by Gary Lovisi
She said, “James, you are the book.”
“How?”
“In the book there’s a sheriff, Lou Ford, a nasty psycho, but he’s also a master of camouflage. And that’s you, baby.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
She sighed. “James, you see this old Lion paperback from 1952, from LastCen? That’s your book. You purchased it. James, you purchased it when it was new. Lion Book #199. You bought it off the newsstand in that little candy store in Des Moines, Iowa, in the old USA in 1952! I know, because I was with you when you bought it. Before I ever become Arabella Rashid. In the old days of LastCen, when my name had been Kathleen Ryan. Remember, honey? I was your wife. Your child bride.”
She was twisting his brain into a pretzel now.
He didn’t remember any of it.
She explained, “We, us here now, are clones of those previous selves. The people we are today were created from DNA, memories and personalities we were given by Simon. They can do that with clones, not only replicate the structure and DNA of any subject, but include memory and personality also.”
He did not think that was possible. Then he realized it was just too freaky and screwed up not to be true. He looked at her closely and said, “That would make you, what?”
“One hundred and forty-seven years old, James.”
“And me?”
“James, you are one hundred and fifty-seven years old. You were always ten years older than I.”
“But we look...I mean, you can’t be more that thirty-five.... And I’m....”
“Don’t you understand? The DOC can do anything. The DOC has done it all. James, I came out here because I need an ally. Your so-called loyal and harmless little book scout of a brother back on Earth doesn’t really exist. It is a secret DOC department making a power play to take over control of The DOC. Nothing is ever what it seems to be. They have to be stopped! The leader, Michael, is not your brother, he is Simon’s clone, his son and successor-in-waiting. He’s Simon’s wild card. You see, Michael was never a part of Simon’s Janus Project. He was a sleeper mole deep in the DOC. He was Simon’s fallback. Simon programmed me to take his place in the event of his death. That was Simon’s revenge on me. If that didn’t work, and now it is all unraveling, then Michael was programmed to make his play for power and control from me.
Ryan didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t even put a face to his supposed brother now.
“Michael, your brother, was in fact, the manifestation of The DOC’s original intent in the flesh. You know what that is?”
“Orwell? The boot on the face of humanity?”
“Forever, James. Forever!” she said, “and he would become Big Brother in the flesh, and the very worst manifestation of all that means.”
He nodded, he had heard of all that but...still....
“That’s what they want. Not mere control anymore. They can destroy. They can create. They can program. They can reprogram. They think they are gods now!”
“And they can do it?” he asked.
“Honey, they can do anything they want if we lose. Simon had the plan, and now Michael will carry it out. I came out here concerned about a power struggle at The DOC and I was looking for answers because my own memories had been compromised because I was changed by Simon’s programming. That’s all different now. I changed. I want to fight them now. Really fight them, like I was meant to do before Simon doctored my mind. I want to beat them. I want to....”
“I know, now. You want to be forgiven for all the bad you’ve done? You want to make up for it?”
“Hell no! I can never be forgiven for the terrible things I’ve done, James. Even the terrible things you’ve done, under my orders. What we can do is try to set things right. This time we do it right and leave no one behind!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
TERMINAL CASES
They were meeting in the secret library. Ryan had called together all the leaders of the Resistance. The men of influence, bosses, workers, miners, readers, big brains, the judge, bartenders, all the big-mouths, fools, angry, loud, too-smart, shifty misfits, fighters, and the various wounded of all kinds. He brought them all together. It was one hell of a motley crew.
Alvy called them all to order in the huge meeting room on the lower level. There were hundreds of men. The leaders of Mars—and the leaders of the Martian Resistance.
“The bar is closed! Now come to order! Ryan wants to say a few things and then introduce someone I’m sure you’ll be most interested to meet.”
There was shouting, cat-calls, demands for beer.
“Shut up and sit down, will yah!” Alvy shouted. “No beer until after we talk!”
They didn’t shut up. They were true-blue Marsmen, after all. Marsmen never did what anyone told them to do. Every one of them was a first-rate PITA—pain-in-the-ass. Each was a damn troublemaker to boot. But they eventually quieted down a bit, out of respect for Ryan.
They damn well fell silent when they saw him walk out with a woman at his side. She was hot and lovely and had every man’s juices flowing just at the sight of her.
Ryan didn’t mince words, he stared down at the crowd looking intently at each man, recognizing each face, each story that went with it. One by one, with that magnetic eagle-eye gaze of his he demanded their attention. And got it! It was a rough crowd to be sure, prideful hardheaded individualists and die-hard trouble-makers. Crazy-minded bastards and crackpots too tough to die here on Mars, too honorable, ornery, or serious about liberty and independence to live on Earth any more. He was one of them. These were his people. He loved every one of them old, ugly, cantankerous sons-of-bitches!
“Gentlemen!” Ryan said, “and I use the term very loosely.”
There was laughter, but it was nervous laughter nonetheless. All eyes were looking up front, but they were not on Ryan now, but on the woman at his side. She was surely beautiful, but that wasn’t it. She stood there very business-like, very serious, almost cold. Yes, maybe, very definitely cold and...dangerous.
That’s what concerned them about her.
Everyone wondered who she was.
They didn’t know who she was yet. Ryan didn’t want them all to panic, so he’d have to ease them into who she was.
“Okay, guys,” Ryan continued. “We’ve come to it now. It’s crunch time.”
There was a murmur among the crowd, rapid and rapt, mostly fueled by speculation about the woman. Murmurs and whispers flowed from dozens of voices. Who was she? Why was she here?
No one had yet imagined the truth.
Was she an ally?
Or a spy?
Ryan said, “We’ve come to a fork in the path of our resistance against the oppressive policies and laws of Earth. There are two pathways we can take at this point in time. One of them is to accept what the Department of Control has planned for us all along. Hardly any choice at all. The other path is one we have planned for ourselves as free men seeking a free Mars.”
“Then we fight?” a voice shouted.
“Revolution!” another barked triumphantly.
“We should declare our independence and fight for our freedom from Earth!” another shouted from the crowd and....
The flag of the Mars Republic was unfurled and waved. They stood up and cheered.
Ryan tried to stop them. He tried to quiet them, seeking to shout them down, to shut them up. They were losing it. They were going the wrong way, down the wrong path. He had to stop them before it got crazy and he lost all control! How ironic!
“No! Stop it! You’re wrong! You’re doing the exact thing The DOC wants you to do!”
Arabella Rashid stepped forward. She pulled out a small caliber old style handgun, pressed the trigger, and a bullet shot into the ceiling over the heads of the crowd. It brought down a fine mist of plaster and white dust. The report was an ear-blasting cacophony in that massive cavern-like hall.
There was immediate shock and quiet. Every face, every eye, immed
iately transfixed upon her now.
She said, “That’s better. Now sit down and shut up. I have some news for you that you all need to hear, unless you all want to be killed. Then it doesn’t matter one damn bit and I personally don’t give a fuck!”
That quieted them.
Ryan said, “Come on, sit down, guys. It’s going to be a long night and we have a lot to discuss and vote on before we’re through.”
* * * *
Ryan began it. He talked to them for an hour, giving them his report about what the Resistance was trying to accomplish on Mars, all that it had accomplished, and what the plans of The DOC were for them all.
“KTA,” Ryan told them, “Simple as that. KTA—Kill Them All! That’s what the DOC had planned for us all along, brothers!”
There was rage and ruinous pain burning in each member of the crowd but they simmered down when Ryan told them, “But it’s not gonna happen, brothers. We’re not stupid. We’re through being used and we have an ally here. She is someone I want you to listen to very carefully. She’s on our side, brothers, so sit calm and listen. Think and be smart. You may have heard of her. I tell you she’s on our side. Just remember that. Her name is Arabella Rashid. She is the Director of the Department of Control.”
A thousand blank faces stared back at Ryan, no fear, no anger yet, just total and uncomprehending disbelief at this point. Was this some joke? They all hoped, prayed it might be. Everyone there had heard the name. The fear and anger would show up soon enough. In substantial abundance. It was growing almost immediately—fear, panic, were the shock troops on the way even now!
“Okay, baby, you’ve got their attention,” Ryan told her.
Arabella Rashid nodded, strode forward, said in a loud powerful voice, “We have a plan to free Mars and to outsmart The DOC, but you must listen very carefully. We have to be smart and bold and not be afraid.”
There was stunned silence. Slowly the men were coming out of it. They knew The DOC. They feared it to the core of their being. Even though the organization was said not to officially exist, everyone had heard the rumors, had felt the fear, the control, the restrictions all their lives. On Earth. For sure. But not here on Mars. Not until now. Now memories of Earth flooded back into their consciousness and they began to look around them, the old paranoia returning like a flash of lightning. Many expected any moment for Authority shock troops or nanotech warriors, space marines, or some Big Brother-type goons with big boots stomping down on them. Big-Brother with a gun in his hand, and the will to kill.
Arabella Rashid said with calm and determination, “Do not fear. There will be no shock troops, no government goon squads or kill forces. We are safe. For now. Now listen. I need to tell you some things and then you need to talk them over and decide what you want to do about it.”
“How do we know we can trust you?” someone shouted.
“If you couldn’t trust me, moron, you’d all be dead meat by now. You know how the Authority is back on Earth?”
Many heads nodded.
“Well, The DOC is far, far worse, let me assure you.”
There was silence. Hopeless silence, And fear. Fear to act.
Fear not to act.
Thick, syrupy fear.
And anger.
“But I am not here as an enemy. That’s what I am trying to get through your hard heads. I am here as a friend and ally!”
No one knew what to say to that, so they didn’t say anything.
Ryan said, “Listen to her, my brothers!”
“There was a plan,” Arabella Rashid continued, pacing back and forth, making eye contact with members of the crowd as she spoke to them. “The plan has been in operation for decades. The Janus Project. It will be replaced by a new plan. A better plan. That plan will free Mars! Maybe even free Earth! But it will come at a price.”
Every eye was on her now.
“The original plan was for the DOC to collect the most incorrigible hard cases, troublemakers, crackpots, religo-nuts, extreme-politicos, Trotskyites, left-wingers, right-wingers, no-wingers, and ship you all out here. Then fertilize you with ideas from books—hard-boiled crime fiction was the initial implant. The stuff oozed crime, sex, action, suspense and violent passion. The stuff of life! Then in time you were all supposed to progress to more political forms of fiction. Each one of you was programmed and implanted for this before you left Earth. I mean really, think about it. You all collect...what?...paperbacks? Of all the damn things! There has to be something else involved there. There is, and it was Simon and the DOC behind it all. Eventually you were supposed to turn politically ideological and rhetorically incorrect, organizing secret cells that would soon become an open and bloody revolt. Then you would all be put down like dogs. Every last one of you. It was the perfect set up and you were each programmed for it. You had no choice!
“But it never happened,” she continued. “Key components changed in many of you. It was something to do with the long voyage out here. And the paperbacks. People change on the way out to Mars, or Mars changes them when they get here. Whatever it is, something changed you all. It changed me too. So what was supposed to happen, did not happen. Or more accurately, it didn’t happen exactly as The DOC planned. Incredible in and of itself. Unbelievable to be sure. But something else did happen instead. Paperbacks happened, some kind of crazy but divine madness. It seemed to create an innate understanding of life and brotherhood you all took from reading the old books. A kind of sub-culture. You all caught it like a virus, or bought into it like some mobsters from LastCen. ‘An offer you could not refuse’. Or would not refuse. You get what I mean?”
“The Godfather by Mario Puzo,” someone yelled helpfully.
“Luca Brazzi,” someone else shouted. “He was a kick-ass, super head-breaker!”
“And just the kind of person you do not need now!” Arabella Rashid shouted back. The man sat down. Quelled for the moment.
“We—every one of you, Ryan, myself, all of us—we are all fighting for freedom and liberty. However, to keep the fight going, we have to survive. First. You know how the Authority is? The DOC is much worse. They would not think twice about authorizing the liquidation of every person on Mars, and they’d carry it out with a cold-hearted efficiency, speed, and completeness if they thought it would get them to their goal.”
No one said anything in reply. They knew she spoke true.
Arabella looked into the crowd. Into every face. They were wary of course, suspicious, but expectant too. Waiting. Wondering what her game was. She wondered about her game as well. It was so bold, so crazy. Would it work? Or would it destroy them all?
She told them, “For the last twenty years you have been wise. Don’t blow it now, people. You have won a considerable victory. It was by default, because the Authority and The DOC does not suspect what has been going on here, but it is nevertheless a victory. It’s a great and proud accomplishment. You’ve managed to keep yourselves free and survive. I need not remind you that the graveyards of Earth are full of free dead men. You’ve not had the Authority on your back or The DOC breathing down your neck every minute of every day. Not yet! Mars was founded as a settlement world but The DOC wanted to turn it into a planetary penal world that would revolt and be purged in a holocaust. You prevented that. You saved yourselves from death. By being smart. By playing the game. Your game, not theirs. By pretending to be utterly loyal you survived, and so you have won the first round of the game. Against all the odds. You survived. Now we go to break the bank!”
There were cheers. Nervous. Tentative. Curious, with reservations, but cheers nevertheless. They were fighters after all. And they felt she just might be on their side now.
There were expectant looks forward.
“They are waiting,” Ryan whispered to her.
“Give them another minute. I want their undivided attention. And yours, James. This is it,” she said carefully.
Ryan nodded. He knew. It was crunch time.
Arabella Rashid’s
voice, bold and powerful, began, “The bottom line is this: Earth, The Authority, The DOC, are all aware that something is going on here. If I could see it, they could too. I have little doubt. I have come out here but Michael, Simon’s successor, must also know I am here by now. It will not take him long to put it together. Even now his own programming may be kicking in to cause him to make a play to take over the DOC. However we can stymie them again. We can do that by giving them just what they expect. They expect a revolt. You must give them what they expect! But not the way they expect it!”
There were some nods, but also a lot of blank stares. Fight? Don’t fight? What was she saying? Fear was creeping into questing eyes now at the realization that the enemy knew all about the Resistance and the revolt brewing here. And about them.
That was scary.
“Earth and The DOC are expecting a revolt. Let’s give it to them! But fake it. We fake it all. Fake the news. Fake the vids. Fake the reports. Fake the police and military transcripts. Fake the whole damn rebellion! We can even fake executions! It doesn’t matter because we can send false images back, file reports that mean nothing, give them all the flimflam they can eat! Validate their plans and procedures. Yes, there was a revolt. It was quickly put down. Almost everyone stayed loyal to Earth. We all “love” Earth, love The Authority, of course—and everyone is terrified of The DOC.”
There was cynical laugher from the men. Hard. Biting. She continued, “Those few involved in this dastardly plot will all be caught, of course. The revolt quickly put down, all violators executed. We can give Earth evidence of hundreds of bodies, or even thousands of summary executions. They’ll get their holocaust. They’ll be expecting it all neat and tidy and they’ll get it all fully documented. Of course, it will be all faked, but they’ll never know the truth and they will not find out until it is too late.”
It was possible. They had after all, manipulated similar images and sent them back as reports to Earth for decades now. They had fooled the Authority, even the DOC.
It could be done.
There were nods, whispers, cheers, some claps, more cheers; they liked the idea of sticking it to the Earthers. Making them look like fools. Screwing with the head of the hated Authority. Taking a piss in the eyes of the dreaded DOC. There was general agreement. This was good. It might even be fun.
