Velocity Read online

  First heartbeat.

  A brilliant flash of color that was Saturn swept by the quartz window, beginning to blur.

  Second heartbeat.

  My eyes blinked away the afterimages, my mouth opened of its own accord due to the acceleration. My eyes crawled up to the gauge: 33.45 already. That was good.

  Third heartbeat.

  I closed my eyes, then opened them again.

  Fourth heartbeat.

  The gauge read 67.90 percent and climbing. I tried to lift my hand for the shut off switch, made it half-way there. The fifth and sixth heartbeats went by in a haze, but I managed to wrap my thumb around the kill switch that would shut off the reaction that throbbed behind my crashseat.

  Seventh heartbeat. It seemed that I was closing in on the drone. I was less than three hundred kilometers behind it now. I knew its onboard computer systems had failed. Red digits showed: 96.89 percent.

  Eighth heartbeat. 98.89 percent. I was less than one hundred kilometers from the drone and about to collide with it, my thumb applied pressure to the kill switch.

  Then there was a massive flash of light and my vision was gone. I lost count of heartbeats, but tuned back in a few seconds later. The sensation of acceleration was gone.

  My dim vision focused on the gauge. It read: 0.00 percent. I blinked, thinking that it must be damaged. I looked out the front dome and saw that the drone had vanished. More incredibly, the entire universe had vanished.

  I was sitting inside what looked like a rocky cavern. The stars, planets and asteroids were gone. The ship was moving. It glided very slowly along on a sliding portion of rock, like a conveyor belt, that led deeper into the cavern. For a few moments I couldn’t think, I couldn’t react. I was dazed. Then I saw the General’s ship and his body, and I kicked into action.

  The cavern was full of Bugs, at least ten of them. Two and a half feet tall, moving on six legs with two upraised mandibles held close to the thorax like a wary mantis, I watched one scuttle forward toward my ship. All around the cavern, which was about the size of a school gymnasium, were odd-looking alien machines and partially dismantled test ships. Against one wall was a large freezer with transparent walls. Through the misted surface I could see a dozen or so men in the blue uniforms of our pilots, or rather pieces of them. They seemed to have all been dissected.

  I slapped the emergency release button and the hatch popped up. Grabbing at my belt, I clawed out the General’s Colt .45 and prayed that he kept it loaded.

  When the first two alien scientists rushed me, I learned that he did keep it loaded. The gun kicked twice and blew their jewel-eyed heads off. The aliens weren’t armed, this puzzled me until I had time to really look at the General’s ship. It was cut in half, which had removed his legs. Perhaps their device for grabbing ships did the job for them of cutting the vessel in half. Or maybe that was just an unfortunate side effect of dropping from near light speed to zero in an instant. It seemed that having the drone in front of me had saved my life, although it had nothing to do with how fast I was going.

  It took two entire clips—fortunately the General always kept spares on his belt—but I finally managed to kill all the Bugs in the cavern. Apparently, their system for grabbing pilots who got too close to the goal took a little bit of time, and since I had brought two ships and went for it right after the General, they had not quite been ready.

  Before any more of them could show up, possibly better-armed, I managed to escape through the airlock at the end of the tunnel, through the same portal that had snatched me out of the void. Steering the vessel around in a circle, I quickly got my bearings.

  I shook my head grimly, marveling at the simple horror of it. The Bugs were ingenious, you have to give them that. I was in the middle of Saturn’s beautiful rings. The enemy base was hidden inside one of the small rock-and-ice, chunk-sized moons that orbited with the rings. They must have stashed this base away during the first invasion while we were too busy dodging clusterbombs and maser blasts to pay attention. Basically, I was right back where I had started.

  On the way back to the Ulysses I could not help but feel exalted. The Barrier had been artificial, and I had personally exterminated the little demons behind it. Light speed was now achievable for our fleet, and best of all, when we came back and took their base we would have much more of their technology to study before the enemy fleet arrived.

  Symptoms of Godhood

  “I need to warm up, Suzy. It’s been a while since I’ve done anything for your people,” Mulciber told his employer. Mulciber Sten sat with Suzy in a high class Chicago office, twenty-eight floors below ground level. Hidden vents circulated filtered air around the office. Mulciber could hear the distant, low thrumming of fans somewhere far above.

  He sat rigidly upright in his seat. Only his eyes moved, examining the newly reconstructed muscles and veins of his ruddy-skinned hands. No hair grew on the backs of his new hands and his fingertips were just rounded points of flesh, lacking any sign of nails or cuticles.

  “Why don’t you warm up here?” Suzy suggested in a warm voice. “I would like that.” She leaned forward, placing her elbows on the expensive desk of molded cellulose that separated them. Her smile mixed with her perfume and washed over Mulciber like a bath of sweet oils. Suzy was a cop. An official of the United Chicago police force, who held the ambiguous title of District Executive.

  Mulciber himself was referred to as a ‘special forces unit’ in his dossier. He was a one-man unit; he always worked alone.

  Mulciber stood up slowly. It seemed to take a long time for him to rise to his full height. He moved with grace and care, in the smooth manner of a predator that does not wish to startle its prey. He took a stance in the middle of the room and began stretching.

  Mulciber was a heavily modified man. His nervous system was only remotely similar to the one he had been born with. His reactions, his senses, and the coordination of the two had been greatly improved. Body-shop surgeons had taken him apart and rebuilt him, doing genetic regrows on most of his muscles and organs, and using synthetic replacements for the rest. They had in fact overbuilt him, perhaps being curious to see what they could create with their skills fully unbridled. He had many unique and experimental features to aid him in surviving, the pet theories of anatomical designers in proto-type form. One of these experiments was his skin. It was tougher, thicker and healed faster than human skin. It was less porous than normal skin and had an artificial texture to it, a shiny smoothness. It also lacked the capability to grow body hair or nails. This didn’t bother Mulciber much, as some women, such as Suzy, said that they found his baldness exciting.

  Suzy clicked briefly at the keyboard built into her desk. Her blue-polished fingernails flicked over the plastic keys efficiently. The computer’s printer buzzed, spitting out several sheets of thin, synthetic paper onto the desk. She examined the printout. “Your target is leaving for the Tau planets on the two A.M. shuttle tonight.”

  Mulciber made no sign of acknowledgement. He had finished stretching his muscles and tendons. He paused, then with a specific mental effort shifted his modified nervous system to battle-speed. His perceptions slowed time, allowing his brain to keep control of his blinding speed of movement. He was fast enough and strong enough to damage or kill accidentally in one careless moment of action. First he loosed a flying kick at head-level that would have smashed through a wall of cinder block. He followed through with a five-punch combination of straight-armed body blows intended to rupture an opponent’s abdominal wall and shatter his ribcage.

  Suzy wriggled up into a better position to watch. She was also the product of body-shops, but for her the surgeons had been artists, working to create beauty. Her long hair—golden blonde this week, her natural color—spilled from her shoulders to hang around her face. She absently curled a yellow lock around one finger while she stared at him. Her eyes shone, reflecting the florescent lights in the ceiling.

  Mulciber sped up. His fists and feet snapped out a
nd whipped back like the pistons of a combustion engine gone mad. The air hissed over the smooth unnatural skin of his limbs.

  Then he found himself doing something he never did when he was up to full speed. He found himself thinking. He thought about the Tau planets, the destination that his victim would never see. Colony ships were leaving from all the orbiting ports. Every city was sending up all the volunteers they could gather on upper deck tickets and cramming criminals from their swollen prisons into the holds below. The Tau planets were advertised to be nothing but vast rolling gardens, but things were rarely as they were advertised to be. Mulciber had never been in any kind of garden. He thought, just for a moment, of what it would be like to live in the midst of a sea of living things.

  Mulciber misjudged a kick. Soundlessly, a tiny crease appeared in the plasti-foam wall of Suzy’s office. He halted his warm-up immediately. A matching crease appeared on his forehead, the equivalent of a fierce scowl for him. He reproached himself silently for his carelessness. Thinking at full battle-speed about anything but combat was dangerous. Suzy gave no sign of having noticed his error. Mulciber sat down and took up the computer file print-out from her desk quickly, so as to keep her eyes away from the dent in her office wall. He flipped through the file quickly to the most important part, the physical description. He always wanted to know first what he was up against. His eyes were arrested by a single item on the page, almost before he had had time to read anything.

  What caught his eye was the age. Nine. They wanted him to kill a nine-year-old. For a second time his forehead creased in uncommon emotion. But this time the emotion was that of disgust. He flipped quickly to the slightly grainy, computer-generated color image of the child. His target looked back at him, a sturdy-looking boy with dark hair and dark, serious eyes. His lips were parted as if he had been speaking when the photograph was taken. Mulciber could see two gaps in his front teeth. Mulciber dumped the print-out back onto Suzy’s desk. The pile of paper sprawled out with a ruffling sound.

  Suzy, who had been watching him closely, looked up from the file to Mulciber’s grim face. She looked worried.

  “No,” said Mulciber.

  “It won’t be as easy as it looks, Mulciber—there will be guards...”

  “No.”

  “But we need you. You know you’re the best we have,” Suzy pleaded, her words sliding off her tongue. Her voice worked on his mind like a balm on a wound. “This isn’t just family-to-family, city-to-city politics, this is bigger than that.”

  “If your people want me to kill children then I’m out.”

  “This boy’s family, they’re just criminal—” Suzy began, a sharp note creeping into her voice. She quickly checked herself and changed tacts. “Maybe you need a vacation Mulciber... Maybe after this we could go to Io, like we did last year. We could rent a cottage and spend all day feeling the ground tides and just watching the storms on Jupiter. Wouldn’t it be nice to spend some time... together?”

  She leaned across her desk to lay her hand on Mulciber’s. There were jeweled rings on three of her fingers. She smiled at him, a bright-eyed smile, full of promise. Her teeth gleamed, matching her diamonds. Gently, with the air of a man picking up an injured songbird, Mulciber lifted her hand from his. He quelled his urge to give her a slight, apologetic squeeze as he placed her delicate hand back on the desk between them. Her hand was small, white and perfectly formed. His was huge and unnatural-looking, built of over-sized artificial bones and overlapping chunks of heavy muscle.

  “You don’t understand, Suzanne—”

  “Whatever happened to Suzy?” she asked, tilting her head to one side and looking hurt. Her full red lips pouted. She fingered the rings on her rejected hand sullenly.

  “—All right, then... Suzy,” said Mulciber in resignation. It hurt him to see her looking dejected. He tried not to let it, but it did. “I don’t kill kids.”

  Mulciber turned to one side, away from Suzy’s flashing rings, red lips and expensive desk. He looked down into his lap. His two powerful arms, networked with rope-like veins, ended in the square, thick-fingered hands of a killer. “There’s no challenge left. I’m not a hunter anymore... I do not stalk and defeat equals in combat. You want a scavenger, a thing in the night that steals children.”

  Suzy came around from behind her desk. Her sheer clothing clung to the curves of her body and emphasized her attractive shape. She climbed into his lap, sliding herself between his arms and pressing herself against his unnaturally smooth, hairless skin. Mulciber remained motionless, staring grimly past her, staring at the crease he had put in her office wall. He did not shift to accommodate her weight; his desensitized nerves could hardly feel it. It was as if a butterfly had alighted on the lap of a somber bronze statue.

  “Mulciber,” Suzy began softly. She pinched up a lock of her long blonde hair and traced the relief of his chest muscles with the end of it, like an artist applying brush-strokes to a painting. “We need you... I need you...”

  Although he could hardly feel her weight on his lap, Mulciber could not help but be aware of her. Her perfume, mixed with the scent of her body, filled his sensitive nostrils with every breath he took. Suzy’s scent and the soft warmth of her body so close to his filled his head like a narcotic. He found his hand on her calf, feeling her smooth skin. Then his hand moved slowly up her soft thigh. He turned his head to look down at her. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted, waiting for him to kiss her.

  But then he heard, saw, smelled and felt something else. Dying screams cut short. Doomed faces, twisted in the horror and surprise of their final moments. The sharp stink of fear. Warm clotting blood, washing his hands scarlet. Mulciber raised his head again, leaving Suzy’s face and the faces of his victims behind. Effortlessly, he lifted his manager off his lap and set her on her feet.

  Suzy did not pout this time. She did not look dejected, she looked stunned. She straightened the flimsy material of her clothing with quick, harsh motions, like a cat shaking a wet paw.

  Mulciber reseated himself. He sat as silent and impassive as a rock in the ocean. He gazed at the carpet. Suzy moved back behind her desk. When she spoke her voice held a different tone, one with a metal edge in it. “They won’t like this, Mulciber. They won’t let you quit.”

  Mulciber made no move to reply.

  “What’s wrong with killing criminals?” she asked suddenly, her voice imploring. Her beautifully made-up eyes pleaded with him.

  “There is no honor in it,” he replied. He stood up. His body resembled something solid—not flesh—perhaps something carved out of granite. He was built in blocks rather than in curves, each muscle and cord clearly outlined beneath his reddish-tan skin. He raised one hand and closed it into a fist.

  Suzy’s eyebrows arched at this; it was rare for Mulciber to perform such an idle gesture of body language. “There is nothing for me in the killing I do now. I do not grow greater by it.”

  For the first time, Suzy frowned in annoyance. “You sound as if you think there is no one who can face you,” she said in an irritated tone. She rubbed her thigh where he had touched her. “You aren’t a god, you know.”

  “No,” he agreed seriously. He looked into her eyes and grimly locked her gaze with his. He saw no understanding in there, only puzzlement. “Not a god... But am I a man?”

  #

  A light, corrosive-carrying rain fell on the city. As with all the larger domed cities, it rained almost constantly in Chicago. Precipitation continually gathered on the vast shining dome’s interior then dripped back again in an endless cycle, like a half-full bottle of liquid left in the sun. In Chicago, once known as the windy city, there was no such thing as open air.

  The most foul living conditions in the city were found at ground level or near it. In the ancient, squalid streets it was always wet, hot and dark. The sun never reached down into the black pits of shade between the buildings. It was always night there, with garish neon lights and wispy hologram advertisements smiling and s
elling over every intersection. Thieves, murderers and vendors of all sorts abounded, working their respective arts on the crowds that thronged the avenues.

  Mulciber crouched five stories above the glare-lit streets on an old ledge of eroded concrete. Ten feet below him and off to his left a sky-street ran out of the building. The people on it did not see him. To their eyes, he was only another formless projection of the shadowy building. He had been as motionless as the concrete itself for three hours. Water ran down his hairless pate to form acidic drops at the tip of his nose. He maintained his vigil over the sky-street, ignoring the rain as he ignored all else but the faces of those who slid past his perch. It had been several hours since he had informed Suzy that he was quitting. He expected she would find a temporary replacement, and give him a chance to ‘come to his senses’ —before informing her superiors. There was a quiver of motion on Mulciber’s normally impassive face at this thought, a glimmer of a smile. The superiors would instruct their inferiors, and then they would start to come for him. There was time yet for leaving the city, but he had no desire to run from his enemies. At least they would not be children.

  But now he had another errand. A laughing couple appeared on the sky-street. It was Suzy with a man that Mulciber did not know. Suzy swung her hips and bubbled with light conversation. Her arms locked on the stranger’s elbow and her cheek pressed his shoulder. Wispy suggestions of clothing trailed after her like veils of spun gossamer. The man she was with looked slick. His maroon suit was the finest and he had a water-shedding field on it, which indicated a lot of money. The field was powerful enough to keep Suzy dry too—as long as she kept close. The man wore a hat of soft white felt with a violet plume that erupted out of the band. Mulciber knew his type. He was strictly a high-class act, the kind that never got closer to ground-level than the thickness of a speeding elevator’s walls.