The Liquidation Order

by Jett Lang

  “Have to find him, you know.”

  “Do I have to talk about it right now?”

  “Soon.”

  Queen took a deep breath, clenched her teeth when it hurt. “Please, let it go until later.”

  “You can’t find him like this. Falls to me.” Ellie chewed her frown. “Won’t be a third chance for him.”

  She wanted to turn away, to hide the tears that threatened to contort her face into a window to her weakness, but she didn’t dare move. Ellie saw whatever Queen hadn’t wanted her to see. The plain-faced woman started to reach for her hand, pulled away. Set it back onto her jeans.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You sure?”

  Queen tightened her jaw and didn’t answer. Pain bubbled from her chest, from her ribs and from somewhere else. Ache. Sorrow. Ellie stayed quiet, cold as the snow-capped mountains that slopped away in the window, out of Queen’s view. She saw a blue-purple sky going everywhere, boundless. She wanted to be back in Prosperity. Get fixed up, get geared up, go out, kill, come home, rinse, repeat. None of the idiocy that had latched onto her insides and filled her head with fantasies. Jack was her last mistake.

  And you let him get away.

  “I’m glad. About Jack,” she said. “It’ll be easier now.”

  “Maybe,” Ellie said, though Queen saw in the subtle twitch of the muscles in her face there was another response dwelling beneath the professional veneer. All she added was, “Wake you when we’re there.”

  Queen said she’d stay awake for the rest of the trip, Ellie wouldn’t have to worry. She’d rest her eyes a bit, and that’d be the extent of it. In no time at all, though, the sound of the engines had lulled her to sleep. She remained that way until Ellie gently shook her, and left her in the hands of the medical team.

  Convalescent Home

  The doctor whistled appreciatively. He was a thin old guy, in shape, with a lush head of black hair that was most likely the result of miracle products. The display board glowed white on his brown and leathered skin. When he spoke, the voice was too young and too full of energy, as though he had assimilated one of his male nurses while Queen was in the X-ray room.

  “That musta hurt,” he said.

  She shifted in her gurney. “Oh, no, it was excellent.”

  The doctor chuckled. “Cheeky.”

  “That’s me.”

  “You’re lucky,” he said. “The damage could have been much worse. As it stands, with your modifications and the resources we have here, you should be back to work in, say, a week.”

  He expounded upon the vast range of pharmaceuticals and equipment at his disposal, and gleefully disregarded her disinterest in whatever he had to say. He paced about the white-tilted examination room, talked in his enthused, adolescent voice. Snatched up a tiny plastic vial from a corner cabinet. Unwrapped a syringe, and extracted the contents of the vial through its soft-cap.

  “What’s that?”

  He beamed at her. “Afraid of needles?”

  “Just curious.”

  He had a peculiar skip to his step as he came to her side. She shouldn’t have asked.

  He perched on the end of her gurney and launched into a galvanized lecture on the modern application of nanobots. These marvelous “little guys,” when mainlined into her bloodstream, would go to task enhancing her natural regeneration. No fuss, no muss, and, most importantly, no need for painkillers. She’d be bedridden for a sixth of the time it took a normal person her age to recover, and he advised her not to drink any milk while the “little guys” were still in her system.

  “Research hasn’t come up with an answer for it,” he said. “They hate dairy. That’s what we know for sure.”

  “Only liquor, then?”

  “I recommend water. Are you ready?”

  His childish smile creased his leathery complexion. Holding her by the arm, he swabbed cold alcohol below her shoulder.

  “Want me to count down or go for it whenever, champ?”

  She’d have to get used to being treated as though she were a child under this man’s care. She told him to go for it. The sting wasn’t too painful, but there was gentle pulse around where the needle had pierced her. It kept on for several seconds and then subsided.

  “They’re rambunctious when they first get inside,” the doctor said as he band-aided her arm. Hot pink. Lollipops and gumdrops in purple miniature.

  When was the last time the man had treated anyone over the age of twelve? It was a joke at her expense. The overjoyed way he spoke, that ridiculous smile always at the corners of his lips, ready to brighten at the first sign of fear or ignorance. Yes, this was probably punishment for what she had done.

  Surely Syntheia knew, was probably tapped right into her very eyes, watching as Queen watched the man who hadn’t delivered a revitalizing serum at all but instead a slow-acting poison, one that would bring a conclusion to her rampant failures. Didn’t that make so much sense? She was so happy she realized it that she returned the doctor’s beaming smile with her own.

  “If you experience any rashes or stomach cramps, please contact me immediately. The little guys have been known to go exploring in rare instances, but it’s a fairly simple fix to get them back on course.”

  He combed his fingers through his hair, slicked-back in the style of a younger man. Remembrance flashed of her first sexual encounter. Not a good guy. Not a good memory.

  The doctor jotted notes on a clipboard. “Did you have any questions for me?”

  “Only why this poison makes me feel so uplifted.”

  His moment of confusion was replaced by his hearty and practiced chuckle. “Nanobots are a wonder, my dear. Now, I’ll have one of my staff show you to your room. I’ve contacted our mutual employer. She knows where you’ll be staying.”

  “I did actually have another question.”

  The doctor continued writing but looked up from his notes, his dark, lush brows quirked.

  “Where are we in Prosperity? I don’t recognize this architecture.”

  “Surely you saw on your way here.”

  “I saw the entrance, but Prosperity has depth. Just like New Paradise.”

  “Cities have their secrets for a reason,” he said.

  She’d seen what was at the bottom of Prosperity. The buried waste, the human garbage scrabbling for a meal. Is that where they were? Where no one would think to look?

  An autodoor swished open, closed. A tall, blonde nurse materialized beside the doctor, bent in close to his ear, and whispered a short phrase Queen didn’t recognize. Corporate lingo. The doctor’s only reaction was a terse nod.

  To Queen he said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to cut this short. Gregory knows the way.”

  Gregory pulled her out of the room without another word to the doctor, whose name, she realized only then, was never mentioned. Another man of secrets in a facility abound with them. She felt close to the central mystery, and perhaps that was why she was being ushered away. Maybe the delivered news didn’t bear the significance the doctor would have her believe. She was carted down the identical white hallways of the medical wing.

  While she was staying here, she could trust no one but herself. She was the outsider; she could read it as bold as typeface on the side-glances and murmurs of the staff. Eventually she’d catch onto their shorthand, then they’d have to limit their gossip to the break room and cafeteria.

  Let them say what they want, think what they want.

  The only opinions she had to be concerned with were Syntheia’s and Ellie’s. She’d never let idle gossip bother her before, but something about the nurses’ blatant unprofessionalism irked her. She wanted to believe it was only her appearance that made her a rarity, but it seemed deeper than that. Maybe Syntheia’s people didn’t get hurt like this. Maybe they all knew the truth of her injuries. She sank farther into the gurney.

  “You alright down there, miss?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  The nurse coughed to his sid
e, replied with a noncommittal “That’s good.”

  He rolled her along the angular corridors, named arrows guiding them toward the recovery sector. The sterility of the environment remained unvaried throughout. Gregory didn’t stop to banter with his fellow hens, though they seemed to implore him to do so, calling after him with guarded lingo. He moved with haste in his step as he wound about the halls, impeded only by the old-model autodoors, paint-flecked and sluggish. That he was so eager to get rid of her spoke to his devotion to his colleagues rather than those under his care.

  A people pleaser, this one. Except with the patients.

  She bet it had paid off, landed him a career right out the gate: a smooth transfer from school to the working world. He had more in common with Queen than he might think, though he wouldn’t comprehend it.

  Gregory helped her into the hospital bed and left her in a windowless unit with all the lights on; the fluorescents buzzed overhead like disturbed hornets. The door – manual – was slightly ajar, and let the lingo and normal-speak of the passing medical staff seep through. She fumbled for the remote for the flat-screen TV, turned it on. An Angel Bay championship race highlight dating back a couple years caught her attention on one of the stations, and she turned up the volume. Drowned out the sounds of squeaking shoes, trundling gurneys, and idle chatter. As she was fiddling around with the buttons, trying to locate the depth-slide for the holographics, someone closed the door to the hallway.

  Now that was service she deserved. She thanked no one in particular and finally found the slide she was looking for among the plethora of colored rubber buttons. The vehicular sports reel played out before her, a post-edit commentary added in over the screech of burning tires and the thundering engines. History lessons, racer statistics, Hall of Fame eligibility, and sponsorship plugs wrapped into a glorious aggrandizement of a sport with as much funding pumped into its oily veins as the arenas.

  “This fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled pastime has seen a rise in popularity from year to year since its start two hundred and fifty years ago,” the commentator said in a smooth, deep voice. “By comparison, there has been a steady decline for the once-lauded arenas. The shift towards cloned participants in the racing circuit fifty years ago has been met with unanimous approval, but the brutality against clones in arena matches has seen nothing but political backlash. Researchers have attributed this to humanitarian efforts and improved education among the working classes, the men and women that keep our industries from falling into ruin.”

  Pan to an aerial shot of sprawling Prosperity. Its billowing smoke stacks, its residential domes, and dark metal parapets loomed over the derelict concrete structures of the older, outer city. The angle changed, the camera zoomed. Computer-generated mutants, their rotting flesh bile-green, prowled those ancient streets on six limbs, their shadows elongated near barrel fires and broken windows. With jagged teeth, they tore the heads off plump rats. Blood drooled down their rancid flesh, covered in pus and scars.

  This footage went on a little while before the camera swapped to the racetrack in downtown Angel Bay, thousands of miles distant. Cloudless blue skies overhead, the racers smiling at the crowds gathered behind high chain link fences. The track looked freshly poured, watered down and shining like it was made for a more innocent activity, one which wouldn’t see men tangled in the flaming wreckage of metal or flattened in an often failed attempt to escape the racetrack.

  “Where they find all these people, I will never understand.”

  The voice might have startled her, but she recognized its liquidity instantly. Five-Nine, in its black fedora and trench coat, swept forward and grabbed a short steel stool from underneath her hospital bed.

  “Thanks for closing the door.”

  “You thanked me already.” The robot removed its hat and placed it on the white nightstand beside her. “I thought to pay you a visit.”

  She lowered the volume on the television. Its radar green eyes shone in her peripheral, focused on the screen when she spoke. “Software acting up?”

  “You wound me,” it said, tinked its titanium-alloy hand over its non-existent heart. “Why are you watching Angel Bay propaganda, may I ask?”

  “It was on.”

  “You are preoccupied.”

  “I am watching something.”

  “Clearly.”

  “Why are you here? Did Ellie send you? Syntheia?”

  “No one sent me.”

  “Sure,” she said, propped another pillow up behind her. “No one sent you.”

  “Why do human beings repeat themselves like that?”

  “I didn’t repeat myself, I repeated you.”

  On the television, 3D speedsters fired their miniguns on hairpin turns. A striped blue and yellow car spun out in one second and fireballed in the next. The dual elation and disappointment washed over the cheering fans, their faces and bare chests painted with the number and logos of their favored vehicle. Blue and yellow supporters rattled the chain link fence that stopped them from beating the jeering opposition on the other side to a pulp. The commentator’s voice, quieter and tinnier, declared that “There’s nothing quite like good-natured competition among fans!”

  “I am not trying to anger you,” Five-Nine said. “Yet I seem to have hit a proverbial nerve.”

  She picked up the remote and started to throw it up into the air, made it spin a couple of times before it landed back in her hand. Threw it back up, caught it. Five-Nine watched.

  “Allow me to change the subject.”

  “Please do.”

  “Goods news, then: There is a high probability the job is now yours. How does that make you feel?”

  “So they did send you down here.”

  “We have covered this. I am here to speak with you as an acquaintance.”

  Queen clicked her tongue and set the remote down. Pulled the thin white covers over her hospital gown.

  “You believe I have no function other than to carry out the commands of others, but that is simply not the case. This virus has reduced my independence somewhat, but it does not mean I am without a modicum of flexibility when it comes to socializing.”

  “Spare me. What do you actually want?”

  “To see whether we have the capacity to work together, as partners.”

  Queen felt sick. She set her jaw, looked at the foot of her bed, then the TV. Her voice seemed far away when she spoke. “You’re his fill-in.”

  “Jack’s replacement, yes.” The robot sounded positively chipper. “I was informed some hours ago. His defection is regrettable; though we are fortunate he chose to slip up safely outside of headquarters. He has quite a journey ahead of him if he wishes to cause damage.”

  “You should change the subject again.”

  “The subject of your turncoat ex is still a sore one.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Wow, Five-Nine, who knew you were such a sadist?”

  “I merely wish to understand.”

  She laughed. “Well, I don’t want to explain it to you. We’re not having this conversation. I’m not spilling my guts to a machine, or anyone else. The end.”

  “We are each of us machines,” it reasoned. “You with your biochemistry and me with my hardware and software. Not to mention the litany of enhancements our collective masters have bestowed on us.”

  She rubbed her hands over her face, groaned loudly. “You’re my partner if I get the job. Thank you for adding the personal touch by coming to tell me yourself. You’re a super-duper robot that I’ll just adore working with on every possible level.”

  “I do not think–”

  “I won’t be able to sleep tonight knowing you’ll have my back henceforth.” She gave the robot a sickly-sweet smile and patted his coat sleeve. “Okay? Okay. Great chat.”

  “Well, you do not have to be such a bitch about it.”

  “I absolutely do.” Dull ache in her chest. Sore lungs and throat. She didn’t think she raised
her voice so much. With more care, she said, “If that’s everything, partner, I’d like to get some rest.”

  Five-Nine swiped its fedora from the nightstand and crushed it down on its head in a pantomime of resentment. Then the robot punted the stool it had been sitting on to the other end of the room, where it thunked harmlessly against the plaster wall below the television.

  “Don’t forget the door on your way out.”

  She turned the volume to max, drowned out anything additional the machine wanted to say. Hi-fi explosions rumbled out of the side-speakers, the visuals setting awash her bedpost and sheets in holographic flames and smoke. The cars were so near she could sense the despair of the charred losers, the rush of the victor’s blood as he emerged from his scarred and battered speedster to receive his trophy. A collage of past winners unfolded like a multi-ethnic photo-flip, the perfect bone structure and the crowd-pleasing smile the only constant among the fast-morphing men and women. They were all different.

  They were all the same.

  ※

  Sometime later the credits rolled, white text on a black screen. Her eyes hurt and she was struggling to keep them open, irritated by the florescent lights and the click and buzz they made. The stool Five-Nine had kicked remained under the TV, angled like it had been prepared for any bad child needing a timeout. Her elementary school self was more than familiar with those stools. Her backtalk wouldn’t abate until advanced training, and she’d be finding herself on bad-child stools and in lockups more times than she could count before that happened.

  The imagined child sat there patiently, back presented. Sneakers, jeans, and grey t-shirt. None of it new. All of it scrounged up from somewhere. Her white-blonde hair was cut short, and the telltale red marks of her math teacher’s fury were on her forearms – well-earned after talking back.

  “You’re such a pain in the ass,” Queen told the child on the stool. “You’re going to have so much and you’re going to squander all of it.”

  The teacher had given her a copy of the classroom recording, instructed her to watch it at home and write a paper explaining the proper way to conduct oneself when reprimanded by a superior. She remembered sulking all the way back to her family’s apartment. Her father was nowhere to be seen for the fifth day in a row, so she had free reign of the living room television. She hadn’t understood the point of the exercise. The redundancy of the whole thing gnawed at her as she lounged on the overstuffed pleather couch, only half watching the recording from school.