Piers Anthony: Total Recall

Then, with a roar both vocal and structural, he ripped the right armrest from the chair! It hung on his forearm like an unwieldy splint. He was breaking free!

Immediately he smashed the IV out of his other hand, stopping the sedative. With one hand partly free he could—

The doctor rushed over to restrain him. Quaid swung the armrest like a clumsy weapon and drove a long, exposed bolt through the doctor’s throat.

The assistants converged. One grabbed Quaid’s forearm. Quaid curled him into a one-harmed hug and snapped his neck.

Now he had a moment to help himself. He lifted the helmet from his head. That took care of the implanting process! He felt an awful headache as it went, as if wires were being ripped from his brain; then it was over.

Another assistant, behind Quaid, grabbed his wrist. Quaid grabbed the man’s hair and pulled him brutally forward over his shoulder. The head landed between his knees. He snapped his knees together, putting pressure on the skull as if it were a walnut in a nutcracker. The man screamed and collapsed.

Quaid reached over and released the bracket over his left wrist. Now both arms were free. He saw Melina still fighting her brainwashing. “Hold on!” he cried.

Three more assistants converged on Quaid, grabbing his arms. Yet another assistant attacked with a long metal pole. Quaid pulled one man in front of him, like a shield. The pole plunged through his eye. That was all for him. The others, appalled, froze for a moment. In that moment, Quaid reached down and unshackled one ankle.

Immediately he kicked the assistant closing in before him in the crotch; he remembered exactly what that felt like, from Lori’s kick. The man fell aside.

Quaid pushed himself up and stood. One leg was still immobilized, but he couldn’t take time to get it loose. Two more assistants were after him, baiting him like a bear, using the pole and a fireaxe. Quaid dodged the swing of the axe, grabbed the pole, then bent quickly to unfasten the last ankle bracket. The fireaxe came swinging down on him, and he spun away just in time.

Now fully free, Quaid impaled the assistant who had wielded the pole with his own weapon. Then he went to pull the helmet off Melina.

The remaining assistant did what he should have done at the outset: he activated the alarm and ran for the door. Quaid leaped after him, caught him, and accelerated him face first into the door. The man’s nose left a bloody streak on the door as he slid down, unconscious. Too bad it wasn’t Richter, who deserved a return tap on the snoot. Not that it could make the man any uglier than he was.

Quaid returned to Melina and started releasing the shackles on her arms and legs. “Are you all right?”

She nodded.

That wasn’t sufficient. She had been under the treatment longer than he. “Are you still you?”

She considered. “I’m not sure, dear,” she said in a perfectly docile manner. “What do you think?”

Quaid was aghast. Then she smiled. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she snapped.

That irritation was music to his ears! He flipped the last buckle. She stepped out of the chair, grabbed the axe embedded in the remains of Quaid’s chair, and ran for the door.

They charged out of the lab. Alarms were screaming. Two soldiers rounded a corner. Melina swung her axe into one soldier’s sternum. Quaid swung his pole against the side of the other’s head. Two down.

They grabbed the soldiers’ guns, ran to the elevator landing, and pressed the call button. Quaid doubted that it could be as easy as just catching the elevator down, but neither could they afford to ignore it.

Ding! The elevator was going up. It stopped, the doors opened—and there were a dozen soldiers inside.

Quaid blasted away with his gun, hosing them down. Ding! The elevator doors closed on the mess.

The other elevator arrived. Ding! Going down. The doors opened. This one was empty. It seemed that even elevators learned from experience! They hopped in.

Quaid turned to Melina as the elevator descended. “In case we don’t get another chance to talk, I want you to know that I—no matter what I may have been before—”

She stepped into him and kissed him. “I know,” she murmured after a bit.

“But that Hauser disc—”

“You could have had me on a platter if you’d just relaxed,” she said. “Instead, you fought like hell and freed me. So I knew it wasn’t that.”

“I do want you! Love you! But—”

“But not at the price of the betrayal of Mars,” she said.

“Yes. But also—”

The elevator came to a stop at the ground floor. “Later,” she said tersely.

The doors slid open. They emerged into frantic activity. Alarms were blaring. Miners were moving around like swarming ants. Mining vehicles and security vehicles were speeding in all directions. Soldiers were on alert. Apparently the alarm had galvanized the establishment into frenzied but pointless stirring.

They exchanged glances. Could it be this easy?

They stepped out, trying to look busy in the same way as the others. No such luck. They were seen. Soldiers started firing at them.

They ran. Quaid jumped into a moving mole, pulled the driver out of the cab, took his place, and took the wheel. He looked out the window for Melina. Soldiers were firing at him; the bullets were bouncing off the metal hide of the mole.

He couldn’t find her. “Melina!” he cried, alarmed.

“Over here,” she replied.

His head whipped around. There she was in the passenger seat, slamming the door. She hadn’t waited for his call.

Quaid gunned the motor. The mole leaped forward, suddenly become a monster. Soldiers and miners scattered.

Cohaagen stood before the floor-to-ceiling window in his office and stared moodily out at the domes. The horizon was pink, signalling the approach of dawn. Alarms wailed in the background, muffled but insistent.

Richter fidgeted on the other side of the room. What more proof did Cohaagen need? Surely it was clear by now that there was only one way to deal with the traitor that Hauser had become. “Well, sir?” he said finally.

Cohaagen remained in silent thought a moment longer. Hauser was a top agent. There would be hell to pay before he could be gotten under control again. Friendship went only so far. The man had outlived his welcome. Without turning around, he answered flatly: “Kill him.”

“It’s about fucking time,” Richter muttered, turning on his heel and dashing from the room.

If he had thought Cohaagen couldn’t hear him, he was wrong. Cohaagen stiffened at the words. If it hadn’t been for Richter’s messing in, the Quaid programming might have gone smoothly. Certainly, the man would not have developed such a strong attachment to his temporary identity. A man could get to believe in himself if he had to fight for his life. After this ugly job was done, Richter himself would be expendable. It was about fucking time, indeed.

Cohaagen’s pent-up anger at the man exploded. He glared at the fish swimming harmlessly in the bowl on his desk, and swept it to the floor, where it smashed to bits. The fish floundered desperately, unable to breathe. Cohaagen smiled.

But there were more important things to do. Cohaagen had suspected that Hauser knew more about the alien artifact that he had let on. Now he was sure of it. He could afford to wait no longer.

He picked up a phone. “Get the demolitions team,” he said. Then he stared intensely into space. He didn’t like doing this, destroying Hauser and the alien artifact. Both could have been far more useful to him, in other circumstances. But security came first. He had built a kind of empire here, and he couldn’t afford to let either friendship or greed threaten it.