“I’m so sorry, Rose. Here, let me sort this for you.” Roxanne removed the offending soup bowl from its tray, and scooped out the shark meat, placing it neatly on a platter for her co-driver. “Thanks,” Rose responded, and resumed her degustation, while Eldridge continued.
“But this time Dorian seems much more concerned with the targeted attack on your rig. I guess some of those pirates were not human, if you catch my drift,” Eldridge said with raised brow and a side-ways frown. Roxanne got his drift. Non-human meant clone soldiers, and that meant a culling by Dina, who’d made it her personal mission in life to eliminate every last clone soldier on the planet.
“I thought the rebels killed all the clone soldiers back during the Kyoto thing, what, about twenty years ago, right? Dina told me about it. That’s when her dad was killed; he was killed by clone soldiers. You mean some survived? I mean they’d have to be survivors from those old times, right? Wow, and they’d have to be really old. The WME is strict about their no human cloning policy now so they’d have to be from those old times, and really old. Maybe they’re just some of those old non-security clones. Those aren’t even dangerous.”
“Dorian and Dina seem to think they are clone soldiers, the serial killer-enhanced versions from the second set of clone experiments, left over from that underground facility near Las Vegas. Some may have survived and gone into hiding. They don’t age as fast as we do, so they could still appear fairly young. He’s asked for a sample of that arm. Sorry Rose, you’ll have to save some of your dinner for the lab work.” Eldridge looked down at Rose, who had exquisitely cleaned her plate of shark meat, and was about to retrieve some of that pirate meat from the cooler.
“No problem. I’ll fetch a chunk from the cooler for you immediately, Eldridge. However, you should know that it will be contaminated with my DNA, and perhaps Roxanne’s as well,” Rose responded as she exited the special rear slot in the door, made only for her, or someone much shorter than a normal human.
The piece of arm, or hand, would be flash frozen like ahi tuna, and vacuum-tunnel shipped to a dock near Donner Pass Headquarters, after which the outstanding rebel molecular biologists would determine if the offending pirate meat was normal human or clonal in origin. If clone-soldier-positive, then a rebel culling mission might be commissioned by Dorian. This could get colorful.
“It seems like a lot of trouble if they only intend to buy some Stem-wad® stocks, Dad. I’d guess they have something much bigger in mind, like maybe controlling a major access routes near Lanai. If they controlled the R&R access around Lanai, that robotic take-over won’t ever happen.” Roxanne downed a piece of apricot pie in one shallow. She’d want real coffee next.
“I’d say that’s correct, Roxie. It seems like a waste of effort otherwise. Dorian could visit; come here himself to assess the situation. If it’s a fall-out from the worker productivity protocol, I don’t see what he can do. But, you know Dorian. He always surprises me; seems like he can do some things I’d think were not possible. Plus, Dina will want to know about the clones. You know how she feels about clone soldiers; she won’t stop her killing campaign until they’re all dead.”
“Why aren’t Dina and Dorian coming together? They usually visit as a pair,” Roxanne couldn’t help the snide remark.
Both she and her dad had been hurt when Dina left them, taking Gimlet with her. After all, Dina had lived with them for five years. She had been the love of Eldridge’s life, and Gimlet had been like Roxanne’s little sister, back when they all ran the #25 up-top haul between Denver and Albuquerque. It had taken the, then ten-years-old, Roxanne another ten years to forgive Dina for running away with her sister, Gimlet, back to Donner Pass and her rebels. Now as an adult, she understood. Gimlet was a halfsie mutant, and belonged with her kind, and with Dorian, her real dad. And, Gimlet had been happy at Donner Pass; that was the important thing. She was with her own.
Although right now she was in Tokyo, not Donner Pass, taking her final University PhD exams in Physico-Mathematics. Gimlet was not returning to rebel life after University; she planned to apply for an Inc. job in organo-robotics with some major firm, after completing her studies. But she would remain what they called a rebel “plant.” Roxanne would visit her in Tokyo right after her off-load, in two days. They’d been talking about that eel place, Obana, for dinner.
“Dina can’t come; she’s in Hong Kong on an away mission for the rebels. Dorian won’t tell me what that’s about, but I would guess it has to do with purchasing some clone soldiers from the Black Markets, from the Blacks. Despite his prowess with sat-hacks, he’s still worried that someone will break his codes when he hacks into those recon satellites. He still prefers direct communication or use of the music code system for critical issues, so Dina still has to go in person when she does those clone soldier purchases.” Eldridge got up to prepare more coffee. It was real coffee, not synth like most. He got it by trading his bar chits on the Blacks, but it meant they went without other special treats.
Things weren’t the same anymore, not anywhere, not since the rig-ryder union, the last union on the planet, lost some of its clout and compromised with the WME on wages and off time. Now, you only got three days off a year. You had to select from the eight universal holidays (three of the eight) for a full twelve hours off, for each day. It was why Eldridge settled on the place in bubble-stop #4, when he retired from driving the rig after Roxanne inherited his underwater low-way rig-ryder hauling license. That way, at least he could see her once a week during her required rig down-time at #4. Of course, Dorian had provided the funds for purchase and initial licensing of the bar and the rig. Eldridge could never have afforded it otherwise. Newbies took out lifetime loans for their rigs; payments were deducted from each pay check until retirement, sort of like share-croppers. Eldridge owned his outright.
I think Dorian thought it was payment, for taking care of Dina during her bad times; it was right after her dad was killed at that Kyoto Battle.
“I guess you’re right, Dad. Sorry about the snide remark. Sometimes the hurt still gets out. But, it wasn’t Dorian’s fault, not any of it. I’m sorry. Will they be here for Thanksgiving?” Roxanne reached down and caught the chewed-on piece of hand from Rose. She used the quick-freeze unit to prep and seal it for the trip, coded in the destination, and off it went. It was small enough to travel solo via the push tube to San Fran. This would be the fastest way to send it, by Underwater Passage Shuttle, UPS, although it was also the most expensive.
“Yep, but I won’t get turkey for dinner this year. I’ll stick with shark or maybe some meat food. What do you think, Roxie?” Eldridge and Roxanne both laughed. Last year, Eldridge made the mistake of buying one of those recombinant GMO (genetically modified organism) turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner. The growers had mistakenly fed the turkeys some farmed salmon carotene-enhanced food, and they tasted exactly like farmed salmon, were even pink on the inside. They’d ended up grilling that turkey as cut up steaks with a squeeze of lemon juice.
“But seriously Roxie, be careful and have Rose double-watch your back. Those pirates could get worse, and Leo Songtain does have that huge bounty on you.”
“Don’t worry, Eldridge, I’ll always watch her back. On another note, I suspect due to smell and texture that Dorian will confirm clone soldier status of the meat, I mean hand. Inform him to use polymer redax. It will give a quicker result,” Rose said. She was better at the organics than either Roxanne or Eldridge, having passed the final exam to highest levels in MolBiol.
So, why does that surprise you? Not all dogs are dumb.
“Thanks Rose, I know you’ll take care of Roxanne. But, if the #3ers is hiring clone soldiers, then we’ve all got an issue. You don’t mess with clone soldiers. I hear tell a group got away from the cull patrols and hid in Hong Kong a while back, until they got enough of them to do some real damage. They really tore up the place. I don’t know who’s behind this whole thing, but we gotta be careful. Normals just gotta stick together.�
� Eldridge was concerned. He had just Roxanne, his only baby girl, and he knew what unmodified clone soldiers were capable of. They were non-stop killing machines in highly enhanced human form.
“I have some idea who’s behind this whole thing, Daddy. Tell Dorian to plant a vid on one, Leo Songtain; OH WOWJOY!
4
“OH…OH…OH…OH…WOWJOY!”
Leo Songtain was lying naked on his back, in his emperor-sized posture-saver bed, his hand around his dong, in solo-climax mode… almost. He was staring up at a bounty poster of Roxanne Smoot, tacked to the ceiling of his massive, glass-walled penthouse overlooking the Hong Kong harbor. His bot-com had already chimed four times, but he’d be god-damned if he was going to shut down at mid-act. He continued. The chime persisted in playing Bolero. He glanced over. It was that bot-com.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”
At those times, Leo did not wax eloquent. He rolled over, and slammed the com with his sweaty, heavily jewel-studded, beautifully manicured, way too small for a guy, hand.
“What! This better be critical!” he huffed, in a voice much lower than his usual tone.
The individual at the other com-port, over one thousand seven hundred miles away, was not sure he’d reached his boss, so he pushed vid and saw the problem. He’d interrupted the CEO of Stemworm, Inc. at mid-concert. He immediately offed the vid, hoping the boss had not noticed. Leo noticed.
“Sir, we’ve found the target in Tokyo leaving the Lazarus Molecular Physicoplasmon Building at the University. Should we apprehend, or follow?”
Leo rubbed his dark almond-shaped eyes, and ran a hand through his thick straight black hair. He was one of those smallish Eurasianocaucs, from some weird and now extinct gene pool. That happened a lot after the pandemic, right pre-WME. Most only guessed at their genetic make-up, or had it sequenced if they could afford it. He got up and wrapped his five foot tall frame into his diminutive snow leopard robe. Yes, he knew he’d done his part to help the species become extinct. But what the hell, what was wealth for? And you could clone them now anyway. Leo walked on soft-gel encased, totally unblemished feet to his robo-bar to help himself to a chilled Fueblaster. He would make the insubordinate asshole wait.
“No, do not apprehend. Follow at a distance, and do not, I repeat, do not allow yourself to be seen. Report back to me as soon as the target has any visitors.” Leo punched his bot-com to off, without allowing his security man in Tokyo to respond. If he got it wrong he’d be fired, Hong Kong style.
Leo Songtain, the CEO of Stemworm, Inc., and possibly the richest WME managerial class in Hong Kong, had everything and nothing. At present, he was thinking about how he had nothing; it was a half-empty sort of day. He downed the Fueblaster, knowing it was her favorite drink, and walked to the glass wall of his six thousand nine hundred square foot, all white, inner penthouse suite on the 12th floor of the Opus. He owned and inhabited the entire building, of course. But today that did not suffice to lift his gloom.
And lately, he’d even had to be careful how he worded his commands to his subordinates. His Industrial Espionage Prevention Team did not have PhDs, and Leo noticed a certain lack of literary flair among the new recruits. Their job only required an MA degree, and not with English Composition as a prerequisite. Thus, they were required to wear special goggles that translated and defined the big words for them.
He’d been absolutely enraged by the latest pirate attack at bubble-stop #3. They had almost damaged his most precious possession. Well okay, he knew he hardly possessed Roxanne Smoot, but he could at least imagine it. His orders had been quite explicit; grab her, kill that stupid mongrel dog co-pilot of hers, for his own safety, and bring her to him posthaste. How could they misunderstand that order? He’d only just found out his teams’ jabber-goggles misinterpreted and thought he’d said, potash. The device translated that to mean quite dead. He’d have to remember to use smaller words…or get the device upgrade.
Perhaps with this latest business development, it might be unnecessary to pay high voucher pirate wages to conduct an economically unsound kidnapping attempt in the Trans-Pacific tunnel. After all, he had haul loads to ship, just like all the CEOs, and the worker efficiency protocol to uphold. His specially synthesized facial transplant Stem-wads®, from an intensely guarded and secret formula, went at premium gold vouchers on the Blacks or even the Regulation Economic Market, the REM. He had to maintain the shipping lines to and from his labs to the R&R at Lanai. The rulers got older, the need for eternal youth got greater, and Leo’s revenue got bigger.
But Leo had those nightmares. Okay, so he’d cut corners, did human trials too soon. The evidence was neatly tucked away in those back levels of bubble-stop #5.
He’d gone to a shrink about the nightmares.
There was one especially awful nightmare about bubble-stop #5. He was running for his life through the sewer tunnels, chased by a mob. It was horrible; there were poor people after him, the neuro-impaired, and even zompires, those zombie-vampire types from the early flash freeze prison equipment; they didn’t wake up in such great shape. But, worst of all were the UN….. No! He couldn’t even say it! Even the shrink didn’t want to hear that awful word. You could catch something awful just by saying that word. The Roxanne bounty poster was his shrink’s suggestion; something to ease his tension if he woke after an especially bad dream.
“This is an impressive opportunity, sir.”
Leo jumped slightly as his legal counselor appeared in the outer chambers near the hallway to his inner penthouse rooms. He didn’t make enough noise. Leo thought snakes always did that. But his snake was the best legal advisor for sale in the business.
“The next time chime me before you enter my place. How would I distinguish you from an intruder, Max? The laser system could have activated. You would have made a mess on my mink carpet.”
Leo put down what remained of his Fueblaster and walked the hall to his desk, a wall-length, solid Koa wood masterpiece. He had obtained it at auction from a pathetic mid-level business man who’d invested too many vouchers in top-road transit, and spent too much time placating his workers. What an idiot! Any half-brained business man knew up-top travel was off after that last ocean rise. Not only was it too damn hot up top, but the ocean had covered many of the ground hover tracks; and as for the workers, if they weren’t efficient enough, use robots! That was worker efficiency protocol number one. Leo’s own place, the Opus, was totally operated by robotics; it was much more efficient than humans. Except for his security team, of course, he had the best all human team in that regard. No one wanted robot security; they were too much like those terrible clone soldiers from that last era of uncontrolled science.
“I am sorry, Mr. Songtain. But I do have a security code access, so I assumed entry to your outer rooms was approved,” Max mumbled as he opened his files.
The legal snake was not really sorry; their kind was never sorry for anything they did. Off a poor welf, or buy futures in retired worker self-elimination units; it was all the same to them, as long as the client was happy.
“What do you have for me today, Max? I noticed trades are lower for food futures. Is there a problem?” Leo sat at his desk to go over the daily trades. He always double checked the stocks with Max each morning, in case either of them had missed an opportunity for wealth enhancement. You could never have enough; that was the motto of Stemworm, Inc., his solely owned baby. Of course, he owned many other businesses, but this one was his first, the one that had gotten him rich enough to make the Hong Kong Economy Board.
If he wanted to, Leo thought he could strangle the Trans-Pacific tunnel hauling route, and force Roxanne and Eldridge into welfdom, that horror zone life where only the poor welfs lived, on the fringes of current WME strata. Then maybe she would come to him. But, he’d nixed that plan. She’d just disappear someplace, like that one time right after they both finished graduate school. Leo sighed every time he thought of those times. He would give everything he owned to be back
there at that time, with Roxanne Smoot, if only for a minute. It was too bad his latest foray into time-travel research had failed. But he’d keep trying. Max interrupted his thoughts.
“Mr. Songtain sir, the food futures have taken a slight down-turn. You know we have not been able to deliver enough water pods to the wheat field zones near Kansas City. They are mid-century into a one hundred year drought and the rivers and aquifers are down by ninety percent; some are already brackish. This will make food futures rather volatile as a secure investment in the foreseeable future. I’ve moved them to the higher-risk category.” Max Peabody settled his ample butt into a chair, and uploaded the vids to the large 3D unit so they could both crunch the numbers. He ran one pimpled hand over the com control and another through his scant, oily, dark hair.
“Yes, I see what you mean. Didn’t they switch to dry-farm recombs ten years ago? What’s the issue with insufficient water pod delivery?” Leo glanced at his palm-timer to see if he’d missed his favorite vid-show, an old-fashioned sappy romance. He’d never tell anyone he watched it. It would damage the image, and CEO image-speak was crucial to corporate control. It was an established science, with a full PhD program at Harvard, very highly touted, right up there with their Worker-Management PhD degree program at the famous Human Resources International Research Institute.
“The consumables managers have had some issues with food terrorists, sir. It will be dealt with. But in the meantime, I’d suggest moving some assets into organs. I know you have a corner on that here in Hong Kong. But the labs in Pyongyang have some real innovation in neural cells, designed to enhance worker productivity. I suggest a buy of seven, perhaps eight billion vouchers worth of stock. It would diversify.” Leo agreed.
Max removed the databot, getting ready to exit. He could tell when he’d gotten close to Leo’s attention span limits. He knew Leo was preoccupied with some other venture capital thing that involved some newly discovered group of clone soldiers. He only hoped Mr. Songtain, his major client, did not get himself flash frozen in a WME prison cell for purchase of illegal clones. To buffer possible losses in food futures, Max had been busy acquiring a hugely wealthy new client interested in legal clone soldier acquisitions, as casino security, and as a hedge. They were having lunch with the client’s rep today, he and Leo.
Gene Drifters: The Clone Soldier Chronicles-Book III Page 3
