Vaughn Heppner: Battle Pod

“I concede you your point,” Hawthorne said. “But is it all academic. Social Unity shall defeat the Highborn.”

“With bionic soldiers and cybertanks?” she asked.

A crease appeared in Hawthorne’s broad forehead. “Are you forgetting the cyborgs, Madam Director?”

Her eyes shined with a weird intensity as she leaned toward him.

General Hawthorne understood before she began to speak that here was the reason she’d wanted to meet with him. Here was why she’d left New Baghdad and crossed the ocean.

“I have not forgotten the cyborgs, sir. Consider what has occurred. Our eugenicists labored intensively for many years to mold the Highborn. They are biologically altered men. They were created to become a soldier race. Meanwhile, other scientists funded by us were hard at work in the Neptune System. They labored to create the perfect machine-man.” The Madam Director cackled. “I have taken to calling them Genus Cyborgus .”

“An apt name,” Hawthorne said.

“More apt than you realize,” she said. “As I was saying, our biological creation has rebelled against us. They captured the Doom Stars and with them seized control of the orbital space of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.”

“They have retreated from Mars,” Hawthorne said.

“Please bear with me. The Highborn have also seized the Sun-Works Factory, the greatest industrial plant in the Solar System. They have conquered Antarctica and the islands of Earth and are in the process of conquering South America. Now we seek the help of the second creation, the machine men, to oust the biological error. But do we realize that the machine-men will be even worse than the altered biological men are? Instead of pit dogs among us, we will have automated killers.”

Hawthorne uncrossed his legs. “Madam, we already have machine men. The bionic soldiers.”

“No!” she said. “The bionic men are still human. The cyborgs are something completely different.”

“I have read the files. What you—”

“The files,” she sneered. “The files. Ha! Have you seen the cyborgs? Have you spoken with someone who lived through an encounter with them?”

“Have you?”

“Yes! Yes, I have. And I realize that we have sent for annihilation to save us from subjugation.”

Her fervor surprised Hawthorne. “Would you care to share this information with me?”

“May I use the holograph in the cube?” she asked.

“By all means,” he said.

The Madam Director pressed buttons on her armrest.

The top of the white cube between them flickered with life, projecting a holographic image. It showed a man-shaped being, bald, with plasti-flesh and dead, shark-like eyes. He moved with uncanny speed. It was a combat video, jerky, sometimes showing nothing but blasted buildings or falling men. There were occasional glimpses of the cyborg.

“Where did you get this?” Hawthorne asked.

The Madam Director twitched her withered fingers. “I have connections with PHC Outer Planets Intelligence.”

“Yezhov gave it to you?”

Madam Director Blanche-Aster gave another of her unnerving cackles. “No, no, Yezhov has no idea I have this. He awaits the cyborgs with great relish.”

“Why?”

The old woman bit her lower lip, and the grim vibrancy in her eyes become hooded, perhaps for the first time showing fear.

“Not all the experimentation occurred in the Neptune System,” she said. “Yezhov has access to the scientists who labored in secret here on Earth.”

“I’ve heard nothing of this.”

“No, no, I should have been surprised if you had. You know about Yezhov’s brain-wiped agents, the ones he plans to use to assassinate Highborn.”

“I’m familiar with the project.”

“General, there is a process….” She tapped a button and an arm extended from her medical unit with a small fan on the end. The fan whirred into life, gently blowing air into her perspiring face. “I debated a long time about this. For I’ve come to understand that your position is weaker than Chief Yezhov’s position. He waits for an unbeatable addition to his power base. He could use my secret help and it would cement my place in the new order. Even so, I have decided to risk everything and unreservedly throw in my lot with yours. Yezhov doesn’t understand the horror he wishes to use. All he knows is that he desires to rule Social Unity. The cyborgs have created an assembly line, a ghastly thing that tears down a human and recreates him or her into a cyborg.”

“Tears down? As Captain Mune has been torn down?”

“No,” Blanche-Aster whispered. “Can’t you understand what I’m trying to say? The Highborn have shattered Inner Planets. They have torn much of Earth from our control. They own Mercury. They have allowed the Planetary Union Rebels to regroup on Mars. Venus is under constant bombardment. The biologically altered Highborn have pushed us into a corner, but we’re battling hard to remain free. Imagine how much worse our situation will be once a true race of machine-men has escaped our control. The cyborgs have the means to expand like a virus among us. We cannot allow them to land on Earth. If that happens, our demise shall be swift.”

“Your holographic image was unsettling, but hardly—”

“I have another clone,” Blanche-Aster whispered.

Hawthorne sat very still, and he noticed movement on the farthest wall, a tiny spider slowly crawling toward the ceiling. For a moment, he wondered if it was a mechanical listening device, a new type of spy-stick. Another clone was news, and he realized how difficult it must have been for the Madam Director to tell him this.

“My second clone arrived from the Neptune System three weeks ago,” Blanche-Aster said. “The holovid was brought by her. I request that you speak with her.”

“…that can be arranged.”

“If you let the cyborgs land on Earth, General, we are doomed. I assure you that neither you nor your bionic men will be able to control them. They will quickly see that Yezhov will give them the freedom of operation they will want. They will help engineer Yezhov’s rise to power. That rise can only occur over your corpse.”

“What do you suggest I do?”

Madam Director Blanche-Aster grimaced. “What I would now do if I were in charge. Blast the cyborgs in their pods before they can unload.”

“Murder them?”

“Yes!”

“Because you fear them?”

“Because we’ve created our own aliens, General. Because they will supplant us in ways that would make the Highborn seem benevolent.”

Hawthorne stood up and strode to the window. The harsh lights showed the granite cracks in the tunnel. Water dripped there. They lived like moles because of the Highborn. Cyborgs—he recalled the bio-tanks. Programmed human brain mass ran the bio-tanks. Why should these cyborgs be any different? What was the real reason behind the Madam Director’s request?

“When can I speak with your second clone?” he asked.

“In an hour if you desire it. I brought her along with me to Central American Sector. She’s waiting in the city.”

Hawthorne regarded the Madam Director. “I’ll speak with Captain Mune. Let us say, two hours from now.”

“Wonderful.”

“You will remain my guest during that time. Hm. To make it easy, I’ll have you stay here on my bullet train.”

The Madam Director smiled grimly. “That you’re so suspicious raises my hopes that you’ll understand the danger. We must not compound our errors.”

General Hawthorne thought about that. Then he inclined his head and took his leave.

“I don’t recommend this, sir,” Captain Mune said.

General Hawthorne and the bionic soldier stood outside the cell where Blanche-Aster’s second clone waited. A vidscreen showed the clone sitting at a table. She was young, with short brunette hair, a thin face and a long, supple body. She wore the brown uniform of a habitat farm-worker. Unlike the Madam Director’s other clone who had been a bodyguard, this one had a fervent manner. She tried to maintain indifference, but her gaze slid about the cell. She seemed nervous. She either twitched fingers, her shoulders or blinked too rapidly.