A Genetic Engineering Sci Fi Book Series
Spoils Of War by Conor H. Carton
Series Excerpt
The United Platform for Citizen Respect campaign headquarters were in the middle of Thiegler’s business section, a good decision to reassure everyone that the United Platform for Citizen Respect was in tune with the money and didn’t want to rock any profitable boats. The office was relatively low-key with a small rectangular front plate displaying the party name and logo. They weren’t doing anything to draw the wrong kind of attention … the kind I was about to give.
I ambled into the bright reception area buzzing with people and chatter and filled with positive energy. Someone wearing a gray United Platform for Citizen Respect armband greeted me as soon as I’d taken a step inside. She had a sincere smile and a flexpad in her hands and was clearly a natural born human.
“My name is Reyan. How may I help you?” She extended a slender hand as she spoke, and I shook it. She looked pleased and excited.
When I told her, I had an appointment to be a volunteer, she checked her flexpad. “Mr. Mansard, how nice to meet you. You have a meeting with the Director of Campaign Staff, Dr Sand.” She paused to check the time. “Right now, in fact. Thank you for being so punctual.” She headed through the crowd and I followed.
The crowd held many more Naturals than I’d expected. Clearly, the United Platform for Citizen Respect had done its work well to capture the guilty vote … and make them feel they weren’t doing it from any sort of guilt at all. If and when the United Platform for Citizen Respect got onto the Standing Committee, they’d stop feeling guilty and start feeling entitled. Handled properly, it would become a reasonably reliable voter base. The United Platform for Citizen Respect was serious and could score well in the election; the PR agents were right to be concerned.
We sauntered down a short hall lined with unmemorable campaign posters with the usual blur of phrases and pictures. Reyan stood at a narrow door she’d just opened and waved me in, announcing to the being inside, “Dr Sand, Mr. Mansard is here to see you.” With a pretty smile, she closed the door behind.
If I could have turned and run, I would have, but when a rifle was pointed at your face and a cannon at your back, not moving seemed the best course.
I glanced at a slightly battered desk, a cheap put-together item that would do the required work and give a message of no-nonsense pragmatism by the very big lifeform seated behind it. He was a StoneBeater, with the usual flat features, grey skin, and hard muscles that gave force to the name. Wearing expensive robes, custom-made by the way they fell, they emphasized the strength of his bulky frame. Sloping, almond-brown eyes stared. He radiated sheer physical power. It was too perfect and had to be a cover for a gentle giant; the Naturals out front would be thrilled for seeing through the disguise. Except I knew it wasn’t a front. He was everything he appeared to be and didn’t scare me a fraction as much as did the slim, elegant Avian seated to his right, smiling with far too many teeth.
Dressed in a form-fitting sea-blue robe slashed with red and yellow, Zusak Sedge was a clear and present danger to every Bottle-Born creature in the known systems. Finding her here was an unmistakable sign that I was several kilometres in shit over my head.
“I see that you know me. Fine. Introductions are tedious. Sit and listen very closely. While I may say this more than once, this will be the only time that it will be painless. You’ve been sent by the Standing Committee to spy on us so they might prevent us achieving our deserved win in the election. That’s good, because we need a pipeline to them. You’ll report what you’re told to and that will keep them happy.
“The trickier problem you have is keeping us happy. In your unalterable history, you’ve chosen to embrace those who’ve enslaved and deformed you. I’d have you flayed, and your skin tanned for shoes but, in this exceptional case, you’re marginally more useful alive.”
She fell silent while she assessed me again. Zusak Sedge never shouted or raged; she had a beautiful voice, clear and pleasant, making everything she said sound calm, rational and trustworthy. A calm manner suited those serene features and sparkling brown eyes. Topaz-yellow hair with amber-orange streaks was carefully arranged on her head so that it looked like an explosion of colour. If you looked at her and knew nothing more, you’d feel the warmth of her presence and be willingly bound by the shackles of that subtle charisma.
This could easily happen even if you knew she was the most dangerous, politically motivated, mass killer in the systems, pursued by multiple organizations that had “mysteriously” never managed to capture her. Someone dead from severely unnatural causes had likened her to Empress Ingea—of the Bottle-Born.
She claimed to work for the liberation of the Bottle-Born, but the countless wracked corpses in her wake spoke to a very different agenda of power and domination. She was the single biggest cause of fatalities for independent Bottle-Born lifeforms like me; we were the rungs on her ladder to success. Zusak was also considered—by those who couldn’t actively prevent the thought from crossing their conscious minds—to be in league with the furthest reaches of the Human Rights fringe.
“You’re going to complete a task for me. If you fail to do so, I’ll add you to my calculator. Achieve the task and I’ll grant you a swift death and use you to mulch my flowers. It will make the worms happy. We’ll contact you with task details. You may go now.”
I understood perfectly. Being part of her calculator meant being physically wired into her personal neural network. I’d become part of her, literally. Diversity was critical to long-term success and Zusak Sedge followed the logic with ruthless efficiency—captured diverse lifeforms were grafted onto an organic matrix that ensured their physical wellbeing. Linked charms ensured they were a mental collective comprised of individual voices. They thought about the best methods for Zusak Sedge to achieve her aims. She’d use me to think of better ways to create fear, hurt, death and chaos. I’d resist as much as I could but, undoubtedly, I’d contribute to the horror.
The StoneBeater rose and circled the desk. Up close, he was even more imposing than I’d initially thought. He handed me an infogem without a word.
I stood up and, looking directly at his heavily veined throat, took it and walked from the room without my bowels betraying me (the muscles of my buttocks were clenched so tightly, they’d have held a planet in check).
I walked back through the throng of happy faced Naturals, who had no idea what was transpiring. As I left the building, I was thinking all I needed now was a transit breakdown so that I’d have to walk back to my space and an unscheduled storm to soak me to the bone as I did so. Neither happened and I returned to my space safe and dry … where I engaged in a screaming panic fit in the comfort of my bed.
***
The following morning, I dropped off the infogem at the nearest security drop box on my way to the transit. The poster on the drop box that loudly proclaimed the lie that any lifeform who dropped off would remain securely anonymous was clearly designed to mock me personally. I had been sold out before I had even dropped off any information.
At work I was assigned to an emergency team to work on a blood lake predator breakout in an Emergence Corp super-farm disposal system. There was no time to think about anything except avoiding predators chewing up Involuntary Public Servant staff and spitting the bones at me. After surviving another day at the blood lake, I headed out of the staff portal to return home for a scrub and a sandwich. I’d invested in a personal protection system, not the most sophisticated, mind you, but functional enough for my purposes. It had assessed the movements as not being threatening and allowed it without a primary alert. As such, I wasn’t startled when I felt pressure on my arm.
I turned and was surprised to see Nanteer, more discreetly dressed this time. She wasn’t smiling and looked a little worried and off balance. Clearly, she was outside her geographical comfort zone. I was very glad to see her, more than I’d have expected, and hoped this would be a chance to re-establish contact with Lincoln. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Lincoln since she’d seen me slammed at the Loser’s Lounge. I’d been so busy going to United Platform for Citizen Respect rallies, setting up and running message shots, and generally being the active volunteer, I was supposed to be, that I’d no time outside of work to think of anything else.
All lifeforms, Natural or otherwise, are creatures of communication. We crave a chance to jump across the isolation of individual consciousness to share with others. A speakeasy loosened more than your tongue, and speaking the truth was a crucial act of communication; it created a deep bond between speaker and listener. Professional interrogators knew this and used the speakeasy as a lever to open the door to creating a bond, starting with something trivial and unrelated. They’d then use alternative means—exploitation—to get what they wanted. A speakeasy was also a much sought-after love potion, found in so many entertainment stories.
I had a bond with Lincoln and an aching need for friendship that I’d held at bay for years. Lincoln had breached my defences at their most vulnerable point and I was feeling the pain. Any hopes I may have had were quickly swept aside when Nanteer spoke.
“Lincoln doesn’t know I’m talking to you. She’d explode if she knew, whatever you did to her wasn’t right.” She waved away my attempt to speak. “Her mother is seriously ill and needs medical help. The clinic will only accept a clean card. Lincoln thinks you have one and can’t bear to ask you for help. I, however, can.”
I removed my card from its holder and handed it over. “Use my name, no restrictions.”
Nanteer looked more shocked than surprised. Obviously, she’d been expecting a price. This left her dumbfounded. I couldn’t help those I had most desperately wanted to, but I could certainly help someone in need. With a curt nod, I headed to my evening of volunteering and high wire balancing at the United Platform for Citizen Respect.
***
Lincoln had noted that I was working in the Public Service and not on the scheme. In fact, 99.99% of all non-management staff in the Public Service were in the scheme—the Public Service Staff Benefits Enhancement and Elaboration Scheme, to be precise. That those 99.99% were also Bottle-Born free citizens wasn’t coincidental. The Public Service had become the default employer for bottle born free citizens, a solution to a significant problem. Naturals and non-Naturals made each other uncomfortable, tolerance was achievable, and acceptance and genuine integration, were purely aspirational. Mixed workforces were more potential trouble than employers wanted so the solution emerged in silence.
One of the problems inherent in the Bottle-Born was medical. The process of brewing lifeforms had possible medical repercussions, not for every lifeform and not all the time, but enough to make it a lifelong threat to us. Medical insurers realized there were profits to be made and struck a deal with the Standing Committee to provide medical cost insurance for the Bottle-Born population. The vast majority of all Bottle-Born were specialized lifeforms with reduced lifespans—disposable labour for extreme conditions, cheaper and more productive than machines. The target group: the free-citizen Bottle-Born. Big enough to be a market, sick enough to want protection while not sick enough to be unprofitable.
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