Gene Drifters: The Clone Soldier Chronicles-Book III (3 page)

                                                                                    
3

“WORKER EFFICIENCY; so, this has to do with worker
efficiency? I almost bought it from some really single-minded, kill the rig-ryder
pirates back in bubble-stop #3, and it was for that worker efficiency protocol piece
of CEO bureaucra-bull?”

Roxanne rested her boots on the desk top; the boots she’d
won from Leo Songtain in a Texas Hold’em back in grad school. She, Rose, and
her dad, Eldridge were sitting in his office, right behind the main room of the
bar and bistro. It was their private living space, and was actually a two
bedroom and two bathroom house, furnished like a real, one hundred years ago
place. For Eldridge, Rose, and Roxanne, this was home, their first and only
home. Before starting the bar, Eldridge drove the up-top hauls, with little
Roxanne growing up in the back cabin, in the living quarters of their rig. It
was cheaper, and safer for his only child. Post-pandemic North America was
pretty dangerous for about thirty years, until 43% of the total population died
off from that bioengineered flu virus.

Eldridge also ran the bubble-stop #4 hotel, the place where
the other rig-ryders slept while doing their down-time. It was really just a
large room full of food vending machines and lid-less coffins. What with the
WME
cremation only
rule, the coffin business had gone belly up. Eldridge
cleverly purchased thirty-seven premium satin-lined coffins at an auction out
in Liberal, Kansas. They now served as beds for the rig-ryders. But he had to
take off the lids. Some people didn’t feel comfortable sleeping in a closed
coffin, I guess.

The entire #4, and for that matter all the other
under-the-ocean rest stops, were encased in giant plasmon bubbles, a town/stopover
for rig-ryders, underneath the ocean floor, and used for their down-times,
while hauling freight on the Trans-Pacific Underwater Tunnel tracks. Each
bubble-stop had all the normal small town venues; store, hotel, school, and the
required WME ecumenical church, which doubled as the whore house on weekdays. The
Trans-Pacific was built as the first under-the-ocean highway, except it’s really
a low-way.

“I’ve been discussing this issue with Dorian, Roxie. None of
us knows for sure what’s going on with the #3ers. Dorian used one of his
logistic algorithms, and all he could come up with was, the pirates from #3 got
some plan to kidnap you for that bounty Leo has on you, use the gold vouchers to
buy some stocks, or take over the
Stem-wads
® traffic and levy their own
protection off-load or haul taxes. Dina thinks they want the bounty gold to buy
regen stocks in the Lanai R&R facility; you know that place where the CEOs
get their new faces?” Eldridge stood up to fetch a pot of coffee.

“What do they need stocks for?” Roxanne asked, finishing her
shark soup.

“It would give the pirates a financial cushion if robotics did
take over their jobs. They’re pissing mad about the worker productivity thing;
they’re pegged for first robotic replacement, you know. They want some security
money, I guess. That’s a best guess, if you want to call what Dorian does
guessing.”

“But, you know that’s never going to happen, Daddy. The WME
will never let non-management buy stocks in an Inc, especially R&R stocks. Nobody
but management is allowed to own Inc stocks. The #3ers should know that.” Roxanne
finished her soup, lowered those long legs to the cork floor, and took her bowl
to the sink to wash up.

“The WME won’t allow them a cut of any action, of course;
you’re right about that. The Incs never allow non-corporates to hold stocks. But
these new #3ers forgot about that last time. You remember that incident at #5?”

Eldridge was sitting behind his big oak desk, the one with an
eagle carved into it. It was rumored to be the original desk of Abraham Berman.
He was the founder and first Mayor of Limbo, the original underground rebel
city, now under ocean out in the desert near Joshua Tree. The new rebel
headquarters is now at Donner Pass, high above what Dorian calculated would be
the next ocean rise level. Dorian wanted to be sure his fellow clones and the mutants
were safe.

Dina had shipped that desk to Eldridge as a present, after
she’d left them to return to Dorian and her rebels. Eldridge was so mad at her
back then that he almost dumped it. But something about the old history pre-WME
just sorta charmed him. Now he loves that desk.

“Yeah, I remember; the recon/control satellite just closed
off each tunnel zone and flooded the offending section with seawater; very
efficient. I remember, because I was in bubble-stop #2, waiting in my rig until
it was safe to re-track. They docked me seven chits for being late on my haul
off-load even though it wasn’t my fault. There was no way to get past that
flood. I know a bunch of us rig-ryders were really pissed. But what can you do?
We’ve got no choice when it comes to Inc. decisions,” Roxanne responded, as she
sat back down and shifted her long muscular legs and booted feet back onto the
desk top. She’d finished her Fueblaster and her shark soup, the former imbibed
for essential nutrients and the latter because she still loved real food.

“That’s not the way I remember it, Roxie. You were kind of a
hero during that whole thing. I remember you put on one of your deep dive suits
and saved the lives of over 27 kids. Did you forget that?” Eldridge asked as he
starting clearing the table.

“Okay, yes well I don’t like to brag. But someone had to do
something besides sit around and complain and watch those school kids drown. By
then the ocean reached the top and those kids were just bobbing around, taking
turns trying to suck oxygen from one of the intake tubes. I tried to tell the
guards the kids were innocent, but they wouldn’t listen. It was awful.” Roxanne
had stopped eating her dinner. Thinking about that episode always made her sick
to her stomach.

“Well you saved that bunch, and they didn’t forget. You’re a
hero over in #5, if you ever want to go there, that is.” Eldridge smiled at
Roxanne. Absolutely no one wanted downtime in #5. 

    During the conversation Rose was at her food bowl, carefully
trying to pick the shark meat out of her soup. She was getting impatient with
it. She hated yampo, the GMO yam/potato Eldridge included in his shark soup,
and she was getting her nose wet in her bowl.

“Really, I hate it when you don’t just take the veggies out
for me. You know I’m a meatatarian, Roxanne,” Rose mumbled to her senior rig-ryder.

“I’m so sorry, Rose. Here, let me sort this for you.”
Roxanne removed the offending soup bowl from its tray, and scooped out the
shark meat, placing it neatly on a platter for her co-driver. “Thanks,” Rose
responded, and resumed her degustation, while Eldridge continued.

“But this time Dorian seems much more concerned with the targeted
attack on your rig. I guess some of those pirates were not human, if you catch
my drift,” Eldridge said with raised brow and a side-ways frown. Roxanne got
his drift. Non-human meant clone soldiers, and that meant a culling by Dina,
who’d made it her personal mission in life to eliminate every last clone
soldier on the planet.

“I thought the rebels killed all the clone soldiers back
during the Kyoto thing, what, about twenty years ago, right? Dina told me about
it. That’s when her dad was killed; he was killed by clone soldiers. You mean
some survived? I mean they’d have to be survivors from those old times, right? Wow,
and they’d have to be really old. The WME is strict about their no human cloning
policy now so they’d have to be from those old times, and really old. Maybe
they’re just some of those old non-security clones. Those aren’t even dangerous.”

“Dorian and Dina seem to think they are clone soldiers, the
serial killer-enhanced versions from the second set of clone experiments, left
over from that underground facility near Las Vegas. Some may have survived and
gone into hiding. They don’t age as fast as we do, so they could still appear
fairly young. He’s asked for a sample of that arm. Sorry Rose, you’ll have to
save some of your dinner for the lab work.” Eldridge looked down at Rose, who
had exquisitely cleaned her plate of shark meat, and was about to retrieve some
of that pirate meat from the cooler.

“No problem. I’ll fetch a chunk from the cooler for you
immediately, Eldridge. However, you should know that it will be contaminated
with my DNA, and perhaps Roxanne’s as well,” Rose responded as she exited the
special rear slot in the door, made only for her, or someone much shorter than
a normal human.

The piece of arm, or hand, would be flash frozen like ahi
tuna, and vacuum-tunnel shipped to a dock near Donner Pass Headquarters, after
which the outstanding rebel molecular biologists would determine if the
offending pirate meat was normal human or clonal in origin. If clone-soldier-positive,
then a rebel culling mission might be commissioned by Dorian. This could get
colorful.

“It seems like a lot of trouble if they only intend to buy
some
Stem-wad
® stocks, Dad. I’d guess they have something much bigger in
mind, like maybe controlling a major access routes near Lanai. If they
controlled the R&R access around Lanai, that robotic take-over won’t ever happen.”
Roxanne downed a piece of apricot pie in one shallow. She’d want real coffee
next.

“I’d say that’s correct, Roxie. It seems like a waste of
effort otherwise. Dorian could visit; come here himself to assess the
situation. If it’s a fall-out from the worker productivity protocol, I don’t
see what he can do. But, you know Dorian. He always surprises me; seems like he
can do some things I’d think were not possible. Plus, Dina will want to know
about the clones. You know how she feels about clone soldiers; she won’t stop
her killing campaign until they’re all dead.”

“Why aren’t Dina and Dorian coming together? They usually
visit as a pair,” Roxanne couldn’t help the snide remark.

Both she and her dad had been hurt when Dina left them, taking
Gimlet with her. After all, Dina had lived with them for five years. She had
been the love of Eldridge’s life, and Gimlet had been like Roxanne’s little
sister, back when they all ran the #25 up-top haul between Denver and Albuquerque.
It had taken the, then ten-years-old, Roxanne another ten years to forgive Dina
for running away with her sister, Gimlet, back to Donner Pass and her rebels.
Now as an adult, she understood. Gimlet was a halfsie mutant, and belonged with
her kind, and with Dorian, her real dad. And, Gimlet had been happy at Donner
Pass; that was the important thing. She was with her own.

Although right now she was in Tokyo, not Donner Pass, taking
her final University PhD exams in Physico-Mathematics. Gimlet was not returning
to rebel life after University; she planned to apply for an Inc. job in
organo-robotics with some major firm, after completing her studies. But she
would remain what they called a rebel “plant.” Roxanne would visit her in Tokyo
right after her off-load, in two days. They’d been talking about that eel
place,
Obana
, for dinner.

“Dina can’t come; she’s in Hong Kong on an away mission for
the rebels. Dorian won’t tell me what that’s about, but I would guess it has to
do with purchasing some clone soldiers from the Black Markets, from the Blacks.
Despite his prowess with sat-hacks, he’s still worried that someone will break his
codes when he hacks into those recon satellites. He still prefers direct
communication or use of the music code system for critical issues, so Dina
still has to go in person when she does those clone soldier purchases.” Eldridge
got up to prepare more coffee. It was real coffee, not synth like most. He got
it by trading his bar chits on the Blacks, but it meant they went without other
special treats.

Things weren’t the same anymore, not anywhere, not since the
rig-ryder union, the last union on the planet, lost some of its clout and
compromised with the WME on wages and off time. Now, you only got three days
off a year. You had to select from the eight universal holidays (three of the
eight) for a full twelve hours off, for each day. It was why Eldridge settled
on the place in bubble-stop #4, when he retired from driving the rig after
Roxanne inherited his underwater low-way rig-ryder hauling license. That way,
at least he could see her once a week during her required rig down-time at #4.
Of course, Dorian had provided the funds for purchase and initial licensing of
the bar and the rig. Eldridge could never have afforded it otherwise. Newbies
took out lifetime loans for their rigs; payments were deducted from each pay
check until retirement, sort of like share-croppers. Eldridge owned his
outright.

I think Dorian thought it was payment, for taking care of
Dina during her bad times; it was right after her dad was killed at that Kyoto
Battle.

“I guess you’re right, Dad. Sorry about the snide remark.
Sometimes the hurt still gets out. But, it wasn’t Dorian’s fault, not any of
it. I’m sorry. Will they be here for Thanksgiving?” Roxanne reached down and
caught the chewed-on piece of hand from Rose. She used the quick-freeze unit to
prep and seal it for the trip, coded in the destination, and off it went. It was
small enough to travel solo via the push tube to San Fran. This would be the
fastest way to send it, by Underwater Passage Shuttle, UPS, although it was
also the most expensive.

“Yep, but I won’t get turkey for dinner this year. I’ll
stick with shark or maybe some meat food. What do you think, Roxie?” Eldridge
and Roxanne both laughed. Last year, Eldridge made the mistake of buying one of
those recombinant GMO (genetically modified organism) turkeys for Thanksgiving
dinner. The growers had mistakenly fed the turkeys some farmed salmon carotene-enhanced
food, and they tasted exactly like farmed salmon, were even pink on the inside.
They’d ended up grilling that turkey as cut up steaks with a squeeze of lemon
juice.