Cosmic Tales - Adventures in Sol System

by T. K. F. Weisskopf

  "I shall take it under advisement, Father," said the student. "But not this morning." He knew that the next step up from advice was orders.

  "Very well," said the parent. "Have a good day at school, Mark. Remember . . ."

  "Calmness is next to oneness," said Mark.

  "Be one with the universe and nothing can anger you," said his father with a smile.

  Mark opened the door to the boiler room and tossed Charlie the bunch of bananas. "Mornin', monkey."

  "Mornin', freak," said the chimp with a grin. He looked up from the reader he was repairing to catch the bundle. "Whassa word?" he asked, pulling off a piece of fruit and pouring the kid a cup of coffee.

  "My dad wants me to stop seeing so much of you," Mark grumped. He took the coffee and sipped it appreciatively. "How in the hell do you make such a good cup of coffee?" he asked.

  "Old secret," winked the chimp, taking his own sip and a bite of banana. "Pinch of salt. It's called 'goat-locker' coffee."

  "Whatever," said the kid. "It's good."

  "I told you Abe would kick up a fuss," said the chimp. "And he's got a point, you do need friends your own age."

  "But I can't make them," said Mark. "And besides, they're not my own age!"

  "Well, there's that too," said the chimp with a grin. "Not many twelve-year-olds in their senior year. But you're basically eighteen in every way but actual years, kid. Don't bitch about that."

  "I won't," said Mark, sadly. "It's not like I'm gonna live to seventy."

  "Oh, I don't know," said the chimp. "All that 'ongenic increase' stuff might be bullshit. They told me I'd be long dead by now when I got uncanned. And here I am."

  "Yeah, but I'm sort of programmed to die in my thirties," said the teenager. "I don't think I can avoid it."

  "Worry about that when the time comes, kid. Geneticists fuck up more than they get it right, trust me," the chimp chuckled. "Me? I was originally designed for intensive loyalty."

  "Really?" asked Mark, looking at him askance. "What happened?"

  "I got over it," said the chimp, with a smile. "The coding was . . . sort of open. So I convinced myself that my 'employer' was . . . not my original one."

  "What did your employer think of that?" asked Mark with fascination.

  "Well, it was a little company that had just gone out of business," said the chimp. "So I had to find my own way. And I did. And so will you, kid. You just have to figure out what comes natural to you."

  Mark looked up as Tom Fallon sat down on the seat across from him. The lunchroom was crowded; obviously Fallon felt it was better to sit by "Dr. Demento" than anywhere else.

  Fallon wasn't a bad guy. Unlike most of the other kids in school he didn't actively reject the big genie. However, he also didn't spend more time in his presence than he had to.

  "Mark," said the teenager with a nod. "How'cha?"

  "'Kay," said the genie, taking a big bite of his -peanut-butter and banana sandwich. Charlie had turned him on to the mix and he found it fulfilled a craving he hadn't even realized was there.

  "You missed algebra the other day," said the other teen, carefully.

  "I was trying to get the coach to take me in football," answered Mark, equably.

  "Did it . . . work?" asked Tom, picking at his food. Just because sitting by a human time-bomb was better than the other choices available didn't mean he had to like it.

  "No," said Mark with a shrug. Charlie had, rightly, pointed out that football wouldn't have been a challenge and that was what he really craved. It was surprising the insights the chimp had.

  "Oh," said the other teen, as the doors to the cafeteria opened, "okay."

  Mark never answered, as his ultraline gland opened up full-bore and he dove out of his seat. The first 9mm round cracked just behind his moving body but he was already accelerating too fast for the masked gunman in the doorway to track.

  His movements were too fast for the human eye to follow as he dove across the serving counter, submachinegun rounds smashing the sneeze-guards and splashing red blood from the servers across the food. He popped back up halfway down the counter as the gunman turned his attention to the mob of shrieking teenagers.

  "Hey!" shouted the genie, attracting the gunman's attention. As the masked and body-armored gunman turned to see who the impudent youth was, his larynx intercepted a spinning metal pie-pan.

  Mark darted through the doors to the kitchen and snatched up a serving knife, still running on ultraline. It was the longest he had ever been under the drug's effect and he was unsure how long the neural enhancer would hold out. For as long as it did, he was four times as fast as an unenhanced human and nearly twice as "smart." Although, at the moment he didn't feel that way.

  He had not heard an emergency announcement, though. As long as the kids in the school were trapped in their classes they were dead meat. He looked around and spotted the fire alarm. Good enough for now.

  Once the alarm was shrieking he headed for the principal's office. If he could get on the announcement system he could warn the school. He had seen the red hand on the terrorist's vest; the Thuggees had hit and they would keep killing until a TAC team arrived to stop them.

  * * *

  Mark looked both ways and darted across the hallway as distant shots and screaming broke out in D Wing. He tore open the door to the office and threw himself through low, hoping there wasn't a Thuggee on the other side. When no gunfire erupted he sniffed then stood up. He could smell somebody in the room, but it smelled like . . . "Patty?" he called.

  The blond cheerleader poked her head up from behind the receptionist's desk. "Yes?" she called warily. She ducked back down as another burst of fire broke out. "Who is it?"

  "It's me, Mark Second. It's Thuggees, Patty, make an announcement."

  "But then they'll know there's somebody here!" she said shakily.

  Mark had to admit it was a valid argument, but the students and teachers needed to have some warning. He started to walk over to the desk then caught a faint whiff of cordite.

  Dara Kidwai was not the name the gunman had been born with. But he had had it legally changed the year before when he became a full member of the House of Kali. Participation in the religion was not a crime, despite the horrors being perpetuated in its name. Like Islam in the previous century, the Kali Cult and other religions were simply places for like-minded individuals to meet and gather. And use the mantle of the religion for their own ends.

  Dara Kidwai was about to do just that. He could see the stupid teen, probably a Kali-be-damned football player from his physique, just beyond the metal door to the office. After he had killed this one he would send everyone else in the office to his goddess. And all the other bastards and bitches in the school. Sacrifice them all to the greater glory of Kali.

  Mark spun in place as the door opened, catching the barrel of the MP-12 in his left hand and carrying it up and away as he grabbed the back of the cultist's head. The sound of the genie's armored forehead hitting the forehead of the cultist was wet and sodden as blood spurted out of the gunman's nose and ears.

  "Patty," he snapped, wiping the blood off of his face, "make the damned announcement. Now." He bent down and tried to figure out how to detach the machine-gun from the terrorist's harness. He'd never seen a firearm in his life; The Program had made sure of that.

  "What happened?" asked the fluff-head, peeking over the top of the desk. "Oh, gross!" she continued, turning to throw up.

  Mark had to admit it was pretty gross with the blood pooling under the terrorist, but as pumped as he was on ultraline he was pretty much immune to any feeling but anger. He finally figured out how to take off the whole harness and walked over to the desk with the sopping gear draped across one shoulder. He picked up the microphone and keyed it. "Warning, all students and faculty. Kali Cultists in the building. One terminated in office and one terminated in cafeteria. Anyone with a cell phone, please call for Tac Teams. I am on my way to Delta Wing in support. Mark-Two Gen-One Combat Sy
stem out." Let the bastards chew on that announcement.

  He wiped at some blood off his front—apparently one of the bullets had hit his sternum plate and bounced—then pulled the gun around to his front. Holding it in one hand, as he had seen on TV, he pulled on the trigger. It put bullets all over the wall. Oh, well. He'd just have to figure it out as he went along.

  Mark stalked down the empty corridors of D Wing leaving bloody footprints behind him. He had to admit that inviting the cultists to kill him was stupid. But if they concentrated on trying to take him out, they wouldn't be killing the other kids. What the hell, it wasn't like he was designed for a long life.

  He had just stalked past Mr. Patterson's classroom when he sensed a movement behind him and smelled blood and cordite.

  He didn't know where the damn Kali had come from but the red-hand bastard had him dead to rights. Mark spun and turned with supernatural speed as the cultist opened fire, but this terrorist was good. Nine-millimeter rounds impacted into the youth's unarmored back and sides as he slammed into the wall, the gun in his hand spraying everywhere but the cultist.

  The only thing that saved the genie was that both of them were just about out of rounds. Mark's MP-12 and the terrorist's clicked back at almost the same moment. Forgetting that his best bet was hand-to-hand, the badly wounded teen scrabbled for a new magazine as he tried to figure out how to reload the gun.

  The Kali had no such problems. The cultist expertly dropped the thirty-round magazine and slipped in another. He chuckled as he pulled back the slide. "Some gene unit," he said, as a loop of wire dropped out of the ceiling. "Pun . . . urk."

  The loop of 12-gauge insulated wire snapped up and to the side, expertly breaking the terrorist's neck, and Charlie dropped down on the body. He bent over and started slipping off the terrorist's gear as he shook his head at Mark.

  "Stupid, stupid, stupid. I thought Oligen made you smart?"

  "I was trying to get them off the other kids," said the teen, weakly. The ultraline was fading and the bullets peppered throughout his body were starting to hurt.

  "I was talking about not looking up, kid," said the chimp. "You need to learn to look up."

  "I thought I'd smell him," said Mark, doubtfully.

  "Yeah, so he put himself by an intake, just like me," said Charlie. The chimp threw the body-armor over his head and looked down with a laugh; the Kevlar-titanium vest dangled to the ground. "Oh, well. Shit happens." He walked over to the teen and reloaded the youth's MP-12 then took all but one spare magazine.

  "I think I'm going to need these more than you," the chimp commented as he dragged the bleeding genie into Mr. Patterson's classroom. There was a kid huddled in one corner but otherwise the room was empty.

  "Charlie?" asked the combat-unit. He coughed up a drop or two of blood. "I don't think I'm gonna make it, Charlie."

  "Bullshit," said the chimp with a grin. "You're a Mark Two, you lucky bastard. Most of that shit will be healed in a couple of days; you're probably already clotting like mad. Just sit there and do your calmness exercises until the medics find you. Oh. And kill any terrorist that comes through the door. Your left hand goes on the stock, you idiot."

  With that the janitor was gone. As Mark faded in and out he dreamed of a distant one-man war. But the screams were all torn from the throats of adult males.

  * * *

  Mark had never seen anyone who looked like him before. The SWAT team commander was a Normal but broad and flat as a human tank.

  "So, you have no other information about this 'Charlie Algernon'?" the officer asked calmly.

  Mark had never realized that the calmness of his parents was a positive trait in a tactics team member. But all the SWAT guys that he had been talking with since the incident were like that. Calm, controlled, focussed. These guys did not believe in rage as a character trait. "No. I'd barely gotten to know him."

  " 'Goat-locker coffee,' hmm," said the police lieutenant. "I think that says it all."

  "Why?" asked Mark. "Where did Charlie learn that stuff?"

  "Well, son, you know you're a Mark Two, right," said the lieutenant with a grim smile. "You know what Mark Ones were."

  "Oh," said Mark, his chin dropping.

  "Yeah. The whole Oligen thing was originally an outgrowth of the Cyberpunk-SEAL program. Their instructors in close combat were all SEALs and Cybers; thus Navy-brewed coffee. Their training was one reason it was so hard for the Cyber team to take the Oligen facility when the Council found out about the Mark Twos and Oligen's plans for a coup. The SEALs thought that they had tracked down and killed all the Mark Ones but at least one apparently escaped."

  "He told me that he had been designed for loyalty to his 'original owners,' " said Mark. "But he had figured out a way around the conditioning."

  "Maybe by broadening it," said the commander with a sad smile. "I was aware of the conditioning. But, I think, maybe, he decided that since the government paid for the program, his owner was -actually the government. And since it is a representative democracy . . ."

  "The whole world was his owner?" asked Mark.

  "Maybe," said the lieutenant. "Sort of like any good soldier; he gave his loyalty to the 'bigger picture.' Anyway, I'm glad in a way that he was killed in that explosion. The termination orders are still active on all Mark Ones. We would have had to put him down."

  "I understand," said Mark, somewhat bitterly. "But I don't have to like it."

  "Neither do I," said the lieutenant. "But it's better this way. We have a toe and some other scraps for a positive genetic ID, but that satchel charge didn't leave much."

  The officer saw the kid's face harden and thought about the talk he had had with the teen's guidance counselor. Especially with the media play on this attack, the kid was going to be even more ostracized than before. Which was, frankly, stupid.

  "Hey," said the officer with a faint grin. "After you get out of the body and fender shop, gimme a call." He proffered a card to the genie. "There may be a rule against a Modified in football, but there ain't one against them in SWAT."

  "Okay," said Mark with a returning smile. "I will."

  It might not make up for bananas and coffee in the morning but it would be something to do while he waited to die.

  The door was marked "Arthur Commons, Assistant Principal." A heavily-furred hand knocked on it, softly.

  "Come in," said a voice from the interior.

  "I understand you need a janitor?"

  TIME IN PURGATORY

  Rebecca Lickiss is the author of two novels, Eccentric Circles and Never After. I first ran into Rebecca Lickiss at a writers conference and was taken with her intriguing aliens. No aliens in this story, though, just humans trying to get along on the frontier.

  Rebecca Lickiss

  "I can take all of you!" The voice carried through the open door of the sheriff's office.

  Inside, Sheriff Letitia "Legs" Lanier leaned back in her creaking chair, waiting to hear the sound of her deputy, Corin Minerva, breaking up the imminent fight. Unfortunately all she heard was a lot of scuffling and shouting. Corin had disappeared again, right as the biannual supply ship was docking at Purgatory Station.

  "Damnation." Legs sighed and shut down the accounting spreadsheet she'd been checking at her desk. The accounts wouldn't balance anyway; there had to be some glitch with the accounting program. One more problem to add to her list, as if Hell Week wasn't enough by itself.

  Reflexively checking her synthleather protective vest, Legs headed for the door. Gold nugget buttons all -buttoned up, watch-communicator in the front left pocket chained to the third button down, electric manacles in back pocket, first-aid kit in front right pocket, star-shaped badge recorder over her heart.

  She stepped out into the bright, false sunshine on her front porch, surveying the wide main street that stretched through Purgatory Station. On the other side of the moving sidewalk that ran down the center of the clean metallic street a small group of half-drunk miners shuffled and jockeyed
for position in a brewing brawl in front of the offices for the Purgatory Prattler. A few caught sight of her and suddenly decided that they were really bystanders, and uninterested bystanders with somewhere else to be at that.

  Her hand tapped the ministunner strapped high on her thigh, as she descended the creaky wooden steps in front of her office to the street. Her fingertips slid down to caress the garters' gleaming jeweled aluminum and filigreed circuits just peeking out from under her loose, pleated, dark miniskirt. She'd checked and serviced the controls and options on her artificial legs this morning. No sense dressing for trouble if her legs would be on the fritz.

  "Break it up," Legs shouted as she crossed the street. No footsteps accompanied her progress, her legs and feet merely an illusion generated by the mobility force-field of her prosthetics. Her fingertips tapped the garter controls, increasing her height above any of the brawlers'. Outnumbered and without backup, she'd take any advantage she could get.

  Tom Tadman grumbled something to the man standing next to him. Legs slammed their heads together. "Starting Hell Week a little early, gentlemen?"

  The fool at the center of the fracas staggered around to face her. She recognized him. Hewlett Brown was a troublemaker from way back. A goofy, reckless expression crossed his face. "I can take you too," he slurred as he fumbled for his stunner.

  Before his stunner cleared its holster, Legs slipped her ministunner into her hand and pointed it at him. The skirt kept her weapon handy, but concealed.

  "Ha!" Hewlett flung his stunner down. "Can't use one of those on an unarmed man."

  Legs stepped up to him and walloped his head with her ministunner, knocking him out. "Bet?" She shook her head as he snuggled in more comfortably onto the hard metal street and began to snore. Looking around at the rest of them, she motioned with her ministunner. "All right, all of you, to the jail. Now." She pointed with her free hand to the two currently rubbing the sides of their heads. "You two carry Hewlett. Come on."