Bear Head

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  And there’s little enough I can do without lighting up the board with alerts, but I check in with Brian and the rest of Bees’ followers. I sent them to go out and talk to the Bioforms, to bring back any groups that were spooked enough to take action. I think Thompson assumed that humans and Bioforms wouldn’t mix, because he came from a world in which the only non-human faces you’d see would be servants, and Collared servants at that. On Mars, though, it’s cheek by jowl, so his takeover hasn’t exactly gone unnoticed. We have Jimmy’s associate Greer and his mustelid crew on board via Mariah, while Brian’s gone out to recruit some of the dig crew, bears and dogs and other heavy lifters. Judit has a handful of dragon models trained for electrical repair down narrow conduits, thin bodies and short limbs and a battery of specialised electroreceptors on loan from sharks. I tell them to come join us outside Admin, because that’s where Sheriff Rufus is.

  I borrow one of the security cameras to take a look. I wonder, honestly, if Rufus is a Westerns buff behind closed doors. There’s a wide plaza in front of the airlock to Admin, and he’s right there, out in the open, with a half dozen other Bioforms who are his posse. They’ve got Murder with them, looking beaten up and bandaged, but alive. But it’s just them, because Rufus has built his authority on being tougher and stronger than anyone else, even the bears. He reminds me of another dog I used to know.

  And just like that dog, he’s not stupid. They’ve got all the Bad News Bears ready nearby if they need them, all under Admin’s direct control, meaning Thompson.

  “You’re gonna fix this, though, right?” Jimmy’s voice, and I realise he’s been talking to me while I scouted.

  “I’m going to try,” I confirm.

  “I mean, you can just take them back, like with Sugar,” he adds. “Just fight him for them.”

  I want to tell him yes, but it’s not my style to lie to my troops. “You remember how long that took, Jimmy.”

  “But, I mean…” I can tell his body is shivering. “They’re all in there, man. Trapped.” And I only took his body off him for a relatively short time, but he has not forgotten. And I re-evaluate little Jimmy, because right now he is absolutely not thinking about finding a hole to hide in. He is thinking about what it’s like for other people, to go through what he went through only so much worse.

  “I will fix this,” I tell him, although I don’t say that I don’t quite know how. “First let’s take Hell City off him, though, so he doesn’t open all the doors or some stupid thing.”

  I get the OK back from Brian, Mariah and Judit, and we’re on the move again.

  The camera viewpoint contributed to a mental image of somewhere roomier than we actually find, but then Hell City is short on space. Admin’s airlock door – because the top echelon of the staff get to work in near-Earth atmospheric conditions, as Jimmy sourly tells me – still feels like the portal to a speakeasy at the end of a gloomy alley. And that’s even with the lighting in this part of town calibrated to be as sunny as possible. On either side are the frontages of businesses-to-be, overlooking this tiny plaza with balconies nestling right up against the translucent roof. The sun is in the sky, but in trying to replicate its Earth-intensity light the architects have banished the radiance of the real thing entirely. All very poetic. And I’m rambling, and that’s because I’m nervous. I would prefer to have more plan here, and more control, but Sugar is driving this enterprise, not me.

  The collection of Bioforms is lounging about around the airlock door, nobody else on view. For a moment, because I have lived in a human world among humans, and had to learn the human way of seeing things, I see them as a human would. They look like a collection of characters from a twentieth-century children’s story, escaped into the wild and gone feral. The dog, the cat, the lizard, a wolverine-form, another smaller dog. They look as though they should be having adventures and rescuing children from wells, to be rewarded at the end with what I recall being described as a ‘slap-up feast’, whatever that actually is. Instead of which they are standing about waiting for the outlaws to show up even as the faint Martian sun reaches High Noon above us.

  “What are we waiting for?” Sugar asks. I realise she’s asked me if I’m ready two or three times, and Jimmy is shuffling our feet in the thin layer of dust that’s drifting about even here.

  Sheriff Rufus takes that opportunity to call out, voice and radio. “I know you’re there. You missed a camera when you chose your hiding spot. May as well come over.”

  And we’re not exactly hiding, just pausing. And it’s mostly because, I realise, I’m afraid.

  “Come on, Sugar,” Rufus continues. “I want this to have a happy ending for your friend.”

  I’m afraid, because unlike Thompson I have only this one body, and it’s not even mine. And telling myself that the worst has literally already happened doesn’t help. I see, then, the attraction of what he did. Because I could kill Warner S. Thompson all day and he’d still be there, even though each instance of him would know the agony of death. He has a legacy, and the legacy is him.

  I check in with the reinforcements, and they’re close on. I toy with the idea of turning up with a mob, but Sugar rules that out.

  “They stay out of sight for now. Rufus’ll see them coming, but if we go in like that he’ll have the gun to Murder’s head straight off. We’ll push him to it. You tell me you’ve got a better fucking plan than that.”

  I don’t, but I don’t tell her that. I don’t think we can save her friend. I am very worried I won’t be able to save Jimmy, and I’m starting to warm to him as a person, quite aside from the fact that my continued existence is bound to his.

  “You go,” I tell her. “Otherwise Mariah is going to turn up with Greer and a pack of mustelids and after that things may just escalate on their own.” I feel a twinge of academic’s annoyance for not knowing exactly what the collective noun for mustelids is.

  And she and Marmalade go, and Jimmy goes with them, which I absolutely did not want or expect. And we’re out in the open, in sight of Rufus, while I’m caught on the hop. And then I want to just seize his legs and march him right back into cover, but too late, and that kind of dissension in the ranks won’t exactly help our bargaining position.

  Rufus, who’s been leaning nonchalantly next to the airlock, sets himself upright with a twitch of his shoulder and lopes forwards a few paces. His gun is holstered, but I reckon our sheriff is likely a quick draw. Still, I know bears, and Marmalade can probably close the distance between them and that one shot is unlikely to counteract all that momentum. Not something I could have done in recent years, but I remember being a younger bear. Everyone underestimates just how quick and nimble a metric ton of bear can be.

  I pull my point of view back, because if anywhere in Hell City has security coverage, it’s right here. There’s traffic on the network, tweaking digital simulations of my old animal senses.

  The rest of the posse, Albedo and Smaug and the others Jimmy names for me, they have weapons to hand, small arms and long arms all bored to stop Bioforms, but nothing’s pointing at us. Rufus wants to keep things civilised, but I’m suspicious. Not of him, necessarily, but of his new paymaster, who I wouldn’t trust as far as…

  From one camera I see…

  Jimmy’s arms are loose by his sides and I take them off him without asking. I am very good at quick and dirty calculations, so when I shove Sugar hard in the side it’s with complete faith in Newton that Jimmy will get the equal and opposite reaction and go in the other direction. What I’m not used to is the lower gravity, meaning instead of just sprawling over, the pair of human bodies fly away from each other in a weirdly balletic leap that ends with them five feet apart and the spray of bullets cutting up the floor tiles between them. Dust and fragments tumble in unexpected arcs and clouds, as though we’re in that part of the film they play in slow motion.

  What’s not in slow motion is Rufus. He’s every bit as quick as I expected, gun to hand and firing. Not at us, happily, because we�
��re on the ground and neither Jimmy nor Sugar would be able to get out of the way. He unloads three shots up at the balcony without hesitation, and the calibre of the weapon just about demolishes both balcony and the two bodies I saw up there. I feel a rush of triumph, quickly overlain by the recollection that those were people, innocent people under the control of a DisInt entity who’s got plenty more where that came from.

  The posse are all on their feet now and, at some signal from Rufus, Albedo and the other dog are heading off into the buildings on both sides, to check for more guns. I turn to Sugar and see her getting to her feet in Marmalade’s shadow. The bear is snarling at Rufus, who’s got her covered, now. She’s put herself in the way of any more gunfire, and I see a dash of red on her arm where one of the shots clipped her. I couldn’t exactly have shoved her out of the way with little Jimmy’s meagre store of momentum.

  And Rufus has just killed a Thompson host, which confirms some things I was dearly, dearly hoping for.

  “Sheriff,” I address his radio receiver. “Let’s talk. Somewhere without any easy sniper access.”

  “And who’s this?” he growls.

  “My name is Honey. I’m who you’ve been hunting down when you were trailing Jimmy. I’m also only your second biggest problem right now, as I hope I can make you see.”

  For a moment he’s torn, because we’re right here and he’s got all the guns, and he could make his life very simple by just ignoring me, but then he nods and gestures with a cock of his head towards the building Albedo just went into.

  Inside, there’s a nice corporate lobby, complete with big screens and a reception, and some comfy furniture all done up in plastic covers to keep the dust off until someone’s actually rented the space.

  “So what am I talking to?” Rufus stares suspiciously into Jimmy’s eyes as though expecting to see me hiding at the back.

  “A personality upload operating out of Jimmy Marten’s headspace,” I explain. “I was a Bioform rights activist on Earth, in every sense of the words. Until Warner Thompson murdered me.”

  “Out of my jurisdiction,” Rufus says. “My orders are contraband data came from Earth, came to Sugar through the usual back channels. Then I find it’s in the head of Jimmy Marten, of all the damn wasters on Mars. My orders are delete it, quarantine it, stop it spreading.”

  “And now? Only you must have noticed things have changed. Under new management,” I prompt.

  Albedo the cat has come back down now, making some report by closed channel to his boss. She settles onto her haunches slightly awkwardly. Rufus is apparently allowed on the couch, but then he’s a dog-model without a tail. They didn’t make this expensive office garnish for most Bioforms to sit on.

  “Granted,” Rufus admits cautiously. “Doesn’t change my instructions. But I’m reasonable, Honey. You’re talking to me, so I guess you’re reasonable. You come out of Jimmy’s head into some closed storage, or just let yourself be deleted if you’d rather not be taken alive, then Jimmy can go. Sugar can go, with both her friends. We don’t need any collateral damage here.”

  Mariah has arrived, and is holding to my order. She has nine mustelids of various models. Brian’s bears and dogs are further out and less united in their general outlook. Judit’s dragons are… in the building across, actually, and Rufus’s deputy dog has spotted them and is retreating and, no doubt, reporting. So notch up the tension one more hole.

  “Sheriff Rufus,” Jimmy says. “You got to be crazy, you ain’t noticed how fucked things have got. Sugar and me, we’re the only ones left in our right minds. Some son of a bitch politico from Earth just took everyone over, everybody locked in their own head while he puppets them around. Made himself into a human DisInt. It’s just us two and you Bioforms, and everyone else is him, man!”

  I let him talk, but if he’s expecting a sudden volte-face from local law enforcement it doesn’t happen. Rufus just nods philosophically.

  “You think I don’t know what’s gone on?” he asks easily.

  Jimmy goggles at him and mangles a few words trying to speak. Sugar picks up the slack.

  “And this is just fine with you, Sheriff? I thought you were the fucking law? DisInt’s illegal. Human Collaring’s illegal.”

  “It isn’t,” Rufus tells her. “And I’m not the law. There’s no law on Mars. World Senate’s all tied up in knots over jurisdiction. Earth law doesn’t run here.” He actually laughs. “What, you thought you were a criminal, with all your data smuggling? Can’t be, what with no law. What you are is a disruptive influence.” And he leans in, putting them both in his shadow, a trick I used to do only I don’t cast the shadow I used to. “I keep order, Sugar. Because we’re on Mars, a few thousand no-good reprobates in a city where absolutely everything can go wrong. And so order is what we need. Right now I’m seeing you raising a pack of Bioforms to come threaten that order. And I will do whatever it takes to stop this city devolving into chaos.”

  “You told Jimmy you weren’t Collared. The last dog I spoke to who wore a Rex medal was. Sons of Adam, if you’ve heard of them. But not you. Like you say, you’re for order. Which is why you need to take a stand, Sheriff. Because you’re not on the side of order right now.”

  He actually chuckles. “Oh, I know you now. Was trying to place the name. So you’re Honey, the performing bear. I saw vid of you giving speeches. All very fancy language. You’re all for pushing freedom as far as it’ll go, right? Bioform freedom, that I can get behind. But you’re for DisInt and AI and the next thing you know your toaster’s got a vote and your congressman’s a Buick, right?”

  I’ve heard that kind of odious rhetoric so often I seriously want to step in just so I can roll Jimmy’s eyes. “Sheriff, you understand entropy?”

  “What?”

  “End state of the universe, Sheriff. Ultimate order, energy of everything evened out, everywhere the same. Except, weirdly enough, it’s also ultimate chaos at the same time, all that random motion just evening out until everything’s the same structureless nothing. Same with politics, it’s hard to tell order from chaos sometimes. You think you’re imposing order by tightening the vice, cracking down, police on the streets, curfews and stop-and-search and let’s-see-your-ID. Except, you look at any place and time when that’s been instituted, you tell me whether history records those as havens of peace and stability. You show me when top-down imposition of order has done anything except fan the flames. And Sheriff, you are now working for a sociopathic personality upload – uploads, plural – who’ve got no idea how to run this place, how to keep the lights on and the air circulating, and no real interest, either. They – he’s just interested in being in control, in being himself, alone. And if there is any room for self interest in your head alongside all that duty and order, you just search out Warner S. Thompson and his attitude towards Bioforms and Collaring. You just look at the comfy seating here that your friend can’t even use because they don’t make expensive seats for non-human backsides. You just consider what your new boss will do with all the Bioforms in this place the moment he gets the chance, and no matter what he’s telling you. Because he’ll tell you anything, talk all the order and stability you want. Dictators always do. And they cause chaos, because their vision is so totally focused on themselves.”

  It’s a long speech, but he doesn’t interrupt. Instead he’s coordinating his posse and the Bad News Bears, setting them up because Brian and the dog crews are shambling along the street in the open, now, and Mariah has brought Greer’s people close by in the tunnels, and the building opposite is full of dragon-forms, and Rufus is planning a battle. But he’s been listening too.

  “I know you’ve got a gun to the head of Murder, down there,” I tell him, because his own dragon, Smaug, is nervously doing just that. “But I need you to understand that you are not keeping the peace, here. You are aiding the breakdown of Hell City. Dictators don’t make the trains run on time, Rufus. They run down the rail networks because they travel in private planes. And you’re
not Collared, which means you have a choice. Not a duty, a choice.”

  He looks Jimmy right in the eye, and I get a shock of contact, just as if I was really there. “You’re going to tell me that’s what your man Rex would have done, right? That was your deal. You were Rex’s bear.”

  I rather think Rex was my dog, but that’s a piece of pedantry I will forego. “If you know anything about Rex—”

  “I,” and I hear the shake in his voice, “have worked damn hard to keep this city together. Admin, they don’t know. The work crews, they don’t know. This Thompson doesn’t damn well know. And you come here and tell me to let the revolution happen?”

  “I tell you to let me fight Thompson. I freed Sugar from him. I am literally the only agent in this city who can do anything. But I need you to let Murder go, and then let me work without hunting us all over the map.”

  And the battle lines are drawn, and we outnumber him until Thompson arrives, but they’ve got the guns, and the Bad News Bears will fight like crazed berserkers because they won’t be given a choice about it. And I am for freedom but I am also for peace. I don’t want dead bears strewn across the barricades. I don’t want Bioforms shedding the blood of Bioforms on Mars.

  “It doesn’t matter what Rex or anyone else would have done. It’s you,” I tell him. “And you talk duty, but it’s choice. Doing your duty is your choice. Nobody’s forcing you to obey orders right or wrong. You choose to, or you choose not to. And you will always bear responsibility for—”

  “All right, shut up,” he snarls at me, but I can hear the defeat there. “You love the sound of your own damn voice, don’t you!”

  “You have no idea,” Jimmy agrees wholeheartedly, and Sugar snickers and Marmalade uffs and I feel unfairly persecuted, a prophet not honoured in her own country.

  “So.” Rufus stands, grabbing Albedo’s shoulder for purchase to lever himself out of the prodigious dent he’s made in the couch. “I suppose you’d better do it, then.” And outside, the cameras tell me, they’ve taken the gun away from Murder’s head, and I’m speaking quickly to Brian and company, all the troops, standing them down.