by B. V. Larson
He lifted his gun—but then hesitated. Could he possibly smell a rat?
He was right to be worried. There was a two meter long rodent staring back at him, waiting for him to fire—but he didn’t do it.
“Your demeanor is all wrong,” he said. “No begging, no gnashing of teeth. Why are you facing nonexistence with such total calm, McGill?”
I shrugged, which made him flinch. “I’ve died many times before.”
“Not like this, you haven’t. A creature destroyed by this weapon is simultaneously removed from every data core in the galaxy. You can never be revived. Even if someone were foolhardy enough to try—there will be nothing left. Even searching the Galactic Grid will turn up nothing.”
“Sounds pretty dangerous... Please don’t shoot, Mr. Mogwa!”
“That’s better. At least you’re begging. But it will do you no good. You’re about to become an unperson, McGill. Say goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
Ruffling and making those farting sounds that were laughter for him, Xlur pulled the trigger.
The gun had been reversed, naturally. I almost felt bad for him as he melted away into an ashy heap. After all, I’d been his houseguest for days, and we had a history together that went back more than two decades.
“One piece left…” I said, picking up the foot-hand appendage that I’d sliced off.
The lopped-off flesh contained Xlur’s tapper, naturally enough. That’s why I’d chosen that limb to sever. If he’d disintegrated his entire body, I’d have been left with nothing to work with.
As it was, I had to move fast. Xlur might not be an important Mogwa on his home planet, but I was pretty sure I’d tripped up more than my share of emergency alarms.
Using his tapper, I transmitted a message. Fortunately, his tapper wasn’t password protected. The Mogwa didn’t feel the need since their tappers were always with them, and they were the masters of their universe most of the time.
The message went off to Turov, of course.
“Package received,” it said. “Courier performed superbly. I recommend you promote him after revival.”
That was it. I sent it, and as the Galactic net could get a packet to Earth without much in the way of charges, it zipped away across thousands of lightyears.
All that was left now was to kill myself. Originally, I’d planned to use Xlur’s disintegrator. But that idea was out now—removal from the data core? No thank you!
While I thought about it, I fixed Xlur’s disintegrator. I didn’t want them figuring out it had been tampered with.
In the end, I decided to use the knife. It was messy, but I didn’t have anything else, and I didn’t want to risk exiting the apartment to throw myself off a cliff or something.
With my wrists opened up, I began to feel a little lightheaded almost immediately. I doodled with the growing pool of blood then got a bright idea. I wrote a suicide note on the floor in my own blood.
Xlur took his life. As his faithful servant, I feel I must leave the cosmos with him.
It wasn’t as cool as one of those samurai death-poems, but I was proud of it.
My vision had dimmed by the time Mogwa emergency bots broke into the apartment. They ignored me, fussing over the stump of Xlur’s foot-hand and the loose pile of ash on the floor. They clearly didn’t know what to do.
Lying there among what seemed like a pool of gathering shadows, I listened to them whir around in confusion.
Whenever I die with a smile on my face, I chalk it up as a good death. This time, I went out grinning. Grinning hugely.
-23-
Revival came as an interruption this time. At least, that’s how it felt.
I’d been dreaming while I was dead, and I woke up wanting to finish the experience. The whole dream was an illusion, of course. Like déjà vu. People often came back to life under the impression they’d been sleeping, not lingering in nonexistence.
But this time the sensation was stronger than usual. I could remember… faces.
“What have we got?” an official-sounding woman asked while I dozed on the table.
“This is a weird one,” an orderly responded. “The revival order is… well, there isn’t one. This is unofficial. Off-grid.”
The woman was quiet for a second. When she did speak, her voice tones had changed dramatically. She now spoke in a hissy-sounding whisper. “Are you telling me Turov green-lit another illicit revive? Without even asking us if we’d do it or not?”
“Looks that way. There’s no record of death. No official military GPS coordinates on the subject prior to death, either—I’m guessing he died off-world.”
“Then this is bullshit,” the bio said. “We’ve got to get approval from Central. Otherwise I’m recycling.”
The other guy sighed. “I’ll check, but there won’t be anything. You know that.”
“This is bullshit!” she repeated.
My eyes fluttered open about then. My dream… it was still lingering. I’d dreamt about being revived earlier, I was pretty sure of that. Or maybe that was an illusion. It was hard to tell.
A cold thought struck through my hazy state of mind. Could I have been revived somewhere else recently… and died? Was my dream really a flickering memory of a very short lifespan?
That could be the situation. Maybe what I’d assumed was a half-remembered dream—was a reality. In support of that theory, these two didn’t seem keen on bringing me back. Maybe they weren’t the first to balk at the idea.
In my dream, two bio people had hovered over me, just like they were doing now. In the end, they’d finally decided what to do—and the dream ended abruptly. They’d moved like ghosts, and they’d whispered like these two—but I’d felt a sting in the final moments.
“Is he awake?” the woman whispered.
“He should be… but he looks like he’s still out.”
My left eyelid was rudely pried open. A brilliant light stabbed into my fresh-grown eyeball.
In order not to give things away, I rolled my eyes way up into my head. I didn’t want them to get a clear pupil response.
“He’s still recovering,” the orderly whispered.
“Okay then… we have time to think. What if we just grind him and say it didn’t work out?”
“Turov has given us cash for illegal stuff before—she’ll know we pulled the plug. She might dox us.”
“Screw her. She didn’t even give us a courtesy call,” the bio complained. “She’s got huge clanking balls to pull this shit. Just sending us a random revive, obviously illegal, no talk of payment, nothing? You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“If she wants to, she can report us—for what we did last time.”
The bio woman made a small growling sound of frustration.
While these two argued about my fate, I was feeling stronger every second. Like always, I’d come back with rubbery fingers and hazy vision. But as a veteran who was all too familiar with the cycle of life and death, I had a distinct advantage. Legionnaires who die a lot grow emotional armor about these things. We’re not freaked out by death, so we don’t awaken in some strange metaphysical mindset.
In short, I was ready to make a move.
“I’m not going for this,” the woman said suddenly, coming to a fateful decision. “Put him into the recycler.”
“Are you serious? He’s a good grow. Turov might tear us a new one.”
“Look,” the bio said in a low tone, “we have to call her bluff right away. If she thinks she can order us to do whatever she wants, she’ll do it forever. We have to let her know we’re not going to stand for this treatment, or we’ll be her slaves.”
“All right… All right…”
I heard feet shuffling, and I felt big hands clamp onto my biceps. I was hauled off the table and onto a cart. It rolled, and I let my feet drag.
“Jesus, he’s a heavy bastard.”
“Just do it.”
I waited until I heard the blades whirring, revving up. Then
the orderly grabbed me by the neck—at least he was a nice guy. He was going to put me into the grinder head-first. Bad grows suffered less that way.
But I didn’t care about his chivalry. By this time, I was in a bad mood.
My own arms came up, but I didn’t grapple with him. Instead, I sought out his eyes.
I poked one out—I was pretty sure about that. The other finger missed, but I’d done what I’d wanted to.
The orderly staggered away in shock, screeching. I got up and slid off the gurney. My limbs weren’t too strong yet, but my legs held me up. I reached out a foot, hooked it behind the orderly’s ankle—and down he went.
He slid into the chute on his back, headfirst, the same as he’d planned for me. The blades struck his skull, bit in, and spun. For a few seconds it sounded like a chunk of wood had been caught between two gears. Then the recycler sucked him in, and it was all over within seconds.
I almost didn’t hear the bio. She hadn’t screamed and run out—she was a tough one. She came toward my bare-assed backside with a syringe ready.
Fortunately, I turned to face her in time.
Giving her a tight smile, I spread my hands wide. “If you want to go for a ride like your friend, here, I’m ready.”
Snarling and breathing in little puffs, she stood indecisively. “You murdered Jake!” she said. “I’ll kill you for that, I swear…”
“Now, now,” I said. “No one has murdered anyone. He’s just been recycled. Maybe he was feeling poorly.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, you—?”
“Listen,” I said in a reasonable tone. “I know all about what you’ve done for Turov. I know everything. But I’m not talking. Not in this lifetime, or my next. Can’t you do me the same favor?”
She blinked. Her brain was starting to process again. She was slipping out of her fight-or-flight mode and back into rational higher functioning. It was a good thing to see. I’d already had enough of killing today.
“We’ll stay quiet,” she said at last. “We’ll all stay quiet.”
“What about him?” I said, nodding toward the recycler.
Her lip curled. “He tripped and fell into the blades. Could have happened to anyone.”
“Accidents are terrible things,” I agreed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, miss.”
She stepped back, giving me a wide berth as I sauntered by and pulled on some clothing.
“Who are you, anyway?” she asked when I reached the door.
“I’m a legionnaire, miss.”
“I know that, fool. What legion?”
I gave her a little smile. “Varus.”
She nodded as if confirming a dark suspicion. “Of course... I should have known.”
My exit from Blue Deck went smoothly after that. She didn’t ask any more questions or make any more threats. Sometimes, it helped to come from a legion with a bad rep. People tended not to mess with you as much.
To my surprise, I found I wasn’t on Blue Deck aboard Legate. Likewise, I wasn’t on my legion’s target planet, or even inside the echoing, endless halls of Central.
At least I was on Earth. I’d been revived at a military outpost in Central America sector.
I was sure Turov had her reasons for bringing me to life down in Old Mexico City, but I barely cared what the story was. I was just happy to be alive again.
My escape from the Core Worlds had been a dangerous one. My excuse had been thin, my murder of Xlur blatant, and even my return to life had been eventful.
When I walked safely out of the local Hegemony Center, an institution which served this region as a local headquarters and recruitment station, I attempted to contact Turov. Maybe the legion had finished the mission out at M244-H, or they’d returned early for some reason.
Now, I can’t say that I expected to get to see her beaming face appear on my tapper screen with inviting eyes and scant clothing—but I’d at least expected her to answer the call.
She didn’t. She bumped me straight to voicemail, like I was some kind of sales AI.
Could that mean she was still off-planet? Then why had she revived me back on Earth?
“Uh…” I said, talking to her social bot. I left a dumb-sounding recording. “I’m back. Thanks for the revive. I’ll head back to Central—I guess…”
Heading to the nearest sky-train station, I bought a ticket at the gates with a flick of my tapper and found a seat. Crying babies, people with their belongings in sacks—it wasn’t the best way to travel long distance, but it was the cheapest.
Falling asleep on the flight, I found the bright light of morning digging into my eyes as we dropped out of low orbit and made landfall over Central City.
For some reason, my proximity to the city triggered several events. I’d often suspected people kept tabs on me with grid-alerts, and this just about proved it. As soon as I came close to the city, they used my tapper against me—to alert them as to my whereabouts.
In this case, I got a personal call from Winslade.
Now, good old Winslade had been out of Legion Varus for months. He’d taken a cush job with Hegemony, and he hadn’t looked back. Probably that was for the best, as he hadn’t been a crack officer during his tenure with Varus, anyway.
“McGill…” he said, looking out of my tapper at me. He said my name like it meant “stench” or something else unpleasant.
“That’s right, sir,” I said. “How’re tricks dirt-side? What’s it like being a hog at last?”
His face twisted a notch. He normally looked kind of pinched and rodent-like anyway, but when I called him a hog, he became extra sour.
“Enough with the insults, McGill. You’re AWOL.”
“Um… I didn’t know that. I’ve been off-world, but I was serving my legion faithfully up to the last moment.”
“It’s been that long since you’ve been breathing, hmm…?” he mused. He looked aside, as if checking some data. “My goodness... you’ve been abroad for… four months? Why is it the data core lists you as being aboard the transport Legate when it took off?”
“Uh…” I said, thinking hard.
The trouble was, not even I knew why I wasn’t aboard Legate right now. For some strange reason, that made it harder to lie. How was a man supposed to fabricate a new reality if he didn’t even know what had actually happened?
“You see, sir,” I began, “the story goes like this—”
He never even let me get on with my cock-and-bull tale of woe and heroics.
“Stuff it, McGill,” he said. “I don’t care to hear it, whether it’s lies or truth. Just get to Central. We’ll sort it out.”
Warily, I landed at the spaceport and made my way to the big building that formed the axis of the city. When I got to the elevator, I tried to punch up Winslade’s floor, but it wouldn’t let me.
Instead, every floor I was authorized to visit seemed to be far underground. Those floor-level numbers… there was only one thing down that far. The secret labs?
Touching the first one on the list, I began to plunge into the Earth.
I soon felt a tickle of sweat inside my tunic. Historically, I hadn’t had the best of experiences down here on the most secretive levels of Central.
When I arrived, I was greeted by Winslade with a team of hogs at his back. The hogs were armed, and they had their guns trained on me the moment the elevator doors yawned open.
“So good of you to join us, Centurion,” Winslade said. “This way, please.”
Marching with a color-guard of hogs surrounding me, I began to whistle a tune.
“What is that annoying racket, McGill?”
“I think it’s called: The Battle Hymn of the Republic, sir.”
He gave me a strange glance. “Isn’t that an illegal tune?”
I shrugged.
Sighing explosively and shaking his head, he led the way to a caged set of gateway posts.
“Uh…” I said, looking them over. “Do those go somewhere, sir?”
“
You’d better hope they do, because you’re walking through them. I’m kicking you out of my hair, and out of my life, McGill. Hopefully forever.”
I eyed the gateway posts. They were lit, and they seemed to be actively resonating with some distant matching target.
Modern travel took many forms. We had starships, of course, most of which were driven by the Alcubierre warp drive. In addition to that, we had teleporting suits and one other device: gateway posts. When you walked between them, they instantly transmitted your existence somewhere else.
That was all fine and dandy, but what concerned me was the unknown nature of gateways such as this one. When you first set one up, there was no way to know for certain what was on the other side—other than to step through and take your chances.
Winslade and his hogs watched me expectantly. So, I stood up straight and tall. I wasn’t going to have them telling everyone how I’d chickened at the sight of some possibly ungrounded gateways.
“These go to Legate then, right?”
“Actually,” Winslade said, “your transport made planetfall over Storm World a month back. You’ll probably arrive at some pathetic bubble-tent being lashed by the endless rain and wind.”
“Any more news or advice you can give me, sir?”
“Certainly. Watch out for the amphibians. By all accounts, they’re more likely to give you a rotting disease than the Wur themselves.”
“That doesn’t sound too encouraging…”
He laughed. “What’s the matter, McGill? Are you chicken?”
I glanced at him, and for a few seconds, I entertained grabbing him by the neck and dragging him through the posts with me. Dark places always seemed brighter when you brought along a friend.
But in the end I didn’t do it. Instead, I waved and marched between the glimmering, vibrating posts alone.
After all, I really didn’t want an angry Winslade coming along on this trip. In fact, I didn’t want any kind of Winslade. None at all.
-24-
Tumbling through space-time was as unpleasant an experience as it always was. But moments later I stepped out into a chamber.
I knew several things right off, the minute I got there. For one, I hadn’t been expected.
