Gene Drifters: The Clone Soldier Chronicles-Book III (8 page)

Max proved a tad more difficult for Dina to mind fuck. All
legal counselors wore protective head gear against possible mental intrusion.
That’s legal speak for reading your mind. However, it was not difficult to find
Max; his law offices took up an entire floor in the Stemworm, Inc. building in
central Hong Kong. Dina coded in level 27, and stood in front of the ID
scanner. On the way, she’d explained everything to Dorian. He had to do a fast
scan-hack for her, so she would pass muster at the lift security vids for the
ever-paranoid legal counsel floor of the Songtain office building. Dorian just
sighed when she explained things to him. He knew his wife would never pass up
the opportunity to help a slave escape. She’d done it for him once; had helped
him escape from his underground prison.

It took a bit longer to seduce Max out of his protective
head gear. He and she were both in his inner office, lying on a white polar
bear rug, half naked by the time he removed the apparatus and turned it to off.
Dina left him with the certainty that he had indeed thrown in Irma as a bonus
to Ms. Turner’s client, to sweeten the clonie deal. That’s how he would
describe it to Leo the next morning, when he arrived at the outer penthouse
office to go over the morning stock trades. Leo would totally agree.

By midnight, Irma was in the back compartment of Morton’s underwater
low-way rig, with a new rig-ryder approved ID, and eastbound for bubble-stop #4.
Eldridge said he could use her help in the kitchen, but she’d have to work
minimum wage, and sleep in a made-over storage space at the back of the house. Dina
burned that Roxanne Smoot bounty poster in her Hong Kong hotel room fireplace.
If Roxanne ever saw it, that poster would end up in a ball inside Leo
Songtain’s smooth, HAIRLESS, TINY BUTT.

                                                          
                           
6

AND SPEAKING OF LEO’S BUTT, it was currently on Roxanne’s
mind.

“Man that was a bizarre dream.” Roxanne stretched across her
single-sized bed, wedged against the wall of her 10 by 10 foot bedroom.

Space is preemo in any plasmon under ocean bubble-stop, but
especially the ones with no close land base. Roxanne’s little town is just a giant
under and on the ocean floor, plasmon bubble. They’re larger versions of
vending machine rest stops, but with the necessary robotics to check the rigs
and loads, and for use by rig-ryders to do their down-time. The bars, whore
houses, and churches logically followed. To even have your own room in a
water-based bubble-stop was living in the lap of luxury, especially to a native
born rig-ryder like Roxanne, who’d grown up living in the back compartment of
her dad’s rig.

Eldridge spared nothing to trick out his baby girl’s room.
He’d painted it blue, a color that would go better with her fire red hair, had
a plasmon window installed so she could watch weird deep ocean fish swim by,
and even added a desk, chair, and small bookcase, complete with a collection of
real paper books. The later were yellowed and somewhat moldy, leftovers from
when Eldridge was a kid, growing up on land, in a place near Liberal, Kansas.

Roxanne loved to read real books. Besides
Jane Eyre
,
another of her favorite books, to read when she was still little, was a story
about a girl named Laura, who lived in a little house in the middle of nothing.
Roxanne could not even imagine what it would be like to live in the middle of
nothing. She’d always been in a rig, surrounded by everything and everyone, the
medley of engine noises singing her to sleep at night. But, she loved her room,
even though she’d had to wait until she was nineteen to get it. She raised her
head up on one elbow, turning to Rose.

“I had this nuts dream that I was back in grad school
playing lacrosse against Leo’s team. It was that time I sent the ball straight
into his butt, and knocked him flat. He had this thing for me even back then. I
think it was because I was the only one who was nice to him. He was such a
smart ass rich little freak. Everyone used to make fun of him. I was just being
nice, I guess. Then he got obsessive about me; I guess that’s what I get for
being nice. You remember me telling you about that, Rose?”

Rose was sprawled across Roxanne’s long legs, her head at
the foot of the bed, and feet planted almost into Roxanne’s left cheek. They
were both used to each other. Rose yawned, as only an incisor-enriched best
friend can do, and woofed a brief reply of yes. She was not quite ready to rise.

“Come on Rose, we got us a haul deadline today. The clock
says 05:00; we clock onto the tracks in one click. Besides, I can smell Dad’s
pancakes.” This got Rose’s attention, although pancakes with turkey sausage
would have been even more interesting. Rose thought things were getting leaner here
at Eldridge’s place, but she wouldn’t say anything to either of them. It would
hurt their feelings. Besides, she was just getting too tired to complain about
much anymore. After five years as Roxanne’s rig-ryder co-pilot, she was about
ready for the Eldridge Bar kitchen duty. She smothered that thought, guilty
that she’d even considered leaving Roxanne to guard her own back against a
bunch of lecherous newbies.

“I’m up, just let me have five more minutes,” Rose replied,
slightly raising her left ear. Rose loved to doze.

“Okay, see you in the kitchen. But hurry up. I’m not saving
the sausage for you.”

Roxanne teased Rose, and rolled off the bed in her bare feet,
onto the blue shag rug. She was dressed in one of her dad’s discarded shirts,
and not much else. The temperature in the bubble-stop was nice and warm and
constant. Sometimes it was too constant for Roxanne, who missed the up-top
hauls from back in New Mexico and Colorado. Sometimes she had dreams about when
she and her dad would camp outside under the stars, in the real outside and not
in a virtual dome.

Roxanne showered in desal, the cleaned-up ocean water from
the outside. She had to step into that awful orange jumpsuit and don the
bandanna again for work. Ten minutes later she was in the kitchen, seated at
the table, stuffing Eldridge’s fluffy pancakes into her mouth.

“I had a dream about Leo last night. Can you believe that?
It was that lacrosse game I told you about, from grad school; it was that time
I sent the ball into his butt,” Roxanne mumbled through a mouth-full of
sausage.

“Probably came up from our talk about him last night. You suggested
he was involved in the pirate endeavors. By the way, I told Dorian about your
hunch. He had Dina plant a tag on Leo yesterday. She was in Hong Kong in
disguise to purchase some clone soldiers from Leo. I also told Dorian about the
poisoned nutria-blend. I think he already had some notion of that. But he did
say not to touch the stuff.” Eldridge poured fresh coffee for his daughter.

He never told her, but he didn’t drink it when she wasn’t
there. It was just too expensive. He’d also been worried about the bar revenue
of late. When the Inc. froze or lowered wages, or hired too many level I’s at
minimum wages, it meant a recession for all the bubble-stops.
Trickle-down
bull shit
; that’s what he thought. But he kept it to himself, not wanting
to worry Roxanne, or get her in trouble with the Inc. She had enough to do,
keeping the rig haul going, and bringing in her share of chits.

And now, he was expecting new kitchen help. Dorian informed
him last night that a rescued slave was on the way, someone named Irma.
Unfortunately it would be another mouth to feed. But of course he couldn’t
refuse Dorian’s request. After all, Dorian had footed the cost of the bar and
rig in the first place. So he said yes, of course. Eldridge thought he could
find something for her to do. At any rate, it was the charitable thing to do,
and Eldridge still had that in him.

Dorian said Irma would come with a temporary new face, to
hide her true identity. Evidently she was an escaped slave from the Blacks. Over
about six weeks, the
Stem-wads
® would meld with her own facial cells,
and then she’d be someone new, on the outside anyway. Eldridge wondered how
many chits Dorian had to hack to cover Irma. Roxanne interrupted his thought
train.

“Dina saw Leo Songtain? You never told me that. What’s that
all about?” Roxanne stopped in mid-stuff-your-face mode, her fork in the air
next to her mouth. Rose came in and nabbed the sausage off the fork before it
got to Roxanne’s mouth.

“Stop that Rose, where are your manners. Sit down and eat
with the rest of us,” Eldridge retorted, then continued,

“Dina was on some clone mission thing again. It seems that
your Leo Songtain has gotten himself into the used clonie market. And you know
how Dina feels about clone soldiers. She will absolutely not rest until every
single one of those clones is dead. I know it drives Dorian crazy. It’s an
obsession of hers, after her dad was killed. I wish she’d just leave it.”

Eldridge was too overheated for this hour of the day. But he
still had such strong feelings for Dina. It was kinda sad to watch. Rose looked
into her breakfast plate of pancakes and sausage, and shook her head. Roxanne
tried to change the subject.

“I’ll be having lunch with Gimlet the day after tomorrow. Do
you want me to get anything for Thanksgiving dinner while I’m on my down-time?
I could stop by the Mitzukoshi basement.” Roxanne usually had about four hours
of load time in Tokyo before she turned around to haul back to San Fran. Though
her down-time would be at bubble-stop #2 when eastbound, she could ship to
Eldridge, on the push tunnel, if the package was small enough.

“Nope, Dorian already took care of it. He spoke to Dina last
night, and she’s going to shop in Hong Kong, send it on the push tube direct
from the hoverport. But Gimlet may give you some of her Christmas presents to
carry in the back of the rig.” Roxanne responded to Eldridge, “No problem, Dad.
I got plenty of room, as long as it’s not a roasted goat.”

“Listen, you watch yourself on the haul, Roxie. I was
thinking about your run-in with the pirates yesterday. They might not be
limited to the tunnels, or even to #3. Tokyo can be crazy at dark click. Be
sure Rose is with you all the time.” Eldridge worried about his daughter. She
tried not to tell him about the weird Nipon business men and their over the top
reactions to her.

Once on the hovertram to Kamakura, a neatly suited, older
business man had attempted to stuff her hair into his mouth. Another had
succeeded in cupping both sides of her butt, one in each hand, before she could
shove him off. She had to be careful in Tokyo; Roxanne knew from past run-ins.
If she created a scene, or accused someone high up in an Inc., she could jeopardize
their position at #4.

Recently it had gotten to be such a nuisance that she often wore
a fat suit, and a temporary facial implant as a disguise. And Rose really
couldn’t watch her back in usual fashion, because in Tokyo dog attacks were
punishable by a life flash-freeze, to the dog and owner. Although Roxanne
guessed she’d be given the choice of being sold on the sex slave market as an alternative
to the flash-freeze.

“Rose always goes with me, Dad,” Roxanne lied, to ease her dad’s
concerns. “Anyway, I’ll only be there for a few hours, then back into the rig haul
tunnel. It’s funny; I used to feel safe in any low-way tunnel. I mean, the regs
for entry are so strict. You’d think nothing could happen in a tunnel. Someone
high up was involved in yesterday’s run-in with those #3ers, Daddy. That hijack
attempt would not be happening without some high up
yes
nod.”

Roxanne finished her coffee and pancakes, wrapped the orange
headband around her fire red hair, and gathered up her duffle and clip-vid to
check what her cargo would be for her Tokyo pick-up. It seldom varied; a huge
shipment of
Stem-wads
® from San Fran biotech production labs westbound
to Tokyo, and the raw ingredients - uncommitted stem cells in vials - for the
eastbound return trip to San Fran. 

“Yeah well, things are not improving around here, that’s for
sure.” Eldridge was sad. He didn’t want to leave this world in messed up
condition for his only kid. He’d worked so hard all his life, trying to make
something better for her. All the worker levels did. But it seemed like it just
got harder all the time, like the “safe-life” target just kept moving away from
him. He knew his old buddies felt the same. They talked about it all the time.
Morton told him last night, he’d just have to work until he dropped dead, if
they’d let him. He’d lost his entire retirement savings investing in the Inc.
annuities plan, during the latest market bust.

“I gotta go, Daddy. You get some rest. You’ve looked really
tired lately.” Roxanne kissed her dad on his cheek and hurried to make her
clock-in time. She was always too busy to spend enough time with her dad. Plus,
now she had this pirate thing to worry about. And…she could not forget that
warning about the poisoned nutria-blend. The last thought made her bend down
and take an extra scoop of Rose’s food balls for the trip; not for Rose, it was
for her.

“Let’s go Rose. We gotta clock in for the haul.” Roxanne and
Rose left by the back door, taking the tunnel to her rig dock station.

The nano-drones had left a message that all systems were up
and running. But, one vid stated that she would receive a three-chit dock for
extra clean-up of debris on the underside of the rig, and that she’d be docked
a week’s pay for that little maneuver around the school bus. It came with an
extended and stern lecture about rig-ryder safety, which Roxanne and Rose were
required to listen to, for the first fifteen minutes of the haul. It was
followed by a verbal quiz, to confirm they had watched it. “Yeah well, I
expected that one.” Roxanne noted the message as received and coded in the pass
to open the control cab for another work day.

“Buckle up, Rose. Let’s do it.”

The organics lit, the engine whined to on, and the immense
rig re-tracked. In some far off control booth in Hammerfest, an overworked
union dweeb noted the rig re-track and set the proton tracks to positive/negative
alternating charge.

I take that back. That job actually got outsourced to a
robotic team in Nigeria two years ago.

“What kind of music do you want to listen to? It’s your turn
to decide, Rose” Roxanne opened the wave to the world com, once they’d finished
with their school bus safety exam. With five thousand channels to choose from,
you could listen to anything from robo-rock, which sounded like a set of bad
pistons, to off-planet, which sounded like cockroaches running across the
floor, and anything in between.

“Let’s go for something smooth. How about the French version
of I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata by Verdi,” Rose responded.

“You are such a snob,” Roxanne laughed, and tuned in to the
opera. It seemed like the haul would be boring and uneventful, which was
alright by Rose and Roxanne. Because if they got another chit dock they’d be
going sans-Fueblaster for the next six months, which would be monumentally
awful for Roxanne.

“Roxanne, have you noticed the rig butt warning light. It’s
been flashing red since about three minutes ago.” Rose opened her eyes and
glanced again at the warning flash. She’d had her eyes closed for the third
act,
La Conversion
, at the part where the pilgrim was singing about the
beauty of Jerusalem.

“What’s that all about? Thanks, I hadn’t noticed.” Roxanne
slammed her hand on the rig butt detector, just to make sure it wasn’t jammed.
“Damn, do you suppose it didn’t get cleaned up properly? I know the Inc. has
been short-changing us on clean-up nanos, but you’d think they would at least
keep the rig detectors clean for fee collections.”