by R E Kearney
Riding uncomfortably in his shelled, breezy auto-auto, Robert nervously searches ahead for Mugavus and Rita. Only Mugavus knows the location of SPEA’s flying whale aero-transporter. If he does not find them, he will not find it. And although he cannot see them, he is certain that his two attackers are not far behind him. Robert restlessly rocks in his seat hoping his motion will propel him forward faster. It does not.
Kilometer after kilometer, the pursued and their pursuers impatiently trudge around the bay from Catano to the center of old San Juan and La Perla. Normally a twenty minute trip, Robert swears it is requiring twenty hours, tonight. Nervous sweat soaks his skin.
Intensely concentrating on searching for Mugavus and Rita, Robert does not hear the holiday music blaring from speakers. He does not see the revelers crowding Calle Norzagaray. His auto-auto does. Without him realizing it, he is no longer moving. Holiday celebrators spilling out of Plaza de Colon are blocking him to a halt.
“Are you ok, mister?” A young girl asks Robert, as she and her parents walk past him. “Why happened to your transporter? It’s all broken.”
“Unh? What?” The girl’s question shakes Robert from his trance.
Recognizing that Calle Norzagaray is an inescapable, human river, Robert abandons his crippled transporter. Standing on the ends of his toes, while stretching to his full height, he examines the crowd for Rita or Mugavus. Nothing. Not a trace. He is alone and on his own. He decides his best chance to find them is near La Perla where Mugavus’ hid the flying whale.
“Where is La Perla?” Robert asks a man carrying a small girl on his shoulders while leading his young son by his hand.
“Follow us. You can’t miss it. We’ll pass it on the way to the La Sinfónica de Puerto Rico Christmas concert.” The small boy excitedly giggles and skips at the mention of the Christmas concert.
Robert smiles at the small boy, who grins in return. The boy points toward Robert’s chest and then at his own. He wants Robert to notice how he has proudly decorated his own glowing-green, Aethon badge with a paper ornament. Robert nods his approval with a wide smile. Beaming happily at his new friend, the boy holds out his arms.
Robert decides walking close to these three may protect him. He lifts the giggling boy onto his shoulders. As a disguise, it is not perfect, but Robert decides that it is better than nothing. Besides, what insensitive boor would ignore a boy who wants a ride?
Not that far behind Robert, Billy and Pour are wriggling and squirming through the growing crowd. They are gaining ground. Instead of flowing, they are fighting the flow causing concert goers to intentionally block their progress. It is a battle. Shoving with a shoulder, punching and pushing, they muscle their way closer and closer to Robert. Closing the gap.
Ahead, Mugavus and Rita wait and pace. They stand at the edge of La Perla on Calle Bajada Matadero, ready to disappear into the slums upon their first sight of danger. Mugavus is especially uneasy. Protecting Rita and transporting her and her embryos to Venus is her primary mission. Nothing must be allowed to prevent her safe delivery. Robert’s escape is secondary. He is important, but she is prepared to sacrifice him, if necessary to protect Rita.
“We’ll allow Robert ten more minutes, then we need to go, Rita.” Mugavus sets the alarm on her PCD. “I’m not going to lose you and your packages.”
“No! We will wait. I know that sometimes, he is slower than an old wobbly people caravan, but I will not leave without him.” Rita steps away from Mugavus, out of her reach. “We go together or not at all. When I was receiving the embryos, I may have had my eyes closed, but I heard every word Yisheng said. I may carry the babies, but Robert carries their brains.”
BAHIA BOUND
“Terminate with extreme prejudice. Do you understand your orders, gentlemen? Deacon Evoil wants Robert Goodfellow and anybody with him eliminated ASAP. They must be silenced. Make it so.” Wanker’s directions to Billy and Pour are terse and blunt. “We have completed our recovery mission here. We will meet you at the rendezvous point when you complete yours. Do you copy?”
“Affirmative, sir. We understand and we shall complete our mission.” Billy replies confidently to Wanker. While shaking his head, he silences his PCD.
“We have to find him to kill him.” Pour reminds Billy. “We may never find him in this crowd.”
“Well, if we don’t find him, then we better disappear along with him. If we fail, it will be us Evoil terminates with extreme prejudice.” Billy stretches, trying to see over the human wall in front of him.
Less than one hundred meters in front of Pour and Billy, Robert is enduring the endless singing into his ears of the boy he is carrying on his shoulders. Every song the boy learned in school, he is now repeating for Robert’s enjoyment. Only, Robert is not actually listening. Instead, he is scouring every inch of Calle Norzagaray for Rita and Mugavus.
To gain Robert’s attention, the boy rocks on his shoulders and lightly taps the top of his head. “Hey mister, do you want to hear a special rhyme we learned in school? Do you?”
Tired of hearing him repeatedly singing holiday songs, Robert is definitely ready for a change of tunes. “Certainly. Tell me the rhyme you learned in school.”
The boy claps his hands together to establish his beat before loudly beginning to chant. “Do you see? I am Aethon free. Do you see my badge on me? It is glowing. It is green. It says I am Aethon free. Get your shots. Wear your badge. Every Puerto Rican must be. Aethon free!”
“Hey, you know what? I really like your rhyme.” Robert taps his badge. “Do you see? I am Aethon free.”
“Yes, you have a shiny green badge. So does that man and that lady and that man and that baby.” The boy twists and turns on Robert’s shoulders, pointing at all the badges he sees. “He has one and she has one. Hey! They don’t have one! Why don’t they have badges, mister?”
“What?” A chilling thought stabs Robert in his chest. “No badges equals bad men.”
Grabbing Robert’s face, the boy steers him until he turns him around. “See! Those two men don’t have badges.”
Less than ten meters away stride Pour and Billy. Instantly, Robert recognizes them. It is difficult to forget people who attempt to kill you. Luckily, they do not spot him as quickly.
“Well, my little friend, I have to run along now.” Robert hurriedly lifts the boy off his shoulders and sets him onto the ground. Still walking, he bows down to the boy’s level, temporarily out of sight. “Grab your father’s hand. There you go. Stay close to him. Ok?”
Tears begin forming in the little boy’s eyes along with a catch in his throat. “Why are you going? Don’t you want to hear the music with me?”
Walking bent double, keeping his head down, Robert decides to employ the boy in an attempt to buy himself some time. “Those two men you saw without badges are bad men. They want to hurt people who have badges…like you…and me. So, you must tell everybody about them. Yell really loud now, so everybody will know that they are bad and don’t have badges. Ok?”
The little boy wipes the tears from his eyes and nods. He tugs on his father’s hand pulling him to a halt. His father turns to see his son excitedly motioning toward Pour and Billy.
“Those men don’t have badges! They want to steal your badges!” The boy points and screams his alarm, as loud as his little lungs allow.
Robert’s ploy works. The boy’s yelling is more effective than a siren. Within seconds, an outraged, threatening throng surrounds Billy and Pour, delaying and confusing them. They are caught badgeless, without a reason or an explanation, in a country fighting a killer disease. Angry shouting soon escalates into violence.
While the mob menaces and batters them, Robert runs. Weaving and winding through the multitude, while still searching for Rita and Mugavus, he is not escaping fast. Up the hill he jogs, jumping every few feet to scan above the crowd. His final jump is his downfall.
“There he is. I see him.” Pour shouts to Billy.
They are close behind him. Flourishing their pneumatic pistols, they quickly part the sea of people surrounding them. Waving their weapons, they charge forward. No one dares challenge them or stand in their way, clearing a path for them to him. Pursuing police are not as lucky, finding their way clogged by too many helpful citizens wishing to tell them what they saw and what they heard.
“Here, Robert! Over here!” Rita and Mugavus sing out his name. Never have their voices sounded so sweet.
Rita and Mugavus jump and wave, calling Robert. Breaking free of the throng clogging Calle Norzagaray, he races toward them. Waving his hands wildly and yelling, he shouts for them to start running. They begin slowly jogging down Calle Bajada Montadero, as it worms its way into the gut of La Perla.
“Go! Go! Go!” Robert is running beside them in a heartbeat. “They’re right behind me.”
Huffing and puffing, their lungs burning, Rita and Mugavus hurtle down the steep street after Robert. His long legs propel him ahead of the two women. Alone, he races through the old fort wall at Puerta de Santa Rosa and into La Perla. He skids to a halt in front of a menacing mountain of a man pounding an enormous baseball bat into the palm of his gigantic hand.
“Qué pasa pai (What’s up dude)?“ Loudly popping the bat into his grizzly bear sized paw, the giant growls, “Creo que estás perdido en el lugar equivocado (I think you’re lost in the wrong place). You don’t belong here.”
“Está bien (It’s ok), Luis. He’s with me.” Mugavus shouts using her last breath, as she and Rita stumble-run into the intersection.
Rita grabs Mugavus by her arm and pulls her forward. “Come on. We have to keep moving. I can hear them coming.”
“Where is the flying whale, Mugavus? Which way do we go?” Spreading his arms, Robert points left and right. “Those guys will be here any second. How far away is it?”
“Not far. Al cantio de un gallo (The distance a rooster can be heard when he crows). Follow me.” Luis leads them into the hallway of a crumbling building. It is dark and stinks of rot and rats.
“Arrempujate pa ca (Come this way – get closer). Hang on to each other.” Luis commands, as his hand swallows Mugavus’ hand, wrist and forearm.
Grasping each other’s hands they grow into a human chain that Luis pulls deeper and deeper into the guts of La Perla. He is their guide and protector escorting them in and out of buildings, across streets and down alleyways. Stumbling along as the last link in their human chain, Robert soon realizes that in La Perla, Luis is a leader of the lost.
Slithering out from their dark dens, scarred, hulking thugs growl and threaten, then hide their weapons and step aside when Luis snarls and advances toward them. Tall, skinny Robert, on the other hand, poses them no threat. He feels them close in around him. Their stench surrounds him. Like a pack of wolves they circle and nip at his back, waiting to pick him off if he stumbles or falls behind his herd. He hurries ahead until he is walking beside Mugavus, who he pulls close to Rita.
After tramping through too many derelict, collapsing buildings for him to remember, they escape into a narrow alley. In the open, the wolf pack scatters and Robert discovers that not every resident of La Perla is a deadly threat. Skinny, grimy children playing in a dimly lit, abandoned scrap yard shout Luis’ name and wave frantically, as he passes. An arguing man and woman fall silent and force smiles when Luis steps from the alleyway into their building’s hallway. For the moment, he brings peace.
As they near the rising ocean, they begin slogging through buildings flooded with deepening, stagnant, stinking seawater. When they wade out of the last collapsing building, the seawater is knee deep on Robert and thigh deep for Rita and Mugavus. Luis stops them in the shadows of a grove of drowned trees. According to a half-submerged sign, they are standing on pavement that was once Calle San Miguel.
Luis points across the seawater stream which was once the street. Moving his arm, he directs their attention to two figures hiding in the shadows of a building ahead and to their right. Their trackers have beaten them to the beach and are waiting to pounce. Taking a secretive, circuitous route through the innards of La Perla had done nothing more than provide them with a frightening walk on the wild side.
As soundlessly as his deep voice will rumble, Luis explains his plan. “To get to the boat waiting to take you to your sky whale, you’ll have to go through that red building. Your boat is tied at the other end. But, don’t go yet. I’m going to walk over there and talk to those men. Don’t go until I am standing in front of them, blocking their view. Then go. Stay low in the water. Buena suerte (Good luck).”
Robert watches Luis slog through the rising waters to the two men. Amazingly, he appears to magically expand and widen himself into a tall wall in front of them. When Luis’ bulk blocks the two men’s view sufficiently, Robert, Rita and Mugavus silently sink into the water, bending and twisting so only their heads show. Without raising a ripple, they sneak across the street and slide into the building.
Drenched with filthy scum, they slog toward the pale moon peeking through the open doorway at the far end of the corridor. It is their only light. In the dark, dank hallway, Rita’s foot crushes a rotting cat’s carcass. Maggots and guts explode onto her foot and leg. She jumps, shakes her foot and screams - loud and long. Dogs bark and howl. Sleeping birds awake, squawk and explode into the sky. More dogs bark and howl.
“Well, I don’t think you could have announced our location to those killers any louder than that, Rita.” Mugavus snarls.
Still struggling to rid herself of maggots, Rita snaps back. “If you were covered with this gruel, you’d be upset too.”
“Be silent and be strong Rita. For, it is in the midst of disasters that bold men grow bolder, according to Henry the fourth.” Robert whispers, attempting to bolster her.
“Oh, shut-up!” Both Rita and Mugavus hiss, simultaneously.
First outside and then behind them, they hear the two men. With Mugavus leading and Robert at the rear, they race to the end of the hall. Just as Luis promised, a small man is waiting in a small, open boat. One after another, they leap aboard. The man slams his boat into reverse and churns away from the building.
Cursing and shaking their fists, the two men storm into the doorway. Too late. The boat is beyond their reach. Both men aim their pneumatic pistols. Mugavus and Rita dive onto the boat’s bottom. Trapped kneeling in the front, Robert ducks.
Foomf! Foomf! Foomf! Robert hears the pellets sail by. He squeezes lower. Foomf! A pellet nicks his earlobe. Fwack! A pellet burrows deep into his forehead. Robert falls back. All is black.
BRAIN STRAIN
“Who am I? No. What am I? Am I still a man? Am I a human or am I just a computer’s mammalian container and power supply? Are these even my thoughts? Do I still have my own thoughts? Or are these some programmer’s algorithms?” Silently contemplating his confusing new life as a transhuman, Robert drops his head into his hands awaiting his inner voice.
“American educator Stephen Covey wrote that every human has four endowments – self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.” The computer voice inside Robert’s brain responds, then queries. “Is this sufficient information? Do you require additional definitions or data?”
“No that is sufficient.” Robert thinks, gritting his teeth in frustration. “Now, I am really talking to myself…or am I talking within myself. Either way, I don’t like it. Except, I’m not talking. I’m thinking. At least, I think that it’s me thinking. I think therefore I am. I think. Or am I? Am I going crazy? I think I am! I think I am going crazy!”
“Are you wondering if you are becoming mentally unsound or are you wondering if you are becoming distracted by desire or excitement?” Robert’s constant computerized cranial companion inquires. “Both are dictionary definitions of crazy. Please be more specific.”
Groaning, Robert rubs the small
scab on his forehead. Behind the scab is where Pion and SPEA’s robo-surgeons inserted the brain prosthesis into his frontal lobe after they extracted the pneumatic pellet. The silicon chip implant was expected to perform the same processes as the damaged part of his brain it replaced. But, it is doing that and much more - too much more.
When he awoke from his prosthesis implant surgery, Mugavus told him that he had undergone an experimental procedure done in an emergency to save his life. According to her, he was brain dead by the time they arrived on Venus. She was also kind enough to congratulate him for taking the pellet to his head instead of in some body part that would have bled. According to her, all of Yisheng’s biochips were recovered from his blood thanks to the pellet lodging in his skull. Instead of, as she teased, somewhere important.
Mugavus also told him that while he lay unconscious in a coma induced to allow his brain to heal and accept the prosthesis, Yisheng’s biochips were removed from his body. Simultaneously, the twelve embryos, Rita transported from San Juan were also removed. The biochips were implanted into the growing embryos and the transhuman embryos successfully transplanted into the welcoming wombs of the SPEA volunteers.
She also told him that when Mugavus informed Shengwu that the human mothers and her transhuman fetuses are healthy and flourishing, Shengwu cried celebratory tears. She realized that although Reverend Diaboli and Wanker had beaten her father to death, they did not kill his dream. Knowing that the contributions of both her father and her Peter will continue, she has returned to her search for an Aethon cure.
Shengwu and Zhou are temporarily fighting Aethon from her lab at the Instituto, while Negocio rebuilds Stamina Vitae. Always a man with a plan, Negocio negotiated a deal with the Voleurs and Terra Sigillata allowing them to distribute Puerto Rico’s Aethon vaccine for a small, reconstruction fee. Terra Sigillata’s pure Puerto Rican Aethon vaccine is selling well on the pharmaceutical gray market while big pharma continues to flood the commercial market with their high-priced placebos.
