Guido parked the van and got out to inspect the surroundings. Ray floated out of the back on the hoverfan chair, on loan from Mari. A gang of five young men and a single woman came around a corner and caught sight of what they must have considered one of the hated Galactics. They sped up and were quickly closing as Guido came back to the van.
“Get back inside, Peacemaker,” he said.
“Not enough time. I can’t even get the doors back open before they get here.” Ray reached into the seat of the chair. “Better get ready to fight.”
“Gladly,” replied Guido, and he cocked his head from side to side, popping the neck bones with an audible crack! He produced a long carving knife and meat cleaver from inside his heavy black coat.
Ray had wondered why the bodyguard wore such a heavy coat in the Houston heat. Now he knew. “Got anything more powerful in there?”
“Firearms are illegal on Earth, Peacemaker.” There was a note of sarcasm in Guido’s voice, which suggested to Ray the answer to his question was yes, but that he was not ready to escalate…yet. “I am but a humble chef and these are the tools of my trade.”
Now he knew that Guido had additional secrets—literally—up his sleeves.
Well, Ray did not have sleeves, but he had plenty of arms…and a few secrets of his own. He pulled out a couple of brass knuckles and wove the ends of his arms through the finger holes. Next up was a sap—a thin leather bag filled with steel shot. Finally, he pulled out a long baton made of hard rubber.
Guido whistled in appreciation. “Nice. I approve, as long as you know how to use them.” He looked back up at the approaching gang and saw they were armed with clubs and knives. “Better get ready. Follow my lead and stay out of their reach. They will cut you.”
“Hey, hey, what we have here? You ain’t from around here, are ya?” one of the youths taunted. The group spread out to surround Guido and Ray.
“What is this? Lunch on a platter?” asked another.
“Naw, that’s one of them there ‘Galactics,’” a third said and spit on the ground to emphasize his disgust.
“I suggest you young people just move along,” said Guido, placatingly.
“Naw, I don’t think so. I never tasted no octopus. ’Specially the intelligent kind,” said the first youth. Ray mentally tagged this one as Thug 1. “Any y’all got some tartar sauce?”
Guido visibly shuddered at the thought. Ray could see his lips moving. That’s marinara sauce, you moron! But he said nothing aloud.
The other gang members laughed, and Thug 2—the lunch-on-a-platter youth—stepped toward Ray with a knife held in his right fist. A fourth youth, one who had not yet spoken—hence Thug 4—circled around behind Ray, likely assuming he would have an advantage by attacking from behind. The girl—Thug 5—had a net in her hands. She would probably try to throw it and tangle Ray or Guido—or both—in the net and disable them.
Ray flashed a sign of resignation, but quickly followed it up with one of anticipation. This might be just what he needed.
“Hey look! It sparkles!” said Thug 2 as he stepped forward with his knife.
Ray brought up the first arm with brass knuckles and caught Thug 1 on the jaw. The youth was knocked back, but Ray could also see movement in his peripheral—albeit wide-angled—vision. Thugs 1 and 3 moved on Guido, and Ray could see the latter begin to spin his knives in a complicated pattern.
Thug 4 advanced on Ray and made a left-handed slash with his own knife. Ray blocked it with the baton, then brought the sap down on the wrist holding the knife. There was an audible crack and the kid dropped the knife.
Meanwhile, Thug 2 had straightened out and was coming in for another try. This time Ray delivered a one-two combination with brass knuckle-assisted hits to left side of the jaw, and then on the right side just forward of the ear.
Thug 2 went down, and Ray was able to turn his body to pay attention to the pair behind him. Thug 4’s left hand hung limply, and a grimace showed on the kid’s face, but he held a length of metal pipe in his right hand and was getting ready to swing. Unfortunately, Thug 5 chose that exact moment to try to entangle Ray in her net—trapping Thug 4 in the web at the same time.
Before the net fell, Ray parried the crude club with his own baton, then the strands of the web settled on him. He brought up both sensory tentacles and started the rapid vibration associated with fiilaash—only instead of penetrating anything, he simply used the phase-shifting effect to part the strands of the net. Thug 5 looked on in shock as Ray brought up his four unoccupied arms, grabbed the remnants of the net and pulled. As soon as she was within his meter-and-a-half reach, he hit her in rapid succession with baton and sap on the side of her head. As she went down, Ray wrapped the remaining strands of the net around Thug 4 and gave him one last tap on the temple with the baton.
With his three accounted for, Ray turned to assist Guido, only to see him reverse the knife in his left hand and hit the second of his attackers, Thug 3, on the temple with the pommel. Thug 1 was already on the ground, bleeding from quite a few shallow cuts in several places, including a shallow cut across the forehead that bled into his eyes. Apparently, once disoriented, Guido had kicked his feet out from under him. With Thug 4 going down, Guido kicked Thug 2 in the side to keep him down.
There was a sound of someone—Human—clapping. Ray looked toward the entrance to the abandoned warehouse and saw two Humans standing, watching. The smaller of the two was clapping. He was average height and had the characteristic thick thighs and biceps of a CASPer driver. The large man stood watching with arms folded.
The files Ray had downloaded to his pinplants identified the shorter man as Jackson, the merc from Ginzberg’s unit. The larger was likely the Lyon, owner of the Lyon’s Den merc bar.
“We were coming out to give you a hand,” said Jackson. “You seem to have managed on your own.”
“I have a crew coming to take out the trash.” Lyon nodded his head in the direction of the downed attackers. “You know, I wouldn’t let just anyone into the Den. Not even a Peacemaker, and maybe not even just for Mari, but that was a nice piece of work. Let’s get you two inside before any of their friends decide to drop by.”
* * * * *
Chapter Sixteen
The entrance to the Lyon’s Den was hidden at the side of an abandoned strip mall. Anyone who did not know what they were looking for would certainly miss it, as Ray and Guido had. Once inside, Lyon shielded Ray from view of anyone else in the bar and got them set up in a shadowed booth that had a view from slightly behind and to one side of the bar. Ginzberg could be seen polishing glassware at the far end. The sound of humming was audible even at that distance.
“He doesn’t speak; just hums. He reacts fine and follows instructions, but he acts like an automaton most of the time,” Jackson said, quietly filling in Ray as he discretely watched Ginzberg.
“See that?” Lyon had pulled up a chair to the booth, partly to block the view from the rest of the bar’s patrons—he gestured toward Ginzberg as the latter turned, revealing the twinkling blue rectangle embedded in the left side of his scalp. “We’re told that’s some kind of advanced pinlink interface.”
“Wait, who told you that?” Ray was curious as to who else had examined Ginzberg.
“The Peacemaker. Besquith, bad tempered. Lukas?” Lyon looked toward Jackson for confirmation.
“Lukash,” Jackson supplied.
“Actually, it’s Lujkhas,” Ray corrected, “…and that bastard was supposed to be on her way out of the system. She lied to me!” He could see Guido was trying to hold in laughter. “Well, she did!”
“Uh, she?” asked Jackson. “I didn’t think the female wolfies came out to play much.”
Ray sent the pattern and vocalization he used to express a sigh of resignation. “Long story. Short version is that my former partner is a gamma, neither male nor female, or both, depending on your viewpoint. Lucky wants to attempt puberty and conversion to an alpha—female—so she prefers fema
le pronouns.” He paused as one of the other serving staff brought their beer, and a bowl for Ray. He poured his beer in the bowl and tucked it underneath the main part of his body so that he could absorb it. “She was ordered off-world—as was I, before I resigned. When was she here?”
“Um, a week ago?” Jackson supplied, and Lyon nodded.
“Here at the bar?” asked Ray.
“Oh, hell no,” said Lyon. “I wouldn’t bring one of those werewolves into a Human bar, merc or not. She had us take Ginzberg to a clinic for follow-up.”
“O-kay, and then what?”
“Well, they ran some diagnostics, asked some questions—”
“And Ginzberg was okay with this?” Ray interrupted.
“Well, no, actually. He gets really uncomfortable around strangers. Kind of like kids with that sensory processing disorder were before we bought the cure from the Union.” Jackson looked over at Lyon, who nodded. “We had to sedate him, especially so that other octo—the doctor type—could do the exam. Ginzberg caught one glimpse of the guy and started screaming.”
“What? What other octo?” Ray’s translator volume increased although the white noise dampeners kept it from traveling too far. A couple of patrons turned to look, but seeing the Lyon was involved, they decided it was none of their concern.
“Keep your voice down!” Lyon stage whispered. Turning to Jackson, he said, “I told you it was a problem. Better tell him.”
Now it was Jackson’s turn to sigh. “The Besquith, Lukash, or however you say it, said he knew the doc was monitoring G. They both wanted to make sure Ginz was okay, so he set up the exam as part of his investigation.”
“Frankly, we thought the other guy was you until yesterday,” added Lyon.
“This just gets worse and worse,” said Ray. “This other—Wrogul is the name, by the way—did he give a name?”
“Yeah, Octa…something. That’s what I thought was funny.” Jackson thought for a moment. “He sure looked a lot like old Squiddy, the surgeon who did G’s and my pinplants, but he said his name was Octavius, Otto Octavius.”
Molina!
Ray fidgeted restlessly, coiling and uncoiling his arms. “That’s because they were the same Wrogul.” At the confused looks from Lyon and Jackson, he explained, “He took the name Molina. Most of us from Azure choose a name from Earth culture. One of the usual in-jokes is to pick a name associated with Earth depictions of cephalopods. Nemo chose the name of a fictional submarine captain because of a description of giant squid in a book. He had a toy sub when he budded, and he looked just like the creature threatening the ship. Likewise, Verne named himself for the author of that book. My grandson Mari—Marinara. He specializes in calamari in red sauce. I am Harryhausen and chose my name for a director of stop-action creature movies.”
He paused, looked meaningfully over at Ginzberg, then continued. “Molina chose the name from an actor who played a character called Doctor Octopus. Doc Ock was a familiar nickname, but you mercs called him Squiddy for some reason.” After a pause, Ray continued. “The name of the character in the comic book from which it was adapted was Doctor Otto Octavius.”
As he let that sink in, Ray quietly observed Ginzberg. Any time he turned toward the shelves and counter behind the bar, the complex implant was visible. Somehow it looked familiar, but the memory eluded him.
“So, you’re telling me we let the same butcher who did that to him get his hands on him again?” Lyon asked angrily.
“Now wait, Lyon, Squiddy’s no butcher….” Jackson protested.
“No, gentlemen,” Ray interrupted. “Squiddy did not do that to him. I ran a thorough investigation on To’Os. The ‘butcher’ as you put it, went by the name of either Pasteur or Mengele. I have come across both names. It might be one, or two different, Wrogul. I am not certain, but I think it was one.”
“But one of your kind,” spat Lyon. “I should throw you out and hand you back over to the gang bangers.” He got up to leave.
* * * * *
Chapter Seventeen
“No!” hissed Ray. “Not one of ‘my kind!’” In his peripheral vision, he saw Guido bristle. When Lyon turned back, he elaborated. “Nemo, Squiddy, me—we all come from the Human colony world of Azure. We were raised as Human as we could be, budded from a Wrogul with no memory prior to appearing in Azure space seventy years ago! This—yes, butcher is an appropriate label—is from the original race of Wrogul out there in the Galactic Union somewhere. We were raised not to trust them, and if this is what one of them did to a Human, we have to hunt him down and put a stop to it.” He reached out and laid the tip of an arm on the forearms of both Jackson and Lyon. Jackson flinched slightly but did not pull back. Lyon showed no reaction. “Please! This is not a Wrogul matter, or even a Peacemaker matter. It is a Human matter!”
“Harrumph.” Lyon turned and looked at Jackson, then Guido, who looked ready to break some more bones, then sat back down. “Well, I can’t say as I’ve ever heard a Galactic make that argument before.”
“Thank you.” Ray pulled his arms back in and hunched forward. Guido visibly relaxed. “We will deal with my wayward cousin and ex-partner later, but please…tell me what you learned from the examination.”
Jackson and Lyon appeared to confer silently, somehow, an unspoken decision was made, and the latter nodded. “The Peacemaker and Doc said it is an advanced kind of pinplant with built-in wireless interfacing.”
“Apparently it was broadcasting. The doc said he programmed a dampener, but I installed jamming in the bar anyway,” said Lyon. “His rooms upstairs, as well. He doesn’t go out, so that pretty much covers it.”
“Broadcasting?” Ray asked.
“Yeah, super heavy duty pinplant connected to everything he sees, hears, touches, everything. It was sending signals somewhere.”
Something registered in Ray’s memory. It was not actually his own memory, or even the memories inherited from his progenitors. This was more like a database entry pulled from the co-processor memory of his pinplants. Is this how Todd felt all those years ago?
As more memory, images and schematics surfaced, Ray quickly analyzed the information and shared it with the others. “It is a full-spectrum surrogate control link. I have never seen one, but my pinplant just now unlocked that information. More of the differences between ‘my kind’ and whoever did this. Much of our memory—digital and biological—seemed to have been deliberately erased seventy years ago.”
“Surrogate link? You mean like mind control?” asked Jackson.
“More like whole body control,” corrected Ray. “It should only be used in cases of total limb amputation. If that is what Mengele implanted, it is more likely that he was trying to see if he could remotely control a Human merc. This just escalated to one of those forbidden areas that gets an entire species sanctioned. It is expressly forbidden to enslave a Union member race.”
“Except for the fact that Earth is not a full member of the Union.” It was the first time Guido had spoken since they entered the bar. All three beings turned to look at him.
“True,” said Ray. “But the way he did it is on the forbidden list no matter what, like artificial intelligence.” He thought for a moment more, reviewing both his own notes and records from the Peacemaker files. “There was evidence of torture, too?”
“Actually, the doc said more like interrogation,” said Jackson. “There was a lot of burnt and damaged tissue around the auditory and speech center. A bit less in the sensory cortical areas of the parietal cortex. He told us if it was explicitly torture, he would have activated the movement control areas, too, to make the muscles damage themselves.”
“That does not necessary mean anything, though. He could have been trying to preserve the ability to remotely control him later.” Ray looked back at Ginzberg, silently filling drinks for a couple of mercs. “Okay, this is enough for now, although I will need to figure out what Lucky and Molina are up to. I want to try one more thing.”
With Humans,
it was always possible to tell when one was accessing their pinplants. They would get a distant look in their eyes, and there would be minor muscle twitches in the jaw and fingers as they used the same brain areas as speech and movement to command and retrieve information. With Wrogul, the telltale sign was a narrowing of the rectangular pupils.
All three Humans could see Ray concentrate. After a moment, he refocused on the men around the table and shook his whole body. “That song, what in the hell is that song?”
Lyon laughed for the first time all evening. “You tried to tap the broadcast? Yeah, good luck with that. As for the song? It’s just the most insidious earworm invented.”
“Earworm? Like those parasites from Pr!lax IV?” Ray asked, not understanding the amusement in Jackson and Lyon’s faces.
“You were raised in Earth culture and don’t know ‘Small World?’” Jackson looked incredulous.
“Oh? Oh!” exclaimed Ray. “Oh, that is insidious. Did Mengele do that to him?”
“Actually, we think it’s how he fought off Mengele.”
“Ah. Even better, then. If he could do that, it is a good sign.” Ray looked over at Guido. “I suspect we should get back to the restaurant. I suspect your boss—my grandson—might know a wee bit more than he told me!”
Jackson got up from the booth to distract Ginzberg while Lyon and Guido shielded Ray from view. The trio exited the bar and took a different route back to the black van sitting on the street.
When they arrived, Ray spotted a young boy leaning against the van and started to think the worst, but Lyon addressed him instead. “Thanks, Braeden. Good job. Run on inside and get some grub.” He smiled at the boy, then turned and winked at Ray. “We really did plan to take out the punks for you, but you two did pretty well.”
“Thank you, Mister Lyon,” Ray said. “Thank you for everything. It has been…eye opening, I believe is the phrase.”
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