Weapon Read online

  She looked at the list, then handed it back to him. "Why? Why go to all this trouble?"

  "I don't like failure, and I don't like the fact that Harmon--sorry, Ambassador Irithyl--called me out on it. He knew what happened the instant he looked in the Grange universe, yet it took me months to confirm his calculations.

  "This is an ego thing, isn't it? You had me worried there for a moment. I thought you had suddenly grown a heart. I can't promise anything, but I'll see what I can do. Now, feel like giving me a hand with something simple?"

  "Sure. What's up?"

  "You mentioned my cyborgs. I have a new line of them called the strykers. Stryker-1 is the prototype. He's based on a cop who died in New York in 2025, so he's uncontaminated by alien blood. The problem is his reaction times." She brought up the report so he could see it on the screen.

  He gave a low whistle. "Did the computer check the veracity of these results?"

  "Yes. They're completely accurate."

  "His response times are off the hook. Hand me the keyboard, please."

  She picked it up and gave it to him. He pounded out commands. "How long since the initial injection of bots?"

  "It's been 72-hours. He woke up early, so we pushed the testing forward."

  "Wait a minute. You put him against a Katalan Fight Master and he lived?"

  "The exercise ended in a draw. Master Trem is convinced that Gabe is easily a sub-master, a degree which normally requires 40 years of immersion training."

  Josiah flipped back a couple pages. "But he was 40 when he died."

  "And there is no record of him ever being trained in any martial art of any kind."

  "Then how is this possible?"

  Zoe chewed on her stylus. "Since being interred in the cryotube, Gabe has exhibited brainwave activity."

  "You're kidding, right? What would a corpsicle dream of?"

  "I don't know."

  "Have you asked him?"

  She nodded. "He cocks his head, but says nothing."

  Josiah returned to the test results. "He knows a total of eight martial arts styles, his reflexes are off the charts, and he professes to remember nothing of his past." More page shuffling. "He hasn't tried morphing yet. Does he know he can change his form?"

  "I haven't informed him."

  "So, what's the problem?"

  "Doesn't this worry you?" she said while pointing to part of the report referring to the skills assessment.

  "No. Just make sure you can afford to lose anything you throw up against him."

  She tapped her teeth.

  "What next, sister of mine?"

  "Field operation, but first, I want to introduce him to his Alue copilot.

  "You're teaming him with an Alue? What happened to my racist-to-the-core sister? What have you done with her?"

  "Funny. I am not a racist. I just believe that pure Tralaskans are the true rulers of this League and should be recognized as such. The other races have their place in our society. Anyway, wasn't it you who helped the Alue cross over to this universe?"

  "An act that got me killed. Where is this operation taking place?"

  "Ventos Prime. There's a research lab that is working on a very special substance which I have not been able to get my hands on. The op is a simple snatch and grab."

  "Who are you sending?"

  "A team of paramilitary mercs on loan from Segue Six. They'll go in, secure the facility, grab the material, then get out before Royal Security can scramble an EMEF team."

  Josiah bristled at the mention of the elite Elf Marine Expeditionary Force, Ventos Prime's answer to the French Foreign Legion on Earth. It was the EMEF, and it's General Marta McMurphy, who thwarted his plans for Tralaskan domination of the League. "Sister, you are playing with fire."

  Zoe shrugged. "The merc team cannot be traced back to me."

  "What about Gabriel?"

  "He's a prototype. I have others in cold storage."

  Josiah suddenly felt an emotion he had not felt in over half a century--regret. He realized that he felt the same way she did, that only he and his precious Tralaskans meant anything. He thought about the Grange universe and felt remorse. He never felt remorse. Ever, at least until now. "I know an Alue who would be perfect to pair with Gabriel."

  "I have Alue..."

  "I spent time with them, lived with them, hell, I almost conquered this universe for them. Look, just talk to her."

  "What's her name?"

  "Siv. She's good."

  "I'll talk to her, but I won't promise anything. Now, about your borgs."

  "Forget I asked. I've got a better idea. Do you have someplace where I can make a secure call?"

  "Yeah. Make a left, go down the hall three doors, then left. The room is marked 'Comm Shack.'"

  "You are such a romantic."

  He got up, gave her a hug, then went to find the Comm Shack.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "You've disturbed the Siv. It better be important."

  "Hey, Siv, it's Josiah. I've got a job for you."

  "Oh my God, I'm talking to a ghost. Boss, I don't know if they told you, but you're dead. Your molecules are coating the walls of a room back in the Alue universe. I want you to know that I cried at your funeral."

  "Someone threw me a funeral?"

  "I did. It was sweet. I had a candle..."

  "I need your help, Siv."

  "What did you say?"

  "I need your help..."

  A flash of light announced the arrival of Siv after she used the communications link to travel to Josiah's location. "What have they done to you?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You're nice. You asked me for my help? You didn't yell at me for the funeral joke. Who the hell are you, and what did you do with Josiah Muntz?"

  "Siv, I've done a lot of bad things to people. Hell, the worst being I didn't see them as people. I didn't even see you as a person."

  She slid over a chair and sat down in front of him. She took his hand and asked, "When did this realization hit you?"

  He explained about the conversation he just had with his sister. "I saw myself in her, and it scared me." He looked up at her. "What have I done?"

  She saw fear and remorse in his gaze. "By the holy caverns of Alue, you're not kidding. This is for real."

  He nodded. "Look, I think I can save the Grange universe and get Gabriel away from Zoe. She's using him as a pawn in some mad game of hers, and from what I read of his dossier, he should be given a hero's funeral, not turned into a lab rat or a chess piece."

  "Josiah, what do you want to do exactly?"

  He explained his plan as her huge, black, almond-shaped eyes got impossibly large.

  ###

  Josiah and Siv walked into Zoe's office. "Zoe, this is Siv. Siv, this is Dr. Zoe Muntz. She runs this place."

  Siv extended her hand, then slowly withdrew it when Zoe just stared her. "Look, Boss Lady, I don't bite, I promise."

  "Do you have any problems killing sapients?"

  Thinking quickly, Siv replied, “No, no qualms."

  "What about your partner? Can you kill him if he goes rogue?"

  "Oh yeah, in half-a-heartbeat."

  "Good. My brother vouches for you, so you're in. Screw with me and you will die by my hand, capisce?"

  "Sì, dottore, capisco," she replied in flawless Italian.

  "Follow me," Zoe said as she walked out the door.

  With a final glance at Josiah, Siv followed.

  ###

  The three entered a nondescript room containing a human male surrounded by six, heavily-armed guards. The human watched them with an unblinking stare.

  "Wait a minute," Siv said as she stopped and stared at Gabriel. "Alue do not invade living beings, especially humans. It's a rule."

  "He's not human; he's a cyborg. You are going to invade, as you put it, his cybernetic systems and cohabitate with what's left of his human side. You might be a little lonely because we don't think there's much of him lef
t." Zoe missed the intense look of disgust Gabriel had given her. "Tel, is he connected to the network?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Full duplex, one terabit per second."

  Zoe looked at Siv. "Why are you still here?"

  Siv disappeared in a flash of light. Immediately, Gabe's body straightened up.

  "She's inside," Tel reported.

  "We'll give her a few minutes to find him," Zoe said.

  They waited for something to happen.

  ###

  Siv arrived in Gabe's brain and found Gabe standing in the center of a control room while encased in a glowing field of some type. Standing next to him was a wizened human who was watching her. "It took you long enough," he said.

  "Excuse me? I just got here a few minutes ago. Who the hell are you?"

  "Call me Sensei. Now, if you don't mind, I have a school to attend to."

  "Now wait just a damned minute..."

  "Gabe will explain. Bye," he said before disappearing in a flash of light. Gabe's field took that moment to collapse...

  "What the hell are you?" he asked Siv as he stumbled backwards. "And where the hell am I?"

  "Hi, my name is Siv. I'm what you'd call an Alue, and we're in your brain," she said while pushing him aside to access the secondary bridge control panel. "Now, I hate to do this, but I'm going to have to reconnect you to yourself, so you've got to play along." She brought up an image of Zoe and Josiah standing in front of him. "The woman is Zoe Muntz and the guy is Josiah Muntz, her brother. Now, she thinks she has programmed you to call her Mother, and you refer to yourself as Stryker-1."

  "Huh?"

  "Just play along. I'll fill you in as we go."

  "Fill me in how?"

  "Through the sub-audible communications system. You'll see.

  ###

  "Mistress! I just detected a shift in Stryker-1's brainwaves," a tech reported from the nearby control room.

  "Explain!"

  "They bobbled."

  "Excuse me?"

  "For a moment, there were two sets of brain waves superimposed on one another, then one set... left."

  "Was it the Alue?" she said with a glance at her brother.

  "No ma'am. The Alue's brain wave pattern is solid and separate from Stryker-1."

  ###

  Gabe found himself in a room, surrounded by guards. The first person he saw was Zoe, so he scanned her and saw fear and loathing in her biometric readouts. She might as well have been wearing a "Bigot" sign around her neck. in the space of nanoseconds, he somehow brought up her dossier, then that of her brother, Josiah, who was standing next to her. His biometrics read fear. He scanned the others and determined they were mercenaries--guns for hire--like the ones he dealt with as part of his USPF work. Then it dawned on him, he was reading their life signs. He could tell the charge state of their weapons. He could see room temperature, air pressure, humidity, current running through cables in the walls.

  "Welcome to your new life, DI Adon. Can I call you Gabe?" Zoe said. When she got no response from him, she said, "Forgive me. Status report, Stryker-1..."

  CHAPTER SIX

  "Siv, are you still with me? Sorry about the alien crack. It's just that I..." he thought to himself, assuming that she could hear him since she was inside his brain.

  "What? No, you're fine. I was just boosting your awareness. We are now talking at terabit speeds so the people outside won't notice delays."

  "I'll take your word for it. Can you give me the short version of what the hell is going on?"

  "I just skimmed your files, so there are holes. It looks like you died over two hundred years ago, but were put into cryogenic suspension. You were thawed 72-hours ago and injected with a shit-load of bacteria sized robots that re-sculptured your body. You are a cyborg, a very powerful and advanced cyborg that can change into one of three forms though a simple thought. I'm your copilot, an Alue..."

  "A Roswell gray alien. Dammit, I never believed in that shit. So, you're real. Why are you in my... whatever my secondary bridge is?"

  "I'm here to help you. Copilot, remember?"

  He looked over and saw himself reflected in a piece of polished steel. I don't look different."

  "You are in organic mode, which happens to be your normal state. As I understand things, you were in bad shape..."

  "Look, I trust you so quit dancing around the fact that I died."

  "Yes, you died saving New York and possibly the planet Earth. What do you remember?"

  "My flesh dissolving as I activated the nitrous oxide system. We hit a gasoline tanker at over 250 miles per hour. I don't know if it was the fire or the impact that killed me. All I know is the car melted and took the philogistan with it."

  "You didn't die. Your body was a wreck, but your brain refused to die. They froze you and used your body to come up with something that could neutralize philogistan. Hey, do you know a guy named Sensei?"

  "Sensei... He taught me things after I died. I was his student. He said he was training me to be a hero. I'm not a hero; I'm a cop who specializes in dealing with a special kind of badie. How long was I a Popsicle?"

  "Over two hundred years."

  "What happened to my ex and our daughter?"

  "Don't know. I'll check around when we finish this shit."

  "About this shit, as you call it, can you give me the short version?"

  "Stop. You don't know? You've been revived almost a week now, and you don't remember?"

  "I woke up right before you spoke to me. The last thing I remember was Sensei talking to me about my destiny. Suddenly, I'm here talking to an Alue."

  "That woman out there is planning to take over the League of Planetary Systems using an army of cyborgs based upon your design. To stop her, we're going to remove her access to you. Meanwhile, you and I are going to save a universe her brother destroyed. It's simple, really. Now, you were an undercover cop, weren't you?"

  He nodded. "Yes, I was."

  "Then go undercover.

  ###

  "Stryker-1 online. All systems nominal. Awaiting orders, Mother," using his best robot impersonation.

  ###

  "That works?" Siv whispered.

  "I'm a quick study," Gabe replied quietly over the internal comm system.

  ###

  Zoe walked up to Gabe and looked deep into his eyes. "Very good. New orders. Captain Lantz!"

  "Ma'am," a big merc replied.

  "Introduce Stryker-1 to your team, then move out in fifteen. Stryker-1, you will accept Captain Lantz's orders as if they were mine. Do you understand?"

  "Understood, Mother. Query."

  "Go."

  "Is this a no-kill op?" he asked while giving Lantz a once-over.

  "Explain?"

  "I am equipped for a number of operational scenarios, but all my systems remain untested. I would like to run level-2 tests on all systems required for current scenario.”

  ###

  "You watched Star Trek on TV, didn't you.”?

  "Never heard of it. I prefer watching film noir in an old theater."

  ###

  "Understood. Yes, this is a no-kill op," Zoe lied.

  He read her biometrics and caught the deception.

  "Captain, you’re on the clock. Move out!"

  "Roger that, Doctor Muntz." He pointed toward a door. "That way, cyborg."

  "Roger that... Merc," Gabe replied. He waited a beat, then smiled.

  ###

  "Boss, are you completely daft?" Siv whispered

  "Why are you whispering? They can't hear us."

  "Oh, right. So, are you daft?"

  "No. I have just informed the captain that I consider him harmless, which will make him angry. Angry people make mistakes."

  "Where did you learn that? It sounds vaguely Zen."

  "Sensei taught me a lot of things."

  "While you were dead."

  "While I was dead."

  ###

  "Funny boy. I like funny boys," Lantz said "Now, get your arse mov
ing. Starships wait for no one,"

  "Aye, aye, Captain," Gabe said, then headed to the door.

  When they and the other mercs were gone, Zoe headed to the hangar where her ship and crew were waiting. "I'm going with them. Need a ride anywhere?"

  "Yes. I planned to go to Ventos Prime when I finished here, so this is perfect. Thank you."

  "Not a problem. I know how you hate to fly commercial."

  The two walked out, leaving her staff to clean up.

  ###

  "Starship? Did he say starship?"

  "Yes, he said starship. How else do you think we can travel between planets separated by light-years."

  "We didn't have much of any space travel back in my time. I've never been in space."

  Siv said nothing, but Gabriel picked up on it.

  "What?"

  "We're not on earth. Didn't the Muntzs' dossiers mention Tralaska?"

  "I thought it was a new country.

  "No, Tralaska is a planet very far away from Earth. You're walking on it."

  Gabe stifled an urge to scream. "And we're going to a different planet?"

  "Yes, an Earth-like planet called Ventos Prime."

  "In a starship?"

  "Haven't you ever wanted to get away from it all?"

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The mercenary ship landed in the loading/unloading zone in front of the building after blanketing the area with comm jamming signals. They ran in, with guns in full display. The building's security force was no match for them. The mercs had the building secure in less than sixty seconds.

  Lantz grabbed an official looking person. "Director Meisner," he said to the tall, spindly elf, where is the adamantine-587 being stored?"

  ###

  Gabe stared at the director, never having seen an elf before. He looked around and saw every staff member sported the same tail, pointed ears, and cat-like eyes.

  "Boss, your heart rate is climbing. What's wrong?"

  "Don't you see the aliens? The director has a tail and eyes like a cat. I have a thing about cats."

  "Oh, you're a cat person?"

  "No, I have a paralyzing phobia of cats."

  "Boss, they're called elves and they used to cohabit the Earth with humans and dracos. So, you don't know about Katalans?"