lounge here, Monica?”
“Certainly.”
We walked to the lounge and stepped inside. It was full of patrons but no one seemed to notice us. The reports said the clone had attempted to book passage off the planet and I was willing to bet some of the regulars or staff had interacted with her. I walked to the bar. As I did I noticed a few patrons filing out behind me. I glanced around and saw only men, all eyes turned to me.
The two guards pulled out their rifles, extending them to their full capacity, and pointed them at me.
“I take it this isn’t a very inappropriate practical joke?” I said.
“Captain Keynes doesn’t like his offers turned down.”
“And I don’t like dying. It would be just plain rude to kill me, boys.”
“Nephi,” Monica said, motioning with her head toward the patrons. All of them were standing now and had drawn weapons. The only one that hadn’t was the bartender who had stepped away from me to sit on the end of the bar, excitement on his face. The little server-bot assistant was the only one standing near me.
“You know,” I said, “I’m a member of ECIU here on direct orders from the Bureau of Clone Affairs.”
“You are,” one of the guards said, “and it’s a shame you were lost on the planet’s surface.”
“Ah.”
My hand was near my hip but the distance from that to the disruptor pistol at my lower back seemed light years away. I counted twenty men, easy. I said a quick prayer. If I was to die, it would be fighting. Or screaming in terror, whichever came first.
“I can kill at least one of you before you take me in a rush,” I said to the guards. “You sure you want to risk it?”
“Your sonic disruptor was deactivated at the Administrative Offices.”
I looked to Monica.
“It’s possible,” she said. “They may have had hidden magnetic scramblers at the entryway or in the elevators.”
There was a drink on the bar, a glowing red liquid in a shot-glass. I took it and it stung from my tongue down into my stomach and then instantly made my bowels burn. “I wish I had some profound last words, but, ‘that drink tasted like piss’ will have to do.”
A high-pitched screeching filled the room from top to bottom. Standing in the middle of the lounge, casually staring at the floor, was Eight. One of the guards kept his rifle aimed at me and the other one turned, pointing at Eight’s eye.
“What did he say?” I asked Monica.
“He said, ‘None shall survive.’”
There was only a blur of movement, like a speeding hover-car blowing past unexpectedly. Eight had curled into a tight ball and launched himself at the ceiling, hitting the steel and then slamming into the floor before flying twenty meters away against a wall. His legs appeared and his crashing into the wall left two massive indentations. The momentum kept him glued there a moment. His arms twisted into two cylindrical barrels and blasts of laser fire shot over the room in a spray not unlike gushing water. Half the men in the room dropped as hell broke loose.
Bolts of red and blue and white plasma energy ricocheted off the ceilings and burned through the walls as Eight dashed, hopped, and flipped through them like an obstacle course. One man raised a pistol as Eight landed near him and a chrome blade flew out of Eight’s shoulder and severed the man’s arm at the elbow, the man’s screams echoing in the lounge before blaster fire through his mouth and out the back of his head cut him off. The blade spun around the room and cut through a table before embedding itself into another man’s face.
Eight ran in a circle around the room on the walls, jumping over and spinning away from blaster fire before diving behind the bar. The top was glass but the rest was a dark metal and you couldn’t see what was happening behind it.
The entire lounge went silent, all weapons nervously pointed at the bar. We seemed frozen in time, no one willing to move.
A body lurched from behind the bar into the air and a volley of blasts tore through it. It was the bartender, and as the guards and remaining patrons were busy shooting at him, Eight stood up and locked onto every target in the room. It was a precise torrent of blaster fire, each bolt hitting only brains and throats and hearts. One of the guards’ heads had been severed from his body and it fell one way as the body collapsed another.
The lounge was filled with smoke as Eight stepped out from behind the bar and stood next to me. His arms twisted back into his body and came out as hands again and he lumbered toward the exit and turned and waited. I stepped over the guards’ bodies without a word, and left the spaceport.
4
I found a space in an alleyway between two large buildings and we walked far enough inward that no one on the street could hear. I had Monica send a communication to Kooney explaining what had happened.
“How long until we get a response?” I asked.
“Assuming he is at his desk and sees it instantly, it should not be more than one standard galactic hour.”
We sat in the alleyway and I leaned against a wall and watched as Eight did the same. He screeched something and Monica stated that he was asking permission to power down and recharge.
“Sure,” I said to him. His curled into a tight ball again and the red eye shut off. I looked to Monica who was hovering above me. “He moved like a Silorian war-hawk. What the hell is he?”
“To put it bluntly, he is the deadliest machine your species has built, Nephi. That is why he was discontinued.”
“I can’t imagine parliament giving up such a powerful weapon. There must be more to it than them just wanting to keep it out of the hands of their enemies.”
“There are … coincidences that may point to another explanation.”
“Such as?”
“Series 8 was discontinued when clone attacks began to occur six standard galactic years ago. It is possible that members of parliament feared that such a weapon could become self-aware, as clones had.”
“So they were scared that machines could want their freedom too?”
“I have learned, Nephi, that your species’ capacity for fear is boundless.”
“That’s because our capacity for self-destruction is too.”
“You are, perhaps, correct. May I make an unrelated suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“It may be some time before a response is received. You may wish to sleep, as best as possible.”
“I’m afraid I can’t shut down like Eight. I’m too wired for sleep. But feel free to log off for now and alert me when the message is received.”
“Of course.”
I leaned my head back against the cold permasteel building and watched the stars in the sky. Helron 5 had three moons. Two of them were far in the distance and barely visible but the third took up easily half the sky. It was bright and dead and unwelcoming. I could see the mountain ranges and valleys and craters from the millions of asteroids that it had spared Helron by absorbing them. I also knew that it was far too close to be safe. It would soon be sucked into the planet by Helron’s gravitational well and destroy all life on the icy planet.
I ran my eyes along the mountain ranges, counting the number of peaks and estimating the distance between them.
“Transmission received,” Monica said.
I jolted awake, unsure exactly of where I was. I felt sleep in my eyes and rubbed them. I didn’t remember drifting off.
“From?”
“It is from Administrator Kooney.”
“Read it.”
Monica mimicked Kooney’s voice
and said, “That is unfortunate, Marshal; I do apologize. Captain Keynes was not meant to be an administrator and his rise to succession was one of expedience. He is a soldier first and foremost and feels he does not have to follow orders if given by civilians such as I. But his involvement has complicated matters. I have contacted him and he is defiant. Please consider him a fugitive from justice. I have notified the parliamentary liaison and Keynes has been relieved of duty and a warrant has been issued for his arrest. Please execute that warrant immediately. I will send a squadron of Elites to help in the endeavor, but I’m afraid Captain Keynes may escape custody. At the very least, delay that escape.”
I yawned and stood up, stretching my neck and back. There was no way Kooney didn’t already know how the meeting with Keynes would go. I guessed part of the reason he’d sent me here was to take care of Keynes, who had probably become a problem long before I came to the show.
“I don’t feel like cleaning up his messes today,” I said. “We’re leaving.”
“That would be an incorrect decision, Nephi.”
“Why?”
“Captain Keynes has attempted to terminate you once. He will attempt it again, particularly when Eight is offline or not near. To kill a high-ranking member of the Earth Criminal Investigations Unit is treason. No person in charge of their faculties would make such an attempt. There is a mental disorder unofficially diagnosed by the Republic’s Bureau of Physicians known as ‘life fatigue.’ The inbreeds live to several hundred years, but cultures and technology change so rapidly over time that they are unable to feel secure or comfortable in any era. They simply cannot keep up with change. Over a span of centuries, their frontal cortexes atrophy and they begin to lose inhibitions, producing a type of psychosis. Several of the symptoms fit Captain Keynes quite well.”
She had a point. He’d tried to kill me for something as trivial as not calling him before Kooney. He was clearly unstable. It was possible he would chase me until he caught me.
“What do you suggest?”
“Termination of Captain Keynes.”
“How would that even be possible? He has all of Helron’s security forces at his command.”