The Second Sphere
Chapter 36

Cody Beans smoldered like a pissed out fire. Synthetic blood ran down his arms in large globs and pooled around his feet. He looked like a marionette covered in paint. Bryant maneuvered the bot around the table to look at Cody’s face. It was lifeless, just like the throwaways he rented.

That man I’d known for so long was now a casualty of the war. For all of his deceit, he’d tried to live what he’d believed. I could respect him for that.

Cody’s finger was wrapped around the trigger of the pistol still secured in the holster on his ankle. The man next to Cody, this secret conspirator, stared at his friend with unnerving intensity. His eyes smoldered. Then the man shot his gaze at the bot Bryant controlled as though he knew that we watched. A smile formed on the edges of his lips.

“Get up,” a troop said. The man did as he was told. “Walk in front of me, leading me out,” the troop said.

He didn’t resist, didn’t say a word. His chip was in the steely embrace of the mind order band. In an hour or so, I’d be face to face with that man; then I’d find out what insights he had into Victor Newberry’s death. But for the moment, we had time to peruse this facility.

Bryant moved the bot’s attention to the crypts that lined the walls, running it in front of the cryogenic chambers. Above them, the odd script and strange symbols ran. Inside of each chamber, caught in time, was a transfer. Some were men, some women, all creatures kept alive only to be rented for sex. They ranged in shapes, colors, and sizes, no doubt a reflection of the desires of the clientele.

There were plenty of technicians and bots gathering evidence. The troops’ mission was basically complete. So, they moved about, making sure that the area was secure.

With wide eyes, they observed the bodies held in each chamber and mocked many with some ridiculous bravado. The troops whispered to one another, no doubt considering what each of the throwaways cost.

Bryant maneuvered the bot within a few meters of a couple of troops on the far end of the cavern, the optical scanner half focused on the chambers lining the wall and the two men. They joked with one another, though we couldn’t hear what they said from where the bot was. They pointed and slapped at each other’s arms.

One of the men was wiry and small, with short blond hair and a scar by his eye. His friend nodded toward the bio-crypts they stood in front of. The blond man moved forward, slowly. He held on to his gun as he approached, his finger on the trigger. His breathing apparatus was on top of his head, and he appeared like some kind of an alien creature as he tiptoed ever closer to the crypt. When he was right in front of the chamber, he put his face to the cover.

His left hand moved in a flash. For a moment, his fingers hovered over the translucent surface. But then they fell, touching the cover ever so slightly.

Several small beeps erupted from the link-up.

At that moment, the cover opened. A beautiful woman with long blonde hair stood, naked. Her eyes opened and she was suddenly aware of her surroundings. She struggled for a moment against a series of belts that ran across her torso and legs. Her blue eyes shone with fear and her jaw trembled slightly.

The muscles in her body clenched. In another moment, the belts fell slack and she was free. Darkness filled her eyes, the same darkness I had seen take Newberry. The woman let forth a growl so fierce that the troop who touched the covering of the crypt stumbled backward and fell to the floor. She pounced like an animal on its prey, and sank her teeth deep into his neck.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhh!”

The pained screech drew everyone’s eyes. The troops moved quickly, not wasting a moment as they moved to the fracas and jabbed their pulse rifles at the throwaway. Finally, she collapsed under the barrage, and soon the men had her on the ground, boots on her body—neck, arms, legs, and torso. She snarled at them, her teeth bared savagely.

Bryant moved the bot closer. A troop dragged the wounded man into the open as blood spurted from his neck in a dark red fountain. There was a lot of yelling and sudden movement. Then we saw mere flashes of green, black, and dark red.

The virus had returned.

A small clearing formed, and I saw Len push his way through to the wounded man, tended to by one of his colleagues.

“Medic!” he called. “Medic!” Len put his hands on the man’s neck to stem the flow of blood. Behind the bot, I heard the rush of medical troops.

All arms and legs, trying to find his way back into the world, the wounded man struggled against the people who tried to restrain him. The blood ran through Len’s fingers and pooled at his knees. The two medics knelt by them. One handed the other a syringe. And then the medic jabbed a needle into the wounded man’s neck. The wounded man went limp immediately.

The troops stood in a circle around their compatriot as the medics dressed the wound. Len helped get the man into his breathing apparatus. Two of the soldiers picked the wounded man up and began to carry him through the cavern and back out to the transport. Each of the troops touched the wounded man’s chest. Through their eyes, I could see their little chips working. They knew it was all chance, that it could’ve been them carried out.

Len still knelt in the pool of blood, staring at the ground.

“What the hell do we do, boss?” another troop asked. The troops still had the woman on the ground. She snapped at their feet.

Len stood, trying to recompose himself. He moved to the throwaway and looked down at her.

“Put a stunner into her,” he said.

The troop who asked the question watched the throwaway struggle. He shot two rounds into her head. The throwaway’s eyes melted into brown sludge and the snarling ceased. Her chip melted inside her neck.

“I told you we were coming in here blind,” Len said. “Bryant, do you know what the hell that was?”

“I don’t know,” Bryant said.

“I don’t know,” Len repeated. He gave a menacing laugh. “That’s not a good enough answer, Bryant.”

“I know that isn’t what you want to hear,” Bryant said. “But right now, we need to make sure that your troop gets back to Laslow safely. We’ll prepare the staff for his arrival.”

“When I get back, we’re going to have some words about this,” he said.

“That’s fine. We need to hold off on getting the rest of those throwaways back here,” Bryant said. “Until we know what that was, no one else touches a thing.”

“Yes sir,” Len said.

“We’ll prepare to interrogate the prisoner you’re bringing in,” Bryant said. “We’ll see you at home.”

The lights in the observation room came up. But I kept my eyes on the screen. The vision of the troop burned into my chip.

My body felt drained, my mind equally so. I turned my head. The faces down the row wore terribly perturbed looks; at least Bryant and Nelson did. Malinda stared ahead blankly. I waited for one of them to speak. But no one did.

“We’ve got to make sure that we tell medical how important it is to keep that troop restrained,” I said.

Bryant’s eyes filled with dread. This was what Luis feared most: another episode of the virus. All I could think about was what we knew and when we knew it. If we did everything the right way, we could plausibly deny knowledge of what had happened. But if we didn’t, Len was going to be all over us. And that was scrutiny that I absolutely didn’t want.

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