Sabledrake Magazine
May, 2003
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CTF 2187: Spectres of Darkness
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Gene Cops
Copyright © 2003 by SC Lofton
Marko Brownstone crouched between machine-packed piles of reeking trash. For the dark-skinned, thin-haired youth, catching an airborne pigeon with a remotely piloted model plane was proving to be difficult. The plan looked good on the computer screen . . .
His ass was on the line, too, if tonight's raid on the Illinois State Police headquarters, genome department, went wrong.
No better day for the catch -- warm, sunny, with light wind. He chose a trash dump on the Mississippi River's west bank. He couched himself in trash, tubs of dead cell phones, huge cubes of obsolete tires, and used diaper’s smell. Trash didn't bother him. For a shot at Gene Cops, he'd eat trash if that's what it took.
Now, if he could just get the Spitfire replica close to the damn pigeon, he'd have a decent chance, but the powder-blue racing homer didn't play along. Up and down, bank right and bank left...almost. Not yet. Possibly, the model plane's ancient, noisy Cox engine kept spooking the bird.
Marko held an easy bead on the pigeon. He saw its every move through the plane's Nortech minicam which tight-beamed video signals to his TV goggles. Tedious work, and it paid off, big time. He finally maneuvered the Spitfire model above the bird enough to release a net.
Success! Net and all descended Earthward.
Acting fast, Marko guided the Spitfire model into a trash heap, removed his goggles, and grabbed his binoculars.
The little parachute opened up . . . good.
The net held . . . better.
"No . . . don't," he whispered, watching the netted pigeon spin toward the Mississippi. "Please, don't land in the river."
It didn't, and a sigh escaped his lungs quicker than air from a punctured freighter zeppelin. He stashed his pack in a junked microwave oven and took off toward the drop site. He ran as fast as his under-nourished legs could carry him, not worried that anyone would see him sprinting. Geners didn't come to the dumps unless they were hunting the unfit or the too superior, and then Geners went everywhere -- orbital, the moon, Mars -- any time, any place. Gene Cops didn't quit.
Marko didn't, either.
He arrived huffing and sweating between two gnarl-branched trees. One meter from the sickly black river laid the netted bird. Its free wing flapped intermittently on the muddy bank. After Marko untangled the pigeon, he checked its general health. Its rustic-orange eyes were clear. There were no mite holes in its gray-barred primary and secondary flight feathers, and it had been feeding well. Good signs, this bird would do fine.
To avoid the nasty mud, he moved inside the tree line. There, he got out a marble-sized, Speers jamming-decoy; once activated, the device would tight-cast false commands to computer security systems that guarded police headquarters. Marko rolled the silver decoy between his hands, warming it up and adding spit for lubrication. As gently as possible, he forced the Speers past the pigeon's crop into its stomach. The bird shook its head wildly, kicked and squirmed, but swallowed the small device.
Feeling guilty, Marko held the bird against his chest. For the pigeon, death was certain. His devious intention stunk up his emotions. Dominating, rather sacrificing, a life for his own needs is what Geners did to all life. They enforced the new law by breaking the old mind, twisting DNA into handcuffs.
Marko put some whole corn in the racing homer's crop, a puny, but necessary way to say thanks, and walked to the river's edge. "We are creatures of the wheel. We are fangs! My genes belong uniquely to me." He spoke the FANG litany proudly. "For my mother and my sister, the unknowns and the dead, I Fight Against NeoGene. My the wheel roll!"
Hearing the litany, however, didn't lull Marko. It only reminded him to save his bitterness for battle. He freed the bird. The pigeon would return to its roost inside the security perimeter of the Illinois State police headquarters, Lovelock Castle. When he glanced at his distorted reflection in the murky river, he didn't see the face of a terrorist. He wouldn’t get a pill to erase his guilt, either.
* * *
Three hours later Marko sat under a moonless sky, where, directly across from his position, the Alton Bluffs jutted up into the night a hundred-plus feet above the oily Mississippi. Old Man River crept slowly, its water swooshing and lapping the poisoned bank.
Lovelock Castle, built high atop the bluffs on the ruins of Principia College, provided the only light for miles around. The maximum-security shine pierced blackness itself, a neon sign advertising gray against a bleeding sky.
He waited for the FANG team inside the cabin of a beached, rotten-wood tugboat. Dressed in dark clothes and grease paint, no skin exposed, he fretted over the interlude. Idleness made his teeth clinch.
Tonight's attack would finish his river tour. Afterward, if he lived, Marko would move to another sector. He didn't relish leaving his mother and sister behind to fight with East Coast FANG. His mother would be unaware of his absence. He wanted to say goodbye, too. Impossible. Five years earlier, the Missouri state police had stopped Marko's father, a genetic archaeologist, at a DUI roadblock. They caught him with a packet of Teachpills. Mostly journal-pills in life science covering chromosome reconfiguration procedures, new enzyme tables for splicing supergene complexes, defeating plasma cell-membrane blocks, and 150 gene sequences to enhance intelligence. At the Brownstone home in Collinsville, the gene cops had seized book-pills on cytology, histology, and embryology. Marko's father received the death penalty. His mother and older sister were made Retreads, brain-locked with an informant infection. Biology made much prisons than bars and towers. Marko had escaped a dragnet, but if his family ever saw him, they'd inform Crime Stoppers.
At least new sector duty would mean escape from his dreary job at Clifton Heights Hydroponics Plant. Nothing worse than growing starter vegetables for wealthy FGG spacers.
Deeper into night, two FANG members greeted Marko at the tugboat. He knew the shorter Virginian man, team leader Jade, but the tall African woman was unknown to Marko. Then again, after memory wipes, he may have known her before tonight. Both were dressed similarly to Marko, except they were more heavily armed for death and chaos: semi-automatic machine guns, smart-filter gas masks, and extra clips. Marko carried a Bowie knife and a .45 Colt pistol. The weapons were gifts from his sister, Kelly, two weeks before the Geners brain-locked her.
"How did it go, Marko?" asked Jade.
"Perfect."
"Follow me," Jade ordered. "I have a Flatbed up river." He pointed to the African. "This is Donna. She's on with us."
Jade exited the tug, and Donna said, "After you, mate."
Marko went reluctantly, feeling shadowed, as if this were his first strike against the Geners.
They walked five minutes toward Lovelock Castle, and stayed outside Gener security scans. Besides Old Man River and FANG, nothing else moved along the west bank.
Camouflaged behind a sound-blind rested their Flatbed, a Jhompston anti-gravity platform with a side cut to form a half circle. Anti-gravity and gene tech had changed the world to a new one in less than fifteen years. The twentieth century burned the globe with electricity and oil; AG and genetics would blaze the twenty first century. Humanity would have to make it in the ashes. It always did.
Marko climbed the safety rail and took a position between Jade and Donna. The Flatbed appeared rickety and old----deception on Jade's part, thought Marko. Jade wouldn't send up his team on faulty gear; nevertheless, Marko said a quick prayer and snapped on his bungee cord.
"Here," Jade said softly to Marko, handing him a sealed baggie. "Drop these decoy clues, and check for your bird."
Marko dug out the bag's contents of human hair strands and a fingernail. He dropped them outside the Flatbed's 'blinder. Then he took a peek at Lovelock Castle through binoculars. Nervously, he searched for the pigeon that carried the jammer-decoy.
Lovelock Castle's architecture resembled the style of George of St. James. The towers, however, supported anti-missile grids instead of nobly clad archers. Navy surplus Badbots -- cylinders, two meters tall, mounted on thick orange treads, armed with Glaus and Polshac machine gun turrets -- patrolled the walls. In place of a King's pennant were transponder cones, microwave guides, and satellite dishes. All under a watchful, vigilant Black conn computer program that, hopefully, didn't bother to screen the local birds. Marko spent several days probing Lovelock's Black conn. The imitation castle, passed on to the Geners' Earth Task Force by conglomerate CEO, Kisu Tomita, put fear in his heart. He hoped their mission would succeed in landing a blow against the medieval abomination.
He zoomed in on Lovelock, quickly spotting his pigeon. Nothing was hidden in the castle's intense lights. "Our bird is roosting with the others by the Lowlight solar panels, north tower. The gray-barred racing homer. See it?"
Donna adjusted her binoculars. "Not bad, Bony. Good idea, this."
"Say," he snapped back, "my name is Marko. Don't slight me."
"Both of you shut up," commanded Jade. "How do you know it's your decoy-bird? They all appear identical."
"They're not. I can tell by the homer's large beak waddle. It's bigger than the waddles on those domestic pigeons. The only homer in the bunch. I don't pick any losers."
Jade hunched down behind the Flatbed's safety rail and said, "Good job, Marko. Let's update."
The compliment pleased Marko; he'd earned it, although he barely contained his curiosity. It was pointless to ask questions. At this phase, everything came on a need-to-know basis until FANG got into a position to administer a memory wipe. Donna sounded uncertain. "Jade, that jammed had better work, or we're going to be DNA records."
"My information is reliable. I have used a Speers jammer before."
"Yeah, I know," she countered, "That bothers me."
Jade didn't comment, and it was too dark for Marko to see his expression. Their mission was starting to stir Marko's nerves. He calmed them with trust.
Jade handed him a communications headset and a gas mask, which Marko put on, leaving the mask flipped open. Jade also passed Marko a hand-sized box equipped with a cup attached to a rubber hose. "Do you know how to use a door blow?"
"Definitely."
"Then let's check weapons."
Not a big deal for Marko. Safety off, job done.
They waited silently in the damp night, until Marko's headset beeped.
"Ready, Donna?" asked Jade.
"Fangs bared, mate."
"Okay, kid, pick up your glasses," Jade said, doing the same.
Marko's stomach tightened, fightin' time. Lovelock Castle jumped into his view.
"Watch the exit tower."
"Got it good."
"Here he comes, heading to the joppter,"
Marko saw a man in a blue courier uniform walking toward a silver and gray transportation sphere, escorted by a sentry Badbot.
Jade's voice came over the headset. "Marko, do you see his courier briefcase?"
"Yes."
"When the joppter lifts off Lovelock, we will strike as it taxis with the satellite guide. Get that case! We'll cover you."
A life or death sweat broke out on Marko's skin. Whatever was in the case, he hoped it wouldn't require him dying to possess it.
After the courier entered the two-seat joppter, his robotic escort veered off the docking pad. The joppter's transponder light started blinking, and the brilliantly lit sphere lifted slowly from its docking-bowl. As it hovered in taxi-position high above the Mississippi, Jade's command burst into Marko's ear. "Mask up, people, and hold fast." He launched their Flatbed.
Ripping from its sound-blind, the flatbed surged the FANG team upward. They were airborne; wind howled over their gas masks as the flatbed headed straight for the hovering joppter with nothing beneath them except the cold, black river.
Donna screeched over the headset. "Look out! Three marshals on the riverside wall!"
"I see them. Hold your fire!"
Marshals weren't robots. Donna and Jade have trouble ahead, thought Marko. Marshals were the best police the Geners employed. He forced his attention onto the joppter, counting off, "Three . . . Two . . . Contact!"
The Flatbed's circular side joined flush with the joppter. The maglock kicked in tightly as lightning-blue static charges cracked and rippled over the safety rails. The airborne clash slammed Marko face-first into the joppter, but he recovered quickly and slapped the door blow over the joppter's hatch. In one fluid move, he placed the cup part on the joppter's bulletproof windshield and triggered the door blow.
Two explosions followed. The smaller one pumped somon-tig four nerve gas through the ruptured windshield. Two seconds later, an eternity, and another explosion, the joppter's hatch blew open.
Before the echoes off Alton Bluffs died out, Lovelock Castle erupted into heavy gunfire. Jade had activated the jammer-decoy. The castle roared with projectiles, muzzles flashing in yellow-strobe. Concrete blocks shattered into chunks, and feathers flew in all directions. The Black conn computer had taken the jammer-decoy's false commands. Instead of turning the tracking guns on FANG's Flatbed, the Black conn opened fire on the Badbots. Lovelock's firefight heated up as its robotic turrets returned fire on the tracking guns.
The marshals were pinned down by their own security conn.
But Marko noticed a problem caused by the door blow: its explosion had knocked the gravity tweaks off alignment with the taxi satellite. Similar to a gigantic pool ball, impaled by an ornately decorated balcony, the Flatbed and joppter began to list and float toward Alton's jagged bluffs. The joppter's odd tilt allowed him to see Lovelock shredding itself up in the river's reflection. A glorious sight. He loved it.
Confidence was high.
"Go for it, boy," encouraged Donna. "You're covered."
He didn't hesitate. He scurried through the smoky hatch, his feet dangling outside. Sufficient light radiated from the joppter's dashboard, giving Marko an eyeful of death. Blinking hazard lights cast a red glow onto the courier's blistered, dead face. Marko felt a guilty twinge, enough to make him clench his teeth in revulsion, although not enough to suppress a hateful thought: a Gener deserves to die painfully and quickly.
He snatched the courier's briefcase free from a rash-red, twisted hand. It rattled, a loose-pills-in-a-bottle sound. "Heads up," he cried and handed the 'case over his shoulder.
Either Jade or Donna grabbed it, he couldn't determine whom. That's when he noticed two things: utter stillness and a Triple-stripe injector, a brain-lock antidote. Obviously, the courier had tried to access the first aid kit, yet succeeded only in dumping its contents over the cab. The finger-sized Triple-stripe lay in the other seat. A long, long reach away.
Lovelock's Black conn finally crashed, and a temporary cease-fire commenced. Except for nervous breathing, Marko heard nothing for a second.
Time enough for the marshals to recover their wits. They began pumping lead at the Flatbed. Pronto!
Loud, menacing thumps and spark throwing pings -- chaos of sound -- filled Marko's head.
FANG returned fire!
"Come on," shouted Donna, "get outta there, Marko!"
"No! Cut my cord. I'm staying here." He wasn't going anywhere until he possessed that Triple-stripe injector.
The joppter's quarter panel windshield shattered as he struggled to get the Triple-stripe. To make matters worse, his gas mask was fogging up.
Only one chance, only one second...just one sixtieth of a minute . . .
Fear? Haste? Commitment? In that instant, those things lost their meaning, their importance. If he got the small needle-like injector, it would break the behavior modification the Geners had chemically clamped on his mother and sister. They'd be freed. They could escape their filthy river-barge existence for good and join the fight. Damning all else, he focused on getting the injector.
Marko seized the antidote, too; got it good. Clutched it like Geners' Doom.
Chaos returned to the joppter's cab. The firefight was alive and well. Jade hollered for backup support, and Donna pulled Marko from the joppter by his gas mask straps. "He's clear. Go! Go!"
The Flatbed uncoupled, then dropped low and hard.
The trashed joppter no longer provided FANG sufficient cover.
Marko fell back on Donna. They both tumbled onto the Flatbed's deck. His head hit the rail, but he felt moisture against his chest . . . only a second, one second, it had been no more.
He blacked out cold.
* * *
Marko awoke to a pounder-headache by dread and crept to a lotus-like position. He checked his limbs -- legs, feet, arms, hands, fingers -- all there and working. Except for his headache, which screamed to be any place other than behind his bloodshot eyes, he felt relieved. Another battle, another victory. Maybe . . .
He searched, but did not find the Triple-stripe injector.
Small portable lights hardly penetrated the concrete room's gloomy atmosphere. At least he had arrived unharmed to a safe house, albeit a cold and clammy one probably underground. Water dripped somewhere, the only sound to pierce the silent accusations.
Three persons were sitting on empty packing crates, staring at Marko. Jade sat closest to him. Dried blood stenciled his face where his gas mask had been strapped. Marko knew the second man, a bald African, Carl Jackson, who'd helped Marko bury his father and escape a Genre’s dragnet. Would he help him now? Marko didn't know the third person, a woman with crew cut red hair. Her vague features, do I know her? didn't jar his memory. He'd probably never met her. They all gave Marko hard-bitten looks. They looked down on him.
"Are you coherent?" asked Jackson.
"Yeah."
"Donna is dead," Jade announced solemnly. "Lucky for you, her body didn't fall into the hands of Genetic Enforcement. We lost a talented member, and I lost my friend because you disobeyed a FANG objective."
The bad news sank into Marko's conscience, ice pick deep. Pain regularly refreshed itself; it never eased off. He went mute.
Jade held up the Triple-stripe injector between his thumb and index finger. It was a blue tube marked by three ID bands: green, black, and white checkered. "Why did Donna die for an obsolete antidote?"
Marko detested telling anyone, even FANG members, his business, but lying to Jade could get him killed. He told the truth. "The Geners broke my mother and sister with the Trypanosome behavior vector. They're both Retreads."
Jade frowned. "I don't know. That's an old infection scheme. By now, they might be dead."
Jackson added extra pessimism. "You should leave your personal problems in the mud."
"No, they're alive!" said Marko defensively. He felt his chances slipping away, but he stood his ground. "And if I had to kill all of you for that antidote, I would."
Their expressions did not flinch from his cruel remark. Maybe they saw the stain left on his spirit by the Gener's Task Force. His peers remained quiet, unmoved.
Only the water made sounds.
Marko dumped his face into his hands; sure he hadn't voiced a true feeling. If only Donna still lived, he could shed some bitterness and chase a rainbow. People once dreamed. If her blood wasn't sticking his shirt to his chest...if Geners didn't erase their guilt...if Hell froze over, all would dream again, but he determined not to become what he hated: a corrupt human being.
"I'm sorry," he admitted, raising his head to face them. "I wouldn't go that far. But I had to try to get the antidote. It was just an arm's reach away. I had to chance it. Donna would have done the same. Anyone who cared." He turned to Jackson. "It is personal. The Geners are making it personal." Then to Jade, he said, "I'm sorry she died, but not sorry I took a second to help my family. I told Donna to go ahead, leave me. She took the same chance I did."
Jade looked to the others for comment.
They might be sector leaders, Marko thought. If so, a negative vote would mean his death. No recounts.
Red spoke first, her voice oddly deep. "I would have tried to secure the antidote."
Jackson nodded. "Me, too. He did tell her to abort."
Without further comment, Jade handed the Triple-stripe to Marko. "I cannot, however, let you wipe your memory of Donna. You must carry the baggage, and I will write your debriefing letter."
Renewed energy cut through FANG's safe house, burning away gloom and tension: forgiven, but not forgotten. They had to chase off death, to go forward, because the dead cannot come back from their graves.
Marko's remedy was bittersweet, but he felt grateful, anyway. "Thanks, people."
"Marko, those Triple-stripes are notorious for not working," warned Red. "You might kill the person you use it on."
"It'll work, definitely."
Jackson spit. "I better, cause it’s a guilt you will carry."
He hesitated. "Gladly."
Reaching down to clasp Marko's shoulder, Jade said, "Good. Then I will give you three weeks to find your family. After this mission-wipe, you're on complete recall. If your mistakes don’t kill you, they’ll blacken your heart. Then dead is the only good thing for you.“ He handed Marko a fresh-sealed inhaler.
No more wipes. That pleased him. He hated getting his short-term memory erased, even just a few hours or days worth. Side effects made him lose weight.
Although Marko wanted to know about the courier's case, he kept his curiosity to himself. Next time. He settled for a simple goodbye. "Later, people." He hit the inhaler once, breathing in deeply the taste of menthol. Immediately, he felt as if his body had been lowered into thick, warm mud. Then ice cube-like feelings started at his toes and ran up his body. Darkness and selective forgetting overcame him . . .
* * *
Chills came first. The next sensation that came to Marko was a ringing in his ears, accompanied by a stuffy nose. Consciousness found him in a familiar place underneath ruined courthouse stairs, his hideout of sorts inside All Town's city limits. Sunlight shot down on him through the cracks.
No sooner than he rose up, he felt the lingering effects of the memory-wipe. He remembered using a pigeon to carry a jammer-decoy sphere through Lovelock's defenses--Gener Black conns were his specialty. After that phase, though, he drew a 24-hour blank. Emotional fragments of FANG missions sometimes showed up in dreams, but nothing concrete that Geners could brain-trace.
He was dressed in clean clothes--a good sign--leather pants and a hooded wool shirt. His burlap travel bag rested alongside two water jugs and cider blocks. Everything seemed normal, except a dreadful feeling in his heart. What had gone wrong? Did the bird fail?
He frantically retrieved his debriefing note from his pocket and positioned it under a sunbeam shaft:
Marko, your idea to penetrate Black conn worked well. Continue to probe Gener security. The more unusual, the better. Good work.
Effective to your misconduct, we lost a valuable member. In future exercises, stick to the objective.
* * *
Lost meant dead! Who, he'd not know soon, maybe never. But he'd always remember the feeling of loss, which absolute blackness death harbored. Details escaped him; no mental groping found them, either. It was enough to know someone had died by his mistake or disobedience. Unforgettable. No memory wipe for pain or guilt. FANG didn't erase feelings.
Enclosed are a Teach-pill and a counter-control pill. The purple square is titled, "Badbot Counter-Measures for Projectile Weapons." The other provides immunization for the Pike behavior modifier. Take them 28 hours apart with plenty of salty water.
Teach-pills, book-pills, journal-pills -- fast-acting and maximum retention -- were valuable, extremely valuable. Under Genetic Manifest Destiny, Congress divided Americans by innate abilities. Education had been the first cutback, banned outright. Only the fit and wealthy accessed Teach-pills. Marko felt privileged to get a Pike defense for his immune system. He wondered if the last mission scored Teach-pills.
Don't forget to check your pack. We'll keep in touch. Good luck!
Marko swallowed the purple pill and chased it with the debriefing note; however, he wasn't prepared for what he found in the travel bag: a Triple-stripe antidote. His emotions surfaced and submerged in hope and despair as if a cruel hand belonging to an unseen tormentor were dunking him repeatedly into water. A successful hit on the Geners . . .gasping for air . . . but someone had died, Marko's fault. He choked on failure. A Triple-stripe antidote . . . fresh air . . . but it might kill his family. Death and chances, graves or rescue.
Hesitation killed people. He broke free of doubt and split All Town. The antidote would work. It had to.
* * *
It took Marko two weeks to find his mother's shanty-float of twelve obsolete barges bolted together in a hodge-podge arrangement. There were two huge, red cranes dangling over the sides. Guy-wires which were strung off the cranes held up particleboard and plastic-patched roofs. Shanty-floats attracted the homeless who eked out a living cleaning up polluted sections of the Mississippi River in exchange for food and locks passage. He'd spent six years living on one, watched his father die from TB on the Redclay shanty. His mother's 'float was moored at the Greenville levy.
Dusk to his back, Marko entered a muddy area of decrepit shacks, tatter-clothed people, and shaggy goats. A plate dish was propped against a water tank, facing a Reebok Core 40 satellite. Not much had changed since his last visit.
He watched for Retread signs, a snake coiled into an 'S' tattooed on the face, 'S' for snitch. The symbol warned all that the bearer had been broken by a Gener informant-infection. If Retreads simply thought about treason or disloyalty or plotting it brought them pain and convulsions, sometimes death. River people still helped Retreads, but kept them far from illegal business.
Mom was a Retread, his sister, too.
Marko spotted a tall, blonde-bearded man wearing a Steersman cap from Redclay Shanty. "Where is Georgette Brownstone? She's a Retread from your 'float."
Blonde-beard gave him a suspicious glance. "Who might be asking?"
"Southbound boats get the right-a-way," he answered in shanty-talk. "No locks from St. Louis to Louisiana." Meaning none of his business.
"Up that way," he pointed. "She's in the U-Haul bread-house."
Marko walked through muddy puddles, past kids who were making mud castles, trying not to think negatively. Yet, the dirty children, bizarre smells, and people talking in shanty dialect brought back memories he wanted to forget. By will or by the grave, his mother and sister were leaving tonight.
Skinny river workers milled about the U-Haul. He spotted his mother inside, wearing a blue windbreaker with her hair in braids. It had been three years since their last contact. She looked a lot thinner than he remembered. Not a reassuring sign.
It was impossible to approach her straight out. If she saw him, she'd scream FANG, or go into a seizure, and if he covered his face, the others would stop him. Covered faces were strictly taboo on the river.
Too much thinking. Marko cocked and palmed the Triple-stripe, deciding to get the job finished quickly. He got close enough to see Georgette's tattoo.
Almost there, three more steps.
"Hey, Marko, whatcha be doing here?" someone said to his left.
That did it! His mom discovered him. "FANG member!" she hollered. "Kill him, he's a terrorist!"
A knife slash across his face would have felt better than hearing her cries. He put a vice on his feelings and grabbed his mom by the neck.
She protested more vigorously. "Help me! Terrorist!" she screamed, punching and hitting him between yells.
He stuck Georgette in the neck.
She went limp in his arms, but he couldn't stop the tears running down his cheeks. He laid her on the crummy U-Haul floor, her breaths coming short and fast.
By this time, Redclay's steersman showed up, putting a tight grip on Marko's neck. "Leave her be, death bringer."
Marko yanked free. He pulled out his pistol and rammed the barrel under Blonde-beard's chin. "Do you like your skull?" he asked through clenched teeth. "How many Retreads nearby?"
"None here but her. Most have left or died, death bringer."
A Korean woman separated Marko and Blonde-beard. "It's okay. This is Georgette's son."
Marko backed off, concealing his weapon. Pistols were rare on the river. He hardly recognized Tai Kwi. The years past, so few, had worn deeply on her face. "Will the Redclay captain let us board until my mom Triples through?"
"Yes. I'll help you get her aboard. Come on."
* * *
Six hours later, Marko attended his mother in soy light shadows. They were in a makeshift room on the forward barge. He listened to the Mississippi lapping softly against Redclay shanty-float.
The Triple-stripe had cracked her brain-lock; the worst stages were over.
"Give me some water, Marcus," she rasped in a low whisper.
As he helped her to a drinking position, he picked strands of her hair off her sweaty face and handed her a plastic cup of water.
"Thanks, I'm grateful for you."
Her words were sweetness. "How are you feeling?"
She smiled, reaching out to hug him. "I'm sorry for chasing you away."
"Don't be; we win. Where's Sis? This Triple is good for ten."
Georgette's expression answered his question, her voice simply confirming the worst. "Kelly is six feet under, stone cold. Just past the Alton locks."
Silence. Nothing else would do.
Yeah, he could carry guilt.
* * *