I caught up with Berger that evening. He was alone in platoon HQ, working on personnel reviews, and didn’t see me approach until I was standing over him. A very short man; he hated it when people loomed over him.
“Quinn. I heard you were back. Loafing in the med tent.”
“Yeah,” I said, waving my fingers in his face. “I got these soft fingers thanks to some prick of a lieutenant.”
“Quit beefing, pansy. You got your hands and a leg. More than you deserved.”
I figured he wouldn’t want the circumstances of my injuries aired too publically, so I felt open to express myself freely. “Tell that to my partner. He’s dead, remember? Even the hospital can’t help a corpse.”
He put his feet up on his desk and crossed his arms. “What do you want, soldier?”
“I know about your little kickback scheme with SuperLimb. If it doesn’t stop, the word is going to start making its way up the chain of command.”
He smirked. “There’s no such thing as a kickback on augments, but even if there were, you think it would be some Podunk camp scheme? A deal like that, the revenue stream would flow all the way back to the Pentagon. Besides, CINCPAC has a hard-on for augments. They’re cheaper. They bitch less.”
I leaned forward, my hands on his desk. I go almost two meters, 100 kilos, and I’ve learned that I can intimidate some people just by invading their personal space. “You tried to kill me once, and I told you then that you’d pay. Now you’ve given me another reason.”
He scooted his chair back. “You and your doctor friend get in the way of the augment gravy train—if there was such a thing—and you’ll be shy more than a couple of hands, which is OK by me. I still wonder if your partner really was dead before you stole his coat.”
I’d have punched him right then if my hands weren’t so new and fragile. All I could do was leave before I did something even more foolish.
Ironically, the first person I saw when I returned to the mess tent for a cup of java was an old buddy, Debby French. We’d served together briefly in the Congo, and shared a motel room for most of a 30-day leave before she tossed me out of a window. She’d been seriously wounded in a firefight six months before I was injured.
“Holy shit,” she said when I took a seat across the table from her, “look what Sasquatch dragged in.” She reached across the table to shake my hand. Hers was an augment now.
“You’re looking fine,” I said, suddenly self-conscious about my hands. “I’m surprised to see you back.”
She knocked one hand against the other. The sound was a clunk. “New arms, new legs, titanium heart. I’m a new girl. The only bad part is, with all that metal, I’ve put on a few pounds.”
“You like them?” I said.
“Yes and no. Not having very good sensory perception means I have to see what I’m doing—no more doing by feeling. Sucks in the sack.”
For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t follow up on such a flirtatious comment; whether it was my feelings for Vance or ambivalence about making love to a woman that was half machine, I wasn’t sure. I found myself telling her about Saul instead, and about our pact that when the first one died, the other was to take his clothes.
“You do anything that caused him to die first?” she asked.
“No. I was just lucky, I suppose.”
“Well, then, get your head out of your ass. Everybody has the right to a little luck.”
Easy for her to say.
She and I killed the rest of the afternoon playing pinochle.
I came away from the game richer by a bottle of bootleg hootch. The thought of drinking alone wasn’t appealing, though, so I went in search of Vance. I found her in the mess tent.
She was feeling oppressed and tired, so I took a seat beside her and prescribed vodka and orange juice, stat, repeated at fifteen-minute intervals until symptoms subsided.
By the time most of the camp’s soldiers had arrived, eaten, and departed, we’d finished most of the bottle. To my surprise, she’d matched me glass for glass, and since she massed about half of what I do, she was much drunker.
“You know what I hate about this place?” she said, resting an elbow on the table to support her head. “Rationed water. Here we are on the banks of a huge fucking river, and we can’t use more than a gallon for a shower?”
“Army regs,” I said. “Makes you tough.”
“Tough? Check this out.” She reached over, took my hand, and guided it to her bicep, which sprang up when she flexed her arm.
“Yeah, muscles like rocks.” Her skin was on fire and I didn’t want to let go.
She nodded, taking my hand in hers and resting them on the table. “That’s from all the massage I do.” She giggled.
“I take at least partial credit, then,” I said, leaning closer. “If it wasn’t for me, who would you massage to build those muscles?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said.
“Yeah, I would.” I nudged her shoulder with mine.
She opened her eyes wide, then leaned forward and whispered in my ear. “Nobody. For way too long.”
“I could help you with that,” I whispered back.
“I’m a damn fool, Quinn. I know what kind of man you are. And I know what kind of woman I am, in normal circumstances. But up here? What’s a girl have to lose when she could die tomorrow?”
I’ve had sweeter invitations.
I woke up early the next morning, and was happily lying there next to her, memorizing the way she breathed, when the sirens went off.
I sat up, disoriented by the sound. Athena grabbed the pillow I’d been using and slapped it over her face, pulling down both ends to block her ears.
It took me a moment to remember I was in officer’s country. I lurched into my clothes, fighting off the urge to puke. As I laced up one boot, I nudged her. “Hey. All hands means you too.”
She lifted the pillow. “Oh, sweet Jesus. Please let me die. How much did I drink?”
“Welcome to the real army. Alcohol-fueled.”
She grabbed my sleeve. “Last night—let’s keep that between you and me, OK?”
“Of course. You could get into mucho trouble sleeping with a private.”
“Yeah. That too,” she said, and rolled out of the bed on the other side.
Even undernourished, she looked terrific naked. I could have watched her all day.
Instead, after making sure I was unobserved, I snuck out of the tent first. My hopes of arrived on the parade grounds unnoticed were dashed when I saw Berger tug the CO’s sleeve and point toward me.
The CO wriggled her finger for me to advance.
I approached, stopped, squared myself, and saluted. “Sir.”
“You’re assisting Doc Vance?”
“Yes sir.”
“There she is,” Berger said, pointing over my shoulder; here came Athena, striding confidently, uniform squared away as if she hadn’t had a drink in a week. I was so proud of her.
The CO called her forward to join us.
Once we were gathered, the CO said, “We have a situation. Doc Fujimura is back in Vancouver checking out some new equipment, and his assistant is stuck in surgery. We got word an hour ago that there’d been a landslide up at Port Carter. The medics just arrived on scene and they’re screaming for any additional medical help we can send. You’re the only doc left.”
“I’m a regen doc, sir. I’m not trained in emergency medicine.”
“The kids dying up there could give a shit about your diploma, Vance. I’m sending you up there. Take Quinn along; he knows the layout of the station.”
Berger smiled.
“You leave in five minutes,” the CO said. “Grab all the supplies you can carry.”
The CO turned away and started barking orders to put together search and rescue squads.
Vance looked dazed. I dragged her back to the medical tent. “What do we need?” I asked, grabbing a dolly from the pharmacy.
She wasted thirt
y seconds throwing up before I could get her to guide me as I raced through the pharmacy, filling two large boxes with bandages, splints, and braces. We made it to the helicopter with two seconds to spare.
The wind was howling directly out of the north; the helo pilot kept complaining about the extra fuel he was burning. It was over an hour before we finally spotted the port—or what had been a port.
Half of the 200-meter-high hill that had once loomed over it to the east had broken loose and flowed like an avalanche, covering buildings and knocking the docks into the estuary of the Mackenzie River. The radio tower, the one where I’d lost my hands, had been built on high ground farther up the hill and was still intact. From there, a small figure was waving to us. It was the only sign of human life.
“I can’t land there,” the pilot said, pointing to where the man stood. “The rest of that hill is liable to go at any moment.”
“Can you hover while we get off?”
“If you have the balls to get out,” he said.
Athena gave me a thumbs-up. She had more balls than I did.
The chopper pilot brought us down to about five meters. “In this wind, I don’t dare go lower,” he said.
I opened the door to a wind strong enough to rip away anything not restrained. I clipped the supply boxes to a zip line and lowered them to the man waiting for us on the ground. Athena followed the last box down; her massage-earned muscles showed as she descended the line hand by hand.
As soon as she was safely on the ground, I picked up the line to lower myself and only then remembered my soft hands. Weak grip. I sprawled onto my stomach, inched back until my legs cleared the helo, and caught the line between my legs and feet.
“Get your ass on the ground,” the pilot yelled as the helo kicked in the wind. I leaned back, grabbed the line and committed to the descent.
My grip wasn’t for shit, though, and I might as well have jumped without a rope. I landed heavily with two scorched palms, and my new ankle twisted as I hit.
Athena was at my side immediately. As the helo headed south, back to Camp Cochise, she pointed to the soldier at her side. “He says a second landslide covered the rescue medics just before we arrived.”
I recognized him—Pascual, a half-assed cook who’d been assigned to Port Carter to punish the lieutenant in charge of the station.
“Yeah,” Pascual said. “The whole fucking world’s sliding into the river.”
“Where are the wounded?” I asked, still on my hands and knees. I pressed my hands hard against the cool soil, which did little to put out the fire.
“That’s just it,” Vance said. “They’re under all that mud.”
I tried to stand, but the wind, howling even stronger out of the north, blew me back to my knees. The temperature was at least 15 degrees colder here than back at camp.
Athena dragged me to my feet. The landslide was only a hundred meters shy of the shack, which was a stone’s throw from where we stood, and there was no reason to believe that it was done. At our feet, the ground was seamed with new cracks.
“We’ve got to get higher,” I said, pointing up the hill. I had to yell to be heard over the wind.
“No way,” Pascual said. “There’s a killer storm coming. You’ll freeze to death out here. I’m staying in the lookout post.”
As though proving him prescient, it began to rain—the water blowing almost horizontal in the wind. Vance gave me a wishful look. She was shivering already.
“The radio shack is a death trap,” I said, putting my arm around her. “It’ll never stand.”
“Suit yourselves,” Pascual said, and double-timed to the shack carrying one of the boxes of supplies.
“What should we do?” Vance said.
I pointed up the slope—I could see a rock outcropping a klick or so away. “We climb,” I said.
I pulled out my radio and called HQ. Berger was there, waiting for my call. I reported the situation.
“Yeah, we got that from the pilot,” he said. “We’ve got a mother of a storm coming through in about an hour. You hole up in the radio shack.”
“Trying to bury your mistake? I already told you the shack is going to end up in the river.”
“You have your orders, soldier.” I could hear him switch away from our frequency.
Not again, I thought. “They won’t be able to evac us until this storm passes.”
Athena looked at the desolation surrounding us. “Then we’ll have to take care of ourselves.”
I took heart from her false bravado.
“Can you walk?” she asked, turning up the collar of her jacket against the rain.
“You kidding?” I said. “My ankle’s state of the art.”
We started up the slope. Walking on the rough, moss-covered rocks was like walking on marbles. Every time my foot slipped, my ankle twisted, sending needles of pain up my leg. Athena tried to prop me up, but the weight and height difference made it impossible.
Still we stumbled on, ten meters, twenty, fifty, with one or the other of us falling flat every couple of minutes. By now, we were soaked to the bone and the temperature continued to drop, nearing freezing as indicated by the sleet now mixed in with the rain.
“I bet you wish you’d chosen augments,” she said, putting her arm around my waist.
Before I could reply, the earth shook violently. We turned in time to see the radio shack slowly tilt, further, further, until it broke in half before sliding down the hill toward the water. The cliff now began another 500 meters farther up the hill.
“Come on!” I said to Vance, doubling my effort to climb.
Another hour of nightmare followed, slipping, gashing our knees on the rock, keeping our faces turned away from the thrashing rain. Twice more we felt the ground shake. Left alone, I might have given up and let the cold take me. I’d done it before. Athena wouldn’t let me. Despite being wracked with shivers, she kept pushing me forward, each time saying, “God damn it, not here.”
Finally I asked, “What do you mean, not here?”
“I mean, we’re not going to die here. Not here.”
I didn’t reply; I’d told Saul the same thing an hour before he died.
We finally reached the rock outcropping. Old sandstone, like a headstone about as tall as I was and wide as my shoulder, with a hollow on the downwind side that could hold a large dog. The rain was relentless and the sun, faint behind the burdened clouds, was touching the horizon. It was the only shelter in sight.
I pushed Athena into the hollow space. “Draw up your legs,” I said. “Form yourself into a ball.”
“But there’s not enough room for us both here,” she said as she sat, pulled her knees to her chest, and encircled them with her arms. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably.
“That’s OK,” I said. “I’m going to be your blanket.”
I knelt and leaned into her, pressing my chest to her face and chest, wrapping my arms around the rock that contained her, until my torso formed a shield for her against the rain and wind. My hands, exposed to the elements, immediately began to ache.
When she realized what I was doing, she started poking me in the ribs. “Stop it,” she said. “God damn, I made those hands. You can’t waste them like this.”
“You did it once,” I said. “You can do it again.”
The cold was like a knife as I hugged that rock. I’d been through it once before and prayed that the numbness would come soon. I knew what I was going to lose, but I was determined to stay alive. For Athena. For Saul.
My head was nestled next to hers, her mouth by my ear.
I could tell she was crying as she said, over and over, “Good as new, Quinn. I promise. I’ll make you good as new.”
Funny thing was, with her in my arms, I felt good as new already, no matter what was to come.
Nevermind the Bollocks
By Annie Bellet
There were six different corridors that’d take a man up to the starship loading bays—and the bloody Jay
sus knew how many rooms, halls, and other passageways leading into the six—and yet it seemed that whenever Diarmuid absolutely had to be at the docks right freakin’ now, every bastard he owed something to or that wanted something from him managed to find their way into the particular path he’d chosen that time.
“Mick!” Big Rizzo, who was of course shorter than Diarmuid himself, stepped out of what Diarmuid imagined was a janitor’s closet along with Little Rizzo and blocked the narrow corridor so he’d have to either run into them or stop dead.
“Bosses’ve called me up—can we have a chat later?” He tried to slide between them, but was hindered by a meaty arm.
“You promised you’d see about that licorice,” Big Rizzo said.
“And the coffee, the real shit, not that imitation stuff that tastes like rocket fuel,” Little Rizzo chimed in. His breath smelled a bit like rocket fuel, and Diarmuid started to despair of ever getting away from these gobshites.
“Fellows,” he said, backing off a step and spreading his hands. Smiling hurt his pride, but getting his arse kicked wouldn’t speed up his progress any. “This very shipment I’m hurrying to check on should have everything you require.”
“We’s paid you a cycle ago.”
“That you did.” He patted his breast pocket where his little book of wants and needs, checks and balances, rested. “We’re buried under a moon in the middle of Jaysus knows. These things take time. I’m going right up to the shipment, and I’ll have both you gentlemen satisfied soon. Don’t worry, I’ll find you.”
“Don’t you worry—we’ll find you.” Little Rizzo punctuated his speech with sharp finger jabs to Diarmuid’s chest that would likely leave finger-sized bruises.
“See you,” Big Rizzo said as they stepped aside just enough for Diarmuid to squeeze between them like sausage going through a grinder.
He waited until he couldn’t hear their heavy breathing and heavier footfalls before he muttered, “Not if I see you first.”
One turn and only scant seconds later, he heard a door skim open and a happy voice called out, “Hey! Mick!”
“Oh fook this,” he said, and took off at a run.
Therefore I Am - Digital Science Fiction Anthology 2 Page 16
