SF in The City Anthology (22 page)

             
The man in the coat walked in front of each of us, injecting a fine mist into our nostrils with a small pump. He wore a gas mask himself. While I imagine each of my compatriots wanted to kill him as badly as I did for putting that burning brume in the air, we all restrained ourselves. Husher watched each of us intently and told the assistant, “You may leave now Dr. Quietus.”

             
Each of us
recruits
looked at each other just as curiously as our new boss. “You have each been inoculated with
Naegleria fowleri
,” Mr. Husher grinned cruelly, “also known as the brain-eating amoeba amongst the less informed of you.” Now we were really observing each other keenly.

             
“What is the meaning of this?” Jihoon De Jong asked in exasperation.

             
“Now they aren’t your typical brain eaters,” Husher said with his equivalent of pride. “We hacked them with nanomachines. They will remain dormant inside your skulls, unless you create a situation that demands their activation. Your infections won’t be contagious to anyone else, and we can destroy the little buggers whenever we wish. We have that much control over them.”

             
Everyone in the lineup didn’t know if sighing in relief or clutching our heads in distress was the proper reaction, so we all managed our best stoic expressions and kept silent.

             
“Of course, since we hacked this amoeba, we have also programmed in abilities that make them even more dangerous than your run of the mill
Naegleria fowleri
. A disease that would normally take days to destroy your brain now only takes a matter of minutes, plus the amoeba self-destruct after they’ve finished their job, so no one will know what ate your brains. The genius of our scientists never fails to amaze me.” He cast Dr. Quietus a look of
I’m buttering you up right now, so appreciate it
, as the man left the warehouse.

             
“What if we all decided to go against you and put this experiment of yours in the ground right now?” Jihoon asked grimly. We all eyed him suspiciously.

             
“Seeing as you’re the group’s conscience,” Husher crossed his arms, “I seriously doubt your comrades will go along with your reckless strategy. You don’t seem to appreciate that you are all here because you are special! I don’t spend the money and time preparing hacked amoeba for all of my troops. Look around you!”

             
We did as he told, noticing for the first time that dozens of soldiers had their sentient electron rifles (SERs) trained at us. They didn’t seem to have heard their boss’s last assertion. Otherwise, they might have looked more alert.

             
“I have all their helmets audio receptors shut down,” Husher said, as if in answer to my thoughts. “You all are here because you are the perfect cops for the jobs I demand of you. To be quite honest, most of you don’t care about ethics, and those of you who do have some personal sense of honor still think yourselves above the law. I will give you all the chance to make history, and crack a few heads while you’re at it. You will be my ‘Dark Unit.’ The very fact that I speak to you about this and not the troops around me demonstrates my trust in you.”

             
Our handcuffs automatically unlocked and fell to the floor. Turning to stare at the soldiers around us, we saw them act as if they had suddenly come to life, and they lowered their weapons. I turned to look back at Mr. Husher, as he walked up with an extended hand, shaking each of ours one after the other. Only Jihoon De Jong seemed reluctant to accept the offer of friendship. I made a mental note to keep an eye on him.

***

“As our first op, I know it’s not very impressive,” Husher’s voice resounded in our heads telepathically, the nanotubes in our brains lighting up in areas that demonstrated we were in “group chat.” The six of us recruits stood outside of a small apartment’s door on Ichigo Street in Prefecture 90. As the head of the intelligence division, Husher had his own private super jet, which gave us the alacrity usually afforded only to corporate CEOs and politicians. Needless to say, the trip to Prefecture 90 had been the quickest my comrades and I had ever experienced, though we never knew where that warehouse at the beginning of this story had been located in the first place.

             
“Just follow my lead, and don’t shoot anybody, unless I ask,” Husher said.

             
Running a small card over the apartment entrance way’s electronic locking mechanism, Husher opened the door nonchalantly and walked in, the rest of us following with our SERs raised cautiously. The apartment was a little more spacious inside than I imagined, but with six recruits tailing him, Mr. Husher didn’t have much room to move around.

             
Spotting the home’s owner, I was a little taken aback to see how unassuming he appeared. About 5’7” and thin as a rail, the young man hunched over an old fashioned work bench, drawing doodles of some kind on an old fashioned sheet of paper. I guessed that Husher had brought us on a trip to a madman’s home, so I lifted the safety on my weapon’s stun ball firing barrel, prepared to level this man if necessary.

             
“Minjae Bracken?” our commander asked the shocked doodler. “I’m Mr. Husher – head of Central Authority’s intelligence division. Do you mind if I make a request of you?”

             
“How, um, can I help you?” Minjae’s hands shook.

             
“Well as I understand it,” Husher rubbed his hands together as if in glee, “you’re a mangaka
[35]
, correct? Your line of work produces the most sales through digital distribution, but diehards still collect copies of your work through paper medium. As you’ve just demonstrated to us, you still draft your works manually. Unless you want your writing hand broken, you’ll do as I say.”

             
“Okay, I’m not out to cause trouble,” Minjae trembled. “Just tell me what you need, and I’ll do it gladly!”

             
“That’s the spirit,” Husher cut loose with a guttural laugh. “Since you love the old medium so much, we even brought you instructions on paper.” He handed a file to the mangaka.

             
“You want me to put these symbols in my work?” Minjae looked at us all in surprise.

             
“Make their usage blatant enough to see and hidden well enough to seem coincidental,” Husher patted the artist on the back. “By the way, we also included instructions on plot twists you need to include in your
Born a Bushi
series as well. Trust us Mr. Bracken and you will no longer be stuck in the world of dōjinshi
[36]
. You’ll be a leader in the industry.”

             
“Did you stop to consider that I enjoy being an underground artist?” Minjae muttered.

             
“Well, fish that swim against the current don’t last for long,” Husher signaled to us that it was time to leave. “Just remember that we won’t be happy if we have to come back here again. The mainstream doesn’t sound so bad in that light, does it?”

             
After we had vacated the premises, Minjae sighed and said “lamestream is more like it.” Husher played this man’s frustrated mark across our telepathic comm channel, so we could all hear it, indicating that the apartment had been bugged. “Never forget who has got the power in this world,” he said stoically.

             
“So our job is to threaten artists?” Willow said peevishly.

“Your job will be to push civilization in the right direction, no matter what it takes to do so,” Mr. Husher sent a signal to
an autonomous police transport.

             
Akin to the vehicles in the archaic bus system still used in Prefecture 82, this large black transport had two decks. It maintained its own personal arsenal, food storage unit for long trips and laboratory for unique missions. More importantly, it was controlled like a drone, with the occupants lacking any power over the vehicle’s movements. Og Husher may have chosen to trust us, but it would seem that it was only as far as he could throw us.

             
“Today was just a demo,” our commander assured our group. “Tomorrow at this time, you will be overseeing an important mission for me.

             
As we seated ourselves in the transport, Mr. Husher sent an image of a middle aged man to each of us mentally. The picture had obviously been taken by satellite, given the auto adjusting characteristics of the photo. Much to my chagrin, the man looked like a nice guy, then again, so had Assize Zavocky.

             
“This is Dr. Chagai Traore, a physicist with a closeted religious zeal,” Husher spoke to us mentally, even though the transport had anti-surveillance measures in place.

“Given the Prevention of Superstition Act, how was a religious man allowed into a scientific position?” Pox asked. “That ruling specifically states anyone with a belief in the supernatural is not permitted in a job dependent on empirical inquiries whether a rese
arch or educational position.”

             
“The big guy is smarter than he looks,” Husher said approvingly. “Sometimes it benefits us to let some people slip through the cracks. Chagai Traore is actually one of the better physicists working at Ensample Laboratories. Perhaps his religious beliefs give him a way of looking at problems that differs from his peers. As a matter of fact, he’s the one who discovered a way to prevent schizophrenia amongst cyborgs,” Husher cast a furtive glance at Cian. “Believe it or not, the head of The City Science Council is secretly a Hindu. If there’s one thing you should all learn from your time in my service, it’s that our establishment’s rules must be broken when the pros of doing so outweigh the cons.”

             
“So what’s so special about a religious scientist?” Willow had tired of our boss’s diatribe. “What are we supposed to do with him?”

             
“Now we come to the fun part of your mission,” Husher pulled a cigar out of his pocket and cut the end off with the guillotine like cover on his lighter. “You all are going to participate in an experiment for the CA.”

“Sounds boring actually,” I t
hought to the group.

             
“Oh believe me,” Husher cast me a mischievous look, “boring is the very last word I would use to describe this mission. You all will be responsible for tagging Dr. Traore with a new kind of nanomachine and then controlling him once this has been achieved.”

             
“Controlling him?” Pierre cocked an eyebrow.

             
“Dr. Quietus has whipped up a new kind of self-replicating nanomachine strain – SF587. It is designed so that each individual nanomachine latches onto interneurons and motor neurons, hacking into the control system of the body. All of the machines receive collective commands from an external source.”

             
“So what you’re saying…is that you are creating a remote controlled…human?” Jihoon thought to us hesitantly.

             
“That is exactly what we have accomplished,” Husher replied proudly.

             
“How exactly do you intend to get the nanomachines inside of him?” Pierre asked.

             
“A trick we have used in the intelligence division for some time for getting DNA samples from unwitting citizens involves using drones indistinguishable from the common mosquito,” Husher took a long time breathing out a cloud of smoke from his cigar. He could have thought to us at that time, but he seemed lost in his own musings, perhaps remembering a sensitive memory from his sordid past. “They can just as easily inject foreign substances into the body as they can take blood out. Within a brief moment of exposure, Dr. Traore’s body will be susceptible to command.”

             
“This all sounds really good on paper,” Pox pulled a bottle of oolong tea out of the vehicle’s refrigerator with one of his massive hands. “What do you really need
all
of us for? Just one of us could easily kill the scientist if your control system fails.”

             
“I want Cian to control the good doctor from the vehicle,” Husher thought to us quickly. “Pox, you will be responsible for protecting this vehicle and its occupant. Jihoon will set up a sniping position across the street from the café where we will have Traore do his thing. He can take down our target if a problem arises. Willow, you will eat at the café in case a problem arises with Jihoon’s ability to take a shot. Eliminate both the doctor and his target in an emergency. Pierre, I know from your file that you know how to pilot an emergency VTOL. You will arrive at the scene of the crime to collect Traore’s body and wipe up any blood once Cian forces the doctor to kill himself. Unfortunately, as advanced as these micro machines are, they do not break down on their own. We can’t leave any traces behind. I have a special assignment for Eiran elsewhere.”

             
“What exactly will we
convince
the doctor to do to this
target
?” Cian asked what was on all of our minds.