“We went to the beach,” Hooper said in a sullen voice.
“So you were sightseeing,” I said. “Hoping to go for a swim, maybe take in some sun.”
“Something like that, yeah,” he said. “Then you came along.”
Lying bastard,
I thought to myself. Using satellite transmissions meant to track me, Cutter’s Intelligence operatives found the house Hooper and his friends had rented.
I said, “I want to tell you an interesting story. I found a cylindrical metal flask on the ground beside your car after I saw you collapse.”
Hooper only grunted.
“Thinking maybe you used it to hold medicine, I sent it to a lab in Washington to have it analyzed. You know, the laboratories in Washington, D.C.,…the ones that used to belong to the Unified Authority but now belong to the Enlisted Man’s Empire.
“We had three scientists analyze the contents, two were civilians…”
Hooper shifted in his bed. He snickered, and said, “Collaborators.”
“Two were civilians…natural-borns, of course. The third was from Naval Intelligence, a clone. They scanned the flask to make sure it was not explosive. Can you imagine, they thought maybe you had parked beside a landmine.” I knew he had dropped it, and he knew that I knew he had dropped it; but we still played the charade.
“It turns out that it wasn’t a mine after all. It was just a vial, just a hollow metal flask.
“Do you know what they found in that flask?” I asked. “They found chemicals. Maybe hollow isn’t the right word. It was filled with tiny chambers.”
Hooper remained silent.
“Each of those chambers had its own little lid, and all the lids were designed for a synchronous release. One opened and then the next and then the one after that. Each chamber held a gaseous substance that they released in quick succession.
“The mix included ozone and neutralized chlorine. I understand that both chemicals are highly corrosive, downright dangerous in big doses,” I said.
“Here’s the interesting part. There were still traces of that gas in the air when the scientists removed their breathing gear. It didn’t affect the two civilian scientists; but the third one, the clone, caught a whiff of it and fainted…passed right out.
“You know what else? When he woke up again he had no idea he had fainted. He sat up and stared around the room. Then he stood up and acted like nothing ever happened.”
As I told my story, I approached Hooper’s bed so that I now stood over him. The MPs remained near the door. Hooper did not look at any of us. He stared straight ahead, his eyes fixed and mechanical, and he said, “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
Location: Mars Spaceport
Date: May 1, 2519
Howard Tasman was a little old man. If he could stand, he probably would have stood a shriveled five-foot-eleven. He might have weighed 160 pounds after a big meal. His head balanced on his neck like a bucket on a broomstick, and his twiglike arms looked like they belonged on an insect. He stared up at Watson from his bed, and asked, “Who the hell is this?”
Freeman said, “The Navy sent him.”
“Can he get us out of here?” asked Tasman.
“No,” said Freeman.
“Than what good is he?” growled Tasman. “I am not saying anything, not until you get me to Earth.” His voice was as desiccated as a desert wind.
Without responding, Freeman left the room. Watson followed. He asked, “That’s Howard Tasman?”
“What’s left of him.”
“And he wants to help us? He’s on our side?”
Freeman said, “He’s not on anybody’s side. He’s out for himself.”
“Admiral Cutter said the same thing about you,” said Watson.
Freeman did not answer.
They walked into a large office. Watson assumed it was Gordon Hughes’s gubernatorial office, but he did not ask. The office had a huge window with a panoramic view of the hallway and the burned buildings on either side.
Buildings within buildings,
Watson thought as he gazed through the window at the charred ruins.
He asked, “What happened out there?”
“Spaceport Security came for Tasman a few days ago,” Freeman said.
Watson stood staring out the window, taking in the avenue that led back to the grand arcade. He asked, “It wasn’t the Mars Legion?”
“The Mars Legion was a ruse,” said Freeman. “Cutter should have figured that out by now. The shotguns and the religious fanatics were just a distraction.”
Watson asked, “A distraction from what? Who’s distracting us?” He turned from the window and studied Freeman. The man was massive. He was like an ocean with a volcano hidden in its depths, placid on the surface, violent down below.
Freeman said, “The man who designed the neural programming in the clones is lying in the next room.”
Watson said, “We arrested some men back on Earth. They all worked for Unified Authority Intelligence back before…”
“Who do you think is calling the shots in Spaceport Security?” asked Freeman.
“The Unified Authority?” asked Watson.
“What’s left of it,” said Freeman. “They got to Harris, too. You know that, right?”
“Is that really even Harris?” Watson asked. “I saw a video feed in the U.A. Archives…”
Freeman put up a hand to stop him. He said, “I wasn’t supposed to kill him. I was supposed to deliver a message. I hit him with a ‘simi.’”
“He was bleeding. You blew his chest out.”
“I hit him with a soft round. The blood came from inside the bullet. Andropov wanted him to know he wasn’t too far away to touch. He wanted Harris to know that he was still an easy target.”
Andropov, Tobias Andropov, had been the ranking member of the Linear Committee right up to the fall of the Unified Authority. An Enlisted Man’s Empire military tribunal had found him guilty of war crimes.
“The Unifieds have declared war on him again.”
Watson said, “Andropov is in jail and he’s never getting out.”
Freeman said, “Robards and St. John got away.” Jay Robards and Al St. John were also members of the Linear Committee at the time of the invasion.
“They don’t have weapons? The clones have a Navy and jets and gunships,” Watson said. He was invested in the Enlisted Man’s Empire, and he knew it. The natural-born world saw him as a collaborator. “What are they going to use? What weapon do they have?”
In a soft, low voice, Freeman said, “They have Harris.”
Watson struggled to understand Freeman, to piece together his thoughts and reasoning. One thing he realized already was that Freeman viewed conversation as a means of transferring information, not as entertainment or as a tool for establishing relationships. He did not chat, did not care how people felt or what made them happy.
Watson said, “I need to get a message to Admiral Cutter.”
“We can’t get through.”
“You got a message through,” said Watson.
“Part of a message. Mars security shut us down. Now we can’t even use walkie-talkies,” said Freeman. “We’re stuck until Riley reopens communications.”
“Riley has five thousand men. If he wants Tasman, he can do a lot more than burning down neighboring buildings and sludging airwaves,” said Watson. “If he’s working for the Unifieds, why doesn’t he march right in? You don’t have enough men to stop him?”
“The Unifieds want Tasman alive. They need him as much as we do.”
“He hasn’t told them anything?”
“He hasn’t told them everything,” said Freeman. Then he said something that caused Watson to question information he had accepted as a given. He said, “Harris doesn’t remember seeing me on the Night of the Martyrs.” Though Freeman said this as a statement, Watson had the feeling he was looking for verification.
“He didn’t see you,” said Watson. “I was there, in Seattle. He went looking for you, but he never found you; and then he was attacked.”
Freeman did not answer.
“You saw him…and they attacked him and they reprogrammed him after you saw him,” said Watson.
“Not reprogrammed. They didn’t have what they needed to reprogram him. You might say they rebooted him. They rebooted
fifteen hundred Marines that night,” said Freeman. “They only reprogrammed one man on the Night of the Martyrs.”
“But it wasn’t Harris?” asked Watson.
“Colonel Curtis Jackson.”
“Jackson?”
“Jackson volunteered Second Regiment for the tour of Mars. Jackson led his men into the trap; Harris just came along for the ride. They knew he would. Anyone who ever met him knew he would. Harris always takes point when there’s hazardous duty.”
Not saying a word, Watson walked behind a desk and dropped into the seat. His mind raced as he considered the ramifications.
Wayson Harris, a puppet, one that every Marine in the EME would happily follow. A puppet leading puppets,
he thought.
Like the lemming at the front of the herd.
“Has Cutter disbanded Second Regiment?” asked Freeman.
“No,” said Watson.
Freeman nodded. He said, “Tasman has run out the various strategies for what you could do with reprogrammed clones. The biggest threat is that they spread the reprogramming through the entire empire like a virus. Cutter disbands the Second Regiment and reassigns the infected Marines around the Corps, then they spread the virus into their new units. If some of them are assigned to ships, then the virus spreads to the Navy as well.”
Watson listened carefully, but he did not understand. “You’re saying reprogramming is contagious? That doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re thinking of natural viruses, but this one is synthetic. If you wanted to build an army, what would be the first order you’d give a reprogrammed Marine?” asked Freeman. He showed no emotion. His voice was flat, his eyes unblinking.
Watson worked the scenario in his head.
A single Marine could be a saboteur or an assassin. You could kill Cutter and Harris, maybe blow up a ship or the Pentagon and kill many.
As he gamed the possibilities, he realized that the single Marine was as vulnerable to security precautions as a natural-born. Maybe they were paranoid, but the clones at the top took security seriously.
If a lone Marine is vulnerable,
Watson reasoned,
his best bet
would be to recruit. If he did not break any rules, that one Marine could turn an entire base. When those Marines were transferred to ships, they could infect crews as well. How long would it take to turn every ship and fort?
“We have to warn Cutter,” said Watson.
Freeman said nothing.
There was no need to ask the obvious question, but Watson asked it anyway. “How?” And then he answered the question as well. He said, “Maybe we can get Riley to contact Cutter for us. Why would they still need Tasman if they had complete control of their clones?”
Much of the time, Mars ran on solar energy. Acres of solar cells glittered around the plains outside the spaceport, panels the size of Ping Pong tables mounted on rods that lowered into the ground when windstorms overran the mountains. Even in the best of times, though, the solar panels were efficient but not sufficient, which was why the spaceport housed a nuclear reactor in its bowels.
Along with the reactor, the spaceport had a massive automated electrolysis plant for generating breathable oxygen; a robotic mining operation that harvested veins of underground ice; a chemical synthesis plant for converting carbon dioxide to oxygen; and an overworked tertiary processing plant that filtered and reissued water while disposing of waste materials.
These were the guts of the spaceport, the hidden organs that travelers never saw and New Olympians were not allowed to visit. The various plants were housed in an underground level of the spaceport, a clean, large, well-lit area with concrete walls and floors, and pipes running along the ceiling.
The steel doors barring entrance into the nuclear plant reminded Watson of the rear hatch of a military transport. He paused to stare at the doors and think about the times he and Harris had traveled together in transports. He tried to inherit courage from his memories of Harris, but he was just another hungry man dreaming of food and finding no nourishment.
The halls were long, and straight, wide enough for carts and pedestrians to move in tandem. Watson heard the hum of machinery.
There should be workers,
he thought. If there were workers, and they were not clones, maybe they would help if he found himself in trouble. The question was who? Who would run the nuclear power plant? Then he remembered Cutter mentioning that the plant was now run by computers and
monitored from Earth. He wondered if the signal was still getting through, but he thought it unlikely.
During the golden days, the Port of Mars employed an army of civilian technicians. Now they were gone, replaced by robots and computers. Watson wondered what would happen to the plant once the New Olympians transferred out.
He passed the entrance of the oxygen-generation facility. There were no doors, just halls as wide as a basketball court that led down into brightly lit chambers filled with pipes and wires and cables and giant machines working in silence.
The sewage-filtration system was loud. The smell wafting out of its cave made Watson’s eyes water. He frowned and held his breath, not yet having escaped the stench when he reached the door marked,
SPACEPORT SECURITY BARRACKS
.
Forgetting the bad air, Watson looked around the hall for people. He saw no natural-borns. He saw no clones. He was alone and nervous.
In his mind, crowds and potential witnesses offered a margin of safety. If something happened to him down here, no one would see it, no one would help him…no one would know. There would be no one to report the attack except the attackers themselves.
The walls of the barracks had no windows or ornamentation. The sign beside the door said,
BARRACKS
. Watson took in the meaning more than the word. The word denoted a building meant to house soldiers; but for him, the connotation was simply, soldiers. He waited, told himself he would be safe, then took a final breath of the foul air and opened the door.