by R J Johnson
“It’s because we here at Shangri-La know that to survive, one must live in the present moment. The past is a distraction and the future is uncertain and scary for many. The present is the only thing that matters, and it’s driven us as a species since the dawn of time.”
Meade looked down at his hands in horror and back at the pile of dust that represented what remained of Kelso Tate.
The professor continued his monologue.
“But our species has doomed itself to live in the past and clutch to ancient ideologies and beliefs. They take comfort that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday and feast on a buffet of distraction to pass the time in the middle. The latest story on the wireless. The newest memes. The sheer volume of irrelevant content keeps the citizenry enraptured and enslaved in a world kept static for the betterment of those who would rule over their spirits, minds and bodies.”
The professor turned to Meade, a disappointed expression on his face. “I believed you to be a kindred spirit. Someone who sees the system for the corrupt trash it has become and knows there’s a better way. But, as it turns out, there is a difference between you and I.”
“I’m not a mad scientist bent on controlling the universe?” Meade asked acerbically, finally looking up at the professor.
The bearded man shook his head. “No, my boy, it’s that you lack vision.”
The professor placed an arm around his wife. “We have a vision of shepherding humanity into the kind of future we were promised when we were children. Do you remember that? The clone you were going to so callously destroy was a part of that vision. I was fully prepared to allow you to return home to New Plymouth and continue your fight against the Coalition, but now you’ve ruined my plan.”
“My beef is with the current administration on Mars. I could take or leave the Coalition,” Meade snapped. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“Perhaps,” the professor said, nodding. “But I’ll tell you something I’ve learned over the years. When people get in the way of my vision, it becomes far easier to replace them, than convince them.”
Meade stood and approached the edge of the glass in the lab separating them. He glared at the professor, letting the man know he meant business.
“I don’t know if your mama ever taught you this, but creating clones of people ain’t neighborly,” Meade said. “What were you using that thing for anyway?”
“Your doppelganger was being prepared for another mission I had in mind. You wouldn’t have even needed to know he existed,” the professor replied. “However, as I find myself without a Meade, I’m forced to go with another option and send the real thing instead.”
“Professor, I’m not going to do anything for you – “
Professor Benson held his hand up. “Yes, you will. You just don’t know it yet.”
Meade frowned, not understanding.
Dr. Hahn scoffed from the corner of the room. “And you said he was clever.”
Meade looked over at the dust that represented the remains of Kelso Tate.
“What did you do to me?” Meade asked, his voice low and menacing.
“I injected you with nanites,” the professor said with a cheery tone to his voice. “I programmed the first batch to dissolve Mr. Tate. He’s become a liability to our organization thanks to his sloppiness. After all, he is the reason you were led to us. If he varied his routine like we asked him to, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”
Meade turned to look back at the pile of dust that represented all that was left of Tate. He crouched down and ran his fingers through the dust and then turned back to the professor.
“It’s a tool,” he said, wiping the dust off his hands. “For assassins, right? You program the nanites to activate whenever they come in contact with a designated subject and then -”
“Poof!” the professor said smiling. “Perhaps you aren’t as dull as my wife insists you are.”
“The best part,” Dr. Hahn said, standing next to her husband. “There’s no body.”
Meade stared at his hands and then looked back at the professor through the glass.
“That’s all well and fine you trying to intimidate me by melting my body away, but like I said. I don’t mind dying for a good cause.”
“Perhaps you don’t,” Dr. Hahn said. She pressed a button on her armbar and a door to the hallway slid open. Emeline was standing there, being held by three large Shangri-La guards. She struggled against them, but they were too strong for her.
“Bring her over,” Hahn said.
Emeline fought against the enormous security guards holding her, but it was useless. Their power armor made any struggle futile. They dragged her over to Dr. Hahn who was holding the tablet in her hand.
“Hold her down!” Dr. Hahn snapped.
The guards complied and threw her down on the table next to Meade’s corpse. She struggled against their grips, but they were too quick. They strapped her down in the gurney with the restraints.
“Hahn, you bitch!” Emeline hissed. “You’re going to die first. I promise you that.”
Dr. Hahn ignored her, grabbing Emeline’s hand and placing her thumb on the tablet she was holding.
Meade began pounding the glass. “Hahn, stay away from her!”
The professor shook his head, looking at Meade with a glum expression on his face. “Your clone would have taken care of everything. We wouldn’t have needed to do this.”
“Benson,” Meade said, his voice savage, “You touch her, I swear to God I will rip your guts out through your throat!”
“There is no God out here in the Martian outback Mr. Meade,” the professor replied. “Only me. And I’m more of an Old Testament type.”
Dr. Hahn pushed Emeline’s thumb down on the pad and she screamed, matched by Meade’s howl of indignation.
The professor opened the door to his holding cell, and he leapt to his feet, intent on killing them all.
“Touch her and she’ll disappear into dust between your fingers,” the professor shouted at him as he was about to cross the threshold to the lab and grab the bearded man’s throat.
Meade stopped short, blinking several times. The professor’s watery blue eyes were staring into his soul, and they promised him it wasn’t a bluff.
He set the professor down and backed away slowly. The surrounding Shangri-La guards stood down, placing their weapons back on safe.
The professor waddled over to Meade and clasped him on his shoulder.
“This is a leash I’ve constructed for you,” the professor said. “If you do what I request of you then I will turn off the nanites in your blood and you will be allowed to reunite with her. You’ll be able to kiss and make love… whatever it is you couples do.”
“Jim,” Emeline called out, sounding desperate. “What’s happening? What are you doing? Don’t you dare help him!”
Leaning against the wall for support, Meade sunk to his knees, holding his head in despair. The professor read his weakness like everyone else read the morning news.
“What do you want?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
“What was that?” the professor called out. He sounded almost jaunty, after catching his breath. “I couldn’t quite hear you.”
Meade got to his feet, looking at the professor and Dr. Hahn through the glass window with more hatred than he’d ever felt for anything in his life. More than Palmetto. More than the Coalition Lieutenant who had informed him his father had gone missing out on the Martian plains.
The professor stared at him as if he were an animal in a cage. He nodded, acknowledging that he would help the professor achieve his ‘vision.’
He would do what they asked of him. And then he would kill them.
Every single last one of them.
Chapter Thirty
Depression
Meade watched the guards sweep up the remains of Kelso Tate and swallowed. He looked down at his hands, still feeling that electric shock that was responsible for turning the albino man to
dust.
Dr. Hahn placed Emeline on the gurney, strapping her down “We don’t want you falling into Mr. Meade’s arms. That would spoil everything.”
Emeline looked back up at him and shook her head. They were sitting tight for now with neither one of them doing anything stupid.
“What is it you want me to do?” Meade asked through gritted teeth. “You’re threatening to kill the love of my life, so stop trying to be my friend.”
Emeline glanced at him quickly. Dr. Hahn caught the look and snorted.
“Is that the first time he’s said I love you?” the doctor asked derisively.
Emeline’s eyes narrowed, and she glared back at the sneering woman. “No, but I never tire hearing him say it.”
Meade chuckled. God, he loved that woman.
“What I need Mr. Meade,” the professor said, sounding annoyed, “is for you to take a trip.”
“Great, sign me up,” he said. “Where am I going?”
A grin spread across the professor’s face. “San Angeles.”
He felt his bravado quickly fade away.
“Venus,” Meade said weakly. That meant getting on a spacecraft and he hated space travel. “I don’t like getting in tin cans professor.”
“You won’t have to spend much time in transit I assure you,” the professor said. “Besides, my yacht is quite advanced, I doubt you’ll mind the journey.
“What do you want me to do when I’m there?” Meade asked.
The professor paused, tapping his finger on the desk while considering what he was going to say next. Finally, the professor looked up at the private detective, with a slight smirk on his face.
“You are going to help me build a wilderness of mirrors,” the professor said.
Meade stared at the professor looking at the man as if he had lost his mind.
“What the hell does that mean?”
The professor stood and moved around the desk until he was standing in front of him.
“Officials from both hyperpowers are gathering on San Angeles right now to renew the Treaty of ’44. I want you there to confuse and debilitate the ceremony through a series of assassinations using the nanites we that were demonstrated for you.”
“To what end?” Meade asked in disbelief. Was he really hearing this?
Dr. Hahn stepped forward, picking up where her husband left off.
“The only thing that fool Lazarus had right with Rosetta was the fact that he knew the Coalition and the Consortium both needed to go,” Dr. Hahn said. “However, we felt using an asteroid to sterilize the Homeworld was a bit overdramatic.”
“We believe that through the removal of certain key players on both sides, both governments will collapse,” the professor added.
“And what takes its place?” Meade challenged. “You?”
The professor raised an eyebrow, glancing at his wife. “Leadership is a mantle I’m willing to take, but I prefer to run things from behind the scenes.”
Meade shook his head, chuckling at the professor and his wife. “Hard to believe people will fall in line for no reason at all.”
“They don’t have to fall in line,” the professor said. “We can simply replace the ones who don’t.”
Meade felt his stomach drop making the connection between the four clones he discovered in Dr. Hahn’s lab and what they were telling him now.
“So… the clones…” Meade managed after a moment. “They’re under your control?”
“We prefer to think of it as giving them a compatible world view to our own,” the professor said.
A chill ran down Meade’s spine and he looked back to the professor and his wife.
“Why don’t you clone someone else and use them as a disposable assassin?” he asked.
“That was the plan,” the professor said, sounding exasperated. “We planned on using your status as the heroes of Rosetta to meet with our targets, but you ruined that.”
“Because the timeline has been moved up, I can’t prepare a replacement Meade in time,” Dr. Hahn said, sounding angry.
“How many people do you have under your control Benson?” Meade asked. “Doesn’t it get tiring telling everyone what to do?”
“You’ll find I’m far more capable than you imagine,” the professor said in a low voice.
“And you’ll find me a lot harder to control than one of your meat puppets,” Meade growled back.
“When do we leave?” Emeline asked, speaking for the first time. They’d been keeping their distance from each other, the memory of Tate dissolving in front of them still fresh in their mind.
“You will be provided further instructions upon your arrival in San Angeles,” Professor Benson said.
Meade’s face fell, after being reminded about their upcoming voyage in outer space. Nothing ever seemed to go right for him when he took his feet off the Red Planet.
The professor touched a button on his armbar and the door to the lab opened, revealing two guards holding rifles. Meade barely glanced at them, his attention still laser focused on the professor how he planned on killing him.
“You’re not coming?” Meade asked.
The professor glanced over at his wife, “My attention is temporarily focused on some of my other projects, but never fret. I’ll be able to keep a close eye on you.”
“You leave first thing in the morning,” Dr. Hahn said, looking at Meade and Emeline. “The trip to Venus will take you a little over four days, but you shall want for nothing. The vessel offers every conceivable amenity.”
“I want to see your head cut off,” Meade muttered. “Can I get that there?”
The professor ignored him. “In the meantime, it’s best you both return to separate quarters until the voyage tomorrow morning. I encourage you both to get some sleep. There won’t be much time for that after you arrive.”
For the first time in his life, Meade was at a loss for words. His rules, the things that had given him a moral center and a true north to set his compass by, had failed him. He had no wisdom, no ideas, and no strategy left.
“Ms. Hunan, we’ll set you up in some new quarters to avoid any accidents,” the professor said gently.
Emeline glanced at Meade and he nodded for her to go ahead. They weren’t going to all this trouble to kill him.
No, he decided, they’re not killing anyone. The professor and his wife wanted to play out some sick chess game with the elites of the Coalition and Consortium.
They needed him. For what, he didn’t know. But at least he still had a fighting chance at keeping Emeline alive.
And that was all that mattered.
Chapter Thirty-One
Acceptance
The next morning, Meade entered Shangri-La’s impressive hangar bay where the colony kept their space craft. He squeezed his eyes shut against the harsh glare of the overhead klieg lights, feeling the twinge of a hangover pinching at his temples. It had taken more than a few drinks for him to get to sleep last night.
Meade’s thoughts kept returning to Emeline and how he needed to avoid touching her for the foreseeable future. He kept imagining the electric shock he felt when Kelso Tate touched him and then the horror on the albino’s face as he dissolved into dust.
He knew he could never allow anything like that to ever happen to Emeline. It was his fault they were in this impossible situation and the guilt was eating him up inside. After all, security had only caught them because he was in the lab. Now the professor had taken complete control over their lives. What good was free will when there was only one choice to make?
He spotted Emeline as she entered the launch bay. She hesitated at the doorway until she spotted him and approached him. He could tell by her eyes that she had been crying.
“Meade,” she said softly. “You okay?”
“’Bout as good as can be expected,” he said, attempting a weak smile. “You good?”
“Not even a little bit,” she exhaled. “I’ll tell you this, I’m about ready to kill every singl
e last one of those motherfuckers.”
“Not if I beat you to it first,” he said.
She chuckled. The tension was there, but at least they were talking and joking the way they normally did.
“I really want to hold you right now,” he said after a moment.
She flinched and closed her eyes.
“Sorry,” Meade said, not really meaning it. “I don’t say that to cause you pain or anything. I… I miss you.”
“I miss you too.” Emeline said, sounding miserable.
They looked at each other for a moment, the silence growing painful. But what else was there to say?
Eventually, he looked over at the massive yacht on the other side of the hangar and pointed.
“Looks like our ride is here.”
They walked across the enormous launch bay to where their private yacht was being fueled. “You have any idea what they have in store for us?” she asked.
“Those clones I found in the lab are our best lead,” he said, rubbing his chin.
“Whole lotta good that does us. I didn’t recognize any of ‘em besides us,” she replied.
“I saw three faces. Yours, mine…” he shuddered. “That blond guy.”
Emeline scrunched her face, thinking back on last night. It was all Meade could do to resist grabbing hold and kissing her right then. She never looked so beautiful than when she was concentrating.
“I didn’t get a good look,” she said. “Whoever it was had to be someone important to them. Otherwise they wouldn’t have spent the time and energy to create that clone.”
“Guess that means our only lead is a dead end for now,” Meade said, feeling stuck.
“There has to be something,” she said. “You didn’t see anything else in that lab?”
He chewed his bottom lip for a moment, “Professor Prick and Doctor Horror Show keep bragging about all this advanced tech that the Coalition and Consortium aren’t allowed to have. I wonder how they’ve managed to keep all that secret over the years?”