Gene Drifters: The Clone Soldier Chronicles-Book III (6 page)

In Hong Kong, everyone now used security-huts for business
transactions. Sometimes they were even visual-blocked and used for quick sex.
Hong Kong was crowded, and everyone seemed to want to do either business, or
each other.

“How much will it cost somebody?” Gimlet laughed as she
spoke, rubbing her mayo and meat-food sandwich juice-covered hands on her real,
old-fashioned blue jeans, procured at great cost from a student clothing store
on the Ginza. She was imagining some WME ruler, who’d be wondering where that
little stash of chits had gone. Dorian, the master-mind half computer of Donner
Pass, her Dad, usually hacked into multiple accounts for a “borrow” this big.
Gimlet had heard some really funny stories about that from some of the older
rebels; like that one time a certain CEO could not understand where the gold
for his daughter’s cruise wedding had gone.

“Eight hundred million gold-backers each, for twenty-two
clonies; I already cleared it with your dad. As usual he’d already estimated
the costs, and selected the happy donors to the rebels’ clone soldier
elimination society. What are you doing after your finals? Will you be coming
back home right away, or doing some partying?” Dina, spoke softly in Hopi,
looking all over for possible spy drones. She’d already fried three before she
closed the security-hut door. While they could not gain entry once locked, some
may have already infiltrated the plasmon-lined security hut before her entry.

“Roxanne is scheduled for down-time tomorrow night, here in
Tokyo. I already made reservations for us at that eel place. Do you want to
join us?” Gimlet was being polite to her mother, whom she had not seen since
fall break. She turned the corner into the low-way tram station, and the signal
momentarily burned out, until Dorian did a wave shift for them. He’d been
listening in, wanted time to talk to his daughter and wife.

“Can you hear me now?” “Yes, you just phased out for a
second. Dorian, did you want to say anything to Gim before I tune out?” Dina
was on bot-multicom so that they could all talk, as a family. It was getting to
be a rare occasion as Gimlet grew up, and was so busy at University, and now
Dina was away on yet another stupid clonie elimination clean-up.

Dina was so tired of this. Really, she’d already lost her father
Jordan, and some of her best friends in battles against these remaining pockets
of clone soldiers. They had enhanced muscles, could see in the dark, had serial
killer-modified brains, and like her, could read minds. Dina had made it her
final rebel mission to rid the world of these beasts, for the safety of
humanity, and yes, as revenge because they had killed her father.

“Dorian, I have some great news. The Stemworm Inc. guy’s
legal said they estimate only several hundred remaining clonies still running
free. I thought we got the rest the last time, at Point Barrow. But it looks
like we’re almost there.” Dina looked up and swatted a spy bot nano-drone,
careful to remove its transmitter.

“Not to worry, Dina. I saw that one and scrambled it before
it could transmit. I do not detect other drones in your security hut at present.
Hello my lovely daughter Gimlet, how have your exams been progressing? Will you
outshine all of your fellow colleagues?” Dorian did his best to use normal-speak
with his family. But, it still came out too formal. He knew this. So did Dina
and Gimlet. They tried not to laugh.

“Hi Dad, I guess I did okay. Did you get a chance to speak
to Roxanne or Eldridge about Thanksgiving?”

“Yes most certainly, and I have a shopping procurement list
for either of you. I thought that perhaps you would be able to procure
Thanksgiving dinner supplies easier in Tokyo or Hong Kong than here at the
rebel headquarters. As you know, we are rather limited here in our warehouse.
Shall I transmit to either or both of you?”

“Send it to me, Dorian, Gim’s not finished with her exams
yet, and wants to take some time off to visit with Roxanne before her east
bound tunnel haul. I’ll be heading back directly via hover, but can get the
stuff at the station markets. I can use the Narita push tunnel and send whatever
you need, directly to Eldridge.”

Dina felt a slight pang of guilt when using Eldridge’s name
with Dorian. She knew that, despite Dorian’s intense politeness to Eldridge, he
still harbored some less than happy feelings about that whole episode. Dina had
left Donner Pass, and Dorian, for five years, blaming Dorian and the rebels for
the death of her father at the hands of five clone soldiers, during the Battle
of Kyoto. She’d left him without a word, in the middle of the night, for five
years. At first, she could not think of where she’d go; then she just sort of
drifted through the desert and over the Rockies, until she found herself with
her thumb out on low-way #25 southbound for Albuquerque.

Of course Dorian had been following her on his sat-hack
system. He’d begged Eldridge, a rebel sympathizer who’d previously picked Dina
up while she was on another mission, several years prior, after the Las Vegas
Clone Games. Eldridge had been looking for Dina, as he did his usual haul with
his, then five-year-old daughter, Roxanne. He picked Dina up and drove her, for
five years. She was two months pregnant at the time, with her and Dorian’s only
child, Gimlet. He delivered Gimlet, who was named after Dina’s mother, in the
back of his cab. Roxanne thought Eldridge was the daddy. Dorian was. They all
had a convoluted history, and while it was always great on the holidays to see
Roxanne and Gimlet back together as genetically unrelated sisters, sometimes it
was difficult for Dorian and Dina, but especially for Eldridge.

“Mom, I gotta tune out. My train arrived. I’ll com you when
Roxanne gets here. Love both of you. Take care and be careful, Mom.” Gimlet
touched her arm, and her bot-com tattoo tuned out. It would stay that way until
she touched it herself, in a special sequence, having been tuned by Dorian to
respond only to her DNA.

As she turned right to walk to the train dock, at first she had
not noticed the man who followed her. Many people wouldn’t. He’d been selected
by Leo’s chief of security to appear very ordinary, to be unmemorable. He was
careful as instructed, not to follow too closely, or to be seen. But Gimlet
made him at the station entry. After all, she could read minds if the
individual was close enough. Besides, Leo had been dumb enough to send a white
guy in a black suit into the Roppongi to follow her.

Gimlet had a Mormon-ish looking follower. She thought she’d
just let him tail her and see what was up. But she had already informed her dad,
and he was also watching, from high on the mountain pass at rebel headquarters.
So Gimlet was not particularly concerned. If her dad thought she was in any
danger he’d retune one of the recon satellites to laser fry the guy.

She continued on to her last University exam, in
astro-organo-archeology, running to make it in time, in her real jeans, funky
t-shirt, and soft, black cube fighter boots. Dorian watched her on his sat-vid.
He thought she looked exactly like her mother, and she thought she would
disappear after her last final…into the Nipon party tunnel for a couple of
days.

At about the same time in bubble-stop #4, Roxanne and Rose
were attending their weekly one hour ecumenical church session, required for
all Inc. workers. Attendance was logged in via one’s employee ID tag, and
Roxanne thought it best to get it out of the way before they logged back in to
work in the morning. Their next down-time was in Tokyo, and attending one of
the Ecumenicals was a mob scene in that city. The church thing had started a
while back, when the Ecumenicals won the last election. But in a nod to
economics and the worker efficiency protocol, the Bible quotation on the
Sabbath had been massaged to include all seven days each week. What the heck,
you could select your own day to rest because it was technically almost Sunday someplace
in the solar system, at some time; right?

“Sit still Rose, we have to do this. Stop falling asleep.
We’ll be tagged by a nano-drone and made to attend the next hour’s service.”
Roxanne was sitting with Rose in the back row of the church section of the
whorehouse, in front of the coffin-filled rig-ryder sleeping quarters. Most of
the other rig-ryders, previously present in her dad’s bar, were now in
attendance, trying to stay awake, or at least not get drone tagged for repeat
attendance. Morton sat up front next to his newbie trainees, hands folded in
his lap, with a practiced look of wonderment on his seriously in need of
retirement face. He was still in his orange Inc. uniform; maybe it was all he
had to wear. The interns were taking notes on the sermon.

The section was Mathew 19:24.
“Again I tell you, it is
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to
enter the Kingdom of God
.”

The sermon rarely varied as the WEED had a vast cadre of
clergy who passed through on a never-repeating schedule, using the sermon vids
from the previous visiting cleric because it was easier. The service would be
repeated, with exactly the same format, four times each night, every night, at
every bubble stop, on every haul route, under-water and up top.

“I hear they do this 24/7 in the worker zones too,” Rose
mumbled from her place under Roxanne’s bench. “Keep it down, Rose. You’re going
to get us chit docked for non-church behavior,” Roxanne warned her co-pilot.
Dogs were not actually required to attend service, but were welcomed if they
behaved. Rose thought that was just insulting, but she remained quiet for the
duration, even during the last rousing, hand-holding send-away song.

At the completion of the service, the same exam was given…every
time. Roxanne thought she could take it in her sleep. But those interns
anguished over every sermon review question, taking way too much time, and
delaying the start of the next service, much to the chagrin of the next batch
of rig-ryders waiting outside for their turn at redemption.

“Well, thank god that’s over for another seven days. Let’s
get back to the house. I’m exhausted. We’ve got six hours until work starts
tomorrow.” Roxanne exited the hall, quickly taking the back path to their house,
with Rose close behind. They did not want to run into any horny fellow rig-ryders,
especially an un-forewarned intern. Roxanne had brought her whip, but preferred
to just avoid the situation. That run-in with the pirates had exhausted them
both.

“I’m ready for sleep. That little pirate encounter wore me
out too, Roxanne.” They crossed through the plasmon lined back alley tunnel, past
the public library archive and
24/7 Dock-in-the-Box
medical clinic, while
watching the glowing night fish peer into the bubble viewing portals lining the
plasmon walls. She remembered when she’d first asked Dorian how those walls
worked. As usual, he’d given her the scientific version. “A plasmon wall is
composed of organic
plas
ma
mon
omers, Roxanne…hence the term
plasmon. The monomer units can form and break covalent bonds in response to
pressure and oxygen tension. Thus, they expand and contract at the depth of the
tunnel rest-stops, allowing the tunnel inhabitants to go about their lives
without nitrogen bubble issues,” he had explained. Luckily, she had already
passed the advanced finals in MolBio/Plasmon Physic, so she understood most of
his explanation.

Roxanne and Rose continued walking to the back of the house.
Roxanne had a load of items on her mind that night; check the rig pulse
atomizer, deposit chits into her account, make her yearly medical exam
appointment, get her teeth cleaned. Life was not as simple as when she rode in
the back of her dad’s rig.

As they turned into the last alley leading to their small
back deck, a newbie came out of nowhere. Rose immediately went into ultra-Dober
mode, peeling back the skin around her mouth to show her entire set of chompers.
It always amazed Roxanne, how Rose could open her mouth that wide. Rose wanted
to take his face off.

“What do you want, newbie? I say the word, and my co-pilot
will cosmetically rearrange your face.” Roxanne had one hand on her whip, and
the other on Rose’s head. The minute she removed her hand from Rose’s head, the
guy would never look the same, even after regen.

“Wait, I have a bot-com message for you. Please call off
your dog. I don’t mean any disrespect, Miss Roxanne. My name is Brad Benton. I
have a message for you.”

Call off your dog? Who was this guy talking about?

“Talk fast, Brad Benton. It better be good.” Roxanne slid
her hand down to her side, to get a firmer grip on her whip. She’d heard the
line before in a bar in #2. That guy had a whip-slice scar leading from his
chin to just shy of the corner of his right eye. Roxanne never damaged the
eyes. Eye regen, like brain, was still not possible. It was meant as a
deterrent, not a wholesale job loss thing.

“I met someone who claims to know you. He said to tell you
not to drink the new batch of rig-ryder nutria-blend; he said it was poisoned.
I asked him if he meant all of it. But he was gone, immediately.” The newbie
spoke fast and held his hands over his impending boner. He kept looking at
Roxanne’s eyes. She’d forgotten to wear her sunglasses. Brad Benton was about
to lose it. He would have reached over to touch that fire red hair, were it not
for Rose’s rather apparent teeth.

“Poisoned with what? Did he say?” Roxanne pushed her
sunglasses back over her eyes, eliciting a serious sad sigh from the newbie
intern. “No, I thought maybe, you know, red peanut oragasimo juice, something
like that.” Newbie looked down at the ground. He was blushing, getting
embarrassed. Everyone knew red peanut oragasimo juice was used for what was
euphemistically referred to as a
life style enhancer
in the party
tunnels, to juice up your erotics.

“Nice try, but a no go. I have no need for erotics, Brad
Benton. That guy was probably just a crazy,” Roxanne said.