Chapter Four
I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.
– Groucho Marx (1890 - 1977)
February 16, 2020
Dinner at Denise's house. As we walked up the sidewalk to her parents house, she said, "Now don't be put off by my grandmother's way. She can be – umm, blunt. Well, anyway, you'll see."
The door opened as we stepped onto the stoop, "Denise dear, how are you?" said Mrs. Fisher, obviously delighted to see her daughter. She looked a little brittle to me; that made me look forward to meeting her mother-in-law. Mr. Fisher took our coats and we heard from the living room, "Who the hell's out there! I can't see a goddamn thing!" I won't try to duplicate her accent, her 'can't' sounded more like 'caint' and her thing more like 'thang', you'll just have to supply your own accent if you want.
"Now mother," said Mrs. Fisher as we walked from the foyer, "this is Denise and her very good friend, Lowman."
"Lowman! What the fuck kind of wussy name is that!" she shouted as she looked at me owlishly.
"Well," I replied, as we sat down on the couch, "back when I was in military school, I usually got the lowest grades in anything to do with military science. So I was the low man on the totem pole, thus Lowman." Jack-Cat leaped into Denise's lap from ten feet behind. I was aware of him with my enhanced hearing, so wasn't too surprised, but Denise was startled. The cat butted her chin ecstatically with his head and purred audibly.
"Well I never! I guess it's a good thing you became an artist, huh!"
Denise looked at me strangely. This was the first she had ever heard of this so-called 'Military School', and I didn't think it pleased her much. "Actually, I was always an artist, some of my buddies called me 'Art' for awhile. But they didn't mean it as a complement, and when I took it that way, they stopped calling me Art." Jack-Cat transferred his attention to me and, in a friendly feline manner, tried to dig his claws into my chest.
"How come that cat likes you so much? Dratted thing never did anything but give me an evil growl," the old lady observed archly.
Mrs. Fisher stood up and invited us into the dining room.
As dinner was served by the quiet butler (the Fisher's had to let go the footmen, even the wealthy had to cut back during the post-pulse depression) Grandma Fisher let loose with a series of ribald stories that were much appreciated by me and Denise, and I think by her dad, although he hid it well. But very much unappreciated by her mom, who kept trying to shush her mother-in-law, she might as well have tried to stop the Pacific tide.
"So Lowman," Mrs. Fisher asked me while getting a word in sideways and trying valiantly to change the subject, "Military School. This is the first we've heard of that. When was this?"
"I left just before turning thirteen, I think they were glad to see me go, and really, I'd rather forget about it."
"So why didn't you go back to your real name?"
"Lowman IS my real name," I said without thinking. Then I remembered, most people outside of Manticore are given names by their parents, not their creche-mates. My little story had them thinking that Lowman was merely a nickname, it was still so easy to misstep with life among the normals. So I changed the subject.
"Did Denise mention that I am going to be hung in a downtown gallery?" Grandma looked at me oddly while Denise tittered.
"He means," she said, "that his WORK is being displayed in an ART gallery."
Grandmother's expression said 'Oh', but I think she thought I was a lunatic, but perhaps not the dangerous kind.
"Well, good. I wish you success." Her tone was unconvincing and doubtful of my ability to keep her granddaughter in food, clothes, and housing. I know that may be a lot to get from tone of voice, but her tone was adamant.
After dinner as we walked across the broad foyer to the living room, I heard a car pull up and stop in front of the house. But I didn't think it was important until the front door crashed open in front of us, the lock splintering in the frame, the doorknob smashing the wallboard through to the studs. It's a good thing no one was standing behind the door. Three armed men dressed in black strode through the opening. The last one shut the door behind him as best he could. I saw a flash of orange as the cat disappeared towards the back of the house.
We backed up. I looked carefully at the intruders and tried to anticipate their moves and technique. I could see they were norms, so maybe they weren't after me. Now all I had to do was kill them without endangering my friends and without exposing myself, if possible. I stepped slightly away from everyone, not quite enough to get noticed.
The leader smiled cruelly and shoved Mrs. Fisher back into the wall, knocking a painting off it's hooks in the process. Mr. Fisher protested, wringing hands and all, as the painting of his father crashed to the floor and he was smashed with the butt of the leaders' Walther P88 9mm handgun. His protest died on his lips as he slid shaken and bloody to the floor beside his wife. Grandma Fisher just glared angrily. I took the opportunity to step sideways a little bit more.
I really couldn't believe it, after six years of studying art and actively trying to forget everything I had been taught about weapons and killing, the moment an armed thug stepped into view and threatened my girlfriend, catalogs of weapons and killing hand strikes cascaded through my head. The other two nut cases were carrying 45ACP Colt M1911A1's. Well, one was a Colt, the other a knockoff. The real Colt had been Accurized at one time, but showed signs of being thrown around and abused since then. Fact is, I think all of their guns were way older than me, but I settled on the Walther as the one to confiscate for my use, I wasn't sure about firing that false Colt because Colonel Lydecker taught us at a very early age to be wary of knockoffs.
"All right now," the leader said, "I want all you victims naked. We'll put plastic sheets down in the living room. After we've had our rocks off, then we bring out the knives, scalpels, icepicks and hot pokers and cut you up into pieces. It'll be a hell of a lot fun, for us anyway, not so much for you guys, ha! I've been wanting to try this really cool eyeball puller! Sometime in the early morning you will all be dead, and we'll have it all on film." He held up a very fancy looking digital video camera, in fact it was thoroughly out of place because of its professional look.
Mrs. Fisher also seemed startled when she caught sight of the camera, as if she recognized it. I stepped sideways a bit more. Denise was utterly terrified, as was everyone except me and the villains. The third intruder, who had been quiet up to now, noticed my last sideways step and said to me, "Hey asshole, get yer ass over there next to the rest of the soon-to-be-tortured."
All three now had their guns pointed in my general direction, away from the family, so I took that as a signal to move. And I had to move fast. I probably looked blurred to the others and I hated doing that in front of them, but it was pretty obvious that I had better take care of this little problem as fast as humanly possible—all right, faster. As I moved towards the leader I had to jink sideways to avoid a couple of bullets, when I reached him I broke his right arm with my right hand and snatched his Walther with my left and aimed it at the other two. Two shots, two down. Right elbow to the solar plexus and the leader was down. Hmmm, looks like you can take the boy out of Manticore, but you can't take Manticore out of the boy.
I gathered their weapons and then helped the parents up and asked for some rope or something. Mr. Fisher said shakily that there were some heavy duty plastic ties in the garage. I got them and secured my prisoners, well the two who were still breathing anyway.
"So," I asked, "what do we do now? If you want these two dead, let me know and I'll take care of it. But you need to make that decision, not me, because when I took up 'A Life of Art' I promised myself that I would never again kill, except in self defense. We could call the police, but that has a potential downside that I need to talk to you about. But notice that whether we take care of these creeps ourselves or call the police, whoever sent them is still out there. And probably still really pissed at something one of us did, judging by his determination to make a point. Which brings me to the third possibility: I can call some friends and we will take care of the problem, with your help."
Grandma Fisher said, "Well hell and damnation boy, if you were the low man on the totem pole, I'm not at all sure I'd like to meet your classmates!"
"How, how, how," asked Denise querulously, "did you DO that?"
"Oh," I sighed, "My military training started from before my birth. It was a hush-hush government project, and they included some science experiments to make us tougher and faster. But all I ever wanted was out, so I could paint." I caught a pained expression from one of my tied-up prisoners. "Lets move to another room," I added, nodding towards the captives.
"But won't they escape?"
"No, when I was eleven years old I got an A-minus in Prisoner Restraint."
Denise and her dad both glanced at me with odd expressions.
Mr. Fisher said, "I've gotta ask, what was the minus for?"
"Oh, I had a habit of allowing my knots to be just loose enough so no one would lose their limbs due to lack of blood flow. Colonel Lydecker thought that was a little soft and constantly harped on me to make my knots tighter."
"Isn't it illegal to train children like that?"
"Yes, especially in pre-pulse times."
"But this project must have started well before the pulse!"
"Yes, hence the secrecy and oppressive security. You see, if the people who run this project ever catch wind of my presence here, they would restrain and torture all of you for information on my whereabouts and habits. Then you would simply disappear—another post-pulse mystery that no one would have time to solve. And please don't think that I am exaggerating for effect, they believe they are above the law, that they are the law. Colonel Lydecker is a poster child for the proposition that the ends justify the means. He believes himself to be a true patriot, that just makes him more dangerous because he feels that he can get away with anything because it's all for a good cause."
Denise wrenched herself away from looking at me in terror. Perhaps she was steadying down a little. "So mother," she asked, "why did you flinch when you saw the camera?"
"Yes Lacy dear," added Grandma, "I caught that flinch too."
"Ah, well," she said shakily, "you know I have been working on this case for the last five years concerning an obscure bit of patent law and and a biotech firm. My second chair, Harry Arnold, and I believe we have found a way to win, but it is long odds..."
Grandma interrupted impatiently, "Please be brief, I know how you like to go on about legal crap!"
Denise's mother continued as if there were no interruption, "Otherwise, the opposition will probably prevail, although it will be many years down the road. So last week, Old Winston, the senior partner at my firm, calls us in and suggests a way to short circuit the whole deal, but it involves unethical behavior—the manufacturing of evidence. Both Harry and I refused on principle and Winston agreed, saying he didn't like it either and to carry on.
He then talked to each of us separately, I know this because Harry and I compared notes. At these private meetings Winston become more importunate, more insistent, that we go down the fraudulent road. But we both refused yet again, and in my case, I may have been imprudently undiplomatic as well.
Just this morning Winston called me into his office again. And he just talked about family and the weather and other such inconsequentials. And somewhere in that talk, he picked up a camera, this camera in point of fact, and said it was a prototype, the only one of its kind outside of China, and he said something, a throwaway comment, something about how 'I'll remember him the next time I see this camera.' I didn't pay much attention at the time, but now I know what he meant. He was going to show a video to Harry, a hi-def video in color, showing my slow death, and then I should think Winston would get what he wanted from Harry."
"Hmm," I said, "I believe I have to call in some high-powered help. I don't really have the wherewithal to keep you all safe while simultaneously bringing down your law firm."
"Bring down...? You can't do that, the firm is very large and powerful, offices in every major city, hundreds of partners, with influence that you can't imagine."
"Well, at least bring down the bad guys, surely the whole firm isn't made up of bloodsucking fiends?" I asked.
"Isn't that a description of all lawyers?" asked Grandmother.
"Of course not, I'm not unethical, am I?" said Mrs. Fisher, huffily.
"Call for help son, it's obvious we need it," said Mr. Fisher.
"You realize," I said, "that the help I call may go ahead and kill our prisoners, in fact, I don't see a way out of that; just because I won't make that decision doesn't mean that decision won't get made."
"Go ahead and make the call, there's no listing for Dispose-A-Bodies-R-Us in the Yellow Pages."
-- --
"So Max," asked Original Cindy as she cut a piece of steak with her fork, "Original Cindy wants to know if you stole a cow and butchered it out back to get us these steaks."
"You don't steal cows OC, you rustle them, and of course I didn't, why would you think that?" asked Max.
"Well, you know, you murdered and ate a cute little chicken right in this apartment."
"Hey, I cooked it first. But no, this is from a grateful client of Logan's, I did him a favor and this was a tip."
"That's some tip, this is prime beef, cost enough to keep a family of four fed for a month, at least if they weren't too particular."
"Something like that." OC didn't press Max any further.
The phone rang, Original Cindy answered it, "You want Max? Sure boo, who shall I say is calling? She doesn't know you huh, well I don't know if I should give her the message or not in that case. How does Original Cindy know whether or not you some kind of nut job or not? You could be anyone, a perv maybe. You a perv, boy?"
Max waved her hand and signaled OC for the phone. Original Cindy rolled her eyes and handed it to her. "Max here," she said into the phone.
"Hi Max, you don't know me, but I'm your, uh, um, cousin, younger cousin. And I really need you're help."
"Yeah?" Max said suspiciously, "I don't recognize your voice."
"Look, I know Alec, he can vouch for me."
"And that's supposed to impress me?"
"I know, I know, but Alec is the only one I know who is in town and knows our former school, and knows I left before graduation, like you and your siblings did, a few years before me."
"So how do I know this isn't a trap?" Max fairly bristled with suspicion.
"If I were working with our former – schoolmaster – you'd be surrounded now. In fact, you would have been in custody a year ago when I first noticed you, and you and all your friends would be undergoing psy-ops, or worse. Look, I've got trouble, the kind of trouble that could be dangerous for us, all of us. And I don't think I can handle it alone."
Max sighed. "OK, can I assume that you are calling from an untraceable phone?"
"Yes. I haven't forgotten ALL my lessons, though I've certainly tried. Let's meet at that bicycle bar you like so much. That's where I first saw you."
-- --
February 17, 2020
It was after midnight when I walked into the Crash and spotted Alec sitting with Max's roommate and some scruffy looking people. Just as I started to wonder where Max was an arm that felt like it was made of steel whipped around my neck and what felt like a gun was pressed into my back. I was unceremoniously hustled into a dark alcove. I didn't fight, I figured this must be Max. She pulled my hair roughly back from my neck and she paused a moment, then threw me into the opposite wall.
"You're no X-5," she growled at me.
"No," agreed Alec, who had sauntered up beside her, "he's a Six, X6-471 to be sure. I remember him, there was another big fuss about five years after you guys escaped; at first everyone thought the butthead managed to kill himself by falling off a cliff in his sleep. That was quite an artistic scream you did there buddy," Alex said to me in an aside, "Then Lydecker got back from some meetings or other and went to inspect the site. He was fuming after he saw what you had done and started an all points recovery effort. To no avail, no one's seen him until now." He looked at me again and added, "I see you've still got that 'tude—you still think you're better than everyone else?"
"What? What are you talking about? From 2009 until 2014 I was utterly terrified every waking moment. I am an artist, I've always been one and I'll always be one. I don't know what attitude you're talking about. I mean, talk about 'tudes, just look at you!" I was a little angry at him, "But we don't have time to argue, let's sit down and talk about our difficulty."
"And where's your damn bar code? The skin isn't even red, you don't have one," asked Max, a little enviously I think.
"I was destined for an undercover unit, there were just a few of us but our barcodes are only visible under UV light." Max's expression was unreadable to me. I followed her back to their table, Alec followed me, making me feel a little like a prisoner. I was surprised when we sat down and I was introduced to Logan Cale and Original Cindy as an X-6.
"Do you guys broadcast information about Manticore to all the world? Or just all of your friends?
"No, just these two. Although Zack would prefer that I had no friends at all."
"Is Zack still...? No never mind, I don't care. The subject at hand: I was having dinner with my girlfriend at her parents house. The door burst in and three armed thugs invaded the house and made their intentions clear: rape, torture and murder was uppermost on their minds. And they had a very expensive professional quality digital video camera, with loads of petabytes and stuff to make high quality movies. There wasn't any way to finesse them, or hide my abilities from the family, so I took them out. One's dead, the other two aren't, although they need a hospital."
"So what this got to do with us?" Max asked, peremptorily I thought, "we sure as hell aren't running a charity hospital for crooks."
"No, no, I could give a shit about them. The problem is who sent them, and why."
"Well, Original Cindy don't see how no low-rent gangsters could have been sent by Manticore. I mean, they got all those expensive high-grade soldiers available, that's if they still exist in some secret hideaway somewhere."
"No," I continued, "it's my girlfriend's mother. She's some kind of high-powered lawyer who works in one of those white-shoe law firmsi, a big one, with offices all over the place. She's been working on a big case, the kind that last for decades maybe, and the client is some sort of biotech firm. It was her boss wanted her to get unethical and all, and she wouldn't, he planned this little commotion, a demonstration as it were, that we believe would cause her second-in-command, who would become first, and would likely become very willing to do whatever the boss wanted after witnessing the tape."
There was silence, general frowns all around as everyone took it in.
"So you can see why I am worried: 1) biotech, 2) Lydecker level violence, and 3) Even if items one and two turn out to be irrelevant, I still need some help to take down the bad guys in the Law Firm, because I'm not really a soldier, I'm an artist. So there you have it, whaddaya say?"
-- --
i
