Red Planet Blues

TEN





The flash from the gun barrel briefly lit up the flawless female face, which was showing almost biological horror. The revolver snapped back in my hand, then everything was dark again. I had no idea how much damage the bullet would do to the brain. Of course, the artificial chest wasn’t rising and falling, but it never had been. And there was nowhere to check for a pulse. I decided I’d better try another shot, just to be sure. I shifted slightly, thinking I’d put this one through the other eye, and—

And Joshua’s arms burst up, pushing me off him. I felt myself go airborne and was aware of Joshua scrambling to his feet. He scooped up the flashlight, and as he swung it and himself around, it briefly illuminated his face. There was a deep pit where one eye used to be.

I started to bring the gun up and—

And Joshua thumbed off the flashlight. The only illumination was a tiny bit of light, far, far down the corridor, spilling out from the torture room; it wasn’t enough to let me see Joshua clearly. But I squeezed the trigger, and heard a bullet ricochet—either off some part of Joshua’s metal internal skeleton or off the corridor wall.

I was the kind of guy who always knew exactly how many bullets he had left: two. I wasn’t sure I wanted to fire them both off blindly, but—

I could hear Joshua moving closer. I fired again. This time, the feminine voice box made a sound between an oomph and the word “ouch,” so I knew I’d hit him.

One bullet to go.

I started walking backward—which was no worse than walking forward; I was just as likely to trip either way in this near-total darkness. The body in the shape of Cassandra Wilkins was much smaller than mine—but also much stronger. It could probably grab me by the shoulders and pound my head up into the ceiling, just as I’d pounded hers—and I rather suspect mine wouldn’t survive. And if I let it get hold of my arm, it could probably wrench the gun from me; multiple bullets hadn’t been enough to stop the artificial body, but one was all it would take to ice me for good.

I decided it was better to have an empty gun than a gun that could potentially be turned on me. I held the weapon out in front, took my best guess, and squeezed the trigger one last time.

The revolver barked, and the flare from the muzzle lit the scene, stinging my eyes. The artificial form cried out—I’d hit a spot its sensors felt was worth protecting with a major pain response, I guess. But Joshua kept moving forward. Part of me thought about turning tail and running—I still had the longer legs, even if I couldn’t move them as fast—but another part of me couldn’t bring myself to do that. The gun was of no more use, so I threw it aside. It hit the corridor wall, making a banging sound, then fell to the deck plates, producing more clanging as it bounced against them.

Of course, as soon as I’d thrown the gun away, I realized I’d made a mistake. I knew how many bullets I’d shot, and how many the gun held, but Joshua probably didn’t; even an empty gun could be a deterrent if the other person thought it was loaded.

We were facing each other—but that was all that was certain. Precisely how much distance there was between us I couldn’t say. Although running produced loud, echoing footfalls, either of us could have moved a step or two forward or back—or left or right—without the other being aware of it. I was trying not to make any noise, and a transfer could stand perfectly still, and be absolutely quiet, for hours on end.

I’d only ever heard clocks ticking with each second in old movies, but I was certainly conscious of time passing in increments as we stood there, each waiting for the other to make a move. And I had no idea how badly I’d hurt him.

Light suddenly exploded in my face. He’d thumbed the flashlight back on, aiming it at what turned out to be a very good guess as to where my eyes were. I was temporarily blinded, but his one remaining mechanical eye responded more efficiently, I guess, because now that he knew exactly where I was, he leapt, propelling himself through the air and knocking me down.

This time, both hands closed around my neck. I still outmassed Joshua and managed to roll us over, so he was on his back, and I was on top. I arched my spine and slammed my knee into his balls, hoping he’d release me . . .

. . . except, of course, he didn’t have any balls; he only thought he did. Damn!

The hands were still closing around my gullet; despite the chill air, I felt myself sweating. But with his hands occupied, mine were free: I pushed my right hand onto his chest—startled by the feeling of artificial breasts there—and probed around until I found the slick, wet hole my first bullet had made. I hooked my right thumb into that hole, pulled sideways, and brought in my left thumb, as well, squeezing it down into the opening, ripping it wider and wider. I thought if I could get at the internal components, I might be able to tear out something crucial. The artificial flesh was soft, and there was a layer of what felt like foam rubber beneath it—and beneath that, I could feel hard metal parts. I tried to get my whole hand in, tried to yank out whatever I could, but I was fading fast. My pulse was thundering so loudly in my ears I couldn’t hear anything else, just a thump-thump-thumping, over and over again, the thump-thump-thumping of . . .

Of footfalls! Someone was running this way, and—

And the scene lit up as flashlights came to bear on us.

“There they are!” said a high, mechanical voice that I recognized as belonging to the bootleg Pickover. “There they are!”

“NKPD!” shouted another voice I also recognized—a deep, Scottish brogue. “Let Lomax go!”

Joshua looked up. “Back off!” he shouted, in that female voice. “If you don’t, I’ll finish him.”

Through blurring vision, I saw Mac say, “If you kill him, you’ll go down for murder. You don’t want that.”

Joshua relaxed his grip a bit—not enough to let me escape, but enough to keep me alive as a hostage, at least a little while longer. I sucked in cold air, but my lungs still felt like they were on fire. In the illumination from the flashlights I could see Cassandra Wilkins’s face craning now to look at McCrae. As I’d said, most transfers didn’t show as much emotion as biologicals did, but it was clear that Joshua was panicking.

I was still on top. I thought if I waited until Joshua was distracted, I could yank free of his grip without him snapping my neck. “Let go of him,” Mac said firmly. It was hard to see him; he was the one holding the light source, after all, but I suddenly became aware that he was also holding a large disk. “Release his neck, or I’ll deactivate you for sure.”

Joshua practically had to roll his one good eye up into his head to see Mac, standing behind him. “You ever use one of those before?” he said. “No, I know you haven’t. I work in the transference business, and I know that technology just came out. The disruption isn’t instantaneous. Yes, you can kill me—but not before I kill Lomax.”

“You’re lying,” said McCrae. He handed his flashlight to Pickover, and brought the disk up in front of him, holding it vertically by its two U-shaped handles. “I’ve read the specs.”

“Are you willing to take that chance?” asked Joshua.

I could only arch my neck a bit; it was very hard for me to look up and see Mac, but he seemed to be frowning, and, after a second, he turned partially away. Pickover was standing behind him, and—

And suddenly an electric whine split the air, and Joshua was convulsing beneath me, and his hands were squeezing my throat even more tightly than before. The whine—a high, keening sound—must have been coming from the disruptor. I still had my hands inside Joshua’s chest and could feel his whole interior vibrating as his body continued to rack. I yanked my hands out and grabbed onto his arms, pulling with all my might. His hands popped free from my throat, and his whole female form was shaking rapidly. I rolled off him; the artificial body kept convulsing as the keening continued. I gasped for breath, and all I could think about for several moments was getting air into me.

After my head cleared a bit, I looked again at Joshua, who was still convulsing, and then I looked up at Mac, who was banging on the side of the disruptor disk. Now that he’d activated it, he apparently had no idea how to deactivate it. As I watched, he started to turn it over, presumably hoping there was some control he’d missed on the side he couldn’t see—and I realized that if he completed his move the disk would be aimed backward, in the direction of Pickover. Pickover clearly saw this, too: he was throwing his robot-like arms up, as if to shield his face—not that that could possibly do any good.

I tried to shout “No!,” but my voice was too raw and all that came out was a hoarse exhalation of breath, the sound of which was lost beneath the keening. In my peripheral vision, I could see Joshua lying face down. His vicious spasms stopped as the beam from the disruptor was no longer aimed at him.

But even though I didn’t have any voice left, Pickover did, and his shout of “Don’t!” was loud enough to be heard over the electric whine of the disruptor. Mac continued to rotate the disk a few more degrees before he realized what Pickover was referring to. He flipped the disk back around, then continued turning it until the emitter surface was facing straight down. And then he dropped it, and it fell in Martian slo-mo, at last clanking against the deck plates, a counterpoint to the now-muffled electric whine. I hauled myself to my feet and moved over to check on Joshua while Pickover and Mac hovered over the disk, presumably looking for the off switch.

There were probably more scientific ways to see if the transferee Joshua was dead, but this one felt right just then: I balanced on one foot, hauled back the other leg, and kicked the son of a bitch in the side of that gorgeous head. The impact was strong enough to spin the whole body through a quarter turn, but there was no reaction at all from Joshua.

Suddenly the keening died, and I heard a self-satisfied “There!” from Mac. I looked over at him, and he looked back at me, caught in the beam from the flashlight Pickover was holding. Mac’s bushy orange eyebrows were raised, and there was a sheepish grin on his face. “Who’d have thought the off switch had to be pulled out instead of pushed in?”

I tried to speak and found I did have a little voice now. “Thanks for coming by, Mac. I know how you hate to leave the station.”

Mac nodded in Pickover’s direction. “Yeah, well, you can thank this guy for putting in the call,” he said. He turned, and faced Pickover full-on. “Just who the hell are you, anyway?”

I saw Pickover’s mouth begin to open in his mechanical head, and a thought rushed through my mind. This Pickover was bootleg. Both the other Pickover and Joshua Wilkins had been correct: such a being shouldn’t exist and had no rights. Indeed, the legal Pickover would doubtless continue to demand that this version be destroyed; no one wanted an unauthorized copy of himself wandering around.

Mac was looking away from me and toward the duplicate of Pickover. And so I made a wide sweeping of my head, left to right, then back again. Pickover apparently saw it because he closed his mouth before sounds came out, and I spoke as loudly and clearly as I could in my current condition. “Let me do the introductions,” I said, and I waited for Mac to turn back toward me.

When he had, I pointed at Mac. “Detective Dougal McCrae,” I said, then I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and pointed at Pickover, “I’d like you to meet Joshua Wilkins.”

Mac nodded, accepting this. “So you found your man? Congratulations, Alex.” He then looked down at the motionless female body. “Too bad about your wife, Mr. Wilkins.”

Pickover turned to face me, clearly seeking guidance. “It’s so sad,” I said quickly. “She was insane, Mac—had been threatening to kill her poor husband Joshua here for weeks. He decided to fake his own death to escape her, but she got wise to it somehow and hunted him down. I had no choice but to try to stop her.”

As if on cue, Pickover walked over to the dead artificial body and crouched beside it. “My poor dear wife,” he said, somehow managing to make his mechanical voice sound tender. He lifted his skinless face toward Mac. “This planet does that to people, you know. Makes them go crazy.” He shook his head. “So many dreams dashed.”

Mac looked at me, then at Pickover, then at the artificial body lying on the deck plating, then back at me. “All right, Alex,” he said, nodding slowly. “Good work.”

I tipped my nonexistent hat at him. “Glad to be of help.”



* * *



Three days later, I walked into the dark interior of The Bent Chisel, whistling.

Buttrick was behind the bar, as usual. “You again, Lomax?”

“The one and only,” I replied cheerfully. Diana was standing in her topless splendor next to the bar, loading up her tray. “Hey, Diana,” I said, “when you get off tonight, how ’bout you and me go out and paint the town . . .” I trailed off: the town was already red; the whole damned planet was.

Diana’s face lit up, but Buttrick raised a beefy hand. “Not so fast, lover boy. If you’ve got the money to take her out, you’ve got the money to settle your tab.”

I slapped two golden hundred-solar coins on the countertop. “That should cover it.” Buttrick’s eyes went as round as the coins, and he scooped them up immediately, as if he were afraid they’d disappear—which, in this joint, they probably would.

“I’ll be in the booth in the back,” I said to Diana. “I’m expecting Juan; when he arrives, could you bring him over?”

Diana smiled. “Sure thing, Alex. Meanwhile, what can I get you? Your usual poison?”

I shook my head. “Nah, none of that rotgut. Bring me the best Scotch you’ve got—and pour it over water ice.”

Buttrick narrowed his eyes. “That’ll cost extra.”

“No problem,” I said. “Start up a new tab for me.”

A few minutes later, Diana came by the booth with my drink, accompanied by Juan Santos. He was looking at her with his usual puppy-dog-love eyes. “What can I get for you?” Diana asked him.

He hesitated—it was clear to me, at least, what he wanted—but then he tipped his massive forehead forward. “Gin neat.”

She nodded and departed, and he watched her go. Then he slid down into the seat opposite me. “This better be on you, Alex. You still owe me for the help I gave you at Dr. Pickover’s place.”

“Indeed it is, my friend.”

Juan rested his receding chin on his open palm. “You seem in a good mood.”

“Oh, I am,” I said. “I got paid.”

The man the world now accepted as Joshua Wilkins had returned to NewYou, where he’d gotten his face finished and his artificial body upgraded. After that, he told people it was too painful to continue to work there, given what had happened with his wife. So he sold the NewYou franchise to his associate, Horatio Fernandez. The money from the sale gave him plenty to live on, especially now that he didn’t need food and didn’t have to pay the life-support tax anymore. He gave me all the fees his dear departed wife should have—plus a healthy bonus.

I’d asked him what he was going to do now. “Well,” he said, “even if you’re the only one who knows it, I’m still a paleontologist. I’m going to look for new fossil beds—I intend to spend months out on the surface. Who knows? Maybe there’s another deposit out there even better than the Alpha.”

And what about the other Pickover—the official one? It took some doing, but I managed to convince him that it had actually been the late Cassandra, not Joshua, who had stolen a copy of his mind, and that she was the one who had installed it in an artificial body. I told Dr. Pickover that when Joshua discovered what his wife had done, he destroyed the bootleg and dumped the ruined body that had housed it in the basement of the NewYou building.

Not too shabby, eh? Still, I’d wanted more. I’d rented a surface suit and a Mars buggy and headed out to 16.4 kilometers south-southwest of Nili Patera. I figured I’d pick myself up a lovely rhizomorph or a nifty pentapod, and never have to work again.

Well, I’d looked and looked and looked, but I guess the duplicate Pickover had lied about where the Alpha Deposit was; even under torture, he hadn’t betrayed his beloved fossils. I’m sure Weingarten and O’Reilly’s source is out there somewhere, though, and the legal Pickover is doubtless hard at work thinking of ways to protect it from looters. I wish him luck.

“How about a toast?” suggested Juan, once Diana had brought him his booze.

“I’m game,” I said. “To what?”

Juan frowned, considering. Then his eyebrows climbed his broad forehead, and he replied, “To being true to your innermost self.”

We clinked glasses. “I’ll drink to that.”