Terrible Swift Sword
by
David Pascal
Part Two: 'Broken' (chapters 27-32)
(Note: Part Two is long, so I�m posting it on the FFML day by day in
smaller sections. Interested readers who would like to read or download
the whole of Part Two can find it at the SMJ Fanfiction Page at
http://www.geocities.com/~davidpascal/smj and get the whole piece there
� and really ought to, since it�s much more readably formatted.
Technically, none of the characters appearing in the original Saber
Marionette J series appear in TSS, though a few are referred to. Nor
(offhand) do I think there are any spoilers.
Saber Marionette J is owned and copyrighted by AnimeVillage.com * Satoru
Akahori * Hiroshi Negishi * Tsukasa Kotobuki * Kadokawa Shoten * Bandai
Visual * Sotsu Agency * TV Tokyo.)
Comments should be directed to: davidpascal@juno.com.)
27
�Can you tell me how to get �
How to get to Sesame Street � �
�You call that singing?� roared Belt. The gamblers trembled; one wet
himself audibly. �Maybe you�ll be able to hit higher notes if I tear off
your -- .�
A man in a grey uniform flew crashing in through the saloon window. He
landed hard on a table and twirled off rag-doll-like and landed almost at
Belt�s feet. She looked down at him, frowned, and had a contemplative
sip of Ol� Devil�s Hoof. That was strange � usually men flew out of
windows in the other direction when she was around. Who�d be throwing
humans at her? Had someone gotten fresh with Fall? Several loud sharp
bursts of pistol and rifle fire rang outside. Belt frowned again. She
booted the man away like a stuffed kitten into a few shaking gamblers and
strolled over to the window and looked outside. She had a swig.
A bunch of humans in blue uniforms and a bunch of humans in grey uniforms
were shooting at each other and shouting and killing several fleeing
civilian bystanders in the process.
She grinned happily. Good! thought Belt. Maybe they�d blow away the
whole town. It�d save her the trouble. She had another swig and went
back.
�Hey! Any of you buggers know �In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida� by Iron Butterfly?�
28
It took Pierce and Gauleter almost eight years. Eight years during which
New Texas gradually slid into the bloodiest civil war in the history of
the planet of Terratoo. Pierce knew absolutely nothing about it, and
cared even less. He devoted himself purely, solely, relentlessly to the
problem to exploiting Gauleiter�s nanochip. He developed the technical
arsenal of the Army of New Texas as an aside, almost without paying
attention. Guns, bombs � pah, they were easy. Programming a nanochip �
that was tough. Incredibly tough � it took Pierce nearly sixteen days to
crack it. Then the real problem arose � the hard fact that no human
being could physically do it. The problem was the solution: Pierce
dispensed with humans entirely. He let Gel do it, connecting his
scanning tunneling microscopy apparatus directly to Gel�s brain and
letting her exponentially faster processors do the honors. In almost
every non-subjective way her mental processes were superior to a human
being�s. It took Gel a day longer to connect than it took Pierce to
figure out how even so. But together they cracked it -- the chip became
programmable. It took Pierce a solid five months more to program it to
disassemble a human brain, and then a solid three to figure how to allow
it to restructure an existing marionette�s processors, and two more to
work out how all her current behavioral characteristics, all her
�memories�, could be incorporated into the new mind � the new, feeling,
human mind with its perfectly simulated human synapses.
The hardest part of the whole thing was hiding it � working it out
entirely in one�s mind, hinting at some troublesome complexity to
Gauleiter, alluding to some laboratory goal to Gel, pretending to work on
one thing while concentrating fanatically on another. Everything
cryptic, and all the answers mere flickers of prey in a wilderness of
mirrors.
But he did it. After all, he had been created to do exactly that sort of
thing.
Even harder was the next part � implementing it. It took seven year�s
ranting � seven years -- to get what was essential: a single phone line
to New Washington. One of the problems with Terratoo was the
ever-present ever-crackling clouds of plasma in the sky. No plane or
missile could fly for long without a bolt of lavender lightning striking
it down. No radio signal could definitely penetrate the air without
plasma garbling the message into static. Pierce needed to get into the
cloning facilities at New Washington and to connect to their computers.
The notion of �networking�, of computers speaking to one another through
phone lines was voodoo to the throwback world of New Washington. They
weren�t concerned about computer hackers. There weren�t any computers,
apart the priceless guarded few so painstakingly crafted by the military,
and getting the New Texan people universal phone service was not a high
wartime priority. Tilling soil and raising enough stock to eat and
rolling back the massive popular support for the Rebels was their main
concern.
Pierce finally convinced the Defense people to connect the Enclosure to
New Washington �for security reasons�. After all, if New Texas� main
military weapons development center experienced a crisis, the whole war
effort could be endangered. And too, the politicans in charge needed to
give their relatives jobs. Pierce got his phone line. Within hours an
automatic program he had concocted secretly a year before broke into the
cloning facility computers. It easily analyzed how the machines varied
DNA � he had his own nanochip model to work from -- and then figured out
exactly how to upload a virus that replicated itself into a self-erasing
subprogram that snipped an x chromosome into a y chromosome. That made
an embryo become a girl instead of a boy. Pierce knew no one would
suspect what had happened. How could they? It never had happened! The
machines were programmed to churn out healthy males, and that is all they
had ever down for two centuries. No one would even notice a female
embryo until the moment when it became unmistakable � possibly not even
until she was �born�, or rather, removed from the incubator.
Only she would never be born. That part was hard too.
It was strange � it had all been made possible by Gauleiter. Without
him, Pierce would have had no choice but to wait till the infrastructure
of Terratoo had developed sufficiently. He might have been long dead by
then. And yet, when the moment of truth came, Gauleiter simply could not
find it in himself to destroy a female. He knew it wouldn�t be death �
she would merge with Gel. Two awarenesses would melt into one greater
than either. And yet -- �a girl,� he would mutter, over his sake,
shaking his head and staring into space, � � a child.� Pierce would
baby-sit the man. God knows what he might babble. Pierce himself did
not hesitate at all.
When the moment came, he programmed the nanochip and sent it to New
Washington in a vial of fluid labeled for experimental biological
warfare. The fluid was mixed with amniotic fluid and tested on a �random
sample� of embryos in the New Washington facility � a random sample
selected deliberately by Pierce�s hacking into facility computers . It
had no effect, except on one embryo, who died. Most of its brain was
destroyed in a manner that was � bizarre. Pierce was advised to
discontinue the project, and concurred, but asked to examine the brain.
It was sent in a small plastic bag to the Enclosure. Pierce dissected
the brain, extracted the nanochip, and gave the rest to some eager-beaver
assistant to destroy.
Pierce put the �brain sample tissue� under a slide and began working.
Using anatomical data from the Mesapotamia, Pierce easily modeled the
eventual development the embryonic brain would undergo to achieve full
cognitive maturity. Pierce used all the knowledge of DNA and
neuroanatomy at his command to modify the model so that everything
regressive, everything negative, would be minimized � so the mind that
resulted would be a mind without hatred, without fear, without cruelty,
without anger. It had taken up his every waking thought for six long
years, but he had done it. He had fashioned a chip that could give a
marionette a human mind � no, not a human mind, an angel mind, a mind
from which he had excised every last possible trace of vileness and evil.
He had done it, and when he knew that he had done it, he called Gel over
to him and looked at her, and opened her shoulder vent and inserted it
with his own hand. Then he shut Gel down and re-started her.
And nothing happened.
29
�In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Bay-by,
Doncha know that I lu-uve you-oo
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Huh-ney,
Doncha know that I�ll AL-ways be true-oo � �
Belt sat in a chair in the Tasty Tip, with her legs crossed, heels up on
a table, looking into her shot glass. Fall was right. This was no fun.
These freaking humans couldn�t carry a tune in a bucket. Belt was
thinking about killing them all, purely as a personal contribution to
Art, when a bullet flew in from outside in the street and struck the
glass she was holding. It blew up and sprayed whiskey all over her face.
She blinked. Twice. Then she wiped it off her face with her palm, grit
her teeth, and ground the base of the glass, still in her hand, into very
fine dust.
�Who the hell did that?� she roared, getting to her feet.
�Wasn�t me,� said one of the gamblers, instantly.
�Wasn�t me either,� said another
�Wasn�t me!�
�AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHH!!!� cried Belt, tearing the entire bar straight out
of the floor.
Discontinuing their rendition of �In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida�, the gamblers
pressed their hands together and began whimpering and crooning �O Little
Town Of Bethlehem�.
Belt threw the entire bar through the window and into the middle of the
street, where it flew apart in a tremendous crash of splinters.
�Goddamnit, can�t a woman even get a peaceful little drink in this town?�
shouted Belt. She picked her two-gallon hat off the floor, put it on her
head, stalked across the floor, and tore the Tasty Tip�s swinging doors
off and flung them behind her, smacking a gambler in the ear and a
bushwhacker in the forehead. She cracked her knuckles, and slapped her
fist into her palm. Her eyes narrowed.
�I think this town needs a little lesson in how to be pleasant and
sociable,� she said.
Belt stepped outside. All sorts of breaking and smashing sounds
followed, plus several assorted screams, yowls, wails, and the sound of a
dog running away going �Yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi��
Several gamblers with bulging eyeballs rose gradually up from behind the
smashed overturned tables.
�Jesus!� said one.
�Holy shit!� said another.
�Uh -- she didn�t happen to leave her phone number, did she?� said a
third.
30
Pierce picked up yet another microscope and threw it into a table full of
sensitive electronic equipment. A few of which blew up, loudly. But not
as loudly, or as repeatedly, as Pierce had exploded, time and time again.
�You�re all a pack of absolute idiots! Cretins! Why the hell does
Washington send me such human garbage to work with! You should all be
shot for treason!� He ranted on, as his stock of lab assistants ducked
and weaved as they cringed their way out the laboratory door. Only Gel
and Gauleiter remained, Gauleiter sitting behind some number graphs,
wincing. He sat there, looking pained, as Pierce stalked around the
floor, grabbing and throwing things.
�That doesn�t help, you know,� said the Gartlanter, quietly.
�Who the hell asked you?� said Pierce. He threw himself into a large
upholstered chair and crossed his arms. His hands were closed fists, his
lips a tight compressed line. He stared straight ahead.
Gel was in a white laboratory coat, sitting at a table, performing
calculations. She accompanied Pierce like that everywhere, and
everywhere everyone pretended she were utterly invisible. Any laboratory
assistant who so much as approached Gel would be getting tongue-lashings
from Pierce for months, assuming he weren�t re-assigned to some
godforsaken location on Pierce�s insistence. He was Ahab Pierce, chief
scientist behind all New Texas� military technology! The Enclosure was
like a small city now � dozens of laboratories atop a bomb-proof
underground complex. Pierce got results. So Pierce�s �eccentricities�
got catered to. Pierce�s jealousy and possessiveness might be a joke �
behind his back. To his face, no one laughed.
Gel for her part played the role of Pierce�s lightning calculator,
portable database, experimental subject, and iron shield � the government
assigned �bodyguards� to Ahab, of course, but they were spies, pure and
simple, and everyone knew it. Gel had long ago reached the point where
she could tear them or anyone else human to bits, and the look of her
quiet smile inspired fear in more than one of the �helpers� Washington
assigned. They had little to do, really. Pierce had nowhere else that
he wished to go.
Pierce had never really found a way to relate to people except through
tirades or direct orders. They were all too stupid, as he endlessly
reminded them. Gauleiter had become the only, miraculous, exception. He
had learned to put up with Pierce�s tantrums, to let them blow over, like
squalls. Gel never had. She, strangely, would always react to his
outbursts by ceasing what she was doing, lifting her head, and walking
over to him and taking his hand or stroking his hair, like a child. It
invariably calmed him down again. She did so again, now. He grew quiet.
But he didn�t look at her, as he always would before, drowning his fury
quietly in the long lakes of her eyes. He couldn�t. He�d failed. He�d
failed her, and he didn�t know how.
Gauleiter understood. But he couldn�t say anything about it. Every
action was watched. Not comprehended, naturally. But watched.
Duplicity was the rule, and they had bent it, but never broken it. That
could be fatal.
Why didn�t it work? thought Pierce. Eight years. Eight years! I went
over everything, over and over, he thought. It ought to have worked. It
had to have worked. Why? He ran the programming over again in his head,
over and over and over again.
There was a knock on the laboratory door.
�Get the hell out of here and leave me alone,� called Pierce.
The door opened and a military attache from New Washington entered.
Pierce groaned. �Now what do you buffoons want?�
The attache was immaculately dressed in his blue uniform, and obviously
unused to being spoken to that way by a mere civilian. His face
reddened. He saluted. �Doctor Pierce, sir! I have been ordered to ask
you to accompany me to New Washington for a special conference with -- .�
�Oh for God�s sake -- like I don�t get enough interruptions! Take
yourself and your stupid conference and -- .�
�Sir! This invitation has been issued by the Office of the President!�
�Screw him,� said Pierce.
The soldier�s jaw dropped. Gauleiter immediately rose up. �Doctor
Pierce would be more than happy to attend. A change of pace would do him
good � ja, Doktor? You�ve never even met our great Leader face to face,
ah? Gel-chan: you would like to go out, see a little of the world, too,
ja?�
Gel�s head turned to Gauleiter. It turned back to Pierce. She smiled.
�Hai.�
He looked at her. �Would you like that, Gel-chan?�
She smiled and nodded. She smiled so beautifully, he thought. She
reached out, and stroked her hair.
It was a rainy evening in the year 2429 when Doctor Ahab Pierce and his
marionette assistant arrived in New Washington by special horse-drawn
carriage. Doctor Pierce was a noted servant of the people now -- rooms
for the Doctor and his marionette had been readied in the finest
neo-Victorian hotel in New Texas, with a view of Lake Potomac. Gel
looked at everything along the way with her usual calm quiet smile, her
eyes as always mildly aware and mildly interested, like someone very
kind, and composed, and just slightly drugged. Pierce complained about
everything.
When evening began and they were alone, he noticed Gel looking out the
window at the rain. The moonlight glinting on the raindrops seemed to
hypnotize her. Had she even seen rain before, he wondered? It never
rained in the desert that surrounded the Enclosure. He looked at her
mildly smiling face and was ashamed. He�d spent the better part of his
life inching her nearer and nearer to human awareness. He�d failed, he
thought, failed miserably � but not totally. He could not figure out why
the nanochip had failed to take, why the full awareness he�d labored so
long for didn�t come. But a kind of awareness was there � had always
been there. He�d been sulking so foully the last week he�d ignored those
traces of feeling Gel harbored inside her. He had no right to do that,
he realized. He felt suddenly ashamed.
�Would you like to go out and see the rain, G-chan?� he said.
She turned. Her smile was � as always, almost � human. She nodded.
�Hai!�
He went to the closet and pulled on his greatcoat and put her into a
neo-Victorian marionette�s long-coat with a high collar and ribbons and
ruffles, and the two of them walked out into the corridor. Their two
guards nearly fell out of the chairs they were sitting on outside his
door.
�We�re going for a walk,� he told them. �Don�t get too close.�
They headed down the long stairs. The architect had built the hotel on
the model of Tara in Gone With The Wind. They strolled down it looking
fully the part of a prosperous Southern aristocrat and his exquisite
bride. They went out into the street and Gel held her palm up. Slow
occasional raindrops fell on it, and she smiled. Pierce said nothing.
He put one arm around her waist and one in his pocket and they walked
along together. Gel looked at the raindrops and at the stars beginning
to come out. Pierce looked at the ground and ran over the
nano-equations, again and again.
He didn�t even notice when it began happening.
He was mumbling, mumbling some formulae, staring at the ground. He
didn�t see both Gel�s hands reach suddenly farther out, palms up, to
catch the drops. He didn�t see her look at the raindrops in her hands,
look at them, eyes wide with an � inexplicable expression. She reached
her hands still farther out, and took a step forward, faster, then
another, and suddenly Pierce noticed -- Gel had broken away from him.
She was running, softly and lightly, ahead in the evening rain. Pierce
was stunned. She�d never walked away from him without his having said
so. Not once in all his life.
� -- Gel?� he said.
She ran into the middle of the street. It was almost deserted at this
time of night. Corruscated faux-gold neo-Victorian street lamps cast
candle-like circles of light like a series of great gold pools, and Gel
suddenly began twirling near the center of one, her arms out, twirling
like the fourteen-year-old girl she seemed. Starlight glittered above,
and her velvet coat swirled around her ankles and her head gazed up at
the starlight. Her eyes were larger than the world.
She stopped. Her head jerked, twice. Running her fingers through her
short black hair, she suddenly clutched her head.
�Gel!� he shouted.
He ran to her. The soldier grabbed his upper sleeve. Pierce turned and
cracked him in the face with the back of his hand and ran toward Gel.
Both soldiers followed, pulling out their pistols, shouting �Halt!�
Gel ran ahead jaggedly and stumbled into a park. There was a children�s
hand-pushed merry-go-round with painted horses, and a slide, and beside
tall rustling elm-like trees there stood a tall gazebo with a dozen
steps. Gel passed lightly up half the steps and stood there. The rain
began falling harder, drops striking and spattering on the steps and on
the painted horses� heads. She looked around, with a jerk, staring.
Pierce saw her and ran to her. She stood on the gazebo steps, looking,
looking, first at one thing, then another, at the trees, the leaves, the
birds, the nights, the stars. Plasma rumbled in the dark skies, and a
white bolt lashed distantly down. She stared at it. Pierce reached the
steps.
�Gel,� he said.
She turned. She stared at him. Astonished. Astonished! Her features
were vivid with amazement and awe and shock. Pierce looked at her,
silent with worry and fear. Raindrops splashed lightly across their
faces. She reached her hand out and touched his Pierce�s cheek. � �
Ahab,� she said, staring at his face as though for the first time. And
he understood. It was the first time. She held his face in her hands
and looked at him, at him, and � tears shone in her eyes. A dozen, a
hundred, emotions seemed to flicker across her vast eyes, her trembling
lips, all of them merging, melting, into a heart-breaking smile, a smile
of � recognition. She threw her arms around Ahab and held onto him as
though he were the center of the world, her cheek against his cheek, her
lips against his ear.
�I love you,� she whispered.
Gel hugged and swayed and pressed herself against Ahab. A silent thread
of plasma lightning scrawled a brilliant soundless jagged white line down
from the sky. She began to laugh, and cry, and laugh, and kissed Ahab�s
face, over and over and over. The rumbling thunder crashed like foam
across shore. Ahab held her close, hanging on her like a sailor on a
storm-tossed mast, his eyes shut, lost in the one he loved, laughing,
shaking. It had worked. It had worked! �I love you, I love you,� she
repeated over and over and over. They looked at one another, on the
steps of the gazebo, in the warm falling rain. They held another like
Eternity held time.
Eventually they let go of each other. The guards started coughing and
issuing stupid commands. Pierce and Gel laughed. They laughed and
laughed. They walked hand in hand as the guards escorted Doctor Pierce
and his marionette back to the hotel. The guards� eyes looked at Gel�s
with spooky puzzled disquiet � no marionette in the world acted like
that. Science, hell � they�d been witnesses to some strange black
magic. The guards were glad when the marionette and her black magician
were behind the locked doors of their hotel room. Pierce and Gel were
glad too. They made love immediately and repeatedly, as long as Pierce�s
merely human physiology could endure it, and then simply lay there, not
making a sound till the dawn rose and sunlight streamed in through the
window. Pierce smiled at it. He felt as though another, greater
sunlight was overflowing inside him, radiating out of his heart, touching
everything around him, everything that was or ever would be. He and Gel
had stumbled onto some incommunicable secret, some pure underlying good
that had always been there and that he had never noticed, never even
suspected. And yet it was always there � always everywhere. Everything,
everywhere, good and right. A light enveloped them both. He looked out
of the window at the infinite blue sky. He wanted to thank all of
existence for leading to this moment.
There was a knock on the door. It seemed infinitely far away. It
persisted. And eventually Pierce got up and put on his bathrobe and
opened the door. The two guards from last night stood there, and two
other guards now stood beside them. Pierce needed to get ready. It was
time to see the President. Pierce seemed to look down on them from high
clouds, like a disembodied spirit. He smiled. �Of course,� he said.
�Please give us a few moments, gentlemen.� He smiled again and shut the
door.
They hammered again after a half hour. Pierce opened the door. He and
Gel came out, dressed to see the President. �Shall we go, gentlemen?� he
said.
They took a slow carriage down Pennsylvania Avenue. The guards eyed the
crowds. There were streams of men in the streets, angry and shouting. A
few people in rags ran beside the coach, and were caught and dragged away
by police. Somewhere in the distance was a dim explosion of cannon fire.
Pierce looked at Gel and noticed nothing else.
They passed a guard post and a gate, and there the coach stopped.
�Doctor Pierce?� said one of the guards. �I�m afraid we can�t allow the
marionette to get close to the President. She�s dangerous, as you know.�
Pierce looked at her. He laughed. Dangerous. What fools, he
thought�what fools. �We�ll have to keep her at a holding area during
your discussion with the President. Sir? Do you understand what we�re
saying?�
�Do you mind, darling?� Pierce asked Gel.
She smiled and shook her head.
�I won�t be long,� he said.
She threw her arms around him and kissed him. Her eyes glistened. The
guards stared, startled.
�I won�t be long,� he said.
Gel looked at him, nodding.
He kissed her hands, and looked at the guards. Pierce along with one
guard disembarked from the coach. The coachman flicked his rein. The
chevies pulling it whinied it pulled away. Gel looked out at him, her
eyes bright, her small hand raised in farewell. He raised his hand, and
waved. He watched her go.
�Doctor?� said the guard. The guard held open the door to another
specially prepared bullet-proof coach that had been brought up. Pierce
stepped in.
The carriage conveying Pierce moved along for ten minutes or so, and then
Pierce and the guard got out, and the guard passed Pierce to four highly
decorated blue-uniformed Union troops. The Union troops escorted Pierce
up the steps of the White House. They entered a door and passed down a
few corridors and took a creaking open-carriage elevator to a windowless
room in the sub-basement. Pierce was left there alone. He sat in a
chair, his hands in his lap, his eyes closed, thinking only of Gel. Only
of Gel. Gratitude, happiness, peace, permeated every cell of his body.
He shook his head with joy.
The door opened and there was the creak of footsteps. Pierce didn�t
care. He couldn�t be bothered to open his eyes. His closed eyes saw
only the expression on Gel�s face. What else was there in the world to
see?
�Doctor William Ahab Pierce?� said a sharp military voice.
Pierce nodded. He opened his eyes. There were two soldiers standing in
front of him. They were holding baseball bats. Pierce looked at them,
puzzled. �Gentlemen?�
The first soldier slammed the bat down on Pierce�s collarbone, snapping
it in half. The second soldier�s bat smashed into Pierce�s left arm. It
fractured it in three places and knocked Pierce to the floor like a sack
of stones. Pierce looked up and saw both bats smashing down on him, over
and over, again and again and again. A tsunami of pain mixed seamlessly
into pure blackness.
After several more minutes of smashing Dr. William Ahab Pierce into pulp,
the guards pulled Pierce�s body up by the collar and pulled him out into
the corridor and dragged him to the fourth door down. It opened onto a
set of prison cells, behind which sat several variety of political
offenders. The second guard opened a cell in which several starved
ghoulish figures sat. They threw Pierce inside.
�Don�t none of you break his skull,� said the first guard. �You got
that? Any brain damage and we�ll kill every last one of you. We don�t
care what the hell you do with the rest of him. Touch the skull or kill
him, and you�re all dead. Understood?�
The guards locked the bars shut. The inmates fell on Pierce like rats,
tearing away at his shoes, his cufflinks, his clothes.
31
Twenty-two years later, Billy ran around the corner of Grigg�s General
Store, stepped on a baseball, and flew up in the air and down on his ass.
Fall went �eek� and started pulling him up at once. Two six-year-old
boys with baseball bats and caps hid behind a barrel watching the
shooting, till one of them turned his head and spotted Fall helping a
dazed Billy up. The boy�s jaw dropped. He nudged his friend in the ribs
with his elbow, and they both stared, mouths agape, at Fall�s chest.
�Jiminy Cricket! Do all that belong to you personally, Mister?� said the
freckled one.
�Dang, why ain�t you scamps at home studying the Good Book?� said Billy,
rubbing his sore backside. �Your Poppas ought to paddle your fannies,
you could get murdered to death out here!�
�Aw -- gunfire�s funky!�
�Yeah!�
�Dang kids�Fall! Uhh � golly � Fall: put a stop to all this shootin�!�
�OK!� She crouched, frowned, and prepared to spring. She stopped and
stood up straighten again. �How?�
�Well � bust up their shootin� irons so they cain�t shoot! But don�t
hurt nobody. Or get yourself hurt neither!�
Fall scratched her head and looked at Billy with wonderfully large eyes.
�Those are stringent parameters.� She re-crouched. �But � OK!�
She sprang into the air like a diver bounding gracefully off a board and
landed next to a soldier in a blue uniform and pulled the rifle out of
his hand. She skillfully tied it into a sailor�s knot. She handed it
back, smiling gaily. �Sorry, Mr. Soldier,� she said, and flit robin-like
up into the air again, and down onto the next soldier, repeating the
process.
Down the street Billy saw a tall figure in a grey two-gallon hat and a
dust-beaten grey ankle-length chevy-fur coat. A stray bullet to the head
blew the hat away, and wavelets of long blue-black hair began blowing in
the rising wind. It was Belt, looking at the goings-on around her with
supreme contempt.
�Belt!� he would have yelled � except that two soldiers suddenly appeared
forty feet in front of him, blocking his view. One carried some long
weird pipe, painted all brown and green, and as he stopped and knelt and
pointed it at Belt, Billy saw the second man put a long metal projectile
in it. And when he saw it he hollared. �It�s a missile launcher! Belt!
Run!�
However, Belt had become a trifle peeved at having her hat shot off like
that, and so, snarling, she had grabbed a tethered chevy by its nuts and
tossed it screeching at the offending second-floor rifleman, reins,
hitching post and all. The man with the missile launcher gauged her
position, set the cross-hairs for her back, and steadied himself.
Billy looked for Fall. She�d chased a soldier who wouldn�t give up his
rifle into a barber shop; Billy couldn�t see her. He grabbed the boys�
baseball bat. �Hey! That�s mine!� they both yowling. Billy grabbed the
ball in the street, closed one eye, tossed the ball up and smacked it.
It flew like a bullet forty feet and smacked the man holding the missile
launcher square in the back of the head. He knelt there for a moment
without reaction. Then he plopped backwards into the street in the dust,
arms straight out.
�Yahoo!� cried Billy.
The missile launcher fell backwards along with the soldier, and when the
rear opening hit the ground at about an eighty degree angle, it went
BDDOOOMM! and with a photoflash-like burst accompanied with a vast burp
of smoke, the missile flew out and straight up into the air with an
incredibly piercing shrieking whine. Nearly all the scrapping in the
street paused to look at it. It reached its peak in about ten seconds,
hovered, and then began to careen back down.
Toward Belt. She eyed it with an expression of profound contempt.
Watching it carefully, she took three steps backwards; one to the left;
then one more step back. And stood perfectly still as it zeroed down
directly toward the center of her eyes.
At that moment Gabriel V. McCabe � having just broken a bottle of Wild
Dog over the head of the Bluebelly who�d jumped all over him the moment
he�d stepped out of the livery stable � grabbed the Blue�s six-shooter
and stepped back out of Houston Hubert�s Haberdashery, where the two had
rolled while tossing punches. McCabe stood and looked around,
six-shooter in one hand, and experimental doll-killer in the other. And
there she was. Belt . Not ten feet away. Right in front of him. The
high wind was making her coat flap around her, and he could see the curve
of her breasts. He barely managed to think to himself, Damn, that insane
bitch has the finest-looking hooters in the history of all New Texas,
when a swelling whistling screech penetrated his distraction, and he saw
the arc of the missile careening straight down. He screamed �Incoming!�
and threw himself across the street and into Belt, to knock her out of
the way.
There was a loud clunk as his head hit her hip. Kind of like a man�s
head ought to sound if he rammed it at top speed into the side of a cast
iron lamp post. McCabe slid quietly down her leg and lay in a bundle at
her feet, one nostril hooked on her spurs. Belt took no notice. She
stared up at the missile. She sneered at it. A low growl came from her
throat. The screech of the falling missile filled the street. Everyone
hit the dirt or took cover. It hurtled down straight at her face � a
hundred feet � fifty � twenty � ten � five four threetwooneZERO �
32
Two days later a needle injection woke Ahab Pierce again. Despite it, he
blacked out twice again by the time two new armed guards dragged his
naked body by the arms down a long exquisitely decorated underground
corridor and into an elevator of Edwardian elegance. Once inside, one of
the blue-clad military guards turned Pierce around and pressed his face
into the wall while the second removed a medical syringe containing
further stimulant and made a second injection into Pierce�s left buttock.
Pierce took it without comment. Pain was his universe, and this new
star in it was only one among thousands.
They turned him around again and pressed a topmost button marked with a
gold Texan star. The elevator rose.
The doors opened. The guards brought Ahab Pierce out into a room of
baronial splendor. The walls were covered in red velour and silk drapes
. At the far end stood a long gleaming desk with a variety of blinking
telecommunication devices and a flag of New Texas on either side; behind
it a glittering panoramic expanse of New Washington at night spread out
through a wall of bulletproof glass. To the side two elegant expensive
black Rotweiler in a gemmed spike collar tore ravenously into chunks of
fresh red meat in a large blue dog bowl. Between the glass panorama and
the desk sat a large strong flat-nosed square-headed man in an expensive
suit smoking a cigar between his thick lips. Like the room itself, he
radiated power. The guards dragged the stumbling, half-collapsing Pierce
sixty feet across the plush carpeting till he stood naked in front of the
desk, in the center of a emblem of an Eagle clutching bolts of lightning
in its claws.
The man at the desk removed the cigar from his lips and pointed to Pierce
with it. �Can he stand up?�
�Yes sir I believe so sir!�
�Good. You two wait outside.�
�Sir yes sir!� said the guards, letting go of Pierce�s arms. He seemed
to wilt over almost at once. But the new injection began to take effect.
The pain was there, howling in his muscles and bones, but at a strange
distant angle to his consciousness, which was becoming breath-takingly
clear, sharp, and not quite sane. His leg, fractured in three places
glittered with pain as though with Christmas decorations. He tried to
stand up straight on it. He failed, and stood half-curled over in a sort
of bow.
The man with the cigar took a drag and studied him. Pierce�s skin was
covered with long black and blue welts. His legs were covered with dried
blood and the left leg was swelling up like a balloon. His left arm was
broken and all the fingers of both his hands were broken too. His right
nipple had been bitten off. Red stripes of blood from it stretched down
like skeletal fingers along his side and were turning brown and flaking.
His nose was smashed flat. One ear was half bitten off and the other was
swelling into an eventual purplish cauliflower shape. Most of his teeth
were smashed out. His eyes were so badly bruised the raspberry-color
swelling around them made the openings minimalist slits. He breathed in
short catches, each sandpaper gasp a knife twisting between cracked ribs.
Pierce wanted to straighten up, but he could only manage to half-crouch,
half-twist, like a foetal chimp held up by an invisible puppet-master�s
strings. The man with the cigar opened his mouth and blew out a cool
blue ribbon of smoke. He had a large nose and thick lips and pale yellow
hair.
�I trust you had a pleasant evening, Doctor Pierce,� said President Joy.
Pierce�s lips tried to form words. They simply couldn�t. They could
not.
Joy placed his cigar on a massive glass ashtray on his desk, and
approached him. He put out a huge hand and grasped Pierce�s hair in a
bunch. It felt like someone cutting into Pierce�s skull with a chainsaw.
The O of his largely toothless mouth gurgled with pain.
�You know, for someone specifically designed for intelligence,� said Joy,
�you really are remarkably stupid. Remarkably stupid.�
�Wh � ww -- .�
Joy slapped him across the face with the back of his hand.
�You speak when you�re spoken to. Understand?�
Pierce�s blue swollen eyes peered uncomprehending at Joy.
�People like you,� said Joy, his anger rising, �people like you make me
so goddamned mad!� He slapped Pierce again. �I made you! I gave you
life! The only reason you�re alive at all, the only reason any one of
you are alive is because I made it so. Every last one of you in New Texas
exists only because I signed a piece of paper giving the order to make
them exist. Because doctors took one of my cells and twisted my
chromosomes so that they could make all of you what you are. Flesh of my
flesh, bone of my bone. I gave you all life, and yet when have I have to
take it away because you misuse it, you whine.� Joy snorted. �Fella --
I consider that darned ungrateful. And you, you most of all � I treated
you better than any of them, I treated you special. I had you fed,
raised, clothed, housed, trained, educated, I gave you laboratories and
instruments and assistants. And what do I get back? Treachery!� roared
Joy, slapping Pierce as hard across the face as he could. �Treason!� He
slapped the other side of Pierce�s face, spraying drops of blood on the
eagle below. �Disobedience!� He struck Pierce in the face with his fist
so hard that Pierce�s hair slipped out of his grasp, and Pierce fell
sprawling over the floor.
Pierce lay there, floating in some liquid nightmare world, gurgling. Joy
stood over him. And spit. It struck Pierce�s cheek and oozed down to
his chin.
Joy shut his eyes. He sighed. �I just don�t know,� he said, returning
to his Presidential desk and retrieving his cigar. �I just don�t know.�
He drew a few puffs and blew them out, watching moonlight glisten on the
deep blue Potomac landscape. There were dim sounds in the distance.
Cannon? Gunfire? Joy pursed his lips and knocked some ash into his
ashtray.
He looked at Pierce. �You clones. You all think so damned much of
yourselves. Sometimes you need a good kick in the ass, to get your
priorities straight.� Contempt curled his lip. �Intelligence tells me
you don�t believe in God, Pierce. Well, you�re wrong. There is a God.
It�s me. I gave you life, and I can take it away any moment I please. I
can make your life Heaven or Hell with a snap of my fingers. I command
-- and you kneel and obey. Or else you cease to exist. Understand?
You�re nothing, Pierce. A clone. A copy. Replacable. I could erase you
and make an exact duplicate of you tomorrow. By God, I ought to -- .�
The distant sound of cannon rumbled again. Joy�s eyes looked in that
direction. He swore under his breath.
�I just don�t happen to find it convenient, however. It takes time to
train a man. A specialist. I�m not a patient man. So � against my
better judgement � I may let you live. For a while.�
Joy rubbed his jaw.
The injection began reaching its peak. Pierce felt like waves of cool
water were streaming over his body, numbing the pain winding through
every pore. The light in the room seemed to be brightening, the angles
of everything grew sharper and clearer. He could move his arms and his
jaw. He lifted himself up, slightly, and tried to form words.
�Wh � why?�
Joy snapped out of his reveries, and noticed him.
�Why what?�
�Why � why�m I. Being. P-punished.�
� �Punished�?� said Joy, with a snort. �You deserve to be executed --
doctor. You threatened the structure of this whole world. My world. My
vision!�
�H � how?�
�You cloned a little girl.�
Pierce looked up, blinking.
Joy shook his head, his face reddening with anger. �Don�t bother denying
it. We know all about it. Oh you did a brilliant job, Pierce.
Brilliant. Even we haven�t figured out all the details yet. We wouldn�t
have got you at all if it wasn�t for one of your lab assistants examining
that embryo sent down to you from the main Cloning Facilities. One of
your hero-worshippers. He wanted to know what the Great Ahab Pierce was
up to, and he was too damned scared of you to ask. Scared of you,� said
Joy, with a cold sneer. �When he checked the brat�s cells under a
microscope he thought it was some new breakthrough of yours. A girl.
Another miracle from the Great Ahab Pierce! He contacted New Washington
at once. As though we�d announce a holiday or something. We cut his
throat within the hour and got hold of the remaining cell samples
immediately. And incinerated them. We still don�t know which of your
lab assistants at the Enclosure helped you. Or who you got to work for
you at the Cloning Facilities. It doesn�t matter. We�ve already killed
them all. They�re replaceable. Even more replaceable than you.�
Pierce shook his head. �W � why?� His lips moved stiffly, but they
moved. �I � don�t understand.�
�Don�t deny it, you liar!� shouted Joy.
Pierce shook his head. �I � don�t. But � a little girl? � how does that
�threaten New � New Texas? Or you? What�s wrong with � with girls?�
�I don�t like girls,� said Joy. He took a deep puff on his cigar. A
curling blue cloud wound sprawling out of his mouth. �I like boys.�
Pierce laughed. From sheer amazement. �You � you like boys � is that
what this is -- all about? Is that what this -- world is all about?�
�Of course not,� said Joy, quietly. �What this world is all about is a
new start for mankind. A new beginning. A new equality. You don�t
realize it. You don�t realize what a great opportunity mankind was
given. I � a trained sociologist -- didn�t realize it myself for nearly
fifty years.� Joy looked out at the vast New Texas landcape outside his
window. He crossed his arms.
�It was hard, Pierce, at first. Six men and a smashed wreck of escape
ship. Just surviving, just not going insane and murdering each other,
was hard. But then the cloning started. There were people. A society.
And we realized, all six of us, that we had a society to shape. A whole
new society, from scratch. You � specialized clones like you, all you do
is stick your nose into books of numbers and statistics. You don�t read
history. Sociologists know history. Rulers know it. Know it
intimately. You know what human history is all about, Doctor? War and
blood and slavery and inequality and horror. But here � suddenly � we
had a chance to design a new society. From scratch. An entirely new
society. A society planned from the very beginning. Each citizen
designed to serve his place in the social mechanism. Each man filling
the necessary social slot. � �Women�,� said Joy in disgust. �We�ve
always been able to clone �women�,� said Joy.
� � then � why -- ?�
�Why didn�t we? Because we didn�t want any. We didn�t need any! I�m
not a �New Texan�, Doctor. I�m an American. I�m the last American. The
last survivor of a society dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created equal. It was a great proposition, Doctor. A noble proposition.
There was only one problem. All men weren�t created equal. They were
created at random by blind mindless accident. Some were black and some
were white and some were smart and some were dumb and some were men and
some were women. But here, here on Terratoo � all men are created equal.
Because I make them equal. No more blacks. No more Indians. No more
eggheads or retards or quadriplegics or Jews. No more women. All men,
created equal -- in test tubes. Because I create them men and I create
them equal. One nation. One people. It�s the logical conclusion of our
entire history. New Texas is what America had to become.� Joy gazed out
at Lake Potomac. � �Women��,� he said, �They were doomed from the
moment genetics became an element of statecraft�spreading their legs�
fornicating� spreading and mixing genes at random�spreading genetic
disorder�social disorder!��
�Faggot,� whispered Pierce.
Joy�s eyebrow rose, and for the first time a mildly amused chuckle issued
out of his throat. He knocked a bit of ash off his cigar. �Well, I
don�t deny it. And who knows, perhaps that made my decision easier.
When you don�t have any particular need for women, you don�t really miss
them. But no, Doctor � I wasn�t moved by personal considerations. I was
motivated by years of study. Years of looking into the horror and
brutality of human history. Slavery, poverty, racism, violence �
endless, constant violence � I saw the chance to make a new beginning,
here on this world. With our ability to clone, with our marionettes, we
could finally realize the noblest revolutionary dreams � liberty,
equality, fraternity -- .�
�Liberty?� Pierce managed a sick laugh. �What �liberty�?�
�Don�t get smart, Pierce. I�m not the tyrant you think I am. I give the
people of New Texas one hell of a lot of liberty. I don�t impose my
views on them. I don�t even impose my preferences. You want to stick
your prick into something that walks around with tits like a cow, fine �
we�ve got marionettes. You want to work off your temper, you want to
hurt someone, rape someone, exploit someone, enslave someone? That�s
fine too -- we�ve got marionettes. Man�s baser instincts used to fall on
the weak. No more. This society is a paradise, Doctor, a paradise. No
racism, no sexism -- .�
�Because you eliminated all the other races and sexes.�
�You�ll admit the solution has a certain elegance.�
�You�re insane.�
�Maybe.� He tapped the ash from his cigar into a large glass ashtray.
�And maybe not. When you�re designing a society, Dr. Pierce, you have to
ask yourself whether you want order or whether you want chaos. If you
want order, that means you want uniformity, and the will and the means to
impose it. You may call that madness. Thanks to that �madness�, New
Texas has begun the colonization of an entire planet and done so in peace
for well over two hundred years. I see no reason to change that policy
now. Why should I? I�ve created every person living here out of my own
flesh and blood. I�ve given them life. I feel I have the right to shape
it, to the best of my knowledge and abilities. I don�t call that
madness. What you choose to call it doesn�t matter. What matters is
that, in this nation, what I say goes. This country is what I want it to
be, and everyone in it does what I want them to do. Or else they cease
to exist.�
Cannon fire rumbled in the distance. Pierce looked out the window with a
grin. �Not everybody � does what you � want them to do.�
Joy frowned. He looked out through the great glass window. �No. They
don�t. And I�m getting sick of it. I�ve been generous, Pierce. I�ve
taken it easy. But these � disobedient brats -- just won�t stop. They
just won�t let up. Well, I�m sick of �making concessions� and �making
allowances�. Listen to them � rebelling even here. Rebelling within
earshot of me. Me! Threatening my society. My creation. They need to
get slapped down. And I need something to slap them down with. I need
military technology. All the Southern Territories have are pistols and
rifles and cavalries. They can�t stand up to tanks. To missiles. A row
of saber marionettes could slice their lines into ribbons. I need those
things. I need someone to make those things. You as an individual mean
nothing to me, Pierce. I could kill you and clone you and have your
duplicate follow up on your work in ten or fifteen years time. But I
don�t want to wait ten or fifteen years. My enemies � the enemies of New
Texas -- won�t wait ten or fifteen years. No. You�re going to make my
Armies the most powerful, the most bloody, the most feared in the world.
We�ll clean the rats off the land so completely no one will ever dare
lift his voice against the new order again. You�ll make the machines to
do it. To stop them once and forever.�
�No,� said Pierce.
�What was that?� said Joy.
�No,� said Pierce.
Joy smiled. He walked over to Pierce and looked down at him. He
squatted down and chuckled. �You just don�t get it, do you?�
Joy whistled. The gleaming black Rotweiler�s ears perked up. It
scampered over to Joy�s side instantly. Joy petted it.
�This is Buffy,� said Joy. �Say hello to Dr. Pierce, Buffy honey,� said
Joy.
The Rotweiler nose dove at Pierce�s face. He flinched instinctively.
Its long wet tongue lashed out and dragged itself up his cheek over and
over. Joy walked over to Buffy�s doggie bowl and brought it back. He
knelt beside Pierce again.
�Don�t be scared. Buffy won�t hurt you,� said Joy. �She�s all full up.
Aren�t you, Buffy? See?� Joy held the bowl in front of Pierce�s face.
Pierce stared at the chunks of meat � and � something was funny about it.
There were chunks of something else in the bowl. Something � squirmy.
And were those � teeth?
�What�s the matter, Dr. Pierce? Don�t you recognize your colleague � Dr.
Gauleiter?�
Pierce vomited. The Rotweiler drew its head back, puzzled, and sniffed
at it.
�Feeling like helping our Glorious Republic now?�
�No,� said Pierce, fiercely. �No. No. No!�
Joy�s lips clamped together. Joy�s hair fell in thin strands across his
sweaty forehead. He got up again, cursing, and walked over to his desk
and pulled open his desk drawer. He reached in and pulled out a handful
of circuits and wiring and strode back to Pierce. He shoved it in
Pierce�s face. �And how about now, dammit!� he shouted. �How about
now?�
Pierce looked at the tangle of wires in confusion. Wires? What -- ?
Then he saw the outlines of one brace of broken circuitry. It was a
maiden circuit. It was �
�Gel!� he screamed.
Joy dashed the broken circuitry on the floor in front of Pierce�s face
and stamped his foot down on it, hard, over and over.
�No!�
Joy stopped, and instead kicked Pierce in the face as hard as he could.
Pierce head shot back, and a thousand lights permeated it. Joy knelt
down and grabbed him by his hair. �Mr. �IQ�,� said Joy, through the
teeth clenched over his cigar. �Mr. �Genius�. You�re so smart, so very
damned smart. Smarter than me, huh? Smart doesn�t mean anything, smart
doesn�t mean shit. The only thing that means anything in this world is
power. Power! I�ve got it, and you�ve got nothing. Do you hear me?
Nothing.� Joy took his cigar out of his mouth and rubbed the lit end
into Pierce�s cheek. Pierce screamed.
�And you know why you�re nothing, Pierce? You know why you�re nothing?
Because you�re weak. You�re weak! And you know why you�re weak? Because
of that stupid doll. You �love� her, don�t you? You �love� her so
damned much! You don�t care about us �apes�, us �morons�, no, you just
want stick your thing in your stupid little doll. Well, boy, if you want
to live in New Texas you got to learn to make deals. Deals! You want to
put your little doll back together again? Think you can do it? Fine.
I�ll give you all the King�s horses and all the King�s men, and you can
screw your little friend back together again. I don�t give a damn what
you do in your goddamn spare time. But you got to give me what I want --
the weapons I need to rule this country. To rule this world! It�s that
simple.�
Pierce lay there, staring at the smashed maiden circuit on the carpeting.
�Say yes, she lives. Say no, she dies. It�s that simple.�
Pierce wept, wept from the very depths of his soul.
�Say yes.�
Pierce said nothing.
Joy�s foot stamped down on the maiden circuit. �Say yes. Say yes.�
Pierce�s head twitched. A nod.
Joy watched Pierce�s cracked lips part, and whisper �Yes�.
Joy straightened, breathing a bit hard. He padded down the line of his
rather elegant suit. He glanced at his cigar. It was growing dim. He
took a lighter out of his pocket and re-lit it. He took a deep breath
and looked down at the twisted naked figure on the carpeting.
�Glad to have you back on the team, Pierce,� said Joy. He pushed a
button on a small slim remote in his pocket. The two guards appeared
instantly. Joy indicated Pierce�s gnarled form on the floor. �Take this
pice of shit out of here and clean him up,� said Joy, �and give him that
metal crap on the floor once it�s done. Provided -- � The guards
stopped, holding Pierce half up off the floor. � -- he remembers to say
�please� and �thank you�. That�s all.�
The guards saluted and dragged Pierce up off the carpeting and through
the door, shutting it behind them. Joy watched the door for a moment,
and then looked at the pile of circuits on the floor. He brought his
foot down on it again, and ground his heel till he heard some part of it
somewhere snap. He kicked it away.
Then he went over to the great bay window and looked out over Lake
Potomac. He thought about the meetings scheduled tomorrow with the
General Staff and the Joint Chiefs and the Intelligence services and the
Internal Security and even those scum, the Press. He forgot about
William Ahab Pierce completely.
*