Threshold Shift (11 page)

Yes.

-
How familiar are you with Threshian anatomy?

What
do you have in mind?

-
Something you may not like.

“Is
Michael out there?” Jon called. He couldn’t see anyone
through the gap in the door. But the Threshians were unlikely to
present themselves as targets. “OK, here’s what I'm going
to do. I am going to release Paul, a piece at a time. What do you
want first, an arm or a leg?”

The
only sound Jon could hear was the wind. “Well?”

“Do
it,” the Threshian replied. “He can grow them back.”

“Yes
he can,” Jon said. “But sooner or later we may send you a
piece of him that won’t grow back. What do you say?”

There
was no reply.

Jon
switched to text.

-
Roe, I want you to shoot off Paul’s right arm and then treat
him before he bleeds to death.

What?

“Jon
Klein,” the Threshian called.

-
Hold on, hold on, he texted.

“Yes?”

“You
have three minutes to comply.”

“Oh
come on,” Jon shouted. “You know little Roe, she’s
a very fragile girl, once she shoots Paul, she may faint from the
sight of all that sickly green blood. How would she be able to treat
him?”

“Jon
Klein,” another vocoder intoned, the enunciation clear as
crystal.

“Hello,
Michael.”

“Don’t
harm Paul,” Michael said. “We are going.”

“A
wise choice,” Jon replied. "Thank-you.”

“But
this day will be remembered.”

Jon
suddenly felt very cold and begin to shake violently. Dropping the
rifle, he folded his arms tightly against his chest. The shaking
didn’t stop.

Roe's
text box re-opened.

You
all right, Jon?

-
Yes, No-- actually, I don’t think I’ve ever been so
scared in my life.

You
did well.

-
Thanks.

Good
thing I didn’t have to go through with it.

-
I agree.

You
don’t understand. There's absolutely nothing on Espirnet about
Threshian anatomy.

Chapter
Seven

Roe
had climbed the stairs to the Jailhouse office, and found it almost
unrecognisable. The three desks were in pieces, Jacob’s console
smashed, and the Jailhouse door was a smoking wreck on the ground,
buckled at its centre. Daylight streamed through the shattered
doorway making the entire jail feel violated, exposed. She didn’t
like it. It appeared only Jacob’s high-backed leather chair had
survived. She knew it was an antique, possibly even from Earth. Jacob
would have been unhappy to see it destroyed.

Jon
appeared by her side. “It’s not pretty,” he said.

“Definitely
not,” she agreed.

He
squeezed her gently on the shoulder and pointed at the remains of the
armoured door. “If we can prop that in the opening, just for
now, it should help.”

“OK,”
she said and followed him across to it, only to pause as he braced
his fingers underneath the door. “Hold on.”

“What’s
wrong?” He asked.

“I
can’t lift this, I’m so fragile. How could a big strong
man like you possibly need any help from a weak little girl like me.”

He
smiled. “You heard me then?”

“Just
the highlights,” she said, returning his grin. “The audio
in here was blown up pretty good.”

He
nodded and attempted to lift the door by himself, only to lose his
grip and drop it very close to his own feet. “Well,” he
said, rubbing his hands. “This big strong man does need your
help. Try not to break a nail.”

She
shook her head and leaned down. “Not likely.”

Together
they hefted the door upright, and manoeuvred it towards the opening,
propping it up against one side of the ruined doorframe. It did not
completely block out the daylight, but it did prevent anyone from
Main Street being able to look in. Roe felt that was the best they
could hope for.

“They shouldn’t have had an explosive good enough to get
through that door,” Jon said. "Or gas grenades. We were
lucky.”

“A
little lucky,” Roe conceded. “But we didn’t panic
and we didn’t do anything stupid. Jacob would have been proud.”

“Yes,”
Jon said, glancing upward.

“Who
do you think supplied them?”

“Asher,”
Jon answered sharply. “My beloved uncle.”

“Or
Hassan, maybe,” Roe said. “Don’t forget about him.”

“How
could I? But it’s not like we can bring him in. We’re
going to have enough problems just making this place defensible
again.”

Roe
lifted up Jacob’s leather seat and set it upright. One of the
wheels was missing. “Do you think they’ll try again?”

“They’ll
try something,” Jon said, examining the remains of the coffee
maker.

A
display abruptly opened up in the top right hand side of Roe’s
vision, the new Marshal was complete.

Jon
threw the coffee maker to the ground. “He’s ready.”

She
walked over and touched his hand. “Are you staying?”

He
pulled away, lazily punching the wall. “I have to stay. There’s
no case against Paul if I leave. I can’t let this all be for
nothing.”

“Thank-you,”
she said. “Do you want to go and meet the Marshal?”

Jon
abruptly backed away into the far wall. “Can you go? It’s
just… I don’t think I can face him right now.

“I'll
go,” Roe said. She felt the urge to reach out to him, but the
distance was too great. He was in pain but there was nothing she
could do. Experiencing a wave of regret, she turned away and headed
for the stairs. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, but there had
been no choice, they needed the Marshal.

Paul
must have heard her footsteps, his synthesised voice screaming out as
she walked down the staircase towards sub-basement.

“I’m
going to hurt your family Roe, hurt them so bad they beg for death.
Do you hear me Roe? Do you?”

She
shivered, but did not respond, preferring to continue her descent.
She had been here many times, but only ever to use the firing range,
sometimes to practice, but mostly to impress Jacob. She realised
belatedly that she had set a lot of store in impressing Jacob. When
she discovered he had been using Jopo H, it had made her so angry, so
disappointed. He had lied to her. All that ability, all that
confidence, hadn’t been real. She had respected a lie, no, more
than that, she had loved a lie. For her it was like he died twice.
But there would be time enough to mourn later. She was the Senior
Deputy and that was the truth she chose to hold onto.

The
transparent doors of the Regeneration Chamber stood before her, and
within she could see a figure, his back to her, huddled inside a
white blanket beside the chemical bath that had created him. She
placed her hand on the doorplate and felt the familiar stab of cell
retrieval. The doors slid aside. She walked over to him, slowly,
tentatively, wondering how disorientated he would be.

“Hello?”
she ventured. “Marshal Klein?”

The
new Marshal's teeth chartered as he struggled to speak. “Who
are you?” Even sat on the floor he seemed taller than the old
Jake, his hair blacker, his eyes bluer, his face thinner. But there
was no mistaking the clear jaw line or the cleft in his chin. This
man was undeniably Jacob Klein.

“My
name is Roe Jenkins, Marshal Klein. I’m one of your deputies.”

He
turned to face her, hugging the blanket close. By his feet was an
unopened blue bag.

“Lucas,”
the sim said, bracing himself against the bath as he attempted to
stand. “Lucas Miller is my deputy, I don’t know you.”

“Lucas
hasn’t been your deputy for a long time, Marshal.”

The
sim frowned. “How long?

“What
year do you think it is?”

“It’s
3361,” he said, and then looked at her closely, studying her
features. “It’s not 3361 is it?”

“No,
Marshal,” she replied. So the scan was ten years old. “It’s
3371.”

“I
know you,” he smiled, finding his feet at last. “Veronica
Jenkins, Abe and Kathy’s girl.”

“That’s
me,” she said. “But I prefer Roe.”

“How
are they?”

“My
father still works the farm. My mother passed away a few years back.”

The
sim rubbed his chin. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I
liked Kathy.” For a moment he appeared lost in thought. “Ten
years, well, I kept my promise then.” He turned over his hand.
“It doesn’t look fake.”

“It
isn’t,” Roe replied.

“Interesting,”
he said and sniffed the new hand. “I stink.”

“Jacob?”

“Hmmm,”
he said. “Call me Jake. Are we in any immediate danger?”

“Not
at the moment,” she replied.

“Good,”
he said, picking up the blue bag, “because I need to get
cleaned up. There’s a shower back here somewhere.”

He
walked across to a cavity near the far wall and operated a tap. Water
began to spray out from a showerhead hidden in the ceiling. “Could
you turn your back, please?”

Roe
did so. Steam began to fill the Regeneration Chamber. “I’ll
leave you to it,” she said, making for the doors.

“Veronica,
can you stay please? I need to know everything that’s being
going on, including how I died.”

“OK,”
she said. The Regeneration Chamber becoming decidedly uncomfortable.

“Also,
I’d like to know where my son is.”

*

Roe
told him what happened on Main Street, how a wounded Jacob Klein had
been humiliated, and how Lucas Miller had tried to intervene. When
she told him Lucas had been murdered, he stopped listening, pulled on
his uniform, towelled off his hair, and headed for Paul’s cell.
She followed, sensing an anger in him that would not be easily
satisfied.

“Go
away, Veronica,” he ordered.

“My
name is Roe,” she said firmly. “What are you going to
do?”

“Do?”
He asked. “Why would I do anything? He only killed the best
friend I ever had. I don’t bear a grudge. His father even
killed my wife, so what? Who cares?”

“You’re
not thinking rationally.”

He
stopped halfway up the staircase. “You’re right. I don’t
even have a gun. Give me your gun, Roe.”

“No,”
she said, taking a step back.

He
held out his hand. “Give me your gun, Roe. I’m your
Marshal.”

She
looked up at him. There was a glint of madness in his eyes that she
had never seen in Jacob’s. “Please stop.”

The
sim gritted his teeth. “Why did I make you a Deputy? You can’t
even follow simple instructions. Now, hand me the gun.”

“I…
“

“Do
you even want to be a Deputy? Because I think I can do without you.”

She
pulled the gun from her holster and offered it to him. She was not
ready to give up being a Deputy just yet.

“Thank-you,”
he said and snatched it out of her hand. She ran after him as he
entered the basement.

Paul
was lying on his bunk. The two reptilian lids of his eyes, which met
in the middle, were shut. An exploding concussion bolt woke him.

“You
killed Lucas!” Jake shouted.

Paul
rolled off his bunk, and was crouching beside it, turning his head
anxiously from side to side as if he was about to spring, but he was
in a cell. There was nowhere for him to go.

“I
should just put you out of my misery right now.”

“What
are you talking about?” Paul asked. “You’re…
“ Then he realised. “You’re not the Marshal.”

Jake
fired again, taking out another part of the wall. Roe noted that
neither bolt had even grazed the bars of the cell. This Jacob Klein
was accurate all by himself.

“You’re
a sim,” Paul said, cowering beside his bunk. “So Klein is
dead.”

Jake
stood next to the cell, just beyond Paul’s ability to strike
with his claws.

“Did
you kill me too?”

Paul
turned to Roe. “Are you just going to just let him shoot me?”

“Oh
relax,” Jake said, pointing the gun at the ground. “I
just wanted to have a look at you.” He turned to Roe and threw
the gun back. “Catch.”

She
returned it to her holster.

“Don’t
hesitate next time,” he said. “Or I really will need a
new Deputy.”

She
nodded. He seemed a little calmer. “Would you really have done
it?”

“Too
easy,” he replied. “Where’s Jon?”

“He’s
upstairs,” she said. “Jacob deputised him after …”

“I’ll
find out the rest of the story from him, thank-you.”

“What
do you want me to do?”

“Stay
here,” he ordered. “Keep an eye on the prisoner. Stay out
of my way.”

She
watched him go, and then returned to her stool. It had never been
very comfortable.

*

Paul
was lying on his bunk again, his vocoder doing a bad impersonation of
a chuckle. “I can’t believe you’re putting your
faith in a sim.”

“Shut
up, Paul,” Roe said.

“You
know sims malfunction all the time, I’m sure I’ve heard
stories of them killing entire families. It’s not like they’re
really human.”

“I
can put you on mute, you know,” Roe warned.

“The
technology in here is so old,” Paul said, stretching out.

“He’s
the Marshal,” Roe said. “And if you keep talking, I’m
going to get a bucket and throw something nasty over you.”

Paul
levelled his gaze at her, reptilian eyes unblinking. “Your
entire family will die at my hands.”

“Unlikely,”
Roe said. “You’ll be shipped off world for trial.”

“I
don’t think so.”

“Give
it a rest, Paul,” Roe said. “I’m getting fed up
with you.”

Paul
opened his mouth, but closed it again, the vocoder emitting a burst
of white noise.

“Thank-you,”
she said.

The
Threshian looked up at the ceiling, scraping his claws, one against
the other. “I can be reasonable Roe, help me out of here and
you’ll be handsomely rewarded. My uncle has a lot of money he
doesn’t spend. You could spend it for him.”