by Dani Kollin
The vials in her hand began to glow. “And now you’re going to bring her back.”
“For an hour,” whispered Nadine.
“Yes, for an hour. But you tell me, Nadine. Would Neela have wanted one hour of her life back or centuries as Hektor’s bitch—anyone’s bitch, for that matter?”
“Can I ask you one last question?”
Amanda nodded.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I owe her.”
“I meant for me.”
“I’ve done my part, Nadine. But Neela, the Neela I never really knew, I think she would’ve wanted you to do yours.”
Nadine’s mouth formed a straight, stiff line across her face. She wiped the tears from her eyes and nodded respectfully.
“Good,” Amanda said, getting up and heading for the door. “You get one last shot at redemption. Don’t blow it.”
And with that, she was gone.
* * *
Making sure to follow the included instructions carefully, Nadine picked up the first vial and then, moments later, put it back down. If she couldn’t control the tremor in her hand, she wouldn’t be able to complete the task. When she did finally manage to inject it into her sister’s neck, the other two injections followed more surely and quickly.
* * *
Neela slowly came to. But something was different. She remembered what she did that evening, working late, the visitors … Amanda … her sister … her sister.
And then she remembered: Justin, the Unincorporated Man and the only man she’d ever loved, was dead and … and … Hektor. What have I done? her mind wailed. She turned her head and vomited onto the floor and then vomited again, only with dry heaves. Then she wiped the detritus from her mouth with her sleeve. She took deep, labored breaths as five years of suppressed information began slipping back into her consciousness. She suddenly bolted upright into a sitting position, screaming with a primal rage that tore her throat raw. She took a few more deep breathes, slowly lifted her head, saw Nadine … and lunged. Even though Nadine was larger and, by virtue of her Earth-conditioned muscles, stronger, she made no attempt to resist her sister’s attack. Neela smashed into her and they both fell slowly to the floor in the Martian gravity, the smaller sister smashing blow after blow into her larger sibling. Nadine remained still, refusing to defend herself as tears flowed from her eyes.
Neela grabbed her sister by the throat, simultaneously strangling and smashing Nadine’s head on the carpet. “Why?” Neela cried over and over again. With each blow, Neela’s rage diminished until finally, out of breath, she was barely holding her sister at all. “Why?” she gasped, her anger now turning to despair. She then crumpled to the side of Nadine, and her tears began anew.
“I’m sorry, Neela. So, so sorry,” Nadine said repeatedly. She tried to hug Neela.
“Get away from me!” yelled Neela, kicking at Nadine viciously.
Once again, Nadine made no attempt to defend herself, which seemed to further enrage her attacker. Neela began to pummel her sister with renewed vigor, holding back only when she saw, much to her surprise, that her hands were covered in blood.
“Don’t stop,” Nadine pleaded through the spittle of her own blood. “Please … don’t stop.”
But Neela did. The sight of her sister’s blood, the realization that killing Nadine would not erase the past, the look of the pathetic creature lying beneath her all conspired to leave breathing the sibling who’d played a part in the immolation of her identity.
Neela fell back and away from her sister. Seated with arms wrapped around her knees, she rocked back and forth and sobbed uncontrollably. Every time Nadine tried to reach out to console her, Neela slapped her sister’s hands away. After a few minutes, Neela stood up and cast a measured look at Nadine. “If you want my forgiveness,” she said, all business, “you’re not going to get it by dying.”
“I’ll do whatever you ask,” begged Nadine. “Anything. Even if it means my dying.”
“It very well might, big sister. But not at my hands.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”
Neela’s lips curled up menacingly. “You’re going to kill someone, and you’re going to do it tonight.”
An undisclosed location
Burroughs
Mars
Angela Wong was pleasantly surprised. Her experiments in shadow auditing had taken some surprising turns, but the fact that the emotional opiate of faith acted as a kill switch to her process did not fill her with annoyance as it might have a lesser mind. For her it was a mystery that she leapt at. The human mind—how it functioned and how it could be controlled—was her life’s passion. The first Chairman had recognized her brilliance, and her work under him had been interesting, especially the surreptitious observations of her first successful shadow audit, Mosh McKenzie. But the Chairman’s aims were limited, and therefore, so was the scope of her experimentation.
But Hektor—he was something entirely different. His aims were nothing less than the total subjugation of the human mind to his belief structure. And with that ambition, he allowed Angela Wong to do whatever she wished with all the resources he could give her, which blessedly included an endless supply of test subjects. When they died—as even the most resilient ones almost always did—he provided more.
Unlike Angela, Hektor had been intensely annoyed about the faith factor. Shadow auditing, the tool he needed the most, was useless against the people he most needed to use it on. But fortunately, Angela understood that science only seemed to throw barriers in your path. With the proper study and unimpeded experimentation, that same science could shatter any barrier. And so she was certain that she could create an auditing process that not only overcame the religious barrier, but also subverted it. The perfectly conditioned human beings, the goal of centuries of scientists and leaders from Lenin and Mengele to Hitler and Strommen, would be hers to achieve. She’d create humans audited to obey with an internal desire and have the seemingly impenetrable fortitude of the religious fervor. She was close. She felt it.
When Dr. Harper called, Angela had been overjoyed. She and Hektor took special pleasure in using Neela, their most successful experiment in thought control, to provide more subjects for future experimentation. The poor sap had sent hundreds of subjects to their death, always thinking she was doing those doomed prisoners a great service. In a way, laughed Angela, she was. When Hektor, through Angela’s laudable work, finally had a perfected form of human auditing, humanity would, in fact, finally be perfected.
Harper had a real find. A POW and a religious fanatic committed to nonviolence. According to Neela, the woman had been beaten badly by fellow prisoners—the punishment made worse by the woman’s abject refusal to fight back. Neela had felt it prudent to separate the woman from the rest of the prisoners and, in a fit of overprotectiveness, had rashly brought her to her apartment in order that no further harm come her way. It was then that Angela got the call. Could she be a “good friend” and help care for the patient?
Angela had, of course, been happy to oblige and quickly arranged for the test subject to be escorted to the facility. There would be no record of the pickup, and the POW would be brought to an abandoned warehouse in a low-traffic district that was so purposely off the grid, not even Hektor knew of its exact whereabouts. Deniability was everything, and Angela was determined to protect her sponsor at all costs.
* * *
Neela had ordered Nadine to strip to her underwear, which she promptly did. Nadine was then given a blanket to wrap around herself. “No matter what happens,” Neela had cautioned, “do not react violently. Even if you’re beaten, sexually assaulted, or stabbed. Because if you fight back even one tiny bit, it’s over.” Neela had then made Nadine repeat the mantra, “Not till I get to Wong” until she was satisfied that her sister truly did get it.
Nadine stayed the seven minutes it had taken Wong to get a guy to Neela’s apartment. The nondescript guard—he had neither uniform nor any i
dentifying marks of any kind—gave Nadine the once-over and seemed satisfied that there would be no fight from this one. Nadine purposely kept her head low and her eyes averted. Neela played her part to perfection, simpering voice and all. She’d gushed at how great it was that he’d gotten to the apartment so quickly and what a huge favor he was doing for her, to come “all the way out here at this time of night,” and could he please thank Dr. Wong for her? The man could barely hide his contempt for Neela as he grabbed Nadine by the arm and pulled her out of the apartment. Neela did not even give her sister a final glance as she was led out.
In the hover van, the guard set the controls to AUTO and then raped Nadine repeatedly while the van took a circuitous route to Angela Wong’s lab. Throughout the half-hour ordeal, all Nadine could say was how much, “Jesus loves you.” She stopped only when the guard, in order to get her to shut up, started to slap her face hard, using every expletive he could think of while doing so. The pain was excruciating on top of the bruises she’d already gotten from her sister less than a half hour earlier. When they finally arrived, Nadine was sore but more determined than ever. Every indignity she’d suffered was nothing compared to the years of what she’d set her sister up for. There was an odd sort of satiety in the brutality she’d just been subjected to. As she was shoved out of the van, she looked up into the night sky. She quickly realized it must have been far from the center of Burroughs by virtue of the fact that all the stars and both moons of Mars showed brightly without any competition from the lights of a city with over twenty million people. The guard, she noticed, repeatedly turned his back on her. Nadine did nothing.
She was led into a large lifeless building and immediately she saw that its corridors were lined with row after row of cells. As she and the guard passed by, all were deathly silent. Whether the rooms were empty, soundproofed, or the prisoners trapped within couldn’t find the energy to look out the tiny windows on each door, Nadine couldn’t tell. Nor did she much care. Her heart was beating faster now, and the pitter-patter of her bare feet on the cool tile floor seemed to reverberate throughout the antiseptic space. She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that she wasn’t being led to a cell but rather to a lab. It was filled with all manner of devices she could not have identified if her life depended on it. And in that laboratory, mired in a workstation and sitting with her back to Nadine was Angela Wong. Nadine kept her eyes down and prayed that their first flash of delight on seeing her had not somehow been noticed by an unseen monitoring device.
Dr. Wong suddenly turned around and regarded Nadine with a studied gaze. The doctor then stood up, walked over to where Nadine was standing, and slapped her so hard, it split Nadine’s lip and jarred a tooth loose. The tooth skittered across the floor, leaving tiny bits of blood splatter in its path. Nadine wasn’t sure if the violent greeting was typical or if perhaps the doctor had seen fit to throttle her for some unspecified offense. Judging by the nonresponse of Nadine’s rapist, standing silently in the wings, she figured it must be the former. Nadine wiped the blood from her mouth with the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders, looked up, and muttered, “Jesus loves you.” That evoked a satisfied grin from Dr. Wong, who promptly dismissed the guard, telling him to wait for her in the “rec room.” Seconds later, Nadine and Angela were alone.
“Stay,” commanded Angela, who then turned her back on Nadine in order to rummage for some items in a nearby drawer. Nadine quickly scanned the lab, looking for something—anything—to kill the doctor with. Though Nadine was pretty sure she had the physical advantage, she wanted insurance, something with which to use her Earth-honed muscles to maximum effect. Angela Wong came back shortly, seeming to hold the answer. She held in her hands a metal tray, on which were two items: a knife and a pulse pistol. Both were effective short-range weapons, perfect for any close-quarters combat.
“I want you to know,” Angela said as casually as if she were announcing the weather, “that I am going to kill you.”
Nadine’s face remained placid. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”
Angela twitched a smile. “What I find interesting,” she said, ignoring Nadine’s sermonette, “is that I’ve already disposed of five just like you, and not one would lift a finger to save their lives—especially if it involved hurting someone else.”
On Nadine’s blank stare, Angela continued, her tone disbelieving. “Again, let me make myself clear: I will kill you—” Angela moved in closer to Nadine’s face as if inspecting the finer details of a machine. “—in a painful and degrading way. Your death will be meaningless. Do you even get that?”
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you—”
“In fact, the only person your drawn-out death will help is me—to subvert you, and all the rest of your warped friends.”
“—bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly.”
“But,” said Angela, holding up the metal tray again, “I’m prepared to make you a deal.”
Nadine stopped mumbling.
Angela’s lips curled upward. “I see that got your attention.” A moment hung on her words before she proposed the offer. “If you agree to at least pick up one of these weapons”—her eyes looked down toward the tray—“and try to kill me, I promise, should I survive, not to kill you.”
“But you’ll still torture me.”
“Is that a question or a request?”
Nadine’s face once again took on a determined air. “But I say to you, offer the wicked man no resistance. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”
“Amazing,” Dr. Wong said, once more shaking her head. A cynical laugh escaped her thin lips as she placed the tray with the weapons down on a nearby counter. She then spun around on her heels, walked a few feet to a nearby cabinet, and began to pull open a drawer marked CRANIAL SCANNERS. With Dr. Wong’s back turned, Nadine let the blanket fall quietly from her shoulders to rest at her ankles, leaving her standing naked but now wholly unimpeded. Then in one swift motion, she picked up the tray—sending its contents flying high into the air—and brought it down into the back of Dr. Wong’s skull with all the force her Earth-conditioned muscles could bring to bear. There was a sickening crunching sound as metal met bone and Dr. Wong’s head slammed into the open drawer. As Wong’s body buckled, her face slid down along the side of the cabinet, leaving a broad swath of blood in its wake. She dropped first to her knees and then finally keeled over onto her side. Nadine observed her cautiously for a few seconds and then gingerly stepped over the supine figure and got down on her knees, putting an ear to Angela’s chest. As the doctor’s torso lifted slightly, Nadine’s mouth formed into a satisfied grin. Angela’s eyes popped open and immediately took in a vision from some tableau of hell—the bloodied, bruised, and stark-naked body of her attacker standing over her.
“I’m glad you’re not dead yet,” Nadine said calmly while picking up the cranial scanner the doctor had earlier been reaching for. “My name is Nadine Harper, and my sister sends her regards.”
Angela’s eyes went wide and she tried to speak but all that came out was a gurgle.
“No,” said Nadine, grasping the cranial scanner, “don’t say anything. Your time to speak—to do anything, for that matter—is over. You murdered my sister and then handed the strings of the leftover marionette to Hektor. But I’ve freed her.”
On Angela’s quizzical look, Nadine continued.
“Yes, apparently the Alliance can undo your ‘work,’ but sadly, for just one hour. Still, it took Neela only five minutes to come up with the plan to kill you. Delivered—” Nadine curtsied. “—by yours truly. But I wanted you to have this last thought, Dr. Wong. You used me to kill my sister.” Nadine lifted the cranial scanner above her head. “And now my sister used me to kill you.” And with that, Nadine Harper brought the machine down on Dr. Angela Wong. The motion was repeated until the skull first broke and then finally shattered. When she was finishe
d, Nadine calmly pulled off Dr. Wong’s shoes and put them on her own feet. They were a little too small, but they’d do the trick. She began to stomp on whatever was left of the doctor’s gray matter. Angela Wong’s death would be what it had always needed to be—unequivocally permanent.
Nadine continued to stomp until something on the floor caught her eye. She stopped, walked a few feet over to where she saw the glimmer, bent down, and picked up her tooth. As she stared at it, a smile formed on her lips. Slowly she came back to herself. She looked around and saw the discarded gun and knife on the floor. Her eyes swept Angela’s desk for a metal stylus. When she found one, she used it to lightly touch the pulse pistol on the floor. An electrified blue arc appeared and jumped from the gun onto her hand, causing her to drop the stylus. She felt a tingling sensation that soon left her entire hand momentarily numb. Nadine had no doubt what would’ve happened had she grabbed the gun by the handle.
A thorough search of the doctor’s desk did, however, produce a fully charged and nonrigged pulse pistol. Nadine used the doctor’s nonsecure DijAssist to look up one more piece of information and then with a look of feral determination, she crept out of the lab and into the dim hallway. She put the loose tooth she’d been holding into her mouth, sucked on it, and tasted her own blood. She then gave the pistol grip a slight squeeze and tenderly ran her forefinger up and down the trigger. She’d killed Dr. Wong for her sister. The guard she would kill for herself.
Executive office
Burroughs
Hektor Sambianco should have been disappointed. A night he thought was going to be spent hearing the latest gossip from Earth and having some good old-fashioned sex had suddenly been canceled. Although Amanda had just returned from her long journey, she’d claimed exhaustion, blaming it all on, “that abominable Earth gravity.”
