by Kelly Brewer
Smart. Get paid twice for one job.
After more spy-like evasive maneuvers, he slipped into his squalid apartment unnoticed. Carefully, he removed the still dripping coat, raw skin peeling off with the right sleeve. He quickly stripped without screaming and got into another cold shower.
Long after his balls turned blue, he got out, lit a fresh joint, and crashed on a threadbare mattress on the floor.
Smugly, he reassured himself, “Yeah, gonna be a helluva show, Cosmic Mechanix!? Freakin’ jack-offs,” he muttered, chuckling, blowing smoke, wincing at tender, blistered flesh.
The stories he was gonna tell his kids…
CHAPTER 11
Dock spies
Dock sat naked aboard his luxury space-liner, orbiting distant Neptune. The small army of para-humans that attended him was effete and efficient. Half-human, half-droid, their grace was marred only by the barely perceptible pauses between each motion. Their eyes rarely met the masters’, and then only to receive direction.
They all shipped as female and he had sex with these machines.
Different functions were detachable so all options were accessible. All were algorithmically obedient. Even when the directive was to inflict pain.
Sitting nude among them, he wondered if it were possible for one of them to kill him. He would have his attorneys add an assisted suicide clause to his will, in case unforeseen circumstances warranted such a choice.
Make the insurance company pay for his problems. He thought it would be sweet revenge for the billions he spent for their half-hearted protection every year.
“Triny,” he whispered to his audio/visual tech.bot sitting at an A/V console next to his now-standing naked body.
“Show me.”
He considered the images on the display Triny pulled up. One was an aerial view inside the moon concert.
“Kyle ‘My Baby’ Supplantis, you gorgeous nut. My key. Sing for me,” Dock gushed.
Audio from his unregistered video droid, hovering over the stage at Moonbase, was broken and thin, but in real time. The naked man could make out the closing song. “Crooked Little Liar,” the band’s current number-one hit, romped to a boisterous close, ending a triumphant set.
After a final flash of simulated pyrotechnics, the front barricade broke suddenly and a wall of rabid moon fans stormed the stage. Pandemonium imminent, a thin wall of limbed metal flowed fast from under stage left and right, the two emerging walls of security droids connecting near center stage. The surging, fleshy mass of fans was gently restrained, its momentum absorbed by the interlinked chain of robots. The incoming wave rebounded off the thin, silver line, reversing the wave pattern. Fans were gently rolled back towards the exits.
A body was thrown off the stage and landed in the retreating tide. Kyle?
Dock said, “Triny, adjust zoom to its finest. Hah! It’s Moore, suicide bombing the front row!”
Long golden hair flopped past where his body landed and he was quickly swallowed up. A clot formed and the manic rocker reappeared, spread-eagle on his back, floating across upraised hands.
He seemed lifeless, drifting with the current. The silver wall, having repulsed the initial thrust, reformed and, from stage center front, shot a thin metallic peninsula towards the prone rocker, cutting delicately between the swells.
Search and rescue swam in the direction of the floating body. The line of security droids thinned, increasing speed, slicing across the waves like a shark catching the scent. Plunging to the back of the crowd, it captured the grainy, golden-haired blot, forming a ring under him. He sank again and after a brief struggle he rose out of the human waters, hair wild, wild hands still clutching at him. Another swell of cheers and he was up and moonwalking back to the stage across the metal bridge of security bots that formed beneath his steps.
“Great showmanship,” Dock scoffed. “Moore knows we’re recording everything. That will be on the highlight reel.”
The old narcissist tried not to be jealous. He could have done it better, not so long ago. He sniffed, looking away from the screen. His eavesdropping robotic-human flock fluttered back to any activity.
They had been watching him. It gave him the creeps sometimes and he looked quickly behind him. All clear. He was suddenly cold and gestured for a robe. One ran it to him, helping him into it.
He looked into the false face. It reminded him of his youth.
They had so many names. Android was archaic. Cyborg too scary. “Robot” gave a good description of them, but did not tell the full story. “Humanoid” would imply a need for respect. Dock liked the word “Ro-mans.” Robotic humans that did what they were told to do without hesitation or fear of consequence.
The amorphic tunics they arrived in from the factory reminded him of pictures of ancient Rome he’d seen in textbooks at Centre when he was a young cadet many years ago.
His father had died when he was ten and his high-society mother had enrolled him at the first Centre ever built, in DC, before the week was out.
“Your father was never around to teach you how to be a man. I can’t teach you either. This seems like the best place for you. You can come home during semester breaks.”
She’d handed him a wad of hundred-dollar bills and left with a man he had never seen before. She’d not communicated with him since.
Dock was given a full ride at DC Centre where he excelled in his studies. Finance and robotics were his passions.
At his graduation ceremony, Class of 2367, he had casually shared his clever android nickname with Dr. Hadjii, who had been standing with a few faculty, proud of the first graduating class.
“Doctor? Could I have a minute? Thank you. Well, I’m finally done. I bet you’re glad to be rid of me! Hahaha…Hey, you know, I was thinking of starting a high-end sex robot business. There will be quite a demand among the Deepening brethren! I’m not talking about those inert, pervert jerk-me offs. I’m talking about walking, stalking, no balking, sweet ballin’ assassin types! I’m working on a hybrid by placing the human-machine interface into a subnet framework. Like a centipede, they’ll have several brains throughout the system operating different functions. This allows the machine to sustain small groupings of real flesh. Keep some of the parts… natural, right? You can buy in if you want.” The doctor kept silent, looking at him.
Young Dock continued unfazed, “I have been toying with different names for them. Droid dolls, robotic romantics, amorous android, bot babies, or maybe… call them ‘Ro-mans.’ You know, robotic humans. ’When in Rome do as Romans do,’ hahahahahahahaha….uh, so what do you think? Wanna buy in? Ground floor…”
The doctor had been humorless, like he hadn’t heard a word. Following his lead, the other faculty half-smiled then turned and ignored him.
Maybe it was not the best timing, Dock realized. Except for life extensions, Hadjii was a naturalist. He looked most of his, then, 75 years.
The ambitious young graduate walked away undeterred, wondering exactly what ancient Romans did when in Rome.
He could guess.
Doc Hadjii was a key man for the Deepening legend and lore. Dock had kept a spy in his midst for the last twenty years. Medi, a Muslim, was the latest and most unwilling spy placed in Hadjii’s circle.
Finally, Dock allowed himself to gaze at a second image, clear and tantalizing. Arena cameras trained on Mercy were hardwired to the Moonbase broadcast tower.
Mercy. Sweet, Sweet Sister Mercy.
A goddess alone in shimmering silver and black, she leaned over the balcony, watching Moore’s antics and the sea of humanity calm and recede. Leaning over further, one muscular calf and thigh arched teasingly out of the slitted dress. Smiling, she shouted at someone below. One slender arm waved and her bosom and long hair followed the motion deliciously.
What a dream, he lusted.
What a waste, he regretted.
&n
bsp; That man-boy Kyle did not deserve such a sweet, rich prize. Franco took quite a risk letting his virgin daughter loose with that hillbilly. Her youthful lust could end this operation at any moment if she and Kyle consummated early. Unmarried intercourse was grounds for immediate grounding of any Deep-bound travel visas.
Children were precious, and a distraction. All Deepening astronauts had sworn oaths to avoid pregnancy unless they were ready to ground for the sake of the health of the child and for safety. That’s why his sexbot industry was banging in space.
All the benefits, none of the hassle.
Sex with androids was not legally considered adultery.
She was a virgin and he would never have Mercy. The conflict aroused him. His lips parted slightly, his breathing came more rapidly. He beckoned for Machla II, the half-human Hebrew hooker clone, who waited obediently for something or someone to do. She, too, had not yet been broken in.
Her “mother,” Machla I, had led Chic to the seedy hotel room and planted the phone. She became a liability after that. Chic had clumsily, conveniently eliminated evidence for Dock.
Was it murder if the clone of a half-bot remained alive?
Grabbing the clone roughly by its arm, he made a mental note to instruct his legal team to follow the Machla case and see if the law still labeled it homicide.
CHAPTER 12
Happy-stil
No other civilization, alien or otherwise, was ever encountered in the first century and a half of space colonization. People were more than a little disappointed that science-fiction writers had incorrectly predicted this fact. Some believed in a government cover-up.
Of course, there were numerous reported sightings: blurry photographs of the inexplicable and unexplained. Meager evidence of things seen out of the corner of the mind’s eye.
If there was alien life out there, they were playing games. Which made Kyle’s observation of the Moonbase audience the previous night all the more strange. At first, everything seemed normal. Screaming, enthusiastic fans jumped, moshed, and sang. But after a few songs he looked into the eyes. Several up-front fanatics rocked rabid… alien. Bulging, unseeing eyes glared at him, one eye batting closed, the other rolling, searching the innards of its own skull. Ecstasy and agony tormented the same face. The screams at the end of songs sounded forlorn, foreign, not happy. Several vicious fights broke out. Male, female, and other tore into each other near one area of the arena floor. A small fire had been ignited but quickly burned out.
As the show ended, panic gripped him when the front barrier collapsed inward. Moore bravely jumped stage left into the mouth of the beast to try and refocus the stampede of fanatic fans. Stage right, a clot of writhing, biting participants were efficiently scooped up then rolled out by the robotic medical team.
Kyle and Mactron descended to floor level to offer aid after the show ended. Checking with security, Kyle was told by the chief medic they had ingested a new designer drug called Happy-stil.
One prone, comatose user still had a half-eaten red chunk clenched between his teeth. A green paramedic reached into his mouth to dislodge it and immediately lost the tip of forefinger and thumb. The dying man had reanimated, biting, clawing, and swallowing.
“Ahhh, son of a bitch!” shouted the incredulous medic, instinctively trying to retrieve the missing pieces. They were gone.
Mactron was standing nearby and helped other EMS personnel restrain the dying man. Turning purple and arching his back in an impossible contortion, the corpse stopped moving, frozen, one corner of the dead mouth turned up in a joyful grin, the other corner down in a gruesome, crying grimace.
“In death, happy and still,” Kyle presumed, watching medi.bots do a quick tag and bag.
A bit of the half-eaten substance lay on the floor, and he brushed it into a discarded cup laying there, careful not to let it contact his skin.
Another semiconscious fan, on a stretcher behind him, suddenly clutched his arm in a steel grip. Kyle turned as one of the kid’s eyes rolled back and the other fluttered closed. Contortions gripped his body.
He had not noticed Kyle removing evidence.
Chewing nothing, the kid stuttered, “I’m in love for the first time, love at first bite. HAAHAAHH!! I-I-I thinks about it all day, man… couldn’t wait to make love to that shit again… and again.”
Eyes rolled wildly, a short-circuited smile baring blackening teeth… “One hit and… loooove!” he swooned, releasing Kyle’s bruised arm.
EMS quickly carried the young man to emergency where he died.
A few more questions and Kyle learned no antidote existed. No weaning pill had been manufactured. This drug was new, so was just beginning to show up in morning blood samples.
Shock was, he had seen it already on the streets of his hometown a few weeks ago. He’d stopped to visit family before blastoff, and an explosion had rocked the night!
The entire front half of an eighteen-foot double-wide had been blown across the street onto his uncle’s front lawn. Apparently a batch gone bad. Several bodies were charred where they sat or stood near the explosion, half-smiling, half not. Traces of the drug were scattered everywhere, forensics later confirmed.
His Aunt Drew called the sheriff and asked him if she was still alive. Apparently she was, as she rehashed the details of the event for the sheriff over coffee when he arrived nine minutes later. Sheriff Price described the dangers of this new scourge for Kyle as he autographed the sheriff’s new police grenade launcher.
This hit home. Now it was here, on Moonbase. The medics told him the drug was spreading fast. And someone was making a killing. But why kill? Make twice as much money selling an antidote at the same time.
That’s the way each recent wave of destruction had been playing out. Manufacturers had wised up, creating a weaning pill at the same time as the drug to counter the effects of their newest products. Keep the customer base alive and feeding. Double profits. Kind of an apology for releasing the occasional demon upon their fellow man. Even drug dealers had had a profitable change of heart since the Deepening began.
Kyle wondered, looking around the now-deserted Moonbase Amphitheater, newly dubbed the Dome of Rock, was his mentor, Dr. Hadjii, aware of Happy-stil? He would send the drug sample via 3-D dark-mail and get his input.
Besides his father, the doctor was the greatest man Kyle had ever known.
CHAPTER 13
BEST FRIENDS
Kyle had graduated from the Dallas Centre, but was only there for three years. Born and raised in a dry, dying West Texas.us town, life had been fascinating. The name of the town was not important, but the heritage was. Texas was home. Kyle had learned the important lessons of honor, loyalty, and hard work. The youth’s parents inexplicably died in a plane crash when he was thirteen.
An uncle recommended Centre and Dr. Hadjii’s program. Uncle Larry felt Kyle’s outgoing personality should be locked, loaded, and shot into space for the service of mankind. A young Kyle was hesitant—he missed his parents so much. To leave would be to abandon his roots.
Uncle Larry said, “From what I’ve read, the Centres know how to make real spacemen! Not like the imaginary ones you read about in your comic books. You can become one instead of pretending to be one. And it’s an opportunity to escape this small town. You were meant for so much more. You’re not a farmer, you’re a star! You’ll thank me later, son,” he said, encouraging him.
His father’s younger brother was right. Kyle was grateful. He loved Texas, it was home, but he was not a farmer.
Before his Induction, a mental, physical, and psychic evaluation was completed, allowing the board to recommend him “Universal Donor,” meaning he could choose his own destiny, study whatever he wished.
Most cadets enter younger, less formed. At thirteen years old, he tested smart and strong enough to choose his own career. Very few cadets entered at that level.
&n
bsp; Of course, he chose military and music. He was from the American South, after all. On the dusty ranch, in the cool evenings, Mother had taught him to play the guitar. He’d been shooting since age four. At age five, his father had taken him on his first hunt. Breaking the record for his age group with his first shot, Kyle still had the antlers of that buck hanging in his room.
Doc Hadjii and a few key staff had interviewed the boy in the selection room, approving him immediately. The aged doctor signed off on his career choices. They were a natural fit for a hunting, singing, teenage cowboy! To the sanguine doctor, it felt like an instant classic.
He trained hard at Centre, pouring grief and a young man’s strength into his future and graduated number one in combat readiness and number two in musical arrangement, behind his new best friend, Mark Moore.
Mark had a joyful, free-ranging spirit. Comfortable in his own skin, he tested high in Centre psych evaluations for leadership and innovation. That intrigued Kyle, who was more cautious, analytical. Together, they had a great balance, the doctor told them, although they thought they were just best friends.
It was an exuberant Mark Moore who had found him again, four and a half years into his chosen service in the military with the idea of Kyle joining his newly formed band.
“Kyle, man, you only went three years to Centre. You probably could have weaseled out of that five to the marines. Your service five is almost up. What you gonna do?” Moore questioned him enthusiastically. He continued, “Get your ass down here to Florida. Jam with us and let’s see what happens. I miss my old buddy!”
Mark had written some songs that were being seriously considered by a small label, based loosely in Florida. He’d always liked Kyle’s voice and thought it might add the missing dimension. They were already friends and might not kill each other, a plus in the stressful environment of rock ’n’ roll. Mark Moore just needed one little push to escape this reality.
