To Dream Page 12

  “Yes. Something from your former employer, Ameri-Inc.”

  Niyati’s eyebrows rose. “How did you end up with it?”

  “I did them a big favor twenty years ago and they’ve been my friend ever since.”

  She thought of the soldiers storming Connie Swamp’s Café and Miguel dying in a pool of his own blood. Her pulse quickened. “You bastard. Get out!”

  Panther raised a palm. “I’m not proud of what I did, but they were coming in whether I liked it or not. At least with my way I got a few dollars for the tribe.”

  “Devil money.” She practically spit the words.

  “You were on their payroll, too, if I recall,” Panther shot back.

  Niyati started to tell him that it was different but stopped because—Lord help her—his point was valid. “Look,” she finally said. “Just leave.”

  “Now, now. Don’t you want to know how they got the GTS? That’s the code name for it.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want anything to do with them or you.”

  “It’s formulated from a space mineral your robot found.”

  “J-1?” Niyati’s heartbeat knocked against her chest. She saw Panther smile coyly and hated herself for exposing her feelings so obviously to him.

  “Yes,” he said. “Since the Traveller-3 disaster in 2039 and the subsequent international ban on manned flights beyond Mars, Ameri-Inc. has had him piloting their spacecraft the last five years and claiming uninhabited land for them.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Niyati said. “I would’ve heard about it.”

  “They kept it under the radar because they didn’t want competition."

  “No. He was built to be the paradigm of a labor force meant to improve life for the workers on Earth.”

  Panther sniffed. “That’s what they told you.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Either way Ameri-Inc. is head and shoulders above the competition in the rush to intergalactic space. That’ll eventually translate into wealth and power beyond imagination.” Panther laughed. “I hope you got a good price for your Mr. Roboto.”

  “Get out, you son of a bitch!” Niyati shouted. “I mean it!”

  Lulu stuck her head in the front door. “Everything okay, Chief?”

  Niyati narrowed her eyes. She slipped a cigarette and lighter from her housecoat pocket. “Leave now, unless you want to share a smoke.” She put the cigarette to her lips and sparked the lighter.

  For the first time, Panther spoke in a clear, solid voice. “You forget, Doctor Bopari, that you’re not only a guest on Native American soil, but you’re wanted by Ameri-Inc. for theft, corporate espionage and murder.”

  “I was set up.”

  “Tell it to Ameri-Inc. All I have to do is say the word.” Panther stiffened his back in the wheelchair and included, “From there it’s a short path to the death chamber.”

  Niyati raised her chin. “I doubt it’s any shorter than the path I’m already on.”

  Panther tilted his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Before she could answer a coughing fit came on. When it passed, she glanced first at the cigarette in her one hand and then at the GTS vial in her other. The devil’s money, she thought. The carrot. She turned to Panther. “It means I changed my mind. I’m going to need pill samples and a private research lab. I’ll make a list of the specifics I want in it. I’ll need an assistant who’s up on the latest techniques and I’ll need open access to all in-house and online medical databases. This must remain discreet. That includes Ameri-Inc.”

  “It goes without saying.” Panther yelled, “Lulu, come in here and be prepared to take notes.” He turned back to Niyati. “If you don’t mind?” He motioned to her cigarette. Niyati snuffed it in an ashtray and waited for Lulu to appear.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Date 2050

  Everglades, Florida

  Cypress General Hospital/Chief Dan Panther Cancer Wing

  Niyati studied a biopsy of Panther’s pancreas through the lens of a quadnocular. She twisted the microscope’s nosepiece. The H7 digital magnification increased from 1600x to 2000x. She raised her head from the eyepiece, took a long breath and thought, Panther had been right. She did know about the human body, and she had kept up with the latest advances through e-journals, virtual classrooms and anything else she could find on the Internet. What he didn’t know was that in the last few years she had taken a particular interest in cancer studies. With all that, the results had been a relentless headache and no improvement on the genimetrothiasine’s effectiveness. Until now.

  For the last five months she had isolated and concentrated the GTS, and spent countless hours combining it with practically every anti-angiogenesis drug, tumor suppressor, driver, and cell protector known to the scientific world.

  Niyati laughed. Damned if it isn’t true. The biggest discoveries come by accident. “Or dumb ass luck.” Niyati removed a voice recorder from her smock’s chest pocket, and pressed record.

  “At approximately zero nine thirty I dripped fluid from a beaker infused with another failure: GTS combined with target drug U34. One of several I had developed. I wiped the smudge with a nearby paper towel from the roll that I kept on the sink counter next to the teabags and the microwave. Absorbed in thought, I set the paper towel aside instead of tossing it in the biohazard disposal and went back to work.

  “At approximately ten twenty, I placed tap water and a teabag in a cup. As is my habit, I put a paper towel below the cup in the event of spillage and slipped them in the microwave for three minutes. When I had removed the items I saw the smudge on the paper towel and realized that it was the one I had wiped the beaker with. I went to dispose of everything in the biohazard waste, but instead thought, why not?

  “I combined a sample of the microwaved towel smudge with a cancerous biopsy from Panther and observed it under the scope. Within twelve seconds the sample showed signs of attacking and healing the cancerous cells. Somewhere in this accident was the catalytic change I had been searching for!”

  Niyati shut off the recorder and whooped.

  ~~~

  In the following weeks Niyati duplicated the procedure over and over. Each time she eliminated the variables: water, tea, the paper towel, and time exposure. The results were the same—none of the variables played a role.

  Next, she microwaved the GTS alone and then with every conceivable combination of the other cancer fighters. Those results, as usual, produced no change.

  The only time there was a strong positive reaction was when the GTS was microwaved with U34. And now here she stood, dizzy as a schoolgirl and at the same time overcome with sadness.

  As Suwanee Gopher, she had been able to survive in the sleepy backwaters of Old Town. The deputy, Mitchell, had taken over as sheriff when Chili died. He claimed she was his great aunt from Oklahoma, something the Old Town residents never questioned, though Niyati knew it was more of a case of going along with. She suspected they did this because they themselves not only despised what Ameri-Inc. had done, but also how their own gambling corporations had polluted their society. It was a way to get even. That didn’t mean they accepted her. It meant they didn’t pry and they didn’t talk to outsiders.

  That, and eking out a living as a seamstress was enough to allow her to suppress burdens hanging over her shoulders like cauldrons of lead. Burdens comprised of being a mother who mourned two dead children; one a seventeen-year-old born from her body, and another she had built in his image. They also included being a scientist removed from the career she loved, and a woman suffering pangs of desire for a decent man who had sacrificed himself for her.

  And the dark knowledge that she only admitted to in her dreams: a chronic cough, bloody sputum, lumps in her lymph nodes, and the relentless aches in her chest and bones.

  Panther wasn’t the only one who had cancer. Hers, she knew, started in her lungs. SCLC—small cell lung cancer—no doubt caused by smok
ing. As the chief put it, she was “Walking a short path to the death chamber.”

  Here, below the naked laboratory fluorescents, where a discovery that could alter mankind forever stood, Niyati couldn’t hide the truth or hold her feelings in any longer. Everything that she loved was gone, and yet there was this brilliant ray of light. Her eyes welled up. She felt as if she was sinking—and rising—in an amalgamation of muck and glory. She pressed her hand against her heaving, sore chest, and forced the tide of emotions to recede.

  Niyati picked up the phone to give Chief Panther the news that he had been waiting for. She pressed the first numbers, stopped and placed the receiver back in its cradle.

  There were a lot of things to think about. For one, she’d been naïve with her dealings with Ameri-Inc., and she wasn’t going to let that happen again. For another, only she and Panther knew that she was studying the GTS. As far as Ameri-Inc. was concerned, GTS was a crude stopgap for Panther’s cancer, nothing more.

  Granted, they’d be studying it for its potential but they were decades away from any major discovery. It was her tumor suppressant along with the microwaves that produced the results. Even Panther didn’t know that. The third thing, and the one she considered most important, was that she wanted to do more research to see what the results would be on other cancers, specifically SCLC.

  If she had taken devil money from Ameri-Inc, maybe she could start paying out dividends from it. She lifted up the phone again. The chief had wealth, power, and a sovereign land. And she had something he wanted. It was time for a powwow.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Date: 2250

  Planet Truatta

  The base of Mount Kwieetus

  J-1 stood motionless.

  The five WarBots trudged toward him. They were large, thick creatures with long arms and broad, rotating wrists with two-sided hands. Their lurching, hunched movement was more ape than human. J-1 knew their faces were modeled after wolf skulls to instill terror in their opponents. It was working. Where their foreheads would have been were the fat, squat barrels of blazookas. The weapon’s purpose was to destroy the internal organs of a living being without harming buildings, or to obliterate structures without harming living creatures…or to annihilate both if desired.

  As the WarBots’ shadows engulfed him, J-1 struggled to remember where their powerdown buttons were located. His head was jumbled, too rattled from the DiggerBot’s beating to think clearly.

  Two of the WarBots pointed at him. J-1 hopped backwards until he was between the limp bodies of Norma and Matilda. The two WarBots lowered their foreheads and locked their blazookas squarely on him.

  He tried desperately to connect with his processors. Instead of powerdown switches, all that came back was a jumble of images: a woman with long, black hair holding his head to her shoulder, a Ferris Wheel in an ancient carnival, a red pick-up truck, a flying mortar cap and a warm pool of blood soaking his scalp.

  The WarBots’ blazooka’s hummed. “No,” J-1 whispered. He tried to communicate with the bots internally, but it was hopeless. He shuddered. Whatever he had or was about to have was going to vanish forever. He squeezed his eyes shut and fell to his knees.

  There was a whirling noise and then a blast.

  The ground shook.

  There was another whirl and another blast. J-1 opened his eyes. One of the bots that had been pointing its weapon at him was headless and stumbling backwards. The other WarBot’s blazooka was humming louder.

  More whirls and explosions surrounded them. The remaining Warbots stomped toward the direction of the sounds, their weapons blazing.

  “Automaton, throw me Matilda’s backpack.”

  J-1 had a second to register that this was Norma speaking and that meant she was still alive before fear overtook him. The WarBot who had him in its sight moved closer and his blazooka lit a bright green.

  “Now,” Norma said. “Or you’re going to end up in flames.”

  As if in a dream, J-1 slipped the bloody pack from Matilda’s crushed body and tossed it to Norma. She reached inside it and whipped out a stormthrower.

  The WarBot fired.

  Norma leaped at J-1 and pushed him. They tumbled to the right. The blast flew past them. Norma whirled the star-shaped weapon at the WarBot’s face. The robot grabbed it. Before he could toss it back, the shuriken exploded.

  Norma held her ears and buried herself behind J-1’s body. When the smoke dissipated, the WarBot’s arms were stumps. Clear goo leaked from punctures in its neck and chest. The blazooka’s light dimmed. The machine stomped toward J-1 and Norma, reached at them and tumbled to the ground.

  They waited. There were a few more explosions in the near distance, but the WarBots were no longer a threat. Norma rose to her feet. “That makes us even, automaton.” She walked to Matilda, quietly said a prayer and turned to J-1. “You stay here while I gather the others.”

  “I’m sorry for her,” J-1 said.

  Norma’s face hardened. “What do you know about sorry, robot?”

  “I…I’m not sure.” Unexplainable hollowness hammered against the underbelly of his polyflesh. “Nothing makes sense,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on inside of me.”

  “You expect me to feel sympathy for you? You’re a machine, not a living creature. We’re the ones who cry over loved ones, not you.” Norma entered the woods.

  J-1 felt as if he’d been punched in the gut.

  ~~~

  J-1 crawled to the destroyed WarBot and cobbled together motosensors, clipstands and a balance stabilizer. With his good hand, he managed to partially straighten his mangled one. Then he attached the motosensors and clipstands to his hand and inside his bum leg. They were crude repairs, but now he could shift his fingers, and apply pressure to his bad leg. The latter allowed him to limp instead of hop.

  Next, he untangled Coco from the branches where the DiggerBot had tossed her. He used the balance stabilizer to even out Coco’s movement. Afterwards, he lay on the ground and contemplated emotions. He knew the dictionary meanings of love, hate, sadness and everything in between. He tried to reconcile that with what Norma had said to him, but it was like trying to compare a pond to an ocean.

  ~~~

  Somewhere between late afternoon and dusk Norma and her squad returned. Hob had a bloody bandage around his left thigh. Teague dragged Phineas in a stretcher made of tree limbs and fronds. The left side of his face and torso was charred skin and bone. His left arm and leg resembled scorched branches. Orson and Prudence looked weary, but uninjured.

  Orson spotted Matilda’s crushed, bloody corpse. He rushed to her, collapsed on his knees and stared in disbelief. Then he quietly sobbed. Norma went to him and squeezed his shoulder. He yanked it from her. His face grew hard. He stood. “You killed her and so did he!” Orson motioned to J-1.

  “No,” Norma gently said. “She died fighting the Slaver.”

  “Since you decided to bring that thing along, the Earthers have targeted us for elimination. I blame both of you.” He stepped toward Norma with clenched fists.

  Teague lowered the stretcher with Phineas’ corpse and stepped between them. “This wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

  “Tradshit! They want that piece of junk back. They’ll kill the rest of us just like they killed Phineas and my Matilda.”

  “He’s right. WarBots have never ventured this far out in the wilderness,” Prudence said. Her voice was angry. “Leave the robot here.”

  Norma nudged Teague aside. She continued to speak softly, calmly. “Orson, you have to know that I, above all people, understand your pain, but if the Earthers are doing all this to get him back, that means he’s special. Mata needs to examine him.”

  “She’s a crackpot and you’re a loony,” Orson said. “Count me out.”

  “Are you defying my orders?”

  “Call it what you want, Norma.”

  J-1’s eyes widened. He knew whatever was going to happen next couldn’t be good.

  Norm
a placed her hand on the butt of her holstered electro-rod. She said to Orson in a voice no longer gentle, “We have two choices. One, I have you bound and taken back for treason, or two, you do as I say and when we return—”

  “If we return,” Orson cut in.

  “—and when we return,” Norma continued, “you can file a complaint against me with command and let them hash it out. Which one is it gonna be?”

  Teague moved next to Norma, crossed his arms and locked eyes on Orson. Orson met his gaze and said, “Prudence, Hob. If you’re with me it’s three against two.”

  Prudence’s eyes darted to Hob and then to Norma and Teague.

  J-1 climbed on Coco’s lifter tray and inched closer to Norma. He hoped she wouldn’t be upset if he helped her.

  As if hearing his thoughts, Hob said to Orson, “What if the mechi gets involved, that makes it three against three.”

  Orson smiled. “You have a stormthrower, don’t you?”

  Norma said, “If we leave the automaton or even destroy it, do you think that’ll stop the Earthers’ robots from coming after us again? They won’t let up until we’re either enslaved or killed. Matilda died fighting against them because she knew that.”

  “It’s like you to use my wife to justify your mistakes,” Orson said. “You’re heartless.”

  “Maybe I am, but this robot is different and Pocketsville can’t hold on much longer the way it is. The automaton might be a game changer.”

  “You’re delusional. And you’re gonna get everyone killed because of it,” Orson said. “If we leave it here, the Earthers will have no reason to pursue us up the mountain.”

  “Can you guarantee that?” Norma asked.

  “Yes. Those corporate bastards would never jeopardize their expensive machines for such a treacherous journey without due cause. We’re nothing more than flies on tradshit to them.”

  “You’re right, we are flies to them.” Norma looked at Hob and said, “You have a three-year-old. Don’t you want him to have the chance to live a real life? And you, Prudence, wouldn’t you like to get back what we had before the corporates bamboozled us? This machine may give us the opportunity to turn things around.”