Binary Storm

by Christopher Hinz

  He gave the instructions for the second phase of the test. The man waved, signaling he was ready. Nick activated a new set of holos, this time limiting the test to two opponents but increasing their speed.

  The man fired at the swift-moving figures, flicking his wrist to bend the beam. He tried to hit the one on the right but missed by a meter and nailed the far wall. The beam splattered against the energy shielding in a burst of fireworks.

  Nick gave him another chance, then a third. There was no improvement.

  “I’m better with head-on shooting,” the man explained.

  “Yeah, we can see that. But our research schemata are designed to measure the more refined levels of neurological grasp control.”

  The words were pure gobbledygook. The man nodded as if he understood.

  “Thanks for coming in,” Nick said.

  “I still get my money, right?”

  “See Slag on your way out.”

  Half an hour later, the final candidate arrived. He was tall and fashion-model handsome, with blond hair cascading to his shoulders. Put a cape on him and give him an oversized hammer and Nick figured he could pass for Thor, the old Marvel Comics character.

  “Ready?” Nick asked.

  Thor twisted his wrists and sent two Cohes shooting into his waiting palms from hidden holsters.

  “Double your pleasure, double your fun,” Sosoome chimed in.

  Nick gave him the same test as the first candidate, starting with three holo targets. Thor was even faster. Using only the Cohe in his right hand, he nailed the figures with perfect head shots.

  “So far so good,” Basher said.

  Nick advanced him to the two-target test. This time, using the wand in his left hand, Thor took down both figures with solid chest strikes. Better yet, he curved the beams into gentle arcs.

  Nick was starting to get his hopes up. Reaction time, speed and accuracy were all well within the ballpark. Thor had no military background but had spent years as a stunt performer with a Swedish circus. His main act involved firing his twin Cohes and just missing a series of live targets, presumably volunteers.

  “Mind if I show you what I can really do?” Thor asked.

  “Be my guest,” Nick said.

  “Give me four moving holos, two in front and two behind. Double their speed.”

  Nick made the proper adjustments. The quartet of figures took shape and raced across the gym floor in different directions.

  Thor fell into a crouch, followed their movements for a few seconds. Then he suddenly rose into a pirouette and fired both Cohes simultaneously, using short controlled bursts.

  For a moment, the twin beams seemed to be everywhere at once, circling the room in a frenzy. He hit all four targets. Smiling brightly, he took a bow.

  “Could be our boy,” Basher said.

  “If he was a mech, I wouldn’t kick him out of bed,” Sosoome added.

  “Good work,” Nick said over the mic. He wasn’t yet ready to reveal the true purpose of the testing. But it was time to drop a few hints, determine whether Thor might be willing to put his life on the line.

  “Why don’t you head back to the anteroom?” he suggested. “Before we proceed further, there are some things I’d like to discuss.”

  “Of course,” Thor said. “But before we do that, allow me to show you my pièce de résistance.”

  “That’s really not necessary.”

  “Please. It’s something I developed only weeks ago. I would be honored to have you bear witness to its very first public performance.”

  Nick was getting the feeling that no matter how skilled with the wands, Thor lacked certain other qualities necessary for taking on Paratwa assassins. He seemed too applause-driven. Still, with the right kind of training and positive reinforcement, such a flaw might be correctable.

  “OK, go ahead, do your thing.”

  “Same settings, please. Only this time, I will be in full motion as well as the targets.”

  Nick reactivated the holos. Thor lunged forward in an erratic series of steps while again firing in short bursts. Cohe beams whipped wildly through the room as he dashed amid the curling streams of deadly light. Some of the beams appeared to miss him by centimeters.

  “Man’s crazy,” Basher muttered.

  “There’s good crazy and bad crazy,” Nick said, uncertain which type he was witnessing.

  Thor nailed the first two targets dead center, whirled to attack the other pair coming up behind him. But the combination of turning fast and firing at the same instant caused an ever-so-slight miscalculation.

  One of the beams boomeranged on him. He seemed to dash right into the black streak. It pierced his chest. A surprised look crossed his face as he crumpled to the floor.

  “Not quite performance level,” Sosoome said drily.

  Slag raced out of the anteroom, checked for a pulse. He shook his head. Thor had done his final act.

  “Well, that’s fucked,” Basher said.

  The accident was a crippling blow to Nick’s plans. Not only was the man dead but he’d been the best candidate by far. Placing a new series of ads was unlikely to attract a better crop.

  A dismal thought took shape. It had taken more than a year to develop the sim built around a four-person Paratwa-assault team fronted by an expert with the Cohe. Yet now he might have to abandon the entire concept and return to the drawing board.

  Slag ambled into the bunker. “What now, mate?”

  “How did our candidate get here?” Nick asked.

  “Taxi. Came alone.”

  Sosoome broached the obvious question. “Any of you gentlemen have experience disposing of bodies?”

  Stone Face stepped forward, gave a deep-throated drawl worthy of his vocal prototype.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Nineteen

  Very little about her new boyfriend surprised Bel anymore. After two weeks together, she supposed she was getting accustomed to Nick’s capacity for making astonishing claims and taking unexpected actions. Still, when he sauntered into her apartment and realized just who her other guest was, she’d secretly hoped it was her turn to surprise him.

  No such luck.

  She didn’t even get the chance to make introductions. Doctor Emanuel rose on his cane from his seat by the window, his face brightening. Nick rushed toward him with a delighted smile.

  “Weldon! Great seeing you again in the flesh. Been too long this time.”

  “It has indeed, my boy. It has indeed.”

  They embraced warmly, patting each other on the back. Her boyfriend and her personal hero not only knew one another but apparently were old and intimate friends. Bel acknowledged a stab of jealousy but instantly rebuked herself for feeling that way. Doctor Emanuel had outlived his entire family. If he’d found in Nick a warm friend, who was she to resent it?

  “How’d the two of you meet?” she asked.

  “The doc would probably call it fate,” Nick said. “But it was more me learning all about him when I came out of stasis and being thoroughly impressed. I desperately wanted us to get together. I tracked him down and hounded him for a while. He finally concluded I wasn’t a stalker.”

  “A rocky start,” Doctor Emanuel admitted. “But we worked at it, helped it grow into a most worthwhile relationship. Nick is a remarkable individual as I’m sure you’re already aware.”

  “He’s OK,” Bel said with a bored tone and straight face. Although she and Nick had agreed to keep their affair confidential, she’d felt comfortable confiding in Doctor Emanuel.

  It was early Sunday evening, a rare occasion when she wasn’t at the office. She’d invited them both for dinner.

  Her condo was on the hundred and first floor, with a window wall facing west. The smog had been particularly brutal of late, a smothering envelope of browns and grays constricting the vista in the fading daylight. An apartment in the skyscraper down the street at her level had a balcony greenhouse full of orchids and roses, dazzlingly colorful and
exquisitely cared for. But over the past few weeks, the greenhouse might as well have been located within one of the lunar or Martian research bases. She hadn’t glimpsed so much as a single flower.

  The ToFo had climbed to nine-point-seven, one of the worst air toxicity days Philly had ever experienced. Even with the proper meds, air masks were being recommended for more than a few hours of outside exposure.

  Back when Bel was in her early twenties, she’d campaigned vigorously – albeit naively – for local voters to pass a resolution authorizing Philadelphia to become a respirazone. The measure had been soundly defeated. The huge cost of ringing the area in atmospheric detoxers would have required a serious tax increase. It had been an early lesson for her in the truism that people voted with their wallets.

  Still, she sometimes found it amazing that the majority of the world’s masses didn’t try moving into the existing respirazones. Despite their relatively clean air, many of the zones were actually sparsely populated.

  Human beings can adapt to anything, even air unfit for breathing. Such adaptability was the species’ greatest blessing, as well as its curse.

  Bel hadn’t ventured past the walls of her sealed condo since yesterday. She’d popped her meds an hour ago and inhaled a monthly lung restorative prescribed by her ecospheric physician. She usually tried to avoid the restorative as she was prone to its side effects. The complex drug cocktail left her feeling intoxicated.

  Doctor Emanuel was nursing a goblet of cabernet sauvignon. Nick poured himself a glass and extended the bottle toward Bel. She shook her head. More alcohol would certainly worsen her condition.

  “Hope you’re hungry,” she offered, waving them toward the dining area, part of a single large space that constituted the majority of her center city home. The condo featured sleek metallic furniture. She’d offset its chrome chill with a bevy of earth-toned cushions and abstract wall hangings rich in ambers, greens and maroons.

  Earlier in the week she’d broken down and purchased a drudge to handle cheffing, serving and cleaning. She’d run the decision by the regents first to make sure they didn’t feel it was too ostentatious and violated the spirit of E-Tech’s limitations on excessive technology. They’d dismissed her concerns. Any device that could save time and effort on the home front was worthwhile, they’d assured her. It would allow her more hours for important work.

  A simple drudge was far down the ladder from the sort of multifunctional personal mech that Nick owned. However, having experienced Sosoome’s mouth in action one too many times, she’d ordered the drudge without a speech module.

  She signaled through her fob, instructing the drudge to bring out the first course. Nick and Doctor Emanuel took their seats. Elevator legs on Nick’s chair automatically raised him to table height.

  The drudge emerged from the kitchen balancing a large serving platter on an upraised hand. The mech was humanoid, slightly shorter than Nick, and had come equipped with a wardrobe. Although she found it rather silly, today the drudge had elected to don the black suit and bowtie of a traditional maître d. The outfit was apparently meant to give the impression that they were dining at a four-star restaurant.

  Bel moved toward the table to join her guests. But in her inebriated state she tripped over a chair leg and came perilously close to taking a tumble.

  “You OK?” Nick asked, rising from his chair.

  “Absolutely. No problem whatsoever.”

  She ought to come right out and tell them about the side effect from the lung restorative. But she felt oddly embarrassed to make the admission.

  “How come no Sosoome this evening?” she asked Nick, watching the drudge carefully as it spooned seasoned broccoli soup into their bowls. Even though mechs had been ubiquitous in her household growing up, she hadn’t used one in years. Tonight was something of a trial run. She hoped the drudge would perform to spec.

  “I had some chores for him this evening,” Nick said. “Besides, he’d probably try hitting on your new friend.” Nick gestured to the drudge as it leaned over the table to ladle their soup.

  “It’s an asexual model.”

  “Sosoome’s not that fussy.”

  The three of them traded small talk through the main course of orange-braised tilapia, one of the few ocean-raised fishes still abundant enough not to be on the endangered species list. Bel found it delicious. Her guests’ expressions indicated agreement.

  As the drudge cleared the table in preparation for dessert, Doctor Emanuel asked if there’d been any progress on recruiting a fourth team member. Nick had kept Bel abreast of the issue and, obviously, had confided in the doctor.

  “No luck,” Nick said, shaking his head. “I’ve run a host of new ads, widened the search. We reviewed dozens of fresh candidates. But none have come close to having the skills that my sim indicates are required.”

  Doctor Emanuel turned to Bel. “What do you think of Nick’s plan?”

  “I think it’s important to consider all options for combatting the assassins.”

  “A very reasonable answer, yet one that I suspect hinges on the necessity of navigating political waters. Clearly, this is not something that falls within the jurisdiction of E-Tech bylaws. A secret team of soldier-hunters whose purpose is destroying Paratwa would be construed by many, including a fair number of the regents, as lowering ourselves to the level of the assassins. Killers going after killers.”

  “Such people are likely in the minority,” Nick pointed out.

  “Indeed. But frankly, I’d like to hear Bel’s genuine feelings on the matter.” He smiled to take the sting out of his next words. “The carefully filtered responses of ‘Director Bakana’ have no place among the three of us at this table.”

  He was putting her on the spot. Yet even alone with the two men she’d come to trust more than anyone else in the world, Bel remained hesitant. She’d guarded against broaching her real feelings about the Paratwa for a long time.

  They were watching her intently. She had a sudden thought that the two of them had conspired to push her into a disclosure. Normally that might have bothered her but at the moment she couldn’t care less. If past experience with the lung restorative’s side effects were any measure, her drunkenness was rapidly approaching its peak.

  “All right, gentlemen. Since you have my back against the wall and insist on pushing, I’ll say here and now what I will never utter publicly. Naturally, this is to go no further than this room.”

  She rose to her feet but immediately felt woozy. She gripped the table edge for support, hoping they wouldn’t notice.

  “Even before Nick told me about the Royals’ desire to bring on an apocalypse, even before the attack on headquarters, I’ve believed this: we should end the threat of the Paratwa permanently.” She decided her remarks required more venom. “We need to wipe out those suckers! And do it before it’s too damn late!”

  Cursing wasn’t her strong suit. From an early age, her parents had encouraged her not to swear. It was one of the aspects of their childrearing that betrayed an old-fashioned upper-class snobbery – persons of refinement could always find dignified words to express their feelings.

  “It’s not just blind hatred,” she clarified, feeling flushed as she sat back down. “I admit to sometimes experiencing that, though. After the attack, I fantasized about ways to hurt the assassin who attacked us, cause him extreme pain. I even had a dream that he’d been captured and I was watching him being tortured.”

  Such an event was likely to occur only in a dream. As far as anyone knew, no Paratwa assassin had ever been captured. They fought to the death. Always. And if one tway died in combat, its surviving half quickly descended into incurable madness and committed suicide.

  A solemn feeling came over her. “Does it make me a bad person to want to do something like that? Does it lower me to the level of an Alvis Qwee?”

  Doctor Emanuel grimaced at the name. Even among other Paratwa assassins, Alvis Qwee was said to invoke disgust. A Du Pal, the same b
reed as Ektor Fang, Alvis Qwee had been terrorizing the west coast from San Francisco to Vancouver, British Columbia, for the past eighteen months.

  Alvis Qwee kidnapped families, apparently at random. He tortured and ultimately murdered the family members in front of one another, but always selected one of them to be spared from any harm. The survivor was set free at the end of the ordeal. Not surprisingly, the survivors were left with terrible psychological scars. Many of them later took their own lives.

  “You’re nothing like that freak,” Nick assured her. “Alvis Qwee is an outright sadist.”

  Doctor Emanuel reached across the table, laid his hand on hers. “Nick’s right. And your desire to see the creature that attacked headquarters suffer is based on the anger and revulsion you feel at the slaughter of your fellow workers. It’s a natural response, wanting to hurt those who’ve hurt us. It doesn’t lessen your humanity.”

  Bel wasn’t so sure about that. She found herself staring at the far wall, consumed by silence. An immense sadness came over her. Despite Doctor Emanuel’s reassuring words, she was sure that such violent feelings of revenge and her abiding hatred of the assassins were far from normal. There must be a better way for people to live.

  A distant horizon seemed to beckon, a place untouched by the everyday horrors of the late twenty-first century, a realm swaddled in the grander and nobler qualities of human beings. A realm of peace and comradeship. A realm where sadistic Paratwa didn’t torture families and human mothers didn’t try immolating their own babies.

  The idea of babies again brought to mind her growing urge to become a mother. She wasn’t about to let herself get pregnant, not now, not with the immense responsibilities inherent in the director’s job. Still, the notion seemed to trickle into consciousness at least once a day.

  She noticed Nick and Doctor Emanuel trading puzzled looks at her distracted state.

  Get it together, Bel. She forced concentration back to Doctor Emanuel’s original question.

  “The truth is, I don’t believe we have any choice but to wipe out the Paratwa,” she told them. “They’re superior to us in so many ways. Worse, they know it. If we allow the binary threat to continue to grow, I believe they’ll eventually supplant humans.”