Gene Drifters: The Clone Soldier Chronicles-Book III

by Takemoto, D. J.

  Max gathered up the contents of the safe box as fast as he could, the paper with the bogus formula written on it, a few interesting sets of what looked like slightly radioactive gold and diamond cuff links, a platinum rolodex supernova watch, and a key to whatever, maybe the CEO’s 1957 Ferrari 625 TRC Spider.

  “This could be interesting Maybe this isn’t so bad after all,” Max mumbled as he got ready to leave. But just before the vault shut, and issued forth those toxic fumes, Max noticed the false bottom.

  “Ah ha! Shut up, I’m leaving,” he screamed at the com warning, as he pulled up the bottom to uncover an envelope. He only had time to stuff it into his back pocket and squeeze through the closing vault door. Max did not bother to stop at the reception desk, where a rather annoyed robo-assistant stood with its bot to what looked like its ear, ready to issue him a banking vault ticket for illegal use of the Nipon language in the International Union Capital First United Security People’s Bank and Savings and Loan of Hong Kong, where only Mandarin was spoken.

  When Max returned to the underground parking lot, to his awaiting limo, he did not notice he was being watched by a short, elderly man in a maintenance worker uniform, pushing a manual mop. Odd, as robots usually did that. Max ruminated on that for a few seconds before the man accidentally bumped into him, said, “Excuse me, sir,” in five languages, and went back to his work. Max got into his limo in a bad mood. He hated having to deal with the riff raff, usually only went out of the protected zones for important and essential business, like today.

  He was back on his private jet for Hong Kong, sans Honeybuns, when he noticed the envelope was missing. Because he’d not had time to open it, he had no idea it contained the real formula, hidden under the false bottom by the expired CEO. He thought the envelope probably contained a final letter to his wife and kids, maybe dispersing his left over personal items, like suits or pets. Max knew the white paper he had in his briefcase contained the poisoned rig-ryder nutria-blend formula; but it was really the one substituted by Honeybuns the previous night. His now modified version would only make any unsuspecting rig-ryders imbibe a full week’s supply of vitamins.

  “I wonder what the envelope contained. Oh well, I have the formula and a possible Ferrari out of the deal. I hope I can hack his accounts for those gold vouchers. His wife probably got to those vouchers right after his death,” Max was mumbling to himself as he pushed the com, first to contact his official bank account hacker, then to send for his newest purchase from the sex auction. Honeybun’s replacement was a tiny Asian doll, thin as a reed, with pale skin, jet black hair, and dark almond eyes. He named her Bitbuns. Max had a thing for buns, and he hated long hoverjet rides without onboard entertainment.

  Back at the bank underground limo parking lot, Honeybuns, aka Rachael Gefen went immediately to the maintenance closet, took off her mask and uniform, and checked the contents to be sure this envelope did, in fact, contain the formula she’d missed the previous night.

  She’d been watching Max on the palm vid she’d planted on him in her role as Honeybuns. Rachael sent the envelope to Ben Gurion via the underwater push-service, donned her burka, and headed to the transit tunnel leading to Narita to catch that drab green military transport hoverjet, parked at the end of the other runway at Narita. She’d passed the now dead CEO’s life savings off to Segev, right before he boarded the train to #5, without a clue how he’d disperse the funds to take care of the Yac clan.

  On her part, Rachael didn’t care for blood money; she would be home tending to her flowers at the kibbutz within 12 hours. After her weeks with Max Peabody, she needed time to wash his stench away. Let the other asset finish off the mission with those clone soldiers.

  And, those clone soldiers were the current topic of a tense conversation back at rebel headquarters in Donner Pass.

  “What do you mean, they’ll be late? You never do late, Dorian. What’s going on?” Dina had just returned from the rig dock in Sacramento, using her hoverbike at full nitro to ride from the rig offload dock back to Donner Pass. She then walked the path out of the low-way tunnel to the up side part of town. At 5000 feet, it was still cool enough to walk outside, even during the day.

  From there, an alley led to what looked like a dead end. It was really the entry to another tunnel, leading to the first gate of the underground rebel city. Most of the up side, non-rebel citizens of WME Donner Pass Zone knew of the rebels, even knew how to get to the first gate. Many had been delivering supplies to them for years. They were what Dorian referred to as the friendlies, not real rebels, but part of the movement nevertheless, and critical to the cause.

  In return, Dorian made sure his creative procurement of those CEO accounts skimmed off a percent to this particular group. Thus, no one in the WME Donner Pass Zone ever went hungry, or got the urge to make new best friends with any WME culling patrols.

  The first gate to the rebel headquarters was guarded by a mind reading security team, required a DNA pass, a retinal scan, and blood type analysis, and finally a visual approval by Dorian. Thus, he was in the control room and prepared for the confrontation, when his wife arrived, sweaty, and fully pissed off.

  “I just got word the train had mechanical issues near bubble-stop #3. They believe it is pirates again.” Dorian lied to his wife, something he was really bad at. She could not read his mind, but his face was like an open book; a pale white glowing open book, which glowed off-color when he lied.

  “Tell me what’s really going on, Dorian. You let them get away didn’t you?” Dina was standing across the room from her husband Dorian, dressed in a business suit. He thought she looked beautiful, but it was hardly the time.

  “Yes. Sit down, Dina. We have to talk.” Dorian had spent several hours rehearsing what he might have to do.

  Dina was a great fighter, could move fast. But Dorian was protected by his implants, which sent off a high frequency scream sound, causing individuals to pass out. He practiced it once on Dina, when they first got to Donner Pass, just to see what it would do. But, he had no intention of using it on Dina now, unless he had to prevent her from running off and doing something stupid, or worse, lethal.

  “I don’t want to sit down. I want you to answer my question.”

  “No, sit down, please sit down. We have to talk. Sit down, Dina.” Dorian used a non-negotiable tone, one she’d never heard before.

  Dina sat warily on a bench set into the far wall of the control room. The look on her face said it all. She was fit to be tied, but knew she needed to hear his side, or maybe she had to. He was one of a few individuals on the planet whom always commanded her attention. Dorian took his time. He got up, went to get some hot chocolate for both of them, and handed Dina her cup, along with a roasted rabbit sandwich on flatbread, her favorite.

  “l need to begin with Gimlet, our daughter. The story begins with her. Please just listen and don’t say anything until I am finished. And, eat your sandwich. I know you must be starving after your trip back from Sacramento,” Dorian began. Dina nodded, took the sandwich, ate most of it in four bites, and then she drank the hot chocolate in one long gulp.

  “Okay, so talk,” she said, after finishing her hot chocolate and wiping her mouth on the sleeve of her black silk business suit.

  He and Dina spent the next thirty minutes doing just that, talking. And for once in his life, Dorian spent one hundred per cent of the time talking, just to Dina. She knew this was important because he’d put all the controls on pre-programmed auto, something he did only when he and Dina were together, alone, in their quarters, or, as he often said, for events as important as having your hair on fire.

  Dorian started with the part when Dina left him to live with Eldridge so long ago, and finished when Chad and Gimlet welcomed the clone soldiers into bubble-stop #5, with the help of Michael Segev. After he finished, Dina looked at him for twenty seconds without speaking. It seemed like an eternity to Dorian. What she finally said took him totally by surprise. But he wasn’t a mother.
>
  “You mean after sending her to Tokyo for University, I’m supposed to stand by and watch her get a job and make a living in #5? Do you have any idea how she’d be wasting her potential in #5? I mean, she’d be totally limiting her career options in #5.”

  “Yes, I understand that but…” Dorian could not continue.

  “It’s why we sent her away and spent all those gold vouchers on her education, so she wouldn’t have to live underground here, so she could make it in the real world, even the WME real world. It was so she’d have a choice.”

  “But bubble-stop #5 is…”

  “You can’t be serious, Dorian; living in bubble-stop #5? I don’t want my grandkids growing up there.”

  “But I could…”

  “You have to do a sat-hack, and get them a house, right now. And what about the wedding; I’m not having a wedding in #5.” Dina paced back and forth in the control room, wringing her hands, and gesturing all over the place.

  Dorian just sat there for five seconds then burst out laughing, lights twinkling under his skin.

  “What’s so funny? This is serious. Our grandkids won’t get a decent education or job after growing up there. And what does this Chad guy do for a living? Stop laughing.”

  “I’m sorry, Dina. It’s just that I thought you’d be mad she fell in love with a clone, not that she may be living in #5. I can arrange any kind of living situation or job for both of them, anywhere on the planet; you know that. This is only temporary.”

  “Well, okay then. But he is a clone soldier, and with the current Inc. markets for clonies, they’ll always be looking for him. Where will they be safe? And, don’t you dare even think of sending my daughter to one of those sewer cities.” Dina got up and went to her husband.

  “Turn the controls back to Dorian-mode. I want to see what this guy looks like. Can you vid them in #5? Do they even have a bot-com system there? And did he go to college? Has he been trained for anything? How much will he make? Is he taller than her?” Dina motor-mouthed the normal mom concerns, still present even after three world-wide pandemics, a 62% decrease in the world’s population, a full seven meter ocean rise, and current domination by the WME.

  “You’re not going to run off and try to kill this group of clone soldiers?” Dorian asked.

  Dina stopped; she was taken aback. “No, I had a long talk…with myself,” she said softly. “I wasn’t even going to kill the ones arriving in Sacramento. I was going to have a van bring them here and test them in our labs; maybe modify them, like you suggested last week. I thought you had already gotten rid of them when they didn’t show up at the off-load dock. I thought maybe they were already all dead. It’s why I was so friggin pissed off at you. Why do you have that stupid smile on your face?”

  “It’s just that I was certain you would wish to eliminate Gimlet’s boyfriend. It is why I sent them to #5. I knew they would be relatively safe…from you, Dina,” Dorian said.

  “Safe from me; you thought I’d harm my own daughter, or her boyfriend? Okay, you are right. I’ve been obsessed; I know that now. I’ve done horrible things for revenge. But, you are right. Revenge won’t bring Dad back, and these clones are innocent, maybe not even dangerous. But be sure to check them all Dorian. You check this Chad Yac guy too; promise me! I don’t want Gimlet in any danger. And we don’t want mass killings, even in #5; well, especially in #5.” Dina sat down next to Dorian at the control unit.

  “Yes, especially in #5; they may be necessary for the revolution, when it happens, if it happens.” Dorian hugged his wife then pulled up a vid from the pedestrian entry portal of bubble-stop #5, showing their daughter standing among a group of clone soldiers.

  “Here he is, standing next to Gimlet.” They both looked at a live feed of Chad Yac standing next to Gimlet with his arm around her shoulder. It was a real-time vlog from the pedestrian entry portal to #5. They were standing in front of a group of clone soldiers dressed in hoverbike security suits. Michael Segev was handing a wad of vouchers to the mayor.

  “He looks okay, I guess. Actually he’s very decent looking. Maybe we’ll have beautiful grandchildren; can they have kids, the clonies I mean? And what is Segev doing there?” Dina asked.

  “We had Gimlet, and I am a clone soldier. And Michael is donating to the clone soldier support fund of bubble-stop #5. It was a posthumous donation from that nutria-blend CEO.” Dorian laughed.

  “Yes, we did have Gimlet.” Dina looked to the left of her daughter and Chad, at the group standing nearer to the entry portal. They looked confused, even afraid.

  “So, this is the outrageously expensive Elizabeth Turner acquisition from Leo Songtain. Who paid for them? And, where did you say that wad of vouchers came from?”

  “The vouchers were lifted from a safe box yesterday. They belonged to that now dead CEO of Nutria-blend. And as for the clone purchase, no one individual paid the funds to Leo Songtain, Dina; I hacked the funds from forty-two recently promoted high level managers from the cosmetic surgery, human resources, and pre-owned limo divisions.”

  “Won’t they notice? I mean that worker level is not stinking rich like the CEOs you normally use as donors,” Dina said as she continued examining the vid of Chad, as only a potential mother-in-law is capable of doing.

  “They’ll be getting small reductions in their promotional bonuses. But, being newly promoted they won’t want to complain. They’ll think the bonuses are less than expected, but they won’t complain.” Dorian offed the vid of Chad and Gimlet, and pulled up job options for his daughter and soon to be son-in-law.

  “How about Israel; Michael Segev has connections there. I know you don’t always get along with Michael but he does have connections in the Israeli Free Zone,” Dorian said.

  “Plus they have great robotics research at Ben Gurion, and Gimlet just passed all her exams. Get her a job there. What do you suppose Chad would like to do, as employment? Find him something with a big salary, Dorian,” Dina said.

  “I would guess he can handle security jobs, special security like Michael Segev does. Let me contact someone I know about that,” Dorian replied, with a sigh of relief. He was so happy his wife could finally see reason; that she would drop her clonie crusade.

  “Israel would be nice to visit. They have really good schools, and the weather is still nice there, though often very hot. Okay, Israel it is.” Dina walked off, thinking that she’d never been this happy, not for a long time.

  The next day Max arrived back at the Hong Kong Hoverport, one hour after leaving Tokyo Narita, took his limo to his office, installed Bitbuns into the back rooms of his suite along with her very own red and white polka dot robe, and noticed he had a message from Leo Songtain. He hoped it wasn’t urgent. Leo Songtain hated to be kept waiting. And unless Max could get that bank hacker to retrieve those missing gold vouchers, he would be working for Leo for at least another ten years. His dreams of Fiji were fading.

  “I have to get those gold vouchers back or I’ll be listening to Roxanne Smoot stories for the next ten years. Shit!” Max screamed at his assistant to put a bot-com through directly to Leo Songtain immediately. While he waited, he had his personal clothing assistant attach his new gold and diamond cufflinks to his custom-made light pink silk shirt, and then he instructed his security man to find the Ferrari that matched the key he’d taken from the dead CEOs safe box.

  “Yes Mr. Peabody, sir, you called for assistance?” his security chief appeared at his office door in five minutes, out of breath from running up from the basement.

  “This is a key to a real 1957 Ferrari 625 TRC Spider, not a copy, not a silly hover vehicle, not a digital, but a real Ferrari. Do you have any idea how many of these works of art still exist on the planet, Luther?” Max was standing in his outer office getting fitted by his personal tailor for yet another litigation suit. This one was a soft green dyed lamb’s wool, from the New Zealand Free Zone; something outrageously expensive, especially given Max’s substantial girth. Max thought the color went
nicely with his almost black but scant and oily hair, and swarthy skin. Well, he called his complexion swarthy; some would use the words, unshaven, or unkempt…you get the picture.

  “No sir, how many are left?” Luther asked, hoping it was not a quiz. He tried desperately to look interested in an antique car. But it was so far out of his life style range, he’d not even bothered to look at pictures of real Ferraris.

  “Thirty-seven of this design; there are only thirty-seven left on the entire planet. And they don’t have any in the Mars or lunar towns either.” Max brushed his tailor aside, and pointed to the key.

  “Bring the Ferrari to my personal garage. My mechanic will know what to do with it. You will find it someplace in the CEO’s underground parking slots at Nutria-blend Inc., or in the garage of the dead CEO’s house, or maybe even still parked in the golf club enclosure outside of Hong Kong. It will have a tracking tag, so when the key gets even somewhat close, it will beep like a homing signal.”

  “Yes sir, of course, sir; I’ll bring it to your estate immediately.” Luther took the key and started to leave, excited he’d have the once in a lifetime opportunity to drive a work of art. But before Luther left, Max remembered to tell him the password, and to give him a sample of the CEO’s DNA, kept in a vial in his office safe, should the need for a DNA-validated access ever occur.

  The CEO’s DNA sample would be required for entry into the auto. Once the Ferrari was brought to Max’s estate, his own mechanic could modify it to recognize Max, its new owner. Finally, after his security chief left, he scanned entry to his own vault and stored the precious formula inside. Then his assistant chimed him; Leo was on-com.

  “Mr. Songtain, so sorry I missed your com. I was away on business to Tokyo, dealing with that Korean organ company acquisition we discussed last week. You remember sir, the brain cell growth stocks?”