The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are (13 page)

“And now?” I want to know (or at least want them to
think about it).

“The virus has probably passed,” he isn’t
convincing.

“I’d consider taking them myself, but the daughter’s
too kiddy and I hear the mom is too loose, just lays there,” Palmer
stays selfish and perverse. “And nobody brings a baby into my
space, no matter how obedient they are.”

“The Protecteds are happy to serve,” Murphy seems to
need to tell me, however unconvincingly, when he sees the look on
my face.

“Sometimes a set of tasty holes is all they’ve got
that keeps them from Casting,” Palmer devalues.

“And Gardener approves?” I wonder.

“Morale is important,” Palmer defends testily. “And
without us, they’d
all
be Cast by now. Then raped, tortured,
dead and eaten, in whatever order and combination amuses, because
they’re too sorry to make it as Cast. Too weak. Too spoiled. They’d
barely make an hour’s good entertainment for those animals outside,
even if they have a nice scream. Now enjoy an H-K bed. Just bathe
first—you stink of dust and Cast.”

Murphy almost looks like he’s going to apologize for
his partner, but he just steps out with him, and they lock me
in.

I use my solitude to delve deeper into Gardener and
the history of the colony. Despite the relatively luxury of my
prison, I’m not sure I can accept the cost.

Gardener is a meticulous record keeper. Almost twelve
hundred residents have been “Cast” over the decades. Given the
estimated population of the Cast, Palmer’s statements about the
fates of those sent outside may be accurate. I think about all the
bones that adorn the Lower Dome: enough to build mounds, pave
pathways, and still have enough left for jewelry (and I’ve only
seen the barest fraction of the Lower Dome). Unless they’ve had a
large number of unlucky visitors or failed invaders, the remains
are probably majority colony residents, forced outside at gunpoint
when their scores deemed them more burden than asset, which happens
any time the population grows past a sustainability threshold or
systems degrade and lower that threshold.

I wonder how much H-K’s like Palmer get to influence
the value of their charges, based on how well they serve them
sexually.

I am torn as to what to do. And I am disturbed by the
power I could wield over this place. I could destroy their cruel
utopia: disable Gardener, disarm the H-K, let the Protected decide
what happens next (assuming they wouldn’t just restore what I undo
out of fear of the alternative). I could stay and enforce my own
will over them, replace Gardener and the H-K with a benevolent god.
I could even force a peace with the Cast. Make them into an army
capable of resisting UNMAC and Chang. Save lives.

Become another Chang.

It strikes me: Chang is trying to prevent a hell
where almost everyone has godlike power. What he’s created is a
world where a select few have that power, set free to wield it over
everyone else who doesn’t.

I’ve been here maybe an hour. In the first few
minutes, I was already thinking about using my power to force these
people to comply with my own ideals. And the impulse keeps eating
at me. I want to
fix
this place, save these people from
themselves. (And I do want to punish at least a few of them.)

Is that the kind of god I’m going to be?

No. I can’t even think that way. I can’t afford
to.

But I’ve spent my life judging (and too often
executing). And now I have less limits and more power.

I obsess on Gardener’s records: Fifty years of
helpless people thrown outside, likely to horrible fates (as Palmer
almost-gleefully detailed). Sanctioned hunts to cull the competing
Cast population like so many wild pests.

(Two Gun had two precious H-K weapons and ammo, and
part of a uniform. Mak had an H-K jacket. I expect I know what they
had to do to earn them. I find no fewer than thirty H-K listed as
killed in the line of duty. But I also see the hunts bring by far
the highest point awards. Some of the currently serving H-K have
killed dozens of Cast. Palmer-6 is particularly high ranking in
that regard, but Murphy-7 isn’t far behind.)

I make myself “unplug” from the records of atrocity
and try to let go, find some serenity in my borrowed surroundings,
maybe some insight into the humanity of these professional
murderers.

Hammond’s quarters are neat and sparse, not many
belongings on display. Clothing in her cabinets consist of plain
workwear, workout wear and two more H-K uniforms. She has another
pair of tactical boots that look like they’ve been re-soled at
least once, and simple slippers. There are a few simple wire and
scrap sculptures that could have been made by a child, but there’s
some definite talent—I wonder if she made them or if they were
gifts from her charges.

As I’m banging around like a bad thief, I kick loose
a panel at the base of her bed, find and old diamond necklace and
what looks like a wedding ring—family heirlooms?—along with a
threadbare stuffed frog with abraded plastic eyes. I hide her
secret treasures back away.

I plug back into Gardener—I really can’t help
myself—and take my curiosity into personnel files. There are three
other Hammonds currently serving (though Hammond-9 is a ten year
old boy still listed as a “cadet”). Hammonds 1-6 are deceased.
Three are listed as killed in the line of duty. Two others list
cause of death as “voluntary self termination”. The
remaining—Hammond-1—was a “self-Cast”.

I count a total of ten H-K family lines, all dating
back to the original Hammond-Keller personnel. Forty-nine currently
serve, with another ten in training and just the one—Dory—in
jeopardy because of her injury.

I hack into the sentry cameras, find her in Medical.
She’s out, but breathing on her own. A drainage tube is coming out
of her right breast. The family that got booted from here is
visiting her, sitting in silent vigil.

I decide to take Palmer’s “suggestion” and risk a
shower. It’s only the second time I’ve been naked—out of my morphic
armor—since I awoke converted, and the first time I actually have
time to appreciate the almost plastic-perfection on my new body.
It’s my size, roughly my skeletal proportions—it even has my
percentage of bodily hair (all dark now—no more gray)—but it feels
too alien to be me. There isn’t a single scar. The pale skin is
completely unblemished (like plastic). And the muscle tone makes me
look like some kind of underwear model.

Just to reduce my sense of humanity further: Even
though I’ve been sealed up in my armor for days, and haven’t bathed
since before I “died” (which was months ago), I have no odor. No
sweat or oil or grime. (I can’t even smell anything of Lisa on
me—just one more thing to remind me she’s gone.) The only thing I’m
washing off is residual surface dust, which I could probably just
absorb and recycle into raw materials. And when I’m finished, I
watch the water get soaked up by my pores. I’m dry in a matter of
seconds. I don’t even have to comb my stupid hair—it seems to do
that all by itself.

My armor is equally clean when I decide it’s best to
stay dressed just in case another quick retreat is in order.

I go to Hammond’s kitchenette, find a metal cup and
pour myself a glass of pure, cold water. Then six more. Just to
drink like a human being.

Then I get tired of sitting around.

“How did you get here?” is how Murphy-7 says hello
when I show up at his hatch. His question appears to answer itself,
and he opens the hatch wider to usher me in. “Never mind. Just get
in before someone sees you.”

No one did. Gardener still has the domes on curfew.
The absence of human guards is either a statement of their
confidence in Gardener keeping watch over me, or Gardener ordering
them away from me on purpose. (Just in case I’m contagious? Or to
see what I would do given opportunity to roam?)

And it was a short, quick trip: the H-K quarters are
all in the Upper Dome, on the upper decks, like they’re looking
down on everybody else.

“Not worried about losing points?” I have to question
the potential cost of his invitation.

“I’m assuming Gardener knows where you are.”

“More or less.”

Murphy’s quarters are mostly identical to Hammond’s.
And he’s got his own “family”: I get greeted warily by a lean
dark-haired woman in her thirties, another rounder redhead maybe a
few years younger, a young girl likely in her tweens that looks
related to the redhead, and a boy that bears a resemblance to
Murphy. The redhead and the girl are dressed in worn light gray
jumpsuits, the other woman and the boy wear black tunics and
fatigue-style pants.

“Protecteds?” I wonder out loud.

“Kim, my wife,” he introduces the dark woman, who
only glares at my intrusion (possibly expecting I will be a threat
to her husband’s score). “Ara and Kara are mother and daughter. Ara
works food processing. Kara is in school, training to work the
gardens. They help cook and clean for mat-space. And this is my son
James. Murphy-8, if he keeps up his scores.” The boy looks equally
suspicious of me, but forces a grin for his father’s benefit.
“Ara’s husband is still on shift,” he seems to feel the need to
add, as if I had designs on her. (And I remember Palmer wanted the
use of her daughter, in spite of—or because of—her youth.)

I realize I smell food.

“Are you hungry?” he invites, then considers: “Sorry.
Maybe I should ask: Do you eat?”

“I do. Thank you.”

“Are you an Eternal?” the boy has the nerve to ask,
as Murphy helps set out the meal (possibly to reassure his
flat-mates).

“No. But I have some friends that are.” Then I subtly
interrogate: “Have the ETE visited before?”

“Not in a long time,” his father demonstrates his
good hearing. “My grandfather’s day.”

“I take it things didn’t go well?” Gardener’s files
are unusually vague on the subject. They record a few visits by ETE
Turquoise Station in the first five years after the Apocalypse, and
again a decade later, then no more.

“They wanted us to stop Casting. But they didn’t give
us an alternative. They couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help fix our systems.
They expected us all to starve and suffocate, huddled in too small
a space. They even wanted us to take in Siders. They never offered
to take us in, into their Stations.”

Old bitterness still clings to the generations.
Though I expect the tale is a bit one-sided, I’m not doubting the
ETE’s trademark idealistic arrogance.

“There was violence?” I ask about the special
ammo.

“First time, we just pointed guns and they left. I
think they were surprised the Cast rejected them as much as we did,
but then they wouldn’t offer the Cast any help beyond simply asking
us to take them back inside. But when they came back many years
later to make the same demands, they wouldn’t leave, not right
away. It took Cast spears and our bullets to convince them. But
they didn’t die. They were hurt, but they shook off their
wounds.”

“I expect that was pretty disturbing.”

“I can only imagine—I’ve only heard old mealtime
stories and seen fuzzy video during my training days, but then I’ve
just seen you erase a pair of head shots. Those early encounters
gave us warning about what was out there. Thankfully, the Eternals
apparently didn’t like getting shot and stabbed, and didn’t come
back a third time. And all the Siders that came since bleed and die
normally.”

“Until me. Did you think I was ETE?”

He chuckles under his breath. “You came in like one
of them: Stupid fearless. But you fought—fought some of the Cast
Boss-Fighters, and they won’t even show out of the green unless you
show you’re worth taking. The Eternals never fought—couldn’t or
wouldn’t—just looked down on us like we were animals. They had no
idea what we suffered, what choices we made and why, they just told
us what they thought we should do, how they thought we should live.
You’re not like them. It’s like you know.”

I’m glad I at least manage the impression of
acceptance.

“So we get to hold off on the shooting and
stabbing?”

“I guess we’ll see,” he seems to appreciate my humor.
“Food time. Sit.”

The meal is surprisingly Earthlike, more so than I’ve
had even before the Apocalypse: There’s homemade pasta and real
tomato sauce, fried tofu, steamed squash, and some kind of blended
fruit juice. It’s a sparse meal, but there’s enough for all (though
I still feel bad about taking a share of it—still, I expect it
would be worse to decline the hospitality). Ara and Kara take their
meals to their corner of the living room, and eat sitting on the
floor—either I’ve taken their spot at the table or there’s some
caste separation going on (but I heard no discussion of eating
re-arrangements). I don’t ask, and it goes unexplained, as if taken
for granted.

Murphy’s “family” slowly seems to begin relaxing
around me. His son starts asking the questions of a child’s wonder:
about my sword, my gun, my armor, what won’t hurt me. Apparently he
rates me “Prime Score”.

I’m told the produce is all grown in the domes,
though the grain sometimes requires harvest runs outside. The pasta
and tofu are indeed hand-made. I get the impression the meal isn’t
a typical one for all colony residents, and Murphy’s wife confirms
that processed foodstuffs—much of it waste recycle—are the usual
staple, especially for the workers not directly involved in
gardening. But there are communal feast days at the Town Hall.

I’m praising the cooks and offering to help clean up
(something that earns me an eyebrow-raise from Murphy) when the
hatch opens unexpectedly. Palmer and two other H-Ks are in the
doorway.

“Cozy,” Palmer almost purrs.

“You could ding before popping,” Murphy criticizes
his entrance. I notice Ara and Kara have edged themselves as far
away from the door as they can without actually hiding in the
bedroom.