by Stanley Bing
“Me too,” said Sallie to thin air.
“We got a long ride ahead of us,” said the small, taut young individual of no particular gender, who was now sporting a light, slender semiautomatic machine gun he or she had kept tucked into the back of his or her waiter’s pants. “Shall we go?”
“All right, Stevie,” said Livia. Then she grabbed Gene, drew him into a firm embrace, and kissed him again. He immediately almost forgot whatever it was that was bothering his former self, which was even now receding swiftly into his mental rearview mirror, and kissed her back now—first soft and then with all his heart. He felt himself returning to himself, but a new self now, sure of who he was and who, at last, he was not, as long as he stayed as drunk as humanly possible all the fucking time.
“Good God, you guys,” said Sallie. “Get a room.”
Officer O’Brien, who was indeed severely wounded, began making slow, languid circles around the periphery of the room. As Bob had suggested to them during the planning phase of the operation, removing the proboscis placed strategically in the center of this unit’s face had done several things to its capabilities. First, it had crippled his capacity to make simple decisions: left or right, forward or backward. It had also deactivated key portions of its instruction set and its backup memory that helped it prioritize actions. It could understand orders but could not determine the proper pathway to accomplish them. In lieu of doing nothing, therefore, it concluded that making random loops around the room was the best course.
In the meantime, Mortimer’s mini heart attack, induced by a tiny electromagnetic pulse device that had hit his chest with a bang, was abating. He was breathing regularly and had propped himself up against the leg of the table where Sallie sat.
“You okay, Mort?” she asked, leaning down and looking at him with a minimal measure of concern. She didn’t like him. But from here on in, it was quite possible she would need him.
“Motherfucker,” said Mortimer.
“Yeah,” said Sallie.
Gene bent down to see eye to eye with Mortimer. “I got a plan here, buddy,” he said, very low, very tête-à-tête.
“Arthur?”
“Yeah, buddy. I’m here.” He stuck out his hand and placed it gently on Mortimer’s shoulder. Mort, still enfeebled by his coronary incident, roused himself to a slightly better sitting position and placed his hand on Gene’s. “I’m gonna go away for a while,” Gene continued, “and I want you to hold the fort, Mort.” The wounded lieutenant nodded bravely, with a faint smile.
“Do my best, Chief.”
“I shall return,” said Arthur. Except it wasn’t actually Arthur who said it.
“Kick some ass,” said Mortimer. And then, overcome with drunkenness and shock, he passed out. It was not his finest moment.
Gene stood and gazed down at Sallie, who was sitting quietly, defeated for the moment, looking at him frankly with—what was that? Affection? In the doorway, Liv couldn’t help but shiver. These two: that was something she hadn’t contemplated in the lush fantasies of reunion that had kept her together during the time Arthur had colonized the body of her love. Whoever was in Gene’s head now, whatever consciousness had hegemony over his being, these two bodies—Sallie and Arthur—had clearly formed some kind of intense connection of which she had no part.
“I’m gonna go now, Sallie,” said Gene.
“I’m not talking to you, Gene. If Arthur has anything to say to me right now, I’d be only too happy to listen.”
“You know what?” said Gene, walking to the portable bar in the corner of the room. He grabbed a liter of some grotesquely expensive whiskey from its forest of bottles, twisted off the cap, took a Herculean swig, and then held the open bottle by his side. “You know what, Sal?” he repeated, just a little drunker than he had been a few moments ago. “You know him one way, and I know him another. I know what he’s planning, what he feels empowered to do now, and if you knew it, too, you’d hurl, Sallie, because while I was under there, I got to know you, too, and you’re not the same kind of person he is.”
“Don’t be too sure.”
Gene joined Liv at the door. Bob was there already with the two Skells, both of whom seemed to be named a version of Steve, for some reason.
“What’s Arthur ‘feel empowered to do now’?” said Liv to Gene as he joined her, teetering a little now under the weight of all that alcohol. He slipped an arm around her waist but still leaned precariously with all his weight on her slender frame.
“We’re gonna need another solution to keep him under,” said Bronwyn, joining them and taking half the weight on herself.
“It’s possible there’s a more permanent solution,” said Bob. “I just haven’t come up with it yet.” The group disappeared down the hallway and out.
It was silent in the room then. O’Brien kept circling and circling, and seemed to be aware of his humiliation. His wheel squeaked. His noseless face glowed crimson, particularly around the place his cheeks would have been. Mortimer lay at Sallie’s feet like a crumpled bag of laundry. She toyed with a glass of wine that had not been hers, looked into it for a moment or two, presumably to see if there was anything noisome floating in it, and then downed it in one gulp.
“Pull yourself together, Mort,” she said, kicking his body several times with just enough force to wake him.
With a snort, the little green monster she had brought, which had been inactive under her chair for the duration of the previous action and the subsequent conversation, raised its silky head, looked at Sallie, and said, “Same goes for you, mistress.”
“Point taken, dear,” said Sallie, and she put down the glass. It was empty, but she didn’t pour another.
Mort woke up, hauled himself a bit more upright, and then, with a massive effort, hurtled himself onto his feet for an instant, only to immediately collapse into a chair opposite Sallie. “I thought I was dying,” he croaked.
“Artie’s still in there somewhere.”
“He seems to like his wine,” Mort observed. He eyed another half-full glass of Bordeaux on the table.
“It appears that it brings out the worst in him.” They both chuckled at the obvious truth of this observation, and Mortimer seized the wineglass and raised it into the air.
“To Artie,” he said somberly.
“Artie,” Sallie replied. But she did not drink.
There was a slight pause while they both pondered the situation. Then Mortimer took out his weapon, looked at it thoughtfully, and pumped a couple of kill shots into the still-perambulating husk of O’Brien, who uttered a low digital groan, rolled to a stop, and then keeled over entirely with a crash.
“Sorry about that, ma’am,” said Mort. “But the fucking thing was driving me crazy.”
“Can he be fixed?”
“Sure. Good as new. Just need a new version of the central module they disabled. There’s a clone of it back at the shop.”
“Well, that’s good.”
From his shirt pocket, Mortimer took out the butt of the cigar that he had been chewing on and popped it into his mouth. He lit it and sucked on it for a while. Then he said, “Arthur laid out a pretty bold plan for me before we got to this fucking dumpster fire.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Well,” said Mort from a cloud of blue smoke, “I’m not sure I should. I mean, it was supposed to be between him and me. It would be up to him to decide who should share in it, contribute to it.”
“I understand your loyalty, Morty,” said Sallie evenly. “But the situation is changed. Right now I’d say that, all things considered, I’m in charge of Arthur’s interests while he’s, you know, hors de combat.”
“What is that? ‘Whore de combat.’ ”
“ ‘Out of the fight.’ For now.”
“Whore de combat,” said Mortimer. “Huh.”
“I’ll put it a little more clearly,” said Sallie. “You are an excellent field general, but I own the army you command.”
“Yeah,
” said Mortimer, looking over at her with something approaching gratitude. “Yeah, okay.”
“Now, what’s the plan.”
“My mom used to call me Morty,” said Mortimer. The two looked with some appreciation at each other, basking in their momentarily mutual self-interest. Then Mortimer extracted a pen from his breast pocket and started sketching on the tablecloth. “This is where we are, here,” he said, poking at a spot in the center of a crudely rendered map of western California. “From the general appearance of the two Skells that accompanied the hot chick that picked up Artie, I’d say they were headed northwest into the Green Zone up there.”
“Skells?”
“Anti-techs. Terrorists.”
“I see,” said Sallie. Then, as if it were of only mild interest to her, she asked, “You think she was hot?”
“The dark-haired one?”
“Yes. That one.”
“You’re hotter,” Mortimer said with a grin. “The good news is that, according to my information, Arthur’s cranial implant, even if the other guy turns it off, has a tracking device planted in it that works no matter what.”
“Who did that?”
“That douchebag. Bob.”
“Yes,” said Sallie. “Bob. Hard to figure out his game here.”
“Something to do with the babe he brought to the dance tonight? The one with all the grommets.”
“Probably,” said Sallie. She stood up and smoothed her gorgeous second skin, which required no smoothing. “Okay. I don’t need to know the rest of the plan right now. You can fill me in later. Right now let’s get a couple of hours of sleep. Then we head north into the Green Zone to recapture our mutual friend.”
“Actually,” said Mortimer, standing to meet her eye to eye. “That’s consistent with the overall strategy to recapture lost territory anyhow.”
“Well,” said Sallie, “I’m very glad to hear it.”
“Can we go home now?” asked Lucy from under the table. “I really need a recharge.”
“Yes, sweetie.” Sallie bent down and picked her up.
“Wow,” said Mortimer, staring at Lucy with wonder. “That was quite an upgrade.”
And they left, Sallie back to her sumptuous lodging to pack up for the campaign ahead, and Mortimer to the Spartan digs on the company campus where he customarily laid his head. He never slept, not really. But a few hours prone were sometimes required to whip both hardware and software into fighting shape.
– THREE –
20
Arcadia
It didn’t take Gene’s little party long to get where they were going. The two Steves were in the front seat of the 2017 Chevy Suburban, a true monster from the great old reign of the gas guzzlers, totally illegal in this day and age due to its lack of self-driving features but exquisitely maintained and equipped with a phalanx of performance chips and air intake mods feeding into a high-torque supercharged solar-powered electric motor. The thing could do 180 on an open road and easily blow by the most advanced self-driving police vehicles, which were aggressively amped up to reach an impressive if slightly unsafe top speed of 45, but only for limited duration. In the back were Bob, asleep against Bronwyn, and Liv, with her arm around Gene, who was solidly drunk as a skunk. If the consciousness of Arthur was still extant in any way, it was certainly far under.
The roads were clear heading north, and the darkness of night was absolute, inviolate. Apparently no alarm had been issued, at least not yet, and their forward momentum was unimpeded all the way to Eureka. There they got off the highway and pointed east for what was obviously a predestined pit stop on their way to their ultimate destination, where Master Tim awaited their arrival in the bucolic Green Zone.
“Where we goin’?” asked Gene as they plunged ever deeper into the darkness of the California night.
“A safe place,” said Liv. “Where we gotta take care of something.”
“Is it nice?”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Bob, who was not asleep after all. Then he was again.
They rode in silence for a while. “I missed you,” said Gene.
“Yeah,” said Liv. “Well, fortunately, you had plenty of action with that steaming-hot wife of yours to keep you occupied during your mental incarceration.”
“That wasn’t me, Liv.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It was like being locked in a nightmare and not being able to wake up.”
“Gee, that must have been horrible,” said Liv sarcastically. Then she carefully licked her finger and stuck it in Gene’s ear.
“. . . okay,” he said.
The road was getting bumpier by the minute. “If we’re gonna face any resistance, it’ll be in about half a mile, when we go through the gates,” said the gender-neutral Skell, who for purposes of brand distinction from the other one went by the name of Stevie. He or she took out an old-fashioned Glock semiautomatic, checked it for action, and rested it on the dashboard.
“Who are you fucking guys?” asked Gene. “Some kind of nutty hippy brigade or something?” He didn’t care for either of them. Whatever his drill was going to be, he wasn’t sure he wanted these shaggy weirdos around to help him with it.
“We’re the vanguard of the revolution,” said the hulking one, Steve, who was driving. There was a blob of silence again. “And we just rescued your ass back there, so have a little respect,” he added after a while.
“I take your point,” conceded Gene. “Sorry.”
“Here we are,” said Stevie. “Duck down, chickens.” He or she picked up the weapon but kept it out of sight.
But nothing transpired. The Chevy slowly rolled through an enormous wooden archway festooned with giant lettering that read, “Arcadia.” Steve turned off the vehicle, and the only sound was the click-click-click of the engine cooling off. Nothing more. “Okay,” said Stevie. “We can get out now. Grab your stuff. We walk from here.”
The only ones who had anything at all to carry were big Steve, who appeared to have a host of weaponry in a large khaki duffel, and Bob, who lugged several bags of personal effluvia, including an old-fashioned leather doctor’s satchel. Bronwyn took the heavy stuff, while Bob contented himself with the carrying case in black lizard skin that was the emblem of his profession back when doctors made house calls.
They stood in the silence of an endless redwood forest. In the distance, an owl announced itself. A coyote howled and was answered by another. “Where are we?” asked Gene.
“We’re here,” said Bob. Then he headed up a steep path that hadn’t been tended for quite some time. The group followed, with Stevie in the rear, alert to any life form that might require the attention of his or her Glock.
They continued up the hill, which grew steeper. On the way, they passed the remains of what were once small encampments with scattered firepits and the occasional cabin here and there. Not a hare rustled in any of them. “This place was once owned by the Corporation,” said Bob. “Not really active now. Once a year, a couple of guys from senior management get together here, but only for a week or so, to smoke cigars and drink themselves sick. The rest of the time, it’s like this.”
“Creepy,” said Liv.
“Relic of the dying male hegemony that will soon be extinct,” Bronwyn replied, poking Bob in the ribs as she did so.
“God,” he said. “I hope not. I have a ton of important hegemony stuff to do first.”
They walked a bit more, leaning into the hill.
“Are we there yet?” Gene whined after an interminable amount of time and effort brought them only another hundred yards or so.
“Yes, in fact, we are,” said Stevie. “Steve, drop your gear and help me open up the place.”
They were standing in front of a pleasant entryway, graced by the statue of a naked female angel with truly magnificent wings reaching for the sky, both arms outstretched to show her sacred figure to best effect. “Valhalla,” said a rustic wooden sign beside a staircase. The two Skells preceded them up the
stairs. Last in line was Livia, who pushed a wheezing Gene up the remaining steps and into the camp.
Valhalla turned out to be a compact enclave with a good-sized deck surrounded by a number of cabins. On this deck were a bunch of comfortable chairs of varying weight and size, now a bit moldy, some tables, and a large and still impressively well-stocked bar in the corner. In the far end of the area were the showers, toilets, and communal sinks. Numerous black-and-white photos covered the walls, most of long-dead men in the funny suits, hats, and moustaches they must have thought, at the time, made them look distinguished, when being distinguished was more important than being cool.
“Hey!” said Gene. “This is nice!” He fell into a chair and was asleep immediately, hugging to his breast the precious bottle that now safeguarded his identity.
“Let him sleep,” said Bob. “We’ll do the procedure in the morning and then get out of here.”
“Like hell,” said Liv. “We’ve been apart forever. I thought I’d lost him entirely. He’s not going to spend the night in a chair. Come on, Bee. Help me out.”
Bob gave her a sudden grin, reached out, and mussed up her hair. “Okay, Livvy,” he said. And so together the two women, assisted by their rumpled friend, hoisted the shit-faced young hero to a standing position and drunk-walked him to the first cabin off the deck. “Thank you and good night,” said Liv to the group. There were the sounds of a deadweight falling into a cot and the cabin’s screen door clapping shut.
“What they got to eat here?” asked Steve, going behind the bar to see if there were any provisions. “Nuts,” he said, extracting a few bags of pistachios.
“Look in the kitchen,” said Stevie, and they both went into the desolate, inactive space that lay beyond the bar.
“Come here, baby,” said Bob to Bronwyn. She went to him.
“This is going surprisingly well,” she said, and put her arms around his neck.
“We’ll see how he does. He’s different than I expected.”
“Well, he’s plastered. We don’t know what he’d be like if he didn’t have to be hammered all the time just to be himself.” She stared into Bob’s face for a minute. “We also don’t know how much of that old imperialist scumbag rubbed off on him.”
